Preventing oppression in socialism

[VirgJans12]

Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat the revolutionaries should build a one party government of the proletariat. Because that's what the western countries are used to, and will be easier for the population to accept. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, there were still a lot of absolute monarchies in Europe. Back then the people would have accepted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. As happened in Russia with Lenin after Tsar Nicholas II.

The government would exist out of a chairman that overlooks everything that happens in it. However, in no case can he have absolute power or the ability to take decisions on his own, on matters that also regard one of the ministers.

The ministries have to be structured in such a way, they can not take decisions without consulting another one either. This will counter corruption and make Stalin-like oppression even more impossible.

Thus the decision-making triangle will come to exist: the chairman and two ministers. Imagine a decision having to be made about the production of the state farms. That will regard both the ministries of agriculture and economics. Together with the chairman fulfilling his role as chairman and overlooker. A change can only be made if all three agree.

This way no ones one-person-opinion can be pushed through. A table with one leg can fall all ways. A table with two legs can only fall to the left or the right. However a table with three legs can not fall.

This should apply until socialism has been built up to such a level where democratic centralism can be applied. Allowing the people to vote on all law proposals and other important decisions.

[Rakhmetov]

I think what Marx was referring to was class dictatorship not the literal dictatorship of a single person. :closedeyes:

[LewisQ]

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5800/stalincoolstory.jpg

[VirgJans12]

I think what Marx was referring to was class dictatorship not the literal dictatorship of a single person. :closedeyes:

I'm not referring to Marx's theories but to the historical application of his theories.

[Book O'Dead]

Socialism is defined as a classless, stateless society in which the means of production are socially owned and democratically administered by the workers themselves and in which production is carried out to satisfy the needs and wants of society under a democratically determined plan.

Some socialists have advanced programs in which the workers establish industrial councils at various levels of planning, production and distribution. These councils are to be democratically elected and recallable at any time. Their function would be to help carry out the decisions made or approved from the rank-and-file workers at the point of production, that is, at the workplace where actual production takes place.

If you start out from that basic definition of socialism, you've pretty much worked out a general outline of a governmental structure that would safeguard against bureaucratic usurpation.

Moreover, any transitional period between the "now" and the "later" should contain the above model, first as a fighting organization an later as the government itself.

[Leftie]

I think you're confused over what 'dictatorship of the proletariat' means. DOTP doesn't mean one guy dictates over the country. It means the dictatorship of the working class.

[VirgJans12]

I'm not confused over what dictatorship of the proletariat means. However, in practice, it has involved into something else in the past. I was trying to come up with a way to build in a safelock.

[Book O'Dead]

I'm not confused over what dictatorship of the proletariat means.

But maybe you're unsure as to what socialism actually means in practice and how that system is to be achieved.

[Rakhmetov]

I'm not confused over what dictatorship of the proletariat means. However, in practice, it has involved into something else in the past. I was trying to come up with a way to build in a safelock.


Well, ok, you're right ... In practice socialism has been attacked by the USA and the other thuggish capitalist nations before it can get off the ground. We can remember that Soviet Russia was invaded by 14 capitalist nations from 1918-1922. How can Marxist doctrine/theories be implemented in the middle of such chaos?

"The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word has been banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century--without exception--has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement--from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador--not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.

It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines all failed because the automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of America looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man shall never fly."


— William Blum (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/quotes/author/William%20Blum)
Killing Hope. Second Edition. 2004. Common Courage Press, Canada.

[VirgJans12]

But maybe you're unsure as to what socialism actually means in practice and how that system is to be achieved.

A dictatorship in a socialism will most likely not rise up when the society has been established. However, it may occur just after the revolution. In the time frame where, depending on the chosen path, a powerful government will stand up to make the necessary changes during a time of chaos when progressing from capitalism to socialism.

[Book O'Dead]

A dictatorship in a socialism will most likely not rise up when the society has been established. However, it may occur just after the revolution. In the time frame where, depending on the chosen path, a powerful government will stand up to make the necessary changes during a time of chaos when progressing from capitalism to socialism.

I understand. But try to look at it this way: The immediate task of a workers' revolution is to seize the means of production and place them under democratic control of the majority while simultaneously overthrowing capitalist control of the political state, seizing control of it and dismantling it so as to give way to the new industrial government based at the workplace.

Try not to think in terms of before, during and after the revolution because it may be impossible to tell when a revolution has started and how or when it will end.

[Also, you need to make the distinction between the act of rebellion that leads to a revolution and the revolution itself.]

[KurtFF8]

Socialism is defined as a classless, stateless society in which the means of production are socially owned and democratically administered by the workers themselves and in which production is carried out to satisfy the needs and wants of society under a democratically determined plan.

That's the definition of Communism, socialism is defined as a Workers' State.

Not to nit pick, but since we're talking about definitions.

[Tim Finnegan]

That's the definition of Communism, socialism is defined as a Workers' State.

Not to nit pick, but since we're talking about definitions.
You realise that Lenin and Marx are different people, right? :confused:

[Leftsolidarity]

I'm not referring to Marx's theories but to the historical application of his theories.

Maybe you are forgetting instances like the Paris Commune.

And that is not a very good reasoning since just because it has some historical background that way (which also failed in that respect) doesn't mean that it is the only way in which it can it applied. Republics and all that jazz were implemented in a far different fashion when first tried than what we are used to today. No reason to set your sights on trying to minimize a bad thing, you might as well get rid of it.

[pranabjyoti]

The problem in this thread (and many other) is the basic inability to understand until and unless there are classes, there should be class dictatorship. NO EXCEPTION. The dictators too were class representatives and have support of one or more class of people behind them.

[Rooster]

Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat the revolutionaries should build a one party government of the proletariat. Because that's what the western countries are used to, and will be easier for the population to accept. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, there were still a lot of absolute monarchies in Europe. Back then the people would have accepted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. As happened in Russia with Lenin after Tsar Nicholas II.

I think you're looking at this upside down. The form of government took place because of the productive forces and level of development of those societies.


The government would exist out of a chairman that overlooks everything that happens in it. However, in no case can he have absolute power or the ability to take decisions on his own, on matters that also regard one of the ministers.

The ministries have to be structured in such a way, they can not take decisions without consulting another one either. This will counter corruption and make Stalin-like oppression even more impossible.

Thus the decision-making triangle will come to exist: the chairman and two ministers. Imagine a decision having to be made about the production of the state farms. That will regard both the ministries of agriculture and economics. Together with the chairman fulfilling his role as chairman and overlooker. A change can only be made if all three agree.

This way no ones one-person-opinion can be pushed through. A table with one leg can fall all ways. A table with two legs can only fall to the left or the right. However a table with three legs can not fall.

This should apply until socialism has been built up to such a level where democratic centralism can be applied. Allowing the people to vote on all law proposals and other important decisions.This shares the same defects as the USSR had. It takes political power out of the immediate hands of the proletariat and puts into the hands of a caretaker government. Sure, no one person may be able to rule absolutely but that doesn't stop a political caste from forming. A governments first role is to preserve government. The needs of the people comes second (most of the time). So if you have any dissent which threatens government, then the government has to crush it. A better solution would be to allow alternative political organs, independent of the state, to be allowed to crop up. Things like independent trade unions and worker's councils, but you can't subsume these things into official political and law binding governance. They'll lose their edge as a revolutionary tool.


The problem in this thread (and many other) is the basic inability to understand until and unless there are classes, there should be class dictatorship. NO EXCEPTION. The dictators too were class representatives and have support of one or more class of people behind them.

Maybe the problem isn't the threads.

[28350]

That's the definition of Communism, socialism is defined as a Workers' State.

By you, maybe. Not by Marx.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat the revolutionaries should build a one party government of the proletariat.

I don't think that the concept of a one-party state is exactly new. :closedeyes:

[Comrade_Oscar]

If there is a single dictator then it is not socialism, they may claim to be socialist but that is a false claim. For example the Soviet Union in its final 20 years.

[Dumb]

I support this idea, as long as I get to be the dictator.

[Bright Banana Beard]

I don't think there was dictator in USSR but government who mainly hold power.

[Leftsolidarity]

I don't think there was dictator in USSR but government who mainly hold power.

:laugh:

[jake williams]

Some socialists have advanced programs in which the workers establish industrial councils at various levels of planning, production and distribution. These councils are to be democratically elected and recallable at any time. Their function would be to help carry out the decisions made or approved from the rank-and-file workers at the point of production, that is, at the workplace where actual production takes place.

If you start out from that basic definition of socialism, you've pretty much worked out a general outline of a governmental structure that would safeguard against bureaucratic usurpation.
Except that this was basically the structure in place in the Soviet Union, and it was subject to considerable "bureaucratic usurpation", which more or less originated from within the system itself. Building democracy is exceptionally difficult. It took the revolutionary bourgeoisie an exceptionally long time to build tenable bourgeois democracies (fair and even rule of the whole bourgeoisie), and it still hasn't succeeded even in those places where the bourgeoisie controls the state, Egypt under Mubarak a prime example (there was considerable "bourgeois democratic" opposition by big business inside and out). And bourgeois democracy is quite a bit more simple and limited than socialist democracy. There's reasons to believe it should be easier for workers to do, but there's also reasons to believe it should be harder. There's no reason to expect it should be simple.


...
This shares the same defects as the USSR had. It takes political power out of the immediate hands of the proletariat and puts into the hands of a caretaker government.

No it doesn't, not if the control of office holders is genuinely democratic (which takes some work to guarantee). It might be valuable, with some caution, to distinguish between a government and a state. A state is a weapon of one class against others, and while the capitalist class still exists, workers need a state to protect themselves.


A governments first role is to preserve government.

In a sense, but that's a tautology, not a political statement. If you have a state which is actually maintaining rule of the bourgeosie, the bourgeoisie isn't bothered if that state preserves itself, because it's really preserving the rule of a class, not a government. Likewise, if a state is actually a worker's state, then defending that state (in general) is defending control of the society by the working class. Workers shouldn't object to this. Groups within a state trying to wrest control of it from workers aren't preserving a worker's state, they're trying to abolish it.


The needs of the people comes second (most of the time).

The whole idea of equating governments or states "in general" ahistorically and without regard to class control is absurd. At any rate, the bourgeois state doesn't care about "the people" (if you mean the working class majority) at all. It cares about as much about workers as the Roman state did about slaves. Their interests weren't "secondary" - they just weren't considered. Occasionally the bourgeoisie has to care about what workers want, but it's not about sincere moral indignation, it's about self-preservation (again, of a class, not a state).


A better solution would be to allow alternative political organs, independent of the state, to be allowed to crop up. Things like independent trade unions and worker's councils, but you can't subsume these things into official political and law binding governance. They'll lose their edge as a revolutionary tool.

A better solution to which problem? And for that matter, independent from a bourgeois state or a socialist state?

The organized defence of workers against capitalist military assault and internal sabotage? Almost certainly not. Guerrilla tactics are tactics. There's no conceivable situation where disorganized resistance to capitalist attack is better than organized resistance. If you're suggesting there should be an organized worker's state, and then "alternative political organs" on top of that, then the question arises as to how workers are controlling the state in the first place.

The problem of administrating the day-to-day economic and social functions which an organized society will institutionalize? A highly organized classless society would institutionalize a system of economic governance for the democratic planning of affairs which need to be planned. Again, if it's done democratically, then workers' organizations will have to control it.

And what "official political and law binding governance" are you concerned about? Criminal law respecting harm to persons or collective property? Why would you be opposed to that? Laws protecting working class control? If you're a socialist, then you can't oppose that. Laws restricting working class control? If you're a socialist, you can't support that by definition, and so it's a moot point to make here. But if laws arise which threaten working class control, you don't oppose any legal system on principal, you oppose those laws.

[Tim Finnegan]

A governments first role is to preserve government.

In a sense, but that's a tautology, not a political statement. If you have a state which is actually maintaining rule of the bourgeosie, the bourgeoisie isn't bothered if that state preserves itself, because it's really preserving the rule of a class, not a government. Likewise, if a state is actually a worker's state, then defending that state (in general) is defending control of the society by the working class. Workers shouldn't object to this. Groups within a state trying to wrest control of it from workers aren't preserving a worker's state, they're trying to abolish it.
I don't think it's that simple. The state seeks the preservation of itself through the preservation of a certain social formation, first and foremost, rather than through any class, and certainly not through given body of individuals constituting a class. That's the essence of the Marxist theory of the Bonepartist regime, is it not- a state which acts not out of the interests of the bourgeoisie, but of the bourgeois state as a discrete accumulation of power? The implications of this in regards to a "workers' state" are that such a state, if a state in the contemporary sense, and not simply a questionable label for a federation of workers councils, could not be trusted to pursue the development of communism (or socialism, if you draw the distinction between the two in the Leninist fashion), but may instead seek to preserve the capitalist basis which, even in revolutionary circumstances, would be its foundation. That is, it can be argued, what happened in Russia...

[jake williams]

...
I don't think it's that simple. The state seeks the preservation of itself through the preservation of a certain social formation, first and foremost, rather than through any class, and certainly not through given body of individuals constituting a class. That's the essence of the Marxist theory of the Bonepartist regime, is it not- a state which acts not out of the interests of the bourgeoisie, but of the bourgeois state as a discrete accumulation of power?

A state can't act as an independent institution though. States are tools of classes, or parts of classes. A state need not represent the bourgeoisie (nor the working class) as a whole, but it doesn't act "for itself". Some particular group might use the state for itself, but that's not the state acting, it's a particular group of people which has gotten control of the state. This can occur in capitalist societies, which remain capitalist societies but where then occurs a struggle for control of the state by the whole bourgeoisie (as, for example, in Bonapartist France, or Mubarak's Egypt under considerably different historical circumstances). When and if it occurs in socialist societies, however, something different happens. Because if the state controls production, but the whole working class does not control the state, there can develop a class differentiation regarding control of production, which can fundamentally alter the class structure of society. Again, states of different classes are fundamentally different, and can't be directly compared.


The implications of this in regards to a "workers' state" are that such a state, if a state in the contemporary sense, and not simply a questionable label for a federation of workers councils...

If a federation of workers' councils acts as an organized manner to defend the working class as a whole, then it is in fact a state, whatever its anarchist supporters might want to call it euphemistically. If it's not, and the capitalist class exists, then either workers need some other institution to exist as a state, something which to make democratic would itself require a network of worker representation, or working class power won't last.


...could not be trusted to pursue the development of communism (or socialism, if you draw the distinction between the two in the Leninist fashion)

If by "a state in the contemporary state", you mean a bourgeois state, then of course it couldn't. If you mean a proletarian state, I think a proletarian state is necessary to transition from a society where classes and capitalist relations exist, to one where they don't, unless you think capitalism is going to disappear without organized resistance. This is not to say the process is mechanistic, easy, or not possibly subject to retreats and setbacks - or the Soviet Union really would still exist as a socialist society.


but may instead seek to preserve the capitalist basis which, even in revolutionary circumstances, would be its foundation.

A reactionary clique can certainly take over control of a workers' state and retreat to capitalism, as indeed happened in the SU over a period of time, or, again, it would be a socialist society. I think your implication that this is a necessary process, however, is mistaken. A workers' state doesn't function on the basis of private profit, and thus has no intrinsic motive to retreat to capitalist relations. Some group of individuals may, which is why checks on the power of individuals within a workers' state is extremely important. Much as it's extremely important for the bourgeoisie that some group of individuals not gain personal control of the bourgeois state at the expense of the rest of the class. Liberals really are sincere about protecting checks on executive power, because unchecked executive power really does threaten control of the state by the class as a whole. Again this is truer in a socialist society, because when a group of individuals takes control of a workers' state it fundamentally threatens the class character of the society in a way doing the same to a bourgeois state does not.

[Tim Finnegan]

A state can't act as an independent institution though. States are tools of classes, or parts of classes. A state need not represent the bourgeoisie (nor the working class) as a whole, but it doesn't act "for itself". Some particular group might use the state for itself, but that's not the state acting, it's a particular group of people which has gotten control of the state. This can occur in capitalist societies, which remain capitalist societies but where then occurs a struggle for control of the state by the whole bourgeoisie (as, for example, in Bonapartist France, or Mubarak's Egypt under considerably different historical circumstances).
Have you not read The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte? Marx is fairly explicit in describing the Bonaparte Restoration as a regime presiding over a bourgeois state, but which is not in itself of the bourgeoisie. (In fact, he refers to Bonaparte and his cronies as being essentially lumpen, and their political basis lying in the support of the Bonapartist (in the non-Marxist sense) peasantry.) From this, we see emerging a Marxist conception of the bourgeois state as an independent accumulation of power, which, although it may function both as a tool of the bourgeoisie and as an impersonal member of the bourgeoisie in itself, is not only this, but has unique legal and political characteristics that give it a set of interests determined specifically as state interests, rather than simply as class interests- if it did, not what would it be but a corporation with a flag? This is different than a state simply acting for only a single portion of the bourgeoisie, as affirmed by Marx's description of such a state in the form of the July Monarch- a bourgeois monarchy representing the interests of the financial grande bourgeoisie- which he specifically contrasts with both the Second Republic, a bourgeois democracy, and the Second Empire, a Bonapartist monarchy.


When and if it occurs in socialist societies, however, something different happens. Because if the state controls production, but the whole working class does not control the state, there can develop a class differentiation regarding control of production, which can fundamentally alter the class structure of society. Again, states of different classes are fundamentally different, and can't be directly compared.Well, again, I would suggest that there is a difference between the essential form of a state, which is determined by the social formation, and the class-character of a state, which is determined by the distribution of political power. "Workers' state" seems to me an ambiguous term, given its historical application within the various Marxist traditions, because it seems that it can refer both to a post-capitalist state, and to a capitalist state in which the working class hold political power- nor am I unprecedented in this distinction, which can also be seen in, for example, the Old Bolshevik demand for a "radical democratic republic" in which the working class holds political power, but has not yet instigated social revolution.

If a federation of workers' councils acts as an organized manner to defend the working class as a whole, then it is in fact a state, whatever its anarchist supporters might want to call it euphemistically. If it's not, and the capitalist class exists, then either workers need some other institution to exist as a state, something which to make democratic would itself require a network of worker representation, or working class power won't last.Well, fair points, but we're getting into semantics here, so we'll just leave it at that.


If by "a state in the contemporary state", you mean a bourgeois state, then of course it couldn't. If you mean a proletarian state, I think a proletarian state is necessary to transition from a society where classes and capitalist relations exist, to one where they don't, unless you think capitalism is going to disappear without organized resistance. This is not to say the process is mechanistic, easy, or not possibly subject to retreats and setbacks - or the Soviet Union really would still exist as a socialist society.Well, this leads me back to original point of distinguishing between a "workers' state" and a "proletarian state", as it were. I would argue that the former would necessarily have to be superseded by the latter during the course of a revolutionary period, or we would. The goal of a "workers' state" would therefore be, from the perspective of the working class, its own self-dissolution, and if we accept that the bourgeois state is a political formation that acts by its nature to preserve the capitalist mode of production, then it would take both very conscientious and, given the ferociously defensive bureaucracy that constitutes so much of the modern state apparatus, very effective politicians, neither of which I believe can or should be relied upon to emerge. This leads me, at least, to the conclusion that the bourgeois state, "workers'" or otherwise, must be dissolved, rather than usurped, because it is an essentially counter-revolutionary force, capable of serving the workers at best only for the moment it to takes to turn it on itself, and not as an institution of any longevity.

A reactionary clique can certainly take over control of a workers' state and retreat to capitalism, as indeed happened in the SU over a period of time, or, again, it would be a socialist society. I think your implication that this is a necessary process, however, is mistaken. A workers' state doesn't function on the basis of private profit, and thus has no intrinsic motive to retreat to capitalist relations. Some group of individuals may, which is why checks on the power of individuals within a workers' state is extremely important. Much as it's extremely important for the bourgeoisie that some group of individuals not gain personal control of the bourgeois state at the expense of the rest of the class. Liberals really are sincere about protecting checks on executive power, because unchecked executive power really does threaten control of the state by the class as a whole. Again this is truer in a socialist society, because when a group of individuals takes control of a workers' state it fundamentally threatens the class character of the society in a way doing the same to a bourgeois state does not."Private profit" is not the defining feature of capitalism, but, rather, the accumulation of capital, which is a more general process. This can still occur even within the context of a "workers' state", as it did in the early Soviet Union even before the counter-revolution (at whatever date you may locate that), even if it may happen to be democratically controlled. Communism (or socialism, if you cleave to the Leninist distinction) must abolish the very social conditions which permit capital accumulation, not merely remake capital accumulation as a public rather than private activity.

[jake williams]

...
Have you not read The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte?

I haven't, no, and I have to admit my knowledge of 19th century France is relatively limited. I do, however, feel capable of making some general points.


Marx is fairly explicit in describing the Bonaparte Restoration as a regime presiding over a bourgeois state, but which is not in itself of the bourgeoisie. (In fact, he refers to Bonaparte and his cronies as being essentially lumpen, and their political basis lying in the support of the Bonapartist (in the non-Marxist sense) peasantry.)

A bourgeois state might well be staffed by individuals not of the bourgeoisie itself, and indeed, this is reguarly the case, because there's a lot more money in business than there is in politics. For that matter, much of the Nazi state was not staffed by the bourgeoisie either, but it was still a bourgeois state. It was a state controlled by a faction of the bourgeoisie, acting in its interests. Its staffing is a secondary consideration.


From this, we see emerging a Marxist conception of the bourgeois state as an independent accumulation of power, which, although it may function both as a tool of the bourgeoisie and as an impersonal member of the bourgeoisie in itself, is not only this, but has unique legal and political characteristics that give it a set of interests determined specifically as state interests, rather than simply as class interests

I think this is a really limited direction of analysis. States do have "as such" interests in self-preservation, but again, that's tautological or definitional, it's not an analytical point about social structures. States act in the interest of some group of people, and their interests "as states" are determined by their capacity, or lack thereof, to act in those primary interests.


if it did, not what would it be but a corporation with a flag?

I think that if you argue that a state contains some particular characteristics as such, you're abandoning the fundamental class character of a society that generates and maintains a state, reducing it to, indeed, simply a corporation with a flag.


This is different than a state simply acting for only a single portion of the bourgeoisie, as affirmed by Marx's description of such a state in the form of the July Monarch- a bourgeois monarchy representing the interests of the financial grande bourgeoisie- which he specifically contrasts with both the Second Republic, a bourgeois democracy, and the Second Empire, a Bonapartist monarchy.

I think there probably were periods in post-revolutionary France where a sort of quasi-monarchial order was re-established. I think in general though, retreats from bourgeois democracy were of a character whereby the state ceased to function in the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, and instead simply a part of it.


Well, again, I would suggest that there is a difference between the essential form of a state, which is determined by the social formation, and the class-character of a state, which is determined by the distribution of political power. "Workers' state" seems to me an ambiguous term, given its historical application within the various Marxist traditions, because it seems that it can refer both to a post-capitalist state, and to a capitalist state in which the working class hold political power- nor am I unprecedented in this distinction, which can also be seen in, for example, the Old Bolshevik demand for a "radical democratic republic" in which the working class holds political power, but has not yet instigated social revolution. I'm using the term "workers' state" to refer to a state controlled by and acting in the interests of the working class. If capitalism and classes have been abolished, no state exists, so it's a moot point. A workers' state only exists while classes exist. I don't think there's any real ambiguity. If workers come to power, say, through a parliament in a capitalist society, then a struggle for the state ensues, and the state as such can neither be described as a bourgeois state nor a proletarian state until this struggle is settled. If workers win the battle for the control of the state, and capitalist relations begin to exist, then it becomes a "socialist" society in the political sense as workers begin to dismantle capitalist relations. If they succeed, the state whithers away. If they don't, capitalist relations return, and the working class eventually returns control of the state.

There's no fundamental difference between a state controlled by the working class where, at the beginning, capitalist relations predominate, and one where socialist relations predominate, at least in principle.


Well, this leads me back to original point of distinguishing between a "workers' state" and a "proletarian state", as it were. I would argue that the former would necessarily have to be superseded by the latter during the course of a revolutionary period, or we would. The goal of a "workers' state" would therefore be, from the perspective of the working class, its own self-dissolution, and if we accept that the bourgeois state is a political formation that acts by its nature to preserve the capitalist mode of production, then it would take both very conscientious and, given the ferociously defensive bureaucracy that constitutes so much of the modern state apparatus, very effective politicians, neither of which I believe can or should be relied upon to emerge.

I think we may be back to semantics. You're simply explaining the limitations of parliamentary action for acquiring state power. I think your "proletarian state" is what others call a "socialist state" (in principle, although you might disagree about particular cases). The distinction you're making between a "workers'" and a "proletarian" state is really the distinction between a period where workers are struggling for control of the state, and one where they actually do control it. A bourgeois state with a parliament of socialist politicians isn't a "workers' state".


This leads me, at least, to the conclusion that the bourgeois state, "workers'" or otherwise, must be dissolved, rather than usurped, because it is an essentially counter-revolutionary force, capable of serving the workers at best only for the moment it to takes to turn it on itself, and not as an institution of any longevity.

I don't disagree, but I'm skeptical about how meaningful the point is. If a bourgeois state is a state of and for the bourgeoisie, then of course it has to be dissolved. Where I might disagree is what aspects must be dissolved to replace a bourgeois state with a proletarian state. Do workers need to use different buildings to control the state - do they need to burn down the parliament? Do they need to fire all administrators? Some? None? Do they need to abolish the military? Fire some or all officers? I don't think these questions are totally predetermined, I think they're determined by particular historical circumstances. In any case, a state is defined as a bourgeois state based on its acting or not acting in the interests of the bourgeoisie. There's no reason in principle that a socialist Canada couldn't use Elections Canada, with a lot of the same office buildings and even many of the same staff, to set up systems of worker representation, systems which superficially would be similiar to bourgeois elections in some cases but of a fundamentally different character. The point is about control, not about the existence of police, parliaments, elections etc.

"Private profit" is not the defining feature of capitalism, but, rather, the accumulation of capital, which is a more general process. This can still occur even within the context of a "workers' state", as it did in the early Soviet Union even before the counter-revolution (at whatever date you may locate that), even if it may happen to be democratically controlled. Communism (or socialism, if you cleave to the Leninist distinction) must abolish the very social conditions which permit capital accumulation, not merely remake capital accumulation as a public rather than private activity.

I disagree. Capital as such is determined by private accumulation. Assuming a socialist society will maintain and expand its physical infrastructure, producing more than it consumes, the society will indeed "accumulate capital" if capital is simply defined as a productive surplus used to expand production. If this surplus is controlled publically and democratically, you have a socialist society. If it is controlled privately and undemocratically, you have a class society, generally speaking a variant of a capitalist society. Insofar as you have a mixture of both, which I think Soviet society in general entailed for much of its history, you have a mixture of both.

[Heathen Communist]

before there can be any sort of Socialist system without oppression, the people as a whole must first understand and support the ideas of Socialism. Then, a democratic form of government can take shape and the state can begin to fade away. If our goal as leftists is to do what is right for the people, the people must first willingly accept and understand leftist ideology. A problem with Socialist governments of the past is that they ruled over people who had little real understanding of Socialism. One of the best tactics we can use right now is to educate people as to the nature and ideas of Socialism, so that our action can be more widespread and effective.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I disagree. Capital as such is determined by private accumulation. Assuming a socialist society will maintain and expand its physical infrastructure, producing more than it consumes, the society will indeed "accumulate capital" if capital is simply defined as a productive surplus used to expand production. If this surplus is controlled publically and democratically, you have a socialist society. If it is controlled privately and undemocratically, you have a class society, generally speaking a variant of a capitalist society. Insofar as you have a mixture of both, which I think Soviet society in general entailed for much of its history, you have a mixture of both.

I'm pretty sure comrade Tim Finnegan does not subscribe to the state capitalist theory. However, in Capital Marx linked money and capital-as-process together. It is money circulated around ultimately to accumulated more money, whether directly or by the intermediate means of purchasing labour, means of production, and/or other commodities for resale. Bourgeois and other private property relations are nonetheless fundamental means to maintain this generalized commodity production.

[jake williams]

I'm pretty sure comrade Tim Finnegan does not subscribe to the state capitalist theory. However, in Capital Marx linked money and capital-as-process together. It is money circulated around ultimately to accumulated more money, whether directly or by the intermediate means of purchasing labour, means of production, and/or other commodities for resale. Bourgeois and other private property relations are nonetheless fundamental means to maintain this generalized commodity production.
Could you clarify?

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm pretty sure comrade Tim Finnegan does not subscribe to the state capitalist theory. However, in Capital Marx linked money and capital-as-process together. It is money circulated around ultimately to accumulated more money, whether directly or by the intermediate means of purchasing labour, means of production, and/or other commodities for resale. Bourgeois and other private property relations are nonetheless fundamental means to maintain this generalized commodity production.

Imbecilic. Stalin openly admits that generalized commodity production persists in the USSR, which is revisionism. GCP is capitalism, it is as simple as that.

[Red_Struggle]

Imbecilic. Stalin openly admits that generalized commodity production persists in the USSR, which is revisionism. GCP is capitalism, it is as simple as that.

Actually, commodity production will continue to existin any country, whether it is moneyless or not. Captialist production relations examine that each enterprise is it's own production unit, while socialist relations seek to utilize the economy as a whole for the best possible production in sufficient quantity, which was difficult for the USSR to perform given the limited advancement of calculating technology at the time.

Revisionist economists insist that the law of value should be dominant in regulating production, based on the profitability of each enterprise. And because no thread is complete without at least one Stalin quote:

"Totally incorrect.. is the asertion that under our present economic system.. the law of value regulates the 'proportions' of labour distributed among the various branches of production. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why our light industries, which are most profitable, are not being develped to their utmost, and why preference is given to our heavy industries, which are often less profitable, and sometimes altogether unprofitable. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why a number of our heavy industry plants which are still unprofitable.. are not closed down, and why new light industry plants, which would certainly be profitable..., are not opened. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why workers are not transferred from plants that are less profitable, but very necessary to our national economy, to plants which are more profitable -- in accordance with the law of value, which supposedly regulates the 'proportions' of labour distributed among the branches of production". - Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrindex.html
http://www.mltranslations.org/Ireland/ico.htm
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/albeconint.htm

[Kadir Ateş]

The police, army--in general, the state--only emerges in bourgeois society when value production becomes the way of life, as capital attempts to overcome ts own limits, which necessarily cause crisis and social distress. I think we should firmly under oppression and its destruction in terms of whether or not the law of value is still in existence, since that is the foundation our capitalist society.

[Jose Gracchus]

Actually, commodity production will continue to existin any country, whether it is moneyless or not.

Really? You'll show me where Marx/Engels says this, or any left thinker who isn't already a post-Stalin apologist for his revisionism, for that matter.

Tenacious and resurgent Proudhonism, indeed.


Captialist production relations examine that each enterprise is it's own production unit, while socialist relations seek to utilize the economy as a whole for the best possible production in sufficient quantity, which was difficult for the USSR to perform given the limited advancement of calculating technology at the time.

Bullshit. That's not the Marxian definition of capital. You're lying.


Revisionist economists insist that the law of value should be dominant in regulating production, based on the profitability of each enterprise. And because no thread is complete without at least one Stalin quote:

"Totally incorrect.. is the asertion that under our present economic system.. the law of value regulates the 'proportions' of labour distributed among the various branches of production. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why our light industries, which are most profitable, are not being develped to their utmost, and why preference is given to our heavy industries, which are often less profitable, and sometimes altogether unprofitable. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why a number of our heavy industry plants which are still unprofitable.. are not closed down, and why new light industry plants, which would certainly be profitable..., are not opened. If this were true, it would be incomprehensible why workers are not transferred from plants that are less profitable, but very necessary to our national economy, to plants which are more profitable -- in accordance with the law of value, which supposedly regulates the 'proportions' of labour distributed among the branches of production". - Economic problems of Socialism in the USSR

http://www.oneparty.co.uk/html/book/ussrindex.html
http://www.mltranslations.org/Ireland/ico.htm
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/albeconint.htm

'fraid you can't, simply reply with, "b-b-b-but Uncle Joe said its so, so it is."

Again, you'll provide the quotes from the works of Marx to show that GCP is not capitalism, and that capitalism only has to do with maximizing individual firms (which of course, is an idiotic position since individual firms--and yes, they called them firms--in the USSR did aggrandize themselves at the expense of the national economy and the much fetishized "plan", that was largely fictitious).

DNZ could kindly meet the same standards of evidence, since he does purport to present himself as a "revolutionary Marxist".

[RedTrackWorker]

That's the definition of Communism, socialism is defined as a Workers' State.

Not to nit pick, but since we're talking about definitions.

Even Stalin would disagree with you, seeing as he declared socialism only in the 30's not as of 1917. This post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2139267&postcount=85) gives more information on that, but just to sample, Lenin's State and Revolution, even in the table of contents, clearly distinguishes between a workers' state and communism (socialism being the first phase and communism as such being the higher phase):
"The Transition from Captialism to Communism [a workers' state]
The First Phase of Communist Society
The Higher Phase of Communist Society"

If you find Marx, Engels or Lenin ever defining socialism as a workers' state--please do share. Of course in remarks, Lenin called the workers' state "socialist" as a matter of the direction it is transitioning to, but on the level of analysis and definition, I'd really like to see some proof--seeing as how it'd be contrary to his whole book State and Revolution to identify socialism with the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism.

[Kadir Ateş]

@ RedTrackWorker:

I'm genuinely curious, could you point me to any works by Marx which advocate or outline a workers' state, or a transitional program?

[RedTrackWorker]

@ RedTrackWorker:

I'm genuinely curious, could you point me to any works by Marx which advocate or outline a workers' state, or a transitional program?

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."--Critique of the Gotha Program, Chapter 4 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm)

That is the most direct and most representative quote I think. Then there's http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/ch02.htm and the stuff on the Paris Commune.

Chapter three (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/chapter3_transitiontosocialism.pdf) of the LRP's book the Life and Death of Stalinism is devoted to a discussion of this issue.

On the transitional program, while I would defend it as "Marxist", I would not claim Marx advocated or outlined such an approach. Its historical origins are in the first four congresses of the Comintern and then developed by the Trotskyists.

[WeAreReborn]

Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat the revolutionaries should build a one party government of the proletariat. Because that's what the western countries are used to, and will be easier for the population to accept. When Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, there were still a lot of absolute monarchies in Europe. Back then the people would have accepted a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. As happened in Russia with Lenin after Tsar Nicholas II.

The government would exist out of a chairman that overlooks everything that happens in it. However, in no case can he have absolute power or the ability to take decisions on his own, on matters that also regard one of the ministers.

The ministries have to be structured in such a way, they can not take decisions without consulting another one either. This will counter corruption and make Stalin-like oppression even more impossible.

Thus the decision-making triangle will come to exist: the chairman and two ministers. Imagine a decision having to be made about the production of the state farms. That will regard both the ministries of agriculture and economics. Together with the chairman fulfilling his role as chairman and overlooker. A change can only be made if all three agree.

This way no ones one-person-opinion can be pushed through. A table with one leg can fall all ways. A table with two legs can only fall to the left or the right. However a table with three legs can not fall.

This should apply until socialism has been built up to such a level where democratic centralism can be applied. Allowing the people to vote on all law proposals and other important decisions.
I for one prefer democracy. I don't want to fight a revolution to have 3 people make decisions for me and the rest of the populace. Not to mention only 3 people are making the decisions. Do you realize how easy it would be for them just to abuse their power by uniting? One man or a hundred, if there is a massive amount of power to be abused, it can be abused. A check and balance system does nothing but ensure the power of the implemented government. Democracy is the only way to achieve Socialism.

[KurtFF8]

Even Stalin would disagree with you, seeing as he declared socialism only in the 30's not as of 1917. This post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2139267&postcount=85) gives more information on that, but just to sample, Lenin's State and Revolution, even in the table of contents, clearly distinguishes between a workers' state and communism (socialism being the first phase and communism as such being the higher phase):
"The Transition from Captialism to Communism [a workers' state]
The First Phase of Communist Society
The Higher Phase of Communist Society"

If you find Marx, Engels or Lenin ever defining socialism as a workers' state--please do share. Of course in remarks, Lenin called the workers' state "socialist" as a matter of the direction it is transitioning to, but on the level of analysis and definition, I'd really like to see some proof--seeing as how it'd be contrary to his whole book State and Revolution to identify socialism with the transition from capitalism to socialism/communism.

??? In the same chapter you're referring to, Lenin constantly writes " the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "

[Leftsolidarity]

@ RedTrackWorker:

I'm genuinely curious, could you point me to any works by Marx which advocate or outline a workers' state, or a transitional program?

From everything I've read of Marx he seems to avoid that topic for the most part. Lenin's State and Revolution is very good though.

http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm

[RedTrackWorker]

??? In the same chapter you're referring to, Lenin constantly writes " the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "

Yes, the first phase of communist society is usually called socialism (in these contexts). I didn't disagree with that part. I disagreed that the workers' state or dictatorship of the proletariat was socialism in the sense of the first phase of communist society, which is what you said: "socialism is defined as a Workers' State."

As I said, even Stalin didn't hold to this interpretation of Stalinism, declaring socialism in the 30's but it was a workers' state from 1917, i.e. socialism was not defined as a workers' state.

[Lucretia]

"Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."--Critique of the Gotha Program, Chapter 4 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm)

That is the most direct and most representative quote I think. Then there's http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/ch02.htm and the stuff on the Paris Commune.

Chapter three (http://www.lrp-cofi.org/book/chapter3_transitiontosocialism.pdf) of the LRP's book the Life and Death of Stalinism is devoted to a discussion of this issue.

On the transitional program, while I would defend it as "Marxist", I would not claim Marx advocated or outlined such an approach. Its historical origins are in the first four congresses of the Comintern and then developed by the Trotskyists.

If you're claiming that M&E and Lenin did not think there would be a workers' state in a socialist society, then I think you're confusing Marx, Engels, and Lenin with Trotsky.

Trotsky made a distinction between a "workers' state" and "socialism" because he believed that Russia's productive forces had not developed enough for it to qualify as "socialist." Even then, I don't recall him ever saying that the difference was that there would be a state in the "workers' state" but no state under socialism. I think his larger point in distinguishing the two was to emphasize that the proletariat continued to be a minority in Russia, and that therefore the workers' state was not the rule of the majority in the interests of the majority (Marx's understanding of socialism).

The distinction Marx, Engels, and Lenin are all unified in making is between a socialist society with a withering state - no longer political in nature - under the control of workers, and a communist society with no state. They all stated that the socialist revolution in a highly developed capitalist economy consists in the seizure of the means of production and of the state, thereby eliminating the state's "political" character and transforming it into a worker's state. This worker's state will remain in the lower stage of communism (socialism), but would wither away until it was no longer necessary in the higher stage.

[Tim Finnegan]

I haven't, no, and I have to admit my knowledge of 19th century France is relatively limited. I do, however, feel capable of making some general points.
Well, the issue isn't really French history as such, but, rather, the fact that the document is the ur-document in the development of the Marxist theory of the Bonaparist regime, and thus a crucial factor in developing a Marxist theory of the state.I recommend that you read it at some point, as well as The Class Struggle in France and The Civil War in France. They're easy reads- and, in fact, enjoyable examples of Marx's skill as a writer- which offer important insights into the Marxian understanding of the state, and its relationship to class.
A bourgeois state might well be staffed by individuals not of the bourgeoisie itself, and indeed, this is reguarly the case, because there's a lot more money in business than there is in politics. For that matter, much of the Nazi state was not staffed by the bourgeoisie either, but it was still a bourgeois state. It was a state controlled by a faction of the bourgeoisie, acting in its interests. Its staffing is a secondary consideration.
...I think this is a really limited direction of analysis. States do have "as such" interests in self-preservation, but again, that's tautological or definitional, it's not an analytical point about social structures. States act in the interest of some group of people, and their interests "as states" are determined by their capacity, or lack thereof, to act in those primary interests.I believe that Marx disagrees. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, he discussing the Bonapartist sate as a regime which emerges in a period of mutual political weakness on the part of both the working class and the bourgeoisie, and which may continue to exist for itself rather than as an agent of the bourgeoisie, as long as it fulfils the essential institutional role of protecting and expanding capital, without which it would crumble. Superficially, this may appear to suggest that the state is "bourgeois", because the bourgeoisie certainly benefit from its continued existence, but this is only insofar as they are unable to protect state power by themselves, and so must abide by the iron hand of the independent state power as a condition of their maintenance as a class.

I think that if you argue that a state contains some particular characteristics as such, you're abandoning the fundamental class character of a society that generates and maintains a state, reducing it to, indeed, simply a corporation with a flag.But society doesn't have a class character.Classes exist within the terms of the contemporary mode of production, and it is those terms, rather than any class as such, which define the form taken by institutions emerging within that society. The state is an institution designed to preserve a particular set of social relations, and so becomes the defender of capital whether or not the actual holders of capital command it.
I think there probably were periods in post-revolutionary France where a sort of quasi-monarchial order was re-established. I think in general though, retreats from bourgeois democracy were of a character whereby the state ceased to function in the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, and instead simply a part of it.But again, Marx specifically contrasts the July Monarchy, a "minority bourgeois state", with the Second Empire, which he characterises as a Bonapartist regime. Unless Marx was seeing spooks, the two forms cannot be collapsed into one.


I'm using the term "workers' state" to refer to a state controlled by and acting in the interests of the working class. If capitalism and classes have been abolished, no state exists, so it's a moot point. A workers' state only exists while classes exist. I don't think there's any real ambiguity. If workers come to power, say, through a parliament in a capitalist society, then a struggle for the state ensues, and the state as such can neither be described as a bourgeois state nor a proletarian state until this struggle is settled. If workers win the battle for the control of the state, and capitalist relations begin to exist, then it becomes a "socialist" society in the political sense as workers begin to dismantle capitalist relations. If they succeed, the state whithers away. If they don't, capitalist relations return, and the working class eventually returns control of the state.

There's no fundamental difference between a state controlled by the working class where, at the beginning, capitalist relations predominate, and one where socialist relations predominate, at least in principle.But if we accept, as I have suggested, that the institution of the state is not a product of class rule as such, but of a certain social formation, then is a workers' state in a capitalist formation not fundamentally different than a workers' state in a communist formation? After all, if a state institution is allowed to skip whole from one social formation to the other in this manner, rather than being obliged to generate itself in the course of transition from one social formation to another, then we would be obliged to concede that the mode of production does not determine the political institutions which emerge within its terms, and thus that historical materialism is false, and thus that Marxism is incorrect.
I think we may be back to semantics. You're simply explaining the limitations of parliamentary action for acquiring state power. I think your "proletarian state" is what others call a "socialist state" (in principle, although you might disagree about particular cases). The distinction you're making between a "workers'" and a "proletarian" state is really the distinction between a period where workers are struggling for control of the state, and one where they actually do control it. A bourgeois state with a parliament of socialist politicians isn't a "workers' state".Again, I have to point back to the cruciality of the social formation to determining the fundamental nature of the state. The working class attaining power within the terms of a capitalist social formation doesn't change that fundamental nature, even if it may determine the class character of a given administration or regime.
I don't disagree, but I'm skeptical about how meaningful the point is. If a bourgeois state is a state of and for the bourgeoisie, then of course it has to be dissolved. Where I might disagree is what aspects must be dissolved to replace a bourgeois state with a proletarian state. Do workers need to use different buildings to control the state - do they need to burn down the parliament? Do they need to fire all administrators? Some? None? Do they need to abolish the military? Fire some or all officers? I don't think these questions are totally predetermined, I think they're determined by particular historical circumstances. In any case, a state is defined as a bourgeois state based on its acting or not acting in the interests of the bourgeoisie. There's no reason in principle that a socialist Canada couldn't use Elections Canada, with a lot of the same office buildings and even many of the same staff, to set up systems of worker representation, systems which superficially would be similiar to bourgeois elections in some cases but of a fundamentally different character. The point is about control, not about the existence of police, parliaments, elections etc.There is a different between material tools and political institutions. The purpose of parliament is to protect capital, the purpose of a parliament building to house a large number of human beings. The latter can be reclaimed, but the former cannot, just as the French were able to put the Palace of Versailles to good use, but where unable to do the same with the attendant system of aristocratic courts and offices of state.


I disagree. Capital as such is determined by private accumulation. Assuming a socialist society will maintain and expand its physical infrastructure, producing more than it consumes, the society will indeed "accumulate capital" if capital is simply defined as a productive surplus used to expand production. If this surplus is controlled publically and democratically, you have a socialist society. If it is controlled privately and undemocratically, you have a class society, generally speaking a variant of a capitalist society. Insofar as you have a mixture of both, which I think Soviet society in general entailed for much of its history, you have a mixture of both.The distinction between "private" and "public" are distinctions which refer only to the relationship of any given fraction of capital to the state, not to any fundamentally different forms of capitalist accumulation. Capital exists on a far more fundamental level than that, and as long as it sits apart form and in contradiction to labour- something true of all "workers' states" of the Leninist tradition- then we cannot honestly claim to have left capitalism, however benign a state capitalist we may envision ourself to have achieved.

[RedTrackWorker]

If you're claiming that M&E and Lenin did not think there would be a workers' state in a socialist society, then I think you're confusing Marx, Engels, and Lenin with Trotsky.

The post I linked to from another thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2139267&postcount=85) only uses Marx and Lenin--not Trotsky--to back up my point.


The distinction Marx, Engels, and Lenin are all unified in making is between a socialist society with a withering state - no longer political in nature - under the control of workers, and a communist society with no state. They all stated that the socialist revolution in a highly developed capitalist economy consists in the seizure of the means of production and of the state, thereby eliminating the state's "political" character and transforming it into a worker's state. This worker's state will remain in the lower stage of communism (socialism), but would wither away until it was no longer necessary in the higher stage.

Note again the three part division Lenin makes:
""The Transition from Captialism to Communism [a workers' state]
The First Phase of Communist Society
The Higher Phase of Communist Society""

The workers' state is transitional from capitalism to communism. Further down the linked thread I point out Lenin says under socialism the state is not a "special machine of suppression" whereas under the wrokers' state it is.

The key difference is you say that under socialism the state would be under the control of "workers"--but under communism--whatever phase--as a different mode of production, the whole point is that there are no classes. Lenin's quote: "exploitation is impossible."

If you can find me anyplace Marx or Lenin talk about "workers" as a class existing under socialism or communism, well, you'll be able to do what no one else has in these debates so far.

[Lucretia]

The post I linked to from another thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2139267&postcount=85) only uses Marx and Lenin--not Trotsky--to back up my point.



Note again the three part division Lenin makes:
""The Transition from Captialism to Communism [a workers' state]
The First Phase of Communist Society
The Higher Phase of Communist Society""

The workers' state is transitional from capitalism to communism. Further down the linked thread I point out Lenin says under socialism the state is not a "special machine of suppression" whereas under the wrokers' state it is.

The key difference is you say that under socialism the state would be under the control of "workers"--but under communism--whatever phase--as a different mode of production, the whole point is that there are no classes. Lenin's quote: "exploitation is impossible."

If you can find me anyplace Marx or Lenin talk about "workers" as a class existing under socialism or communism, well, you'll be able to do what no one else has in these debates so far.

In any event, Lenin is clear that there will still be a "state" under socialism (the first phase of communism), just as there will be one under a "transitional period."

[A Marxist Historian]

If you're claiming that M&E and Lenin did not think there would be a workers' state in a socialist society, then I think you're confusing Marx, Engels, and Lenin with Trotsky.

Trotsky made a distinction between a "workers' state" and "socialism" because he believed that Russia's productive forces had not developed enough for it to qualify as "socialist." Even then, I don't recall him ever saying that the difference was that there would be a state in the "workers' state" but no state under socialism. I think his larger point in distinguishing the two was to emphasize that the proletariat continued to be a minority in Russia, and that therefore the workers' state was not the rule of the majority in the interests of the majority (Marx's understanding of socialism).

The distinction Marx, Engels, and Lenin are all unified in making is between a socialist society with a withering state - no longer political in nature - under the control of workers, and a communist society with no state. They all stated that the socialist revolution in a highly developed capitalist economy consists in the seizure of the means of production and of the state, thereby eliminating the state's "political" character and transforming it into a worker's state. This worker's state will remain in the lower stage of communism (socialism), but would wither away until it was no longer necessary in the higher stage.

There is a remarkably elementary confusion here.

What is socialism? A classless society.

What is the state? As first explained by Marx, and then expounded thoroughly by Lenin, a vehicle for the rule of one class in society over another.

So how then can you have a state in a classless society? Quite simply, you can't, that is elementary logic on the level of 2 plus 2 equals 4.

And that is why neither Lenin or Marx ever bothered to *state* this elementary truth, as until Stalin started confusing things it simply would never have occurred to anyone who accepted Marx's theory of the state to imagine that you could have a state under socialism.

What is the difference between socialism and communism? Marx explains it very clearly in the Gotha program. Socialism: to each according to his work. Communism: to each according to his need. It is assumed for either that, of course, social classes no longer exist and therefore there is no state. There might be a *government,* but no state. No armed bodies of men ordering people around, no prisons, no police, no armies.

By the way, if you think about it for a second you'll realize that the struggle to get from the first stage of communist society, socialism, to the higher stage, communism, is likely to be far, far more difficult than the relatively simple task of going from capitalism to socialism.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Well, the issue isn't really French history as such, but, rather, the fact that the document is the ur-document in the development of the Marxist theory of the Bonaparist regime, and thus a crucial factor in developing a Marxist theory of the state.I recommend that you read it at some point, as well as The Class Struggle in France and The Civil War in France. They're easy reads- and, in fact, enjoyable examples of Marx's skill as a writer- which offer important insights into the Marxian understanding of the state, and its relationship to class.I believe that Marx disagrees. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, he discussing the Bonapartist sate as a regime which emerges in a period of mutual political weakness on the part of both the working class and the bourgeoisie, and which may continue to exist for itself rather than as an agent of the bourgeoisie, as long as it fulfils the essential institutional role of protecting and expanding capital, without which it would crumble. Superficially, this may appear to suggest that the state is "bourgeois", because the bourgeoisie certainly benefit from its continued existence, but this is only insofar as they are unable to protect state power by themselves, and so must abide by the iron hand of the independent state power as a condition of their maintenance as a class.
But society doesn't have a class character.Classes exist within the terms of the contemporary mode of production, and it is those terms, rather than any class as such, which define the form taken by institutions emerging within that society. The state is an institution designed to preserve a particular set of social relations, and so becomes the defender of capital whether or not the actual holders of capital command it.But again, Marx specifically contrasts the July Monarchy, a "minority bourgeois state", with the Second Empire, which he characterises as a Bonapartist regime. Unless Marx was seeing spooks, the two forms cannot be collapsed into one.

Interesting! Your analysis on this point is remarkably parallel to Hal Draper's analysis in his very interesting and in many ways valuable but on this particular point IMHO quite wrongheaded analysis of the question of the state and Marxism, in the two books he wrote. Are you taking this from him, or is this parallel thinking?

Draper had some definite problems with Marx's concept of the state, and did not altogether agree with it, as he stated. He saw Marx's writings on Bonapartism as places where Marx had a *better* understanding of the state than he usually did. Draper was responding to the orthodox Trotskyist criticism of Shachtman's bureaucratic collectivism, which Draper supported. Draper conceded that Shachtman's bc didn't indeed match classic Marxism that well, but thought, quite simply, that he and Shachtman were right and Marx and Trotsky were wrong, and that Marx's early writings on Bonapartism represented a better understanding of the nature of the state.

The best answer to that is reading the things that Marx wrote about Louis Bonaparte in the 1850s and 1860s, which were definitely worse than what you see in Eighteenth Brumaire, though you can see the roots. Marx's conception that he *sometimes* advanced that Louis Bonaparte's regime was lumpen rather than bourgeois was, quite simply, wrong, and the political conclusions he drew from that were obviously off.

It wasn't till after the Paris Commune that Marx was totally clear on the state. Marxist theory ultimately does not come out of abstract theorizing but out of political experience. After the Paris Commune everything Marx writes on the state is very much on the beam and the foundation for later thought by Lenin, Trotsky and others.

On Bonapartism the classic loci are actually texts by Engels more than Marx. As Perry Anderson pointed out, on historical questions, unlike economic and philosophical, Engels was quite often a better Marxist than Marx was. Engels's "The Role of Force in History" is a brilliant study of the German variety of Bonapartism, namely Bismarckism.


But if we accept, as I have suggested, that the institution of the state is not a product of class rule as such, but of a certain social formation, then is a workers' state in a capitalist formation not fundamentally different than a workers' state in a communist formation? After all, if a state institution is allowed to skip whole from one social formation to the other in this manner, rather than being obliged to generate itself in the course of transition from one social formation to another, then we would be obliged to concede that the mode of production does not determine the political institutions which emerge within its terms, and thus that historical materialism is false, and thus that Marxism is incorrect.Again, I have to point back to the cruciality of the social formation to determining the fundamental nature of the state. The working class attaining power within the terms of a capitalist social formation doesn't change that fundamental nature, even if it may determine the class character of a given administration or regime.There is a different between material tools and political institutions. The purpose of parliament is to protect capital, the purpose of a parliament building to house a large number of human beings. The latter can be reclaimed, but the former cannot, just as the French were able to put the Palace of Versailles to good use, but where unable to do the same with the attendant system of aristocratic courts and offices of state.

The distinction between "private" and "public" are distinctions which refer only to the relationship of any given fraction of capital to the state, not to any fundamentally different forms of capitalist accumulation. Capital exists on a far more fundamental level than that, and as long as it sits apart form and in contradiction to labour- something true of all "workers' states" of the Leninist tradition- then we cannot honestly claim to have left capitalism, however benign a state capitalist we may envision ourself to have achieved.

Lenin and Trotsky would be the last to disagree, abstractly. You cannot after all build socialism in a single country. The dictatorship of the proletariat administers a transitional society in between capitalism and socialism, *that has not fully left capitalism.*

Lenin did in fact like to talk about state capitalism and talk about the policy of the Soviet government as "state capitalist." By this he meant oversight of private capitalism by the workers' state, not state capitalist in the usual modern sense.

Trotsky was uncomfortable with this, wisely so IMHO, as it too easily lends itself to confusion. Thus that dogmatic Lenin-quoter Zinoviev in the mid '20s was actually referring to the *state sector* of the Soviet economy as "state capitalist."

Trotsky saw this as just as fundamental a revision of Marxism as Stalin's conception of "socialism in one country," and this is one of the numerous reasons why Trotsky refused to support Zinoviev when he broke with Stalin in 1925, only forming an opposition bloc with him later after further moves by Zinoviev to the left. (I can give you references on this from Trotsky's 1925 diary notes if you are interested).

Indeed it is remarkable how many former Zinovievites became state caps later. The French Zinovievist Albert Treint, who of course became a state cap later, took Zinoviev's position to a caricatural extreme when he described the policy of the Soviet governmment in 1924 in the French CP theoretical journal as "workers' imperialism," to be supported of course.

-M.H.-

[Thirsty Crow]

Instead of a dictatorship of the proletariat the revolutionaries should build a one party government of the proletariat.
So, what you're basically arguing for is the dictatorship over the proletariat by one of its strata, in the form of the party-state.
Not only does this kind of a political practice run against the prospects for the self-emancipation of the global working class and the building of socialism, but it also represents something which falls even beneath the level of bourgeois democracy (complete political monopoly). I don't see why would you think that workers in the "West" would react favourably.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I find it amazing that, instead of pointing out succinctly to the OP that what he really was warning against was vanguardism, my fellow comrades spend 3 pages getting agitated by nothing much in particular.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is a fragile idea and one that needs to be treated very carefully in order to ensure that it doesn't end up as either:

a) a literal dictatorship OR
b) a bureaucratic/party dictatorship

In order to do that, we need to accept that the overwhelming majority of society are working class, and we should reject the party-exceptionalist notion of vanguardism in its entirety.

Post-revolution, it's not guns that will defeat the Capitalist counter-revolution, it is the people, and they will only defeat the minority Capitalists if we give them the tools to do that - democratic participation in civil, political and economic life.

[Martin Blank]

In any event, Lenin is clear that there will still be a "state" under socialism (the first phase of communism), just as there will be one under a "transitional period."

The so-called "state" in the first phase of communism is not a state in the communist sense of the term -- i.e., an instrument of class rule. Marx and Engels were clear that the successor to the state that exists in the transition would be transformed from a "government of persons" to the "administration of things" in the first phase. In other words, it would not be a state except insofar as this new administrative structure would be the arbiter of the remnants of equal (bourgeois) right that would exist in the first phase. In other words, it would not be an instrument for the rule of one class over other classes, but a referee, a bookkeeper and night watchman -- an instrument for resolving disputes and keeping the peace among the various strata that would still exist in the early phases of a classless society.

[Lucretia]

There is a remarkably elementary confusion here.

What is socialism? A classless society.

What is the state? As first explained by Marx, and then expounded thoroughly by Lenin, a vehicle for the rule of one class in society over another.

So how then can you have a state in a classless society? Quite simply, you can't, that is elementary logic on the level of 2 plus 2 equals 4.

And that is why neither Lenin or Marx ever bothered to *state* this elementary truth, as until Stalin started confusing things it simply would never have occurred to anyone who accepted Marx's theory of the state to imagine that you could have a state under socialism.

What is the difference between socialism and communism? Marx explains it very clearly in the Gotha program. Socialism: to each according to his work. Communism: to each according to his need. It is assumed for either that, of course, social classes no longer exist and therefore there is no state. There might be a *government,* but no state. No armed bodies of men ordering people around, no prisons, no police, no armies.

By the way, if you think about it for a second you'll realize that the struggle to get from the first stage of communist society, socialism, to the higher stage, communism, is likely to be far, far more difficult than the relatively simple task of going from capitalism to socialism.

-M.H.-

You can take issue with Lenin all you want, but he clearly asserts that a kind of state authority (not a "political" state used as an instrument of class rule) will continue to exist under socialism. He also says it will wither away in the higher phase of communism. How can something wither away if it's already gone in the lower phase of communism -- which you seem to be asserting it will be?

A distinction needs to be made here between an abstract political institution that emerges from and is sustained by class rule (the "state" proper), and institutionalized coercive political authority in a more generic sense, what Engels termed "democracy." It is the former that Lenin argues will be transcended with the workers taking power, while it is the latter that will gradually wither as people become accustomed to a society free from class exploitation.

[Lucretia]

The so-called "state" in the first phase of communism is not a state in the communist sense of the term -- i.e., an instrument of class rule. Marx and Engels were clear that the successor to the state that exists in the transition would be transformed from a "government of persons" to the "administration of things" in the first phase. In other words, it would not be a state except insofar as this new administrative structure would be the arbiter of the remnants of equal (bourgeois) right that would exist in the first phase. In other words, it would not be an instrument for the rule of one class over other classes, but a referee, a bookkeeper and night watchman -- an instrument for resolving disputes and keeping the peace among the various strata that would still exist in the early phases of a classless society.

I am aware of this.

[Martin Blank]

I am aware of this.

I know, but what I'm trying to point out here is that there is a measure of confusion and inaccuracy in calling the administrative structure for the first phase of communist society a "state", since a state is a very specific thing that only exists in a class society. It may seem like quibbling over terminology (and, to a large extent, I think that is the case here), but if we are going to speak clearly about what our goals are as a movement, then the quibbling is necessary in order to achieve as much clarification as possible.

One of the primary defects of Lenin's The State and Revolution is that he continues to use the term "state" to describe the body that oversees distribution and the "administration of things". I tend to believe that the problem stems from an attempt by Lenin to so "popularize" the questions of the state in the transition from capitalism to communism, that he begins to confuse himself.

If history has shown us anything in relation to this question, it is that there are no hard dividing lines between these various phases. Modern capitalism has elements of the transitional economy already existing within it today; the transition from capitalism to communism will have elements of both modes of production existing side-by-side; and the first phase of communism will have vestigial elements of the capitalist mode of production society will still be trying to overcome. This reality means that the question of the state will be subject more to the question of quantity and quality than is explained by Lenin. At what point can one say that there are enough elements of the communist mode of production in place that we can draw the line between the transition and the first phase? At what point can we say that we've overcome the challenge of strata and moved into the higher phase? Is it simply expanding productive forces to a level where material want for all is met? Or do we look toward the balance of forces among classes or strata in the proletarian state or communist administration, respectively? Or is it both?

Obviously, Lenin could not address all of these questions in his short pamphlet. But they do point out a shortcoming in relying explicitly on his formulations from a "popular" work. In the end, it's better to sit down and think these formulations and issues through, looking to the experiences of history to provide guideposts for theoretical development.

(Incidentally, neither Marx nor Engels nor Lenin used the formulation "... to each according to [their] work". This bastardized phrase came from Stalin, who used it as the guiding principle of his "socialist" mode of production. Lenin, on the other hand, encapsulated the first phase of communism [which he called "socialism"] in the formula, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor". I would think the Trotskyists taking part in this discussion would know this, given that the Old Man devoted the first part of Chapter 10 of The Revolution Betrayed (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch10.htm#ch10-1) to refuting it.)