Will there be a state under socialism? What did Lenin say about this?

[A Marxist Historian]

Those interested in Marxist theory may have noticed a new thread moved here, under the mysterious title, "Lev Bronsteinovich, a Call Out." And disregarded it because of it's title.

Which needs to be renamed, but with no moderator here, there is no good way to rename it.

It has actually turned into a thread about the conception of the state, whether there will be a state under socialism, and what Lenin had to say on this question in State and Revolution.

I think it would be useful if folk here other than myself and Lucretia were to comment on this burning question, which IMHO is more interesting than many other threads here.

It's at

http://www.revleft.com/vb/lev-bronsteinovich-call-t166763/index.html?p=2374505

-M.H.-

[GoddessCleoLover]

I have followed that exchange with interest and pondered the matter. IMO Lenin foresaw a fairly quick withering away of the state in THE STATE AND REVOLUTION. The problem is that he also foresaw the spread of the revolution as likely to be quick and widespread. Given the disappointing failure of the international revolution to spread in the 20th century I wonder whether the revolutionary process will be rapid or protracted in the event it is revived. As much as I would hope to see a quick withering away of the state and realization of stateless socialism, there are many practical problems involved. Unfortunately, we may be facing a much longer period of transition than envisaged by Lenin. To my mind , Lenin saw the existence of full socialism and the state as basically in contradiction with each other. I have read the quotes cited by Lucretia and as best asa I can reconcile them with the overall tenor of STATE AND REVOLUTION they seem to be references to a post-revolutionary transitional period prior to the establishment of full socialism.

[Rooster]

It doesn't really matter what Lenin said as it turned out to be wrong. Even if you think it wasn't wrong, it was still a failure. Lenin, even in The State and Revolution said that the state is an expression of class rule. Fine, but, how does one move on from a class society to a classless one? Why, by revolution of course! If not, then it's plain reformism. And I don't care about the arguments that "oh, but it was a transitional society!". No shit! All societies are transitional, but that misses the whole point of our communist practice; that of revolution.

So, in short, no, states shouldn't exist in socialism and shouldn't be one of it's aims.

[GoddessCleoLover]

My recollection is that Lenin's position in STATE AND REVOLUTION was that under proletarian rule the state would quickly wither away and that there would be no state under socialism. Where I tend to differ from Lenin is that IMO Lenin undercut his own vision of a quick withering away of the state by advocating a powerfully centralized party based upon a vanguard rather than the mass of the working class as the fundamental instrument of not just the revolution but also the transitional workers' republic. One point of difference that I have with Trotskyists is that I see Soviet Union's slide into dictatorship as the almost inevitable result of the type of party that Lenin allowed the Bolsheviks to become, even after they won the civil war. Suffice to say that I don't believe that the state can wither away while there exists a political party exercising vanguard powers. Frankly, to some extent I would prefer to be ruled by a state rather than a political party.

[Ostrinski]

Idk, it's been a while since I've read State and Revolution, But I don't remember it containing anything too controversial. I think it's the correct conception of proletarian class rule, given the condition that revolution spreads and internationalizes. Lenin, however, couldn't have understood the importance of the fact in the time he wrote it.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The internationalization of the socialist revolution seems to have been something that was an article of faith among Marxists of the time, and Lenin certainly had no reason in the summer of 1917 to doubt that conventional wisdom. At the time, it seemed likely that the war would drag on for several more years and under those conditions it seemed reasonable to expect revolutionary uprisings throughout Europe. In fact, the ability of the USA to quickly mobilize its war effort and send a substantial expeditionary force that turned the tide on the battlefield against the Central Powers led to the conclusion of the Great War.

[l'Enfermé]

It doesn't really matter what Lenin said as it turned out to be wrong. Even if you think it wasn't wrong, it was still a failure. Lenin, even in The State and Revolution said that the state is an expression of class rule. Fine, but, how does one move on from a class society to a classless one? Why, by revolution of course! If not, then it's plain reformism. And I don't care about the arguments that "oh, but it was a transitional society!". No shit! All societies are transitional, but that misses the whole point of our communist practice; that of revolution.

So, in short, no, states shouldn't exist in socialism and shouldn't be one of it's aims.
No one denies that the state is an organ of class rule. This is basic Marxism. The Socialist State is the organ of the rule of the proletariat over other classes. The necessity of Proletarian rule is established by the fact that the proletariat is the sole revolutionary class in capitalist and post-capitalist society.

How will the Proletariat crush the remnants of the old society without a tool? The tool is the State. The State is required for the Proletariat to subjugate every other class, just like the bourgeoisie uses the State to subjugate the productive classes.

In State and Revolution, says just this. The immediate abolishing of the State after a Socialist revolution is idealistic and foolish, what other mechanism can the proletariat use to oppress and destroy the bourgeoisie, and more important, you're simply abolishing the state but not abolishing the conditions that lead to the State's creation(how can this be accomplished in a day, a month, or a year?).

Also, I must add, as there seems to be a misunderstanding about this, especially among anarchists here. When Marx and Engels talk about the "withering away of the state", they don't meant the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is abolished immediately, the model for Marx and Engels is the Paris Commune, where the bourgeois state was abolished immediately. The State, according to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, is abolished during the course of the Revolution. What "withers away" is the Proletarian state.

[Lucretia]

I have a pretty lengthy post in the Bronsteinovich thread explaining that Lenin viewed the state as a necessary feature of the lower phase of communism due to his view that some individuals will not yet have become habituated into abiding by the democratic norms of socialist society. His view was that the state would wither away as these individuals, through generations, became fewer and fewer, thereby ushering in the higher phrase of communism.

[robbo203]

No one denies that the state is an organ of class rule. This is basic Marxism. The Socialist State is the organ of the rule of the proletariat over other classes. The necessity of Proletarian rule is established by the fact that the proletariat is the sole revolutionary class in capitalist and post-capitalist society.

How will the Proletariat crush the remnants of the old society without a tool? The tool is the State. The State is required for the Proletariat to subjugate every other class, just like the bourgeoisie uses the State to subjugate the productive classes.

In State and Revolution, says just this. The immediate abolishing of the State after a Socialist revolution is idealistic and foolish, what other mechanism can the proletariat use to oppress and destroy the bourgeoisie, and more important, you're simply abolishing the state but not abolishing the conditions that lead to the State's creation(how can this be accomplished in a day, a month, or a year?).


Simple question. If abolishing the state immediately is "idealistic" and you envisage a prolonged period during which the proletariat is the ruling class, why on earth do you imagine that the proletariat - the exploited class in capitalism - would want to remain exploited for one second longer after it had captured state power? Why? Why? Why?

No leftist advocating a so called "workers state" has ever satisfactorily answered this very simple question. Forget about what Marx or Lenin or whoever else, said. Think of this simply as a logical puzzle.

If the working class have attained a postion of social power such as to be able to capture the state then why would they not also be in a position to do away with their exploited status as a class i.e. abolish themselves as a class and, hence, abolish class society?

The more you think about it, the more you realise that this whole notion of some kind of transitional society between capitalism and communism overseen by a so called "proletarian state" makes absolutely no sense at all. None at all. It is a complete dead end. Bin the whole idea.

Actually, its a tailor made recipe for "substitutionism" and this is what is truly dangerous about this idea for our class. It presents the very clear possiblility of a so called vanguard taking power, reputedly in the name of the working class, only to emerge in the light of a day as yet another ruling class - a dictatorship over the proletariat rather than a dictatorship of the proletariat, it. And since the latter is logically inconceivable it is only the former that we would be left with in practical terms.


"Transitionism" is routinely invoked by some on the Left as a bid to sound "realistic" and to dismiss those who see the the utter illogicality of the workers state meme, as "idealistic". The standard and well practiced evasion runs like this - "well you cant expect to introduce communism immediately. Thats unrealistic" .

Actually, logically speaking, thats the only way you can introduce communism when you think about it - which is why the Communist Manifesto itself talks of communism being the most radical rupture with traditional property relations. You cant have something in between a money based economy and a non money based economy. Its one or the other. Its like being pregnant or not. You cant be a "little bit pregnant",

There is a way round this problem and I urge people to think of it in these terms. Instead of advocating a transitional period with the so called worker state AFTER the capture the political powerr - which is logically indefensible - think of the transition as something that happens BEFORE this event.

Rooster put his finger on it. All societies are in a process of transition. By postponing this mythical notion of a "transition" to some distant, far off period in time , we subconsciously disempower ourselves in the here and now and disengage from the whole business of changing society in the present. Not to put too fine a point on it - we are already in the transition period and we need to wake up and do something about it

[Ostrinski]

The internationalization of the socialist revolution seems to have been something that was an article of faith among Marxists of the time, and Lenin certainly had no reason in the summer of 1917 to doubt that conventional wisdom. At the time, it seemed likely that the war would drag on for several more years and under those conditions it seemed reasonable to expect revolutionary uprisings throughout Europe. In fact, the ability of the USA to quickly mobilize its war effort and send a substantial expeditionary force that turned the tide on the battlefield against the Central Powers led to the conclusion of the Great War.Lenin was under the impression that the international proletarian revolution was taking place, and counted on successful proletarian revolutions in the European states for socialism to be sustained in Russia. Of course, he was wrong, and the Russian revolution paid for it.

[Ostrinski]

Simple question. If abolishing the state immediately is "idealistic" and you envisage a prolonged period during which the proletariat is the ruling class, why on earth do you imagine that the proletariat - the exploited class in capitalism - would want to remain exploited for one second longer after it had captured state power? Why? Why? Why?I don't think it has anything to do with the issue of transitioning into communism on a methodological level. Rather, it has to do with the task at hand which is the seizure of state power in that is is the purest, most practical manifestation of class interest.

We try not to "envisage" anything, because we have absolutely no idea how things will develop after the fact. We are not the pilots of history in that we don't assume control over how the revolution will develop by trying to contrive things before hand. We have no idea how long a state organ will be needed (if it will be need at all), nor in which manner it will be needed. But it remains that on a practical level, the seizure of state power is the most important issue regarding proletarian class interests as of now.

[robbo203]

I don't think it has anything to do with the issue of transitioning into communism on a methodological level. Rather, it has to do with the task at hand which is the seizure of state power in that is is the purest, most practical manifestation of class interest.

We try not to "envisage" anything, because we have absolutely no idea how things will develop after the fact. We are not the pilots of history in that we don't assume control over how the revolution will develop by trying to contrive things before hand. We have no idea how long a state organ will be needed (if it will be need at all), nor in which manner it will be needed. But it remains that on a practical level, the seizure of state power is the most important issue regarding proletarian class interests as of now.

With all due respect this is another example of what I call evading the fundamental logical question that needs to be faced up to. "We cannot predict the future, therefore we are in no position to say how long the state which the proletariat has captured will continue to exist" is what you seem to be saying. We cannot predict the future with respect to things like when or even whether workers might become sufficiently class conscious but there are certain things we can definitely say about the process by which they might usher in a communist society which follows from the very logic of the communist proiject itself. Its the same kind of reasoning that allows us to say that you cannot be a little bit pregnant. You are either pregnant or you are not.

What you are saying is just a more polite variation of the same kind of approach which dismisses all talk of getting rid of capitalism at a stroke as "idealistic" and insisting that we have to be "realistic" in phasing in a communist phase over an extended "transition period" commencing with the capture of political power by the workers. Rather like someone being progressively impregnated over an extended period of time and about as plausible (or not)


This simply will not do. It the proletariat continues to exist as a class after its capture of state power then by definition you have not moved beyond capitalism since the proletariat is an economic category that pertains par excellance to capitalism itsaelf. This is why the whole idea of a transitional society between capitalism and communism presided over by a so called workers state is a peice of sheer nonsense and fundamentally incoherent.

There is only one "class interest" that the working class has to see to upon its capture of state power and that is to abolish itself as the exploited class in capitalist society. Anthing less than this means that it is NOT the working class that has captured power but a vanguard which will inevitably emerge as a new ruling class and, in the name of the proletariat, will install a dictatorship over the proletariat.

And, incidentally, thereby shore up capitalism....

[Aurora]

I haven't followed the other thread but i thought i'd throw in my 2 cents.

No there will be no state in socialism, socialism is a truly social mode of production the means of production are no longer the property of the capitalists and no longer the property of the workers but have become common property as such there are no longer any classes or class antagonisms.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.
The defining feature of the state in any society is a monopoly of violence in the preservation of class rule, socialism has no classes and needs no institution to ensure the rule of any class.

But while there are no longer any classes there may not still be a high enough productivity of labour or level of culture for all to receive according to need as we have just emerged from capitalism, so distribution of the common stock of goods cannot be carried out in a communist manner and must therefore resort to the old methods of capitalism, payment according to work done, this is a bourgeois law and in order to ensure it there is a need for a method of accounting and control roughly homologous to the bourgeois state.


Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.
I'm not sure if Lenin should use the word state here as this is not a state in the proper sense of the word at all and only carries out some of the functions of a state, Engels suggests that instead of the word state we use 'gemeinwesen' roughly 'community' and i think this works better here than state.

[Lucretia]

I haven't followed the other thread but i thought i'd throw in my 2 cents.

No there will be no state in socialism, socialism is a truly social mode of production the means of production are no longer the property of the capitalists and no longer the property of the workers but have become common property as such there are no longer any classes or class antagonisms.

The defining feature of the state in any society is a monopoly of violence in the preservation of class rule, socialism has no classes and needs no institution to ensure the rule of any class.

But while there are no longer any classes there may not still be a high enough productivity of labour or level of culture for all to receive according to need as we have just emerged from capitalism, so distribution of the common stock of goods cannot be carried out in a communist manner and must therefore resort to the old methods of capitalism, payment according to work done, this is a bourgeois law and in order to ensure it there is a need for a method of accounting and control roughly homologous to the bourgeois state.


I'm not sure if Lenin should use the word state here as this is not a state in the proper sense of the word at all and only carries out some of the functions of a state, Engels suggests that instead of the word state we use 'gemeinwesen' roughly 'community' and i think this works better here than state.

I think the key part of your first quote is is the "insofar as" clause. He is clearly saying that there that the state shrinks significantly as a result of losing its function of suppressing entire classes. I invite you to participate in the other thread where I analyze portions of Lenin's State and Revolution in a way that demonstrates that Lenin did not believe that the state would be coterminous with the existence of classes. He viewed the state as coterminous with anti-social mentalities instigated by classes -- and these habits and mentalities would persist for a time even after classes were destroyed. Their disappearance would mark the entrance to the higher phase of communist society.

[GoddessCleoLover]

It seems logical that some type of "state" would be necessary following a proletarian revolution in order to manage scarcity until such time as the forces of production have developed sufficiently to abolish scarcity. Isn't this a basic tenet of classical pre-Lenin MArxism?

[Rafiq]

The existence of state dictatorship is of absolute necessity for any revolution to survive. The class enemy must be systematically oppressed, with methods even more organized than the ways they oppressed the proletarian class.

[A Marxist Historian]

It seems logical that some type of "state" would be necessary following a proletarian revolution in order to manage scarcity until such time as the forces of production have developed sufficiently to abolish scarcity. Isn't this a basic tenet of classical pre-Lenin MArxism?

Yes indeed, but the question is, is this "dictatorship of the proletariat" that Marx advocated a transitional affair appropriate to the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, which withers away as socialism is approached?

Or, as Lucretia argues in the other thread, will there still be a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" in a socialist society?

Lucretia argues here that the purpose of said state would be to curb crimes and other excesses by individuals, as opposed to suppressing the former ruling class. In fact, this understanding is explicitly contradicted by Lenin in a rather famous Lenin quote from the pamphlet,which I reproduce in the other thread.

What Lenin does say, rather casually towards the very end of the pamphlet, which was published in unfinished form, is that such a thing would be necessary to uphold "bourgeois," i.e. egalitarian in this context, modes of distribution, i.e to each according to his (or her) work, not according to his need as in full communism. Lucretia regards this sentence or two as Lenin's touchstone, the very essence of the Leninist understanding of the state.

I argue that this was loose, careless phraseology on his part, inconsistent with what Lenin argues in the rest of the pamphlet or anywhere else. And moreover disproved by actual historical examples, such as the stateless Iroquois, with no police, jails, courts or for that matter armies, who nonetheless managed to maintain their "bourgeois" equality of distribution of the goods of Iroquois society without any special "armed bodies of men" other than the armed community of male Iroquois braves, including all ofthem.

Fully addressing my and Lucretia's arguments can best be done by going to the other thread, where you can look at the full arguments, not just my and Lucretia's brief summaries. This is one point at least where I agree with Lucretia.

-M.H.-

[GoddessCleoLover]

Thanks for the explanation. It seems that perhaps Lenin was conflating notions of the state with functions that at least theoretically could be undertaken by institutions of civil society.

I am familiar enough with theories of the state, both bourgeois and Marxian, to see that even under socialism some institutions of authority will be necessary. Lucretia raised the issue of crime, and there is the more general issue of scarcity, after all once scarcity is conquered full communism will be possible. Until then, policies will have to be promulgated and enforced with respect to resource allocation.

This could be accomplished through institutions of civil society, but there are difficulties with that scenario. Social stratification is a good deal more complex that it was in the time of Marx and Lenin and it is at least arguable that some sort of state authority will be desirable or even necessary to enforce the DoP's social contract. I have to agree with Lucretia that criminality is likely to exist under the DoP, and I doubt that mere institutions of civil society would have sufficient authority to enforce criminal punishments. I appreciate AMH's analogy to Iroquois society, but that society had developed customs of authority without the need for a formal state. We have lived for generations upon generations in societies where some form of the state has existed, so it may take several generations to transition until institutions of civil society attain sufficient authority to supplant the state.

[Rooster]

No one denies that the state is an organ of class rule. This is basic Marxism. The Socialist State is the organ of the rule of the proletariat over other classes.

But calling something a "socialist state" doesn't make any sense using Marxist terminology. Socialist relates to classes and production, not to distribution. The proletariat doesn't need to dominate other classes, not in the way that a state usually rules over classes. The revolutionary process weakens the capitalist, not "the proletariat will conquer the state then they will conquer capitalism". Also...


The necessity of Proletarian rule is established by the fact that the proletariat is the sole revolutionary class in capitalist and post-capitalist society.

You haven't really said or proved anything here at all but you have managed to squeeze in the word fact there, like it proves your point.


How will the Proletariat crush the remnants of the old society without a tool? The tool is the State. The State is required for the Proletariat to subjugate every other class, just like the bourgeoisie uses the State to subjugate the productive classes.

Oh woo, analogies as an argument. What class would the proletariat subjugate? The capitalist? How can a capitalist class exist when the means of production are no longer being held privately? Answer: it can't. You have everything totally the wrong way around. It seems like you are saying that the proletariat must conquer state power first then set about creating socialism. Sounds an awful like the tired old reformist social democracy shite that Stalinists constantly spew out like it's revolutionary.


In State and Revolution, says just this. The immediate abolishing of the State after a Socialist revolution is idealistic and foolish, what other mechanism can the proletariat use to oppress and destroy the bourgeoisie, and more important, you're simply abolishing the state but not abolishing the conditions that lead to the State's creation(how can this be accomplished in a day, a month, or a year?).

Fuck sake. What other mechanism? What about revolution? Besides, how can a state survive when there are no longer any capitalists? Who is there to subjugate? Why would a proletariat let power slip into the hands of a state (that seems to be, in your eyes, made to subjugate people) and allow for continued exploitation?


Also, I must add, as there seems to be a misunderstanding about this, especially among anarchists here. When Marx and Engels talk about the "withering away of the state", they don't meant the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is abolished immediately, the model for Marx and Engels is the Paris Commune, where the bourgeois state was abolished immediately. The State, according to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, is abolished during the course of the Revolution. What "withers away" is the Proletarian state.

Meh, you're still missing the point here. How can classes just whither away? Through what? Orders from above?

[A Marxist Historian]

Thanks for the explanation. It seems that perhaps Lenin was conflating notions of the state with functions that at least theoretically could be undertaken by institutions of civil society.

I am familiar enough with theories of the state, both bourgeois and Marxian, to see that even under socialism some institutions of authority will be necessary. Lucretia raised the issue of crime, and there is the more general issue of scarcity, after all once scarcity is conquered full communism will be possible. Until then, policies will have to be promulgated and enforced with respect to resource allocation.

This could be accomplished through institutions of civil society, but there are difficulties with that scenario. Social stratification is a good deal more complex that it was in the time of Marx and Lenin and it is at least arguable that some sort of state authority will be desirable or even necessary to enforce the DoP's social contract. I have to agree with Lucretia that criminality is likely to exist under the DoP, and I doubt that mere institutions of civil society would have sufficient authority to enforce criminal punishments. I appreciate AMH's analogy to Iroquois society, but that society had developed customs of authority without the need for a formal state. We have lived for generations upon generations in societies where some form of the state has existed, so it may take several generations to transition until institutions of civil society attain sufficient authority to supplant the state.

Well, here you are at least raising a better argument than Lucretia's, which really boils down to Lenin said so so it must be true.

Has society developed to such a point that, whereas primitive communism did not require a state, a modern socialist society would require something resembling a state, a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" as Lenin put it? Perhaps something like that was on Lenin's mind.

But Lenin makes it pretty clear that criminality is *not* what he is worried about, he makes in fact a pretty strong argument that armed bodies of men are only necessary to keep down crime, as opposed to keeping down the oppressed classes, in a class society. And in fact police and jails were only invented in the early 19th century, a time closer to Lenin's days than our own. The New York Police Department, the first one in America to come into existence, was founded in ... the 1830s!

Instead, he suggests that it would be necessary due to scarcity, requiring rationing and so forth and working class cops to enforce it. Certainly something much on his mind in Russia in the year 1917! Indeed, according to Trotsky, this was exactly the basis for the birth of a Soviet bureaucracy, namely that with not enough food and other consumer goods to go around, you need somebody to regulate things, and those somebodies will inevitably sooner or later ensure that they get preferential treatment ... by themselves.

But I don't think you can attain a genuinely classless socialist society if you still have scarcity for basic necessities. You need a period of worldwide economic development, abolition of poverty, limiting of environmental damage, etc. etc., before a true socialist society can be created, which might actually take quite a while.

A socialist society will have to have a policy of "to each according to his work" not for basic life necessities like food, shelter and medicine, which were free or dirt cheap even in the USSR by the time Brezhnev was in power, but for everything else. And for that, I think civil society institutions should be perfectly adequate, no need for a bunch of guys with AK-47s to keep people in line and not jumping to the front of the line.

Hey, I've spent a good part of my life as a union activist, and on a day to day basis deciding who gets the dayshift, the preferred vacation days, etc. etc. is what unions do, if the union is strong enough so that management doesn't decide--like mine. And they do it according to fairly democratically adopted rules, usually that is, the usual rule being the seniority principle, and there is no need for enforcement by anything other than union consensus--usually that is, with some exceptions unfortunately.

I see no reason why a socialist society would need a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" for this purpose. And, come to think of it, I can see why Lenin might have thought otherwise in the year 1917, Russia being Russia.

-M.H.-

[GoddessCleoLover]

Am in agreement that scarcity would be the major imperative requiring a state during the transition to socialism, and am warming up to the idea that civil society institutions might be able to supplant the state prior to full Communism, but have reservations. Down here in Baltimore, too, we did not have a police department until just prior to the civil war. However, prior to that time there existed a constabulary in Baltimore, and I am fairly certain in New York, too. Certainly there were jails and prisons in Baltimore in that era before the police department as certainly there were in New York. The point of my digression into local history is to suggest that perhaps some state functions will exist while others will be abolished, that is that the state might be abolished in stages, with civil society institutions replacing state institutions.

[A Marxist Historian]

Am in agreement that scarcity would be the major imperative requiring a state during the transition to socialism, and am warming up to the idea that civil society institutions might be able to supplant the state prior to full Communism, but have reservations. Down here in Baltimore, too, we did not have a police department until just prior to the civil war. However, prior to that time there existed a constabulary in Baltimore, and I am fairly certain in New York, too. Certainly there were jails and prisons in Baltimore in that era before the police department as certainly there were in New York. The point of my digression into local history is to suggest that perhaps some state functions will exist while others will be abolished, that is that the state might be abolished in stages, with civil society institutions replacing state institutions.

Jails came in in England and France around about the time of the French Revolution. Before that, the methods of punishment were the stocks, the whipping post, and execution. The Bastille was for political prisoners. In general the prisons that existed were solely for holding people either pre-trial or pre-execution. Police did not exist, instead the local nobility would have their underlings keep the peace.

In America, with no nobility, there were no equivalents of the police, and certainly no jails. You'd have a sheriff, who'd deputize people as needed, like in the west later. Essentially law and order was maintained by the extremely well-armed community--to the degree that it was maintained at all, which is questionable.

Jails and prisons were slower to evolve here than in Europe. In New York, the institution that existed prior to the police was local constables whose main job was not the hopeless task, which nobody bothered with in New York, of trying to prevent crime, but rather acting as fences. If you wanted to get your stuff back after it was stolen, you'd go to the constable, who would sell it back to you, after having bought it from the thieves.

This is why the NYPD was historically and by its origins a subdivision of the criminal class, something that really hasn't changed as much as cop shows might lead you to believe. Serpico is the only truthful description at all recently of the New York police department.

Since the Harlem riots of the '60s it has changed a bit, and is now not so much a criminal enterprise, like it still is in Philadelphia pretty much, as an organization for subjugating minorities, especially blacks, as in the downright totalitarian "stop and frisk" policy of the Bloomberg administration, under which any cop at any time may stop and frisk anybody who looks like a criminal, i.e. has the wrong skin color.

So, now that the New York police serve a function that is not simply criminal, they have been cleaned up a bit.

-M.H.-

[Lucretia]

Yes indeed, but the question is, is this "dictatorship of the proletariat" that Marx advocated a transitional affair appropriate to the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, which withers away as socialism is approached?

Or, as Lucretia argues in the other thread, will there still be a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" in a socialist society?

Lucretia argues here that the purpose of said state would be to curb crimes and other excesses by individuals, as opposed to suppressing the former ruling class. In fact, this understanding is explicitly contradicted by Lenin in a rather famous Lenin quote from the pamphlet,which I reproduce in the other thread.

What Lenin does say, rather casually towards the very end of the pamphlet, which was published in unfinished form, is that such a thing would be necessary to uphold "bourgeois," i.e. egalitarian in this context, modes of distribution, i.e to each according to his (or her) work, not according to his need as in full communism. Lucretia regards this sentence or two as Lenin's touchstone, the very essence of the Leninist understanding of the state.

I argue that this was loose, careless phraseology on his part, inconsistent with what Lenin argues in the rest of the pamphlet or anywhere else. And moreover disproved by actual historical examples, such as the stateless Iroquois, with no police, jails, courts or for that matter armies, who nonetheless managed to maintain their "bourgeois" equality of distribution of the goods of Iroquois society without any special "armed bodies of men" other than the armed community of male Iroquois braves, including all ofthem.

Fully addressing my and Lucretia's arguments can best be done by going to the other thread, where you can look at the full arguments, not just my and Lucretia's brief summaries. This is one point at least where I agree with Lucretia.

-M.H.-

Here you go again claiming that *I* am arguing that there will be a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie, when that is a direct quote from *Lenin.* It's almost like you're in denial, MH.

And no, I don't really argue anything in this thread. I make a number of assertions in this thread, then point people to the actual textual analyses and arguments which support those assertions and which I made in the other thread -- which you have yet to respond to. And it is an argument that doesn't just rely exclusively on the "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" quote that you seem hellbent on discrediting. Even if we pretended that quote never existed, Lenin plainly make clear in his text that there will be a state under socialism.

And to reiterate a very elementary logical point that doesn't even require a close textual analysis of Lenin's work: it is impossible for a state to be withering away in a socialist society, if there by definition cannot be a state in socialism. Something cannot exist in the process of withering away if it doesn't exist. Simple, no? The fact that Lenin and Engels talk about the state withering away as a precondition for entry into a higher phase of communist society demonstrates that they anticipate the existence of a state -- a shrinking, withering state -- during the lower phase.

You can debate about Native American tribes and anthropological data on political institutions in pre-modern societies all you want. But what *I* am debating is what Lenin's position was, NOT whether that position was correct and corresponded to the latest anthropological data. Once we've established Lenin's position, we might, MIGHT be able to have a reasonable discussion about the validity of said position. But judging on the basis of your exchanges with me to this point, I doubt it would be a productive one.

[A Marxist Historian]

Here you go again claiming that *I* am arguing that there will be a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie, when that is a direct quote from *Lenin.* It's almost like you're in denial, MH.

And no, I don't really argue anything in this thread. I make a number of assertions in this thread, then point people to the actual textual analyses and arguments which support those assertions and which I made in the other thread -- which you have yet to respond to. And it is an argument that doesn't just rely exclusively on the "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" quote that you seem hellbent on discrediting. Even if we pretended that quote never existed, Lenin plainly make clear in his text that there will be a state under socialism.

And to reiterate a very elementary logical point that doesn't even require a close textual analysis of Lenin's work: it is impossible for a state to be withering away in a socialist society, if there by definition cannot be a state in socialism. Something cannot exist in the process of withering away if it doesn't exist. Simple, no? The fact that Lenin and Engels talk about the state withering away as a precondition for entry into a higher phase of communist society demonstrates that they anticipate the existence of a state -- a shrinking, withering state -- during the lower phase.

You can debate about Native American tribes and anthropological data on political institutions in pre-modern societies all you want. But what *I* am debating is what Lenin's position was, NOT whether that position was correct and corresponded to the latest anthropological data. Once we've established Lenin's position, we might, MIGHT be able to have a reasonable discussion about the validity of said position. But judging on the basis of your exchanges with me to this point, I doubt it would be a productive one.

Like I have kept saying, you treat every word Lenin wrote as if it were a quote from the Holy Bible. This is not Marxism, but pseudo-Marxist dogmatism in the fashion of Stalinist or Brezhnevite "Marxist-Leninists."

The question is whether this iidea that there will be a state under socialism is correct or not, and whether this fits in with Lenin's general conceptions. Not whether you can find a solitary quote from Lenin to back up your position! We are discussing politics not theology.

And no, other than your solitary quote with the "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" phrase in it, you haven't given any significant evidence that Lenin believed that there would be a state under socialism. Much less Marx or Engels!

Just about everybody before you who has read State and Revolution has understood that the state that Lenin saw as withering away was the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state that, according to both Marx and Lenin, corresponds to the transitional period in between capitalism and socialism.

After all, you do agree socialism is a classless society, I should hope? You don't agree with some of our cruder and less sophisticated Stalinists here, who, unlike Stalin himself I shall note, claim that you will still have classes in a socialist society?

If there is no proletariat, then there can't be a dictatorship of a nonexistent class, now is there?

In your schema, apparently, the workers state gets replaced, under socialism, by a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie"!

Why didn't Lenin notice this contradiction, and clean up the sloppy formulation you are harping on? Because he was kinda busy at the time, and the pamphlet was published in an unfinished state.

And because, of course, from Lenin's POV what was on the agenda in Russia was overthrowing the capitalists and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, not establishing a socialist utopia next week. So it is unsurprising if he might have been a bit inexact in his speculations about the far future.

-M.H.-

[Lucretia]

Like I have kept saying, you treat every word Lenin wrote as if it were a quote from the Holy Bible. This is not Marxism, but pseudo-Marxist dogmatism in the fashion of Stalinist or Brezhnevite "Marxist-Leninists."

I do not treat everything Lenin said as holy writ anymore than I treat everything Marx said as holy writ. But Lenin did manage to lead the only somewhat successful socialist-aspiring revolution in world history, so I think his pamphlet on revolution should be taken pretty seriously. Not accepted unquestioningly, but first of all comprehended, and only then evaluated.

Anyhow, this shift in approach from you so that you are now attacking me for being too dogmatic a Leninist seems be at least to signal a tacit admission that, yes, Lenin does indeed argue that there will be a state in the lower phase of communism.


And no, other than your solitary quote with the "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie" phrase in it, you haven't given any significant evidence that Lenin believed that there would be a state under socialism. Much less Marx or Engels!

I have provided a lot more than that one solitary quote in the Lev Bronsteinovich thread, in a post you have coincidentally not bothered responding to. I am not going to spam the board by reproducing the post wherever you insist on hiding out with your fingers plugged firmly into your ears.


Just about everybody before you who has read State and Revolution has understood that the state that Lenin saw as withering away was the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state that, according to both Marx and Lenin, corresponds to the transitional period in between capitalism and socialism.

I don't care about who this phantom "everybody" is you are citing in defense of your views. I cite Lenin's text in support of my views of what Lenin did or did not believe, rather than holding a vote among my Spart friends.


After all, you do agree socialism is a classless society, I should hope? You don't agree with some of our cruder and less sophisticated Stalinists here, who, unlike Stalin himself I shall note, claim that you will still have classes in a socialist society?

Of course socialism is a classless society. But Lenin's point was that classless does not mean a society without violence or without any coercion.


If there is no proletariat, then there can't be a dictatorship of a nonexistent class, now is there?

You are confusing things pretty considerably here. At not point in his pamphlet did Lenin call the state under the lower phase of communism a "dictatorship of the proletariat." That, obviously, refers to the transition period when one class (the workers) use the state to suppress other classes (the bourgeoisie, the gentry, etc.).


In your schema, apparently, the workers state gets replaced, under socialism, by a "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie"!

Under Lenin's schema -- not my schema -- the state continues to exist in a diminished form under the first phase of communist society so as to coerce individuals rather than entire classes. Why is this? Because there is no one-to-one correspondence between economics and culture, and just because the means of production are under the control of democratically accountable institutions representing all workers, does not mean that the cultural residue -- the selfishness, the sense of over-entitlement -- that comes from bourgeois society will suddenly disappear also. It lingers, and because it lingers, so will the state.


Why didn't Lenin notice this contradiction, and clean up the sloppy formulation you are harping on? Because he was kinda busy at the time, and the pamphlet was published in an unfinished state.

Um, if you even bothered to read the paragraph after the one where Lenin uses the formulation of "bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie," Lenin quite plainly states that it appears to be a contradiction, then anticipates and mocks the response of somebody like you for failing to understand dialectics and the complexity of Marxist thought. It's almost uncanny.

[Franz Fanonipants]

i wouldn't know i'm not in the business of making recipes for imaginary bakeries

[Marvin the Marxian]

Marxism teaches that the state is part of the superstructure, right? And the superstructure rests on the material base, right? So if the material base is changed by the proletariat, the old superstructure will come down. This will include the capitalist state.

The transformation of production and property relations by the proletariat will mean the de facto liquidation of the capitalist class. I don't mean all the capitalists will be put up against a wall and shot. Rather, their exclusive control over means of production - which is what made them capitalists - will be eliminated. And since the capitalists will be eliminated as a class, so the proletariat will be eliminated as a class. The classless society will thus be achieved.

Will there be a state under socialism? No. A state is an instrument of class rule. The classless society, by definition, has no room for such an instrument. However, that doesn't mean there won't be any administrative apparatus.

Seizing state power without transforming the material base simply leads to substituting a new ruling class for the old. If the material base doesn't change, how can the superstructure really change?

[Comrade Jandar]

In theory, the seizure of the state sounds like a great idea. It makes perfect sense that a strong, centralized form of polity is needed to repress the bourgeois. The only problem is that in every workers state the bourgeois managed to worm there way into power and it ended up being a to tool repress the proletariat instead, especially those sectors which were even more radical than government itself. Active repression of the bourgeois is absolutely necessary, but history has shown that the state is not the best tool with which to do this.

[Dave B]

Not been following this one however from Vlad in 1915

V. I. Lenin KARL MARX (A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism)




Socialism, by leading to the abolition of classes, will thereby lead to the abolition of the state.

"The first act,"

writes Engels in Anti-Dühring,

"in which the state realIy comes forward as the representative of society as a whole -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not 'abolished,' it withers away."

"The society that will organize production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning

page 39

wheel and the bronze axe."

(Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.)


http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/KM14.html

Uncle Joe said much the same thing in 1906, pretty much our Robbo’s position as well I think?


J. V. Stalin ANARCHISM or SOCIALISM?, 1906




Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there is no need for a state, there is no

page 337

need either for political power, which oppresses the poor and protects the rich. Consequently, in socialist society there will be no need for the existence of political power



That is why Karl Marx said as far back as 1846:


"The working class in the course of its development Will substitute for the old bourgeois society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called .

. . " (see The Poverty of Philosophy).

That is why Engels said in 1884:

"The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no conception of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity. . . . We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. The society that will organise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe"

(see The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State).


http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3

Incidentally Lenin effectively disowned his own ‘State and Revolution’ thing in 1918 as it didn’t exactly fit in with his manifesto for state capitalism.

Bukharin, taking the piss sarcastically, wrote a flattering review of it in early 1918.

Lenin was never so modest as to avoid later quoting himself, particularly when it came to his advocacy of state capitalism, but he never again referred back to his utopian ‘State and Revolution’ thing.

Apart from once when he was buttering up Sylvia Pankhurst whilst telling her what a great bunch of guys the Anarchists were, before the Kronstadt.

[Dave B]

V. I. Lenin

Letter to Sylvia Pankhurst

Written: 28 August, 1919




Very many anarchist workers are now becoming sincere supporters of Soviet power, and that being so, it proves them to be our best comrades and friends, the best of revolutionaries, who have been enemies of Marxism only through misunderstanding, or, more correctly, not through misunderstanding but because the official socialism prevailing in the epoch of the Second International (1889-1914) betrayed Marxism, lapsed into opportunism, perverted Marx’s revolutionary teachings in general and his teachings on the lessons of the Paris Commune of 1871 in particular.

I have written in detail about this in my book The State and Revolution and will therefore not dwell further on the problem.http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/28.htm

[robbo203]

Not been following this one however from Vlad in 1915

V. I. Lenin KARL MARX (A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism)





http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/KM14.html

Uncle Joe said much the same thing in 1906, pretty much our Robbo’s position as well I think?


J. V. Stalin ANARCHISM or SOCIALISM?, 1906




Yeah but Engels said the same thing too

In the quote you gave, Engels said

"in which the state realIy comes forward as the representative of society as a whole -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state.


What that means is that the existence of a state is incompatible with common ownership of the means of production - communism. However , Lenin argued that in the lower phase of communism (which he incorrectly labelled "socialism") workers would become hired employees of the state. Lenin was saying in other words that the existence of the state is quite compatible with common ownership.

This is a radical departure from the Marxist theory of the state and is yet another example of why it is that that absurd construction, Marxism-Leninism, is, in so many ways, a contradiction in terms. In many ways Marxism and Leninism are two quite different and distinct ways of looking at the world

[A Marxist Historian]

Yeah but Engels said the same thing too

In the quote you gave, Engels said

"in which the state realIy comes forward as the representative of society as a whole -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state.


What that means is that the existence of a state is incompatible with common ownership of the means of production - communism. However , Lenin argued that in the lower phase of communism (which he incorrectly labelled "socialism") workers would become hired employees of the state. Lenin was saying in other words that the existence of the state is quite compatible with common ownership.

This is a radical departure from the Marxist theory of the state and is yet another example of why it is that that absurd construction, Marxism-Leninism, is, in so many ways, a contradiction in terms. In many ways Marxism and Leninism are two quite different and distinct ways of looking at the world

If you were to accept Lucretia's reading of Lenin, I would have to agree with you. I do not.

Even Lucretia would not go so far as to claim that the existence of the state is compatible with common ownership, though that is the logical conclusion of his line of argument. It certainly was not Lenin's position, Lucretia to the contrary.

-M.H.-

[Dave B]

It would be useful to note that it is a myth and a much stated post 1930’s Trotskyist lie to insinuate that Bolshevik Russia was in anyway an ‘application’ of Lenin’s interpretation of the transitional phase in his ‘State and Revolution’.

There never had been any ideas in Marxism (irrespective of what position you take) of the lower phase of communism, or under "socialism", involving ‘highest possible intensification of the principle of the State’.

Even the wildest Anarchist calumnies against Marxism never went so far as to say that Marxism had openly advocated that.

But that was the position of the Bolsheviks and Trotsky in 1920; whilst the Bolsheviks still enjoyed the support of the Anarchist if not the almost politically extinguished and semi-legal left-Mensheviks

Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism;



Only this unquestionable truth must be a little extended. In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State.

And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction.

Now just that insignificant little fact – that historical step of the State dictatorship – Abramovich, and in his person the whole of Menshevism, did not notice; and consequently, he has fallen over it.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm


You might want to argue that later Lenin by 1922 had gone completely off the rails with his ‘state capitalism under communism’ but at least he admitted his heresy;

Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(Bourgeois Intelligentsia)



Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on thissubject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it. That is why we must overcome the difficulty entirely by ourselves.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm


Never mind the idea (coming from the white collar central committee of a party of the Bourgeois Intelligentsia none of whom except perhaps one, could be ragarded as a member of the industrial proletariat) that people who worked in factories were not the proletariat.

From the same;


Are the social and economic conditions in our country today such as to induce real proletarians to go into the factories? No. It would be true according to Marx; but Marx did not write about Russia; he wrote about capitalism as a whole, beginning with the fifteenth century. It held true over a period of six hundred years, but it is not true for present-day Russia. Very often those who go into the factories are not proletarians; they are casual elements of every description.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm


Given that Lenin was advocating State Capitalism, and thus sticking with Marxist orthodoxy of his stageist theory.

Then the state and capitalism go together like a horse and carriage and you can’t have one without the other unless you are an Anarcho-capitalist and I wouldn’t accuse Lenin of that.

[robbo203]

If you were to accept Lucretia's reading of Lenin, I would have to agree with you. I do not.

Even Lucretia would not go so far as to claim that the existence of the state is compatible with common ownership, though that is the logical conclusion of his line of argument. It certainly was not Lenin's position, Lucretia to the contrary.

-M.H.-

No I sorry but you are quite mistaken on this point.

Lenin's position was that the state would remain in what he called "socialism" by which he meant the lower phase of communism (not a distinction to be found in Marx). He acknowleged that the lower phase of communism (his "socialism") would be based on the common ownership of the means of production but argued that the state would be necessary to protect this common property. See chapter 5 of State and Revolution where Lenin says

To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

This is absurd and it is certainly is a radical departure from a Marxian theory of the state since it clearly suggests that the state has some function other than that of a tool of class oppression. Afteralll, if there is common ownership there are no classes. Therefore the existence of the state must be atrributable to something other than class/ Lenin also talks about wages existing in socialism or lower communism with" all citizens being transformed into hired employees of the state" This too has nothing to do with Marx's conception of lower communism which entailed not waged labour but labour vouchersIts pretty obvious, reading Lenin, where he went wrong. He is conflating Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat with the lower phase of communism. These are two distinct concepts with the former preceding the latter in time. Now I dont agree with Marx's idea of the DOTP and have explained the reasons for my disagreement many times before but it has to be said that all it is meant to amount to is a political transition period - not some new mode of production - in which the state continues to exist precisely because it is not yet communism.


However, when the DOTP comes to an end the state disappears. It does not continue into the lower phase of communism. And indeed from a marxian perspective it would make absolutely no sense to think that it should
As Engels says in Anti-Dühring,


"The first act in which the state realIy comes forward as the representative of society as a whole
the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. (bold mine_

[A Marxist Historian]

It would be useful to note that it is a myth and a much stated post 1930’s Trotskyist lie to insinuate that Bolshevik Russia was in anyway an ‘application’ of Lenin’s interpretation of the transitional phase in his ‘State and Revolution’.

There never had been any ideas in Marxism (irrespective of what position you take) of the lower phase of communism, or under "socialism", involving ‘highest possible intensification of the principle of the State’.

Even the wildest Anarchist calumnies against Marxism never went so far as to say that Marxism had openly advocated that.

But that was the position of the Bolsheviks and Trotsky in 1920; whilst the Bolsheviks still enjoyed the support of the Anarchist if not the almost politically extinguished and semi-legal left-Mensheviks

Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch08.htm



Our right wing, counterrevolutionary Menshevik researcher has found a useful quote for this discussion.

I repeat it:

"Only this unquestionable truth must be a little extended. In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State.

And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction.

Now just that insignificant little fact – that historical step of the State dictatorship – Abramovich, and in his person the whole of Menshevism, did not notice; and consequently, he has fallen over it."

There you go, Lucretia. Trotsky was talking about socialism, not communism.

Or perhaps you think that Trotsky meant that you'd have "the most ruthless form of state" under socialism, but that it would fade away into communism? As Dave B. argues?

That would in fact be Stalin's argument too, though expressed more cogently than Stalin ever managed to.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

No I sorry but you are quite mistaken on this point.

Lenin's position was that the state would remain in what he called "socialism" by which he meant the lower phase of communism (not a distinction to be found in Marx). He acknowleged that the lower phase of communism (his "socialism") would be based on the common ownership of the means of production but argued that the state would be necessary to protect this common property. See chapter 5 of State and Revolution where Lenin says

To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

This is absurd and it is certainly is a radical departure from a Marxian theory of the state since it clearly suggests that the state has some function other than that of a tool of class oppression. Afteralll, if there is common ownership there are no classes. Therefore the existence of the state must be atrributable to something other than class/ Lenin also talks about wages existing in socialism or lower communism with" all citizens being transformed into hired employees of the state" This too has nothing to do with Marx's conception of lower communism which entailed not waged labour but labour vouchersIts pretty obvious, reading Lenin, where he went wrong. He is conflating Marx's dictatorship of the proletariat with the lower phase of communism. These are two distinct concepts with the former preceding the latter in time. Now I dont agree with Marx's idea of the DOTP and have explained the reasons for my disagreement many times before but it has to be said that all it is meant to amount to is a political transition period - not some new mode of production - in which the state continues to exist precisely because it is not yet communism.


However, when the DOTP comes to an end the state disappears. It does not continue into the lower phase of communism. And indeed from a marxian perspective it would make absolutely no sense to think that it should
As Engels saysin Anti-Dühring,


"The first act in which the state realIy comes forward as the representative of society as a whole
the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. (bold mine_


As discussed between me and Lucretia in the other thread, I do think that there are a few lines in this pamphlet where Lenin was a bit slipshod in his phraseology in a pamphlet hurried to publication in unfinished form as revolution was breaking out. But the overwhelming bulk of the argument in the pamphlet is fully in line with the Marxist conception, which you perfectly accurately portray, that the state will not exist under socialism.

Indeed, how could you have the dictatorship of the proletariat in socialism, a classless society, which has no proletariat?

And besides, why would one need armed bodies of men just to guard over the principle "to each according to his work"? Unions in capitalist society have no need for bands of goons to enforce fairness in following seniority rules etc., and I see no need for armed bodies of men to do that kind of thing under socialism. Indeed the best argument against that idea is Lenin's own in the pamphlet, in a quote I reproduced there which is very famous and I am sure you are familiar with.

-M.H.-

[Dave B]

I think it is possible that Trotsky in his “Terrorism and Communism” is there using the term socialism, as Robbo tirelessly explains, interchangeably with communism.

Ie the socialism/communism where;


…we shall be moved by the feeling of duty, the habit of working, the attractiveness of labor, etc., etc.
Which looks more like Lenin’s “Communist labour in the narrower and stricter sense of the term”.


Where, also in 1920;



labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas;

it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good—labour as the requirement of a healthy organism.

It must be clear to everybody that we, i.e., our society, our social system, are still a very long way from the application of this form of labour on a broad, really mass scale.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/apr/11.htm

That chapter in Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism was apparently actually delivered as a speech to a trade union congress, I think in 1919.

At which the internationalist Zimmerwald left Menshevik Abramovich was in attendance as an elected delegate.

The ‘counter-revolutionary’ Menshevik Abramovich was clearly putting forward the case for socialism/communism as against ‘dictatorial state capitalism’.


The Bolsheviks were still having problems keeping the Mensheviks out of the trade unions and in Trotsky’s ‘trash can of history’.

Despite the fact that thousands of middle ranking Mensheviks were still turning up dead in canals with their heads smashed in; and more nameless ‘Rosa Luxembourgs’ than you could shake a stick at.

Martov estimated it at about 10,000 in a private letter I think.

It must be so annoying for the ‘Marxist Historian’ to see the trash can lid fly off and for ‘them’ to appear again a hundred years later in a place like this.

(Although I am no 2nd international Menshevik myself.)

Anyway it could be argued, from a Bolshevik perspective, that state capitalism was the ‘one and the same road’ or another transition phase, to the lower phase of communism (or socialism).

And that this total state capitalism would be [I]reformed towards socialism by the same kind of process as Bernstiens ‘Evolutionary Socialism’

Thus sticking with ‘roads’ and Lenin advocating the state capitalist stage in 1918;


“Left-Wing” Childishness


……it is one and the same road that leads ……. to both large-scale state capitalism and to socialism, through one and the same intermediary station called “national accounting and control of production and distribution”. Those who fail to understand this are committing an unpardonable mistake in economics. Either they do not know the facts of life, do not see what actually exists and are unable to look the truth in the face, or they confine themselves to abstractly comparing “capitalism” with “socialism” and fail to study the concrete forms and stages of the transition [within state capitalism] that [are] taking place in our country.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm


In fact that was exactly Mao Tse-tung’s position in 1953, at least he had read and understood his Lenin and Trotsky, with more concrete steps, roads and transitions to socialism.


THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE


September 7, 1953



3. The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. "Clearly understood" means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism.

http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html


At this point theoretically Bernstien, Kautsky (in his post 1920 programme for nationalization), Lenin and Mao all converge and all claimed differences are mere casuistry as all the road(s) to socialism become the evolutionary reform of (state) capitalism and the transition to ‘socialism’.

Albeit Bernstien and Kautsky differing by preferring it to be done democratically.

And all those opposing such an idea would be, as Lenin put it;



“abstractly comparing ‘capitalism’ with ‘socialism’ and” opposing the reforming [state] capitalist “stages of the transition that [are] taking place”.

Interestingly Trotsky, whilst a Menshevik and in the last and deleted chapter of his Our Political Tasks, said that the Bolsheviks in power would end up being capitalist reformers like Bernstien.


.

[PhantomRei]

" How will the Proletariat crush the remnants of the old society without a tool? The tool is the State. The State is required for the Proletariat to subjugate every other class, just like the bourgeoisie uses the State to subjugate the productive classes.

In State and Revolution, says just this. The immediate abolishing of the State after a Socialist revolution is idealistic and foolish, what other mechanism can the proletariat use to oppress and destroy the bourgeoisie, and more important, you're simply abolishing the state but not abolishing the conditions that lead to the State's creation(how can this be accomplished in a day, a month, or a year?).

Also, I must add, as there seems to be a misunderstanding about this, especially among anarchists here. When Marx and Engels talk about the "withering away of the state", they don't meant the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is abolished immediately, the model for Marx and Engels is the Paris Commune, where the bourgeois state was abolished immediately. The State, according to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, is abolished during the course of the Revolution. What "withers away" is the Proletarian state"

What I don't get is why the dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be incompatible with anarchism.

[Rooster]

" How will the Proletariat crush the remnants of the old society without a tool? The tool is the State. The State is required for the Proletariat to subjugate every other class, just like the bourgeoisie uses the State to subjugate the productive classes.

In State and Revolution, says just this. The immediate abolishing of the State after a Socialist revolution is idealistic and foolish, what other mechanism can the proletariat use to oppress and destroy the bourgeoisie, and more important, you're simply abolishing the state but not abolishing the conditions that lead to the State's creation(how can this be accomplished in a day, a month, or a year?).

Also, I must add, as there seems to be a misunderstanding about this, especially among anarchists here. When Marx and Engels talk about the "withering away of the state", they don't meant the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is abolished immediately, the model for Marx and Engels is the Paris Commune, where the bourgeois state was abolished immediately. The State, according to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, is abolished during the course of the Revolution. What "withers away" is the Proletarian state"

What I don't get is why the dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be incompatible with anarchism.

But what mode of production is prevailing under all of this? Where does socialism fit in?

[A Marxist Historian]

But what mode of production is prevailing under all of this? Where does socialism fit in?

Rooster, you know the classic answer to that one, namely that, as Marx and Lenin put it, the dictatorship of the proletariat corresponds to the period of transition in between capitalism and socialism.

Dave B. the Menshevik (as well as a lot of other folk too) is trying to create confusion about this by dragging in Lenin's discussion of "state capitalism." Lenin was actually quite clear that what he meant by that was not state ownership of means of production under a capitalist state, like say the US post office, but the proletarian state making use of private capitalism and private capitalists in the process of building socialism. The NEPmen, the kulaks, concessions to the hoped-for foreign investors.

As he put it in "On Cooperation," his last statement on the subject,

"the practical purpose was always important to me. And the practical purpose of our New Economic Policy was to lease out concessions. In the prevailing circumstances, concessions in our country would unquestionably have been a pure type of state capitalism. That is how I argued about state capitalism."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm

He never was referring to the state sector, which is what our "state capitalists" of all stripes claim he was talking about.

-M.H.-

[Lucretia]

I see that this discussion has continued and that the very people who are accusing Lenin of "sloppy phraseology" are themselves being sloppy in bandying about the word "state." Marx and Engels and Lenin all believed that class society results in a state in the "proper sense" -- superimposed on society as an alien force. In his theorizing about the transition from capitalism to the RDoP to socialism to full communism, Lenin posits that while a state in the "proper sense" disappears with elimination of class, a state in the broader sense -- a specialized institution devoted to enforcing public decisions, will continue to exist. You can play semantic games and suggest, "Oh, well that broader meaning of 'state' does not denote a 'state' at all!" But that doesn't get us very far in analyzing the various forms that power will take, and the essential relations which underlie those forms, in the transition to communism. Which, if you recall, was really the entire purpose to Lenin's pamphlet.

So let's bracket aside this question of whether the "state" Lenin envisions in the lower phase of communism should actually be called a state or whether it is "sloppy" language. Instead, let's get to the heart of the matter: do you disagree with the crux of Lenin's point, that there will need to be such an institution to enforce common control over the means of production, esp. in terms of distribution in the lower phase of communism? If no such institution is necessary, and people will magically acquire a fully communist consciousness as soon as the revolution has been won, then doesn't that also undermine Leninist claims about the uneven development of class consciousness and how consciousness cannot directly be read off from material conditions?

[A Marxist Historian]

I see that this discussion has continued and that the very people who are accusing Lenin of "sloppy phraseology" are themselves being sloppy in bandying about the word "state." Marx and Engels and Lenin all believed that class society results in a state in the "proper sense" -- superimposed on society as an alien force. In his theorizing about the transition from capitalism to the RDoP to socialism to full communism, Lenin posits that while a state in the "proper sense" disappears with elimination of class, a state in the broader sense -- a specialized institution devoted to enforcing public decisions, will continue to exist. You can play semantic games and suggest, "Oh, well that broader meaning of 'state' does not denote a 'state' at all!" But that doesn't get us very far in analyzing the various forms that power will take, and the essential relations which underlie those forms, in the transition to communism. Which, if you recall, was really the entire purpose to Lenin's pamphlet.

So let's bracket aside this question of whether the "state" Lenin envisions in the lower phase of communism should actually be called a state or whether it is "sloppy" language. Instead, let's get to the heart of the matter: do you disagree with the crux of Lenin's point, that there will need to be such an institution to enforce common control over the means of production, esp. in terms of distribution in the lower phase of communism? If no such institution is necessary, and people will magically acquire a fully communist consciousness as soon as the revolution has been won, then doesn't that also undermine Leninist claims about the uneven development of class consciousness and how consciousness cannot directly be read off from material conditions?

Looking back on this discussion, I am willing to concede that this *may* have been an argument over definitions and word meanings, and that getting to the heart of the matter is desirable, rather than arguing over exactly how to parse lines from Lenin in the manner of medieval monks.

And the heart of the matter is indeed, as Lucretia puts it, whether an organization of coercion is necessary in the lower phase of communism to enforce distribution norms and rules.

I would argue that the answer is no, except perhaps for a few years at the beginning. Once you have attained a classless society and general prosperity, even if not fully communist, you don't have the material basis for social conflicts developing to the level of violence over such relatively minor considerations as, say, just how much extra of the social product you get access to if you work harder and better than someone else.

IMHO you can't possibly have a socialist society except on a world basis, and except when the entire world has attained a standard of living at least equal to that of the so-called "middle class" in America today. Until then, we'll still have classes, as if there is a fundamental difference in living standards between somebody in London and somebody in Uganda you do not yet have a classless society.

And we'll still have a dictatorship of the proletariat overseeing the creation of a world socialist society, and it could take awhile. Quite likely more than enough time for fundamental transformations in popular consciousness, so we aren't talking about stir once and add water magic, in the anarchist fashion.

Why? Well, partially because of my years of experience as a unionist, in which such matters, who gets the plum vacation days, the best shift assignments, etc. etc. never seemed to require violence to settle, people were always willing to follow union rules if they were perceived as fair. And that's in a thoroughly capitalist society.

And also on a historical basis. Societies which are relatively classless and relatively egalitarian, though often extremely violent in conflict with other societies, have usually been internally peaceful and have not required the existence of a state, if they were at least reasonably prosperous.

The prime example I'm familiar with is North American Indian societies, but I'm sure this has been true elsewhere as well.

I live in California, where the Native American standard of living was higher than anywhere else, and where you had remarkably little violence even between different Indian tribes and "tribelets," much less internally within them. And, like most North American Indian societies, no separate state apparatus of coercion whatsoever.

-M.H.-

[Railyon]

And we'll still have a dictatorship of the proletariat overseeing the creation of a world socialist society, and it could take awhile. Quite likely more than enough time for fundamental transformations in popular consciousness, so we aren't talking about stir once and add water magic, in the anarchist fashion.

Come on, that's just a cheap potshot. It's not even controversial among anarchists that people don't just wake up one day and say, let's go FULL COMMUNISM. I mean, duh really... :confused:

[TrotskistMarx]

I agree with this power-realist theory of political reality. There needs to be indeed a government with strong police, strong military, strong intelligence national security departments as policing-tools to prevent the new workers-government to be overthrown by the right-winger corporate elites. Who will still be economically and even militarily strong after they have been overthrown. We can't be utopian and idealistics. We have to be very realists about the evil nature of the world


.



The existence of state dictatorship is of absolute necessity for any revolution to survive. The class enemy must be systematically oppressed, with methods even more organized than the ways they oppressed the proletarian class.

[A Marxist Historian]

Come on, that's just a cheap potshot. It's not even controversial among anarchists that people don't just wake up one day and say, let's go FULL COMMUNISM. I mean, duh really... :confused:

Maybe among your more intelligent anarchists, but here we are on Revleft, where a whole lot of anarchists, especially the so-called "hipster communists," think exactly that.

You're new here right? If you can raise the level of anarchist discourse here, good for you.

-M.H.-

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Socialism is the Transition Phase between Capitalism and Communism

"Socialism is merely State-Capitalist-Monopoly in the interest of the working class" - Lenin

Marxists have basically used the terms DoP&Socialism interchangeably. Once workers control their own production and not the state apparatus, there is the 'lower phase' of communism, which could be achieved relatively fast in highly advanced capitalist societies. So in history workers have always called for "Socialism" during revolution, used interchangeably with the DoP, workers' state. I am really a bit tired of tendency wars over the terminology, but to marxists workers control is the beginning of (a lower phase of) communism that takes a certain economic stability and development to achieve.

[A Marxist Historian]

- Lenin

Marxists have basically used the terms DoP&Socialism interchangeably. Once workers control their own production and not the state apparatus, there is the 'lower phase' of communism, which could be achieved relatively fast in highly advanced capitalist societies. So in history workers have always called for "Socialism" during revolution, used interchangeably with the DoP, workers' state. I am really a bit tired of tendency wars over the terminology, but to marxists workers control is the beginning of (a lower phase of) communism that takes a certain economic stability and development to achieve.

Tilt! Tilt! Program fail! Reboot!

Have any Marxists ever used the terms DoP and Socialism interchangeably? Not to my knowledge.

Have workers who have not studied Marxist theory, or for that matter frankly not have been too interested in it either, used those terms interchangeably during revolutions? Well, probably. And doubtless this did no particular harm. Nonetheless, it does confuse matters.

If workers control is the lower phase of communism according to marxists, how is that you can scan everything that Marx, or Engels, ever wrote, and not find them ever using the phrase "workers control," in any circumstance?

And how can you have workers control in communism, a classless society, in which no separate working class even exists?

-M.H.-

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

No such thing as a workers' state. That is a paradox since the state works for those who are of power, whether wealth, affiliation, or political demographics that define power in the society. The USSR wasn't ever going to become state-less, they were just like their Capitalist counterparts, they hungered for power.