Marx and Lenin on constitutionalism

[jookyle]

Does anyone know of any writings Marx, Engels, or Lenin wrote on constitutionalism ? Either on the concept itself or existing constitutions or both. I'd really appreciate the help.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Does anyone know of any writings Marx, Engels, or Lenin wrote on constitutionalism ? Either on the concept itself or existing constitutions or both. I'd really appreciate the help.Not sure what you mean. What's constitutionalism? The idea that current governments with constitutions can change that constitution to be in line with working class power or do you mean after workers have a revolution they create a permanent constitution?

[jookyle]

More that current governments with a constitution can change the constitution. But I'll take any information on either or if I must.

[Zealot]

Constitutions can only be changed via the steps defined in the constitution itself, although, bourgeois regimes have shown themselves to disregard this process numerous times. The constitution is supposed to be interpreted by the judiciary, which would give them more power over the executive and legislative branches. In reality, the "separation of powers" they trumpet is often quite weak. Israel, Britain, and New Zealand are the only three bourgeois democracies without a codified constitution, which means things are changed as they see fit. This also means that the executive is relatively unconstrained since the judicial branch of government can't strike anything down as "unconstitutional". Marx never really talked about constitutionalism in general although he did talk about specific constitutions e.g. The British Constitution (http://marxengels.public-archive.net/en/ME0857en.html) and the Constitution of the French Republic (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1851/06/14.htm).

[The Douche]

Bourgeois constitutions enshrine the rights of the bourgeoisie, the issue of constitutions should be pretty obvious. They're trash.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The US constitution only had "popular" demands like some in the Bill of Rights in order to sell the new government to a population which had rebelled against colonial rule and where small farmers were still rebelling.

As Howard Zinn talks about in "People's History of the US" - popular rights in the Constitution are really an illusion. Two centuries later, we're still not sure what free-speech means according to the constitution and there are always legal redefinitions of it. This isn't because it's poorly worded, it's because our society isn't really run based on documents, but based on the needs of the ruling class - so sometimes they need to clamp-down on the rights we supposedly have, other times they are forced to let up. There are no lawsuits questioning what the constitution means about property rights, but by contrast, "free speech" was already shown to be hollow just years after the Bill of Rights was written, when laws were passed against radical Jacobean speech.

I don't think workers will have any use of a 200 year document written before the working class even existed as a major social force, let alone the ruling force in society. If there are rights that we have now that will be useful to workers, however they organize the basic points of agreement for their society can include them.

[jookyle]

well, this thing is, in my my political theory class we're doing groups dialogues a la The Republic and since I got first choice of ideology I went with marxism. And the topic my group was assigned was "Making Changes in Corrupt Constitutions" so I was hoping there'd be something marxists on that.

[Questionable]

I don't know of anything Marx or Lenin said about bourgeois constitutions but Amadeo Bordiga wrote a very critical piece on them.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

[The Douche]

well, this thing is, in my my political theory class we're doing groups dialogues a la The Republic and since I got first choice of ideology I went with marxism. And the topic my group was assigned was "Making Changes in Corrupt Constitutions" so I was hoping there'd be something marxists on that.

So you have to, what? Write a socialist constitution? That shouldn't be to difficult.

[Pravda]

I dont think Marx or Lenin really cared for constitutions. Constitutions are, like all legal norms, just a ideology of ruling class (separation of powers also).
Constitutionalism is especially bourgeois ideology since the first written constitutions were made by american and french revolutionary bourgeoisie.

Why did bourgeoisie wanted constitutions? Its hard to say. First, you should know that they had a thing for a written law, and strict application of law (especially in France). That is probably reaction to absolute power of monarch, and self-will of king, clergy and nobility. (This is probably where theory of separation of powers came from also). Also, in connection with that, judges (at least in France, USA is different because of tradition of precedent law) werent supposed to have the power to interpret the constitution (or law), they supposed to be "voice of law", so first European constitutional courts date in time after WWI.
So constitutions where there to protect basis of new bourgeois order and to legitimize new system.

Also, there is also connection with theory of social contract, so constitution could be seen as social contract itself. And a connection with a theory of natural law (old idea from ancient Greece, Christianity to Enlightenment ) that there are some universal law that is supreme to positive law, and with idea of natural rights of human (today human rights), that is a part of that law. Those natural rights were of course private property, bourgeois freedoms, bourgeois democracy etc.

While there was a lot of progressive stuff in bourgeois constitutions compared to feudal system, today they dont really mean much. Although they are full of great promises and declarations, the terms that are used are very vague and can be interpreted in many ways, and of course they are usually interpreted in the interest of bourgeoisie. They, like all legal systems, are nothing but empty words if there isnt a repressive apparatus behind it, and they are instrument of the ruling class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why did bourgeoisie wanted constitutions? Its hard to say. First, you should know that they had a thing for a written law, and strict application of law (especially in France). That is probably reaction to absolute power of monarch, and self-will of king, clergy and nobility. (This is probably where theory of separation of powers came from also). Also, in connection with that, judges (at least in France, USA is different because of tradition of precedent law) werent supposed to have the power to interpret the constitution (or law), they supposed to be "voice of law", so first European constitutional courts date in time after WWI.
So constitutions where there to protect basis of new bourgeois order and to to legitimize new system.

That sounds about right. It's like how Vegas tries to make it's table games all regulated and standarized - to generate a sense of stability and trust that the rules of the game will be upheld. Of course when these rulers set down their rules of that game, then it also prevents other games from being played. The rules within the game might be fair, but of course the whole game is rigged, the house always wins.[/overused analogy]

[Pravda]

Yeah. Also, we shouldnt forget that revolutionary bourgeoisie didnt think of themselves what we think (or know) of them, they really believed that they will bring happiness, freedom, democracy etc.

[ComradeOm]

Why did bourgeoisie wanted constitutions? Its hard to say. First, you should know that they had a thing for a written law, and strict application of law (especially in France). That is probably reaction to absolute power of monarch, and self-will of king, clergy and nobilityIndeed. In the ancien regimes legitimacy was provided by the figure of the monarch himself, who embodied the complex web of rights and duties that bound society together. Hence the seismic impact of regicide: it really did 'turn the world upside down'

The replacement with the monarch by a state whose legitimacy derived from the people itself (which is what separates the French Republic from the English Commonwealth) obviously requires something a bit more sophisticated. There must be rules and principles that express how the new state embodies the popular will and will generally operate. All of which is fairly unremarkable and entirely undeserving of that weird fetish that most American commentator seem to have for theirs

And that's really the context: in Europe the very notion of a "corrupt constitution" is slightly baffling. Constitutions are amended or revised as needed and without illusions that the constitution is anything more than a description of how the state functions and the principles that it should abide to

In that context there's absolutely no issue with a socialist state developing its own constitution

[citizen of industry]

Legal fetishism. The documents only reflect the actual struggles, and they are altered or overturned based on new struggles. The German Ideology, "The Relation of State and Law to Property" and Grundrisse, "Eternalization of historic relations of production.-Production and distribution in general.-Property." And lots more that I can't remember the text. Judicial fetishism, legal fetishism, etc...

[Mr. Natural]

Marx wrote, "In democracy the constitution, the law, the state itself, insofar as it is a political constitution, is only the self-determination of the people, and a particular content of the people." (Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right)

So Marx had nothing against constitutions per se, and might well have approved a popular, revolutionary mining of the US Constitution for its suggestive, potentially radical content. After all, the US Constitution's preamble begins with "We, the People ..."

Here is Bertell Ollman on this matter: "Can the Constitution serve a people bent on a democratic socialist transformation of capitalist society? It has done everything a document could possible do to forestall such an eventuality; and as the central institutional prop of our capitalist society, it continues to act in this way. And yet, despite its lopsided and deceptive form and the worst elitist intentions of its framers, the changes it has undergone in the past two hundred years suggest that this possibility cannot be ruled out." (Dialectical Investigations, 1993)

In any case, it seems to me that with the possible exception of a highly advanced anarchist/communist society, some sort of "constitutional" guidance will be needed.

And I'd really like to engage the American people with thoughts of a socio-economic system that is truly based in "We the People ..."

My red-green best.

[citizen of industry]

Here is the relevant passage I was looking for, from an 1890 letter from Engels to Conrad Schmidt:



The reaction of the state power upon economic development can be one of three kinds: it can run in the same direction, and then development is more rapid; it can oppose the line of development, in which case nowadays state power in every great nation will go to pieces in the long run; or it can cut off the economic development from certain paths, and impose on it certain others. This case ultimately reduces itself to one of the two previous ones. But it is obvious that in cases two and three the political power can do great damage to the economic development and result in the squandering of great masses of energy and material.

Then there is also the case of the conquest and brutal destruction of economic resources, by which, in certain circumstances, a whole local or national economic development could formerly be ruined. Nowadays such a case usually has the opposite effect, at least among great nations: in the long run the defeated power often gains more economically, politically and morally than the victor.

It is similar with law. As soon as the new division of labour which creates professional lawyers becomes necessary, another new and independent sphere is opened up which, for all its general dependence on production and trade, still has its own capacity for reacting upon these spheres as well. In a modern state, law must not only correspond to the general economic position and be its expression, but must also be an expression which is consistent in itself, and which does not, owing to inner contradictions, look glaringly inconsistent. And in order to achieve this, the faithful reflection of economic conditions is more and more infringed upon. All the more so the more rarely it happens that a code of law is the blunt, unmitigated, unadulterated expression of the domination of a class – this in itself would already offend the “conception of justice.” Even in the Code Napoleon the pure logical conception of justice held by the revolutionary bourgeoisie of 1792-96 is already adulterated in many ways, and in so far as it is embodied there has daily to undergo all sorts of attenuation owing to the rising power of the proletariat. Which does not prevent the Code Napoleon from being the statute book which serves as a basis for every new code of law in every part of the world. Thus to a great extent the course of the “development of law” only consists: first in the attempt to do away with the contradictions arising from the direct translation of economic relations into legal principles, and to establish a harmonious system of law, and then in the repeated breaches made in this system by the influence and pressure of further economic development, which involves it in further contradictions (I am only speaking here of civil law for the moment).

The reflection of economic relations as legal principles is necessarily also a topsy turvy one: it happens without the person who is acting being conscious of it; the jurist imagines he is operating with a priori principles, whereas they are really only economic reflexes; so everything is upside down. And it seems to me obvious that this inversion, which, so long as it remains unrecognised, forms what we call ideological conception, reacts in its turn upon the economic basis and may, within certain limits, modify it. The basis of the law of inheritance – assuming that the stages reached in the development of the family are equal – is an economic one. But it would be difficult to prove, for instance, that the absolute liberty of the testator in England and the severe restrictions imposed upon him in France are only due in every detail to economic causes. Both react back, however, on the economic sphere to a very considerable extent, because they influence the division of property.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah. Also, we shouldnt forget that revolutionary bourgeoisie didnt think of themselves what we think (or know) of them, they really believed that they will bring happiness, freedom, democracy etc.This is very true, but they also had a level of class consciousness that meant that the "population" that was fit to rule were the property-holders, this wasn't one class only, but it was a recognition that there was a unifying set of interests held by even the poor among this group than with Slaves, Indentured Servants, Vagabonds, Native people, women or other people put in subordinate positions. I think their thinking was: why should they vote or decide things, they have no stake in this game.

But I agree that they also saw their rule as more potentially universal and they didn't use "freedom" with the same cynicism as our modern rulers. You can't put Thom Paine and Friedman in the same camp even though really they were arguing for many of the same things - just a very different context.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet:


Marx not only most scrupulously takes account of the inevitable inequality of men, but he also takes into account the fact that the mere conversion of the means of production into the common property of the whole society (commonly called “socialism”) does not remove the defects of distribution and the inequality of "bourgeois laws" which continues to prevail so long as products are divided "according to the amount of labor performed". Continuing, Marx says:

"But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby."

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.

However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

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.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

According to Lenin's reading of Marx: bourgeois law, which heavily implies a rights-based constitutional legal structure, will be an indispensable part of the proletarian state that follows the revolutionary democratic dictatorship. The state that will build socialism, this "first phase of communism", will be a living socialist critique of bourgeois democratic institutions without transcending them entirely; the three basic communist rule of electoral positions (direct democratic election, recall-on-demand, and equal wages as average workers) will be applied to any still-existing public post not already made irrelevant by soviets. The economy will be democratized, and measures to surpress capitalist restoration and reactionary forces will be implemented.

All this criticism of bourgeois constitutionalism is understandable, but remember: the bourgeois state has done a fabulous job of suppressing revolutionary movements. When destroyed and rebuilt on firm socialist ground, formerly bourgeois institutions will defeat and demoralize their disowned parents as effectively as they do us today.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I don't know of anything Marx or Lenin said about bourgeois constitutions but Amadeo Bordiga wrote a very critical piece on them.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1922/democratic-principle.htm

Just to go off of this, here is a direct quote from Bordiga on constitutionalism.

After the bourgeois political victory and in keeping with a tenacious ideological campaign, constitutional charters or declarations of principles were solemnly proclaimed in the different countries as a basis and foundation of the state. They were considered as being immutable in time, a definitive expression of the at last discovered immanent rules of social life. From then on, the entire interplay of political forces was supposed to take place within the insuperable framework of these statutes.

During the struggle against the existing regime, the proletarian state is not presented as a stable and fixed realisation of a set of rules governing the social relationships inferred from an idealistic research into the nature of man and society. During its lifetime the working class state will continually evolve up to the point that it finally withers away: the nature of social organisation, of human association, will radically change according to the development of technology and the forces of production, and man's nature will be equally subject to deep alterations always moving away more and more from the beast of burden and slave which he was. Anything such as a codified and permanent constitution to be proclaimed after the workers revolution is nonsense, it has no place in the communist program. Technically, it will be convenient to adopt written rules which however will in no way be intangible and will retain an "instrumental" and temporary character, putting aside the facetiousnesses about social ethics and natural law.

From Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/class-party.htm)

[Yuppie Grinder]

A constitution could theoretically be of use. It could be used to protect common ownership of economic means they way liberal constitutions protect private property. Just throwing ideas out there, speculatin

[Brosa Luxemburg]

I think that my biggest beef with constitutionalism is the idea of making absolute principles regardless of material conditions. This seems so idealist and, as materialists, I feel that we should find constitutionalism useless. At the same time, if a constitution is made it should be the for the reason the above user stated and should be, as Bordiga stated in the quote in my earlier post, temporary and instrumental.

[Marxaveli]

^I tend to agree. Constitutions are just a bunch of fancy words and ideas that look good on paper, but they are only as good as the material conditions of the society they are written in or for. The US Constitution for example, is very attractive to many Americans, but what most of them don't realize is, despite those famous words "We the people", the document was written by a few very wealthy, powerful and educated white land owners. Aside from that, in a class antagonist system such documents always favor the ruling class, even if there are anecdotal situations where constitutional law protects the average joe. No matter how well intended or noble a constitutions words may be, they are essentially useless and devoid of any meaning so long as class society exists.