How should we think of the withering away of the state

[Paul Cockshott]

I am branching of a new thread here since an issue of more general
concern has been raised.

In another thread I had written:
Communism has from the begining advocated state ownership of the
means of production. The idea that this is just a temporary
measure and that state ownership will be replaced by social
ownership is false.

The opposition is an entirely artificial distinction. In the absence of
a dominant class of private capitalists, state ownership is
identical to social ownership. There can be no meaningful
distinction between them. Social ownership is just another
more anodyne name for state ownership.

I am maintaining that state ownership is already social ownership.

Robbo objected to this and quite reasonably asked " how can you have state ownership in a society in which the state no longer exists?"

At one level I could just reply that the relationship is like
that between socialised production and capitalism. Capitalism already
has socialised production. But socialised production continues to
exist in a socialist economy after capitalism has ceased to exist.
Similarly social ownership is created by the worker's state taking over the
means of production, but it will continue after the state that
took it over has ceased to exist.

But this begs the question as to what is meant by the state ceasing
to exist, and what can be meant by the famous phrase 'withering
away of the state'.

Let us look at this at several levels: territorial, class relations,
crime, economy, ecology.

The territorial aspect is simple. The state ceases to exist when it is incorporated
in a larger territorial unit. Bayern ceased to exist as a distinct state
with the formation of the Reich. Estonia cease to exist as a state
when it was taken over by the USSR etc.

Thus the current nation states could be eliminated by the expansion of
some future socialist union.

When, after what may be a protracted period, perhaps of centuries, this
process finishes there will be some form of world union. When this exists
the major historical function of states : military defence will cease
and with it armies and navies. This would mean a withering away of
a major part of the state.

With the elimination of private ownership of the means of production
the existence of an exploiting class goes away, and with it the use
of the state by the propertied classes to maintain their dominance.
But so long as there is a danger of capitalist restoration the
reversed repressive role remains - repressing those who want restoration.
Only when that changes would the class represssive function wither.

But that does not imply that the function of the state in supressing
crime would cease. One can hope that with the elimination of poverty
and inequality, crimes such as burglary and mugging would decline
a lot, but crime against the person is unlikely to be totally eliminated.
Laws will still prohibit, assault, sexual violence, cruelty to
children and animals. One can not assume that psychopathic disorders
will be fully eliminated by improved social conditions, so some
police function, and some sytem of punishment or detention of the
criminally insane will remain, albeit substantially 'withered' compared
to now.

This world union would have to regulate and plan the global economy, regulate
and administer the provision of social services, decide on and implement
programmes for ecological and climatic preservation. In one sense this
would be a shift from the 'goverment of people' to an 'administration of
things'. But any decisions on these matters have an impact on people. People
would have to work to carry out the decisions.

This implies that the political function of states would be retained
in such a global union.
There would have to be some representative system by which global decisions
could be taken and such decisions would have to have binding authority
on a global scale.

On this basis I can answer Robbo's follow on question
If state ownership is the same thing is as social ownership, what kind of ownership prevails a stateless communist society?

What changes is the scale of the society doing the social ownership.
Some resources would be under global social control. An obvious example is
hydrocarbon and coal resources. Since the use of these affects the
atmosphere of the whole planet, they have to be under global social
ownership, or under the ownership of a world government. This would
replace ownership by nation states - already social but
social on too small a scale. But again here, ownership by the world
government is only ownership in a dialectically negative sense. It is
the negation of local state ownership, but since there is no possible
other owner to whom a world government could alienate the plant's
hydrocarbon reserves, this ownership is a self disolving negation.
It only exists in the moment of its assertion against local regional
ownership.

Resources that only affect the population living within a region of the
world could be controlled by some form of regional government. Examples would
be river systems, construction of damns on rivers affects all those
downstream. Where rivers cross state boundaries, decisions by an
upstream state can harm those in downstream states. With the dissolution
of nation states into a global union, this kind of conflict would
be eliminated, but it would be possible for the river to be 'owned' by
the entire population living in the watershed, but this is a really
limited type of ownership, and it might be better to all it control.

[Tim Cornelis]

As valuable as your writings are, I think they are still indebted to a bourgeois paradigm. For example:


When, after what may be a protracted period, perhaps of centuries, this
process finishes there will be some form of world union. When this exists
the major historical function of states : military defence will cease
and with it armies and navies. This would mean a withering away of
a major part of the state.

This suggests some kind of idealist process of global integration as liberals sometimes naively advocate. Centuries?! No. A workers' revolution begins in some place and the proletarian holds political power. The workers' state is a network of workers' councils and workers' associations. This network wields coercive power in the transition (e.g. taxes, workers' militia). As the bourgeoisie is defeated and socialism consolidated the workers' militia becomes obsolete as do taxes. Or rather, the workers' militia continues to exist to fend of foreign invades. As workers' revolutions sweep the planet, and become victorious the coercive features of the workers' associations, etc., become obsolete and we no longer can speak of a state.

If workers' revolutions take centuries, then yes. But the minute the workers' revolutions have succeeded there is no state. It will not be a gradual integration of Soviet-states into a world government. I think this perspective is derived from the wrongful characterisation of the USSR as a workers' state, and thus the comparability of all kind of anachronistic aspects 'extrapolated' in a sense unto a socialist world.

The state does not cease to exist because USSR-like states merge into one world government, they cease to exist because class antagonisms have ceased to exist, and the economic problems of the transition have ceased to exist.

State ownership would cease to exist in favour of common ownership.

Crime would be subject to a stateless solution, e.g. a sort of polycentric customary law based on third party mediation, that responds to (or, is activated when) forceful invasion of personal autonomy (has occurred).

In short, the state withers away because the association of producers loses its coercive features with the disappearance of class antagonisms and the maturing of socialism as consolidated post-revolution. The free association of equals is not a world government.

[RedMaterialist]

First, my view, and Marx's view, on the "withering away of the state" is that a state is an organized force existing only for the purpose of suppressing a class or classes of people. Thus, the state under capitalism is a "committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie;" a slave state exists for the purpose of tracking down and punishing runaway slaves; a feudal state exists for the purpose of capturing serfs who leave the estate. This suppression is its only reason for existence. Once that reason is removed then the state ceases to exist, withers away and dies. But this reason applies also for the proletariat state which exists for the purpose of suppressing the capitalist class and its hangers-on.

However, and this is the essential difference, once all capitalist classes world-wide are destroyed, with no hope of re-emerging, then the only class left will be the proletariat. There will be no embryonic class within the proletariat developing to exploit future classes; no slave owning class developing into a landlord class; no escaped serfs developing into small town burghers; no future proletariat to develop. There will be no class left to exploit, thus no reason for the existence of the state; it will wither away and die. This, as Marx showed, is the solution to the riddle of history of written history. It is what makes Marx the greatest revolutionary thinker in history.

It is important, in my view, to keep in mind that the socialist revolution must be world wide, otherwise a capitalist state and class will still be able to come into a former socialist state which has withered away on only a local basis.

The argument whether a "state" owns capitalist property, social property, property in common, etc. is, I think, a quibbling over words. Marx said that there will be an administration of things after the socialist revolution. Administration, state, world union, united nations, league of the just, workers' international union...does it really matter what it is called?

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]But the minute the workers' revolutions have succeeded there is no state.

Very few people would deny that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a successful workers' revolution. But the "state" (other than the Tsarist state) did not suddenly disappear.


The free association of equals is not a world government.

You could just as easily say that a free government of equals is not a world association. It does not matter whether you call it association, or government or free state, or world townhall, or world neighborhood watch committee. The point is that an organized force for the suppression and exploitation of a class of human beings no longer exists.

[Thirsty Crow]

First, my view, and Marx's view, on the "withering away of the state" is that a state is an organized force existing only for the purpose of suppressing a class or classes of people.
Just to comment on this. This is neither factually correct (referring to contemporary capitalism) nor useful. In fact, it is a reduction of analysis on the role of the state.

Why? Since it neglects the fact that the contemporary state is also an economic agent on its own (owning and accumulating capital, in a whole host of ways and ownership arrangements, such as private-public ventures for instance, but also as a sole proprietor of enterprises), and crucially integrated into the functioning of capital accumulation (e.g. bailouts etc etc).

The role in social reproduction of the working class, in conjunction with ideological apparatuses, through institutions of the welfare state is another factor that surely deserves a mention.

Another mistake is to view the function of maintaining the existing social order solely in terms of repression. It does much more than that, and here we can employ the notion of ideology. The picture arising from the simplistic view you present would suggest that proles everywhere are just waiting to burst into revolutionary action, save for the repressive power of the state. I don't think this holds.

If you wanted to claim that this is the view on the state which connects every instance of class rule through history (which you seem to be doing in enumerating examples), then I'd say that this doesn't get us far in examining what counts most - this specific state, the modern capitalist state.

[Dagoth Ur]

This is really much simpler than how most choose to put it. If you've hammered all the nails in the world you don't need a hammer anymore. When socialist production is in full swing and all traces of the enemy class eradicated, why would we keep paying to maintain the state?

Anarchists and other ultra-leftists will surely try to claim that state bureaucracy is some magic new antagonism but that's nonsense. Workers can't be antagonistic with themselves.

[Tim Cornelis]

However, and this is the essential difference, once all capitalist classes world-wide are destroyed, with no hope of re-emerging, then the only class left will be the proletariat. There will be no embryonic class within the proletariat


The proletariat cannot exist when there is one class.




Very few people would deny that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a successful workers' revolution. But the "state" (other than the Tsarist state) did not suddenly disappear.

First, that was in reference to global workers' revolutions. The minute it is victorious, there is no state. An isolated region has to maintain a workers' militia of some kind. Second, the revolution was no consolidated yet.


You could just as easily say that a free government of equals is not a world association.

We could also say that a freely associated totalitarian state is not a republican monarchy, but words have meanings. Government is that which governs the state, and thus a free association of equals is not a government (although many native in the English language conflate government with governance).


This is really much simpler than how most choose to put it. If you've hammered all the nails in the world you don't need a hammer anymore. When socialist production is in full swing and all traces of the enemy class eradicated, why would we keep paying to maintain the state?

Keeping the state around is not a conscious decisions for which we can either opt yes or no. It inevitably follows from the social dynamics of socialism.


Anarchists and other ultra-leftists will surely try to claim that state bureaucracy is some magic new antagonism but that's nonsense. Workers can't be antagonistic with themselves.

If so, then how were strike actions carried out by workers against the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is not synonymous with the workers, hence why it's called a bureaucracy, not workers.

[RedMaterialist]

Why? Since it neglects the fact that the contemporary state is also an economic agent on its own (owning and accumulating capital, in a whole host of ways and ownership arrangements, such as private-public ventures for instance, but also as a sole proprietor of enterprises), and crucially integrated into the functioning of capital accumulation (e.g. bailouts etc etc).


This is merely a description of the modern state as a committee for managing the affairs of the capitalist class.


The role in social reproduction of the working class, in conjunction with ideological apparatuses, through institutions of the welfare state is another factor that surely deserves a mention.


The welfare state certainly does function to insure the reproduction of the working class as a class to be used and suppressed by the capitalist class.


Another mistake is to view the function of maintaining the existing social order solely in terms of repression. It does much more than that, and here we can employ the notion of ideology. The picture arising from the simplistic view you present would suggest that proles everywhere are just waiting to burst into revolutionary action, save for the repressive power of the state. I don't think this holds.


The modern liberal 'democratic' state is the most effective, in terms of repression, by using a complex and pervasive system of ideology (media, education, surveillance). It may have been Noam Chomsky who said that in the Soviet Union you were free to think but not free to speak, in the U.S. you are free to speak but not free to think.


If you wanted to claim that this is the view on the state which connects every instance of class rule through history (which you seem to be doing in enumerating examples), then I'd say that this doesn't get us far in examining what counts most - this specific state, the modern capitalist state.

The wage system is just another form of slavery. Marx.

I would agree that the argument is simplistic and reductionist. However this is a blog.

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE]The proletariat cannot exist when there is one class.

The proletariat will exist as the dominant class until after a protracted and difficult struggle the capitalist class is eliminated. Then the proletariat as a class will cease to exist, and the state as an oppressive force will cease to exist.

"Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class." Manifesto




We could also say that a freely associated totalitarian state is not a republican monarchy, but words have meanings. Government is that which governs the state, and thus a free association of equals is not a government (although many native in the English language conflate government with governance).


No. There is no such thing as a freely associated totalitarian state or a republican monarchy. Government is that which governs...government is government.

What is a true democracy but a government of, by and for freely associated equals? If freely associated people delegate to others the authority to govern the sequencing of traffic lights (very important in the U.S.), of the authority to inspect food and drugs, to control airplane traffic, how is that not government? Especially if these delegates can be immediately recalled, which is now feasible with computers and the instant communication of the internet.

[Thirsty Crow]

The wage system is just another form of slavery. Marx.I don't think that Marx ever wrote this. In my opinion, wage labor is just another historical form of alienation. The rhetorical strategy of the term "wage slavery" has only propagandistic and political value.

And this is quite apart from the fact that your laconic comment doesn't address the issues I raised.


I would agree that the argument is simplistic and reductionist. However this is a blog.A blog? I fail to see the relevance of the kind of medium this is (it is a discussion board). It's fairly easy to avoid distorting simplification.

[RedMaterialist]

The question is how should we think about the withering away of the state.

Are there, historically, any states which have "withered away and died" instead of being destroyed by violence, civil war, revolution, or military invasion?

1. Soviet Union

What does it mean for a state to "wither away and die?"

1. Is the state an organic thing which can be deprived of water and food. What is the process of withering. How does a state die without being murdered. What does a natural death of a state look like. What are the mechanisms of this death. Is "withering" a lengthy or short process.

Since all states are mechanisms for class suppression, how is class struggle implicated in the withering process?

1. Is it the class that withers away and dies. Why does no class take its place.
What does a withering class look like. Does the class die.

[Dagoth Ur]

Are there, historically, any states which have "withered away and died" instead of being destroyed by violence, civil war, revolution, or military invasion?
To solve the State problem you have to have successfully respolved the class problem. If we'd done that we'd have communism bro.


What does it mean for a state to "wither away and die?"
It means the state will perform less and less functions as the antagonisms and alienations are resolved. The state will disappear in chunks over a long period if time.


1. Is the state an organic thing which can be deprived of water and food. What is the process of withering. How does a state die without being murdered. What does a natural death of a state look like. What are the mechanisms of this death. Is "withering" a lengthy or short process.
Depends on how quickly we resolve the problems that make the state a necessity. Also you can't murder an institution dear.


Since all states are mechanisms for class suppression, how is class struggle implicated in the withering process?
The state disappears because there isn't anybody to oppress anymore. The proletariat itself will cease to exist when property is socialized. No classes means no need for class controlling organs.


1. Is it the class that withers away and dies. Why does no class take its place.
What does a withering class look like. Does the class die.
Why would it? Classes don't just pop up out of nowhere. For a class to develop there would need to be some new antagonism developed.

[Paul Cockshott]

I think people are ignoring a historical role of the state in territorial defece. Class antagonisms are not the only ones.

[RedMaterialist]

I think people are ignoring a historical role of the state in territorial defece. Class antagonisms are not the only ones.

The Soviet Union certainly defended itself against the Western Entente during the Russian Civil War and, of course, against Hitler. The SU also appeared perfectly capable of defending itself during the cold war; and also assisted other socialist countries, like Cuba and Vietnam.

I don't think that the failure of territorial defense could be the reason for the collapse of the SU. Who physically invaded and destroyed the SU?

[Rafiq]

I don't think that Marx ever wrote this. In my opinion, wage labor is just another historical form of alienation. The rhetorical strategy of the term "wage slavery" has only propagandistic and political value.

And this is quite apart from the fact that your laconic comment doesn't address the issues I raised.

A blog? I fail to see the relevance of the kind of medium this is (it is a discussion board). It's fairly easy to avoid distorting simplification.

Not to seem offensive, but how is it you casually attack historical materialism and philosophy and yet you adhere to unscientific, and completely philosophical concepts like alienation?

[Paul Cockshott]

The Soviet Union certainly defended itself against the Western Entente during the Russian Civil War and, of course, against Hitler. The SU also appeared perfectly capable of defending itself during the cold war; and also assisted other socialist countries, like Cuba and Vietnam.

I don't think that the failure of territorial defense could be the reason for the collapse of the SU. Who physically invaded and destroyed the SU?

No I mean that in discussing the withering away they just treat it as an internal class question ignoring both national antagonisms and class antagonisms between states.

For instance Dagoth wrote
To solve the State problem you have to have successfully respolved the class problem. If we'd done that we'd have communism bro.
Tim wrote
First, that was in reference to global workers' revolutions. The minute it is victorious, there is no state. An isolated region has to maintain a workers' militia of some kind.
There is a slide here from workers' revolutions in the plural in the first sentence to a singular 'it' in the second sentence, which begs the question.

[robbo203]

No I mean that in discussing the withering away they just treat it as an internal class question ignoring both national antagonisms and class antagonisms between states.
.


Since the state presupposes class and is indeed a class institution then the maturation and development of "class antagonisms" - the class struggle - is likely to be at the expense of "state antagonisms" . This is because it is totally inconceivable that you could have a strong class conscious socialist movement in one part of the world and little or nothing of that in the other. Not in today's interdependent world. It is almost inevitable that the socialist movement globally is likely to grow more or less uniformly and that the bigger it becomes the more spatially uniform it will become. Marked uneveness in the development of socialist consciousness is a sure sign of its still relative insignificance in global terms.

Amongst other things, a growth in socialist consciousness implies a decline in nationalist ideology and support for the bourgeois nation state. Capitalist governements need a mandate to govern effectively and the incremental withdrawal of support by the working class would progressively undermine their ability to dictate matters and increasingly restict their room for manouevre. Can you imagine Obama trying to launch missiles on some other country like Syria in the face of a mass socialist movement and a wider public opinion that will by then already have been heavily influenced by the spread of socialist ideas. Even today there are signs that the American regime has had to backpeddle somewhat in its warmongery in the face of hostile public opinion

The idea of "class antagonism between states" is of course nonsense. All states are operated by, and run in the interests of, a ruling class everywhere. Antagonisms between states are merely internal conflicts within the international ruling class itself over such things as resources, trade routes, markets. These internal conflicts cannot logically therefore be presented in the form of a class conflict since this presupposes another class over which such a conflict is waged. Last I heard, the working class do not own and control the resources, trade routes, markets of the world over which the international capitalists squabble...

[Brotto Rühle]

State: Armed workers

Abolition of cpaitlaism = abolition of classes. No class to surpress.

Armed workers (state) becomes armed people (non-state).

[Misericordia]

This thread is one of the reasons why modern Marxists are so hilarious. Marx/Engels play a rhetorical trick on both bourgeois socialists and utopian socialists of their day by re-defining "state" so that a state which is not an organ for suppressing a class becomes a non-state and Marxists still argue about it, none the wiser.

There will most definitely be a state in a communist society. Marx and Engels were just being disingenuous in their playing around with definitions. They weren't idiots. What there won't be is a capitalist state but this is kind of self-explanatory isn't it?

[RedMaterialist]

No I mean that in discussing the withering away they just treat it as an internal class question ignoring both national antagonisms and class antagonisms between states.

For instance Dagoth wrote
Tim wrote
There is a slide here from workers' revolutions in the plural in the first sentence to a singular 'it' in the second sentence, which begs the question.

Warning! This theory is still being developed. I still need to prove that there were no economic classes in the SU, other than the working class, in 1989. The nomenklatura, aka Soviet bureaucracy, is not a suppressing class. Who the heck could Gorbachev have suppressed even if he wanted to?

Well, the SU, at least until 1948, was the only socialist state in the world; it had been actively suppressing the capitalist class since 1917. After the SU got the bomb (1952 or so) the west could no longer physically destroy the SU. National antagonisms in terms of an invasion from the west were no longer an issue for the Soviets.

Hungary and Czechoslovakia might be exceptions to the national antagonism question, but it is also possible that the Soviets thought the uprisings there were a threat to socialism. Also, China-Soviet relations were probably nationalistic. But these national antagonisms were never a threat to the existence of the Soviet Union as a state.

So, within the Soviet Union the internal class question was being resolved by killing the bourgeoisie or by killing or sending to the gulag anyone who might give the barest hint of being bourgeois (or anti-Stalin.) There were no openly hostile international state/class antagonisms because there was no international socialist state existing as a unified class. China and Vietnam, although nominally socialist states, were never joined in a single socialist state with the SU (contrary to the world communist conspiracy so beloved in the West.)

But, in my view, the real dynamic for maintaining the coherent stability of a state is class suppression. Once this suppressing structure collapses then the state automatically collapses. The proletariat, working through the Soviet bureaucracy, destroyed, expelled or sent underground the bourgeois and petit-bourgeoise classes. But, since the Soviet Union was a nationalist state (exactly what Marx and Engels warned against,) only the nationalist state collapsed. Even if the Soviets had known full well that the SU was going to suddenly collapse one day, there is nothing they could have done to stop it. It would have been like asking a tree to continue standing once the roots had died.

It seems to me that Cuba is in much the same situation as the SU was in 1989. Cuba is too far along in its socialist development to return to even a semi-socialist, semi-capitalist state like China or Vietnam. I would say that when Castro dies the Cuban Socialist state will suddenly, without warning, collapse, or, you might say, wither away and die.

My theory, at any rate.

[Paul Cockshott]

The idea of "class antagonism between states" is of course nonsense.
When the British and Japanese and American states intervened against the revolutionary state in Russia in 1919 was that not a class antagonism between states. What reason other than class solidarity did the British etc have for getting involved.

[Paul Cockshott]

This thread is one of the reasons why modern Marxists are so hilarious. Marx/Engels play a rhetorical trick on both bourgeois socialists and utopian socialists of their day by re-defining "state" so that a state which is not an organ for suppressing a class becomes a non-state and Marxists still argue about it, none the wiser.

There will most definitely be a state in a communist society. Marx and Engels were just being disingenuous in their playing around with definitions. They weren't idiots. What there won't be is a capitalist state but this is kind of self-explanatory isn't it?

Nicely put.

[RedMaterialist]

When the British and Japanese and American states intervened against the revolutionary state in Russia in 1919 was that not a class antagonism between states. What reason other than class solidarity did the British etc have for getting involved.

The Japanese, British and U.S. states were all acting on behalf of the international capitalist class; Russia was the world's first socialist state. I suppose that, in this sense, there was class antagonism between an alliance of capitalist states and a socialist state.

[robbo203]

When the British and Japanese and American states intervened against the revolutionary state in Russia in 1919 was that not a class antagonism between states. What reason other than class solidarity did the British etc have for getting involved.

You are missing the point aren't you? "Class antagonism" means the antagonism of one class towards another surely. International conflicts are not conflicts between one class and another in that sense but between different nationally based sections of the global ruling class over such things as markets, trade routes, resources etc

[robbo203]

This thread is one of the reasons why modern Marxists are so hilarious. Marx/Engels play a rhetorical trick on both bourgeois socialists and utopian socialists of their day by re-defining "state" so that a state which is not an organ for suppressing a class becomes a non-state and Marxists still argue about it, none the wiser.

There will most definitely be a state in a communist society. Marx and Engels were just being disingenuous in their playing around with definitions. They weren't idiots. What there won't be is a capitalist state but this is kind of self-explanatory isn't it?


Do you have even the slightest evidence to back this ridiculous claim of yours? Anyone with any basic understanding of Marxist theory would understand that the state is an institution peculiar to class-based societies and disappears with the disappearance of classes - that is, with the establishment of communism aka socialism

Just at random here are two quotes from Engels on the subject. Perhaps you might care to enlighten us as to how you think he was being "disengenuous"?

The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no idea of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong–into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm

The free people's state is transformed into the free state. Grammatically speaking, a free state is one in which the state is free vis-à-vis its citizens, a state, that is, with a despotic government. All the palaver about the state ought to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in the true sense of the term. The people's state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx's anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one's enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people's state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist.
letter to Bebel, 18-28 March 1875

[Paul Cockshott]

You are missing the point aren't you? "Class antagonism" means the antagonism of one class towards another surely. International conflicts are not conflicts between one class and another in that sense but between different nationally based sections of the global ruling class over such things as markets, trade routes, resources etc

That covers some but not all interstate antagonism

[RedMaterialist]

That covers some but not all interstate antagonism

So, you are looking for an interstate conflict between one state controlled by one class and another state controlled by another class? One such conflict might be between feudal states and early bourgeois controlled city-states.

[Paul Cockshott]

If workers' revolutions take centuries, then yes. But the minute the workers' revolutions have succeeded there is no state. It will not be a gradual integration of Soviet-states into a world government. I think this perspective is derived from the wrongful characterisation of the USSR as a workers' state, and thus the comparability of all kind of anachronistic aspects 'extrapolated' in a sense unto a socialist world.

The state does not cease to exist because USSR-like states merge into one world government, they cease to exist because class antagonisms have ceased to exist, and the economic problems of the transition have ceased to exist.

I think this ignores a fundamental property of all historically existing states: they have been territorially based. A state power holds either a monopoly or or an overwhelming preponderance of force within a given territory. This force is partly used against internal enemies of the state, but just as clearly it has been used against external enemies. The removal of internal class contradictions does not necessarily lead to the ending of all national contradictions. Whether it does or not depends on the nature of the economic system in existence, the possible presence of monopolisable resources within given territories etc.

[Paul Cockshott]

So, you are looking for an interstate conflict between one state controlled by one class and another state controlled by another class? One such conflict might be between feudal states and early bourgeois controlled city-states.

Yes, or the alliance of the feudal monarchies of Europe against the French Revolution.

[robbo203]

I think this ignores a fundamental property of all historically existing states: they have been territorially based. A state power holds either a monopoly or or an overwhelming preponderance of force within a given territory. This force is partly used against internal enemies of the state, but just as clearly it has been used against external enemies. The removal of internal class contradictions does not necessarily lead to the ending of all national contradictions. Whether it does or not depends on the nature of the economic system in existence, the possible presence of monopolisable resources within given territories etc.

Except, of course, that there is no example of a state that you can point to that has removed "internal class contradictions" and has only had to face "external enemies". Those "external enemies" are the expression of conflicts within the international ruling class - that is to say between the ruling classes of different nation states - which workers get sucked into through the force of nationalist ideology amongest other things. Workers have no interests at stake in going to war with workers elsewhere.

[Zulu]

So, you are looking for an interstate conflict between one state controlled by one class and another state controlled by another class? One such conflict might be between feudal states and early bourgeois controlled city-states.

A glaring example of international class conflict erupting into full scale war between states is, of course, the French revolutionary and subsequent Napoleonic wars. The progressive French bourgeoisie had a huge momentum on trashing all the monarchies of Europe, that is the still semi-feudal states run by the reactionary class of landlords. In response to which said monarchies formed several coalitions and eventually crushed Napoleonic France, and formed the so called Holy Alliance. Yet the socio-economic impact of the French Revolution was irreversible across Europe, and even in Russia. Of course, there always was Britain and its bourgeoisie, which played a huge part in all this, yet it doesn't downplay a bit the bourgeoisie vs. landlords dimension of the Napoleonic wars.

[RedMaterialist]

A glaring example of international class conflict erupting into full scale war between states is, of course, the French revolutionary and subsequent Napoleonic wars.

Another example might be the United States and the confederate states of america (bourgeois and slave.) Also, it could be the USSR and the western alliance during the Russian civil war, or Germany and the SU in 1940, or the US and Vietnam.

[Sugarmaple]

How can we assure that the state will wither away once it is not needed? Who or what decides whether or not the state is needed?

I fear the answer would be the hopefully-temporary state decides whether or not it is needed, which seems like a recipe for it never withering away.

[RedMaterialist]

How can we assure that the state will wither away once it is not needed? Who or what decides whether or not the state is needed?

I fear the answer would be the hopefully-temporary state decides whether or not it is needed, which seems like a recipe for it never withering away.

The key, in my opinion, is to understand why the state even exists in the first place. According to Marx the state is not some divinely inspired gift to humanity, or an agreement or social contract between the people. The state exists solely for the purpose of class suppression. The class of patriarchs used the state to suppress the family; slave owners used the state to suppress slaves; feudal landlords the serfs; capitalists the workers. All of this can be found in the Communist Manifesto, The German Ideology, Critique of Political Philosophy, The Origin of the Family, Property and the State, etc.

Thus, from the first appearance in history of class exploitation and suppression the state begins to develop. There is nothing mysterious about it, you need a state, organized violence, to maintain subjection of the family, slavery, serfdom and wage-labor.

A state ceases to exist when there is no longer any class left to exploit. The last stage of state violence and oppression is that of the proletariat (the dictatorship of the proletariat) against the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois classes. When the proletariat is left alone as a class there will be no further exploiting class, and the state will collapse, wither away and die.

One of my favorite youtube videos is the Concert in Red Square by Paul McCartney. The theme of the entire video is that the Beatles caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Don't believe me? Google it. You'll love McCartney doing Back in the USSR. The idea that the Beatles caused the collapse sounds strangely like pop history today.

I personally believe the SU collapsed because the Soviets had succeeded in completely eliminating the influence of the bourgeois class within the Soviet Union. Thus, as Marx and Engels predicted, the state collapsed, but only the national proletariat state. If there is any other explanation for the collapse I would like to hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JbLsYoL3ug

[RedMaterialist]

How to think of the withering away of the state?

1. What exactly does that phrase mean?
2. Has any state in the past ever withered away and died?

[Paul Cockshott]

Except, of course, that there is no example of a state that you can point to that has removed "internal class contradictions" and has only had to face "external enemies". Those "external enemies" are the expression of conflicts within the international ruling class - that is to say between the ruling classes of different nation states - which workers get sucked into through the force of nationalist ideology amongest other things. Workers have no interests at stake in going to war with workers elsewhere.

Well we can not cite any example of a state withering away either. We are all discussing hypotheticals. It is not necessarily the case that workers would have no interests in going to war with workers elsewhere. War preceeded class society, existing during the phase of barbarism - war over communaly shared resources of pasture, hunting grounds. Conflicts over resources such as water resources in long river valleys, over oil resources, over pollution of the atmosphere could exist between different territories if these territories were not united under a single government.

[Buttress]

I personally believe the SU collapsed because the Soviets had succeeded in completely eliminating the influence of the bourgeois class within the Soviet Union. Thus, as Marx and Engels predicted, the state collapsed, but only the national proletariat state. If there is any other explanation for the collapse I would like to hear it.

No, the SU collapsed because they had completely eliminated the proletariat as central class subject of the state, thus dissolving the dictatorship of the proletariat. This started occuring when revisionist forces began to gain ideological supremecy within the party, and even amongst the soviet masses, which led quickly to the USSR becoming social imperialist and then finally collapsing under the weight of their decisions in this period, which led them well and truly down the road of a complete institution of capitalism.

[RedMaterialist]

No, the SU collapsed because they had completely eliminated the proletariat as central class subject of the state, thus dissolving the dictatorship of the proletariat. This started occuring when revisionist forces began to gain ideological supremecy within the party, and even amongst the soviet masses, which led quickly to the USSR becoming social imperialist and then finally collapsing under the weight of their decisions in this period, which led them well and truly down the road of a complete institution of capitalism.

The Soviet Union eliminated the proletariat and collapsed "under the weight of their decisions..." How exactly did they eliminate 300 million workers, and what does weight of decisions mean?

[RedMaterialist]

It is not necessarily the case that workers would have no interests in going to war with workers elsewhere.

Workers, as a proletariat class, have existed for several hundred years. Is there an example of workers of one bourgeois state having a real (other than one imposed by a ruling class) interest in going to war with workers in another such state?


Also, barbarians or pre-historic peoples are not, I would think, technically a "working class."

Since you have concluded that no other state in history has withered away and died, how should we describe what happened in the SU? Collapsed, decayed, shriveled, wasted away, disintegrated, dried up, or any other synonym of wither?

[Remus Bleys]

Workers, as a proletariat class, have existed for several hundred years. Is there an example of workers of one bourgeois state having a real (other than one imposed by a ruling class) interest in going to war with workers in another such state? Precious resources they don't have.


Since you have concluded that no other state in history has withered away and died, how should we describe what happened in the SU? Collapsed, decayed, shriveled, wasted away, disintegrated, dried up, or any other synonym of wither?
Replaced by a capitalist state. This theory that the USSR withered away has so many holes in it.

[RedMaterialist]

Replaced by a capitalist state. This theory that the USSR withered away has so many holes in it.

The USSR may have been replaced by some kind of quasi-capitalist state, but that does not explain how or why the SU collapsed.

[Remus Bleys]

The USSR may have been replaced by some kind of quasi-capitalist state, but that does not explain how or why the SU collapsed.
A brutal bureaucracy suffering years of exploiting it's worker under a police state with inefficient and outdated planning, all the while getting into arms race and playing imperialist with the rest of the world, while the only other superpower (arguably more advanced than it) was constantly trying to destroy it? All the while, a growing Bourgeoisie influence that wanted to get its hands on the means of production and on the State?

This seems much more plausible than the idea that the USSR achieved full communism and withered away. If you can make it work, I'll be the first to praise you. Until then, it just doesn't make any sense.

[RedMaterialist]

A brutal bureaucracy suffering years of exploiting it's worker under a police state with inefficient and outdated planning, all the while getting into arms race and playing imperialist with the rest of the world, while the only other superpower (arguably more advanced than it) was constantly trying to destroy it? All the while, a growing Bourgeoisie influence that wanted to get its hands on the means of production and on the State?

This seems much more plausible than the idea that the USSR achieved full communism and withered away. If you can make it work, I'll be the first to praise you. Until then, it just doesn't make any sense.

Bureaucratic, a police state, inefficient, in an arms race, threatened by another superpower. None of these factors has ever been an historical explanation for the sudden collapse of a world superpower. Inefficient bureaucratic police states have been around as long as states have existed. In fact, that is what states are. States always exists in constant struggle with each other.

I recently heard an argument that God killed the Soviet Union.

I never said the USSR achieved full communism. I said the USSR destroyed the national bourgeois and petit-bourgeois classes, and only within the USSR. After these classes disappeared, at least in the SU, the state then began the process of withering. After the Soviet state collapsed there were a few weeks of no government, no state. That time can probably be described as true communism. Shortly thereafter, of course, the international capitalist class re-entered Russia.

[Remus Bleys]

Bureaucratic, a police state, inefficient, in an arms race, threatened by another superpower. None of these factors has ever been an historical explanation for the sudden collapse of a world superpower. Inefficient bureaucratic police states have been around as long as states have existed. In fact, that is what states are. States always exists in constant struggle with each other.

I recently heard an argument that God killed the Soviet Union.

I never said the USSR achieved full communism. I said the USSR destroyed the national bourgeois and petit-bourgeois classes, and only within the USSR. After these classes disappeared, at least in the SU, the state then began the process of withering. After the Soviet state collapsed there were a few weeks of no government, no state. That time can probably be described as true communism. Shortly thereafter, of course, the international capitalist class re-entered Russia.
There was nothing sudden about this.

And abolishing the other classes? That's a pretty heavy claim you have sources, right?

[RedMaterialist]

There was nothing sudden about this.

And abolishing the other classes? That's a pretty heavy claim you have sources, right?

it took everybody by surprise. As to the second point, you are absolutely right.
Stalin did a fairly good job of abolishing the capitalist and petit-bourgeois classes. However, I recall EP Thompson's theory that class is a relationship rather than structure, and that it can be taken on or discarded. I think that some writers have taken the position that class as a social, economic and political phenomenon was disappearing by the early 80s.

[Zulu]

The USSR may have been replaced by some kind of quasi-capitalist state, but that does not explain how or why the SU collapsed.

I can agree that the tendency of the state to wither away in the fSU must be something worth researching, but matter of fact, it can't be the reason of its collapse.

First of all, it is easily disproven empirically as there was a direct uninterrupted continuity between the Soviet state institutions and the post-Soviet ones. A serious coup d'etat occurred in Russia only two years after the USSR had been dissolved.

And more importantly, the state simply cannot wither away until there is classless society. But the Soviet society never reached that point. Even officially it was always admitted that there were the working class and the class of collective farmers. And although officially forgotten, actually never went away the class of petty bourgeoisie, to which much of that pesky bureaucracy belonged, but which was not limited to it, and which gradually spawned the new capitalist class.

By the time of its collapse in 1991 the USSR was a completely bourgeois state, standing on the economic basis of state capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat was "cancelled" in the '1962 3rd - revisionist - Program of the CPSU, then in the '1977 Constitution of the USSR the state was pronounced an "all people's state" - instead of a "worker-peasant state" (as it was in the 1936's Constitution); state capitalism was restored mainly under the '1965 Kosygin-Liberman economic reform (although it was "rolled back" somewhat for a while in the 1970s). Therefore the collapse of the USSR is to be regarded as a result of contradictions inherent with capitalism, not socialism (BTW this needs to be pointed out to every one of those who say "Look, USSR collapsed, means socialism doesn't work!" - No, in reality, it's capitalism that "doesn't work").

[Paul Cockshott]

Workers, as a proletariat class, have existed for several hundred years. Is there an example of workers of one bourgeois state having a real (other than one imposed by a ruling class) interest in going to war with workers in another such state?


Also, barbarians or pre-historic peoples are not, I would think, technically a "working class."

Since you have concluded that no other state in history has withered away and died, how should we describe what happened in the SU? Collapsed, decayed, shriveled, wasted away, disintegrated, dried up, or any other synonym of wither?

The settler working class of mid 19th century america had an interest in victory in the Indian wars. It was the presence of land free for settlment in America that held wages up and prevented the total dominance of the economy by capital. Marx makes this clear in Vol I of capital giving the example of the impossibility of establishing capitalist relations of production in colonies with free land.

[RedMaterialist]

First of all, it is easily disproven empirically as there was a direct uninterrupted continuity between the Soviet state institutions and the post-Soviet ones. A serious coup d'etat occurred in Russia only two years after the USSR had been dissolved.

A direct continuity between the Soviet Union and the non-Soviet Union? I would say almost every one agrees that the Soviet Union collapsed. It was the coup d'etat of the military of a withered state. It has to be one of the weakest and least bloody coups in history.


And more importantly, the state simply cannot wither away until there is classless society.

And once class disappears the withering can be quite sudden, in historical terms. We simply don't know how to think about it because it has never happened before.


But the Soviet society never reached that point. Even officially it was always admitted that there were the working class and the class of collective farmers.

What the state officially claims about itself is not necessarily the reality.


And although officially forgotten, actually never went away the class of petty bourgeoisie, to which much of that pesky bureaucracy belonged, but which was not limited to it, and which gradually spawned the new capitalist class.


I agree that most of the new millionaires and billionaires in Russia came from the bureaucracy. But to say that the bureaucracy gave birth to the new capitalist class would be a reversal of Marxist theory. The international capitalist class already existed in full historical development; my theory is that it expanded into the vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet state.



By the time of its collapse in 1991 the USSR was a completely bourgeois state, standing on the economic basis of state capitalism.

This is a restating of the "state capitalism" argument.


Therefore the collapse of the USSR is to be regarded as a result of contradictions inherent with capitalism, not socialism (BTW this needs to be pointed out to every one of those who say "Look, USSR collapsed, means socialism doesn't work!" - No, in reality, it's capitalism that "doesn't work")


If capitalism doesn't work why is Russia now a mixed economy of capitalism and state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy? It's not that socialism doesn't work that the SU collapsed, it's because in fact it did work that the SU collapsed.

[RedMaterialist]

The settler working class of mid 19th century america had an interest in victory in the Indian wars. It was the presence of land free for settlment in America that held wages up and prevented the total dominance of the economy by capital. Marx makes this clear in Vol I of capital giving the example of the impossibility of establishing capitalist relations of production in colonies with free land.

But surely there was no working class or any "workers" at all in native American society. They had barely begun to make the transition from "savagery" to "barbarism." The settlers certainly had that interest and the United States government did its best to commit the genocide of the natives. The Indian wars were between a group of non-associated pre-barbarian tribes and a bourgeois, advanced state on the verge of becoming a world power. The trans-continental railroad was completed in 1865. The American natives never had a chance. Once capital caught up with the settlers they came completely under its control (as also happened to the Australian settlers.)

[Zulu]

A direct continuity between the Soviet Union and the non-Soviet Union? I would say almost every one agrees that the Soviet Union collapsed. It was the coup d'etat of the military of a withered state. It has to be one of the weakest and least bloody coups in history.
What is meant by the "collapse of the Soviet Union"? It was the decision of the key SSRs (Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR) to discontinue membership in the Union. Technically, it was a secession, like that of the South states in 1861. You don't suppose the state withered away in the Confederacy, do you?

And the August '91 attempted coup was meant to prevent that, BTW. If it succeeded, it is likely the USSR would have not "collapsed" but the the economic vector would have remained pretty much the same: privatization, market with government regulation, elimination of social security, natural resource export based model, and, short of independence, the republics still would have gained serious autonomy.




I agree that most of the new millionaires and billionaires in Russia came from the bureaucracy. But to say that the bureaucracy gave birth to the new capitalist class would be a reversal of Marxist theory. The international capitalist class already existed in full historical development; my theory is that it expanded into the vacuum left by the collapse of the Soviet state.
And I didn't say bureaucracy spawned the new bourgeoisie, I said the petty bourgeoisie spawned it. Bureaucracy was part of the Soviet petty bourgeoisie, but there were plenty of petty bourgeois groups. And the international capital surely played its role, but it did not "expand into vacuum", it established dominance over the national capital, with the help of the Soviet police, Soviet courts, Soviet media, and even the Soviets themselves (at first), by the 1990 all these institutions wore fully controlled by the Soviet petty bourgeoisie. Then, of course, after the industry was privatized the new bourgeoisie took over, and pushed the petty bourgeoisie out of control, but that hardly has anything to do with "withering away of the state". The proletariat lost control of the Soviet state long before that, and that's why the Soviet state theoretically could not wither away.




This is a restating of the "state capitalism" argument.
And?
The '1990 USSR was no more socialist than Sweden.




If capitalism doesn't work why is Russia now a mixed economy of capitalism and state ownership of the commanding heights of the economy?
Russia (and no other country in the world, not even North Korea) is no longer an isolated economy, which may be taken as some kind of a separate object. USSR was such an isolated system to a degree, both while it was still socialist and then state capitalist. Capitalism in the USSR tanked first, because it was a smaller system, than the rest of the world. And this is not even about the competition. This is about insufficient labor force to man so much capital (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/archive/noticeboard/bergson/allen.pdf) and suck surplus value from. The world imperialism is going to tank in the similar fashion, when the global population stops growing.

[Paul Cockshott]

But surely there was no working class or any "workers" at all in native American society. They had barely begun to make the transition from "savagery" to "barbarism." The settlers certainly had that interest and the United States government did its best to commit the genocide of the natives. The Indian wars were between a group of non-associated pre-barbarian tribes and a bourgeois, advanced state on the verge of becoming a world power. The trans-continental railroad was completed in 1865. The American natives never had a chance. Once capital caught up with the settlers they came completely under its control (as also happened to the Australian settlers.)

That is all true but the settler working class had an interest in the victory of the US army against the natives. The point I was making is that it is a fallacy to say that a working class never has an interest in wars waged by the state it lives in.

[RedMaterialist]

The point I was making is that it is a fallacy to say that a working class never has an interest in wars waged by the state it lives in.

Never is a pretty all inclusive term. If we look at the Napoleonic Wars, The U.S. Civil War, Franco-Prussian and WWI, it would seem that none of these wars was in the interests of the "working class." In the case of the US Civil War, I suppose it could be argued that workers believed that it was in their economic and social interests to save the union. I would not call the American Native/US conflicts "war" but rather genocide for the purpose of stealing land. The US working class never saw it as a war, but rather protecting themselves from the savages. It may even be a mistake to describe the settlers as "working class;" they were probably petit-bourgeoisie wanting to build a small family farm or business in the new territories.

Vietnam, however, is a stark example of a working class having a direct and substantial interest in waging war, whereas the US working class had absolutely no interest in the war, except in figuring out how to avoid it.

In WWII, German workers had no class interest in invading Russia, whereas Russian workers had a direct class interest in surviving. The same would apply to the U.S. and Japan.

I guess my point is that working class participation in war, as a class, has evolved from the 19th to the 20 century. Early 19th (and prior) wars are almost never waged in the interests of the working class. By mid 20th century, "major" wars had become almost exclusively a capitalist v. working class war.

One historical factor, I would think, is that the working class did not even fully develop until after the industrialization of the 19th century.

[Red_Banner]

The question is how should we think about the withering away of the state.

Are there, historically, any states which have "withered away and died" instead of being destroyed by violence, civil war, revolution, or military invasion?

1. Soviet Union

What does it mean for a state to "wither away and die?"

1. Is the state an organic thing which can be deprived of water and food. What is the process of withering. How does a state die without being murdered. What does a natural death of a state look like. What are the mechanisms of this death. Is "withering" a lengthy or short process.

Since all states are mechanisms for class suppression, how is class struggle implicated in the withering process?

1. Is it the class that withers away and dies. Why does no class take its place.
What does a withering class look like. Does the class die.

The USSR didn't go away peacefully.

There were riots in the Baltic states.

There was the August Coup which saw some violence.

There was violence between Transnistria and Moldova.

Chechnya.

Georgia and South Ossetia.

Azerbaijan.

Armenia.

Tajikistan was invaded by the Islamic militants that the USSR was fighting in Afghanistan.

Russia's 1993 Constitutional Crisis.

[RedMaterialist]

What is meant by the "collapse of the Soviet Union"?

Well, that is the question isn't it?


It was the decision of the key SSRs (Russian SFSR, Ukrainian SSR and Belorussian SSR) to discontinue membership in the Union. Technically, it was a secession, like that of the South states in 1861.

How is it possible for a state to make a conscious decision, not just to secede, but to allow itself to go out of existence?



You don't suppose the state withered away in the Confederacy, do you?

Absolutely not. Like all former states in history it did not collapse, it was militarily destroyed by another state; something which did not happen in the USSR. My question is how could a world power, without being militarily attacked and destroyed, simply have just gone out of business


And the August '91 attempted coup was meant to prevent that, BTW. If it succeeded, it is likely the USSR would have not "collapsed"

Certainly true, but the coup had no class support and no class to suppress, only the support of the aging and incompetent bureaucracy.




it established dominance over the national capital, with the help of the Soviet police, Soviet courts, Soviet media, and even the Soviets themselves (at first), by the 1990 all these institutions wore fully controlled by the Soviet petty bourgeoisie.

The Soviet people made a conscious decision to turn control of the state over to the petit-bourgeois? That theory makes more sense than the "bankruptcy" theory or the idea that Ronald Reagan scared Gorbachev into submission. But if so, when in history have a people ever made such a conscious decision, and what is the evidence of this decision?



The '1990 USSR was no more socialist than Sweden.

True, but by 1990 the Soviet state had collapsed.



Capitalism in the USSR tanked first, because it was a smaller system, than the rest of the world. And this is not even about the competition.

The Soviet Union had the second largest economy in the world; it was, arguably, (at least to the crazed military leadership in the US) the strongest military in the world; it was a major trading power; it was the first country into space; it had some of the best scientists in the world; it was, as Russia always had been, a dynamic cultural society.

The Soviet Union was, quite simply, a major world military and economic power. And in the space of less than a year, that state collapsed. How could such an event of such historical uniqueness have happened?