"Art of revolution" and "smashing" the state: wholesale turnover?

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/863/the-book-that-didn-t-bark

Quoting Lars Lih:


Before embarking on the topic of ‘smash the state’, some preliminary clarification will again be helpful.

This resonant phrase has at least three principal meanings. Making these distinctions is not just a matter of logic-chopping. Each meaning represents a separate scenario of revolution, and these scenarios can be advocated by people with strongly conflicting agendas. There is no logical contradiction between advocating one or more of these scenarios and rejecting the rest. These possible meanings of ‘smash the state’ need to be clear in our minds before turning to the texts.

* The anarchist scenario. According to the anarchists, the state is the source of all evil, and therefore the first duty of a socialist revolutionary was to raze all centralised authority structures, including democratic ones.
* The democratisation scenario. If we define the state as a tool of class exploitation that sets one part of society above another, then full democratisation that overcomes the alienation between society and its decision-making organs is equivalent to smashing the state.
* The ‘art of revolution’ scenario. One of the lessons drawn by Marx and Engels from the failed revolutions of 1848 was the necessity of preventing counterrevolutionary forces from using the repressive apparatus of the state to crush the revolution. Leaving these old structures intact was extremely dangerous. They needed to be smashed.

There is another important meaning of ‘smash the state’ that I call the “breakdown and reconstitution” scenario, but this meaning is irrelevant to our present discussion. The very brief descriptions of different scenarios given here are meant primarily to show that ‘smash the state’ can be understood in sharply distinct ways.

Not long ago, there was useful group discussion on "taking over" vs. "smashing" the state apparatus. With historical developments from the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, have the democratization, "art of revolution," and "breakdown and reconstitution" approaches really come down to the real or perceived need to implement wholesale reorganization, wholesale turnover, "politically motivated mass layoffs," bloodless purges, or some other synonymous term?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

What??? :confused:

[Remus Bleys]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm a good enough rebuttal

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not really, Remus. If anything, Lenin and the Bolsheviks probably underestimated the extent of which wholesale reorganization, wholesale turnover, "politically motivated mass layoffs," bloodless purges, etc. were necessary for revolutionary change not to degenerate. Otherwise, they wouldn't have retained or re-appointed former czarist officials into the new Soviet state apparatus.

In slang terms, the problem boils down to avoiding the outcome of "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."

[Remus Bleys]

So you used a lot of theoretical terms that remind me of bread in order to criticize the bolsheviks for being "the same as the tsar" because of what, authoritarianism? Not only is that unbleivably liberal, but I guess we can say bye bye to class/marxist analysis... oh wait what can be expected from something called "neo-kaustkyanism"

[Art Vandelay]

So you used a lot of theoretical terms that remind me of bread in order to criticize the bolsheviks for being "the same as the tsar" because of what, authoritarianism? Not only is that unbleivably liberal, but I guess we can say bye bye to class/marxist analysis... oh wait what can be expected from something called "neo-kaustkyanism"

I'm not really sure the point of this Lih article/quote, but this isn't what DNZ was saying at all.

[Remus Bleys]

I'm not really sure the point of this Lih article/quote, but this isn't what DNZ was saying at all.
What then is he saying? Talk of bloodless purges (which theyre were) implies there were too many "bloody purges." That organizational problems were the cause of the degeneration of the russian revolution. AND Finally "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."

[Alexios]

Lassalleianism of the 21st century.

[Art Vandelay]

What then is he saying? Talk of bloodless purges (which theyre were) implies there were too many "bloody purges." That organizational problems were the cause of the degeneration of the russian revolution. AND Finally "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."

I'm not entirely sure, I'm skimming my way through the article linked at the moment and the argument that I am getting from it is that given the recent translation of portions of Kautsky's 'Republic and Social Democracy in France,' it is now being realized that there was much more in common between Lenin and Kautsky in terms of their views on the state. To further add credence to this notion it is mentioned that this is the one relevant Kautsky work not mentioned by Lenin in 'State and Revolution,' the implication being that Lenin forgot about the work (a dubious implication in my mind).

I think the obvious point is that no one denies the importance of early Kautsky and the work that the CPGB has recently began translating is from 1904, which is well before the years in which Kautsky turned his back on Marxism, so I'm not sure I understand the point Lih is getting at. That Kautsky (the Marxist) and Lenin had large portions of overlap in their politics? Well obviously that would be the case. I'd also be interested in knowing how Lih has a full grasp on the totality of Kautsky's arguments in the article in question, when Ben Lewis has yet to finish his translation and I am assuming (since Lih mentions he uses an English-German dictionary in his article) he himself doesn't speak German.

I am also not sure if I agree that the 'democratization' scenario would actually be the equivalent of smashing the state, in fact that seems to fly in the face of the lessons Marx drew from the Paris commune.


If anything, Lenin and the Bolsheviks probably underestimated the extent of which wholesale reorganization, wholesale turnover, "politically motivated mass layoffs," bloodless purges, etc. were necessary for revolutionary change not to degenerate. Otherwise, they wouldn't have retained or re-appointed former czarist officials into the new Soviet state apparatus.

We both know that was due to the nature of the situation and the lack of individuals capable of filling certain specialized roles and has nothing to do with Lenin or the Bolsheviks viewing that course of action as ideal.

[motion denied]

I don't know if understood the democratisation argument correctly. Is it that we can smash the state by making it more democratic? If so, in practice, we'll become regular social-democrats or democratic socialists - reformists either way. Is the DotP pluriclassist?

It's a huge step back to late XIXth century debate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am also not sure if I agree that the 'democratization' scenario would actually be the equivalent of smashing the state, in fact that seems to fly in the face of the lessons Marx drew from the Paris commune.

[...]

We both know that was due to the nature of the situation and the lack of individuals capable of filling certain specialized roles and has nothing to do with Lenin or the Bolsheviks viewing that course of action as ideal.

Now that there has been a relevant response to the question at hand, comrade, my point was that there's ample historical evidence now to suggest what kind of scenarios are more "ideal."

Bureaucracy is a process, one that cannot be avoided and must be mastered on the road of class emancipation:

1) My discussion on Venezuela's colectivos and past posts on investigative organs, were items on party-movement-based alternatives to the bourgeois police (up to the riot police thugs but not including secret police considerations).
2) Past posts on how secret police operatives in the former Warsaw Pact were stigmatized, and ironically on the need for "Chekists" in at least foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence, dealt with party-movement-based alternatives to the modern surveillance society and "national security" creeps.
3) Past discussion on synthesizing demarchic applications, union and other labour rights, and the political officer and military models of the (shock and horror!) post-WWII Soviet Armed Forces, as well as side remarks on relevant party-movement expertise via in-house military historians and tactics education, were for party-movement-based alternatives (if any) to the "standing army."

That... to say nothing of the need for a clear-headed approach to the civil bureaucracy, not an approach of a headless chicken.

My wholesale reorganization, wholesale turnover, "politically motivated mass layoffs," bloodless purges, and related stuff stems from the mass party-movement developing internally the proto-organs and providing the replacement personnel.

[SHORAS]

If Lih is not purely talking historically his understanding of contemporary anarchism is terrible.

[ckaihatsu]

* The democratisation scenario. If we define the state as a tool of class exploitation that sets one part of society above another, then full democratisation that overcomes the alienation between society and its decision-making organs is equivalent to smashing the state.





I don't know if understood the democratisation argument correctly. Is it that we can smash the state by making it more democratic? If so, in practice, we'll become regular social-democrats or democratic socialists - reformists either way. Is the DotP pluriclassist?

It's a huge step back to late XIXth century debate.


It's an abstract formulation, like saying 'Point A to Point B' -- at least that's how *I* interpret it, anyway....

One could even interpret it to mean the democratization of the *means of production*, since that's what decision-making is ultimately about. So, using this line of thought, 'democratization' is *not* class-collaborationist, since the full democratization of decision-making would be synonymous with the socialization of the means of mass production, and thus the same as 'smashing the state'.





Not really, Remus. If anything, Lenin and the Bolsheviks probably underestimated the extent of which wholesale reorganization, wholesale turnover, "politically motivated mass layoffs," bloodless purges, etc. were necessary for revolutionary change not to degenerate. Otherwise, they wouldn't have retained or re-appointed former czarist officials into the new Soviet state apparatus.

In slang terms, the problem boils down to avoiding the outcome of "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss."


In other words either you have proletarian-oriented organization, historically / conventionally in the party formation, or else you don't and it's just another asshole who takes their place in power.

[G4b3n]

While I believe the state ought to be smashed, I do not see it as the "source of all evil", that is just ahistorical and confused analysis that I believe only a minority of anarchists hold to be true. First and foremost, the state is a tool of the bourgeoisie, a tool that is of no use to the worker's movement. The logic behind this is that it is more beneficial in terms of fostering genuine egalitarianism and the conditions under which socialism is to develop by utilizing our own tools (soviets, syndicates, worker's councils, etc) and using these tools as the means to cement our position as the ruling class until bourgeois property relations, i.e, capital has successfully been abolished.

[Brutus]

While I believe the state ought to be smashed, I do not see it as the "source of all evil", that is just ahistorical and confused analysis that I believe only a minority of anarchists hold to be true. First and foremost, the state is a tool of the bourgeoisie, a tool that is of no use to the worker's movement. The logic behind this is that it is more beneficial in terms of fostering genuine egalitarianism and the conditions under which socialism is to develop by utilizing our own tools (soviets, syndicates, worker's councils, etc) and using these tools as the means to cement our position as the ruling class until bourgeois property relations, i.e, capital has successfully been abolished.

These tools, though, would constitute forms of proletarian power. Utilising them in a way to destroy current social-relations, to neutralise all forces hostile to proletarian power, and to strengthen the position of the proletariat as the ruling class would make all these institutions part of the state; we would have a dictatorship of the proletariat.

[synthesis]

DNZ should be required to have a single "tl;dr" one-sentence summary in spoiler tags at the bottom of all his posts.

[Brutus]

DNZ should be required to have a single "tl;dr" one-sentence summary in spoiler tags at the bottom of all his posts.

And a glossary for his invented terminologies.