Worker Constitution?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I was rereading some of Engles' writings ("The Principles of Communism") and in a section called "What will the corse of this revolution look like?" he says that the revolution will create a democratic constitution for the establishment of worker's power.

Often people I met who were interested in becoming communists have brought this idea up with me before and I always kinda brushed off the idea of a "worker's bill of rights" or "constitution" as bourgie and that it would be up to workers at the time of the revolution to decide if such legal documents were needed. My thinking was that the US Constitution was designed to allow some democracy while keeping landowners as the real power in the nation and so a worker's constitution might end up being something similar where it would artificially freeze the revolution at one point keeping it from being able to develop and eventually becoming communism.

I'm still not sure if it's such a bad idea... something to ensure that workers always have the right to strike and so on. But the way Engels puts it, the constitution would be used also in countries where the workers are not the majority and it would be used to make sure that workers had class power over the peasentry.

Is this a relic of the previous revolutionary period of the 17 & 18 hundreds or do people think that this might be something viable in future revolutions?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Would it help if this was put in the "Learning" forum? Or is this just a boreing question? My feelings won't be hurt, it's just an odd passage I came across and didn't know what to make of it.

[Amusing Scrotum]

I guess this is what you are referring to -


Originally posted by Engels
18. What will be the course of this revolution?

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.

Link (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=26804).

It seems to me Engels is saying that a "workers constitution" should be drawn up so that the 12 aims can be accomplished.

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

......and so on.

The idea was probably a good one when Engels wrote it, but I doubt it holds much weight now. If anything, some of the goals seem rather conservative. For instance, (ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

"Gradual expropriation" and "compensation" for landowners, industrialists etc. It sounds similar to the rhetoric of the Social Democrats "evolutionary" Marxism.

I suspect it would be beneficial to write a "workers constitution" but it should be more radical and aggressive than Engels has suggested.


But the way Engels puts it, the constitution would be used also in countries where the workers are not the majority and it would be used to make sure that workers had class power over the peasentry.

Well this can be ignored. We saw in the last century what happens to a "workers" revolution which has no workers.


Is this a relic of the previous revolutionary period of the 17 & 18 hundreds or do people think that this might be something viable in future revolutions?

I suppose it is a relic, I doubt (x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts. Could be applied today.

I think what is more important than whether there is a constitution. Is when it is or isn't written. It would be absolutely useless for us to write a constitution now, if there is a "workers constitution" it should be written during the revolutionary period.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thanks, that's more or less what I felt. I totally agree that it would be silly for revolutionaries to imagine some constitution on behalf of future workers of future revolutions.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2005, 07:22 PM
Thanks, that's more or less what I felt. I totally agree that it would be silly for revolutionaries to imagine some constitution on behalf of future workers of future revolutions.

It also just occurred to me that when Engels wrote that the American constitution would still have been quite new and would have been viewed by many people as a "great innovation."

So it's not that surprising that Marx, Engels and the other revolutionaries would have seen some bourgeois concepts and thought that they could be applied to a workers society.

Obviously there will be some things that will be borrowed, but I think that a workers society will make its own "innovations." It is more than likely that the working class will come up with its own procedures.

If anything, I think Engels was underestimating the ability of the working class to develop its own concepts. Which is not surprising given that the working class of Engels time was, well, "backward."

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah I believe it was published in the 1840s decades before the paris commune and at a time where the bourgies would still have been seen as having a progressive role in revolutions against feudal monarchies.