I don't understand why We must wait for the state to Dissolve

[The New Manifesto]

Question to all the communists, how will the state Dissolve? I've had my doubts that a parasitic state will just go away. How will we dissolve the state? Why can't we just "smash" it was Anarchists Propose....

[KC]

The proletarian state withers away, not the bourgeois state.

[renegadoe]

The proletarian state withers away...

So you say. Where has this ever actually happened?

[gilhyle]

.... "smash" it was Anarchists Propose....

When has THIS ever happened ?

[renegadoe]

When has THIS ever happened ?

The problem is, anarchists have never gotten a chance to "smash the state" (Catalonia was the furthest they ever saw - before it was militarily crushed). Vanguardists have seen successful "revolutions" several times - and all of theirs reproduce bourgeois consciousness, and, eventually, capitalism. Anarchists may have never "won", but vaguardists fail when they do "win".

[Q]

Having in mind that a state is an instrument of class oppression, "abolishing" it by decree would either mean that you slaughter the bougeoisie in a massive bloodbad or that you ignore the class reality after the working class has taken power (in fact, have they then?) so that the bourgeoisie can just take it again.
Either way, "smash the state" is a reactionary stance.

[More Fire for the People]

I agree we shouldn't wait for the bourgeois state to dissolve before we start building a proletarian dictatorship. This is different from the anarchist conception of smashing all forms of statehood during revolutionary transition. Rather, it is an alternative programme of building up proletarian institutions before, during, and after the revolution (which roughly correlates with building proletarian cultural institutions, proletarian political institutions, and proletarian economic institutions). This vision of proletarian democratic-dictatorship is both broader and narrower than the bourgeois concept of statehood: broader, because it encompasses institutions outside of traditional bourgeois state forms and narrower, because it is concentrated on the elimination of the state. This alternative programme to anarchism is not only possible, but the most realistic and true in our times.

[RNK]

When has "anything" ever happened? Stop going on about shit that may or may not occur one day after things may have happened and blah blah. We can't leap too far ahead of what is right infront of us; we've got to concentrate on the next step, not the 10th step or the 20th step.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I agree we shouldn't wait for the bourgeois state to dissolve before we start building a proletarian dictatorship. This is different from the anarchist conception of smashing all forms of statehood during revolutionary transition. Rather, it is an alternative programme of building up proletarian institutions before, during, and after the revolution (which roughly correlates with building proletarian cultural institutions, proletarian political institutions, and proletarian economic institutions). This vision of proletarian democratic-dictatorship is both broader and narrower than the bourgeois concept of statehood: broader, because it encompasses institutions outside of traditional bourgeois state forms and narrower, because it is concentrated on the elimination of the state. This alternative programme to anarchism is not only possible, but the most realistic and true in our times.

Comrade, can you please elaborate on this? Why would cultural institutions and some political institutions (most notably the Party) be included in the proletocratic state apparatus? That would severely limit the ability of workers to organize independently of the state.

[Tower of Bebel]

So you say. Where has this ever actually happened?


Pure induction is not always the right way to confront a theory with it's possible flaws. What has never happened isn't necessailry impossible (look at the communist/anarchist society for instance).


I agree we shouldn't wait for the bourgeois state to dissolve before we start building a proletarian dictatorship. I don't get it. Do you mean the dictatorship of the proletariat needs a state, or did you say it needs a bourgeois state?

[More Fire for the People]

Comrade, can you please elaborate on this? Why would cultural institutions and some political institutions (most notably the Party) be included in the proletocratic state apparatus? That would severely limit the ability of workers to organize independently of the state.
Institutions =/= apparatuses of the state. For instance, churches are not a part of the state but they are a cultural institution. (Not that I think we should be training communist preachers :lol:)

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Am I one with my "social proletocracy" stuff? :lol: There's a fine line between being a passionate "ideologist" and being an evangelist. :D

[( R )evolution]

The problem is, anarchists have never gotten a chance to "smash the state" (Catalonia was the furthest they ever saw - before it was militarily crushed). Vanguardists have seen successful "revolutions" several times - and all of theirs reproduce bourgeois consciousness, and, eventually, capitalism. Anarchists may have never "won", but vaguardists fail when they do "win".

Are you obvilious to the fact that communism could not have been reached successful where those "revolutions" occurred. There are required conditions to be in place for the successful creation of a competent socialist state and these conditions were not present in the USSR or China.

[chimx]

The fall of capitalism on an international level is unlikely to occur simultaneously. So long as one class has to struggle against and coerce another class, a state by definition will have to exist.

Historiographically, you have to remember that Marxism was an overt break from political history for social history. Marxism defined human progression along developments in production. The state is simply an apparatus that serves the need of production and is not really a defining characteristic of any particular historical epoch. When production has been reorganized and workers have seized control of the means of production, i.e. capitalism has been dismantled, the state ceases to serve a function in that class coercion ceases to be necessary.

But the superstructure is very much tied to human tradition, culture, and history, and it is naive to expect this shift to occur over night. As institutions stop being necessary, they will stop existing in their own right.

[Everyday Anarchy]

I agree we shouldn't wait for the bourgeois state to dissolve before we start building a proletarian dictatorship. This is different from the anarchist conception of smashing all forms of statehood during revolutionary transition. Rather, it is an alternative programme of building up proletarian institutions before, during, and after the revolution (which roughly correlates with building proletarian cultural institutions, proletarian political institutions, and proletarian economic institutions). This vision of proletarian democratic-dictatorship is both broader and narrower than the bourgeois concept of statehood: broader, because it encompasses institutions outside of traditional bourgeois state forms and narrower, because it is concentrated on the elimination of the state. This alternative programme to anarchism is not only possible, but the most realistic and true in our times.What you have just laid out is exactly what anarchists have been saying from the beginning. Building the new world in the shell of the old.
However, I fail to see why you desire a state after the revolution. Based on what you have said, of the proletarian creating their own alternative political and economic and cultural institutions now, why do they need a state? It would appear to me that they have themselves organized before and during the revolution quite autonomously, it would make no sense for a vanguard to take power away from the workers in the name of their freedom.

[apathy maybe]

The fall of capitalism on an international level is unlikely to occur simultaneously. So long as one class has to struggle against and coerce another class, a state by definition will have to exist.
The state by Marxist definition will have to exist. Not all of us agree with that definition however.

Some of us say that the state is an instrument of minority rule, and that any "state" where the majority of people are in power, is by definition not a state!

Using this definition, a state doesn't just "whither away", because it is against the people in control of the state to let it just go. Their material interests are in retaining power, and they are not going to give it up just like that...

Indeed, we can see from history that all attempts to abolish the state and replace it with majority rule have ended up with just another 'minority rule' state!

Take Russia and the USSR (please :laugh:)for example. In 1917 there was a state ruled by the Czar et al. There was a mass revolution, the implantation of soviets, etc. And an attempt to create another state out of the wreckage of the old.

Some folks did not like this, and a few months later decided to get rid of this new state, and you all know what happened next. An army was established (permanent body of armed persons, classic sign of a state), and a small group of people got to make all the decisions. (The soviets? they were ignored or abolished.)

[Q]

The state by Marxist definition will have to exist. Not all of us agree with that definition however.

Some of us say that the state is an instrument of minority rule, and that any "state" where the majority of people are in power, is by definition not a state!

Using this definition, a state doesn't just "whither away", because it is against the people in control of the state to let it just go. Their material interests are in retaining power, and they are not going to give it up just like that...

Indeed, we can see from history that all attempts to abolish the state and replace it with majority rule have ended up with just another 'minority rule' state!

Take Russia and the USSR (please :laugh:)for example. In 1917 there was a state ruled by the Czar et al. There was a mass revolution, the implantation of soviets, etc. And an attempt to create another state out of the wreckage of the old.

Some folks did not like this, and a few months later decided to get rid of this new state, and you all know what happened next. An army was established (permanent body of armed persons, classic sign of a state), and a small group of people got to make all the decisions. (The soviets? they were ignored or abolished.)
Your "logic" makes a strange twist. How do you explain that you can go from a majority rule to a minority one? Did the people in power in the Soviets just give up power? Oh wait, you just said that this isn't done, as there are "material interests" for them to retain power (yes, this logic also works for direct democracies, power = power).

So what then? How did Stalin (or probably Lenin in your mind) took all power toward himself? Did he "fool" the workers, peasants and soldiers? This "logic" leads to grave underestimation of the strength people have, especially one that has the experience of a revolution. If Lenin, or whoever, just "took" power, he would have had a big problem, don't you think?

All in all, I must say that when I first read the anarchists as being "degenerative petty-bourgeois" I thought that this was little overkill, but you proof it again: you use bourgeois logic, but only "reversed" so to say. Instead of being at the top, anarchists are at the bottom of society, despising everything that has to do with hierarchy.

[Vahanian]

this may sound stupid but isnt the majority of people are to relint on the captialist system to fight aginst it and if they did they military would crush it

[KC]

So you say. Where has this ever actually happened?

Stop calling yourself Marxist. You're clearly not.

[Dros]

So you say. Where has this ever actually happened?

It happens at the late stages of socialism after socialism has been constructed worldwide.

[Morpheus]

Having in mind that a state is an instrument of class oppression, "abolishing" it by decree would either mean that you slaughter the bougeoisie in a massive bloodbad or that you ignore the class reality after the working class has taken power (in fact, have they then?) so that the bourgeoisie can just take it again.
Either way, "smash the state" is a reactionary stance.

Exterminating the master class is not a reactionary stance but rather the ultimate blow against capitalism.

[Q]

Exterminating the master class is not a reactionary stance but rather the ultimate blow against capitalism.
Define "exterminating". If it really comes down to a bloodbad, it surely is very reactionary.

[AGITprop]

When has "anything" ever happened? Stop going on about shit that may or may not occur one day after things may have happened and blah blah. We can't leap too far ahead of what is right infront of us; we've got to concentrate on the next step, not the 10th step or the 20th step.

So that when things do start happening we know what to do. I am not disagreeing with you. We need to work to get to this stage but while we are still here, better to learn while time is still available.

[AGITprop]

Exterminating the master class is not a reactionary stance but rather the ultimate blow against capitalism.

The ultimate blow against capitalism is taking away the means of production from the ruling class and eliminating their source of profit. No need to kill anyone.

[AGITprop]

The proletarian state is what we call a semi-state. It is born dying. There only to facilitate the transition to communism.

[gilhyle]

The problem is, anarchists have never gotten a chance to "smash the state" (Catalonia was the furthest they ever saw - before it was militarily crushed). Vanguardists have seen successful "revolutions" several times - and all of theirs reproduce bourgeois consciousness, and, eventually, capitalism. Anarchists may have never "won", but vaguardists fail when they do "win".

See that is the problem...you think the 'Vanguardists' as you call them have reached some bizarre situation where they have freedom of choice as to what to do next, that they have had a successful revolution. This reflects your putschist conception of a revolution. A revolution is a process. Vanguardists as you call them have never had anything but constrained state power under extremely unpropitious circumstances.