So what exactly is the relation of the proletariat to the state during revolution? So far I've seen heard about three different Left-Communist ideas. There's the classical Marxist idea that the proletariat must weild state power to suppress the bourgeoisie held by Pannekoek, and his predecessor Rosa Luxemburg. AKA Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Then there's the Bordigist idea that the party must consolidate the state and weild power. This conception hold that the Party weilding state power is the proletariat weilding power, because it weilds in the proletariats interests. Finally, there's the idea put for by organizations like ICC and the defunct GIK, that the proletariat and its unitary organizations must struggle against the state, and that the party must not get caught in the cogs of state machinery-- because the state is contrary to the proletariats interests, and if the struggle is abandoned the proletariat will find itself dominated by another cast. According to this idea, the revolution must spread, and when the proletariat dominates the state withers away. The GIK didn't even use the term of "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", but "The Association of Free and Equal Producers". Personally I'm stuck between the first and third ideas.
I think it would be good if you could elaborate on the differences between the first and third ideas. It seems that in the first idea you are saying that the German communist left were in favour of capturing the bourgeois state and using it to supress the bourgeoisie. I don't think that was really their position, but we can discuss this... It took the experience of the Russian Revolution and the reflections on it by the communist left to clarify the relationship between the party, class and state. The ICC's position is summed up quite well in this resolution we adopted in 1979, which was the culmination of quite a long and lively debate within the organisation. Basically, our position is that the bourgeois state is destroyed entirely but there arises a new transitional state over which the proletariat exercises its dictatorship through the workers' councils. We don't think the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat are one and the same. Resolution accepted at the 3rd Congress of the ICC (1979) During the period of transition the division of society into classes with antagonistic interests will give rise to a state. Such a state will have the task of guaranteeing the advances of this transitional society both against any exeternal or internal attempt to restore the power of the old exploiting classes and maintaining the cohesion of society against any disintegration of the social fabric resulting from conflicts between the non—exploiting classes which still subsist. The state of the period of transition has a certain number of differences from previous states: 1. For the first time in history, it is not a state in the service of an exploiting minority for the oppression of the majority, but is on the contrary, a state in the service of the majority of the exploited and non—exploiting classes and strata against the old ruling minority. 2. It is not the emanation of a stable society and relations of production, but on the contrary of a society whose permanent characteristic is a constant transformation on a greater scale than anything else in history. 3. It cannot identify itself with any economically dominant class because there is no such class in the society of the period of transition. 4. In contrast to states in past societies, the transitional state does not have a monopoly of arms. For all these reasons, marxists have talked of a “semi-state” when referring to the organ that will arise in the transition period. On the other hand, this state still retains a number of the characteristics of past states. In particular, it will still be the guardian of the status quo, the task of which will be to codify, legalise and sanction an already existing economic order, to give it a legal force which has to be acknowledged by every member of society. In the period of transition, the state will tend to conserve the existing state of affairs. Because of this, the state remains a fundamentally conservative organ that will tend: a) not to favour social transformation but to act against it; b) to maintain the conditions on which its own life depends: the division of society into classes; c) to detach itself from society, to impose itself on society, to perpetuate its own existence and to develop its own prerogatives; d) to bind its existence to the coercion and violence which it will of necessity use during the period of transition, and to try to maintain and reinforce this method of’ regulating social relations; e) to be a fertile soil for the formation of a bureaucracy, providing a rallying point for elements coming from the old classes and offices which have been destroyed by the revolution. This is why from the beginning marxists have always considered the state of the period of transition to be a “scourge”, a “necessary evil”, whose “worst sides” the proletariat will have to “lop off as much as possible” (Engels). For all these reasons, and in contrast to what has happened in the past, the revolutionary class cannot identify itself with the state in the period of transition. To begin with the proletariat is not an economically dominant class, either in capitalist society or the transitional society. During the transition period it will possess neither an economy nor any property, not even collectively: it will struggle for the abolition of economy and property. Secondly, the proletariat, the communist class, the subject which transforms the economic and social conditions of the transitional society, will necessarily come up against an organ whose task is to perpetuate these conditions. This is why one cannot talk about a “socialist state”, a “workers’ state” nor a “proletarian state” during the period of transition. This antagonism between the proletariat and the state manifests itself both on the immediate and the historic level. On the immediate level, the proletariat will have to oppose the encroachments and the pressure of a state which is the manifestation of a society divided into antagonistic classes. On the historic level, the necessary disappearance of the state in communist society, which is a perspective which marxism always defended, will not be the result of the state’s own dynamic, but the fruit of the pressure mounted on it by the proletariat in its own movement forward, which will progressively deprive it of all its attributes as the progress towards a classless society unfolds. For these reasons, while the proletariat will have to use the state during the transition period, it must retain a complete independence from it. In this sense the dicitatorship of the proletariat cannot be confused with the state. Between the two there is a constant relation of force which the proleatariat will have to maintain in its favour: the dictatorship of the proletariat is exerted by the working class itself through its own independent armed unitary organs: the workers’ councils. The workers’ councils will particiapate in the territorial soviets (in which the whole non—exploiting population is represented and from which the state structure will emanate) without confusing themselves with them, in order to ensure its class hegemony over all the structures of the society of the transitional period. http://en.internationalism.org/pamph...tion_1979.html
hi el kablamo it's also worth checking out the series on the period of transition from Bilan that we are re-publishing in the International Review. THis one in particular shows the position on the state that the Italian left developed and which we have taken forward http://en.internationalism.org/ir/129/commy-5-pot
Ah, so we'll elect people in our soviets, but they cannot have our 100% trust. And they will have to subject to recall, and accountablity measures.
True in one sense - even in the workers' councils we have to make sure our delegates carry out their mandate. But the problem of the state is more to do with the relation between the specific organs of the working class like the workers' soviets, and the 'organisation of society' in a phase of transition, ie a state organ which has a heterogeneous class character: soviets which regroup the whole population and not just workers, administrative and military bodies, etc.
I see, so because the state will have former upper-class members in it with old class-predjudices, attitudes, and interests, the state cannot be trusted until those with contrary attitudes cannot make effective their interests. For example, when the Communist distribution of resources is fully developed world-wide, it cannot be altered to suit Capitalism.
Yes - the state withers away to the extent that communist social relations are generalised. But the problem doesn't only come from former members of the ruling class, but more generally from all the classes and strata who are not part of the working class (petty bourgeoisie, peasants, etc) and whose ideologies and attitudes inevitably affect the working class as well.
