I think this should be in Learning because this seems like a really newbie question...
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Is marxist communism really stateless?
Marxists say that communism will be stateless system, but they usually have their own definition of the state as being the tool of class oppression.
It would seem that this means that if classes (in the marxist sense) disappear, the state as we know it would contiue to exist.
Engels, in On authority, says:
"All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society."
And having in mind that marxists, if Marx's manifesto is to taken as authoritative, want nationalization of economy, not only would a state continue to exist in communim, but it and it's power would be largely increaced, being that nationalization of economy implies a large state apparatus, and the only difference would be that the marxists would not call such a leviathan 'a state', because, according to them, there is no class society, even though any established organization of people that is centralized necessitates a stratification of people into the ones at the center and the ones that are on the periphery.
It seems to me that what marxists call communism is in a fact a society with both a state and classes, as oppossed to the general description of communism being a stateless and classless system.
The economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence. (General rules of IWMA)
Imposed communism would be the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive. And free and voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the right and the possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist, individualist- as one wishes, always on condition that there is no oppression or exploitation of others. (Malatesta)
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I think this should be in Learning because this seems like a really newbie question...
The list of demands in the Communist Manifesto were transitional ones. Remember that Marx called for a transitional phase whereby a centralised state would exist. In other words, when he talks about nationalisation he is not talking about communism, but the creation of it.
Yeah, I thought about it, but maybe this is less of question to be explained, and more of a question to be discussed, being that I think there are pretty different views about it.
I don't get it how a transition to a presumably stateless system can be to enlarge and strengthen the state.
The economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence. (General rules of IWMA)
Imposed communism would be the most detestable tyranny that the human mind could conceive. And free and voluntary communism is ironical if one has not the right and the possibility to live in a different regime, collectivist, mutualist, individualist- as one wishes, always on condition that there is no oppression or exploitation of others. (Malatesta)
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Well it can't. Therein lies the age old Marxism-Leninism v anarchism debate -- of which there are literally thousands on this board.
The dictatorship of the proletariat must be a 'semi state' (based off the Paris commune). Any stalinist talk of strengthening the state is anti Marxist (well, it contradicts with socialism as a whole, not just Marxism), which is hilarious since they claim to be 'anti-revisionist'.
The proletarian state will have one purpose: the supressiom of the bourgeosie and the counter revolution.
Segui il tuo corso e lascia dir le genti.
Socialism resides entirely in the revolutionary negation of the capitalist ENTERPRISE, not in granting the enterprise to the factory workers.
- Bordiga
Marx wanted to strengthen the proletarian state after the capitalist state had been overthrown. The proletarian state however is not just any government with a red flag but one in which is directly controlled by all workers against the capitalists and reactionaries, is actively trying to implement socialism, and is helping the rest of the international proletariat. Because the Marxist concept of the state is radically different from the modern capitalist conception, saying Marxists want to increase the power of the state is misleading especially when talking about it with or hearing it from non Marxists.
Highlight added.
How is this logistically possible?
Why is it misleading, it is pretty much exactly what he said...?
What is the state?
The organisation for one class to suppress another, most crudely, but a slightly more neutral description (not that the state is neitral, it acts in the interests of the ruling class) is that it is an organisation that integrates non-ruling clases into society.
What is a class?
A section of society with a specific relationship to property.
While the revolution is continuing, classes and states will exist: the proletarian power will be fighting in a life or death struggle with capitalism.
If the revolution is successful, and the proletariat seizes power worldwide, it can then massively re-organise the whole of society. It can integrate the other social strata into production. This will effectively abolish classes by removing different relationships to property.
But until it has seized power it can't do that. So the 'proletarian state' (institution of working class rule) lasts as long as it takes the working class to abolish itself, and all other classes, through the abolition of property.
Once classes (seperate socio-economic groups) have been abolished, once property has been collectivised throughout the world, there is no more 'state' because there are no more classes to support a state. This is Engels' 'withering away of the state' - when the material basis of the state no longer exists the state ceases to have any method of existing.
Conversely, before the material bases of the state have been abolished, attempts at doing away with the state are just wishing.
Critique of the Gotha Programme, Pt IV: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm
No War but the Class War
Destroy All Nations
Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC): "A man whose life has been dishonorable is not entitled to escape disgrace in death."
The [convenient] problem with this definition is that it fails to address the fundamental issue of explaining how "the organisation for one class to suppress another" is actually organised.
On the issue of the state, you're being quite misleading. What is the "institution of working class rule"? How does the proletariat "seize" power from a bourgeois state?
The state arises from the antagonisms between classes. Revolution is not an instantaneous process and there will always be a period of time where the proletariat has power but aspects of the bourgeoisie and the petite-bourgeoisie linger. The very existance of classes implies that there will be a state; an organisational tool to handle the class antagonisms. In a revolutionary sense, this state will simply be utilised to consume itself and the last vestiges of capitalism.
Modern democracy is nothing but the freedom to preach whatever is to the advantage of the bourgeoisie - Lenin
It's called dictatorship of the proletariat for a reason.
Because Marxists have different definition of the state than non Marxists such as conservatives, when they use the fact that Marx wished to empower the state as evidence that communism is authoritarian, that act of saying Marx wished to empower the modern concept of the state is misleading. Clear?
That doesn't in any way address my question. You said a state which "is directly controlled by all workers." That is what you said.
I want you to explain to me how it is logistically possible for all workers to be directly in control of the state.
Not really. You said that it is misleading for non-Marxists to say that Marxists want to "increase the power of the state," when in actual fact that's pretty much exactly what Marx wanted...
It does. If the proletariat is not as a whole in control then it is not the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Because the state is a form of class rule over another, the entire class, specifically the workers in the dotp, is in control.
Because they have a different concept of what the state is. It's like saying you are for anarchy as in complete chaos and disorder rather than anarchy as in without oppression or hierarchy.
There are about thirty million workers in the UK alone. How do you imagine they will all directly control the state?
Yes, you've said that. See question above.
What I'm saying to you is quite simple really. You said that Marxists don't want to "increase the power of the state," yeah? That's what you said. You also said that it was misleading for non-Marxists to say that. The trouble is, it's not misleading at all. Marx, you know, the one who makes up the Marx bit of Marxist said that the state should increase its power, taking for example the idea of nationalising industry...
Through democracy. How else can they control their society whether it is in the form of the dotp, (a non 'state' anarchist territory) and/or communism?
Yet you cannot understand more than two of my words.
Did you read my post at all? If Marx uses the word state to mean the rule of a class ie the workers and is in favour of that but some conservative*over there uses Marx's words as supporting increasing Obama's power ie increasing the modern state's power then Mr Conservative is being misleading using Marx's own words regardless of whether or not the state they talk about is in the same covering of the word 'state' but it is in substance different. That is misleading. So would saying you're and anarchist so you want chaos and disorder or that you're a communist so you want totalitarianism. Same with state, communism, and anarchism.
Jacques Camatte wrote an excellent synopsis of the transitional phase, outlining the 'standard' view of the proletarian state, its reason for existence and how/why production is organized, but goes into much greater depth on how the transitional proletarian state erodes the law of value and withers away. It's a straightforward read with a lot of references from Marx.
'Communism and the intermediary phases between capitalism and communism'
http://www.marxists.org/archive/camatte/capcom/ch07.htm
It's the most articulate/persuasive version of the 'Communist Party administering the proletarian state' concept I've come across.
If the state is a tool of class oppression how it would continue to exist once there are no more classes to oppress?
You are confusing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat with communism. The DOTP is not communism. During the DOTP you still have classes and a state. In communism you don't have classes or a state anymore. The nationalization of the economy is undertaken in the DOTP, not in communism.
"WE COMMUNISTS ARE ALL DEAD MEN ON LEAVE"
Eugen Leviné
Interestingly, Camatte went on to lay the theorectical groundwork for what became anarcho-primitivism (which isn't to say Camatte was a primitivist - he just had some serious pessimism about the proletariat as revolutionary subject).
The life we have conferred upon these objects confronts us as something hostile and alien.
Formerly Virgin Molotov Cocktail (11/10/2004 - 21/08/2013)
OP: most Marxists understand "communism" as referring to the product of the resolution of class struggle. The intermediary stage between capitalism and communism, "socialism" is where the class struggle is waged and things like nationalization come into play. Under the dictatorship of the proletariat ideology, this intermediary state will function with more or less the same prerogatives as any other state today.
At least this is how many Marxists interpret the process. It is hardly the onlhy view, but in fairness it doesn't logically contradict with the goal of biulding a stateless society.
百花齐放
-----------------------------
la luz
de un Rojo Amanecer
anuncia ya
la vida que vendrá.
-Quilapayun
