[STUDY GROUP] The State and Revolution

[Lenin II]

I would like to begin an in-depth study group of Lenin's work "The State and Revolution." How should we approach the study of such an important work? I suppose we could do it chapter by chapter, but that is a good bit of material to cover...perhaps paragraph by paragraph. We'll start with the preface:

The question of the state is now acquiring particular importance both in theory and in practical politics. The imperialist war has immensely accelerated and intensified the process of transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism. The monstrous oppression of the working people by the state, which is merging more and more with the all-powerful capitalist associations, is becoming increasingly monstrous. The advanced countries - we mean their hinterland - are becoming military convict prisons for the workers.

By "imperialist war" I'm assuming he means WWI. Odd how this statement perfectly paralells what's going on now. These desperate conditions make the workers question the state--its effectiveness, justification for existence and class interests--and make them gravitate towards a more Marxist perception. Coupled with the influence from established vanguard parties, this burning rebellious spirit can be molded into a revolutionary spirit.
Thoughts, anyone?

[darktidus]

I'd be happy to look at it, although paragraph by paragraph seems burdensome. Chapters seems fine, as long as we have at least a day per chapter?

[Lenin II]

I'm not sure. Perhaps we can do several paragraphs at a time, highlighting important quotes and concepts for study and discussion. It is a fairly long book, so paragraph-wise it may be difficult, but our goal is an in-depth study.

[darktidus]

I'm not sure. Perhaps we can do several paragraphs at a time, highlighting important quotes and concepts for study and discussion. It is a fairly long book, so paragraph-wise it may be difficult, but our goal is an in-depth study.

That sounds good, ready when you are.

[Lenin II]

The unprecedented horrors and miseries of the protracted war are making the people's position unbearable and increasing their anger. The world proletarian revolution is clearly maturing. The question of its relation to the state is acquiring practical importance.

Is Lenin talking about WWI here? Odd how this is so similar to what's going on now in the United States.

The elements of opportunism that accumulated over the decades of comparatively peaceful development have given rise to the trend of social-chauvinism which dominated the official socialist parties throughout the world. This trend - socialism in words and chauvinism in deeds (Plekhanov, Potresov, Breshkovskaya, Rubanovich, and, in a slightly veiled form, Tsereteli, Chernov and Co. in Russia; Scheidemann. Legien, David and others in Germany; Renaudel, Guesde and Vandervelde in France and Belgium; Hyndman and the Fabians in England, etc., etc.) - is conspicuous for the base, servile adaptation of the "leaders of socialism" to the interests not only of "their" national bourgeoisie, but of "their" state, for the majority of the so-called Great Powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole number of small and weak nations. And the imperialist war is a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty. The struggle to free the working people from the influence of the bourgeoisie in general, and of the imperialist bourgeoisie in particular, is impossible without a struggle against opportunist prejudices concerning the "state". First of all we examine the theory of Marx and Engels of the state, and dwell in particular detail on those aspects of this theory which are ignored or have been distorted by the opportunists. Then we deal specially with the one who is chiefly responsible for these distortions, Karl Kautsky, the best-known leader of the Second International (1889-1914), which has met with such miserable bankruptcy in the present war. Lastly, we sum up the main results of the experience of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and particularly of 1917. Apparently, the latter is now (early August 1917) completing the first stage of its development; but this revolution as a whole can only be understood as a link in a chain of socialist proletarian revolutions being caused by the imperialist war. The question of the relation of the socialist proletarian revolution to the state, therefore, is acquiring not only practical political importance, but also the significance of a most urgent problem of the day, the problem of explaining to the masses what they will have to do before long to free themselves from capitalist tyranny.

[darktidus]

It seems to me that he is indeed discussing WWI, though the inaccuracy of his prediction is painful, especially considering what could have been. I haven't read much Lenin, just this piece, 'What is to be done' and 'Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder', but it seems to me Lenin just calls socialists he doesn't like 'social-chauvinists' rather than give decent justification. Simply an observation.

[Jimmie Higgins]

By social-chauvinism, he's talking about patriotism. Almost all socialist parties (except the Bols, the Italian and American Socialist parties) supported their own governments in WWI, rather than looking at the class-ramifications of the war. These socialist parties helped convince the working classes in each country to go out and kill other workers.

I think his prediction about the "maturation" of worker's revolution was right-on considering that workers rebelled in Germany and Russia and there were even general strikes in the US! Now, as anyone who reads history knows, progress isn't a straight line and as we all know, this revolutionary period did not last and did not produce permanent results. Never the less, it was a huge qualitative leap in the worker's movement because now there was no doubt that workers could overthrow a government and try to replace it with one of their own.

[Led Zeppelin]

Is Lenin talking about WWI here?

Yes. It must be noted that during his works of that period he devoted much time to polemicise against the petty-bourgeois socialists of the second international, so you'll see a lot of references to not only World War 1 (because it was that event which exposed their true nature as petty-bourgeois socialists), but also to those opportunistic tendencies in general.

[Lenin II]

Then shall we continue on to the first chapter, or does anyone have any further thoughts on the preface?

[Sky]

In "State and Revolution" Lenin set forth and examined all the basic positions and conclusions of Marx and Engels on the state. He defended the Marxist theory of the state, especially the proletarian state, in the struggle against the opportunists of the Second International. He developed this theory further, summing up the experience of the international workers movement and the experience of the revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat. Lenin revealed the class nature of the state, prerequisites for its origin, and its role in the class-antagonistic society as a weapon of the dictatorship of the exploiting classes. Lenin demonstrated that, although the forms of the contemporary bourgeois state aredifferent, their essence is the same: dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Lenin showed how in the process of studying the experience of the Revolutions of 1848 and the Paris Commune the views of Marx and Engels on the state machinery of a bourgeois society developed, and how they conceived the formation of the machinery of a proletarian state and its functions. Also from a class-oriented point of view, Lenin resolves the problem of hte proletariat's relation to the state, the need to abolish teh old bourgeoi sstate machinery in the course of the socialist revolution and to create a new and higher type of state. Lenin argued against the opportunists, who distorted the Marxist theory of the state and who denied the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Lenin discloses the genuinely democratic nature of the proletarian state. Lenin considered the proletarian state to be a necessary condition for the building of socialism. He fully shared Marx' criticism of bourgeois parliamentarism , and he deepened and broadened this criticism, based on the analysis of new facts relating to the parliamentary practices of imperialist states. Nevertheless, he saw the solution not in abolishing representative institutions but in transforming them, following the example of the Paris Commune, from talk-shops into working institutions. Emphasizing the necessity of the proletarian state for the building of socialism ,Lenin developed and made more specific that the theory of Marx and Engels concerning the two phases were determined by the level of development and productive forces and by the degree of economic, political, and cultural maturity. Lenin revealed the bases for the withering away of the state; he linked this process with the building of the higher phase of communism, with overcoming the contradiction between physical and mental labor and betwen city and village, and with the process of merging nations.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I'm waiting for the part where Lenin talks about non-wage compensation (labour-time vouchers) and then slips back into the Social-Democratic error regarding the equation of proletocratic capitalism ("state-capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people") with the socialist mode of production.