there will be nobody to be oppressed; there will, therefore, be no need for the State. The first act of the State, in which it really acts as the representative of the whole of Society, namely, the assumption of control over the means of production on behalf of Society, is also its last independent act as a State. The inference of the authority in the State with social relations will then become superfluous one field after another, and finally will cease of itself. The authority of the Government over persons will be replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The State will not be "abolished"; it will wither away. It is from this point of view that we must appraise the phrase, 'a free popular State'—a phrase which, for a time, had a right to be employed as a purely propaganda slogan, but which in the long run is scientifically untenable, It is also from this point of view that we must appraise the demand of the so-called anarchists that the State "should be abolished overnight!" (Herr Eugen Duehrings Unwaelzumg der Wissenschaft; p. 302–303, third German edition.)
Without fear of committing an error, it can be said that the only point in this argument by Engels, so singularly rich in ideas, which has become an integral part of Socialist thought among modern Socialist parties has been that, according to Marx, the State "withers away," in contradiction to the anarchist teaching of the "abolition" of the State. To emasculate Marxism in such a manner is simply to reduce it to, opportunism, for such an "interpretation" only leaves the semi-articulate-conception of a slow, even, continuous change, free from leaps and storms, free from Revolution. The current popular conception, if one may say so, of the "withering away" of the State is undoubtedly that it means a quenching, if not negation, of Revolution. Yet, such an "interpretation" is a most vulgar distortion of Marxism, advantageous only to the capitalist classes, based theoretically on the neglect of the most important conditions and considerations pointed out in the very passage summarizing Engels' ideas, which we have just quoted in full.
In the first place, at the very outset of his argument, Engels says that in assuming State power, the proletariat "by that very act destroys the State as such." It is not usual to reflect on what this really means. Generally, it is either ignored altogether or it is considered as a piece of "Hegelian weakness" on Engels' part. As a matter of fact, however, these words express succinctly the experience of one of the greatest proletarian revolutions—the Paris Commune of 1871, of which we shall speak in greater detail in its own place. In reality, Engels speaks here of the destruction of the capitalist State by the proletarian revolution, while the words about its withering away refer to the remains of a proletarian State after the Socialist revolution. The capitalist State does not wither away, according to Engels, but is destroyed by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. Only the proletarian State or semi-State withers away after the revolution.
Second, the State is a "particular power of suppression." This splendid and extremely profound definition of Engels' is presented with complete lucidity. It follows therefrom that the "particular power of suppression" of the proletariat by the capitalist class, of the millions of workers by the handful of rich, must be replaced by a "particular power of suppression" of the capitalist class by the proletariat (the dictatorship of the proletariat). It is just this that constitutes the destruction of the State as such. It is just this that constitutes the "act" of taking possession of the means of production on behalf of Society. And it is obvious that such a substitution of one (capitalist) "particular power" by another (proletarian) "particular power" could in no way take place in the form of a "withering away."
Third, in using the term "withering away," Engels refers quite clearly and definitely to the period after "the taking over the means of production by the State on behalf of the whole of Society," that is, after the Socialist Revolution. We all know that the political form of the "State" is then an absolutely complete democracy. But it never enters the head of any of the Opportunists who shamelessly distort Marxism that Engels deals here with the withering away of the Democracy. At first sight this seems very strange. But it will only be unintelligible to one who had not reflected on the fact that Democracy is also a State and that, consequently, Democracy will also disappear when the State disappears. Only a revolution can "destroy" the capitalist State. The State in general, that is, complete Democracy, can only wither away. Fourth, having formulated his famous proposition that "the State withers away," Engels at once explains concretely that this proposition is directed equally against the Opportunists and the Anarchists. In doing this, however, Engels draws, in the first place, that deduction from his proposition which is directed against the Opportunists.
One can wager that out of every ten thousand persons who have read or heard of the "withering away" of the State, 9,990 do not know at all, or do not remember, that Engels did not direct his conclusions from this proposition against the Anarchists alone. And out of the remaining ten, nine do not know the meaning of "a free popular state" nor the reason why an attack on this watchword contained an attack on the Opportunists. This is how History is written! This is how a great revolutionary doctrine is imperceptibly adulterated and adapted to current philistinism! The reference to the Anarchists has been repeated thousands of times, had been vulgarized in the crudest fashion possible, until it has acquired the strength of a prejudice, whereas the reference to the Opportunists has been hushed up and "forgotten."
"A free popular State" was the demand in current use in the program of the German Social Democrats of the 'seventies. There is no political substance in this slogan other than a pompous middle-class circumlocution of the idea of democracy. In so far as it pointed in "lawful" manner at a democratic Republic, Engels was prepared "for a time" to justify it from a propaganda point of view. But this slogan was really Opportunist, for it not only exaggerated the attractiveness of bourgeois democracy, but also conveyed a misunderstanding of the Socialist criticism of the State in general. We are in favor of a democratic Republic as the best form of the State for the proletariat under Capitalism, but we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in in the most democratic middle-class Republic. Furthermore, every State is a "particular power of suppression" of the oppressed class. Consequently, no state is either "free" or "popular." Marx and Engels explained this repeatedly to their party comrades in the 'seventies.
Fifth, in the same work of Engels from which everyone remembers this arguments on "withering away" of the State, there is also a disquisition on the nature of a violent revolution; and the historical appreciation of its role becomes, with Engels, a veritable panegyric of a revolution by force. This, of course, no one remembers. To talk or even think of the importance of this idea, is not considered respectable by our modern Socialist parties, and in the daily propaganda and agitation among the masses it plays no part whatever. Yet it is indissolubly bound up with the "withering away" of the State in one harmonious whole. Here is Engels' argument: "That force also plays another part in History (other than that of the perpetuation of evil), namely, a revolutionary part; that, as Marx says, it is the midwife of every old Society when it is pregnant with a new one; that force is the instrument and the means by which social movements hack their way through and break up the dead and fossilized political forms;—of all this not a word by Herr Duehring. Duly, with sighs and groans, does he admit the possibility that for the overthrow of the system of exploitation, force may, perhaps, be necessary, but most unfortunate, if you please, because all use of force, forsooth, demoralizes its user! And this is said in face of the great moral and intellectual advance which has been the result of every victorious revolution! And this is said in Germany, where a violent collision—which might, perhaps, be forced on the people—should have, at the very least, this advantage that it would destroy the spirit of subservience which has been permeating the national mind ever since the degradation and humiliation of the Thirty Years' War. And this turbid, flabby, impotent parson’s mode of thinking dares offer itself for acceptance to the most revolutionary party History has ever known!" (P. 193, third German edition.)
How can this eulogy of a revolution by force, which Engels propounded to the German Social Democrats between 1878–94, that is, up to the very day of his death, be reconciled with the theory of the "withering away" of the State, and combined into one doctrine? Usually the two views are combined by a process of eclecticism, by an unprincipled, sophistic, arbitrary selection of passages here and there (to oblige the powers that be)—and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred (if not more often), it is the idea of the "withering away of the State" that is especially emphasized. Dialectics is replaced by eclectics—this is the most usual, the most widespread method used in the official Social-Democratic literature of our day in respect of Marxist teachings. Such a substitution is, of course, not new: one can see it even in the history of classic Greek philosophy. In the process of camouflaging Marxism as Opportunism, the substitution of eclecticism for dialectics is the best method of deceiving the masses. It gives an illusory satisfaction. It seems to take into account all sides of the process, all the tendencies of development, all the contradictory factors, etc., whereas, in reality, it offers no consistent revolutionary view of the process of social development at all.
We have already said above and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the Capitalist State. It cannot be replaced by the proletarian State (the dictatorship of the proletariat) through mere "withering away," but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution. The hymn of praise sung in its honor by Engels, fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx (see the concluding passages of the Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto, with its proud and open declaration of the inevitability of a violent revolution; also Marx's Criticism of the Gotha Program of 1875, in which, thirty years after, he mercilessly castigates its Opportunist character)—this praise is by no means "a mere impulse," a mere declamation, or a mere polemical sally. The necessity of systematically fostering among the masses this and only this point of view about violent revolution lies at the root of the whole of Marx's and Engels' teachings, and it is just the neglect of such propaganda and agitation both by the present, predominant Social-chauvinists and the Kautskian schools that brings their betrayal into prominent relief. The substitution of the proletarian for the capitalist State is impossible without a violent revolution, while the abolition of the proletarian State, that is, of all States, is only possible through "withering away."
Marx and Engels gave a full and concrete illustration of these views in their study of each revolutionary situation separately, by an analysis of the lessons of the experience of each individual revolution. To this, undoubtedly the most important part of their work, we shall now turn.
3856452The State and Revolution — Chapter 2: The Experience of 1848–1851AnonymousVladimir Ilyich Lenin CHAPTER II. THE EXPERIENCE OF 1848–51 1. The Eve of Revolution.
The first production of a mature Marxism—The Poverty of Philosophy and the Communist Manifesto—date from the very eve of the Revolution of 1848. As a result of this fact, we find in them, side by side with the statement of the general principles of Marxism, a reflection, to a certain degree, of the concrete revolutionary situation at that time. Consequently, it will possibly be more to the point to examine what the authors of these works wrote about the State immediately before they drew conclusions from the experience of the years 1848–51. "The working class," wrote Marx, in The Poverty of Philosophy, "will in the course of its development, replace the old bourgeois society by a society which will exclude classes and their antagonisms; there will no longer be a political authority in the proper sense of the word, since political authority is the official expression of the antagonism of classes within the bourgeois society." (German edition, 1885, p. 182.) It is instructive to compare, side by side with this general statement of the idea of the disappearance of the State with the disappearance of classes, the statement contained in the Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels a few months later—to be precise, in November, 1847: "Tracing the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we followed up the more or less hidden civil war within an existing society to the point at which it is transformed into open revolution, and the proletariat establishes its rule by means of violent overthrow of the capitalist class. … We have already seen that the first step in the Workers' Revolution is the transformation (literally "the promotion") of the proletariat into the ruling class, the conquest of democracy. … The proletariat will use its political supremacy in order gradually to wrest the whole of capital from the capitalist class, to centralize all the instruments of production in the hands of the State, that is, of the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase as quickly as possible the total of productive forces." (Seventh German edition, 1906, pp. 31–37.)
Here we have a formulation of one of the most remarkable and most important ideas of Marxism on the subject of the State—namely, the idea of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (as Marx and Engels began to write after the Paris Commune); and also a definition of the State, in the highest degree interesting, but nevertheless also belonging to the category of forgotten thoughts of Marxism: "The State, that is, the proletariat organized as the ruling class." This definition of the State, so far from having ever been explained in the current propagandist and agitation literature of the official Social-Democratic parties, has been deliberately forgotten, as it is quite irreconcilable with Reformism, strikes straight at the heart of the common Opportunist and middle-class illusions about the "peaceful development of democracy." "The proletariat needs the State," is a phrase repeated by all the Opportunists, Social-chauvinists and Kautskians, who assure us that this is what Marx taught. They "forget," however, to add that, in the first place, the proletariat, according to Marx, needs only a withering away State—a State that is so constituted that it begins to wither away immediately and cannot but wither away; and, secondly, the workers "need" a State, "that is, the proletariat organized as the ruling class."
The State is a particular form of organization of force; it is the organization of violence for the purpose of holding down some class. What is the class that the proletariat must hold down? It can only be, naturally, the exploiting class, i. e., the bourgeoisie. The toilers need the State only to overcome the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can guide this suppression and bring it to fulfillment—the proletariat, the only class revolutionary to the finish, the only class which can unite all the toilers and exploited in the struggle against the capitalist class for its complete displacement from power.
The exploiting classes need political supremacy in order to maintain exploitation, i. e., in the selfish interests of the tiny minority, and against the vast majority of the community. The exploited classes need political supremacy in order completely to abolish all exploitation, i. e., in the interests of the enormous majority of the people, and against the tiny minority constituted by the slave owners of modern times—the landlords and capitalists. The lower middle-class Democrats, the sham Socialists who have substituted for the class war dreams of harmony between classes, have imagined even the transition to Socialism, in a dream, as it were—that is, not in the form of the overthrow of the supremacy of the exploiting class, but as a peaceful submission of the minority to the fully enlightened majority. This lower middle-class Utopia, indissolubly connected with the vision of a State above classes, in practice led to the betrayal of the interests of the toiling class; as was shown, for example, in the Revolutions of 1848 and 1871, and in the "Socialist" participation in bourgeois ministries in England, France, Italy and other coutries at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Marx fought all his life against this lower middle-class Socialism—now reborn in Russia in the Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary parties. He carried his analysis of the class war logically right up to the doctrine on political power and the State.
The overthrow of capitalist supremacy can be accomplished only by the proletariat as the particular class which is being prepared for this work and is provided both with the opportunity and the power to perform it, by the economic conditions of its existence. While the capitalist class breaks up and dissolves the peasantry and all the lower middle classes, it welds together, unites and organizes the town proletariat. Only the proletariat—on account of its economic role in production on a large scale—is capable of leading all the toiling and exploited masses, who are exploited, oppressed, crushed by the capitalist often more, not less, than the town proletariat, but who are incapable of carrying on the struggle for freedom unaided.
The doctrine of the class-war, as applied by Marx to the question of the State and of the Socialist revolution, leads inevitably to the recognition of the political supremacy of the proletariat, to its dictatorship, i. e., authority shared with none else and relying directly upon the armed force of the masses. The overthrow of the capitalist class is feasible only by the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, able to crush the inevitable and desperate resistance of the bourgeoisie, and to organize, for the new settlement of economic order, all the toiling and exploited masses. The proletariat needs the State, the centralized organization of force and violence, both for the purpose of crushing the resistance of the exploiters and for the purpose of guiding the great mass of the population—the peasantry, the lower middle-class, the semi-proletariat—in the work of economic Socialist reconstruction.
By educating a workers' party, Marxism educates also the advance-guard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and of leading the whole community to Socialism; fit to direct and organize the new order, to be the teacher, guide, leader of all the toiling and exploited in the task of building up their common life without the capitalist and against the capitalists. As against this, the Opportunism predominant at present breeds in the labor movement a class of representatives of the better-paid workers, who lose touch with the rank and file, "get on" fairly well under capitalism, and sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, i. e., renounce the role of the revolutionary leaders of the people against the capitalist class. "The State, i.e, the proletariat organized as the ruling class"—this theory of Marx's is indissolubly connected with all his teachings concerning the revolutionary part to be played in History by the proletariat. The fulfillment of this part requires the proletarian dictatorship, the political supremacy of the proletariat.
But, if the proletariat needs the State, as a particular form of organization of force against the capitalist class, the question almost spontaneously forces itself upon us: Is it thinkable that such an organization can be created without a preliminary breaking up and destruction of the machinery of government created for its own use by the capitalist class? The Communist Manifesto leads us straight to this conclusion, and it is of this conclusion that Marx wrote when he summed up the practical results of the revolutionary experience gained between 1848 and 1851.
2. The Results of Revolution.
On this question of the State with which we are concerned, Marx summarizes his conclusions from the revolutions of the years 1848–1851 in the following way (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte): "Nevertheless, the Revolution is thorough. It is still passing through its purgatory. It is doing its work systematically. By December 2, 1851 (the day of Louis Bonaparte's coup d'etat) it had fulfilled half its program; now it is fulfilling the other half. First, it perfected its parliamentary power, in order to be able to overthrow it. Now, when this has been accomplished, it is drawing the executive power through the perfecting process; it reduces that power to its simplest terms; isolates it, sets it up against itself as its sole reproach—all in order to concentrate against it all the forces of destruction. (The italics are ours.)
“And when the revolution has completed this second part of its preliminary work, Europe will rise to exclaim in triumph, 'Well grubbed, old mole!' … This executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its multi-form and artificial machinery of government, with its army of half a million officials, side by side with a military force of another half million, this frightful parasitic organism covering as with a net the whole body of the French society and blocking up all its pores, had arisen in the period of absolute monarchy, at the time of the fall of Feudalism: a fall which this organism had helped to hasten." The first French Revolution developed centralization, "but at the same time increased the scope, the attributes, the number of servants of the central Government. Napoleon completed this government machinery."
The Legitimist and the July monarchies "contributed nothing but a greater division of labor." … "Finally, the Parliamentary Republic found itself compelled, in its struggle against the Revolution, along with its repressive measures, to increase the resources and the centralization of the State. Every Revolution brought this machine to greater perfection instead of breaking it up. (The italics are ours.) The political parties, which alternately struggled for supremacy, looked upon the capture of this gigantic governmental structure as the principal spoils of victory." (Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1907 German edition, pp. 98–99.) In this remarkable passage Marxism makes a great step forward in comparison with the position of the Communist Manifesto. There the question of the State is still extremely abstract; most general ideas and expressions are employed. Here the question becomes concrete, and the conclusions are most precise, definite, practical; all former revolutions helped to perfect the machinery of Government, whereas now we must shatter it, break it to pieces.
This conclusion is the chief and fundamental point in the Marxist theory of the State, yet it is exactly this fundamental point which has been not merely completely "forgotten" by the dominant official Social-Democratic parties, but absolutely distorted (as we shall see later) by the foremost theoretician of the Second International, Karl Kautsky. In the Communist Manifesto are set out the general lessons of History, which force us to see in the State the organ of class domination, and bring us to the necessary conclusion that the proletariat cannot overthrow the capitalist class without, as a preliminary step, winning political power, without obtaining political supremacy, without transforming the State into the "proletariat organized as the ruling class"; and that this proletarian State must begin to wither away immediately after its victory, because in a community without class antagonisms, the State is unnecessary and impossible. At this stage the problem is not yet considered as to what form, from the point of view of historical development, this replacement of the capitalist State by the proletarian State is to assume.
It is precisely this problem that is stated and solved by Marx in 1852. True to his philosophy of dialectical materialism, Marx takes as his basis the experience of the great revolutionary years 1848–51. Here, as everywhere, his teaching is the summing-up of practical experience, illuminated by a profound philosophical world-conception and a great knowledge of History. The problem of the State is put concretely: How, in actual fact, did the capitalist State arise, that is, the governmental machinery necessary for capitalist sumpremacy? What have been its changes, what has been its evolution in the course of the bourgeois revolutions, and in the face of spontaneous risings of the oppressed classes? What are the problems confronting the proletariat in respect to this government machine?
The centralized power of the State, peculiar to capitalist Society, grew up in the period of the fall of Feudalism. Two institutions are especially characteristic of this machine: the bureaucracy and the standing army. More than once, in the works of Marx and Engels, we find mention of the thousand threads which connect these institutions with the capitalist class; and the experience of every worker illustrates this connection with extraordinary clearness and impressiveness, The working class learns to recognize this connection by its own bitter experience; that is why it so easily acquires, so firmly absorbs the idea of its inevitability—an idea which the lower middle-class democrats either ignorantly and superficially deny, or, still more superficially admit "in theory," forgetting to draw the corresponding practical conclusions.
The bureaucracy and the standing army constitute a "parasite" on the body of capitalist Society—a parasite born of the internal struggles which tear that Society asunder, but essentially a parasite, "blocking up" the pores of existence. The Kautskian Opportunism which prevails at present amongst the official Social-Democratic parties considers this view of the State as a parasitic organism as the peculiar and exclusive property of Anarchism. Naturally, this distortion of Marxism is extremely useful to those philistines who have brought Socialism to the unheard-of disgrace of trying to justify and gloss over an Imperalist war on the pretext of "defense of the fatherland"; but none the less it is an absolute distortion: The development, perfection, strengthening of the bureaucratic and military apparatus has been going on during all those bourgeois revolutions of which Europe has seen so many since the decay of Feudalism.
In particular, the lower middle classes are attracted to the side of the capitalists and to their allegiance, largely by means of this very apparatus, which provides the upper sections of the peasantry, artisans and tradesmen with a number of comparalively comfortable, quiet and respectable posts, and thereby raises their holders above the general mass. Consider what happened in Russia during the six months following February 27 (March 12), 1917. The Government posts, which hitherto had been given by preference to members of the Black Hundred, now became the booty of Cadets, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Nobody really thought of any serious reforms. They were to be put off "till the Constituent Assembly," which, in its turn, was gradually put off until the end of the war! But there was no delay, no waiting for a Constituent Assembly in the matter of dividing the spoils, of capturing snug places like Ministries, Under-Secretaryship, Governor-Generalships, etc., etc.! The game of permutations and combinations that went on in connection with the composition of the Provisional Government was, in reality, merely the expression of this division and re-division of the spoils, as it was going on high and low, up and down the country, in all departments of the central and local government. The concrete, practical result of the six months between February 27 (March 12), and August 27 (September 9), 1917, is beyond all dispute; reforms shelved, distribution of the official