Engels deliberately emphasized the words "in relation to the State," not as a mere hint, but as a straight thrust at German Opportunism which had declared religion to be a private matter in relation to the party; thus lowering the party of the revolutionary proletariat to the level of the most superficial "free-thinkers" of the middle class, ready to admit a non-religious State, but renouncing all party struggle against the religious opium which stupifies the people. The future historian of the German Social-Democracy investigating the root causes of its shameful collapse in 1914, will find no little material of interest on this question, beginning with the evasive declarations in the articles of the intellectual leader of the party, Kautsky, opening the door wide to Opportunism, and ending with the attitude of the party towards the Los-von-Kirche Bewegung (the movement for the disestablishment of the Church) in 1913. But let us pass on to the manner in which, twenty years after the Commune, Engels summed up its lessons for the struggling proletariat. Here are the lessons to which Engels attached prime importance: "It was just this oppressive power of the former centralized Government, the army, the political police, the bureaucracy, which Napoleon created in 1798, and which, from that time onwards, every new Government had taken over as a desirable weapon for use against its opponents—it was just this power which should have fallen throughout France as it had fallen in Paris. "The Commune was compelled to recognize from the very first that the working class, having obtained supremacy, could no longer carry on the business of government by means of the old machinery; that, in order that the working class might not lose again its newly-won supremacy, it must, on the one hand, sweep aside the whole of the old machine of oppression which had hitherto been used against it, and on the other, secure itself against its own deputies and officials by declaring them all, without exception, revocable at any time." Engels emphasizes again and again that not only in a Monarchy, but also in a democratic republic, the State remains the State, that is, it retains its fundamental and characteristic feature, viz., the transformation of officials—"the servants of society"—and of its organs into the rulers of Society.
"Against this inevitable feature of all systems of government that have existed hitherto, viz., the transformation of the State and its organs from servants into the lords of Society, the Commune used two unfailing remedies. First, it appointed to all posts, administrative, legal, educational, persons elected by universal suffrage; introducing at the same time the right of recalling those elected at any time by the decision of their electors. Secondly, it paid all officials, both high and low, only such pay as was received by any other worker. The highest salary paid by the Commune was 6,000 francs (about $1,200). "Thus was created an effective barrier to place-hunting and career-making even apart from the imperative mandates of the deputies in representative institutions introduced by the Commune over and above this." Engels touches here on the interesting boundary where a consistent democracy is, on the one hand, transformed into Socialism, and, on the other, Socialism. For, in order to destroy the State, it is necessary to convert the functions of the public service into such simple operations of control and bookkeeping as are within the reach of the vast majority of the population, and, ultimately, of every single individual.
And, in order to do away completely with the political adventurer it must be made impossible for an "honorable," though unsalaried, sinecure to the public service to be used as a jumping-off ground for a highly profitable post in a bank or a joint stock company, as happens constantly in the freest capitalist countries.
But Engels does not make the mistake made, for instance, by some Marxists on the question of the right of a nation to self-determination, viz., that, forsooth, this is impossible under Capitalism and will be unnecessary under Socialism. Such an apparently clever, but really incorrect statement might be repeated of any democratic institution, amongst others, of the payment of moderate salaries to officials; for during the lifetime of capitalism a completely consistent democracy is impossible whilst under Socialism all political democracy disappears. This is a sophism, comparable to the old humorous problem of at what point a man will become bald if he loses his hair one by one. The development of democracy to its logical conclusion, the investigation of the forms of this development, testing them by practice, and so forth,—all this is part of the objects in the struggle for the Social Democracy. Taken separately, no kind of democracy will yield Socialism. But in actual life Democracy will never be "taken by itself"; it will be "taken together," with other things, it will exert its influence also on economics, helping in its reorganization; it will be subjected, in its turn, to the influence of economic development, and so on. That is the dialectical process of actual living History. Engels continues: "This disruption (Sprengung) of the old machinery of government and its replacement by a new and really democratic one, is described in detail in the third part of the Civil War. But it was necessary to dwell once more in brief on this point, that is, on one or two features of this replacement, because in Germany the superstitious faith in the State has left the realm of philosophy and passed into the general consciousness of the bourgeoisie and even of many workers. According to the teaching of the philosophers, the State is the "realization of Idea," or translated into theological language, the "Kingdom of God on earth"; the State is the field in which is, or should be realized, eternal Truth and Justice. And from this follows a superstitious reverence which takes root the more readily as people are accustomed, from their childhood, to think that the affairs and interests common to the whole of Society cannot be carried out and protected in any other way than in the one in existence—that is, by means of the State and its well-paid officials. People think they are making an extraordinary big step forward if they rid themselves of faith in a hereditary Monarchy and become partisans of a democratic republic. Whereas, in reality, the State is nothing more than an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another, in a democratic republic, not a whit less than in a Monarchy. At the best the State is an evil inherited by the proletariat after coming out victorious in the struggle for class supremacy. This victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, will be obliged immediately to amputate the worst features of this evil, until such time as a new generation, brought up under new and free social conditions, will prove capable of throwing on the dust-heap all the useless old rubbish of State organization."
Engels cautioned the Germans, in the event of the Monarchy being replaced by a Republic, not to forget the fundamentals of Socialism on the question of the State in general. His warnings now read like a direct lesson to Messrs. Tseretelli and Tchernoff, who revealed in their coalition tactics a superstitious faith in and respect towards the State! Two more points. (1) When Engels says that in a democratic republic, "not a whit less" than in a Monarchy, the State remains "an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another," this by no means signifies that the form of oppression is a matter of indifference to the proletariat as some Anarchists "teach." A wider, more free and open form of the class struggle and class oppression enormously assists the proletariat in its struggles for the annihilation of all classes. (2) Why only a new generation will be able completely to scrap the ancient lumber of the State;—this question is bound up with the question of the supersession of Democracy, to which we now turn.
6. Engels on the Supersession of Democracy.
Engels had occasion to speak on this subject in connection with the question of the "scientific" incorrectness of the term "Social-Democrat." In the introduction to his edition of his articles of the 'seventies on various subjects, mainly on international questions ("Internationales aus dem Volksstaat"), dated January 8, 1894 (that is, a year and a half before his death), Engels wrote that in all his articles he used the word "Communist" not "Social-Democrat" because at that time it was the Proudhonists in France and the Lassalleans in Germany who called themselves Social-Democrats. "For Marx and for me [Engels continues], it was, therefore, quite impossible to use such an elastic term to describe our particular point of view. At the present time things are different, and this word ('Social-Democrat') may, perhaps, pass muster, although it remains inexact ('unpassend, literally 'unsuitable') for a party whose economic program is not simply a general Socialist one, but definitely Communist—for a party whose final political aim is the supersession of the whole State and, therefore, also of Democracy. But the names of real (the italics are Engels') political parties never completely correspond with fact: the party develops, the name remains."
The dialectician Engels remains true to dialectics to the last day of his life. Marx and I, he says, had a splendid, scientific, exact name for the party, but there was no real party, that is, no mass-proletarian party. Now, at the end of the 19th century, there is a real party; but its name is scientifically incorrect. Never mind, "it will pass muster," only let the party grow, only let not the scientific inexactness of its name he hidden from it, and let it not hinder its development in the right direction. Perhaps, indeed, some humorist might comfort us Bolsheviks a la Engels: we have a real party, it is developing splendidly; even such a meaningless and barbarous term as "Bolshevik" "will pass muster" although it expresses nothing but the purely accidental fact that at the Brussels-London Conference of 1903 we had a majority (Boshinstvo). Perhaps now, when the July and August persecutions of our party by the Republican and "revolutionary" middle-class democracy have made the word "Bolshevik" such a universally respected name; when, in addition, these persecutions have signalized such a great historical step forward made by our party in its actual development, perhaps now even I should hesitate ‘to repeat my April suggestions, to change the name of our party. Perhaps I would propose a "compromise" to our comrades, to call ourselves the Communist Party, but to retain "Bolsheviks" in brackets. … But the question of the name of the party is incomparably less important than the question of the relation of the revolutionary proletariat to the State. In the usual debates about the State the mistake is constantly made against which Engels cautions us here, and which we have indicated above. Namely, it is constantly forgotten that the destruction of the State involves also the destruction of. Democracy; that the withering away of the State also means the withering away of Democracy. At first sight such a statement seems exceedingly strange and incomprehensible. Indeed, perhaps someone or other may begin to fear lest we be expecting the advent of such an order of Society in which the principle of majority rule will not be respected—for is not Democracy just the recognition of this principle? No, Democracy is not identical with majority rule. No, Democracy is a State which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against another.
We set ourselves, as our final aim, the task of the destruction of the State, that is, of every organized and systematic violence, every form of violence against man in general. We do not expect the advent of an order of Society in which the principle of the submission of the minority to the majority will not be observed. But, striving for Socialism, we are convinced that it will develop further into Communism, and, side by side with this, there will vanish all need for force, for the subjection of one man to another, of one section of Society to another, since people will grow accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social existence without subjection. In order to emphasize this element of habit, Engels speaks of a new generation, "brought up under new and free social conditions which will prove capable of throwing on the dust heap all the useless and old rubbish of State organizations"—every sort of State, including even the democratic republican State. For the elucidation of this, we must examine the question of the economic foundations of the withering away of the State.
3856459The State and Revolution — Chapter 5: The Economic Foundation of the Withering Away of the StateAnonymousVladimir Ilyich Lenin CHAPTER V.
THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF THE WITHERINGAWAY OF THE STATE A most detailed elucidation of this question is given by Marx in his Criticism of the Gotha Program (letter to Bracke, May 15, 1875, printed as late as 1891 in the Neue Zeit, ix, 1). The polemical part of this remarkable work, consisting of a criticism of Lassalleanism has, so to speak, overshadowed its positive part, namely, the analysis of the connection between the development of Communism and the withering away of the State.
1. The Formulation of the Question by Marx.
From a superficial comparison of the letter of Marx to Bracke (May 15, 1875), with Engels' letter to Bebel (March 28, 1875), discussed above, it might appear that Marx was much more of an upholder of the State than Engels, and that the difference of opinion between them on the question of the State is very considerable. Engels suggests to Bebel that all the chatter about the State should be thrown overboard; that the word "State" should be eliminated from the program and replaced by “"Commonwealth"; Engels even declares that the Commune was really no longer a State in the proper sense of the word. Whereas Marx even speaks of the "future State in Communist Society," that is, apparently recognizing the necessity of a State even under Communism. But such a view would be fundamentally, incorrect; and a closer examination shows that Marx's and Engels' views on the State and its decay were completely identical, and that Marx's expression quoted above refers merely to the decaying State. It is clear that there can be no question of defining the exact moment of the future "withering away"—the more so as it must obviously be a prolonged process. The apparent difference between Marx and Engels is due to the different subjects they dealt with, the different aims they were pursuing.
Engels set forth the problem in a plain, bold and large outline, in order to show Bebel all the absurdity of the current superstitions concerning the State, shared to no small degree by Lassalle himself. Marx only touches upon this question in passing, being interested mainly in another subject—the evolution of Communist Society. The whole theory of Marx is an application of the theory of evolution—in its most consistent, complete, well-thought-out and fruitful form—to modern Capitalism. Naturally, for Marx there arose the question of the application of this theory both to the coming crash of Capitalism and to the future development of future Communism.
On what foundation of facts can the future development of future Communism be based? It can be based on the fact that it has its origin in Capitalism, that it develops historically from Capitalism, that it is the result of the action of social forces to which Capitalism has given birth. There is no shadow of an attempt on Marx's part to fabricate a Utopia, idly to guess that which cannot be known. Marx treats the question of Communism in the same way as a naturalist would treat the question of the development of, say, a new biological variety, if he knew that such and such was its origin, and such and such is the direction in which it changes its form. Marx, first of all, brushes aside the confusion which is introduced by the Gotha program into the question of the mutual relations of State and of Society. "Contemporary Society [he writes] is capitalist Society, which exists in all civilized countries freed, to a greater or lesser extent, from admixture of mediaevalism, more or less varying in type according to peculiar historical conditions of development of each country, more or less fully developed. The 'contemporary State,' on the contrary, varies with every State boundary. In the Prusso-German Empire it is quite a different thing from that in Switzerland; in England quite different from that in the United States. The 'contemporary State' is therefore a fiction.
"However, in spite of the motley variety of their forms, the different forms of the State in the different civilized countries have this in common—they are all based on contemporary bourgeois Society, more or less capitalistically developed. They have, therefore, certain fundamental traits in common. In this sense one can speak of the 'contemporary State' in contradiction to that future time when its present root, namely, capitalist society, will have perished. "The question is then put thus: To what transformation will the forms of government be subjected in Communist society? In other words, what social functions will there remain, then, analogous to the present functions of the State? This question can only be answered with the help of this scientific method; and however many thousands of times the word 'people' is combined with the word 'State,' this will not bring us one iota nearer its solution. …" Having thus ridiculed all the talk of a "People's State," Marx formulates the question and warns us, as it were, that for a scientific answer to it one can only rely on firmly established scientific facts.
This first fact that has been established with complete exactness by the whole theory of evolution, indeed, by the whole of science—a fact which the Utopians forgot, however, and which is now forgotten by the present Opportunists, afraid of the Socialist revolution—is that, historically, there must undoubtedly be a special stage or epoch of transition from Capitalism to Communism.
2. The Transition from Capitalism to Communism.
"Between capitalist and Communist Society [Marx continues], there lies a period of revolutionary transformation from the former to the latter. A stage of political transition corresponds to this period, and the State during this period can be no other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." This conclusion Marx bases on an analysis of the role played by the proletariat in modern capitalist society, on the facts of the development of this society, and on the irreconcilability of the antagonistic interests of the proletarian and capitalist classes. Earlier the question was put thus: To attain its emancipation the proletariat must overthrow the capitalist class, conquer political power and establish its own revolutionary dictatorship. Now the question is put somewhat differently: The transition from capitalist society developing towards Communism, to a Communist Society, is impossible without a period of "political transition” and the State in this period can only be the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. What, then, is the relation of the dictatorship to democracy? We saw that the Communist Manifesto simply places side by side the two ideas: the "conversion of the proletariat into the ruling class," and the "conquest of Democracy." On the basis of all that has been said above, one can define more exactly how Democracy changes in the transition of Capitalism to Communism.
In capitalist Society, under the conditions most favorable to its development, we have more or less complete democracy in the form of a democratic republic. But this democracy is always bound by the narrow framework of capitalist exploitation, and, consequently, always remains, in reality, a democracy only for the minority, only for the possessing classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains more or less the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics, that is, freedom for the slave-owners. The modern wage-slaves, in virtue of the condition of capitalist exploitation, remain to such an extent crushed by want and poverty that they "cannot be bothered with democracy," have "no time for politics"; that, in the ordinary peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participating in public political life. The accuracy of this statement is perhaps most clearly proved by Germany, just because in this State constitutional legality has fasted and remained stable for a remarkably long time—for nearly half a century (1871–1914); and the Social-Democracy during this time has been able, far better than has been the case in other countries, to make use of "legality" in order to organize into a political party a larger proportion of the working class than has occurred anywhere else in the world.
What, then, is this highest proportion of politically conscious and active wage-slaves that has so far been observed in capitalist society? One million members of the Social-Democratic Party out of fifteen millions of wage-workers! Three millions industrially organized out of fifteen millions!
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich—that is, the democracy of capitalist Society. If we look more closely into the mechanism of capitalist democracy, everywhere—in the so-called "petty" details of the suffrage (the residential qualification, the exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of meeting (public buildings are not for the "poor"), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.—on all sides we shall see restrictions upon restrictions of Democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor, seem slight—especially in the eyes of one who has never lived in close contact with the oppressed classes in their herd life, and nine-tenths, if not ninety-nine hundredths, of the bourgeois publicists and politicians are of this class. But in their sum these restrictions exclude and thrust out the poor from polities and from an active share in democracy. Marx splendidly grasped the essence of capitalist democracy, when, in his analysis of the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years, to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in Parliament!
But from this capitalist democracy—inevitably narrow, stealthily thrusting aside the poor, and, therefore, to its core, hypocritical and treacherous—progress does not march along a simple, smooth and direct path to "greater and greater democracy," as the Liberal professors: and the lower middle-class Opportunists would have us believe. No, progressive development—that is, towards Communism—marches through the dictatorship of the proletariat; and cannot do otherwise, for there is no one else who can break the resistance of the exploiting capitalists, and no other way of doing it. And the dictatorship of the proletariat—that is, the organization of the advance-guard of the oppressed as the ruling class, for the purpose of crushing the oppressors—cannot produce merely an expansion of democracy. Together with an immense expansion of democracy—for the first time becoming democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich folk—the dictatorship of the proletariat will produce a series of restrictions of liberty in the case of the oppressors, exploiters and capitalists. We must crush them in order to free humanity from wage-slavery; their resistance must be broken by force. It is clear that where there is suppression there must also be violence, and there cannot be liberty or democracy.
Engels expressed this splendidly in his letter to Bebel, when he said, as the reader will remember, that "the proletariat needs the State, not in the interests of liberty, but for the purpose of crushing its opponents; and when one will be able to speak of freedom, the State will have ceased to exist." Democracy for the vast majority of the nation, and the. suppression by force—that is, the exclusion from democracy—of the exploiters and oppressors of the nation: this is the modification of democracy which we shall see during the transition from Capitalism to Communism.
Only in Communist Society, when the resistance of the capitalists has finally been broken, when the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no longer any classes (that is, when there is no difference between the members of society in respect of their social means of production), only then "does the State disappear and one can speak of Freedom." Only then will be possible and will be realized a really full democracy, a democracy without any exceptions. And only then will democracy itself begin to wither away in virtue of the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the innumerable horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to the observation of the elementary rules of social life, known for centuries, repeated for thousands of years in all sermons. They will become accustomed to their observance without force, without constraint, without subjection, without the special apparatus for compulsion which is called the State.
The expression "the State withers away" is very well chosen, for it indicates the gradual and elemental nature of the process. Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect; for we see around us millions of times how readily people get accustomed to observe the necessary rules of life in common, if there is no exploitation, if there is nothing that causes indignation, that calls forth protest and revolt and has to be suppressed.
Thus, in capitalist society, we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false; a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to Communism will, for the first time, produce a democracy for the people, for the majority, side by side with the necessary suppression of the minority constituted by the exploiters. Communism alone is capable of giving a really complete democracy, and the fuller it is the more quickly will it become unnecessary and wither away of itself. In other words, under Capitalism we have a State in the proper sense of the word: that is, a special instrument for the suppression of one class by another, and of the majority by the minority at that. Naturally, for the successful discharge of such a task, the systematic suppression by the minority of exploiters of the majority of exploited, the greatest ferocity and savagery of suppression is required; and seas of blood are needed, through which humanity has to direct its path, in a condition of slavery, serfdom and wage labor.
Again, during the transition from Capitalism to Communism, suppression is still necessary; but in this case it is suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of exploited. A special instrument, a special machine for suppression—that is the "State"—is necessary, but this is now a transitional State, no longer a State in the ordinary sense of the term. For the suppression of the minority of exploiters, by the majority of those who were but yesterday wage-slaves, is a matter comparatively so easy, simple and natural that it will cost far less bloodshed than the suppression of the risings of the slaves, serfs and wage laborers, and will cost the human race far less. And it is compatible with the diffusion of democracy over such an overwhelming majority of the nation that the need for any special machinery for suppression will gradually cease to exist. The exploiters are unable, of course, to suppress the people without a most complex machine for performing this duty; but the people can suppress the exploiters even with a very simple "machine"—almost without any "machine" at all, without any special apparatus—by the simple organization of the armed masses (such as the Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, we may remark, anticipating a little).