[Classicliberal]

So as my title pointed out, the main question of this thread is the classic issue the State seems to present in Marxism--that is, in facilitating the successful transition between Capitalism to a truly classless communist society. Prior to the first stage of communism, as defined by Lenin, the State seems to be the ultimate tool of coercive power available to the bourgeoisie; it perpetuates and protects the exploitative economic system of Capitalism.

However, once the proletariat revolution is actualized and the workers assume the means of production from the bourgeoisie and by extension the power of the State--as the former defines and controls the latter--a paradox seems to set in: what use does the authoritarian State possess for the revolutionary proletariat; aren't they antithetical to each other? The end goal of communism is a classless but also stateless society and, to a greater extent, world; so how does the very institutional construct that probably most divides the world proletariat, the nation-state, serve in its interest?

The compromise, I assume, is that it serves the short term interests of the proletariat due, more or less, to the lack of a better alternative and while the construct and its historical connotation may be heresy to the core ideals of the revolution and communism itself, the ends justify the means in this case. Yet, this is where Communist theory--especially that of Marx--I find, starts to deviate significantly from Communism in practice--there approaches to 'building socialism' and the way that process should be facilitated.

Marxist orthodoxy, relying heavily, it seems, on the example of the Parisian Communards takes a highly egalitarian approach to socialism. The "planned economy" is decentralized and relies on both scientific planning and a democratic consensus among the workers via councils or communes. In sum, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is less a dictatorship than a mass participatory economic democracy of sorts where the social consensus or "class consciousness" of the revolution and the identification of the collective interest is leveraged to coordinate the most just allocation of resources and production, which eventually withers away the remnants of the old capitalist state as social harmony blossoms and productive forces are developed to previously unknown levels.

In contrast, Lenin in practice seems to do the exact opposite. He de-emphasizes the collective, the commune, the participation of the greater proletariat, albeit in his perception of the existential circumstances of his time and environment, in favor of the professional revolutionary Party based in democratic centralism: freedom of discussion, unity of action. Thus a hierarchy within the revolutionary proletariat begins to appear qualified, furthermore, by the Lenin's second principle of vanguardism: the Party and its professional revolutionaries are endowed with the duty to both protect and serve the interests of the revolution. Now the solidarity of socialist consciousness theoretically should keep even this seeming contradiction of intra-proletarian distinctions and the subsequent hierarchy in align with the larger interests of the revolution. Yet, if history is our guide, we see obviously this is not the case; the artificial construction of the Party seems to create its own specific interests, especially after assuming the means of production for the proletariat. In sum, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" becomes the "dictatorship of the Party"which fails to maintain socialist consciousness and replaces the decentralized, mass participatory economic communes of Marxism with centralized, minority Party derived planning that only serves to perpetuate and solidify the authority of the State and therefore perpetuate its own power above that of the revolution's goal--classless/stateless communism

So basically thats my conception of the paradox of the State in Communism and building socialism; in Marxist orthodoxy the abstract concept of mass democratic economic participation is presumed to facilitate, effectively, the withering of the State. Yet, in practice achieving a democratic consensus in economic planning is just as difficult and polarizing as achieving a democratic consensus in parliamentary politics. So to effectively realize the goal of communism a revolutionary professional Party defined by the principles of vanguardism, to establish its legitimacy and connection to the proletariat, and democratic centralism, to efficiently make coherent decisions, is created. But it seems the artificial structure of the Party--its hierarchal structure bourgeoisie in everything but name--is too much of an internal contradiction and it fails to maintain socialist consciousness becoming an entity onto its own, separate from the revolution, and constantly reinforcing and strengthening rather than withering the state in its actions.

What are your guy's take on this? I'm sure plenty of you are infinitely more well read than me regarding Marxist theory so I'm interested to hear if other Marxist writers have addressed this topic in more detail, as I'm sure many have.

[The Immortal Goon]

A few general things:

so how does the very institutional construct that probably most divides the world proletariat, the nation-state, serve in its interest?
...The compromise, I assume, is that it serves the short term interests of the proletariat due, more or less, to the lack of a better alternative and while the construct and its historical connotation may be heresy to the core ideals of the revolution and communism itself, the ends justify the means in this case.

Lenin mentioned of this "defect,"

And so, in the first phase of communist society (usually called socialism) "bourgeois law" is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. "Bourgeois law" recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent--and to that extent alone--"bourgeois law" disappears.

However, it persists as far as its other part is concerned; it persists in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle, "He who does not work shall not eat", is already realized; the other socialist principle, "An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor", is also already realized. But this is not yet communism, and it does not yet abolish "bourgeois law", which gives unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

This is a “defect”, says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of communism; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any rules of law. Besides, the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic prerequisites for such a change.

Now, there are no other rules than those of "bourgeois law". To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the common ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and in the distribution of products.

The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed.

But the state has not yet completely withered away, since the still remains the safeguarding of "bourgeois law", which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

Yet, this is where Communist theory--especially that of Marx--I find, starts to deviate significantly from Communism in practice--there approaches to 'building socialism' and the way that process should be facilitated.

And this is what has divided Marxists themselves for a hundred years. Stalinists, the "Marxist-Leninists," will say that you build socialism with a national state. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and everyone else say that you can't build socialism with a single national state.

Everything else you say after is dependent upon this. Lenin was a lot more, "hands-off," than people in the west give him credit for. He was routinely voted down, for instance, in his attempts to build an NEP much earlier than he did. Stalin, of course, never has this problem.

But do remember that going into the Soviet experiment, things looked pretty good. Former Austria-Hungary was going Soviet, there were multiple attempts by communists in Germany to take over—even before that, there was the infamous Red Berlin, where socially the communists essentially were running things despite the state. The Third Republic was tottering, Ireland was in rebellion with Marxists leading the charge, and even in the United States labor conflict was turning into full on rebellion in places.

The Russian Civil War didn't help, as like the Boxer Rebellion, all the former enemies in Europe teamed up to try and crush the Bolsheviks. In doing so, the Bolsheviks had to seize up and run a war that always tends to consolidate power of the state. By the time the dust had cleared, a lot of the opportunities were lost.

Lenin is clear that after the civil war that the USSR was not even close to having, "even the foundations of a socialist economy:"

But we have not finished building even the foundations of socialist economy and the hostile powers of moribund capitalism can still deprive us of that. We must clearly appreciate this and frankly admit it; for there is nothing more dangerous than illusions (and vertigo, particularly at high altitudes). And there is absolutely nothing terrible, nothing that should give legitimate grounds for the slightest despondency, in admitting this bitter truth; for we have always urged and reiterated the elementary truth of Marxism—that the joint efforts of the workers of several advanced countries are needed for the victory of socialism. We are still alone and in a backward country, a country that was ruined more than others, but we have accomplished a great deal. More than that—we have preserved intact the army of the revolutionary proletarian forces; we have preserved its manoeuvring ability; we have kept clear heads and can soberly calculate where, when and how far to retreat (in order to leap further forward); where, when and how to set to work to alter what has remained unfinished. Those Communists are doomed who imagine that it is possible to finish such an epoch-making undertaking as completing the foundations of socialist economy (particularly in a small-peasant country) without making mistakes, without retreats, without numerous alterations to what is unfinished or wrongly done. Communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve their strength and flexibility “to begin from the beginning “ over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed (and in all probability will not perish).

And still less permissible is it for us to give way to the slightest degree of despondency; we have still less grounds for doing so because, notwithstanding the ruin, poverty, backwardness and starvation prevailing in our country, in the economics that prepare the way for socialism we have begun to make progress, while side by side with us, all over the world, countries which are more advanced, and a thousand times wealthier and militarily stronger than we are, are still retrogressing in their own vaunted, familiar, capitalist economic field, in which they have worked for centuries.

And he slaps the hand of any communist that does say that the Soviet Union is even a complete workers' state, let alone a socialist state, let alone a communist state:

Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. (Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets,[3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.

But what are they to do? Kollontai, and to a lesser extent Trotsky, proposed what you are pushing toward, deconstructing some of the centralized authority of the state and breaking it down to a more broader individual democracy.

Lenin was opposed to this, and instead proposed attacking the beaurucracy right before he died in order to move forward:

The main economic power is in our hands. All the vital large enterprises, the railways, etc., are in our hands. The number of leased enterprises, although considerable in places, is on the whole insignificant; altogether it is infinitesimal compared with the rest. The economic power in the hands of the proletarian state of Russia is quite adequate to ensure the transition to communism. What then is lacking? Obviously, what is lacking is culture among the stratum of the Communists who perform administrative functions. If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed. Some thing analogous happened here to what we were told in our history lessons when we were children: sometimes one nation conquers another, the nation that conquers is the conqueror and the nation that is vanquished is the conquered nation. This is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to the culture of these nations? Here things are not so simple. If the conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes its culture upon the latter; but if the opposite is the case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture upon the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital of the R.S.F.S.R.? Have the 4,700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the very best) come under the influence of an alien culture? True, there may be the impression that the vanquished have a high level of culture. But that is not the case at all. Their culture is miserable, insignificant, but it is still at a higher level than ours. Miserable and low as it is, it is higher than that of our responsible Communist administrators, for the latter lack administrative ability. Communists who are put at the head of departments—and sometimes artful saboteurs deliberately put them in these positions in order to use them as a shield—are often fooled. This is a very unpleasant admission to make, or, at any rate, not a very pleasant one; but I think we must admit it, for at present this is the salient problem. I think that this is the political lesson of the past year; and it is around this that the struggle will rage in 1922.

Will the responsible Communists of the R.S.F.S.R. and of the Russian Communist Party realise that they cannot administer; that they only imagine they are directing, but are, actually, being directed? If they realise this they will learn, of course; for this business can be learnt. But one must study hard to learn it, and our people are not doing this. They scatter orders and decrees right and left, but the result is quite different from what they want.

Stalin ended up winning and declaring that the USSR was actually socialist in one country. The west was happy to agree that socialism would look like the Soviet Union in the 1920s for everyone involved.

...So what is the role of the state? There is no better explanation than Lenin's work on it. What should have happened when the state was broken down and the country destroyed by world war, civil war, and invasion by former Entente and Allied powers? That's really the big question for the example Russia gives us today.