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Title: Is It a State?
Author: Wayne Price
Date: April, 2013
Language: en
Topics: the state, revolution, anarkismo
Source: Retrieved on July 2, 2014 from http://anarkismo.net/article/25430?search_text=wayne%20price&print_page=true

Wayne Price

Is It a State?

Marxists argue that anarchists really do advocate a state, or something

indistinguishable from one, but do not admit it. But what anarchists

advocate is the overturning of the existing state and the creation of a

new, nonstate, association of councils, assemblies, and a popular

mililtia. There is no such thing as a “workers’ state.”

Most people believe that a society without a state, as advocated by

anarchists, would be chaos (“anarchy”). Many think that anarchists want

a society essentially as it is, but without police (which is, in fact,

advocated by pro-capitalist anti-statists who miscall themselves

“libertarians”). This would indeed result in chaos, until either the

Mafia or the security guards hired by the rich (or both) become the new

state.

A more sophisticated criticism is to say that anarchists really do

advocate a state, they just do not call it by that name. As Hal Draper,

a Marxist, wrote, “…The state has been a societal necessity. …As soon as

antistatism…even raises the question of what is to replace the

state…then it has always been obvious that the state, abolished in

fancy, gets reintroduced in some other form. …In anarchistic utopias…the

pointed ears of a very undemocratic state poke out…” (Draper, 1990; p.

109).

Leninists argue that what anarchists argue for, is, at best,

indistinguishable from the Marxist idea of a “workers’ state” (the

“dictatorship of the proletariat”). To them, this would be

“transitional” between the overturned capitalist state and an eventual

stateless society. They refer anarchists to Marx’s Civil War in France

(on the 1871 Paris Commune) and to Lenin’s State and Revolution, the

most libertarian thing he wrote.

But what revolutionary, class-struggle, anarchists propose is not a

state. It is a realistic alternative to the state.

After the Revolution

After a revolutionary transformation from capitalism to

socialist-anarchism, there will be a need to coordinate various aspects

of society, particularly self-managed industries and communes. There

will need to be a way to settle disputes among different sectors of

society as well as between individuals. There will be a need to develop

an economic plan, democratically, from the bottom up. This will be

especially true during and immediately after the revolution, given the

inherent conflicts and difficulties of the period.

There will be a need to oppose counter-revolutionary armed forces, sent

by still-existing imperialist states or, in a civil war, by internal

reactionary armies. Anti-social individuals, created by the loveless

society of previous capitalism, will still need to be dealt with.

Anarchists do not believe in punishment or revenge, but we do believe in

protecting the people from conscienceless and emotionally wounded

persons.

Anarchists have long advocated federations of workplace councils and

neighborhood assemblies to carry out these tasks (detailed in Price,

2007). In revolution after revolution, workers and oppressed have

created self-governing councils, committees, and assemblies, in

workplaces and neighborhoods. During revolutions anarchists call on the

people to form such associations and bring them together to coordinate

the struggle. The concept of federated councils was raised by Bakunin

and Kropotkin, and especially by the Friends of Durruti Group in Spain,

1938. Implicitly this includes the right of working people to freely

organize themselves to fight for their ideas among the rest of the

population (a pluralistic “multi-party” democracy—which is not the same

as allowing any parties to take over and rule).

There should be no more specialized bodies of armed people, such as the

military or police. Instead there would be an organized, armed,

population, a militia of working people and the formerly oppressed,

under the direction of the council federation. These would exist until

considered unnecessary. Popular armed forces (including guerilla and

partisan armies) have worked quite well in the past and even now in

parts of the world. Methods of public safety would be worked out mostly

on a local level, in a society of freedom and plenty for all.

To this approach, Leninists and some others respond, “You anarchists are

really advocating a state.” They point to the experience of the Paris

Commune and the original Russian soviets (councils), and say that this

is what they want too—but that they are being honest about calling it a

state. They note that, in his State and Revolution, Lenin had

interpreted Marx to say that this working class state would

“immediately” begin to “wither away” or “die out”—immediately, from the

first day. Working people would more and more become involved in

directly managing society themselves, while pro-capitalist resistance

would die down. A state—a specialized, centralized, and repressive

institution—would be established but then the need for it would decrease

and finally vanish. Is this really different from what anarchists want,

they ask?

What is the State?

To deal with this question, we have to define what we mean by “the

state.” Frederick Engels, Marx’s closest comrade, described societies

before states, such as hunter-gatherer societies or early

agriculturalists. There was a certain amount of community coercion and

even “wars.” But this was carried out by an armed population, or at

least the armed men of the community. When society became divided into

classes, rulers and ruled, this was no longer possible. The state is

distinguished by “the institution of a public force which is no longer

immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves

as an armed power. …This public force exists in every state; it consists

not merely of armed men but also of material appendages, prisons and

coercive institutions of all kinds. …Officials now present themselves as

organs of society standing above society…representatives of a power

which estranges them from society. …” (1972; pp. 229—230). I think that

anarchists would accept this description.

Like the anarchists of the time, Marx and Engels were very impressed by

the ultra-democratic workers’ self-organization of the Paris Commune.

Among other things, it replaced the standing permanent army by a popular

militia, the National Guard. For such reasons, in 1875, Engels wrote a

letter proposing changes in the party program: “The whole talk about the

state should be dropped, especially since the Commune, which was no

longer a state in the proper sense of the word. …We would therefore

propose replacing ‘state’ everywhere by ‘Gemeinwesen’ [community], a

good old German word which can very well take the place of the French

word ‘commune’ “ (quoted in Lenin, 1970; p. 333).

I do not intend to get into a fuller discussion of the Marxist concept

of the state, the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” or related subjects

(again, see my book, Price 2007). My point is only that, even by Marxist

description, the state is a socially-alienated, bureaucratic,

military-police machine above the rest of society. By this description,

it is not something which the working class can use, neither to

transform society into a classless, nonoppressive, system, nor to manage

society after its transformation. There can be no such thing as a

“workers’ state.”

I am not quibbling about words. People may call things whatever they

want; it’s a semi-free country. But we need to recognize that the

council system is qualitatively different from all the states in

history. All these states—even those set up by popular revolutions, such

as the bourgeois-democratic French revolution or U.S.

revolution—established the rule of a minority over an exploited

majority. They had to be separate from the people, distinct

institutions, no matter how democratic in form. But the federated

councils of the workers’ commune, backed by the armed people, is the

self-organized people itself, not a distinct institution. It may carry

out certain tasks which states have done in the past, but it is not

useful to describe it as a state. When everyone governs, there is no

“government.”

Leninism and the State

Lenin argued that it was necessary to overturn the existing, capitalist,

state, and to build a new state, a workers’ state—temporarily,

transitionally—which would eventually “wither away.” What the

revolutionaries will be doing, what they will be working at, is building

the new state. The “withering away” of the state will be left to take

care of itself. With such an approach, it should not be surprising that

what the Leninists produced is. …a state.

“The very revolutionaries who claim that they are against the state, and

for eliminating the state…see as their central task after a revolution

to build up a state that is more solid, more centralized and more

all-embracing than the old one. …The point is not that the workers and

other oppressed people should not build up a strong set of organizations

during and after a revolution to manage the economy and society, defend

their gains and suppress the exploiters, etc. But they also need to take

steps to prevent a new state from arising and oppressing them. That is,

they need to figure out how they are going to build a stateless society”

(Taber, 1988; pp. 56 & 58). In other words, the centralized and

repressive aspects of political organization should actively “be

withered” by the working population.

Trotskyism and the State

Trotskyists often say to anarchists that they want what we want, an

association of councils tied to a workers’ militia. This is, they say,

what they mean by a “workers’ state.” So far, so good.

But they also use “workers’ state” to described the Russian regime of

Lenin and Trotsky up to about 1923. This was a one-party police state

dictatorship, and not at all a radically democratic council system. At

the time of the 1917 revolution there had been democratic soviets

(councils), factory committees, independent unions, a range of socialist

parties and anarchist groups (parties and groups which supported the

revolution and fought on the side of the Bolsheviks during the Civil

War), and dissenting caucuses inside the Bolshevik party. Between 1918

and 1921, this lively working class democracy was destroyed. I am not

arguing why this happened (Trotskyists claim it was entirely due to

objective conditions; anarchists claim that Lenin and Trotsky’s

authoritarian politics had much to do with it). But it did happen. So

the Trotskyists are left calling a state in which the workers had no

power, a “workers’ state.” Given the chance, how do we know that they

would not create the same kind of “workers’ state” again (if the

“objective conditions” existed)?

It gets worse. One wing of the Trotskyist movement is called “orthodox

Trotskyism” or “Soviet defensists.” They follow Trotsky’s stated view

that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a totalitarian mass-murdering

regime, but was also a “workers’ state” (a “degenerated workers’

state”). This was because it expanded nationalized property and for no

other reason. Similarly, the regimes of Eastern Europe, China, and Cuba

were also “workers’ states” without any worker control (“deformed

workers’ states,” except Cuba which most regarded as a pretty good

“workers’ state”).

There is a more democratic wing of Trotskyism, which rejected Trotsky’s

view of Stalin’s USSR. They believe (with most anarchists) that the

bureaucracy became a new ruling class and the economy became “state

capitalist” or some new type of exploitative system.

But they still believe that Lenin and Trotsky’s regime was a “workers’

state.” And they believe that Stalin’s rule remained a “workers’ state”

up to some turning point (1929, when the industrialization drive began,

or the late 1930s, in the time of the great purge trials when the party

was remade).

My point is that, for Trotskyists, the concept of a “workers’ state” is

not only a label for a council system, slightly different from that of

the anarchists. It is a concept they use to cover for drastically

undemocratic institutions.

Other Leninists exist, such as Communists in the tradition of the old

pro-Moscow parties, Maoists, and some others. They rarely refer to

Marx’s goal of a stateless society. They support the monstrous one-party

tyrannies of Stalin or Mao. But they often follow a reformist approach,

that is, try to change society through the existing state rather than by

seeking to overturn it and create something new. The Communist Parties

are notorious for this approach. But even Maoists may follow it, as is

exemplified by the Maoists in Nepal who are trying to take over a

bourgeois state through parliamentary maneuvering. Even the Trotskyists

have, in practice, abandoned their Leninist position of needing to

overthrow the bourgeois state. This is seen by their support for Hugo

Chavez’ effort to establish “socialism” through the Venezuelan

capitalist state or their support for pro-capitalist politicians running

for election, such as Ralph Nadar.

Another view was expressed by Paul Mattick, Sr., a council communist

(libertarian Marxist). (I am not discussing who has the “correct”

interpretation of Marx on the state. Nor am I discussing the issue

raised earlier by Draper about authoritarian tendencies within

anarchism). For “Marx and Engels…the victorious working class would

neither institute a new state nor seize control of the existing state.

…It is not through the state that socialism can be realized, as this

would exclude the self-determination of the working class, which is the

essence of socialism” (1983; pp160—161).

Revolutionary anarchists and other revolutionary libertarian socialists

aim for the workers and all oppressed to break up the existing states

and replace them with radically democratic, self-managed, societies.

References

Draper, Hal (1990). Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution; Vol. IV: Critique

of Other Socialisms. NY: Monthly Review.

Engels, Frederick (1972). The Origin of the Family, Private Property,

and the State. NY: International Publishers.

Lenin, V.I. (1970). Selected Works; vol. 2. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Mattick, Paul, Sr. (1983). Marxism: Last Refuge of the Bourgeoisie?

Armonk NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Price, Wayne (2007). The Abolition of the State: Anarchist and Marxist

Perspectives. Bloomington IN: AuthorHouse.

Taber, Ron (1988). A Look at Leninism. NY: Aspect Foundation.