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Title: Smash the state!
Author: Andrew Flood
Date: 1994
Language: en
Topics: anti-state, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 15th November 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws94/state41.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 41 — Spring 1994.

Andrew Flood

Smash the state!

ONE OF THE best known catch phrases of Anarchism has got to be “Smash

the State”. It’s also one that’s easily open to misunderstanding.

Particularly in Ireland, where the 26 counties once had the rather

humorous title of “Free State”, many see state as meaning the

geographical area of a country. This slogan has also been misrepresented

by anarchism’s opponents as meaning opposition to all forms of

organisation and decision making. Obviously neither of these is what

anarchists mean, but what exactly is the state and how do we smash it?

Anarchists see the state as a mechanism by which a minority imposes its

will on the majority of the population. To maintain its hold of power

the state forms whatever armed forces and judicial apparatus are deemed

necessary to keep the level of dissent manageable. This is different

from how most Marxists define the state, concentrating on the mechanism

by which the state stays in power (bodies of armed men) rather then the

function of the state. It is the characteristic of minority rule which

defines the state for anarchists, the ‘bodies of armed men’ serve to

protect this minority rather then defining the state in itself. This

distinction has some important consequences.

The state apparatus cannot maintain a permanent separation from the

ruling economic power. In fact most of the time its function is carrying

out a crude expression of the wishes of the ruling class. It represents

the limited ability of this class to control and plan the economic life

of a country. In advanced capitalism the state is used to regulate the

level of exploitation of the workforce through various labour laws.

THE ‘CARING’ STATE

At the outbreak of World War 1 Britain found that a huge percentage of

the working class had been so exploited that they were unfit for

military service. Although the almost unhindered exploitation had been

good for individual bosses up to that time, in the war when it came to

using the working class to win colonies and markets it turned out to be

against their collective interest. At the end of the war revolutions and

army mutinies swept across Europe.

To defuse the level of class struggle and prepare for the next war the

bosses used the state apparatus to impose limitations on themselves and

the level of exploitation they could use. It also started to use it to

divert part of every workers’ wage to form a new social wage which would

be used for the education of workers and limited social security. In

this it hoped to head off future periods of struggle.

The state is the collective body through which the bosses keep

themselves in power. It’s judiciary and police force protect each boss

from his own workers, intervening where necessary to smash strikes,

criminalise activists and censor critics. This is its most direct and

obvious intervention but through its control of the education system and

its ability to criminalise social behaviour which goes against the

bosses wishes it intervenes into every aspect of workers lives.

SCAPEGOATS & SAFE CHANNELS

In it’s scapegoating of single mothers, immigrants or Travellers it

directs the anger of workers away from the real causes of their poverty.

It ensures that much of the care for the sick and the raising of new

generations of workers is kept cheap by keeping it in the home. It

therefore is hostile to non-family relationships, or even family

relations which might challenge the prevalent ones and thus pose an

indirect threat. This is why the state is so opposed to single parent

families or families where both parents are of the same sex.

The state in modern capitalism provides safe channels for dissent. By

funding unemployed centres it achieves a political veto on their

activities, effectively ensuring a concentration on services like the

production of CV’s — with campaigning limited to minor tinkering with

the system. Through the use of elections it creates a veneer of ordinary

people being in control while the decisions are being made elsewhere. By

pretending neutrality it can set up and arbitrate on disputes between

workers and bosses through the use of bodies like the Labour Court. All

these are methods to defuse and control social unrest.

The state can also be the organ of transformation and creation of a new

ruling class. With positions in the state hierarchy come powers over

both people and goods. Well placed individuals can make a fortune in

bribes. After the Russian revolution a minority, in the shape of the

Bolshevik party, came to control the state.

‘STATE SOCIALISM’ — A CONTRADICTION

Their distrust in the ability of workers to run the economy themselves

was to result in armed force being used against the very workers they

claimed to be liberating. From that point on the party attracted power

seekers, within a short period of time this resulted in a new ruling

elite. Socialism can not be built through use of the state structure,

the existence of such a structure will lead to the development of a new

ruling elite.

The anarchist rejection of the state as an organ for the transformation

of society is often deliberately misrepresented. Leninists, for

instance, typically try to confuse undemocratic and unaccountable state

regimes like those of the Bolsheviks with democratic bodies like workers

councils or ‘soviets’. In general it is implied that anarchism is

against all forms of organisation.

This says a lot about the people making such arguments. Do they believe

that the only form of organisation that is feasible is one where the

mass of society are told what to do by a leadership? Anarchists say

socialism can only be created by mass democracy, that why we define the

state as being an unaccountable leadership capable of forcing its will

on society. We explicitly reject any form of running society that relies

on such methods.

Against the statists we propose; decision making at the lowest possible

level: election of recallable, mandated delegates for decisions that

cannot be made by mass assemblies, and for all delegates to remain part

of the workforce where possible. Where this takes them away from their

workplaces their positions should be held for short periods only, and

without any special privileges. This, a society based on mass democracy,

is our alternative to the state. Its not just our aim to achieve such a

society after the revolution but also to use such methods now in our

struggle for such a society. We argue for such methods in our unions,

associations and campaigning groups.