💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › camillo-berneri-state-and-revolution.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 08:23:41. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: The Abolition and Extinction of the State
Author: Camillo Berneri
Date: 1978
Language: en
Topics: anti-Bolshevism, the state, revolution, anti-state, Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review
Source: Retrieved on 26th August 2021 from http://struggle.ws/berneri/ussr_state.html
Notes:  Translation published in ‘The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review’ Number 4, 1978

Camillo Berneri

The Abolition and Extinction of the State

Whereas we anarchists desire the extinction of the state through the

social revolution and the constitution of an autonomist federal order,

the Leninists desire the destruction of the bourgeois state and moreover

the conquest of the state by the ‘proletariat.’ The ‘proletarian’ state.

they say, is a semi-state since the complete state is the bourgeois one

destroyed by the social revolution. And even this semi-state would die,

according to the Marxists, a natural death.

This theory of the extinction of the state which is the basis of Lenin’s

book ‘State and Revolution’ has been derived by him from Engels who in

‘Anti-Duhring’ says,

“The proletariat seizes the power of the state and first of all

transforms the means of production into the property of the state. But

by achieving this it does away with itself as proletariat, it does away

with all class differences and all class antagonisms and consequently

also with the state as the state. Society as it was and as it is at

present which is actuated by the antagonisms between the classes, needed

the state, that is to say an organisation of the exploiting class with a

view to maintaining the outward conditions of production, more

particularly with a view to maintaining by force the exploited class in

the oppressive conditions demanded by the existing mode of production

(slavery, serfdom, wage labour). The state was the official

representative of the entire society, its synthesis in visible form, but

it was only this to the extent that it was the state of the class which

itself represented in its time the entire society: the state of citizens

who owned slaves in antiquity, the state of the feudal nobility in the

Middle Ages, the state of the bourgeoisie in our time. But by becoming

at last the true representative of the whole society, it renders itself

superfluous. As soon as there is no longer a social class to maintain in

oppression; as soon as the clashes of interest and the excesses are

abolished at the same time as class domination and the struggle for

individual existence which is founded in the old anarchy of production

from which they result, there is nothing more to repress, and a special

force for repression, the state, ceases to be necessary. The first act

by which the state confirms itself in reality as the representative of

the entire society — taking possession of the means of production in the

name of society — is at the same time the last proper act of the state.

The intervention of the power of the state in social relations becomes

superfluous in one area after another, and eventually dies away of its

own accord. Government of people is replaced by administration of things

and control of the process of production. The state is not ‘abolished’;

it withers away. It is from this point of view that one must appraise

the expression: ‘a free popular state’ as much for its short-lived

interest for discussion as for its definitive scientific inadequacy;

from this point of view also must the claims of those who are called

anarchists and who desire that the state should be abolished overnight

be appraised.”

Between the State — Today and the Anarchy — Tomorrow there would be the

semi-state. The state which dies is the ‘state as the state’ that is to

say, the bourgeois state. It is in this sense that one must take the

phrase which at first sight seems to contradict the proposition of the

socialist state. “The first act by which the state confirms itself in

reality as the representative of the entire society — taking possession

of the means of production in the name of society — is at the same time

the last proper act of the state.” Taken literally and out of context,

this phrase would signify the temporal simultaneity of economic

socialisation and the extinction of the state. In the same way also,

taken literally and out of context, the phrases relating to the

proletariat destroying itself as proletariat in the act of seizing the

power of the state would indicate the lack of need for the ‘Proletarian

State.’ In reality, Engels under the influence of ‘didactic style’

expresses himself in an unfortunate manner. Between the bourgeois state

today and the socialist-anarchist tomorrow, Engels recognises a chain of

successive eras during which the state and the proletariat remain. It is

to throw some light on the dialectical obscurity that he adds the final

allusion to the anarchists “who desire that the state should be

abolished overnight” that is to say, who do not allow the transitory

period as regards the state, whose intervention according to Engels

becomes superfluous, “in one area after another” that is to say,

gradually.

It seems to me that the Leninist position on the problem of the state

coincides exactly with that taken by Marx and Engels when one interprets

the spirit of the writings of these latter without letting oneself be

deceived by the ambiguity of certain turns of phrase.

The state is, in Marxist — Leninist political thought, the temporary

political instrument of socialisation, temporary in the very essence of

the state, which is that of an organism for the domination of one class

by another. The socialist state, by abolishing classes, commits suicide.

Marx and Engels were metaphysicians who frequently came to schematise

historical processes from love of system.

‘The Proletariat’ which seizes the state, bestowing on it the complete

ownership of the means of production and destroying itself as

proletariat and the state ‘as the state’ is a metaphysical fantasy, a

political hypothesis of social abstractions.[1]

It is not the Russian proletariat that has seized the power of the

state, but rather the Bolshevik Party which has not destroyed the

proletariat at all and which has on the other hand created a State

Capitalism, a new bourgeois class, a set of interests bound to the

Bolshevik state which tend to preserve themselves by preserving the

state.

The extinction of the state is further away than ever in the USSR where

static interventionism is ever more immense and oppressive, and where

classes are not disappearing.

The Leninist programme for 1917 included these points: the

discontinuance of the police and the standing army, abolition of the

professional bureaucracy, elections for all public positions and

offices, revocability of all officials, equality of bureaucratic wages

with workers’ wages, the maximum of democracy, peaceful competition

among the parties within the soviets, abolition of the death penalty.

Not a single one of the points in this programme has been achieved.

We have the USSR a government, a dictatorial oligarchy. The Central

Committee (19 members) dominates the Russian Communist Party which in

turn dominates the USSR.

All those who are not ‘loyal subjects’ are charged with being

counter-revolutionaries. The Bolshevik revolution has engendered a

saturnal[2] government, which deports Riazano founder of the Marx Engels

institute, at the time when he is preparing the complete and original

edition of ‘Des Kapital;’ which condemns to death Zinonev, president of

the Communist International, Kamenev and many others among the best

propagators of Leninism, which excludes from the party, then exiles,

then expels from the USSR a ‘duce’ like Trotsky, which in short is dead

set against 80% of the supporters of Leninism.

In 1920 Lenin was speaking very highly of self-criticism within the lap

of the Communist Party and spoke of ‘mistakes’ recognised by the ‘Party’

and not of the right of the citizen to denounce these mistakes, or those

things which seemed to him to be such of the party in government. When

Lenin was dictator, whoever caused a stir in denouncing the same

mistakes which Lenin himself recognised in retrospect risked or

underwent ostracism, prison or death. Bolshevik Sovietism was an

atrocious joke even for Lenin who vaunted the god-like power of the

Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party over all the USSR in

saying: “No important question be it one of political discipline or

relating to organisation, is decided on by a state institution in our

Republic without a directive emanating from the Central Committee of the

Party.”

Whoever says ‘proletarian State’ says ‘State Capitalism’ whoever says

‘dictatorship of the Proletariat’ says ‘Dictatorship of the Communist

Party;’ whoever says ‘strong government’ says ‘Tsarist oligarchy of

politicians.’

Leninists, Trotskyists, Bordighists, Centrists are only divided by

different tactical ideas. All Bolsheviks, to whatever stream or faction

they belong are supporters of political dictatorship and State

Socialism. All are united by the formula: ‘Dictatorship of the

Proletariat’ an ambiguous phrase which corresponds to ‘The People

Sovereign’ of Jacobinism. Whatever Jacobinism is, it is certain to cause

the Social Revolution to deviate. And when it deviates, ‘the shadow of a

Bonaparte’ is cast across it.

One would have to be blind not to see that the Bonapartism of Stalin is

merely the horrible and living shadow of Leninist Dictatorialism.

[1] Hypostasis: in theology this word is equivalent to ‘nuance,’ thus

the father, son and holy ghost are three hypostases of a single divine

substance Here the proletariat’s act of seizing power is a hypostasis

which contains several magic processes: destruction of the state and the

proletariat.

[2] Saturnal: an allusion to the myth of Saturn who ate his own

children. The Party devoured, Trotsky, then Stalin, then Krushchev etc.