Stalinism And The State

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In its anti-Common Market propaganda, the British Comma key element is the notion of "sovereignty"

This is defined by ex Party Secretary John Gollan as "our right to make our laws and decisions on the crucial questions concerning the future of Britain at the moment when it faces its greatest post-war crisis". (emphasis added]. This is a view shared by the Labour Party "lefts' who oppose the EEC also from a nationalist position. But more is contained in such a position than simple reactionary nationalism: there is also the illusion in parliamentary democracy - in socialism being achievable through peaceful parliamentary legislation.

This is an important revision of the fundamentals of Marxism by the Communist Party and is of course enshrined explicitly in its programme The British Road to Socialism.

First written, with the approval of Stalin himself, in 1951, as a programme to siphon off future militan or revolutionary movements of thr working class into the blind alley of seeking parliamentary reforms, the document is the natural outcome of the desire of the Stalinist bureaucracy to preserve the balance of forces between capitalism and the workers states in the name of so-called "peaceful coexistence" Throwing overboard the historical experience of the working class in a century of struggle, and the theoretical heritage of Marx, Engels, Leni and Trotsky, the Communist Party programme states boldly: "At a time of mounting class struggle, when the entire working class is brought into action and is supported by other sections of the population, a general election fought on the issue of a socialist solution to Britain's problems could bring decisive results. It could return to Parliament a socialist Labour and Communist majority and establish a Socialist Government which, with the backing of the people, would begin to carry through a fundamental social change."

Instrument Thus far Harold Wilson would not disagree (though he may hesitate to support any strikes), but the CP is more explicit still: "In this way, using our traditional institutions and rights, we can transform Parliament into an effective instrument of the people's will, through which the major legislative measures of the change to socialism will be carried. Using the rights already won in the labour movement's historic struggle for democracy, we can change capitalist democracy, dominated by wealth and privilege, into socialist democracy, where only the interests of the people count." [p 10 emphasis added] Gone is the Communist call for the dictatorship of the proletariat -instead we have legislation, a few words muttered in Parliament, supposedly dissolving the entire capitalist class and its repressive forces in a puff of smoke. Even worse, it is envisaged as taking place under the existing armed forces and police machinery, with a few faces changed only. It goes on to call for: "Consolidation of the political power of the working people by ensuring that those in commanding positions in the armed forces and police, the civi service and the diplomatic services are loyal to the Socialist Government and increasingly representative of the people". [p 11 emphasis added] This treachery, which led to the slaughter in 1973 by the military junta in Chile of the flower of the working class militants and revolutionaries after 3 years of just such a government under Allende, is in keeping with the earlier assertion that "a transition to socialism without armed conflict is possile today in many countries" • lP 10] It was with such illusions that Communist Party members in Chile disarmed sections of workers only weeks before the fateful Pinochet coup. There too the Party programme, modelled very much on the British Road, had completely reviser Marx, Engels and Lenin on the state Of course none of these revolutionaries put forward the view that the working class could merely take over the existing apparatus of the bourgeois state and make it into a workers state. They would have fought to the last against thi Stalinist concept of "building up a socialist state" by merely taking over the House of Commons as in the British Road:

"The House of Commons, the representative body elected by the people, will become the sole national authority; the House of Lords and the monarchy will be abolished."

Preparation

Lenin in State and Revolution the writing of which in 1917 wa: vital theoretical preparation fo leading the Russian Revolution it self, works back through the writ ings of Marx and Engels to equir itself theoretically in order to fight precisely such opportunist concep tions of the state, and to clarify what was meant by the "dictator ship of the proletariat."

The starting point is that the state itself is not an accident of ¿ class by another.' pre cisely because any "peaceful co existence" between the opposec class forces of capitalists and worraise itself sibe, chases in orde and it seeks to raise to "legalise and perpetuate thi oppression."

Lenin then goes or to examine within this the role of the armed forces of the state. Precisely bec ause of class conflict, the "peo ple" as a whole cannot be armed and special bodies alon are equi pped as a disciplined fighting force.

"This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons and institutions of coercion of all kinds."

As Lenin emphasises, here is the essence of the power of the bourgeois state: "a standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power." As soon as the working class ventures into confrontation with the capitalists' "rights" of property through occupations or other class action, the truth of this is shown and also the interrelation between bourgeois private ownership, the "neutral" state and the laws passed by its parliament is laid bare. In addition, to finance this repressive apparatus, taxes are levied upon the working class by a welter of officials completely outside any form of democratic control. All this takes place in the pursuit of further exploitation of the working class, which in order to resist has to form its own class organisations, its own bodies of armed men (workers militia), its own form of officials (elected and subject to recall), and in no way lean on the machinery constructed by the capitalist class.

Lenin sets out firmly to establish along with Marx and Engels that the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie will be not peace ful and parliamentary, but violent He quotes the Communist Manifesto:

...In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat."

Marx does not mention parlnotion of Stalinists. The Communist Manifesto explicitly states that the task is to "raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class", other WOrS class power and not some woolly conse and of res 'lefts' , libgenerals as in Allende's government in Chile or the Popular Fronts of Spain and France in the 1930s.

More important still as Lenin shows, Marx then went on to talk of "the state, ie, the proletariat organised as the ruling class." In other words, after the defeat of the bourgeoisie the working class itself need form of state in order to establish its rule - and thus establish the basis, through the nationalisatio of private industry and the implemen. ion of a planned socialist economy, of the eventual elimination of class antagonisms.

Lenin shows why it is that the power must be taken by the working class as a class:

"Only the proletariat by virtue of the economic role it plays in large-scale production - is capable of being the leader of all the working and exploited people, whom the bourgeoisie exploit, opp ress and crush, often not less but more than they do the proletarians, but who are incapable of waging an independent struggle for their emancipation..."

Guide To Action

Marxism is of course, contrary to the view of the sectarians, a guide to action for the working class and not in any way a fixed dogma. The most important developments it has made since the writing of the Communist Manifesto have been in concretising the way the working class struggle against the state takes place. The years of revolution of 1848-51 in France clarified for Marx the need for the working class to go beyond the limits of preceding revolutions and to smash the state apparatus of the ruling class:

Finally in its struggle against the revolution, the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along with repressive measures, the resources and centralisation of governmențai power. All [bourgeois revolutions perfect ed this machine instead of smashing it." [Lenin's emphasis] Lenin goes on to draw the conclusion that "World history is now undoubtedly leading, on an incomparably larger scale than in 1852, to the "concentration of all the forces" of the proletarian revolution on the "destruction" of the state machine."

The question that arises immediately from understanding the necessity for the working class to. smash the state machine is - what can replace it? Marx and Engels certainly left no room for the Stalinist lie that merety the leading Lenin figures are changed for those "loyal to socialism" . Basing themselves again clearly on lessons drawn from the living struggle of workers, in this case the Paris Commune of 1871, they wrote:

...One thing especially was proved by the Commune, vis, that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes..."

Lenin, bringing completely up to date this development of Marxism, states clearly that this applies also to Britain: "Today [1917] in Britain and Amer ica. too. the precondition for every real people's revolution is the smashing, the destruction of the ready-made state machinery..."

This, as we have said, drew on the actual experience of the Paris Commune, where steps were taken towards establishing a proletarian socialist republic. The first is extremely important when we review the Chile experience. and when we Had stor wine ver-- = 7 look at Portugal today:

...The first decree of the Commune ...was the suppression of the standing army, and its replacement by the armed people..."

The Commune in other words aimed first and foremost at depriving the bourgeoisie of its main organ of repression, the backbone of its state. The central fight for the disbanding of the standing army has since been taken up, on a verbal level, as Lenin shows, by "every party calling itself socialist.

Only a revolutionary party however can grasp the vital this demand.

Yet the power of the bourgeo sie must be smashed root an branch, attacking also the bogi "neutral" apparatus set up to pri serve capitalist private property: "The Commune was formed of th muncipal councillors, chosen b universal suffrage in the varior wards of Paris, responsible and re: ocable at any time. The majority ( its members were naturally workin men, or acknowledged representa ives of the working class... Th police, which had until then bee the instrument of the Governmen was at once stripped of its politic attributes and turned into the re ponsible and at all times revocab instrument of the Commune. s were the officials of all oth branches of the administration. Fr the members of the Commur downwards, public servise had 1 be done at workmen's wages. Tr privileges and the representatio allowances of the high dignitari of state disappeared along with tr dignitaries themselves...Having onc got rid of the standing army and th police, the instruments of the ph sical force of the old governmen the Commune proceeded at once t break the instrument of spiritua suppression, the power of the pries ...The juridicial functionaries los that sham independence.. the were thence forward to be electiv responsible, and revocable...

Bridge

All these measures actual begun by the Commune in 187 contained much more than "mo democracy". • They contained tl end of the separation and elevatic of state power above the worker and the elimination of privilegr and official grandeur. These steps Lenin puts it, unite the interests the workers and the majority peasants, and cat the same ti serve as a bridge leading fro capitalism to socialism"

At the same time the Commul was to be "a working, not a parli mentary body, executive and leg lative at the same time" . [my emp Marx is contemptous of bourger dismisses ta democracy mich or six years which member: of ti ruling class was to represent al repress the people in parliament At times it was necessary to u parlaimentary democracy in ord to expose it, but the workers sta would do away with these trappin of democracy, replacing them wi representatives genuinely accou able and revocable to the electora While in the Commune most the representatives were drawn fr the working class itself, so in t Russian Soviets of 1905 and 19 there emerged the organs of work power, electing their officers pure from peasant, proletarian and so: iers ranks, excluding the bourger since the soviets included only thi who worked. In this way the cli domination of workers over t expropriated capitalist class was p pared in the emergence. of sov: democracy, with the arming of t workers in the revolutionary str gle, followed by the smashing the capitalist state.

Workers State In the initial period followi the revolution clearly repression the bourgeoisie was vital. It wa not a question of passing la against them in parliament but intimidating the former exploit and physically imposing the ne state power of the working cla Engels in his article "On Authorit takes up those who thought tr the ending of the state meant t ending of authority. "Have these gentlemen ever seer revolution? A revolution is certair the most authoritarian thing the

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is; it is an act whereby one part of nay, 1975

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power forced on society from without, but is an organ of clas: chas by the oppres arises one