Lesson Eight
The State and the Dictatorship
of the Proletariat

A. Definitions

The Marxist theory of the state can be summarized as follows: It is a machine for the suppression of one class by another; it is “the executive committee of the ruling class” (Marx); and the “summarized reflected form of the economic desires of the class which controls production” (Engels). It is an organization of people by national territory; it is a public power of coercion (police, army, prisons); it exacts taxes and creates public debts; it is a bureaucracy “above society”.

The state is a machine created to maintain the domination of one class over another. Before the advent of slavery no classes existed. Although humanity lived under primitive conditions of equality and low productivity of labor, primitive man had the highest form of social organization of all time. There couldn’t possibly have existed groups of people who occupied themselves exclusively with administration and dominated the rest of society. Slavery, the first form of social division into classes, arose when primitive agriculture was able to produce a surplus. (See Lesson Two). This surplus became the means of consolidating a slave-owning class. But in classless society there was no means – because there was no need – of holding captives in slavery. One section of society cannot be forced to work systematically for another section without the maintenance of a permanent apparatus of power. Wherever classes appeared, there rose the state.

B. The Slave State

The slave state was an apparatus which empowered the slave owners to control and dominate slave labor and to protect their property from rival slave states. Slave states were relatively small because they had inferior methods of communication and transport. Mountains, rivers and seas were tremendous obstacles. The states consequently developed within small geographical boundaries.

C. Greek and Roman Slave States

The forms which slave states took varied. The Greek were republics, democracies; the Roman became monarchic. Literally translated, democracy means rule of the people; monarchy, rule of a royal individual. Despite these formal differences all slave states were states of slave owners. They all regarded the slave as sub-human and unworthy of citizenship. Roman law established the slave as chattel or private property. Laws against murder and for the protection of integrity and dignity of the person did not apply to slaves but only to slave owners. They alone enjoyed civil rights, took part in elections and other political functions. The common principle of all forms of slave states were to deprive the slave of all rights and to oppress him.

D. The Feudal State

Essentially the same principle applies under feudalism. The serf was chained to the land he worked. Certain days he worked the land given him by the feudal lord. The rest of the days he worked the lord’s land. Class rule remained. The feudal landowners enjoyed all civil rights. The serf was absolutely without political rights. Both monarchies and republics existed under feudalism. But only landowners having serfs under them were the dominating force in society.

E. Slave and Serf Insurrections

History is an unbroken series of attempts by oppressed classes to shake off their chains. Wars lasting decades were waged for and against the emancipation of the slaves. One of the greatest insurrections of antiquity was led by Spartacus, a Roman slave who, 2,000 years ago, organized and led an army of slaves which shook the all-powerful Roman Empire to its foundations. Feudal history, also is full of serf insurrections and revolts. In Germany, for instance, the struggle of the landowners and serfs in the Middle Ages took on the character of a tremendous civil war. The peasant revolts continued right on into the capitalist system.

F. Rise of the Capitalist State

The development of commerce and commodity exchange led to the crystallization of a new social class, the capitalists. Capital came into being toward the end of the Middle Ages when the discovery of America permitted world commerce to develop to an unprecedented degree. (See Lesson Four). The increase in supply of the precious metals and the introduction of currency permitted the accumulation of tremendous wealth in the hands of the few. Gold and silver were recognized as riches all over the world. The economic strength of the old class of feudal landowners diminished and that of the new class of capitalists developed. Society was transformed. The former division into slaves and slave-holders, serfs and feudal lords, disappeared. Everyone was considered equal before the law, irrespective of how much property or wealth he possessed. The law protected the property of the rich and poor alike from the attacks of the propertyless masses who became impoverished and, finally, were forced to become wage workers. This period opens the capitalist era.

The new society opposed the bondage of serfdom with the slogan of personal freedom. In practice however, this meant freedom only for those who possessed property. The state recognized the right of the industrialist, the factory owner and the tradesman to private property. Admitting these rights and the complete subordination of the propertyless workers to them, the capitalist state at the same time proudly declared that its rule is based on freedom and equality; that the state is no longer a class state; that it represents the will of the whole people. It proclaimed freedom of speech, press and assembly and finally universal suffrage. Its preachers, scholars, philosophers and lawyers declared the class struggle to have been abolished.

G. Character of the Capitalist State

But the state continues to be a machine with which the capitalists hold the working class and middle classes in check. The form of capitalist rule, as in previous states, varies from country to country and from time to time.

Bourgeois Democratic Form: The more democratic the form, the more cynical the rule. In the United States, one of the most democratic republics in the world, power is held by a little group of finance capitalists who control society through corruption and open brutality. No democracy or franchise can alter the essence of this state of affairs. They control the working class movement by corrupting and buying its leaders. But they use merciless brutality when the working class exceed the bounds set by their corrupted leaders. Officially, Engels says, the democratic republic “knows nothing about property.” The possessing class rules through the elections system, by corruption of officials and by the tight alliance of finance capital with the government, the former having the national economy and means of communication and transport concentrated in its hands. Congress and elections are its marionettes.

Compared to the feudal state the democratic republic represents tremendous progress: It gave the proletariat the possibility of attaining the organization and discipline necessary for systemic struggle against capitalism. Neither the serfs nor the slaves had anything of the sort. The latter revolted, began civil wars, but were never able to organize a conscious majority of the population. They never clearly understood their goal. Consequently they were pawns in the hands of the rulers. For the first time in history the subject class is able to recognize its own role and to develop incentive for building an international movement of millions of workers all over the world. Without parliament and the franchise this development would have been impossible. That is why these institutions have taken on great significance in the eyes of the masses and why they are slow to recognize that they are outlived and to follow the revolutionary road to power.

Fascist Form: “The democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism ... no change, either of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois republic can change it.” (Lenin). As the revolutionary forces develop under capitalism, the deception of democracy falls away. Fascism emerges. It is the desperate reaction of the bourgeoisie to the threat of proletarian revolution. It is the form adopted by the capitalist state when the democratic means of subjection have failed.

It shatters and suppresses all working class organizations: unions, parties, cooperatives; shoots and tortures working class militants and terrorizes and regiments the whole working class. At the same time it accuses Marxism of destroying freedom, of aiming to build a coercive state, of desiring to suppress one section of society by another.
It uses the middle class to secure power, then thrusts them down to the level of the workers.
It establishes a tighter amalgam of finance capital with the state against the workers and petty-bourgeois masses and against rival nations. Nationalism becomes rampant. Fascism is the open, violent, unmasked form of capitalist rule.

Social Democratic and People’s Front Forms: Both social democracy and the People’s Front are varieties of bourgeois democracy in which the “socialist” or labor features are exaggerated. They arise in the period of wars and revolutions when the working class is moving toward power. They are instruments used to head off the final conflict by feeding the workers illusions about

a ready made socialist state under capitalism; and about
the bourgeoisie as friends of labor.

State Capitalist Form: The objective basis for socialism is created by capitalist production itself. So capitalist government takes over or intervenes in private enterprise as part of a “social” program. It does so, however, in an attempt to overcome the anarchy of production and for the purpose of maintaining capitalism. In the early growth period of capitalism state capitalist enterprises were progressive because they stimulated more rapid economic development. Not today. Many reformers believe that state capitalism can unfold progressively into a new social order, that capitalism can be “organized” and “grow over” into socialism. Like Fascism, state capitalism in its monopoly form uses a vulgarized socialism to combat the coming of socialism. It is not a transition to socialism but the direct opposite. It is a form of capitalist struggle to retain power.

H. Communism – The Classless Society

Capitalism has developed productive capacity to the point where it is possible to supply every human being with more than enough. Yet capitalism can continue to exist only by aggravating want and starvation. Only a classless society, communism, can produce order out of this chaos, a society based on the socialized economic foundations already built by capitalism in its progressive period. The following are the essential characteristics of communism:

Common ownership of the means of production and distribution of wealth. The elimination of the right of individuals or groups to dispose of the means of life. That right belongs to society as a whole. Hence, no exploitation of one group by another.
Economic and social planning on a world scale: This is made possible by the abolition of competition between capitalists, the anarchy of production, wars and militarism.
Production for use, not for profit: Substitution of the good for the commodity.
The abolition of the state: Under communism the state is unnecessary. Government in the form of armies, police, prisons, property laws gives way to a system of administration, of accounting, management and supervision of industry and agriculture by all the people, such as is necessary to maintain world economy in smooth running order.
Disappearance of artificial differences and barriers fostered by capitalism: Nationalism, race hatred, religious dissention, caste envy are destroyed by international production and cooperation.
A tremendous increase in the productive capabilities of the human race: Human energy now necessarily spent in the class struggle or destroyed in war, unemployment and unproductive pursuits such as competitive advertising, soldiering, relief, etc., will be set free. Increased productivity means a shorter work day, security and increased leisure. Society can then take from the individual according to his abilities and give to him according to his needs. The higher form of human organization that existed in primitive society with low productivity now is recreated on a highest level of productivity. On this foundation culture – the arts and sciences – can rise to undreamed of heights.

I. The Workers State – Dictatorship of the Proletariat

No ruling class in history has voluntarily given up its power and privileges. The more recent experiences of the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the German and Hungarian revolutions, the development of Fascism prove that when the workers challenge the power of the capitalist class, democracy is scrapped and armed aggression is substituted. Reform and the ballot box are no avail. Victory can come only by revolutionary struggle.

“Between capitalists and communist society lies a period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter. To this also corresponds a political transition period in which the state can be no other than the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Marx – Gotha Program)

“The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purpose.” (Marx – Preface to Communist Manifesto)

The working class must break up, shatter the bureaucratic and military machinery as a precondition for any real people’s revolution. When this is done the class war is not suspended. The bourgeoisie still exists. It has money. It still has tremendous ideological and institutional hold on the masses. It can recruit armies with the aid of foreign capitalists. It will engage in sabotage and counter-revolution. It would be suicide for the revolution to allow the bourgeois enemy to do this, or to allow it to share in any way in government or political powers.

The suppression of the former exploiters immediately produces a fuller democracy. The dictatorship of the proletariat creates democracy for the vast majority, something that never existed before in class society. The standing army is abolished and the armed people take its place. All officials are elected, subject to immediate recall and receive workers wages.

Organization of national unity: With the working class at the head of the nation, bourgeois-military-burocratic centralism is replaced by conscious, democratic, proletarian centralism. As the resistance of the former capitalists, bankers, landlords and generals is broke, the class lines tend to disappear. Little by little the state loses its reason for existence. It withers away and society passes into communist conditions of life without further revolution. Thus the dictatorship of the proletariat is really a transition period between capitalism and communism.

J. The Workers Councils

History has revealed a new form of government, the workers’ councils (soviets). They are combined legislative and executive bodies composed of representatives elected from industrial units. By their nature they are class organizations from which all capitalists, landlords and other exploiting elements are excluded. They are not created by decree from above. They develop spontaneously through united actions of the working class during the revolutionary crisis. By means of the workers’ councils the class not only takes power, but is able to hold it.

K. Degeneration of the Russian Soviet State

The Russian revolution of 1917–18 overthrew the bourgeois state. Workers’ councils were established as organs of the dictatorship. Bourgeois democracy was overthrown and proletarian democracy established. Industry, banks, transport were nationalized into state property. Bourgeois relations in big industry were overthrown. Workers control of production was instituted. Workers militias were created. The land was given to the peasants though it remained state property legally. Foreign trade became a state monopoly. The Bolshevik party controlled the state apparatus. The foreign policy of Soviet Russia was designed to extend and promote world revolution. Bureaucratic capitalist oppression of national minorities was replaced by the right of self-determination of nations.

But it is not possible to completely eliminate capitalism by the seizure of power in one country. Capitalist forms continue to exist side by side with new economy. The historical contradiction produced by this state of affairs can be resolved only by:

the extension of the revolution on a world scale or by
retrogression back to capitalism.

Following the defeats of the Finnish, Hungarian, Italian and German uprisings, the second process began in Russia. By 1924 the pressure of the bourgeoisie, strengthened by the defeats of the world proletariat and the revival of capitalist economy, seriously affected Soviet life. The state bureaucracy, originally of the working class, emerged as a petty-bourgeois stratum with interests conflicting with those of the proletariat. The betrayal of the English general strike of 1926 and of the Chinese Revolution of 1925–27, the expulsion of the left wing of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the execution and exile of thousands of its leaders and members, the adoption of nationalism and revisionism as the program of the Communist International at the Sixth World Congress – all these events marked the victory of Stalinism over Marxism, the political subordination of the proletariat to the interests of the world bourgeoisie and of the petty bourgeoisie in the Soviet Union, the triumph of “bourgeois law” over workers democracy. The foreign policy of the Soviets stifled revolutionary action by the working class. The bureaucracy used the state to destroy all control by working class of the dictatorship. Out of the expanded industrial and agricultural enterprises rose an enormous bureaucracy and a new bourgeois stratum of millions of human beings and thousands of institutions.

The bureaucracy ruled by police and terror and scrapped the soviet forms of the workers state. The new Stalin constitution established the juridical basis for the reintroduction of private property in land, industry and trade. The Soviet state is used by Stalinism as an openly counter-revolutionary force.

Situation Today:

Private property in industry legalized and restored to an extent;
Group private property established;
Inheritance of wealth reintroduced;
Appropriation of surplus values thru interest and a disguised form of profit (enormous salaries) restored;
“State in hands of a political-industrial bureaucracy which oppresses the masses in its own interests and in that of the world bourgeoise.”
The economic foundations on which the soviet state were built in 1917 are today largely fictive, on their last legs. But
(I) They still stand.
(II) The traditions of October 1917 are still alive in the masses.

L. The “Permanent Revolution”

The working class cannot take power in every country at the same time. The revolution occurs in single countries. The Russian revolution was the first to hold power after seizing it. But “the completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable.” In order to succeed it must develop beyond national boundaries and kindle the already revolutionized masses in other countries to revolt. The classless society can be introduced only on a world scale.

M. Summary

“So long as exploitation exists there can be no equality. The landowner cannot be equal with the landworker, the capitalist with the worker, the hungry man with the statesman. The machine of state before which people bow with superstitious veneration, believing that it represents the power of the whole people, is uprooted by the proletariat which declares their old ideas to be lies. We have taken this machine away from the capitalists. We have rebuilt it for us. With this machine we will drive all exploitation out of the world, and, when all possibilities for exploitation have been abolished and not a single landowner or factory owner exists, then one human being will not be overfed while another goes hungry. Only when the last possibility of exploitation has been abolished will we fling the machine into the scrap heap. Then there will be no state and no exploitation. That is the standpoint of the Communist Party.” (Lenin)

“The state, then, did not exist for all eternity. There have been societies without it, that had no idea of any state or public power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was of necessity accompanied by division of society into classes, the state became the inevitable result of this division. We are now rapidly approaching a stage of evolution in production, in which the existence of class has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive fetter on production. Hence these classes must fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state must irrevocably fall with them. The society that is to reorganize production on the basis of a free and equal association of producers will transfer the machinery of state where it will belong: into the Museum of Antiquities by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.” * (Engels – Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State)