ICC on councilist left and anarchism

I would argue that authoritarianism is intrinsic to Marxist theory, mainly because of Historical Materialism and the introduction of a workers' state. I can do no more justice to this argument but quote Bakunin:

'This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker – the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads “overflowing with brains” in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority.'

Let’s look at what I argued against, as you are still largely misunderstanding my argument.

Engels called the “democratic republic” the “specific form” of the proletarian dictatorship, and you say that Marx and Engels held that the “bourgeois republic” is the specific form of the proletarian dictatorship. You are implicitly claiming that Marx and Engels identified the “democratic republic” with the “bourgeois republic.” I objected to this claim a number of times and you explicitly affirmed its validity:

If Marx did identify the democratic republic with the bourgeois state, then all democratic republics would be bourgeois states. Let us look at what Marx understood by the term “bourgeois state”:

So here we have some idea of what Marx understood by the term “bourgeois state.” Now, the “social republic” of the Commune was understood by Marx and Engels as both a democratic republic and a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” but not as a bourgeois state or bourgeois republic. Therefore, they did not identify the democratic republic tout court with the bourgeois state.

Marx counterposes the French bourgeois republic to the social republic.

The bourgeois republic is also called the “Parliamentary Republic,” and while the bourgeois republic has “two great organs, parliament and the government,” the social republic, by contrast, represented “a revolt against both these forms, integrating each other” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/drafts/ch01.htm). The French “Republican form of the bourgeois régime – this bourgeois Republic . . . is the most odious of all political régimes." (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/drafts/ch01.htm). On the other hand, the social republic “was a thoroughly expansive political form, while all the previous forms of government had been emphatically repressive.” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm) Beneath these differences lies what is for Marx the fundamental difference, the change in the class content of the state power. The proletariat gives the state power a revolutionary and transitional form (Marx), breaking with “all previous forms of government.” So, within Marx’s theory, when we can with justice speak of a dictatorship of the proletariat, we are not speaking of a bourgeois state. We are speaking of a form in which, according to Marx, all workers are members of government, a situation incompatible with any sort of "bourgeois régime." The Commune was, for Marx, “essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm) Though it is a republic, it does not possess features that are for Marx characteristic of a bourgeois state, such as independence from civil society or parliamentary representation.

So Marx most definitely did not identify the bourgeois state with the democratic republic. I don’t know why you have insisted that he did. The republic as such has no definite class content for Marx (and using the word in such a broad sense was common in his time), whereas the bourgeois state obviously does. That is why, according to Marx and Engels, the workers must replace the bourgeois state with a new and really democratic state (Engels), a governmental machinery of their own (Marx).

But if Marx did identify the bourgeois state with the republic, it would be quite impossible to destroy the bourgeois state and spare the republic! After arguing at length that Marx wanted to destroy the bourgeois state but not the republic--an argument that directly challenged your original claim that, according to Marx, the bourgeois state would be used for the proletarian dictatorship—I am congratulated thusly:

But who are the “some” mentioned above, who think Marx wanted to destroy the republic? Allow me to reply with one of my past replies:

So actually it is you who is very clearly “inventing a straw man argument."

I think it is strange that you pretend to not understand why I pressed the question of parliament. Earlier, with reference to my reading of this Engels quote: "It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes. . . ."

You write,

I don’t know what you are so indignant about. You say that Engels is obviously referring to the old state power, after it has been refashioned by the working class. If Engels had the Commune in mind, and considered the “refashioned” state power a parliamentary government, he would clearly be contradicting Marx. I think it is more likely that he is thinking that the state power is refashioned from its old bureaucratic form into a really democratic workers’ government, without ever reviving parliamentarism—which Marx held the Parisian workers did not do! Is it so absurd to think that Engels shared Marx’s view of parliament being overthrown with proletarian class rule? Years after the Commune, in 1888, Engels wrote to Laura Lafargue: “Why, if the French see no other issue than either personal government, or parliamentary government, they may as well give up.” (Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Vol. IV, 223) And my view is staggering to you, showing that I do not understand plain English? You expect me to take you seriously?

Another example of your comments on parliament:

You really have not understand my argument nor the numerous quotes I have provided from before, during and after 1871! Staggering. Apparently, Marx came to the conclusion that the parliamentary republic had to be smashed in May 1871 only to forget this in July of that year!

So I do not understand your argument at all, but you go right on and respond to me as if I had very clearly argued against you! All I claimed was that Marx supported the Communards’ revolt against the parliamentary form. And you are sarcastic, implying that it is absurd to claim that Marx supported this. So I go and quote Marx on parliament, supporting my simple claim, and you say I am inventing a straw man? But really it seems like you were dishonestly trying to turn my claim about parliament being overturned into something about the republic being smashed, after I had explicitly said that I do not consider that to have been Marx’s goal.

You have yet to concede that Marx did not identify the republic with the bourgeois state. I think it is clear that you identify the republic with the bourgeois state, and it follows that the pyramid structure of a communal republic with mandated, recallable delegates that Marx advocated is for you a bourgeois state. But it is bizarre that you are unable to distinguish your views from Marx's. This makes it impossible to coherently discuss his theory. In any case, there is no need. You insist on inventing a straw man argument for me: that Marx wanted to smash the republic, and therefore that his "overturning of parliament" cannot take place within the form of the republic. And you are still criticizing Marx for using a wrong definition of the state, which is errant nonsense. But it is the only basis upon which you claim that Marx's theory of the state shows a "metaphysical confusion."

why don't you just let him believe that the best marx interpretation is the lenin-stalin's one?
it's not a problem of understanding, he just strongly want to believe that for his psychological personal identity issues

well, there is no such thing as "the introduction of a worker's state" in Marx, in Marx there is "dictatorship of the proletariat", few times, but no mention of a "worker's state". the worker state is a leninist concept.

about "It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State " in Bakunin quotation, I think it is a misunderstanding of Marx, scores of times Marx describes communism as a mode of production run by the associated producers.
there is something about "the concentration in the hand of the state" in the Communist manifesto, but after the Paris commune, Marx and Engels added in a preface that the state must be smashed, so...

and I don't see the link between "historical materialism" (another marxist term that Marx never used...) and autoritarianism. can you explain what you meant ?

there is no such thing as a Lenin-Stalin interpretation, you have Lenin's interpretation and Stalin's interpretation. but of course that doesn't mean that Lenin's interpratation is correct, but Stalin's worse...

To quote Marx:

For me it is hard not to see this as a workers state. I know that Marx didn't really comment much on the attributes of the 'dictatorship of the working class', but is workers state not an interchangeable term?

When Marx and Engels said the state should be smashed did they mean eventually? Or, did they mean after the formation of the dictatorship of the proles?

Marx, again, may never have used the term historical materialism but it's just another handy term to describe his view of materialism and the 'progression' of history. This is what Bakunin meant by, 'It will be the reign of scientific intelligence'. For these concepts to be introduced they will have to be forced into existence, it is not hard to see why Leninism came about when he probably took Marxism at face value. Marx himself, as far as I'm aware, warned against reading his theories and expressing them so dogmatically. I find it hard not to read him that way.

you're right, i did an oversimplification.
but i think that stalinism is the natural consequence of leninism, also the "ultraleft" one.
anyway... marxisms-leninisms (stalinism, maoism ecc...) are the statalist/authoritarian ideologies that Anarcho claims to be coherent with Marx.

I don't think that Marx was as authoritarian as Lenin, but he does seam to be more authoritarian than left communists are (apologies if I use the wrong term). And it seems that it can only be argued that he was highly libetrian by basicaly saying that he was really shit at communicating his idea's, because that's what most of the arguments from the left communists seem the require. I admit that I have not read enough of Marx's work to accurately judge him my self, just the communist manifesto and 3 or 4 other random things), so this is mostly a comment on how the Marxist modify there interpretation of Marx to fit there own ideas rather than justifying (the ideas not Marx) them on there own merit.
As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter if Marx was an authoritarian or not, unless you are going to treat every thing he said as some kind of holy text, he made significant contributions ether way, but other people explained or analysed some things better and we should make use of what ever is most accurate, and most understandable, with each part being given equal importance.
Also I don't think that we should write interpretations about how Marx or anyone else show some point or concept that we wish to make or demonstrate ourselves, if we have something to say we should say it our self's unless someone else has already said it better, then we can quote or direct others the the appropriate text.

Did any of you guys actually read the thread? Dave C does a very good job of clarifying exactly what Marx meant by the working class seizing power and instituting its own governmental machinery: directly revocable delegates, the working class as a whole armed, the abolition of the standing army, abolition of parliament, etc. Yes, Marx considered this to be a form of state (which for him was class rule). No, it's not in contradiction to the ideas of the council communists and the "libertarian" Marxists. The whole debate seems to turn on the meaning of "state", which is a linguistic issue and not a theoretical one.

Anarchists and Marxists do not have the same goal and do not only differ about the methods to achieve it. Anarchists and Marxists have different criticisms of capitalism and different conceptions of a future society.

Communists criticize capitalism because the purpose of capital accumulation necessarily excludes the workers from social wealth. Surplus value exists because the value created in the production process exceeds the costs of the worker. Since the worker is separated from the means of production by the state’s guarantee of private property, the worker remains continually separated from them and must sell his labor in order to survive. The capitalist treats the worker as a cost factor, i.e. pays him as little as possible and uses him as long, intensively and productively as possible to repay the original value and to obtain as much surplus value as possible. This economic relationship is capitalist exploitation. It entails a lot of hardship, physical and mental wear, and pays the worker cheaply so as to reproduce him in his existence as a worker -- if he is “lucky” enough to work.

In order for the workers to access social wealth, they must abolish private property and instead develop an economy that produces use values for everybody. In order to achieve this goal, the state and capital must be eliminated. State force, which establishes a certain form of wealth and thus maintains social conflicts, is then no longer needed.

Anarchists do not criticize capitalism for exploitation, but for repression, i.e. if they criticize exploitation they consider not the economic conflict that impoverishes people, but only the force relationship. Force is certainly present, but they criticize it not for the purpose that it serves, but for the abstract side that people are subordinated by force. First, the adversary is identified -- the rulers; secondly, fellow combatants -- the victims of force; third, the goal -- freedom from force. Their positive goal is thus negatively defined. Their utopian society is characterized by the absence of authority. Society places itself the infinite task of seeking out and revealing hidden forms of authority.

How is such an idea arrived at? Reference to anthropological ideology -- that humans are free by nature -- does not help. The ideology is not the reason for this error, but only justifies it. They do not see in each disaster an injury to material interests, but only make the accusation that force was at work. The latter seems to obviously be the greater scandal. However, it is arrived at only if self-determination is thought of as a human right. The injury to this right constitutes the scandal. The appointment to the right to self-determination is now indeed an ironic contradiction because the appointment to a right presupposes a superior force that guarantees it. Anarchists thus appoint themselves to an imaginary monopoly on force that grants them the right to self-determination in order to fight against the really existing force monopoly. They shift the relationship by which the state grants rights to its citizens to the individual who relates to himself as a legal relation. Individuals rule exclusively over themselves and grant themselves the right to self-determination. Anarchists do not disdain force, but love force in the form of granted rights, and only reject external force as an interference into their internal affairs.

ok reread Dave C's last post, that it clearer, I think a lot of the problem is Marx doesn't use different words for different concepts as much as he should.
I don't see how the idea of the state as class rule works? after the revolution has taken place there will be no classes right? so how could class rule exist? It would make sense if you used state to mean a system of social organisation or something similar. But if you use state to mean class rule then it implies the existence of classes.
Unless you are also using a different concept of revolution? This is suggested by the idea of a transitional period, this seem to assume that the revolution is over with the overthrow of the old government/power (need better word here) but that the bourgeois is not completely defeated, either you are taking a reformist approach and imagine that society would be modified slowly a little bit at a time (which i don't believe you mean), or you are referring to the fact that the revolution will not take place everywhere at once.
I would say that the revolution is not over until class is completely abolished and communism is established, so the transitional period is just a part of the revolution.
Don't take "you" personally it's not directed at any one in particular, I just couldn't fix it without rewriting the whole thing.

radicalgraffiti:
yes, classes still exist after the first phase of the revolution, which is essentially about taking political power. Even if the bourgeoisie begins to disappear as a class once its political power has been destroyed and its wealth has been expropriated, it will continue to fight to get its power back as long as it can. And then there are still many other strata neither bourgeois or proletarian who have to be brought into associated production - peasants, small traders, all the millions of people who come from the disintegration of pre-capitalist forms of production but who capital has not been able to integrate into wage labour.

You are right to say that the revolution continues until communism and the abolition of classes, but the political overthrow of the old ruling class is only the first step towards this. And that's why there will be a form of state during the transition period.

what you quote from Marx-Engels is what I said they corrected after the Paris'commune.
I see the difference between worker's state and dictatorship of the proletariat in that dictatorship ot the proletariat refers less than "worker's state" to institutions and more to revolutionnary activity of the proletariat (and to a kind of direct revolutionnary democracy), it refers more to the content of proletarian revolution that is smashing the state and capital, replacing capital mode of production by a a free association of producers.
you can say Marx-Engels refers to a worker state but the term comes from the bolsheviks and their conception of the dictatorship of proletariat was not the same (exept maybe for some of them for a time during 1917 and early 1918).

the smashing of the state for Marx takes place during the proletarian revolution, it is, with the destruction of capital, the content of the revolutionnary activity of the proletariat.

I still don't see the link between "historical materialism" or the materialist conception of history as Marx called it, and "the reign of scientific intelligence". it has a meaning if you refers to the stalinist justification of party dictatorship, but there is not such a thing in Marx (in fact there is nearly nothing in Marx about "the party", when he talks about a party he refers only in a general way to the people pro proletarian revolution, not to a specific institution).
I don't undertsand what you say about "forcing the concept of historical materialism into existence", or as you say it "For these concepts to be introduced they will have to be forced into existence", what do you mean by that?

well, in a way leninism is a stalinian concept, what is often called leninisme or marxism-leninism is a dogma constructed after Lenin's death by his followers.
if by leninism you mean what Lenin wrote or said, then a lot in it is really different or opposed to stalinism, only a part of it can be seen as paving the way for stalinism.
and you can't explain stalinism just by that, it would be a crude idealist conception of history.
the first reason stalinism developped was that the russian revolution didn't destroy capital, was that russian revolution was a bourgeois revolution even if the prolateriat , for a time played an immense role in it.
so it is first of all capitalism and not Lenin or the bolsheviks, that's guilty for stalinism.
but of course thats don't mean we don't have to examine and criticize the political errors of the bolsheviks.
and I think one of the main was to think possible a state capitalist developpement under proletarian dictatorship as a way to develop the conditions for a socialist transition.
of course such a thing is not possible and it led to a politics of submitting proletariat (and that meant party dictatorship instead of class dictatorship) to the imperatives of capitalist developpment and it was capitalsit developpemnt that submitted the state to its rule and not the opposite.
so in a way the consequences of Lenin's politics after the revolution led to stalinism, but it is more accurate to say that capitalist developpment, a special statist developpment of capitalism led to stalinism.

well, revolution is not an event it is a process, a process wich content is revolutionnary activity of the proletariat destroying stat and capital.
as Alf said the taking of power (and detruction of bourgeois state) is the first step. it should be seen as the revolution itself but as its necessary condition (you must break the bourgeoisie power), not as an end in itself nor as a mean, but as a condition to social revolution. social revolution is replacing capital by a mode of production ru by the associated producers, and it is that process of destroying capital and replacing it that results in the classless society, during this process classes stil exists and so the proletariat need a political organisation of it's power against the bourgeoisie and capital, so in a way proletarian power is also a kind of state.
for Marx proletarian revolution is a process wich content is proletarian power and revolutionnary activity destroying state and capital and progressively (but by the revolutionnary means of the social revolution)replacing it by a free association of producers running a state free and classles society.

Piter - I agree with nearly everything in those two posts except the idea that the Russian revolution was a bourgeois revolution. If that was the case there's not much we can learn from it because a bourgeois revolution can't help but produce capitalism. But if we see it as a proletarian revolution that was isolated, degenerated, and succumbed to the nascent capitalist counter-revolution from within the very state apparatus established by the revolution, then it becomes a far more fruitful source of lessons for the future revolution.

No... that bourgeois revolution CAN help us!
If you don't understand that, you'll build again an organization like the bolshevik party, out of context, 100 years later, without knowing that an org like that was necessary for a bourgeois revolution (party-state power smashing/shooting down workers councils... when Lenin was still in charge, of course).
Look at the Paris Commune... it was not defeated by the "communist party".

but we're OT...

I think he does use different words. He talks about raising the working class to power, to a new form of governmental machinery, to dictatorship of the proletariat, etc, (he never used the phrase "worker's state", although it isn't a terrible term in my opinion) and he opposes this to the bourgeois state, to parliamentary democracy, to the bourgeois republic, etc. He never referred to the working class form of political power as parliamentary democracy or a bourgeois state. He referred to both forms of governmental power as "states" but I don't see anything more scandalous in this than referring to both a monarchy and a bourgeois democracy as "states" -- both are quite different but there are enough similarities to make it natural to call both "states."

This is why Marx only refers to the seizure of political power as the first phase of the revolution, as the seizure of political power while the working class institutes its new form of economic organization. The working class state is already democratic with revocable delegates before capitalism is completely abolished, but it uses those democratic means to forcibly overthrow the economic power of the capitalist class. Once the economic power of the capitalist class is overthrown, the same democratic form of organization is used, but now it is not used to overthrow the opposing capitalist class but in a more general administrative, non-political way (organization of production and so forth). Which is why Marx says that after classes are abolished the state disappears on its own -- there are no more political functions left for it, because there are no more classes left.

I think Marx meant both. Communism can't be instituted in one day without production completely falling apart and creating massive devastation, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the the working class won't seize power at the exact same time all over the world. I don't see how this is reformism. "Reformism" generally refers to wanting reforms within the general framework of the capitalist system. This is something quite different (even if you disagree with it).

ROTFL! Actually, the best Marx/Engels interpretation is the social democratic one (as defended by Kautsky and Martov). As I've proven beyond reasonable doubt, But why let awkward little facts get in the way?

And what Lenin interpretation would that be? the Lenin up to 1917, who subscribed to the social democratic perspective (as did all marxists)? the Lenin who wrote "State and revolution" (while throughout 1917 urging the party to seize power) which so inspired left-social democrats (some of whom became council communists)? Or the Lenin who equated class rule with party dictatorship?

Now, given the wide range of perspectives which claim to be consistent with Marx's theory of the state, perhaps this suggests that that theory is somewhat confused? Particularly as Marx and Engels often wrote of how the republican state could be captured and transformed into an instrument of working class power.

You do not see anarchists making that particular mistake. You also see anarchists arguing that the state, including the republic, needed to be smashed and a socialist society created using the organisations created by working class people in their struggles against capitalism. Which, I would suggest, flows from the fact that the anarchist theory and analysis of the state is the correct one.

Look, this is getting painful. Do I really need to requote the many selections from marx and engels I have provided in which both state that the democratic republic, as created by and run by the bourgeoisie, would be captured by the working class, via universal suffrage, and then refashioned into an instrument of working class rule. Do I really need to do that? Can you not just admit this obvious fact rather than deny it?

And by objecting to this obvious fact, you have made me have to waste time providing more and more quotes. I am really getting tired of this, particularly as I do not have time to waste. Here is Engels (again!):

"With respect to the proletariat the republic differs from the monarchy only in that it is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the proletariat. You [in France] are at an advantage compared to us in already having it."

How, in case that was difficult to understand he then notes the "baseless illusions" of "entrust[ing] socialist tasks to it while it is dominated by the bourgeoisie."

Now the socialist revolution is when a socialist party is elected to a majority in the republic, which ends the political rule of the bourgeoisie. To secure that political power, the republic is reformed:

"It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes: whereas all bourgeois republicans since 1848 inveighed against this machinery so long as they were in the opposition, but once they were in the government they took it over without altering it and used it partly against the reaction but still more against the proletariat."

The existing state is captured and reformed. It is quite clear what Engels meant. That you deny it is staggering.

ROTFL! Please. Marx and Engels repeatedly argued that the republic could be used by the working class to achieve socialism. The democratic republic, because it had a bourgeois government, was a bourgeois republic. The task of socialists was to use political action and capture it. Then it would be refashioned/reformed/transformed into a truly democratic state (and it would be a state because the working class would still be proletarians,still wage slaves, even after the revolution as the political revolution comes first).

As my quote from Engels showed, for Marx and Engels the democratic republic was dominated by the bourgeoisie but once captured, by universal suffrage, it could be transformed.

To quote Marx: "But the proletariat cannot, as the ruling classes and their different rival fractions have done in the successive hours of their triumph, simply lay hold on the existent State body and wield this ready-made agency for their own purpose. The first condition for the holding of political power, is to transform its working machinery and destroy it as an instrument of class rule."

Yes, the Commune showed how universal suffrage could be used to seize political power in a republic, transform the republic and be the means to end class rule. Interestingly, marx dates the "social republic" back to 1848:

"The Revolution of February hoists the colours of the 'Social Republic,' thus proving at its outset that the true meaning of State power is revealed, that its pretence of being the armed force of public welfare, the embodiment of the general interests of societies rising above and keeping in their respective spheres the warring private interests, is exploded, that its secret as an instrument of class despotism is laid open, that the work men do want the Republic, no longer as a political modification of the old system of class rule, but as the revolutionary means of breaking down class rule itself."

Seems that the social republic is based on the republic of 1848....

So Marx did not think that "the bourgeois state would be used for the proletarian dictatorship"?But he did:

"We know that the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means. "

Then there is Engels arguing for "the formation of a political workingmen's party, with a platform of its own, and the conquest of the Capitol and the White House for its goal."

I could go on, but is there really any point? That all the clear evidence I have presented is ignored suggests that this is pointless.

Look, it seems that ideology is getting in the way of you understanding plain English. I'm not sure what to do about that. Engels is clearly arguing that the workers seize the state by universal suffrage and then reform it to secure their position. That you deny it is staggering. There is no mention of "form", he is taking about the actual state! To requote it:

"It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use it for its own purposes"

Yes, the republic is reformed into a really democratic government -- but that republic, like the Commune, is based on institutions inherited from the bourgeois regime.

And Engels is not contradicting Marx, that is the whole point! Unless you also think that Marx contradicted himself within 2 months of the defeat of the Commune as well as the following year! And I've quoted something from one of the outlines which is almost identical to Engels statement,

This is getting really annoying. What part of refashion, reform, transform do you not understand?

This is getting really annoying. What part of refashion, reform, transform do you not understand? What part of the many arguments of Marx and Engels urging workers to seize political power via universal suffrage is hard to understand? To quote Engels:

"In every struggle of class against class, the next end fought for is political power; the ruling class defends its political supremacy, that is to say its safe majority in the Legislature; the inferior class fights for, first a share, then the whole of that power, in order to become enabled to change existing laws in conformity with their
own interests and requirements. Thus the working class of Great Britain for years fought ardently and even violently for the People's Charter [which demanded universal suffrage and yearly general elections], which was to give it that political power"

In 1881 he argued "where the industrial and agricultural working class forms the immense majority of the people, democracy means the dominion of the working class, neither more nor less. Let, then, that working class prepare itself for the task in store for it -- the ruling of this great Empire . . . And the best way to do this is to use the power already in their hands, the actual majority they possess . . . to send to Parliament men of their own order." In case this was not clear enough, he lamented that "[e]verywhere the labourer struggles for political power, for direct representation of his class in the legislature -- everywhere but in Great Britain."

Once in power, the state would be refashioned but the institutions used to achieve socialism are those of a democratic republic, as created by the bourgeois. Of course, anarchists argued that this republic was shaped to secure bourgeois power and its centralised and representative nature reflected its role and, as such, could not be used in this fashion. That was why anarchists urged the creation of new forms of social organisation, based on the workplace and community assembly.

ROTFL! I have fully documented Marx and Engels views on this issue, quotes which are either ignored or translated into something much at odds with their clear message. Now, it is pretty clear that Marx and Engels did not aim to smash the republic but rather to capture and transform it. They aimed to smash the state machinery, the state power, which predated the republic but was utilised by the French bourgeoisie to secure their position.

In other words, they saw socialism as coming via universal suffrage and the capture of the existing state. That representative bodies, created precisely to exclude popular participation, could be considered as a means to secure working class power shows the weakness of the Marxist theory of the state.

ROTFL! I've not even managed to discuss the flaws in the analysis of the state that much as I've had to explain what Marx and Engels position on social change first was! That I'm seeing clear evidence ignored and twisted shows that "metaphysical confusion" and marxism seem to go hand in hand!

Oh, come on! He uses the term state to describe both the current political system and any future one. He and Engels even uses the term "democratic republic" to describe both the existing state and the future "refashioned" one. Perhaps unsurprising, asthey clearly saw that republic being the means to achieving socialism.

He used the word "state" to describe the dictatorship of the proletariat, so "workers' state" is not that much of a leap.

But he did refer to universal suffrage as political power for the working class and that the workers in Britain and America could use it to achieve socialism. A problematic position, to say the least! Not that the practicalities of such a position were ever tested, as the social democratic parties became as reformist as Bakunin predicted.

Yes, the political revolution comes first. once the socialist party is in power, the state is reformed and then, slowly, economic changes are implemented. That is why it is a state, because the workers are still wage slaves. As property is nationalised, they stop being proletarians and so, over time, the state "withers away" -- because private property is transformed into state property and as there are no economic classes, the state in a Marxist sense disappears. Of course, the state as a structure would still remain (it is planning the economy, after all) but it is a not a "political power" as there are no classes.

Sure, the working class will fight for a revolution and leave capital (i.e., economic power) in the hands of the bosses! As if... As anarchists argued, the social revolution needs to be both an economic and political revolt to work. The notion that working class political power can exist without economic power is not a viable position, as the Russian revolution showed beyond doubt.

Surely the point is that Lenin and Trotsky, for example, thought that their practice and ideological defences of party dictatorship were completely compatible with Marx and Engels, plus their theory of the state. When people like Kautsky pointed that Marx and Engels argued for a socialism based on a democratic republic, Lenin and Trotsky mocked them.

To quote Karl Kautsky from 1909 (who is, in turn, quoting his own words from 1893), that the democratic republic "was the particular form of government in which alone socialism can be realised." He added, after the Russian Revolution, that "not a single Marxist revolutionary repudiated me, neither Rosa Luxemburg nor Klara Zetkin, neither Lenin nor Trotsky." (The Road to Power). The notion that Marx and Engels wanted a dictatorship is as false as the notion that they wanted to smash the democratic (bourgeous) republic rather capture it and refashion it. Of course, the problem is that by arguing for a representative state, even a transformed one, they opened the door to the creation of a new ruling class, the state bureaucracy and party leaders, who would hold actual power in these institutions.

This can be seen from Russia. Once in power, the Bolsheviks utilised their power to secure their own positions and to marginalise the working class they claimed to represent. They gerrymandered and disbanded soviets, while proclaiming themselves to be a "soviet power" and a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Then they adjusted their position to reflect their practice, and started to defend party dictatorship. Any opposition to their rule was dismissed as a product of wavering and "bourgeois" influences, as the party held the monopoly on political insight. This pespective was echoed by would-be Bolsheviks elsewhere (see my article The irresistible correctness of anarchism on this position in post-WWI Italy and how it handicapped the fight against fascism).

So, all in all, a striking confirmation of Bakunin's warnings -- as had been the rise of reformism in social democracy. Now, these developments cannot be isolated from Marx and Engels theories, particularly those on the state.

Ok I was confusing Marx and Marxists

I'm not quite certain what you mean here when you say "both forms of governmental power", is one of this forms working class power, or do you mean parliamentary democracy, and a bourgeois state, I think the first yes?
It sounds like you are using "state" and "governmental power" to mean forms of social organisation?

I find it strange that the same structures would go from being a state to not being a state, and I suspect many other people could be confused by it to. This is why I dislike defining the state as a form of class rule, it is vary easy to miss interpret and use it to justify a dictatorship over the proletariat, it can also make you look more authoritarian than you really are.

I meant reformist as in trying to change society from one state to another through many small changes.

well, you're right to say that the russian revolution must be seen as a proletarian revolution and that wee need to learn from it about proletarian struggle.
I see russian revolution as being for a part proletarian and for a part bourgeois (it's what Lenin himself said by the way).
in the end it's evolution was the result of class struggle in Russia and at the international level.

I would say that the capitalist revolution was within the state but also in the submission of this state to the imperatives of capitalsit developpement, that the bolcheshiks wanted to control, but capital can't be controled but only crushed and replaced. I think the main place where the class struggle and counter revolution took place was inside the production relations, not inside the state, the state just evolved to suit the imposition of a control on production exterior to the workers, that is (and Lenin didn't saw that accurately) the imposition of capitalist relations which suited the state to its developpment.

I don't think there was really a proper "worker state"and then it's degeneration, mut more a failed attempt to established a proletarian dictatorship (whose state institutions would have been the soviets, the workers committees, and not organs created outside the soviets ans which subordinated the soviets).

yes, right,

but there is a part in Marx and Engels writings about seizing the democratic republic that is wrong, but there is also things about smashing the state and replacing it by workers organisations (remeber the 1850 text where Marx defend the neccessity of an independant worker power grounded in worker's committees...20 years beforeParus's commune and 55 years before the 1905's soviets...), about proletarian dictatorship as replacing bourgeois state and capitalist mode of production by a free association of producers. and that part is right and what Marx say about all that is better and more useful, in my opinion, than everything anarchists ever wrote...

maybe Kautsky /Martov have things to claim their position coherent with Marx, but there are also other, more important and meaningfull parts in Marx that is opposed to that conception and it is that part that others marxists since first Pannekoek and then Bukharin/ Lenin (in a different way) and so on, choose to keep...and rightly so.

I understand that you disagree with what I said above. Unfortunately, you do not address my argument at all, but keep battering away at the straw man you've set up. As I said more than once before:

But on to your substantial claim:

And by objecting to this obvious fact, you have made me have to waste time providing more and more quotes.

So you think that it is "obvious" that Marx and Engels identified the democratic republic with the bourgeois republic, that you are following them in considering the Paris Commune a bourgeois state. I am not sure if you are playing games with me at this point, or if you actually believe this!

I will methodically show how wrong you are once again. Earlier, I claimed that

This distinction is developed in Marx's The Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. But even before he wrote these pieces, he considered a workers' republic to be distinct from a bourgeois republic:

So not only is the workers' republic not identified with the bourgeois republic, but Marx held that the two concepts are opposed. The counterposition is similar to what Marx wrote in The Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850 about the suppression of the clubs, the "gathering points" of the revolutionary proletariat:

In The Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850, Marx emphasizes how the interests of the workers pointed beyond the bourgeois republic:

Now, Marx's remarks help us understand the lines that you quote from Marx's Second Draft of The Civil War in France, where he writes that

Above, Marx is clear that the bourgeois republic is no revolutionary weapon against the bourgeois order, whereas the work men want a republic that is a revolutionary weapon against the bourgeois order. In other words they want the revolutionary means of breaking down class rule itself. For Marx, such a democratic republic is not a bourgeois republic, though it is a republic. If Marx and Engels identified the democratic republic with the bourgeois republic, any democratic republic would be a bourgeois republic. I claimed that Marx and Engels did not identify the democratic republic with the bourgeois republic, and you claimed that

But, on the basis of the above evidence, it is not what they did. You are wrong.

As Marx put it in an 1873 article called "Political Indifferentism," pretending to represent the position he is criticizing:

The workers struggle against the bourgeois state, and aim to capture state power, giving the state a revolutionary and transitional form. Marx saw the Commune as an example of such a revolutionary and transitional form, calling it

He did not see the Commune as a bourgeois republic. The idea that the state of the proletarian dictatorship is a bourgeois republic is an absurdity on the basis of Marx's theory.

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx writes about the social republic as only appearing as a prophesy:

With the Commune, Marx sees the realization of the "social republic":

The positive form of that republic, the social republic, which he repeatedly distinguished from the bourgeois republic.

As I have argued, what Marx understood as the key features of the bourgeois state, such as its independence from civil society and parliamentary representation, are absent in the "social republic," and this is due to the change in the class content of the state power. There is no way that Marx considered the Paris Commune a bourgeois state. He considered it a democratic republic, but not a bourgeois republic. He did not identify the democratic republic with the bourgeois republic. What you consider an "obvious fact" is simply ridiculous, like your criticism of Marx's theory of the state.

Yeah, the reason Dave C hasn't agreed with you yet is probably that you have only posted those quotes a mere 20 times so far on this thread. If you just keep posting the same quotes over and over again, he's bound to come around to your point of view sooner or later...

yep keep quoting marx, comrades, eventually the state and capital will have to give in

It is difficult to understand how there can be any or much confusion as to Marx’s and Engel’s position on ‘Working Class Political Action’ when Engels laid out their position quite clearly I think in;

“Karl Marx, The Class Struggles In France; Introduction by Frederick Engels, Written: 1895”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/intro.htm

Not only was this a clear unequivocal endorsement of at least participating in democratic apparatus of the ‘bourgeois’ state to capture ‘political power’. But it also explains their shift of position or emphasis from the one they held circa 1850. That the mode of struggle that they were putting forward around then was not only wrong then but even more so later, due to changed historical conditions.

So;

I think that Marx’s and Engels position around 1850 had similarities to Blanquism and Jacobinism as well for that matter to it later variants; Leninism and Trotskyism. The idea or claim being that some kind of political elite, supported by a ‘revolutionary mass’ that did not fully understand what was required, would lead or show that ‘revolutionary mass’ how to fulfil their ill thought out, unclear or vaguely felt aspirations. Thus;

The problem was twofold, capitalism and the development of the means of production had not advanced far enough for the possibility for the introduction of socialism and the level of consciousness or understanding of their position amongst the working class was not developed enough.

So;

The new ‘mode of struggle’ was to be raising the consciousness in tandem with participating in elections made possible by the introduction of universal suffrage in places like Germany, explained below;

In some translations instead of ‘understanding’ we have ‘intelligent use’.

There were a few threats in this tract to the possibility of reverting back to insurrectionary methods. This was because at the time the German state was considering limiting or removing or whatever universal suffrage. These threats were actually stripped out by the German social democratic party as they were considered provocative and might give justification for removing democratic rights to an organisation that professed insurrection.

There are two potential and even real problems with this approach not only for Anarchists but for Marxists as well.

The first is what are these ‘representatives’ of the working class going to do as a minority in a bourgeois or capitalist state. And secondly the possibility that these representatives in their new situation may detach themselves from the interests of the working class and become a new political aristocracy and sell them out. Even if they did not already have themselves a propensity for that kind of thing as disguised opportunists before they were elected.

On the first point the purpose for Marx and Engels in 1871 of getting ‘socialists’ into ‘parliament’ as part of their Minimum and maximum programme was to pursue the economic or trade union struggle in the political arena ie ‘parliament’. Or in other words to obtain economic gains that would otherwise have to be obtained by trade union action.

To allow Karl to put his way in;

Marx to Friedrich Bolte In New York, [London,] November 23, 1871

Which also incidentally contains some typical bitching against his rival Bakunin

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/letters/71_11_23.htm

This kind of political economic struggle can look much like pure reformism. There clearly was a danger here of this kind of movement or party concentrating on the minimum programme degenerating into a purely reformist party, as it ultimately did.

They were however aware of the danger;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/letters/79_09_15.htm

And even worse becoming the tagtail of a bourgeois party. As outlined by Engels in another speech preaching against abstention from political activity;

Apropos Of Working-Class Political Action, Reporter's record of the speech made at the London Conference of the International Working Men's Association, September 21, 1871

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/09/21.htm

And in a letter to Engels to Filippo Turati, In Milan, London, January 26, 1894. Engels offered some advice about what socialist should perhaps do during a bourgeois or capitalist revolution.

This letter I believe was used against the Bolsheviks and Lenin as a criticism of their strategy.

On the second point or danger of the development of hierarchies or aristocracies within a political movement or organisation. If a workers are incapable of preventing the development of these hierarchies within its movement by its members abdicating their individual responsibility to control it for themselves, from the bottom up prior to the revolution then they would be incapable of it afterwards.

It is not so much the nature of the bourgeois institution or state, with its potential to corrupt all those that touch it, that is the problem but the active bottom up participation of the members of a working class movement in organising their lives.

From The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune, Engels 1874;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/06/26.htm

Nice post, except that its fundamnetal premise is completely incorrect.