Marx was not a “statist”

There is a very common assumption, propagated all over the political spectrum, both by Marxists and anti-Marxists, that for Marx, socialism is about state control, or at the very least presupposes state control. [...] So here’s a common narrative you see online. First, you have capitalism – markets, the state, classes, and all that. Then, socialism emerges when workers take power – under socialism, you still have the state and classes, but with the working class being in power. Finally, once the bourgeoisie have been defeated, classes, money, and the state finally disappear, we have communism. This is an extremely common, but it is not Marx’s narrative.

See CCK Philosophy video from which this script is used.

Author

Jonas Čeika

Introduction

And this isn’t that surprising. After all, in The Communist Manifesto, the most widely read Marx & Engels text, Marx lists 10 measures to be done immediately after the working class seizes state power, and these involve massive nationalization and strict centralization. Obviously, this can’t be done without a state.

But, before we tackle this, let’s rewind a little bit for the beginners, and start with what at least most Marxists already know. For Marx, the state is something that must eventually be abolished. After all, communism is a classless, moneyless, and of course, stateless society. For him, the existence of the state necessarily presupposes political alienation. This is because the social powers that people develop among themselves are alienated from them by being transferred to the state, and so all of their actions are mediated by state bureaucracies. Already in 1844, when he wrote Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, he said that “In true democracy the political state disappears”. However, so the common narrative goes, before the state can be abolished, it must first be seized by the working class, utilized to establish socialism, and once communism is on the horizon, the state will naturally wither away.

So here’s a common narrative you see online. First, you have capitalism – markets, the state, classes, and all that. Then, socialism emerges when workers take power – under socialism, you still have the state and classes, but with the working class being in power. Finally, once the bourgeoisie have been defeated, classes, money, and the state finally disappear, we have communism. This is an extremely common, but it is not Marx’s narrative.

Lower phase and higher phase

First of all, to avoid confusion, we should point out that Marx never distinguished between socialism and communism, in the sense that the former comes first, and the latter comes after. He didn’t use the word “socialism” that often, preferring to use “communism”, and when he did use it, he usually used it interchangeably with communism, as they were generally used interchangeably in the socialist theory of his time.

The only times that Marx or Engels actually distinguished socialism from communism, was when they used “socialism” to refer to socialist tendencies they were against. For instance, in one preface to the Communist Manifesto, he and Engels even say “in 1847, socialism was a middle class movement, communism a working class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, ‘respectable’; communism was the very opposite. And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that ‘the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself,’ there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take. Moreover, we have, ever since, been far from repudiating it.”

The popular distinction between socialism and communism, where socialism is said to come first, and then leads into communism afterwards, was popularized by Lenin. Now, there is of course one significant distinction Marx DID make, in Critique of the Gotha Programme, where he distinguished between lower phase communism and higher phase communism. In the lower phase, people must work for labor vouchers – these are not the same as money because they cannot be accumulated – kind of like a movie ticket – you use it once and then it’s rendered invalid – because they cannot be accumulated they cannot be turned into capital, hence, they’re not capitalist. These labor vouchers can then be used in exchange for various products. In other words, lower phase communism still contains material incentives for work, as the amount of labor vouchers you receive depends on the number of hours worked. Once society reaches a sufficient level of development, productivity increases to the point of abundance, and people have become fully socialized into this new form of social life, we have entered the higher phase of communism. Labor vouchers are no longer necessary and are replaced by the principle: From each according to ability, to each according to need.

Later, as popularized by Lenin, the lower phase of communism was termed socialism, and higher phase communism was termed, simply, communism. But note that whether we’re talking about the lower phase, or the higher phase, it is still moneyless, because money is replaced with labor vouchers. If it’s moneyless, it is also classless, because without money, there is no class that owns all the capital and uses it to wield power over the rest of society, and therefore stateless, because for Marxists, a state is merely the means by which one class exerts its power over subordinate classes. No classes means no state.

There are several crystal clear indications that Marx does not distinguish between socialism and communism as stages in a single development. For example, in Critique of the Gotha Programme, he writes: “What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” If communism was something that only develops after a long period of the development of socialism, this quote would not make sense. Instead, it’s clear that, even when not distinguishing between lower phase and higher phase, Marx speaks of communism as that which emerges right out of capitalism.

So, Lenin begins using the term “socialism” to refer to “lower phase communism”, which Marx never did, and some of his formulations do differ from Marx, but at this point, Lenin’s narrative is still in essencce Marx’s narrative, with merely some terminological changes. Both socialism and communism here still refer to moneyless, classless society. The distorted narrative that is popular nowadays, only fully emerges after Lenin’s death. However, already here some confusion is introduced, because when new readers of Marx already have the Leninist distinction between socialism and communism in mind, they are often confused by the way Marx uses the term “communism”. But of course, people will not yet be convinced, we need to go further. Don’t close the video yet.

So, if both lower phase and higher phase communism is stateless, what about the measures in The Communist Manifesto? Since they demand centralization and nationalization in the hands of the state, they obviously presuppose the state, and because they also demand a certain form of taxation, they presuppose money, and so all the other elements that communism, whether lower or higher phase, is supposed to do away with. Well, these are not measures for the establishment of the socialist mode of production itself – that is nowhere said. People assume that the working class taking power IS socialism, but Marx never says this. If he did, that would in fact contradict his own views. Things like taxation and nationalization still presuppose property, money, and capital accumulation, in other words, all the elements that Marx analyzes as part of the capitalist mode of production. The measures in the manifesto do not concern socialism however, rather, these are measures intended for the transitionary period.

The transitionary period

Transitionary period, you might say, what the hell is that? As the common narrative goes, I thought that you have capitalism, then socialism is established when the working class seizes state power, and then after a long period of development, you finally have communism. Well, Marx clearly states, for example in Critique of the Gotha Programme, that “Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

If you’re interested in what a dictatorship of the proletariat is, I encourage you to watch the third part of my collaboration with Anarchopac and Red Plateaus, in which I go into this topic. Dictatorship here does not mean what it means in common discourse nowadays – rule by a dictator, rather it means “absolute authority”. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the absolute authority of the working class, just as capitalism is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, absolute authority of the capitalist class. As Marx clearly states, and contrary to popular claims, the dictatorship of the proletariat is NOT socialism or lower phase communism, because it is the means by which the working class exerts its will over other classes, and socialism, or lower phase communism, is classless. Indeed, if one argued that the dictatorship of the proletariat IS socialism, or in Marx’s terminology, lower phase communism, one would be lead into the absurd claim that “the transition from capitalism to communism is communism”.

So, now we can correct the aforementioned narrative into one that Marx believed in, along with other great Marxist theorists such as Rosa Luxemburg or Lenin. First, you have capitalism. Then the workers seize power – this is the transitionary period, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state, markets, and classes, in other words, capitalism, still exist, merely with the working class now in power. The process begins to vanquish classes. Once the working class has defeated the bourgeoisie, lower phase communism is established, and has no states, no money, and no classes, but still has material incentives for work. After a long period of development, higher phase communism emerges, which just like the lower phase, has no states, no money, no classes, but with material incentives replaced with free access to the society’s products.

So, the measures written down in The Communist Manifesto, are not measures for establishing the socialist mode of production, indeed they can’t be because none of the measures involve fundamental changes in the mode of production, rather they’re measures meant for the transitionary period, measures by which the working class exerts its will on all other classes.

Now, some may say, who cares if we say that the state exists in the transitionary period or in the socialist period, that’s merely a semantic difference, and it doesn’t change the fact that Marx saw the state as necessary for socialism to be established.

That’s completely fair, and so we need to go even further, the story doesn’t end here. After all, the development of Marx’s thought did not end with the first release of the Communist Manifesto – at that point, one of the most important developments in Marx’s thought was still yet to come. In 1871 something happened which changed Marx’s entire thinking about the state. The Paris Commune.

The Paris Commune

The Paris Commune was a government established by revolutionary workers in Paris, which implemented a radical form of democracy that allowed regular working people to take active participation in political decision-making. It made incredible achievements in political practice, and lasted for 2 months before being crushed by the French military in a bloody massacre.

After this event, it’s not like Marx’s views just changed on a whim. He always emphasized that one’s political theory must be informed by historical developments, and this was for Marx an event of extreme historical significance, because he took it to be the first historical instance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It showed everyone what it means for workers to be in power.

This event was so significant, that a year later Marx & Engels wrote a new preface to the Communist Manifesto, in which they said that the aforementioned revolutionary measures listed in the Manifesto have now become obsolete. “…no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. … in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated.” And further “One thing especially was proved by the Commune, vis., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the readymade state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

So, after the experience of the Paris Commune, not only did Marx & Engels conclude that the 10-step revolutionary program they previously proposed had become in many details antiquated, they also concluded that the state as it exists, cannot simply be wielded by the working class for its own purposes. It is by nature bourgeois, and must be destroyed, and replaced by entirely new, radically democratic, working-class institutions. Further, in the original Manifesto, chapter 3 contained the statement that “in Germany it is the task of the really revolutionary party to carry through the strictest centralization.” After the experiences of the Commune, the manifesto was now updated with a footnote renouncing this earlier statement. “It must be recalled today that this passage is based on a misunderstanding. At that time-thanks to the Bonapartist and liberal falsifiers of history — it was considered as established that the French centralised machine of administration had been introduced by the Great Revolution and in particular that it had been operated by the Convention as an indispensable and decisive weapon for defeating the royalist and federalist reaction and the external enemy. It is now, however, a well-known fact that throughout the whole revolution up to the eighteenth Brumaire the whole administration of the departments, arrondissements and communes consisted of authorities elected by the respective constituents themselves, and that these authorities acted with complete freedom within the general state laws ; that precisely this provincial and local self-government, similar to the American, became the most powerful lever of the revolution and indeed to such an extent that Napoleon, immediately after his coup d’état of the eighteenth Brumaire, hastened to replace it by an administration by prefects, which still exists and which, therefore, was a pure instrument of reaction from the beginning.”

In short, the demand for strict centralization was now deemed by Marx & Engels to be based on a misunderstanding, because they had believed that the French centralized administration was of a progressive and revolutionary character, and now they realized it to have been a “pure instrument of reaction from the beginning”, and in opposition to such centralized administration, they instead favored as the true lever of revolution, “local self-government”.

But for a more detailed statement, we must go to the text The Civil War in France, written the same year that the Paris Commune was established. It is here that we really see to what extent Marx’s views on the state had changed.

With this text in hand, we can also note that while Marx clearly argued that the commune was a dictatorship of the proletariat, he at the same time said about the Commune’s policies, that “there is nothing socialist in them except their tendency”. In other words, in the Commune the working class was in power, and yet there was nothing socialist in their policies. Once again, this is completely incoherent if one claims that the dictatorship of the proletariat, or workers’ rule, is identical to socialism. Instead, it’s the political form that eventually leads into socialism.

Now, just as Marx realized that it was local self-government, rather than centralized administration that was the motor of the French revolution, so he realized that it is the Commune, and not the state, that shall lead the proletarian revolution.

He saw in the Paris Commune a vision of quote “All France … organized into selfworking and self-governing communes, the standing army replaced by the popular militias, the army of state parasites removed, the clerical hierarchy displaced by the schoolmasters, the state judge transformed into Communal organs, the suffrage for national representation not a matter of sleight of hand for an all-powerful government, but the deliberate expression of the organized communes, the state functions reduced to a few functions for general national purposes.”

So, even though here Marx makes clear that the dictatorship of the proletariat would still have a state, it would be fundamentally different from the bourgeois state, as it would be, as Marx says, reduced to “a few functions for general national purposes” and would have no means of centralized enforcement, as the standing army would be replaced by popular militias, consisting of people elected from the working class itself.

And if that’s not enough, he even went as far as to say “The true antithesis of the

Empire itself — that is to the state power, the centralised executive, of which the Second Empire was only the exhausting formula — was the Commune … This was, therefore, a Revolution not against this or that, legitimate, constitutional, republican or Imperialist form of State Power. It was a Revolution against the State itself, of this supernaturalist abortion of society, a resumption by the people for the people of its own social life. It was not a revolution to transfer it from one faction of the ruling class to another, but a Revolution to break down this horrid machinery of class domination itself … The Second Empire was its definite negation, and, therefore, the initiation of the social Revolution of the 19^th century”.

Marx’s emphasis on local self-government is further confirmed when Bakunin asks “The Germans number around forty million. Will for example all forty million be members of the government?”. And Marx, in his notes, responds: “Certainly! Since the whole thing begins with the self-government of the commune.”

And finally, Engels confirms this, when he proposes as one of the points for the program of the German social-democratic party, “Complete self-government in the provinces, districts and communes through officials elected by universal suffrage. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed by the state.”

So, if we go by Max Weber’s definition of the state, often used by anarchists, which defines the state as a monopoly on violence over a given territory, the dictatorship of the proletariat would arguably not be a state. It would however, be a state on the definition often used by Marxists – that the state is the means by which one class exerts its power over others. A lot of confusion in the debate between Marxists and anarchists on the state derives from the differing definitions of the state that are used.

The truth is that the kind of state socialism that Marx is so often accused of, is actually closer to the socialism of German politician Ferdinand Lassalle, who was, like Marx, one of the biggest name in the socialist politics of 19^th century Germany. He believed that socialism was a matter of state control, and Marx heavily disagreed with him on this point. The Critique of the Gotha Programme that I’ve referenced several times in this video, was a critique of the program of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany, which was heavily influenced by Lassalle. And in the critique, Marx wrote that

“...the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and through by the Lassallean sect’s servile belief in the state, or, what is no better, by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.”

Lenin

Now, this is all in Marx, but just in case someone accuses me of providing an interpretation of Marx that is in fact an anarchist deviation and misinterpretation, Lenin agreed with all of what I just said.

First of all, he agreed with Marx that in between capitalism and lower-phase communism, or socialism, is a transitionary period. He makes this division clear even in the list of chapters for State and Revolution, as the transitionary period is clearly separated from the lower phase of communism. In the text “The Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat” he clearly distinguishes socialism from the transitionary period, or the dictatorship of the proletariat, as I did earlier. “Socialism means the abolition of classes. The dictatorship of the proletariat has done all it could to abolish classes. But classes cannot be abolished at one stroke.

And classes still remain and will remain in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship will become unnecessary when classes disappear.”

Lenin here saying that “socialism means the abolition of classes” makes several things clear. First, that he distinguishes socialism from the transitionary period, or the dictatorship of the proletariat. After all, if dictatorship of the proletariat is rule by the working class, and socialism is the abolition of classes, they cannot possibly be identical. Secondly, that, by implication, socialism is stateless. We can derive this through a bit of syllogistic reasoning, for those who are into logic:

Proposition 1: According to Lenin, socialism is the abolition of classes.

Proposition 2: Lenin accepts Marx’s definition of the state, which sees it as an instrument of class rule, and therefore presupposes classes.

Conclusion: If both proposition 1 and proposition 2 are true, then according to Lenin, socialism is stateless.

Okay, but then, you may ask, didn’t Lenin consider the Soviet republic to be socialist, and it couldn’t have been socialist according to the preceding points, because it still had money and the state?

No, Lenin, did not in fact consider the Soviet Republic to have established the socialist mode of production. Far from it. In a speech to Russian congress he said “We are far from having completed even the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat. We never had any illusions on that score, and we know how difficult is the road that leads from capitalism to socialism. But it is our duty to say that our Soviet Republic is a socialist republic because we have taken this road, and our words will not be empty words.” In other words, the socialist republic, just like the Paris Commune, was called socialist NOT because it had established the socialist mode of production, but because it was in the transitionary period moving towards it.

This is further confirmed in Lenin’s text “Tax in Kind” : “No one, I think, in studying the question of the economic system of Russia, had denied its transitional character. Nor, I think, has any Communist denied that the term Socialist Soviet Republic implies the determination of Soviet power to achieve the transition to socialism, and not that the new economic system is recognized as a socialist order.” Oh Lenin, you were very optimistic in saying this.

Ok, so Lenin agreed with Marx on the existence of a transitionary period, and believed that the Soviet Republic was in this period. What about his views on what the dictatorship of the proletariat would look like? Again, full agreement on all the basics. Lenin believed that the dictatorship of the proletariat would involve the abolition of the standing army, the police force, and the bureaucracy, instead being replaced with radical democracy. Quote “...at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism--the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population.” He also quotes, in full agreement, all the passages in Marx and Engels that emphasize local self-government.

The Soviet Union

But, given all this, why is it that this narrative became obscured by the different one outlined in the beginning? The Marxist thing would be to see what material and historical conditions led to the abandonment of the original Marxist view. In my view, one of the primary reasons was the failure of revolution in Europe, particularly in Germany. As Lenin said in the previously mentioned quote: “We have never cherished the hope that we could finish it without the aid of the international proletariat.” From the very beginning, Marx emphasized that the revolution would have to be international. Capitalism is an international system, and it must therefore be challenged on international terms. If a revolution happens in only one country, it will become isolated, and the only way for it to survive will be to make compromises and trade agreements with capitalist countries, and thus in order to maintain itself it will have to maintain commodity production, production for profit, never being able to transition out of capitalism.

For example, Engels wrote: “Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone? No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth … into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others. … It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries … It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.”

This is especially significant for Russia considering that at the time it was not yet a fully industrialized country, and a large percentage of the population was the feudal peasantry, and in such conditions establishing socialism is that much more difficult. The soviet doctrine was at this point in keeping with Marx and Engels, who in 1882 wrote that “If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.”

The original plan, therefore, was to keep Russia under workers’ control, until the revolution in the West happens, and makes socialism possible in Russia. This was expected as a workers’ revolution was happening in Germany in the years 1917 to 1919, and active revolutionary movements were cropping up around the globe. At this time, a big part of Soviet policy was to support these revolutionary movements politically and economically.

However, the German revolution failed, betrayed by the German social-democratic party, which used the proto-fascist paramilitary group Freikorps to execute the revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, thereby paving the way for the rise of fascism.

To add to this, the civil war cost the Bolsheviks almost their entire working class base. By 1921, most industrial workers had either left to fight in the Red Army or to return to the land. This even led Lenin to say: “We are the representatives of a class which has ceased to exist.”

In these conditions, the bureaucracy swelled up so much, that in his last words to the communist party, Lenin declared “If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions, and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell the truth they are not directing, they are being directed.»

In the face of this situation, the Soviet Union became isolated and bureaucratized, faced with extremely difficult conditions through no fault of their own. I do not doubt the good intentions of the Soviet leadership, that they truly did want to bring about socialism, but the class situation of Russia and the world generally made this impossible, and the party became stuck in place, incapable of moving forward. Having lost their proletarian base, the party shifted from a revolutionary organization to the representatives of a capitalist society, functionally becoming social-democrats – the state overseers of a market economy. Some Soviet leaders had argued that they should gradually develop the forces of production, while continuing to support the international communist movement and wait for it to succeed. However, the solution that emerged victorious was to abandon the international project, and instead focus on national state-building, which was finally solidified in Stalin’s conception of “socialism in one country” – something which Marx would consider an utter impossibility.

The fact that there was a shift from internationalism to nationalism is clearly expressed if we look at Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism from 1924. In the original edition, the views of Lenin were actually accurately reflected:

“The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian government in one country does not yet guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism, the organisation of socialist production, still lies ahead. Can this task be accomplished, can the victory of socialism in one country be attained, without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries? No, this is impossible… For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country as Russia are insufficient.”

And yet, just a few months later, this edition was withdrawn, and a new one was released that stated the exact opposite:

“After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society…”

Because the Soviet state still required to legitimate itself, over time the official doctrine changed and the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism became equated. The previously existing heated debates between Soviet economists about how to abolish money ended, and the leadership less and less expected to transition out of capitalism. The USSR was said to be socialist despite not fulfilling any of the criteria that either Marx or Lenin had elaborated on. At this point the USSR was no longer a workers’ state by any criteria, the workers’ councils and workers’ militias, wherever they existed, no longer had any power, the state was engaged in breaking up strikes, and even censored certain writings by Marx, refusing to release a publication of his complete works. Now, instead of focusing on support for revolutionary movements, the USSR increasingly moved to support for nationalist movements, at the expense of revolutionaries. As one example of how bad this got, the Soviet-controlled Communist International, or Comintern for short, supported the Chinese nationalist party, and the

Chinese nationalist politician Chiang Kai-shek was an honorary member of the Comintern. Chinese communists in the 20s had attempted a revolution, but were stopped by the Comintern and instead ordered to form an alliance with the Chinese nationalist party, which led the Chinese communists to be disarmed, and in 1927 the Chinese nationalist party massacred thousands of them. In other words, this development did not point to the failure of Marxism, but the success of a counterrevolution against Marxism.

Marx had devoted so much of his theoretical powers to defeat the Lassallean strand in socialism, the “servile belief in the state”, as he put it, and this is worth respecting not because it comes from Marx, but because it reflects the struggles of the working classes around the world since the dawn of capitalism – it is they who are the movers of history. As Engels put it: ““The idea that political acts, grand performances of state, are decisive in history is as old as written history itself, and is the main reason why so little material has been preserved for us in regard to the really progressive evolution of the peoples which has taken place quietly, in the background, behind these noisy scenes on the stage.”

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Rad Shiba for help with the video and reading out quotes: youtube.com/channel/UCnqIikIa6u1loeIQXmGVkhg

As well as Xexizy: youtube.com/channel/UCDULjo1v2Hivuu4h4LZSTUQ

And Red Plateaus: youtube.com/channel/UCsln1E-ttrNPsMivrnf9V7w

Music by musou: musou.bandcamp.com/track/backwater-dub

Works quoted

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels — The Communist Manifesto — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

Karl Marx — Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critique_of_Hegels_Philosophy_of_Right.pdf

Karl Marx — Critique of the Gotha Program — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf

Karl Marx — The Civil War in France — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/civil_war_france.pdf

Karl Marx — Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm

Friedrich Engels — A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891 — marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1891/06/29.htm

Vladimir Lenin — State and Revolution — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

Vladimir Lenin — Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/oct/30.htm

Vladimir Lenin — Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers’, Soldiers’ And Peasants’ Deputies — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/jan/10.htm

Vladimir Lenin — The Tax in Kind — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/apr/21.htm

Friedrich Engels — The Principles of Communism — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Vladimir Lenin — Eleventh Congress Of The R.C.P.(B.) — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm#fw01

Joseph Stalin — Foundations of Leninism — marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/index.htm

Friedrich Engels — Anti-Dühring — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/

Recommended works

Karl Marx — Critique of the Gotha Program — marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Critque_of_the_Gotha_Programme.pdf

Vladimir Lenin — State and Revolution — marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

Simon Pirani — The Russian Revolution in Retreat — libcom.org/files/[Simon_Pirani]_The_Russian_Revolution_in_Retreat,_(b-ok.org).pdf

Victor Serge — Memoirs of a Revolutionary — my-blackout.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/webpage2.pdf

On the Chinese revolution of 1925: libcom.org/history/chinese-revolution-1925-1927

Note

In some of his later writings, Lenin does start conflating the dictatorship of the proletariat, in contradiction with Marx and his own earlier writings. There are 3 reasons why this might be:

As his party becomes less revolutionary, he might already be in the process of legitimating the state as socialist, which culminates in Stalin.
He might be less careful with his terminology due to decreasing health.
He is using “socialism” in a different sense, as in the socialist tendency.

Further Notes

Relevant videos

InDefenseOfToucans, a small channel specializing in Soviet history had coincidentally already made a video on the distinction between the dictatorship of the proletariat and lower/higher phase communism without me knowing. This video is shorter than mine and is very useful for that specific topic.
Anarchopac has touched on some of the same topics in her response to Jason Unruhe. While looking into Marx’s views on the transition into communism, she compares it to Marx’s view of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and makes a more general point about how Marx views society. It’s more detailed and dense with theory than my video, and so is recommended if you want more theoretical grounding.
Although coming from a different approach and focusing less on Marx’s views as such, Red Plateaus made a video on whether socialists should take state power, in which they examine some arguments both for and against.

Important reading

Karl Marx – Critique of the Gotha Programme. This was a thorough critique of the draft program of the United Workers’ Party in Germany, as Marx sought to resist the heavy influence of German social-democrat Ferdinand Lassalle on the party. It was written in 1875 but only published by Engels in 1891. An essential read, because despite of how short this text is, it is one of Marx’s most important works on revolutionary strategy and one of the very few instances in which he talks about the details of communist society. It contains clarifications of many common falsehoods about Marxism, emphasizing opposition to nationalism, the state, and wage labor. It also shows that Marx was not an egalitarian, and contains the famous principle “from each according to ability…”

Karl Marx – The First Draft of the Civil War in France, specifically the section on The Commune. This text shows how much Marx’s political views were changed by the experience of the Paris Commune – the radically democratic workers’ government in Paris (1871) which Marx deemed to be the first historical instance of the dictatorship of the proletariat (“DotP” from here on). Thus it involves Marx’s description of the features of the DotP, which include, as the Commune did, local self-government, direct democracy, and workers’ militias. The text also includes many negative references to “state parasites”, who are to be done away with in the course of a workers’ revolution.

Vladimir Lenin – The State and Revolution. This work is recommended even if you dislike Lenin as a revolutionary and politician, as it’s a solid work of Marxist theory, clarifying many falsehoods ironically spread by Marxists-Leninists. It follows Marx in its distinction of a transitionary period from lower/higher phase communism, and in modelling the DotP after the Paris Commune. Lenin was led to write it after a debate with Bukharin on the existence of the state after revolution, and in fact wrote it to emphasize Marx’s anti-statism, for which he was accused by some of being an anarchist. He cites the abolition of the bureaucracy and the standing army as essential features of the DotP.

Derek Sayer and Philip Corrigan — Revolution Against the State: The Context and Significance of Marx’s Later Writings. This is an academic paper without which my video would not have existed, as it made completely clear the anti-statism in Marx’s late writings. This is where I first discovered many of the points made in the video.

Marx’s Feuerbachian Critique of the State

From very early on, Marx believed that the state is a sphere of alienation and has to be eliminated for the sake of human emancipation, and never changed on this point. He expressed this view as early as 1843, in Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, where he wrote that in “true democracy”, the “political state” disappears, or, what amounts to the same thing, that in true democracy, there is no longer a separation between society on the one hand and the state ruling it on the other.

Marx applied to the state an influential critical method derived from the Young Hegelian Ludwig Feuerbach[1], one of Marx’s main early influences. Although he would later attack him, Marx considered Feuerbach to be the most important thinker since Hegel, due to his critical method which functioned by “reversing” central elements of Hegel.[2]

In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach had analyzed humanity’s religious alienation – it occurs because humans project an idealized image of themselves onto something outside themselves: namely, God in heaven, and thereby become estranged from themselves. In other words, humans take whatever is best in themselves and attribute it to God, in effect giving God credit for their own accomplishments. The result is that, ironically, the more humanity achieves, the more power it attributes to God, and therefore becomes increasingly weaker in the face of God. And because humans idealize heaven in this way, they end up deprecating the real, material, sensuous, empirical world.

Humans transfer to God all of their positive qualities and therefore retain none for themselves: the more they worship God, the more they chastise themselves; the larger and more powerful God grows in their eyes, the smaller and weaker does humanity become in its own eyes. The goal, for Feuerbach, was therefore for humanity to re-appropriate for itself what it had attributed to God: overcome alienation by taking back for itself all the positive qualities that it had transferred to God. Thus, religion would become humanism.[3]

I’m recounting this because Marx had applied this critical method to the state, to identify human alienation outside of the religious sphere: not just religious alienation, but political alienation. In religion, humans alienate themselves by attributing their positive features to a God, who rules over them. Similarly, in politics, humans alienate themselves by transferring their social powers to a state, which rules over them. The more social power they give to this state, the more are they dominated by it. So just as overcoming religious alienation requires re-absorbing the positive attributes one had transferred to God, so overcoming political alienation requires re-absorbing the social powers that one had transferred to the state.

In both cases of overcoming alienation, a critical reversal is carried out: while the alienated person believes that man is made in the image of God, overcoming this alienation requires seeing that, on the contrary, God is made in the image of man. Likewise, in politics, it is typically believed that people have social powers because they have been granted them by the state, but overcoming political alienation requires seeing that it is in fact the state which has social powers because it has been granted them by the people.

Marx makes his humanism clear when he says, in On the Jewish Question, that “All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships to man himself.”[4] Religious emancipation occurs when humans no longer make a separation between man and God. Political emancipation occurs when humans no longer make a separation between man and the state.

In the same text (1843), Marx expresses his opposition to the state when he writes that “only when man … no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.”[5] The state is precisely this separation of peoples’ “social power” from themselves “in the shape of political power”. This means that politics as such, as a separate sphere of human life, would disappear under communism.

However, as already shows up here, what makes Marx more radical than Feuerbach, is that the alienation Marx identifies is not simply a matter of imagination (like with religion, where humans transfer their powers to God in their imagination), but one of material reality (as it is a material, empirical fact that the state is made more powerful). Therefore, its solution requires not just a change of consciousness, but a political change, i.e. revolution. This is where Marx’s materialism goes beyond Feuerbach: its emphasis on praxis. Hence why the famous line

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world … the point is to change it” appears in Theses on Feuerbach.

Socialism, communism and the DotP

A lot of confusion has been caused by the common distinction between socialism and communism as stages in a single development, as Marx never spoke this way. In Marx’s time, Germans did not usually make a clear distinction between socialism and communism, and these terms were often used interchangeably. Marx and Engels sometimes used socialism interchangeably with communism, but mainly preferred “communism” as they wanted to distinguish themselves from “middle class movement[s]” which claimed the term “socialism” for themselves.

It is unclear when Marx’s account of the development from lower phase to higher phase communism was renamed as the development from socialism to communism, but it undoubtedly reached the peak of its prevalence in the USSR.

The following is roughly how Marx saw the transition from capitalism to communism, as laid out in Critique of the Gotha Programme, as well as reflected in Lenin’s State and Revolution.

Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (capitalism)	Dictatorship of the proletariat (transition from capitalism to communism)	Lower phase communism (later sometimes called simply socialism)	Higher phase communism (later sometimes called simply communism)
The capitalist (bourgeois) class in power.	The working (proletarian) class in power.	No classes.	No classes.
The state expresses the interests of the capitalists. Exerts power over workers.	The state expresses the interests of the workers. Exerts power over capitalists with the goal of eliminating them as a class.	No state.	No state.
The capitalist class exerts physical power through a national military and police.	The working class exerts physical power through local workers’ militias.	No class violence.	No class violence.
Wage labor and capital.	Wage labor and capital, but in the process of being eliminated.	Work for labor vouchers. Vouchers distributed according to amount of work done and can be directly exchanged for products. Vouchers are not accumulative and therefore cannot be turned into capital.	Free access to products according to need. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

It is important not to take these categorical divisions for more than what they are. Marx, to my knowledge, in his writings only uses this distinction between lower and higher phase communism once, and this simplistic division is made mostly for the sake of presentation and clarification. As Marx was a dialectical thinker, it shouldn’t be assumed that these divisions are clear-cut. The transition into lower and then higher phase communism is a process , and so there would be many shades and gradations of society that don’t neatly fit exactly into one or the other, and the development would not necessarily be straightforward or linear, as the developments could occur at different times and speeds in different places.

Compare it to the transition from feudalism to capitalism: this transition took a long time, its pace and intensity varied from place to place, and remnants of feudalism lasted long after the appearance of industrial capitalism. This is the main point of the division: that traces of capitalism will still remain during the initial establishment of communism and will only disappear in an extended process of development. The main such initial remnant of capitalism will be the exchange of equivalents – labor vouchers exchanged for amount of labor performed – “the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labor in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labor in another form.” But this will no longer be the capitalist mode of production, because, among other things, “no one can give anything except his labor, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption.”[6]

The clearest way in which Marxists-Leninists usually diverge from Marx here (as well as from Lenin) is by equating the transitionary period with socialism (lower-phase communism). This equation is partly made possible by the confusion caused by calling lower phase communism ‘socialism’, and calling higher phase communism simply ‘communism’. The absurdity becomes clear if we use Marx’s original language, as to say that ‘the transitionary period is lower phase communism’ is to say that ‘the transition from capitalism to communism is communism’.

A related way in which Marxists-Leninists diverge from Marx and Engels is by treating socialism and communism as two distinct modes of production. For Marx, communism, whether lower phase or higher phase, is the same mode of production, distinguished only by its level of development. Lower phase communism is the communist mode of production “as it emerges from capitalist society” and higher phase communism is the communist mode of production as “developed on its own foundations”[7].

Lenin

Lenin did not equate the transitionary period with socialism/communism. While the transitionary period is the period of working class rule, Lenin himself says that “Socialism means the abolition of classes.”[8] As I found out from InDefenseOfToucans, in a speech at The All-Russia Congress of Transport Workers, Lenin recalls seeing a placard with the inscription “The reign of the workers and peasants will last for ever.” Lenin pointed out the problem with this claim: “if the reign of the workers and peasants would last for ever, we should never have socialism, for it implies the abolition of classes; and as long as there are workers and peasants, there will be different classes and, therefore, no full socialism.”[9]

Although Lenin followed Marx pretty closely on this in State and Revolution, there is one particular part that needs to be mentioned, which frankly I’m confused about. In Chapter 4 of State and Revolution, Lenin writes:

“In its first phase, or first stage, communism cannot as yet be fully mature economically and entirely free from traditions or vestiges of capitalism. Hence the interesting phenomenon that communism in its first phase retains “the narrow horizons of bourgeois law”. Of course, bourgeois law in regard to the distribution of consumer goods inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state, for law is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing the observance of the rules of law.”[10]

The first part of this section is in line with Marx. In Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx writes that the first phase of communism will distribute labor vouchers according to labor input, and this is a vestige of capitalism: the exchange of equivalents, which Marx calls bourgeois law, or alternatively translated as bourgeois right.

However, the claim that this presupposes the “bourgeois state” contradicts both Marx and Lenin himself. Lenin himself believed that the state is an apparatus of class rule, and that the first phase of communism has no classes, which makes the claim that the first phase still has a state bizarre. It is even more bizarre that this is a “bourgeois state”, given that even the transitionary period does not have a bourgeois state, but a proletarian one. Lenin, in the State and Revolution, says that in the course of revolution the bourgeois state is smashed, and a proletariat one is established in its place. Why would then a bourgeois state return in the first phase of communism itself? I can only speculate the reason behind this strange claim. It was either a mistake on Lenin’s part, or a misleading use of language.

Withering away

Lenin says that while the bourgeois state is smashed , the proletarian state that is then established withers away. Because the function of the proletarian state is to crush the bourgeois class, once that is finished, and classes disappear, it will lose its need, and gradually disappear, becoming indistinguishable from society in general.

This has since become an extremely common expression and principle, both among Marxists-Leninists and Marxists more generally. The only thing I want to point out about it is that Marx himself never uses this phrase. The phrase comes in fact from Engels’ Anti-Dühring.

Wage Labor in the USSR

Marxists who acknowledge the difference between the transitionary period and (lower phase) communism, vary regarding their analysis of the Soviet Republic. They tend to agree (as I do) that it never achieved socialism (lower phase communism). The elimination of capital, wage labor, commodity production was clearly never carried out, and in my opinion, was not even possible given the circumstances. Some Marxists-Leninists claim that the Soviet Republic was socialist from the beginning, because they equate socialism with the transitionary period, going against Lenin’s own straightforward claim that the Soviet Republic was not socialist. Those Marxists-Leninists who recognize the latter, argue that although the Soviet Republic was in a transitionary period during Lenin’s life, it transitioned to socialism under Stalin’s collectivization. They claim that capitalist social relations were in fact effectively abolished, but their arguments are unconvincing, as for them to work, straightforwardly bourgeois countries in certain periods would have to be classified as socialist as well.

Piece work:

Some argue that Soviet money effectively functioned as labor vouchers, because people were paid according to number of units produced rather than per hour (what’s called “piece work”). The obvious problem with this argument is that piece work has existed throughout the history of capitalism in unambiguously capitalist countries like the UK and the US and was strongly advocated for by Frederick Winslow Taylor[11]. In fact, piece work systems often allowed for greater abuse and manipulation of workers by paying them less than an hourly wage would and were commonly resented by workers. The early uses of the term “sweatshop” (or the precursor “sweating system”) referred to piece rate workplaces.

Full employment:

Others argue the USSR was socialist by referring to the fact that it had full employment: because the workers technically could not be threatened with being fired as such, they had control over the production process. Once again, this would have to mean that Australia was socialist in the years 1941–75, as it had legally enforced conditions of full employment in this period.

State planning:

A final argument I have heard is that the USSR was socialist because production was determined by a state plan, and therefore production was carried out according to use-value, not profit. This could not be true, however, as, even ignoring all else (like the internal competition between companies despite their common ownership by the state), the USSR had to compete economically with other capitalists on the world-scale, and this could not be done without accumulating capital, which requires steering production to generate profits. Like with the previous arguments, Soviet state planning had equivalents in capitalist countries, especially in cases of state intervention at times of war.

Some substantiate the claim that the USSR produced according to use-values by pointing to the fact that the state plan drew up what’s called “material balances” – calculation of input and output by material units (for example, gallons of oil, kilos of steel, etc.). But this too has been done under capitalism (for example, the Controlled Materials Plan in the US under WWII), nor were monetary units absent from the plan.

What’s incredible is that Stalin himself, in his Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, says that commodity production exists under socialism, which is straightforwardly inconsistent with both Marx and Lenin. Commodity production is by definition oriented to producing profit.

Some classic critiques of the economic character of the USSR:

Raya Dunayevskaya – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a Capitalist Society. Dunayevskaya was one of the pioneers of Marxist Humanism. This is a short pamphlet and its title is pretty clear. A central point is made when she writes that “The determining factor in analyzing the class nature of a society is not whether the means of production are the private property of the capitalist class or are state-owned, but whether the means of production are capital, that is, whether they are monopolized and alienated from the direct producers. The Soviet Government occupies in relation to the whole economic system the position which a capitalist occupies in relation to a single enterprise.”

Amadeo Bordiga – Dialogue with Stalin. Here the leader of the Italian communist party, an influential left-communist, examines the economic character of the USSR in an engagement with Stalin’s writings.

Aufheben – What Was the USSR? This UK-based Marxist collective examines various theories on what the USSR was and develop their own view which goes beyond standard ‘state capitalism’ accounts. They argue that the USSR was essentially based on commodity-production, but due to its “historical form of forced transition to capitalism there was dislocation between the capitalist nature of production and its appearance as a society based on commodity-exchange.” Whatever you think of its conclusion, the text could be helpful for its overview of a few different ways of analyzing the political and economic character of the USSR.

I have seen the following two books recommended, although I haven’t read them. They are much more academic, detailed, and empirically grounded than the preceding ones. Both of them argue that the USSR was a capitalist society:

Neil C. Fernandez — Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR. This work criticizes previous theories of Soviet capitalism and develops its own by emphasizing the predominance of capital. It then turns to an analysis of class struggle in the USSR.

Paresh Chattopadhyay — The Marxian Concept of Capital and the Soviet Experience. This one analyzes the USSR as a capitalist society, arguing that the wage-labor relationship is necessary and sufficient for the existence of capitalism.

The DotP in the USSR

So the Soviet Republic was not socialist, but was it a dictatorship of the proletariat? Views about this vary. Left-communists tend to argue that, in the early years, it was. For example, the Internationalist Communist Tendencyhold this view. Views about when it ceased being a DotP vary as well, some placing it around the time of Lenin’s decline and the subsequent emergence of Stalin, others placing it around the time of the Kronstadt Rebellion [12] in 1921. Either way, it’s fair to say that the Soviet Republic, even in its early years, did not resemble Marx’s or Lenin’s own descriptions of what a DotP consists in. Lenin, in State and Revolution, identified the standing army and the bureaucracy as two main elements to be abolished in the establishment of a DotP. Although the revolution initially abolished the standing army, it was soon re-established along similar lines, and the bureaucracy was never abolished at all, also retaining many central features of the old bureaucracy. Here’s a well-argued article on the position that the old state was never smashed, and that the Soviet Republic was therefore never a DotP.

Trotsky and Trotskyists, on the other hand, argue that the USSR was a DotP that under Stalin became a “degenerated workers’ state” (Trotsky’s term). Trotsky argued that the USSR was in the process of transitioning from capitalism to socialism but got stuck in the middle of this transition due to bureaucratization. Trotsky did not consider the bureaucratic caste to be a new ruling class, because its political control did not extend to economic ownership. The purpose of this analysis for Trotsky was twofold: 1) to criticize Stalin’s consolidation of power and the existing Soviet regime, 2) while nevertheless acknowledging Soviet achievements, and maintaining the possibility that the USSR could be restored to a genuine workers’ state.

Some Marxists argue that it’s misguided to judge the early Soviet Republic by the criteria of Lenin’s earlier description of the DotP, given the historically unique circumstances the country was in, which made the DotP of that description impractical, if not impossible. Whatever the case may be, it should be said to the Bolsheviks’ credit that they recognized early on that without a revolution in Europe, socialism could not be established in Russia, and so a big part of their early policy was funding and helping the revolutionaries in Germany. In this sense, at least, the party did act as a force for socialism in the world, and its failure was decided once the internationalist project was abandoned in favor of national state-building (reaching its ultimate conclusion in Stalin’s “socialism in one country”).

Although I agree with many criticisms of the USSR put forth by anarchists, some of them are insufficiently grounded in material conditions. Criticizing actions taken by the party, and even the party form itself, is important, but one shouldn’t attribute the failure of the revolution to the actions of Lenin individually, or even Stalin, nor attack the USSR by reference to the intentions the Bolsheviks had. Given the fact that Russia was not a fully industrialized country, that it had just endured a World War and a civil war, that it was isolated and surrounded by foreign aggressors, and given the failure of revolution in other countries, the Soviet Republic had to either degenerate or be overthrown by reactionaries (which would have been much, much worse, both in terms of the gruesome immediate aftermath, and the long-term effect on the Russian peoples’ living quality).

The mode of production is not a moral category, and it is possible to celebrate the achievements the Soviets made, as well as praise the struggle and good intentions of particular individuals, while still recognizing that, as a matter of fact, the mode of production never moved beyond capitalism.

[1] Stanford article on Feuerbach.

[2] For example, Hegel gave primacy to Absolute Spirit (“Geist”, which can also be translated as “mind” or “consciousness”) and saw humanity as the development of this Spirit. Feuerbach argued that this was backwards and had to be reversed, as it confused subject and predicate. It made consciousness the subject, and man merely its predicate, when it’s really the other way around. Consciousness is produced by man, rather than man being produced by Consciousness. When Marx “stood Hegel on his head” as he’s famously described doing, he was following Feuerbach’s lead.

[3] It is important to note that Christianity had a very big influence in German politics at this time, and Germany was particularly socially conservative. The government of Prussia had control over church affairs, and the king recognized himself as the leading bishop. This is why political radicals and progressives, including Marx himself, wrote critiques of religion, and (state) Christianity in particular.

[4] Marx – On the Jewish Question.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Marx — Critique of the Gotha Programme, I.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Lenin – Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

[9] Lenin – Speech delivered at The All-Russia Congress of Transport Workers.

[10] Lenin – State and Revolution, 4.

[11] Taylor is famous for his work The Principles of Scientific Management, which sought to elucidate how to make workers on the factory floor as efficient as possible. He was popular among capitalists and managers for this reason, and implementations of his proposals were usually resented by workers. Taylor wanted to deepen the division between mental labor and manual labor, and wanted the workers to be fully commanded by managers.

[12] The Kronstadt rebellion was an uprising of revolutionary Soviet sailors, soldiers and civilians, many of whom had previously been active in the revolution. They demanded, among other things, more democratic control by workers’ councils. The Bolshevik Party falsely reported on public radio that the uprising was a plot by the White Army, and the rebellion was violently crushed by the Red Army.

Comments

"See CCK Philosophy video…

"See CCK Philosophy video from which this script is used."

Oh, that video again.

"So here’s a common narrative you see online. First, you have capitalism – markets, the state, classes, and all that. Then, socialism emerges when workers take power – under socialism, you still have the state and classes, but with the working class being in power. Finally, once the bourgeoisie have been defeated, classes, money, and the state finally disappear, we have communism. This is an extremely common, but it is not Marx’s narrative."

Okay? That's not a definition of statism, though, is it. Like what exactly do you think a statist even is, since this appears to be the seed of your argument, I guess everyone who doesn't believe in the above formula is an anti- or at least astatist. You do need to define your terms, especially when you're arguing against something.

"First of all, to avoid confusion, we should point out that Marx never distinguished between socialism and communism, in the sense that the former comes first, and the latter comes after. He didn’t use the word “socialism” that often, preferring to use “communism”, and when he did use it, he usually used it interchangeably with communism, as they were generally used interchangeably in the socialist theory of his time."

Umm, no not all socialists were communists, some of them actively rejected communism, communists at that time were a minority and quite a diverse bunch themselves. To use communism and socialism was a conscious choice by a communist of the time.

"The measures in the manifesto do not concern socialism however, rather, these are measures intended for the transitionary period."

See here is why the lack of defined terms is a problem. Karl Marx isn't a statist because his views on utilising a state aren't socialism. But that would imply that the only statists are some type of socialist and everyone else, including leaders of states who aren't interested in socialism and communism, are also not statists.

Saying Karl Marx isn't a statist because he believed the state was to take part in a transitory project is meaningless, that has nothing to do with statism (whatever that is), Do you mean that a statist is someone who believes communism or socialism requires a state or someone who believes a state is permanent? From start to finish you keep shifting ground. It's like you've started with a premise "Karl Marx is not a statist and worked backwards from there" but since you don't have a concrete grasp of that idea it just meanders from one rebuttal to a potential argument to another.

Why are you talking about Lenin and the Soviet Union at all? They aren't Karl Marx and have no bearing on his ideas and thoughts.

"Now, this is all in Marx, but just in case someone accuses me of providing an interpretation of Marx that is in fact an anarchist deviation and misinterpretation, Lenin agreed with all of what I just said."

Oh, so it's an appeal to authority fallacy. Lenin agreeing or disagreeing with Marx isn't relevant as the subject is Marx. It's his body of work and life that should prove the point, citing Lenin a controversial figure amongst the marxists, especially the first and second generation, will only work on die hard leninists and if they were paying attention and the argument was concrete they would already be open to your interpretation.

This article is tediously…

This article is tediously overwritten to make several simple points. First, that Marx recognized a revolutionary transitional period between capitalism and “lower phase” communism. And that the former, there is still a state, while the latter is stateless. Second, that people confuse the two periods, hence why people think Marx’s vision has a role for the state. And third, that where Marx does have a role for a state, in the revolutionary transitional period, it is not really like any traditional state. By the time the article reaches Lenin, I gave up reading further but it seems to argue that Lenin supports Marx’s view of the process of ultimately achieving communism.

I’m not really sure what is the point of adding the bit on Lenin but the first several points the article makes doesn’t really add up to a convincing argument. It is arguing Marx is not a statist either because the state has no place in a post capitalist vision or because the state in the transitional period isn’t really a state.

But Marx still used the term state or government. And it is clear that Marx never espoused anything close to amounting to syndicalism, or any form of mass politics whereby workers unite together at a base level, and take ownership of decisions from the bottom upwards. Anything short of that can’t really be a true alternative to state socialist politics. That’s the whole point of anarchism or libertarian socialism, to offer that alternative.

I’m not sure this article even deserves to be in this library. It needs to at least be extensively revised for conciseness.

I appreciate the criticisms,…

I appreciate the criticisms, your criticisms are quite useful! (I am not the author though, and I doubt the author will see this.)

I’m not sure this article even deserves to be in this library. It needs to at least be extensively revised for conciseness.

I would suggest we keep this on Libcom since quite a number of libertarian Marxists, left communists, and communizers find this text useful (both in video form and this text form). The comments also add to the discussion, after all.

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: This article is tediously overwritten... I gave up reading further but it seems to argue that Lenin supports Marx’s view of the process of ultimately achieving communism.
...
I’m not sure this article even deserves to be in this library.

The article refutes Lenin's notion of the dictatorship by the proletariat—the imposition of our human needs—being synonymous with the dictatorship over the proletariat, e.g. the dictatorial rule by the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, with the needs of capital.

Just for the following reference the article is deserved of being published:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.

That quote kinda contradicts…

That quote kinda contradicts the idea that there will be a long transitional period between capitalism and communism, as foreseen by Marx. In that quote, it seems he is arguing that communism immediately follows capitalism, explaining why would it be “stamped with the birthmarks of the old society.” What would be the point of the long transitional period in the first place?

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: That quote kinda contradicts the idea that there will be a long transitional period between capitalism and communism, as foreseen by Marx. In that quote, it seems he is arguing that communism immediately follows capitalism, explaining why would it be “stamped with the birthmarks of the old society.” What would be the point of the long transitional period in the first place?

Where does Marx ever emphasize a substantially "long" transitional period? You're obviously just trying to connect Marx to the Soviet Union by claiming that what they described as their transitional society has something in common with what Marx argued for.

I’m not sure how you can…

I’m not sure how you can think I am making that connection. You are not really addressing the point I am making. There is supposed to be a transitional period between capitalism and communism, yet it sounds like in that reference that there won’t be one. Communism is still “stamped by the birthmarks of the old society,” as a result of just emerging from the previous society. But if there is a transitional period, and yet the communism it ushers in has those birthmarks, what is the point of the transitional period?

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: I’m not sure how you can think I am making that connection. You are not really addressing the point I am making

Yes I am—you're repeatedly claiming how Marx argued for an exceptionally "long" transitional period (obviously trying to link Marx's discussion of a transitional society to what was created in the Soviet Union) and I'm asking you to provide any source to support that claim.

Agent of the International wrote: There is supposed to be a transitional period between capitalism and communism, yet it sounds like in that reference that there won’t be one. Communism is still “stamped by the birthmarks of the old society,” as a result of just emerging from the previous society. But if there is a transitional period, and yet the communism it ushers in has those birthmarks, what is the point of the transitional period?

Because it would have been unlikely to have full-blown communism/socialism in the nineteenth century just after the bourgeoisie had been suppressed during the transitional period or proletarian dictatorship. Do you think the Communards could have immediately established a fully developed communist/socialist society if they were to have emerged victorious over the Thiers government, or do you not agree that they would have been dealing with a war-ravaged society that had just emerged from capitalism and was "still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society [...]"?

Yes I am—you're repeatedly…

Yes I am—you're repeatedly claiming how Marx argued for an exceptionally "long" transitional period (obviously trying to link Marx's discussion of a transitional society to what was created in the Soviet Union) and I'm asking you to provide any source to support that claim.

Perhaps I am wrong about Marx but Marxists in general have always spoken of the transitional period as being long, as a counterpoint to anarchists who they wrongly charge of believing that socialism can be created overnight. But I don’t claim that anyone says it would be “exceptionally” long. I wouldn’t even know what that means. You just missed the point of my comment.

Because it would have been unlikely to have full-blown communism/socialism in the nineteenth century just after the bourgeoisie had been suppressed during the transitional period or proletarian dictatorship. Do you think the Communards could have immediately established a fully developed communist/socialist society if they were to have emerged victorious over the Thiers government, or do you not agree that they would have been dealing with a war-ravaged society that had just emerged from capitalism and was "still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society [...]"?

Your response here just demonstrates you do not seem to understand anything I said. It would make more sense to say that the transitional period bears those birthmarks, but not communism proper. From what I have read from Marxists, the whole purpose of the transitional period, in which the working class has power, is to transform society to communist. You would think most of the struggles inherent in the whole process would be retained in that period. But you also seem to be confusing the two periods in your post. It seems you do not regard the transition as a distinct phase preceding communism.

If you reread what I have wrote so far, I have not been making arguments in favor or against this scheme. I was just trying to point out how that reference quoted above sounds contradictory to what we believe Marx to have advocated.

Marx does not advocate…

Marx does not advocate communism. It is not a scheme. He foretells how communism naturally arises out of the struggle between the two main contending classes. The working class, owning nothing as we do, must impose communal ownership, communism, to overcome our unliveable situation. The capitalist class, owning everything as it does, will mortally defend private ownership. This mortal struggle, this transitional period, is a long drawn out struggle that lies between capitalism and communism. We have made inroads into the rule of capital but obviously have not overcome our foe, including that "peculiar character" social-democracy, which attempts to divert and placate our struggle.

The dictatorship by the proletariat, the proletarian state, arises primarily through our struggle against the established bourgeois state in all its forms.

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: From what I have read from Marxists, the whole purpose of the transitional period, in which the working class has power, is to transform society to communist.

Where have you read this? Who? The Communards couldn't have created a full-blown communist society right after defeating the Thiers regime. I mean we're talking counterfactually here, but all the evidence points in the direction of that not being possible. If anything, the Communards were actually too concerned with transforming society before doing the work of suppressing Thiers and other reactionary forces, which was partly illustrated by Courbet's attempt to democratize the arts and sciences during a civil war.

Most people who profess to be Marxists are also unreliable, so I'm not sure why you're basing this idea of an exceptionally long transitional period on them rather than consulting Marx himself.

adri wrote: Agent of the…

Agent of the International wrote: ...the whole purpose of the transitional period, in which the working class has power, is to transform [bourgeois] society to communist [society].

Correct.

I would also describe what…

I would also describe what Marx called the lower phase of communism as part of a transitional period to full-scale communism (i.e. not just the revolutionary period of the dictatorship of the proletariat). It's also worth mentioning that the Critique of the Gotha Program was originally based on Marx's manuscript Marginal Notes on the Programme of the German Workers' Party, along with a letter, both of which Marx sent to Wilhelm Bracke of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany. They were posthumously published together by Engels with the preceding title. It doesn't really affect things much, but it's always worth considering what sources actually are or how they came about.

Where have you read this?…

Where have you read this? Who? The Communards couldn't have created a full-blown communist society right after defeating the Thiers regime. I mean we're talking counterfactually here, but all the evidence points in the direction of that not being possible. If anything, the Communards were actually too concerned with transforming society before doing the work of suppressing Thiers and other reactionary forces, which was partly illustrated by Courbet's attempt to democratize the arts and sciences during a civil war.

First of all, the piece you are commenting under argues that the transitional period is distinct from communism. I have seen other pieces in this library, particularly from council communists, that makes the argument that you should not confuse the two periods. Second of all, no one was talking about the Communards, and what was possible for them to achieve. Why are you adding discussion regarding the Communards?

I would also describe what…

I would also describe what Marx called the lower phase of communism as part of a transitional period to full-scale communism (i.e. not just the revolutionary period of the dictatorship of the proletariat).

Is that how Marx himself would describe them or is that just your opinion?

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote:

Where have you read this? Who? The Communards couldn't have created a full-blown communist society right after defeating the Thiers regime. I mean we're talking counterfactually here, but all the evidence points in the direction of that not being possible. If anything, the Communards were actually too concerned with transforming society before doing the work of suppressing Thiers and other reactionary forces, which was partly illustrated by Courbet's attempt to democratize the arts and sciences during a civil war.

First of all, the piece you are commenting under argues that the transitional period is distinct from communism. I have seen other pieces in this library, particularly from council communists, that makes the argument that you should not confuse the two periods. Second of all, no one was talking about the Communards, and what was possible for them to achieve. Why are you adding discussion regarding the Communards?

You're incredibly tedious. Yes—why bring up the major revolutionary event of the 19th century that Marx wrote an entire book about and which influenced his views on the revolutionary period/proletarian dictatorship.

You're just so obsessed with words and categories that you don't realize that they have never been used consistently throughout history (probably because your views are based on a handful of "YouTube anarchy explainer" videos); specific thinkers and the ways they employed words and what words meant to them is what counts. There is no issue in referring to what Marx called the lower phase of communism as a transitional period to a more developed communist society—get over yourself.

You're just so obsessed with…

You're just so obsessed with words and categories that you don't realize that they have never been used consistently throughout history (probably because your views are based on a handful of "YouTube anarchy explainer" videos); specific thinkers and the ways they employed words and what words meant to them is what counts. There is no issue in referring to what Marx called the lower phase of communism as a transitional period to a more developed communist society—get over yourself.

The only obsession revealed in these threads are your own of Marx’s and events that influenced him. You do realize that there are others who do not agree with your use of these terms or categorizations, and yet you just go on stating them as if there is no conflict to begin with. And remember this thread is about the claim of Marx being a statist and you’ve added very little to that discussion.

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: Is that how Marx himself would describe them or is that just your opinion?

He never used the word "transitional" to refer to the process by which his "first phase of communist society" develops into the "higher phase," but that word definitely captures what Marx is talking about and is certainly something others can use when paraphrasing him, which I see no issue with. Just from the point of view of describing things, how the hell else would you describe the process by which Marx's "first phase of communist society" transitions to his "higher phase"?? Does Marx ever say that his "first phase of communist society" is final? or does he describe how this society is only a stepping stone to a more developed communist society? Ok—it's a transitional society then (i.e. a society in transition to a more developed communist society)!

Do you also realize how inconsequential and irrelevant it is to quibble over whether Marx's "first phase of communist society" is a "transitional/transitory/intermediate period" or not? Really—what is at stake here? Marx was also not even primarily concerned with the specifics of what a socialist/communist society would be like; he was more interested in critiquing political economy, as he did in works like Capital. He similarly did not even elaborate in other places on what the first phase of communism that he mentioned in the Critique of the Gotha Program would be like, so there are actually not that many sources to work with. (That's the entire reason why this article/video transcription only talks about the Critique when it comes to this point.) It's also worth repeating that the Critique was a letter that Marx sent to Bracke and which Engels posthumously published with the aforementioned title—only a dogmatist like you (and various Leninist types who are in your company) would treat that as some kind of "revolutionary gospel" about how history is supposed to unfold and how all societies are supposed to develop.

Agent of the International wrote: You do realize that there are others who do not agree with your use of these terms or categorizations, and yet you just go on stating them as if there is no conflict to begin with.

Please tell me what the issue/"conflict" is then? What is so damn important about whether someone describes what Marx called the first phase of communism as a "transitional period," or even an "intermediate period," to full-scale communism? What is at stake here?

Please also stop watching your little YouTube explainer videos and start engaging with actual documents and sources.

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: Second of all, no one was talking about the Communards, and what was possible for them to achieve. Why are you adding discussion regarding the Communards?

Just to add, this article/video transcription also has an entire section on the Commune and Marx's views on it. So yeah—how about you start talking about the Commune instead of ignoring it (along with all the Commune-related questions I've been posing to you) because you don't actually know anything about it.

He never used the word …

He never used the word "transitional" to refer to the process by which his "first phase of communist society" develops into the "higher phase," but that word definitely captures what Marx is talking about and is certainly something others can use when paraphrasing him, which I see no issue with. Just from the point of view of describing things, how the hell else would you describe the process by which Marx's "first phase of communist society" transitions to his "higher phase"??

I think almost everyone would agree that in some generic sense, the lower phase of communism is in transition to the higher phase of communism. That’s not what we are debating. The topic is the transition between capitalism and lower phase communism, the transformation of the former into the latter. If you read the article, the author argues that the two shouldn’t be confused. And that the latter is at least stateless and thus makes Marx not a statist. I don’t even agree with that line of argument.

Do you also realize how inconsequential and irrelevant it is to quibble over whether Marx's "first phase of communist society" is a "transitional/transitory/intermediate period" or not? Really—what is at stake here?

The problem was that you seem to be saying that the two periods were the same thing. And you seem to miss the point of the argument the article is making. You do not address the fact that the author as well as other Marxists are not in agreement with you.

only a dogmatist like you (and various Leninist types who are in your company) would treat that as some kind of "revolutionary gospel" about how history is supposed to unfold and how all societies are supposed to develop.

You’re far more closer to Leninism than I am. What are you talking about?

Please tell me what the issue/"conflict" is then? What is so damn important about whether someone describes what Marx called the first phase of communism as a "transitional period," or even an "intermediate period," to full-scale communism? What is at stake here?

You should actually read the article you’re posting under. You have a habit of not reading articles you comment under; you just rush to provide stock defenses of Marx and Engels when there is no need to.

Please also stop watching your little YouTube explainer videos and start engaging with actual documents and sources.

As if you read anything beyond Marx and Engels!

Agent of the International…

Agent of the International wrote: The topic is the transition between capitalism and lower phase communism, the transformation of the former into the latter. If you read the article, the author argues that the two shouldn’t be confused. And that the latter is at least stateless and thus makes Marx not a statist. I don’t even agree with that line of argument.

Yes, capitalism and what Marx called the first phase of communist society in the Critique (and hardly ever mentioned anywhere else) should not be treated as the same. What on earth don't you agree with there? Explain yourself.

The entire idea that Marx was a "statist" because he saw a role for the state in the revolutionary period or proletarian dictatorship is just completely ignoring how Marx saw this period as being characterized by genuine working-class self-rule. If you were to actually engage with Marx's writings on the Paris Commune, instead of treating them as irrelevant to Marx's views on things like the revolutionary period, then you would also know this (i.e. how he praised things like the revocable nature of the members on the Commune Council, the roughly equal pay among the Communards, etc.). You're also just completely ignoring how both Marx and Engels critiqued the centralizing tendencies of people like Louis Blanqui, criticisms in which they reiterated the importance of workers' power and self-emancipation in a revolutionary period. I have told you this a million times (and other writers like Zoe Baker have expressed similar ideas about Marx not being an authoritarian/statist), but you seem to just be willingly ignorant.

Agent of the International wrote: The problem was that you seem to be saying that the two periods were the same thing. And you seem to miss the point of the argument the article is making. You do not address the fact that the author as well as other Marxists are not in agreement with you.

First of all, Marx never had some silly chart that he pointed to whenever asked about the revolutionary period and the developmental path of all societies—the chart is an oversimplification and belongs to the author, not Marx. Marx never explicitly talked about a capitalized "Transitionary Period" that was preceded by capitalist society and followed by what he called the first phase of communist society in the Critique. The "Transitionary Period" that the article is talking about is based on a single sentence in the Critique.[1] There is no evidence to suggest that Marx would have had any issue with describing his first phase of communist society as a society in transition to a higher communist phase—and just from the point of view of describing things or paraphrasing Marx, this is an entirely correct description. While I think this article/video transcription is correct in certain respects, you shouldn't give too much weight to its division of society into different stages or attribute such a rigid division to Marx. Furthermore—as I have also told you a million times—Marx never thought that the transition to a socialist/communist society would be everywhere the same, which is something that this chart and article don't even take into consideration (e.g. Marx talked about the potential for a peaceful transition to socialism in certain countries). In peasant societies like Russia, capitalism was similarly not even particularly developed, so the article's discussion about how society transitions from "capitalism" to "communism" is not even applicable within that context. If you wanted to learn about Marx's views on nineteenth-century Russian society and its developmental path, then you would have to actually engage with his writings on that topic.

Agent of the International wrote:

adri wrote: only a dogmatist like you (and various Leninist types who are in your company) would treat that as some kind of "revolutionary gospel" about how history is supposed to unfold and how all societies are supposed to develop.

You’re far more closer to Leninism than I am. What are you talking about?

The fact that you're thinking in these rigid terms—instead of recognizing that Marx's views can't be reduced to a silly chart—is also why I'm calling you a dogmatist and putting you in the company of Leninist types who also think in the same way (e.g. the idea that a peasant society can't transition to a socialist/communist society, when in fact both Marx and Engels held out this possibility). This is also why I'm telling you to step away from charts, YouTube explainer videos and to start engaging with actual documents and sources.

Agent of the International wrote: You should actually read the article you’re posting under. You have a habit of not reading articles you comment under; you just rush to provide stock defenses of Marx and Engels when there is no need to.

No, I "rush in" to refute your nonsense.

Agent of the International wrote: As if you read anything beyond Marx and Engels!

The countless articles I've posted on this site that have nothing to do with Marx and Engels certainly suggest that I engage with more works than just Marx and Engels...

Marx wrote: Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Yes, capitalism and what…

Yes, capitalism and what Marx called the first phase of communist society in the Critique (and hardly ever mentioned anywhere else) should not be treated as the same. What on earth don't you agree with there? Explain yourself.

You’re just being deliberately obtuse, as you have always been in this thread. I said I don’t agree that just because there is no state in any form of communism as envisioned by Marx, that that would absolve him from the charge of being a statist. I’m not going to bother responding to the rest of your rubbish. It’s not like we are dealing with anything so complex that it should prompt so much obtuseness on your part.

Marx's writings on the Paris…

Marx's writings on the Paris Commune are mostly reporting, describing what the Commune did and drawing some conclusions from it. Many of these conclusions were at odds with his ideas beforehand (and afterward). And given how influenced the Commune was by Proudhon's ideas, it is no surprise that these writings are amongst Marx's most appealing. Of course, you could just go to the source of these associationist, federalist socialist ideas. For example, the mandating and recall of elected delegates was advocated by Proudhon in 1848:

“Besides universal suffrage and as a consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the binding mandate. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not appoint mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty! That is assuredly not socialism: it is not even democracy.”

As K.J. Kenafick suggests:

“the programme [the Commune] set out is… the system of Federalism, which Bakunin had been advocating for years, and which had first been enunciated by Proudhon. The Proudhonists… exercised considerable influence in the Commune. This ‘political form’ was therefore not ‘at last’ discovered; it had been discovered years ago; and now it was proven to be correct by the very fact that in the crisis the Paris workers adopted it almost automatically, under the pressure of circumstance, rather than as the result of theory, as being the form most suitable to express working class aspirations.”

Marx's comments in 1871 are significantly different to those in 1850:

“the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also […] for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. […] revolutionary activity […] can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. […] As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralisation.”

Similarly on the economic terrain, where workers associations in 1871 replace the nationalisation urged in 1848 -- "shall be taken in hand by the state. They shall be converted into state property..." Proudhon had been arguing for a socio-economic federation based on self-managed workers associations since the 1840s.

As Bakunin suggested:

“Its general effect was so striking that the Marxists themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and proclaimed that its programme and purpose where their own, in face of the simplest logic and own true sentiments. This was a truly farcical change of costume, but they were bound to make it, for fear of being overtaken and left behind in the wave of feeling which the rising produced throughout the world.”

Perhaps needless to say, every Marxist regime has followed the example of 1848, not 1871. As Marxist Franz Mehring suggested:

"The opinions of the Communist Manifesto could not be reconciled with the praise lavished by [Civil War in France] for the vigorous fashion in which it began to exterminate the parasitic State ... Both Marx and Engels were well aware of the contradiction, and in a preface to a new edition of the Communist Manifesto issued in June 1872, they revised their opinions.... After the death of Marx, Engels in fighting the Anarchists once again took his stand on the original basis of the Manifesto.... if an insurrection was able to abolish the whole oppressive machinery of the State by the few simple decrees, was not that a confirmation of Bakunin’s steadfastly maintained standpoint?"

Interestingly, we find in one of Marx’s drafts of the Civil War in France the following:

“But the proletariat cannot, as the ruling classes and their different rival factions 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.”

Which is what the Social Democratic Parties originally argued was what they were aiming for. Overtime, this was replaced by the reformist notion of using the existing State machine to introduce "socialist" measures.

So, yes, Marx's writings on the Commune are his most appealing and libertarian -- but as he was reporting on a libertarian influenced revolution that is hardly surprising. Sadly, they did not seem to have had that much of a lasting impact -- the vast majority of Marxists went for the early notions while paying lip-service to 1871. As for Marx and Engels, well there is Marx’s 1881 evaluation that the Commune was “merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be.”

In terms of whether Marx was a "statist" -- he did advocate a state temporarily and gave that body substantial powers including on the economic terrain. In 1848-50, this was a highly centralised, top-down body. In 1871, under the impact of the Paris Commune, this appears to have been modified somewhat -- apparently temporarily, given subsequent comments and developments. Significantly, subsequent Marxists have followed the example of 1848-1850.

Was Marx a "statist" -- yes, he was. While envisioning the final end of the State, in the short-term he argued for a State which was centralised with powers extending into the economy. Here is Trotsky in 1920:

"In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. None the less, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State. And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction. Now just that insignificant little fact – that historical step of the State dictatorship – Abramovich, and in his person the whole of Menshevism, did not notice; and consequently, he has fallen over it."

Trotsky clearly argues that the State disappears in the long term, so does that mean he is not a "statist"? Yet his short term policy is clearly statist.

The anarchist critique of Marxism is that the means suggested will not produce the ends desired. As George Barrett put it:

"The modern Socialist, or at least the Social Democrats, have steadily worked for centralisation, and complete and perfect organisation and control by those in authority above the people. The Anarchist, on the other hand, believes in the abolition of that central power, and expects the free society to grow into existence from below, starting with those organisations and free agreements among the people themselves. It is difficult to see how, by making a central power control everything, we can be making a step towards the abolition of that power."

That most modern Marxists favour the 1848-1850 Marx over the Marx who reported on the Paris Commune is significant.

Anarcho wrote: Marx's…

Anarcho wrote: Marx's writings on the Paris Commune are mostly reporting, describing what the Commune did and drawing some conclusions from it.

Like most socialists did, including Kropotkin and Bakunin? What's your point? Marx's commentary also had the advantage over Kropotkin's and Bakunin's to the extent that Marx accurately portrayed the Commune and didn't falsely depict it as some "anarchist rebellion" when it clearly wasn't.

Anarcho wrote: And given how influenced the Commune was by Proudhon's ideas, it is no surprise that these writings are amongst Marx's most appealing.

Anarcho wrote: So, yes, Marx's writings on the Commune are his most appealing and libertarian -- but as he was reporting on a libertarian influenced revolution that is hardly surprising.

Are you interested in responding to where I pointed out how the Paris Commune manifesto was written by a commission of numerous people (and approved by the mostly non-anarchist Commune Council) instead of just a Proudhonist, or are you still lying about that? Are you likewise interested in acknowledging how Proudhon hardly had some monopoly on the idea of federalism or decentralized forms of decision-making and that such ideas had been expressed by numerous other writers before him? Are you similarly still trying to portray the Commune as an anarchist/Proudhonist revolt when that is just an easily disproven falsehood that no serious historian argues?

Anarcho wrote: As for Marx and Engels, well there is Marx’s 1881 evaluation that the Commune was “merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be.”

Which is an accurate assessment. What don't you agree with? The majority of Parisians were not socialists. Depending also on how you would like to interpret the word socialist and exclude certain people/groups, the majority of people on the Commune Council were not socialist either. The Commune manifesto talked about preserving the Third Republic—obviously not as represented by Thiers and his reactionaries—which had been created following the capture of Louis Napoleon by the Prussians. Many Parisians were in fact initially optimistic about the Third Republic and its democratic potential, including Blanquists like Louise Michel at the time.

Anarcho wrote: Marx's…

Anarcho wrote: Marx's writings on the Paris Commune are mostly reporting, describing what the Commune did and drawing some conclusions from it.

This is also just complete nonsense if you're suggesting that Marx didn't also praise the Communards and their policies/actions, which he clearly did throughout his Civil War in France and other writings. He positively described for example (as did Engels) the revocable nature of the members on the Commune Council and the roughly equal pay among the Communards. He also offered his criticisms of the Communards, such as their failure to immediately march on Versailles. Is praising the Commune while also offering constructive criticisms the same as merely "reporting what had happened"? If no, then why do you keep claiming this? His letters were likewise overflowing with praise toward the Communards.

Marx consistently, from the…

Marx consistently, from the 1840s to 1880s, advocated use of parliamentarism and conquest of the state by either insurrectionary or, where possible, electoral means as a strategy for working class emancipation. So, in that sense, he was a statist. This advocacy was in deliberate contrast to the anti-statism of anarchism. See relevant quotes in comments below article here; https://libcom.org/article/we-are-against-all-institutional-parties

Red Marriott wrote: Marx…

Red Marriott wrote: Marx consistently, from the 1840s to 1880s, advocated use of parliamentarism and conquest of the state by either insurrectionary or, where possible, electoral means as a strategy for working class emancipation. So, in that sense, he was a statist. This advocacy was in deliberate contrast to the anti-statism of anarchism. See relevant quotes in comments below article here; https://libcom.org/article/we-are-against-all-institutional-parties

Define "statist." Do you mean someone who believes in some totalitarian, state-centered regime? If so, then you can't really argue that Marx ever stood by such an idea, even if Bakunin constantly misportrayed Marx in this way due to personal disagreements and competition within the socialist movement. If you think Marx was a statist in this totalitarian sense, then provide a quote or reference to illustrate what you mean. It's also worth pointing out that anarchists have constantly resorted to forceful or state-like means in order to advance their goals during various revolutionary periods, whether it was the anarchists on the Commune Council (a form of government) or the Makhnovists in Ukraine.

I'll also just mention again that Proudhon was arguably much more of a "statist" (if by that we just mean involvement with governments) than Marx. Marx, for starters, never served in parliament or flooded French royalty with letters requesting their assistance to advance his mutualist ideas. Proudhon's anti-statism was inconsistent and hypocritical at best, as partly evidenced by his conservative "Theory of Taxation" essay, in which he argued for a form of government, taxes on consumption goods, and various other bourgeois/petty-bourgeois objectives. Bakunin likewise hypocritically encouraged his friend Carlo Gambuzzi to run for Deputy from Naples.

adri, you wrote:I would also…

adri, you wrote: I would also describe what Marx called the lower phase of communism as part of a transitional period to full-scale communism (i.e. not just the revolutionary period of the dictatorship of the proletariat).
...
There is no issue in referring to what Marx called the lower phase of communism as a transitional period to a more developed communist society—get over yourself.

The issue is the distinction you contend there being between the transitional phase from capitalism to communism as distinct, "i.e. not just the revolutionary period of the dictatorship of the proletariat", from the revolutionary dictatorship by the proletariat.

You have asked others to define terms. Perhaps you should define what you understand as the revolutionary dictatorship by the working class? Do you understand this to be a government formed representing the interests of the working class, or something else besides?

Marx, in his own words, wrote "on behalf of the party of anarchy". Is this compatible with a representative form of government? Perhaps by his positive approval of representative forms in the Commune he was getting caught up in the tumult of the time and lost from his earlier vision.

Or, perhaps, the discrepancy in his views, between espousal of anarchy and approval of a representative form of government, can be explained more vulgarly? Marx inherited his share of the family wealth—less deductions to his debtor, uncle Lion—after the death of his ma in 1863, eight years before the Commune was established.

The dictatorship by the proletariat is nothing other than the working class dictating its human needs counter to the inhuman need of capital to valorise itself. These two occur simultaneously at present. We are in the transitional phase—socialism, the lower phase of communism—before the emergence of long lost anarchy.

westartfromhere wrote:The…

westartfromhere wrote:The article refutes Lenin's notion of the dictatorship by the proletariat—the imposition of our human needs—being synonymous with the dictatorship over the proletariat

No, it really doesn't, it simply explains belatedly the obvious fact that the DoTP is a state, and that there is no DoTP under communism. Before 1917, "Dictatorship over the proletariat" was a term used against Lenin only by Trotsky; when the latter introduced this term, he was complaining solely about Lenin's perceived "Jacobinism" as a supposedly middle-class Blanquism, as opposed to the proletarian nature of the Social-Democratic orthodoxy which he wholeheartedly advocated. This is clear from the texts and Trotsky did not consider himself to have simply discarded his old beliefs during 1917. Misunderstanding both of these terms on a basic contextual level by reading Marx and these others as though they were completely independent of broader historical movements, and were simply recording clever condemnations of one another for posterity rather than trying to express what the existing labour movement was, as Marx said, really fighting for in its struggles, does not constitute an esoteric insight into the real meaning of words, but rather, forms a new invented language which applies solely to yourself (and quite literally no one else.)

westartfromhere wrote:Marx does not advocate communism. It is not a scheme.

That's not really conveyed by the article's very thorough and detailed graph deciding specifically what will and will not exist under the DoTP and different stages of communism. Arguing about the exact timeframe in which labour vouchers will exist and when classes will actually disappear basically reduces these terms to toys with which to entertain oneself.

Define "statist." Do you…

adri wrote Define "statist." Do you mean someone who believes in some totalitarian, state-centered regime?

I never said anything like that, relax and stop being such a marxoid culture warrior...
In the historical context that gave statism/anti-statism the meaning we’re dealing with here – ie, the conflict between the two main marxist & anarchist currents of the 1st International – the division was between opposing views of process and method. Marx & co believed conquest of the state was a necessary pre-condition to pass through to create a classless communist society. Marx advocated use of the state in contrast to the anarchists; in that sense he was/is considered a statist – pretty simple really. He also consistently advocated, from 1840s-80s, that the labour/socialist movement should use parliamentarism/electoral politics, where possible, to achieve state power as a path towards communism. The anarchists opposed this advocacy as a viable path to true liberation and that is where the statism/anti-statism definition and division is derived from.

Your gatekeeper insistence on turning every disagreement with your position or criticism of Marx into a Marx v Bakunin/marxism v anarchism bout is regressive – trying to absolutely prove supremacy is an ideological irrelevancy and not the most useful way to relate to such things. But in this case I haven’t made a judgement either way, just cited fact, so why immediately jump to supposing I’m ‘accusing’ Marx of being pro-dictatorship? As for anarchists “accusing” Marx of wanting a “totalitarian dictatorship” the historical tendency has been more that, whatever the intentions of socialist state builders might be, the inherent nature of the state form and its function in class society mean it could not deliver the classless communist society statists intended.

Red Marriott wrote: I never…

Red Marriott wrote: I never said anything like that, relax and stop being such a marxoid culture warrior...

Red Marriott wrote: Your gatekeeper insistence on turning every disagreement with your position or criticism of Marx into a Marx v Bakunin/marxism v anarchism bout is regressive – trying to absolutely prove supremacy is an ideological irrelevancy and not the most useful way to relate to such things.

You make multiple bold claims, I respond to them, and now I'm a "Marxoid culture warrior," whatever that is...—ok! For most people, the word "statist" also doesn't just mean someone who advocates the use or involvement of the state; it often implies something stronger like a totalitarian or state-centerd regime, which is not something Marx ever advocated. Hence why I am asking you to define your terms, which is a completely normal thing to do.

Red Marriott wrote: In the historical context that gave statism/anti-statism the meaning we’re dealing with here – ie, the conflict between the two main marxist & anarchist currents of the 1st International – the division was between opposing views of process and method.

Red Marriott wrote: But in this case I haven’t made a judgement either way, just cited fact, so why immediately jump to supposing I’m ‘accusing’ Marx of being pro-dictatorship?

Ok, could you please provide me with a source that supports your claim that "statist" is just an innocuous descriptive term that was in vogue in the nineteenth century and which doesn't carry any sort of negative, anti-working-class connotations?

Red Marriott wrote: Marx advocated use of the state in contrast to the anarchists; in that sense he was/is considered a statist – pretty simple really.

You seriously don't recognize how the word "statist" carries negative connotations and often implies something stronger than simply the use of governmental or forceful means (which anarchists have resorted to countless times, both in theory and practice)? Did Marx or Engels ever personally use the word "statist" to describe themselves? (The answer is they didn't.)

adri wrote: Ok, could you…

adri wrote: Ok, could you please provide me with a source that supports your claim that "statist" is just an innocuous descriptive term that was in vogue in the nineteenth century and which doesn't carry any sort of negative, anti-working-class connotations?

I didn’t claim at all it was “innocuous” – I indicated its usage originated as a hotly disputed main dividing line between 1st Int. marxists & anarchists, thereby putting it in the historical context it derives from; the dispute that gave it the meaning discussed here. If you grasp that, you should understand that, from the anarchist view, what they saw as its objectively “negative, anti-working-class connotations”/consequences are the reason they opposed Marx’s statism. Anarchist theory denied that the state could be used to the benefit of the working class in the ways marxists claimed – so, those who believed that, they called statist. Those reasons they called them statists were real (state conquest, parliamentarism), they existed in marxist theory. You can dispute anarchist conclusions on that, but to try to invalidate that usage – the one historically most appropriate to this debate - due to later totalitarian usage and regimes of a different era (largely ‘marxist’, though we won’t blame Karl for that) is absurd. Odd that you’re constantly presenting as so authoritative on relations between marxism and anarchism, yet don’t understand (or pretend not to) the anarchist usage in that historical context.
If there are “negative, anti-working-class connotations” in the term statism we can assume that’s cos history shows all states since then have had that quality and Marx’s statism is not enhanced by that reality - and the truth of that is apparently what really bugs you, to the point where you want to rewrite/revise language and definitions. Despite his many contributions, Marx was fallible - why do many marxists find that so hard to live with?

adri wrote:You seriously don't recognize how the word "statist" carries negative connotations and often implies something stronger than simply the use of governmental or forceful means (which anarchists have resorted to countless times, both in theory and practice)?

You really are acting like a post-truth culture warrior here, trying to twist definitions to mean whatever you prefer them to mean to suit your ideal narrative; a ridiculous revisionism. Yes, statism has been used in various different ways in diverse political debates – sometimes in neither a totalitarian nor anarchist way. But the concept of statism discussed here is that used in Marx’s time by his opponents and the only one he dealt with, which is what I commented on above. To then complain that other interpretations could be made of the word statism and so we mustn’t use the term at all (in case, heavens above, poor Marx might be wrongfully tarnished) is ridiculous, comically “totalitarian” and revisionist – especially coming from someone so obsessed with Marx v anarchism. It’s like saying you shouldn’t call yourself a marxist/communist in case someone thinks you’re a stalinist.
Marx advocated the use of the state, as revolutionary conquest and via electoral procedure - in contrast to anti-statist anarchists – so, in that sense, no problem with him being called a statist and it’s perfectly understandable why he was called that by his contemporaries to distinguish the two conflicting positions – and why that usage in relevant debates should continue. That doesn’t sit well with you or your preferred portrayal of your Marx deity. Well, tough, it doesn’t make it a wrong or misleading usage.

Red Marriott wrote: I didn’t…

Red Marriott wrote: I didn’t claim at all it was “innocuous” – I indicated its usage originated as a hotly disputed main dividing line between 1st Int. marxists & anarchists, thereby putting it in the historical context it derives from; the dispute that gave it the meaning discussed here.

Putting aside all the ad hominems, it seems like you don't really have a definition of "statist," even though you're now admitting that it does carry a negative connotation. Once again, do you care to define "statism" and show how it applied to Marx? You also rejected above that Marx was "pro-dictatorship," so it seems like you're a bit confused about whether or not you think Marx was an authoritarian.

Red Marriott wrote: If you grasp that, you should understand that, from the anarchist view, what they saw as its objectively “negative, anti-working-class connotations”/consequences are the reason they opposed Marx’s statism.

I don't know what "statism" or a "statist" is in your usage because you won't define it, so it's impossible for me to argue that Marx was not one.

Red Marriott wrote: Anarchist theory denied that the state could be used to the benefit of the working class in the ways marxists claimed [except when they made extensive use of states themselves] – so, those who believed that, they called statist.

You're of course also just completely ignoring how anarchists like Proudhon were arguably more involved in governments than Marx (e.g. Proudhon's attempts to cozy up to French royalty and his inconsistent writings defending a form of government), as well as the fact that anarchists during revolutionary periods have repeatedly resorted to forceful or state-like means to advance their goals. If we want to go with Max Weber's definition of a state as a body that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, then anarchists during the Spanish Revolution, the Makhnovists in Ukraine, and the anarchists on the Commune Council (in addition to nonsense like CHAZ with their security forces) all acted in forceful or state-like ways. Anarchists can protest about states and authority all they like; when it comes to enforcing social rules and carrying out a revolution, they'll find that they have created something similar to a state in the end.

Engels was correct here:

Engels wrote: They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon—authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough? [i.e. marching on Versailles]

Red Marriott wrote: If there are “negative, anti-working-class connotations” in the term statism we can assume that’s cos history shows all states since then have had that quality and Marx’s statism is not enhanced by that reality - and the truth of that is apparently what really bugs you, to the point where you want to rewrite/revise language and definitions. Despite his many contributions, Marx was fallible - why do many marxists find that so hard to live with?

Red Marriott wrote: You really are acting like a post-truth culture warrior here, trying to twist definitions to mean whatever you prefer them to mean to suit your ideal narrative; a ridiculous revisionism.

I just want a definition! Please give me a definition—how hard is this?? And once again, you're just completely ignoring the state-like features of many revolutions or uprisings that anarchists have been involved in. The Commune Council was absolutely a type of workers' government or state, in which anarchists participated (e.g. people like Eugène Varlin and Élie Reclus). Are you saying with the above sentence that the Paris Commune was in some way anti-working-class or "authoritarian" (in an anti-working-class sense) since it was a form of government, even though the Commune councilors were elected by the people of Paris and were revocable??

Also, who on earth said that Marx was infallible?? Point to where I said or suggested that. You're just making stuff up now. If it appears as if I'm defending Marx to an unusual degree on this site, it's just because there are so many unusual people (like yourself and others in this thread) making ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about him (e.g. the idea that the Commune's manifesto was written solely by a Proudhonist and that therefore Marx was supposedly praising a Proudhonist in his Civil War in France—when in fact the manifesto was actually written by a commission of five people and then approved by the non-anarchist majority of the Commune Council). I honestly deserve a medal for the amount of bullshit I've refuted on this site.

adri wrote: Like most…

adri wrote:

Like most socialists did, including Kropotkin and Bakunin? What's your point? Marx's commentary also had the advantage over Kropotkin's and Bakunin's to the extent that Marx accurately portrayed the Commune and didn't falsely depict it as some "anarchist rebellion" when it clearly wasn't.

Clearly adri has not read Bakunin's and Kropotkin's writings on the Commune as they noted that it was not an "anarchist rebellion" (it would be interesting to see the reference for that quote!). Part of their critique was precisely that it was not anarchist enough, that it retained government in Paris. Their writings have the advantage over Marx's as they actually looked for lessons from the revolt rather than just reporting on it -- such as the need for expropriation, federations of workers associations, etc.

Are you interested in responding to where I pointed out how the Paris Commune manifesto was written by a commission of numerous people (and approved by the mostly non-anarchist Commune Council) instead of just a Proudhonist, or are you still lying about that?

Ah, for adri no one ever makes a mistake, they are "still lying" about it.... In terms of who wrote the manifesto, numerous respected sources indicate the role of a Proudhonist in it -- but I guess an assertion by someone on the internet is more valid? And, yes, the programme was approved by the Commune Council, showing that federalism was seen as sensible.

Are you likewise interested in acknowledging how Proudhon hardly had some monopoly on the idea of federalism or decentralized forms of decision-making and that such ideas had been expressed by numerous other writers before him?

Marx not being one of them, which is significant for this discussion... And denying the influence of Proudhon within the French International, really?

Are you similarly still trying to portray the Commune as an anarchist/Proudhonist revolt when that is just an easily disproven falsehood that no serious historian argues?

Seriously, don't you bother to read the people you are ranting against?

Which is an accurate assessment. What don't you agree with?

And so Marx's later apparent dismissal of the Commune is dismissed as unimportant...

I see that adri is having…

I see that adri is having their usual reaction to someone suggesting that Proudhon's idea may be of interest, ah well...

adri wrote:

The Commune Council was absolutely a type of workers' government or state, in which anarchists participated (e.g. people like Eugène Varlin and Élie Reclus).

What was the Commune Council? Let me quote Marx: "The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time." It was the local Council -- hence Marx's and Engel's comments on seizing the current State and modifying it... Also, Proudhon had raised both of those aspects of the Commune in 1848.

If it appears as if I'm defending Marx to an unusual degree on this site, it's just because there are so many unusual people (like yourself and others in this thread) making ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about him (e.g. the idea that the Commune's manifesto was written solely by a Proudhonist and that therefore Marx was supposedly praising a Proudhonist in his Civil War in France—when in fact the manifesto was actually written by a commission of five people and then approved by the non-anarchist majority of the Commune Council).

As noted above, the suggestion that the Commune's programme was written (or drafted) by a Proudhonist has more to back it up than an assertion by some person on the internet. That no reference is given for adri's claim is, of course, unfortunate and surely an oversight which will be corrected shortly -- hopefully it will not be a Marxist making an assertion elsewhere...

Now, to re-state the obvious, the Commune's programme was heavily influenced by Proudhon's ideas, as was the French section of the International. The Communard's called themselves Fédérés. Marx's positive writing on the Commune is, ironically, him praising a revolt influenced by the ideas of someone he usually attacked (often dishonestly). As I suggested, "The Civil War in France" is his most appealing work precisely because it is reporting upon a libertarian-influenced revolt -- and it is very much at odds with his previous writings, as I have indicated. None of this is remotely "unusual" or "unsubstantiated".

I honestly deserve a medal for the amount of bullshit I've refuted on this site.

Now you know how I feel... And, btw, making assertions does not equal "refuted"

Anarcho wrote: Clearly adri…

Anarcho wrote: Clearly adri has not read Bakunin's and Kropotkin's writings on the Commune as they noted that it was not an "anarchist rebellion" (it would be interesting to see the reference for that quote!). Part of their critique was precisely that it was not anarchist enough, that it retained government in Paris. Their writings have the advantage over Marx's as they actually looked for lessons from the revolt rather than just reporting on it -- such as the need for expropriation, federations of workers associations, etc.

Not only have I read both Bakunin's and Kropotkin's texts on the Commune, but I also typed out detailed notes on both authors' writings (8 pages for Kropotkin; 3 for Bakunin's text, which Bakunin actually wrote as part of his unfinished manuscript The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution), posted comments on here explaining my issues with those writings, and found a more complete version of Bakunin's text, which still needs to be updated on here (see my comment on that text).

Clearly comrade Anarcho has not properly comprehended Bakunin's and Kropotkin's writings on the Commune, as Bakunin and Kropotkin actually made contradictory claims (in true Proudhonian fashion) about the nature of the uprising. Starting with Bakunin text "The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State" (which he never actually published and never gave the preceding title; the aforementioned title was actually given by Élisée Reclus when he published parts of Bakunin's text in 1878), he distorted the nature of the Commune when he claimed that "revolutionary socialism has just attempted its first striking and practical demonstration in the Paris Commune." By "revolutionary socialism" he also meant socialist anarchists like himself, as the preceding paragraphs in that text clarify. He similarly, and even more grossly, distorted the nature of the Commune when he wrote that it "was a bold, clearly formulated negation of the State."

Both claims, 1) that it was some first attempt at revolutionary socialism (or anarchism) and 2) that it was an uprising against the state form itself, are just verifiably untrue to anyone who has read any serious scholar on the Paris Commune. For starters, the Communards were not at all against the state, as they created a type of workers' government themselves in the form of the Commune Council! The rebellion itself was also not at all anarchist; Jacobins and Blanquists dominated on the Commune Council in both numbers and influence, whereas the anarchists constituted a minority. Similarly, many Parisians were initially enthusiastic about the creation of a more reform-minded Third Republic following the capture of Louis Napoleon by the Prussians, including Blanquists at the time like Louise Michel.[1] This enthusiasm for the Third Republic also found expression in the Communards' manifesto, which was hardly some anarchist or Proudhonist document.[2] Bakunin noted and critiqued how the Communards set up a government (i.e. the Commune Council) in other parts of his text, which is why I am describing him as contradictory—which is exactly what he was being here.[3] You can't praise the Commune as being some "first attempt" at revolutionary socialism and a "bold, clearly formulated negation of the State" while also criticizing the revolutionary government that the Communards set up and describing the Communards themselves as mostly non-socialist.[4] Bakunin was clearly being inconsistent in his commentary here and simply trying to elevate his own political position by associating it with the Communards' rebellion.

For the sake of keeping this stuff short, see my comments here for a critique of Kropotkin's similarly contradictory essay.

1. See Eichner's book The Paris Commune: A Brief History, which captures Parisians' initial enthusiasm for the creation of the Third Republic:

Eichner wrote: André Léo and Louise Michel joined the crowd on the Place de la Concorde, an enormous open space Michel described as "literally full." Bordering the gardens of the Tuileries Palace, the Place de la Concorde lay across the River Seine from the Palais Bourbon, where the Corps Législative met in emergency session. In deliberating whether to prop up the Empire or declare its death, arguments arose between deputies supporting the Empire and those advocating a republic or a return to monarchy. In the mid-afternoon, a crowd of Parisians invaded the legislature, demanding the republic. Eugène Schneider, the vice president of the Corps Législative and owner of the massive Creusot steel works, had unsuccessfully proposed a provisional government with himself at the head. He suddenly faced a throng of working-class Parisians who drove him out of the Palais Bourbon, shouting "Death to the assassin of Creusot, to the exploiter of workers!" Among the legislators, the choice became clear: the opposition deputy Léon Gambetta proclaimed the republic. Recalling the thrilling moment, Léo effused, "resounding cries burst out around the Palais Bourbon, 'Vive la République!!!' Finally! . . . Finally, we are free!" In the closing lines of her poem "Jail Songs," which commemorated the moment and its revolutionary potential, Michel expressed optimism that the newly dawning republic would be radically progressive: "Red was the rising sun." Like Michel, Sutter-Laumann, and so many among the Parisian left, Léo believed that the republic proclaimed that day was to be a democratic and social republic. They shared what she later termed "the invincible naïveté of those who want and hope." (16-17)

2. The 1871 manifesto was actually called a "Declaration to the French People," but it's been interchangeably described as the Commune's manifesto. Here is the bit I am referring to above:

The Commune Council wrote: Once again, Paris works and suffers for all of France, for whom it prepares, through its combats and sacrifices, the intellectual, moral, administrative and economic regeneration, its glory and prosperity.

What does it ask for?

The recognition and consolidation of the Republic, the only form of government compatible with the rights of the people and the normal and free development of society.

[...]

Notice also the word "government"—and this is the document that Anarcho praises as some incredible "anarchist/Proudhonist" creation when, as any good anarchist knows, anarchists are against republics!

3. Here's Bakunin criticizing the Commune Council or government set up by the Communards, even though it actually had the support of the majority of Parisians:

Bakunin wrote: They had to set up a revolutionary government and army against the government and army of Versailles; in order to fight the monarchist and clerical reaction they were compelled to organize themselves in a Jacobin manner, forgetting or sacrificing the first conditions of revolutionary socialism.

4. Here's Bakunin describing the Commune as non-socialist, after having first described it as some "first attempt" at revolutionary socialism (i.e. anarchism) and some "rebellion" against the state form itself—both of which are just distortions:

Bakunin wrote: We must realize, too, that the majority of the members of the Commune were not socialists, properly speaking. If they appeared to be, it was because they were drawn in this direction by the irresistible course of events, the nature of the situation, the necessities of their position, rather than through personal conviction. The socialists were a tiny minority–there were, at most, fourteen or fifteen of them; the rest were Jacobins.

Anarcho wrote: As for Marx and Engels, well there is Marx’s 1881 evaluation that the Commune was “merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be.”

There's also some irony, Anarcho, in how you invoked Marx calling the Commune not really socialist—as if you think that's some controversial opinion—when other writers like Bakunin also noted the same thing. The only difference is that Bakunin did it in a contradictory fashion by first claiming that the Commune was some first attempt at revolutionary socialism and some negation of the idea of the state itself, both of which are not true.

Anarcho wrote: As noted…

Anarcho wrote: As noted above, the suggestion that the Commune's programme was written (or drafted) by a Proudhonist has more to back it up than an assertion by some person on the internet. That no reference is given for adri's claim is, of course, unfortunate and surely an oversight which will be corrected shortly [you best believe it—get yourself a baguette 'cause things are about to get Frenchy!] -- hopefully it will not be a Marxist making an assertion elsewhere...

(Here's Anarcho's article for anyone following along. See also the footnote for the exact passage we're talking about.[1])

I have actually already given you numerous references in the other thread where we discussed this (which you never responded to), but I can discuss it some more here and provide you with even better sources. As mentioned, the "Declaration to the French People" was actually written by a commission of numerous people, including the Jacobin Charles Delescluze and the socialist/anarchist Jules Vallès. After reading the session notes/minutes of the Commune Council, it does not seem as if the Proudhonist Pierre Denis was even on the commission assigned to draft up a manifesto; he is rarely even mentioned in the session notes.

In terms of who contributed the most to the document, I can cite Vallès himself—the co-contributor to the manifesto—where he stated in an 18 April 1871 session of the Commune Council that it was actually Delescluze who played the largest role in the manifesto's creation (I'm using Google Translate to get a rough translation):

Vallès said: You instructed the Commission to draw up a program, and it did so; this program was conceived, in its entirety and in its wording, by Citizen Delescluze; but it was adopted by the vote of the Commission. (274)

These session notes are also referenced in other places, such as by the respected French historian Jacques Rougerie in his Paris Libre, 1871, in which he also rejected the idea that the Proudhonist Denis was solely responsible for the "Declaration to the French People." Here is Rougerie describing the manifesto (rough Google Translation):

Rougerie wrote: Here is the ultimate definition of the Commune. A text less insipid, indigent, and spineless than so many historians have said since Lissagaray*! Is it the conception of the "Proudhonian" Commune that triumphs, as is also often claimed? This is a feature that we must, I believe, be careful not to exaggerate. The two principal authors of the "Declaration" are Vallès and Delescluze, and even, Vallès assures at the session of April 18: "this program was conceived, in its entirety and in its wording, by citizen Delescluze"; we find in it in fact the principal themes of his letter of April 18. (156)

In addition, if you read further down in the session notes of the 18 April 1871 meeting, you'll also see that various people made recommendations and suggested changes to the manifesto, which the commissioners agreed to.[2]

If the document was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis (which it wasn't), then one would also expect for that document to be attributed to "Pierre Denis" at the bottom, rather than "the Paris Commune" (or in other words, the Commune Council) as it actually was. It would also make absolutely no sense for the mostly Jacobin and Blanquist Commune Council to entrust a Proudhonist with writing their manifesto and to then approve that manifesto nearly unanimously.

In comrade Anarcho's defense, there are quite a few sources that erroneously claim that the "Declaration to the French People"/Commune manifesto was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis, or which overemphasize his role in its creation (e.g. Lissagaray and his history of the Commune). I am not quite sure what these authors are basing these claims on, if anyone would like to clue me in...

As far as the document itself, I personally think it was slightly confused, particularly in its call for the preservation of the Third Republic. I think they should have cut that part out and emphasized their more radical demands, but it's also understandable that many Parisians feared a return to monarchist rule and were desperate for much needed reforms or improvements in their living conditions, especially following the devastating Prussian Siege (September 1870-January 1871) that preceded the Commune.

Anarcho wrote: Ah, for adri no one ever makes a mistake, they are "still lying" about it....

It's certainly true that people make mistakes and change opinions over the years. Mistakes are also bound to happen as new information about historical events becomes available (e.g. archaeological discoveries) and historians have to update their accounts to reflect these new developments. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, just so long as one does not continue to spread false information after finding out the truth about something.

Would you like to retract anything from your passage footnoted below, Anarcho?

Anarcho wrote: What was the Commune Council? Let me quote Marx: "The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time." It was the local Council -- hence Marx's and Engels' comments on seizing the current State and modifying it... Also, Proudhon had raised both of those aspects of the Commune in 1848.

It's not very clear what you're saying here. Are you denying that the "local [Commune] Council" was a government? (Just let me know before I start showering you with sources, including anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin.) Both Marx and virtually every other serious scholar on the Paris Commune has described the Commune Council as a form of government. Marx also explicitly described it as a "working-class government" in his famous line from the Civil War in France—I'm surprised you pretend to not know this. Here's Marx in his famous line:

Marx wrote: The multiplicity of interpretations to which the Commune has been subjected, and the multiplicity of interests which construed it in their favour, show that it was a thoroughly expansive political form, while all previous forms of government had been emphatically repressive. Its true secret was this. It was 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 Labour. (MECW 22:334)

1. Here's the contentious passage:

Anarcho wrote So, clearly, the major influence in terms of “political vision” of the Commune was anarchism. The “rough sketch of national organisation which the Commune had no time to develop”[82] which Marx praises but does not quote was written by a follower of Proudhon. It expounded a clearly federalist and “bottom-up” organisational structure. Based on this libertarian revolt, it is unsurprising that Marx’s defence of it took on a libertarian twist. As noted by Bakunin, who argued that its “general effect was so striking that the Marxists themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and proclaimed that its programme and purpose where their own, in face of the simplest logic ... This was a truly farcical change of costume, but they were bound to make it, for fear of being overtaken and left behind in the wave of feeling which the rising produced throughout the world.”[83]

2. As just one example, here's a passage roughly translated by Google (I have decapitalized the names and made some other minor edits):

Recording Secretary wrote: Citizen Raoul [Rigault] rejects in this program the term "Caesarian communism" which is a disguised blame on an entire socialist school and could lead one to believe that there was an agreement between the communists and Bonaparte, while in reality the communists are perhaps the only socialist school which fought in a serious way against the Empire and mixed political action with social action. Citizen [Gustave] Lefrançais also rejects the term "Caesarian communism" as a slander and an economic and historical error. After some observations by Citizen [Leo] Fränkel, Citizen Vallés, on behalf of the Commission, withdraws the incriminated phrase. (277)

So we see here that it wasn't even just the commission which contributed to the manifesto, but also various people on the Commune Council itself, which makes sense considering how it was an official statement about the objectives and views of the Council. This recommendation was also not the only change that the commissioners agreed to.

If it's also of any interest, you can click the view button on the bottom of the screen to switch to "Plain Text." It will then give you copy-able text that you can paste into Google Translate.

Red Marriott wrote: adri…

adri wrote:Putting aside all the ad hominems, it seems like you don't really have a definition of "statist," even though you're now admitting that it does carry a negative connotation. Once again, do you care to define "statism" and show how it applied to Marx? You also rejected above that Marx was "pro-dictatorship," so it seems like you're a bit confused about whether or not you think Marx was an authoritarian.

Wrong; in your desire to imagine I’ve conceded something you invent things or project strawmen. I described the anarchist critique of Marx’s position as ‘having a negative connotation’ – whether you or I agree with that assessment or not it’s a factually correct description of that critique as seen by anarchists, not something I’m “now admitting”.

It’s similarly untrue that I “rejected above that Marx was "pro-dictatorship," – I actually said; “in this case I haven’t made a judgement either way, just cited fact, so why immediately jump to supposing I’m ‘accusing’ Marx of being pro-dictatorship? Nor did I state anything about Marx being authoritarian or not – more of your strawman delusion.

I have, several times, defined statism in contrast to anti-statism within the historical context in which it arose – the dispute between anarchists and Marx & co in the era of the 1st Int. ; that Marx’s consistent advocacy of use of the state by the working class movement qualifies him as statist within the historical context of that conflict. Your inability (whether real, or pretended as a tedious debating tactic) to grasp that simple fact as the definition applied to Marx by his adversaries – and therefore the applicable one in this discussion – is either a comprehension fail or a pretence due to it not being your preferred definition. Your apparent demand for a universal eternal singular definition is absurdly ahistorical – ironically so from a supposed ‘historical materialist’. And trying to use red herrings like the existence of other usages and definitions is equally unconvincing – though other standard definitions, eg "substantial centralized control over social and economic affairs" or "the doctrine that the political authority of the state is legitimate to some degree” could generally be equally applied to Marx, with the qualifier that Marx didn’t propose the state as an intentionally permanent institution. But, of course, the viability of abolishing the state after conquering it was itself a part of the anarchist critique.

Your relentless attempt to frame this kind of discussion as always an absolutist Marx or anarchism stand-off is just trying to strawman others as a mirror image of your own narrow point-scoring sectarianism. Marxists like Mehring and Korsch were more mature, giving anarchist positions their due where they felt applicable (ie, Mehring on the 1st Int. expulsion machinations, Korsch on the Paris Commune supporting Bakunin’s theory more than Marx’s) while still remaining marxist. Your revisionism is typical of the left comm attempts we’ve seen numerous times on this site.

You respond to the anarchist theoretical critique of Marx’s statism by saying, ‘yeh but anarchists did stuff that replicated state activity, or in practice anarchists contradicted their theory sometimes blah blah’. And there is some truth in that – but none of that negates or makes vanish the theoretical critique of Marx that designates Marx as a statist in contrast to anti-statism, and that usefully used ‘statism’ and ‘anti-statism’ to clarify the relevant positions, so it’s all beside the point. Existence and validity of the theoretical position is not denied by pointing out any practical inconsistencies of some.

You don’t agree with that assessment of Marx, fine. Yet you’re claiming to understand anarchist anti-statism so expertly but not the fundamental critique of statism inherent to it – ie, ignoring that the anarchist critique was more nuanced than claiming Marx was advocating authoritarian dictatorship, that it was his advocacy of using the state in the present as well as future that defined, for anarchists, his theory as statist? It’s telling that those adopting your stance rarely mention Marx’s consistent advocacy of parliamentary electoralism when discussing his views on the state – hard to give a convincing ‘not in any way a statist’ gloss to his 40 years of advocacy of participation in the bourgeois state. Instead they try to revise or airbrush it out of existence, as seen here.

Your real issue is that the anarchist critique of statism developed, partly, out of its conflict with Marx, is credible and supported by later historical development (including anarchism’s sorry capitulation to statism in Spain 1936): so you’d like to try to rewrite history, banish and/or distort the terms that make it clear that, on this point at least, the anarchist critique had some validity. You resent having to concede anything to anarchism; most of all a failing in the great icon, hence your role on this website as gatekeeper for an idealised – and fictitious - Marx.

Red "the Ultimate Warrior"…

Red "the Ultimate Warrior" Marriot wrote: Your relentless attempt to frame this kind of discussion as always an absolutist Marx or anarchism stand-off is just trying to strawman others as a mirror image of your own narrow point-scoring sectarianism.

I'm once again just ignoring all of the personal and emotionally driven attacks here that have nothing to do with the topic at hand: that I am a "marxoid culture warrior" (whatever the hell that is), that I am a "post-truth culture warrior" (are you just a fan of the Ultimate Warrior?!), that I am acting as a "gatekeeper for an idealised—and fictitious—Marx" and that I am supposedly engaged in "narrow point-scoring sectarianism" etc.

Regarding the last point, is pointing out how Anarcho is wrong in many of his central claims about Marx, such as the idea that the Proudhonist Pierre Denis was solely responsible for the Commune's "Declaration to the French People" and that Marx was therefore supposedly praising a Proudhonist in his Civil War in France, merely an example of "narrow point-scoring sectarianism"? Am I simply supposed to allow people to spread false information (whether knowingly or not) so that I can avoid being all of the nasty things that you called me above?

Notice also how I haven't said similar things about you or Anarcho; I have actually instead been focusing on both of your arguments (not the person) and thoroughly presenting my case using sources and analysis to back up my position. The fact that your posts here are instead filled with angry name-calling filler is a clear sign that you don't really have a strong position to begin with. I literally just asked you for a definition of "statist"—that's all—and you just go completely off the rails.

Moving on to the more "substantive" parts of your post (of which there is not really much to respond to) and going back to your original claim:

Red Marriot wrote: I have, several times, defined statism in contrast to anti-statism within the historical context in which it arose – the dispute between anarchists and Marx & co in the era of the 1st Int. ; that Marx’s consistent advocacy of use of the state by the working class movement qualifies him as statist within the historical context of that conflict.

Red Marriot wrote: Marx consistently, from the 1840s to 1880s, advocated use of parliamentarism and conquest of the state by either insurrectionary or, where possible, electoral means as a strategy for working class emancipation. So, in that sense, he was a statist. This advocacy was in deliberate contrast to the anti-statism of anarchism. See relevant quotes in comments below article here; https://libcom.org/article/we-are-against-all-institutional-parties

Ok, looking at the first paragraph, is this how you're using the word "statist," simply the "consistent advocacy of the use of the state"? First, what do you base this definition on? Quit just saying that it was a word that the "anti-statists" in the First International used and provide me with an actual source. Second and more importantly, in terms of this article's usage of the word statist, which is what you were originally referring to, do you think that your usage of "statist" is what the author of this article/video, Čeika, had in mind? How on earth would it be controversial that Marx advocated the use of the state, which he obviously did? Clearly that is not what Čeika is referring to when he sets out to show how Marx was not a statist. He is instead referring to the idea that, to use Čeika's own words, "that for Marx, socialism is about state control, or at the very least presupposes state control." In this context or usage of the word "statist," i.e. the idea that Marx advocated for some dictatorial regime and identified that with socialism, Čeika is entirely correct when he argues that Marx was not a "statist" in this regard.

The author was never referring to "statist" in the sense of simply "using the state," so you're not really engaging with the author's actual argument in your initial post above. You can't just employ your own definition of the word "statist" to show how the author of the article is wrong.

Red Marriot wrote: Your inability (whether real, or pretended as a tedious debating tactic) to grasp that simple fact as the definition applied to Marx by his adversaries – and therefore the applicable one in this discussion – is either a comprehension fail or a pretence due to it not being your preferred definition.

It is worth repeating just what I said above:

adri wrote: The author was never referring to "statist" in the sense of simply "using the state," so you're not really engaging with the author's actual argument in your initial post above. You can't just employ your own definition of the word "statist" to show how the author of the article is wrong.

Your particular definition of the word statist is not actually "applicable" to the discussion at hand—you have to engage with the definition of statist in the sense of how the author of this article/video was originally using it. You're just using your own terminology, while also never actually providing me with any sources to show where this usage originates; you just keep saying that it was the "anti-statists" in the First International without providing any actual references.

@adri You have a delusional…

@adri

You have a delusional ego.

adri wrote: I have actually…

adri wrote:

I have actually already given you numerous references in the other thread where we discussed this (which you never responded to), but I can discuss it some more here and provide you with even better sources.

Ah, right, "other thread" -- which is strangely not linked to -- which I "never responded to", which suggests I may not have read it (or, if I did, I felt it pointless to reply -- as I am now view this particular exchange)

As mentioned, the "Declaration to the French People" was actually written by a commission of numerous people, including the Jacobin Charles Delescluze and the socialist/anarchist Jules Vallès. After reading the session notes/minutes of the Commune Council, it does not seem as if the Proudhonist Pierre Denis was even on the commission assigned to draft up a manifesto; he is rarely even mentioned in the session notes.

Here are two references:

"The Jacobin Delescluze was one of the committee appointed to draw up the programme, but he took little part . . . . neither Vallès, Malon nor Thiesz seemed very interested, and finally it was left to the Proudhonist journalist Pierre Denis to draft the Declaration, which was adopted after hardly any discussion." (Edwards Stewart, The Paris Commune 1871 [Newton Abbot: Victorian (& Modern History) Book Club, 1972], 218)

"Of the five members charged to draw up the draft, only Delescluze contributed some passages; the technical part was the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis." (Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, History of the Paris Commune of 1871 [Verso, 2012], 162-3)

As for "Vallès himself" (who cannot be "the co-contributor to the manifesto" if, as he himself claims, Delescluze wrote the whole thing) perhaps he may have been covering his lack of actual involvement or he may have been repeating what Delescluze had told him (to save him admitting he was not that involved). That is why simply repeating what someone says they did is not good scholarship, any claim needs to be evaluated -- and the consensus amongst historians appears to be that Pierre Denis was the main author.

And I should note that the notion that "it does not seem as if the Proudhonist Pierre Denis was even on the commission assigned to draft up a manifesto" appears to be wishful thinking on adri's part (every source I've looked at who mentions individuals lists him). As for the notion that "he is rarely even mentioned in the session notes", well, all of life is not contained in the minutes of local government council sessions...

If the document was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis (which it wasn't), then one would also expect for that document to be attributed to "Pierre Denis" at the bottom, rather than "the Paris Commune" (or in other words, the Commune Council) as it actually was. It would also make absolutely no sense for the mostly Jacobin and Blanquist Commune Council to entrust a Proudhonist with writing their manifesto and to then approve that manifesto nearly unanimously.

Christ, this is getting tedious. It was approved by the Commune and so became the Declaration of the Commune rather than the work of the person who drafted it. And it would appear that the "mostly Jacobin and Blanuist Commune Council" did approve a Declaration drafted by a Proudhonist and which expressed federalist-socialist ideas. The Declaration is very clearly at odds with the centralist notions of Jacobin and Blanquist ideology, as noted by every serious historian on the subject.

I cannot believe that I now have to point out the federalist nature of Declaration.

In comrade Anarcho's defense, there are quite a few sources that erroneously claim that the "Declaration to the French People"/Commune manifesto was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis, or which overemphasize his role in its creation (e.g. Lissagaray and his history of the Commune). I am not quite sure what these authors are basing these claims on, if anyone would like to clue me in...

Ah, right, we have gone from "or are you still lying about that" to making claims based on "quite a few sources..." -- enough said.

Are you denying that the "local [Commune] Council" was a government? (Just let me know before I start showering you with sources, including anarchists like Bakunin and Kropotkin.) Both Marx and virtually every other serious scholar on the Paris Commune has described the Commune Council as a form of government.

It gets worse -- what is the point of this discussion when Adri seems unable to understand basic English when needed. And he has linked to an article in which, as he knows, I note -- as did Bakunin and Kropotkin -- that it was a (local) government. I note he thinks that Bakunin and Kropotkin were "contradictory" about this, not so as they noted both the libertarian and non-libertarian aspects of the revolt -- and how the latter undermined the former. To state what should be obvious, any given event can have aspects which you consider positive and others which you consider as negative. You can support a revolt like the Paris Commune and be critical of aspects of it. That I have to state such a basic truism speaks volumes.

So we see here that it wasn't even just the commission which contributed to the manifesto, but also various people on the Commune Council itself, which makes sense considering how it was an official statement about the objectives and views of the Council. This recommendation was also not the only change that the commissioners agreed to.

Seriously, you cannot comprehend how one person can draft a document before others tweak it and endorse it? Just as well state that the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" was not written by Marx and Engels because it was issued as a document of the Communist Party...

So what have we learned from all this? Not very much. I repeated what numerous historians on the Paris Commune have noted in terms of main authorship of the Declaration -- and many writers also note the federalist nature of the Commune and that federalist-associationist ideas were reflective of Proudhon's ideas, that Proudhon's ideas were popular in the French International, etc. Nothing remotely controversial and all well-established.

Of course, it seems to be embarrassing for some that Marx was praising a federalist document much at odds with the politics he had previously advocated and very much in-line with the ideas previously expressed by Proudhon and the Federalist-wing of the International.

There seems little point in continuing with this. Adri is clearly contributing in bad faith and I have better things to do with my time.

Anarcho wrote: As for …

Anarcho wrote: As for "Vallès himself" (who cannot be "the co-contributor to the manifesto" if, as he himself claims, Delescluze wrote the whole thing) perhaps he may have been covering his lack of actual involvement or he may have been repeating what Delescluze had told him (to save him admitting he was not that involved). That is why simply repeating what someone says they did is not good scholarship, any claim needs to be evaluated -- and the consensus amongst historians appears to be that Pierre Denis was the main author.

An evaluation which you're not at all doing when you just take Lissagaray, Edwards, and other authors at face value despite the substantial evidence and primary sources that undermine your and their claims (e.g. the Council minutes). If you also notice, a lot of these writers (after Lissagaray) are just parroting each other or briefly mentioning Denis instead of actually explaining in what ways he contributed to the manifesto. A major source for the Denis attribution is in fact Lissagaray, and he never really spelled out in what ways Denis actually contributed besides noting similarities between Denis' writings and the manifesto. Regardless of whether Denis contributed or not, we know for a fact that a commission (which Denis wasn't on—he wasn't even a member of the Council) was set up to draft a program and that this commission indeed contributed to the creation of a manifesto. We also know that multiple people made suggestions to that document later on, which were implemented, when Vallès presented it to the Council (e.g. the removal of the expression "Caesarian communism"). On the basis of these facts alone, your claim that the manifesto was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis is anything but accurate.

As far as primary sources are concerned, in addition to the Vallès source, we can also cite the socialist/anarchist Arthur Arnould—a member of the Commune Council and a follower of your dear Proudhon—when he similarly noted that the document was written primarily by Delescluze with the help of Vallès in his 1878 book on the Commune. Here's Arnould in his Popular and Parliamentary History of the Paris Commune (I'm using Google Translate to get a rough translation):

Arnould wrote: The Declaration to the French People of April 19 was written by Delescluze, with the assistance of Jules Vallès, who was part of the commission appointed for this purpose. (101)

There are also certainly a lot of scholars who erroneously attribute the Commune manifesto solely to the Proudhonist Denis, but that doesn't at all make them right. (Do I really need to provide examples of scholarly "consensuses" turning out to be completely wrong? As just one example, I could note the frequent claim that Marx thought that Russia was obliged to go through capitalist development, when in fact he argued the exact opposite—none of these scholars ever actually engages with the relevant writings of Marx on Russia.) What the majority of scholars says is often important and should be considered, but it is not the only thing to take into account. Sometimes it is a minority or some lesser fraction of scholars who better approximate the truth.

In addition to the late French scholar Jacques Rougerie—who specialized in the Paris Commune all his life and published multiple books and articles on the subject—I can point to other scholars who reject the idea that the Proudhonist Denis was solely responsible for the manifesto, such as Stathis Kouvelakis.

Anarcho wrote: And I should note that the notion that "it does not seem as if the Proudhonist Pierre Denis was even on the commission assigned to draft up a manifesto" appears to be wishful thinking on adri's part (every source I've looked at who mentions individuals lists him).

He wasn't! He wasn't even on the Commune Council—good grief! Denis wasn't listed among the people on the commission in any of the session notes. Are you sure you're not just confusing authors arguing that Denis was one of the people who contributed to the manifesto—which is quite different from him being on the commission? If there are authors claiming that he was on the commission, then they just don't know what they're talking about.

Anarcho wrote: So what have we learned from all this? Not very much. I repeated what numerous historians on the Paris Commune have noted in terms of main authorship of the Declaration [who are wrong] -- and many writers also note the federalist nature of the Commune and that federalist-associationist ideas were reflective of Proudhon's ideas [many authors actually reject the idea that Proudhon/anarchism was the major influence on the Commune—but go on], that Proudhon's ideas were popular in the French International, etc. Nothing remotely controversial and all well-established [!!].

You're still just completely ignoring how the idea of self-governing communes or decentralized forms of decision-making was hardly unique to Proudhon. According to scholars like Rougerie and Kouvelakis, such ideas in one form or another were not uncommon among Jacobins and Blanquists during the Commune. Why don't you engage with Kouvelakis' (fairly detailed) argument regarding the prevalence of such ideas that I posted elsewhere? I'll post it again for your convenience:

Kouvelakis wrote: Now we get to the second key idea in the Commune's transformation of political institutions, namely the radical decentralisation of power. As we have said, in one way or another, this principle inspired all forces in the opposition against the Second Empire, from municipalist republicans to the various versions of federalism and even socialist projects. We find similarly multifaceted expressions of this principle also among the ranks of the workers' movement. This, of course, included Proudhonian currents, inspired by his The Principle of Federation (1863), one of the last of his works to appear during his lifetime. Contrary to what is often imagined, this principle was far from limited to these currents alone, even if—it is worth remembering—this political aspect of Proudhonism, fundamentally hostile to the state, all centralisation and even any form of wide-scale political or economic organisation, had lasted better than Proudhon's more properly socialist perspective, which was largely superseded in the workers' movement in the years before the fall of the Second Empire. Indeed, as Jacques Rougerie's works show, the genealogy of the term and idea of federation had deep roots in the republican and socialist thought that crystallised during the revolutions of 1848, around such figures as Constantin Pecqueur, Victor Considérant, Saint-Simonians like Pauline Roland or the socialist Moritz Rittinghausen. A former collaborator of Marx's Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Rittinghausen had in 1850 published a series of three articles on 'Direct legislation by the people, or genuine democracy' in the Fourierist weekly La Démocratie pacifique, republished in book form the following year—a true manifesto for direct democracy. By the time of the Commune, almost everyone had their own version of the communalist idea, from 'neo-Jacobins' like Delescluze to sui generis socialists like Vermorel or Millière. Even the Blanquists had their own notion of the 'revolutionary Commune'. Their main theorist, Gustave Tridon, had in 1864 mounted a rehabilitation of Hébert and the sans-culotte commune of 1792-94, in a text that sought to defend the need for a revolutionary dictatorship, relentlessly fighting from above against reaction and thus unleashing the masses' spontaneous energy from below.

adri wrote: An evaluation…

adri wrote:

An evaluation which you're not at all doing when you just take Lissagaray, Edwards, and other authors at face value despite the substantial evidence and primary sources that undermine your and their claims (e.g. the Council minutes).

One quote from one source -- one which, as noted below, is contradicted by other Communards (amongst others).

Compared to the sources already indicated as well as these:

"Although Pierre Denis was the principal author of the resulting document — the so-called Declaration to the French People - there is no indication that Malon objected to its substance; in fact he reproduced it in full in his writings about the Commune. The document is moderate, communalist, and Proudhonian in tone." (K. Steven Vincent, Between Marxism and Anarchism: Benoît Malon and French Reformist Socialism, 33)

"Vallès commissioned his friend, the Proudhonian Pierre Denis (1840-1907), a journalist at the 'Cri du Peuple' to write the text. He was not a member of the municipal assembly, but supported the three men. Vallès, for his part, simply amended it before submitting it to Charles Delescluze for some corrections and formatting." ( https://www.commune1871.org/la-commune-de-paris/histoire-de-la-commune/commune-1871-ephemeride/1209-commune-1871-ephemeride-19-avril-la-declaration-au-peuple-francais )

I should note that Vallès worked with Denis on "Cri du Peuple" and shared similar politics: "Vallès... and Pierre Denis, likewise a socialist of Proudhonian tendencies" (Martin Phillip Johnson, The paradise of association : political culture and popular organizations in the Paris Commune of 1871, 94)

"Declaration to the French People... was essentially written by the Proudhonian journalist Pierre Denis, assisted by Jules Vallès and Charles Delescluze. Denis was one of Vallès's collaborators at Cri du peuple, which explains his unusual presence here. It should be noted that the text was adopted unanimously, minus one vote, by the Commune, a sign that it had not put off either the Blanquists or the neo-Jacobins, despite its very pronounced federalism." (Jean-François Dupeyron, . « "Vive la Commune !" Oui, mais laquelle ? Notes sur la référence à la Commune de Paris dans les mouvements sociaux », Terrains/Théories, n° 13, 2021.)

"This programme, which was supposed to be drawn up by a commission of five members, was mainly the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis, assisted by Delescluze. The former, a writer in Jules Vallès’ Cri du Peuple, was fanatical on the question of federal autonomy, and this he managed to place in the forefront of the new declaration which demanded the recognition of the republic, and the autonomy of the township or commune (irrespective of its size) throughout France." (Ernest Belfort Bax, The Paris Commune)

Recall that adri proclaimed "or are you still lying about that" in relation to me repeating this overwhelming consensus.

If you also notice, a lot of these writers (after Lissagaray) are just parroting each other or briefly mentioning Denis instead of actually explaining in what ways he contributed to the manifesto. A major source for the Denis attribution is in fact Lissagaray, and he never really spelled out in what ways Denis actually contributed besides noting similarities between Denis' writings and the manifesto.

Many did explain what happened, namely that no one on the commission had time (or inclination?) to work on the declaration, including Vallès -- and Vallès asked Denis, whom he worked with on a newspaper and shared similar politics, to write it. Vallès may have been less than keen to admit this to the Council and so said Delescluze wrote it.

That the declaration was at odds with Delescluze's Jacobin politics was and is noted. For example:

"This is the funeral oration of Jacobinism, pronounced by one of its leaders" (RASTOGL).

"And it affirms more than ever, against Jacobin doctrines, the revolutionary principle: FEDERATION" (André Léo, “Le programme de la Commune”, La Sociale, 22 April 1871)

Why a Jacobin would pen such an obviously anti-Jacobin Declaration should be explained by those seeking to deny the consensus.

Regardless of whether Denis contributed or not, we know for a fact that a commission (which Denis wasn't on—he wasn't even a member of the Council) was set up to draft a program and that this commission indeed contributed to the creation of a manifesto.

In the face of the consense, even Jacques Rougerie suggests Denis could have influenced it: "The two principal authors of the 'Declaration' are Vallès and Delescluze, and even, Vallès assures at the session of April 18: 'this program was conceived, in its entirety and in its wording, by citizen Delescluze'; we find there in fact the principal themes of his letter of April 18. Certainly, for his part, Vallès borrowed some of his terms from the formidable Pierre Denis, his colleague—rest assured, this is the last time he will be quoted". It would appear Rougerie dislikes Denis which may have impacted on his evaluation of the situation.

Still, Rougerie does not take Vallès at face value and suggests, against Vallès himself, that Delescluze was only one of its principal authors. So even adri's own references do not draw the same strong position he takes.

We also know that multiple people made suggestions to that document later on, which were implemented, when Vallès presented it to the Council (e.g. the removal of the expression "Caesarian communism"). On the basis of these facts alone, your claim that the manifesto was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis is anything but accurate.

As adri has admitted, it is not my "claim" -- I repeated the consensus of numerous historians. And it should go without saying that one person can write a text for a group, submit it to that group for revision and then for that group to issue the text in its name. In a sensible world, you do not have to spell that out in mind-numbing detail...

Still, if that is the world which adri wants to live in, I look forward to him proclaiming anyone who states that the Communist Manifesto was the sole work of Marx and Engels is a liar -- for it was issued by the German Communist Party...

As far as primary sources are concerned, in addition to the Vallès source, we can also cite the socialist/anarchist Arthur Arnould—a member of the Commune Council and a follower of your dear Proudhon—when he similarly noted that the document was written primarily by Delescluze with the help of Vallès in his 1878 book on the Commune. Here's Arnould in his Popular and Parliamentary History of the Paris Commune

Which, of course, contradicts Vallès who states that "this program was conceived, in its entirety and in its wording, by Citizen Delescluze" (a quote provided by adri).

As for "your dear Proudhon", well we know that adri dislikes Proudhon and simply cannot let anyone say anything positive about him... nice to see someone as the time to be so petty. Suffice to say, recognising Proudhon's importance in the history of socialism (and seeking to correct distortions and misunderstandings) does not mean viewing him as a flawless idol, regardless of what some people seem to think.

There are also certainly a lot of scholars who erroneously attribute the Commune manifesto solely to the Proudhonist Denis, but that doesn't at all make them right... What the majority of scholars says is often important and should be considered, but it is not the only thing to take into account. Sometimes it is a minority or some lesser fraction of scholars who better approximate the truth.

Least we forget, when I repeated what adri now admits that "a lot of scholars" said, adri proclaimed "are you still lying about that".

As for "erroneously", well, of course, the majority can be wrong and established conventional wisdom can be found to be lacking. For example, many proclaim that Marx refuted Proudhon in "The Poverty of Philosophy" but that work is a tissue of distortions, cherry-picking, invented quotes, etc. But what is the situation here? One quote which is contradicted by other Communards and Jacques Rougerie does not accept it...

So I think I will stick with the scholars rather than some person on the internet...

In addition to the late French scholar Jacques Rougerie—who specialized in the Paris Commune all his life and published multiple books and articles on the subject—I can point to other scholars who reject the idea that the Proudhonist Denis was solely responsible for the manifesto, such as Stathis Kouvelakis.

Ah, now we are back to "solely responsible"... Rougerie indicates the theoretical similarities with Denis' politics while Kouvelakis presents a few of the contradictory claims and seems not to understand that "a commission set up for this very purpose" does NOT automatically mean "it was the work of several people" (for reasons indicated above).

He wasn't! He wasn't even on the Commune Council—good grief! Denis wasn't listed among the people on the commission in any of the session notes. Are you sure you're not just confusing authors arguing that Denis was one of the people who contributed to the manifesto—which is quite different from him being on the commission? If there are authors claiming that he was on the commission, then they just don't know what they're talking about.

Just to state the obvious, just because he was not on the council nor on the commission does not mean he did not write the draft of the Declaration -- as noted, historians have indicated how this happened. Still, if is not mentioned in the Council's minutes then apparently it did not happen...

You're still just completely ignoring how the idea of self-governing communes or decentralized forms of decision-making was hardly unique to Proudhon.

And you are completely ignoring that Proudhon was the most famous of those who advocated of federalism and whose followers (whether right or left) were predominant in the French International. To quote Jacques Rougerie, Proudhon "was one of the first to proclaim the rights of the free and sovereign Commune.... Here at last is a coherent definition of the Commune, or even of a communal system, and if we have quoted Proudhon at length, it is because his influence will still be deeply felt by many who, whether under siege or in March 1871, will speak of the Commune and attempt to define it." (google translate) And that Proudhonists played a key part in the "Declaration to the French People" (regardless of whether it is Vallès or Denis we are discussing, discounting -- as all the historians seem to do -- Vallès's comments about Delescluze as the sole author).

So what have we learned from all this? That I repeated the consensus of historians in my claim on Denis, so showing that I was not "lying" as adri asserted (and still no sign of an apology in spite of his admitting I was repeating this consensus), that adri's claims are contradicted by his own sources, and that adri would deny the importance of Proudhon's ideas in the French International and the Commune's minority simply to avoid admitting that Marx was praising a Declaration imbued with Proudhonist ideas. Still, Proudhon-bad, eh?

We are also very far from original discussion, namely that the associationism and federalism of Commune was foreign to the politics that Marx and Engels had previously advocated (some of which I had quoted). As intended, I am sure.

Anarcho wrote: One quote…

Anarcho wrote: One quote from one source -- one which, as noted below, is contradicted by other Communards (amongst others).

Ok, great, so you have other Communard sources besides Lissagaray? Let's see these "other Communards" who claim that the Commune Council's "Declaration to the French People" was written solely by the Proudhonist Pierre Denis.

Anarcho wrote: Compared to the sources already indicated as well as these: [...] "Vallès commissioned his friend, the Proudhonian Pierre Denis (1840-1907), a journalist at the 'Cri du Peuple' to write the text. He was not a member of the municipal assembly, but supported the three men. Vallès, for his part, simply amended it before submitting it to Charles Delescluze for some corrections and formatting." ( https://www.commune1871.org/la-commune-de-paris/histoire-de-la-commune/commune-1871-ephemeride/1209-commune-1871-ephemeride-19-avril-la-declaration-au-peuple-francais )

Yes, I came across this website, though unfortunately they never provide a source for their claim, leading me to believe that they're mostly speculating. The argument doesn't seem that different from Lissagaray's claim that Denis supposedly must have written the manifesto due to its similarities with Denis' own writings. Do you have an actual source that supports the assertion that Vallès just "sub-commissioned" the work out to his colleague? Why repeat such a claim if you don't?

Anarcho wrote: Recall that adri proclaimed "or are you still lying about that" in relation to me repeating this overwhelming consensus.

You have sort of been known to lie, such as your other erroneous claim that the Christian socialist/reformer Flora Tristan used Marx's self-emancipation phrase before he did (i.e. insinuating that Marx stole or copied it from Tristan), despite the fact that Tristan never even used the phrase and also appealed extensively to the upper classes for their support (in addition to writing about herself in her journals as the Christ-like savior of the working poor etc.). This claim appears in your AFAQ, which I brought to your attention along with an incorrect date. What does comrade Anarcho do in response to me bringing these errors to his attention? He fixes the date but retains the erroneous claim and misattribution of quotes; I can't think of a more suitable word for such behavior other than "lying."

I am also not sure why you keep quoting secondary sources that claim that the Proudhonist Denis was mostly responsible for the manifesto; I already addressed this point in my last couple of posts above:

adri wrote: There are also certainly a lot of scholars who erroneously attribute the Commune manifesto solely to the Proudhonist Denis, but that doesn't at all make them right. (Do I really need to provide examples of scholarly "consensuses" turning out to be completely wrong? As just one example, I could note the frequent claim that Marx thought that Russia was obliged to go through capitalist development, when in fact he argued the exact opposite—none of these scholars ever actually engages with the relevant writings of Marx on Russia.) What the majority of scholars says is often important and should be considered, but it is not the only thing to take into account. Sometimes it is a minority or some lesser fraction of scholars who better approximate the truth.

I can provide you with a slew of scholars making the unsubstantiated claim that Marx thought that Russia was obliged to go through capitalist development, but repeating a lie doesn't make it true. Instead of just posting all of these secondary sources, why don't you look at their footnotes or references to see what they're basing these claims on? Do they not actually have any footnotes? Are they actually just quoting other scholars who themselves never actually provide a source or just quote Lissagaray? You're still just taking these authors at face value instead of trying to get to the bottom of what evidence or primary sources there are to support the idea that the Proudhonist Denis was mainly responsible for the manifesto. Some superficial similarities between Denis' writings and the manifesto, along with the fact that Vallès was colleagues with Denis, is not some smoking gun that definitively "proves" that Denis was solely responsible for the document.

Some of the sources you're citing also conflict with your portrayal of the document as the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis—which it wasn't—so I'm not quite sure why you're even quoting those to begin with. I have also never denied that the Proudhonist Denis might have contributed to the document in some way; I have only disputed your exaggerated claim that it was the sole creation of Denis when we know this to not be true (e.g. the suggestions from people on the Commune Council that were implemented).

Anarcho wrote: Many did explain what happened, namely that no one on the commission had time (or inclination?) to work on the declaration, including Vallès -- and Vallès asked Denis, whom he worked with on a newspaper and shared similar politics, to write it. Vallès may have been less than keen to admit this to the Council and so said Delescluze wrote it.

Provide me with some evidence (not just secondary sources) that supports the idea that no one on the commission had the time or inclination to work on the declaration and that therefore "Vallès asked Denis" to write it up himself—what evidence do you have to support such claims besides the speculation of some authors?

Anarcho wrote: That the declaration was at odds with Delescluze's Jacobin politics was and is noted. For example:

"This is the funeral oration of Jacobinism, pronounced by one of its leaders" (RASTOGL).

"And it affirms more than ever, against Jacobin doctrines, the revolutionary principle: FEDERATION" (André Léo, “Le programme de la Commune”, La Sociale, 22 April 1871)

Why a Jacobin would pen such an obviously anti-Jacobin Declaration should be explained by those seeking to deny the consensus.

See Kouvelakis' paragraph quoted above regarding how the idea of self-governing communes and decentralized forms of decision-making was not at all unique to Proudhon. See also Rougerie who made the same points.

Anarcho wrote: It would appear Rougerie dislikes Denis which may have impacted on his evaluation of the situation.

Rougerie wrote (rough Google Translation): «The technical part was the work of a journalist, Pierre Denis, a Proudhonian, a quibbler who humiliated Pascal's heroes [...]. What could we expect, what could we hope for from the autonomies of Lower Brittany, from nine-tenths of the French communes [...]. The Parisian declaration [...] forgot to mention the right of association [...]. It did not know the first word about the province [...]. It was the funeral oration of the weak.» Lissagaray, 75, II, p. 28.

Lissagaray is severe, I hope to prove it below. The Declaration could not resolve at once all the problems raised by the drafting of a new communal constitution, perhaps necessary. But that was not its aim.

Funny that Lissagaray also held animosity toward Denis, as Rougerie himself noted (e.g. see Lissagaray's negative and critical descriptions of Denis in his History of the Commune). So by your own logic, should that not also cast doubt on Lissagaray's "evaluation of the situation" and his suggestion that the manifesto was primarily the work of Denis?

Anarcho wrote: As adri has admitted, it is not my "claim" -- I repeated the consensus of numerous historians. And it should go without saying that one person can write a text for a group, submit it to that group for revision and then for that group to issue the text in its name. In a sensible world, you do not have to spell that out in mind-numbing detail...

I really thought I had addressed this whole consensus business in my posts above—do you agree with the consensus of economists that capitalism has a few defects here and there but is otherwise amazing and delivers the goods??

Are you also now acknowledging that the Commune Council itself made revisions to the document before publishing it? Wouldn't that undermine your claim that the document was the sole creation of the Proudhonist Denis, which is what you were originally arguing? In fact, you never even mentioned a commission in your article or the fact that that document was edited and published on behalf of the Commune Council. If you need a reminder of what you originally claimed I can provide it to you right here:

Anarcho wrote: So, clearly, the major influence in terms of “political vision” of the Commune was anarchism. The “rough sketch of national organisation which the Commune had no time to develop”[82] which Marx praises but does not quote was written by a follower of Proudhon. It expounded a clearly federalist and “bottom-up” organisational structure. Based on this libertarian revolt, it is unsurprising that Marx’s defence of it took on a libertarian twist. As noted by Bakunin, who argued that its “general effect was so striking that the Marxists themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and proclaimed that its programme and purpose where their own, in face of the simplest logic ... This was a truly farcical change of costume, but they were bound to make it, for fear of being overtaken and left behind in the wave of feeling which the rising produced throughout the world.”[83]

You also make similar claims elsewhere, in which you similarly never mention the other people who were involved in the creation of the document.

Anarcho wrote: Lest we forget, when I repeated what adri now admits that "a lot of scholars" said, adri proclaimed "are you still lying about that".

Lest we forget, I've addressed this consensus business in my preceding posts, which you just don't engage with at all. Lest we also forget, I've pointed out other inconsistencies in your claims about Marx and the Commune, which you haven't even acknowledged yet, such as how Marx supposedly "dismissed" the Commune as non-socialist in a letter when Bakunin made extremely similar remarks himself. I'll post that again for you:

Anarcho wrote: As for Marx and Engels, well there is Marx’s 1881 evaluation that the Commune was “merely the rising of a city under exceptional conditions, the majority of the Commune was in no wise socialist, nor could it be.”

Anarcho wrote: And so Marx's later apparent dismissal of the Commune is dismissed as unimportant...

Bakunin wrote: We must realize, too, that the majority of the members of the Commune were not socialists, properly speaking. If they appeared to be, it was because they were drawn in this direction by the irresistible course of events, the nature of the situation, the necessities of their position, rather than through personal conviction. The socialists were a tiny minority–there were, at most, fourteen or fifteen of them; the rest were Jacobins.

adri wrote: There's also some irony, Anarcho, in how you invoked Marx calling the Commune not really socialist—as if you think that's some controversial opinion—when other writers like Bakunin also noted the same thing. The only difference is that Bakunin did it in a contradictory fashion by first claiming that the Commune was some first attempt at revolutionary socialism and some negation of the idea of the state itself, both of which are not true.

Anarcho wrote: But what is the situation here? One quote which is contradicted by other Communards and Jacques Rougerie does not accept it...

Who are these other Communards besides Lissagaray?! Come on, provide us with these Communard sources that supposedly claim that the Proudhonist Denis was the sole creator of the Commune's "Declaration to the French People." We would love to see them.

Anarcho wrote: Just to state the obvious, just because he was not on the council nor on the commission does not mean he did not write the draft of the Declaration -- as noted, historians have indicated how this happened. Still, if is not mentioned in the Council's minutes then apparently it did not happen...

None of the sources you cited above provides any form of concrete evidence suggesting how Vallès supposedly "sub-commissioned" Denis to write the document. Do you even know what concrete evidence is? It's not some author citing another author who made the claim, nor is it some author making such an assertion but then providing no source to back it up. Concrete evidence would be something like Denis himself mentioning somewhere how he wrote the document, or Vallès coming out and saying that it was actually Denis who mostly drafted it. Of course you would still have to critically engage with such sources, but that would be more substantial evidence than just some authors who are quoting each other or who never provide any direct sources to back up their claims.

Anarcho wrote: that adri's claims are contradicted by his own sources

What the hell are you on about??

Anarcho wrote: and that adri would deny the importance of Proudhon's ideas in the French International and the Commune's minority simply to avoid admitting that Marx was praising a Declaration imbued with Proudhonist ideas.

I've never denied Proudhon's influence on the Commune and especially not on the Commune's anarchist minority—key word there! Proudhon was not the principal influence on the Communards—if anything Blanqui fulfilled the role of the major theoretical personality/star of the Commune, as partly evidenced by how the Communards (especially the majority) repeatedly tried to secure his release from the Thiers regime. The fact that the Thiers regime refused to release him—partly because they knew that that would only provide a major impetus to the rebelling Communards—attests to Blanqui's influence. The misogynistic elements of Proudhon, as scholars like Eichner have thoroughly explored, were also certainly not a major influence on the women Communards, as well as some of the more progressive anarchists (e.g. Varlin), who rejected his reactionary views and pushed for the liberation of women from both patriarchal and bourgeois society.[1] You can go around claiming that the Commune was some Proudhonist/anarchist revolt all you like; it doesn't at all make it true, as countless scholars have noted and as the documentary record also shows.

Once again, you're also just completely ignoring the core points of Kouvelakis' paragraph above, in which he notes how the idea of self-governing communes and decentralized forms of decision-making was not something unique to Proudhon, in addition to how these ideas in one form or another influenced the different tendencies of the Commune.

1. See her Brief History:

Eichner wrote: Most members of the Parisian section of the International followed the anarchist theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. An advocate of radical liberty—he supported labor organizing but rejected strikes and political action as undercutting individual freedom—Proudhon also opposed women’s labor participation and women’s liberty. Insisting on women’s fundamental incapacity and inferiority, Proudhon developed a calculus to “prove” that “Inferior to man in conscience as much as in intellectual and muscular power, woman finds herself . . . definitively relegated to the second rank. . . . Her comparative value remains 2 to 3." In pointed contrast to the Proudhonians, Varlin wrote the statutes of the bookbinders’ union to assure that “women will be equally admitted to the association and will play the same role as men,” and underscored the organization’s gender equity in naming it the Société des Relieurs et Relieuses, the “Society of Men and Women Bookbinders.” Working with fellow bookbinder, International member, feminist, and future Communard Nathalie Lemel, in 1866 Varlin started a food cooperative, La Marmite (“The Pot") which supported workers beyond the end of the Empire and throughout the Commune. At the Geneva, Switzerland, meeting of the International that same year, Varlin called for equal pay for equal work for women and men, stating, “her needs are as great as ours, she must be rewarded as we are . . . same product, same salary." His proposal failed. (13-14)

Here's also Kouvelakis in…

Here's also Kouvelakis in the same text where he similarly rejects the idea that the Proudhonist Denis was the sole author of the manifesto:

Kouvelakis wrote: In support of his argument, Deluermoz presents the Proudhonian journalist Pierre Denis as the sole 'author of the manifesto', even though we know from multiple sources that it was the work of several people, in a commission set up for this very purpose, including Vallès and Delescluze. According to Arnould, a member of the Commune Council, the declaration owed 'to the pen of Delescluze, with the help of Jules Vallès': Histoire populaire... op. cit., p. 141. During the discussion of the text at a session of the Council on 18 April, Vallès even insisted that 'this programme was wholly conceived and written by citizen Delescluze' (cited in Rougerie, Paris libre..., op. cit., p. 156). According to Lissagaray, Pierre Denis wrote only the 'technical part' of the text (Histoire..., op. cit., p. 212).

As Marx clearly states, and…

As Marx clearly states, and contrary to popular claims, the dictatorship of the proletariat is NOT socialism or lower phase communism, because it is the means by which the working class exerts its will over other classes, and socialism, or lower phase communism, is classless.

Where does Marx state anything even approximating to this? In the period of transformation from capitalism to communism that we are now in, social classes most definitely exist, and the struggle between the two main contending classes, parties, is what drives the struggle towards communism.

To the contrary, 'Corresponding to this [transformation of capitalism to communism] is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship by the proletariat.'

In the period of…

In the period of transformation from capitalism to communism that we are now in, social classes most definitely exist, and the struggle between the two main contending classes, parties, is what drives the struggle towards communism.

The author is saying that lower phase communism is classless, not the transitional period. They practically agree with you.

The lower phase of communism…

The lower phase of communism is synonymous with the transitional phase between capitalism and communism, with socialism. This period is not classless but defined by the opposition between the two contending classes. The working class is dictating its human needs; the mercantile class dictating the inhuman need of capital to add value to itself. It is out of this struggle that communism is emerging now.

Nowhere does Marx distinguish between these four expressions: dictatorship by the proletariat, socialism, the transitional period between capitalism and communism, the lower phase of communism. They are one and the same.

Let's just examine one more point the miscreant (Jonas Čeika, 'Marx was not a "statist"') wrote in this article. We are lead to believe that under the "Lower phase of communism" there are to exist "Material incentives for work (labor vouchers)". True, there are material incentives for wage labour. Generally, these are in the form of the wage. Tellingly, the author does not define what these incentives are under Capitalism, or under the Transitional Period (DotTP). If he had included these categories, lo and behold, he would have had to admit that the wage is common to all these imagined distinct phases.

Only with the abolition of wage labour and all forms of private property does the wage cease to exist and work becomes Man's foremost need in life.

Was Marx a statist?

Yes. He acknowledged the ready made machinery of the bourgeois state. Its standing army, judiciary, parliament and bureaucracy. He also acknowledged the proletarian state. Its class struggle. Never the twain shall meet except in battle.

The lower phase of communism…

The lower phase of communism is synonymous with the transitional phase between capitalism and communism, with socialism. This period is not classless but defined by the opposition between the two contending classes. The working class is dictating its human needs; the mercantile class dictating the inhuman need of capital to add value to itself. It is out of this struggle that communism is emerging now.

Nowhere does Marx distinguish between these four expressions: dictatorship by the proletariat, socialism, the transitional period between capitalism and communism, the lower phase of communism. They are one and the same.

Let's just examine one more point the miscreant (Jonas Čeika, 'Marx was not a "statist"') wrote in this article. We are lead to believe that under the "Lower phase of communism" there are to exist "Material incentives for work (labor vouchers)". True, there are material incentives for wage labour. Generally, these are in the form of the wage. Tellingly, the author does not define what these incentives are under Capitalism, or under the Transitional Period (DotTP). If he had included these categories, lo and behold, he would have had to admit that the wage is common to all these imagined distinct phases.

Only with the abolition of wage labour and all forms of private property does the wage cease to exist and work becomes Man's foremost need in life.

Was Marx a statist?

Yes. He acknowledged the ready made machinery of the bourgeois state. Its standing army, judiciary, parliament and bureaucracy. He also acknowledged the proletarian state. Its class struggle. Never the twain shall meet except in battle.

A bit late… but this whole Marxism project is so dumb. Made up as practitioners go along. The only real purpose is to prop up Marx as the intellectual hero or master we all supposedly need.

Marx and the vast majority of his followers can’t see no other way than state socialism. That’s the main problem. They have greatly contributed to giving the basic idea of socialism a bad name.

By "socialism" read social…

By state socialism, read social-democracy.

The peculiar character of social-democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic-republican institutions are demanded as a means, not of doing away with two extremes, capital and wage labor, but of weakening their antagonism and transforming it into harmony. However different the means proposed for the attainment of this end may be, however much it may be trimmed with more or less revolutionary notions, the content remains the same. This content is the transformation of society in a democratic way, but a transformation within the bounds of the petty bourgeoisie. Only one must not get the narrow-minded notion that the petty bourgeoisie, on principle, wishes to enforce an egoistic class interest. Rather, it believes that the special conditions of its emancipation are the general conditions within whose frame alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided. Just as little must one imagine that the democratic representatives are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shopkeepers. According to their education and their individual position they may be as far apart as heaven and earth. What makes them representatives of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter practically. This is, in general, the relationship between the political and literary representatives of a class and the class they represent.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

Socialism is social living, no more, no less

I don’t get your response…

I don’t get your response here. What does that change about Marx and his followers being state socialists? He’s not a state socialist because he made criticism of social democracy? And you’ve quoted that passage more than a fair number of times already.

Marx was not a “statist”

Introduction

Lower phase and higher phase

The transitionary period

The Paris Commune

Lenin

The Soviet Union

Acknowledgments

Works quoted

Recommended works

Note

Further Notes

Relevant videos

Important reading

Marx’s Feuerbachian Critique of the State

Socialism, communism and the DotP

Lenin

Withering away

Wage Labor in the USSR

The DotP in the USSR

Comments

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