Socialism and Classes — A Theoretical Foundation
This article is aimed at finally settling the “what are classes and can they exist in a socialist society?” debate through extremely detailed exposition of various Marxist theoretical works and elementary logic.
“An oppressed class is the vital condition for every society founded on the antagonism of classes. The emancipation of the oppressed class thus implies necessarily the creation of a new society. For the oppressed class to be able to emancipate itself, it is necessary that the productive powers already acquired and the existing social relations should no longer be capable of existing side by side. Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive power is the revolutionary class itself. The organisation of revolutionary elements as a class supposes the existence of all the productive forces which could be engendered in the bosom of the old society.
Does this mean that after the fall of the old society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power?
No. The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of every class…”
Karl Marx — The Poverty of Philosophy
Introduction
We are plagued by many opinions about socialism, yet very little, inversely proportional clarity about the subject itself. This is especially evident if one tries to engage in the discourse about classes or the state. What they are, how they originated, where they are going — these can all be and are contested. The chief aim of this article is to provide an abundance of extracts from various Marxists with appropriate commentary, through which we will come to the inevitable conclusion that socialism, i.e. the lower stage of communism cannot and will not have classes, or the state, both theoretically and logically. This declaration will seem fallacious to some currents of Marxism, most notably to Marxist-Leninists, who not only theoretically, but practically justify their point of view by stating that the Soviet Union under Stalin was socialist (attaining this status in 1936), yet had both classes and the state; therefore the lower stage of communism maintains the two as a general principle, out of necessity. We will point by point refute this view while fleshing out the general theses of class abolition. I ask the readers to patiently complete the entire document before drawing any conclusions.
We will discuss extracts from Lenin, most notably from the State and Revolution itself, where he seems to endorse the idea that classes shall remain until full, i.e. higher stage communism and explain how it can be interpreted differently in keeping consistent with his other writings. We will also go over the role of labor in the lower phase of communism and how necessary it is to perform it, and most tangential and related topics.
We must also lay down three caveats before we begin, to avoid unwarranted and irrelevant complaints:
- Here, we are not concerned with the correctness of the critiques Marxists have to offer against Anarchists, which is where much of the elaboration on “the state” as a concept originates. We are inquiring about the nature of the state in a Marxist sense, for which we must utilize the said writings. No emphasis should be given to the criticism of Anarchism contained in the following extracts, if present.
- We are largely not taking into account “the historical practice of socialism.” The title of this article is “A Theoretical Foundation” and that’s what I hope to provide. Undoubtedly, Marxist theory is intrinsically linked to practice and one is not viable without the other, but the scope of this article is much smaller than reviewing the historical experience of “socialism put in practice” by various movements in the last century.
- We must also define controversial terms, such as “socialism,” “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” etc. This we shall do only through the mentioned Marxist authors as not to raise suspicion of intellectual dishonesty or bias. Everything in this article will be based around and sourced from theoretical works of prominent Marxists. Therefore we must presuppose and assume a priori that these definitions are the only correct ones in our case, to guarantee uniformity and unity of our phraseology.
Defining the Terms
As mentioned above, we must begin by defining the most elementary terminology of Marxist theory which we shall do through theory:
The state:
“‘Soviet power’ is the second historical step, or stage, in the development of the proletarian dictatorship. The first step was the Paris Commune. The brilliant analysis of its nature and significance given by Marx in his The Civil War in France showed that the Commune had created a new type of state, a proletarian state. Every state, including the most democratic republic, is nothing but a machine for the suppression of one class by another. The proletarian state is a machine for the suppression of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat. Such suppression is necessary because of the furious, desperate resistance put up by the landowners and capitalists, by the entire bourgeoisie and all their hangers-on, by all the exploiters, who stop at nothing when their overthrow, when the expropriation of the expropriators, begins.” [1]
“The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable” [2]
Therefore we conclude that the state “is nothing but a machine for the suppression of one class by another” that “is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms.” It can be confidently said that where there is a state, there must also be classes, as the existence of the former is dependent on the existence of the latter. Without classes, there can be no state.
Classes:
“Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.” [3]
“Classes are that which permits one section of society to appropriate the labour of another section. If one section of society appropriates all the land, we have a landowner class and a peasant class. If one section of society owns the factories, shares and capital, while another section works in these factories, we have a capitalist class and a proletarian class.” [4]
It becomes clear that classes divide society into sections, and one section appropriates the labor of another. Marxists generally have a tendency to divide society into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, this is not entirely accurate, or more appropriately, it is not the full picture. There are naturally more than just two classes (an example of “another class” would be the peasantry, which although has declined rapidly in number in the modern world, still continues to exist in some countries) and these classes themselves are always divided into subcategories or “subclasses.” A member of the bourgeoisie can be petty-bourgeois (although the exact “allegiance” of the petit bourgeois has been contested, whether they are closer to the bourgeoisie or the proletariat), or a haute bourgeois (high bourgeois); a Proletarian can be a labor aristocrat or a Lumpenproletarian; even categories like “Capitalist” aren’t unitary, as there are landowners, which is not equivalent to a capitalist as made clear by the Critique of the Gotha Program, although many times Capitalists are also landowners. The Peasantry too can be divided into different categories, which result in sections like the Kulaks — an ill-defined and misused term, which generally means a wealthy peasant.
In summation, we must understand these divisions and definitions as not entirely monolithic, as we see that there are many little details and technicalities which can derail analysis if we paint the entire society in two colours alone.
Now, we come to the tricky bits.
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat:
“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” [5]
“What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production (historische Entwicklungsphasen der Produktion), (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.” [6]
“The “special coercive force” for the suppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, of millions of working people by handfuls of the rich, must be replaced by a “special coercive force” for the suppression of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat (the dictatorship of the proletariat).” [7]
“The necessary condition for the social revolution is the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is the conquest by the proletariat of a political power that will allow it to crush all resistance on the part of the exploiters.” [8]
“If we translate the Latin, scientific, historico-philosophical term “dictatorship of the proletariat” into simpler language, it means just the following:
Only a definite class, namely, the urban workers and the factory, industrial workers in general, is able to lead the whole mass of the working and exploited people in the struggle to throw off the yoke of capital, in actually carrying it out, in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the work of creating the new, socialist social system and in the entire struggle for the complete abolition of classes. (Let us observe in parenthesis that the only scientific distinction between socialism-and communism is that the first term implies the first stage of the new society arising out of capitalism, while the second implies the next and higher stage.)” [9]
“But the question of the transition period from capitalism to socialism, i.e., the period of the proletarian dictatorship, is far more difficult.” [10]
In short, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat is nothing but “the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society,” “transition period from capitalism to socialism,” and that “this transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism.” Marx, Lenin, et al. make it clear, that this dictatorship is a transition from capitalism to socialism or communism. Now, this “or” doesn’t really matter and it makes no difference if we say “transition from capitalism to socialism” or “to communism” — both expressions are equally valid, as socialism is nothing but the lower stage of communism, so transitioning to socialism in this context is one and the same as transitioning to communism, just to its lower phase. One may bring up the fact that Marx and Engels used the terms “socialism” and “communism” interchangeably but this in itself is not an argument and is irrelevant unless we are discussing Marx’s writings, as to not confuse the terminology he used. In Lenin’s time, according to him as well, socialism started to denote the lower stage of communism (“the only scientific distinction between socialism-and communism is that the first term implies the first stage of the new society arising out of capitalism, while the second implies the next and higher stage”). Therefore, as he put it in the State and Revolution:
“What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production becomes common property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism.”
Through this, we understand that the usage of the proletarian dictatorship as a transition to socialism or communism are both wholly valid and mean one and the same, as long as we keep in mind that this is not complete, i.e. the higher stage of communism.
Socialism and Communism
To avoid getting wrapped up in many and varying definitions of socialism and communism, we may state that socialism is the lower stage of communism, and communism itself is communism proper, i.e. the fully realized, higher, or the upper stage of communism, “after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want.” [11] The main differences between the two stages as defined by Marx and generally accepted by all Marxist currents are the following:
The lower stage, which has emerged out of capitalist society and is ridden with some defects (we will also discuss the confusion surrounding these defects and what they actually are), still has the division between mental and physical labor, i.e. between the manual and the brain work. It is still forced to utilize “certificates” (labor vouchers) to record the amount of labor done, and with these the worker “draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost” so that “the same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.” [12] This phase is usually also taken to not have reached a post-scarcity society, where the abundance of products and the ease of automated production ensure full satisfaction of all needs free of cost for every human, and that is why there still remains the necessity to labor. One may raise the following point: “what is the difference between capitalism and socialism if I still have to work to ensure livelihood?” The key differences are that society takes care of those unable to work due to various reasons (not being of age, illness, disability, etc.) and provides for them through the “common funds” mentioned in the Critique of the Gotha Program, for which everyone’s labor is deducted to some degree, as well as slowly increasing the number of products allocated to each individual free of cost. As we are not in a post-scarcity society, people cannot afford to hand out everything for free to those who are able to work, but due to efficient and increased production, they are still able to procure some goods without any labor systematically (another difference from capitalism). For example, Amadeo Bordiga views this process like so:
“[In Socialism] the allocation of products on the contrary follows from the center, without return of an equivalent. Example: If a malaria epidemic breaks out, in the affected region quinine is distributed for free, but solely one tubule per person.” [13]
Thus in socialism, society is still able to distribute some goods for free (“without return of an equivalent”), something which capitalism is unwilling to do. To better demonstrate this, we can state that increasingly, every individual will get one free loaf of bread a day for a year after the productive capacities are at the point of allowing for such provisions. The next year, after more technological progress, they are also given one free pack of butter along with the bread and so on. Of course these examples are arbitrary and theoretical, things ought to be rather different in reality. But the general principle that the allocation of free products increases as the lower phase is transformed into the higher until all goods are procured free of cost stands correct.
Note that we use “product” specifically, instead of “commodity” (keeping in tradition with Engels) as the value-form and hence the commodity-form is no longer present in the lower stage itself. We have devoted one lengthy article to commodity production here, which clarifies this elaborately and won’t touch upon it in this article.
Most Marxists in the early 20th century (and of course, Marx and Engels themselves included) envisioned the lower phase of communism as still needing society to labor to maintain itself. We can see this in Lenin’s reformulation of Marx’s description of the lower phase in the State and Revolution, characterizing its principle as “the socialist principle — ‘He who does not work shall not eat,’” as well as in Luxemburg’s less fatalist and more relevant approach:
“At the moment production in every enterprise is conducted by individual capitalists on their own initiative. What — and in which way — is to be produced, where, when and how the produced goods are to be sold is determined by the industrialist. The workers do not see to all this, they are just living machines who have to carry out their work.
In a socialist economy this must be completely different! The private employer will disappear. Then no longer production aims towards the enrichment of one individual, but of delivering to the public at large the means of satisfying all its needs. Accordingly the factories, works and the agricultural enterprises must be reorganised according to a new way of looking at things:
Firstly: if production is to have the aim of securing for everyone a dignified life, plentiful food and providing other cultural means of existence, then the productivity of labour must be a great deal higher than it is now. The land must yield a far greater crop, the most advanced technology must be used in the factories, only the most productive coal and ore mines must be exploited, etc. It follows from this that socialisation will above all extend to the large enterprises in industry and agriculture. We do not need and do not want to dispossess the small farmer and craftsman eking out a living with a small plot of land or workshop. In time they will all come to us voluntarily and will recognise the merits of socialism as against private property.
Secondly: in order that everyone in society can enjoy prosperity, everybody must work. Only somebody who performs some useful work for the public at large, whether by hand or brain, can be entitled to receive from society the means for satisfying his needs. A life of leisure like most of the rich exploiters currently lead will come to an end. A general requirement to work for all who are able to do so, from which small children, the aged and sick are exempted, is a matter of course in a socialist economy. The public at large must provide forthwith for those unable to work — not like now with paltry alms but with generous provision, socialised child-raising, enjoyable care for the elderly, public health care for the sick, etc.
Thirdly, in accordance with the same outlook, i.e. for the general well-being, one must sensibly manage and be economic with both the means of production and labour. The squandering that currently takes place wherever one goes must stop. Naturally, the entire war and munitions industries must be abolished since a socialist society does not need murder weapons and, instead, the valuable materials and human labour used in them must be employed for useful products. Luxury industries which make all kinds of frippery for the idle rich must also be abolished , along with personal servants. All the human labour tied up here will be found a more worthy and useful occupation.
If we establish in this way a nation of workers, where everybody works for everyone, for the public good and benefit, then work itself must be organised quite differently. Nowadays work in industry, in agriculture and in the office is mostly a torment and a burden for the proletarians. One only goes to work because one has to, because one would not otherwise get the means to live. In a socialist society, where everyone works together for their own well being, the health of the workforce and its enthusiasm for work must be given the greatest consideration at work. Short working hours that do not exceed the normal capability, healthy workrooms, all methods of recuperation and a variety of work must be introduced in order that everyone enjoys doing their part.
All these great reforms, however, call for a corresponding human material. Currently the capitalist, his work’s foreman or supervisor stands behind the worker with his whip. Hunger drives the proletarian to work in the factory or in the office, for the Junker or the big farmer. The employers take care that time is not frittered away nor material wasted, and that both good and efficient work is delivered.
In a socialist society the industrialist with his whip ceases to exist. The workers are free and equal human beings who work for their own well-being and benefit. That means by themselves, working on their own initiative, not wasting public wealth, and delivering the most reliable and meticulous work. Every socialist concern needs of course its technical managers who know exactly what they are doing and give the directives so that everything runs smoothly and the best division of labour and the highest efficiency is achieved. Now it is a matter of willingly following these orders in full, of maintaining discipline and order, of not causing difficulties or confusion.
In a word: the worker in a socialist economy must show that he can work hard and properly, keep discipline and give his best without the whip of hunger and without the capitalist and his slave-driver behind him. This calls for inner self-discipline, intellectual maturity, moral ardour, a sense of dignity and responsibility, a complete inner rebirth of the proletarian.
One cannot realise socialism with lazy, frivolous, egoistic, thoughtless and indifferent human beings. A socialist society needs human beings from whom each one in his place, is full of passion and enthusiasm for the general well-being, full of self-sacrifice and sympathy for his fellow human beings, full of courage and tenacity in order to dare to attempt the most difficult.
We do not need, however, to wait perhaps a century or a decade until such a species of human beings develop. Right now, in the struggle, in the revolution, the mass of the proletarians learn the necessary idealism and soon acquire intellectual maturity. We also need courage and endurance, inner clarity and self-sacrifice, to at all be able to lead the revolution to victory. In enlisting capable fighters for the current revolution, we are also creating the future socialist workers which a new order requires as its fundament.” [14]
These outlooks have a lot to do with the contemporary conditions prevailing at the time and they have, in this regard, largely become obsolete. The need to perform some amount of work will still prevail in the lower phase, but as it is a liberated society free from classes and therefore exploitation, most if not all people will be naturally inclined to do labor for one another to improve their livelihoods and productive capacity. It is also worth mentioning that the length of this transitional lower phase is shortened every day as technology improves and the general conditions allow for more abundance (this being inefficiently managed and wasted at the moment due to many factors such as capitalist accumulation), so Lenin’s slogan which had its roots in the risky conditions of the civil war that couldn’t have been lost and the necessity to labor to save the already cracking (pre-)Soviet society from collapsing altogether is no longer relevant. On top of this, it isn’t to be taken at face value, as those who are unable to work are necessarily provided for in full by society, so they can very well “eat” without working. Luxemburg also very specifically mentions “without the whip of hunger and without the capitalist and his slave-driver behind him…” which signifies that as per ability, the minimum necessities will be provided for all and the bare needs satisfied, just that to afford a comfortable living, one must give something to society to receive back from it. We can clearly observe the difference between Luxemburg’s and Lenin’s slogans if we compare the contemporary conditions of Russia and Germany. Luxemburg was writing in a more industrialized, modern, well-prepared country and thus imagined this process differently, showing again that socialism cannot be monolithic and the exact same in every condition. Yet Lenin was writing in the conditions of a semi-feudal, underdeveloped, peasant-dominated Tsarist Empire.
Nevertheless, none of this is a matter of principle but a matter of necessity, as “if production is to have the aim of securing for everyone a dignified life, plentiful food and providing other cultural means of existence, then the productivity of labour must be a great deal higher than it is now.” Marx maintained that “these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society” [15] and that is our position. This is not a wish of any group or Party, but rather an appraisal of reality.
It is also important to keep in mind, that assuming people will be unwilling to work if they can secure a better life as a non-producer is largely a consequence of capitalist logic and conditions and nothing else. The hue and cry over how the Marxist conception of the lower stage is workerist, coercive, etc., can only come forth if one frames the discussion in capitalist terms, centered around value and surplus. As Sylvia Pankhurst explains succinctly:
“We aim at the common service; we desire that all should serve the community, that no longer should there be diverse classes of persons; the hewers of wood and the drawers of water; the intellectuals, the leisured classes, who are merely parasites. The Individualist cries: ‘Freedom.’ We answer: ‘Thou shalt not exploit.’ ‘Thou shalt not be a parasite.’
Yet we would have nothing of dictatorship: we believe that a public opinion can be treated which will produce a general willingness to serve the community. The exception to that general willingness will become, we believe, altogether a rarity; we would not have the occasional oddity who will not join the general effort disciplined by law; the disapprobation, even the pity of his fellows will insure his rarity. The thought: ‘I will not produce because I can secure a better living as a non-producer,’ whether it be the thought of an employer, or of an unemployed worker, is a typical product of Capitalism. A society in which that thought predominates is inevitably one of poverty and exploitation. The thought: ‘I will not produce if I can avoid it’ falls like a blight upon society to-day. It is the inevitable product of the capitalist system.
Let us produce in abundance; let us secure plenty for all; let us find pleasure in producing; these thoughts must pervade the community if it is to be able to provide, in lavish measure, plenty for all-in material comfort, in art, in learning, in leisure. At such a community we aim. We emphasise the need for the Workshop Councils. The Individualist fears that even the autonomous Workshop Councils may lead to the circumscribing of personal liberty. We however desire the Workshop Councils in order to insure personal liberty.
In the Communist Society at which we aim all will share the productive work of the community and all will take a part in organising that work. How can it be done?
In these days of great populations and varied needs and desires people are not willing to return to the stage at which every individual or family made its own house, clothing, tools, utensils, and cultivated its own patch of soil and provided all its own tools. A return to productive work, a discarding of artificial and useless toil, we desire and expect to see, but work in which many workers cooperate we expect and desire to retain.” [16]
“Thou shalt not be a parasite” has specifically to do with the “blood-sucking” bourgeoisie which is the leech that appropriates labor, allowed by capitalist conditions, and lives off of the backs of the workers. It by no means applies to the already toiling proletariat who cannot be a parasite as he has to work to maintain a living in the first place. To fling these slogans and expressions with accusations of coercive labor and such is nothing but dishonesty. After all, if an Anarchist for example dislikes this process nevertheless, we may direct them to Kropotkin, who suggests (in “The Conquest of Bread”) that the person simply relocate if they didn’t wish to participate in such and such society. A “fine” recommendation, ha ha!
Therefore, we may conclude by reaffirming that both the lower and higher stages of communism are devoid of classes (and hence the state — and we shall touch upon this in the next section), value (and hence markets, commerce, [17] commodities, et al.) and therefore exploitation. However, there is still some inequality, and this can be discussed in two ways: first, there will always be a certain amount of inequality due to natural circumstances. Engels maintained that:
“‘The elimination of all social and political inequality,’ rather than ‘the abolition of all class distinctions,’ is similarly a most dubious expression. As between one country, one province and even one place and another, living conditions will always evince a certain inequality which may be reduced to a minimum but never wholly eliminated. The living conditions of Alpine dwellers will always be different from those of the plainsmen. The concept of a socialist society as a realm of equality is a one-sided French concept deriving from the old ‘liberty, equality, fraternity,’ a concept which was justified in that, in its own time and place, it signified a phase of development, but which, like all the one-sided ideas of earlier socialist schools, ought now to be superseded, since they produce nothing but mental confusion, and more accurate ways of presenting the matter have been discovered.” [18]
Besides this natural and logical consequence of how humanity interacts with its surroundings, there is a second “type” of inequality which is present in the lower phase of communism:
“But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only — for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.” [19]
This so-called “defect” which Lenin calls “bourgeois law” in the State and Revolution does not require exploitation, class domination, etc., nor does it presuppose them. They simply are a natural consequence, those infamous birth pangs and stamps of capitalist society from which this one is to emerge and cannot be avoided. Many people mistakenly think that Marxists desire this state of affairs and joyously proclaim the need for “to each according to their contribution” (as the lower stage principle) but of course, this is false. This condition is forced onto society due to the pace and chronology of its development, due to the nature of how it progresses, and not any one party’s or group’s conscious will to be enforced. Many who protest against this seem to simply contest the natural world and its consequences, instead of any one ideology and its slogans. The fact that free food will not fly into your mouth magically or that you won’t be clothed with the finest silk by singing birds every morning due to the virtue of the society having direct social labor should be clear to all multicellular organisms with functioning neurons. It would be ideal to not have to undergo this phase at all, to be able to jump from a proletarian dictatorship to communist proper in a day or in one “cycle.” But this simply cannot be, and we must settle for the “3 epoch” development process:
The transition from Bourgeois Dictatorship (the present state of affairs) to the Dictatorship of the Proletariat through the workers seizing power and organizing themselves as the ruling class, from this Proletarian Dictatorship to the lower stage of communism, which arises out of the capitalist epoch (the dictatorship of the proletariat still operates in the capitalist world and with capitalist laws; as Lenin remarked, this epoch is still fully within the capitalist conditions which are dying and the nascent communist one which has to be born, but as there is no “half-and-half,” he always maintained the RSFSR dictatorship to have been capitalist [20]) and is marked by defects because of it, and from this lower stage, which can be called socialism, to communism, or the higher stage (communism proper), where the subordination to the division of labor has ended and mental and physical labor are no longer divorced.
Surprisingly, in the draft of State and Revolution, titled “Marxism and the State,” Lenin is more comprehensive and clear about the transition periods and the hows and whats of each epoch. Here is how he envisioned it, in a similar fashion:
Here, we see Lenin’s idea of the transformation of society in general, in three stages. The “prolonged birth-pangs” of fighting against capitalist society and trying to rip away from it as well as discarding it (the epoch of Proletarian Dictatorship as per Lenin in a similarly titled article); the first or the lower phase of communist society with the said defects and ultimately the higher phase of communism, which is both desired and aimed for.
In a likewise progression, Lenin views the transformation of the state also in three “parts,” from a purely capitalist, to a transitional semi-state of the workers (the dictatorship of the proletariat, still in the epoch of capitalism) and the communist society (both lower and higher stages included) where there operates a communist mode of production through direct social labor and no longer requires the state or classes, replacing the former with administration and the latter with free association. The likeness of these two outlines is the “trinity,” as in they all go through 3 cycles to reach the conclusion, which is communism.
We are not alone in this interpretation. Paresh Chattopadhyay has also written:
“Marx never assumes that the bourgeois mode of production vanishes on the morrow of the installation of the working-class state, nor even that the whole process could have a relatively short duration. This is clear particularly in his well-known writings on the Paris Commune of 1871 as well as in his polemic with Bakunin four years later, in a somewhat cryptic way though. The whole idea is encapsulated in Marx’s characterization of the transitional period as the “prolonged birth pangs” within the womb of the old society. The collective appropriation of the conditions of production by the producers themselves which alone can usher in the (free) Association by terminating the proletarian rule is thus a long-drawn historical process. While the juridical elimination of individual private property — in the means of production along with their centralization in the hands of proletarian state — is indispensable for expropriating the bourgeoisie, it does not by itself signify collective appropriation by society, and does not indicate the end of capital. It is only the beginning measure toward that end. And until capital disappears the producers, even though undergoing transformation, do not cease to be proletarians. Consequently, the proletarian rule continues during the whole transition period, the period of preparation for workers’ (self-) emancipation.” [21]
When Will Classes Become Obsolete?
Now we arrive at the main aim of this article for which we needed such a lengthy preface. When exactly will classes “wither away” and when does society enter the epoch of classlessness? It is taken by many Marxists that this will not happen until the fully realized, upper stage of communism. Let us visit a passage from Lenin’s State and Revolution:
“The state withers away insofar as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes, and, consequently, no class can be suppressed. But the state has not yet completely withered away, since there still remains the safeguarding of ‘bourgeois law,’ which sanctifies actual inequality. For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.”
From this, it may seem logical, as it literally states that “for the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary,” classes will remain until communism proper. However, how consistent is this view with Lenin’s own writings pre- and (mainly) post-State and Revolution? Moreover, can we find clues in the same pamphlet which signifies classlessness in the lower phase already?
Let’s begin by examining the second point first before returning to his other works. In the very same piece, Lenin also states:
“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 horizon 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.
It follows that under communism there remains for a time not only bourgeois law, but even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie!”
This wording confuses many and not without reason, one thing I have personally observed within State and Revolution is the apparent contradictory nature of it and the confusing phraseology which gives birth to so many interpretations. That is why it should in no way be upheld either as Lenin’s magnum opus nor the work on the state. Some even maintain that Lenin misread the Critique of the Gotha Program, and that the contents of socialism in this Leninist cornerstone of analysis deviates from Marx. But it isn’t our aim to compare Lenin’s analysis of the state to Marx’s and if the two perfectly synch up when it comes to transitional stages, so let us continue with dissecting the State and Revolution. But it is important to remember that Lenin doesn’t “mirror” Marx and his conception of state one-in-one if we follow face-value interpretation, which is perfectly fine, but we shouldn’t force works into each other if they contradict one another at certain times, mainly due to different terminology.
In this extract it seems that to Lenin, there can be “even the bourgeois state, without the bourgeoisie” under Communism. Of course “without the bourgeoisie” denotes classlessness, in the same way “everyone is only a worker like everyone else” does in the Critique of the Gotha Program. This inevitably leads us to conclude that Lenin thought there would be a classless state in the lower phase which would be inevitable due to the bourgeois law. Obviously, there can be no such thing as a “classless state,” and judging from common sense, knowledge of general Marxist phraseology, Lenin’s vast writings on the state and his draft of the State and Revolution, we can conclude that here, he clearly means administration instead of statehood. This claim can also be backed up by the “Engelsian view” of the state which we shall deal with later. Lenin continues:
“This may sound like a paradox or simply a dialectical conundrum of which Marxism is often accused by people who have not taken the slightest trouble to study its extraordinarily profound content. But in fact, remnants of the old, surviving in the new, confront us in life at every step, both in nature and in society. And Marx did not arbitrarily insert a scrap of “bourgeois” law into communism, but indicated what is economically and politically inevitable in a society emerging out of the womb of capitalism.”
We can deduce from this nothing but the admission that there isn’t a state in communism, emergent (lower) or complete, but in the case of the former, “remnants of the old, surviving in the new,” which cannot be taken as 1:1. The remnant of the old state is not the state, but an administrative organ devoid of class difference. This is affirmed by Lenin stating later that:
“Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labor and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment of workers’ control over the capitalists, and must be exercised not by a state of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed workers.”
Here is where one can levy criticism against Lenin, for being ambiguous and confusing state and state functions — “the measure of labor and the measure of consumption” does not require a state, and Lenin knew this, but the vagueness of this declaration and still insisting that this is a “state” comes also from the fact that the Critique of the Gotha program suffers from the same, although a more linguistic issue relating to faulty translation. For example, in the mentioned work, Marx asks:
“The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society?”
This may lead one to assume that the state in a communist society undergoes change, and for something to undergo change, it must first exist. However, this is simply an error of crude mistranslation. Let us visit the original:
“Es fragt sich dann: Welche Umwandlung wird das Staatswesen in einer kommunistischen Gesellschaft untergehn?”
We see that Marx, instead of using the word state (Staat), resorts to using “Staatswesen,” which roughly translates to the administrative functions of the state, without any implications of class division and domination. But as there is no word for such in English, the usage of Staat and Staatswesen are conflated and translated as one and the same! We read another likewise passage in the English translation of the Critique of the Gotha program:
“Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society.”
This is also taken by some to mean that the state can also exist in a communist society, as Marx speaks of the “future state” of it. This is also a result of a mistranslation, the original reads:
“Das Programm nun hat es weder mit letzterer zu tun, noch mit dem zukünftigen Staatswesen der kommunistischen Gesellschaft.”
Once again, we encounter Staatswesen and not the state. Where Marx truly spoke of a state, for example “I shall return to the ‘free’ state later” at the beginning of section II, is in the original as “Auf den „freien Staat“ komme ich später zurück,” “Staat” and not “Staatswesen.” This may sound semantic but it’s a crucial difference which helps us avoid the conundrum of including in our conception of socialism the state as well, instead of the state functions, which are nothing but the administrative activity that can be undertaken without the existence of classes just as easily, nay, better. This is the crucial mistake Lenin made with respect to his terminology (and the reason for the entire confusion), and it may come off as odd as he didn’t read the English but the original German version of the pamphlet. But we may affirm the “correct view” by looking at his draft, which offers a much more concise image.
This may all sound likewise confusing and all over the place, so I would like to use two things to make the point clear: Engels’ letter to Bebel in Zwickau and the “apple analogy.” Here is what Engels says:
“The free people’s state is transformed into the free state. Grammatically speaking, a free state is one in which the state is free vis-à-vis its citizens, a state, that is, with a despotic government. All the palaver about the state ought to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in the true sense of the term. The people’s state has been flung in our teeth ad nauseam by the anarchists, although Marx’s anti-Proudhon piece and after it the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself [sich auflöst] and disappear. Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one’s enemies by force, it is utter nonsense to speak of a free people’s state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore suggest that Gemeinwesen [‘commonalty’] be universally substituted for state; it is a good old German word that can very well do service for the French ‘Commune.’” [22]
If we had not written anything at all and simply displayed this extract, all questions about the state should have been resolved by large. Such is the clarity and resoluteness with which Engels explains the function and future of the state. There is nothing more sharp and direct than “with the introduction of the socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear.” That is it. If there is a socialist order, i.e. the socialist mode of production, the state will no longer exist and sich auflöst, i.e. to break itself up, to disappear, to “wither away.”
Interestingly, Lenin doesn’t devote too much time to this letter and comments the following in the State and Revolution:
“‘The Commune was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word’ this is the most theoretically important statement Engels makes. After what has been said above, this statement is perfectly clear. The Commune was ceasing to be a state since it had to suppress, not the majority of the population, but a minority (the exploiters). It had smashed the bourgeois state machine. In place of a special coercive force the population itself came on the scene. All this was a departure from the state in the proper sense of the word. And had the Commune become firmly established, all traces of the state in it would have ‘withered away’ of themselves; it would not have had to ‘abolish’ the institutions of the state they would have ceased to function as they ceased to have anything to do.”
So the entire issue comes down to able to read between the lines, as if one takes these passages at face value, they can introduce the state even in the upper stage of communist society, and just so it happened when Joseph Stalin declared that the state could indeed remain in complete communism as well. [23] “All this was a departure from the state in the proper sense of the word.” That is all there is to it. We depart from the state in “the proper sense” as it is replaced by administration. We can confirm this by reading Engels:
“The state was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the state of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole: in ancient times, the state of slave-owning citizens; in the Middle Ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not “abolished”. It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase “a free people’s state”, both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency.” [24]
Therefore, referring to Engels on the state is the clearest way of understanding the matter. Let us pick out the most important passages which speak directly for themselves and warrant no commentary:
- “When at last it [the state] becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary.” [This view is mirrored by Lenin’s “The Commune was ceasing to be a state since it had to suppress, not the majority of the population, but a minority (the exploiters)”]
- “As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary.”
- “The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a state.”
- “the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.” [and thus we have reached the distinction between statehood and administration, which some refer to as governance]
Before we sum up this section for good, there is still one minor point to address in the State and Revolution:
“The economic basis for the complete withering away of the state is such a high state of development of communism at which the antithesis between mental and physical labor disappears.”
From the Critique of the Gotha Program, we know that the antithesis between mental and physical labor doesn’t disappear until the higher stage:
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished…”
So what to make of this? We also see, “surprisingly” (only to those who take interest in shallow analysis), Amadeo Bordiga repeating the same:
“In the lower stage of socialism class differences have still not been eliminated; the State can’t be abolished yet;” [25]
Yet we know that the Communist Left accepts the thesis of the lower phase to be stateless. So what gives? The key lies in the Leninist phraseology with which these positions are presented. Lenin speaks of “the economic basis for the complete withering away of the state.” Complete! This means that the state is already in the process of withering away, it is no longer itself in “the proper sense.” This is where Bukharin helps us understand the issue:
“The abolition of classes will not result in the immediate abolition of class ideology, which is more long-lived than are the social conditions which have produced it, more enduring than the class instincts and class customs which have brought it into being. Besides, the abolition of class may prove a lengthy process. The transformation of the bourgeoisie into working folk and that of the peasants into the workers of a socialist society will be a tardy affair.” [26]
This is the clearest passage any communist has ever written in this regard. We are acquainted with the specific term, “class ideology.” This class ideology is precisely what the antithesis between the mental and physical, the birth-pangs and moral stamps of the previous society are. Yet, it does not exclude “the abolition of classes.” Classes can already be gone, but these “defects” can and will remain. Therefore, it is erroneous to assert that for “class ideology” to still exist, the state and classes must too. We clearly see that this is not the case!
Bukharin is also a good figure to approach to understand Lenin’s conception of the state too, as he wrote numerous works from being inspired by exchanges with him. For instance, Bukharin mentions already in 1915 that Lenin and him view the state in the same way:
“For socialism is regulated production, regulated by society, not by the state (state socialism is about as useful as leaky boots); it is the elimination of class contradictions, not their intensification. On its own, the regulation of production is far from signifying socialism: it occurs in every familial economy, among every slave-owning natural-economic group. What we in fact expect in the near future is state capitalism. […] When I arrived in Russia from America, I saw Nadezhda Konstantinovna [Lenin’s wife — ed.] (this was at our illegal Sixth Congress, when V. I. was in hiding); and her first words were as follows: “V.I. asked me to tell you that he no longer has any disagreements with you on the question of the state.” Dealing with this question Ilich came to the same conclusions regarding the “explosion,” but he developed this theme and his subsequent teaching concerning the dictatorship so fully as to constitute an entire epoch in the development of theoretical thought in this area.” [27]
So if Lenin agrees that “socialism is regulated production, regulated by society, not by the state,” “state socialism is about as useful as leaky boots,” and “it is the elimination of class contradictions, not their intensification,” there is no reason to doubt our reading of the State and Revolution. It becomes evident that Lenin indeed considered socialism the elimination of classes, just not class ideology, which he expresses with vague and hazy terminology — the entire reason for the confusion. This is where the “apple analogy” comes in handy:
Suppose you have an entire apple on your plate. You peel this apple and eat the fruit, discarding its skin on your plate. Now, the apple is gone — it’s in your stomach — but a part of it, the peel remains on your plate. If someone were to walk up to you and inquire: “do you have an apple on your plate?” You would surely answer in the negative — the apple no longer exists on your plate, you have already consumed it. But if they follow up with “is your plate empty?” you would also have to answer in the negative — the discarded contents of the apple, i.e. a part of the apple that remains can still be observed on your plate.
This is the entire concept of “class ideology” given in simple terms — it itself (class — apple) is gone, it has withered away. But it has left a part of it (class ideology — the skin) behind, which forces us to observe them as defects of the transitional society and face the reality that some of its effects, i.e., the vestiges of class remain for some time, until the higher phase arrives. But this in itself doesn’t presuppose the existence of class, the apple, which has already been consumed and withered from society (the plate).
To summarize, would it be fair to assert that the “classlessness” of both the lower and higher phases of communism are the same? Not quite, as “class ideology” still remains faintly in the lower phase along with the said defects, and in the upper one they can no longer exist. Would it be fair to assert however, that this classlessness introduced by the lower phase absolutely negates any possibility of classes existing themselves? That would be so. Classlessness is still classlessness, just that one comes with minor defects before flourishing through the societal development completely sublating the division of labor.
Let us visit some more passages by Lenin which affirm the view that the end of the proletarian dictatorship epoch culminates in a socialist society where classes are already absent. Note again, that this may be expressed as “the dictatorship of the proletariat -> socialism” or “dictatorship of the proletariat -> communism,” but we have already explained the relevance and likeness of this “distinction” above, so one may want to consult it again before jumping into these:
“As long as private ownership of the means of production (e.g., of agricultural implements and livestock, even if private ownership of land has been abolished) and freedom to trade remain, so does the economic basis of capitalism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the only means of successfully fighting for the demolition of that basis, the only way to abolish classes (without which abolition there can be no question of genuine freedom for the individual and not for the property-owner-of real equality, in the social and political sense, between man and man-and not the humbug of equality between those who possess property and those who do not, between the well-fed and the hungry, between the exploiters and the exploited). The dictatorship of the proletariat leads to the abolition of classes; it leads to that end, on the one hand, by the overthrow of the exploiters and the suppression of their resistance, and on the other hand by neutralising and rendering harmless the small property-owner’s vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.” [28]
“For it is self-understood that the transition to the peaceful tasks of governing the whole population irrespective of classes, a transition that is taking place in conditions when the civil war is still going on in some places, when grave military dangers are threatening the Soviet Republic from both the West and the East, and when the war has caused untold havoc throughout the country — it is self-understood that such a transition is beset with tremendous difficulties.” [29]
Thus we reaffirm that the dictatorship of the proletariat leads to classlessness, and that the whole “state” operation Lenin is referring to in the State and Revolution which at one look seems to be implying the existence of classes in socialism, would be nothing but “governing the whole population irrespective of classes.”
“Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism — or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble. […] 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. Without the dictatorship of the proletariat they will not disappear.” [30]
“That is something we all take for granted once society is rid of classes, only the producers remain; without any division into workers and peasants. […] We have reached the very core of the question: the situation is such that classes hostile to the proletariat will remain, so that in practice we cannot now create that which Engels spoke about. There will be a dictatorship of the proletariat. Then will come the classless society.” [31]
Therefore, if the end of the dictatorship introduces socialism (communism, just the lower phase), and it “means the abolition of classes,” the latter remaining “in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat” only, there is no more flea-hopping we can do to misinterpret this position, besides slipping into willful ignorance to justify certain historical experiences. Simply put by Lenin himself, “there will be a dictatorship of the proletariat. Then will come the classless society.” Nevertheless, some may still not be satisfied, so let us continue:
“Everyone knows that Marxism gives the theoretical reason for the abolition of classes. What does this mean? For the victory of socialism it is not enough to overthrow the capitalists; the difference between the proletariat and the peasantry must be abolished. […] We are waging a class struggle, and our aim is to abolish classes. As long as workers and peasants remain, socialism has not been achieved. And, in practice, we find an irreconcilable struggle going on everywhere.” [32]
Now we can finally appreciate the clarity Lenin intended when he mentioned “That is something we all take for granted once society is rid of classes, only the producers remain; without any division into workers and peasants.” It is clear from the above extract, that “the difference between the proletariat and the peasantry must be abolished” for socialism. And if without workers and peasants, we have producers and hence a classless society as per Lenin, and for socialism he deems it necessary that the division between the proletariat and the peasantry is abolished, we once again get the same picture: socialism as a classless epoch. If this is not enough, we have many more quotes about this precise topic, one more example being:
“Indeed, if the reign of the workers and peasants would last forever, we should never have socialism, for it implies the abolition of classes” [33]
This is clearer than the pure waters that flow from the Caucasus. We can even see this view of everyone being “producers” without class distinctions being repeated by Lenin again and again:
“But the essence of proletarian dictatorship is not in force alone, or even mainly in force. Its chief feature is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man. This object cannot be achieved at one stroke. It requires a fairly long period of transition from capitalism to socialism, because the reorganisation of production is a difficult matter, because radical changes in all spheres of life need time, and because the enormous force of habit of running things in a petty-bourgeois and bourgeois way can only be overcome by a long and stubborn struggle. That is why Marx spoke of an entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the period of transition from capitalism to socialism.” [34]
Now we finally come to understand what the bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie entails. Lenin stresses, that we have to “build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man,” and that this is nothing but “a fairly long period of transition from capitalism to socialism,” not to full communism. We already assume that socialism is a classless affair, once again through textual evidence. Only now do we see the explicit connection between this view and the critique of the Critique of the Gotha Program, where Marx describes the lower phase which “emerges” from the capitalist womb:
“This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else;”
If this stage recognizes no class differences and everyone is a worker, that means everyone is at the same level, same social status, therefore we have no classes, as classlessness implies such social “equality.” And indeed, the only equality we are for is this kind:
“Engels was a thousand times right when he wrote that to conceive equality as meaning anything beyond the abolition of classes is a very stupid and absurd prejudice. Bourgeois professors have tried to make use of the concept of equality to accuse us of wanting to make all men equal to one another. They have tried to accuse the socialists of this absurdity, which they themselves invented. But in their ignorance they did not know that the socialists — and precisely the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels — said: Equality is an empty phrase unless equality is understood to mean the abolition of classes. We want to abolish classes, and in this respect we stand for equality. But the claim that we want to make all men equal to one another is an empty phrase and a stupid invention of intellectuals.” [35]
From this, it should be clear that communism, in all its stages, is a classless, stateless society with direct social labor, the value-form already discarded in the ashes of bourgeois history.
The Epigones
Yet, such extensive argumentation and theoretical proof is not enough for some epigones. Here, we shall briefly deal with some common arguments they put forward.
“You see, for Engels, classes originated in the division of labor, which makes the two linked. Marx states that the division of labor remains until full communism. From this it follows that classes should remain until the higher phase!”
Very well, Mr. Ren Egade (let us take this arbitrary name, which only sounds very similar to a common Marxist pejorative due to a total coincidence and nothing else whatsoever, in reference to our dear opponent for polemic purposes), you are very right in your initial statement, but “it” does not follow from “that” at all. Let us review the claim:
Mr. Ren Egade states that for Engels, classes originated in the division of labor. How correct is this view? It certainly has roots in Engels’ theory:
“The division of society into different, mutually hostile classes will then become unnecessary. Indeed, it will be not only unnecessary but intolerable in the new social order. The existence of classes originated in the division of labor, and the division of labor, as it has been known up to the present, will completely disappear. For mechanical and chemical processes are not enough to bring industrial and agricultural production up to the level we have described; the capacities of the men who make use of these processes must undergo a corresponding development.” [36]
We see that the “existence of classes originated in the division of labor,” therefore Mr. Ren Egade is right on that account. What about the claim that “Marx states that the division of labor remains until full communism,” how correct is it?
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished…” [37]
This claim also seems to have its basis in fundamental Marxist theory. But where things go awry is introducing this assertion into the equation: “From this it follows that classes should remain until the higher phase!” Not only is this incoherent, but it also contradicts accepted and analysed theory which we shall represent in the form of young Kautsky. The abolition of classes has actually nothing at all to do with the division of labor, which will instead of being abolished, improved and intensified during the transition of its abolition. Let’s see what Kautsky had to say about this argument (by proxy):
“Even though the conscious aim of the class struggle in Scientific Socialism has been transformed from a moral into an economic aim it loses none of its greatness. Since what appeared to all social innovators hitherto as a moral ideal, and what could not be attained by them, for this the economic conditions are at length given, that ideal we can now recognize for the first time in the history of the world as a necessary result of the economic development, viz.: the abolition of class. Not the abolition of all professional distinctions. Not the abolition of division of labor, but certainly the abolition of all social distinctions and antagonisms which arise from the private property in the means of production and from the exclusive chaining down of the mass of the people in the function of material production.” [38]
We see that the established consensus was that the abolition of classes had no connection whatsoever, at least directly, to the division of labor. “The abolition of class. […] Not the abolition of division of labor” is the general principle through which the lower phase was envisioned. If this one extract is unsatisfactory and simply not enough to convince the antagonistic Mr. Ren Egade, we shall invoke Luxemburg here as well:
“In a socialist society the industrialist with his whip ceases to exist. The workers are free and equal human beings who work for their own well-being and benefit. That means by themselves, working on their own initiative, not wasting public wealth, and delivering the most reliable and meticulous work. Every socialist concern needs of course its technical managers who know exactly what they are doing and give the directives so that everything runs smoothly and the best division of labour and the highest efficiency is achieved.” [39]
And thus this infantile argument falls under its own weight and fallacious logic. Even Bukharin once remarked when dealing with this exact, seemingly quixotic scenario:
“We know that the classes themselves have risen organically as Engels described, from the division of labor, from the organizational functions that had become technically necessary for the further evolution of society. Obviously, in the society of the future, such organizational work will also be necessary. One might object that the society of the future will not involve private property, or the formation of such private property, and it is precisely this private property that constitutes this basis of the class.” [40]
This is quickly refuted and it is confirmed that organizational work and administration, which occur through the division of labor will still be necessary in the lower phase, the future society, but the existence of private property and thus of classes is wholly irrelevant to this — they will simply not be! And as we already know, this division will too wither away when the higher phase dawns.
Mr. Ren Egade: “but… Alright alright, that may be so, but we all know that socialism is a process! We cannot predict the hows and whats of it, we can only try to practice it and see what the outcome is, so all you’re doing is slandering theoretical musings!”
Not only was my aim a purely theoretical exercise, but also that premise is likewise false. First, we are demolishing theoretical talking points that argue that Marx, Engels, and their studious pupil, Stalin, all affirm the “fact” that the state and classes are here to stay until full communism. To this nonsense, we’ve replied with 20 pages. Second, socialism is indeed a process, but the natural development of transitional stages have also their laws and forms which have clearly been laid out. Let us invoke Luxemburg again:
“Here again we stand before one of the great historical laws of the revolution […] With the inevitability of a natural law […] this is another peculiar law of history […]” [41]
And so on. Marx very confidently was able to state in his critique of the disastrous program that “these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society.” [42] Why was he so sure that such defects must necessarily come into being? Because as we have already stated, even though we are no seers and prophets, we are materialists who offer complicated analysis from which some answers and intelligent assumptions can stem.
There are many more “arguments” of this kind, some of which truly don’t deserve our attention and time. But we shall wrap up here with a few conclusions due to the very limited goal of this article.
Call A Spade A Spade
We have come to a conclusion, after much theoretical discourse and inquiry, that it would be completely illogical and antithetical to the Marxist understanding of societal development through stages, from capitalism to communism, to maintain a state in the proper sense of this word already under the lower phase. It is to us as good as “leaky boots!” The epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which we only hope will be if not global, at least on a very large geographic scale (let us recall thesis 19 of Engels’ Principles of Communism) to guarantee success, shall put an end to the state, as according to Marx and Lenin, it is nothing but a transition from a class society to a classless one. We shall not repeat our citations and resource the letters, speeches, pamphlets, etc. ad nauseam and simply repeat what we have hammered away at for the last 15,000 words.
Let us reaffirm the basic postulates we have explained in single passages from various Marxists:
1. The abolition of private property abolishes classes, and socialism has no private property:
“The general association of all members of society for the common and planned exploitation of the productive forces, the expansion of production to a degree where it suffices to provide for the needs of all, the cessation of the condition when the satisfaction of the needs of some is effected at the expense of others, the complete abolition of classes and their antitheses […] — such are the main results to be expected from the abolition of private property” [43]
2. The state as an institution and with it class divisions will become naturally obsolete as soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat under the control of the working class greatly increases productive capacity and accelerate evolution
“But if, upon this showing, division into classes has a certain historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only under given social conditions. It was based upon the insufficiency of production. It will be swept away by the complete development of modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of classes in society presupposes a degree of historical evolution at which the existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling class, but of any ruling class at all, and, therefore, the existence of class distinction itself has become an obsolete anachronism” [44]
3. The dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing but a transition from capitalism (class society) to socialism (classless society)
“But the question of the transition period from capitalism to socialism, i.e., the period of the proletarian dictatorship, is far more difficult.” [45]
4. This dictatorship is political in nature and has nothing to do with modes of production inherently and aims to incorporate nascent socialism until it can completely negate capitalism and itself too as a consequence:
“Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transition period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism — or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble.” [46]
5. Socialism is indeed a process that evolves out of prevailing capitalism and presents both problems and the solutions to those problems in the course of its development:
“The socialist system of society should only be, and can only be, an historical product, born out of the school of its own experiences, born in the course of its realization, as a result of the developments of living history, which — just like organic nature of which, in the last analysis, it forms a part — has the fine habit of always producing along with any real social need the means to its satisfaction, along with the task simultaneously the solution. However, if such is the case, then it is clear that socialism by its very nature cannot be decreed or introduced by ukase. It has as its prerequisite a number of measures of force — against property, etc. The negative, the tearing down, can be decreed; the building up, the positive, cannot. New Territory. A thousand problems. Only experience is capable of correcting and opening new ways.” [47]
6. Nevertheless, this process still has its own characteristics:
“Let’s now get to the question of the stages of socialist economy (better: of socialist organization) and the distinction between lower and higher stages of communism. To get away from the definition of “immovable” and thus abstract systems and to put ourselves on the ground of history, let’s anticipate the central assertion of our doctrine: The transition from capitalist to socialist economy doesn’t happen in an instant, but in a long process. We must thus assume that for a relatively long period there might be a coexistence of private and collective sectors of capitalist (and precapitalist) and socialist realms. But we specify already that every realm, every sector, in which commodities (including human labour power) circulate, are bought and sold, is capitalist economy. […] Lower stage of communism, or if you want, socialism: society disposes already generally of products, which are allocated to members of society by quotas. This function doesn’t require commodity exchange or money anymore — one cannot let Stalin’s statement pass, according to which the simple exchange without money, but still based on the law of value, should bring us closer to communism: rather it is about a kind of regression to bartering. The allocation of products on the contrary follows from the center, without return of an equivalent.” [48]
7. Class struggle is a vital tool which intensifies as the workers combat the counter-revolution, culminating in abolishing classes:
“What does that class struggle consist in? It consists in overthrowing the tsar, overthrowing the capitalists, and abolishing the capitalist class. What are classes in general? Classes are that which permits one section of society to appropriate the labour of another section. If one section of society appropriates all the land, we have a landowner class and a peasant class. If one section of society owns the factories, shares and capital, while another section works in these factories, we have a capitalist class and a proletarian class.” [49]
8. There shall be no new classes, new rights and so on. They all ought to be abolished:
“The German Social Democratic Party therefore does not fight for new class privileges and class rights, but for the abolition of class rule and of classes themselves, for equal rights and equal obligations for all, without distinction of sex or birth. Starting from these views, it fights not only the exploitation and oppression of wage earners in society today, but every manner of exploitation and oppression, whether directed against a class, party, sex, or race.” [50]
9. This should be the fundamental demand of every communist:
“The abolition of classes is our basic demand, without which the abolition of class rule is economically inconceivable.” [51]
10. The withering away of class is directly tied to the withering away of the state:
“This will be the task of the revolutionary government which if necessary it will have to implement with violence. That this task cannot be solved with one bang, that the means for its implementation must change depending on the political, social and technical relations, is clear. Whatever form these relations may take, one thing is certain: The interests of the proletariat demand that it absorbs as fast as possible the other classes. The longer the proletariat is the ruling class, the less it will be a ruling class, until finally all class divisions are extinguished.
The more however class differences disappear, the more also the power of the government disappears: once class antagonisms no longer exist, also the government is extinguished and in its place steps an administration. The whole activity of the proletarian government must be directed at making itself dispensable.” [52]
11. The state starts transforming as soon as it is seized and smashed by the proletariat which organizes itself as the ruling class, until it finally becomes superfluous and sich auflöst:
“The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State. Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had a need of the State. […] When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production.” [53]
12. Therefore:
“The equalisation of the proletariat with the other classes, or more accurately, the abolition of class rule, is the main feature of socialism, contains however within it the negation of the state.” [54]
13. And only this process can truly alter the state of affairs of and for the working class:
“Only the abolition of the wage system and class rule in every form, and not the outward show of “popular sovereignty” in a bourgeois republic, can materially alter the condition of the proletariat.” [55]
14. As a consequence of this aim, the abolition of the state and class is the last act of the proletariat, as it ceases to be the proletariat, rids itself of its own haecceitas:
“The abolition of the government and the state are not the first act of the proletarian regime, but the last consequence of this. The dissolution of the different classes in a single working class is not the work of a decree, but of long, arduous labour; a labour, which repeatedly will run into heavy opposition, and which therefore has to be supported with the entire power that is proper to the state. […] The rule of the proletariat has as a result the implementation of socialism, that of socialism the dissolution of the state.” [56]
15. Neither a degree of centrality, planning, administration or related activities have to do with classes, and the state when we talk of a socialist or communist society. Therefore it’s wrong to assume and moreover, use the State and Revolution to justify this view stemming from Lenin’s confusing terminology for some:
“The first type is of the following kind: the peculiarity of the state is its centralized administration; therefore, the anarchists tell us, any centralized administration is a state authority. Therefore, even the most advanced communist society, if it has a systematic economy, will also be a state. This reasoning is based entirely on the naive bourgeois error: bourgeois science, instead of perceiving special relations, perceives relations between things, or technical relations. But it is obvious that the ‘essence’ of the state is not in the thing but in the social relation; not in the centralized administration as such, but in the class envelope of the centralized administration. As capital is not a thing (as is, for instance, a machine), but a social relation between workers and employers, a relation expressed by means of a thing, so centralization per se by no means necessarily signifies a state organization; it does not become a state organization until it expresses a class relation.” [57]
The 15 theses we have presented above should just about summarize our positions. There can be a necessity to include the following passage as well:
“From the moment a “communist society appears, emerging from the womb of capitalist society”, there is no longer a place for markets, for trading between the barbed-wire surrounded “autonomous sectors”. “Within the cooperative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products anymore; similarly the labour spent on the products no longer appears as the value (underlined by Marx) of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, as a material characteristic, for now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual pieces of labour are no longer merely indirectly (as would be the case in the commune, trade union and factory council schemes) but directly, a component part of the total labour”. [58]
However, this is a lengthy topic that cannot be designated a single passage in an article which aims to clarify a different matter. I have dealt with it more appropriately here, and it ties in with this discourse perfectly, so my suggestion would be, if I dare to be so forward, to read both this and the said work for a full picture.
Let us not carry on any further. Some may have arrived to this point and scoffed, lamented that they had wasted their time and that they still disagree. That is perfectly fine. My mission is not to spoon-feed specific interpretations and agendas to anyone, it is to “call a spade a spade.” [59] The issue is not specifically with differing interpretations, but if you clearly deviate from Marx, Engels, Lenin, et al. (which in itself is no sin whatsoever), state so, and don’t wrap the veil of Marx-Engels-Lenin around your pen when you are in direct contradiction with them.
One can deduce everything we affirmed with a contextual and analytical reading of Lenin with critical view and through foundational Marxist literature in general, but those who are unwilling to do so and want to turn a blind eye to everything Lenin wrote before and after the State and Revolution — which is not a magnum opus nor the end of the “dialogue” in any capacity and shouldn’t form the sole basis of a Marxist’s understanding of the state — we let cry and hue over dogmatism and revisionism. Let them falsify and distort the most elementary theses of Marxism and storm off angrily. We have nothing to lose but renegades.
Footnotes
[1] Vladimir Lenin — Letter to the Workers of Europe and America
[2] Vladimir Lenin — The State and Revolution
[3] Vladimir Lenin — A Great Beginning: Heroism of the Workers in the Rear “Communist Subbotniks”
[4] Vladimir Lenin — The Tasks of the Youth Leagues
[5] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[6] Karl Marx’s letter to Joseph Weydemeyer in New York, March 5, 1852
[7] Vladimir Lenin — The State and Revolution
[8] The 1903 program of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party
[9] Vladimir Lenin — A Great Beginning: Heroism of the Workers in the Rear “Communist Subbotniks”
[10] Nikolai Bukharin — Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
[11] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[12] Ibid
[13] Amadeo Bordiga — Dialogue with Stalin
[14] Rosa Luxemburg — The Socialisation of Society
[15] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[16] Sylvia Pankhurst — What is behind the label? A plea for clearness
[17] Vladimir Lenin — The Tax in Kind:
“Freedom of trade is capitalism; capitalism is profiteering. It would be ridiculous to ignore this. […] Exchange is freedom of trade; it is capitalism.”
[18] Friedrich Engels’ letter to August Bebel in Zwickau, March 18–28, 1875
[19] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[20] This can be clearly seen from Lenin’s “The Tax in Kind,” which I have discussed in the fourth section of this piece.
[21] Paresh Chattopadhyay — The Economic Content of Socialism Marx versus Lenin
[22] Friedrich Engels’ letter to August Bebel in Zwickau, March 18–28, 1875
[23] We are referring to Joseph Stalin’s Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) delivered March 10, 1939. In this mind-boggling report, Stalin declared:
“But development cannot stop there. We are going ahead, towards Communism. Will our state remain in the period of Communism also? Yes, it will, unless the capitalist encirclement is liquidated, and unless the danger of foreign military attack has disappeared. Naturally, of course, the forms of our state will again change in conformity with the change in the situation at home and abroad. No, it will not remain and will atrophy if the capitalist encirclement is liquidated and a Socialist encirclement takes its place.”
This meant that Stalin allowed for the existence of the State in the higher phase of Communism “unless the capitalist encirclement is liquidated.”
[24] Friedrich Engels — Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
[25] Amadeo Bordiga — The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism
[26] Nikolai Bukharin and Evgenii Preobrazhensky — The ABC of Communism
[27] Nikolai Bukharin — Toward a Theory of the Imperialist State
[28] Vladimir Lenin — On the Struggle of the Italian Socialist Party
[29] Vladimir Lenin — The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government (Original Version)
[30] Vladimir Lenin — Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat
[31] Vladimir Lenin — Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) Part IV, (8) Preliminary Draft Resolution Of The Tenth Congress Of The R.C.P. On Party Unity
[32] Vladimir Lenin — Speech Delivered at the Third All-Russia Trade Union Congress
[33] Vladimir Lenin — Speech Delivered At The All-Russia Congress Of Transport Workers
[34] Vladimir Lenin — Greetings to the Hungarian Workers
[35] Vladimir Lenin — On Deceiving the People with Slogans About Liberty and Equality
[36] Friedrich Engels — The Principles of Communism
[37] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[38] Karl Kautsky — Ethics and the Materialist Conception Of History
[39] Rosa Luxemburg — The Socialisation of Society
[40] Nikolai Bukharin — Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
[41] Rosa Luxemburg — Order Prevails in Berlin
[42] Karl Marx — The Critique of the Gotha Program
[43] Friedrich Engels — The Principles of Communism
[44] Friedrich Engels — Anti-Dühring
[45] Nikolai Bukharin — Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
[46] Vladimir Lenin — Economics And Politics In The Era Of The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat
[47] Rosa Luxemburg — The Russian Revolution
[48] Amadeo Bordiga — Dialogue with Stalin
[49] Vladimir Lenin — The Tasks of the Youth Leagues
[50] The Erfurt Program
[51] Friedrich Engels — A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891
[52] Karl Kautsky — The Abolition of the State
[53] Friedrich Engels — Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
[54] Karl Kautsky — State Socialism
[55] Rosa Luxemburg — Theory and Practice
[56] Karl Kautsky — The Abolition of the State
[57] Nikolai Bukharin — Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology
[58] Amadeo Bordiga — The Fundamentals of Revolutionary Communism
[59] Georgi Plekhanov — Materialismus Militans:
“Boileau once gave the advice — ‘call a spade a spade…’ I take this sensible advice: I call a spade a spade.”
