Adel
El-Emary
We do not
question the goodwill of the founders and thinkers of Marxism. However, their
theory about the party and the role of masses in the revolutionary process and
about the state apparatus has always been very dubious. They presented Marxism
as the theory of the working class, which was frightful to the dominant classes
and their state apparatus. This pushed dominant classes to fight against Marxism;
however, -in the unconscious- we find something else.
Likewise, we assume the goodwill of many
Marxists, who consider themselves representatives of the proletariat;
sacrificing themselves for the salvation of the Marseillaise and –in that way-
all humanity. However, we believe that the actual significance of Marxism
differs from the stated purpose. The unconscious of its thinkers and supporters
reveals their true motives and their deep aspirations, and therefore, what
their apparent revolutionary ideas express. This can be revealed by analyzing
philosophical ideas, political stances, and the practical results of Marxism.
Here we
will analyze one issue: Marxism is not the philosophy of the proletariat, but
rather of the modern state.
****************************
First:
The Marxist theory of the state:
This
terrible machine; the state, is not openly welcomed by any revolutionary.
Therefore, Marxism heavily criticized it. However, something else is implied in
the Marxist literature and practice.
It is a
well-established Marxist idea that the state is the product of
Irreconcilability of class antagonism; a result of the historically inevitable
formation of classes. Engels took up the matter in an attempt to prove that the
division of people into classes preceded the emergence of the state, and that
this and that had occurred within the ancient communal societies, without
providing convincing clues or evidences. He also rejected persistently the
theory of violence as a mechanism of the emergence of classes, giving the
economic factor a priority; however, he had failed to provide a reasonable
presentation of the inevitability of the emergence of classes and the state.
Later, Kautsky refuted Engels' ideas in detail.([1]) The
available information tells that the emergence of classes and the state
occurred as a result of the invasions that were among the tribes, which ended
either with the elimination of tribes or the control of one over the other,
forming a ruling class and a state at the same time. There is no any
inevitability of the emergence of classes and accordingly the state. All that
can be monitored as factors are human greed and avarice, with a degree of
advancement of productive forces that made it possible to produce an economic
surplus that is worth seizing. However, the mere appearance of this surplus is
not, per se, an explanation of aggression and robbery, as these are purely
psychological inclinations. Thus, the emergence of the state was a result of
the factors of greed, avarice, and aggressive inclinations. It is one of the
most important manifestations of “evil” in human society. Nevertheless, Marxism
depicts the emergence of the state as if it was a historical inevitability, to
confer a “scientific” character upon its view, As if statesmen are designated
by history to achieve specific tasks. Just as it depicted the emergence of
classes with the same logic, as if the exploiting classes – unfortunately -
were obliged to rob and exploit others as a historical role doomed to them!
- While Marx described the capitalist state in
his era as a parasitic body in society that impedes its free development, when
the talked about the state of the proletariat, we found his words reversed..
Now the state becomes “the proletariat organized as the ruling class,”
without mentioning to the parasitic body or to the impedance of the free
societal development; now it became a progressive power. Actually we do not
find what to add to Bakunin’s criticism of Marx in this issue: “Every state power,
every government, by its very nature places itself outside and over the people
and inevitably subordinates them to an organization and to aims which are
foreign to and opposed to the real needs and aspirations of the people.”([2])
- The Communist Manifesto in 1848 stipulated: “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to
wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat
organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as
rapidly as possible .” However, it did not specify the form of this state; the
bourgeoisie was also - at the time of the issuance of the Manifesto -
“organized as the ruling class” in a sense, and its state was a repressive
bureaucratic-military machine.
- In his
Critique of the Gotha
Program, Marx wrote: “Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ
superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it.” This is
indeed the form of the modern bourgeois state that appears to serve
citizens! But is there any possibility that the military machine could actually
be subject to society? This is just a bluff.
- But after the experience of
the Paris Commune that actually destroyed the state apparatus, Marx and Engels'
stance changed temporarily; both of them praised the commune that superseded
the state apparatus, claiming that the Commune had established the dictatorship
of the proletariat: “Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this
dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris
Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” ([3]) It follows that Marx and
Engels mentioned in the introduction to Manifesto of The Communist Party in the
1872 German edition that the Manifesto program has “in some details been antiquated,” adding
a sentence from “The Civil War in France”: “One thing especially was proved by the
Commune, viz., that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of
ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”
This sentence can be understood in more than one
sense: either the necessity of destroying the state apparatus only, or its
substitution by a different one. Importantly, this text was not added to the
body of the Manifesto, although it was reprinted repeatedly later. We also
wondered; if Marx and Engels had already decided to accept the anarchist plan;
that is, what the Commune had done, so why is it not said so explicitly: the
immediate abolition of the state? They had to add that the commune proved that
the abolition of the state apparatus - which had already done - was the
experience gained from the commune, but they did not.
After that, we find a retreat
from the moment of endorsement of the commune:
“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.” ([4]) Once again,
the word “state” is used in the manner of 1848.
Moreover,
Engels said in 1875: “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.”([5])
Then he
promises us: ”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 and disappear”
- our emphasis. The same was repeated elsewhere. ([7])
Then in
1891 Engels said in his introduction to “The Civil War ...” in 1891:
“The
state.. and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious
struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the proletariat, just like
the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at the earliest possible
moment, until such time as a new generation, reared in new and free social
conditions, will be able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap “(our
emphasis).
This is a
clear regression to 1848.
As for
the explanation that Lenin invoked from Engels' book “Anti-Dühring” it is: “The
proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production in the
first instance into state property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as
proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms, and
abolishes also the state as state. “([8]) Then he
(Engels then Lenin) mentioned that that state will be on the way to vanish.
Here
Lenin quoted from Engels: “the proletariat thereby abolishes the state as
state.” It is merely empty nonsense and deceit (unintended?). He also
wanted to just change the name of the state as Engels has done. If he intended
to abolish the state, he would have said so explicitly, but he differentiated
his view clearly from the anarchist plan: “revolution alone can abolish the bourgeois state.
The state in general, i.e., the most complete democracy, can only wither
away ,” “according to Marx that state withers away — as distinct
from the anarchist doctrine of the abolition of the state.”
The
“promise” of the automatic state vanishing needs a lot of naivety to believe
it. Can a tool of oppression and a bureaucracy automatically liquidate itself?
The
founders of Marxism presented one prerequisite for vanishing of the state: the
disappearance of classes that ends the necessity of the state. This is an
overly simple perception, as if history did not witness states that were the
dominant class itself, such as the eastern countries, like Egypt.
Besides, the Marxists did not imagine that the state apparatus which they
called workers’ state could become the ruling class, as it actually happened.
So why does it dissolve itself, when and how?
Moreover,
when the state discovers that it became “unnecessary,” will it dissolve itself
with satisfaction and contentment?! First: Was the state ever necessary? Is it
not just an apparatus of repression in the Marxist view? Is repression a necessity?
Second: If the state can become aware that it is no longer necessary, does not
it know that it is also unnecessary now, so, is it going to dissolve itself?
Third: Do things work in the human life with this logic? Don’t robbers, the
parasitic capitalists and those alike know they are too unnecessary? So why not
relieve the world of their faces and exploitation?
- The
founders of Marxism emphasizes that a transitional stage between capitalism and
communism is a necessity, where the social production is distributed to each
according to his work, not according to his needs, and the most important is
the role of a state apparatus to complete this stage. Then Lenin added -what
means- that this stage is in fact the end of history: “it has never entered
the head of any socialist to promise that the higher phase of the
development of communism will arrive; as for the greatest socialists' forecast
that it will arrive, it presupposes not the present ordinary run of people,
who, like the seminary students in Pomyalovsky's stories, are capable of
damaging the stocks of public wealth "just for fun,” and of demanding the
impossible.”([10]) Does this mean other than the eternity of
the aforementioned transitional period; the stage of state socialism? Moreover,
t;thertan e and revolution, ttthe
fierce battles between Marxists and anarchists, concerning the state cannot be
ignored, as anarchists have always gone to the necessity of abolishing the
state with e few exceptions, who have not however accepted that the state has
any necessity or role in building socialism.([11]), while Marxists continued to dwell on the
subject, claiming wisdom.
- Later
on, the Marxist intellectuals did not give up their fascination with the
terrifying state apparatus. For example, shortly before the outbreak of the
First World War, Marxist parties in Europe supported
their states by approving the war credits under the slogan: Defense of Homeland.
Lenin's intense anger and the declaration of his war against those parties were
not because he wanted to dissolve the state apparatus, but because the war
hindered the revolution of the proletariat, the project of Marxism in
establishing state socialism. In order to achieve this project, Lenin and his
party fought bloody battles after October Revolution, against the left Marxist opposition,
trade unions, anarchist groups, that included mass murder, artillery shelling,
arrests and extrajudicial physical liquidation, for everyone who dared and
demanded that the role of the Marxist state should be restrained.
That
state initially resembled the repressive medieval states. Consequently, most of
the Marxist left opposition advocated slogans and ideas that included
transforming that state into a modern, “democratic” one with delicate hands but
never advocated its abolition. Rather, they continued to proclaim that it is a
socialist state. However, the leftist opposition contended that it is as
capitalist state, calling for a more flexible state like those of Western
Europe, with maintaining its control over the
economy and the central market. Indeed, some modernization of the “socialist”
state took place gradually.
We still find the Marxist left
standing in the camp of advocating the state, and worried about it in various
countries. In the West, that left is clinging with the welfare state that has declined
since the end of the Cold War, with which he allied before, calling for its
continuation and the restoration of the social roles that it abandoned. In the Middle
East, the majority of the Marxist left allied allied
with the authoritarian states against the attempts of imperialism to dismantle
the totalitarian regimes that it had established before, while calling for some
democracy. In addition, we still find the Marxists markedly anxious about
“terrorism” and the possible revolutions of the hungry, for fear of something
they call “the fall of the state,” considering this a precursor to massive and
destructive chaos. The nationalist trend of many Marxists is added; manifested
in slogans such as: the homeland army - defending the country - protecting the
state. Rather than the struggle against “terrorism” and the states of the middle
east, among others (almost always pro-imperialist), most Marxists line up with
it, under slogans such as “Axis of Resistance” or “The Steadfastness and Confrontation”..
- For a
long time, a certain concept of socialism has been established in the Marxists mind;
that is: socialism = nationalization (or confiscation) + central planning
before anything else; state's
total control of the civil society. Marx and Engels clearly said: “The
Communists can summarize their theory with one single phrase: the abolition of
private property.”([13]) Thereafter
the Communist Manifesto went on to promise with: “the conversion of the function of the
state into a more superintendence of production” This,
of course, equals the state's control of social capital, which Engels explained
in a booklet entitled: The Principles of Communism, which was a draft of the
Communist Manifesto. This clearly indicates the interests of the state
bureaucracy. However, with the fall of the totalitarian systems in the Soviet
Union and eastern Europe, some groups added proposals
such as: public control - participatory democracy - deliberative democracy.. etc
up to nationalization and planning, of course without any mentioning to the
need to dismantle the state. Therefore, what they are looking to is a
“democratic” state with delicate hands; this is the practical meaning of public
control.
- At the end, we summarize the issue as follows:
the conception of a state socialist system which includes nationalization,
planning and a central market = a system governed by the state, whether is it authoritarian
or with delicate hands. Nevertheless, pretending that that what is meant is a
workers' state, is just hypocrisy and deception. Actually, there is no such thing
called workers' state. The state is an apparatus specialized in repression and
management. Would all workers be free to play this role?! The most
straightforward - if desired - is to say: Abolition of the state apparatus
entirely for an alternative in the form of direct democracy, government of
popular councils without a standing army, professional police, judiciary, or
bureaucracy. Claiming that this is difficult to achieve, cannot justify welcoming
that demon called the state, unless the devil is the real goal, at least in the
unconscious. Here we remember that the slogan “All power to the soviets”
(or councils) was used by the Bolsheviks before their victory and they did not
consider its implementation an impossibility at that time, then they confiscated
the soviets themselves in the context of building their state after they used
it as a Trojan horse to seize power.
This is
what we meant by "Marxism is the philosophy of the state.” As Marxism
objectively expresses the interests of the bureaucracy of the modern state,
which has abandoned the authoritarian nature of the brutal feudal system and
has become more dependent on soft power and hidden control... This is what we
deduce from such words as: “worst sides ..to lop off " and “the
state as such ceases to exist .”.. “substitute the word commune with
the word state."
Of
course, it is not necessary for the state to make its philosophy, as is the
case of all other social powers. The bourgeoisie - for example - did not
philosophize by itself, even though it was aware of its interests.
************************
Second:
We find the roots of what we mentioned in the theories of Marxist of the party,
with the exception of the views of small groups such as that of Rosa Luxemburg,
Gramsci, and other minorities:
* The
Communist Party for the Marxist currents in general is distinguished from
the working class as the bearer of the revolutionary theory; the political consciousness
of the proletariat; as the Communists “have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of
clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate
general results of the proletarian movement .” ([14]) The founders of
this idea are Marx and Engels. However, we find later mentions of Marx
countering those words: “the function of a party was to lead and serve the
proletariat in its battles and not to ‘set up any sectarian principles of their
own by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement,” “the
emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the workers themselves,”
“Trade unions are the schools of socialism. It is in trade unions that
workers educate themselves and become socialists because under their very eyes
and every day the struggle with capital is taking place.” “The political
movement of the working class has as its ultimate object, of course, the
conquest of political power for this class, and this naturally requires a
previous organization of the working class developed up to a certain point and
arising from its economic struggles.”
This is what Engels later criticized (1890): "Marx and I are partly
to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the
economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasize the main
principle vis-à-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not
always the time, the place, or the opportunity to give their due to the other
elements involved in the interaction." ([16]) However, all
of this is nonsense. It is not enough to call things by false names in order to
change them. The idea of a party composed of intellectuals representing the
workers is the point; it is the embryo of a system in which the state dominates.
This was mentioned by Bakunin decades before the emergence of the Soviet
Union (1873): "Let us ask, if the proletariat is to be the ruling
class, over whom it to rule is? In short, there will remain another proletariat
which will be subdued to this new rule, to this new state.” ([17]) This
argument reminds us of the slave revolts in the past, that when had been ended
by establishing new states, slave leaders became rulers who also oppressed a
class of slaves.
Lenin discarded the idea of the broad party in
favor of the idea of a party based on cadres of revolutionary professionals. His
rationale is summarized in the following: Because revolutionary theory can only
be assimilated by highly cultural persons, the party relies mainly on these persons.
In addition, because the workers social circumstances do not allow them to
acquire Marxist theory, the party relies on intellectuals of bourgeois origin, plus
a workers' vanguard, which is more capable to assimilate scientific socialism
than the rest of the workers. Thus, we become in front of a conscious class and
a party; the vanguard of this class, leading the workers and bringing consciousness
to them, and at the same time learns from their spontaneity and initiatives;([18]) This spontaneity
that Lenin described as “consciousness
in an embryonic form.” Since there is a well-recognized hypothesis
in the Leninist theory; that the masses are able to develop only trade union
consciousness, not political consciousness, unlike the educated and “conscious”
leaders. Therefore, the mass spontaneity - despite its importance - needs the
guidance of the intellectual leaders. Therefore, the political class-consciousness
of the workers can be provided from without, i.e. from outside the economic struggle;
from outside the periphery of relations between workers and employees; from
outside the working class, especially by the bourgeois intellectuals. This is a
life sentence for the masses that they are always less conscious than the party
members and less able to understand (they do not comprehend dialectics and
historical materialism as Ernest Mandel said!). Something similar to Gustave Le
Bon’s condescending view of the masses (his book: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude).
So now, Marx's principle, “the emancipation of the working class must be
conquered by the workers themselves,” has turned into its opposite. The
most important role now belongs to the bourgeois intellectuals who are having a
revolutionary theory. Thus, the division between manual work and mental work,
and the maintenance of hierarchy within the revolutionary camp (class and
party) are performed. Now the determination of the interests and fate of the
working class also became the task of intellectuals. Finally thought became
independent of reality and not the product of it, and the party became
“representative” of the class regardless of what it wants; it has the task of
penetrating into its ranks, convincing it with its ideas, and charting its way.
The party is now having the proletarian political consciousness, especially its
hard core, and one becomes more revolutionary and socialist as they approach
that core. Consequently, the number of Marxist organizations claiming to
represent workers multiplied; no matter how small in size, and regardless of
their ability and political effect, because all has – from the point of view of
each - the “correct” theory that should be brought to the proletariat from without.
One egregious example of what we say is
that the Fourth Trotskyist International was formed from a very little number
of small, meager organizations that are weakly related to workers, although
they are supposed to represent the world’s working class.([19])
Lenin
changed his stance about spontaneity after the revolution of 1905 in Russia: “There
is not the slightest doubt that the revolution will teach social-democratism to
the masses of the workers in Russia,” ([20]) but nothing
was accordingly changed in the hierarchical nature of his party.
-
Marxism, in its various "versions,”
theorized the special role of intellectuals in expressing the proletariat: for
instance, the Trotskyist Ernest Mandel wrote: “The category of the revolutionary
party stems from the fact that Marxian socialism is a science which,
in the final analysis, can be
completely assimilated only in an individual and not in a collective manner.
Marxism constitutes the culmination (and in part also the dissolution) of at
least three classical social sciences: classical German philosophy, classical
political economy, and classical French political science (French socialism and
historiography). Its assimilation presupposes at least an understanding of the
materialist dialectic, historical materialism, Marxian economic theory and the
critical history of modern revolutions and of the modern labor movement.” ([21])
It was
never a coincidence that Marxism attracted ambitious middle-class
intellectuals, who always aspired to achieve an important status. It was not
surprising that most members of the Russian Workers' Party were intellectuals
until 1905. However, Lenin and the violent revolution broke out at that time,
could - after marked resistance of the party leaders- admit the workers into
the party organizations. Moreover, the majority of the leaders of
Marxist parties in Europe were
always from the middle class and the majority of members of Marxist
organizations (and not only leaders) in the East as a whole were middle-class
intellectuals. In addition, Marxist parties were formed in countries almost
without workers. If we believe that those parties had bore the philosophy of
the proletariat; then whom they exactly represented politically in a country
with no workers?
The world proletariat?! Is it possible to imagine that a local party in a city
or a country represents the world proletariat politically?!
-The
ultimate goal of the revolutionary Marxist parties (excluding the reformists)
is to seize the state and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat (or “its”
party - allegedly - no difference). Those parties had imagined that once this
goal is achieved all human problems would be ended. In order to achieve that
goal, anything could be sacrificed except the party, the bearer of torch of
truth. From a practical point of view, the ultimate goal is to establish a statist
system, thus realizing bureaucratic interests in the first place. Whatever the
state apparatus be destroyed, it would be rebuilt again to accommodate Marxist
elites and be more modernized.
In all
cases, when Marxist parties seized power, they established an authoritarian
state ruled by a group of tyrannies, the vast majority of them were thieves. We
did not find, at the moment of truth, the middle-class intellectuals, those bearers
of dialectics (!) sacrificing their power and interests for the eyes of the
proletariat. Even, the former state bureaucracy benefited from the socialist
revolutions; many of its members joined the new bureaucracy in various
countries, and became Marxists! We have an example of the Tsar's men and
officers, whose majority escaped at the beginning of the Russian revolution,
but later on, when they became certain of the victory of the workers and
soldiers uprising, tens of thousands of them joined the winning horse, then the
Red Army, and some of them later became part of the ruling bureaucracy.
- Certainly,
it is possible for intellectuals of any class to create a philosophy of the
proletariat or other classes, as there is some distance between thought and the
reality it expresses. But in the realm of politics and practice, no one can act
on behalf of a class or monopolize its class-consciousness. However, the socialist
anarchist intellectuals were more consistent: they presented theories that
actually reflected only the interests of workers and the poor in general, but
they, or most of them, at the same time, have presented a truly public
political project, which only paves the way for a system of autonomy for the
public, regardless of the possibility of its success or realism.
Marxism
exploited workers, peasants, and social conflict in general to extend the hegemony of the bureaucracy and rejuvenate it. It is the
philosophy of the modern state, and a political party of middle-class sectors that
are looking for rulership.
******************
Third:
Marxism had already become the official philosophy of the state in various
socialist countries ruled by a Communist Party. Its notion had finally been
“realized” - if we borrow Hegel's language. It had become the official ideology
that is taught in schools, its bearers occupied the highest positions of the
state, and the party that was bearing the theory was the core of the state and
its privileged elite. This obvious fact found its roots in the theory of
Marxism about the state; its historical role and its emergence for pure
economic factors. Plus the role of the party; as the bearer of the consciousness
of the proletariat; which transforms it from a class “in itself” to a class
“for itself.” Finally in the project of building socialism by a state, called Dictatorship
of the Proletariat, with discarding communism and the contentment with the
socialist stage, where the state dominates and the distribution of production is
according to work, as Lenin contended.
***************************
Fourthly:
it would be expected that capitalism and its state, and even – somewhat- petty-bourgeoisie, would resist the socialist
movement. But with the changes the world witnessed, among which was the
transformation of the modern state into an octopus with private interests apart
from that of capitalism, and even became the vanguard of the existing social
systems, that state has had a drive for expanding its economic influence and
increasing its privileges. So the security services no longer arrest anyone who
calls to nationalizing the private sector or abolishing market freedom. There became
also many supporters of the Keynesian theory; a modified version of socialism,
and the welfare state in Europe
nationalized many private enterprises. Likewise, the official hostility towards
Marxism has diminished; even the German state recently celebrated the memory of
Marx with official European participation and a lot of people became tolerate
the phrase: Marx was right.([22]) It became clear after
the implementation of socialism, that it had consolidated the state power after
its reconstruction, and there was no reason for its rejection by the bourgeois
state.
It can be
added with confidence that the Marxist movements and parties, beside the alike,
in terms of Keynesian perspectives and others, may become a strategic reserve
for the existing systems, especially with the anticipated expansion of the
state after the end of Coronavirus pandemic; the state may become an
alternative to capitalism or present itself as such.
In
conclusion, the philosophy of the professional party and the “socialist” state
is necessarily the philosophy of the state.
Bakunin
considered the bureaucracy a social class, ([23]) rather it was better - in our opinion - to
say: a stratum. We add that this stratum had the interest to embrace Marxism
from the beginning, which clearly advocated the nationalization of private
property for the benefit of the state, but that it bore the bourgeois ideologies.
********************
What is to
be done?
If you, hey
militant, really want to liberate the workers or the people, then call for the dissolution
of this infernal machine called the state, offering libertarian alternatives,
including the popular councils and direct democracy, without professional
suppression tools. You also have to call the masses themselves to make their
own revolution and establish the system that suits them, without the state. It
is possible to form a popular government, but there can be no such thing as a
popular state, so what drives armed violence apparatus - even if its members
are originally from workers - to work for the sake of society as a whole? Really, the monopoly of power by any group
immediately leads to its excellence and monopoly of privileges.
“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,” Anti -Dühring, Part
III: Socialism, Theoretical.
“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,” Ibid.
Some
anarchists (including William Godwin) argued that the widespread use of reason
by the masses would ultimately cause the state (he called it: government) to
dissolve as an unnecessary force. He was against using revolutionary methods to
abolish the state apparatus. Instead, he called for a process of gradual
peaceful development, so that it could disappear on its own. He also
viewed that the minimal State could be accepted as a necessary evil at present,
which would become increasingly irrelevant and crippled, through a gradual
spread of knowledge among the citizens.
An Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice,
Manifesto of the Communist Party, Proletarians and Communists
John Molyneux, Marxism
and the Party,
John Molyneux, Op. cit., quoted from: Lenin, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic
Revolution.
Felipe
Corrêa, “Social Classes and Bureaucracy in Bakunin,”