This chapter is a polemic against the "best known theoreticians of Marxism" namely Georgi Plekhanov (1856-1918) and  Karl Kautsky (1857-1938) who were the leading thinkers of the Second International (1888-1914). Basically it is against Kautsky  (13 pages)-- Plekhanov gets 1 page. Lenin thinks the collapse of the Second International was brought about by opportunism (abandoning the long term goals of the party for short term advantages) which was fostered by the evasion of discussion on the relation of the state to the social revolution and vice versa. This "evasion" has persisted to the present day. The well known A Dictionary of Marxist Thought (Second Edition) edited by Tom Bottomore, for example, has no entry on "opportunism" and does not even list it in the index. The entry on The State and Revolution does not even mention it.

The chapter is divided into three sections: a short one contra Plekhanov and two long ones dealing with Kautsky. 

1. Plekhanov's Polemic Against the Anarchists

This section deals with Lenin’s critique of Plekhanov’s 1894 work Anarchism and Socialism.  Lenin says in this work Plekhanov doesn’t even mention the most important issue between these two ‘isms’ — namely the nature of the state and the revolution’s relations to it. The work has two parts: the first, or historical part, Lenin approves of because it has useful information for the history of ideas, especially regarding Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) and Max Stirner (1806-1856). The second, or “literary” part Lenin calls “philistine.” This part is a “clumsy” attempt to equate anarchists with “bandits.”

After the Paris Commune the anarchists had tried to claim that the commune and its history was a vindication of their views. Lenin of course rejects this claim and maintains that the true understanding of the meaning of the Commune is to be found in the writings of Marx and Engels, especially Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme.

Neither the Anarchists, nor Plekhanov in his polemic, have grasped the main issue presented by the history of the Paris Commune i.e., “must the old state machinery be shattered, and what shall be put in its place.”

By completely ignoring this issue Plekhanov, whether he knows it or not, has fallen into opportunism because opportunists want us to forget all about this question and not even discuss it all. It would seem that opportunism flourishes best where the working people are ignorant of Marxist theory and concentrate exclusively on short term goals and struggles.

2. Kautsky’s Polemic Against the Opportunists

Lenin says the most important German opportunist was Bernstein whom Kautsky criticized in his first foray against opportunism: Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Bernstein had charged Marxism with “Blanquism” [ Louis Auguste Blanqui, 1805-1881- advocated a coup by a small group who would then turn the government over to the people after they had instated socialism] in his great revisionist opus Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus. Bernstein particularly likes Marx’s conclusion (based on his study of the Paris Commune) that “the working class cannot lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it to its own purposes.” But he has his own interpretation of the meaning of Marx’s dictum which is exactly the opposite of what Marx intended.

Marx meant, according to Lenin (following Engels), that the working class had to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a working class state. Bernstein says it means that the working class should cool it after the revolution and try and reform the state rather than getting carried away and trying to smash it. “A crasser and uglier perversion of Marx’s ideas cannot be imagined,” Lenin says.

So, how did Kautsky deal with this crass opportunistic formulation in his critique of Bernstein?   He glosses over it. Kautsky writes: “The solution of the problem of the proletarian dictatorship we can safely leave to the future.” Lenin says since opportunists want to defer to the future all talk about a working class revolution this is not a real critique of Bernstein but “ a concession to him.” 

Kautsky himself is thus an opportunist and, Lenin points out, as regards Marx’s understanding of how the workers should be educated with respect to a working class revolution and Kautsky’s understanding “there is an abyss.”

In 1902 Kautsky wrote a more mature work, The Social Revolution. Lenin says there is a lot of valuable information in this work but the author still evaded the vital question of the state. Again, Kautsky ends up giving de facto support to the opportunists because he writes about the possibility of the working class taking state power without abolishing the currently existing state. This view, which derives from The Communist Manifesto of 1848 Marx had declared “obsolete” in 1872.

Kautsky writes about democracy and that the working class will come to power and “realise the democratic programme” but he never mentions the lessons of the Paris Commune and the conclusions  Marx and Engels drew from them that bourgeois democracy had to be replaced by working class democracy.

Here is a quote from Kautsky: “It is obvious that we shall not attain power under the present order of things. Revolution itself presupposes a prolonged and far-reaching struggle which, as it proceeds, will change our present political and social structure.” While this is even too much for some present day “socialists” to stomach, Lenin thought it was as banal and obvious as “horses eat oats.” Lenin wanted this “far reaching struggle” spelled out so that working people would understand the difference between a working class revolution and the non working class revolutions of the past.

Kautsky warns against opportunism in words, Lenin says, but actually promotes it in the way he expresses himself. Here is an example from The Social Revolution: “In a Socialist society there can exist side by side, the most varied forms of economic enterprises — bureaucratic trade union, trade union, co-operative, private…. There are, for instance, such enterprises that cannot do without a bureaucratic organization: such are the railways. Here democratic organisation might take the following form: the workers elect delegates, who form something in the nature of a parliament, and this parliament determines the conditions of work, and superintends the management of the bureaucratic apparatus. Other enterprises may be transferred to the labour unions, and still others may be organized on a co-operative basis.” Lenin says this quote is not only wrong-headed but is a backward step from the ideas Marx and Engels elaborated in the 1870s as a result of their study of the Paris Commune. 

Of course modern industrial production in general, not just railroads, needs to be conducted under rigid work rules and regulation but after the workers come to power they won’t be organized on bureaucratic lines overseen by “something like” the old bourgeois parliaments. There will be no bureaucrats as such. The workers will directly control their industries and delegates will be subject to instant recall, no one will earn more than ordinary workers, and the old state will be replaced by a new worker’s state where everyone will gain experience in administration and planning so that “bureaucrats” in the sense used by Kautsky will no longer exist. Kautsky has not paid attention to the words of Marx: “The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.”

Lenin next takes up Kautsky”s short work The Road to Power [ Der Weg zu Macht ]. Lenin thinks this is the best of Kautsky's writings against opportunism, yet it too is found wanting and for the same reason "it completely dodges the question of the state." It is this constant dodging that Lenin thinks weakened the German Social Democrats theoretically, led to the growth of opportunism, and ultimately to the great betrayal of socialist principles: the support of the German imperialists in the Great War.  These three short works of Kautsky came out in 1899, 1902, and 1909 respectively but it was not until 1912 that Kautsky's opportunism became explicitly expressed. We will deal with this in t Kautsky's polemic against Pannekoek.

3. Kautsky's Polemic Against Pannekoek

The Pannekoek in question was Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) a Dutch Marxist who in later life became one of the leaders of "Council Communism" a tendency which developed out of the "Left Wing Communism" considered by Lenin to be an infantile disorder.  However, long before this, in 1912, he published an article in Neue Zeit  called "Mass Action and Revolution."  In this article he criticized Karl Kautsky's views on the nature of the state in relation to the coming revolution. He pointed out that workers have to overthrow both the ruling class and their state. "The struggle will not end until, as its final result, the entire state organization is destroyed."

Lenin says Pannekoek's article has defects, is imprecise, and not very concrete  but is clear enough in advocating both the overthrow of the ruling class and the state that it controls replacing it with a working class state. But Lenin is really interested in Kautsky's reply which, he says, betrays Marxism on this issue -- i.e., the fate of the bourgeois state.

Kautsky wrote: "Up till now the difference between Social Democrats and Anarchists has consisted in this: the former wished to conquer the state power while the latter wished to destroy it. Pannekoek wants to do both." Lenin says this distinction is a vulgar distortion of Marxism. Lenin was not always very subtle in his critiques.

Pannekoek is the one who is correct, not Kautsky and for the following three reasons which differentiate Marxists (M) from Anarchists (A):
1. M- the state withers away after the revolution and the creation of Socialism: A- the   
    state is abolished immediately and permanently after the revolution .
2. M- the state that withers away is the new form of the state. based on the Paris   
    Commune, which the workers create after the revolution to replace the bourgeois 
    state: A- the old state is abolished and nothing is put in its place to direct and
    channel the newly won power of the working class-- the dictatorship of the
    proletariat (the necessary first form of worker's power after the fall of the working  
    class) is rejected.
3. M- use the currently existing state (as far as is possible) to educate and train the 
    working people for revolutionary activity: A- reject this notion.

Lenin also objects to Kautsky taking quotes out of context from Marx and using them against Pannekoek when they are not at all germane to the argument (a fate all too soon to befall quotes from Lenin himself).

Kautsky talks about the party being in opposition to the capitalist state now and wants to put off discussions about the nature of the state until after the workers come to power. He doesn’t want to talk about the nature of the revolution— which is one of the main features of opportunism.

It’'s all well and good to make general comments about opposition and democratic struggle but we must always be clear about how this struggle must eventuate.  “A revolution must not consist in a new class ruling, governing with the help of the old state machinery, but in this class smashing this machinery and ruling, governing by means of new machinery.”

Kautsky ignores this because he maintains there must be officials and experts just as much after the change of power as before. Lenin agrees but insists, based on the lessons of the Commune, that the officials and experts will be under the direction of the working class and not be responsible to the bureaucratic structures of the old capitalist state which is kept around and is supposedly supervised by the working class.

Capitalism has enslaved the working people and bourgeois democracy, which we may now live under, is, Lenin says, crushed and mutilated by the wages system, poverty and “the misery of the masses.” This fake mutilated pseudo-democracy is the reason why, in our day the Tea Party had such influence and Trump was able to take over the Republican party and control many levers of power in the US.  And, Lenin says, it is the source of corruption in the political parties and the trade unions, and fuels the tendency for the “leaders” of the people to turn into bureaucrats— “i.e., privileged persons detached from the masses, and standing above the masses.” This is just the nature of democracy under capitalism and until capitalism is overthrown even the leaders of the working people “will inevitably be to some extent ‘bureaucratized.’” 

In attacking Pannekoek, Lenin says, Kautsky is only repeating the views of Bernstein (“the ‘old’ views”) as expressed in Evolutionary Socialism, the English name of Bernstein’s book. Bernstein had rejected many of Marx’'s positions concerning worker's democracy versus bourgeois democracy based on the idea that after 70 years or so “in complete freedom” the British union movement had given up on the ideas  as “worthless” and had settled on a model based on bureaucracy  and regular parliamentary practice. 

As against this Bernstein-Kautsky assertion Lenin says it is not the case that the British unions have developed “in complete freedom,” but they had rather developed in an atmosphere of “complete capitalist enslavement.”  Of course, in such an atmosphere, it made no sense to try to create a working class democracy along Marxist lines that had presumed a post- revolutionary environment in which the working class was the new ruling class.

The two great errors we must avoid are: First, thinking we have to just take over the presently existing state machinery by means democratic elections or parliamentary procedures and then employe it to build socialism, and Second, to take the Anarchist position of just smashing the presently existing state and then letting the working people decide what happens next (i.e., no pre-planning for a temporary worker’s state until conditions of socialism are firmly established.)

The Anarchist view is not really taken very seriously within the working class, but Kautsky’s view (or some modern day descendent ) still has its supposititious appeal. Lenin quotes Kautsky: “never, under any conditions can it [a working class victory] lead to the destruction of the state power; it can lead only to a certain shifting of forces within the state power....
 The aim of our political struggle then, remains as before, the conquest of state power by means of gaining a majority in parliament and a conversion of parliament into the master of the government.”''

Lenin says this is an example of “vulgar opportunism” i.e., of abandoning the principles of  Marxism and the real long term interests of the working people and tailoring your program to take ephemeral advantages of historically temporary social and economic conditions. It is a confusion between strategy  [the what, the goal, the end result, socialism] and tactics [the how, what must be done, the present step in the democratic struggle]. 

Of course in the present day and in the non revolutionary conditions temporally instantiated in the US and most of Europe there is no sense in calling for the destruction of bourgeois democracy, of coining a lot of "revolutionary" slogans about the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalists by the armed workers, etc.  "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

Our current struggle is to defeat the ultra-right politically and work with progressive groups and others to build a meaningful coalition of forces able to protect already existing democratic rights and to extend them, and fight for new ones, for the benefit of the working people and their allies.

Nevertheless, in the realm of theory we should not forget the ultimate destiny of the capitalist system and become so blinded by the present transient stage in history that we become as those "socialists," condemned by Lenin, who rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat in theory because it "contradicted" democracy. Lenin thought that ridiculous; it contradicted only the pseudo-democracy used by the ruling class to befool the workers, and of those so-called "socialists” ; he said there "is really no essential difference between them and the petty-bourgeois democrats."  This may have no sting today, but it may in the nearer than we think, future.

State and Revolution ends here and chapter seven, the last ("Experience of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917") was never written. The October Revolution broke out and Lenin wrote: "It is more pleasant and useful to go through the 'experience of the revolution' than to write about it."

I hope people will find this commentary useful.
New York, January 31, 2015. Updated for MWM 2021

Chapter 5 of State and Revolution  has a brief introduction and four sections. Part Three of this review covers section four.

4. Higher Phase of Communist Society

This is a very important section and should dispel many incorrect notions about the nature of socialism, the level of development towards communism in the former and current socialist states, and the possibility of creating any kind of society that brings freedom and justice to humanity as long as capitalism exists and a state is necessary to regulate social life.

This section is an extended commentary by Lenin on the following quote from Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme: “In the higher phase of Communist society, when the enslaving subordination of individuals in the division of labour has disappeared, and with it also the antagonism between mental and physical labour; when labour has become not only a means of living, but itself the first necessity of life; when, along with the all-round development of individuals, the productive forces too have grown, and all the springs of social wealth are flowing more freely— it is only at that stage that it will be possible to pass completely beyond the narrow horizon of bourgeois rights, and for society to inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs.”

Lenin says that in light of this quote we can understand why Engels mocked those who conjoined the notions of “freedom” and “state.” Lenin frankly remarks that: “While the state exists there is no freedom.” There can only be relative degrees of repression. 

Today we are faced with the issue of increasing inequality between the citizens in the various states that presently exist on the world stage.  A recent book by Thomas Piketty (Capital in the 21st Century) has brought this issue to the forefront of political discussion. But nowhere in his discussion  does he deal with one of the major causes of social inequality. This is, Lenin points out “the antagonism between mental and physical labour” which is “one of the principal sources of modern SOCIAL inequality.” 

Under capitalism, as a matter of fact, inequality can never be eliminated. Some will always be “more equal than others.” This is because under capitalism the division of labor cannot be abolished. Nor can it be removed simply by eliminating the capitalists. It is “impossible to remove immediately by the mere conversion of the means of production into public property, by the mere expropriation of the capitalists.”  No one should be surprised  that social inequality existed in the former socialist states and still exists in countries today calling themselves socialist.

These states only provided or still provide the foundations for the possible future social conditions whereby this division could be eliminated. The development of industrial technique must attain a level where a super abundance of social wealth will be available for social distribution and universal education will eliminate the separation between physical and mental labor and the inequality that it breeds. Capitalism retards this growth in technique but the elimination of capitalism presents the possibility for its growth. 

How this future possibility will eventually present itself and exactly when such industrial growth will ever become so developed that all human beings can equally share in its benefits, Lenin informs us “we do not and cannot know.” But we do know there will be no “withering away of the state” before this time comes. One of the points of this for us is that all criticism of socialist states, past and present, for not bringing about some sort of equalitarian worker’s paradise is based on ignorance of the actual social realities the founders of Marxism discussed concerning the prospects of a future communist society.

Lenin points out that those bourgeois critics of socialism who sneer at its claims of liberation and label as Utopian dreams the ideals of a society of complete social equality in which people create social wealth according to their abilities and share it according to needs only display “their ignorance and their-self seeking defense of capitalism.”

Lenin calls them ignorant because while this highest stage of Communism has been discussed  by the founders of Marxism as a theoretical possibility “it has never entered the head of any Socialist to ‘promise’ that the highest phase of Communism will arrive.” This phase would require people quite unlike the common run of humanity today— people raised and educated to share and live lives of unselfish devotion to their common humanity as well as developing their individual talents and abilities with no desires to do so at the expense of other human beings. They would be living in a society capable of producing and sharing social wealth unlike any society of the past or present. Foreseeing this possibility is not the same as “promising” it will ever come about but it is a possible future to keep in mind and for which we can strive.

Until that day comes, when the state as we know it has “withered away,” Lenin says that “Socialists demand the strictest control, by society and by the state, of the quantity of labour and the quantity of consumption.” But this control has to begin not in the present society but with the overthrow of capitalism and the capitalist state— “a state of bureaucrats”— and its replacement by “a state of armed workers” (the Second Amendment will have some use after all).

Lenin has in mind soviets of workers and soldiers as they appeared in Russia in 1905 and 1917. He thought of these soviets as models of real democracy (and, by a dialectical inversion, as a “democratic dictatorship”— a term which confounds many socialists today who have forgotten what is “dialectical” in dialectical materialism).

This new post-capitalist state will turn all the citizens into workers of one gigantic syndicate or monopoly — “the whole state” — controlled and governed by the workers themselves by means of the soviets. The reality, however, turned out differently from Lenin’s ideas expressed here in chapter five. No actually existing socialist state was ever capable of existing as a state based on the “armed workers” and they all ended up with professional standing armies and administered  by bureaucrats. 

These states were handicapped by developing in industrial backwards, or devastated, areas and were never able to create enough social wealth to advance beyond the most rudimentary socialist beginnings  even though they brought about giant leaps forward in education, economic and social well being, literacy, and health to the populations living in them. The surviving socialist states are still grappling with many of these problems while simultaneously furthering the well being of their citizens.

Lenin wants to be clear on the scientific difference between Socialism and Communism. Socialism is the first and lower phase of Communism-- but it is not full Communism. Socialism has succeeded in turning the means of production, formerly owned and controlled by capitalists, into socially owned public property. This is technically "Communism" but it is not completely evolved mature Communism, hence this lower phase is best dubbed Socialism and the term "Communism" reserved for the more advanced and higher phase into which Socialism will hopefully evolve. 

Marx, basing himself on materialist dialectics, sees Communism evolving out of capitalism via Socialism. The Socialist stage still has many capitalist "taints" associated with it and retains, in Marx's words, "the narrow horizon of bourgeois rights." Bourgeois rights still predominate in the creation and distribution of wealth-- goods and services are dished out, in the main, to each according to his/her work. 

There must still be a state apparatus to ensure that rights are preserved and recognized. In the beginning of the establishment of Socialism then the new state will be charged with defending bourgeois rights-- it will be, in fact, a bourgeois state administered by workers. Lenin puts it this way, "for a certain time not only bourgeois rights but even the bourgeois state remains under Communism [i.e., the first phase--tr], without the bourgeoisie!" Capitalism without the capitalists!-- or least without them in control. There are "socialist" countries today still evolving along these lines.  The former East European socialist states and the Soviet Union were at this stage when they imploded. 

Lenin says this view of a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie may look like a paradox but Marx held that it was inevitable “in a society issuing from the womb of capitalism.” Nevertheless, democracy is absolutely necessary for the working class but it is only a stage along the road from feudalism to capitalism and on to Communism.

Democracy is seen by the workers as leading to equality and ''equality'' is “a useful slogan” as long as we remember that we mean by it “the abolition of classes.” But we get only formal, not real equality under democracy. We get real equality only under Communism when distribution is ruled by needs not work. 

Lenin admits that“we do not and cannot know” how Socialism will transform itself into this future higher state but it will come after the workers have smashed to bits the current form of the bourgeois state and substituted a higher form of state (still a state) based on a people’s militia of “universal participation.”  None of the former, or current, socialist countries opted for states  based on a people’s militia of “universal participation.”  

At this stage quantitative changes will lead to qualitative changes. By this Lenin means that the vast numbers of the formerly oppressed are now directly involved in ruling and administering the economy and the state and this changes the way democracy functions— no longer a tool of the bourgeoisie to control the people but a tool used by the people to take charge of their own lives. The recent elections in the United States, leaving control of the Senate to the right wing reactionary Republican party, serves as a reminder of how democracy serves as a tool of the bourgeoisie (not that a Senate Democratic  victory would have changed this relationship but it would have appeared less sharply). 

All this depends on the advanced stage that capitalism has reached where universal literacy has been attained (“already realised in most of the advanced capitalist countries”) and the workers have been “trained” in how to operate the vast complexities of the capitalist industries and factories already “socialised” but presently still owned by the capitalist class. The specialized workers—i.e., trained economists, agronomists, scientists and engineers will, Lenin says, work “even better” for the workers than for the capitalists. 

I am not so sure how the “specialists” would have reacted to getting “equal” pay with the workers under the new system as Lenin says everyone will be a state employee all of whom will “do their share of work” and “should receive equal pay.”  It is moot anyway as this program never got off the ground as it required revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries to succeed as well as what was going on in Russia. I don’t think Lenin, at this time, thought the Russian Revolution was going to be left high and dry on its own.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to see what he thought the first stage, the socialist stage, would be like after the revolution. The new socialist state would convert the capitalists into employees and the workers themselves would run all the economic institutions in the state— everyone would be a state employee. The result of this would be that: “The whole of society will have become one office and one factory, with equal work and equal pay.” If this is the practical realistic outlook for the lower stage, the socialist stage, of Communism it is just as well the founders did not engage in “Utopian speculations” concerning what the “higher stage” would be like.

Lenin says that this lower stage of “‘factory’ discipline” is not the ideal goal of the revolution but a necessary foothold to overcome “all the hideousness and foulness of capitalist exploitation in order to advance further.”  Once this first stage has been achieved and the human collective of the new order has learned to work and share without the selfishness, greed, and alienation from its humanity that capitalism fosters and practicing human decency has become a habit, then and only then will it be possible to begin to transition to the higher stage of Communism and the withering away of the state and our motto can truly be Novus ordo seclorum.

Coming up Chapter 6 of State and Revolution: “Vulgarisation of Marx by the Opportunists” ( plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.)

Chapter 5 of State and Revolution  has a brief introduction and four sections. Part Two of this review covers section three.

3. First Phase of Communist Society

To avoid confusion it must be pointed out that Marx speaks of two phases of "Communism"-- a lower and a higher. By convention the first or lower phase has become known as "Socialism" and the higher or advanced stage as "Communism" proper. Except for direct quotations, I shall use the term "Socialism" to denote what Marx calls the first phase of Communism and "Communism" to refer to what Marx calls the second phase of Communism.

In this section Lenin presents  Marx's remarks on the misguided views of Ferdinand Lassalle, one of the early leaders of the German working class, some of whose opinions he thought pernicious. Specifically, he wanted to disprove Lassalle's view that workers living under Socialism would get "the full product of their labour."

The idea here was workers would not be exploited because under Socialism: “to each according to his work’’ meant if I created $100 of social wealth that’s what society would give back as part of my disposable income. Not so, according to Marx. The Socialist state has to deduct from wages money to put aside as a “reserve fund” to make improvements in production and maintain infrastructure. It also needs to deduct money for a social consumption fund to pay for schools, hospitals, pensions, aid to people who are sick or can’t work, salaries for public employees, etc. If each fund got $10 then for every $100 of social wealth I created I would get back $80 for my disposable income.

The state, just as the former capitalist, would be taking $20 of the surplus value I created. This accounts for the “social” in Socialism. The difference is the capitalists would not be taking the wealth I created and using it for themselves and living high on the hog while I just made do; the State would be using it to do things for me that I really need but could not provide for myself— medical services, rent subsidies, price controls so that food was cheap and available, the secret police to keep the capitalists from making a comeback, etc. [The Stasi was incompetent]

In Marx’s words: “What we are dealing with here is not a Communist society which has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, one which is just emerging from capitalist society, and which therefore in all respects — economic, moral and intellectual — still bears the birthmarks from the old society from whose womb it sprung.” This is the lower phase, right after the revolution, of “Communism”, AKA “Socialism.” Socialism covers this whole first phase out of which the second phase true Communism will hopefully emerge. Unfortunately none of the revolutions of the 20th century succeeded in even establishing the first phase, let alone the second phase of this project— although some countries are still trying to figure out how to get the first phase going.

Now, Lassalle thought that there must be a “just distribution” of the social wealth under Socialism— “the equal right of each to an equal product of labour.” There would be no inequality under Socialism (and nothing for Piketty and others to complain about). Marx is interested in this idea of “equal right.”  He agrees that we have in Socialism “equal rights” but we must understand that “rights” presuppose inequality.  I can demand the right to vote only if I don’t have it. What is the point of demanding what I have?

To demand a “right” is to demand equal standards be applied to all people and people are not really all equal to one another.  In the real world some are smarter, some are richer, some are better educated, some are stronger, etc. In the words of Blake:

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night. 
(from “Auguries of Innocence”)

Socialism wants to change these morns and nights, but only Communism will bring sweet delight. Marx says we are still haunted by the bourgeois order when we demand rights because rights are under the regime of “bourgeois right.”  As a good dialectician Marx says that equal rights violates the concept of equality and is actually a form of injustice. Lassalle is wrong and under Socialism justice demands “unequal rights.” Huh?

Suppose under Socialism we get equal pay for equal work. Laura and Judy both get paid the same. Laura is single and saves up some of her pay so she has money to go on trips or to buy extra goodies. Judy is a single mother of two and can’t save up money for trips and extra goodies as three people have to live on her pay. Equal pay results in an unequal outcome. This is the regime of from each according to his/her ability to each according to his/her work. 

While there is no capitalist exploitation of human beings (private property in the means of production having been abolished) Lenin nevertheless points out that Socialism “still cannot produce justice and equality.”  This is because under Socialism distribution is governed by  “work performed.”  Real “justice” and “equality” must await the second or higher form of the transition— Communism where distribution will be governed by need.

“No justice, no peace” is therefore really a temporary slogan limited to the capitalist era since, while under Socialism there is still “no justice” ( in an absolute sense) there is nevertheless peace because “bourgeois right” is completely enforced and people understand that they are working together to achieve a future Communist society in which the bourgeois notions of justice and equality will have no meaning.

In the words of Marx: “These defects are unavoidable in the first phase of Communist society [Socialism], when after long travail, it first emerges from capitalist society. Justice can never rise superior to the economic conditions of society and the cultural development conditioned by them.” Critics of the 20th century failures and successes of the Socialist revolutions and their successor states still pursuing their goals in the 21st should be mindful of this insight given by Marx.

Lenin points out that Marx was aware (not being a Utopian) that with the initial overthrow of capitalism and the beginning of Socialism the only standard of fairness and the sense of what is “right” is what was learned under the old system— “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”, “equal pay for equal work,” “a living wage,” etc. “Bourgeois right” is the only standard they will initially have and “a form of state will be necessary, which while maintaining public ownership of the means of production, would preserve the equality of labour and equality in the distribution of products.” 

The Socialist state, even as it sets in motion its own withering away, functions at this level to protect bourgeois right and enforces actual inequality. Even under Socialism we understand a better world is possible and that world is explained in the last section of Chapter 5: “Higher Phase of Communist Society.”

This will be discussed in part 3 of our review: Chapter 5, section 4 of State and Revolution.

Chapter 5 of State and Revolution  has a brief introduction and four sections. Lenin opens by telling us that Marx’s major discussion of the withering way of the state is to be found in his Critique of the Gotha Program. The Gotha Program was the founding document of the SPD in 1875. Although Marx wrote it in 1875, it was not published until 1891, eight years after his death. This article covers sections 1 and 2.   
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1. Formulation of the Question by Marx

Lenin makes some very interesting comments in this section-- relevant to our understanding of socialism and the transition from capitalism in the twenty-first century. First, as opposed to those who maintained that Marx and Engels had different views on the nature of the state, i.e., that the Letter to Bebel and the Critique of the Gotha Program are incompatible, Lenin says that they were actually in complete agreement on the state. The two works dealt with different aspects of the state and it is only by misinterpreting these works that any so-called incompatibility arises. Engel's letter dealt with the issue of what the state is under capitalism and the incorrect notions held of its role after the socialist revolution. Marx was interested in discussing  the transition from socialism to communism. Marx was dealing with the evolution of communism. "The whole theory of Marx," Lenin says, is an application of the theory of evolution ... to modern capitalism." This raises a couple of interesting points. 

For instance, Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) has been criticized for trying to apply the theory of evolution to modern capitalism and developing what came to be called "Social Darwinism" (although this term was not used to describe Spencer's views until the twentieth century).  Darwin's theory is based on "natural selection" as applied to biological organisms and Social Darwinism has been attacked for making a category mistake, applying language appropriate to one group of things (e.g., biological organisms) inappropriately to a different group of things (e.g., non-biological social institutions.)

This critique basically did in Spencer’s views and so, it would seem, Lenin's characterization of Marxism as the theory of evolution applied to modern capitalism should also be rejected. But Lenin did not, as Spenser did, use Darwinian terminology (natural selection, survival of the fittest - coined by Spenser) when he discussed evolution. He did not see Marxism as a subdivision of Darwinism. He used the term "evolution" in a more general sense to describe systematic changes in any type of organization such that any time 2 could be understood as a result of causative factors at work at time1 for any system, biological or social. Darwinism and Marxism would both be species of the genus "evolution." The terminology of one could not be mechanically applied to the other, hence Lenin did not, while Spencer did, commit a category mistake.

So, what was the question formulated by Marx? Lenin said it was, "On the basis  of what data can the future evolution of future communism be considered?" Lenin's answer is most important as it contains (although not obviously) the seeds of understanding why the twentieth-century socialist experience has been partially set back and may be temporarily in stasis.  "On the basis of the fact," Lenin wrote, "that it has its origin in capitalism, that it is the result of an action of a social force to which capitalism has given birth."

Marx and Engels had no use for thinking up Utopias based on speculations about a future society. Unfortunately Lenin uses a biological analogy-- Marx is working like a biologist studying a new organism and explaining it in terms of his knowledge of other organisms out of which it developed. This is an analogy, however, and not a category mistake.

Lenin also mentions that the concept of a "people's state" was being bandied about by the SPD leadership at this time. This notion was used to justify ideas about keeping the state around under socialism. Marx thought the notion of a "people's state" was ridiculous once one understood what the role of the state was historically and that it had no function to play after the establishment of socialism. Perhaps Khrushchev's views on the former USSR as a "state of the whole people" put forth at the 22nd CPSU Congress can be better understood in light of these passages from Lenin. Subsequent events seem to suggest that the concept of "a state of the whole people" was indeed ridiculous considering the actual conditions in the former Soviet Union at the time as well as later developments.

2. Transition from Capitalism to Communism

Given Capitalism, Marxists want to end up with Communism— its negation. Marx says there will have to be a long period of transition separating these two systems. What is the role of “democracy” during the transition? Lenin says we can have “more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic.”  But under capitalism the bourgeois democratic republic puts limits on the extent of democratic rights i.e., “democracy is always bound by the narrow framework of capitalist exploitation.” Only the rich fully enjoy democratic freedom while the majority of the population  have the illusion of freedom; it is, Lenin says, almost the same as it was in Ancient Greece “freedom for the slave owners.”

Marx held that the workers (“wage-slaves”) are so crushed down by debt and poverty under capitalism that “democracy is nothing to them” and “politics is nothing to them.” Lenin gives examples from his day to back up Marx’s comments. Here are some examples from our own time. Well, there has been some advance in our consciousness since Marx wrote those words (1875). Many working people have become aware of the possibilities of using the limited democratic possibilities of the capitalist state to somewhat improve their conditions of servitude. But many are still in the condition that Marx described. In the US for instance, in midterm elections less than half of the voters bother to cast ballots. The 2018 midterms were an exception as 53% of the voters turned out.

The working people and their allies have the power in next  year’s election (2022) to rout the ultra right and put in place less reactionary politicians under whom it is possible to make some gains for the majority in terms of economic and social rights. We will see how well socialists, progressives, and union activists  have succeeded in making the oppressed aware of their stake in elections by the percentage of voters who go to the polls and the extent of the possible rout. I should think we have to have a greater turn out than 53% or we are doing something wrong. If there is a rout it will strengthen arguments in favor of the left wing of the Democratic Party of breaking with the center and running to the left in the primaries as well lay a basis for Communist candidates to run as well.

Lenin, following Marx and Engels, understands the need for these preliminary skirmishes, but that wars, human exploitation, and poverty can never be ended until capitalism itself is ended. We have to fight for real democratic change, i.e., worker’s democracy, in order for this to happen. Thus Lenin maintains that the way forward is NOT to start here where we are and fight for “greater and greater democracy”— this is the delusion of “liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists” — the way forward is to fight to establish workers democracy [AKA the dictatorship of the proletariat; this particular choice of words can be debated: "worker's democracy" is a fine substitute as long as the concept is kept -- abolition of the bourgeoisie] which enacts laws that end the exploitation of working people and that deny to the capitalists democratic rights that they now presently enjoy which enable them to exploit other people. 

Lenin stresses the fact that the first REAL democracy, democracy for the poor and oppressed, democracy for the people, is also the restriction of democracy for the rich, the exploiters, the capitalists. Freedom for the 99% can be gained only by restraining the 1%. This is the only way, Lenin says, freedom can  be attained by the masses of people, by using force to destroy the power of the exploiter. This is just the way of the world. Lenin calls it “the modification of democracy during the transition period from capitalism to Communism.”  For those who are less concerned with words than the concepts behind them, the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” can be replaced by “modification of democracy,” or “worker’s democracy” without any change of meaning as long we are clear about  what Lenin thinks is the role of the state in the transition period. Once Communism is reached democracy will fade away along with the state structure itself since democracy is a concept relating to the form of a particular sort of state.

What Lenin means can be understood by examining the logic of a common progressive slogan in use today— i.e., “No Justice, No Peace.” People have an almost innate feeling for justice and fairness (although socially conditioned) and understand quite well when they are not being treated fairly. They will eventually fight back if the unfair treatment becomes too much for them. Since all class societies are based on the ill treatment of the vast majority by a tiny minority a state is created which keeps the majority in check. Since there is no justice there are many incidences of no peace—  strikes, revolts, riots, uprisings, civil disobedience, rebellions, boycotts, civil wars, colonial wars, wars for economic dominance, demonstrations, marches, revolutions, etc. all of these are more or less calibrated to reflect the level of injustice being imposed by the ruling minority. 

A successful state must keep the majority in check and (with a few exceptions in small societies) “the greatest ferocity and savagery of suppression are required, seas of blood are required, through which mankind is marching in slavery, serfdom, and wage-labour.” With the establishment of socialism a transitional period ensues with a new kind of state, one representing the majority which puts down the exploiting minority and eliminates it as a class, enabling the creation of conditions of justice for all, and thus peace. The end of the transitional period ushers in Communism “which renders the state absolutely  unnecessary  for there is no one to be suppressed”— in the sense of a class trying to exploit others. There will of course be ornery individuals no matter what kind of society you have but they will be dealt with by the people themselves living in communal arrangements.

Next up, we will deal with what Marx thought these two stages of post capitalist society would be like— without being Utopian Lenin says. We will resume with section 3 of chapter 5: “First Phase of Communist Society.”

This is a review of Chapter IV of Lenin's State and Revolution (1917, 1918). The chapter is entitled "Supplementary Explanations by Engels" and is divided into six parts. These parts build on Marx's definitive analysis of the Commune and are based on later observations made by Engels which Lenin discusses separately. 

1. The Housing Question
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This question deals with the provision of housing for all members of society. In reflecting on how the Commune dealt with this problem Engels explains how a working people's state differs from the bourgeois state on this issue. The capitalist state relies on "supply and demand" to take care of the housing problem and as a result some have no housing and others have greater housing resources than their needs.

Engels maintains that any large city already has the housing space necessary to solve any housing shortage-- if only it were used "rationally." Since "people before profits" is a motivational axiom of a people's (socialist) state the rational solution for such a state would be the expropriation of all housing space and its redistribution on the basis of need.  A bourgeois state would be incapable of such an action.

The worker's state would own the housing stock [and all other major instruments of labour] and, at least during the transition period to full socialism (i.e., communism) would set reasonable and fair rents. Thus Engels wrote that, "The actual taking possession of all instruments of labour by the working people therefore by no means excludes the retention of rent relations" (The Housing Question, 1872).

This contrasts with anarchist views (Proudhon) that suggest that the workers will become individual owners of capitalist housing stock rather than owning it as a class through their state (again, at least in the transitional period).  Free housing (housing without rent) will have to await the "withering away of the state." Marxism has always maintained that the abolition of classes and the abolition of the state are concurrent processes.

2. Polemic Against the Anarchists

The definitive position of Marx and Engels  on the state with respect to the anarchists, Lenin says, took place in 1873 in a series of articles published in the Italian press. Die Neue Zeit got around to publishing them in 1913. They are still relevant today.

Marx did not disagree with the anarchists (Proudhonists and others) about the need to abolish the state along with the abolition of classes. It was the timing that was at issue. The anarchists wanted to abolish the state practically overnight the day after the revolution, while Marx and Engels thought the state still had a role to play during the transition from capitalism to socialism and then to communism. Marx, according to Lenin, did not think "the workers should deny themselves the use of arms, the use of organized force, that is, the use of the state, for the purpose of 'breaking down the resistance of the bourgeoisie.'" The Communists and the Anarchists have the same aim-- but the Communists want the use of the state "for a while."

The problem of the transition is exceedingly difficult. The Soviets had the use of the state for over 70 years and yet were overthrown. The lessons of how they were able to last so long and how they were overthrown have yet to be learned.

Engels polemicized against the anarchists on the issue of their antiauthoritarianism. Engels used to give arguments such as can a ship's captain be authoritarian when the ship is in danger. Would you obey Sully Sullenberger  if he was your pilot and the airplane was in trouble? These are clearly examples of justified acts of authoritarian behavior. The anarchist response was that  these individuals were given "commissions" by the people not "authority." This led Engels to remark, "These people think that they can change a thing by changing its name." Unfortunately this name changing "magic" is still at work. Secretaries of War have become Secretaries of Defense, yet their job descriptions  have remained the same. Romani ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Engels said that if the anarchists had been realistic about the need for authority to be given to specialists when in modern industry and production it was inevitably, within limits, needed it would have been possible for the Marxists and anarchists to work together but "they fight passionately against the word." Still in our own day we see political discussions degenerate into fights over words and the concepts at issue lost sight of.

The anarchists want to abolish authoritarianism as the first act of the revolution, Engels says and he asks "Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution?"  Fear, intimidation (terror if you like) and rifles, bayonets and canons are used to impose the will of one class on that of another. The Paris Commune would "not have lasted a day" if it had not applied violence and force against the bourgeoisie. Those advocating the abolition of authoritarian measures the day after the revolution either don't know what they are talking about or are spreading confusion: "In either case they serve only the interests of reaction." Lenin says Engels used the experience of the "last revolution" (the Paris Commune) to arrive at his conclusions. That was a long time ago. Have the times changed? Our modern revisionists think so.

3. Letter to Bebel
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In March of 1875 Engels wrote a letter to the German Socialist leader August Bebel in which he criticized the German socialists political document known as the Gotha Program which had been adopted that same year at their founding congress. In this letter, Lenin says, one will find one of the most remarkable observations on the state ever made in any of the works of Marx or Engels. No serious Marxist can ignore it without running the risk of talking nonsense about the nature of the state and the road to take to socialism.

In any transition from capitalism to socialism it is unlikely that the capitalist class will fail to put up resistance to the assumption of power by the working classes. When the workers do come to power the bourgeois state will fall into their hands and they must immediately begin to reshape it to reflect the interests of the working people rather than the exploiters. As socialism grows this state will gradually wither away and while it is doing so it will have a transitional existence.

It must be remembered that the function of any state is to enforce class rule so that the abolition of the state is a function of the abolition of classes. The state does not exist to guarantee freedom but to repress one class in the interests of another. The government of the U.S., for example exists, on the one hand, for the purpose of repressing working people, national minorities, immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, etc., in so far as the interest of these groups coincide with those of labor, and the other hand for enhancing and consolidating the power of the one percent (the leaders of industrial and financial capital, the big corporations, the military industrial complex, those whose income derives from privatization, etc.

Engels said that as long as the working people need to have a state "it needs it not in the interests of freedom, but for the purpose of crushing its antagonists (no Bill of Rights Socialism for the bourgeoisie) as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom, then the state, as such, ceases to exist."

Engels further suggests that the word "state" be replaced by the word “community" [Gemienwesen]. Lenin says that the Russian communists (the dreaded Bolshevik bugbears that some of our present day "progressives" appeal to Thomas Piketty to protect us from) are intent in learning from the works of Marx and Engels. Lenin prefers the French word "commune" to Gemienwesen (for technical linguistic reason we need not go into) and says Engels most important comment in his letter is, with reference to the 1871 French Commune: "The Commune was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." This was because it did not exist to repress the majority of the people  for the benefit of a small minority who exploited them. Questions we can ask today are, Why did the Soviet state become stronger then became so weak it disappeared? Why does the state exist in China? Here is not the place to try and answer questions such as these.

Bebel wrote back to Engels, who was living with Marx in London at the time, and expressed his agreement with the ideas expressed by Engels. But he must have had a relapse because in 1886 he wrote "The state must be transformed from one based on class domination into a people's state." But a state is an instrument of class domination! A state of the whole people is a Marxist oxymoron. The state must be replaced by a socialist commune.

4. Criticism of the Draft of the Erfurt Programme.

The Erfurt Programme was the official policy of the Social Democratic Party of Germany which was adopted at a congress of the party in 1891. Its main thesis was that there could be a peaceful transition to socialism, that capitalism would ultimately fall due to its own contradictions, and that the party should concentrate on trying to better the conditions of the workers here and now and eschew revolutionary activity. August Bebel, Eduard Bernstein, and Karl Kautsky were the three socialist leaders behind the program.

In 1891 Engels sent a letter to Kautsky criticizing this program. However, Engels' views were not made public until twenty years later, in 1911 when the party theoretical journal, Die Neue Zeit, finally published it.

Lenin says that Engels makes three important statements about the nature of the state: "first, as regards a republic; second, as to the connection between the national question and the form of state; and third, as to local self government."

We must keep in mind that Engels was discussing conditions prevailing
in the German Empire of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the 1890s and that we are living in very different circumstances in the early 21st Century. I will  try, however, to see if any of Engels' or Lenin's views are à propos  today.

The first point that Engels makes is that talk of a peaceful transition under the German constitution is ridiculous. Germany had no republican tradition and the Riechstag was only a cover for an undemocratic dictatorial regime headed by the Kaiser. Lenin sides with Engels and holds that the Erfurt Programme was fundamentally opportunistic and not a real socialist program. Lenin says Engels said "just because of the absence of a republic and freedom in Germany, the dreams of a 'peaceful' path were perfectly absurd."

This argument would not apply to contemporary conditions even in Germany which, like the U.S. is a democratic republic. It is even more democratic than the U.S. since it is a parliamentary democracy with a ceremonial head of state and an executive directly responsible to the parliament as opposed to our presidential system which combines the powers of head of state with those of the executive power only indirectly responsible to the parliament (Congress) which has impeachment power.

Today citizens have a sense of personal freedom and the ability to participate in the government by means of elections and freedom of speech (however illusory this may be). I therefore conclude that this first reason for rejecting the Erfurt Programme would not be applicable today for the reasons given by Engels.

Engels in fact says that in a republic or other type of free country "one can conceive of a peaceful development towards Socialism." Lenin is skeptical about this but he was writing in a time of world war and social revolution and Engels in a time of relative peace.

But Engels is all for the democratic republic and does not think that the working class can come to power in any other form of government. He  writes "our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of the democratic republic." In fact he even equates "the dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "democratic republic" writing that the democratic republic "is the specific form of the dictatorship of the proletariat."  Those who reject the concept of the dictatorship of the working class, being innocent of dialectics, unwittingly are rejecting the democratic republic as well. The use of the term, however, is another matter.

To be clear, he is not saying a democratic republic is the dictatorship of the proletariat but that the dictatorship of the proletariat is one species of the genus democratic republic. Lenin points out that a democratic republic can arise under capitalism and this would advance the class struggle which would lead "to such an extension, development, unfolding and sharpening of that struggle that as soon as the possibility arises for satisfying the fundamental interests of the oppressed masses this possibility is realized inevitably and solely in the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the guidance of the masses by the proletariat."  "Dictatorship" is not a term that goes over well in the US and there is no good reason to use it since, as the context of Lenin's quote reveals, it is equivalent to "the guidance of the masses" by the working class.

Lenin points out that Engels does not have a one size fits all view of the state and the stages of transition. Engels, according to Lenin, "tries to analyze  with the utmost care the transitional forms, in order to establish in accordance with the concrete historical peculiarities of each separate case, from what and to what the given transitional form is evolving." This is an important point to bear in mind with regard to differences between a unitary and a federal republic.

Engels thought that only the form of a unitary centralized republic was suitable for the use of the working class in a transition to socialism. But the US is not such a republic-- it is a federal republic. The difference is that each state or subdivision of a federal republic has its own government, legal system, and legislature and the federal government has two houses in its legislature-- one elected by the people based on population and the other representing the states making up the federation. The second house (in the US the Senate) is undemocratic in that a little state with a small population has the same voting power as a large state with millions of people. A unitary republic would have one house with representatives based on the population.

However, in 1891 Engels thought a federal republic was a necessity for the US due to its "gigantic territory." However, he noted, that in the more populous and developed Eastern states the federal republic was "already becoming a hindrance." It is even more of a hindrance today seeing how small and/or reactionary states can hinder the implementation of measures beneficial to the vast majority of the working people in the whole country. However, for the foreseeable future the class struggle in the US will be taking place in a federated republic along with agitation to strengthen the centralized powers of the federal government.

However, Engels does not believe in a centralized government that appoints the leadership of the local units. In this respect he lauds the American model and in general the model that exists in English speaking countries as Australia, Canada [and we might add, New Zealand] even though they have a federated structure. As Engels says,  the worker’s  party demands “Complete self-government for the provinces, districts, and local areas through officials elected by universal [male] suffrage. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed by the state.”

Engels in fact says that history shows that there is a greater amount of freedom and democracy under a centralized republic than under a federated one— as was shown by the example of the French Republic between 1792 and 1798. There is some confusion here as he lauds both the French Revolution (centralized) and the “American model”  (federated). The point is, however, the freedom people have to elect their local leadership from the grassroots up to the top and not have foisted upon them by the state.

5. The 1891 Preface to Marx’s Civil War in France

This Preface was written in 1891 and presents Engels’ summing up of the lessons to be learned from the Paris Commune of 1871 as to the nature of the bourgeois state. Lenin suggests that it is “the last word of Marxism” on this issue. We should keep an open mind about whether or not this is really the last word and we have learned nothing about the nature of the state since 1891. We should also note that almost all of the arguments against Engels and Lenin on this issue are just warmed over updates of the criticisms leveled at them more than a hundred years ago. Many of the arguments about 21st century socialism have a whiff about them more suggestive of 1921than 2021.

Engels points out that after every  revolution in France the working class was armed and that the first objective of every bourgeois government that came to power after a revolutionary move by the workers was to disarm the workers. Lenin says the “essence” of the relation of the working class to the state resides in the answer to the question “has the oppressed class arms?” Even in Lenin’s day this was a hot potato! He says, “It is just this essential thing which is most ignored both by professors under the influence of bourgeois ideology and by the petty-bourgeois democrats.” Well, here in the USA the NRA has the ultra-right locked and loaded, but what about the oppressed class?

Engels also makes some comments about religion in this preface that Lenin wants us to think about. Neither Engels, nor Lenin saw religion as a progressive force. It fills the heads of working people with all kinds of nonsense and idiocy. Engels refers to the slogan “Religion is a private matter” and warns the social democrats of his day that it is a ‘private matter” with regard to the state NOT with regard to the worker’s party. While many people who are religious have progressive attitudes, religion in and of itself fosters an unscientific and superstitious approach to reality. Any Marxist party worthy of its name must “struggle against the religious opium which stupefies the people.” It is worth considering how much of this outlook is still relevant today, especially considering how religion is used by the ultra-right and the teabaggers and Trumpites to support their reactionary and crypto-fascist agenda. There are progressive religious movements but by and large religions are negative and will hopefully die out.

Lenin now turns to Engels’ summing up the lessons learned from the Commune twenty years after its downfall. Would that we had a summing up of the lessons to be learned from the downfall of  the Soviet Union from such a keen observer as Engels. Let’s see if his views can be upheld today.

Lesson One: the actually existing present day  state devised by the bourgeoisie to ensure its political dominance cannot be taken over by the working people and used to defend their interests. The Commune recognized this and in place of the bourgeois state instituted a new one based on the working class. Its two most fundamental characteristics were 1) all the positions were to be filled by elections (no appointed positions) and conditioned by the right of the workers to have instant recall of any elected person the minute the workers lost confidence and trust in his/her job performance; 2) all elected persons— from dog catcher to president were to be paid only the general average wages of the workers themselves.

Lesson Two: the struggle for democracy and the democratic rights of the people is inseparable from the struggle for Socialism. They are not two different stages but one concerted struggle. Lenin points out that Engels approaches a “boundary” where “consistent democracy” becomes “transformed into Socialism” and where it “demands the introduction of Socialism.”

Thus, Lenin says, one of the basic functions involved in the struggle to bring about the social revolution is to “develop democracy to its logical conclusion, to find the forms for this development [and] to test them by practice.” A revolutionary party of advanced democracy that does not include Socialism in its platform is a contradictio in terminis.

Engels certainly would not be supportive of any view that idealized the state as a democratic institution just waiting to be put at the service of the working people as a result of free and fair elections. Electoral struggle is important as it can unify and educate the workers as to the true nature of the society and  the social system in which they find themselves. Nevertheless, “In reality,” Engels says, “the state is nothing more than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil, inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worse sides the proletariat, just like the Commune, at the earliest possible moment will have to lob off, until such a time as a new generation, reared under new and free social conditions, will be able to throw on the scrap-heap all this state rubbish.”

Lenin makes two final points based on this quote: 1) the fact that the state is an organ of ruling class oppression whether it is democratic or dictatorial (monarchical ) is not a matter of indifference to the working people (the Anarchist view)— the more freedom available in a democratic state makes the class struggle of the workers easier to conduct; 2) why a new generation will be required to finally junk the state entirely will be discussed in the next, and final, section of this chapter— to wit:

6. Engels on the Overcoming of Democracy

In 1894 Engels published some interesting remarks, not the least of which was his view that the term “Social-Democrat” was unscientific when applied to the political views of Marx and himself. Engels had never used that term in his writings and used “Communist” instead. He and Marx did not write “The Social-Democratic Manifesto.”

Nevertheless, by the time Engels wrote this reflection the Social-Democratic Party of Germany was the world’s largest working class party and, although the name was “unsuitable” he allowed that it might “pass muster” since it now had a different referent than back in the day of Marx and his most creative activity (when it was used by Proudhonists and Lassalleans).

In any case for a party whose goal and raison d’être does not end with the establishment of Socialism but pushes on to the abolition of the state and democracy as well—i.e., that wants to establish Communism, the term “Social-Democrat” is technically incorrect. Be that as it may, it is hardly worth making a fuss over. Engels remarks, “The names of real political parties are never wholly appropriate; the party develops [or degenerates-tr], while the name persists.” For 21st century Communists to desire to remove “Communist” from their party’s name might raise suspicions that they were developing backwards!

Anyway, Lenin says the party’s name is “incomparably less important” than the relation to the state that the revolutionary working class movement holds. Our real problem is that there is no revolutionary working class movement (to speak of) in the US or Europe right now (not considering the rest of the world) and the relation of the working people to the state is one of impotence and subservience— a relation which Communist parties and their allies must and are working to overcome.

It is important to understand why Engels says Communism overthrows democracy as well as the state. In order to gain this understanding Lenin says we must grasp the economic basis behind the “withering away of the state”. We will do this next when we analyze Chapter Five: “The Economic Base of the Withering Away of the State.”