The State and Revolution

“All the social-chauvinists are now ‘Marxists’ (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the ‘national-German’ Marx, who, they claim, educated the labor unions which are so splendidly organized for the purpose of waging a predatory war!”

After three years of World War I, Lenin is still furious at the socialist parties, including those of Marx’s native Germany, who supported their country’s march to war in the summer of 1914 (See: Background). In Lenin’s view, The Whitewashing of Marxist Theory further enables the enormous concentration of wealth and power in the state, although this unfortunate development could also prove advantageous if it spurs the proletariat into revolutionary fervor.

“By the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century the world had been completely divided up among these ‘rivals in conquest’, i.e., among the predatory Great Powers. Since then, military and naval armaments have grown fantastically and the predatory war of 1914-17 for the domination of the world by Britain or Germany, for the division of the spoils, has brought the ‘swallowing’ of all the forces of society by the rapacious state power close to complete catastrophe.”

Marxism is a theory of historical determinism, where everything that happens is the direct and inevitable result of what occurred before. For Lenin, the outbreak of the First World War is the outcome of the European powers struggling for external markets against one another, as capitalism requires. The flourishing of capitalism into imperialism entails the enormous growth of state power.

“The petty-bourgeois democrats, such as our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and also their twin brothers, all the social-chauvinists and opportunists of Western Europe, expect just this ‘more’ from universal suffrage. They themselves share, and instill into the minds of the people, the false notion that universal suffrage ‘in the present-day state’ is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realization.”

For Lenin, the right to vote is one of the greatest tricks of the bourgeois state, disguising The State as Instrument of Class Warfare. By voting, ordinary citizens believe that they are choosing their political future, but elected representatives either come from the upper classes or quickly find themselves in the thrall of upper-class interests. Voting therefore creates the image of majority rule, but nothing that the voters ever do can dislodge the fundamental conditions that lead to their oppression by the bourgeois minority.

“The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The abolition of the proletarian state, i.e., of the state in general, is impossible except through the process of ‘withering away.’”

Engels’s talk of the state “withering away” suggested to some socialists that he was not really interested in revolution and expected the structures of capitalism to dissipate on their own once the workers had gained sufficient power. Lenin insists on the distinction between the bourgeois state, which is by its very nature oppressive of the workers, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (See: Index of Terms), which will ultimately end the class struggle and then expire on its own.

“The working people need the state only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out. For the proletariat is the only class that is consistently revolutionary, the only class that can unite all the working and exploited people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, in completely removing it.”

Lenin asserts that the proletariat are destined to bring about communism through violent revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will pave the way for true communism to flourish. By uniting the working class and ending class warfare, they will eventually eradicate the state as instrument of class warfare entirely.

“In particular, it is the petty bourgeois who are attracted to the side of the big bourgeoisie and are largely subordinated to them through this apparatus, which provides the upper sections of the peasants, small artisans, tradesmen, and the like with comparatively comfortable, quiet, and respectable jobs raising the holders above the people.”

The petit-bourgeoisie are the people who benefit only marginally under capitalism —they do not need to make anything to secure wealth, but their wealth is marginal. According to Lenin, the upper classes easily pick off the petit-bourgeoisie by offering them jobs as police or small shopkeepers, so that they can have the illusion of having a vested interest in capitalism even as they do far worse than they would under socialism, and only contribute to the oppression of their fellows.

“Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested.”

Lenin spends much of State and Revolution drawing firm distinctions between those who engage in The Whitewashing of Marxist Theory and those whom he regards as true Marxists. In his estimation, the key variable is whether one accepts that the proletariat will have to take control of the state and use its methods of organized repression to complete the revolution. Anyone who resists such a conclusion, whether out of squeamishness or naïve faith in the possibility of peaceful reform, is not a Marxist, and is therefore to be considered an ally of the bourgeois.

“Marx, however, was not only enthusiastic about the heroism of the Communards, who, as he expressed it, ‘stormed heaven.’ Although the mass revolutionary movement did not achieve its aim, he regarded it as a historic experience of enormous importance, as a certain advance of the world proletarian revolution, as a practical step that was more important than hundreds of programmes and arguments.”

Lenin regards the 1871 Paris Commune (See: Index of Terms) as the most significant example yet of a genuinely anti-capitalist and anti-state revolution. Although it was brutally crushed after holding the city for about two months, the very fact that it happened at all strikes Lenin as proof that Communism is Not a Utopia. By putting ideas into action, they demonstrated the possibility of genuine social change, while also teaching their successors which mistakes to avoid.

“It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush their resistance. This was particularly necessary for the Commune; and one of the reasons for its defeat was that it did not do this with sufficient determination. The organ of suppression, however, is here the majority of the population, and not a minority, as was always the case under slavery, serfdom, and wage slavery.”

Lenin insists that, ultimately, the proletarian revolution will be far less brutal than the accumulated atrocities of life under capitalism. Since the oppressors represent a tiny portion of the population, it should, in Lenin’s estimation, be a fairly routine matter of dispatching them.

“The way out of parliamentarism is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions and the elective principle, but the conversion of the representative institutions from talking shops into ‘working’ bodies. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time.”

The Commune represents a debate between the Marxists and the anarchists over whether to replace the bourgeois state or to go directly to no state at all. Lenin cites the Communards as having made the correct, Marxist choice, appropriating the machinery of the state while also fundamentally changing its character by placing it entirely under the direction of the working class. Representative government is acceptable only in the transition period from capitalism to communism, so long as it is actually representative and not just an illusion meant to distract the workers with endless discussions while the real power is wielded behind the scenes.

“The Commune is the first attempt by a proletarian revolution to smash the bourgeois state machine; and it is the political form ‘at last discovered’, by which the smashed state machine can and must be replaced. We shall see further on that the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, in different circumstances and under different conditions, continue the work of the Commune and confirm Marx's brilliant historical analysis.”

Lenin views the Commune as the forerunner of the 1905 uprising against the Tsar, which established a parliament (the Duma) and the 1917 revolt which led to the abdication of the Tsar and the formation of a provisional government. He regards these historical developments as proof that communism is not a utopia, but is the final stage of a historical process that current events are leading toward.

“We do not after all differ with the anarchists on the question of the abolition of the state as the aim. We maintain that, to achieve this aim, we must temporarily make use of the instruments, resources, and methods of state power against the exploiters, just as the temporary dictatorship of the oppressed class is necessary for the abolition of classes.”

Lenin is very careful to draw distinctions with a host of ideologies with whom he shares some overlap but also critical differences. Marx had his own battles with the anarchists, and here Lenin continues the same debate into the next generation, insisting that the abolition of the state first requires the use of state power by the workers to ensure that the last remnants of the old regime are destroyed. Anarchists were hoping to dispense with all authority in one fell swoop, but Marx and Lenin alike considered this naïve, ignoring the need to purge the old before entering the new.

“The Commune was ceasing to be a state since it had to suppress, not the majority of the population, but a minority (the exploiters). It had smashed the bourgeois state machine. In place of a special coercive force the population itself came on the scene.”

Some anarchists wish to claim the Commune for their position since it ultimately did away with the state. Lenin does not disagree entirely, but he insists that in the immediate aftermath of the Commune assuming power, it broke the specifically bourgeois aspects of the state, utilizing the overall state apparatus to do so. It was therefore a proletarian state, which would then have transitioned to statelessness had it not been suppressed.

“The democratic republic is the nearest approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat. For such a republic, without in the least abolishing the rule of capital, and, therefore, the oppression of the masses and the class struggle, inevitably leads to such an extension, development, unfolding, and intensification of this struggle that, as soon as it becomes possible to meet the fundamental interests of the oppressed masses, this possibility is realized inevitably and solely through the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Social democrats insist that the democratic process is the best way to achieve socialism, and Lenin agrees up to a point. Democracy does provide the groundwork for mass political action that is necessary before the people act as a unified entity. However, there are strict limits to democratic freedom, and so long as they accept the strictures of the bourgeois state, they will never achieve genuine freedom. Thus, the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat must be the next logical step.

“In the usual argument about the state, the mistake is constantly made against which Engels warned and which we have in passing indicated above, namely, it is constantly forgotten that the abolition of the state means also the abolition of democracy; that the withering away of the state means the withering away of democracy.”

Lenin recognizes democracy as a necessary step toward socialism, but his main point of division with the social democrats is that he refuses to consider it as an end unto itself. Ultimately, the communist goal is something far more radical than democracy, which is conditioned through political institutions. He is rather aiming for total and complete self-government by and for the people, with no intermediary.

“Engels emphasized once again that not only under a monarchy, but also under a democratic republic the state remains a state, i.e., it retains its fundamental distinguishing feature of transforming the officials, the ‘servants of society,’ its organs, into the masters of society.”

Since politics is ultimately a question of class, Lenin rejects the idea that there are meaningful differences between different regime types. The state, by its very nature, is a bourgeois institution, which does not change when the workers are allowed some measure of participation among the working classes. Participation in such a state is useful to practice the arts of power, but actually seizing power requires the destruction of the bourgeois state. This passage reflects Lenin’s belief in the state as instrument of class warfare.

“Marx treated the question of communism in the same way as a naturalist would treat the question of the development of, say, a new biological variety, once he knew that it had originated in such and such a way and was changing in such and such a definite direction.”

Lenin argues that communism is not a utopia. He insists that a communist society will unfold with scientific precision, and while he cannot predict exactly when a bourgeois state will ultimately transition into communism, that transition is wired into the very nature of capitalism.

“Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!”

Lenin here lays out the heart of the Marxist critique of democracy. Elected representatives, even those that ostensibly come from the working classes, are shackled to bourgeois institutions that play according to bourgeois rules. Political parties provide an illusion of choice, but none of them are able to break out of their essentially bourgeois system, reinforcing the state as instrument of class warfare.

“‘Hence, the equal right,’ says Marx, in this case still certainly conforms to ‘bourgeois law’, which, like all law, implies inequality. All law is an application of an equal measure to different people who in fact are not alike, are not equal to one another. That is why the ‘equal right’ is violation of equality and an injustice. In fact, everyone, having performed as much social labor as another, receives an equal share of the social product.”

In addition to critiquing democracy as a sham, Marxists critique individual rights as fundamentally unjust. Despite professing to give everyone equal rights, it is not in fact true equality because people are not equal, especially in terms of what they contribute to society. True equality, in the Marxist formulation, requires taking from each according to his ability, and giving to each according to their need, rather than blanketing everyone in the same set of rights.

“The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.”

Once a society has shed capitalism entirely and moves into genuine socialism, the entire economy will fall under the control of the state, which by that point will consist entirely of workers operating collectively. Industry will then be devoted to serving the public good instead of the profits of shareholders.

“The anarchists had tried to claim the Paris Commune as their ‘own’, so to say, as a collaboration of their doctrine; and they completely misunderstood its lessons and Marx’s analysis of these lessons. Anarchism has given nothing even approximating true answers to the concrete political questions: Must the old state machine be smashed? And what should be put in its place?”

There is considerable overlap between Marxists and anarchists, but ultimately Lenin rejects the anarchists as being overly abstract and, therefore, insufficiently attentive to the details of the revolutionary program. While he welcomes their embrace of the need to destroy the state, he argues that they don’t think about what ought to replace it. Lenin believes that, without a firm idea in mind, any violence against the state is pure exhibitionism.

“Kautsky, the German Social-Democrats’ spokesman, seems to have declared: I abide by revolutionary views (1899), I recognize, above all, the inevitability of the social revolution of the proletariat (1902), I recognize the advent of a new era of revolutions (1909). Still, I am going back on what Marx said as early as 1852, since the question of the tasks of the proletarian revolution in relation to the state is being raised (1912).”

For Lenin, it is obvious that Marx and Engels were champions of proletarian revolution and dictatorship. The fact that a self-described Marxist could fail to embrace this conclusion can only be explained by ignorance, or in the case of Kautsky (See: Key Figures), a sheer unwillingness to take the argument to its logical conclusion. Lenin thus accuses men like Kautsky of committing the whitewashing of Marxist theory.

“We, however, shall break with the opportunists; and the entire class-conscious proletariat will be with us in the fight—not to ‘shift the balance of forces’, but to overthrow the bourgeoisie, to destroy bourgeois parliamentarism, for a democratic republic after the type of the Commune, or a republic of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, for the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

In the closing line of the main text, Lenin once more reiterates his rejection of the opportunism that he believes has led to the whitewashing of Marxist theory. He argues that the time for words has stopped and the time for action has begun, which is of course appropriate as Lenin’s Bolsheviks are just about to seize power in the capital.