A Word From Marx and Engels

The state is one of the most important concepts for Communists to understand. It is unique in that it is both the chain that keeps us locked up, but also the key that will unlock us and set us free. But how could that be so, how could something like the state be both an oppressive manifestation while also being necessary in the liberation of all the oppressed? Marx and Engels knew this to be true all the way back in the middle of the nineteenth century, but it is Lenin who took their teaching on the state, expanded upon it, and showed all future revolutionaries what exactly the state is and how it must be used as a mechanism for uplifting those who have been held down and beaten.

It is their teaching regarding the state that every Communist must know, it is their lessons as well as the lessons that history has given us that we must learn from and adapt to our own situation. It is my hope that their teaching, and my explanation, gives you something to take away.

What is the State?

When speaking on the state it is necessary to understand that the state has not always existed—in the times of the ancient civilizations, there was no need for a state, and, thus, there was not a state. What this means is that the state is an artificial product of social development, it is, therefore, an institution of the class struggle as that is where the state first arose.

It is Engels who gives us a satisfactory history of the state in his work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State which was written all the way back in 1894, in which he sums up the difference between the ancient form of organization and the modern state:

“In contrast to the old gentile organization, the state is distinguished firstly by the grouping of its members on a territorial basis. The old gentile bodies, formed and held together by ties of blood, had, as we have seen, become inadequate largely because they presupposed that the gentile members were bound to one particular locality, whereas this had long ago ceased to be the case. . . .

The second distinguishing characteristic is the institution of a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people’s own organization of themselves as an armed power. This special public force is needed because a self-acting armed organization of the people has become impossible since their cleavage into classes. . . . This public force exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men, but also of material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds, of which gentile society knew nothing.”

Here we have the formulation of the two distinguishing characteristics of the modern state compared to the ancient, or gentile, form of organization. The state groups its members, or citizens, on a territorial basis which form the whole of a country, and the country is split even further into territories, regions, states, provinces, counties, parishes, and locales, which are then further split into cities, towns, and villages.

The second distinguishing characteristic is that of a special public force which is placed above the rest of society. This we know as the military and police, judicial system, prison and jail system, and all other institutions of coercion, as Engels puts it. This public force of the state is irreconcilable with a self-acting armed organization formed by the people, otherwise known as a militia, because the break up of society into classes has made it so.

Now that we know just what separates the modern state from gentilic organizations, we can gather a formulation of the Marxist view of the state. To do that, we once again call on Engels who summarizes his historical analysis of the state by saying:

“The state is therefore by no means a power imposed on society from without . . . Rather it is a product of society at a particular stage of development; it is the admission that this society has involved itself in insoluble self-contradiction and is cleft into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to exorcise. But in order that these antagonisms. classes with conflicting economic interests, shall not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, a power, apparently standing above society, has become necessary to moderate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society, but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.”

This is the basic Marxist idea of the state. The state is the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms of which it has no power to solve, but rather it becomes a mediator of the class struggle to see to it that all of society isn’t destroyed through the conflicting economic interests of the classes, to keep some backwards sense of order; and its increasing self-alienation and superiority from society, of which it arose out of, is proof that these antagonisms between the classes are irreconcilable.

If my definition doesn’t suffice then perhaps the definition of Lenin will. Lenin gives a fantastic, yet simple, definition of the state in his foremost work on the state, The State and Revolution, written in 1917 just before the October Revolution. In it, Lenin says:

“The state is the product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises when, where, and to the extent that the class antagonisms cannot be objectively reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

Here we have the Marxist definition of the state from Lenin himself, based on the words of Engels. This is the most clear and basic definition of the state that we can get. But we can take it a step further than this, we can explore the intricacies of the state to get a more complete definition.

To do so, we, once again, turn to Engels who provides us with a beautifully thought out and necessary expansion regarding the state:

“In order to maintain this public power, contributions from the state citizens are necessary — taxes. . . . With advancing civilization, even taxes are not sufficient; the state draws drafts on the future, contracts loans, state debts. . . .

In possession of the public power and the right of taxation, the officials now present themselves as organs of society standing above society. . . . Representatives of a power which estranges them from society, they have to be given prestige by means of special decrees, which invest them with a peculiar sanctity and inviolability.”

It is through taxation, loans, interest, and other forms of monetary collection that the public power of the state is maintained, i.e., how the police officer is paid, how jails and prisons are built and their prisoners kept alive, etc..

It is those people who hold control of the public power and the ability to enact taxation who become officials of the public, i.e., public officials, while holding themselves over the public, i.e., not subject to the same laws enacted upon the citizenry of the state. These public officials, in order to distinguish themselves from regular citizens, must be given power and rank through state decrees which grant them both protection from certain laws and an aura of holiness that makes them “superior”.

In America, we view universal suffrage as a net positive, and it is, but Engels saw universal suffrage as a distraction by the bourgeoisie in the fight for real equality, for the true expression “of the will of the majority of the toilers and of assuring its realisation,” as Lenin put it. Engels viewed universal suffrage as a “gauge of the maturity of the working class”, as a measure of how class conscious the proletariat is.

It follows then that true equity, to the Marxist, is the abolition of the state, and, with it, all class antagonisms. Engels gives a summary of his views to that effect with the following words:

“The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitable as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong—into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.”

The language used by Engels can leave no doubt that the Marxist believes in both violent revolution to overthrow the state, and with it classes and their antagonisms, and that the state will begin to disappear, or “wither away” upon the abolition of classes dividing society, i.e., after the Socialist revolution when the proletariat takes control of the state.

The Doing Away of the State

Engels leaves us such a complete and beautiful passage in Anti-Dühring that we must quote it here, as Lenin does in The State and Revolution. Although, due to its length, I will only keep the most necessary parts regarding the doing away of the state. With regards to the withering away of the state, Engels has this to say:

“The proletariat seizes state power, and then transforms the means of production into state property. But in doing this, it puts an end to itself as the proletariat, it puts an end to all class differences and class antagonisms, it puts an end also to the state as the state. . . . As soon as there is no longer any class of society to be held in subjection; as soon as, along with class domination and the struggle for individual existence based on the former anarchy of production, the collisions and excesses arising from these have also been abolished, there is nothing more to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a state, is no longer necessary. The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of society as a whole—the seizure of the means of production in the name of society—is at the same time its last independent act as a state. Government over persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away.”

These words of Engels do such an articulate and complete job describing the withering away of the state that there isn’t much, if anything, to be added here. The withering away is not immediate as the Anarchists would prefer because, after the proletariat seizes control of the state, there is still a class of society that necessarily needs to be oppressed; the bourgeoisie, for without this, the newly proletarian state will not be able to accomplish the necessary tasks of rapidly expanding the means of production, organizing Socialist economy, and keeping control through the inevitable bourgeois counterrevolution as they try to take back control of the state.

To add anything more, we look to Lenin who was able to extract five parts that make up the whole of Engels’ argument. Of those five, we are already familiar with two: the necessity of violent revolution to overthrow the state and the critique against the Anarchists regarding the impossibility of the abolition of the state. What we can gain from Lenin is the exact meaning of the “withering away” of the state, the need for the state as a special force, and the political state during the time of the withering away of the physical state.

On the withering away of the state, Lenin clears up possible confusing regarding the term, and makes it clear that “Its withering away refers to the remains of proletarian statehood after the Socialist revolution,” and, “What withers away after the revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state,” making it absolutely clear that the withering away doesn’t occur to the bourgeois state, but rather the state of the proletariat after its successful revolution.

Following Engels’ definition of the state as a “special repressive force,” Lenin makes the well-informed argument that the proletariat will need to use the state as its own special repressive force. In doing so, he says, “It follows from this that the ‘special repressive force’ of the bourgeoisie for the suppression of the proletariat, of the millions of workers by a handful of the rich, must be replaced by a ‘special repressive force’ of the proletariat for the suppression of the bourgeoisie (the dictatorship of the proletariat). It is just this that constitutes the destruction of ‘the state as the state.’ It is just this that constitutes the ‘act’ of ‘the seizure of the means of production in the name of society.’” A great statement from Lenin that makes mention of one of the most important and necessary Marxist ideas on the state, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and an accurate statement which would become apparent in the years following The State and Revolution with the Russian Civil War.

Lastly, we have the most unique, yet one of the most important arguments made by Lenin off of the words of Engels. Here he speaks on the political state of the physical state after the revolution, a period in which, as Engels says, the state begins to “become dormant.” Following from this, Lenin says that, “We all know that the political form of the ‘state’ at that time is complete democracy. . . . At first sight this seems very strange. But it is ‘unintelligible’ only to one who has not reflected on the fact that democracy is also a state and that, consequently, democracy will also disappear when the state disappears. The bourgeois state can only be ‘put an end to’ by a revolution. The state in general, i.e., most complete democracy, can only ‘wither away.’” As Lenin says, this may first seem a bit strange, but let’s break it down. The state that withers away is the proletarian state after the Socialist revolution, while the bourgeois state is ended by the revolution, the state itself still exists. The state that exists after the revolution is controlled by the proletariat, and is, therefore, a democracy, a real democracy unlike the sham democracy in a capitalist society. It follows then that the state that withers away, the proletarian state, is a state of democracy that withers away with it leading to the end of all states and classes as the higher stage of Communism is reached.

The Dictatorship of the Proletariat

You may or may not be familiar with this term, but my goal is after reading this you never forget it because it is that important. This is one of the most important ideas that Marx and Engels formulated. If you take anything away from this article, let it be this. To drive this home, we will examine five quotes; one from Marx and Engels and four from Lenin.

Firstly, we will take a look at the words of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, it is this quote which Lenin expands upon further and will be the basis of the following four quotes. Speaking on the development of the proletariat and the revolution, Marx and Engels say:

“In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. . . .

We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise [literally ‘promote’] the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.”

In other words, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie engage in a civil war of class antagonisms until those antagonisms reach such a point that full blown revolution begins; in which the proletariat overthrows the bourgeoisie as the ruling class and establishes true democracy; after which the proletariat centralizes all capital in its own hands and begins to rapidly increase the means of production.

Explaining the above quote, Lenin says:

“Here we have a formulation of . . . Marxism on the subject of the state, namely, the idea of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ . . . and also a definition of the state, . . . ‘the state, i.e., the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

It is from this that that we can define the post-revolutionary state in one sentence: “the state, i.e., the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

Expanding on the the state being the proletariat organized as the ruling class, Lenin states:

“The state . . . is the organisation of violence for the suppression of some class. What class must the proletariat suppress? Naturally, the exploiting class only, i.e., the bourgeoisie. The toilers need the state only to overcome the resistance of the exploiters,” here Lenin gives a brief, yet more than satisfactory explanation of the state being used by the proletariat to suppress the bourgeoisie and to overcome the resistance of bourgeoisie after the revolution.

Following that, Lenin explains political rule. He does this by saying:

“The exploiting classes need political rule in order to maintain exploitation, i.e., in the selfish interests of an insignificant minority, and against the vast majority of the people. The exploited classes need political rule in order to completely abolish all exploitation, i.e., in the interests of the vast majority of the people, and against the insignificant minority consisting of the slave-owners of modern times—the landowners and capitalists.”

This is one of the most important explanations given because it thoroughly gives us the difference between the state controlled by the bourgeoisie and the state controlled by the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, the exploiters, needs the state to continue the oppression, suppression, and exploitation of the majority in the interests of a tiny minority, while the proletariat, the exploited along with all other toilers, needs the state to completely rid the exploitation of the majority by the minority.

The last quote from Lenin sums up the previous four making it a great point to finish this section. He gives a summary of the class struggle and the revolution by saying:

“The doctrine of the class struggle, as applied by Marx to the question of the state and of the Socialist revolution, leads inevitably to the recognition of the political rule of the proletariat, of its dictatorship, i.e., of a power shared with none and relying directly upon the armed force of the masses. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie is realisable only by the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, able to crush the inevitable and desperate resistance of the bourgeoisie, and to organise, for the new economic order, all the toiling and exploited masses.”

Here we have a summary of what the class struggle leads to. The class struggle leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class sharing power with none and receiving support from the armed masses. The bourgeoisie can only be overthrown by the proletariat elevating itself to the position of the ruling class where it has the power to put down the resistance of the bourgeoisie, and organize the Socialist economy and non-bourgeois social order for all the toilers, all of the exploited masses, the vast majority of society.

A Final Word on the State

The state is unique in that it is inherently oppressive from the time of its conception to the time of its withering away. It being a manifestation of class domination makes it the oppressor of the proletariat, and all of the other exploited masses, up until the proletariat takes control of the state where it becomes a necessary mechanism to crush the bourgeois resistance in its inevitable fight against the revolution. For this reason, the Marxist sees all states as oppressive, but also views the state as a necessary evil for the safeguarding of the revolution, for the ultimate destruction of all classes and all class antagonisms in the struggle for freedom and equality.

I hope you found this interesting, entertaining, or both.

All glory to the revolution! All glory to the revolutionaries!

Comrade Drew