(a) Socialism and the State.

As soon as the workers capture political power, they will use it to transform the State and the economic system, so far as the latter is susceptible to political manipulation, in accordance with their interests.

With respect to the State, we have to distinguish between the period of transition from capitalist to socialist production, and that of complete Socialism, but here we need only deal in detail with the former.

Marx and Engels made only passing references to the problem at the period of complete Socialism. They asserted that, as soon as Socialism was realized and class distinctions obliterated, the State would, in fact, not be abolished, but die out, because it would lose its functions. For, they said, the State is an organization of an exploiting class for maintaining the conditions of its exploitation, and therefore for repressing the exploited class. With the disappearance of the distinction between exploiting and exploited classes, the State becomes bereft of purpose, and loses its functions one after another.

These pronouncements have caused much head-splitting. Lenin refers to them in his booklet, Socialism and Religion, published in the summer of 1917

Like many other revolutionaries, Lenin interprets the Marx-Engels’ conception of the decay of the State to mean that the anarchist ideal of the complete liberty of the individual will then emerge.

“Each person will be voluntarily engaged in work according to his capacities, and each will freely take according to his needs.” (Lenin, p.81)

Such a state of things may exist some day, but there is nothing in the conditions as we know them to-day to indicate that we have reached this point. Lenin himself admits that the “second phase of Communism” will only lead to the decay of the State in the sense of complete anarchy. He appeals to the authority of Marx, who distinguishes two phases of Communism in his programme criticism, from which we have already quoted. In the first phase every worker will be paid according to his needs, and in the second the productivity of labour will be so great that “society will be able to inscribe on its banner: from each according to his capacities, to each according to his needs.”

When we come to deal with economics, we shall see how this apparently Utopian pronouncement is to be understood.

To-day we cannot see beyond what Marx designated as “the first phase of Communism.” All that we might imagine concerning the second phase would not be inferences from known facts, but conjecture, which might have its value as an intellectual exercise, but would be very unsuitable to serve as a guide to our actions.

We shall achieve a good deal if we obtain clear ideas concerning the functioning of the State during the first phase of Socialism.

To elucidate this question, we must draw a distinction, which is generally overlooked, between the subordination of the individual, and that of the class, to the community.

Man is by nature a social animal, and in the earliest times, long before the formation of the State, we find groups of men united in specific organizations, with specific ordinances and laws, which, although primarily laws of usage, are nevertheless strictly carried out. One need only recall the marriage regulations, the meal customs, the law of inheritance, the laws of hunting, and many other regulations which we find among the Australians, who are far removed from any political community. Thus the absence of a State in no wise signifies complete liberty of the individual, but it occurs in the earliest social conditions accompanied by the subordination of the individual to the community and its ordinances.

Before the emergence of the State we find communities existing with definite constitutions, for example, the gentile or Mark constitutions, with a civil and military power; the former with police and juridical functions, and both powers subject to a sovereign assembly of the people, by which they are set up, and by whose decisions they are bound.

When therefore the State came into existence with the emergence of classes and the consolidation of various communities under a central power, it did not signify an innovation. It was grafted on to the organizations which had preceded it, and developed them further, in doing which it invested them with all kinds of functions which had not previously been theirs, and gave a new significance to old functions, such as those of the police and the judiciary; turning protection of the community from refractory members into protection of the ruling class from those it ruled.

Morgan has pointed out that the constitution of the Stateless gentile society may be detected in the Athenian political constitution (Ancient Society, 1878, p.120).

If class society should be abolished in the period that lies before us, the consequent decay of the existing forms of the State will by no means signify the complete freedom of the individual. The social process of production will more than ever be organized systematically, and it will not do for its functioning to be dependent upon individual caprice. Class struggles will disappear, and with them a number of the tasks of government, but the economic tasks of the community will multiply. Just as the constitution of the nascent State assimilated the gentile and Mark constitutions, so the incipient socialist community. will assimilate the political forms surviving in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. Whether the community of the future will continue to be called a State or not is essentially a question of terminology.

In the interests of clear thinking, it is extremely important to distinguish various phenomena by different designations. But from its beginning the State has assumed such a variety of forms, all of which are described by the same name, that to many people the State has come to mean a sovereign community.

When an oriental despotism and a democratic republic, rigidly centralized France and the loose federation of the British Empire, may all be called by the same name of “State,” it is really not a matter of great moment to refuse this name to the Socialist community.

As a scientific designation, the word “State” says very little if it is not preceded by an adjective to define the kind of State it is. Consequently all investigations into the nature of the State per se are more or less futile. It may equally be condemned as a devilish institution and praised to the skies as the embodiment of the highest social ideal. Thus it is not of considerable importance to the clarity of social thought whether we invent a special name for the community of the future, or call it the Socialist State to differentiate it from previous types of the State.

One point remains to be discussed concerning the relation of Socialism to the State. In his preface to the brochure, Internationales aus dem Volkstaat, which appeared in 1894, shortly before his death, Engels speaks of the political aim which he and Marx pursued. It was:

“The supersession of the entire State, and, therefore, also of democracy.”

Engels does not explain what he means by this observation. This sentence was a godsend to Lenin, who exploited it with a vengeance. It does not dispose of my objections. For democracy is older than the State, and is not necessarily bound up with it. Communities anterior to the State were democratically organized, and the State has often proved itself hostile to democracy. Not until the advent of modern capitalism has there been a revival of democracy, which, however, contains the seeds of Socialism, and therefore the seeds of the State’s decay in the Marxian sense. On the assumption that Socialism will cause the State to die out, democracy will survive the State.

In advocating the opposite standpoint, Lenin reaches a remarkable conclusion. He says that so long as classes exist a complete democracy is impossible. It will not be possible until classes are abolished, and, therefore, the State ceases to exist. This is to say democracy will not become possible for Lenin until it disappears. Concerning the socialist society, he states:

“Only then will a really full democracy be possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions. And only then will democracy begin to wither away” (p.74).

Thus real democracy will emerge for us in the very moment of its disappearance. Lenin calls it “real” evidently because in his opinion it does not exist in reality. If instead of groping amid the fog of Lenin’s “real democracy”, we ask ourselves what the constitution of the socialist community will be, it is obvious that no other constitution is conceivable than that of the democratic Republic. This we will maintain. The discovery of the proper name for the new type of community which will arise with the Social Democratic Republic is a task which may be left to the younger generation.