50 Years Ago: Bert Ramelson buries Lenin (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What happened when the BBC’s ‘Newsday’ interviewed the industrial organiser of the Communist Party would have been more suitable for the Goon Show, or Monty Python. Bert Ramelson, keeping a perfectly straight face, point-blank denied everything that the Communist Party was founded on and peddled for over thirty years!

True it is, as he said in the interview, that he only joined the CP in 1936; whereas some of us knew it intimately since 1920. However, that should not prevent him (or anybody else) knowing the facts. The interviewer did not know a great deal about the subject, and questioned from a prepared brief.

But even the political department of the BBC had heard that the Communist Parties were founded on ‘Leninism’. That is, seizure of power by an intrepid, resolute minority of ‘professional revolutionists’, leading the working class — who would then lead the ‘toiling masses’ (meaning peasants) to socialist victory. For thirty years a vast mass of pamphlets, books and newspapers flogged the Leninist dogma of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, meaning minority action.

Many able writers waded patiently through Marx’s work to show that, from The Communist Manifesto onward, Marx never used this then-popular French slogan to mean anything else than majority democratic methods. For instance, Lucien Laurat, who in Marxism and Democracy quotes The Communist Manifesto:

‘The first stage in the working class revolution is the constitution of the proletariats as the ruling class, the conquest of democracy.’

No use! For thirty years CP writers and speakers denounced democracy and exhorted the workers to follow ‘Marx’s best disciple’ Nikolai Lenin. Parliament was a useless ‘gasworks’, elections a waste of time (although they regularly took part in them, but ‘only for propaganda, comrade’). The state would be smashed and ‘bourgeois’ parliaments replaced by Soviets, ‘the workers’ democracy’ (…)

Understandably, the interviewer politely raised the question of the CP’s present policy, and its past. ‘Was it not the case that the CP had advocated ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ in the past?’

‘Not any more’, replied Bert. Not any more! And do you know why, dear reader? Let Bert tell you. Because there has been ‘so much misunderstanding of what Marx really meant’. He actually said this. ‘Marx meant the action of the vast overwhelming majority’, said Bert; the CP has not used the phrase in any document since 1950, to avoid any more misunderstanding.

[From article by Horatio, Socialist Standard, March 1976]

 

 

Blogger's Note: 

Regular readers of the blog will know that 'Horatio' was the pen name of the late Harry Young. Harry Young was especially placed to comment on the early history of the CPGB as he was a founder of member of that organisation, serving for a period on its Executive Committee as a representative of the Young Communist League.  In an article in the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard, entitled 'Why I joined the SPGB', he goes into greater detail. It's worth a read.

Letter: Socialism and the Abolition of the State (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and the Abolition of the State

Dear Editors.

In a brief article on page 106 of the June Socialist Standard we read: "Socialists are not pacifists. If. at the time of the establishment of a socialist society, the overwhelmingly socialist majority were confronted by a recalcitrant pro-capitalist minority intent on sabotage and violence, we would have no compunction in using whatever force was necessary to suppress them"

This, however, appears to contradict the view expressed in the reply to Lynn Stabler in the April Socialist Standard. In the section headed "Counter Revolutions" we find: "Will socialism need to use the state machine to combat a counter-revolution, begun perhaps by former members of the ruling class? The answer, in a word, is no'". Apart from the fact that "Socialism", like any other abstraction, is incapable of using anything - Men make history" how. as "Marxists", do you square this latter view with Marx's own comments on the subject. as exampled in a letter to Domela Nieuwenhuis dated February 22. 1881:

One thing you can at any rate be sure of: a socialist government does not come into power in a country unless conditions are so developed that it can above all take the necessary measures for intimidating the mass of the bourgeoisie.

The working class must be in a position to dictate the terms of its own emancipation by using, if necessary, coercive force against those who would stand in its way. After all. as the Communist Manifesto proclaims, what else is political power but the power of one class to suppress another? That this transitory coercive power would recede, "wither away", as the danger of counter-revolution receded, "withered away", was. I assumed, the viewpoint of the SPGB. For instance, in the April 1979 Socialist Standard in an article reviewing, pointedly. Plekhanov's Anarchism and Socialism, we read: "The State will not be abolished; it will wither away, like an uprooted weed"

However, in a back page article in the October 1984 Socialist Standard this view was briskly dismissed: "Having gained control of the state machine for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, the state will be abolished immediately” Before the triumphant working class could use political power, apparently.

At a meeting in September 1985 in Glasgow your speaker was emphatic that the transitory rule of the working class, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. was an outdated concept. His basic view can, justly, be summarised as follows: "If the proletariat becomes the ruling class over whom will it rule?"

Curiously enough the direct reply to this question which, of course, was raised against Marx in Statism and Anarchy by Michael Bakunin, can be found in the March 1983 Socialist Standard. Although the question is rephrased in the article, the reply to question 13 in the supposed "interview" with Marx is composed mainly of Marx's attempt to answer Bakunin. However, as the writer of the article suggests, the reader would do well to check the precise answers, in this case Fernbach's translation in The First International and After (Penguin. 1974). It will be seen that Marx's references to the proletariat's use of forcible means" (p. 333) and to "general means of coercion" (p. 335) have been omitted from his "reply" in the Socialist Standard.

In the same issue, in the article "Lenin's Legacy", you quote, correctly from a letter by Engels to van Pappen dated April 18. 1883:

With the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed suppression, or state power.

But why stop here? Why not continue with the sentence immediately following?

At the same time, however, it was always our view that in order to attain this and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew.

And, as a rejoinder to the predecessors of the "modern" SPGB, Engels continues:

The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state.

Engels goes on to add that the state may require "considerable alterations", then adds the vital point:

But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.

And, Engels adds, concerning the "immediate abolition of the state":

Does it require my express assurance that Marx opposed this anarchist nonsense from the first day it was put forward in its present form by Bakunin?

And. as self-professed "Marxists'. how do you explain away Marx's biting and incisively sardonic comments in the never-ending debate with the petty-bourgeois anarchists?

If the political struggle of the working class assumes violent forms and if the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeois class with their own revolutionary dictatorship, then they are guilty of the terrible crime of lèse-principe, for, in order to satisfy their miserable profane daily needs and to crush the resistance of the bourgeois class, they, instead of laying down their arms and abolishing the state, give to the state a revolutionary and transitory form ("Political Indifferentism", see The First International and After, p. 328)

Yours sincerely.

Davie Donaldson

Glasgow G20

Reply:

If we have understood him correctly, our correspondent is suggesting that in our attitude towards the abolition of the state we commit the heresy of departing from the sacred texts of Marx and Engels. He attributes to us the same view as that held by the anarchist Bakunin and criticised by Engels, "that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state". But we have never expressed this view.

The passage in the October 1984 Socialist Standard — "having gained control of the state machine for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, the state will be abolished immediately' — which our correspondent cites to back up his case does not bear such an interpretation, as he himself recognises by his comment "before the triumphant working class could use political power, apparently" This is indeed only an appearance due to the faulty grammatical construction of the sentence. Our correspondent is just as well aware as we are that the sentence means; after the state machine has been captured and used for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, it is then immediately abolished.

Before going into the views of Marx and Engels, let us state our own position as clearly as possible. We advocate that socialism should be established by the democratic, political action of a socialist-minded working class. The establishment of socialism, as the establishment of common ownership in place of class ownership, necessarily involves depriving the capitalist class of the monopoly control they currently exercise over the means of production. As this is not something they can be expected to welcome, it will have to be imposed on them and it is in order to do this that the socialist majority must first gain control of the "general means of coercion", the "organised political power of the state". After considerably altering it. the socialist majority uses the power of the state to impose the democratically-expressed will for common ownership on the capitalist class, employing "forcible means" if necessary as a last resort. Having done this — having taken political action to dispossess the capitalist class and establish common ownership — the socialist majority then immediately abolishes the state since a society of common ownership has no need for a "power of armed suppression" but only for an unarmed democratic administration. In this sense socialism entails the immediate abolition, and not the gradual decline, of the state.

Socialism is a society without a state — without any special organ of repression — because it is a society without exploitation and class conflict. This is why the only possible answer to the question "will socialism need to use the state machine to combat a counter-revolution, begun perhaps by former members of the ruling class7" is "No, because there will no longer be any state machine in socialism" Hence our reply to the letter in this April's Socialist Standard, which of course went on to explain that it would be very unlikely, once socialism had been established, that anybody would want to return to capitalist class society, let alone be able to organise a violent conspiracy to this end

Though of course we are not bound by everything Marx and Engels may have said, they were in the same political tradition as us and. as can be seen from the quotes our correspondent cites, did take up a basically similar position to ours on this question. There is one very important difference however: being active in the relatively undeveloped political and economic conditions of the 19th century they envisaged a prolonged period before the final establishment of socialism during which the working class would be exercising political power to revolutionise society. Hence their use of terms such as "dictatorship of the proletariat", "socialist government", "revolutionary dictatorship". "working class rule" as various alternative ways of describing the exercise of political power by the working class against the capitalist class during this period. If we reject these terms today, it is not because we reject using political power against the capitalist class but because we do not believe that any prolonged period of revolutionary social reorganisation is now necessary; in fact the dispossession of the capitalist class can now be carried out as a single, short, sharp revolutionary act.

But if Marx and Engels considered that a relatively extended period of exercise of working class political power would be necessary — a position which in our view has become outdated — they were always clear that, at the end of this period when a classless society of common ownership has been established — the state would be immediately abolished or. as Engels once put it. the state would have virtually died out (absterben, sometimes also translated as "wither away") In other words, there was no question of the state continuing on into socialist society. Socialist society would be a society without a state, without a "special repressive force" as Engels put it.

The metaphor of "dying out” — which has been twisted into meaning that the state would gradually "wither away" within socialism rather than before it was established — has also become inappropriate. not that it really ever was appropriate (since it is clear that the state cannot just die out of its own accord, only the need for it can; the state machine itself has to be consciously dismantled, abolished). We never use it except when summarising the views of writers like Plekhanov

Editors.

Old Fallacies — A Look at the International Communist Current

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The organization called International Communist Current is a mixture of perceptiveness towards some aspects of capitalism, blindness to others, and a belief in long-exposed fallacies. It recognizes that nationalization is state capitalism, that the so-called national liberation movements are anti-socialist and that Russia, China, Cuba, etc. are “just so many capitalist bastions” — “There are no socialist countries on this planet”.

ICC claims to be Marxist but shows no appreciation of Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s economic laws. Politically it belongs to the early 19th-century world of Louis Blanqui (originator of ICC’s slogan “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”) and the young and inexperienced Marx and Engels. It rejects the mature Marx’s view of the necessity to gain control of “the machinery of government, including the armed forces”, and offers instead confrontation with the state power and “world civil war” to be waged by “armed workers’ councils” (see ICC pamphlet Nation or Class).

A basic difficulty about establishing Socialism is that such a social system, involving as it does the disappearance of buying and selling, wages and prices, and the coercive state, could only be operated if the mass of the population understood and wanted it and were ready to accept all the new responsibilities of voluntary co-operation that would rest on them. If the working class as they are at present, most of them attached to capitalism, preoccupied with wages and prices, wage differentials and trade-union demarcation lines, and dependent on management direction and trade-union leadership, were suddenly faced with Socialism there would be chaos and no alternative but to return to capitalism.

Two solutions were offered. One was the Blanquist and early Marxist view—a transition period during which the mass of the population would be “educated to Socialism”. This is the ICC policy. The other, the mature Marxist, view was stated by Engels in his 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France:

“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us.”

And again, referring to France:

“Socialists realize more and more that no durable success is possible unless they win over in advance the great mass of the people, which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognised as the next task of the party.”

ICC rejects the Marxist idea of socialists gaining control of Parliament on the ground that Parliament is nothing but “mystification of the working class”. Of course defenders of capitalism use Parliament to mislead the working class, just as they use religion, sport and the bogus economic theories of J. M. Keynes. They can do this only because the workers lack socialist understanding—which fact ICC fails to see. It thinks that if non-socialist workers spontaneously throw up workers’ councils these can’t be “mystified”. Experience has shown how wrong ICC is. Lenin, in State and Revolution, complained that his political opponents had

“managed to pollute even the Soviets, after the model of the most despicable middle-class parliamentarians, by turning them into hollow talking shops.”

ICC greatly admire the Workers’ Councils set up in Germany after the first world war. At the Workers’ Councils National Congress in 1918, and again in 1919, they were bamboozled by Social Democratic politicians into voting their support for the Social Democrat Government, which government then sidetracked the Councils and used state forces to crush resistance.

The argument that because the franchise has been used to trick the workers they should not use it was sensibly answered by Marx in the preamble he wrote for the French Workers’ Party. In it, he commended transforming the vote “from a means of duping, which it has been hitherto, into an instrument of emancipation”.

As ICC are not going to wait until there is a socialist majority, they have to find some other spur to working-class action. Like the young Marx and Engels, and like the British Communist Party in the 1930s, they find it in capitalism’s periodic crises and depressions which stir up discontent about unemployment and falling living standards. But, as Engels pointed out in a letter to Bernstein (25th January 1882), when the depression passes and production and employment expand again “returning prosperity also breaks the revolution and lays the basis for the victory of reaction”.

Are depressions permanent?

ICC think they have an answer to this. They say that the present depression is permanent, that it throws up problems the capitalists are impotent to deal with, and that capitalism cannot afford any more concessions to the workers. The great changeover is supposed to have happened in 1914, after which capitalism became “decadent”, ICC evidently does not know that all these themes are almost as old as capitalism itself.

In every one of capitalism’s depressions there have been people, capitalists as well as workers, who have been convinced that it would be permanent. In the “Great Depression” of the last quarter of the 19th century, which lasted for twenty years, it was widely believed. Lord Randolph Churchill, shortly before he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, declared in 1884: “We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival . . . Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease.”

Even Engels in 1886 temporarily abandoned Marx’s view of crises and announced a theory of “permanent and chronic depression”. Marx’s own view was tersely summed up in his statement: “There are no permanent crises.”

ICC’s example of the supposed impotence of the capitalists to deal with a problem relates to inflation. In International Review No. 10 (page 10) ICC says that “the bourgeoisie” is equally terrified of more inflation and of ending inflation by “restriction of credit”. From which it is evident that ICC does not understand the cause and purpose of inflation, rejects Marx’s demonstration that inflation is the result of excess issue of inconvertible paper currency, and has—like the Labour Party—fallen for the Keynesian nonsense about the supposed consequence of expanding or contracting credit. Inflation, like free trade, is just a way of operating capitalism. It suits some capitalists and not others. Inflation serves the interests of borrowers, including industrial capitalists, who take up loans and repay them later in depreciated currency.

Inflation and Credit

Inflation, at least for a considerable period, also enables many employers to get away with paying reduced real wages. Deflation, on the other hand, suits financial interests and lenders. If and when inflation reaches dangerous levels, or when those who favour deflation get their way, inflation will be curbed or ended as it has been on scores of occasions in the past, in this and other countries.

Marx showed what he thought of the people who held ICC’s superficial view about credit.

“They looked upon the expansion and contraction of credit, which is a mere symptom of the periodic changes in the industrial cycle, as their cause.” 

(Capital Vol. 1, p. 695, Kerr edn.)

To show that capitalism is not what it used to be before 1914, ICC points to recent falling production and living standards, and rising unemployment, but this is what has taken place at the beginning of every depression for nearly two hundred years.

Capitalism did indeed change in 1914. As Professor E. H. Carr puts it, up to 1914: “Britain was the pre-eminent Great Power, and the directing centre of the worldwide capitalist economy.” Now the industrial and military centres of power have shifted to New York, Moscow and Brussels; but this has not altered capitalism’s economic laws or introduced a new “decadence”.

ICC’s belief that since 1914 capitalism cannot afford to make concessions to the workers is belied by the facts, and betrays a failure to understand the economics of capitalism. The capitalists (supported by ignorant or servile academics) have always “proved” that they could not afford to concede anything, as for example giving up the twelve-hour working day and the employment of small children: but the concessions have continued since 1914 as before, and particularly since the second world war.

As output per head of the workers increases (a process speeded-up during the present depression) of course the capitalists can afford to let the workers have some of the increase—as ICC will discover when the depression lifts and in the programmes at the next General Election.

Regarding “the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”, ICC admit that during their prolonged “transition period” the dictatorship will be operating capitalism all over the world (see Nation or Class). They have, however, not seen its implications. How will the dictatorship deal with the next normal capitalist crisis and the strikes that will accompany it? Will they have an “incomes policy”? or suppress the unions?

The peasants are not to be allowed to share in governmental power. What if they seize the land? And what will the ICC dictatorship do when workers, discontented with the effects of capitalism, carry on ICC policy and set up “armed workers’ councils” to fight the dictatorship?

All of ICC’s assumptions about capitalism are wrong; but let us suppose that they are right. Suppose that a minority of workers sets up armed councils all over the world, and suppose (absurd as it is) that they could win against the massive combined armed forces of all the world’s governments, and suppose they succeeded in setting up their world dictatorship—what would have been gained? The problem of winning over the mass of the population before Socialism could be established would still be there, its completion put back a few more years by ICC’s unnecessary and useless war.

Edgar Hardcastle

Blogger's Note:

In the original issue of the October 1977 Socialist Standard, this article had a notice attached below it advertising a cassette tape recording of a recent debate between the ICC and the SPGB. Though the SPGB and the ICC debated each other twice in 1977 - once in Leeds and once at the SPGB's Head Office - my guess is that the advertised recording is of the debate in London between Alan Ward of the ICC and Edgar Hardcastle ('E. Hardy') of the SPGB. That recording of the London debate is available on the SPGB's website at the following link:

Debate with the I.C.C.  – Which way Socialism? 

Debate at Head Office with the International Communist Current; Hardy (SPGB) v. A. Ward (I.C.C.)

Date: 20th August 1977

Letter: Power, dictatorship & democracy (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Power, dictatorship & democracy

It has come to my notice that you fundamentally accept Marx’s economic interpretation of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. It would therefore logically follow that you accept Marx’s theory of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, but this is not so and instead you claim that society can be changed through Parliament. This is because you do not understand the true nature of the class struggle and the capitalist state. Even you must realize that the power of society does not lie in Parliament but in the economic wealth of the ruling class. There is no parliamentary road to socialism (as the Labour Party showed), and the way to achieve socialism is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state.

In no. 8 of your declaration of principles you say the SPGB is “determined to wage war against all other political parties’. Why? History is littered with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with other parties, which have been beneficial to the working-class movement. You are reducing Marxism to a dogma.

Lastly, I notice the SPGB refuse to participate in workers’ struggles for higher pay, against unemployment and public spending cuts etc. I accept that such action by itself will never achieve socialism but it will help to strengthen, organize and educate the workers’ party.

I therefore advise everyone to study Marx by all means, but also study Lenin.

Andrew Mounsey

Sunderland

Reply:

You say that Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history ought logically to lead to the acceptance of the view that “the power of society” lies in “the economic wealth of the ruling class”, and that the way to Socialism “is by violent revolution and the smashing of the capitalist state”.

To which the complete answer is that both views were explicitly repudiated by Marx (and Engels). They never ceased to insist that power is political, “the power of the state, the concentrated and organized force of society” (Marx, Capital Vol. 1, page 823, Kerr edn.). As our Declaration of Principles puts it, gaining control of “the machinery of government, including the armed forces”. It was control of the state machine that enabled the Tudor monarchy to plunder the great wealth of the Church and, as Marx showed in the section of Capital referred to above, it was political power which enabled the capitalists “to hasten, hothouse fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode . . . " .'

The suicidal tactic of “violent revolution” to smash the state instead of gaining control of it is not Marxist. As Engels wrote in the 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France: “The rebellion of old style, the street fight behind barricades, which up to 1848 gave the final decision has become antiquated.” It had become antiquated militarily but in addition, without the great majority of the working class having become convinced socialists, such a victory would be meaningless for the achievement of Socialism.

What the 19th century taught Engels (and the SPGB) is that where it is “a matter of the complete emancipation of society” no such violent “short cut” is of any use because “the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they must act”, and for this to be achieved "long and persistent work is required”. (Introduction to Class Struggles in France.) This means using the vote. It was Marx who wrote that “the carrying of universal franchise in England” would have as its “inevitable result” the “political supremacy of the working class” (article in New York Tribune, 25th August 1852).

You refer to “the dictatorship of the proletariat” without explaining what you have in mind. Is it the total misrepresentation to be seen in state-capitalist Russia where it is Communist Party military dictatorship over the working class; or Engels’s example of the Paris Commune where majority control was based on democratic elections, no suppression of newspapers or the propaganda of the majority, no denial of their right to vote?

Though you claim to be aiming to achieve Socialism, it is obvious that what you understand by Socialism is not what Marx (and the SPGB) were led to accept by Marx’s economic analysis of capitalism and the materialist conception of history. For Marx and us it means “the abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself” (Communist Manifesto) and includes “the abolition of the wages system” (Marx, Value, Price and Profit). The fact that you are not aiming at this at all is shown by your astonishing statement that what “the Labour Party showed” has something to do with Socialism. The Labour Party does not aim and has never aimed at Socialism. Its declared aim is “the mixed economy” — a mixture of state and private capitalism. The Labour Government’s current policy includes reaffirmation of its desire to see capitalism profitable. Its aim is not to abolish capitalism but to show the electors that it can run capitalism more successfully (or less disastrously) than the Tories.

You state that history is “littered” with instances of working-class parties linking up temporarily with capitalist parties and that this has been “beneficial” to the working-class movement. It is true that organizations claiming to represent the workers have supported Tories and Liberals and the Labour Party, and their leaders from Disraeli and Gladstone to Churchill, MacDonald, Wilson and Callaghan — but where are the benefits that are supposed to have accrued? (“Littered” is the appropriate word to describe the non-results.)

Also we are told that the Socialist Party of Great Britain ought to divert effort from achieving Socialism in order to participate in the day-to-day struggles about the effects of capitalism, and that this would help to “educate”’ the workers. For a century and more organizations have pursued that policy, among them the Social Democratic Federation and the ILP. But where are the educational gains? Both of those organizations, after temporary flourishing, are now defunct, with as the only end product the Labour Party devoted to trying to reform capitalism.

One last comment: we note that you coyly abstain from naming the political party which has your support.

Editors.

Letter: State surplus (2001)

Letter to the Editors from the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

State surplus

Dear Editors,

Due to a computer problem, I suspect, my letter in the May Socialist Standard read 12 instead of 2. This gave the careful reader the impression that profit represents over 90 percent of surplus value. Perhaps in Karl Marx’s day this might have been true. But not today; that’s for sure.

Why your response to my letter failed to point out that the political state in this age of massive reformism represents the biggest portion of surplus value is noteworthy,. My guess is that it has something to do with clause 6 of your Declaration of Principles and the need of a transition period (not in the Trotskyist sense) in which a good SPGB “dictatorship of the proletariat” would come into power.

If you now are going to openly advocate a dictatorship of the proletariat, then the issue of surplus value is crucial. To shrug it off as “pedantic” and not the important is scary.

Thomas Alpine, 

Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA

Reply: 

You are right that today a large portion (we don’t know about the biggest portion) of surplus value goes to the state via taxes, which all ultimately fall on capitalist employers and other property owners. But we don’t see what this has got to do with us advocating that workers should take political action to establish socialism. Perhaps you mistakenly think that we are advocating some SPGB government that would keep the state in being and still siphon off surplus value from the workers. But there’s no need to be scared. We advocate that the state should be abolished just as soon as socialism (common ownership and democratic control of the means of production) has been established, which can be done very rapidly once a majority has decided that it wants this and organises itself democratically to bring it about. Once this has been done, then the socialist political party (i.e. the working class organised democratically and politically for socialism) will also be disbanded.

Editors.

Lenin's Legacy (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is irrelevant that in Russia the means of production are (mostly) not privately owned. Capital can be owned collectively: "the capitalists as a whole take direct part in the exploitation of the total working class by the totality of capital". [1] Bukharin emphasised the "class monopoly in the means of production", when "vulgar economists” had eyes only for private capitalists. [2] Engels wrote:

State ownership of the productive forces is not the answer . . . neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital . . . The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians”. [3]

Russian economic and political conditions differ from the West in that the means of production and distribution are formally owned by the state, and that there is a monopoly of political power by one party which consequently exercises monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution. Inequalities arising from the Party’s dictatorship have created a new exploiting class, powerful and privileged. "The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians."

Lenin preached and practised what Marx condemned. Lenin, a product of the Russian "intelligentsia", was caught up in the struggle against feudalism when the Russian proletariat was still only a fraction of the workforce. His policy was to control workers’ organisations by setting up secret cells. “The Party must be the vanguard, the leader of the broad mass of the working class”, he wrote. [4] Marx however declared: “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves". [5]

Engels considered that in Russia "both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie exist only in sporadic form and have not passed beyond the inferior stage of development" Against Tkachev's view that Russians were "the chosen people" who could bypass capitalism altogether, he argued: "the existence of the bourgeoisie is . . . as necessary a condition for the socialist revolution as the proletariat. A person who maintains that this revolution could be carried out more easily in his country because it has neither proletariat nor bourgeoisie proves by his statement that he has understood nothing of socialism”. [6]

Marx held that Russia was not yet capitalist: “if Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation . . . she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians’’. [7] Fifty years later, Stalin presided over the ruthless process of primitive accumulation when

great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence and hurled as free and "unattached" proletarians on the labour-market . . . And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. [8]

In 1918, the Socialist Party of Great Britain declared: "there is no ground whatever for supposing that (the peasants) are ready or willing to accept social ownership of the land". Could Russia be ready for socialism? “Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is ‘No'.” [9]

Since the essential preconditions for a socialist revolution did not exist, the irony of history changed Lenin and his successors into midwives of capitalism, not socialism. The “vanguard party” with its "advanced theory” had to follow the bloody path of primitive accumulation, to clear the way for the capitalism they had willed to destroy.

Lenin gained power in a backward country whose economy had collapsed. The European revolutions he confidently expected failed to occur, and no class in Russia supported socialism. “The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme Party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe", wrote Engels.[10] Since neither the economic nor the political conditions for socialism existed, any attempt to introduce socialism by abandoning the market economy and commodity production was utopian and doomed to disaster.

The Vanguard Party

Lenin claimed that "by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness . . . the workers can acquire class political consciousness only from without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers".[11] This view did not come from Marx but from the Narodnik tradition “Neither now nor in the future is the people, left to itself, capable of achieving the social revolution. Only we. the revolutionary minority, can". wrote Tkachev. [12] In 1891 Axelrod argued that the workers' struggle was industrial, not political: “in the struggle for political freedom. the advanced sections of the proletariat follow the revolutionary circles and the fractions of the so-called intelligentsia". [12]

Lenin believed in this leadership role: “the intellectuals are good at solving questions ‘of principle'. They are good at drafting plans and supervising the execution of plans". [12] His view reflected the undeveloped state of the Russian working class. It was not held by Marx who, while recognising the importance of theory, also recognised the workers’ ability to organise themselves without the leadership of a self-appointed élite. The early utopian socialists, he wrote, saw in the proletariat only "the most suffering class . . . incapable of any historical initiative"; to them "the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat" was inconceivable. [13] These comments apply equally to Lenin.

Marx's view of the socialist revolution was that it will be achieved by the working class — "the only really revolutionary class”. They will organise themselves. Vanguardism is a denial of Marx's most basic proposition.

The Dictatorship of the Party

On leaving Switzerland, Lenin wrote: "the Russian proletariat is less organised, prepared and class-conscious than the proletariat of other countries . . . Russia is a peasant country and one of the most backward of European countries”. [14] He seized power knowing this, and knowing the Bolsheviks were a minority. To retain power he established a dictatorship.

Within weeks he created the Cheka, an “absolutely independent organisation . . . with power to carry out searches, arrests and executions". [15] Dzerzhinski. the head of the Cheka, was to become head of the VSNKh, set up to control the economy. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and trade unions were under the control of the Party.

Tackling starvation in the cities, Lenin declared the problem “has to be solved by military methods, with absolute ruthlessness". [16] Terror was not ruled out. “The dictatorship is a rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws", he wrote. [17] Forget democracy: "no essential contradiction can exist between the Soviet, that is, the socialist democracy, and the exercise of dictatorial power by a single person”. [18]

Marx wrote of “the dictatorship of the proletariat" meaning the organisation of the proletariat as the ruling class, as exemplified in the democratic Paris Commune. Lenin, latching on to the phrase, interpreted it to mean instead dictatorship by the vanguard with himself at the head. He echoed the Blanquist theory of "a dictatorial power, whose mission it will be to direct the revolutionary movement . . . to be strong, to act quickly, the dictatorial power will have to be concentrated in as small a number of persons as possible". [19]

Rosa Luxemburg protested:

the historical mission of the proletariat . . . is to create, in place of the bourgeois democracy. a Socialist democracy, and not to destroy democracy altogether . . . The dictatorship of the proletariat consists in the manner of application of democracy, not in its abolition . . . this democracy must be the work of the class and not of a small minority in the name of the (working) class.

She was particularly opposed to “the abolition of the most important guarantees for a healthy public life and for the labouring masses — the freedoms of the press, of association and of speech”. [20]

Marx loathed press censorship: "the censored press . . . is a flabby caricature without liberty, a civilised monster, a horror even though sprinkled with rosewater". [21] Lenin’s dictatorship demanded it.

The Missing Link

Lenjn argued that “socialism" was a transition stage to “communism”. During this "rather lengthy process”, when "all citizens would be converted into workers and employees of one huge ‘syndicate' — the whole state”, the state would wither away. [22] This confused theory is contrary to the views of Marx and Engels, who both used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably.

Lenin asserted that "the first fact that has been established with complete exactitude by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole . . . is that, historically. there must be a special stage or a special phase of transition from capitalism to communism”. [22] “Science as a whole" had nothing to do with this “fact”: believing that the workers were not ready for socialism, since their class-consciousness had to be taught them by intellectuals, he did not accept that they could make "complete communism" work. That was "utopian” — so in the meantime, the aim had to be the “transition” stage.

In this "first phase” he decreed: “all citizens (would be) transformed into the salaried employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers . . . the whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory . . . escape from national accounting and control will inevitably become incredibly difficult, a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by swift and severe punishment". [22] Russia did indeed become one vast labour-camp, but it differs from what Lenin claimed for his “socialism". Bureaucracy multiplied instead of disappearing, "equal pay" was soon abandoned, and "strict accounting and control" was replaced by widespread corruption.

The unpleasant reality of the totalitarian state was masked by theories about a "socialist state” — a contradiction in terms. The existence of the state ("the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” [24]) implies and reflects the existence of an exploiting class. The state in Russia has the same function as in any other country: "the main object of the state has always been to secure, by armed force, the economic oppression of the labouring majority by the minority which alone possesses wealth”. [25]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Marx’s conception of socialism means that, as Engels explained, “with the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed suppression. or state power”. [25] Since the state in Russia has not disappeared, after more than sixty years, we must conclude that its existence is proof positive of the existence of “an exclusively wealth-possessing class”, and exploiting class.

Ironically, Lenin in 1917 wrote opposing "the widespread view that . . . state monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can already be termed "state socialism’.” [26] However regulated and planned, he argued, the system remained capitalism. On this, at least, he was in agreement with Marx and Engels.

Charmian Skelton

References:

1. Capital Vol. Ill, chap. x.

2. The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class, 1914.

3. Anti-Dühring

4. Quoted by Rudolf Sprenger. Bolshevism.

5. Inaugural Address to the International Workingmen’s Association.

6. Social Problems in Russia (1874), quoted by Daniel Norman, Marx and Soviet Reality.

7. Letter, 1877.

8. Capital Vol. I. chap. xxvi.

9. Socialist Standard, August. 1918.

10. The Peasant War in Germany.

11. What Is To Be Done? 1902 .'

12. Quoted by Sprenger, Bolshevism.

13. Communist Manifesto.

14. Quoted by R. Payne, Lenin.

15. Decrees of 20 Dec, 1917, and 26 Sept, 1918.

16. Speech of 2 Feb, 1920, quoted by Alec Nove, An Economic History of the Soviet Union.

17. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, 1919.

18. Speech 28 April 1918. quoted by Kautsky, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

19. Quoted by Martov, The State and Socialist Revolution. 1919.

20. The Russian Revolution, quoted by D. Norman. op. cit.

21. Quoted by D. Norman, op. cit.

22. The State and Revolution, 1917-18.

23. Left-wing Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Mentality, 1920.

24. Communist Manifesto.

25. Engels, letter to van Pappen, 1883.

26. The State and Revolution.

Answers to a correspondent: Marx and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. (1946)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

A reader of the Socialist Standard (W.D.B., Cardiff) criticises the S.P.G.B.'s attitude to Dictatorship and to the problem of distribution immediately after the abolition of capitalism. On dictatorship he writes:—

"I find that the S.P.G.B. does not attempt to deal with Marx’s and Engels’ repeated references to the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' (see Marx-Engels correspondence, pages 57, 337, 484, and 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' p. 28), nor does it attempt to reconcile this conception with its own conception of 'democracy.’ " 

Our critic, who says he has been a reader for two years, is correct to the extent that this question has not been dealt with during that period, but in earlier years it has been dealt with repeatedly. For example, it was dealt with in the following issues: June and September, 1932; December, 1936; August, 1937 and January, 1938.

Limitations of space prevent us from dealing with it again at length, but our position can be made sufficiently clear by the following points.

While we are opposed to the Communist Party's distortion of the term dictatorship of the proletariat, we are in agreement with Marx’s and Engels' view. Engels in his 1891 introduction to the German edition of "Civil War in France," wrote: —

"The German philistine has lately been thrown once again into wholesome paroxisms by the expression 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' Well, gentle sirs, would you like to know how this dictatorship looks? Then look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the proletariat."

(See translation published by the New York Labour News Co. in a pamphlet called "The Paris Commune.") 

The Commune was an instance of majority control based upon democratic elections. There was no suppression of newspapers or of the propaganda of the minority, and no denial of their right to vote. This is markedly different from the Communist Party dictatorship in Russia to-day, where opposition political parties and newspapers are forbidden. The Communist Party is the only political party that may nominate candidates. For what it is worth non-political organisations, trade unions, co-operatives, cultural Societies, etc., are allowed to nominate candidates under the Election Regulations, but the same regulations provide that the nominations have to be approved by the election commissions. (See "Regulations Governing Elections," published by Soviet News, 23rd October, 1945.) The Central Election Commission, which has the final decision if appeal is made against the rejection of nominees by lower commissions (see article 67), is appointed from above by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and of its membership of 15, five are from Communist organisations pnd five from trade unions. All, of course, are from officially approved bodies only.

Distribution immediately after the abolition of capitalism. 

Our critic’s second point is:—

"The S.P.G.B. totally ignores the passages in the 'Critique of Gotha Programme' wherein Marx states, 'What we have to deal with is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it has emerged. Accordingly the individual producer receives back from society exactly what he gives to it. . . . He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such an amount of labour (after deducting his labour for the common fund), and with this certificate he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as costs the same amount of labour.' "

Our critic goes on to quote from Marx's "Critique on the Gotha Programme" that passage in which Marx says that it will be later on, "in a higher phase of communist society," that society will inscribe on its banners, "From each according to his needs," and adds: "The contrast between Marx's views on the nature of Socialism (or Communism) and those expressed in the Socialist Standard is so glaring that I am quite unable to reconcile them.”

Again our critic is in error. The question which, according to him, the S.P.G.B. totally ignores, was dealt with fully in the issue for August, 1936, to which he and other interested readers are referred. The article dealt with Marx's views, the distortion of those views by the Communists, and their applicability under the altered conditions of to-day. 70 years after Marx wrote.

It is not clear from our critic’s letter exactly in what respects he thinks that the S.P.G.B.'s attitude on this point glaringly contrasts with the attitude of Marx. If he will be more explicit his criticism will be dealt with.

Ed. Comm.

Marxism: Past and Present – pt.1 (1955)

Book Review from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism: Past and Present by R. N. Carew Hunt. (Published by Geoffrey Bles)

This book is a mine of reference on Marxism. While the author may have diligently quarried for his treasure, precious little has been brought to the surface that materially adds to existing stocks of knowledge on the subject. The book in fact is not so much a solo as a sound track for a massed anti-Marxist choir: so much so, that the author’s voice seems but the sotto voce of a “whispering baritone.” In addition, he attempts to decant the whole quart of Marxism into the half-pint bottle of 175 pages, thus making impossible any systematic treatment of the many issues raised.

The author essays to show that the totalitarian empire of Russia is the melancholy sequel to Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Presumably, had there been no Marx there would have been no Lenin, no October Revolution. The sequence of events in Russia might then have told a happier story. Once again, then, Marx takes on the legendary role of history’s “wicked uncle,”

One of the author’s contentions, then—the one we shall deal with—is that both Leninism and Stalinism are rooted in Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The author adopts, however, the dubious procedure of interpretation rather than testimony, of inference in lieu of evidence. He selects passages from Marx and Engels compares them with statements of Lenin and stress similarities. He never selects passages which reveal differences.

Yet those differences are of an order to show not a crucial connection but antithetical relations between Marxism and Leninism. While Marx and Engels were never specific as to what they meant by “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” they were always consistent with the generally accepted notion of democracy. Lenin’s political doctrine did not characterize democracy but only caricatured it in a debased Soviet form. Marx’s political theory carried no suggestion of a one-party device for the capture of political power. On the contrary, it presupposed “free elections” via the polling-booth. That was the method of the Paris Commune—and that, said Engels in his most vigorous statement on the subject, was “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Engels, in the Critique of the Erfurt Programme, declared : “Our party and the working class can only gain political supremacy under the political regime of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form the dictatorship of the proletariat as the great French revolution has already shown.” (Marx Engels Correspondence, p.486)

For Lenin the organizational form of the proletarian dictatorship was political centralism, with its military dictatorship and denial of any right of appeal from decisions made by the ruling body. The sinister sequel to this was dramatically summed-up by Lenin himself when he stated:

“The Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way incompatible with the rule and dictatorship of one person . . . this was explained to and accepted by the Central Executive Committee a long time ago ” (Socialist Party of Canada Pamphlet The Russian Revolution, p. 14).

Mr. Carew Hunt’s arrangement of quotations serves to conceal, not reveal, the antithetical views of Marx and Lenin. Thus, Lenin is quoted: “The transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class is identical with democracy,” While this in the letter agrees with the Communist Manifesto’s statement “The constitution of the proletariat into the ruling class is the conquest of democracy,” in the spirit it is utterly at variance.

In fact, Lenin’s notion of the conquest of political power by a class-conscious proletariat was perfectly consistent with his anti-democratic outlook. By giving the term “proletarian” an ideological twist, Lenin was able to include in the term his own Bolsheviks, who by and large had no working-class origin but had sprung from the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia. These for Lenin were not only “proletarians” but formed in the main his “class-conscious proletarians.” That is why Lenin made a decisive distinction between “the class-conscious proletarians” and “the masses.” While he often adroitly manipulated the term “proletarian” for demagogic purposes, he always made the capture of political power by the class-conscious proletariat synonymous with the supremacy of an élite.

Yet Mr. Carew Hunt blandly informs us that this is all perfectly in line with Engels’s statement in the preface to Class Struggles in France “that in a complete social transformation the masses themselves have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for body and soul. The history of the last 50 years has taught us that.” The author is able to say that because he never informs us as to the real content of Bolshevik doctrine. He only misinforms us of its relation with Marxism. Because the author’s proofs of most of his assertions are so constricted, he stretches his imagination to the point of rupture.

The Bolshevik seizure of power is paralleled also with Engels’s statement in his article On Authority, February, 1873, that “a revolution is an act where one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by rifles, bayonets and cannon.” (Selected Works, p.578) But in this particular instance Engels specifically cites, as an example of the armed authority of the people, the Paris Commune, which was no Leninist usurping of power by a minority but authority democratically conceived and arrived at.

Also the Communist Manifesto’s statement, “The Communists are the most resolute section which pushes on all other sections,” the author suggests, is the originating idea of Lenin’s professional élite. Undoubtedly his penchant for reading between the lines of Marxist literature has given him a bad squint.

The authority of the Communist League (1850) is cited as good Marxist paternity for Leninism. Marx then advised workers to agitate on behalf of the Democrats, who represented the German lower-middle class; and, in the event of their forming a government, to foist on them “revolutionary demands,” thus weakening the power of the upper bourgeoisie and strengthening the revolutionary potential of the workers. This political immaturity of Marx was never repeated. Afterwards, he made working class political maturity the measure of working-class development. All the essential features of Leninism, however, were missing from the Communist League. There was no separation of intellectuals from workers, no proscribing of working-class activity, no envisaging seizure of power by a political Junta.

Ted Wilmott

(To be concluded)

Parliament or Soviet. A Reply to the ‘Proletarian’ (U.S.A.) (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our August number we pointed out that a certain John Keracher, of the American “Proletarian”, contributed an article to their July number which contained a covert attack on our principles and policy. That although our Declaration of Principles was quoted, our name had not been mentioned.

The October number of the “Proletarian” contains a reply to our criticism. Although Keracher had not thought it worth while mentioning our name in the previous article he now finds the matter so important that he devotes nearly twelve columns (nearly half of the paper) to us. And further, the matter was of such urgency that copies of the “Proletarian” were sent to the branches of our Party!

Throughout these twelve columns Keracher quotes portions of paragraphs of Marx and Engels in the effort to wring out of them an interpretation they will not bear. We pointed out in our criticism that quotations in the previous article had been made without the source being indicated. Keracher now tries to take refuge in the statement that we ought to know the source! The “Proletarian” is supposed to be a paper written for working men, and therefore, if working men are to test the truth of the evidence brought forward they must be able to go to the source for that purpose. But as the “Proletarian”, like other Communist organs, depends upon the ignorance of the workers, its writers are not over-anxious to give the workers the opportunity to see the frailty of the case put forward. As we cannot spare twelve columns to deal with Keracher, we will only take his leading points, and demonstrate his slipperiness, without following up all his by-paths.

At the end of our criticism of the “Proletarian” article we asked how they proposed getting rid of the armed force, at present controlled by the capitalists through Parliament, which stood in the way of any attempt to alter the foundations of society. This is the reply:

“Getting control of Parliament does not mean that the workers have gained control of the public power of coercion, the state. At such a critical moment the capitalist class (not so stupid as the S.P. of G.B.) will send its ‘armed forces’ to disperse Parliamentary representatives. The real State will show itself.”

For sheer stupidity the above takes the palm. How can the “capitalist class send its armed forces”? Are the capitalists sitting in a room somewhere, issuing orders?

The issuing of orders, the appointment and control of officials, and everything else connected with the operation of the armed forces, is in the hands of the group in Parliament that for the time constitutes the Government, i.e, has the majority. Time after time we have given abundant evidence of this fact in these columns.

The armed force is a part of the governmental machinery, the whole of which depends for its efficiency upon co-ordination. If the co-ordination breaks down the machinery becomes useless, or anarchy sets in. The co-ordination comes from the centre—Parliament.

After the above quotation comes the following paragraph:

“If ‘the armed forces of the nation’, most of it working men, remains loyal to the ruling class, then the proletariat will have to submit to a military dictatorship of the capitalists. If, on the other hand, the rank and file of the army and navy goes over to the working class, then the political power will have passed from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. It is during this period that the new state form…will make its appearance. The Paris Commune and the Russian Soviet arose spontaneously out of the revolution itself.”

A couple of “ifs”  are very weak material to base a course of action upon. Secondly, as the capitalists are alleged to be able to send their armed forces where they like, irrespective of the intentions of Parliament, surely the only inference to be drawn is that there is already a military dictatorship here and now. Thirdly, how is “the new State form” going to make its appearance; pop up suddenly like a mushroom over night? Fourthly, the Russian Soviet did not arise in 1917, but many years before. Fifthly, according to Trotsky, “It is true that the English Trades Unions may become a powerful lever for the revolution; they may even, in circumstances and for a certain time, be a substitute for the Workers’ Soviets.” (The Lessons of October, 1917, p.75.) Sixthly, the Paris Commune was able to arise because the armed force of the French Government was “resting” in German prison camps.

In the cases of both the Communards and the Bolsheviks they were able to seize power because, owing to an unusually favourable set of circumstances, the armed force that would have stood in the way would have stood in the way had already been got rid of, or rendered innocuous by those who previously controlled State power. Are we asked to depend upon such a situation in the future instead of using the weapons we have at hand? Could stupidity go further?

Now let us gave an example of Keracher’s slippery method of arguing. He says:

“ ‘The Communards proposed decentralisation,’ writes Gilmac approvingly.”  There is nothing approving or disapproving in a statement of fact. But Keracher, unable to meet the point, takes refuge, like other wrigglers, in trying to foist upon his opponents views which they do not hold.

Mr. Keracher wants to have it both ways. To him the Paris Commune and the Russian Soviet Government are both “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour.”

Let us give quotations from authorities upon each form.

Engels, in his introduction to the Paris Commune, points out that the Blanquists in the Commune acted in a way exactly the opposite of their former attitude:

“The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the School of Conspiracy, held together by the rigid discipline essential to it, they started from the conception that a comparatively small number of resolute, well-organised men would be able not only to grasp the helm of State at a favourable moment, but also through the display of great energy and reckless daring, to hold it as long as required; that is, until they had succeeded in carrying the masses of the people into the revolutionary current, and ranging them around the small leading band. To accomplish this, what was necessary, above all else, was the most stringent dictatorial centralisation of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government. And what did the Commune do—which in the majority consisted of these Blanquists? In all its proclamations to the French people in the Provinces, it called upon them for a free federation of all French communes with Paris, for a National Organisation, which for the first time was to be the real creation of the nation. The Army, the political police, the Bureaucracy, all those agencies of oppression in a centralised government, which Napoleon had created in 1789, and which since then every new government had gladly used and kept up as ready weapons against its enemies, were to be abolished everywhere as they had been abolished in Paris.”

(The Paris Commune ,p.10, N.Y.L.N.Co)

The following quotations from Lenin and Zinovieff show the rigid centralisation of the Bolshevik Government, and the way a portion of the Russian Communist Party kept power to themselves:

“It proves that unqualified centralisation and the strictest discipline of the proletariat are among the principal conditions for the victory over the bourgeoisie.” (Left Wing Communism, N. Lenin, p.110.)

“If Bolshevism could successfully, and under the greatest difficulties, achieve in 1917-1920 the strictest centralisation and iron discipline, it was due simply to a series of historical peculiarities of Russia.” (Left Wing Communism, p.11)

“Our central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members the right to vote at the Congress of the Party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right of voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to ensure the homogenous unity of the Communists.

So that, in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom.” (Report by Zinovieff to First Congress of 3rd International, March, 1919. The Socialist, 29th April, 1920.)

“One of our misfortunes was that we had to take over the old State apparatus.” (The New Economic Policy, by Lenin. The Communist, 16th Dec., 1922.)

Now, Mr. Keracher, which is “the political form at last discovered,” the Commune or the Soviet government? Attempted witticisms are no answer to facts.

Keracher quotes a statement from Engels’ Origin of the Family. But he only quotes a few lines from a paragraph, but in connection with a different matter. The part he quotes first and attempts to make considerable use of is as follows:

“Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be anything else in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.”

Keracher, at the end of his article, asks us what Engels meant by this. We will tell him in Engels’ own words. First from another, and later writing of Engels, and then from the paragraph from which the above is torn, as well as from what is probably the most read of all Engels’ writings, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

In 1895, the year of his death, and twenty-three years after the Paris Commune, Engels wrote an introduction to a reprint of Marx’s Class Struggles in France. In his introduction Engels says:

“When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the new opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag. From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. To quote the words concerning the suffrage in the French Marxist programme, ‘ils l’ont transformé, de moyen duperie qu’il a été jusqu’ici , en instrument d’émancipation—they have changed it from a means of deceit, such as it has been hitherto, into a means of emancipation… even if it did no more than allow us to gauge our own strength and that of our opponents, thus preserving us alike from undue faintheartedness and from overweening rashness—if that were all universal suffrage had done for us, it would have been amply worth while.

But it has done more than this. Electoral agitation supplied us with a method of unsurpassed value for getting into contact with those strata of the populace which still held aloof from us, and for compelling the other parties to defend themselves publicly against the attacks we delivered upon their opinions and their actions. Moreover, in the Reichstag it provided our representatives with a platform from which to their opponents in Parliament and to the masses outside they could speak alike with far more authority and with greater freedom than had been possible in the Press and in public meetings. Of what use to the Government and to the bourgeoisie was their Socialist Law when electoral agitation and the speeches of Socialist deputies in the Reichstag were continually rendering its restrictions in the nugatory?

With the successful employment of universal suffrage an entirely new proletarian tactic had come into being, and this tactic speedily underwent further development.  It was found that the governmental institutions in which the dominion of the bourgeoisie had secured organic expression provided a leverage whereby the proletariat could work for the overthrow of these very institutions. The workers participated in the elections to the diets; they voted in the municipal elections; they took their places in the arbitration courts; in their conflict with the bourgeoisie they disputed the possession of every post. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than the unconstitutional activities of the working class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion.

The day of surprise attacks has passed, the day when small but resolute minorities could achieve revolutions by leading the masses to the onslaught. Where the question is one of a complete transformation in the social organism, the masses must wittingly participate, must fully understand what they are about. We have learned this from the history of the past 50 years. But if we are to enlighten the masses concerning the issue, prolonged and arduous toil will be requisite. This is the task on which we are now engaged, and with so much success that our adversaries are becoming desperately alarmed.

The irony of history turns everything topsy-turvy. We, the ‘revolutionists’, thrive better by the use of constitutional means than by unconstitutional and revolutionary methods. The parties of law and order, as they term themselves, are being destroyed by the constitutional implements which they themselves have fashioned.”

The paragraph in the Origin of the Family, from which Keracher quotes, is a long one, and starts on page 209 of Kerr’s edition. In the early part of it the following sentences occur:

“The highest form of the State, the democratic republic, knows officially nothing of property distinctions. It is the State, which under modern conditions of society, becomes more and more an unavoidable necessity. The last decisive struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie can only be fought out under this State form.”  (Italics ours.)

The paragraph then ends as follows:

“The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage. For as long as the oppressed class—in this case the proletariat—is not ripe for its emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing form of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class. But the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” (Italics ours.)

On the day when the thermometer reaches its boiling point the workers will have elected a majority of delegates to Parliament. That is Engels’ answer to the question. For further evidence let us turn to Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, pp.74-77. (Sonneschien, 1892).

“Whilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great majority of the population into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this revolution. Whilst it forces on more and more the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialised, into State property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.

But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes also the State as State. Society thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the State. That is, of an organisation of the particular class which was pro tempore the exploiting class, an organisation for the purpose of preventing any interference from without with the existing conditions of production and, therefore especially for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited class in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labour). The State was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the State of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole; in the middle ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie.

When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as the class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—this is at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then it dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of the processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It dies out. ” (pp.74-77.)

“ III. Proletarian Revolution. – Solution of the contradictions. The proletariat seizes the public power, and by the means of this transforms the socialised means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus borne, and gives their socialised character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialised production on a pre-determined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organisation, becomes at the same time the lord over nature, his own master—free. (p.86.)

Note the commencement of the last paragraph: “The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialised means of production…into public property,” and take along with it the following, from the end of Engels’ 1891 introduction to The Paris Commune (New York Lab. News. Co.):

“But in reality the State is nothing else than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and that no less so in the democratic republic than the monarchy. At the very best it is an inheritance of evil, bound to be transmitted to the proletariat when it has become victorious in its struggle for class supremacy, and the worst features of which it will have to lop off at once, as the Commune did, until a new race, grown up under new, free social conditions, will be in a position to shake off from itself the State rubbish in its entirety.”

The above quotations prove the correctness, according to Engels, of paragraph 6 of our Declaration of Principles, to which Mr. Keracher takes exception, and also the correctness of the summary of the Marxian view, given in our August number, to which Mr. Keracher also takes exception, i.e., that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between capitalist society and Socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another of the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the State.

In the last column Mr. Keracher, speaking of ourselves, says:

“They have not yet discovered how the workers of Paris and Russia got "rid of the armed forces controlled by the capitalists." ”

The answer is that neither Communists nor Bolsheviks got rid of the armed forces of the capitalists. In each case the capitalists, owing to the exigencies of war, did it.

Marx’s view of universal suffrage was clearly given in his article on the Chartists, in which he said:

“But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of itself as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants,  but landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England, would, therefore, be a far more Socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent.

Its inevitable result here, is the political supremacy of the working class.”  (‘N.Y. Tribune,’ 25th Aug. 1852; quoted by ‘Labour Monthly,’ Dec., 1929.)

Keracher, like the rest of the pro-Bolsheviks, tries to foist upon Marx and Engels their own views of “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” As was pointed out in the May number of the “S.S.,” in all the voluminous writings of Marx and Engels they only use the expression three times. Marx twice; once in a private letter criticising the “free people’s state” (The Gotha Program), and once in the Class Struggle in France, where, dealing with the large peasantry and small working class in France, he said that if the workers got power there would be a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” Engels used it only once, at the end of the Paris Commune, were he advised opponents to look at the Paris Commune, that was the dictatorship of the proletariat. And these three references (one of which was not intended for public consumption) are the basis  of all the post-war talk of “Dictatorship”!

We have no further space to spare for Mr. Keracher’s other twists and turns. The above, however, will give a fair idea of the shifts he is compelled to resort to. In the whole of twelve columns he failed to show how the working class could obtain control of the armed forces, by ignoring parliament, and what force, and how, the Proletarian Party would meet the political power of the capitalists. We are evidently supposed to guess this!

Gilmac.