This Month's Quotation: Karl Marx (1933)

The Front Page quote from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The great duty of the proletariat is to conquer political power."

Karl Marx

The Philosophy of Anarchism (1976)

From the October 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problems thrown up by present-day society are plain for all to see. What is not so obvious is the way to deal with them. This requires thinking about, and once workers start to seriously think about why society provides drudgery, poverty and insecurity, the Socialist alternative will become apparent. It is being content to let others do the thinking that results in failure to achieve anything.  

The Anarchist, in competition with other reformers, claims to have a solution to social problems. He claims these originate from the authoritarian state. The state is the negation of liberty in the eyes of the anarchist. It has to be destroyed before liberty can be established (Bakunin). Socialists are accused of wanting to extend the power of the state which shows how little anarchists understand Socialism.

On the surface, the anarchists’ concept of a libertarian society has led a number of people to believe that Socialism and anarchism have the same objective in mind, and differ only in method. This is erroneous. The Socialist is a materialist who has grasped the historical significance of changing economic conditions leading to changes in men’s ideas, whilst the anarchist is an idealist — that is, someone who constructs the world in his mind without reference to material and historical circumstances. The Socialist holds that the agent of social change is the class struggle. The capitalist class destroyed the feudal conditions of property, and the working class will, in turn, put an end to the capitalist conditions of property. This is the issue in the class struggle, and it has to be fought on the political field by political parties.

Social change is not possible without political power being gained by those who desire the change. This is the historical sequence civilized society has gone through and must go through in future. The emergence of the capitalist class and the working class went hand in hand with social progress in the production of wealth. They are not eternal categories, and represent the development of the institution of private property. The impulse to Socialism comes from the necessity for the working class as a whole to realize its interests.

Anarchists do not accept this view. They maintain that political action for control of the state by workers is a waste of time, because Parliament cannot possibly serve as an instrument of social transformation. Instead, they advocate industrial and everyday struggles, though experience has shown that social reform is a waste of time and leads nowhere. In pursuing this line the anarchist movement is identical with the reformers of “the Left” with their “day-to- day struggles”, and form only another fragment of the multifarious reform movements.

One group, the Anarchist Workers’ Association, has in fact moved away from the traditional anarchist position and wants to “create political consciousness amongst the working class, and seeks to develop and support working-class organization” (“Aims and Principles,” Anarchist Worker, Aug. 1976). The journal of the Anarchist Collective, called Anarchy 19, discusses at length the need for organization, and states a conflict between liberal individualists who are apolitical and what is described as the broad anarchist movement linked with the class struggle. “The wider anarchist movement finds itself floundering in a sea of confusion, largely unable to present any coherent alternative to the authoritarian Left, simply because it fails to see the need to politically organize” (Anarchy 19).

This is a complete departure from the classic anarchist position which was hostile to working-class organizations, let alone political organizations. Proudhon opposed trade unionism on the grounds that it interfered with the liberty of the subject. Bakunin, during the sessions of the First International, told workers that political action was a waste of time. He constantly attacked Marx who urged the workers to build up an effective well-knit organization for the prosecution of the class struggle on the political field.

The anarchist view is that a change of ideas in themselves, whatever the historical epoch, is sufficient for the establishment of a libertarian society, the perfect society. Rejecting, as they do the theory of social development, their philosophy is purely abstract. It has no roots in the material world, having separated man from his environment. Men are a product of their social environment, and their thoughts and aspirations are determined by it. The prevailing ideas under capitalism are the ideas of the ruling class, in favour of the wages system and private property. The workers are not revolutionary at present, and it would be impossible for them to be revolutionary without seeking the essential step of dispossessing the capitalists by the political machinery. There is no other way. Yet the anarchists persist that it can be done by direct action against the capitalists who control the armed forces. So far, the only direct action anarchists have taken has been for reforms.

The present activities of anarchists have their origin in the unsound theories advocated by their founders. Max Stirner was one such pioneer. To him the individual was the only reality. Some years earlier, Ludwig Feurbach, the German philosopher, had said the love of humanity must not extend beyond humanity. Man is the highest being for man. Stirner went a stage further. He claimed that the love of humanity was an abstract thing and only existed in the mind of man, and the only reality was the individual with his wants, tendencies, and will: “For me there is nothing above myself”. Religion, conscience, morality, the law and family, were so many fetters forced upon him in the name of the abstraction — humanity. “Right is might and might is right. If you have not got the former you have not got the latter. Every state is a despotism, even the most democratic, whether it is the despotism of one or many. I recognize nothing above myself. I feel oppressed by every institution that imposes any duty upon me”. (The Individual and his Property, 1845).

This is idealism of the highest order. The whole philosophy is based on an abstraction — the individual. Society is not just a collection of individuals, it is the aggregate of relationships. Production and distribution must be organized; labour must be based on co-operation. To talk about individuals as above and separate from the social organization of wealth production is pure fantasy.

Stirner formed what he called the League of Egoists (one ego could not exist on its own). In common with anarchists of the present day, he was opposed to Socialism. “If the socialist says that society gives me what I need, the egoist says I take what I want” (The Individual and his Property). The anarchists’ claim that common ownership and democratic control of the means of production will lead to the regimentation and oppression of the producers shows their ignorance of human behaviour. Man is by nature a co-operative animal with a common interest in making society function to the greatest advantage of all.

Three years after Stirner, Proudhon repeated the same viewpoint. For him there was no such thing as social evolution. The state was a fiction. Everything in history was born of men’s ideas. The perfect society was always possible at any stage in history if only men had discovered the ideas of anarchism. “The social constitution is innate in humanity, yet it could only be discovered as the result of long experience, and for the want of it humanity had to invent the political constitution”. (Confessions of a Revolutionary, Proudhon, quoted by Plechanoff.) This is an entirely utopian concept of human nature. Man does not have any innate principles — his viewpoints are results of his social experience.

The political superstructure of any given society, or the way in which public affairs are administered, arises from the economic basis of that society and exists to serve that basis. A change in the basis produces a change in the superstructure. The administration of public affairs at present is carried on by the state, which is the instrument of the ruling class, and it is essential as long as private property exists. In a society based on common property, the state could not exist as its function would have disappeared. The state is not the cause of private property but the effect of it. Even if the “smashing” of the state as advocated by anarchists were possible, it would not remove the condition of private property. Not that Stirner, Proudhon and Kropotkin were opposed to property — on the contrary.

Michael Bakunin died over a hundred years ago. His collected works were published by Sam Dolgoff (Allen & Unwin 1972), and he is described as the active founder of world anarchism. The same unrealistic theme runs through his entire works. He advances the theory' of collectivism, a vast network of free associations with social autonomy which may or may not federate with each other at every level, with of course the right to secede from any federation. The basis of this association was collective property: “I am in favour of collective property because I am convinced that so long as property, individually dually hereditary, exists . . .  the realisation of equality, economical and social will be impossible” (Anarchism and Socialism, G. Plechanoff, p.82, Kerr edn). Bakunin apparently was not opposed to individual property if it was not hereditary!

We are left in the dark as to how collective property can be socially administered; there is obviously no system proposed, and he was not dealing with social property. How can there be administration when any group can secede at any time? Collective property based on independent autonomous units may have had some place in a small peasant community or petty industry in an earlier stage of civilization with low standards of production but to apply the concept to a modern socially integrated economy is utopian. In any case anarchists are not in favour of democratic control, and Bakunin’s views on communism bear this out. “I detest communism because it is the negation of liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty” (p.81, Anarchism and Socialism). This theme of absolute liberty and the “freedom” of the individual which runs through anarchist literature is pure abstraction. The anarchists lose sight of the fact that we have to produce the necessities of society and require a social organization for this purpose, and the only way this organization can run effectively is by the democratic control of the majority, not by small autonomous independent units.

Prince Kropotkin followed Bakunin, and is probably the most widely read of all anarchists. He contributed the article on anarchism for the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1905. The definition of anarchism which he supplied is given as “a principle on the theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government”. The ageless nature of this description is later shown by the reference to anarchism in history. According to Kropotkin, everybody from Socrates to Rabelais and others who objected to state interference was an anarchist. He tells us that the exponent of anarchy in ancient Greece was Zeno, the founder of the Stoic philosophy who lived around 300 BC. He regrets that the writings of Zeno have not reached us. "However, the fact that his wording is similar to the wording now in use shows how deeply he has laid the tendency of human nature of which he was the mouthpiece”. (Encyclopedia Britannica.)

This defies balanced comment, but it does demonstrate an unsound, almost spiritual approach. We can leave it for modern anarchists to explain the relevance of Zeno to the social problems of today. Kropotkin supported Proudhon’s mutualist rubbish published in The Philosophy of Poverty, which Marx dealt with in The Poverty of Philosophy: for example, rendering capital incapable of earning interest by means of a National Bank. All anarchists have to do is stop the industrial capitalist from earning a profit on his capital and the landlord and the banker to stop charging rent and interest, and this without expropriation. They do not propose to take political action to dispossess the capitalists. Industrial capitalists will not function without profit, and the workers support the wages system. The proposition is idealism gone mad. Little wonder that the capitalists have never taken the theories of anarchism seriously. How could this ethereal rubbish threaten their existence?

The shallowness of Kropotkin was exposed in the Great War of 1914-18 when he supported the Allied cause. He also supported the Russian Revolution in 1917. When the testing time came, the woolly-headed Kropotkin, in company with other figures of the international Left, was completely impotent. Not understanding the economics of capitalism they were unable to offer any clear advice to the working class who in their millions were going forward to the slaughter. The liberty of the individual met its nemesis in mass conscription.

It cannot be stressed too strongly that the political weapon is the only one which a conscious working class can use to establish Socialism. It is not possible for society to develop in any other way. If Socialism cannot be established capitalism will continue; there is not a third choice called collective anarchism, communist anarchism, syndicalism, workers’ control or workers’ states. The means of production and distribution are held by the capitalists of the world. It is of the utmost urgency that society as a whole must make them common property of society. The control of the state machine ensures ownership by the capitalist class, so that the first and only task before a revolutionary working class is to gain control of that machine for Socialism. The worker can do this by voting, but it is not just the cross on the ballot paper which makes the revolution. It is the man behind the vote. The theories of anarchism rest on the idea that a small intellectual élite can sway society: they have a contempt for the ability of the worker to understand the economics and politics of capitalism and consequently gain Socialist knowledge. They preach the gospel of despair, disguised though it may be in the romantic jargon of two centuries ago.

The old Utopians like St. Simon gave some stimulus and incentive to the development of the theories of scientific Socialism, then in its infancy. The present-day anarchist is reactionary because he advocates the abandonment of the only effective weapon which social evolution has made possible — the political weapon — and politics mean Parliament.

Jim D'Arcy

Correspondence: [The Armed Forces] (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir,—The philosophy of the S.P.G.B. as I understand it from your platform and literature is as follows: “The workers must become class-consciously organised for the capture of the political machinery, and by so doing gain control over the armed forces. They would then be able to work out their own emancipation.” But the capitalist class, seeing this organisation growing, may hand over control cf the armed forces to a private company. Ought not, therefore, the workers organise industrially as well as politically, so that if we fail with one we can fall back on the other ?—S.H.

Reply:

The question is briefly answered in the affirmative in our Manifesto; not, however, that the failure of the political means is contemplated, but for reasons given in our answer to H. Harrison. In the light of history our correspondent has surely allowed his imagination to play tricks with him when he supposes the armed forces passed by the capitalist class “to a private company.” The thing is to make our class Socialist: the rest follows—Ed. “S.S.”]

Letter: Mr. T. Rennolls again. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. T. Rennolls again.

He promises to clear up the "mystery" of the "Hows of Socialism" next time.

Sir,—Socialism suffers the ignominy of having itself interpreted by a motley assortment of thoroughly earnest and conscientious dogmatists, whose self satisfaction with their own verbal and inspired platitudes is a replica of our education system, both in religion and politics. If Socialism is anything at all, it is something to US, something of imminent worth —only most of us don’t know it. There is contained within its teachings and interpretations a live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself, and which opens wide the door to the primary and definite growth of the social order implying Socialism. This principle of action, and the pointer indicating its residence in one of the commonest teachings of Socialism, has hitherto been encumbered and hidden with the rags and wrappings and insignia of the ambiguities, abstractions, and meaningless phrases, the latter of which I instanced in my last letter to you, which were taken from the programme of the S.P.G.B., and which are as plain as a pikestaff to any open-minded Socialist. Such things reduce Socialism to a Sociological hereafter, whereas it is of vital consequence and importance to the immediate future, an affair of OURS here and now. Having failed to make it this ; having neglected one of its first principles, which meant the loss of this vital active force in Socialism, it is up to us to retract and to make good the waste of energy that constitutes the trail of our progress.

Socialists have had the effrontery on their public platforms to tell their audiences who were rightly, logically and naturally interested in the “hows” of Socialism, i.e., “How can you get it?” “What must be done to attain it?” that that matter must be left to the people who, at some probably distant date, have made up their minds to have it. Or they have put it down to poor old Evolution, that seems to have to answer for all our difficulties, much as Christ is supposed to answer for all our “sins.”

These answers illustrate the bankruptcy of the Socialist propaganda. And to tell the people that we must “seize and hold,” “take over,” or “transform,” or “convert” private into public property, or “nationalise” this, that and the other, also illustrates the fact that these Socialists, the S.P.G.B. included, cannot answer the question, have no answer to it and simply don’t know. All these terms explain nothing ; there isn’t a ghost of a “how” in it, and until you can answer that question properly the capitalist has a walk over.

What guarantee have you that some other generation will know better than you “how to set about the revolution,” except through the lead you give them gratuitously, that you don’t know yourself ?

To confess that you cannot answer this question is a step in the right direction. To desire to be able to answer it is another. To bolster up your non-activist platitudarian Socialism with personal accusations of your critic’s “inability to comprehend what he reads,” his “deplorable form of second sight,” his “excessively imaginative mind,” his “slipshod method,” and his “twists and inversions,” simply won’t do. They may pass for slashing attacks with people who only too commonly construe personalities for arguments, but times are too serious and momentous for such indulgences, and Socialism has to pay the penalty all the time.

Socialism has depth as well as breadth. Analogically it is more the padding than your pancake.

In it there is something for every man and woman to do, undelegated and without the “you leave it to us business,” or the “wait till the clouds roll by,” “get-out.”

I call this “how” question an essential one. Disputation arises mostly upon it. People will agree about the Broad principles while disputing the Depths. And no wonder, when they see Socialists out of their depths in it. These disputations eventually give rise to the final neglect of Socialism as a FORCE, and the “new member,” passing through, in addition, the polemics of “Branch business,” routes of processions, prices of concert tickets, the seven categories of Capital, water on the Sahara or the price of eggs in 1844, disappears into the throngs of Blackfriars Bridge at twilight, only to find that “getting his living” must resume its former place in his mind, accompanied with strong indifference toward a Socialism that first tempted him, but afterwards left him bereft of hope, and a permanent instrument of capitalist slavery for him and joy-rides for them.

The slow growth of Socialism can be traced to the persistency of platitudes and palliatives (I don’t know which is worse), to the permeation of passivism (wait and see Socialism), and to the want of recognition of Activist Socialism—the thing I am driving at.

Let me put my “essential” question another way with the intention of making it more forceful and making its inner meaning stand out.

Question: What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people, if all the people were like “F.F.,” or you, Mr. Editor, or any member of the S.P.G.B., were like you in conviction, determination and understanding, were like you, class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning ?

The answer to this question will jolly soon find out what Socialism is to YOU, and what you are to it.

Let us have a “slashing attack” upon this question ; an eye-opener answer.

It will find out and measure the amount of practical force, vim and activity impressed upon you as a result of your understanding of Socialism and its worth to you, the individual. It will indicate on its test dial, and on yours, whether Socialism sleepeth in you or is an active, vital, kinetic force, prepared with revolution and reaction proof.

The solution of this question lies in that simple Socialist teaching: Labour-power produces all economic wealth.

Thanking you for an answer to this question, I propose in another letter and with your permission to answer it myself, as if it were put to me.

—Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls.

The Reply.

In this second letter from Mr. Rennolls there are three things he has done and two he has left undone.

1. He has repeated the wild charges he made previously without proving or even attempting to prove them, then or now.
2. He has repeated his accusation re “ambiguities and abstractions” in a long letter composed from beginning to end, of abstractions, indefinite and ambiguous phrases.
3. He has repeated the lie that he built up his case on quotations from the “Socialist Standard.”

What has he left undone ? .

1. He has not touched upon a single point I raised in my reply.

2. He has failed to show any error in the details, principles, or general policy of the S.P.G.B.

In my first answer I showed that he had misquoted the Declaration of Principles, picking out words and half sentences, and generally making abstractions in one sense, that he might charge us with the use of abstractions in another sense. If he were practised in missing word competitions and such-like amusements it would be an easy matter for him to re-arrange all the words in the Declaration of Principles to make them read the exact opposite of their present meaning. But if, after having done so, he asserted that it was our “programme,” that would be a lie. On the other hand it is permissible for a critic to take a sentence or paragraph for his purpose, so long as it is complete and is an expressed opinion or judgment.

What Mr. Rennolls did was to drag half sentences from their context in order to give a false impression of the whole, though, even apart from it, they might teach him something; for surely Mr. Rennolls—with his professed knowledge of Socialism— cannot be ignorant of the meaning of such a term as “The conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, etc.”

For “abstractions and ambiguities” let the reader note that portion of his letter commencing “If Socialism is anything at all it is something to US.” He appears to be impatient with us, because “the live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself,” in other words that mean exactly the same, the revolution itself, is not here. In spite of his impatience, however, the revolution will only be achieved by arduous and steady propaganda. Socialism is something for us—to work for. Meanwhile, the evolutionary process continues, that process of development that characterises every form of society : the growth and modification that goes on continuously from the revolution in which it was born to the revolution that ends it, to give birth, phoenix like, to yet another system.

Capitalism of to-day, with its collossal machinery of production and distribution, has evolved from a beginning in which the greatest mechanical powers known were the water wheel and the windmill. Capitalist evolution is that process of growth or development that must continue while capitalism lasts ; it can only cease with the establishment of Socialism. Evolution is a process, and when Mr. Rennolls finds the SPG.B. ascribing to evolution “difficulties,” or anything else, that will be the time for him to jeer at us ; but let him find it first.

Mr Rennoll’s repeats again and again in his second letter, the question he asked in his first, and which was answered in the Declaration of Principles before he asked it. His “essential’ question as he terms it : “How?” “If all the people were class-conscious revolutionary socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning?” The solution to this question he says lies in that simple Socialist teaching : “Labour-power produces all economic wealth.” That is no solution : but it intimates one possible answer to the question. As we live by the consumption of wealth, some of us would have to get up, dress and get on with the production of it. Even when asking questions, Mr. Rennolls’s imagination leads him into absurdities.

IF all the people—IF, as though some subtle essence from the tail of a comet could open the eyes of the workers and give them an understanding of Socialism ; make Socialists of them all without the labour of educating and organising. “If all the people were Socialists” to-night could anything be more impossible or absurd ? We, at least, do not look for miracles, nor do we expect to see nor do we think for a moment that anyone in the future will see, such a position as he outlines in his question : “all the people Socialists, capitalism still triumphant, and the people, i.e., the workers, not organised to capture the political machine as the first, and most important step to the establishment of Socialism. In the modern political State it is the majority that rules. The ruling class, smaller in numbers than the workers, make up a majority from the unclass-conscious material among the latter. With the growth of the Socialist Party this will become increasingly difficult and finally impossible. When the Socialists are in a majority over all other parties they will be able, through their representatives, to control the political machine ; this will place in their hands the power to take whatever steps are necessary to establish the new order. What these steps may be will depend upon the circumstances and conditions that apertain at the time. Depend upon it, a working-class organisation built up to a majority in the face of all capitalist parties and methods of opposition, will possess the knowledge, ability, determination and courage to carry through the revolution in spite of every obstacle flung across their path by reactionaries and capitalist politicians. Without the power they will acquire through control of the political machine, the workers can change nothing. They must either submit to capitalist rule or revolt and be bludgeoned into submission by the agents and tools of the class that controls the political machine. Political control is the key that unlocks the door of the new order; to-day it is in the hands of the capitalist class—hence their power. The accomplishment of the revolution is dependent on the knowledge and power of the working class ; the Socialist Party imparts the knowledge, control of the political machine will give them the power.

F. Foan

Why Socialists Oppose Anarchism. Its Fallacies and Dangers Exposed. Part 2. (1911)

From the October 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued From August Issue.]

The false conception of social laws leads the Anarchists to the unsound and dangerous methods in which they indulge. The wild denunciations of the “State” and “government” and everybody vested with authority turns the heads of their ignorant followers. These uneducated worshippers of Anarchist fallacies, believing that this and that official is the real enemy, plan to make away with them, and they are inspired by the “propaganda by deed” teaching. Of course, they receive direct incitement to do so from the fountain-heads of Anarchist “philosophy.” Jean Grave, in his “Moribund Society and Anarchy,” teaches individual violence thus : “Let us suppose a struggle between employers and workmen — any sort of strike, In a strike there are surely some employers more cruel than others, who by their exactions have necessitated this strike, or by their intrigues have kept it up longer than was necessary ; without doubt these employers draw upon themselves the hatred of the workers. Let us suppose one of the like executed in some corner with a placard posted explaining that he had been killed as an exploiter, or that his factory had been burned from the same motive. In such a case there is no being mistaken as to the reasons prompting the authors of the deeds, and we may be sure they will by applauded by the whole labour world. Such are intelligent deeds which show that action should always follow guiding principle.”

In the flourishing days of Anarchism in England, when they had captured the “Socialist League,” after William Morris, Eleanor Marx and others had left it in disgust., the Anarchists used its organ, the “Commonweal,” to push its reactionary propaganda. Thus D. J. Nichol, the editor, wrote of a Trafalgar Square meeting : “Some people condemned the throwing of the bomb at Chicago ; for my part I think it would have been well in London if a man had been found courageous enough to hurl death and destruction among the ruffians who attacked a peaceful meeting.” (Nov. 11, 1891)

In the next issue they eulogised the Tennessee escaped prisoners who carried on open pillage in these terms : “You have shown the workers of America—aye, and of the world—how to free themselves, not at the ballot-box but with the rifle, the torch, and the dynamite bomb.” It commended the Anarchist, Ravachol, who murdered and robbed an old man and was guillotined, in the following words : “Thus finished another stage in the career of a man who has shaken capitalism to its foundations and shown the workers an example worthy of emulation. We are anxiously awaiting the advent of some English Ravachols.” (July 2, 1892.)

Many other examples could be quoted but one more must, suffice. “We say that individual acts have always been a success. The man who strangled Watrin [a French mine-owner whose men were on strike], Pini, who robbed the banks, have opened more eyes than all the pamphlet writers in a century. Our aims can only be attained by accumulated individual actions against property and the men who hold it.” (Dec. 19, 1891).

When the Anarchist “movement” was less feeble its votaries carried out its teachings. In 1893 August Vaillant, the French Anarchist, threw a bomb into the French Parliament from the public gallery. Over 60 people were wounded and he was guillotined. In 1894 Martial Bourdin blew himself to atoms while fixing a bomb near the Royal Observatory, in. Greenwich Park. In the same year a Deptford “comrade,” Rolla Richards, got 7 years for blowing up several South London Post offices, Emile Henry, too, threw a bomb from the balcony of the Paris Cafe Terminus, and 2 persons were killed arid 21 injured.

The foregoing demonstrate that Anarchism is hostile to working class organisation. While it advocates individual violence, it paves the way for the armed forces of the State to intervene and crush it.

The need of the age is a virile organisation of the toilers, but the murder, violence, pillage, and riot that the Anarchists teach has led to their ranks being honeycombed with police spies. It reminds one of the story told by Alexander Herzen, who upon reaching a little Italian town, found, he said, only priests and bandits, but he was greatly puzzled to decide which were the priests and which the bandits.

Just so with the members of the Anarchist groups. It is often difficult to find out which are the genuine “comrades” and which the spies. Its secrecy and underground working make treachery possible : that is why they have never really started to organise the working class.

During the Walsall trial in 1892 it leaked out that the man who informed the police of the proposed bomb outrage was a trusted “comrade” named Coulon, who actually managed Louise Michel’s Anarchist school in Fitzroy Square !

Their clubs all perish owing to the one cause. The “Autotomie,” the “Grafton,” the “Scandinavian,” are cases in point. The “comrades” spend a lot of time accusing each other of being police spies. David Nicoll (of the “Commonweal”) bitterly denounced two of the leading members, “Dr.” Netllau and “Dr.” Macdonald, yet many others testified to the genuineness of these men. A late editor of the “Commonweal” came under suspicion, and is still under a cloud, though he left the “cause” long since.

As the Anarchists’ numbers have declined their methods have been somewhat modified. They do not appeal with the same frequency to individual violence, yet they cannot stop their ignorant supporters from forever harping on its necessity. Indeed, the extent to which the Anarchist followers gloat over deeds of violence, high-sounding threats and the fury they delight in, prove a distinct menace to the true revolutionary movement.

Emma Goldman’s (the American Anarchist) manager, Ben Reitman, visited this country a short while since, and the wild, idiotic advice he gave his audiences — urging them to break policemen’s heads, etc. — could not been have surpassed by an agent-provocateur, for it openly invited the suppression of public meetings, and the condemnation of any anti capitalist movement to lasting persecution.

The Anarchists are frequently the best friends the capitalists have. Whenever they consummate one of their melodramatic outrages the police and Press use it to brow beat the Socialists. The working class are shown how the “foes of capitalism” avoid any civilised weapon at their hand, and appeal to the fruitless and insane personal attack, street battle, etc.

How thoroughly dishonest the Anarchists arc when attacking Socialists may be judged from their plea that Parliament has been tried and has failed ! Listen to the voice of ” Freedom” (Aug. 1911):

“The complete failure of the Labour Party to bring to the toilers any relief from the burdens of capitalist exploitation and the barefaced lust of personal aggrandisement shown by the majority of Labour M.P.s have compelled the workers not, only to again resort to the strike to resist the capitalists, but to realise with more or less certainty that other means than Parliamentary action are needed to help his cause.”

Who expected the labour leeches to advance the cause of the workers? Only those who, like the Anarchists, ignored the facts around them. “Parliament has failed !” the Anarchist bleats. Seeing that it has been filled by supporters of the present system — Liberals and Tories and their allies for centuries, what else but continued working-class enslavement could result ?

“The political machine has been used for the exploitation of the worker,” says the Anarchist, and it is therefore useless to our class.” One might as well say that because a cotton weaving machine has been used for the exploitation of the workers, it cannot be used in their interest when they control it.

As with the loom, so with the political machine. Controlled to-day by the capitalists, it is worked in their interests as far as possible, but upon the working class controlling it, they will use it for their purposes.

The whole of the writings of Anarchists teem with the condemnation of political action. Marx and Engels are denounced by every leading Anarchist, from Kropotkin to Malatesta, for their far-seeing and scientific conception of the value of political action to the proletariat. Malatesta — perhaps the best known Anarchist in Europe speaking at their International Congress in 1907 said (“Freedom” report) : “He often heard Political Action referred to as if it involved Parliament. This was a great mistake. What, for example, was Bresci’s act (killing a king) ? Was it economic? No! it was political. Marx was responsible for this confusion.” In order to see whether it is confusion let us review the facts.

In the “Communist Manifesto” Marx points out that “the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy.” What does “political supremacy ” and “political action” mean? Are they necessary ?

The growth of private property in society led to the parting off of those who possessed it from those who did not. A section of the possessors gradually became installed into offices of State, and their reign lasted until changes in the material conditions favoured the rise of a new class to power. The struggle between those who own and those who do not manifests itself as a class struggle, and its final purpose is the seizure of the political machine by the submerged class. The class struggle is waged also on the field of modern industry, and is typified by the suppression of discontented workers, the attempt to reduce the worker’s share and the workers’ resistance to those attempts.

This action relating to the field of industry is rightly termed Economic Action. Action pursued through the channels of local and national control and government is Political Action. For politics is but the science dealing with the laws of the control of society.

That the workers are scientific in using their political power (i.e. possession of the suffrage—the weapon) to obtain political supremacy is clearly seen by surveying the class struggles of the past and their lessons for us.

Constitutional history — the only appeal — tells us that the bourgeoisie in every land, though holding some economic power (i.e., means of production), were compelled to prosecute a long and often bitter struggle against the feudal nobility and the Church in order to secure political supremacy (executive power) and so rid themselves of the hindrances and embargoes put in their path by the nobility.

The Hansa towns, the staple cities, etc., had to petition the King and his feudal co rulers for charters granting them the privilege of trading, in certain merchandise and in certain districts thus showing the value of political control.

The political machine is represented by different institutions according to the state of the country ruled the material condition. As every land advances out of Feudalism into Capitalism, it sooner or later throws off the “absolute,” and finally all, rule of King and Court, and is forced to delegate power to representatives of the now enfranchised ruling class. These latter possess money which makes kings bow — therefore they finally prevail over the effete aristocracy.

Germany, Japan, Persia, Turkey — as each of these countries has emerged from Feudalism proper, it has had to introduce a Constitution with a Parliament as its central feature. The Executive later is chosen from this assembly and becomes a Cabinet.

The powerful nature of political control is shown by the light in England between merchant and noble and the victory of Parliament over the Crown. The Crown was re-introduced later, but shorn of its power, privileges, and noted prerogatives. All specialists in Constitutional history — from Gardner to Professor Dicey and Lord Courtney — are agreed that Parliament is the real arbiter, and that survivals such as the House of Lords are trimmings that matter not.

Political machinery, then, in modern society, includes, as its central feature, Parliament, and the Socialists, in urging the workers to displace their enemies from that citadel, are but pointing the right road. Parliament controls “supplies” — the force against Court and Bureaucracy alike. Through its control over “supplies” it rules the Army, though it employs a War Minister, and he in turn an Army Council, to arrange details. Political control relies eventually upon power over the armed forces, and these are under the control of Parliament.

Therefore Politics DO include Parliament.

Adolph Kohn

[To be continued.]

50 Years Ago: Organisation (1962)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

. . . Often there seems to be an idea—an entirely erroneous idea in the writer’s estimation—that as capitalism (or at least the present phase of capitalism) appears to be drawing to a close, the next step must inevitably be the establishment of Socialism in its stead. There is, therefore, no need, so it is considered, to do anything more than sit with folded hands, waiting for the downfall of capitalist society and the springing up, full-armed, of the new system of society.

. . . It does not actually follow that Socialism will be the outcome of present-day capitalist society. If you have a discontented people, poverty-stricken, degraded by continual toil and suffering into mere human machines, ripe for any change from their present existence of physical and mental penury, you have within that people all the possibilities, not so much of an elevation to a higher type, but rather toward an atavism even more degrading physically, more destructive intellectually, than at present.

The essential thing is, of course, that there should be implanted in the minds of the workers knowledge of the fact that their position as workers must be altered from the present state of slavery to a state wherein they shall be free to order their lives as they may best determine. But this knowledge once having been attained, it then becomes quite as necessary to know how to live. After all, life is not only the eating of good food, the wearing of good clothes, the sheltering in good houses, with a minimum of work and a maximum of leisure. All these things are, or should be, simply the means to an end in themselves . . .

. . . So it can be seen that the necessity of organisation becomes doubly imperative. Firstly, in order to build up a body of men and women whose main idea shall be the ending of capitalism and the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth. Secondly, that the men and women thus organised may have the opportunity of keeping themselves in touch with every phase of life, thus forming, indeed, an educational centre in the real meaning of the word education . . .

[From the article, 'The Need For Organisation', by F. J. Webb, Socialist Standard, August 1912]

Letter: What about countries without political democracy? (2026)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

What about countries without political democracy?

We have received the following from a reader . . .

I’ve been wrapping my head around SPGB’s democratic approach. It sounds like SPGB puts itself under the mercy of capitalist democracy. So, when capitalists feel threatened, they will curtail the democratic rights that would endanger their capitalist interests, let alone endangering their class rule. One example of this is from SPGB history itself during WW2, where the state issued the prohibition of anti-war ‘propaganda’ and the SPGB had to comply. Don’t you think that there is a contradiction in this approach and this might be the reason why the SPGB failed to become popular among the workers (thus fulfilling one of its main missions of raising class consciousness that leads to the conviction for the need for socialism among most workers) for over a 100 years?

Also, this democratic approach would also mean that workers in un-democratic countries and regions would have to fight (not in a bloody way under the banner of the capitalists of course, but through protests and strikes) for those democratic rights like free speech, freedom of assembly and universal suffrage. But you know before anyone that not all countries and regions can have such a class structure and the level of the development of the productive forces that would allow them to have a capitalist democracy without having ‘robust’ capitalists at their helm. This case can be clear here from the example of Russia after 1917 or China after 1949, where so-called ‘communists’ had to do the dirty work of capitalists (by being capitalists themselves of course). Transforming these countries from predominantly peasants backward agrarian countries with weak capitalists tied to the landed aristocracy and powerful foreign capitalists (both having interest in the status quo to remain as it is) to predominantly workers industrialized countries ripe for capitalist democracy that SPGB sees as an indispensable tool for socialism. So, wouldn’t that make SPGB’s call for fighting for democratic rights in un-democratic countries and regions ‘utopian’ if taken on a universal basis because the case doesn’t apply everywhere, where the conditions aren’t there yet? Wouldn’t the SPGB be sending a covert message for workers in these un-democratic and unripe-for-democracy countries and regions to wait for ‘the third worldists’ to prepare the ground for capitalist democracy (thus socialism) by rallying the workers behind them, to crush them later and brutally exploit them? Isn’t the crux of the problem the ‘socialism through parliament approach’? Which if it is the case, then that means that capitalism isn’t ripe to be overthrown, not because the development of the means of production didn’t reach the sufficient level for socialism (we both know that it was reached a long time ago) but because the uneven development of capitalism across the national frontiers.

A food for thought: wouldn’t that necessitate the SPGB to change its program to accommodate the fight to erase national boundaries and borders? Wouldn’t that constitute the solution for this uneven development of capitalism? (which in fact would lead to the end of imperialist wars and other calamities that affect the workers around the globe and hinder and divide their struggle for socialism through the democratic approach the SPGB advocates for).

Sem

 

Reply:

You are mistaken in assuming that we think that political democracy is ‘an indispensable tool for socialism’ in the sense that if it doesn’t exist then socialism cannot be established. What is indispensable for socialism is that a majority should be in favour of it. There can be no socialism without a socialist majority. What we say is that, where effective political democracy exists, sending delegates to parliaments and similar bodies or positions is the obvious and most straightforward way to win political control and likely the most effective too. If, or where, this does not exist then the socialist majority would have to find some other way.

We do say that, in non-democratic states, workers are right to struggle for basic democratic practices such as free speech, organisation and assembly, if only to better defend their interests under capitalism. But we don’t presume to tell them how to go about this beyond saying it should be based on a recognition of the class struggle and be organised democratically. Socialists in such states should still campaign for socialism as part of and with help from the worldwide socialist movement. The whole world is ripe for socialism, including where political democracy does not exist. It is not our position, as you seem to be implying, that workers in such places first need to struggle for political democracy and, after that, start struggling for socialism.

Your claim that a capitalist class has the power to close down political democracy at will implies that it is a conspiratorial group that somehow controls state power other than through the election of pro-capitalist politicians and parties. In fact, a capitalist class is not a monolithic group with a single interest but is made up of different groups with differing interests, especially over economic policy. In Britain parliament, elected originally on a franchise restricted to property-owners, evolved as the place where these differences were aired and where the question of which section of property-owners got to control the government was settled.

In the course of the last century the vote was extended to all the citizens of a state, often against the will of sections of the owning class, but the basic situation remains the same. It is through elections that a capitalist class controls the state. Universal suffrage has the added advantage of getting the consent of the governed, which makes a state more governable. A one-party or military dictatorship, even if it supports capitalism, puts political power in the hands of a group that could use this position to line its own pockets at the expense of capitalist profits. Elections keep those who run a state under control. In short, some form of political democracy is the ideal political form for a modern capitalist state.

You envisage a government abolishing this if a capitalist class were under an existential threat from a growing socialist movement. But by the time a majority wanted socialism — which would be reflected in elections — then it would be too late. The boot would be on the other foot. Instead of a minority of socialists having to accept that most people want capitalism (or a war), those who benefit from capitalism and want it to continue would have to accept that a majority wanted socialism and that it was ultimately pointless to try to resist this. If a coup did happen then it would not be able to last for long as a state, with a socialist majority that wouldn’t accept its will being frustrated, would be ungovernable. One way or another a socialist majority would get its way. — Editors

Workers don’t control political power (2026)

From the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The state presents itself as a neutral arbiter, a set of institutions that balances competing interests, responds to democratic pressure, and governs in the common good. This is an illusion.

 The state is not neutral. It is the organised power of the ruling class. Its courts, police, military, and legal apparatus exist primarily to protect property relations, to guarantee that those who own the means of production continue to own them, and that those who don’t must continue to sell their labour-power to survive.

The wage system: concentrating wealth and power simultaneously

This is the mechanism at the heart of everything. Workers are paid less than the value they produce, the difference is appropriated by those who own the means of production. This isn’t occasional exploitation or the result of individual greed. It’s how the system functions by design.

And here’s the critical point: wealth and power are not separate things. Money is power, directly and immediately. Accumulated capital buys political influence, funds media outlets, finances lobbying operations, endows universities, and shapes the terms of public debate. Every pound extracted from the wage relationship doesn’t just enrich an owner, it widens the power gap between owner and worker. Wealth concentrates, and with it the ability to shape society in the interests of the wealthy.

The wage system therefore performs a double function simultaneously: it extracts wealth upward and concentrates political power upward at exactly the same rate. These are not two separate processes. They are one process with two consequences.

The anger this produces

Most working-class people don’t articulate this in political terms. But they feel it, viscerally, daily, in ways that produce real rage.

The nurse who works twelve-hour shifts and can’t afford to heat her home properly while energy company executives collect eight-figure bonuses. The warehouse worker tracked by an algorithm, disciplined for toilet breaks, earning just enough to survive while the company posts record profits. The young person who does everything right, works hard, studies, plays by the rules and still cannot afford to rent a decent flat, let alone buy one. The family that chooses between food and bills at the end of the month while being told the economy is performing well.

This is not bad luck. It is the system working exactly as intended.

The frustration deepens when people turn to politics for relief and find the same story. A new government arrives promising change. Within months it is managing the same constraints, making the same concessions to capital, explaining why things cannot move as fast as promised. The cycle repeats. The sense that the game is rigged, that no matter how you vote, nothing fundamental shifts, is not cynicism. It is an accurate reading of how power actually works.

When anger is misdirected

That anger is real and legitimate. But without a clear analysis of where it comes from, it gets captured and redirected. At migrants. At benefit claimants. At a remote cultural elite. At any target that doesn’t threaten the underlying system.

The worker who resents his neighbour for claiming housing benefit while a landlord extracts half his wage in rent has had his anger pointed in exactly the wrong direction. The voter who turns to a nationalist strongman because mainstream politics has failed them is expressing genuine grievance through a vehicle that will deepen their exploitation while appearing to challenge it.

This misdirection isn’t accidental. Concentrated wealth funds the media, the think tanks, and the political movements that perform this redirection. It is one of the functions that money-as-power performs most effectively.

The vote and its limits

Workers can vote. In many countries they won that right through bitter struggle. But voting periodically for competing sets of managers of the capitalist system is not political power. Governments change; the underlying economic structure does not. Whichever party takes office inherits the same constraints, bond markets, capital flight, corporate lobbying, and the basic requirement that the economy remains profitable for investors. Policy operates within those limits or faces immediate economic punishment.

The wealthy don’t need to buy every politician or rig every election. They don’t have to. When economic power is sufficiently concentrated, the range of politically possible options narrows automatically. The system polices itself.

The structural problem

Economic power can precede and shape political power. Those who control investment, production, and employment set the terms within which governments operate. A government that seriously threatens property rights finds capital withdrawn, currency attacked, and media turned hostile almost immediately. This isn’t conspiracy, it’s the structural logic of a system where production is privately controlled.

Reform and its ceiling

Reforms, like better healthcare and labour protections, can sometimes be won. These matter. But they are concessions extracted under pressure, not transfers of power. And they are reversible, as decades of austerity have demonstrated. The ceiling on reform is the point at which it begins to threaten profitability. Beyond that point, the state’s coercive functions become more visible.

The conclusion

The anger felt by working people is not irrational. It is the rational response to a system that extracts their labour, concentrates the proceeds as wealth and power in a minority’s hands, offers them a vote every few years as a substitute for genuine agency, and then blames them when they lose faith in the process.

Real political power for workers would mean controlling the conditions of their own lives, the economy, production, distribution. That requires not managing capitalism better but replacing it with common ownership and democratic control. As long as the wage system stands, wealth will continue to flow upward and power with it. Everything short of abolishing that relationship leaves economic power, and therefore real political power, in the hands of a minority.

Jake Ambrose (Australia)

Correspondence: Oath of Allegiance. (1910)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oath of Allegiance.

R. Von Berg (Queen’s Park).—The oath of allegiance to the King required of M.P.s would not prevent a Socialist M.P. taking his seat

A Debate with the I.L.P. [Continued] (1932)

Party News from the April 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the last issue.

LAST SPEECH FOR THE I.L.P.

Mr. CROOKS, in his closing speech, stated that he was delighted with the trend of the debate, and pleased with the fair way in which Howarth had put his case. There had been a complete absence of abuse, which he much appreciated. However, Howarth’s quotations from papers and periodicals had tried to indicate that the I.L.P. were a bad lot. He considered the actual difference between the principles of the I.L.P. and S.P.G.B. was small. The real difference was one of method, and in all ideas of method there is bound to be a disparity of opinion. Are you going to get Socialism by preaching, which is the only method of the S.P.G.B.? The S.P.G.B. certainly did not carry out its policy to run candidates. If they did get their candidates into the House of Commons, what would these members do? Sit with folded arms and not attempt to better the conditions of the workers at present? Education must be followed by practical work, and it is in practical work that men come into conflict. The I.L.P. will go forward and achieve Socialism in spite of the fact that they might sully orthodox Socialist principles. While you live by bread, you must not forget the bread. The revolutionary period is here, so all workers should support the I.L.P., which is a real practical force for Socialism, and not a negative force like the S.P.G.B.

LAST SPEECH FOR THE S.P.G.B.

HOWARTH, in winding up the debate, pointed out that the open discussion had shown that there were many misconceptions as to the object and principles of the Socialist Party. The terms of the debate had been dictated by the I.L.P., and he (Howarth) had protested that not sufficient time had been allowed to enable the speakers to state their cases adequately.

The notion that the Socialist Party refrained from putting candidates forward until they were certain of a majority was ridiculous. Candidates for municipal elections had been put up, and advantage had been taken of these elections to spread the knowledge of Socialism. It is true that we have not secured the election of candidates, but that is because there are not sufficient Socialists to elect them. No doubt our candidates would be successful if we ran on the same basis as the I.L.P. by promising immediate benefits. As Socialists, it was not our desire to secure office by false pretences. I.L.P. candidates were elected by pandering to the ignorance of the workers. I.L.P. members elected to public bodies are powerless to state the Socialist case. They have no mandate to do so, as they were elected by non-Socialist votes. The Socialist Party has no programme of social reform to dangle before the workers. The immediate need of the workers is emancipation. Palliation merely serves to keep capitalism in existence, and invariably fails to palliate. The complete failure of the Labour Government in Britain and also in Australia demonstrates the utter absurdity of expecting to get rid of the evils of capitalism without getting rid of the system from which these evils spring. The notion that members of the Socialist Party ignore the need for bread is fantastic. Members of the S.P.G.B. were forced to take part in the every-day struggle for bread. They did so as members of Trades Unions, but we never failed to point out that the workers are always at a disadvantage under capitalists. It was because we realised the need for bread and all the amenities of life that we realised the limitations of Trade Union action and pointed to the abolition of capitalism as the sole means of access to the means of life. The idea that a party can work for Socialism and Social Reform at the same time is entirely contrary to fact. The I.L.P.’s activities in the direction of social reform measures completely overshadows any interest in Socialism. Besides, if reform measures could give the workers security or substantially better their conditions, all interest in Socialism would be killed. The adoption of the entire Labour programme would leave capitalism intact, with all its corresponding defects. In spite of the enormous energy spent in promoting social reforms, more persons are cornpelled to seek parish relief than at any other time in history. The differences between the I.L.P. and the Socialist Party are not superficial, as suggested by Mr. Crooks, but fundamental. The I.L.P. chases the will-o’-the-wisp of social reform, while the Socialist Party opposes all sections of the master class. The I.L.P. imagine that Society is at this moment in a state of transition from capitalism to Socialism, and many of its proposals are put forward as transitory measures. The transition to Socialism can only commence after the capture of political power by the conscious efforts of the workers. That is the beginning of the transition stage. Reform measures merely strengthen the existing system and assist its smooth running. That is why the capitalist class support and institute reform measures. The terms of existence for the workers are dictated by the possessing class. The I.L.P. cannot alter that with all their practical measures. The Liberal and Conservative Parties could outdo the I.L.P. or Labour Party at the game of reform. The capitalists could safely adopt many items on the I.L.P. programme without endangering their social system. That is what they have done, and will do, to stave off the demand for a fundamental change. He (Howarth) submitted that sufficient had been said to encourage those present to undertake a full investigation of the Socialist Party’s case, and he would invite all to read the Party’s literature with a view to acquiring the requisite knowledge.

The usual vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the proceedings.

C. S. Bates

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.

The Revolutionary proposition (continued) (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our last instalment we saw that the Revolutionary Proposition must be achieved, firstly by the education in its principles of the only class that, in the nature of things, can become revolutionary—the working class—and secondly by the capture of the political machinery.

The Revolutionary Proposition is a proposal to dispossess the master class, therefore the first axiom of the revolutionary politician is that, as a politician, he must necessarily be in conflict with the master class.

The political machinery exists for no other purpose than to serve and conserve material interests. Its every action finds its motive power in the all pervading “bread-and-butter” question. Why should it be otherwise ? The first passion is the passion to eat. The poet, whose mission under capitalism has been to supplement the work of the Church in the endeavour to depreciate the material, has tried to lift love to the first place, and calls it “truth,” while the modern novelist, true product of the bestial conditions of modern life, makes lust the premier passion, and calls it “realism.”

But how many of us, having the courage to speak as we find, give assent either to Beauty or The Beast ? How many of us, being “Men in earnest” who

“have no time to waste,

“Weaving fig-leaves for the naked truth. ”

dare assert that mankind in general would toil and moil and suffer, from the cradle to the grave, as mankind in general does toil and moil and suffer, for love, or lust, or any other passion than the passion to eat ? And history, indeed—the history of the slave peoples of all times—proves that neither is the poet’s frenzy truth, nor the novelist’s grossness reality ; for it shows, in its records of suppression, and violation, and emasculation—the concubines and eunuchs of the East, the “right of the first night,” the enforced celibacy, and the prostitution of the West—shows in these how love and lust have universally been trampled under foot. And history further shows that no other passion than the passion to eat, no other question than the earthy “bread-and-butter” question, no transcendent conception of justice or liberty or equality or fraternity, has ever led a subject class to revolution. Enslaved classes have been subjected to every indignity, deprived of the opportunity of satisfying every human passion, but withal the worm has only turned for food, and the one protesting appeal has been: “Bread ! More bread !” Earth is more powerful than heaven ; preservation stands even before procreation.

Since the power of economic interests dominates all others, the bitterest of all struggles must centre about the possession of the political machinery—the machinery of the ruling class for conserving their economic interests.

The political struggle is in very essence the struggle for life, therefore it must be supreme. This struggle to capture the machinery of government, in order that it may be used to disarm the possessing class, preparatory to dispossessing them, must take the first and foremost place in the working-class political life. All other things must be secondary to this endeavour. Therefore the votes and support of the workers must be won openly and above-board, on the plain, clear issue of the Revolutionary Proposition,—for or against the abolition of private property in the means of living ; for or against the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means and instruments of production and distribution.

The vote belongs to the idea behind it ; the seat, hence, no matter what manner of man fills it, belongs to the political faith of its constituents.

If then, a seat is won by revolutionary votes, and the man who fills it should turn out to be a traitor, the seat still would be a revolutionary seat, though temporarily perverted from its proper use. If, on the other hand, well-meaning enthusiasts desirous of the new social system, displaying all their gaudy baubles—cures for unemployment, State maintenance of children,and the like—gain by these means the votes of those who want the reforms but cling to the system, and through these votes get seated, their seats still belong to capitalism, and they, willy-nilly, become henchmen of the capitalists. In such case no atom of progress has been made in the struggle for the revolutionary capture of the machinery of government; and if it can be shown that the reforms are either impossible or futile (a future consideration), then it is demonstrated that working-class effort has been utterly wasted.

But experience shows that the result of this building on unsound votes is worse than mere waste of energy. It affords opportunity to the wily and unscrupulous demagogues, the Burnses and Hardies of England and the Briands and Millerands of France ; and the workers, finding those whom the fondly hoped were to do their bidding, made Cabinet ministers, and suppressing them with bayonet and ball cartridge, heap curses on Socialism, and, losing faith in political action, fly to the sophistries of Anarchism, or sink in the sluggish waters of indifference.

The political struggle is the struggle for the instrument of class domination, therefore it must be a class struggle. The very fact of the existence of this machinery of government proves that. It is a strange superstition that conceives the possibility of the master class assisting in the work of giving the working class control of the legislative and judicial machinery, the police and the armed forces of the nation. The fight for these instruments—the only power which to-day maintains the dominant class in their position—will be long, stern and bitter, and every weapon and artifice the ruling class can resort to they will.

The political party of the working class, therefore, must stand opposed to all other political parties, must, in short base their activities upon the fundamental principle of the class struggle. The issue is one that can only divide men into two camps—those for and those against the Revolutionary Proposition. This issue must be clear of all befogging issues and illusions, on the principle that only the revolutionary is of any use for the revolution, and the revolutionary will always vote right on the clear, simple issue of the revolution.

A. E. Jacomb

[To be Continued.]