On the State under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

In this article, we pursue our study of some of the key tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat as taught to us by the experience of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, in particular the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). In the previous article (seeLa Cause du Communisme N° 1), we examined the material basis of the existence of the bourgeoisie in the relations of production as they exist under socialism by critically examining “the Theory of the Productive Forces” that denies them. We showed how the ‘new bourgeoisie’ has used this theory to tried to deny the continued existence of the bourgeois/proletariat class struggle throughout the period of transition to communism by advocating the capitalist road to development.

Here we shall address the question of the continuation of this class struggle with regards to the superstructure, focusing specially on the question of the state under socialism. On this issue, the revisionists usually express their political line in the following terms : after the proletariat and its Party have taken power through the success of the revolution, all that remains is to be done is to purge the State of the old bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements who necessarily still occupy important functions in the immediate wake of the revolution, together with a few bureaucratised ‘elements’ who become gentrified or infiltrate it. Once this has been achieved, a ‘correct political line’ suffices to guide the State in order for it to remain socialist forever, taken to mean that it no longer poses a threat in itself for the proletariat. Having thus become a mere instrument at the service of the proletariat, the State only remains to be used to manage the economy and organise the development of production. The stronger it becomes, the stronger the dictatorship of the proletariat. In line with the revisionist view that the establishment of socialist relations of production entails the wholesale abolition of the bourgeoisie, the state can be perfected until it becomes wholly ‘proletarian’ or ‘the state of the entire people’, depending on the case. Regardless of the different expression that they may use, what they all have in common is the idea that the state is a neutral instrument which need only be perfected and which must not under any conditions be allowed to wither away. However, in reality it is not simply the reflection of the existence of classes but also the very basis on which the new bourgeoisie reproduces itself and while the economic infrastructure certainly has a bearing on this, it is at the same time relatively autonomous from it.

Faced with this revisionist conception of the neutrality of the state, in this article we shall go on to show that the class struggle must and does inevitably continue within the state itself under socialism. Not least because its existence is determined by a type of social relations which, as we saw in our previous article, leads to the survival and reproduction of classes, whereby the class struggle must also be reflected in the state as a struggle for power between the advocates of the capitalist road and the advocates of the communist path (even if the state has been transformed). But also because the very state serves as a basis for the degeneration of the cadres and the rebirth of the new bourgeois, as particularly highlighted by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). For example, state ownership does not prevent private appropriation by those who hold power in the state (and who are also Party members in most cases) : hence the emergence in the state (and the Party) of people who come to defend this appropriation from which they benefit in order to extend it and return to capitalism by wielding “the Theory of the Productive Forces” or other forms of the capitalist path (e.g. Yugoslavian self-management). It is true, therefore, that the very existence of the state, i.e. a special apparatus cut off from civil society, is in itself a form of social division of labour and thus a basis for the reproduction of the bourgeoisie.

What this article shows is essence is that while the socialist state is first and foremost an instrument of proletarian power, it is also a factor in the reconstitution of a new bourgeoisie and an obstacle to communism. Its transformation until it finally withers away is a question of class struggle.

CONTENTS :

Introduction

1) Revolution : the seizure of power in the superstructure

2) The superstructure : a stake in the class struggle

3) The socialist state and the dictatorship of the proletariat

a) The socialist state at the service of the proletariat
b) Transforming the socialist state and making it wither away
The Workers’ Opposition
Trotsky

4) Stalin’s mistakes on the question of the State

5) The Party of Labour of Albania : Remaining Faithful to Stalin’s mistakes (Second response to Enver Hoxha)

6) The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

Annexes

1) “From Bourgeois Democrats to Capitalist-Roaders” (Chih Heng)
2) “The May Seventh Cadre Schools”
3) “The Working Class Must Exercise Leadership in Everything” (Yao Wenyuan)

The complete article in pdf format, to download here