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Marxism and the state: an exchange
Re: Marxists and the State
Michael Wainwright
Over the last two and half years my involvement in the
Socialist Party has given me a considerable degree of organisational
proficiency the ability to intervene within the labour movement as a
whole as well as a thirst for politically educating myself so as to
successfully confront opportunism and all shades of reformism.
Since becoming a member, my consciousness has dramatically
shifted from left reformism towards a revolutionary Marxist perspective. The
need to politically understand the dialectical interconnection between world
events and the consciousness (as well as the institutions) of the working-class
is of fundamental importance to the struggle against capitalism. Consciously
apprehending the basic precepts of Marxism-Leninism as the guiding analytical
perspective for formulating programmatic positions is an elemental necessity
for any revolutionary party.
Through a fairly comprehensive review and assessment of the
history of our organisation, and its methodology since 1964, I have been
troubled by a number of contradictions and omissions, which lead me to question
the theoretical and practical basis of our politics.
On a recent re-reading of our pamphlet "Socialism in the 21st
Century" I noticed something in Chapter 6 that had not properly registered the
first time:
"A socialist government could only defend itself if it
mobilised the active support of the working class. And it would only be by
demonstrating its power in practise that the working class could successfully
defend its democratically elected socialist government."
I had thought it was our position, as a Marxist organisation,
that the establishment of working class power required a revolution to create a
workers' state - something entirely different from socialists gaining
administration of the existing capitalist state after winning a parliamentary
majority through bourgeois elections.
The "What is the state?" section of our "What is Marxism?"
pack has a very different approach from that in "Socialism in the 21st
Century":
"The basic attitude of Marxism to the capitalist state is
summed up by Lenin in the above mentioned 'State and Revolution'. Lenin points
out that Marxist revolutionaries, as opposed to reformists, say that the
existing Bourgeois state cannot be seized ready-made and used in the interests
of the working class. It must be broken up, smashed, and replaced by a new
workers' state."
The apparent contradiction between the two positions impelled
me to look further into our history on this question a bit (and even make a
trip, when visiting a friend, to the Militant archive at the Working Class
Movement Library in Salford, Manchester) and what I found was that we have been
putting forward similar ideas for a very long time. For instance, in Militant
issue 767b, 27th September 1985, when elaborating upon the need for the labour
movement to take control of the "commanding heights of the economy to be
nationalised" as a means towards achieving Socialism, Rob Sewell correctly
stated that "profit is the sole driving force of the system. To increase
profitability is paramount for the capitalists who own the economy. They will
through a thousand and one channels- directly or indirectly- sabotage any
government that resists such plans." The latter couldn't be more true, however,
(and I apologise for the lengthy quotes which follow but it is necessary to
clarify this point) Sewell went on to say:
"A Labour government is always elected in times of crisis,
when the desire for change is at its highest. Under these conditions the next
Labour government will be a government of crisis, when the desire for change is
at its highest, entirely different to any post-war Labour governments. It will
be the sum of pressure and counter-pressure that will decide the path it
follows. Instead of bowing the knee to capital and hoping to run capitalism
better than the Tories, it should immediately push through an emergency
`Enabling Act' through Parliament. [My emphasis - MW]"
This was quite an admission, which I was astonished by when I
first read it. Why would a Marxist organisation suggest that parliament, the
mechanism for ensuring ruling-class privilege through stable liberal-democracy
will allow a Socialist republic to be "democratically", and peacefully, brought
about through a Labour government? If this quote, and there are many like it
from that period, is read in isolation from the rest of the text one might
imagine that it has some sort of transitional quality to it even though it
comes across as reformist in essence. A raw person might presume that any such
"Enabling Act", if brought about, would have been defended by the Labour
movement, presumably, against the violent onslaught form the owners of capital
who, in that situation, would employ any means necessary to dislocate a Labour
government of that kind through their influence over the army, police and
foreign imperialist forces. Yet Sewell went on to argue that:
"Such emergency legislation is not new- it was used by the
Tories in 1971 to nationalise Rolls Royce in less than 24 hours! Such measures
used by Labour would make it possible for the House of Lords and Monarchy to be
abolished and the top 200 monopolies, banks and insurance companies to be
nationalised, under democratic workers' control and management.
"Compensation should only be paid on the basis of proven need.
Only by taking these measures so that the `commanding heights' are brought into
common ownership will the laws of capitalism be ended and a proper planning of
resources be instituted."
This is, in my view, a clear and unambiguous statement of
reformist methodology. The abject reliance upon the bourgeois state, or the
Labour party (as a supposed revolutionary organisation) taking the reins and
utilising the existing state apparatus to institute socialism rather than
calling for breaking it up and the development of alternative working class
organisations (workers' militias, local Soviets and factory committees) is, at
best, sowing the seeds of dangerous illusions within the working-class and, at
worst, preparing the future ground for an accommodation to the needs and logic
of capitalism.
Re-reading our manifesto in the light of Lenin's postulations,
as outlined above, I also have concerns about our approach to the question of
policing. We call for:
"Community control of the police to ensure they work with and
implement the policing priorities advocated by the communities."
I have come to the conclusion that the suggestion in our
manifesto that socialists can establish a workers' state through parliamentary
electoral activity is closely connected with the above idea which clearly
implies that the police, who are a central pillar of the capitalist state, can
indeed be "seized ready-made and used in the interests of the working
class".
This too is apparently not a recent concoction of ours as
Issue 565, 14th August 1981, in an article entitled "Make the police
accountable" about a demonstration in Liverpool at that time, illustrates:
"Socialists are not opposed to the police fighting crime and
arresting criminals. To fight real crime and arrest the real criminals- as even
more intelligent, `liberal' policemen like Alderson, Chief Constable of Devon
and Cornwall, recognised- needs the support of the people generally
The
police must be subject to the supervision of democratically elected watch
committees, which will have the power to appoint and dismiss senior officers as
well as to supervise and check the role and methods of the police. Democratic
watch committees must be able to discipline and, if necessary, dismiss any
police officers found guilty of serious misconduct or illegal actions. There
can be no doubt that there are some corrupt and racialist elements within the
police, and they must be kicked out. At the same time, however, the labour
movement must campaign for full trade union rights for policemen and police
women. In the past, the police themselves have taken strike action and have at
various times demonstrated sympathy for workers in struggle. It is in the
workers' vital interests that the police force should be made democratically
accountable and that the police ranks should be brought into the trade union
movement."
In Issue 571, 3rd October 1981, p-8, one can see that the idea
of watch committees, forwarded as a key programmatic demand of ours, could well
have been taken from the good old days when, in the past, the police:
"were not always unaccountable to local authorities. When,
after the formation of the Metropolitan police in 1829, police forces were
gradually created in the boroughs, they were under the control of `watch
committees' made up of council members, who appointed the constables, and their
officers, and fixed their pay and controlled their work. When the county
councils were reformed in the 1880s `standing joint committees' were created,
comprising of half county councillors and half local magistrates, with similar
powers to the borough watch committees."
This illumination by Lynn Walsh relating to the Brixton riots,
entitled: "Make the police Accountable", refers to the historian, T.A.
Crichley, as a means of expanding upon this idea that there was an organic
development of police accountability which arose out of the very inception of
early British capitalism. Walsh cites Crichley again by saying:
"The control of the watch committees was absolute
In its
hands lay the sole power to appoint, promote and punish men of all ranks, and
it had powers of suspension and dismissal. The watch committee prescribes the
regulations for the force, and subject to the approval of the town council
determined the rates of pay."
Presumably this quote was invoked for the purposes of not only
explaining the history behind the idea of watch committees and the latter's
apparent facet of democratic accountability, but also as a suggestion that this
is the model for the workers movement to follow. However, later on in the
article Lynn Walsh states that:
"The borough councils (in the 19th Century) were dominated by
the industrial and commercial capitalist class. They paid for the police
through their rates, and therefore they insisted they controlled the
police
The propertied middle class which championed parliamentary
government took it for granted that a body like the police, which potentially
had enormous power, should be democratically controlled. This, however, was in
the era before the working class had become an independent political force."
So again, we are presented here with what can only be
described as the congealed illusions of our position on the police and the
state. The above quote suggests, clearly, that the method for Marxists is to
push the working-class organisations of Labour to take control of the existing
police force (which Marxists should characterise correctly as being instruments
of the capitalist state machinery) and guide them towards the interests of that
class just as the middle-class industrialists had enacted a democratic check on
the local police forces through the respective elected local governments. Do we
really envisage a return to the by-gone era when democracy prevailed over the
police force (of course, it is accepted that this was democracy for the
privileged and middle classes)? Is it, perhaps, a historical insight into the
potentialities of a future socialist policing system run on the basis of
democratically elected local soviets, and in this way an important point to
unearth when attempting to guide politically conscious layers towards the need
for visualising an alternative society that is workable?
I think it is worrying that we are relying on a schematically
bourgeois framework, in order to serve as a blue-print, to even highlight how a
future socialist policing system might operate. In any case the latter blurs
the crucial issue of how to defend the class now when confronted with major
attacks from the state. Further, it has become clear to me that there is an
indication of a clear and unadulterated, yet somehow unconscious, augmentation
of reformism on the part of our programme, as it was then, for the defence of
the class:
"The end of the first world war in 1918 brought a massive
radicalisation of the workers, with enormous struggles and strike battles.
Labour councillors began to be elected in many towns and cities, with the
emergence of a number of Labour- controlled councils. The attempt of the sate
to take control of the police out of the hands of local government and
concentrate it centrally was also made more urgent by the police strikes of
1918 and 1919. After the strikes, the Desborough committee was set up to
overhaul the whole police structure, and many of its recommendations were
adopted. One recommendation was that the power of appointment, promotion and
discipline, should be transferred form the watch committees to Chief
Constables.
"This, however, was still resisted in Parliament, and the
powers remained formally in the hands of watch committees until 1964."
To be precise it was the 1964 Police Act (and Police
(Scotland) Act 1967) that tipped the balance of power, in relation to police
chiefs, away from local watch committees and towards central government.
Once again Lynn Walsh states that:
"They [MW - the ruling class] have recognised that the
relative social peace of the post-war period ended with the ebbing of the
economic boom. They see that the coming period, with the continued catastrophic
decline of British capitalism and the inevitable erosion of living standards,
will be one of head-on conflict with the working class. They have therefore
discarded the old `liberal', `democratic' face of the British ruling class and
instead are presenting a brutal, repressive visage. These developments,
particularly with the perspective of the Andertons, make it vitally important
for the labour movement to campaign for the democratisation of the police."
A defining statement, if ever there was one, on the reasoning
and logic behind our position on the police. It appears that police are viewed,
by us, as an isolated entity, which can become removed, or extracted, from the
clutches of the capitalist state through working-class control of local watch
committees. However, then another contradiction arises:
"In transforming society, it is utopian to think that the
exiting apparatus of the capitalist state can be taken over and adapted by the
working class. In a fundamental change of society, all the existing
institutions of the state (aren't the police-force part of those existing
institutions?) will be shattered and replaced by new organs of power under the
democratic control of the working class. The campaign for this should go hand
in hand with the battle to extend democratic control over the existing state
institutions. In the case of the police, a lead has been given by the Greater
London Labour Party, which included in its last GLC election manifesto
proposals for democratisation of the Metropolitan police."
So, on the one hand we are prepared to argue for the
"shattering" of the existing capitalist state apparatus whilst at the same time
proposing that those very instruments of the state (the police etc.) can be
made accountable to the local community via a "democratisation". This
contradiction is too great to ignore in my view.
Recently some comrades in have raised some good questions
along these same lines with regard to the immigration police who are members of
the PCS:
"
taking up this issue within trade unions, especially
one that organises state depts, is difficult to say the least. A great deal of
skill to explain the issues is needed. But the pcs statement doesn't even try
and take it up! it totally ignores it! Why doesn't the pcs statement mention
the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers? it is totally passive on the issue -
only concerned with the health and safety of it's own members in immigration!
frankly that's the least of my concerns - and any other decent trade unionist
or socialist feels the same, these people who are complicit in attacking asylum
seekers and immigrants don't deserve health or safety! they clearly have no
regard for the health and safety of others! (i don't think that their health
and safety was ever under threat anyway from a few peaceful protesters). The
'marxist leadership' of the union should surely have supported the non-violent
demonstration against deportations - they should have been on it infact, with
the asylum groups, trade unionists, ssp members etc. they should also have
issued a statement slamming the government's treatment of asylum seekers and
immigrants, detainment, forced deportations etc. and told union members to play
no part in these actions or be expelled from the union. What's the point of
Marxists winning the leadership of a union if they then put sectional interests
(recruiting and retaining members in immigration services) ahead of the most
basic of socialist principles?
i hope we have a bloody good excuse... appeasing immigration
services workers so they remain in the pcs is not a bloody good excuse. Who
cares if some reactionaries would join a yellow union if the pcs took a
principled stance? good riddence surely?"
I would totally solidarise with this as it concisely
encapsulates a central defect in the way in which we operate within the
trade-unions. I cannot claim to have any experience in this field and I know
that trade union work is both vitally important and quite difficult, and
requires great skill and dedication. But it is clear to me that revolutionaries
should not be trying to help immigration police do their jobs better. They
should not be allowed to be members of the PCS or any other union. We should
instead be proposing that the workers' movement mobilise its forces to defend
immigrant workers and resist, by all possible means, immigration police
attempts to harass and deport them. We should be trying to find ways to
encourage immigrant workers to join with, and become a vital part of, the
organised trade-union movement. A first step would be to call on the PCS to rid
itself of the immigration police. We should oppose all those who want to
dismember and divide our class on the basis of narrow, sectional, interests
which, in the final analysis, pander towards social patriotism by placing their
(British) interests above those of workers from other countries.
Further, it is a mistake to view the police in general as
"workers in uniform" who should be treated like any other worker. This is
particularly clear when class conflicts, such as the miners strike in 1984,
collide with the strategic requirements of the police-force who are charged
with suppressing civil unrest. As we say in the "What is Marxism?" pack "The
police, together with the army, constitute the central `body of armed people'
which is at the centre of the state apparatus. They are the first line of
defence against anything which disturbs the public order of capitalism."
As an experiment, I went to the Marxist Internet Archive,
looked up Trotsky to see what he would have to say. When I put in the word
"policeman" the fifth quote that came up was the following from "Vital
Questions for the German Proletariat," January 27, 1932:
"The worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the
capitalist State is a bourgeois cop, not a worker."
I think that Trotsky was right, and that we have been
drastically wrong on this central issue. Our "What is Marxism?" pack makes some
valuable points about the police (and the army) but at the same time suggests
that it is wrong for socialists to propose their abolition because of the
current low consciousness of the working class:
"However, despite our understanding of their objective role,
simple demands for the abolition of the police and army would be out of line
with the consciousness of many amongst the advanced layers. We attempt
therefore to raise demands which are not too in advance of current
consciousness but which seek to reveal and undermine the state's repressive
function."
Whilst it is certainly true that our demands need to engage
with, and intersect, the existing consciousness of workers if we are ever going
to change it, it seems obvious to me that the demands we raise today must be
consistent with our long term goals, or at least not contradict them. The
problem with calls for achieving socialism through bourgeois parliamentary
elections, or instituting "democratic control of the police" or demanding
improvements in the working conditions of the immigration police is that they
contradict the fundamental duty of socialists to inform the working-class that
the capitalists' state cannot be taken over, but rather, as I quoted earlier,
"It must be broken up, smashed, and replaced by a new workers' state". Rather
than "revealing and undermining the state's repressive function" these demands
actively encourage illusions that the capitalist state, or at least key
elements of it, can be forced to serve workers' interests. We should instead be
raising demands that point to the rigged nature of capitalist "democracy" and
lead to the conclusion that it is necessary to shatter the bourgeois state and
replace it with new working class organs of power.
It is crucial for Marxists to pose the difficult, and
sometimes socially ostracising, reality that the capitalist state must be
removed and replaced by alternative structures of working-class power. There is
no other way, I suggest, of relating and connecting this fundamental necessity
to our class other than to state the truth, even if that truth is one which
diminishes our popularity. Marxists are not populists we have a much
harder task. That is the responsibility to maintain the link in the chain of
revolutionary continuity by developing and charting a path towards Socialism
armed with the distilled lessons of past class-struggles. We must stand firmly
on the tradition based upon the historical legacies of Marx, Engels, Lenin and
Trotsky, for if we deviate from the latter then we will inevitably recede into
empiricism and the eternal present.
I cannot accept that our party is in fact, all things
considered, standing firmly within the category of revolutionary Marxism. I do
not doubt that the majority of us want to fight for a Socialist change in
society, however, the history of our organisation, and our programmatic
positions, has significant elements of an outright reformist strategy. At the
same time many SP comrades have real revolutionary fervour. I have not
regretted being a member of this organisation, many of whose members are
passionate, hard-working, committed and vibrant but I have come to the
conclusion that it is necessary to build a party based upon a genuine
Trotskyist programme, and that, in the long term, outweighs the need to
mobilise the greatest number possible around a more limited reformist agenda,
in the short term. Confusion, dissimulation, and ultimately betrayal are the
only possible outcomes of political formations that "leave till later" the
fundamental principles of Marxism. For these reasons I feel I have no choice
but to resign from the Socialist Party.
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