       Red & Black Revolution
 A magazine of libertarian communism

      Issue 1    October 1994

Produced by Workers Solidarity Movement

        Marx & the State

"Indeed how do these people propose to run a 
factory, operate a railway or steer a ship 
without having, in the last resort, one 
deciding will, without single management 
they do not tell us"(1) 
Engels

Since the Nineteenth century Marxism and 
anarchism have confronted each other as the 
two dominant strains of revolutionary 
thought. Some Marxists claim that in fact 
Marxism is not a statist or vanguardist 
ideology. Like all Marxists they also 
generally dismiss anarchism as utopian, 
marginal and non-scientific.  

The aim of this article is to show that Marx 
and Engels were deeply ambiguous on the 
nature of the state and the party, and that 
the criticisms by anarchists of them were 
and remain valid.Far from being utopian 
anarchism has the same materialist origins 
as Marxism and, far from being marginal, has 
had a huge influence among workers since the 
nineteenth century.  As Daniel Guerin put 
it:

"Anarchism and Marxism at the start , drank 
at the same proletarian spring"(2)

Since then many anarchists have, 
unfortunately, tended to demonise Marx.  The 
genius of Marx and Engels was in the way 
they were able to combine the materialism of 
Hegel with various economic theories to come 
up with a critique of capitalism.  By Marx's 
own admission Capital his major economic 
work is a synthesis of ideas from right-wing 
economists like Adam Smith to socialists 
like the Irishman William Thompson. 

One of Marx's main contributions was to 
popularise the labour theory of value 
(though he was not the first to come up with 
this idea).  Put crudely this is the idea 
that all material goods or commodities have 
another value besides their actual 
usefulness (or "use-value").  This value is 
determined by the amount of labour required 
to produce them.  The capitalist does not 
pay this full value in wages (which only 
provide enough to feed and maintain the 
worker) the rest is held back as surplus 
value or profit.(3)

Thus workers have a real material interest 
in overthrowing capitalism.  As well as this 
Marx pointed to capitalism's tendency to 
bring workers together in large workplaces 
where they can struggle together.  This 
creates the social basis for labour 
organisation and the realisation of 
collective class interests.

Before Marx socialists were aware that 
workers were exploited but they had no 
explanation of the economic basis of this 
exploitation.  The mechanics of capitalism 
were not understood. 

Bakunin and his followers fully accepted  
this and other ideas in Marx's critique of 
capitalism.  In fact Bakunin began the 
translation of Capital into Russian and the 
Italian anarchist Carlo Cafiero published a 
summary of the same work in Italian.

With regards to materialism Bakunin begins 
his seminal work God and State(4) by clearly 
taking sides.  He asks:

"Who are right, The idealists or the 
materialists?  The question, once stated in 
this way, hesitation becomes impossible.  
Undoubtedly the idealists are wrong and the 
materialists are right"

What are the divisions between anarchists 
and Marxists?  You don't need a degree in 
political science to figure out the major 
one:

The State

Marx and Engels saw the State as being a 
product of class struggle.  It was the 
executive committee of the ruling class.  It 
was an instrument by which one class rules 
another.  In most of their writings they 
seem to see the State as a neutral tool.  It 
can be taken and used by either workers or 
capitalists.

Their classical political statement is The 
Communist Manifesto(5).  In its 10 main 
demands it calls for the centralisation of 
credit, transport and means of production 
under the State.  This is justified 
(according to Marx) because:

"political power, properly called, is merely 
the instrument of one class for oppressing 
another"

Here we have the idea of the State as a tool 
to be used by either class (capitalists or 
workers).

In his Comments on Bakunin(6)  Marx claims 
that the workers:

"must employ forcible means hence 
governmental means"

This is a common trend in Marx and Engels 
thinking  (see also first quote).  Kropotkin 
describes it well as:(7)

"the German school which insists on 
confusing the state with society"

Workers will probably have to use force in a 
revolution but why does this imply a 
government?

Bakunin vigorously opposed the Marxist 
conception of the State.   The State was 
more than simply a product of class 
antagonism.  If the programme of the 
manifesto was realised then a new 
bureaucratic class based on it rather than 
the market could arise.  This for Bakunin 
would have nothing to do with socialism:

"The most fatal combination that could 
possibly be formed , would be to unite 
socialism to absolutism"(8)

Bakunin was right.  Getting rid of 
competition and the law of value did not 
stop the Leninist states from being class 
societies.  The state embodied the interests 
of the ruling class and extracted profit 
from workers by brute force and ruthless 
exploitation.  The state failed to wither 
away.  The prediction by Engels that the 
seizing and centralising of property would 
be the state's last official act(9) proved 
to be a sick joke on the workers of the 
Stalinist countries.

At the end of the day  no state can 
encapsulate the interests of the masses 
better than the masses themselves.  As 
Bakunin says in The Paris Commune and the 
Idea of the State(10):

"where are those brains powerful enough and 
wide ranging enough to embrace the infinite 
multiplicity and diversity of the real 
interests, aspirations, wishes and needs 
whose sum constitutes the collective will of 
the people?"

Marx the Libertarian?

Of course many libertarian Marxists will 
point out that Marx and Engels did sometimes 
move beyond the position of the Manifesto on 
the State.  After the 1848 uprising in 
Berlin and the Paris Commune of 1871, for 
example.  In The Civil War in France (1871) 
Marx says that the State has:

"assumed more and more the character of the 
national power of capital over labour...of 
an engine of class despotism..."

Therefore:

"the working class cannot simply lay hold of 
the ready made State machinery and weld it 
for its own purposes" 

and the liberation of the working class 
cannot come about "without the destruction 
of the apparatus of state power which was 
created by the ruling class"

He also calls for self-government of the 
producers and delegation from communes to 
higher organs of power by recallable 
delegates.  However even here he fails to 
outline with any precision the forms of 
workers self-rule which might emerge: the 
ideas of worker's councils, militias, 
collectives on the land etc. (all of which 
are taken up by Bakunin in Letters to a 
Frenchman (1871)

In his 1850 Address to the Communist League 
(again a comparatively libertarian and 
revolutionary speech) Marx comes closest to 
outlining this by saying that workers must:

"immediately establish their own 
revolutionary governments, whether in the 
form of municipal committees and municipal 
councils or in the form of worker's clubs or 
worker's committees"

Marx the Democrat

However if you were to pick up the 1895 
edition of this address you would be 
confronted by a new introduction by Engels.  
In it he informs us:

"The mode of struggle of 1848(11) is today 
obsolete in every respect"

Why? Simple:

"They [the German workers] rendered a second 
great service to their cause...they supplied 
their comrades in all countries with a new 
weapon, and one of the sharpest, when they 
showed them how to make use of universal 
suffrage"

He quotes Marx(12) on how voting had been:

"transformed by them from a means of 
deception, which it was, into an instrument 
of emancipation"

"We are not so crazy as to let ourselves be 
driven to street fighting in order to please 
them (the bourgeois)" says Engels in 1895

However in Marx's 1869 Critique of the Gotha 
Programme and in an 1879 letter by the two 
to Bebel, the German Social Democratic Party 
is savagely attacked for supporting 
parliamentary elections:

"We cannot therefore co-operate with people 
who openly state that the workers are too 
uneducated to emancipate themselves"

Confused?  You should be.  Marx and Engels 
are about as consistent (in their writings 
on the state) as a Labour Party manifesto 
and at many stages actually sound like such 
a manifesto.  We are treated to Marx the 
democrat, the communist, the partisan of 
workers control and Marx the fan of 
representative democracy.  The state, to 
Marx and Engels was just the executive 
committee of a particular class.  Once 
capitalism went so would the State. 

"Do away with Capitalism and the State will 
fall by it-self" says Engels (On Authority 
1872).  Tragically he was  wrong.  As we 
shall see Marx's and Engels ambiguity on 
this springs from deeper problems.  In fact, 
there are major problems in their whole 
conception of socialism.

What is socialism?

The anarchist answer to this question is 
that socialism, at base, must be about 
freedom.  A society run collectively to 
maximise the amount of choice available to 
the individual.  A society based on 
satisfying the needs and wants of many and 
not on the profit of the few, with full 
participation at all levels.

A revolution is a conscious act by workers 
to liberate themselves from the constraints 
of  class society.  It is a subjective act.

There is a fundamental contradiction in 
Marxism between subjective and 
objective.(13)  Humanity according to Marx 
goes through a series of distinct historical 
stages based on ever increasing levels of 
production.  Certainly it is true that the 
level of production in a given society does 
determine the range of possibilities open to 
those trying to change it.  However Marx 
tends to reduce all human development to 
this single cause.  Just as feudalism gives 
way to capitalism, so capitalism gives way 
to socialism.  He leaves out or minimises 
the importance of other variables like the 
role of political institutions, culture, 
ideology and individuals.  To Marx all these 
'subjective' things are totally conditioned 
by the 'objective conditions' of economic 
development.  

Social and political systems rise and fall 
because of their ability or inability to 
materially improve the life of their 
populations.  Each new order arises because 
it does a better job at improving production 
than the old one.  The transition from 
socialism to capitalism is seen by him as 
coming about as inevitably as the change 
from slavery to feudalism.  Here Marx is 
wrong.  For the first time in history a 
transition from one social system to another 
requires mass participation.  Capitalism, 
like feudalism and the systems that went 
before, already contains the seeds of its 
own  destruction  in that it creates its 
grave-diggers: the working class.  But Marx 
in much of his later work went way beyond 
this and implied that the death of 
capitalism was inevitable:

"Capitalist production begets with the 
inexorability of a law of nature its own 
negation ..." (Capital Vol. I, p 837)

Further on, in the same chapter he even goes 
so far as to describe capitalism as:

"already practically resting on socialised 
production"

Or, as he puts it in Grundrisse (notes for 
Capital) :

"beyond a certain point, the development of 
the powers of production becomes a barrier 
for capital"  Its "violent destruction" must 
come about "as a condition of its own 
preservation"

This is pure determinism.  It takes away the 
central role of people in changing their own 
destiny.  It removes workers, as thinking 
and acting individuals, from the centre 
stage.  It ignores the very seeds which 
might blossom into revolution: the workers. 
If the destruction of capitalism is inherent 
in its own evolution then there is no reason 
to fight against it.  If maximising 
production is the key then why not work 
harder to help it along? 

In fact, historically, capitalism,with 
increasing productivity, has been very slow 
to disappear.  Instead it has become more 
centralised and bureaucratic, with the state 
playing an increasing role.  So the leopard 
has changed its spots a little.  But the 
monopoly capitalism of today has no more 
resemblance to socialism than the free 
enterprise capitalism of Marx's time.

This idea was  to be taken up and expanded 
on by Lenin who believed that: 

"Socialism is merely a state capitalist 
monopoly which is made to serve the 
interests of the whole people and to this 
extent has ceased to be a state capitalist 
monopoly"(14)

As I have said already this is the exact 
opposite of socialism.  Socialism is about 
freedom and collective participation, not 
some bureaucratic dictatorship or state 
capitalism.

Bakunin is particularly good on the topic of 
'scientific' socialism:

"History is made, not by abstract 
individuals but by acting, living and 
passing individuals"(15)

He opposed the idea of the political 
scientists leading humanity by the nose to 
an enlightened dictatorship:

"What I preach then is, to a certain extent, 
the revolt of life against science, or 
rather against the government of science, 
not to destroy science, that would be high 
treason to humanity, but to remand it to its 
place so it cannot leave it again"

It is worth noting, to be fair, that the 
young Marx did consider the subjective 
element especially in works like his 1844 
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts where 
he declares that the political form of the 
destruction of private property will be 
"Universal human emancipation"

However the later writings of Marx and 
Engels concentrate more and more on the 
outcome of capitalist development and less 
and less on how to win workers to 
revolution.  This combined with a blind 
respect for authority (see starting quote) 
leads Marxism to be a great recipe for 
incipient dictatorship even assuming the 
best intentions of the two authors.

The political ideas of Marx and Engels 
(despite their excellent economic analysis 
of capitalism) are ambiguous and 
contradictory.  Even at their best they in 
no way approach the clarity and depth of 
Bakunin's conception of socialism. 

1 Engels On Authority (1872).
2 in Anarchism and Marxism (1973).
3 This is only a very simple picture.  In 
reality there are a host of other factors 
such as competition that reduces prices, 
mechanisation that reduces the amount of 
labour, costs of raw materials and energy 
etc, but further explanation is outside the 
scope of this article.
4 Written in 1872.
5 First published in 1847 and continually 
reprinted in unaltered form. (If you 
disagree with an original position you 
usually change it in your next version!)
6 1874.
7 The State, its Historical Role  (1897).
8 Bakunin on Anarchy (edited by Sam Dolgoff) 
p.4
9 Anti Duhring (1878).
10 Written just after the commune in 1871 
and published in 1878.
11 Revolution, workers self government and 
all that 
12 Preamble to the Constitution of the 
French Workers Party (1880).
13 Objective conditions are those over which 
the individual has no control.  For example 
whether it rains or not tomorrow.  One 
could, however, take the subjective decision 
to bring an umbrella. 
14 Lenin, Collected Works Vol. 25 p358
15 Both quotes from God and State (1872)

BOX 1   In the 1st International

Bad theory leads to bad practice.  Marx and 
Engels were well capable of intrigue and 
authoritarianism in practice.  In February 
1869 Bakunin's  "Alliance for Social 
Democracy" put in a bid to join the 
international.  It applied for membership as 
separate Swiss, Italian and Spanish 
sections.  These were accepted.  This was 
the high point of the international in terms 
of practical activity and Bakunin's 
influence was growing.  Rather than take him 
on ideologically Marx and Engels opted for 
bureaucratic intrigue.

They held a special "conference of 
delegates" in London in September 1871 (up 
to then the International had open delegate 
congresses).  This was stage managed with 
the 'delegates' being the London based 
Council of the International (dominated by 
Marx) and a few selected delegates.  It was 
totally unrepresentitive.  This body then 
passed several constitutional amendments- 
that it had no power to do (only a full 
congress could do this- the council was 
supposed to look after administration).  It 
passed a resolution that political action 
which previous congresses had defined as a 
subordinate instrument for social 
emancipation be linked "indissolubly" to it.  
This (party building, electoralism, etc) 
could not be accepted by the anarchists who 
could hardly remain in the international.

In 1872, delegates were hastily convened to 
a rigged 'congress' to which some sections 
were not invited and others (like the 
Italian) were boycotting due to actions of 
the London congress.  This congress resolved 
that Bakunin's Alliance was a secret 
organisation attempting to impose a 
sectarian programme on the International.  
This was despite the fact that Bakunin's 
Alliance hadn't existed since 1869.  Even 
Marx's own "Committee of Inquiry" had found 
insufficient evidence of its existence.

However condemnation and expulsion of 
Bakunin and his supporters was not enough.  
We continue in the words of Paul Thompson, 
himself sympathetic to Marx, from "Marx, 
Bakunin and the International";

"It was at this point-the vendetta against 
Bakunin having been concluded that Engels 
backed by Marx, Longuet and (some) other 
members of the general council, produced the 
bombshell of the Hague congress, moving that 
the seat of the general council be moved to 
New York.  This motion, which was completely 
unexpected by the assembled delegates, was 
carried amid considerable (and 
understandable) confusion.  Marx had 
destroyed the international in order to save 
it."

BOX 2   Bakunins secret dictatorship

Bakunin is sometimes accused of being in 
favour of dictatorship.  Indeed he often 
talks about secret dictatorships.  However 
if you read what he actually said in detail 
it is quite obvious that what he was talking 
about was the classic anarchist position of 
a leadership of ideas.  In a letter ending 
his relationship with the notorious Russian 
revolutionary Nechayev he says of his secret 
society;(1)

"Thus the sole aim of a secret society must 
be, not the creation of an artificial power 
outside the people, but the rousing, uniting 
and organising of the spontaneous power of 
the people; therefore, the only possible, 
the only real revolutionary army is not 
outside the people, it is the people 
itself."

The secrecy aspect may be regrettable 
(though understandable given the climate of 
Tsarist Russia)  but these are not the words 
of one who sought to set up a dictatorship 
over the workers.  I would also hazard a 
guess that many of the people who peddle the 
Bakunin-secret dictator line are well aware 
of this.

Secret liberal and socialist societies were 
a permanent and widespread phenomenon in 
Europe and had been since the end of the 
Napoleonic empire often for good reason.  
Marx and Engels joined the secret German 
organisation "The League of the Just" in 
1847 and changed its name to the "Communist 
League".  The Communist Manifesto was 
published by this secret organisation in 
1848 using the German Workers Education 
society as a sort of front.  At the time of 
the major confrontation between Marx and 
Bakunin (1871) many sections of the 
international such as the Spanish one had 
again gone secret because of the persecution 
following the suppression of the Paris 
Commune.

1 Letter written to Nechayev June 2 1870 and 
reprinted from the Herzen archives by the 
"Anarchist Switchboard" , NYC.



Andrew Flood

anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie
Phone: 706(2389)

