Hi, I've been reading 'the State and Revolution' and I have come across some things which I have some questions about.
So, please respond to my comments. I've found the text on marxists.org so i can quote the specific parts I mean;
They're all from chapter III and IV, as it was from there that I decided to start writing down my comments as I went.
I don't expect anybody to respond to all of them, so whatever you want, I will be grateful.
Bernstein simply cannot conceive of the possibility of voluntary centralism,* of the voluntary fusion of the proletarian communes, for the sole purpose of destroying bourgeois rule and the bourgeois state machine. Like all philistines, Bernstein pictures centralism as something which can be imposed and maintained solely from above, and solely by the bureaucracy and military clique. **
As though foreseeing that his views might be distorted, Marx expressly emphasized that the charge that the Commune had wanted to destroy national unity, to abolish the central authority, was a deliberate fraud. Marx purposely used the words: "National unity was... to be organized"**, so as to oppose conscious, democratic, proletarian centralism to bourgeois, military, bureaucratic centralism.
From Chapter III, ‘Organisation of National Unity’.
* How to ensure centralism is truly voluntary?
** What is ‘organisation’ if not ‘imposition’, in this context? Is this not just a rewording?
The Commune was ceasing to be a state since it had to suppress, not the majority of the population, but a minority (the exploiters). It had smashed the bourgeois state machine. In place of a special coercive force the population itself came on the scene*. All this was a departure from the state in the proper sense of the word. And had the Commune become firmly established, all traces of the state in it would have "withered away" of themselves; it would not have had to “abolish” the institutions of the state--they would have ceased to function as they ceased to have anything to do. **
From chapter IV, ‘Letter to Bebel’
* So the state, where it is used during the ‘DoP’, is used to oppress exploiters and workers alike? The majority of the population?
** How to ensure this occours? How to ensure the state releases its control on certain aspects of government?
Engels particularly stressed the fundamental fact that the German Social-Democrats were prompted by fear of a renewal of the Anti- Socialist Law, and explicitly described it as opportunism; he declared that precisely because there was no republic and no freedom in Germany, the dreams of a “peaceful” path were perfectly absurd. Engels was careful not to tie his hands. He admitted that in republican or very free countries "one can conceive" (only “conceive”!) of a peaceful development towards socialism
From IV, ‘Criticism of the Draft of the Erfurt Programme’
Is a ‘peaceful development’, without violent revolution, to socialism in countries like the U.S., UK, Australia etc. which have the presumed political freedom Engels spoke of, likely, in your opinion?
In reference to the last half of ‘Criticism of the Draft of the Erfurt Programme’, so socialism is easier to achieve in federal republics than in separate states, and easier still is ‘centralised republics’ – because? Socialism cannot exist in isolation?
In France, Engels observed, the workers emerged with arms from every revolution: "therefore the disarming of the workers was the first commandment for the bourgeois, who were at the helm of the state. Hence, after every revolution won by the workers, a new struggle, ending with the defeat of the workers."
This summary of the experience of bourgeois revolutions is as concise as it is expressive. The essence of the matter--among other things, on the question of the state (has the oppressed class arms?)--is here remarkably well-grasped.* It is precisely this essence that is most often evaded by both professors influenced by bourgeois ideology, and by petty-bourgeois democrats. In the Russian revolution of 1917, the honor (Cavaignac honor) of blabbing this secret of bourgeois revolutions fell to the Menshevik, would-be Marxist, Tsereteli.
In his “historic” speech of June 11, Tsereteli blurted out that the bourgeoisie were determined to disarm the Petrograd workers--presenting, of course, this decision as his own, and as a necessity for the “state” in general!
Tsereteli's historical speech of June 11 will, of course, serve every historian of the revolution of 1917 as a graphic illustration of how the Social-Revolutionary and Menshevik bloc, led by Mr. Tsereteli, deserted to the bourgeoisie against the revolutionary proletariat.**
IV, ‘The 1891 Preface to Marx’s ‘Civil War in France’’
* Can somebody spell this out for me – what does he mean by this? Reword or something.
** After the revolution, the workers must remain armed – not hand back the only means of physical force to the ‘state’ – this is to prevent the bourgeoisie taking control of the state? To protect the workers against bourgeois ‘rebellion’ against the proletarian leadership? What?
"Against this transformation of the state and the organs of the state from servants of society into masters of society--an inevitable transformation in all previous states--the Commune used two infallible means. In the first place, it filled all posts--administrative, judicial, and educational--by election on the basis of universal suffrage of all concerned, subject to recall at any time by the electors. And, in the second place, it paid all officials, high or low, only the wages received by other workers. The highest salary paid by the Commune to anyone was 6,000 francs. In this way a dependable barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up, even apart from the binding mandates to delegates to representative bodies, which were added besides...."
IV, ‘The Preface …’, quote from Engels.
Recallable how? Simple majority? Of all voters, for all positions, high and low? What about tyranny of the majority? Is there never a way to safeguard completely, at the end of the day?
In terms of salaries, who decides? On what basis do salaries rise and fall between individuals? Can this ever be totally fair?
To develop democracy to the utmost, to find the forms for this development, to test them by practice, and so fort--all this is one of the component tasks of the struggle for the social revolution. Taken separately, no kind of democracy will bring socialism. But in actual life democracy will never be "taken separately"; it will be "taken together" with other things, it will exert its influence on economic life as well, will stimulate its transformation; and in its turn it will be influenced by economic development, and so on. This is the dialectics of living history.
IV, ‘The Preface…’
What does this mean??
Those are all the comments I have so far. No doubt I will have more questions as I continue to read the book.
Thanks.
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