After October: Towards a Theory of the Socialist State

ABSTRACT

A consequence of the Russian Revolution was the emergence of the theory and practice of a new type of state. While the Soviet Union was not a federation, nation-state, empire or colonising power, it remains somewhat difficult to determine what type of state it was. This article offers a theoretical (rather than practical) analysis of the way the theoretical possibility of a new state, a socialist state, could emerge. The first step of the argument deals with broader theories of the state, although the vast majority focus on the European situation, variously calling it a nation-state, liberal state, capitalist state or bourgeois state. One searches in vain for detailed theoretical studies of the socialist state. The second step, therefore, concerns the first seeds of such a theory, which are found—perhaps surprisingly—in the works of Stalin.

KEYWORDS:

• Bourgeois state
• socialist state
• Engels
• Lenin
• Stalin

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Roland Boer is a research professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and Xin Ao Distinguished Overseas Professor at Renmin University of China. His current research interests concern the intersections between Marxism and philosophy, with a specific focus on the question of socialism in power. Among numerous publications, his most recent are Time of Troubles (2017) and The Sacred Economy (2015).

Notes

1. It was also not a “neo-patrimonial state” (Gorlizki 2002; Gorlizki and Khlevniuk 2004, 58–65) or a “limping Behemoth” (Edele 2011, 98–122). Further, the proclamations (including by NATO) that it was an imperialist and (internal) colonising power have little weight (Viola 1996; Werth et al. 1999; Loring 2014).

2. In more recent research on the state, a scholarly division of labour has arisen, in which some seek the origins of states in ancient Southwest Asia (archaeologists and anthropologists) while others focus on the “modern” state (sociologists and political scientists).

3. My approach is born of patient and detailed attention to the texts in question, even though some would seek to dismiss Stalin’s intellectual ability (Trotsky 1941, 83–84, 386; Deutscher [1949] 1967, 290; Plamenatz [1954] 1975, 7–8; Laue 1964, 202–3; Tucker 1973, 315, 318; Cliff [1976] 2004, 132). By contrast, for all its many flaws, Kotkin’s biography notes Stalin’s “vigorous intellect” (Kotkin 2014, 7).

4. Carnoy and Held offer useful surveys, focusing on Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, James and John Stuart Mill, and Rousseau (Carnoy 1984, 12–23; Held 1984, 14–31).

5. Apart from the fact that much of the material by Marx and Engels evinces shared positions (Engels wrote the work on the basis of Marx’s notes), Engels was most influential on the second generation of Marxists, including Lenin. It may be possible to trace elements in Marx’s texts (Carnoy 1984, 45–56), but the clearest statement was provided by Engels.

6. The following quotations are drawn from these pages. Emphases are in the original text.

7. In more detail: such a state is not only the state of the “economically dominant class,” but this class, “through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class,” which now “acquires a new means of keeping down and exploiting the oppressed class.”

8. As Engels puts it elsewhere: “The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital” (Engels [1877–78] 1987, 266; [1877–78] 1973, 260). See also the statement in the second German edition of “The Manifesto of the Communist Party”: “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready–made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes” (Marx and Engels [1872] 1988, 175; [1872] 1976).

9. In contrast to the earlier form of traditional (customary) legitimacy and the ambiguous charismatic legitimacy, of which Weber is both suspicious (the “conviction politician”—Weber’s term) and for which he longs in order to overcome bureaucratic deadness (Weber 2004, 34–35).

10. More fully: “the state is the name that we give to the hidden, invisible principles—indicating a kind of deus absconditus—of the social order, and at the same time of both physical and symbolic domination, likewise of physical and symbolic violence” (Bourdieu 2014, 7).

11. The following quotations are drawn from these pages. Emphases are in the original text.

12. Lenin defines a “special coercive force” as “an organisation of violence for the suppression of some class” (Lenin [1917] 1964, 407; [1917] 1969, 24).

13. Some tend to caricature Lenin’s approach as purely instrumental (Carnoy 1984, 45–61; Held 1984, 37–38).

14. “A democratic republic is the best possible shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained control of this very best shell … it established its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois–democratic republic can shake it” (Lenin [1917] 1964, 398; [1917] 1969, 14).

15. Some efforts have been made at transcending these tensions, but they often end up replicating them (Jessop 1982, 1990; Held and Krieger 1984; Alford and Friedland 1985).

16. This includes transitional forms such as the “familial” state, the much-studied “welfare” state and—in an effort to apply the European concepts further afield—the loosely defined “developmental” state (Esping-Andersen 1990; Barrow 1993; Evans 1995, 47–59, 229–34; Woo-Cumings 1999).

17. Van Ree indicates that Stalin was studying the question closely in the 1930s, as marginal notes in the works by Marx, Engels and Lenin in his library indicate (Van Ree 2002, 136–38).

18. Early references without any effort at definition, apart perhaps from building a socialist state, appear occasionally (Stalin [1919] 1953b, 238; [1919] 1947b, 230; [1926] 1954, 87; [1926] 1948, 81).

19. Stalin summarises his argument here concerning the socialist state in the later intervention on linguistics (Stalin [1950] 1986, 178; [1950] 1997, 134–35).

20. Lovell is only partially correct in asserting that the doctrine was from Engels and not Marx (Lovell 1984, 71–89).

21. A comparison between the first and third editions in MEGA reveals the absence of the phrase there (Engels [1878] 1988, 445; [1894] 1988, 535). Only the third edition is published by MEW and MECW (cited above).

22. For useful analyses from the 1950s and 1960s, see the detailed discussions and disagreements in Daniels, Medalie, and Möller and Picht (Daniels 1953; Medalie 1959; Möller and Picht 1963).

23. A year later, at the 17th Congress, he summarises these points (Stalin [1934] 1954, 357–58, [1934] 1951, 350–51). Boobbyer quotes this text but then misses its significance entirely, preferring to seek for signs of the personal-cum-bureaucratic structure of Stalin’s role in the state (Boobbyer 2000, 83–99).

24. Van Ree makes much of the military dimension, in which an army presupposes a state (Van Ree 2002, 138–39).

25. This crucial phrase is quoted on a number of occasions, first in 1927 (Stalin [1927] 1954c, 156; [1927] 1949b, 151; [1930] 1954, 374; [1930] 1949, 363).

26. Unfortunately, Krausz’s analysis is decidedly unhelpful on this crucial point (Krausz 2005, 238–39).

27. In his interview with Emil Ludwig, Stalin observes that the new state is not a “national” state but an “international” state, which strengthens the international working class (Stalin [1931] 1954, 107; [1931] 1951, 105; see also Stalin [1937] 1978, 248; [1937] 1997, 155; Van Ree 2002, 138–39). Only a couple of years later, the need for such institutions became all too evident with the Nazi attack on the socialist state (Stalin [1941] 1984, 16; [1941] 1997, 77).

28. As Losurdo (2008, 95–102; [1998] 2015, 77–78) points out, it was the genius of the Bolsheviks not merely to recover the state when it was on its way to collapse during the disasters of the Japanese War, First World War and Civil War, but to develop a strong state. Van Ree (2002, 136) pays due emphasis to the strong state. However, Kotkin cannot see past this feature of the state, while Poulantzas is decidedly unhelpful on the question of Stalin’s approach to the state as such (Poulantzas 1980, 253–56; Kotkin 2014, 289–95).

29. For example, in his reflections on the 1936 constitution, Stalin speaks of “fully formed multi-national Socialist state [mnogonatsionalʹnoe sotsialisticheskoe gosudarstvo]” (Stalin [1936] 1978, 163; [1936] 1997, 126), which has weathered all manner of shocks and withstood all tests.

30. Cockshott and Cottrell offer a useful counter-argument (Cockshott and Cottrell 1993, 4–5).

31. Stalin hints at the possibility (Stalin [1939] 1978, 422; [1939] 1997, 336).