1. WHAT IS THE STATE?
As we saw in Class One, essentially the machinery
of force by which one social class rules over the rest of the people.
2. WHAT ARE THE PRINCIPAL ORGANS
OF THE CONTEMPORARY BRITISH STATE?
The monarch, the House of Lords, the House of Commons,
the judiciary, the prison service, the armed forces, the police, the security
services, the civil service, the Church of England, the BBC, the post office,
the National Health Service.
3. WHICH OF THESE FORM THE KEY
ORGANS OF STATE?
The armed forces, the police and the security services.
This is because the key issue
in politics is always physical power, and it is these three
organs which possess physical power in the state.
4. EXPLAIN WHAT IS MEANT BY THE
STATEMENT:
" 'PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY'
IS A FALSE FACADE WHICH CONCEALS THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE CAPITALIST CLASS".
British constitutional law lays down that supreme
power is held, not by the House of Commons (the organ principally associated
with the term 'parliamentary democracy') but by 'The Queen in Parliament',
which is defined as the Queen together with the House of Lords and the
House of Commons. This means that the legislative power of the House of
Commons (at present the sole elected organ of Parliament) is subject to
the approval in most cases of the House of Lords and in all cases by the
Queen.
Furthermore, legislation is subject to 'interpretation'
by the judiciary and can only be put into effect with the cooperation of
the heads of the civil service. However, the monarchy, the House of Lords,
the judiciary and the heads of the civil service are not subject to democratic
election. These posts are reserved for representatives of the capitalist
class or the aristocracy (which has now merged with the capitalist class).
Furthermore, the heads of the armed forces and security
forces -- key organs of state -- are also drawn from the upper class, and
constitutionally they owe allegiance not to 'the people' or the House of
Commons, but to the Queen. They are thus available to be used in the Queen's
name to 'defend the Constitution' on behalf of the capitalist class.
Thus, 'parliamentary democracy' is a false facade
which conceals the real character of the state as machinery which embodies
the dictatorship of the capitalist class.
Parliament is thus no more than a 'talking shop',
the function of which is to deceive the masses into believing that it is
'their servant'.
5. IMAGINE THAT YOUR PARTY --
A PARTY OF GENUINE SOCIALISTS -- HAS WON A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
IN A GENERAL ELECTION. WHAT STEPS WOULD YOU TAKE TO INTRODUCE SOCIALISM
CONSTITUTIONALLY?.
Even the posing of this question requires considerable
imagination!
For the development of electoral opinion to the point
where a general election might occur would clearly take a considerable
time and would not go unnoticed by the capitalist class. Since this class
will obviously use every weapon in its power to preserve its wealth, power
and exploiting 'rights' , -- in the name, of couse, of preserving 'freedom'
and 'moral values' -- it would obviously take steps prior to the election
(alteration of electoral laws and boundaries, outright banning of your
party as 'subversive' etc.) to try to prevent such an embarrassing electoral
result.
Let us assume,
however, that as a result of some miracle of stupidity the capitalist class
fails to take such preventive action. Your party must then hope that the
Queen will invite the leader of your party to form a government. It has
long been customary for the monarch to invite the leader of the party with
the largest number of seats in the House of Commons to become Prime Minister,
but there is no constitutional obligation on her to do so.
Let us assume, however,
that she takes this step and that the leader of your party selects his
provisional Cabinet. Before these can take office as Ministers, they are
required by constitutional law to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen.
Since your party's electoral programme must have included pledges to abolish
the undemocratic monarchy, the arrest of these Ministers on charges of
perjury will be perfectly legitimate. And when sufficient of your MPs have
been, quite legally, imprisoned, your party will no longer have a majority
in the House.
Let us assume,therfore
another miracle -- that the capitalist class is too stupid to take constitutional
measures to prevent your party from taking office and that it introduces
legislation to socialise the principal means of production. Such legislation
can only be adopted with the approval of the House of Lords and the Queen
(the latter can hold up legislation indefinitely), so that further miracles
have to be imagined for your socialist programme to be put into legislation.
The capitalists may then appeal to the courts to rule that such legislation
is unlawful, and a further miracle is required to make the upper class
judges rule in favour of the socialist government. Furthermore, the putting
into effect of this socialist legislation requires the cooperation of the
heads of the civil service, who are also drawn from the upper class, so
that their cooperation would require a further miacle.
One must also assume yet
another miracle.
Constitutionally, the armed forces -- the heads of
which are also drawn from the upper class -- may in case of 'emergency'
at the request of the monarch establish martial law and rule dictatorially
That reactionary military coups are not confined to distant countries was
shown by the infamous Curragh Mutiny of 1914, which led to the partition
of Ireland. Another miracle has, therefore, to be imagined to render the
monarch and the armed forces inactive in this respect. Such
a wholesale series of miracles does not occur in real life, and it is clear
that the concept of a constitutional transition to socialism is absurd.
6. WHAT IS A POLITICAL PARTY?
An organisation which serves the political interests
of a social class (or of a section of such a class).
7. THE BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY
SYSTEM HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS ESSENTIALLY 'A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM'. WHAT IS
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS?
The system is designed to give
the electorate at an election a choice between two large parties. Both
parliamentary parties (i.e., the collective MPs of each party) declare
that they are not bound by decisions of their party conference, and both
support the maintenance of a capitalist society.
Thus, after an election, one of
these parties forms Her Majesty's Government and the other forms Her Majesty's
Opposition. When, after a period, a majority of the electors become dissatisfied
with the government, this may be replaced at an election by the other party
without any disturbance to the capitalist system.
The two-party system deliberately
places great obstacles in the way of smaller parties: large deposits are
forfeit where a candidate fails to obtain a certain proportion of the vote;
there is no proportional representation, so that a party can obtain 49%
of the national vote without securing the election of a single MP; TV propaganda
is restricted to parties putting up a certain number of candidates: electors
who are dissatisfied with both parties often vote for the one they regard
as 'the lesser evil' on the grounds that it is impossible for a smaller
party which they in fact support to form a government so that a vote for
it would be 'wasted' and might even assist 'the greater evil' to win the
election by 'splitting the vote'.
British
'parliamentary democracy' is clearly designed, as Marx expressed it, to
give the electorate merely a choice as to which group of capitalist politicians
shall misrepresent them for the next five years.
8. ANALYSE THE STATEMENT: 'THE
BRITISH STATE IS A 'WELFARE STATE'.
It must be remembered first that
the social services had their origin, not in 'humanitarian concern' on
the part of capitalists for their working people, but in the spread of
epidemics from the slums to upper class
residential quarters and in the discovery at the time of the Boer war that
50% of working class recruits to the army were medically unfit for military
service. Experience, therefore, forced the capitalists to realise long
ago that the state, as the machinery of their rule, had to take such action
in the field of social welfare as would ensure that the workers had the
minimum of health necessary to produce surplus value for them and to fight
in their wars.
This principle having been accepted,
the aim of the capitalist class has been to keep the level of social services
down to the minimum necessary to fulfil
this purpose -- in particular, to see that benefits are significantly lower
than average wages and that the working class itself pays for the social
services it receives (by means of taxation, insurance contributions, etc.)
out of wages, in many cases after a degrading 'means test'. These points
have, of course, been influenced by the class struggle of the working class,
but statistics show that the average working class family pays considerably
more in taxation, contributions, etc., than it receives in terms of all
the social services combined.
9. WHAT IS NATIONALISATION?
The taking over by the state of an enterprise previously
under private ownership.
10. IS NATIONALISATION IN A CAPITALIST
SOCIETY A SOCIALIST MEASURE?
Since the state in a capitalist
society is the machinery of rule of the capitalist class, nationalisation
in a capitalist society is in no way a socialist measure. It represents
merely the transfer of an enterprise from ownership by a single capitalist
to ownership by the capitalist class as a whole. The
most reactionary governments have carried out measures of nationalIsation,
affecting principally the fields of communications and fuel,
which serve the capitalist class as a whole (e.g., the post office, railways,
airlines, gas, coal, electricity, etc.).
The motive for nationalisation
is to provide a cheap and efficient service in these fields for the benefit
of the capitalist class as a whole, and nationalisation is usually
carried out where private enterprise is using monopoly power to charge
excessive rates to other capitalist firms or where private enterprise appears
to be no longer capable of providing a reasonably efficient service in
some field essential to the capitalist class as a whole. When an enterprise
is nationalised by the capitalist state, the former owners are usually
generously compensated with interest-bearing state bonds, which enable
them to continue to exploit the working class with their profits guaranteed
by the state. The boards which manage such nationalised industries are
dominated by members of the capitalist class (often, indeed, by their former
owners, who then receive directors' fees in addition to interest).
Thus, as workers in nationalised
industries know from their own experience, the class struggle continues
within them, but it is now necessary for the workers concerned to struggle
not against a single private management, but against the capitalist state.
11. WHAT IS STATE MONOPOLY CAPITALISM?
With the development of monopoly
capitalism, of imperialism, the state comes to be less and less the machinery
of rule of the capitalist class as a whole, and to become increasingly
subordinated to the dominant clique of monopoly capitalists, to become
the state machine of the financial oligarchy. The imperialist stage of
development of capitalism also sees a great expansion of the state apparatus,
both in the field of physical power and in that of the regulation of economic,
political and cultural life. This expansion is not 'socialist' in character.
It is undertaken in the interests of monopoly capital, and Marxist- Leninists
call this development by the name of state monopoly capitalism.
12. WHAT IS A CORPORATE STATE?
A concept of the state originally
put forward by right-wing Catholic politicians. Its official aim is 'to
abolish the class struggle' (in fact, of course, to repress it) by abolishing
free collective bargaining between trade unions and employers' organisations.
In a corporate state, 'negotiations' on wages, working conditions, etc.,
are carried out by 'corporations', composed of representatives of the employers
and of the state, together with 'workers' representatives'. Moves by British
governments to restrict free collective bargaining must be seen as moves
in the direction of a corporate state, while propaganda in favour of 'workers'
representation in industry' or 'workers' control' must be seen as pseudo-leftist
propaganda directed towards the establishment of a corporate state.
13. WHAT IS FASCISM?
The open, terroristic dictatorship
of a reactionary class (usually of monopoly capital) exercised through
a para-military political party. The name is derived from the 'fasces'
or bundle of sticks, the emblem of the Roman Empire which was taken over
by the Italian fascists. A fascist party is recruited principally from
reactionary elements among the petty-bourgeoisie
and lumpen-proletariat (degenerate,
petty criminal strata of the working class).
It is financed, as the situation
demands, by capital and armed (usually
unofficially) by their armed forces. A fascist party directs its appeal
demagogically to the most politically backward strata of the working people
(calling itself by such names as 'national socialist') and of the petty
bourgeoisie (claiming to be, for example, 'against monopoly'), but its
main propaganda is based on appeal to racist and nationalist prejudices.
Its function is to try to smash
by force the organisations of the working class, and to replace the facade
of 'parliamentary democracy' by an open dictatorship which strives to exert
repressive control over every sphere of social life (totalitarianism)
Within this dictatorship, the fascist party rules dictatorially (often
in the name of an 'infallible leader') on behalf of the dominant class.
14. SINCE SOCIALISM CANNOT BE
ESTABLISHED THROUGH 'PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY', HOW CAN IT BE ESTABLISHED?
Only by socialist revolution, which requires the working
class to build its own machinery of force, strong enough to defeat and
destroy the machinery of force of the capitalist class.
15. ARE THERE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER
WHICH THE WORKING CLASS COULD ACHIEVE THE TRANSITION TO SOCIALISM PEACEFULLY?
This could occur, and has occurred,
only in very exceptional circumstances
-- where the capitalist class is temporarily without an effective state
machinery of force capable of resisting seizure of political power by the
working class (as in Finland and Hungary at the end of the First World
War). In theory, such a peaceful transition could occur in a country where
the capitalist class possesses a state machinery of force, but finds itself
isolated from foreign assistance and facing a working class machinery of
force so overwhelmingly powerful as to make violent resistance appear pointless.
In such circumstances the possibility
could exist of peacefully 'buying out' the capitalist class. This theoretical
possibility of peaceful transition to socialism makes it clear that the
stronger the machinery of revolutionary force built up by the working class,
the greater is the possibility -- it is no more -- of a peaceful transition.
& section VIII The Formation of the State among
the Germans; p. 326-336; From "Selected Works Marx & Engels"; Volume
3; 1989; Or in Volume 26 at p. 245-256; OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/M&E/OFPS84.html#s8
(2) Engels on Bismarck's 'nationalisation policy' see : "Anti-Duhring Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science"; especially relevant on this question see 'Part III Socialism-Section II theoretical': see pp264-271"; "Collected Works"; Volume 25; Moscow 1987; OR: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/M&E/AD78iii.html#p3s2
(3) For lessons from the Paris Commune: Karl Marx: "The Civil War in France- Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association"; especially Part III from pp328-343; In "Collected Works Marx & Engels"; Volume 22; Moscow; 1986; OR: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/M&E/CWF71.html#tp
4) Lenin: "State and Revolution"; in particular: Chapter
1: "Class Society And the State"; "Selected Works"; Volume 2; Moscow 1977;
p.238-245;.
OR:
http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/SR17.html#c1
5) For Lenin on the peaceful prospects for working class victory in Britain see "State & Revolution"; chapter III "Experience of the Paris Commune of 1871. Marx's Analysis"; "; "Selected Works"; Volume 2; Moscow 1977; p.263-266; OR: http://gate.cruzio.com/~marx2mao/Lenin/SR17.html#c3