[CU for Thursday, 6 August 2009]
In “Bourgeois and Proletarians”, the first section of the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx wrote: “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” In other words: The State is the executive committee of the ruling class.
The State makes its material appearance in many guises. Not only is it Legislature, Executive and Judiciary, but it is also the “Special Bodies of Armed Men” (police and military), the “sovereign document” of the Constitution, the State Owned Enterprises, and “Delivery” departments like Education, Health, Public Works; and others.
As communists we hold fast to the concept of the State as the instrument of class power that enforces and perpetuates bourgeois class dictatorship in our country. We do not believe that the State is neutral, or above class struggle. The State is the principal instrument of class struggle on behalf of the ruling bourgeois class.
We intend that there should as soon as possible be no class division and therefore that the State as we know it would become redundant and give way to social self-management, or in other words communism.
Yet the term “State” is used in other, less strict senses, and we as political people who must communicate with others, do also use the word in other senses than the above. For example, we sometimes use the phrase “Developmental State”, which even if we ourselves would qualify its meaning, is nevertheless widely understood as meaning a State that is equally beneficial to all classes (i.e. is a “win-win” or classless or neutral state).
We are fortunate to have the lecture that Lenin [pictured] gave to students in
We will follow Lenin’s advice and extend this Basic Communism series slightly by proceeding from this lecture to part of Engels’ “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”; and then to extracts from Lenin’s own “State and Revolution”.
Read and comment on the CU blog at http://domza.blogspot.com/.
Click on this link:
The State, Lenin, 1919 (7203 words)
The "1996 Class Project was a machine for a new bourgeoisie class state. A lot of comrades from the rulling party are still caught up in the culture of the that project. How do we change that now? since the alliance seems to be stronger.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need a cultural revolution. I think so.
ReplyDelete