11. The state and revolution¶
Core Argument¶
The state, as Marx, Engels and Lenin understood, is not a neutral arbiter but a special repressive force standing above society, born of class division. It consists of armed bodies that regulate class struggle, and its bureaucracy possesses its own interests. In revolutionary periods, either the revolutionary class overthrows the state or the ruling class imposes open dictatorship; a third variant, Bonapartism or Caesarism, arises when class struggle reaches an unstable equilibrium and the state gains temporary independence. Any workers’ state is merely a ‘semi-state’ destined to wither away, as Engels explained; it cannot simply take over the existing machinery.
Heinz Dieterich’s theoretical framework is fundamentally flawed. He claims the state can lose its repressive identity, yet every state is repressive. He misunderstands bourgeois democracy, which Marx called a committee for managing bourgeois affairs; Marxists use parliamentary struggle but recognise that fundamental questions are settled outside parliament. Dieterich’s central message, stripped of revolutionary rhetoric, is that socialism does not require expropriating the bourgeoisie, that no revolution is necessary, and that the Bolivarian revolution has gone far enough. He advocates ‘democratising’ capitalism rather than abolishing it, which is impossible while the ruling class holds power. His concept of ‘national macropower’ is a vacuous neologism, and his position is linked to the reactionary utopianism of ‘local minipower’ advocated by the Zapatistas, which avoids challenging state power.
The lesson of Chile is not that Allende went too fast, but that he refused to arm the workers. The counter-revolution cannot be pacified; in Venezuela, each attempt at conciliation after the 2002 coup and the bosses’ strike only allowed the opposition to regroup. To carry the revolution through, workers, peasants and soldiers must take over land and factories, set up democratically elected committees, arrest counter-revolutionaries, and expropriate land, banks and key industries under democratic workers’ control. A workers’ and peasants’ militia should be established. Dieterich’s advice to compromise with the enemy because of an unfavourable balance of forces is the opposite of realism: retreat emboldens the reactionaries, disheartens the masses, and leads to further demands. His argument that the ruling class controls the army and therefore revolution cannot succeed is refuted by Russia in 1917, France in 1789, and Iran under the Shah, where mass mobilisation brought down the repressive apparatus. The Bolsheviks won over the majority of workers and soldiers before the insurrection; behind bayonets are human beings who can be influenced. Modern technology provides the material potential for socialism, but this potential remains unrealised while capitalists retain ownership of land, banks and key industries. Dieterich fails to answer how to get from A to B.