Completing "State and Revolution"

State and Revolution, Part 6a

Completing "State and Revolution"

The MIA endnote to “The State and Revolution” says, among other things, that “According to Lenin's plan, “The State and Revolution” was to have consisted of seven chapters, but he did not write the seventh, "The Experience of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917", and only a detailed plan has remained.”

As CU, we do not even have the “detailed plan” for the seventh chapter.

More to the point of our studies is to note that “The State and Revolution”, interrupted as it was by the Great October Revolution, is a work in progress.

In “New Tools for Marxists”, linked below, the late South African revolutionary Ron Press wrote:

‘“…the standard Marxist idea that society passes in a linear manner from primitive communism via class struggle to the ultimate victory when the working class replaces capitalism with a classless society is an unattainable myth. Especially when a classless society was taken to mean the establishment of order and stability, in fact stasis. The theories outlined above indicate that stasis means the inevitable sudden crossover into chaos and collapse.

‘Lenin in State and Revolution continued the work of Engels and Marx in outlining the parameters which form the basis for the definition of systems indicated by points (a) and (b). It is interesting that they did not define the form or structure which socialism will have. Lenin recognised these new structures when they emerged. He initiated the slogan “all power to the soviets”.’

Ron Press is saying that the theory of the State, and of the “withering away” of the State, in Marx, Engels and Lenin is not wring, yet these three did not have the full theoretical means to appreciate in full how “stateless” systems can and do work in nature and in human society.

The revolutionaries of today have an advantage over those of a century ago. In that case, it will be necessary to complete a “State and Revolution” for today, that includes not only the material that Lenin would have included in 1917 if he had had the time, but also material that Lenin would have included in the intervening period up to the present time, if he had had the knowledge of it.

Ron Press’s article gives a good start for that work. Please download it and read it. The two diagrams above, relating to the “Strange Attractor” of Chaos Theory, are from the article.

This is the last post in this series.

Download:

New tools for Marxists, 1995, Ron Press

Further Reading:

The State and Revolution, Chapter 6, Vulgarisation of Marxism by Opportunists, Lenin (6061 words, 8 pages)

Previous main Communist University posts:
Channel [members]	Course Archive	Weeks	Posted
SADTU Pol Ed [436]	Lenin’s The State & Revolution	5/6	9 July 2010
CU Africa [233]	Marx’s Capital, Volumes 1, 2 & 3	4/33	6 July 2010
CU [2924]	Philosophy and Religion	4/10	12 July 2010
Courses completed in 2010 to date:
SADTU Pol Ed	National Democratic Revolution	12	March - June
	Basics	10	January - March
SADTU Pol Schools	3-Day School	3 days	2-4 June
CU	No Woman, No Revolution	10	March - June
	Basics	10	January – March
Click here to visit Marxists Internet Archive