Lenin on the nature of the State (Part-IV)

Reviewing Lenin’s lecture delivered at the Sverdlov University July 11, 1919

This new paradigm of production is accompaigned by the state control mechanism, which has combined the massive power of capitalism with the massive power of the state for bringing millions of people under the umbrella of global capitalism. On the other hand, the old capitalism was based on the vicious competition across political and economic level. For instance, Britain in the old capitalism through her vicious hegemonic competition ruined her competitor Holland—which once dominated the whole world. Likewise, in the late 19^th century, a new competitor emerged on the face of the European continent, Germany, which came to challenge the economic hegemony of the Great Britain at the sea. Germany while appearing as the youngest predator at the concert of European powers said on face to Britain: “You ruined Holland, you defeated France, and you have helped yourself to half the world. Now be good enough to let us have our fair share.” In Lenin View, there are two things the Capitalists nations are looking for to dominate the world: dollars and banks. In this regard, the gradual expansion of European colonialism across the territorial and economic lines made the capitalist competitors as ruthless cartels. Moreover, this kind of exploitation in the form of state throughout history has been a vivid logic, besides the fact that the forms of state were extremely varied.

For instance, in the earlier times of slavery, the form of state in the ancient Rome and Greece were more culturally, politically and civilizationally advanced according to the standard of time—but the whole system and structure of the state in the ancient Greece and Rome were based on the institution of slavery. During the same time, there was also a clear distinction between monarchy and Republic, between aristocracy and democracy. To be more precise, the ancient civilized states of Greece and Rome were slave-owning state because the institution of slavery was at the heart of state, irrespective of the fact whether it was monarchy, aristocracy or democracy. Just like the ancient history, in which there have been revolutionary struggles between the monarchical and republican states between the Greece and Rome. But the crude fact is that, this wasn’t a kind of revolution because the slaves were not being regarded as human beings.[1] In all forms either monarchic, republic or aristocratic, state was the monarchy of slave-owners, republic of slave-owners and aristocracy of slave-owners. Moreover, the slaves were known as ‘Chattels’, who were the exploited class in the ancient Rome and Greece, even the killing of a slave was not considered a crime—Indeed, this is a biggest shame for the most civilized societies ever remained in human history. In the meantime, the same shame goes for the self-styled modern civilized western societies, which had exploited the whole globe through colonialism and genocide.

Similarly, in the ancient times under the Aristocracy, there was certain class, who use to participate in the elections while the rest cannot. Likewise, under democracy, though everyone was allowed to participate in the elections but everyone doesn’t mean slaves. Perhaps, this crude historical fact throws much light on the question of the state, which clearly demonstrates the nature of the state. With the evolution and human progress, the forms of exploitations had also transformed from slavery to Feudalism and from Feudalism to Capitalism. Moreover, the whole history of slavery from the ancient civilized societies to modern civilized European societies was the product of state and private property. The vicious era of European colonialism was hampered by massive economic exploitation, genocide and mass massacres across the colonies. Although, there have been bourgeoisie criticism on the European colonialism but heinous crimes were never contemplated through the eyes of the exploited. [2] Because, the post-colonial citizens were now the subjects of western imperialism and the whole idea of imperialism has always revolved around the idea of indirect occupation.

In this regard, throughout the course of history of state and society under different form of governments was based on class exploitation—basically, the class division is the essence of the state. During the age of feudalism in Europe, Monarchy and Feudalism were part of the upper echelons of the European society—under Feudalism only feudal lords were the rulers of the system and the rest of the people were serfs. Likewise, the peasant serfs were absolutely deprived of the political rights. Likewise, neither under slavery nor under Feudal system could a small minority of people dominated over the majority without coercion.[3] If we dig out the exploitative phase of slavery, there have been numerous wars of emancipation and wars of submission. This also happened during the civil war in America, during which the blacks fought for the emancipation against the whites. According to Marxist criticism, it is the long history of exploitation of the ordinary masses during the age of slavery and feudalism that gave birth to modern capitalism. Thus, the nature of state under Capitalism is vivid because it consists of two major classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariats –whereas the bourgeoisie dominates every structure of the state while the proletariats are under domination within that particular structure of the state.

If we talk about communism in Germany, the German communist party has adopted the name ‘Sparticists’ in opposition because they opposed the bourgeoisie state in Germany and the rule of bourgeoisie as a whole. They adopted the name ‘Spartacus’ because he was one of the hero of the Spartan wars against the slavery, which took place about two thousand years ago. It was the Roman Empire which had solely relied on human slavery for centuries but faced major blows and attacks from the army of Spartacus. In this regard, the Spartacans emerged as the major force against the slavery in Rome because the rich and glory of the Roman Empire was indulged with slave trade and massive exploitation from the Far-colonies. Likewise, if we overhaul the history of modern slavery, it was birth of Capitalism that has transformed the feudal serfs and peasants into modern labor slaves. Moreover, during the Medieval Times Feudal society represented the major division of classes, which includes the vast majority of peasants and serfs, who were subjected to an insignificant minority—mainly the land-owners or landlords. Basically, it was the development of the trade and the development of the community exchange that led to the emergence of the new class—the Capitalists.

In contrast, it was the discovery of the New World—especially America, when the quantity of precious metals increased, with the increase in the supply of more silver and gold, these precious Metals slowly became the medium of exchange. Likewise, the increase in the amount of silver and gold made it possible for individuals to possess tremendous wealth. In this way, the new capitalist class became the custodian of vast material wealth; precious metals such as Gold and Silver in large amount. Likewise, with rapid development of trade and with the accumulation of the enormous wealth, the shape of old class divisions disappeared and new form of class-divisions appeared on the surface of the society in the form bourgeoisie capital owners and labor or proletariats. The industrial owners were the real owner of capital, land and labor while ordinary exploited working class owned nothing except his labor power. In this regard, according to the definition of Modern state, everybody is equal before the law whether bourgeoisie or proletariats irrespective of their wealth and power. But in reality, that is not the case, people who own the means of production and capital are the one who controls every structure of the state. Therefore, state in the context of modern capitalism does not treat bourgeoisie and the proletariats on equal basis of law.

For Lenin, in order to understand the struggle that has been started against the world of Capital, to understand the nature of capitalist state, then we must have understanding about the process when the capitalist state system advanced against the feudal state structure. In the latter context, the abolition of Feudalism meant liberty for the owners and representative of the Capitalist state, which serves the interest of the Capitalist owners at large. Thus, the nature of the modern state is engulfed with the protection and security of the property and wealth of the capitalist owners. Though, the peasants became the property owners in the modern capitalist and civilized state when the landowners surrendered a small fraction of their land property to peasants but this property was given in compensation or for rent. This whole episode didn’t concern the state because it was the existence of private property that actually gave birth to state. Moreover, when the land owners surrendered a small fraction of their property to peasants, during which the capitalist state protected private ownership by rewarding the compensation. The peasants were allowed to be owners of new property but that was commenced with new state sponsored exploitative social structure. Moreover, the state had also assured complete security and protection of the private property owners in order to secure the exploitative phase of the state. While combating Feudalism, the state has created a new kind of power structure that protected and proclaimed the freedom of the property—hence, in this way, the modern capitalist state became the class-state.

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[1] The Roman law regarded them as ‘Chattels’—because no property and legal securities were guaranteed to the slaves. The Roman law only defended the rights of Slave-owners, who were only recognized as the citizens of Rome by the Roman Constitution.

[2] Famous post-colonial theorist and writer Frantz Fanon in his famous book ‘The Wretched of the Earth’ clearly explained the dialectical relation of the post-colonial subject with colonialism.

[3] Basically, V.I Lenin wrote about this in his famous lecture “on the nature of the state’ in which he called state as an obsolete phenomenon because it was the nature of human society (Class-division) that gave birth to the existence of the state. In the Gramscian context, it was the culture hegemony in the society that gave birth to the nature of the state—the nature of the state.