Draper sums-up Marx's approach to the state

The end of chapter 23 marks the end of Draper's book. (Except that there are still several hundred pages of appendices, notes, and indexes to go.)

The final section of chapter 23 serves as a kind of summation of themes Draper has explicated in rich detail in the preceding 520 pages.

***

Hal Draper. Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution. Volume 1: State and Bureacracy. 1977.

From Chapter 23, Section

5. THE GENERAL THEORY OF THE STATE

....Engels presented the basic formularization of the socioeconomic foundation of the state structure. It is expressed in terms broad enough to include the normal class interpretation of the normal state; that is, it underlies the class formula. Like the latter, it is put in terms of executors. Writing specifically of the complex role of the Russian state absolutism, Engels stated:

All governments, be they ever so absolute, are en dernier lieu [in the last analysis] but the executors of the economic necessities of the national situation. They may do this in various ways, good, bad and indifferent; they may accelerate or retard the economic development and its political and juridical consequences, but in the long run they must follow it.35 

This, Engels continued, was why the industrial revolution in Russia was unavoidable.

This was no new thought for Engels, even in this aphoristic form. He had met the same problem in a similar way, if from another direction, in 1875. In the essay against Tkachov, as mentioned, Engels showed how the interests of the various classes are the material bases on which the state stands, instead of hanging inthe air. But he does not turn the Tkachov fantasy over on its other side by trying to prove that this Russian state is simply the instrument of a particular class. The conclusion he comes to is put as follows: 

Not only the Russian state in general but even its specific form, the czarist despotism, instead of hanging in the air, is the necessary and logical product of the Russian social conditions with which, according to Mr. Tkachov, it has “nothing in common”!36 

This is a formula for the nature of the state which cuts behind—or deeper than—the normal class formula.* 

The relation between these two formulas can now be understood to state the full content of Marx’s theory of the state:

Under normal conditions—conditions of relative stability in society—the necessary product of the social conditions is the accession of a particular class to the unshared domination of the state power. But this can hardly be the product in a period when a societal transition is still unresolved. It cannot be the product when classes are still struggling for dominion in an undecided contest; in such a flux the state’s class content will reflect the state of the war. Nor can it be the necessary product in a situation such as Russia’s, driven into the maelstrom of social revolution from above, where no class of civil society was capable of acting as “executors of the economic necessities of the national situation.” 

In this Russian case, what was needed was a class whose own interests impelled it to act as the instrument to save the real interests of all the social strata that had a stake in the ongoing society, to save them by saving the society itself from the collapse which was the only alternative to the social transformation . This is what defines “the economic necessities of the national situation,” not in terms of the interests of any single class, but in terms of the class constellation as a whole.

The only social power that could perform this function was the state apparatus. In this way the state acts as the Gesamteinheit—the overall Unity—not simply of “society” in the abstract, but of all class elements whose real interests rest on the maintenance of social exploitation in one form or another. 

And the maintenance of social exploitation in one form or another, in the midst of the Russian transmogrification, had a very concrete meaning, capable of being figured in rubles. In general, we here meet a phenomenon that was also important in Western Europe in the eventual bourgeoisification of the feudalaristocracy itself, insofar as the latter reconciled itself to the inevitability of change instead of inviting a 1789 type of revolutionary convulsion. Both the old and the new ruling class—the landowning nobles and the bourgeois—were equally property-owning, exploitive classes. The revolution from above was a shift from one mode of extracting surplus labor to another. This was also the reason why a revolution from above was possible . The old ruling class in crisis learns that, at any rate, this sort of revolution offers them some very comforting mitigations of the indignity forced upon them: namely, continued economic privileges to one degree or another. (We had occasion to make this point in Chapter 14 regarding the Bismarckian development.)38

But this consolation prize depends on channeling the inescapable revolution into a form that maintains social exploitation in one form or another. It is not usually just one of the contending classes themselves that can undertake the organization of this redistribution of power; as we have pointed out elsewhere, it is difficult for one sector of the capitalist class, for example, to referee the internecine struggles of competing capitalists to make sure that the system is not shaken apart by the melee. In the Russian case, it is the state that acted as the executor for the interests of class society as a whole.

Autonomous from any particular class of civil society, it could embody what the contenders had in common: the need to ensure the conditions under which to continue the extraction of surplus labor from the mass of people.

This spells out the class content of Engels’ formulation of the theory of the state: the state, “necessary and logical product of the [given] social conditions,” is always in the last analysis “the executor of the economic necessities of the national situation.” Thus it is always the organizer of society in the interests of the class (exploitive) structure taken as a whole. This is the general theory of the state in Marx and Engels.

Within its framework lies the special theory of the state which applies to normal times and conditions in roughly the same way as Euclidean geometry applies to normal space. It is the view of the state as the managing committee of a ruling class with which we started in Chapter 11.

Normality here is a function of the process of change. The more rapid the change—the more revolutionary the times, the more history is caught in the flux of becoming—the more does the special theory begin to warp away from a close match with reality, and the more does the general theory of the state become applicable in order to explain the pattern of political power in the process of social transformation.

Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I, Hal Draper.

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=5wxVBAAAQBAJ

Trump and Bonapartism: Reply to a reader

The Socialist Workers Party does not have one policy during Republican administrations and another for Democratic administrations. 

*

  

 John B. writes:

You may remember that a few months ago I asked why the SWP did not characterize Trump as a Bonapartist, since he would seem to fit the definition to a "T." Back in the '90s they were very quick to describe Ross Perot, Patrick Buchanan and even Jesse Ventura this way.

I know you're not a member of the SWP, or even an "organized supporter," but since all of a sudden you're posting articles on the subject, I suspect a line change is imminent, and it will now officially define Trump as a Bonapartist. The problem this poses for them is if they admit it now, the whole edifice of their orientation toward the "Trump Movement" for the last year and a half comes crashing down in a heap. What to do?

My reply:

This blog has posted several articles in the last few days on the Marxist concept of Bonapartism.  I am currently reading Hal Draper's 1977 book Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy.  Chapters 15-18 of that book cover the development of Bonapartism as a scientific classification by Marx and Engels.  They did this while studying living events in France and Germany, focusing on the rule of Napoleon III and Otto Von Bismarck. 

The value of Draper's discussion of Bonapartism is that he grounds the formulation in its historical context, and does not deal with it as an academic abstraction.  Marx and Engels identified Bonapartist elements in the rule not just of Napoleon III and Bismarck, but also Simon Bolivar and several absolutist monarchies in Europe.

The Bonapartist leader, they concluded, was primarily a semi-autonomous arbiter, pretending to be "above" all contending classes, but in fact defending the dictatorship of capital in periods of crisis and polarization.  The Bonapartist leader defended bourgeois rule against the threat of working class organization and political action, and also against threats from capitalists or layers within the ruling class.  [Hence Bismarck's harsh treatment, "for their own good," of Junkerdom.]

Is Trump a Bonapartist?

I disagree with John B.'s statement that Trump is a definitive Bonpartist.  Draper makes clear that under bourgeois rule, with its autonomously functioning capitalist state machinery, there are always elements of an arbitrator function, and of arbitrary executive rule. The U.S. government since 1930s has certainly seen this Bonapartist tendency, as have state and city governments.

The 1990s saw the emergence of figures in bourgeois politics who rejected Republican and Democratic political parties. I would call Perot and Ventura premature wannabe Bonapartes. They presented themselves as "decisive men" and nominated themselves for the role. The appearance of such figures, and the increased use of exclusively executive powers, are complimentary phenomenon. 

Donald Trump has presented himself as an arbitrator, but exclusively within the context of salvaging the fortunes of the Republican Party, not rejecting it.

The Republicans are being remade by Donald Trump, a multibillionaire pretending to speak in the interests of working people while seeking to find policies that further enrich the capitalist class, in a futile attempt to end the inevitable crisis of their system. This has nothing to do with hysteria about “fascism” among liberal and middle-class radicals, Barnes said. In fact, the Trump electoral victory is weakening already marginal ultra-rightist currents, who are unable to gain any traction in U.S. politics. [Source]

Likewise, Trump's use of executive orders is in continuity with the practice of previous U.S. presidents in the modern era.

One executive order issued by Trump on Jan. 25, titled “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” states that it is government policy to extend the wall on the Mexican border, speed up deportations, expand immigration detention facilities and add 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

The order traces its continuity to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, signed by then President Bill Clinton. The average daily population of men, women and children held in immigration detention centers soared from 8,000 before the law to 34,000 in 2014.

 [Source]

Does the SWP orient to a Trump Movement?

I do not speak for the U.S. Socialist Workers Party.  I support its program and activity, as do hundreds of others.  My knowledge of the party's politics and approach is based exclusively on my reading of the party press.  Based on this understanding, I reject the statement that the party has had an "orientation toward the 'Trump Movement' for the last year and a half”.

The Socialist Workers Party has an orientation to the working class.  This is carried out where party members happen to work, as well as in cities where party branches take their literature and program door-to-door in an undifferentiated way in working class districts.

In 2015-2016, this orientation included joining fellow workers at Democratic and Republican campaign rallies.  What party members found in discussions at these events was that workers rejected the Clinton campaign's "Things are great" message.  Trump's demagogy, within the two-party straight-jacket, looked to many like a chance to effect the intolerable status quo. But the SWP has never given an inch to the idea that Trump’s campaign could be a political vehicle; it rejects any suggestion Trump is a tribune for workers.

This is in stark contrast to the approach of a galaxy of bourgeois Democratic Party pundits and promoters, and petty bourgeois left and radical movementarians and activists.  They flattered themselves that supporters of Democratic Party demagogue Bernie Sanders were pay dirt for a new socialist movement in the United States.  These same characters, who eight years ago said they would "make Obama keep his promises" by their mass street actions, spent most of 2016 conducting street actions to disrupt and attack workers interested in checking out Trump events.

The Socialist Workers Party does not have one policy during Republican administrations and another for Democratic administrations. 

This alone makes the party unique in U.S. politics.  No other party in this country can say the same. Quite the contrary! Today liberal-left organizations, media, and sundry outfits attempt to whip-up hysteria among former Clinton and Sanders supporters around issues [abortion, immigrant rights, "imperial presidency"] they have accepted with stunning complacency for the last eight years.

What does the Socialist Workers Party counterpose to  this lesser-evil Groundhog Day?

I'll close with lines from this statement, released today:

The propertied rulers’ capitalist system is in deep crisis today, facing declining profit rates, contraction in production and trade, and growing conflicts over resources and markets. The deepening competition between capitalist rulers worldwide has produced growing carnage, devastating economic crises and dispossession of millions of human beings around the world. Washington and other imperialist powers have engaged in nonstop wars since the turn of the millennium in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.

Workers need our own party to organize independent of the bosses and their political parties, to defend our interests on the road toward taking power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers. The Socialist Workers Party is your party.

Let’s fight together: Unionize all workers! No deportations! Speak out against attacks on Muslims and mosques! All U.S. troops out of the Middle East!

Bolivar and Bonapartism

Chapters 15, 16, 17, and 18 of Hal Draper's Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Vol. 1 contain an incredibly rich and detailed discussion of the development of thinking on Bonapartism by the founders of scientific socialism.

Draper traces the evolution of the concept through the 1840s and 1850s in relation to France and Germany.

He mentions Simon Bolivar, which caught my eye. Our latter-day Bolivar, Hugo Chavez (here and here) saw himself as an inheritor of Simon B.

Draper on Marx and development of a theory of the state

Reading notes on Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution: Volume One:  State and Bureaucracy.

By Hal Draper

Copyright © 1977 by Hal Draper

Draper’s book is incredibly clear and accessible. I find his chapter on the historical materialist explanation of the state very helpful.

II THE THEORY OF THE STATE

11 THE STATE AND SOCIETY

PP 212-235