Lenin: State and Revolution: Chapter 5 (Part 2)

First Phase of Communist Society

To avoid confusion, it must be pointed out that Marx speaks of two phases of “Communism”– a lower and a higher. By convention, the first or lower phase has become known as “Socialism” and the higher or advanced stage as “Communism” proper. Except for direct quotations, I shall use the term “Socialism” to denote what Marx calls the first phase of Communism and “Communism” to refer to what Marx calls the second phase of Communism.

In this section Lenin presents Marx’s remarks on the misguided views of Ferdinand Lassalle, one of the early leaders of the German working class, some of whose opinions he considered pernicious. Specifically, he wanted to disprove Lassalle’s view that workers living under Socialism would get “the full product of their labour.”

The idea was that workers would not be exploited because under Socialism: “to each according to his work” meant if I created $100 of social wealth that is what society would give back as part of my disposable income. Not so, according to Marx. The Socialist state has to deduct from wages some money to put aside as a “reserve fund” to make improvements in production and maintain infrastructure. It also needs to deduct money for a social consumption fund to pay for schools, hospitals, pensions, aid to people who are sick or cannot work, salaries for public employees, etc. If each of these two funds got $10, then for every $100 of social wealth I created I would only get back $80 for my disposable income.

The state, just as the former capitalist, would be taking $20 of the value I create. This accounts for the “social” in Socialism. The difference is that capitalists would take the surplus value I create and use it for themselves whilst the State would spend it on things I could not provide for myself- medical services, rent subsidies, price controls so that food was cheap and available, the secret police to keep the capitalists from making a comeback, etc.

In Marx’s words: “What we are dealing with here is not a Communist society which has developed on its own foundations, but on the contrary, one which is just emerging from capitalist society, and which therefore in all respects – economic, moral and intellectual – still bears the birthmarks from the old society from whose womb it sprung.”

This is the lower, right after the revolution, phase of “Communism”, AKA “Socialism.” Socialism covers this whole first phase out of which the second phase, true Communism, will hopefully emerge. Unfortunately none of the revolutions of the 20th century succeeded in even establishing the first phase, let alone the second phase of this project- although some countries are still trying to figure out how to get the first phase going.

Now, Lassalle thought that there must be a “just distribution” of the social wealth under Socialism- “the equal right of each to an equal product of labour.” There would be no inequality under Socialism (and nothing for Piketty and others to complain about). Marx is interested in this idea of “equal right.” He agrees that we have in Socialism “equal rights” but we must understand that “rights” pre-suppose inequality. I can demand the right to vote only if I do not have it. What is the point of demanding what I have?

To demand a “right” is to demand equal standards be applied to all people and people are not really all equal to one another. In the real world, some are smarter, some are richer, some are better educated, some are stronger, etc. In the words of Blake:

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight

Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night. (Auguries of Innocence)

Socialism wants to change these morns and nights, but only Communism will bring sweet delight. Marx says we are still haunted by the bourgeois order when we demand rights because rights are under the regime of “bourgeois right.” As a good dialectician, Marx says that equal rights violates the concept of equality and is actually a form of injustice. Lassalle is wrong and under Socialism justice demands “unequal rights.” Huh?

Suppose under Socialism we get equal pay for equal work. Laura and Judy both get paid the same. Laura is single and saves up some of her pay so she has money to go on trips or to buy extra goodies. Judy is a single mother of two and can’t save up money for trips and extra goodies as three people have to live on her pay. Equal pay results in an unequal outcome. This is the regime of “from each according to his/her ability to each according to his/her work”.

While under Socialism there is no capitalist exploitation of human beings (private property in the means of production having been abolished) Lenin nevertheless points out that Socialism “still cannot produce justice and equality.” This is because under Socialism distribution is governed by “work performed.” Real “justice” and “equality” must await the second or higher form of the transition- Communism where distribution will be governed by need.

“No justice, no peace” is therefore really a temporary slogan limited to the capitalist era since, while under Socialism there is still “no justice” (in an absolute sense) there is nevertheless peace because “bourgeois right” is completely enforced and people understand that they are working together to achieve a future Communist society in which the bourgeois notions of justice and equality will have no meaning.

In the words of Marx: “These defects are unavoidable in the first phase of Communist society [Socialism], when after long travail, it first emerges from capitalist society. Justice can never rise superior to the economic conditions of society and the cultural development conditioned by them.” Critics of the 20th century failures and successes of the Socialist revolutions and their successor states still pursuing their goals in the 21st should be mindful of this insight given by Marx.

Lenin points out that Marx was aware (not being a Utopian) that with the initial overthrow of capitalism and the beginning of Socialism the only standard of fairness and the sense of what is “right” is what was learned under the old system- “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”, “equal pay for equal work,” “a living wage,” etc. “Bourgeois right” is the only standard they will initially have and “a form of state will be necessary, which while maintaining public ownership of the means of production, would preserve the equality of labour and equality in the distribution of products.”

The Socialist state, even as it sets in motion its own withering away, functions at this level to protect bourgeois right and enforces actual inequality. Even under Socialism we understand a better world is possible and that world is explained in the last section of Chapter 5: “Higher Phase of Communist Society.”

This will be discussed in part 3 of the review of State and Revolution Chapter 5

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This post was written by Thomas Riggins