Nicos Poulantzas has established himself as one of the momenta of contemporary [illegible], as an observer has recently noted, a member of a generation which has established 'a certain shift towards economic and political theory, beyond the philosophical perimeter of their elders'. [illegible] precise political consequences of Poulantzas' work have not been clear. The publication of his text on the dictatorships, therefore, gives us an [illegible] to begin to locate Poulantzas' sectarianism; Poulantzas sets out a definite strategic line of march in these countries, which [illegible].
Poulantzas is, as Marxism Today was so keen to [illegible], given the 'interior' CP's catholic attitude to membership. In fact Poulantzas' text turns out to be an extended dialogue with the CPs. Despite many partial qualifications and [illegible] a trace of embarrassment, [illegible] turns out to be a 'left' variant of the line of the CPs themselves.
Fractions of the Bourgeoisie and the Overthrow of the Dictatorships
For [illegible] European countries and the United States. They are characterised by a 'dependent form of [illegible]'. Each [illegible] is divided between a 'national' [illegible] interests of foreign (mainly American) capital, and a 'domestic' bourgeoisie, based on developing industrialisation, partly representing native [illegible], partly [illegible] bourgeoisie based on foreign capital'. [illegible] 'national' bourgeoisie (pp. 41-43).
[illegible] conception must [illegible] dependence characteristic of these states (and [illegible] the existence of 'national independence') and the divisions which Poulantzas alleges [illegible] hence the existence [illegible]. The root of both Poulantzas' errors is his failure to [illegible] consider capital [illegible].
In fact the bourgeoisies of all three countries [illegible] as a means of [illegible] industrialisation, without yielding [illegible] national independence or overall domination of the economy to foreign capital. In Spain, despite all the contradictions, the different sectors of the bourgeoisie (Latifundia, industry, finance) were fused in the post-war period into a relatively homogeneous bloc including the Catalan and Basque bourgeoisies. This was the real 'oligarchy', not a fraction based purely on foreign capital as Poulantzas alleges. In Portugal all sections of big capital welcomed the liberalisation of foreign investment as a motor of economic development. No section of the bourgeoisie based purely on foreign capital existed. In Greece, due to the exceptional strength of finance capital, the industrial monopolies are tied firmly to the banks. The section of the Greek bourgeoisie most firmly tied to outside interests is that based on merchant capital (in the first place shipping). This hardly amounts, however, to a comprador [illegible] 'comprador' bourgeoisies explain nothing [illegible] the reality of these countries. In each case we [illegible].
Poulantzas' position on national independence and national liberation is bound up with his own version of the Maoist 'two superpowers' theory, and most importantly with his [illegible] of the notion of the post-war [illegible] to look forward to [illegible] 'national independence' in France and Italy (p. 133). Evidently he regards the EEC countries as having the same relations of dependence vis-a-vis the USA as do Greece, Spain and Portugal vis-a-vis the USA and the EEC. This approach, which abandons analysis of [illegible] in favour of a sophisticated version of 'ultra-imperialism', provides the theoretical prelude [illegible] 'national independence' in countries which [illegible] are themselves imperialist. [illegible] is this kind of [illegible] which has led sections of the French far left (the PSU and OCT) to launch a campaign in favour of national independence, as against 'an American-Germanic Europe'.
Despite these errors, [illegible] one essential point correct. Given [illegible] advance the process of industrialisation (which goes hand in hand with integration in the EEC), and given the strengthening of the material weight and combativity of the [illegible] important sectors of the [illegible] bourgeoisie (for Poulantzas the 'domestic' bourgeoisie) understood the necessity for democratising the regimes. This immediately poses the central question of working class strategy which is the core of Poulantzas' [illegible] thesis.
For Poulantzas the grave danger is that the democratisation process will take place under the hegemony of the 'domestic bourgeoisie', with the result that the democratic stage will not lead towards socialism but towards the stabilisation of bourgeois democracy (pp. 66-67). How, therefore, can the democratisation stage be gone through without ceding hegemony to the domestic bourgeoisie? Before answering this Poulantzas stops to ask himself, 'whether the main resistance organisations of the popular masses were correct to accept, as they all did do, an alliance with the domestic bourgeoisie... the answer to this is an incontestable "yes"' (p. 59). Although giving this unequivocal answer, he argued that this strategy has in fact led to the domination of the domestic bourgeoisie over the democratisation process. Thus this strategic choice 'bears heavily on the workers' [illegible].
The strategic choice of the CPs was of course made in accordance with the dogma of the necessity of a democratic stage, with its objective [illegible] of tying the working class [illegible]. For Poulantzas the only way forward [illegible] not [illegible] the democratisation stage. What this means is revealed [illegible] organise without [illegible] base (workers control, community and factory [illegible]) outside [illegible] (p. 152). [illegible] no immediate transition to socialism, these forms of popular power cannot be organised in a central co-ordinating instance of a dual [illegible] within which [illegible] for the democratisation process [illegible] democratisation must [illegible] not involve their dismantling... to dismantle, [illegible] a split [illegible] have won in the state (p. 152).
[illegible] strategy of winning bases within the existing capitalist state apparatus, as a precondition to establishing popular hegemony. What are we to make of the extraordinary phrase 'insofar as there is no immediate transition to socialism'? It goes without saying that there can be no 'immediate transition to socialism' without the construction, generalisation and co-ordination of organisations of popular power. But the building of such organisations relies precisely on their progressive appropriation of the functions of the state and hence their counterposition to the existing state apparatus. Again it goes without saying that at the beginning of the emergence of organisations of proletarian power there can [illegible] state. However, the function of the period of the emergence and consolidation of organisations of popular power is precisely to 'dismantle, disarticulate and [illegible]' the existing state apparatus. [illegible] bines the strategy of the CPs (winning bases inside the existing state apparatus) with the construction of organisations of popular power [illegible].
Behind the rhetoric, this thoroughly confused and centrist position is merely a variant [illegible] 'democratic stage' theory. While insisting that the [illegible] must 'without fail' construct organisations of popular power, Poulantzas takes the Portuguese CP to task for confusing the democratic and socialist stages, thus having a dangerously 'leftist' policy. His theoretical backing for all this is his notion of an 'uninterrupted transition to socialism by stages' which he somewhat oddly counterposes to 'any kind of stages theory' (p. 101). This formulation is obviously an attempt to appropriate Lenin's conception of 'uninterrupted revolution' in Russia. But he takes over the position of Lenin before the April Theses — that the revolution must be under the hegemony of the proletariat but limit itself in the first instance to democratic tasks. This position, proved wrong in Russia, is doubly inappropriate in any modern imperialist country. But the fact that it is after all a stages theory is demonstrated when Poulantzas deals with Portugal up to and including the defeat of 25 November 1975: 'We did not see a defeat of a transition to socialism that was under way. At no point in the period in question did the Portuguese situation really break through the limits of the democratisation stage' (p. 135).
The socialist and democratic tasks of the Portuguese revolution are not intertwined but part of separate stages. Poulantzas' stages are uninterrupted... because they follow one another! Any serious and upright Stalinist would take Poulantzas to task for [illegible] with organisations of 'popular power' in the democratisation stage. However they are [illegible] towards the 'disarticulation' of the existing state apparatus — something understood by Eanes and Soares in Portugal, but not understood by Poulantzas.
Poulantzas and the State
The real junction of this text with Poulantzas' more general theoretical positions is the theory of the state. In guise of a polemic against the supposed 'neutrality' of the state, he argues that 'the state is not a thing or a structure' which can be captured 'but a relation'. The mechanical separation of the state and civil society is 'characteristically Hegelian'. The interpenetration of the state and civil society (which in reverse, as it were, justifies the notion of 'ideological state apparatuses') means that the state is 'riven with class contradictions' and is a 'condensation of a balance of forces' (p. 92). This is not the Marxist theory of the state. However mediated the relations between the state apparatus and the ruling class, the state remains a structure expressing the domination of a particular class. For Marxists, the state is by definition a class state. Class contradictions are not taken into the heart of the state apparatus. In arguing that the state is 'riven by class contradictions' and 'expresses the balance of forces', Poulantzas comes close to conceding what he is polemicising against — the neutrality of the state. Certainly, in view of this conception it is easy to understand how establishing proletarian bases inside the existing state apparatuses can be seen as part of establishing popular hegemony. Marxist theory has always stressed the relative autonomy of the state from civil society, which makes it impenetrable to the establishment of 'proletarian bases'. This is the very foundation of the Marxist theory of the political as the linchpin of all social relations. Any other theory reduces the capitalist state to the expression or the arbiter of social conflicts. In this case the struggle for proletarian power can take place right across civil society, eventually being expressed in the state apparatuses. This allegedly 'Gramscian' [illegible] politics and the state on its head. Eventually Poulantzas reaches the characteristically ambiguous conclusion that the 'smashing' of the state apparatuses requires not just a change in personnel but 'a radical change in their actual [illegible] structure'.
As we have seen, Poulantzas' politics are of a [illegible] centrist rather than simply reformist [illegible]. [illegible], indeed, the inevitability of doing so — he is at pains to stress the dangers involved. He argues that an historic compromise can only [illegible] certain people, thus [illegible] thinly disguised way raps the Italian CP over the knuckles. But the French [illegible] the Spanish [illegible] being more [illegible] followers of the democratic stage than [illegible] approval (bizarrely he laments [illegible] of the [illegible] Carrillo variety, in Portugal). And the [illegible] apparatuses [illegible] amongst [illegible] most right-wing in Europe. If this pot-pourri of confusion has any influence whatever, it can only be regretted. It is precisely the kind of [illegible] 'justification' that is not needed.
[illegible] This is not to say that there is necessarily a direct junction between his theoretical and political positions. In a future text we shall attempt a more extensive [illegible] of Poulantzas' work, especially Political Power and [illegible]. [illegible] first [illegible] towards a critique of Poulantzas is the article [illegible] Strategic Problem by Simon Clarke in the CSE bulletin, Capital and Class, No. 2.
[illegible] openly Trotskyist group works inside the 'interior' CP.
4. See Al. Soler, 'The New Spain', NLR 58.
5. See R. Blackburn, NLR 87-88, pp. 7-8.
6. See the article by Nicos Mouzelis in NLR [illegible] against [illegible] by Poulantzas, Classes and Contemporary Capitalism, Chapter 1. For the revolutionary Marxist view see E. Mandel, Europe vs America, NLB 1970. For a theoretical and [illegible] view [illegible] resemblance [illegible] Critique Communiste 14/15, March-April 1977.