Our interview with Nicos Poulantzas on 'The State and the Transition to Socialism' in the last issue of International has aroused considerable interest. Below, CARL GARDNER reflects on some of the points raised in that interview, while PHIL HEARSE reviews Poulantzas' book, The Crisis of the Dictatorships — Portugal, Spain, Greece (New Left Books, 1976).
International is to be congratulated on publishing Henri Weber's interview with Nicos Poulantzas (Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. [illegible]). It is certainly one of the most accessible contributions to the [illegible] the nature of the state and socialist strategy. However [illegible] the first [illegible] constitute one of the most sophisticated attempts to [illegible] agree [illegible] (despite Poulantzas' avowed differences with both). One [illegible] be aware that the theoretical elaboration of the 'left' intelligentsia of the European Communist Parties has not ceased — there is some creative life within them yet. It is a pity that such creative thought as does emerge revolves consciously or unconsciously around the 'internal' needs of an intelligentsia which fears both being outflanked to the left by revolutionaries and making a decisive break with the [illegible] reality. Trotskyism, as a political current, has much to learn [illegible] Trotskyist orthodoxy far preferable in this case, far more consistent and ultimately far more applicable to the tasks which confront us than Poulantzas' iconoclastic theorisations.
It is necessary to look at Poulantzas' positions more closely. In doing so one is continually amazed (one could say that Weber was dazzled) by the subtle sleight of hand which enables him to try to ride two different horses at once. Unfortunately, because of the extreme difficulty of this acrobatic feat, he consistently falls off one or the other. But Weber allows him to swiftly remount, by shifting the terrain of the debate or allowing him to shift it. (It is only fair to add that an examination of the inconsistencies of Poulantzas' 'quicksilver' politics must be easier in retrospect than in the heat of a verbal debate.)
The first thing to note — and a point on which Weber does not touch — is the extent to which his positions are developed from his study in The Crisis of the Dictatorships of the rapid liberalisation/democratisation processes in the last four years in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Such conclusions as are drawn in that work — about the undoubtedly important role played by the splits within the state apparatus, corresponding in turn to splits within the national bourgeoisie and their differential links with American imperialism — are now applied willy-nilly to the situation in France, that is, to a [illegible] surely not faced with the task of emerging from dictatorship to liberal democracy, but of going from that [illegible] does not immediately threaten their interests (indeed facilitates the process of exploitation). But this is not the case in France, or any other of the Northern European capitalist states. So that analogy, drawn from 'concrete, historical' experience, is somewhat wide of the mark. That is not to say that we have nothing to learn from those experiences, but that that specific feature of the Southern European situations is not something which can be usefully generalised to the liberal democratic states. Indeed, it would be misleading to do so.
To demonstrate the essential continuity between The Crisis of the Dictatorships and these latest formulations on France, one need only note this lengthy passage from the last chapter of that work, where all the ambiguous themes to which this essay addresses itself find full expression:
'On the one hand, if the popular masses wish to win the leadership of the process for themselves, and therefore their own bases of political power, they must organise without fail forms of popular power at the base... outside and parallel to the state apparatuses proper... On the other hand, however, and particularly in so far as there is no immediate transition to socialism, these forms of popular power cannot be organised in a central coordinating instance of a dual power type (the soviet model)... to the extent that these forms of power, while they are indispensable if the leadership of the process is to devolve on the popular masses, cannot assume at this stage a centralised organisational structure, and develop the framework of a parallel state, they must of necessity depend on the existing state apparatus itself... Not only can there be no question of "smashing" it at this stage, but its "democratisation" must not involve its dismantling' (pp. 151-2).
It is with an unravelling of this veritable Pandora's Box that the rest of this essay aims to concern itself.
Another point not taken up by Weber is the relation between Poulantzas' previous theorisations of the nature of the bourgeois state and his present more concretised positions. If one adopts the principal conceptions of, say, his early debate with Miliband — that of the state as an over-elaborated, expansive set of social relations encompassing areas of social/cultural life not previously located within the state, such as education, the media, the family (!) and the trade unions (!) — then his present views become more comprehensible. The split within such 'ideological apparatuses' of the state — and this is not to accept Poulantzas' categories — becomes much more credible. Within these areas of his 'expanded' state (indeed one could say of some of his formulations, his endless state) that split becomes a serious perspective, as part of a process of civil polarisation. In fact, within this framework, 'split' becomes a simple shorthand for such a necessary and unavoidable process of polarisation. But the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois state — counterposed in Poulantzas' earlier writings to the expanded 'ideological apparatuses' of the state — is a totally different prospect. It is through confusion and 'slippage' between these previous categories that Poulantzas is able to make his present concretisations of previously abstract formula, in the specific case of France, more tenable.
But what then is Poulantzas' general position? The essence of it is founded in an essentially correct critique of the monolithic, instrumentalist conception of the state held by large sections of the revolutionary left. This has been elaborated in previous debates. But he then goes on from this observation — that we should take careful note of and act on the contradictions within the state apparatus — to the illegitimate conclusion that it is within the locus of these internal contradictions that we must situate the most decisive socialist interventions.
It is here that the skilful ambiguity of Poulantzas' positions finds fullest expression. This ambiguity is disguised by a magical sleight of hand, which enables him to equate and intermingle two essentially opposed positions — the traditional revolutionary and reformist. Such 'magic' can be spotted at two critical points in the discussion. On the one hand he says: 'I think that nowadays the perspective of the [illegible]'. [illegible] hand he talks of '... a struggle [within the state apparatus] which is, if you like, a struggle of resistance, a struggle designed to sharpen the internal contradictions of the state, to carry out a deep-seated transformation of the state' (p.4). (My emphasis in both cases.)
In these examples, 'transformation of the state' takes on two totally opposed meanings. In the first case it refers to a neutralisation and subsequent breaking up of the coherent forces of the state (and presumably its replacement by something else — a 'smashed' state is useful to neither class). In the other case he clearly implies the reformation of the present state for working class ends.
This ambiguity ([illegible] evolved as an advancement in revolutionary theory, in response to modern conditions, to avoid the pitfalls of the traditional reformist/revolutionary dichotomy) re-occurs. Poulantzas continually vacillates between two clearly definable interpretations of the significance of the 'internal contradictions' within the bourgeois state. What are the practical implications for revolutionaries of these very real 'contradictions' within the state? Do we work on these contradictions in order to paralyse and render the bourgeoisie's 'executive arm' less effective (in other words a process of 'neutralisation' or even 'sabotage')? Or do we see the possibility of splitting off — of winning significant sections of the state apparatus to the proletarian camp? The first is absolutely essential — a vital tactic within the whole revolutionary 'war'. The second is notoriously fraught with danger and constitutes a dangerous concession to gradualism and the reliance on a peaceful transition to socialism. Weber makes this second point very forcefully, but is not directly answered.
There is one situation in which it is possible that a significant section of the state apparatus may defect to the proletarian camp — that is under conditions of an overt threat of a military coup. However, a precondition of such a defection would be precisely the erection of an alternative armed proletarian power, necessarily embodied in dual power organs, which could oppose such a coup and protect the defectors from reprisal by the military. This is a point discussed later. As well as precluding dual power, Poulantzas gets this process the wrong way round — on his model, as we shall see, it is the split itself which is supposed to obviate such an overt repressive reaction by the bourgeoisie.
Of course, Poulantzas wriggles out of this problem by an admitted recognition of the necessary dual nature of revolutionary struggle — both within the state (to reform, split or neutralise?) and '... a parallel struggle, a struggle outside the institutions and apparatuses, giving rise to a whole series of instruments, means of coordination, organs of popular power at the base, structures of direct democracy at the base. This form of struggle would not aim to centralise a dual power type of counter-state, but would have to be linked with the first struggle' (my emphasis). The exact nature of this 'linking' is never, of course, specified. The possibility of conflict between the two struggles is never considered.
We can further elaborate the weaknesses in Poulantzas' positions by reference to two concrete examples of 'contradictions' within the bourgeois state — one British, and one Italian. The British state is probably the most fully articulated and widest in social scope in the whole of the capitalist world. This is due in part to the relatively undimmed power of the working class after the Second World War and the subsequent acquisition within the orbit of the state of extensive social service/welfare provisions and large-scale nationalisations of industry. It is also undoubtedly riddled with contradictions. In particular, more work needs to be done on the whole question of the conflict within the state of individual or sectional interests or needs, and the internal disruption/inefficiency this causes.
For example, it is a fact that the Price Commission — a recent addition to the British bourgeois state's armoury, which helps to mediate faction-fights within the bourgeoisie — defends with frantic jealousy its wide-ranging statistical knowledge/information, even from other sections of the state apparatus such as the Inland Revenue or the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. Such knowledge could be vital in the effective working of other sectors of the state, for the good of the bourgeois social order as a whole.
The principal reasons for this 'blockage' within and between these sections of the bourgeois state are two-fold. First, there is a very real fear within individual capitalist concerns involved in the Price Commission's statistics that such information will reach, in particular, the Inland Revenue. What precisely capitalist companies which supposedly operate according to bourgeois legality have to hide is not clear! Nevertheless, they have the power via such bodies as the CBI to exercise pressure on the Price Commission to maintain secrecy. Secondly, such secrecy is motivated by a more general suspicion of the circulation of information in an indiscriminate manner. Sections of the state fear that such a process could create invasions of their 'sphere of influence', and individual capitalists fear that such information could in turn reach their competitors.
This is, incidentally, one reason why the 1984ish nightmare of total computerisation of state knowledge/information, concerning individuals or groups, is an unlikely scenario in the short or medium term. It would imply the total socialisation and accessibility of knowledge within the bourgeois state, which for the above reasons is precluded. Contradictions of this kind are structural, not peripheral. But it is one thing to recognise such weaknesses and exploit them, from within and without, to render the bourgeois state less effective in its pro-capitalist functions, thus facilitating in the long term the proletarian seizure of power. It is altogether another to rely on the possibility of significant splits within or between the Price Commission and the Inland Revenue, with resultant defections to the proletarian camp. The contradictions, although incidentally and unconsciously disruptive of the bourgeois state, are firmly located within the framework of the hegemony and maintenance of capitalist rule as a whole.
Of course, Poulantzas may say that this is not the sort of 'contradiction' he has in mind. In that case he should be more specific — he is notably reticent about the exact nature of these crucial, 'internal state contradictions.
The other example concerns a section of the directly repressive state apparatus in Italy — perhaps more relevant to the Weber/Poulantzas debate about the 'final confrontation'. It seems that it is within a consideration of the role of the 'armed bodies of men' that the debate becomes most polarised 'in the last analysis'. Because of the late unification of Italy as a bourgeois state and its subsequent inability to centralise and 'rationalise' its repressive forces adequately, there exist (apart from the regular army) about a dozen distinct sections (or layers) of police/militia. Some of these are semi-privately run, some are linked with and controlled by the state to a greater or lesser extent. Each of these forces has a distinct 'self-interest' and sphere of operation or influence. One does not need much imagination to see how such fragmentation in certain situations of mass confrontation could be potentially dangerous and self-defeating for the Italian bourgeoisie as a whole. In such circumstances, centralisation and coherence of the repressive forces is a must for a bourgeoisie bent on retaining power.
But here again it is one thing to recognise these very fundamental internal contradictions within the bourgeois repressive apparatus, and to exacerbate and take advantage of them from within and without. Again a process of neutralisation and 'sabotage' is involved. It is totally another to rely on the defection of some significant section of those forces to the side of the working class, as part of a strategy. Some sections may indeed defect, under the pressure of an alternative proletarian power. But to rely on that process as an essential part of a revolutionary strategy would be to put a fatal reliance on the potentially progressive nature of at least some sections of the armed forces of the state. Besides, as noted earlier, it is clear that any such significant 'split' or defection would be conditional on the erection and counterposition of an alternative source of potent, armed force organs of proletarian power constituting a dual power situation. This Poulantzas explicitly rejects as a possibility.
This brings us on to a consideration of what precisely Poulantzas does stand for, as opposed to his internally inconsistent and ambiguous formulations, which admit of a wide range of interpretation. As already indicated, he explicitly rejects the possibility of dual power situations, the centralisation of organs of working class control and democracy at the base into a coherent and oppositional whole principally outside the bourgeois state. Secondly, talking about France, he is adamantly committed to the implementation of the Common Programme of the Union of the Left — but in his case implemented by the pressure of the mass mobilisations of the working class.
Yet the contrast between his treatment of the two 'strategies' is very instructive. His rejection of 'dual power' as an option, when the ambiguities are pushed to one side, rests principally on the contention that the bourgeoisie would not permit such a counter-state to be erected:
'You surely don't think that in the present situation they will let you centralise parallel powers to the state aiming to create a counter-power. Things would be settled before there were even the beginnings of a shadow of a suspicion of such an organisation' (p. 10).
In other words, he uses one of the traditional arguments of reformism against revolutionary socialism — going 'too far, too fast', will only lead to repression, so we have to be reasonable, moderate and unalarming to the bourgeoisie, to avoid such a response. The corollary of this is that, if tackled slowly, the power of the bourgeoisie can be taken away by a series of gradual reforms, backed by a democratic majority. The Chilean Communist Party would have endorsed such sentiments every time! And this is precisely what he has to say about the road to socialism as (hypothetically) realised by the implementation of the Common Programme:
'I no longer think that there is a real anti-capitalist alternative outside or alongside the road of the Common Programme. There is currently no other way possible' (Poulantzas' emphasis).
This is justified by a brief elaboration of what a left government committed to the Common Programme in France could do to break the power of the bourgeois state democratically:
'Even on the simple basis of ensuring the dominance of its own political elite, the left government will be forced to make changes in the institutional forms as well as the people. In the judiciary, for instance, if they don't want to end up very quickly in an Allende-type situation, they will be forced — I repeat, even from the viewpoint of continuing the elite system — to break the power of the Council of Magistrates, to change the normal rotation of judges, etc.' (p.10, my emphasis).
This would seem to imply something rather paradoxical — that the bureaucratisation of the Communist and Socialist Parties isn't such a bad thing after all. Indeed, it seems it can be fitted into a strategic schema that means that these parties will be forced, by the need of their own bureaucracies to perpetuate themselves, to make decisive inroads into, for example, the bourgeoisie's control of the state judiciary. This even applies to other sections of the state too: '... we can justifiably suppose that a left government will have no alternative but to take significant measures to democratise the police...' (p. 10).
One could ask, of course, why this 'safe course' didn't occur in Chile. If one was cynical and consistent, following Poulantzas' line, one could conclude that the Chilean CP and SP weren't bureaucratised enough to force them to take the necessary steps, driving them unintentionally in a revolutionary direction.
To be fair, one must add that Poulantzas characteristically wriggles out of this dilemma by his ritualistic, but face-saving, reference to the working class: 'And then that, linked to the mass movements at the base, will allow you to weigh up the possibilities of a split' (p. 10, my emphasis). This formula, however, again plunges him right back into the problem of the 'split perspective' previously examined. Again, too, there is no significant explanation of the exact nature of this 'linking' (i.e. through what forms and organs?). Such links are not abstract, spontaneous entities — they must be institutionalised and embodied in distinct forms. Such forms continually tend to go outside the framework of the bourgeois state and to develop in a dual power direction.
Poulantzas, although granting some autonomy to the mass movement, would have us continually re-insert such mobilisations back within the Common Programme framework — for their own good!
However, the most worrying aspect of the whole strategy is that nowhere does he explain why the bourgeoisie and its state will not allow the formation of 'dual power' organs outside the state, but will allow a radical process of reform, of democratisation and replacement of pro-bourgeois personnel within the state. After all, these measures are, according to Poulantzas, precisely the kinds of initiatives which will enable the working class to move towards socialism most effectively and irretrievably.
Unfortunately for Poulantzas' cosy picture, the bourgeoisie tend to have a rather low tolerance of substantial, potentially fatal (to them) changes within the state or the economy. They are also not particularly fussy whether such changes are brought about through parliament or in an extra-parliamentary manner. The main danger on Poulantzas' model is that the working class would have no alternative self-confident, centralised organs on which to rely, either to oppose and thwart purely economic measures — sabotage or investment strikes — or more repressive, military ones. (All this of course possibly occurring before the hypothetical split in the bourgeois state, which for Poulantzas represents the way out of the dilemma.)
A course of even temporary reliance on the bourgeois state/parliament to achieve basic, preliminary objectives would almost certainly leave the working class disarmed in the face of a massive 'change in the rules' by the bourgeoisie.
Poulantzas' commitment to the road of the Common Programme in France, supposedly still linked to a revolutionary perspective, is further illuminated by consideration of the following statement:
'The left will be in power with a programme much more radical than has ever been the case in Italy; committed to implementing it, which will really upset some of its components; already embarked on a process of democratisation of the state, faced with an enormous popular mobilisation giving rise to forms of direct democracy at the base... but at the same time limiting itself to the project of the Common Programme.
'So the real problem is to know how we can intervene in this process in order to deepen it' (p.9, my emphasis).
OK, there is, as usual, something for everyone there, but it is important to note specifically his terminology. It is the job of revolutionaries — amongst which he numbers himself — to 'deepen' the strategy of the Common Programme. This is not just an accidental use of words — it occurs again: 'The question is to extend and deepen the road of the Common Programme and to prevent social-democratic stagnation, which is not necessarily written into it like original sin' (p. 12, my emphasis).
The first illegitimate assumption, underlying the whole way he poses the comparison between Weber's position and his own, is that the revolutionary left outside the CP does not regard the Common Programme as a necessary stage in the ripening of a revolutionary situation in France. That is not the point at issue. The revolutionary left acknowledges that the establishment of a CP/SP government is a necessary experience through which the French working class will have to pass on the road to a revolutionary transformation of society (though the recent divisive dispute between the CP, SP and the Left Radicals has once more thrown this into question!).
However, we see it as vital to break with the politics of the Common Programme as soon as possible if the pitfalls of such a policy are to be avoided. That must be the thrust of a revolutionary strategy, rooted within the context of mass mobilisations — not the relegation of such mobilisations to the role of sources of 'pressure' on a CP/SP administration to carry out reforms leading to the problem-solving 'split' in the state apparatus. Such a policy would amount to the subordination of the explosive and wide-ranging energies of the mass movement to the bureaucratic and parliamentary (legal) manoeuvres of unashamedly reformist parties.
But this is not the language which Poulantzas uses. He speaks unambiguously of 'extending' and 'deepening' the Common Programme, not 'breaking with' it or 'going beyond' it. It is in such nuances of language, given the contradictory and ambiguous clues offered elsewhere, that we must seek Poulantzas' real politics.
Yet he does say enough about the mass movement — the activities of the working class outside of parliament — credit him with some realisation of the viability of revolutionary action. This is clear despite the fully articulated confusion which Poulantzas offers as a dialectical breakthrough solution to modern problems. It is for this reason that we have to categorise Poulantzas as a fully-formed, theoretically sophisticated centrist in the classical sense. Here we see a new centrism very painstakingly and carefully expressed. Poulantzas does vacillate precisely between reform and revolution, merging and submerging the two. He then goes on to theorise this very ambiguity, within the framework of the scenario of the 'split' in the state apparatus.
We can use the term 'centrism' in relation to Poulantzas in an uncontrived manner — unlike its application to, say, the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, or Lotta Continua in Italy, for whom it is an insulting and unwarranted epithet. He alone has been able to make a virtue of this ambiguity between reform (as represented by the Common Programme) and revolution, maintaining that the two can co-exist and aid each other on the road to socialism.
POSTSCRIPT. On finishing this article I re-read the debate between Miliband and Poulantzas (New Left Review 58, 59, 62 and 95) and came across a cryptic but very prophetic thesis in Miliband's reply to Poulantzas (NLR 59):
'... if the state elite is as totally imprisoned in objective structures as is suggested, it follows that there is really no difference between a state ruled by, say, bourgeois Constitutionalists, whether conservative or social-democrat, and one ruled by, say, Fascists... This is an ultra-left deviation... and it is the obverse of a right deviation which assumes that changes in government, for instance the election of a social-democratic government, accompanied by some changes in the personnel of the state system, are sufficient to impart an entirely new character to the nature and role of the state.'
We can see how both these 'deviations' are contained in an embryonic, developing form in Poulantzas' latest positions. His false analogy between the developments in the state structures of the former dictatorships in Southern Europe and the likely developments in the advanced Northern European liberal-democratic states, remarked on earlier, clearly tends in the direction of what Miliband calls the 'ultra-left deviation'. This is combined with a much more recognisable rightward shift in his explanation of a strategy rooted in the CP/SP Common Programme in France, where the replacement of state personnel is given a central emphasis.
1. NLR 58; Miliband, 'The [illegible] Poulantzas', in NLR 59.