"Anarchism, Marxism and the Bonapartist State"

Saul Newman, Anarchist Studies, [Volume 12, #1, 2004]

This paper explores the question of state power and sovereignty in radical political theory through an examination of the classical anarchist critique of Marxism. It draws on the Bonapartist moment in Marx's thinking, seeing this as laying the groundwork for the development of a theory of the state as autonomous from class, suggesting that the implications of this argument are only fully realised in anarchism. Anarchism was able to develop a wholly autonomous and specific theory of state power and political authority — one that was irreducible to the Marxist class and economic analysis. I will argue that this had crucial consequences for contemporary radical political theory as it allowed the political dimension to emerge as a separate field of antagonism, demanding its own specific forms of analysis. I then explore the implications of this theoretical terrain through Agamben's analysis of biopower and state sovereignty, and Laclau and Mouffe's 'post-Marxist' understanding of
hegemonic political identification, suggesting that there are important links here with anarchism that could be developed.1. Introduction

It would seem that today, in the conditions of late capitalism and globalisation, the modern state is becoming more dominant in political, social and economic life, rather than less so. This can be seen particularly in the current preoccupation with security and terrorism. The `war on terror'1 serves as the latest ideological justification for the massive centralisation and expansion of state power. This new paradigm of state power opens the way for new political and social conflicts radically different from those that have arisen in the past. This suggests that the problem of state power can no longer be explained in economic terms alone, but rather constitutes its own specific theoretical and political conditions and terms of reference. In other words, new domains and relations of power are emerging — and indeed have been emerging for some time — that can no longer be explained in economic terms, but rather require different modes of analysis.

Because the problem of state power is more crucial now than ever for radical politics, it would be worthwhile returning to one of the most decisive theoretical and political debates over precisely this question. The conflict between Marxism and anarchism over the power, function and relative autonomy of the state, and its role in a social revolution, was a pivotal debate that shaped nineteenth-century radical political thought. This paper examines some of the key aspects of this conflict, focussing on the 'Bonapartist moment' in classical Marxism: that is, the emergence of the theoretical conditions for the relative autonomy of the state. However, I shall show that, despite this innovation, Marxist theory — Marx, as well as subsequent Marxist interventions — was `in the last instance' constrained by the categories of class and economic relations. My contention here will be that classical anarchism took the theory of Bonapartism to its logical conclusion, and was able to devel
op a
concept of the sovereign state as a specific and autonomous site of power that was irreducible to capitalist economic relations. In doing so, anarchism broke radically with Marxism. Therefore, within the theory of Bonapartism lay the theoretical foundations for an `epistemological break' with Marxism itself, allowing for the development of a new analytics of power: one that, to some extent, contributes towards contemporary `poststructuralist' and `post-Marxist' approaches to this question.¹ In this paper, I will examine the implications of Bonapartism by exploring and developing the classical anarchist critique of Marxism, as well as examining its relevance for contemporary radical political theory.

2. Bonapartism

Arguing against the Hegelian idea that the state embodies the general good, Marx saw it always as a particular state, one which paints itself as universal. Its universality and independence from civil society are only a mask for the particular economic interests — such as private property — that it serves (Marx 1970: 107). Marx was later to develop from this the position that the state represented the interests of the most economically dominant class: the bourgeoisie. For Marx, it was the economic forces of society that determined all historical, political, cultural and social phenomena: `the economic structure of society is the real basis on which the juridical and political superstructure is raised, and to which definite social forms of thought correspond; that the mode of production determines the character of the social, political and intellectual life' (1967: 182).

Marx therefore criticises Pierre-Joseph Proudhon for his suggestion that political power could shape the economic system. According to Marx, the state lacks this power because it exists as a mere reflection of the very economic conditions that it is purportedly able to change (`The German Ideology' in Marx and Engels, 1976, vol. 5: 198).

However, while Marx saw the state as largely derivative of the economic forces and class interests, he did at times allow it a substantial degree of political autonomy. His work 'The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte' describes a coup d'etat in France in 1851, in which state forces led by Louis Bonaparte seized absolute power, achieving not only a considerable degree of independence from the bourgeoisie, but often acting directly against its immediate interests. According to Marx, however, the Bonapartist state still served the long term interests of the capitalist system, even if it often acted against the immediate interests and will of the bourgeoisie:

that the individual bourgeois can continue to exploit other classes and to enjoy undisputed property, family, religion and order that their class be condemned along with other classes to similar political nullity; that, in order to save its purse, it must forfeit the crown (`The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte' in Marx and Engels 1976 vo1.7: 143).

To what extent, however, does this account of the Bonapartist state allow for the theorisation of the relative autonomy of the state in Marxism? One of the central debates in Marxist theory has been on precisely this question. David Held and Joel Krieger argue that there are two main strands in the Marxist theory about the relation between classes and the state. The first — let us call it (1a) — exemplified by Marx's account of Bonapartism, stresses the relative autonomy of the state. It sees state institutions and the bureaucracy as constituting a virtually separate site in society: its logic is not determined by class interests and it assumes a centrality in society. The second strand (2a),which Held and Krieger argue is the dominant one in Marxist thought, sees the state as an instrument of class domination, whose structure and operation are determined by class interests (see `Theories of the State' in Bornstein, et al., 4, 1-20).

Held and Krieger also argue that these two contrasting traditions in Marxist thought correspond to two different revolutionary strategies in regards to the state. The first position (1a) would allow the state to be used as a force for revolutionary change and liberation (lb). Because the state is seen as a neutral institution in the sense that it is not essentially beholden to class interests, it can be used to revolutionise capitalism and topple the bourgeoisie from its position of economic dominance. The second position (2a), on the other hand, because it sees the state as essentially a bourgeois state, an instrument of class domination, demands that the state be destroyed as part of a socialist revolution (2b). This is the position exemplified by Lenin in The State and Revolution. This interpretation of the relation between the question of the autonomy of the state, and its role in a socialist revolution, may be represented in the following way:

A Marxist Model

1(a) Autonomous state > 1(b) State as tool of revolution

2(a) Determined state > 2(b) State to be destroyed in revolution

Now it is this dichotomy of state theories and their concomitant revolutionary strategies that could be questioned from an anarchist perspective. It could be argued that it is precisely the second position (2a) — the view of the state as determined by class — that entails the first revolutionary strategy (lb) which allows the state to be used as a revolutionary tool of liberation. Furthermore, one could see the first position (la) — which allows the state relative autonomy — as entailing the second revolutionary strategy (2b) which calls for the destruction of the state in a socialist revolution. This inversion of the traditional Marxist model would be characteristic of an anarchist position:

An Anarchist Model

1(a) Autonomous state > 2(b) State to be destroyed in revolution

2(a) Determined state > 1(b) State as tool of revolution

The reason for this radical overturning of the accepted logic is that the first position (la) comes closest to an anarchist theory of the state. Anarchism sees the state as an autonomous institution — or series of institutions — that has its own interests and logic. It is precisely for this reason that the state cannot be used as a neutral tool of liberation during the time of revolution. Even if it is in the hands of a revolutionary class like the proletariat — as Marx advocated — it still cannot be trusted because it has its own imperatives, beyond the control of the `ruling class'. The time of revolution is when the state institution can least be trusted: it will merely use the opportunity to perpetuate its own power. To regard the state as neutral, then, as strategy (la) does, is dangerous. According to this anarchist logic, moreover, position (2a) — that which sees the state as an instrument of the bourgeoisie — fundamentally misconstrues the nature of state power, imply
ing that
the state is merely a neutral institution subservient to the interests of the dominant class. It is this position which would actually entail revolutionary strategy (lb) — the use of the state as a tool of revolution once in the hands of the revolutionary class. It is really a dispute over the meaning of neutrality: according to the Marxist logic, neutrality would mean independence from class interests, whereas for anarchists, neutrality would imply precisely the opposite — subservience to class interests. This is because the view of state as determined by class interests does not allow the state its own logic: it would appear as a humble servant of class interests and could, therefore, be used as a neutral tool of revolution if it were in the hands of the right class. On the other hand, it is Marx's Bonapartist version of the state that which sees it as a neutral institution not beholden to class interests — that is precisely the logic which, for anarchists, paradoxically d
enies
the neutrality of the state. This is because it allows it to be seen as an autonomous institution with its own logic and which, for this very reason, cannot be seen as a neutral tool of revolution.

It could be argued that anarchism pursues the logic of Bonapartism much further than Marx himself was prepared to take it and, in doing so, entirely turns on its head the Marxist conception of state and revolution. The anarchist conception of the state and its relation to class will be expanded upon later. However, it is necessary at this point to show that while Marx was no doubt opposed to the state, it is precisely the question of how he was opposed to it — as an autonomous Bonapartist institution, or as an institution of bourgeois domination — and the consequences of this for revolutionary strategy, that is crucial to this debate. Nicos Poulantzas, who wanted to emphasise the relative autonomy of the capitalist state, argues that for Marx and Engels Bonapartism is not merely a concrete form of the capitalist state in exceptional circumstances, but actually a constitutive theoretical feature of it (258). This would apparently question determinist interpretations of the sta
te in
Marxist theory. Ralph Miliband, on the other hand, argues that for Marx and Engels, the state was still very much the instrument of class domination (5).

So what is one to make of this disparity in the interpretations of Marx's theory of the state? Marx himself never developed an entirely consistent theory of the state, pointing perhaps to a theoretical deadlock that he was unable to overcome. There are times when he appears to have a very deterministic and instrumental reading of the state, when he says, for instance: `the State is the form in which individuals of a ruling class assert their common interests' ('The German Ideology' in Marx and Engels, 1976 vo1.5: 90). Nevertheless, the theory of Bonapartism opened the way for a more heterogeneous approach to the question of the state and its relative autonomy.

3. Autonomous or Determined State?

So how should we approach this central ambiguity in Marxism? There is no clear answer to this. But at the risk of sounding like trying to enforce some cohesion onto Marx's thoughts on this subject that he himself maybe never intended, perhaps one can say the following: while one can clearly reject the crude functionalist reading of the state, and while allowing the state a considerable degree of political autonomy in certain instances, one could still say that, for Marx, the state is in essence class domination. By this I mean that while the state is by no means the simple political instrument of the bourgeoisie and, indeed, as Marx himself shows, often acts against it, the state is still, for Marx, an institution which allows the economically powerful class — the class which owns the means of production — to exploit other classes. In other words, it is still the state that facilitates the bourgeoisie's domination and exploitation of the proletariat. This interpretation would
allow
the state a significant degree of political autonomy: it could work against the political will of the bourgeoisie, but it still would have to protect the long-term structural position and interests of the bourgeoisie. So rather than saying that, for Marx, the state is the instrument of the bourgeoisie, it may be more accurate to say that the state is a reflection of bourgeois class domination, an institution whose structure is determined by capitalist relations. Its function is to maintain economic and social order that allows the bourgeoisie to continue to exploit the proletariat. By maintaining the conditions of the capitalist economy in the name of the `common good', the state serves the interests of the bourgeoisie.

One can see in Marx's account of the state — if there can be said to be an 'account' as such — a continuation of the Hegelian critique of the partial state, the state that serves the interests of part, rather than the whole, of society. For Marx, as we have seen, the state has an illusory, ideological character: it parades itself as a universal political community open to general participation, whereas in fact it acts on behalf of certain sectional interests. It is an ideological veil behind which the real struggles of economic classes are waged, behind which the real misery and alienation of people's lives is concealed. Like Hegel, Marx was concerned with finding an ethical agency, a form of communal control, a legitimate form of power which would transcend the partial state and embody the interests of the whole of society — something which would, in other words, overcome the contradiction between public and private life. For Marx, the capitalist state was an expression of t
he
alienation in civil society, and the only way this alienation could be overcome was through an agency that did not reflect existing economic and property relations. Unlike Hegel, Marx believed that this agent could not be the modern state as it stands, because it was essentially the state of bourgeois relations. While Hegel saw this unifying agent in the ethical principle behind the liberal state, Marx found it in the proletariat.

The proletariat is Marx's version of the universal agent sought within the Hegelian tradition: the subject that would overcome the contradictions in society. Because of its unique place in the capitalist system, the proletariat embodied the universality of this system, and therefore, for Marx, the emancipation of the proletariat is synonymous with the emancipation of society as a whole: `a class which is the dissolution of all classes, a sphere of society which has a universal character because its sufferings are universal' (`Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction' in Tucker: 538, 16-25).

The proletariat represents the possibility of exercising a legitimate and universal ethical authority over society: a society characterised by a lack of public — as opposed to private — authority; a society in which people were alienated from each other and from the public sphere. Marx therefore saw this exercise of public authority, of social power, as a necessary stage in the ushering in of communism — a `transitional' stage. This social power would be organised, moreover, in the apparatus of the state: `There corresponds to this also a political transition in which the State can be nothing but the dictatorship of the proletariat' (`Critique of the Gotha Program' in Marx and Engels, 1968: 327, 315-331). Marx called, furthermore, for the workers to strive for `the most decisive centralisation of power in the hands of State authority' (`Address of the Central Council to the Communist League in Tucker: 509, 501-511). So the state, controlled by the proletariat, has become, fo
r Marx,
albeit temporarily, the vehicle which would liberate society from bourgeois domination by representing society as a whole. Thus the aim of the revolution, for Marx, was not initially to destroy state power, but rather to seize hold of, and in the transitional period perpetuate, it. Of course, it must be remembered that Marx sees this proletarian state as a temporary arrangement, and Engels argued that it would `wither away' when no longer necessary (1969: 333).

However if the state is always a reflection of class domination, how then can Marx see the transitional state as acting on behalf of the whole of society? Anarchists saw this as a major flaw in Marx's thinking. Marx, on the other hand, believed that because the state in the `transitional period' was in the hands of the proletariat — the universal class — it would act for the benefit of society as a whole. According to Marx, it was no longer a partial state, as it had been in bourgeois society — it now a universal state. In fact, according to Marx, state power will no longer even be political power, since `political power' is defined by its reflection of the interests of a particular class. In other words, because there are no more class distinctions in society, because the bourgeoisie has been toppled from its position of economic and, therefore, political dominance, there is no longer any such thing as political power: `When, in the course of development, class distinctions
have
disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, public power will lose its political character' (`Communist Manifesto' in Tucker: 490). Marx also says in response to anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's objections to the transitional state: ` ... when class domination ends, there will be no State in the present political sense of the word' (`After the Revolution: Marx debates Bakunin' in Tucker: 545, 542-548). For Marx, because political domination and conflict are an expression of class domination, once class domination disappears, then so will political domination: the state will become a neutral administrative apparatus to be used by the proletariat, until it simply `withers away'.
Let us follow Marx's logic: because political power is the derivative of class and capitalist relations, once these relations are abolished, then, strictly speaking, political power no longer exists. However, the anarchists saw this claim as dangerously naive. It neglected what they saw as the fundamental principle of state power (or, for that matter, any form of institutional or centralised power): that it is independent of economic forces and has its own imperative of self-perpetuation. As I have shown, Marx does allow the state some autonomy and self-determinacy, particularly in his theory of Bonapartism. However, my argument is that he did not develop the implications of this argument to their full extent, falling back into the position of class and economic reductionism. By contrast anarchism sees the state, in its essence, as independent of economic classes, thus radicalising the Bonapartist argument and taking it to its logical conclusion.

4. The Anrachist Theory of the State

The idea that the state can be used for revolutionary ends is the result of the Marxist analysis which sees the state as derivative of social forces, namely the economic power of the bourgeois class. Anarchism works the other way round: it analyses from the state to society. It sees the state and centralised political power as determining the social and constituting the fundamental site of oppression. Marxist theory also sees the state as an evil to be eventually overcome, but it is an evil derived from the primary evil of bourgeois economic domination and private property.2

The state, for anarchists, is a priori oppression, no matter what form it takes. Bakunin argues that Marxism pays too much attention to the forms of state power while not taking enough account of the way in which state power operates and its structural predominance in society: `They (Marxists) do not know that despotism resides not so much in the form of the State but in the very principle of the State and political power' (1984:221). Peter Kropotkin too, argues that one must look beyond the present form of the state: `And there are those who, like us, see in the State, not only its actual form and in all forms of domination that it might assume, but in its very essence, an obstacle to the social revolution'(9). Oppression and despotism exist, then, in the very structure and symbolic location of the state: in the principle of sovereignty that lies at its heart. The state, in other words, constitutes its own locus of power: it is not merely a derivative of class power. The sta
te has
its own specific logic, its own momentum, its own priorities: these are often beyond the control of the ruling class and do not necessarily reflect economic relations. For anarchists, then, political power refers to something other than class and economic relations.

The modern state has its own origins too, independent of the rise of the bourgeoisie. Unlike Marx, who saw the modern state as a creation of the French Revolution and the political ascendancy of the bourgeoisie, Bakunin saw the state as the child of the Reformation. According to Bakunin, the crowned sovereigns of Europe usurped the power of the Church, creating a secular authority based on the notion of divine right. Hence the birth of the modern state: `The State is the younger brother of the Church' (1985:20). Kropotkin also attributes the state's emergence to non-economic factors such as the historical dominance of Roman law, the rise of feudal law, the growing authoritarianism of the Church, as well as the endemic desire for authority (1943:28).

Furthermore, it could be argued that the political forces of the state actually determine and select specific relations of production, rather than the other way round. This is because they encourage particular forces of production that are functional for the state, allowing the development of the means of coercion required by the state. This turns the base-superstructure model of the state on its head, seeing the determining forces going from top to bottom rather than from the bottom to the top.3 According to this argument, to see the state as derivative of class power is to fall victim to the state's deception. The state apparatus in itself appears to be faceless: it appears to lack any inherent values or direction. Marx sees it as an illusory reflection of the alienation created by private property, or as an institution of the bourgeois class. In reality, however, the state has its own origins and mechanisms, and operates according to its own agenda, which is to perpetuate
itself
in different guises — even in the guise of the worker's state.
For anarchists, state power perpetuates itself through the corrupting influence it has on those in power. This is where the real domination lies, according to Bakunin: `We of course are all sincere socialists and revolutionists and still, were we to be endowed with power . . . we would not be where we are now' (1984: 249). Therefore, the fact that the proletariat is at the helm of the state does not mean, as Marx claimed, an end to political power. The state would simply re-instantiate itself at this new Political juncture. The Marxist program would only mean a massive increase in political power and domination. Moreover, Bakunin believed that Marx's revolutionary strategy would lead to a new stage of capitalist development. The Marxist workers' state would only perpetuate, rather than resolve, the contradicts in capitalist society: it will leave intact the division of labour, it will re-instate industrial hierarchies, and furthermore it will generate a new set of class divis
ions
between workers and peasants, and the new governing class (Bakunin 1980: 336-337).

Bakunin perhaps represents the most radical elements of Marxist theory. He takes Marx seriously when he says that the state is always concomitant with class divisions and domination. However there is an important difference. To put it crudely, for Marx, the dominant class generally rules through the state, whereas for Bakunin, the state generally rules through the dominant class. In other words, bourgeois relations are actually a reflection of the state, rather than the state being a reflection of bourgeois relations. Unlike Marxism, the emphasis in anarchist theory is on the state itself — a term which includes economic exploitation — rather than on economic relations specifically. Anarchism would seem to have a much broader concept of the state than Marxism. The ruling class, argues Bakunin, is the state's real material representative. In this sense, ruling classes are essential to the state, rather than the state being essential to ruling classes. The bourgeoisie is only o
ne of
the state's specific forms of articulation (Bakunin 1984: 208). When the bourgeoisie is destroyed the state will create another class in its place, through which it can perpetuate its power, even in an allegedly classless society. In the wake of a Marxist revolution, a new bureaucratic class will come to dominate and exploit the workers in much the same way as the bourgeoisie did. Behind every ruling class of every epoch there looms the state: an abstract machine with its own logic of domination. As Bakunin shows, the state fully realises itself as a machine when the Marxist revolution installs the bureaucratic class at its helm: `when other classes have exhausted themselves, the class of bureaucracy enters upon the stage and then the State falls, or rises, if you please, to the position of a machine' (1984: 208). It is precisely this machine-like character of the state — this structural imperative of self-perpetuation — that is dangerous, and which Marxist theory, because o
f its
economic and class reductionism, could not account for. It is for this reason, anarchists argued, that revolution must be aimed not at seizing con of state power, even if only temporarily, but at destroying it and replacing it with de-centralised, non-hierarchical forms of social organisation. It is also for reasons mentioned before that anarchists argue that the state cannot be trusted simply to `wither away'. For anarchists it is extremely naive, even utopian, to believe that entrenched political power — and Bakunin's analysis has shown the workers` state to be precisely this — will simply self-destruct just because old class divisions have disappeared and relations of production have been transformed.

{This article continues below.]