- Title Pages
- Preface to the English Translation
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Translator’s Note
-
1 Toward a Marxist Reading of Lenin’s Marxism -
2 From the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization (1) -
3 From the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization (2) -
4 In Lenin’s Footsteps from the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization -
5 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (1) -
6 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (2) -
7 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (3) -
8 In Lenin’s Footsteps from the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of Revolution -
9 Insurrection as Art and Practice of the Masses -
10 The Soviets Between Spontaneity and Theory -
11 Lenin and the Soviets Between 1905 and 1917 -
12 The Soviets and the Leninist Inversion of Praxis -
13 The Reformist Change of Praxis -
14 Verifying the Question of Whether the Soviet is an Organ of Power -
15 The Soviet Form of the Masses and the Urgency of Workers’ Struggle -
16 Dialectics as a Recovered Form of Lenin’s Thought -
17 Lenin Reads Hegel -
18 Between Philosophy and Politics -
19 “Where to Begin?” -
20 The Concept of State in General Can and Must Be Destroyed -
21 Opportunist and Revolutionary Conceptions of the Withering-Away of the State -
22 The Problem of the “Withering-Away” of the State -
23 First Approach to a Definition of the Material Bases of the “Withering-Away” -
24 Marx’s Anticipation of the Problem of “Withering-Away” -
25 Toward a Problematic View of Transition -
26 On the Problem of Transition Again -
27 Transition and Proletarian Dictatorship -
28 Transition, Material Basis, and Expansiveness of the Working-Class Government -
29 A Provisional Conclusion -
30 A Difficult Balance -
31 A Definition of “Left-Wing” Communism, and Some (Adequate?) Examples -
32 Toward a New Cycle of Struggles -
33 From “ Left-Wing” Communism to What is to Be Done?
Opportunist and Revolutionary Conceptions of the Withering-Away of the State
Opportunist and Revolutionary Conceptions of the Withering-Away of the State
- Chapter:
- (p.216) 21 Opportunist and Revolutionary Conceptions of the Withering-Away of the State
- Source:
- Factory of Strategy
- Author(s):
Antonio Negri
, Arianna Bove- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
This chapter examines Vladimir Lenin’s opportunist and revolutionary conceptions of the withering-away of the state, which can be found in his The State and Revolution as a commentary to Friedrich Engels’s Antidühring. The target of Lenin’s attack is a gradualist notion of the revolutionary process: the withering-away of the state, as opposed to the anarchist notion of the abolition of the state, was understood as a “vague idea of a slow, equal, gradual change without leaps and storms.” This chapter analyzes the methodological and substantial aspects of Lenin’s notion of dialectics and its subjectivist character in the insistence on the relation between the notion of the state and the notion of politics, the analysis of reality, and the forces of mass and revolutionary change. It also discusses Lenin’s remarks in his analysis of Engels regarding the impossibility of the proletariat recuperating the state of the bourgeoisie, as well as the destructive determination of the revolutionary process and its punctual and extreme violence and how they are mediated through the process of withering away.
Keywords: withering-away of the state, Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution, Friedrich Engels, Antidühring, revolution, dialectics, politics, proletariat, bourgeoisie
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- Title Pages
- Preface to the English Translation
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Translator’s Note
-
1 Toward a Marxist Reading of Lenin’s Marxism -
2 From the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization (1) -
3 From the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization (2) -
4 In Lenin’s Footsteps from the Theory of Capital to the Theory of Organization -
5 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (1) -
6 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (2) -
7 From the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of the Revolution (3) -
8 In Lenin’s Footsteps from the Theory of Organization to the Strategy of Revolution -
9 Insurrection as Art and Practice of the Masses -
10 The Soviets Between Spontaneity and Theory -
11 Lenin and the Soviets Between 1905 and 1917 -
12 The Soviets and the Leninist Inversion of Praxis -
13 The Reformist Change of Praxis -
14 Verifying the Question of Whether the Soviet is an Organ of Power -
15 The Soviet Form of the Masses and the Urgency of Workers’ Struggle -
16 Dialectics as a Recovered Form of Lenin’s Thought -
17 Lenin Reads Hegel -
18 Between Philosophy and Politics -
19 “Where to Begin?” -
20 The Concept of State in General Can and Must Be Destroyed -
21 Opportunist and Revolutionary Conceptions of the Withering-Away of the State -
22 The Problem of the “Withering-Away” of the State -
23 First Approach to a Definition of the Material Bases of the “Withering-Away” -
24 Marx’s Anticipation of the Problem of “Withering-Away” -
25 Toward a Problematic View of Transition -
26 On the Problem of Transition Again -
27 Transition and Proletarian Dictatorship -
28 Transition, Material Basis, and Expansiveness of the Working-Class Government -
29 A Provisional Conclusion -
30 A Difficult Balance -
31 A Definition of “Left-Wing” Communism, and Some (Adequate?) Examples -
32 Toward a New Cycle of Struggles -
33 From “ Left-Wing” Communism to What is to Be Done?
