Why the marxist definition of the state is inadequate

Marxists and anarchists have always disagreed on the definition of the state and have debated each other on how to go about tackling the state for years. So where do they differ and why the marxist definition is insufficient for what is necessary. For the Anarchist, the state is the concentration of power into a few hands. This, we argue, is because it is designed for, and required to, ensure minority class rule. In contrast, the Marxist definition of the state is that it is an "instrument of class rule." We argue that this is, unlike the anarchist one, a metaphysical definition and utter ignores the key issue, namely who has power. Moreover, it opens the door for the nonsense used to justify Bolshevik dictatorship during the Russian revolution. A workers state is still a state and was also used to maintain power. So our opposition to the "workers' state" is really about who has power: is it the working class or the party? For Marxists, it is the latter. As Trotsky argued in 1939 (18 years after he made similar arguments when he was in power) "The very same masses are at different times inspired by different moods and objectives. It is just for this reason that a centralised organisation of the vanguard is indispensable. Only a party, wielding the authority it has won, is capable of overcoming the vacillation of the masses themselves . . . if the dictatorship of the proletariat means anything at all, then it means that the vanguard of the proletariat is armed with the resources of the state in order to repel dangers, including those emanating from the backward layers of the proletariat itself." So much for "workers' power"! And, as everyone is, by definition, is "backward" compared to the vanguard, we have the theoretical justification for the party dictatorship. A conclusion Trotsky was not shy in embracing. [ What is the difference between Marxism and anarchism? Both are socialist ideologies, with many aims in common, and both are generally on the same side in the class war. Both anarchists and Marxists believe that ultimately there should be no government by the state, that there should be free socialism. Anarchists believe that should be implemented at once, while Marxists believe it should be done in stages. In the first stage after the revolution, Anarchists are not simply against the state they are against capitalism too and wish to do away with both at the same time. Marxists believe there should continue to be government by the state. Only after a transitional period, possibly a long transitional period, should the second stage be reached, when the state would gradually wither away and free communism be achieved. Because the transitional state government would not rule over a capitalist system, it would not be a capitalist state but instead a 'workers state' or a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. The idea is that that would gradually wither away over time, leading to the eventual anarchist style future society. The withering away mechanism is not clearly explained, and there seems a great risk that it will not happen, and that the transitional workers state will become permanent. That was certainly the case in the historical record, and it was also warned of by anarchists such as Bakunin during Marx's own lifetime - warnings which unfortunately were not accepted. Millions of lives, along with the reputation and chances of success of the socialist movement, could have been saved had the anarchist fears and warnings been taken seriously. It seems curiously naive for otherwise serious and knowledgeable revolutionaries to believe that a structure of centralised state power would voluntarily wither itself away over time. The experience of history is that the powerful never relinquish control except when forced to through revolution or the threat of revolution from the people they control. The various state socialist countries proved no exception. Recognising this, would leave no pragmatic option for socialism than libertarian socialism. Marx's 'dictatorship of the proletariat' had a sinister ring to it even in his day, more so now given the terrible history since then. But in fact many Marxists, including Marx himself, did not intend it to mean an actual 'dictatorship'. They were only using exaggerated language to describe a minimal system of defence of the revolution - which anarchists do not disagree with. In that case, there is only a difference in terminology. But some Marxists really do want full blown dictatorship, replete with secret police and state terror. And unfortunately those have tended to be the types of Marxists who seized power in different places and times. Also, although I stated above that "Both anarchists and Marxists believe that ultimately there should be no government by the state, that there should be free socialism", for some Marxists that ultimate end state is downplayed to such an extent as to mean that it is effectively removed from their programme. In that case, state socialism, as opposed to libertarian socialism, is genuinely their ultimate aim. But it is important to note that there is continuity stretching from anarchism to left Marxism - the two ideologies in fact merge into each other. Autonomous Marxism and Council Communism have negligible differences with class struggle anarchism. And at least some modern Trotskyists are genuinely sympathetic to the need for democracy and freedom within socialism. In cases like those, it would be sectarian to fail to ally with fellow socialists over minor differences. Organisational structures now are based on the desired structure of society after the revolution. Marxist-Leninists organise in centralised top-down parties, which are meant to be the vanguard of the working class, because after the revolution they want to see a centralised workers state. Some Marxist-Leninist parties (but by no means all) even resemble miniature versions of the worst Marxist-Leninist state dictatorships: with secretive leadership cliques, intrigues, denunciations, and cult-like uniformity of though. Anarchists organise themselves in decentralised autonomous local groups, federated from the bottom up through conferences with mandated delegates, because they want to see that sort of structure of government after the revolution.

On the question of the "workers state"

Marxists and anarchists have long since debated on the role of the state and if it can be used to further the working class's interests. This question has always interested me too as I never quite grasped how the state would simply wither away once we're done with it and the ruling class are no longer a threat. This confused me greatly as all states as far as my old Marxist understanding went were bodies of armed men to defend a minority. So when the workers take control of the state turning it into a "workers state" which all trotskyists and Leninists wish to do there are many issues rising from this. To quote from an anarchist FAQ on the question of a workers state: http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQAppendix33#app26 "For me a workers state is a state like any other and so an instrument of minority rule. Yes, this minority may state it represents the majority but in practice it can only represent itself and claim that is what the majority desires. Hence, for anarchists, "the essence of the state . . . [is] centralised power or to put it another way the coercive authority of which the state enjoys the monopoly, in that organisation of violence know as 'government'; in the hierarchical despotism, juridical, police and military despotism that imposes laws on everyone." [Luigi Fabbri, Op. Cit., pp. 24-5] The so-called "semi-state" is nothing of the kind -- it is a centralised power in which a few govern the many. Therefore, the "workers' state" would be "workers" in name only. "To ensure that the workers maintain control over this state, Lenin argued for the election of all officials who should be held accountable and subject to recall, and paid no more than the wage of a skilled worker. All bureaucratic tasks should be rotated. There should be no special armed force standing apart from the people, and we would add, all political parties except fascists should be allowed to organise." This is what Lenin, essentially, said he desired in The State and Revolution Anarchists reply in three ways. Firstly, we note that "much that passes for 'Marxism' in State and Revolution is pure anarchism -- for example, the substitution of revolutionary militias for professional armed bodies and the substitution of organs of self-management for parliamentary bodies. What is authentically Marxist in Lenin's pamphlet is the demand for 'strict centralism,' the acceptance of a 'new' bureaucracy, and the identification of soviets with a state." [Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 213] As an example, let us look at the recall of "officials" (inspired by the Paris Commune). We find this in Bakunin's and Proudhon's work before it was applied by the Communards and praised by Marx. Bakunin in 1868 argued for a "Revolutionary Communal Council" composed of "delegates . . . vested with plenary but accountable and removable mandates." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, pp. 170-1] Proudhon's election manifesto of 1848 argued for "universal suffrage and as a consequence of universal suffrage, we want implementation of the binding mandate. Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their eyes, the people, in electing representatives, do not appoint mandatories but rather abjure their sovereignty! That is assuredly not socialism: it is not even democracy." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 63] As can be seen, Lenin's recommendations were first proposed by anarchists. Thus the positive aspects of Lenin's work are libertarian in nature, not Marxist as such. Indeed given how much time is spent on the Paris Commune (an essentially libertarian revolt obviously inspired by Proudhon's ideas) his work is more libertarian than Marxist, as Bookchin makes clear. It is the non-libertarian aspects which helped to undermine the anarchist elements of the work. Secondly, Lenin does not mention, never mind discuss, the role of the Bolshevik Party would have in the new "semi-state." Indeed, the party is mentioned only in passing. That in itself indicates the weakness of using The State and Revolution as a guide book to Leninist theory or practice. Given the importance of the role of the party in Lenin's previous and latter works, it suggests that to quote The State and Revolution as proof of Leninism's democratic heart leaves much to be desired. And even The State and Revolution, in its one serious reference to the Party, is ambiguous in the extreme: "By educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to Socialism, of directing and organising the new order, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all the toiling and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie." [The Essential Lenin, p. 288] Is it the vanguard or the proletariat which is "capable of assuming power"? The answer is important as a social revolution requires the fullest participation of the formerly oppressed masses in the management of their own affairs. In the context of the rest of The State and Revolution it could be argued it is the proletariat. However, this cannot be squared with Lenin's (or Trotsky's) post-October arguments and practices or the resolution of the Second World Congress of the Communist International which stated that "[e]very class struggle is a political struggle. The goal of this struggle . . . is the conquest of political power. Political power cannot be seized, organised and operated except through a political party." [Cited by Duncan Hallas, the Comintern, p. 35] It is obvious that if the party rules, the working class does not. A socialist society cannot be built without the participation, self-activity and self-management of the working class. Thus the question of who makes decisions and how they do so is essential -- if it is not the masses then the slide into bureaucracy is inevitable. Thus to quote The State and Revolution proves nothing for anarchists -- it does not discuss the key question of the party and so fails to present a clear picture of Leninist politics and their immediate aims. As soon becomes clear if you look at Leninism in power -- i.e. what it actually did when it had the chance, to which we now turn. Thirdly, we point to what he actually did in power. In this we follow Marx, who argued that we should judge people by what they do rather than what they say. We will concentrate on the pre-Civil War (October 1917 to May 1918) period to indicate that this breaking of promises started before the horrors of Civil War can be claimed to have forced these decisions onto the Bolsheviks. Before the out-break of Civil War, the Bolsheviks had replaced election of "all officials" by appointment from above in many areas of life -- for example, they abolished the election of officers in the Red Army and replaced workers' self-management in production with one-man management, both forms of democracy being substituted by appointed from above. In addition, by the end of April, 1918, Lenin himself was arguing "[o]bedience and unquestioning obedience at that, during work to the one-man decisions of Soviet directors, of the dictators elected or appointed by Soviet institutions, vested with dictatorial powers." [Six Theses on the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, p. 44 -- our emphasis] Moreover, the Soviet Constitution stated that "[e]very commissar [of the Council of People's Commissars -- i.e. the Soviet government] has a collegium (committee) of which he is the president, and the members of which are appointed by the Council of People's Commissars." Appointment was the rule at the very heights of the state. The "election of all officers" ("without exception" [Lenin, The State and Revolution, p. 302]) had ended by month six of the revolution even in Lenin's own writings -- and before the start of the Civil War. Lenin also argued in mid-April 1918 that the "socialist character of Soviet, i.e. proletarian, democracy" lies, in part, in "the people themselves determin[ing] the order and time of elections." [The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, pp. 36-7] Given that "the government [had] continually postponed the new general elections to the Petrograd Soviet, the term of which had ended in March 1918" because it "feared that the opposition parties would show gains" Lenin's comments seem hypocritical in the extreme. [Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 22] Moreover, the Bolsheviks did not stay true to Lenin's claim in The State and Revolution that "since the majority of the people itself suppresses its oppressors, a 'special force' is no longer necessary" as so "in place of a special repressive force, the whole population itself came on the scene." In this way the "state machine" would be "the armed masses of workers who become transformed into a universal people's militia." [Op. Cit., p. 301, p. 320 and p. 347] Instead they created a political police force (the Cheka) and a standing army (in which elections were a set aside by decree). These were special, professional, armed forces standing apart from the people and unaccountable to them. Indeed, they were used to repress strikes and working class unrest. So much for Leninist claims that "there should be no special armed force standing apart from the people" -- it did not last three months (the Cheka was founded two months into the revolution, the Red Army was created in early 1918 and elections set aside by March of that year). Lastly, the Bolsheviks banned newspapers from the start -- including other socialist papers. In addition, they did not allow other political tendencies to organise freely. The repression started before the Civil War with the attack, by the Cheka, in April 1918 on the anarchist movements in Petrograd and Moscow. While repression obviously existed during the Civil War, it is significant that it, in fact, started before it began. During the Civil War, the Bolsheviks repressed all political parties, including the Mensheviks even though they "consistently pursued a policy of peaceable opposition to the Bolshevik regime, a policy conducted by strictly legitimate means" and "[I]individual Mensheviks who joined organisations aiming at the overthrow of the Soviet Government were expelled from the Menshevik Party." [George Leggett, the Cheka: Lenin's Political Police, pp. 318-9 and p. 332] In fact, repression increased after the end of the Civil War -- a strange fact if it was that war which necessitated repression in the first place. Trotskyists Trotskyists argue that the "task of this state would be to develop the economy to eradicate want. Less need means less need to govern society, less need for a state. Class society and the state will begin to wither away as the government of people, the rule of one class over another, is replaced by the administration of things, the planned use of resources to meet society's needs." As Malatesta makes clear, this is pure sophistry: "Whoever has power over things has power over men; whoever governs production also governs the producers; who determines consumption is master over the consumer. "This is the question; either thing are administered on the basis of free agreement of the interested parties, and this is anarchy; or they are administered according to laws made by administrators and this is government, it is the State, and inevitably it turns out to be tyrannical. "It is not a question of the good intentions or the good will of this or that man, but of the inevitability of the situation, and of the tendencies which man generally develops in given circumstances." [Life and Ideas, p. 145] Moreover, it is debatable whether Trotskyists really desire the rule of one class over another in the sense of working class over capitalist class. To quote Trotsky: "The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from an insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity. In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspirations of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. "In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard." [Stalinism and Bolshevism] Thus, rather than the working class as a whole seizing power, it is the "vanguard" which takes power -- "a revolutionary party, even after seizing power . . . is still by no means the sovereign ruler of society." [Ibid.] That is, of course, true -- they are still organs of working class self-management (such as factory committees, workers councils, trade unions, soldier committees) through which working people can still exercise their sovereignty. Little wonder Trotsky abolished independent unions, decreed the end of soldier committees and urged one-man management and the militarisation of labour when in power. Such working class organs do conflict with the sovereign rule of the party and so have to be abolished. After being in power four years, Trotsky was arguing that the "Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship . . . regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class . . . The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy." [Quoted by Brinton, the Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 78] This position follows naturally from Trotsky's comments that the party "crystallises" the "aspirations" of the masses. If the masses reject the party then, obviously, their "cultural level" has fallen and so the party has the right, nay the duty, to impose its dictatorship over them. Similarly, the destruction of organs of working class self-management can be justified because the vanguard has taken power -- which is exactly what Trotsky argued. With regards to the Red Army and its elected officers, he stated in March 1918 that "the principle of election is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has been, in practice, abolished by decree" because the Bolshevik Party held power or, as he put it, "political power is in the hands of the same working class from whose ranks the Army is recruited." Of course, power was actually held by the Bolshevik party, not the working class, but never fears: "Once we have established the Soviet regime, that is a system under which the government is headed by persons who have been directly elected by the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, there can be no antagonism between the government and the mass of the workers, just as there is no antagonism between the administration of the union and the general assembly of its members, and, therefore, there cannot be any grounds for fearing the appointment of members of the commanding staff by the organs of the Soviet Power." [Work, Discipline, Order] He made the same comments with regard the factory committees: "It would be a most crying error to confuse the question as to the supremacy of the proletariat with the question of boards of workers at the head of factories. The dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private property in the means of production, in the supremacy of the collective will of the workers [a euphemism for the Party -- M.B.] and not at all in the form in which individual economic organisations are administered." [Quoted by Maurice Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 66] This point is reiterated in his essay, "Bolshevism and Stalinism" (written in 1937) when he argued that: "Those who propose the abstraction of Soviets to the party dictatorship should understand that only thanks to the party dictatorship were the Soviets able to lift themselves out of the mud of reformism and attain the state form of the proletariat." [Trotsky, Op. Cit., p. 18] And, obviously, without party dictatorship the soviets would return to the "mud." In other words, the soviets are only important to attain party rule and if the two come into conflict then Trotskyism provides the rule of the party with an ideological justification to eliminate soviet democracy. Lenin's and Trotsky's politics allowed them to argue that if you let the proletariat have a say then the dictatorship of the proletariat could be in danger. Thus, for Trotsky, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is independent of allowing the proletariat to manage their own affairs directly. However, without the means of manage their own affairs directly, control their own lives, the proletariat are placed into the position of passive electors, who vote for parties who rule for and over them, in their own name. Moreover, they face the constant danger of the "vanguard" nullifying even these decisions as "temporary vacillations." A fine liberation indeed. As far as the wage labour social relationship goes (and do not forget that is the defining feature of capitalism), the Bolsheviks opposed workers' self-management in favor of, first, "control" over the capitalists and then one-man management. No change in social relationships there. Property relations did change in the sense that the state became the owner of capital rather than individual capitalists, but the social relationship workers experienced during the working day and within society was identical. The state bureaucrat replaced the capitalist. As for politics, the Bolshevik revolution replaced government with government. Initially, it was an elected government and so it had the typical social relationships of representative government. Later, it became a one party dictatorship -- a situation that did not change under Stalin. Thus the social relationships there, again, did not change. The Bolshevik Party became the head of the government. That is all. This event also saw the reconstruction of Soviet Society in the interest of a privileged minority -- it is well known that the Communists gave themselves the best rations, best premises and so on. Thus the Bolshevik revolution did not change the social relations people faced and so Trotsky's comments are wishful thinking. The "interests of the masses" could not, and were not, defended by the Bolshevik revolution as it did not change the relations of authority in a society -- the social relationships people experienced remain unchanged. Perhaps that is why Lenin argued that the proletarian nature of the Russian regime was ensured by the nature of the ruling party? There could be no other basis for saying the Bolshevik state was a workers' state. After all, nationalised property without workers' self-management does not change social relationships it just changes who are telling the workers what to do. The important point to note is that Trotsky argued that the proletariat could be a ruling class when it had no political influence, never mind democracy, when subject to a one-party state and bureaucratic dictatorship and when the social relations of the society were obviously capitalistic. No wonder he found it impossible to recognise that dictatorship by the party did not equal dictatorship by the proletariat. Therefore, the claim that Trotskyists see the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as "the rule of one class over another" is, as can be seen, a joke. Rather they see it as the rule of the party over the rest of society, including the working class. Even when that party had become a bureaucratic nightmare, murdering millions and sending hundreds of thousands to forced labour camps, Trotsky still argued that the "working class" was still the "ruling class." Not only that, his political perspective allowed him to justify the suppression of workers' democracy in the name of the "rule" of the workers. For this reason, anarchists feel that the real utopians are the Leninists who believe that party rule equals class rule and that centralised, hierarchical power in the hands of the few will not become a new form of class rule. History, we think, supports our politics on this issue (as in so many others). With extracts and quotes from http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQAppendix33#app26

Looking closer at the state and how it functions

How we perceive and interact with the state is key to many peoples politics. Some on the left and right call for a bigger better state while some want rid of it all together. Some even think it can be used to further the working class's own interests such as leninists who promote a workers state as a start to a transformation of society towards a state-less one. Is this even possible or more to the point desireable ? I quote from the introduction to the state piece over at www.libcomorg "States come in many shapes and sizes. Democracies and dictatorships, those that provide lots of social welfare, those that provide none at all, some that allow for a lot of individual freedom and others that don't. But these categories are not set in stone. Democracies and dictatorships rise and fall, welfare systems are set up and taken apart while civil liberties can be expanded or eroded. However, all states share key features, which essentially define them. What is the state? All states have the same basic functions in that they are an organisation of all the lawmaking and law enforcing institutions within a specific territory. And, most importantly, it is an organisation controlled and run by a small minority of people. So sometimes, a state will consist of a parliament with elected politicians, a separate court system and a police force and military to enforce their decisions. At other times, all these functions are rolled into each other, like in military dictatorships for example. But the ability within a given area to make political and legal decisions – and to enforce them, with violence if necessary – is the basic characteristic of all states. Crucially, the state claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, within its territory and without. As such, the state is above the people it governs and all those within its territory are subject to it. The state and capitalism In a capitalist society, the success or failure of a state depends unsurprisingly on the success of capitalism within it. Essentially, this means that within its territory profits are made so the economy can expand. The government can then take its share in taxation to fund its activities. If businesses in a country are making healthy profits, investment will flow into profitable industries, companies will hire workers to turn their investment into more money. They and their workers will pay taxes on this money which keep the state running. But if profits dip, investment will flow elsewhere to regions where profits will be higher. Companies will shut down, workers will be laid off, tax revenues will fall and local economies collapse. So promoting profit and the growth of the economy is the key task of any state in capitalist society - including state capitalist economies which claim to be "socialist", like China or Cuba. The economy As promoting the economy is a key task of the state, let's look at the fundamental building blocks of a healthy capitalist economy. Workers The primary need of a sound capitalist economy is the existence of a group of people able to work, to turn capitalists' money into more money: a working class. This requires the majority of the population to have been dispossessed from the land and means of survival, so that the only way they can survive is by selling their ability to work to those who can buy it. This dispossession has taken place over the past few hundred years across the world. In the early days of capitalism, factory owners had a major problem in getting peasants, who could produce enough to live from the land, to go and work in the factories. To solve this, the state violently forced the peasants off common land, passed laws forbidding vagrancy and forced them to work in factories under threat of execution. Today, this has already happened to the vast majority of people around the world. However, in some places in the so-called "developing" world, the state still plays this role of displacing people to open new markets for investors. Property A second fundamental requirement is the concept of private property. While many had to be dispossessed to create a working class, the ownership of land, buildings and factories by a small minority of the population could only be maintained by a body of organised violence - a state. This is rarely mentioned by capitalism's advocates today, however in its early days it was openly acknowledged. As the liberal political economist Adam Smith wrote: Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence. This continues today, as laws deal primarily with protecting property rather than people. For example, it is not illegal for speculators to sit on food supplies, creating scarcity so prices go up while people starve to death, but it is illegal for starving people to steal food. What does the state do? Different states perform many different tasks, from providing free school meals to upholding religious orthodoxy. But as we mentioned above, the primary function of all states in a capitalist society is to protect and promote the economy and the making of profit. However, as businesses are in constant competition with each other, they can only look after their own immediate financial interests – sometimes damaging the wider economy. As such, the state must sometimes step in to look after the long-term interests of the economy as a whole. So states educate and train the future workforce of their country and build infrastructure (railways, public transport systems etc) to get us to work and transport goods easily. States sometimes protect national businesses from international competition by taxing their goods when they come into the country or expand their markets internationally through wars and diplomacy with other states. Other times they give tax breaks and subsidies to industries, or sometimes bail them out entirely if they are too important to fail. These measures sometimes clash with the interests of individual businesses or industries. However, this doesn't change the fact that the state is acting in the interests of the economy as a whole. Indeed, it can be seen basically as a way to settle disputes among different capitalists about how to do it. State welfare Some states also provide many services which protect people from the worst effects of the economy. However, this has rarely, if ever, been the result of generosity from politicians but of pressure from below. So for instance, after World War II, the UK saw the construction of the welfare state, providing healthcare, housing etc to those that needed it. However, this was because of fear amongst politicians that the end of the war would see the same revolutionary upheaval as after World War I with events like the Russian and German revolutions, the Biennio Rosso in Italy, the British army mutinies etc. This fear was justified. Towards the end of the war, unrest amongst the working classes of the warring nations grew. Homeless returning soldiers took over empty houses while strikes and riots spread. Tory MP Quitin Hogg summed up the mood amongst politicians in 1943, saying “if we don't give them reforms, they will give us revolution.” This does not mean reforms are 'counter-revolutionary'. It just means that the state is not the engine for reform; we, the working class – and more specifically, our struggles – are. When our struggles get to a point where they cannot be ignored or repressed anymore, the state steps in to grant reforms. We then end up spending the next 100 years hearing people go on about what a 'great reformer' so-and-so was, even though it was our struggles which forced those reforms onto them. When as a class we are organised and militant, social reforms are passed. But as militancy is repressed or fades away, our gains are chipped away at. Public services are cut and sold off bit-by-bit, welfare benefits are reduced, fees for services are introduced or increased and wages are cut. As such, the amount of welfare and public service provision to the working class in a society basically marks the balance of power between bosses and workers. For example, the French working class has a higher level of organisation and militancy than the American working class. As a result, French workers also generally have better conditions at work, a shorter working week, earlier retirement and better social services (i.e. healthcare, education etc) -regardless of whether there is a right or left wing government in power. A workers' state? For decades, in addition to the struggle in workplaces and the streets, many workers have tried to improve their conditions through the state. The precise methods have differed depending on location and historical context but primarily have taken two main forms: setting up or supporting political parties which run for election and are supposed to act in workers' interests, or more radically having the party seize political power and set up a workers' government through revolution. We will briefly examine two representative examples which demonstrate the futility of these tactics. The Labour Party The Labour Party in the UK was created by the trade unions in 1906. It soon adopted the stated aim of creating a socialist society. However, faced with the realities of being in Parliament, and therefore the dependence on a healthy capitalist economy they quickly abandoned their principles and consistently supported anti-working class policies both in opposition and later in government . From supporting the imperialist slaughter of World War I, to murdering workers abroad to maintain the British Empire, to slashing workers' wages to sending troops against striking dockers. When the working class was on the offensive, Labour granted some reforms, as did the other parties. But, just like the other parties, when the working class retreated they eroded the reforms and attacked living standards. For example just a few years after the introduction of the free National Health Service Labour introduced prescription charges, then charges for glasses and false teeth. As outlined, this was not because Labour Party members or officials were necessarily bad people but because at the end of the day they were politicians whose principle task was to keep the UK economy competitive in the global market. The Bolsheviks In Russia in 1917, when workers and peasants rose up and took over the factories and the land, the Bolsheviks argued for the setting up of a "revolutionary" workers' state. However, this state could not shake off its primary functions: as a violent defence of an elite, and attempting to develop and expand the economy to maintain itself. The so-called "workers' state" turned against the working class: one-man management of factories was reinstated, strikes were outlawed and work became enforced at gunpoint. The state even liquidated those in its own quarters who disagreed with its new turn. Not long after the revolution, many of the original Bolsheviks had been executed by the government institutions they helped set up. Against the state This doesn't mean that our problems would be solved if the state disappeared tomorrow. It does mean, though, that the state is not detached from the basic conflict at the heart of capitalist society: that between employers and employees. Indeed, it is part of it and firmly on the side of employers. Whenever workers have fought for improvements in our conditions, we have come into conflict not just with our bosses but also the state, who have used the police, the courts, the prisons and sometimes even the military to keep things as they were. And where workers have attempted to use the state, or even take it over to further our interests, they have failed - because the very nature of the state is inherently opposed to the working class. They only succeeded in legitimising and strengthening the state which later turned against them. It is our collective power and willingness to disrupt the economy that gives us the possibility of changing society. When we force the state to grant reforms we don't just win better conditions. Our actions point to a new society, based on a different set of principles. A society where our lives are more important than their 'economic growth'. A new type of society where there isn't a minority with wealth that need to be protected from those without; that is, a society where the state is unnecessary. The state needs the economy to survive and so will always back those who control it. But the economy and the state are based on the work we do every day, and that gives us the power to disrupt them and eventually do away with them both."" With thanks to the guys over at libcom for their excellent work and reading material you can check out this article in full and more like it at https://libcom.org/library/state-introduction

We don’t just want the crumbs off the table

Is an old phrase that we used to hear a lot? We don’t just want to win the crumbs off the table win small victories only to have them taken off us again and again as we are seeing now. All that we have fought for including the minimal reforms capitalism has been forced to grant the workers is slowly being eroded. But we should not be simply fighting for what we are losing we should be fighting for the whole lot. We don’t just want the crumbs but the whole bakery and the tools to create more to meet people’s needs. Fighting for the best reforms and being the most militant and hard fighting for crumbs is good but for me this does not go far enough. We should not have to accept a constant struggle, a class struggle where we are always going backwards and forwards with the boss's we want to see a world with no boss's, no class's and no state entirely. This is possible, I don’t think it’s inevitable by any means capitalism will not just fall and socialism come to power this is just not how things work. We need to over throw the existing system for good. Fighting for reforms as I say is one thing but ultimately will not meet the needs of all. A system built from below in the shell of the e existing system is a must and something we can start being doing today. There are many who say we can’t build a new society while the old one still exists. Well maybe but we can certainly start to push our values, our principles and our morals challenging sexism, racism and all forms of discrimination today is a must while fighting to remove this rotten capitalist system. I have belief that workers can run society without boss's I firmly believe workers do not need boss's to run society. Even a state will not be needed eventually. A question will still exist up to and after the revolution for the role of the state. A workers state is something many on the left push for but all forms of state are oppressive in my view and a workers state seems like something like changing the boss’s rather than changing society. We don’t want boss's who call themselves socialist as they are still by definition boss's which is not desirable surely. So as a post I did the other week stated only workers can change society not a self appointed elite and a group of unaccountable leaders acting on our behalf. Only workers can change the world and that I am sure they will do one day.

Why the USSR was not state capitalist

One of the major disagreements between the socialist party CWI and the Socialist workers party the SWP still till this day is how they saw the USSR and what kind of state form this took

For the SWP it is very clear Russia was state capitalist and when the USSR fell it changed to a different type of state capitalism . We in the socialist party take a different approach.

The collapse of Stalinism has been a process which is not yet complete in all parts of the world. The Castro regime remains in power in Cuba. We characterise this as a deformed workers state. According to the SWP it is and always has been capitalist. Were the regime to fall and were the capitalist calls in waiting in Miami to return Cuba to its former status as an offshore haven for US capital, we should have very different attitudes.
Despite our criticisms of the Castro regime we would see this as a setback, a counter revolution in terms of property relations. But, if you were consistent and applied the same approach as you did to what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe, you would see this not as a reverse but as an “opportunity.” According to the SWP “We saw the collapse of these regimes not as a setback for socialists, but as an opportunity to begin the fight for real socialism in these countries.”


The difference is still a live issue even in relation to Russia and Eastern Europe where the restoration of capitalism hasbeen carried through. The CWI is carrying out work in a number of these countries. An essential theoretical foundation for this work is an understanding of what happened after 1989. We begin from the position that there was a change in property relations and capitalism was restored. If we held your view that this counter revolution was not a “defeat,” not a victory for world capitalism, but a sideways move from one form of capitalism to another, we would have no adequate explanation for the demoralising and disorienting effect on the working class, the throwback of consciousness with the re-emergence of reactionary ideas which had not had an organised expression since Tsarism, nor for the economic and social collapse which has followed.
Our analysis of the collapse of Stalinism is fundamental for our work within the former Stalinist states. It is also important in the rest of the world since an explanation of what went wrong in Russia is essential if we are to convince workers and youth that socialism can work. For these reasons our differences with the SWP over the class nature of these states remains a live issue.



Stalin came to power because the defeats of the revolutionary movement in Europe left the 1917 revolution isolated to Russia. Socialism could not and cannot be built in one country, least of all in an underdeveloped country as Russia was at that time. The isolation of the revolution and the exhaustion of the working class allowed space for a privileged layer to emerge. Stalin was the personification of the interests of this bureaucratic caste.
Trotsky in 1935 posed the questions “What does Stalin’s ‘personal regime’ mean and what is its origin?” He answered himself thus:
“In the last analysis it is the product of a sharp class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. With the help of the bureaucratic and police apparatuses the power of the ‘saviour’ of the people and the arbiter of the bureaucracy as the ruling caste rose above the Soviet democracy, reducing it to a shadow of itself.” (Again on the question of Bonapartism, Writings, 1934-35, p. 208).
Under Stalin political power was wrested from the working class and placed in the hands of a privileged bureaucratic caste. But not all the gains of the 1917 revolution were lost. The economy remained in state hands; there was planning, albeit carried out in a crude and bureaucratic manner; and the state held a monopoly over foreign trade. The economic foundations of a workers’ state remained in place.
The bureaucracy did not become a class. It did not own the industries which it managed. While the bureaucracy, by dint of privilege, was self-perpetuating it did not enjoy the right of inheritance. Its relationship to the economy was more akin to that of the heads of nationalised industries in the west to the industries they manage. These people are privileged, they are as removed from their workforces as the capitalists, but they are not capitalists.
The capitalist class is defined by what it owns, not by what it consumes. The Soviet bureaucracy consumed a large slice of the surplus wealth produced by the working class. But this is not unique. Every bureaucracy rewards itself for its commanding position by creaming off a larger share of wealth for itself. Unlike the capitalists, the Stalinist rulers did not have ownership of the surplus, and could not have unless they undid the other gains of 1917 and privatised the economy. Trotsky was absolutely clear and categorical on this: “Still the biggest apartments, the juiciest steaks and even Rolls-Royces are not enough to transform the bureaucracy into an independent ruling class.” (The class nature of the Soviet State, Writings, 1933-34, p. 113).


Under a state capitalist natured society thee would still be capitalist crisis this was not the case in russia under Stalinism they avoided the over production and crisis in capitalism that the western capitalist nations always endured due to their planned nature of their economy

We in the socialist party make it very clear we did and do not ever support the Stalinist regime but we do however recognise the benefits of a planned economy that was still practised in the USSR up until 1989.

This does not mean that there was no crisis or that there were no contradictions. But the contradictions of the Soviet economy, and the reasons for the economic impasse which eventually brought Stalinism to its knees, were different. The most fundamental contradiction was between the fact of a planned economy and the bureaucratic administration of the plan. Not for nothing did Trotsky argue that the planned economy needs democracy just as the human body needs oxygen. For a period the advantages of state ownership and a form of plan, however bureaucratically drawn up and autocratically implemented, did lead to significant economic improvement. The USSR went from being a backward country, an India, to the second world superpower, something which would not have been possible on the basis of capitalism.

Once the economy reached a certain degree of sophistication the disadvantages of bureaucratic methods, of the absence of democratic decision making, began to outweigh the advantages of public ownership and of planning. By the Brezhnev era, certainly by the end of this time, the economy had ground to a halt and the bureaucracy, by their crude methods, were incapable of taking it forward. Stalinism came up against its economic limitations, not the limitations or contradictions of capitalism, but the restraints imposed by the stifling fact of bureaucratic misrule. The choice, ultimately, was not of ongoing rule by the bureaucracy but either its removal and the establishment of workers’ democracy or else a return to capitalism.

The SWP disagree with the idea that these regimes were “transitional.” Trotsky, however, repeatedly refers to their “transitional” character. The triumph of Stalin was a step back from October 1917, but not a complete step away from the gains of that revolution. Trotsky’s view was that if the bureaucracy remained in control, at some point the pressures of world capitalism would tell. Counter-revolution, perhaps initially in the form of the invasion of cheaper goods from the more developed capitalist economies, would triumph. It would be the triumph of higher productivity, of “less labour,” in the advanced capitalist states, over the less productive, more labour intensive, industries in the isolated Russian economy. The bureaucracy, or a section of it, would seek to transform itself into a capitalist class. Only a movement of the working class to overthrow the bureaucracy could offer an alternative way out.
In the Transitional Programme he writes:
“The USSR embodies terrific contradictions. But it still remains a degenerated workers’ state. Such is the social character. The political prognosis has an alternative character: either thebureaucracy, becoming ever more the organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers’ state, will overthrow the new forms of property and plunge the country back into capitalism; or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism.”
Trotsky’s either/or prognosis, developed particularly in his classic book, The Revolution Betrayed, was correct, but it took a whole historic period to work itself out. What Trotsky could not have foreseen was that Stalinism would emerge from the Second World War enormously strengthened. The defeat of Germany and the exhaustion of the British and US troops, who were not prepared to follow those generals who wanted to continue the war against Russia, allowed the powerful Red Army to conquer Eastern Europe unopposed.
Having taken control of the state, the new rulers proceeded to take over the economy and set up regimes modelled on the Stalinist regimes in Russia. The peculiar circumstances allowed that capitalism was abolished, from above, with the support of a large section of the working class, but not as the conscious and independent action of that class. Again, it was the particular circumstances of the time which allowed the guerrilla armies which later seized power in China and Cuba to follow the Russian example and eradicate landlordism and capitalism.
These did not become socialist societies, but were precisely “transitional” regimes in which the choice was either political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy or else ultimately counter-revolution and their reintegration into the capitalist world market.

Since they had not been at any point healthy workers’ states the term “degenerated workers’ states” used by Trotsky to describe Russia was not quite accurate. We used the term “deformed workers’ state” as a more precise definition.


The emergence of the USSR as a world superpower allowed the regime a relative stability for a period. Trotsky’s 1930 perspective was postponed. However, what happened in 1989 and after brilliantly bore out his analysis. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the eyes of East Germans to the goods and lifestyles which seemed to be available in the West ushered in the counter-revolution which ended with the restoration of capitalism. In Russia and Eastern Europe, most of the bureaucracy went along with the restoration – bearing out what Trotsky had also said – that faced with the choice of a workers’ movement for political freedom or the restoration of capitalism they would look to the latter as the only way to maintain their privileges.
Counter-revolution, as with revolution, means decisive change. It is clear that the events of 1989-91 marked such a change in Russia and Eastern Europe. The old Stalinist states collapsed, the state apparatus in part “moved over” and in part was replaced. The new states which emerged were intent on re-establishing capitalism. The overthrow of the old state apparatus ushered the beginning of a change in property relations. It was a repeat of 1917, only this time in reverse.
If the SWP believes that the USSR was capitalist you need to show at what point the counter-revolution in property relations was carried through. The victory of Stalin in the late twenties and the thirties, and the purges which followed, represented a political victory for this caste. The property relations – state ownership and the plan – which were established in the years after 1917 were maintained. If this was state capitalism then what was set up by the Bolsheviks was state capitalism also. Or else we would have to draw the entirely un-Marxist conclusion that a change in political rule is tantamount to a change in the social system. In other words, we would have to start out from what is in fact the underlying theoretical premise of reformism.

For Marx, the decisive question was which class owned industry, not whether that class exercised democratic control in management of that industry. There have been occasions when the capitalist class have lost direct control over the state, but so long as property relations remain unchanged, they remain the ruling class. The SWP have mixed up changes to the superstructure – the method of political rule – with the more fundamental question of the economic base. We determine the class nature of society by examining its economic foundations.
Must the working class have a direct hold on the levers of political power before we can use the term “workers state”? Let Trotsky answer us on this:
”The dictatorship of a class does not mean by a long shot that its entire mass always participates in the management of the state... The anatomy of society is determined by its economic relations. So long as the forms of property that have been created by the October revolution are not overthrown, the proletariat remains the ruling class.” (The class nature of the Soviet State, Writings, 1933-34, p. 104).
And again:
”But this usurpation (by the bureaucracy) was made possible and can maintain itself only because the social content of the dictatorship of the bureaucracy is determined by those productive relations that were created by the proletarian revolution. In this sense we say with complete justification that the dictatorship of the proletariat found its distorted but indubitable expression in the dictatorship of the bureaucracy.” (The Workers State Thermidor and Bonapartism, Writings, 1934-35, p. 173).
In basing their characterisation on the fact that the working class were deprived of democratic rights, were oppressed and in a sense “exploitedthe SWP, are in the camp of liberalism, not Marxism. I have already quoted Trotsky on his attitude to the “moralists” who looked at the horrors of Stalinist rule and indignantly professed that this could not be a “workers state.” From there the SWP’s argument gets worse. The regimes in Eastern Europe, they say, cannot be “workers states” because they were installed from above. Marx, you remind us, had argued that “the emancipation of the working class must be accomplished by the working class.”


This indeed is the standpoint of Marxism. But the same Marx who argued in a general historical sense that the bourgeois, or capitalist, revolutions which overthrew feudalism were the historic tasks of the rising capitalist class, also pointed out that in some cases the capitalists relied on other forces to carry this out.
Even the ‘classic’ bourgeois revolution – in France 1789-1815 – unfolded with a rich complexity which confounds the one dimensional historical view of the SWP. The backbone of the revolution at its high point in 1792-94 was the urban poor, the sans culottes, who acted in alliance with the Jacobin left wing of the bourgeoisie. But the power of the plebeian masses who overthrew absolutism began to encroach on the bourgeoisie. The period of Thermidor leading to the triumph of Bonaparte saw many of the gains of the revolution, such as the declaration of universal male suffrage, removed. Bonapartism meant rule by the sword. The state rose above society and, by military means and by decree, ‘arbitrated’ between the rival class interests. This was a step back in terms of political rights but the new capitalist class relations which were established by the overthrow of feudalism and absolutism remained fundamentally in place.
In 1815, Bonaparte was defeated by the forces of reaction in Europe. The Bourbons were restored. In appearance it was back to pre-1789. But the substance was different. Capitalist property relations remained in place. If the class nature of the state was just a matter of the political superstructure then France after 1815 would have been a feudal state. This was clearly not the case. The rising bourgeoisie had to surrender political power, but in the main the property rights created by the revolution stayed in place.
The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 did away with the Bourbons and with the dynasty of Louis Philippe of Orleans. The working class was by now more powerful than in 1789, but was not yet capable of taking power. The bourgeois, trembling in the face of the growing strength of the working class, were divided and unable to rule. As the struggle between these two modern classes could not be fought to a decisive conclusion, the state stepped into the equilibrium and once again assumed the role of arbiter. The Second Republic achieved mainly by the armed working class in 1848 became the Second Empire under the dictatorship of Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.
The state arbitrated but ultimately came down on one side, the side of the bourgeois. Even in the “classic” example of France the rule of the bourgeois was finally consolidated by a Bonapartist regime which took direct political power from the capitalists, and which creamed off a good proportion of the wealth for itself. Engels, in his introduction to Marx’s The Civil War in France, written just over a hundred years ago, uncovers these complex and seemingly contradictory processes in a living manner which contrasts sharply with the crude one-dimensional approach to history which the SWP applies to the less complex processes of revolution and counter-revolution in Russia.
“Louis Bonaparte took the political power from the capitalists under the pretext of protecting them, the bourgeois, from the workers, and on the other hand, the workers from them; but in return his rule encouraged speculation and industrial activity – in a word the dominance and enrichment of the whole bourgeoisie to an extent hitherto unknown. To an even greater extent it is true, corruption and mass thievery developed, clustering around the imperial court, and drawing their heavy percentages from this enrichment.” (The Civil War in France, Progress Publishers, 1968 edition, p 8)
In other cases the bourgeois played even less of a role in “their” revolution. In the case of Germany the unification of the country was carried through from above by the reactionary Prussian nobility through the “blood and iron” methods of their representative, Bismark. The German bourgeoisie were too cowed by the power of the working class which had been demonstrated in the revolutionary uprisings of 1848, to play any role. “Their” rule came into being under the militaristic banner of the reactionary rulers of the Prussian House of Hohenzollern.
Stalinism was a modern form of Bonapartism. The political gains of the revolution were wiped away. Tsarist autocracy was replaced by Stalinist autocracy. But as in France the social gains of the revolution were not abolished. Even though the working class did not have political power, Russia did not return to the orbit of capitalism. It was not in any sense a capitalist state.
This is not to say that there can be an exact parallel between the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries and the scientific revolutions. 1789 in France may have been carried through by the majority, the great mass of the oppressed in France, but it inevitably had to end as rule in the interests of a minority, the capitalists. In the words of Engels it may have proclaimed “the Kingdom of Reason,” but in reality it established “the Kingdom of the bourgeoisie.” The socialist revolution, on the other hand, is not carried out by the majority, it allows that majority, for the first time in a real sense, to rule. It is therefore correct to say that the socialist revolution cannot be completed by any class or section of society other than by the working class. But this is not to say that the course of the socialist revolution, like the bourgeois revolutions, cannot be tortuous, that it cannot move along dead ends, or that all sorts of transitional formations cannot be thrown up along the road to its completion.
Marx and Engels were absolutely right when they stated that the working class would be the “gravedigger” of capitalism and that no other class could play this role. But truth is always concrete. A general statement made by Marx over one hundred years earlier does not alter what actually happened in Eastern Europe, and under slightly different conditions in China, Cuba, Vietnam and a number of other countries. The inability of imperialism to hold back the colonial revolution and prevent the coming to power of guerrilla armies, or of other forces hostile to the West, combined with the “model” of the already existing Stalinist states, meant that in these cases one part of the task of the socialist revolution was carried through without the working class playing the leading role.


With extracts taken from the theory of state capitalism by the late Peter Haddon of the Irish socialist party

why we take a international outlook in terms of socialism

So it is often asked why do socialists take such a interest in foreign affairs of their comrades abroad . Well as Leon Trotsky correctly pointed out the revolution to socialism must be linked to the working class across the world if it is to succeed .

Many deformed workers states such as Cuba and the old stalinist USSR had many benifits to a planned economy and towards the end they were proping eachother up.

Amoung many critisisms of these two single state socialist models it is often said by many socialists that these could have been built on needing a further political revolution reaching out to neighbouring nations and uniting the working class over national borders. As to the working class there are no nations. National borders are no more than invisable lines often there to preserve a capitalist interest be that to do with oil or a military base.

But to the working class we have no nationality, we are all the same class whichever border you are on. We all more or less face the same oppressors - the capitalist ruling class which hold us in place to preserve their own system.

As Lenin rightly pointed out a revolutionary movement and feelings in one party of Europe can influence the oppositie side of teh continent. Much like now where we are wittnessing the magnificant struggles and uprisings of the Arab Spring across North Africa and the Middle East this is having a influence on the struggles of the workers in Greece, Spain and even Italy there are rumblings of unease. This is down to the fact across the EU which is in a turmoil of a economic failiure of the common market. It is a failure of the market and capitalism as we know it. I really do feel the EU will begin to break up much like the USSr began to break up when stalinism was defeating itself.

All there is to ask will the downfall of something like teh EU which lets be honest will be a huge blow to the capitalists and the ruling class will this shake them to their foundations much like the ideas of socialism were pushed back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. We can all but hope as socialists wanting to see the end of this rotten capitalist system and a move towards a democratic workers socialist state.

But the fact for any socialist revolution to really spread this must be across borders and throughout cultures with the working class joining hands to over throw the capitalist unfair system.

For each country does not possess all of its resources that it requires to function alone much like with a capitalist system there can still be trade between nations to get waht they need. Much like when Cuba and Russia had to ship eachother oil to survive while trade embargo's in place by America unfairly due to their fear of their commonist ideas.
This of course will be workers controlled with no profits going to rich owners. This is all party of our vision for a planned economy.
A planned economy based on the need to spread the wealth to the many not just the few.

We in the socialist party are part of a growing international as it is known the CWI. a collection of political partys and organisations spread across 40 odd nations which share our ideas. We believe this to be nessesary due to the need for a international outlook across the world. Spreading our ideas in just one country will have no impact world wide we need to have parties and organisations interveening in struggles and confrontations in these more local disputes. From these we can learn from eachother and build towards a socialist world.

Here is a list of the different political partys across the world that are involved with the CWI that the socialist party of England and Wales are in formly Militant.

The following are the sections claimed by the CWI.

Argentina - La Chispa (The Spark)
Australia - Socialist Party ()
Austria - Sozialistische LinksPartei (Socialist Left Party, )
Belgium - (Flemish) Linkse Socialistische Partij (Socialist Left Party) / (French) Parti Socialiste de Lutte (Socialist Party of Struggle)
Bolivia - Alternativa Socialista Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Socialist Alternative) ()
Brazil - Liberdade, Socialismo e Revolução (Freedom, Socialism and Revolution) ()
Canada - Socialist Alternative
Chile - Socialismo Revolucionario ()
China - China Worker (News and Analysis of Workers Struggles in China) ()
Cyprus - CWI Cyprus
Czech Republic - Socialistická alternativa Budoucnost (Socialist Alternative the Future) ()
England & Wales - Socialist Party of England and Wales ()
France - Gauche Révolutionnaire (Revolutionary Left) ()
Germany - Sozialistische Alternative (Socialist Alternative) ()
Greece - Xekinima - Socialist Internationalist Organisation ()
Hong Kong - Socialist Action
Iceland - Sósíalískt Réttlaetisflokksins ()
Ireland - An Pháirtí Sóisialach / Socialist Party ()
India - Dudiyora Horaata (New Socialist Alternative )
Israel- Ma'avak Sotzialisti (Socialist Struggle) ([2])
Italy - ControCorrente ()
Japan - Kokusai Rentai (International Solidarity )
Kashmir - CWI Kashmir
Kazakhstan - Socialist Resistance of Kazakhstan ()
Lebanon - CWI Lebanon ()
Malaysia - CWI Malaysia ()
Mexico - Socialismo Revolucionario ()
Netherlands - Socialistisch Alternatief ()
Nigeria - Democratic Socialist Movement ()
Pakistan - Socialist Movement Pakistan ()
Poland - Grupa na rzecz Partii Robotniczej (Group for a Workers Party) ()
Portugal - Socialismo Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialism) ()
Québec - Alternative Socialiste (Socialist Alternative) ()
Russia - Rossijskaja sekcija Komiteta za Rabochij Internacional (Russian Section of the CWI) ()
Scotland - Socialist Party Scotland ([3]), CWI platform in Solidarity (Scotland) ()
Spain - Socialismo Revolucionario
Sri Lanka - United Socialist Party ()
South Africa - Democratic Socialist Movement () (formerly the Marxist Workers Tendency of the ANC)
Sweden - Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (Socialist Justice Party) ()
Taiwan - Taiwan Socialist League
United States - Socialist Alternative ()
Venezuela - Socialismo Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialism) ()