Why we need a workers’ state

A meeting of workers in Petrograd, July 1920 (Picture: Wikimedia Commons)

In an earlier column in this series, we made the case for a workers’ revolution to smash capitalism (Socialist Worker, 13 March). This week we argue that defending such a revolution will be a matter of life and death. All states exist as instruments of class rule. The only reason why a state is needed is to defend the interests of a class. And so a workers’ state is required to secure any gains a revolution makes.

That’s because capitalist forces will not simply stand aside after our victory. Instead they will do everything they can to restore their rule and privileges—including using the far right and remnants of the army and police to ignite civil war. Their brutality will know no bounds. And in this they will have the full support of the international ruling class.

Revolutionary workers, meanwhile, will have the power to resist only if they can create a new state in response—one that reflects workers’ strengths. The new state must be truly democratic so that it has legitimacy among wide sections of workers and the poor. And therefore, it must be based upon the workplace councils of action thrown up during the revolution.

And, like a revolutionary army, it will also have to be extremely centralised so that it can direct all its forces against the class enemy without fear of contradiction. In its initial victory, the workers’ revolution will have already begun the process of smashing the coercive forces of the old state. 

Now, with the previous chain of command shattered, the workers’ state will tear apart what remains of the capitalist police and courts. In its place the revolution will create a new force—the workers’ militia and tribunals.

The militia will be responsible for protecting ordinary people in the new society—and will in no way mirror the old capitalist police. The militia is made up by workers and will have been set up as an organ of self-defence against fascist gangs and other counter-revolutionary forces. Its pay will be no higher than other workers. And being in the militia will not be a job for life but a temporary responsibility. 

But the militia will not be the main power in the new state. That will be reserved for the workers’ councils—and the other bodies that they help to set up. These councils and organisations do not follow some Marxist masterplan written in the 19th century. Instead they flow naturally from workers’ need for organisation and coordination when in struggle.  

Workers’ councils will draw in those in big and well organised workplaces, but also those in the gig economy, the unemployed, the sick and disabled and those who for whatever reason no longer work.

In countries where the organised working class is relatively small, revolutionaries will have to devise ways to bring sections of all the poorest classes together under workers’ leadership. And everywhere, each local workers’ council will elect delegates to town, city and regional bodies, which in turn will select delegates for national ones.

This type of organic democracy arose in all the most significant challenges to capitalism—from the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 through to the Portuguese Revolution of 1974. The new state will allow for the fullest debate and will reflect workers’ thinking in ways far more accurate than any capitalist parliament today. Instead of them being “represented” by some Labour or Tory stooge, workers will for the first time represent themselves. There will be different parties representing different views, but it is likely that those organisations that proved themselves during the revolution will have majority support. 

The strength of this hugely democratic system will determine whether workers are able to maintain their newfound grip upon society—or whether the capitalists will be able to drown them in blood.

• This is the seventh part of a series of columns that discuss What We Stand For, the Socialist Workers Party statement of principles, printed every week in Socialist Worker (see page 12). For the full series go to tinyurl.com/WWSF2024