Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 07.07.2025
- Introduction
- The state
- What is the state apparatus?
- What is a bourgeois democratic state?
- What is Bonapartism?
- What is Trump and Netanyahu’s Bonapartism?
- Introduction:
Due to bourgeois propaganda, most workers and the poor believe that the state belongs to its citizens regardless of what class they belong to.
We can see it very clearly in the characterization of those who raise the slogan Palestine free from the river to the sea as anti-Semites who want to kill all the Jews. The organization Palestine Action was declared by the British government who support the Zionist monster a terrorist organization because they damage two military airplanes as protest against the genocide.
“Twenty-nine people have been arrested after protesters gathered in central London” holding signs referencing Palestine Action a day after the group was banned as a terrorist organization.
The direct action protest group was banned on Friday after a last-minute legal attempt to suspend the group’s proscription under anti-terrorism laws failed. It means that, from Saturday, being a member of, or expressing support for, the organization became a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison” [i]
In the real world, Israel is a terrorist state, and the British Labor government is a partner and supporter of the Zionist terror. Another common mistake is to characterize a nationalist, oppressive regime as a fascist state. This is a total misunderstanding of what fascism is and its confusion with Bonapartism.
“Under the current government, it seems that the chances of the destruction of Israeli society entirely are unfortunately too realistic,’ Cassif tells Anadolu.
‘Extreme right-wing fascists’ now feel powerful enough to take ‘complete control of state institutions, important ministries, and decision-making processes,’ says Sami Abu Shehadeh, a former Knesset member and leader of the left-wing Balad party” [ii]
Therefore, it is essential to comprehend the various types of states and their operational mechanisms.
2. The state
In “The Origin of the Family, Private Property”, Engels, like Marx, viewed the state as an instrument of class rule, not a neutral arbiter. He argued that the state emerged with the division of society into classes and the rise of private property, serving to maintain the interests of the dominant class. Engels further theorized that under communism, the state would eventually “wither away” as class distinctions disappeared and society became self-governing.
Here’s a more detailed look at Engels’s views:
State as a Product of Class Struggle:
Engels, building on Marxist theory, saw the state as a historical phenomenon arising from the conflict between different social classes. He argued that the state’s primary function was to protect the interests of the ruling class, whether that was the slave-owning class, the feudal lords, or the bourgeoisie.
In “Anti-Dühring” and “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” Engels discussed the concept of the state’s eventual withering away. This idea posits that as socialism develops, class divisions will disappear, and the need for a coercive state apparatus will diminish. The state, rather than being abolished by force, would gradually become obsolete as society becomes capable of self-governance.
State and Private Property:
Engels emphasized the close link between the state and private property. He argued that the state, particularly in its modern form, serves to protect and regulate private property relations, which are inherently unequal.
Engels wrote::
“The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it ’the reality of the ethical idea’, ’the image and reality of reason’, as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ’order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state” [iii]
Engels’s ideas on the state, particularly the concept of the state withering away, were influential for Lenin and the Bolsheviks in their work on “State and Revolution.” Lenin, however, emphasized the need for a transitional “dictatorship of the proletariat” after the revolution, a phase in which the state would still be necessary to suppress counterrevolution and build socialism.
States have not always existed. The time when hunters had their weapons and there was no separate armed body with a monopoly over the use of force, the state did not exist. Throughout the history of class society, the state has assumed various forms in response to the evolution of the means of production and the intensification of class struggle. Thus, there was a time when states were city-states. This was the time when society was based on slavery. For example, in Greece or the kingdom of King David. In the Middle Ages, there were a vast number of kingdoms, principalities, and duchies. The national state emerged with the rise of the capitalist class as the ruling class.
The modern state is a site of violence and an instrument of power that the ruling class has used to inflict vast suffering on those subject to its coercive capacity at home and imperial reach abroad. The ruling class ideologues claim that the state mediates between the classes. Still, in reality, it is a tool of the ruling class to enforce its law and order. Today, the liberal state has disappeared.
It existed because the working-class struggles achieved certain rights that, in some countries, have been enshrined in the constitution. The Liberal state emerged after WWII, when Western imperialists rebuilt the economy, which had been largely destroyed during World War II, and the Soviet Union gained popularity in parts of the world.
2. What is the state apparatus?
The state apparatus is the army, police, courts, high bureaucracy, parliament, and prisons.
In State and Revolution, Lenin wrote, quoting Marx:
“This executive power with its enormous bureaucratic and military organization, with its vast and ingenious state machinery, with a host of officials numbering half a million, besides an army of another half million, this appalling parasitic body, which enmeshes the body of French society and chokes all its pores, sprang up in the days of the absolute monarchy, with the decay of the feudal system, which it helped to hasten.” The first French Revolution developed centralization, “but at the same time” it increased “the extent, the attributes and the number of agents of governmental power. Napoleon completed this state machinery”. The legitimate monarchy and the July monarchy “added nothing but a greater division of labor….
“… Finally, in its struggle against the revolution, the parliamentary republic found itself compelled to strengthen, along with repressive measures, the resources and centralization of governmental power. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that contended in turn for domination regarded the possession of this huge state edifice as the principal spoils of the victor.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte} pp.98-99, fourth edition, Hamburg, 1907.
3. The Liberal democracy.
While the French Revolution raised the slogan: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the new ruling class did not support these demands, and when Robespierre began to implement them, the bourgeois counter-revolution killed him. When the capitalist class, many of whose members were slave owners, won their independence, they enshrined slavery in the Constitution.
The original US Constitution contained several clauses that acknowledged and protected slavery, though it avoided using the word “slave”. These included the Three-Fifths Compromise, the clause preventing Congress from banning the international slave trade for 20 years, and the Fugitive Slave Clause, and the clause against slave insurrections. These provisions reflected compromises between states with differing views on slavery, ultimately helping to solidify the institution within the nation’s legal framework.
The Liberal democracy in the imperialist states is a result of the struggles of the working class and the popular masses, including women, blacks in the USA and Canada, and new immigrants.
Liberal democracy is a political system that claims to combine democracy with liberalism. It claims to promote free and fair elections, the rule of law, and the protection of civil liberties and individual rights. This means that while it upholds principles of majority rule, it also ensures that minority rights are protected and that the government is limited in its power.
In the capitalist ideology in liberal democracy, citizens participate in selecting their government through free and fair elections, where multiple political parties can compete.
It claims to respect individual rights and freedoms, such as freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, and most importantly, the protection of private property and the rule of law.
Liberal democracies often have a system of checks and balances, such as a separation of powers between different branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial), to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful. Liberal democracies often have a constitution that outlines the powers of government and protects individual rights.
In the real world, for example, in the U.S, only the rich can compete for power, and the two-party system guarantees that the capitalists will be in power. The only right that is almost permanent is the right of private property but even this right is not sure. In WWII, the American Japanese were sent to concentration camps and their property was stolen.
In parts of Canada until the 1950, black people could not vote, and women won their right to vote and have private property only from the late 19th century. The right of women to vote was established in the United States over the late 19th and early 20th centuries, first in various states and localities, then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
While Marxists do not have illusions in bourgeois democratic rights, we defend all the gains achieved by the masses against the ruling class’s attacks. What we fight for is not only for these rights, but for socialist democracy.
In State and Revolution, Lenin wrote:
“This definition of the state has never been explained in the prevailing propaganda and agitation literature of the official Social-Democratic parties. More than that, it has been deliberately ignored, for it is absolutely irreconcilable with reformism, and is a slap in the face for the common opportunist prejudices and philistine illusions about the “peaceful development of democracy”.
“The proletariat needs the state — this is repeated by all the opportunists, social-chauvinists and Kautskyites, who assure us that this is what Marx taught. But they “forget” to add that, in the first place, according to Marx, the proletariat needs only a state which is withering away, i.e., a state so constituted that it begins to wither away immediately, and cannot but wither away. And, secondly, the working people need a “state, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class”.
The state is a special organization of force: it is an organization of violence for the suppression of some class. What class must the proletariat suppress? Naturally, only the exploiting class, i.e., the bourgeoisie. The working people need the state only to suppress the resistance of the exploiters, and only the proletariat can direct this suppression, can carry it out. For the proletariat is the only class that is consistently revolutionary, the only class that can unite all the working and exploited people in the struggle against the bourgeoisie, in completely removing it” [iv]
5. What is Bonapartism?
Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte analysis of the historical social forces behind the rise of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) to power in France after his coup d’état of December 2, 1851. The title is a reference to the original “18th Brumaire” (November 9, 1799), when Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I) seized power and ended the French Revolution. Marx uses this historical parallel to analyze the political dynamics of mid-19th-century France. In this essay, he observed the historical events and he coined “first as tragedy, then as farce.”
Marx argued that Louis-Napoléon’s rise was not due to his personality, but rather the result of the conditions of class struggles. This created circumstances in which the bourgeoisie, fearing the revolutionary potential of the working class, supported Louis-Napoléon’s authoritarian rule to protect their economic interests, even at the expense of their political power. Marx examines the roles of various classes—the proletariat, bourgeoisie, peasantry, and lumpenproletariat—in creating the instability that allowed Louis-Napoléon to consolidate power.
This allows a form of authoritarian governance in which a leader rises above class conflicts, presenting themselves as a neutral arbiter representing the nation as a whole. Key features of Bonapartism include:
Centralization of Power, Populist demagogue using nationalist rhetoric to gain broad support. Pitting competing classes against one another, Authoritarian Rule: The regime relies on repression, censorship, and control over the state apparatus to maintain order
6. What is Trump and Netanyahu’s Bonapartism
While in this period of the decay of capitalism, we can observe the Bonapartist regime in many capitalist states; Israel and the U.S. are reaching an extreme form of Bonapartism. Not simply using the existing state apparatus, but the destruction of the existing state apparatus and replacing it with an apparatus loyal only to the supreme leader. In the U.S, Trump steps on the constitution with the approval of the American Supreme Court. In Israel, Netanyahu destroys the existing state apparatus by the so-called legal reform.
“WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices exerted waning influence during its recently concluded term, and their frustrations with the conservative majority spilled into public view in major cases involving President Donald Trump and issues such as transgender rights.
In five of the biggest cases of the term, which wrapped up with its final rulings on June 27, the court’s six conservative justices were in the majority and liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson were in dissent.
In Trump v Casa. In the Supreme Court’s written majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that the use of “universal injunctions” by the district courts was an example of judicial overreach. She wrote that federal judges were overstepping their authority in seeking to block the universal application of the executive order.
The three dissenting liberal justices issued a minority opinion, stating that this finding was at odds with the rule of law. Indeed, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling in Trump v Casa “cannot coexist with the rule of law. In essence, the Courts has now shoved lower court judges out of the way in cases where executive actions are challenged, and has gifted the Executive with the prerogative of sometimes disregarding the law.”
Israel’s right-wing government has tussled with the judiciary over the court’s powers. As soon as it was elected at the end of 2022, the government of Binyamin Netanyahu presented plans for “judicial reforms” which would limit the powers of the Supreme Court and give politicians control of the appointment of judges. The proposals prompted huge protests and were abandoned when the war in Gaza began. But they are back on the agenda.
Netanyahu has put the state apparatus above the Zionist bourgeoisie and above the Jewish Israeli working class. The protest of the bourgeoisie is taking the form of arguing that Netanyahu is killing Israeli democracy, and what they mean by it is the ethnocracy that gave rights to the Jewish Israelis only. We see it as most of the so-called opposition joined the attack on Oda of Hadash, i.e., attacking the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to be represented by their choice. We also see it in the total support of Netanyahu’s attack on Iran, and the left Zionist led by Yair Golan is criticizing Netanyahu for agreeing to a ceasefire.
Down with the imperialists!
For the Arab revolution!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/05/palestine-action-activists-arrested-london-gandhi-statue
[ii] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-on-verge-of-civil-war-and-full-fledged-fascist-dictatorship-leftist-israeli-politicians/3522523
[iii]Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1973, pp. 326-27).
[iv] Vladimir Lenin’s The State and Revolution: The Experience of 1848-51