Page:Lenin - The State and Revolution.pdf/51

 Having shown in this way that authority and autonomy are relative terms, that the sphere of their application varies with the various phases of social development, that it is absurd to regard them as absolute terms; after adding that the domain of the application of machinery and. production of a large scale is ever extending, Engels passes from a general discussion of authority to the question of the State.

"If the Autonomists [he writes] merely meant to say that the social organization of the future would admit authority only within those limits which the conditions of industry inevitably dictate, then it would be possible to come to an understanding with them. But they are blind in respect of all the facts which make authority necessary, and they fight passionately against a mere word.

"Why do not the Anti-Authoritarians limit themselves to shouting against the political authority, against the State? All Socialists agree that the State, together with it, also political authority, will vanish as the result of the future Socialist Revolution, i. e., that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into simple administrative functions, concerned with social interests. But the Anti-Authoritarians demand the political State should be abolished at one blow, even before those social relations which gave birth to the State are themselves abolished. They demand that the first act of the Social Revolution shall be the abolition of all authority.

"These gentlemen, have they ever seen a revolution? Revolution is undoubtedly the most authoritative thing possible. Revolution is an act in which part of the population forces its will on the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, cannon, i. e., by most authoritative means. And the conquering party is inevitably forced to maintain its supremacy by means of that fear which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Had the Paris Commune not relied on the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie would it have lasted longer than a single day? May we not rather censure the Commune for not having made sufficient use of this authority? And so, either the Anti-Authoritarians themselves do not know what they are talking about, in which case they merely show confusion; or they do know what they are talking about, in which case they are betraying the proletariat. In either case they serve only the interests of reaction." (P. 39.)

In this discussion questions are touched on, which must be investigated in connection with the subject of the correlation of politics and economics during the withering away of the State.