请将“Thirdly, given that this book is concerned with postwar European Marxist analyses of the state, it might seem odd to have devoted so little space to Italian theorists. In a more general review of postwar Marxism this neglect would be unforgivable but it is justified in terms of the particular focus and ambit of the current work. For Italian contributions to Marxist political analysis are often very philosophical in character and/or strongly Italocentric in their theoretical and strategic concerns. It would certainly be desirable to discuss elsewhere Marxist solutions to the traditional problems of political philosophy, such as the nature of democracy, liberty, equality, constitutional rights, and the rule of law; and, in a work less concerned with abstract methodological issues and the general characteristics of the capitalist state, it would be appropriate to consider the attempts of Italian Marxists to update and apply the work of Gramsci to the current situation in Italy. But issues of political (as opposed to state) theory lie beyond the scope of the present text and the most original and far-reaching developments of Gramsci have occurred outside Italy (see chapter 4 below). Nonetheless I hope to settle accounts with Italian theories of the state and politics at a later date. (Meanwhile those interested in such matters should consult, inter alia, Altvater, 1977; Altvater and Kallscheuer, 1979; Bobbio et al., 1976; Critica Marxista, seriatim; Mouffe, ed., 1979; Mouffe and Sassoon, 1977; Negri, 1977; and Sassoon, ed., 1982.)

Finally it is worth recording that I deliberately ignore American contributions to the analysis of the state. Most of these theories are heavily imbued with instrumentalism and/or adopt crude forms of reductionism and thus merit no more attention than their European counterparts. Those few analyses that escape this criticism generally owe so much to the other European approaches considered here and/ or bear such marked similarities to them that a separate review is not required. More generally it would be an interesting exercise to consider how far the absence of a well-developed ‘state tradition’ in Britain and the USA and the corresponding dominance of liberal, pluralist conceptions of government and citizenship has led to the extraordinary weakness of Marxist theories of the state in these countries.

In undertaking a research project of this kind one inevitably incurs a large number of intellectual and material debts. This particular study is no exception. It is impossible to mention all those who have influenced me in conferences, seminars, and personal discussion (let alone through the published word) but I am acutely aware of debts in this respect to David Abraham, Kevin Bonnett, Joachim Hirsch, John Holloway, Ernesto Laclau, David Lockwood, Sol Picciotto, Claus Offe, Nicos Poulantzas, Harold Wolpe, and Tony Woodiwiss. To Claudia von Braunmühl and Jutta Kneissel I would like to extend public thanks for their hospitality during a six-week visit to the University of Frankfurt to examine German state theory at first hand; and to Hans Kastendiek I would like to extend similar thanks for introducing me to the work of the Prokla group at Berlin. To the students in my seminars on theories of the capitalist state I offer my sympathies as the guinea pigs for the development of my approach over the last four years. Since the arguments presented here often differ from those held by friends and colleagues whose influence I have just acknowledged, it is particularly important to issue the usual disclaimers and stress that the ultimate responsibility for the study rests firmly with me. I would also like to thank Lawrence & Wishart for permission to use material from an earlier article on ‘Marx and Engels on the State’ in the book on Politics, Ideology, and the State, edited by Sally Hibbin and published in 1978. For those interested in such matters I did my own typing, xeroxing, collating, and so forth, and Janet Godden offered valuable advice at the copy-editing stage. My children and wife distracted me from these endeavours more than I should have allowed were I to meet the ever-retreating deadlines set by Martin Robertson and I would like to thank my publishers for their great patience and my family for reminding me that there is more to life than a concern with theories of the state. I have dedicated this book to the memory of Nicos Poulantzas whom I met for the first time some few months before his tragic death and who encouraged me to be critical in my approach to his work as well as that of others.

Bob Jessop

12 October 1981 
Marx and Engels on the State

It is a commonplace that Marx did not produce an account of the state to match the analytical power of his critique of the capitalist mode of production in Das Kapital. Indeed, although this great work was to have included an extended treatment of the state, Marx did not succeed in committing it to paper. Instead his legacy in this respect comprises an uneven and unsystematic collection of philosophical reflections, journalism, contemporary history, political forecasts, and incidental remarks. It was left to Engels to develop a more systematic account of the origins and nature of the state and to discuss the general relations between state power and economic development. However, while it was Engels rather than Marx who first adumbrated a class theory of the state, the 'General' was no more successful than Marx himself in developing this insight into a complete and coherent analysis of the capitalist state.

This commonplace should not be taken to imply that Marx made no lasting contribution to political analysis. On the contrary it is as much for his theory of proletarian revolution as for his critique of political economy that Marx can be considered to have founded Marxism and continues to have an exceptional post-humous influence. Likewise Engels is as well known for his work on the state and politics as he is for his indictment of early English capitalism or his philosophy of 'scientific socialism'. Hence in this first chapter, I intend to review the development of the historical materialist approach to the state and politics in the work of Marx and Engels and to consider how different elements and arguments are combined at different stages in their studies. Rather than attempt to distil a single 'essential' Marxist theory of the state, I emphasise the discontinuities and disjunctions in their work and try to show how its very incompleteness and indeterminacy account for the wide range of so-called Marxist theories of the state developed in the last hundred years. We begin with a brief review of the early approach of Marx to the question of the state.

THE EARLY MARX

Since the publication of the 1844 manuscripts in 1927 there has been a lively debate among Marxists and Marxologists alike concerning whether or not Marx effected (or experienced) a radical break during the course of his intellectual development. This debate is generally focused on the basic epistemological and philosophical presuppositions of the Manuscripts and Das Kapital and it has been much complicated by the still more recent republication in 1953 of the hitherto unremarked Grundrisse. But it is also concerned with the relative continuity or discontinuity of Marxian concepts and principles of explanation in the analysis of specific topics in the domains of economics, politics, and ideology. That the two levels of debate are closely related can be seen particularly clearly in the present context from the Hegelian-centred reading of Marx rendered by Avineri, who seeks to establish the deep-seated continuity of the social and political thought of Marx by tracing the themes of his early work on Hegel's political philosophy through the vicissitudes of Marx's subsequent theoretical development (Avineri, 1968, passim). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the general issues involved in this debate but it is clearly essential for us to confront the particular question of continuity in the Marxian analysis of politics and the state.

This question is overlain by another. For there is also a major dispute over whether the Marxian analysis of politics is an original theoretical product or whether it is largely borrowed from the works of Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Thus Colletti argues that Marx had already developed a near definitive theory of state power before the 1844 manuscripts started him on the long march to his most important theoretical discoveries. In particular Colletti argues that the Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Law' (1843) and the Introduction to a proposed revision of that critique (written in 1843-44) embody a mature theory that neither the older Marx, Engels, nor Lenin would substantially improve upon in the least. And he also argues that this so-called mature Marxist theory was heavily indebted to Rousseau for its critique of parliamentarism, the theory of popular delegation, and the need for the ultimate suppression of the state itself. From this Colletti concludes that the originality of Marxism must be sought in the field of social and economic analysis rather than in its politics (Colletti, 1975, pp. 45-48; and for Colletti's views on the theoretical importance of Marx's social and economic analyses, idem, 1969, pp. 3-44, 77-102).
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