The State Its Historic Role I. IN TAKING AS subject the State and the part it played in history I thought it would respond to a need which is greatly felt at this moment : that of thoroughly examining the very idea of the State, of studying its essence, its role in the past, and the part it may be called upon to play in the future. It is especially on the "State" question that Socialists are divided. Amidst the number of factions existing among us and corresponding to different temperaments, to different ways of thinking, and especially to the degree of confidence in the coming Revolution, two main currents can be traced. On the one hand, there are those who hope to accomplish the Social Revolution by means of the State: by upholding most of its functions, even by extending them and making use of them for the Revolution. And there are those who, like us, see in the State, not only in its actual form and in all forms that it might assume, but in its very essence, an obstacle to the Social Revolution, the most serious hindrance to the growth of a society based on equality and liberty, the historic form elaborated to impede this growth-and who consequently work to abolish the State, and not to reform it. The division, as you see, is deep. It corresponds to two divergent currents which clash in all the philosophy, literature, and action of our time. And if the prevalent notions about the State remain as obscure as they are to-day, it will, without doubt, be over this question that the most obstinate struggles will be entered upon, when-as I hope soon-Communist* ideas seek their practical realisation in the life of societies. •In order to avoid a certain confusion that may arise from Kropotkin's use of the terms Communism and Socialism, it is necessary to point out that the application of these words has changed considerably in the last fifty years. Communism, in Kropotkin's day, meant the theory of the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, and the sharing of the -work and goods of society on the basis of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". This theory of Communism was adhered to by the Anarchists. The authoritarian Socialists of Kropotkin'• day were not communist but collectivist, and stood for the ownership of the means of production by the State, and the remuneration of the workers by • a system of wages based on the supposed social value of various types of work. The term Socialism, however, was. used to embrace all the various types of social theory which envisaged the replacement of individual capitalism by some form of collective ownership and included both anarchism and the various schools of Marxist social democracy. To-day, of course, it is .applied almost exclusively to the various parties advocating State ownership, The present confusion regarding the term Communism arises from Lenin's appropriation of the term from the Anarchist-Communists, to covet the essentially collectivist Bolshevik Party.-ED. 9 Biblioteca Gino Bianco
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