What were the main theories of bureaucracy put forward by the left-wing actors you are studying, and how did they relate to broader conceptualisations of the changing nature of capitalism and state power in the 20th century?
My project begins in the 1930s with a debate within the European and American Trotskyist movement over the nature of the Soviet Union. Central to this debate were competing theories of bureaucracy, with the key dividing line being whether bureaucracy was seen as inimical or inherent to capitalist production. For those in the first camp, bureaucratic state intervention and economic planning were replacing market laws and creating a new type of socio-economic system—neither capitalist nor socialist—where bureaucrats, not capitalists, formed the ruling class. This transformation was not unique to the Soviet Union but also evident in varying forms in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and even New Deal America. This conceptualisation was in total opposition to orthodox Marxist class analysis and, unsurprisingly, many of its proponents ended up breaking with both the Trotskyist movement and Marxism more generally.
Conversely, those who saw bureaucracy as inherent to capitalism viewed the Soviet Union as part of a broader evolution of capitalist development, also mirrored in other advanced capitalist nations. Bureaucratisation, central planning, and scientific management were considered defining features of 20th-century capitalism. Proponents of this analysis criticised what they saw as a misunderstood focus on abstract categories such as ownership and planning, instead emphasising an analysis of the concrete social relations at the point of production. If workers lacked control over production and its outcomes, it mattered little who owned the factory. The state's relation to the entire economy mirrored that of the individual capitalist toward their enterprise. Bureaucratisation was thus seen as deepening the capitalist division of labour, separating “intellectual” and “manual” work, and further alienating the worker. These ideas would go on to influence the New Left's critique of bureaucracy in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly its emphasis on self-management and spontaneous, non-hierarchical organisation.
In the current debate, critiques of bureaucracy seem to come more often from right-wing thinkers, politicians, and movements, while the left seems generally more associated with a defence of the role and function of public administrations. Have some of the issues raised by the movements you are studying been included in current right-wing critiques?
It is worth noting that bureaucracy has historically been used primarily as a pejorative term. As a result, critiques of bureaucracy have spanned the political spectrum, often creating unlikely ideological bedfellows. The common view of the left as defenders of bureaucracy and the right as its critics is a 20th-century development, closely tied to the rise of the administrative welfare state. It also relies on a particular definition of the left as reformist and state-oriented—one that excludes the tradition my project focuses on. Like much of the right, this tradition was equally critical of both Western welfare states and the Soviet totalitarian state. There is, therefore, a resemblance in certain critiques—though this resemblance breaks down when it comes to proposed solutions.
One shared criticism is the notion of bureaucracy as a homogenising and alienating force that stifles individual autonomy and freedom. On this point, many have noted an affinity between the New Left and neoliberal critiques of bureaucracy and the welfare state during the 1960s and 1970s. A deeper and more significant point of overlap is the idea of bureaucracy as a new ruling class. I believe that this materialist critique of the administrative state as ruled by an unelected, self-interested class of bureaucrats and managers plays a significant role in current right-wing imaginaries of the 'deep state.' Combined with a more market-based critique of bureaucracy as hostile to private initiative and entrepreneurship—a form of critique largely alien to the left—it has become a highly effective political weapon for contemporary right-wing movements and politicians.
Rasmus Skov Andersen is a researcher in the Department of History of the European University Institute (EUI). His PhD thesis, titled ‘The Legacies of Trotsky: Bureaucracy, Capitalism and Revolution on the (Post)Revolutionary Left, 1938-2008’, is supervised by EUI History Professors Nicolas Guilhot and Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol.
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