democracy of Permanent Revolution

Revolution is an open measurement of strength between political forces in a struggle for power. The State is not an end in itself. It is only a machine in the hands of the dominating political forces. Like every machine it has its motor, transmitting and executive mechanism. The driving force of the State is elite interest; its motor mechanism is agitation, the press, church and school propaganda, parties, street meetings, petitions and revolts. The transmitting mechanism is the legislative organization of caste, dynastic, estate or class interests represented as the will of God (absolutism) or the will of the nation (parliamentarism). Finally, the executive mechanism is the administration, with its police, the courts, with their prisons, and the army.