r/DebateCommunism 6d ago

The "state" may be required. Unmoderated

Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless, society, a utopia one may add. Unfortunately, I believe we may need the "state". Now, it ultimately depends on how one defines the "state", however if one of the key factors of the state is a military, police, armed forces, ect. I am here to state that we may require said forces to defend ourselves and expand our civilization against other species. This is unironic.

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u/Muuro 5d ago

You are starting from a bad end and reaching the correct conclusion. Communism as you defined is defined that way by Marx and explicitly stated as NOT utopian. Communism is the movement to abolish the present state of things. Read German Ideology and Critique of the Gotha Program.

The State is only necessary because it is a product of class society. It will only be a thing such that there are classes. It withers away as classes cease to exist. Lenin goes over this in State & Revolution, but he also quotes Marx on this in his work the Civil War in France (and Critique of the Gotha Program).

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u/OkManufacturer8561 5d ago

The question still may beg though; what is the "state"?

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u/Muuro 5d ago

An instrument of class power. The instrument one class uses to oppress another. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a state in which the proletariat takes power and oppresses the bourgeoisie similar to how the bourgeoisie oppressed the proletariat under capitalism and liberalism.

In Marxist theory the proletariat needs to smash all remnants of the bourgeois state and create their own "state" which is the dictatorship of the proletariat. They oppress the bourgeoisie in this form and implement policies which begin to change society in ways that will eliminate the class distinctions. Their goal is to abolish themselves as a class as they and the bourgeoisie "become one". This is theoretically when the state withers away as class ceases to exist as the distinctions of class cease to exist.

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u/OkManufacturer8561 5d ago

I asked what it is, not what it does. What is the state? What defines the state?

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u/Muuro 5d ago

As I said it's an instrument of class power. The State is defined by the oppression of one class over another.

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u/OkManufacturer8561 5d ago

How, does one class oppress the other though; is my question. How?

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u/spookyjim___ ☭ left communist ☭ 5d ago

Through the instruments of the standing army and police forces, a whole complex system of contracts and laws upholding the bourgeois order of things, and some sort of layer of bureaucracy to manage the whole thing

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u/OkManufacturer8561 5d ago

Alas! My question is answered. Now, assuming we encounter a threat to our dominance in the galaxy (if we reach such a level), would the state form once again in defense against opposing species from other worlds?

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u/spookyjim___ ☭ left communist ☭ 4d ago

I’m not going to entertain sci-fi fantasies

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u/Name_Vergessen_1305 4d ago

I would strongly encourage you to read this free book: https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/democratic-state, by the GegenStandpunkt (a German marxist magazine and publisher). They set themself apart from ML, MLM and so on and base their arguments solely on Das Kapital and Critique of the Gother Program. At least read the introduction and see if it sparks interest.

Edit: just so you know what the state is not: The state is not the political force of the capitalist class.

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u/King-Sassafrass I’m the Red, and You’re the Dead 6d ago

This is the Leninism of ML

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u/OkManufacturer8561 6d ago

Elaborate comrade, am I... a Leninist and not a ML? Also, I like your flair-thingy, I shall use that phrase from now on.

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u/King-Sassafrass I’m the Red, and You’re the Dead 6d ago

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, it was deemed necessary that a state had to be established to defend the workers against outside influences and war created by the imperialists and the capitalists.

Lenin describes a State in State & Revolution on Page 8 as a form of moderation that exists to oversee class antagonisms to keep the current system as it is. That the state exists solely for this reason, to keep the order of whatever system may be current with uses of the military, police and prisons.

It is necessary for this to be established since in the current day and modern situation there are other systems, politics and conflicts that are occurring throughout the world that need to be defended from, but that the role of a State itself is to maintain order, whatever order this may be (socialist, capitalist, etc). Then in the second half of the book, he talks about the Revolution of how it’s important that the power of the State is to be harnessed by socialists so that it is not distant or above the workers and society and isn’t alienated by the people it’s supposed to overwatch and protect

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u/Muuro 5d ago

Arguably it's even from Marx in Civil War in France, which is one of the things Lenin quotes in State & Revolution.

The OP is silly though as communism (Marxism) actually 1) is about stateless, classless society and 2) doesn't call that utopian. Marx and Engels wrote AGAINST utopian thinking. That's why they called their theory scientific socialism.

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u/OkManufacturer8561 5d ago

I vision a stateless, classless, moneyless society, as a perfect society, thus a utopia.

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u/OkManufacturer8561 6d ago

I understand it now, thank you comrade.

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u/spookyjim___ ☭ left communist ☭ 5d ago

expand our civilization against other species

Mfw we must keep the state to… compete against like bears and shit? What other species bro? 😭

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u/interpellatedHegel 5d ago

This brings us back to the question of the state, the role it serves as a social entity and its relation to class struggles throughout history. As Engels states (which is a passage Lenin uses in The State and Revolution):

The state, then, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no idea of the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity owing to this split. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only will have ceased to be a necessity, but will become a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as they arose at an earlier stage. Along with them the state will inevitably fall. Society, which will reorganize production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into a museum of antiquities, by the side of the spinning-wheel and the bronze axe.

The state is neither neutral class-wisely, nor does it function simply as a tool to "protect society and its members". The bourgeois state maintains the law of capitalist legal ideology and the order of capitalist relations of production. With the abolition of classes, the state and its mechanisms, be they political or repressive, become obsolete and they wither away. As Lenin writes:

[...] in speaking of the state “withering away”, and the even more graphic and colorful “dying down of itself”, Engels refers quite clearly and definitely to the period after “the state has taken possession of the means of production in the name of the whole of society”, that is, after the socialist revolution. We all know that the political form of the “state” at that time is the most complete democracy. But it never enters the head of any of the opportunists, who shamelessly distort Marxism, that Engels is consequently speaking here of democracy “dying down of itself”, or “withering away". This seems very strange at first sight. But it is “incomprehensible” only to those who have not thought about democracy also being a state and, consequently, also disappearing when the state disappears. Revolution alone can “abolish” the bourgeois state. The state in general, i.e., the most complete democracy, can only “wither away".

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u/Verndari2 Communist 5d ago

I don't believe in the "withering away" of the state once we reach a classless society. I believe at that point the state becomes a true institution which expresses the will of the people accurately and manages society.

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u/spookyjim___ ☭ left communist ☭ 5d ago

I don’t think you understand what the state is lmao

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u/Verndari2 Communist 5d ago

The state is an instrument of class rule, so far I go with Marx.

But I don't think Marx really understood what the state was. Hegel's concept of the state as objectified spirit is way more accurate.

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u/spookyjim___ ☭ left communist ☭ 4d ago

Look at my communists dawg

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u/Verndari2 Communist 4d ago

Yeah? I'm a Communist because I still have the same goals as you. I just have a different prediction about what will happen when we overcome class distinction and reach a classless society.

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u/relaxedsweat 1d ago

Your prediction is that the instrument of class rule becomes a “true institution” when class is abolished. You’re obsessed with some kind of external leadership. Why can’t the people just express the people’s will accurately themselves?

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u/blue_eyes_whitedrago 6d ago

A state always justifys itself, it is never just. The state can be a stepping stone in revolution, but it will continue to try and justify its existence even after its usefulness fades.  States create other kinds of oppression that arent class oppression, i support a dictatorship of the proletariat as the sole state that should be aspired to for revolution. Vanguard parties are paternalistic and small, despite success in russia, i find them oppressive. I dont really think anarchists and leninists really have that much divide though. I think if people looked they would see their ideas lining up. Simply put, the state is never "required" its just utilized. Nothing is "required" except unity and liberation.