Socialist State - Marxist Concept of A Socialist State

Marxist Concept of A Socialist State

Henri de Saint-Simon, a pre-Marxian socialist, understood that the nature of the state would change under socialism from that of political rule (via coercion) over people to a scientific administration of things and a direction of processes of production; specifically, the state would become a coordinating entity for production as opposed to a mechanism for political control.

Karl Marx understood the state to be an instrument of the class rule, dominated by the interests of the ruling class in any mode of production. Although Marx never referred to a "socialist state", he argued that the working-class would have to take control of the state apparatus and machinery of government in order to transition out of capitalism and to socialism. This transitional stage would involve working-class interests dominating the government policy (the "Dictatorship of the proletariat"), in the same manner that capitalist-class interests dominate government policy under capitalism. Fredrick Engels argued that the state under socialism is not a "government of people, but the administration of things", and thus would not be a state in the traditional sense of the term.

One of the most influential modern visions of a socialist state was based on the Paris Commune, in which the workers and poor took control of the city of Paris in 1871 in reaction to the Franco-Prussian War. Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, "the form at last discovered" for the emancipation of the proletariat.

Friedrich Engels noted that "all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers... In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up".

Commenting on the nature of the state, Engels continued: "From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine".

In order not to be overthrown once having conquered power, Engels argues, the working class "must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment."

Such a state would be a temporary affair, Engels argued. A new generation, he suggested, brought up in "new and free social conditions", will be able to "throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap."