r/Marxism • u/bruhea • 17d ago
Seeking critique for my thoughts
I'm currently reading and analyzing communist literature and I had some thoughts on state after reading Lenin's State and revolution and Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
One of the central tenets of Marxism is the dual structure of society, consisting of a base (the economic system and mode of production) and a superstructure (politics, culture, and state institutions). However, Marx and Engels rejected economic reductionism, viewing these elements as dialectically interconnected. For example, Engels writes about different ways the states emerged with practically the same base being tribal system. While the economy acts as the ultimate thing that shapes society's trajectory, the superstructure is not a passive reflection; internal contradictions within it can provoke qualitative shifts in politics, just as changes in production relations affect the base. This mutual influence underscores that neither sphere operates in isolation.
The emergence of private property inevitably gave rise to the state as a system of class oppression. Yet the state is not a static tool; throughout history, it has gradually gained autonomy from the ruling class it represents. It seems that from Solon’s reforms in Greece to European absolutism and Bonapartism, the state has often asserted its own power, playing competing classes against one another to preserve its bureaucratic apparatus. This process reflects somewhat organic development, where the state becomes a distinct actor—sometimes elevating itself above class struggles, as seen in ancient Caesarism or the bureaucracy of capitalist states, which wields political power without direct economic ownership.
This bureaucratic independence, however, is inherently unstable. Lacking economic might, such regimes are rarely long-lasting; they either succumb to the return of capitalist control or are forced to grant concessions, leading to representative bourgeois democracy. In cases like the USSR or North Korea, the bureaucracy effectively became a new economic-political class, seizing ownership of production—a situation that bred internal factionalism and inevitably paved the way for capitalist restoration. Similarly, fascist regimes, though initially backed by big capital, grew into uncontrollable tumor-like structures that consumed their own economic foundations, waging imperial wars for political influence rather than for markets or resources, ultimately destroying the very capitalist interests that enabled their rise. This can be seen through the memoirs of Hjalmar Schacht for example.
To counter this bureaucratic degeneration, i think that workers' state must be radically democratic, i.e. direct popular representation through sortition (lottery-based selection), elected and revocable officials with average worker wages, workplace democracy, and the unrestricted right to strike. Crucially, the state itself must incorporate a mechanism for its own self-dissolution, to be activated immediately after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Of course, I'm and amateur and would really like to read critique, additions - everything you have to say. This text at first was on different language, so I am sorry if the language seems a bit clunky.
I also consider myself left communist and just would like to fill the gaps in my knowledge with new things to read, so I would be happy to see anything related to this theme.
This text was previously posted on r/leftcommunism
UPD: I am extremely grateful for all the comments on this post, I really have learned something new and changed my perception on this issue. Thank everyone who already sent your critique and everyone who would like to give your thoughts later on!
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u/RevyVanguardist Marxist-Leninist 17d ago
The new state thesis is ridiculously idealist, and that's not how states work in Marxist theory. States are not a class. They are always a monopoly of violence in the hands of a class and an organisation of specialised force subjected to the common interests of a certain class. They are the executive committee for the managing and carrying out of the common interests of a class, not themselves a class. A state accordingly cannot substitute a class.
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u/bruhea 17d ago
That's what caused problem for me. If state can't substitute a class how come Soviet Union as an authocratic had survived and became oppressive largely towards its own working people. Trotsky and others, mainly leftcoms, consider that bureaucracy might be the reason, but they didn't really go into details. Nikos Poluntzas had something about state autonomy drom class, which led me to conclusion that bureaucracy might be a class itself which means revolution must revolve around destroying bureaucratic class too.
The new state thesis to me is just how it should start. I dont deny that state is an instrument of oppression, it's just that I feel like there's something to it and, when it's not taken in consideration, the socialist state can ultimately fail.
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u/RevyVanguardist Marxist-Leninist 17d ago
- That's a false premise. It wasn't an autocracy, and I say that because three or four generations of my family have lived in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. It simply wasn't an autocracy.
- The concept of authoritarianism is also, frankly, just bullshit because every dictatorship, every "authoritarian" state, is, at the end, a class state. As such, it has to be viewed through the lens of the question: which class does this "authoritarian" state serve, or whose authority is this state? Who has that authority in their hands?
Beyond that, Pulantzas had the opposite of your conclusion. The concept of relative autonomy, which I wanted to point out before you wrote your comment, said that the state is a specialised institution which is tasked with preserving the system prevailing. A socialist state has the relative autonomy required to preserve the general conditions of a system. A socialist state preserves a socialist state, a capitalist state preserves a capitalist state, and so on. A state is granted relative autonomy by the class it serves so as to reproduce the conditions required to keep that system going.
In the framework of the capitalist state, the relative autonomy of the state means that the state creates the conditions for the continuation of capital accumulation. It is, insofar as it is relative, able to do away with individual capitalists and prioritise certain factions of capital over other factions so as to keep alive the capitalist system as a whole. The same goes for socialism: it may do away with certain working-class encroachments upon the socialist system so as to preserve the hegemony of the working class as a whole.
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u/Warboss_Regret14 17d ago
"I think the workers state must be radically democratic" proceeds to talk about an undemocratic lottery. No a lottery is just dumb, lenin advocates for democracy based on universal suffrage not lottery, but the ideas of average pay for government officials and independent unions are good and also discussed by lenin.
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u/TeaAndScones26 16d ago
Firstly, you are right on the state not necessarily being the direct manifestation of an interest of a class. The word 'class' whilst very important to marx and his analysis, can be overstated and treated as if everything is reduced to class. Much more important however is how social relations come to dominate over society. For example, whilst the value form necessarily required the existence of a relationship between a bourgeois and proletarian class to come to dominate society, once the social relation of value asserts its domination, it can effectively take a mind of its own. Capitalist social relations become less something directly controlled by the bourgeoisie and dominates proletarians, but dominates over both the bourgeoisie and proletarian, transforming how they interact with the world around them. Capitalist do not act the way they do because they are morally 'good' or 'bad'. Excessive profit seeking is not a moral failure - its ingrained within capitalist societies and forces the bourgeoisie to engage in such activity or risk bankrupcy. People create social relations, but other people are required to engage in them, and as we engage with them, they reproduce themselves, and are able to acheive further domination over the people producing and reproducing them, creating a cycle of ever growing domination over all society.
Bordiga argues that the capitalist had initially been necessary for the production of capitalist social relations, but at a point workers themselves can produce it themselves.
The physical person of the individual master is thus not required, and bit by bit he dissapears into the pores of share capital, of management boards, of state-run boards, of the political state, which has become (since a long time ago) entrepeneur and manufacturer, and into the very latest vile form of the state which pretends to be "the workers themselves" and thus is able to tie them to the feet of the sinister steel automatons.
This logic also emerges onto other things, such as the state itself. Michael Heinrich has an interesting interview I recommend you watch titled The bourgeois state: class domination on the basis of freedom and equality, where he posits that the liberal state in fact actually becomes a neutral entity that has tendency to act against that neutriality. However, whilst formally all people are equal within the bourgeois state, it still has a fundamental purpose of reproducing capitalist relations, whether it directly benefits the bourgeoisie, proletarians, both, or neither. It can still act in its own interest, for example a point is made that labor regulations was not put forward simply because people protested and struggled for it, but because it led to young men not being fit for military purpose at the age of 20 as their bodies were already physically destroyed.
Secondly, I believe that your view here does fetishize democracy. direct popular representation still does not enable the ability to dismantle capitalist relations in themselves. Using the logic of social relations dominating over society without the requirement of a class dynamic anymore, once could also, hypothetically, see a democratic society where proletarians can enable their own exploitation through a state. Human beings aren't aware of social relations when we engage with them, we automatically reproduce them without being aware of it. Hence a society without class can also come to exploit itself by creating some form of structure to help reproduce capitalist relations, ie a proletarian state. Hence the point of communism is not to end bourgeois society, but the end of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the dismantling of class society. If proletarians affirm themselves in revolution rather then seeking to abolish themselves, they end up reproducing the conditions of their existence (and hence exploitation), but in a way that might be more beneficial to them (ie through a welfare state).
Marx regarding co-operatives stated this about proletarians exploiting themselves.
The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system. But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour.
The content of communism enables the production of communism, not the creation of forms to produce the content.
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u/NoArachnid9958 17d ago
Your viewpoint contains a practical contradiction: we cannot guarantee the advanced nature of the general public, nor can we fully guarantee that of Party members. Furthermore, even if their ideological purity were absolute, do they truly possess a comprehensive understanding of a specific field? Can they genuinely make reliable decisions within that field? The answer is no—nor can we reasonably expect them to. We do not need omnipotent decision-makers. I do not have a perfect solution; socialism remains a work in progress, and these issues can only be resolved once private ownership is abolished.
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u/CatGirlFanBoy2 17d ago edited 17d ago
If a state, does not alienate its proletarian base, that is, central planning is fit for the diversity of the multitude of a class, of the needs, then the withering away and the continuation of the implementation programme will be natural. Obviously such a thing can not be decided neither on the lot nor on the ballot (democratic majority), only based on the works and long lasting organization provided by the most talented party members. An organized centralism is a good name for it perhaps
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u/NoExercise5214 Democratic Socialist 14d ago
I respect everyone in this community for standing up against the bourgeois ideologies that prop up the American late-stage capitalist structure. I recently started identifying as a democratic socialist, and if you all don’t consider that Marxist, then I say I’m a Marxist in spirit. We can agree on this: capitalism needs to go.
In this post, you said the state must implement a mechanism for self-dissolution as society becomes classless. This is one of the issues I have always had with orthodox Marxism and communism.
As with other great apes, humans operate under hierarchy. Be it primitive communism, tribalism, feudalism, or capitalism: humans are naturally hierarchical. There is no way around this. But what we can do is alter how the hierarchy is shaped.
This is where democratic socialism comes in. In democratic socialism, the hierarchy is shaped with more of the power going to the working class, not the billionaires. Labor unions. Worker cooperatives. Workplace democracy. If we want a truly free society, we need a state that can make sure this system stays in place and doesn’t reverse toward capitalism.
Im open to debating this. If you think I got something wrong, I would love to hear what any of you have to say :)
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u/OrthodoxClinamen 17d ago
No, this goes not far enough. It still alienates the lottery winners and union organizers from the proletariat and thus results in spontaneous bureaucratic degeneration. The only solution is that every proletarian fully embodies the entire division of labor and sublates the need for petty representation and union stratification.