Marxists view the state, as it exists now, primarily as a tool of class warfare. In feudalism, the monarchy used the state to oppress those below. In capitalism, capitalists use the state to oppress the working class. In socialism, the working class and capitalists do a switcheroo. The working class then oppresses the capitalist class.

At this moment, we cannot 100% perfectly envision communism and what it will entail; we can only give vague ideas and descriptions because we don’t have the material conditions necessary to properly envision a Communist world.

One of the few descriptions we have for communism is a classless society. This means that there won’t be a thing such as the working class of today, nor the capitalist class. Through the socialist era, the capitalist class will slowly diminish and become part of the working class. For there to be a concept of a working class, we need an exploiter, a capitalist. But in communism, there is no capitalist, so there can be no working class, because there’s no one to exploit him for his labour. Think of it like night and day, heat and cold, sadness and joy, victory and defeat; they all need their opposite in order to exist. Once their opposite is gone, they are too. In communism, there can be no working class, because there will be no capitalist class.

So then, if there’s no classes left, what is the use of the state? There’s no more need for a class war. The state, as we know it today, will wither away, and maybe become something else.

History is driven by class struggle, so I’m sure that someday there will be new classes, which will then seek to move on to a better system after communism, a system we cannot yet fathom. For now, we have to focus on getting to socialism and advancing to communism.