Lenin cites this concept from Marx early in “State and Revolution.” To me, it implies that socialist states can be reformed from within to achieve communism, whereas under capitalism revolution is necessary to build socialism. I do not understand this at all. What makes post-capitalist society special in this respect? Am I misinterpreting something?

  • loathesome dongeater
    19•1 year ago

    Important to not mistake “state” for “institutions” apart from what other people have said.

    When Lenin talks about the state, he is talking about the state as a tool for imposing class domination. For example, using the police to quell protests and so on. He does not mean things like social safety nets will be done away with and we will live in a libertarian dystopia after the withering away of the state. There will still be institutions that for example ensure that everyone has adequate access to hospitals, clinics, etc. to ensure that healthcare is provided.

    • Muad'DibberA
      7•1 year ago

      Lenin also cites Engels in saying that production will still be organized:

      State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies down of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It withers away. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase ‘a free people’s state’, both as to its justifiable use for a long time from an agitational point of view, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the so-called anarchists’ demand that the state be abolished overnight.” (From Anti-Düring)

      In short, only the violent / repressive elements of the state wither away, because their root cause, economic classes, wither away. IE, there’s no point in having proletarian armies and proletarian police, when the capitalist class they’re made to repress doesn’t exist anymore.

      Here’s a good summary for the OP.

      • PurpleHats
        3•1 year ago

        Imo this is the best explanation I’ve seen