Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
I think asking this question on a Lemmy.world community is a bit of a mistake. If you want an answer from Marxists, it would be better to ask it on an instance with more Marxists. As a consequence, there are numerous errors people have been making here that are a consequence of not really engaging with Marxist theory outside of Wikipedia definitions, the oversimplification of which has led to drastic errors in conclusions, the blind leading the blind.
Communism, for Marxists, would look like a Worldwide Republic with full Public Ownership and Central Planning. The issue you are runnung into is Marxist definition of the State. For Marxists, the State is an instrument of Class oppression. When you eliminate Classes, you so eliminate the State. Administration, planning, legal networks, etc would still exist without what Marx considered a “State” to be. Moreover, this is the fundamental difference between what Marxists want and what Anarchists want. From Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
The reason it isn’t instantaneous is because Marx and Engels believed Private Property could only truly be folded into the Public Sector once it had developed enough to be easily planned, and this happens at different rates across different industries, and to different degrees. The revolutionary aspect is still necessary and quite short-term, but once the Proletariat has siezed control the productive forces must be developed within the constraints of physical reality, ie you can’t will the system or decree it into being fully publicly owned and centrally planned. It’s a gradual process, but revolution is required up front because without it the Bourgeoisie maintain political power, and they need that power wrested from them before Socialism can even begin.
I highly recommend checking out my Introductory Marxist Reading List if you want to learn more, but feel free to ask any questions!
Maybe you can clarify for me, as I’m not knowlegeble in Marxism: When the state withers away, what is the central organisation called, that manages the means of production? I thought that would also be called functions of a state. Thanks
Engels calls it “the Administration of Things,” I’d call it government. Really, the heart of the matter is that many people think Marx was advocating for decentralization, which does not logically follow from the rest of Marxism advocating for central planning and whatnot, leading to a weird misconception of a lot of centralization and somehow dissolving, which is evidently false.
We can think of it as a “State” remaining as long as we recontextualize what that means with respect to Marxism, the modern colloquial sense of a State would remain in an altered form is all.
Ah, so it is just a case of a specific definition of “state”. What are the attributes of a state in that definition (as they do not include "the Administration of Things)? Goes totally against my intuition with that word
Seeing around this thread you clearly know your stuff. So it feels appropriate to reply to you with questions I have,
Somewhere in this thread one you thing you mentioned was the state/administration would have its exploitative elements removed and would just become an administrative and directive organization, slowly withering away. To me this feels contradictory, the same process that allow an organization to direct resources are surely the same process that allow an organization to exploit people?
I’ve probably failed to word that correctly, so to illustrate what I mean, the guy who control who gets what, can just say “do what I want or I’ll deny you blah”, now what the administrator wants can of course be influenced by money, like today’s politicians, but I’m sure there are plenty of other things people want and could seek to gain - or even just the joy of controlling people.
I suppose you can have checks, but that feels like a band aid if you accept what I said early, the institution in power is inherently able to exploit people - all checks have done is make it more difficult.
To me this is not a consequence of the state/administration being exploitative, rather a consequence of the state having authority to control resource flow at all.
I always camped in the areas of anarchist leftism, but I’m interested to see what you think and I’m not well read enough to comment properly so I imagine there’s a lot of mistakes in this reply so sorry in advance
I have more questions, but this is quite long already so I’ll leave it here
No problem, thanks for asking! 🙂
One thing I think you’re misreading is the State withering away. What we commonly think of as the “State,” ie the entire public sector, government, administration, etc is not the same as what Marx calls the State. For Marx, the State is the elements of Government that contribute to Class oppression.
Before we can continue, we need to know what a “class” even is to begin with. Elsewhere in this thread, people make reference to something like a “planner class,” but for Marx, no such thing exists. Rather, Classes are social relations with respect to ownership of the Means of Production and interaction with it. “Plumbers” are not a class, just like “managers” are not a class. The reason this is important, is because a classless society is one that holds all of the Means of Production in Common. In other words, full Public Ownership.
Circling back to the State, how does it “wither away?” The answer is that the Proletarian state, one dominated by the Proletariat and not the Bourgeoisie, gradually wrests from the Bourgeoisie its Capital with respect to the degree that it has developed. A Socialist revolution would not turn everything into Public Property instantly, markets and Capitalists would remain until the industries they govern develop enough that Public Ownership becomes more efficient and markets stagnate, ie monopolist phases where competition has run dry.
Since this is a gradual process, imagine every bit of Private Property wrested chips away at the State. The second Private Property reaches 0% and Public Property reaches 100%, there are no longer any classes, and thus no class to oppress. The “State” disappears, leaving only government, administration, and more behind.
As for the structural makeup of the socialist government, it would be most likely made up of “rungs,” a local rung, a regional rung with representatives from each local rung, a provincial, national, international, etc rung, as many as needed and as few as necessary for proper Central Planning. What you describe as people being able to just “take advantage” of that could happen, Communism isn’t some utopia of perfection, but such a society is far more resiliant as well as resistant to this than Capitalism, and more importantly builds up over time in a realistic manner.
Does that answer your question? Feel free to read from the reading list I linked earlier, also linked on my profile!
Thank you for such a great response and answer, although I feel I’ve sold my knowledge of leftist ideas a bit short since you have given me a introduction into all of it as well as your answer. But you did answer my question well so a follow up question, given that people could take advantage of the government in some sense, is it not a concern that new class styled system could take hold, one centered on favors from the central government.
Another question which is probably less boring than my last couple, is do Marxist want to see eventual end of all oppressive forces, not just class based. To that extent I would think having a central government would be incompatible since it would allow for some one to take advantage of their position.
Separately, I would think most people can solve their problems if given the means to do so, or the access to those with knowledge - is further centralization really the solution?
I’ll take a skeptical look at your reading list. But you’ve given me some incredible insight into the ideas of Marxists, so thank you for that!
The answer is that the Proletarian state, one dominated by the Proletariat and not the Bourgeoisie, gradually wrests from the Bourgeoisie its Capital with respect to the degree that it has developed.
How does one get a Proletarin state? It seems that any state would be susceptible to corruption & greed? It’s what we have everywhere in the world.
For Marxists, the state is the institution that tries to resolve, with violence, the contradictions that are inherent within class society. So when class society no longer exists, then violence is no longer necessary, hence the state is no longer necessary, hence “withering away”.
This isn’t an all or nothing situation, just a theory. The laws of uneven and combined development indicate that this withering would happen in different ways at different rates. this process wouldn’t even begin until the whole world has become some form of socialism, and the social relations governing society would be much progressed. Its hard to imagine how this would work compared to our current situation
If you want an answer from Marxists, it would be better to ask it on an instance with more Marxists.
Is there a listing somewhere where Lemmy instances are grouped by the sociopolitical ideologies of their members?
Not written out, as far as I’m aware. Lemmy.ml is more broadly federated than Lemmy.world, however, so it can cast a wider net. Perhaps asking on c/socialism or c/communism would be a good bet for OP. Per your question, though, it really is just found out either by checking each instance or feeling it out if it isn’t explicitly stated.
I don’t think I’m able to read people well enough from text comments to gauge whether or not they are Marxist or something else, lmao.
Communism is the struggle for a moneyless, stateless, classless society.
There’s no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The “authoritarianism” arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology. I’ve looked into the histories a lot and its very complicated. Not like you wouldn’t understand it, just that it can’t be reduced to a simple truism, cant be made succinct.
Let’s just say that the capitalists who hoard all the wealth and do nothing to earn millions and billions, who own the media and for whose benefit the state represents, aren’t too keen on movements that sometimes overthrow them. So it’s in their interests to paint socialism and communism in as bad a light as possible.
There’s no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The “authoritarianism” arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology.
Material conditions made me put the worker council leaders in front of a firing squad!
If you want to discuss the history of the Russian revolution, I saved but didn’t post several paragraphs, but deleted them for the sake of brevity. Flattening the whole 100 years of Russian “socialist” history to highlight it’s worst abuses is just as intellectually lazy as flattening it to only highlight the best parts of it. I’m not going to apologise for Kronstadt or anything that came after, but the civil war period was horrible. And had the Bolsheviks not taken power, Kornilov or Kerensky would have, and instituted far more brutal oppression; if not just tried to restore the Tzar.
The organizing principles of the Bolsheviks and RSDLP should absolutely be studied leading up to Oct 1917, as well as Rosa Luxemburg, and Anton Pannekoek’s criticisms of Lenin.
But saying “firing squad” doesnt prove that communism leads to authoritarianism, although it references a time in history that was very brutal and oppressive. However, Its not as good of a criticism as you are capable of. I’m used to having discussions with people who probably aren’t critical enough of the Bolsheviks, so its refreshing to hear from you, in a way.
But saying “firing squad” doesnt prove that communism leads to authoritarianism, although it references a time in history that was very brutal and oppressive.
No one said this.
Saying that the rise of authoritarianism had nothing to do with ideology is wrong though. Mind you, it wasn’t the result of communist ideology, but the opportunistic Leninist ideology that hijacked the worldwide leftist movement.
Motherfuckers really will downvote a non-stupid question on !nostupidquestions
It was the same way on Reddit. These types of communities are always a fucking joke.
And then there was always someone complaining about it and someone explaining to them that it’s always like that. And then someone telling them that that exact comment chain happens way too fucking often and it brings nothing to the discussion (that’s me in this comment chain!)
Congrats, we achieved Reddit!
It’s not whether it’s stupid or not, but that it’s actively belligerent and exposes the antagonism of OP against learning new things. Awful example to set for the community
Op does not seem neither belligerent nor antagonistic to me. Maybe rude in their initial statement, but they’ve been interacting with the comments in a perfectly civil way.
Most definitely not an “awful example to set” in any way.
This is what I’m talking about:
Can anyone succinctly explain <topic>? Everything I’ve read in the past said <stuff>. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed <something else>. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about <topic>.
The confusion is between communism as an economic system and communism (more properly, Marxism-Leninism) as a political system.
Economically communism is a classless, stateless, society.
Most Marxist-Leninist states take the position that transitioning to that instantly is impossible, and you need to build the material conditions for it by transitioning through capitalism (be that state capitalism or some other form) to socialism to communism. The Communist Party of China for instance has a goal of achieving socialism by 2050.
That’s a very simplified version anyway, and some (Trotskyists mostly) disagree that a transition period is necessary.
I see. So there is supposed to be an authoritarian state in the transitionary period, is what you are saying?
Interesting, I was under the impression the real life forms had just failed; one group got into power and just said “naw” and then stayed in that authoritarian ‘state.’
Most attempts at communism so far have been from single party governments. Those trend quite quickly into authoritarianism regardless of the intent (you might get lucky with a long lived strong man with a deep ethical drive - aka Lenin) but chances are your single party will be coopted by an asshole.
Every time we’ve tried a communist government at a large scale we’ve really horribly failed but it has worked at smaller scales. It may be impossible beyond a limit like Dunbar’s number but I think it’s worth trying a few more times (especially if we can get the US to stop trying to constantly sabatoge it).
you might get lucky with a long lived strong man with a deep ethical drive - aka Lenin
Wouldn’t call him especially long lived
Curious, what small scale examples are you thinking of? Those might be a good model.
Just trying things and seeing what sticks puts millions of lives on the line. Seems risky. But maybe eventually we can predict mass human behavior well enough to develop a control loop that keeps an unstable system stable without succumbing to selfishness/power grabbing? But that seems dangerously close to just hoping AGI will save us all.
Your impression is basically the Trotskyist view.
Stalin himself answered your question in an interview with an American reporter some time ago.
Yes , you are right, we have not yet built communist society. It is not so easy to build such a society. You are probably aware of the difference between socialist society and communist society. In socialist society certain inequalities in property still exist. But in socialist society there is no longer unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities. In socialist society everyone is obliged to work, although he does not, in return for his labour receive according to his requirements, but according to the quantity and quality of the work he has performed. That is why wages, and, moreover, unequal, differentiated wages, still exist. Only when we have succeeded in creating a system under which, in return for their labour, people will receive from society, not according to the quantity and quality of the labour they perform, but according to their requirements, will it be possible to say that we have built communist society.
You say that in order t o build our socialist society we sacrificed personal liberty and suffered privation.
Your question suggests that socialist society denies personal liberty. That is not true. Of course, in order to build something new one must economize, accumulate resources, reduce one’s consumption for a time and borrow from others. If one wants to build a house one saves up money, cuts down consumption for a time, otherwise the house would never be built.
How much more true is this when it is a matter of building a new human society? We had to cut down consumption somewhat for a time, collect the necessary resources and exert great effort. This is exactly what we did and we built a socialist society.
But we did not build this society in order to restrict personal liberty but in order that the human individual may feel really free. We built it for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks. It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm
This doesn’t really answer any of my questions, only raises more. Unless of course he is making the point that an authoritarian government is the “saving up for the house” but it’s clear with his next statements in the interview, that’s not the case.
There are a few key misconceptions here.
MLs do not take the stance that you need to go through “State Capitalism.” The State playing a role in Markets a la the NEP is still considered a Socialist state even if production isn’t socialized, but this isn’t 100% necessary though it is beneficial in underdeveloped sectors.
Secondly, Communism for Marxists looks like full Public Ownership and Central Planning in a worldwide republic. The State for Marx was the aspect of society that enforced class distinctions, so upon reaching full Public Ownership, even with a government, there is no “State” in the Marxist convention. Per Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Finally, the CPC considers China to be Socialist already. The 2050 metric is to be a “great, developed Socialist nation.” The CPC subscribes to the stageist theory of Socialism whereby each phase in Socialism has unique characteristics, not that they are not yet Socialist.
Basically.
Most “Communist” countries practices Vanguardism, the idea of a “Vanguard Party” that is suppose to look out for the people, and act in the interest of the people, taking absolute control of the country, destroy capitalism and implement communism, then when communism is achieved, the state would naturally “wither away”, ceasing to exist.
Yea… imagine how that works in practice. Once a party gets into power, they aint ever giving it up, thats the problem.
Vanguards are never supposed to “give up” power, rather, they are meant to be extensions of the Working Class, ie the most politically experienced and trained among the Proletariat, connected to and accountable to the rest of the Proletariat. The State isn’t the same as government, for Marx. The State is an instrument of class oppression, once all property is in the public sector there ceases to be classes, and thus the elements of government upholding class distinctions cease to have a purpose and “whither away.” Per Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
But there doesn’t cease to be classes, there is now the “planning” class with no check on their power. Are the common people who supposed to rise up again and overthrow the planners when they obviously and inevitably become selfish and corrupt? This is the logical leap communist theory never answered.
First, there’s no such thing as a “planning class.” Managers within Capitalist businesses are still Proletarian, planning is just a different form of labor. Such a distinction would mean that “plumber” is a class, as well as “doctor.” What determines a class isn’t the form of labor, but the relation to ownership, and in a fully Publicly Owned economy the planners are not the owners.
Secondly, there are checks on elected officials, I am not sure at all where you are getting the notion that there are none. Recall elections have been a core aspect of Marxist theory of organization since near the beginning, as well as concepts such as Democratic Centralism.
“Common people” are not distinct from “planners,” nor would the “Common people” be able to do away with the concept of planners and management. Again, from Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
It’s not that Communist theory “never answered” your questions, its that nobody that is familiar with Communist theory would raise such questions as they don’t make any sense in context. Does that make sense?
