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?

  • Cowbee [he/they]
    42·
    3 days ago

    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.