Withering away of the state

The phrase withering away of the state is used by Marxists to describe the process by which the state, in this case the dictatorship of the proletariat, dissolves itself, completing the transition into stateless society. A similar version of this phrase was said by Friedrich Engels in his 1877 work Anti-Dühring, when he stated: "State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out 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 dies out." This understanding contrasts with the perspectives held by other tendencies such as anarchism which seek the immediate abolition of the state in all its forms.

The concept of the withering away of the state was further elaborated in Vladimir Lenin's 1917 piece The State and Revolution. In this work, it is detailed that the state — being a product of irreconcilable class struggle — exists with the purpose of oppressing one class for the benefit of another. Within the context of the proletarian state, it exists chiefly to suppress and fend off the overthrown capitalist exploiters. When socialism has triumphs globally and class divisions and inequities are rectified, the material conditions for the state disappears, prompting it to slowly dissipate until it ceases to be a separate body in society altogether.

Theory

The state originated from class society and class antagonisms. The proletarian dictatorship is the body of class rule against the bourgeoisie and its reaction. The withering away of the state occurs because of the disappearance of class antagonisms and the abolition of social classes. The revolutionary dictatorship uses coercion against the reaction to consolidate its power, as the reaction is beaten these types of coercive functions of the workers' state gradually disappear proportionally to the intensity of the reaction (as the reaction dwindles, so does the coercion employed). The working class organs of the revolutionary dictatorship are organically transformed into administrative organs of free association of equal individuals. The state disappears not because of a voluntary abdication of power by the ruling class but because the specific organs for class rule are transformed into organs of voluntary association around common ownership.

See also

• Communism, the mode of production under which this takes place