’Withering Away’ of the State

The State does not lead to its abolition right away. The revolution of the proletariat instead of abolishing the State, as an anarchist suggests, results in it being taken over. Lenin, citing Engels, says, ‘the proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with.’⁹² The state now is in the hands of the proletariat who turns the private means of production into socially owned means of production. The State, in essence, however, remains there as a public power. This is required to abolish any vestiges of the classes, remove the bureaucratic machinery and replace the government of people by administration of things. The State as an organ of the dominant class has seized to exist; it has become a power publicly owned. The State before it withers away, is ‘a free people’s state’, as Lenin calls and is used for the benefit of the whole society.

From this stage, the State, as a transformed instrument of consolidation of the proletarian and socially owned power, abolishes itself, as the proletariat abolishes all class distinction. The State emerged due to class distinction and it goes with the abolition of class distinction. This gradual redundancy of the State is what Engels and Lenin, call ‘withering away’. The State thus on its own withers away and the means of production are socially owned and managed. No private property, no social classes, no oppression, no state.