For anarchists, the idea that a state (any state) can be used for socialist ends is simply ridiculous. This is because of the nature of the state as an instrument of minority class rule. As such, it precludes the mass participation required for socialism and would create a new form of class society.
As we discussed in section B.2, the state is defined by certain characteristics (most importantly, the centralisation of power into the hands of a few). Thus, for anarchists, "the word 'State' . . . should be reserved for those societies with the hierarchical system and centralisation." [Peter Kropotkin, Ethics, p. 317f] This defining feature of the state has not come about by chance. As Kropotkin argued in his classic history of the state, "a social institution cannot lend itself to all the desired goals, since, as with every organ, [the state] developed according to the function it performed, in a definite direction and not in all possible directions." This means, by "seeing the State as it has been in history, and as it is in essence today" the conclusion anarchists "arrive at is for the abolition of the State." Thus the state has "developed in the history of human societies to prevent the direct association among men [and women] to shackle the development of local and individual initiative, to crush existing liberties, to prevent their new blossoming — all this in order to subject the masses to the will of minorities." [The State: Its Historic Role, p. 56]
So if the state, as Kropotkin stresses, is defined by "the existence of a power situated above society, but also of a territorial concentration as well as the concentration in the hands of a few of many functions in the life of societies" then such a structure has not evolved by chance. Therefore "the pyramidal organisation which is the essence of the State" simply "cannot lend itself to a function opposed to the one for which it was developed in the course of history," such as the popular participation from below required by social revolution and socialism. [Op. Cit., p. 10, p. 59 and p. 56] Based on this evolutionary analysis of the state, Kropotkin, like all anarchists, drew the conclusion "that the State organisation, having been the force to which the minorities resorted for establishing and organising their power over the masses, cannot be the force which will serve to destroy these privileges." [Evolution and Environment, p. 82]
This does not mean that anarchists dismiss differences between types of state, think the state has not changed over time or refuse to see that different states exist to defend different ruling minorities. Far from it. Anarchists argue that "[e]very economic phase has a political phase corresponding to it, and it would be impossible to touch private property unless a new mode of political life be found at the same time." "A society founded on serfdom," Kropotkin explained, "is in keeping with absolute monarchy; a society based on the wage system, and the exploitation of the masses by the capitalists finds it political expression in parliamentarianism." As such, the state form changes and evolves, but its basic function (defender of minority rule) and structure (delegated power into the hands of a few) remains. Which means that "a free society regaining possession of the common inheritance must seek, in free groups and free federations of groups, a new organisation, in harmony with the new economic phase of history." [The Conquest of Bread, p. 54]
So, as with any social structure, the state has evolved to ensure that it carries out its function. In other words, the state is centralised because it is an instrument of minority domination and oppression. Insofar as a social system is based on decentralisation of power, popular self-management and participation and free federation from below upwards, it is not a state. If a social system is, however, marked by delegated power and centralisation it is a state and cannot be, therefore, a instrument of social liberation. Rather it will become, slowly but surely, "whatever title it adopts and whatever its origin and organisation may be" what the state has always been, a instrument for "oppressing and exploiting the masses, of defending the oppressors and the exploiters." [Anarchy, p. 20] Which, for obvious reasons, is why anarchists argue for the destruction of the state by a free federation of self-managed communes and workers' councils (see sections I.5 and H.1.4 for further discussion).
This explains why anarchists reject the Marxist definition and theory of the state. For Marxists, "the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another." While it has been true that, historically, it is "the state of the most powerful, economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class, and this acquires the means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class," this need not always be the case. The state is "at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy," although it "cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible" of it "until such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap." This new state, often called the "dictatorship of the proletariat," would slowly "wither away" (or "dies out") as classes disappear and the state "at last . . . becomes the real representative of the whole of society" and so "renders itself unnecessary." Engels is at pains to differentiate this position from that of the anarchists, who demand "the abolition of the state out of hand." [Engels, Marx-Engels Selected Works, p. 258, pp. 577-8, p. 528 and p. 424]
For anarchists, this argument has deep flaws. Simply put, unlike the anarchist one, this is not an empirically based theory of the state. Rather, we find such a theory mixed up with a metaphysical, non-empirical, a-historic definition which is based not on what the state is but rather what is could be. Thus the argument that the state "is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another" is trying to draw out an abstract "essence" of the state rather than ground what the state is on empirical evidence and analysis. This perspective, anarchists argue, simply confuses two very different things, namely the state and popular social organisation, with potentially disastrous results. By calling the popular self-organisation required by a social revolution the same name as a hierarchical and centralised body constructed for, and evolved to ensure, minority rule, the door is wide open to confuse popular power with party power, to confuse rule by the representatives of the working class with working class self-management of the revolution and society.
As we discussed in section H.2.1, anarchist opposition to the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" should not be confused with idea that anarchists do not think that a social revolution needs to be defended. Rather, our opposition to the concept rests on the confusion which inevitably occurs when you mix up scientific analysis with metaphysical concepts. By drawing out an a-historic definition of the state, Engels helped ensure that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" became the "dictatorship over the proletariat" by implying that centralisation and delegated power into the hands of the few can be considered as an expression of popular power.
To explain why, we need only to study the works of Engels himself. Engels, in his famous account of the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, defined the state as follows:
"The state is . . . by no means a power forced on society from without . . . Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is an admission . . . that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms . . . in order that these antagonisms and classes with conflicting economic interests might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have power seemingly standing above society that would alleviate the conflict . . . this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state." [Marx-Engels: Selected Writings, p. 576]
The state has two distinguishing features, firstly (and least importantly) it "divides its subjects according to territory." The second "is the establishment of a public power which no longer directly coincides with the population organising itself as an armed force. This special public power is necessary because a self-acting armed organisation of the population has become impossible since the split into classes . . . This public power exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men but also of material adjuncts, prisons and institutions of coercion of all kinds." Thus "an essential feature of the state is a public power distinct from the mass of the people." [Op. Cit., pp. 576-7 and pp. 535-6]
In this, as can be seen, the Marxist position concurs with the anarchist. He discusses the development of numerous ancient societies to prove his point. Talking of Greek society, he argues that it was based on a popular assembly which was "sovereign" plus a council. This social system was not a state because "when every adult male member of the tribe was a warrior, there was as yet no public authority separated from the people that could have been set up against it. Primitive democracy was still in full bloom, and this must remain the point of departure in judging power and the status of the council." [Op. Cit., pp. 525-6]
Discussing the descent of this society into classes, he argues that this required "an institution that would perpetuate, not only the newly-rising class division of society, but the right of the possessing class to exploit the non-possessing class and the rule of the former over the latter." Unsurprisingly, "this institution arrived. The state was invented." The original communal organs of society were "superseded by real governmental authorities" and the defence of society ("the actual 'people in arms'") was "taken by an armed 'public power' at the service of these authorities and, therefore, also available against the people." With the rise of the state, the communal council was "transformed into a senate." [Op. Cit., p. 528 and p. 525] Thus the state arises specifically to exclude popular self-government, replacing it with minority rule conducted via a centralised, hierarchical top-down structure ("government . . . is the natural protector of capitalism and other exploiters of popular labour." [Bakunin, Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 239]).
This account of the rise of the state is at direct odds with Engels argument that the state is simply an instrument of class rule. For the "dictatorship of the proletariat" to be a state, it would have to constitute a power above society, be different from the people armed, and so be "a public power distinct from the mass of the people." However, Marx and Engels are at pains to stress that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" will not be such a regime. However, how can you have something (namely "a public power distinct from the mass of the people") you consider as "an essential feature" of a state missing in an institution you call the same name? It is a bit like calling a mammal a "new kind of reptile" in spite of the former not being cold-blooded, something you consider as "an essential feature" of the latter!
This contradiction helps explains Engels comments that "[w]e would therefore propose to replace state everywhere by Gemeinwesen, a good old German word which can very well convey the meaning of the French word 'commune'*" He even states that the Paris Commune "was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." However, this comment does not mean that Engels sought to remove any possible confusion on the matter, for he still talked of "the state" as "only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down's one's adversaries by force . . . so long as the proletariat still uses the state, it does not use it the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist." [Op. Cit., p. 335] Thus the state would still exist and, furthermore, is not identified with the working class as a whole ("a self-acting armed organisation of the population"), rather it is an institution standing apart from the "people armed" which is used, by the proletariat, to crush its enemies.
(As an aside, we must stress that to state that it only becomes possible to "speak of freedom" after the state and classes cease to exist is a serious theoretical error. Firstly, it means to talk about "freedom" in the abstract, ignoring the reality of class and hierarchical society. To state the obvious, in class society working class people have their freedom restricted by the state, wage labour and other forms of social hierarchy. The aim of social revolution is the conquest of liberty by the working class by overthrowing hierarchical rule. Freedom for the working class, by definition, means stopping any attempts to restrict that freedom by its adversaries. To state the obvious, it is not a "restriction" of the freedom of would-be bosses to resist their attempts to impose their rule! As such, Engels, yet again, fails to consider revolution from a working class perspective — see section H.4.7 for another example of this flaw. Moreover his comments have been used to justify restrictions on working class freedom, power and political rights by Marxist parties once they have seized power. "Whatever power the State gains," correctly argues Bookchin, "it always does so at the expense of popular power. Conversely, whatever power the people gain, they always acquire at the expense of the State. To legitimate State power, in effect, is to delegitimate popular power." [Remaking Society, p. 160])
Elsewhere, we have Engels arguing that "the characteristic attribute of the former state" is that while society "had created its own organs to look after its own special interests" in the course of time "these organs, at whose head was the state power, transformed themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society." [Op. Cit., p. 257] Ignoring the obvious contradiction with his earlier claims that the state and communal organs were different, with the former destroying the latter, we are struck yet again by the idea of the state as being defined as an institution above society. Thus, if the post revolutionary society is marked by "the state" being dissolved into society, placed under its control, then it is not a state. To call it a "new and truly democratic" form of "state power" makes as little sense as calling a motorcar a "new" form of bicycle. As such, when Engels argues that the Paris Commune "was no longer a state in the proper sense of the word" or that when the proletariat seizes political power it "abolishes the state as state" we may be entitled to ask what it is, a state or not a state. [Op. Cit., p. 335 and p. 424] It cannot be both, it cannot be a "public power distinct from the mass of the people" and "a self-acting armed organisation of the population." If it is the latter, then it does not have what Engels considered as "an essential feature of the state" and cannot be considered one. If it is the former, then any claim that such a regime is the rule of the working class is automatically invalidated. That Engels mocked the anarchists for seeking a revolution "without a provisional government and in the total absence of any state or state-like institution, which are to be destroyed" we can safely say that it is the former. [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 156] Given that "primitive democracy," as Engels noted, defended itself against its adversaries without such an institution shows that to equate the defence of working class freedom with the state is not only unnecessary, it simply leads to confusion. For this reason anarchists do not confuse the necessary task of defending and organising a social revolution with creating a state.
Thus, the problem for Marxism is that the empirical definition of the state collides with the metaphysical, the actual state with its Marxist essence. As Italian Anarchist Camillo Berneri argued, "'The Proletariat' which seizes the state, bestowing on it the complete ownership of the means of production and destroying itself as proletariat and the state 'as the state' is a metaphysical fantasy, a political hypotasis of social abstractions." ["The Abolition and Extinction of the State," Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review, no. 4, p. 50]
This is no academic point, as we explain in the next section this confusion has been exploited to justify party power over the proletariat. Thus, as Berneri argues, Marxists "do not propose the armed conquest of the commune by the whole proletariat, but they propose the conquest of the State by the party which imagines it represents the proletariat. The Anarchists allow the use of direct power by the proletariat, but they understand by the organ of this power to be formed by the entire corpus of systems of communist administration — corporate organisations [i.e. industrial unions], communal institutions, both regional and national — freely constituted outside and in opposition to all political monopoly by parties and endeavouring to a minimum administrational centralisation." Thus "the Anarchists desire the destruction of the classes by means of a social revolution which eliminates, with the classes, the State." ["Dictatorship of the Proletariat and State Socialism", Op. Cit., p. 52] Anarchists are opposed to the state because it is not neutral, it cannot be made to serve our interests. The structures of the state are only necessary when a minority seeks to rule over the majority. We argue that the working class can create our own structures, organised and run from below upwards, to ensure the efficient running of everyday life.
By confusing two radically different things, Marxism ensures that popular power is consumed and destroyed by the state, by a new ruling elite. In the words Murray Bookchin:
"Marx, in his analysis of the Paris Commune of 1871, has done radical social theory a considerable disservice. The Commune's combination of delegated policy-making with the execution of policy by its own administrators, a feature of the Commune which Marx celebrated, is a major failing of that body. Rousseau quite rightly emphasised that popular power cannot be delegated without being destroyed. One either has a fully empowered popular assembly or power belongs to the State." ["Theses on Libertarian Municipalism", pp. 9-22, The Anarchist Papers, Dimitrios Roussopoulos (ed.), p. 14]
If power belongs to the state, then the state is a public body distinct from the population and, therefore, not an instrument of working class power. Rather, as an institution designed to ensure minority rule, it would ensure its position within society and become either the ruling class itself or create a new class which instrument it would be. As we discuss in section H.3.9 ("Is the state simply an agent of economic power?") the state cannot be considered as a neutral instrument of class rule, it has specific interests in itself which can and does mean it can play an oppressive and exploitative role in society independently of a ruling class.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue whether this "new" state will, in fact, be unlike any other state that has ever existed. Insofar as this "new" state is based on popular self-management and self-organisation, anarchists argue that such an organisation cannot be called a state as it is not based on delegated power. "As long as," as Bookchin stresses, "the institutions of power consisted of armed workers and peasants as distinguished from a professional bureaucracy, police force, army, and cabal of politicians and judges, they were no[t] a State . . . These institutions, in fact comprised a revolutionary people in arms . . . not a professional apparatus that could be regarded as a State in any meaningful sense of the term." ["Looking Back at Spain," pp. 53-96, The Radical Papers, p. 86]
This was why Bakunin was at pains to emphasis that a "federal organisation, from below upward, of workers' associations, groups, communes, districts, and ultimately, regions and nations" could not be considered as the same as "centralised states" and "contrary to their essence." [Statism and Anarchy, p. 13] So when Lenin argues in State and Revolution that in the "dictatorship of the proletariat" the "organ of suppression is now the majority of the population, and not the minority" and that "since the majority of the people itself suppresses its oppressors, a 'special force' for the suppression [of the bourgeoisie] is no longer necessary" he is confusing two fundamentally different things. As Engels made clear, such a social system of "primitive democracy" is not a state. However, when Lenin argues that "the more the functions of state power devolve upon the people generally, the less need is there for the existence of this power," he is implicitly arguing that there would be, in fact, a "public power distinct from mass of the people" and so a state in the normal sense of the word based on delegated power, "special forces" separate from the armed people and so on. [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 301]
That such a regime would not "wither away" has been proven by history. The state machine does not (indeed, cannot) represent the interests of the working classes due to its centralised, hierarchical and elitist nature — all it can do is represent the interests of the party in power, its own bureaucratic needs and privileges and slowly, but surely, remove itself from popular control. This, as anarchists have constantly stressed, is why the state is based on the delegation of power, on hierarchy and centralisation. The state is organised in this way to facilitate minority rule by excluding the mass of people from taking part in the decision making processes within society. If the masses actually did manage society directly, it would be impossible for a minority class to dominate it. Hence the need for a state. Which shows the central fallacy of the Marxist theory of the state, namely it argues that the rule of the proletariat will be conducted by a structure, the state, which is designed to exclude the popular participation such a concept demands!
Considered another way, "political power" (the state) is simply the power of minorities to enforce their wills. This means that a social revolution which aims to create socialism cannot use it to further its aims. After all, if the state (i.e. "political power") has been created to further minority class rule (as Marxists and anarchists agree) then, surely, this function has determined how the organ which exercises it has developed. Therefore, we would expect organ and function to be related and impossible to separate.
So when Marx argued that the "conquest of political power becomes the great duty of the proletariat" because "the lords of the land and of capital always make use of their political privileges to defend and perpetuate their economic monopolies and enslave labour," he drew the wrong conclusion. [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, p. 85] Building on a historically based (and so evolutionary) understanding of the state, anarchists concluded that it was necessary not to seize political power (which could only be exercised by a minority within any state) but rather to destroy it, to dissipate power into the hands of the working class, the majority. By ending the regime of the powerful by destroying their instrument of rule, the power which was concentrated into their hands automatically falls back into the hands of society. Thus, working class power can only be concrete once "political power" is shattered and replaced by the social power of the working class based on its own class organisations (such as factory committees, workers' councils, unions, neighbourhood assemblies and so on). As Murray Bookchin put it:
"the slogan 'Power to the people' can only be put into practice when the power exercised by social elites is dissolved into the people. Each individual can then take control of his [or her] daily life. If 'Power to the people' means nothing more than power to the 'leaders' of the people, then the people remain an undifferentiated, manipulated mass, as powerless after the revolution as they were before." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 20f]
In practice, this means that any valid social revolution needs to break the new state and not replace it with another one. This is because, in order to be a state, any state structure must be based on delegated power, hierarchy and centralisation ("every State, even the most Republican and the most democratic . . . . are in essence only machine governing the masses from above" and "[i]f there is a State, there must necessarily be domination, and therefore slavery; a State without slavery, overt or concealed, is unthinkable — and that is why we are enemies of the State." [Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, p. 211 and p. 287]). This means that if power is devolved to the working class then the state no longer exists as its "essential feature" (of delegated power) is absent. What you have is a new form of the "primitive democracy" which existed before the rise of the state. While this new, modern, form of self-management will have to defend itself against those seeking to recreate minority power, this does not mean that it becomes a state. After all, "primitive democracy" had to defend itself against its adversaries and so that, in itself, does not (as Engels acknowledges) means it is a state. Thus defence of a revolution, as anarchists have constantly stressed, does not equate to a state as it fails to address the key issue, namely who has power in the system — the masses or their leaders.
This issue is fudged by Marx. In his comments on Bakunin's question in "Statism and Anarchy" about "Will the entire proletariat head the government?", Marx argues in response:
"Does in a trade union, for instance, the whole union constitute the executive committee? Will all division of labour in a factory disappear and also the various functions arising from it? And will everybody be at the top in Bakunin's construction built from the bottom upwards? There will in fact be no below then. Will all members of the commune also administer the common affairs of the region? In that case there will be no difference between commune and region. 'The Germans [says Bakunin] number nearly 40 million. Will, for example, all 40 million be members of the government?' Certainly, for the thing begins with the self-government of the commune." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism, pp. 150-1]
As Alan Carter argues, "this might have seemed to Marx [over] a century ago to be satisfactory rejoinder, but it can hardly do today. In the infancy of the trade unions, which is all Marx knew, the possibility of the executives of a trade union becoming divorced from the ordinary members may not have seemed to him to be a likely outcome, We, however, have behind us a long history of union leaders 'selling out' and being out of touch with their members. Time has ably demonstrated that to reject Bakunin's fears on the basis of the practice of trade union officials constitutes a woeful complacency with regard to power and privilege — a complacency that was born ample fruit in the form of present Marxist parties and 'communist' societies . . . [His] dispute with Bakunin shows quite clearly that Marx did not stress the continued control of the revolution by the mass of the people as a prerequisite for the transcendence of all significant social antagonisms." [Marx: A Radical Critique, pp. 217-8]
As we discussed in section H.3.1, Marx's "Address to the Communist League," with its stress on "the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority" and that "the path of revolutionary activity . . . can only proceed with full force from the centre," suggests that Bakunin's fears were valid and Marx's answer simply inadequate. [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 509] Simply put, if, as Engels argues, the "an essential feature of the state is a public power distinct from the mass of the people," then, clearly Marx's argument of 1850 (and others like it) signifies a state in the usual sense of the word, one which has to be "distinct" from the mass of the population in order to ensure that the masses are prevented from interfering with their own revolution.
Ultimately, the question, of course, is one of power. Does the "executive committee" have the fundamental decision making power in society, or does that power lie in the mass assemblies upon which a federal socialist society is built? If the former, we have rule by a few party leaders and the inevitable bureaucratisation of the society and a state in the accepted sense of the word. If the latter, we have a basic structure of a free and equal society and a new organisation of popular self-management which eliminates, by self-management, the existence of a public power above society. This is not playing with words. It signifies the key issue of social transformation, an issue which Marxism tends to ignore or confuse matters about when discussing. Bookchin clarifies what is at stake:
"To some neo-Marxists who see centralisation and decentralisation merely as difference of degree, the word 'centralisation' may merely be an awkward way of denoting means for co-ordinating the decisions made by decentralised bodies. Marx, it is worth noting, greatly confused this distinction when he praised the Paris Commune as a 'working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time.' In point of fact, the consolidation of 'executive and legislative' functions in a single body was regressive. It simply identified the process of policy-making, a function that rightly should belong to the people in assembly, with the technical execution of these policies, a function that should be left to strictly administrative bodies subject to rotation, recall, limitations of tenure . . . Accordingly, the melding of policy formation with administration placed the institutional emphasis of classical [Marxist] socialism on centralised bodies, indeed, by an ironical twist of historical events, bestowing the privilege of formulating policy on the 'higher bodies' of socialist hierarchies and their execution precisely on the more popular 'revolutionary committees' below." [Toward an Ecological Society, pp. 215-6]
By confusing co-ordination with the state (i.e. with delegation of power), Marxism opens the door wide open to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" being a state "in the proper sense." Not only does Marxism open that door, it even invites the state "in the proper sense" of the word in! This can be seen from Engels comment that just as "each political party sets out to establish its rule in the state, so the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party is striving to establish its rule, the rule of the working class." [Marx, Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism, p. 94] By confusing rule by the party "in the state" with "rule of the working class," Engels is confusing party power and popular power. For the party to "establish its rule," the state in the normal sense (i.e. a structure based on the delegation of power) has to be maintained. As such, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" signifies the delegation of power by the proletariat into the hands of the party and that implies a "public power distinct from the mass of the people" and so minority rule. This aspect of Marxism, as we argue in the next section, was developed under the Bolsheviks and became "the dictatorship of the party" (i.e. the dictatorship over the proletariat).
It is for this reason why anarchists are extremely critical of Marxist ideas of social revolution. As Alan Carter argues:
"It is to argue not against revolution, but against 'revolutionary' praxis employing central authority. It is to argue that any revolution must remain in the hands of the mass of people and that they must be aware of the dangers of allowing power to fall into the hands of a minority in the course of the revolution. Latent within Marxist theory . . . is the tacit condoning of political inequality in the course and aftermath of revolutionary praxis. Only when such inequality is openly and widely rejected can there be any hope of a libertarian communist revolution. The lesson to learn is that we must oppose not revolutionary practice, but authoritarian 'revolutionary' practice. Such authoritarian practice will continue to prevail in revolutionary circles as long as the Marxist theory of the state and the corresponding theory of power remain above criticism within them." [Marx: A Radical Critique, p. 231]
In summary, the Marxist theory of the state is simply a-historic and postulates some kind of state "essence" which exists independently of actual states and their role in society. To confuse the organ required by a minority class to execute and maintain its rule and that required by a majority class to manage society is to make a theoretical error of great magnitude. It opens the door to the idea of party power and even party dictatorship. As such, the Marxism of Marx and Engels is confused on the issue of the state. Their comments fluctuate between the anarchist definition of the state (based, as it is, on generalisations from historical examples) and the a-historic definition (based not on historical example but rather derived from a supra-historical analysis). Trying to combine the metaphysical with the scientific, the authoritarian with the libertarian, can only leave their followers with a confused legacy and that is what we find.
Since the death of the founding fathers of Marxism, their followers have diverged into two camps. The majority have embraced the metaphysical and authoritarian concept of the state and proclaimed their support for a "workers' state." This is represented by social-democracy and it radical offshoot, Leninism. As we discuss in the next section, this school has used the Marxist conception of the state to allow for rule over the working class by the "revolutionary" party. The minority has become increasingly and explicitly anti-state, recognising that the Marxist legacy is contradictory and that for the proletarian to directly manage society then there can be no power above them. To this camp belongs the libertarian Marxists of the council communist, Situationist and other schools of thought which are close to anarchism.