this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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What does "stateless" exactly mean in the context of communism? (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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(Reposted in this community cuz I didn't get any responses in the original community that I posted this under)

This is how I understand the communist utopia: Workers seize means of production. Means of production thus, start working for the proletariat masses rather than the bourgeoisie class. Thus, technological progress stops being stifled and flourishes. Humanity achieves a post scarcity-like environment for most goods and services. Thus, money becomes irrelevant at a personal level.

In all this, I can’t see how we stop needing a state. How can we build bridges without a body capable of large scale organisation? How would we have a space program without a state for example? I clearly have gotten many things wrong here. However, I’m unable to find what I’ve gotten wrong on my own. Plz help <3

Edit: Okay, got a very clear and sensible answer from @Aidinthel@reddthat.com. Unfortunately, I don't know how to link their comment. Hence, here is what they said:

Depends on how you define “state”. IIRC, Marx drew a distinction between “state” and “government”, where the former is all the coercive institutions (cops, prisons, courts, etc). In this framework, you need a “government” to do the things you refer to, but participation in that government’s activities should be voluntary, without the threat of armed government agents showing up at your door if you don’t comply.

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[–] Rottcodd@lemmy.ninja 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So to not have an institutionalized authority that coerces people to follow the rules, you first coerce (or even kill) the self-serving fuckwads.

No - you explicitly do not. It's impossible to get out of the trap of some claiming the power to nominally rightfully force the submission of others through some claiming the power to nominally rightfully force the submission of others.

The only way it can come about is if humanity evolves into it - grows the fuck up, collectively as well as individually.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's the thing though: you can't get out of the system without overthrowing it.

The people who are currently in charge of institutionalized authority have a lot of power and they got it, because they wanted it and used the current system to gain the power. They are not going to let go voluntarily.

And there is no opt-out of the system either. If a bunch of people act as if the authority doesn't apply to them, they'll get into trouble real quick. So doing this as a grassroots effort will also not work.

That's why the Communists that actually managed to communize a country all did so with a revolution and a state afterward. And yes, in the USSR they originally claimed they will only do the state-thing until the population is ready to go stateless, but who'd actually do that if you are Lenin or Stalin and that sweet sweet totalitarian power tastes so good?

[–] homoludens@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It all depends on your definition of communism and state etc., but the Zapatistas seem to be quite successful with a grassroots approach.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it started with a violent uprising in which 300 people where killed and the Wiki article you linked has a section called "government" which reads as follows:

At a local level, people attend a popular assembly of around 300 families in which anyone over the age of twelve can participate in decision-making. These assemblies strive to reach a consensus, but are willing to fall back to a majority vote. The communities form a federation with other communities to create an autonomous municipality, which form further federations with other municipalities to create a region.

Each community has three main administrative structures: (1) the commissariat, in charge of day-to-day administration; (2) the council for land control, which deals with forestry and disputes with neighboring communities; and (3) the agencia, a community police agency.

That's direct democracy on a community level and representative democracy on a higher level. Pretty similar to what is practiced in many democratic countries.

And if they have a police agency and an army it's hard to call them anarchist.

And they themselves don't do that either. Only outside anarchists project themselves onto them and say they are anarchists.

[–] homoludens@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I said, it depends on a lot of definitions of rather complex concepts.

The point I was trying to make, was that you don't have to end up with a state, especially not a soviet style state, after a revolution. And in my opinion a violent uprising or an having an organized militant group does not mean you have a state. If I understand it correctly, the Zapatistas don't have a principle of using violence to force others into their system - which is something central to states.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's kinda weird though that some people call for violent revolutions over what amounts to semantics.

Sadly, history has taught us, that there are only very few revolutions that end up with a more liberal political system. The Zaparistas are the first instance where I heard of something like that, and I am not nearly informed enough on the specifics of their system and how it works out in real-life to comment on them.

All other revolutions that I know about usually ended with a Robespierre, a Lenin/Stalin, a Hitler, a Mao Zedong or any of the hundreds of military dictatorships that came into power over the last century.

Not many people are able to first amass enough power to be stronger than the regular government and then idealistic enough to let go of all that power again.

[–] homoludens@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree that there are a lot of revolutions ending up way more totalitarian than planned.

I'm not sure there are hundreds of them that had communism or a stateless society as a goal though. Many military dictatorships had a military dictatorship as a goal after all. But of course there were also many who had that goal, and failed on a huge scale.

There were more revolutions than just the Zapatistas that seemed to be promising though, like the Spanish Revolution and the the Makhnovshchina.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You are right, of course, that most revolutions don't have communism as their goal.

But all successful ones lead to totalitarian states.

I find it difficult to judge the Zapatistas, same as the Spanish Revolution and the Makhovshchina, since they all nevever matured (or in the chase of the Zapatistas haven't matured yet).

Generally speaking, during a revolution, the revolutionists (is that a word?) promise the people everything, because they need to gather support. Once they have driven out the old power/government and actually control the area, they usually tend to shift. This pattern occurs not only for communist revolutions, but for all types of revolution.

Generally speaking "Support me becoming a totalitarian dictator" isn't really a good rallying call.

I'm not saying it can't happen, only that it consistently hasn't happened so far.