In The State and Revolution, Lenin (and Engels, whom he is quoting) disagrees with communists using “People’s State” or “Free People’s State” as a programme goal.
If I understand correctly, this is because a) it creates a misunderstanding on the final phase of communism, which is stateless and b) it goes against the Marxist understanding of states as forces of oppression. On the other hand, it seems logical to me that a state following the dictatorship of the proletariat principle would call itself “People’s”, since the proletariat is the majority.
So, I’ve been wondering if the existing socialist states have an official line about this, or if there’s a consensus amongst M-Ls.
Could you cite the text you are referring to?
Point a. seems pointless since anyway the socialist phase is the existing one and therefore States exists, we will be in such phase for a long time and we don’t know exactly what the stateless existence will look like. Point b. is a misunderstood, since yes, States are the oppressing organ of one class over the other, but that in itself is what Marxists Leninists should strive for since we need to be in power in order to oppress the bourgeoisie.
The “free people’s state” was a programme demand and a catchword current among the German Social-Democrats in the seventies. This catchword is devoid of all political content except that it describes the concept of democracy in a pompous philistine fashion. Insofar as it hinted in a legally permissible manner at a democratic republic, Engels was prepared to “justify” its use “for a time” from an agitational point of view. But it was an opportunist catchword, for it amounted to nothing more than prettifying bourgeois democracy, and was also a failure to understand the socialist criticism of the state in general. We are in favor of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism. But we have no right to forget that wage slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic. Furthermore, every state is a “special force” for the suppression of the oppressed class. Consequently, every state is not “free” and not a “people’s state". Marx and Engels explained this repeatedly to their party comrades in the seventies.
(emphasis mine)
Even this short quote explicitly mention it’s about “bourgeois” and “capitalist” state, three times. Also State and Revolution was iirc written before the concept of socialism in one state was formulated.
Consequently, every state is not “free” and not a “people’s state".
Kinda embarrasing to point it out to Lenin, but obligatory “for which class” question is needed. It sounds like one of his thought shortcuts, like the one when he said “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country”.
