#POLITICAL 

Marxist Theory of the State
Marxism was a broad social philosophy that emerged during the 19th century with a philosophy
as well as a set of economic, social and historical theories.
Karl Marx (1818 - 1884) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), founders of Marxism, advanced
an entirely new theory of the state and its origins.
Marxism also argued that the state was not a divine, but human creation, However, the Marxist
origin theory of the state is very different from the social contract theory. The state originated
because of the irreconcilable class conflicts in society, as an instrument in the hands of property
owning social classes. This thesis is linked to the Marxist theory of social classes and class
conflict.
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Briefly, the Marxist theory of classes and the origin of the state states the following:
• Stateless phase in human society: In human history, there was a very early phase
during which there were no inequalities or social classes among human beings. There was
no state either. This classless and stateless phase of early human history is called ‘primitive
communism.’
• Origin of private property and social classes: When the human society evolved further,
a system of private property developed in place of common ownership of resources. This
led to divisions in society between property-owning and property-less human groups.
This was the beginning the emergence of social classes based on economic inequalities.
• Class Conflict: Social classes have conflicting economic interests and goals, because the
property owning classes constantly wanted to exploit these property-less classes as slaves,
or labourers. This led to an open conflict between exploiting and exploited social classes.
Marx described this as ‘class conflict.’
• Class conflict and the state: Because of the class conflict, the property owning and
exploiting classes need an instrument, or an institution, to establish and maintain their power
over the property-less and exploited classes. This instrument used violence to suppress
the exploited social classes. This is the beginning of the state. The Marxist theory says that
the state originated in human history in the context of class conflict, as an institution to
manage the class conflict and as an instrument of the ruling classes to suppress the
subordinate social classes.
In the Marxist theory, the state has developed through different stages of human history. These stages
have been tribal society, slavery, feudalism and capitalism. During each stage, the state power remained
in the hands of the dominant class of society - tribal leaders, slave owners, landed aristocracy and the
bourgeoisie, respectively. That is why the state in those stages are called the tribal state, slave state,
feudal state, and capitalist state.
According to the Marxist theory, the modern state is a capitalist state, and it is the state of the capitalist
class. It is the instrument of the capitalist class to maintain the capitalist system that thrives on the
exploitation of the working class. Therefore, for the emancipation of the working class and other
oppressed social classes, the abolition of the capitalist state is essential.
The Marxist theory also says that it is the historical task of the working class to abolish the capitalist
state. The first stage of this process is the overthrow of the capitalist class from power, by capturing the
capitalist state. This event is called in the Marxist theory the ‘working class revolution.’ The Communist
Party was supposed to provide leadership to the working class in this revolution.
Socialism is the stage of historical development after capitalism, which the Marxist theory predicted. It
calls the state under socialism the ‘socialist state.’
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Socialists believe that the socialist state should not be one like the liberal democratic state. It
should allow the capitalist and exploiting classes to political organize themselves. Only the
communist party of the working class can exist under socialism. Thus, the socialist states in
Soviet Russia and other socialist countries have been a ‘one-party states.’ The socialist state
has thus been described by the socialist themselves as ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’
Marxists also believed that socialism was to be the last stage of the state in its historical
evolution. Since socialism leads to the abolition of social classes, the need for a state to exist
will disappear. The Marxist called this ‘withering away of the state.’
However, the predictions of the Marxist theory of the state about the socialist state and the
withering away of the state have not become realities. Socialism has not been able to replace
capitalism globally. Instead, socialism itself faced a major crisis and then collapsed during the
1980s. Although Marxists believed that the socialist state would be an alternative to the liberal,
capitalist state, it failed to become a viable alternative