Marxists.org
marxists.org › archive › lenin › works › 1917 › staterev › ch01.htm
The State and Revolution — Chapter 1
State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies down of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The state is not ’abolished’. It withers away.
Marxists.org
marxists.org › archive › lenin › works › 1917 › staterev › ch05.htm
The State and Revolution — Chapter 5
And, secondly, we know that the fundamental social cause of excesses, which consist in the violation of the rules of social intercourse, is the exploitation of the people, their want and their poverty. With the removal of this chief cause, excesses will inevitably begin to “wither away".
Lenin in his book the state and revolution says the “withering away of the state”
Yes, I believe this is one apt way to put it. It is impossible for the state to wither away while there is still an bourgeois attack, even if external. This is however an historical inevitability, which therefore must be part of the socialist struggle. There is much that can be learned from the past and present socialist experiences, especially if we look at them as human experiences and all that comes with it (faliures included). To childlish renounce them or adore them is useless. If the bureacrats of the USSR truly constitute a class, i do not believe it, but many argue like that, that they were almost from the beginning a separate class (neither capitalist or proletarian). I think this argument requires a unmarxist concept of class. But still, being a class of their own or not, it is undisputed that the leadership of the communist party calcified and eventually came to not be representative of the proletariat and even participated in counter revolution. This is not an argument that socialism is bound to fail, only a very disingenuous person would argue that one experience defines all of history. But it is a vital lessson for us, which are part of the proletarian struggle an may eventually (hopefully) be part of another experience in our own countries. More on reddit.com
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July 1, 2025Did Lenin believe in "withering away"?
We have an active Discord where you can go into more depth and communicate more quickly. If you're not sure about any of the entry questions, just say so: we built it for learners and educators like you. Hello, 90% of the questions we receive have been asked before, and our answerers get bored of answering the same queries over and over again - so it's worthwhile googling this just in case: site:reddit.com/ r/communism101 your question If you've read past answers and still aren't satisfied, edit your question to contain the past answers and any follow-up questions you have. If you're satisfied, delete your post to reduce clutter or link to the answer that satisfied you. Also keep in mind the following rules: Patriarchal, white supremacist, cissexist, heterosexist, or otherwise oppressive speech is unacceptable. This is a place for learning, not for debating. Try r/DebateCommunism instead. Give well-informed Marxist answers. There are separate subreddits for liberalism, anarchism, and other idealist philosophies. Posts should include specific questions on a single topic. This is a serious educational subreddit. Come here with an open and inquisitive mind, and exercise humility. Don't answer a question if you are unsure of the answer. Try to include sources and/or further reading in any answers you provide. Standards of answer accuracy and quality are enforced. Check the /r/Communism101 FAQ I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. More on reddit.com
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June 7, 2021What does Lenin mean by the state "withering away"?
Hello, 90% of the questions we receive have been asked before, and our answerers get bored of answering the same queries over and over again - so it's worthwhile googling this just in case: site:reddit.com/ r/communism101 your question If you've read past answers and still aren't satisfied, edit your question to contain the past answers and any follow-up questions you have. If you're satisfied, delete your post to reduce clutter or link to the answer that satisfied you. Also keep in mind the following rules: Patriarchal, white supremacist, cissexist, heterosexist, or otherwise oppressive speech is unacceptable. This is a place for learning, not for debating. Try r/DebateCommunism instead. Give well-informed Marxist answers. There are separate subreddits for liberalism, anarchism, and other idealist philosophies. Posts should include specific questions on a single topic. This is a serious educational subreddit. Come here with an open and inquisitive mind, and exercise humility. Don't answer a question if you are unsure of the answer. Try to include sources and/or further reading in any answers you provide. Standards of answer accuracy and quality are enforced. Check the /r/Communism101 FAQ No chauvinism or settler apologism - Non-negotiable: https://readsettlers.org/ No tone-policing - https://old.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/12sblev/an_amendment_to_the_rules_of_rcommunism101/ I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. More on reddit.com
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November 25, 2023How Exactly Does The State Wither Away?
Please acquaint yourself with the rules on the sidebar and read this comment before commenting on this post. Personal attacks and harassment will not be tolerated. Bigotry and hate speech will be met with immediate bans; socialism is an intrinsically inclusive system and bigotry is oppressive, exclusionary, and not conducive to a healthy and productive learning space. This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism. There are numerous debate subreddits available for those purposes. This is a place to learn. Short or nonconstructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. If your post was removed due to normalized ableist slurs, please edit your post. The mods will then approve it. Please read the ongoing discussion in a thread before replying in order to avoid misunderstandings and creating an unproductive environment. Liberalism and sectarian bias is strictly moderated. Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! (Criticism is fine, low-effort baiting is not.) Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break these rules. Thank you! I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. More on reddit.com
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August 21, 2022Politicalsciencenotes
politicalsciencenotes.com › home › marxism
Withering Away of State: Meaning, Engels, Lenin and Stalin’s View (with Evaluation)
July 28, 2016 - It is self-evident that such a ... place in the form of withering away. Lenin says that the withering away of state is directed against the anarchists and opportunists....
Reddit
reddit.com › r/debatecommunism › lenin in his book the state and revolution says the “withering away of the state”
r/DebateCommunism on Reddit: Lenin in his book the state and revolution says the “withering away of the state”
July 1, 2025 -
He clearly outlines that the proletariat "abolishes" the bourgeoisie state, and what withers away is the proletariat state or semi state for there will be no class to protect against.
In hindsight, the collapse of soviet union clearly shows us that the consent agression from imperialism had them investing heavily in protecting the proletariat state which then gave rise to a special class of bureaucratics that was created to fight imperialist agression.
So from what I understand it's quite impossible to just have the proletariat state wither away while facing consent imperialist agression from outside.
Right?
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Yes, I believe this is one apt way to put it. It is impossible for the state to wither away while there is still an bourgeois attack, even if external. This is however an historical inevitability, which therefore must be part of the socialist struggle. There is much that can be learned from the past and present socialist experiences, especially if we look at them as human experiences and all that comes with it (faliures included). To childlish renounce them or adore them is useless. If the bureacrats of the USSR truly constitute a class, i do not believe it, but many argue like that, that they were almost from the beginning a separate class (neither capitalist or proletarian). I think this argument requires a unmarxist concept of class. But still, being a class of their own or not, it is undisputed that the leadership of the communist party calcified and eventually came to not be representative of the proletariat and even participated in counter revolution. This is not an argument that socialism is bound to fail, only a very disingenuous person would argue that one experience defines all of history. But it is a vital lessson for us, which are part of the proletarian struggle an may eventually (hopefully) be part of another experience in our own countries.
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Yes, that’s correct. Resisting organized aggression from the most powerful hegemonic empire in all of human history requires organized resistance. The state serves its purpose in historic socialist practice, a purpose that is indispensable for the time being. Our theory relies on global revolution and on global socialism, all major industrial powers adopting socialism before the world moves past this era of imperialism and onto a communist future.
University Press Scholarship
universitypressscholarship.com › view › 10.7312 › columbia › 9780231146821.001.0001 › upso-9780231146821-chapter-22
The Problem of the “Withering-Away” of the State: Against Equality | Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin | Columbia Scholarship Online | Oxford Academic
November 19, 2015 - This chapter examines the problem ... and Revolution. According to Lenin: “The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution....
Jacobin
jacobin.com › 2018 › 08 › lenin-state-and-revolution-miliband
Lenin’s The State and Revolution
August 14, 2018 - For it is of course one of the basic tenets of Marxism, and one of its basic differences with anarchism, that while the proletarian revolution must smash the old state, it does not abolish the state itself: a state remains in being, and even endures for a long time to come, even though it begins immediately to “wither away.” What is most remarkable about the answer which Lenin gives to the question of the nature of the post-revolutionary state is how far he takes the concept of the “withering away” of the state in The State and Revolution: so far, in fact, that the state, on the morrow of the revolution, has not only begun to wither away, but is already at an advanced stage of decomposition.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Withering_away_of_the_state
Withering away of the state - Wikipedia
May 13, 2026 - Although Engels first introduced the terminology of "the withering away of the state", he attributed the underlying concept to Marx, and other Marxist theorists—including Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)—would later expand on it. According to this concept of the withering away of the state, ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/communism101 › did lenin believe in "withering away"?
r/communism101 on Reddit: Did Lenin believe in "withering away"?
June 7, 2021 -
I was taught in school that Marxist-Leninists believe that the socialist state should stay permanently after the overthrowing of the capitalist state. And they don't believe that the state should "wither away". But I am reading State and Revolution (I've only finished the 1st chapter) and it seems to me that Lenin does believe the socialist state should wither away. He just says that the capitalist state can't be overthrown by letting it wither away.
I'll probably find out before I finish State amd Revolution, but, does Lenin believe in the withering away of a socialist state?
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Yes, like you said he discusses it at length in state and revolution
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Yes and he goes into great detail throughout the book, especially in the chapters "the economic basis of the withering away of the state" and "the transition from capitalism to communism", citing mostly Engels: "Engels expressed this splendidly in his letter to Bebel when he said, as the reader will remember, that 'the proletariat needs the state, not in 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'. Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism. Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (i.e., when there is no distinction between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then 'the state... ceases to exist', and 'it becomes possible to speak of freedom'. Only then will a truly complete democracy become possible and be realized, a democracy without any exceptions whatever. And only then will democracy begin to wither away, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims. They will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for coercion called the state."
Reddit
reddit.com › r/communism101 › what does lenin mean by the state "withering away"?
r/communism101 on Reddit: What does Lenin mean by the state "withering away"?
November 25, 2023 -
So we establish a transitory socialist state... and then what? They just decide to step down from power?
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Through revolution, the proletariat takes control of State power and transforms the means of production into (proletariat) State property. Through this very act, the proletariat undermines itself as "the proletariat", eliminating all class distinctions and conflicts Once there's no longer a social class to oppress, and with the disappearance of class dominance and the struggle for individual existence, there will be nothing left to suppress. Thus, there will be no need for the State. This is true because historically, the State only serves for keeping the oppressed class in conditions of subjugation: be it slavery, serfdom, or wage labor. Thus, taking control of the means of production on behalf of society is, at the same time, the first step in which the State effectively presents itself as the representative of the entire society and its ultimate independent action as "a State." The State's authority intervening in social relations will become unnecessary in one aspect after another of social life and will gradually fade away on its own. Important distinction: The bourgeois State is dismantled through socialist revolution (no other way); what fades away is the proletarian State (or semi-State). Source: State and Revolution by Lenin. (Read it in Spanish so sorry for the rough translation)
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Read "The State and Revolution" to learn more. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ for the entire book (which you and everyone else ought to read). But the specific section is here.
Revolutionary Communists of America
communistusa.org › home › the state and revolution: a reading guide
The State and Revolution: A Reading Guide - Revolutionary Communists of America
March 6, 2022 - Lenin also explains that the administration of a workers’ state should not be left to privileged officials. Rather, everyone must learn how to carry out the functions of the state in rotation. Once the majority has learned “to administer and actually to independently administer social production,” the basis will be laid for the “complete withering away of the state.”
Medium
valarierenaux.medium.com › lenin-on-the-withering-away-of-democracy-496078aa770b
Lenin on the Withering Away of Democracy | by Valarie Renaux | Medium
May 20, 2020 - But it never enters the head of any of the opportunists, who shamelessly distort Marxism, that Engels is consequently speaking here of democracy “dying down of itself,” or “withering away.” This seems very strange at first sight. But it is “incomprehensible” only to those who have not thought about democracy also being a state and, consequently, also disappearing when the state disappears.¹ · So wrote Lenin in his seminal The State and Revolution on the eve of the fall of the Russian Republic, which, with its eight liberal principles, was, at least in name, the most democratic and progressive government in the world.
Marxists Internet Archive
marxists.org › ebooks › lenin › state-and-revolution.pdf pdf
State and Revolution pdf
form of the “state” at that time is the most complete democracy. But it never enters the · head of any of the opportunists, who shamelessly distort Marxism, that Engels is · consequently speaking here of democracy “dying down of itself", or “withering · away".
libcom.org
libcom.org › article › marxism-and-state-communism-withering-away-state-groepen-van-internationale-communisten-gic
Marxism and State Communism: the Withering Away of the State - Groepen van Internationale Communisten (GIC) | libcom.org
October 7, 2016 - Despite this, Lenin expressed in The State and Revolution, that this state must die, and, he even comes to the correct conclusion that democracy must also die. “[…] in speaking of the state ‘withering away’, and the even more graphic and colorful ‘dying down of itself’, Engels refers quite clearly and definitely to the period after ‘the state has taken possession of the means of production in the name of the whole of society’, that is, after the socialist revolution.
Pdx
pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu › cgi › viewcontent.cgi pdf
On Lenin, and the State as a Necessary Tool Working Paper No. 78
State would no longer be a special coercive force for an oppressive class. Lenin · ([1918], 1993, 15) clarifies that it is the original form of the State, the bourgeois · State, which will be abolished and the new form of the state, the proletariat state, is · what will wither away.
Fordham University
sourcebooks.fordham.edu › mod › lenin-staterev.asp
The State and Revolution - Internet History Sourcebooks Project
January 26, 1996 - Home | Ancient History Sourcebook | Medieval Sourcebook | Modern History Sourcebook | Byzantine Studies Page Other History Sourcebooks: African | East Asian | Indian | Islamic | Jewish | Lesbian and Gay | Science | Women's | Global · Full Texts Multimedia Search Help
Mises Institute
mises.org › articles-interest › marxs-theory-stages-withering-away-state-under-socialism
Marx's Theory of Stages: The Withering Away of the State Under Socialism | Mises Institute
April 11, 2024 - The State, says Lenin, will wither ... when “there will be need for any exact calculation by Society of the quantity of products to be distributed to each of its member; each will take freely according to his needs.” “But it ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/socialism_101 › how exactly does the state wither away?
r/Socialism_101 on Reddit: How Exactly Does The State Wither Away?
August 21, 2022 -
Is there any detailed answer for this? Will the State not try to survive at all costs?
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The state is a coercive tool. The dominant class wields the machinery of state. Currently that is the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie needs the proletariat or they can’t make their profits, thus the state has to exist to ensure they remain in control as the proletariat will always be a threat, as will rival bourgeoisie. The state in the hands of the proletariat will try to dissolve the bourgeoisie as the proletariat don’t need the bourgeoisie. So over time the proletarian socialist mode of production starts shaping the super structure of society and eliminating bourgeoisie culture and ideals society will eventually become classless. However in the mean time there will be attempts by the bourgeoisie to reassert control. As evidenced by literally every socialist state that has existed. For this reason I would claim that no socialist state has really been in a position to make this change, that it would require essentially the victory of socialism. When this situation is finally resolved people will no longer need to be coerced by a state, as no class is dominating any other. Those coercive functions will fall to the people themselves. This doesn’t mean there won’t be governance of some kind, the “administration of things”. We aren’t aiming to go back to some dark age type society. As for contradictions, Engels and Marx didn’t lay this out as a step by step guide for a reason. Contradictions will arise, just like there would be contradictions if the state is abolished at the snap of a finger. It’s up for the communists of the day to solve them.
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Reading Lenin's State and Revolution is very useful to answer this question. The state was born as a means to solve class contradictions, and as such, it can be used to finally solve them once the proletariat takes ahold of the state. First comes the destruction of the bourgueois state, followed by the construction of the proletariat state. Why? Because obviously, the bourgeoisie isn't actually going to solve the class contradictions that they profit from. So we need a proletariat state that actually works to achieve a final resolution of class conflict. It would wither away because, step by step, it would solve problem by problem, rendering each specific branch of the state useless. As it solves contradictions, it withers away, ending with no state at all. This is the basics. State and Revolution explains it a bit deeper. I, however, am an anarchist, and find this all to be wishful thinking. For some reason materialism flies out the window when it comes to speaking about the state with MLs. Not only does the State constitutes a class of its own, but its existence also creates newer contradictions. A state will never work to render itself useless, be it bourgeois or proletariat, and even if it did, it won't solve the contradictions that are created by its very existence. It's also important to point out that, despite being materialists and a science, past and present ML experiments quite deliberately ignore the fact that none of its stated became smaller throughout the experiment. The common answer (and a correct one) would be that it can't be done because capitalist countries would immediately try to avoid the development of socialism. Hence why the state needs to be big and strong. But this doesn't explain why the state didn't wither away on other minor affairs, other than the army, surveillance etc.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › The_State_and_Revolution
The State and Revolution - Wikipedia
3 weeks ago - In the event, the proletariat through ... bourgeoisie, in achieving the withering away of the State as its institutions begin to “lose their political character”. Thus, following Marx's conclusions on the Paris Commune, which Lenin took as his model....
Marxists.org
marxists.org › archive › lenin › works › 1916 › jul › x01.htm
Lenin: The Discussion On Self-Determination Summed Up
Under socialism the working people ... of political forms, freedom to secede, and experience in state organisation—there will he all this until the state in all its forms withers away—will be the basis of a prosperous cultured life and an earnest that the nations will ...
Marxists.org
marxists.org › archive › lenin › works › 1917 › staterev › ch04.htm
The State and Revolution — Chapter 4
This seemingly clever but actually incorrect statement might be made in regard to any democratic institution, including moderate salaries for officials, because fully consistent democracy is impossible under capitalism, and under socialism all democracy will wither away.