Why Communism Needs the State

What role does the state play in the Communist vision of revolution?

“But to destroy [the State] at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, holding down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society”

(Letter from Engels to Philipp Van Patten, April 18, 1883)

In short, they saw state as a coercive, violent tool to protect and perpetuate an act of theft and prevent property owners from reasserting their control of property. This is why Marxism can’t abide no government or even a small government. It needs a big government to keep those nasty individualists and capitalists in check and prevent them from holding on to their stuff.  Some of us, however, would not like to be  “held down” in the manner suggested by Engels.

The idea of using violence to supress property rights is not new, its even illustrated negatively in a parable of Jesus Christ, when he portrays wicked tenants who think they own the owners property and hence attempt, as workers, to take control of the owners property  (Luke 20:9-15).