The State?

[DaComm]

It is commonly noted in Marxist literature that Communism can be described as the abolition of exploitation of man by fellow man, the elimination of private property, etc. Communism is a society that is run by and for the workers in all aspects; or as it is commonly known as: Common Ownership. However, I came upon a definition that stated that in Communism, "the state controls everything". In this sense, what is the "state". I realise this is a noobish/foolish question but it has been on my mind lately, and I would really like some clarification.

[x371322]

That definition was probably referring to so called "Communist States" such as China, North Korea, the USSR, etc. In that these are or were controlled by a "Communist" party. In reality, the term Communist State is an oxymoron... a contradiction. Communism would be a stateless, moneyless society, free from exploitation.

[ContrarianLemming]

The anarchist definition of "State" is the governing insitiution with a monopoly on violence

[syndicat]

The anarchist definition of "State" is the governing insitiution with a monopoly on violence

nope. that's Max Weber's definition. an anarchist shouldn't accept it because it would make anarchism self-contradictory. in any feasible society, and surely in libertarian socialism, there must be some set of institutions through which the society's basic rules are decided and enforced.

but it need not be a state. for tens of thousands of years humans lived in tribal, hunter-gatherer type communities, and there was no state. there was a means to enforce customs and rules or censure people who violated those rules. in that sense the tribe had a "monopoly of violence" in its area...and it would use this for example in battles with other tribes.

As Engels argues, states are a product of class society. once there is a division into a dominating and exploiting class, and the immediate producers they dominate, the dominating classes will need a separate instution, not under direct control of the people, to enforce and defend its own interests. so then begins the evolution of the bureaucratic, hierarchical administrative structures and hierarchical armed bodies, armies and police, judiciary, etc.

so if there were a form of governance that was directly the people ruling, through things like assemblies, grassroots meetings of delegates, a militia under their direct control etc. then it wouldn't be a state. but if it's going to protect the revolutionary order against for example those would try to reimpose capitalism, then it will have a "monopoly of violence", via its democratically controlled militia.

[ContrarianLemming]

nope. that's Max Weber's definition. an anarchist shouldn't accept it because it would make anarchism self-contradictory. in any feasible society, and surely in libertarian socialism, there must be some set of institutions through which the society's basic rules are decided and enforced.

but it need not be a state. for tens of thousands of years humans lived in tribal, hunter-gatherer type communities, and there was no state. there was a means to enforce customs and rules or censure people who violated those rules. in that sense the tribe had a "monopoly of violence" in its area...and it would use this for example in battles with other tribes.

As Engels argues, states are a product of class society. once there is a division into a dominating and exploiting class, and the immediate producers they dominate, the dominating classes will need a separate instution, not under direct control of the people, to enforce and defend its own interests. so then begins the evolution of the bureaucratic, hierarchical administrative structures and hierarchical armed bodies, armies and police, judiciary, etc.

so if there were a form of governance that was directly the people ruling, through things like assemblies, grassroots meetings of delegates, a militia under their direct control etc. then it wouldn't be a state. but if it's going to protect the revolutionary order against for example those would try to reimpose capitalism, then it will have a "monopoly of violence", via its democratically controlled militia.
Modern political scientists generally define the "state" as a centralized, hierarchical, governing institution which maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_the_legitimate_use_of_physical_force), in keeping with the definition originally proposed by the German sociologist Max Weber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber) in his 1918 essay "Politics as a Vocation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_as_a_Vocation)". Marxists, and some anarchists, dispute this definition. Marxism has a unique definition of the state: that the state is an organ of one class's repression of all other classes. To Marxists, any state is intrinsically a dictatorship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship) by one class over all others. Therefore, within Marxist theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_theory), should the differentiation between classes disappear, so too will the state.
However, there is some convergence of views. Anarchists believe that any state - be it a worker's state or a bourgeois state - will inevitably be created and ruled by a political and economic elite, therefore becoming an organ of class domination. Conversely, Marxists believe that successful class repression almost always requires a superior capacity for violence, and that all societies prior to socialism are ruled by a minority class, so that in Marxist theory any non-socialist state will possess the properties attributed to all states by anarchists and others.
Disputes arise between anarchists and those Marxists who believe that a state is required for the repression of classes other than the working class. In example, Bakunin wrote in his work "Anarchism and the State (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anarchism_and_the_State&action=edit&redlink=1)":

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship — their dictatorship, of course — can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.
Bakunin believed that Marx's desire to abolish the state and create, in the last analysis, an anarchist system via state power is irrational. Commenting on that he added that "anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, [for Marxists] in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved."

- wiki, may shed some light on this.