The State Withering Away

[Diirez]

Is it possible to be communist but not believe in the state withering away?

For instance, is the state withering away a tenet of communism, or can someone create a case that society should be stuck in the dictatorship of the proletariat?

[Creative Destruction]

Is it possible to be communist but not believe in the state withering away?

For instance, is the state withering away a tenet of communism, or can someone create a case that society should be stuck in the dictatorship of the proletariat?

First, a society stuck in the dictatorship of the proletariat is still a capitalist society. Second, you cannot be a communist and hold that the state can or should go on. The era of communism is necessarily stateless, since the state is an instrument of class oppression. Since the goal is classlessness, that implies the absence of a state.

[BITW434]

There have been a few socialist thinkers, such as Ferdinand Lassalle, who have rejected the Marxian concept of the state withering away and instead argued for the necessity of the state, regarding it as essential for the achievement and consolidation of a socialist world.

However, by most people communism as a socioeconomic system is generally characterised by the absence of a state, among other things such as common ownership of the means of production and the lack of social class and money. Going by this definition, it would be pretty hard to label yourself a communist while rejecting the idea of a stateless society.

[RedKobra]

I would say it was fairly definitional. The State is the rule of one class over another, ergo we're talking of at least two classes still existing. So to talk of a Communist society with a state is to talk of a classless, stateless society with classes and a state.

[New International]

You'll find some Libertarian Communists (at sites like Libcom for example) who reject the transitional phase to statelessness.

The definition of a State is vital. Some have been conditioned to believe that a lack of a State is synonymous with chaos, or that a too-powerful State is synonymous with tyranny. The American Right exploits the latter for attacking the parts of the State they don't like (social programs and business regulations) while enjoying the benefits of a powerful State to rule over workers and subsidise their enterprises. Which is what a State actually is: an apparatus for one or more classes to rule over other classes.

Whereas Communist societies would still be highly organised through councils and federations, just without the class conflict.

[Blake's Baby]

You'll find some Libertarian Communists (at sites like Libcom for example) who reject the transitional phase to statelessness...

The OP's question though was about a society stuck in the revolutionary dictatorship. I agree, that there might be different theoretical models about how the state ceases to be - 'withering' v 'instantaneous annihilation', maybe. But there are no theories, as far as I know, of an endless revolutionary dictatorship/workers' state.

It would be hard to see how or why the proletariat could or would institute such a thing.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Is it possible to be communist but not believe in the state withering away?

For instance, is the state withering away a tenet of communism, or can someone create a case that society should be stuck in the dictatorship of the proletariat?

Communism, as the term is used by socialists, is classless and stateless by definition. I don't know; possibly you could try to argue for some kind of classless "communism" where the state has not withered away, in the vein of Duhring's "socialitarianism", but why would you do this terrible thing? I mean, if you want the state to remain, that strongly hints that your motives are not the same as ours ("you" being the person who makes this argument; I don't know if you personally advocate some sort of perpetual state scheme).

[motion denied]

Search for Domenico Losurdo, Italian philosopher and proponent of the non-withering away of the state, or the market.

Some 'Marxist" if you ask me.