Structure of Communist Government?

[toothpick]

As I understand from Karl Marx's Manifesto, Communism is sort of an inevitable end result of revolutions coming out of class warfare.

My question is not what the structure of government would look like during the revolutions, but after any revolutions if they took place? What would the end results look like?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

First of all, communism is not inevitable. Today, communism is a real possibility, but it is not guaranteed that human society will make the transition to communism. The old socialist slogan is, after all, socialism or barbarism. It is quite possible that class struggle will "end with the destruction of contending classes", as Marx puts it.

Second, there will be no government in communism. Communism is a stateless society. Presumably there will be a central coordination of some sort, probably collegial, but the details are something we can only speculate about. There is nothing in Marxist theory that determines the exact composition of this public power - nothing that says "alright, we need to have one president and the raion of North Burgundy will need to have three delegates in the council".

[#FF0000]

I think OP's asking about the structure of government during the transition to communism. In which case we could talk about all sorts of blueprints, which would all be absolute speculation. The most common vague outline, though, is a federated system of worker's councils with directly elected and immediately recallable delegates. Moshe Machover from the Communist Party of Great Britain wrote about the "council pyramid" model, mostly criticizing it, and suggesting a modified version in this paper (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/51148/1/__Libfile_repository_Content_Machover%2C%20M_Macho ver_Collective_%20Decision_Making_Machover_Collect ive_%20Decision_Making.pdf) (PDF) which might be of interest for you.

[RedMaterialist]

As I understand from Karl Marx's Manifesto, Communism is sort of an inevitable end result of revolutions coming out of class warfare.

My question is not what the structure of government would look like during the revolutions, but after any revolutions if they took place? What would the end results look like?

After the revolution the socialist dictatorship will begin the process of destroying the capitalist classes (primarily big corporations and petit-bourgeoisie.) This involves the destruction of the existing bourgeois state and the setting up of the new socialist state.

The structure, characteristics, function, etc of this dictatorship will depend on the social conditions existing at the time. It may take the form of a brutal, direct, dictatorship or it may appear as a democratic republic or welfare state.

If the working class or anti-capitalist class succeeds in eradicating the capitalist classes then, at some point, the state, as such, will begin to wither away and die. There will be no further class antagonism or exploitation and, therefore, no basis for state existence.

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a "communist" state. There will only be an "administration of things."

The end result will be a free association of human beings with all economic production planned and conducted according to human need rather than profit.

One way to possibly think about it would be to imagine a gigantic corporation, wholly owned by society and functioning as a real non-profit. The purpose of the corporation would be to produce goods and services as needed by society. There must be no private ownership of the corporation, otherwise a fascist state could develop.

The economic function of society would be relegated to this corporation. It would have no control over society, society would control and own it. All other social functions would be determined based on the free association of people.

Computers would almost certainly organize and administer the economic function of this "corporation." Society, in the form of freely associated people, would determine the inputs, programming, etc. of the computers.

It's important to remember that a ruling "state" can only come into existence on the basis of class suppression. It would be necessary to make sure that no private ownership or private property in social production is possible.

Think about the Social Security system in the U.S. It is a gigantic insurance system producing trillions of dollars of pension insurance. Private pension systems have long been an important part of the means of production in capitalist societies. Social Security is owned by the American people, socially-not individually, and is managed, more or less, on their behalf by a government bureaucracy. It is a socially owned means of production managed as an administration of funds, of "things." It's even called the Social Security Administration.

And it is an extremely valuable means of production, which is why the capitalist class periodically tries to grab it.

[Tim Cornelis]

^Ignore what he said if you don't wish to be ill informed about Marxism and communism. Sorry for having to be so harsh and straightforward, but it's simply the truth.

[Guardia Rossa]

You could give an explaination too Tim

[Blake's Baby]

After the revolution, there wouldn't be a 'government' as such. There would be things like technical commissions to decide how electric power would be distributed or where aeroplanes were going to fly (preferably, in the sky) or something, but no 'government'.

[Tim Cornelis]

An explanation would be very exhaustive, would be better to just ignore. RedMaterialist, I think, is pretty notorious on RevLeft for having a weird and wrong interpretation of Marxism. Weird beliefs include: the Soviet state withered away and then foreign capital reinstated capitalism; Cuba's liberalisation is really just the state withering away; Sweden is transitioning to communism via the welfare state; state control over the economy is a negation of capitalism. He seems the be the only person to have this interpretation of Marxism which is an indication that he's dead wrong. That's not to say that "the majority is right", but if you are the only one, you are probably misreading something.

Some weird and/or wrong beliefs expressed in his posts:

"It may take the form of a brutal, direct, dictatorship or it may appear as a democratic republic or welfare state."

Utterly wrong on all three accounts. In Marx, democracy and dictatorship are not contradictory. It makes no sense to pull out such a dichotomy which is not reflected in Marx's writings anywhere. When we say dictatorship of the proletariat, it does not mean dictatorship as the word is used today (as RM implies). A democratic republic refers to liberal democracy, not a workers' government. And a welfare state (such as Sweden) is not a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

And the idea that the Social Security Administration is akin to the "administration of things" in communism because it "is even called ... administration" is so ridiculous I don't even think it needs pointing out. This idea is also the basis of his ridiculous idea that Sweden, etc., are transitioning to communism currently.

It's really just a weird mash of Bernsteinian revisionism, utopian socialism, and Stalinism.