What's the role of the state in a socialist society?

[benhur]

Will the state simply protect the workers from counterrevolutionary forces, or will it actively participate in the production/distribution process?

If it's the latter, will it not run into the same problems that other self-proclaimed socialist nations ran into, such as state replacing the bourgeois to oppress workers? not knowing production targets, being a small team? Bureaucracy? Mismanagement?

And if it's the former, who will take care of the production? I know workers will, but how will it be done without interference?

[Q]

To understand the role of the state as is meant by Marxists, we have to use the Marxist definition:

The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it is only in a society which is divided between hostile social classes that the state exists
Read more here (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#state).

In a socialist society the ruling class is the working class, i.e. the vast majority of society. As the bourgeoisie becomes gradually extinct as a social class, so does the historic need of a state (the Stalinist state apparatus was a notable exception in that it was a socalled Bonarpartist state, i.e. a state without a class fundament and thusly in need of very totalitarian measures in order to keep power). Note that this doesn't note a change in the organisation of society per se (read about Soviet democracy (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/s/o.htm#soviets)).