Council Communism and the State

I was wondering if anyone had any information of what council communists have usually said about the existence of a state during the period of revolutionary transition? Is it similar to the left communist idea of the 'semi state'?

Generally it's recognized that the Council System is the transitional period to Communism. That any notion of a Workers' State or a Proletarian State is fundamentally antithetical to Marxism. See Pannekoek's works on Kautsky for more info :

Social Democracy and Communism

Marxist Theory and Revolutionary Tactics

I'd like to know what the Left Communist 'semi-state' you spoke of is though. Could any LCs shed any light on this for me?

For the view of the ICC, you could start with this short statement

http://en.internationalism.org/node/2733

Then try these two
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_problems_mc.htm

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/1_prolrevn.htm

Thanks, I'll have a read of these when I have more time and then get back to them.

The piece linked to by Alf sums it up really.

The ICC does not advocate a 'workers' state'. Rather we see the state as something which will inevitably exist during the transition to communism:

During the period of transition the division of society into classes with antagonistic interests will give rise to a state.
...
This is why one cannot talk about a “socialist state”, a “workers’ state” or a “proletarian state” during the period of transition.

We see the state as a conservative organ:

In the period of transition, the state will tend to conserve the existing state of affairs. Bec*ause of this, the state remains a fundamentally conservative organ that will tend:
-- not to favor social transformation but to act against it
-- to maintain the conditions on which its own life depends: the division of society into classes
-- to detach itself from society, to impose itself on society, to perpetuate its own existence and to develop its own prerogatives
-- to bind its existence to the coercion and viol*ence which it will of necessity use during the period of transition, and to try to maintain and reinforce this method of regulating social relations
-- to be a fertile soil for the formation of a bureaucracy, providing a rallying point for elements coming from the old classes and offices which have been destroyed by the revolution.

We see that the working class will also have to exercise its power independent, and if necessarily against this state:

For these reasons, while the proletariat will have to use the state during the transition period, it must retain a complete independence from it. In this sense the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be confused with the state. Between the two there is a constant relation of force which the proletariat will have to maintain in its favor: the dictatorship of the proletar*iat is exerted by the working class itself through its own independent armed unitary organs: the workers’ councils.

Devrim