Podcast What is the state and how do we smash it
Core Argument¶
The central thesis is that the capitalist state is not a neutral arbiter or a collection of bureaucratic institutions that can be reformed from within, but a concentrated instrument of class rule — a repressive apparatus whose fundamental function is to defend the property relations of capitalism. The argument claims that the task of communists is not to seek to capture or reform this state, but to smash it and replace it with a qualitatively different form of working-class power. This is presented not as a matter of radical posturing but as a necessary conclusion drawn from the material reality of what the state actually does: it protects capitalist property, enforces exploitation, and suppresses working-class resistance, regardless of which party or individuals temporarily staff its offices.
Theoretical Grounding¶
The analysis draws directly and explicitly from Lenin's State and Revolution, which itself systematises Marx and Engels's scattered writings on the state. The argument situates itself within the classical Marxist tradition that understands the state as "a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms" — an organ of class domination rather than an organ of class reconciliation. The episode rejects both liberal-democratic illusions in the state's neutrality and reformist strategies that seek to use state institutions for progressive ends without first breaking the state's class character.
The theoretical lineage runs from Marx's analysis of the Bonapartist state in The Eighteenth Brumaire, through Engels's Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, to Lenin's polemic against the opportunists who had abandoned the revolutionary core of Marx's state theory. The argument also implicitly draws on Trotsky's analysis of the degeneration of the Soviet state, though this is not developed at length. The key theoretical move is the insistence that the state is not a thing but a relation — a specific form of class power that cannot be separated from the class antagonisms that produce it.
Conjunctural Relevance¶
The episode was published in November 2023, a moment when the capitalist state's repressive functions were visibly intensifying across multiple fronts. The article references police violence, legal victimisation, and military oppression as daily realities for workers and youth — phenomena that had been dramatically foregrounded by the global wave of protests following the murder of George Floyd, the cost-of-living crises driving industrial militancy, and the state's increasingly aggressive response to climate demonstrations and strike action.
The argument is particularly relevant to the current conjuncture because reformist illusions in the state have been revived across the labour movement. Labour parties and trade union leaderships continue to argue that winning elections or occupying ministerial positions can deliver meaningful change, while the state itself demonstrates its class character through anti-strike legislation, police suppression of picket lines, and the criminalisation of protest. The episode intervenes directly against these illusions, arguing that the state's response to the recent wave of strikes in Britain, France, and elsewhere confirms its role as a "violent, repressive tool for the ruling class."
Where the Argument Continues¶
The episode is an introductory treatment and leaves several crucial questions underdeveloped. It does not address in detail the distinction between the state apparatus and the state form, nor does it explore the concrete experience of workers' states that degenerated or were deformed — a question that has been central to Marxist debate since the Russian Revolution. The argument about what replaces the smashed state — the "commune state" or "workers' state" — is stated but not elaborated.
These questions are taken up elsewhere in the IDOM corpus. The relationship between the state and the party is developed in articles on Lenin's What Is To Be Done? and in episodes of Against the Stream dealing with the transition period. The experience of the Soviet state and its degeneration is addressed in articles on Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed and in the ongoing series on Stalinism. The practical question of how a revolutionary party prepares for the smashing of the state — through dual power, soviets, and the arming of the working class — is treated in the Spectre of Communism episodes on the Russian Revolution and on the strategy of insurrection.
Connections¶
The episode should be read alongside Lenin's State and Revolution as its primary theoretical source. It also connects to Engels's Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State for the anthropological and historical grounding of state theory. For the contemporary application of these ideas, Ralph Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society provides a detailed empirical mapping of the state apparatus, though from a position that the IDOM tradition would critique as insufficiently revolutionary. Nicos Poulantzas's State, Power, Socialism offers a more sophisticated structural analysis that engages seriously with the question of the state's relative autonomy — a question the podcast episode does not address but which is necessary for understanding how the state can appear neutral while serving class interests.
Within the IDOM corpus, the episode connects to articles on the reformist state illusion, on the nature of bourgeois democracy, and on the strategy of transitional demands. It also connects to the broader Marxist tradition's critique of anarchism, which argues that the state cannot be abolished overnight but must be smashed and replaced by a transitional workers' state that will itself eventually wither away.
Key Quotes¶
"The capitalist state is not a neutral arbiter over society, operating on the basis of universal principles of 'democracy' and 'rule of law'. It is a violent, repressive tool for the ruling class."
"For communists, the task is not to reform or adjust the capitalist state, but to understand its role as a violent, repressive tool for the ruling class, and then to smash it."
"It is only through class struggle and revolution that the brutality of the capitalist state can be overcome."
"The state is a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms — an organ of class domination rather than an organ of class reconciliation."
"Despite what the reformists and the liberals may think, it is only through class struggle and revolution that the brutality of the capitalist state can be overcome."
"Many people think of the state as a huge collection of bureaucratic offices and institutions that have little to do with our daily lives. Some have illusions in the state as a neutral arbiter over society."