(Reposted in this community cuz I didn’t get any responses in the original community that I posted this under)
This is how I understand the communist utopia: Workers seize means of production. Means of production thus, start working for the proletariat masses rather than the bourgeoisie class. Thus, technological progress stops being stifled and flourishes. Humanity achieves a post scarcity-like environment for most goods and services. Thus, money becomes irrelevant at a personal level.
In all this, I can’t see how we stop needing a state. How can we build bridges without a body capable of large scale organisation? How would we have a space program without a state for example? I clearly have gotten many things wrong here. However, I’m unable to find what I’ve gotten wrong on my own. Plz help <3
Edit: Okay, got a very clear and sensible answer from @[email protected]. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to link their comment. Hence, here is what they said:
Depends on how you define “state”. IIRC, Marx drew a distinction between “state” and “government”, where the former is all the coercive institutions (cops, prisons, courts, etc). In this framework, you need a “government” to do the things you refer to, but participation in that government’s activities should be voluntary, without the threat of armed government agents showing up at your door if you don’t comply.
I agree that there are a lot of revolutions ending up way more totalitarian than planned.
I’m not sure there are hundreds of them that had communism or a stateless society as a goal though. Many military dictatorships had a military dictatorship as a goal after all. But of course there were also many who had that goal, and failed on a huge scale.
There were more revolutions than just the Zapatistas that seemed to be promising though, like the Spanish Revolution and the the Makhnovshchina.
You are right, of course, that most revolutions don’t have communism as their goal.
But all successful ones lead to totalitarian states.
I find it difficult to judge the Zapatistas, same as the Spanish Revolution and the Makhovshchina, since they all nevever matured (or in the chase of the Zapatistas haven’t matured yet).
Generally speaking, during a revolution, the revolutionists (is that a word?) promise the people everything, because they need to gather support. Once they have driven out the old power/government and actually control the area, they usually tend to shift. This pattern occurs not only for communist revolutions, but for all types of revolution.
Generally speaking “Support me becoming a totalitarian dictator” isn’t really a good rallying call.
I’m not saying it can’t happen, only that it consistently hasn’t happened so far.