The Contemporary Doctrine of the Soviet State and its Philosophical Foundations

“The problem of the ‘dying away’ of the state,” observed A. Y. Vyshinsky rather sarcastically in a recent monograph, “is a purely theoretical problem.” Within the context of contemporary Soviet political theory, the accuracy of this observation is beyond question, although Vyshinsky would have been the first to admit that a “theoretical problem,” no matter how pristine, always reflects a practical quandary within the methodological precepts of Marxist-Leninist ideology. This particular theoretical problem conceals an important chapter in the profound transmutation of Marxist political theory and its philosophical substructure in the Soviet Union, for it was the failure to cope adequately with this utopian legacy which led to the abandonment of the eschatological categories of the Marxist doctrine and the erection of a totally new theoretical edifice supported by new philosophical foundations.Contrary to widespread impression, the theoretical problem of the Soviet state was not satisfactorily resolved at the 18th Party Congress in 1939, although the view is prevalent that Stalin was able to provide an adequate rationalization for the existence of the state in Soviet society. It was on this occasion that the late Soviet leader explained that the state was a necessary institution because of “capitalist encirclement” and that it would persist in socialist and communist society until this encirclement was finally liquidated.