Talk:Socialist state

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Contents 1 Sweden 2 FYI 3 Early modern vision of a socialist state and add sections proposals 4 Related AfD at List of socialist countries

[edit] Sweden

Socialist state should be a term used solely for those countries that enforce "marxism" or "scientific socialism" otherwise you could end up with a nonsense like "Sweeden is socialist state" which is obviously NOT true.190.47.240.138 (talk) 20:25, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, except that one must deal with the fact that there is considerable confusion, in general and particularly in the USA, and particularly amoungst young people, about this question.

For instance a quick look through google immediately throws up a question posted "I know swedn is socialist, but what other cxountries in Europe are socialist". Any viewer of Fox News will soon draw the conclusion that Socialism lurks in various unspecified states in Europe.

But this means we need to carefully disentangle these questions, separating out the various strands of meaning surrounding the words socialism and state.

I think this article goes a long way to doing this, and have tentatively made a few additions

Andysoh (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FYI

If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 13:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Early modern vision of a socialist state and add sections proposals

I think the article would not suffer from removing the asterisks and making each asterisked paragraph a section with a suitable header.

Any objections?

Implemented this rather non-controversial task and attempted to summarise the sections in two short paras.Andysoh (talk) 23:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Also:

Could we add something roughly along the following lines under the first para in the Marxism section?

Header: Early Marxist conception of a socialist state==

One of the most influential modern visions of a socialist state was based on the Paris Commune, in which the workers and poor took control of the city of Paris in 1871. Karl Marx described the Paris Commune as the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, "the form at last discovered" for the emancipation of the proletariat. ^[1]

Friedrich Engels noted that "all officials, high or low, were paid only the wages received by other workers... In this way an effective barrier to place-hunting and careerism was set up".^[2]

Commenting on the nature of the state, Engels continued: "From the outset the Commune was compelled to recognize that the working class, once come to power, could not manage with the old state machine".

In order not to be overthrown once having conquered power, Engels argues, the working class "must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against it itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, by declaring them all, without exception, subject to recall at any moment." ^[3]

Such a state would be a temporary affair, Engels argued. A new generation, he suggested, brought up in "new and free social conditions", will be able to "throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap-heap."

These ideas were adopted by Vladimir Lenin in 1917 just prior to the October Revolution in Russia and published in The State and revolution, a central text for many marxists. The trade embargo and invasions against the new workers' state, together with civil war saw the destruction of these goals. Andysoh (talk) 02:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Related AfD at List of socialist countries

List of socialist countries has been put up for deletion here. You may not be aware that this list exists. Various proposals are being debated including; keep, delete (and merge any useful information into the relevane articles), and rename. Matt Lewis (talk) 12:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)