4. Even more embarrassing is the nature of the state
in the Marxist-Leninist theory. If the state is by defini-
tion “the executive committee of the ruling class,” then
as classes disappear the state weakens and finally
withers away. But since the Soviet Union is declared
to be a classless society, how account for the existence
of the state, which instead of withering away has be-
come stronger and stronger? The conventional reply
under Stalin was that so long as socialism existed within
one country, which was encircled by hungry capitalist
powers intent upon its dismemberment, the state func-
tioned primarily as the guardian of national integrity.
This failed to explain the regime of domestic terror,
and a concentration camp economy, worse than any-
thing that existed in Tsarist days. Furthermore as com-
munism spread, and the Soviet Union became no longer
encircled by capitalist nations but emerged as co-equal
in nuclear power to the West, more threatening to than
threatened by the countries adjoining it, the state
showed no signs of weakening. Although the domestic
terror abated somewhat under Khrushchev, it still re-
mains, after fifty years of rule, much stronger than it
was under Lenin, before the Soviet Union consolidated
its power.
Theoretically, the Soviet Union is a federal union
of autonomous socialist republics which theoretically
possess complete ethnic and national equality and with
the right of secession from the Union guaranteed. In
fact, it is a monolithic state that can establish or destroy
its affiliated republics at will, and in which some ethnic
minorities have been persecuted and subjected to se-
vere discrimination.
