I would say it’s important to evaluate all of these points as a whole. I think evaluating certain aspects of a system under a microscope without equating how it’s supposed to function tends to divert attention from the purpose of the hierarchical system to begin with.

Sure, sounds reasonable.

I don’t know if it means they’re automatically guided by bourgeois interest, but I would also hesitate to claim that just next it’s an SOE it’s immune from creating class stratification. My fear is that an increase of wealth disparity is an indication of a new mode of class stratification.

Correct, there is a contradiction at play, and a risk. We do not appear to see this playing against the CPC pruning and managing a Socialist Market economy though, at least not yet.

Not that I want to spiral into endless discussion again , but I think framing the argument where we must assume a dictatorship of the proletariat has occurred isn’t a logically sound way to question the effectiveness of any hierarchical system.

Again, I had to. Analyzing the CPC as a DotP would be a conversation in and of itself. If you disagree, we can discuss that point, but the limitations at play means we must make the assumption for the rest of the analysis. It isn’t perfect, but I can’t write a book, here.

I understand the benefit of a centralized economy, my main fear is that systems of hierarchical control are self reinforcing. Hierarchical systems stabilize over time as you utilize them for their intended purpose. If we take a look at the purpose of a profit driven SOE, it’s still to create capital. Now that capital is being controlled by the state, but simply putting that under a stricter hierarchy doesn’t mean that the system is going to change its inherent purpose.

Hierarchy isn’t the problem, class control is. Hierarchy is a tool. Creating Capital is absolutely important for the PRC, the lack of it under the Gang of Four led to struggles. The CPC controls and carefully manages and prunes the economy as it grows, and absorbs more as it socializes more of its economy as it ripens, so to speak.

If we assume that the CCP continue to nationalize private organizations until 100% of the production value is being controlled by the state, does that mean the purpose of the hierarchical system is going to change? There will still be people attempting to reinforce the hierarchal system they have been judged upon their entire careers. People have risen to places of power by reinforcing the system of profit, and they will try to protect the system that they excelled at.

This is where the Marxist Theory of the State comes in. If the economy is fully socialized, then it isn’t competing with itself, and is being planned by the people for the benefit of all. Class antagonisms no longer exist, and the state transitions, as Engels describes, to an administration of things, rather than a policing of people. It won’t be Anarchist, but it will be on the way to Communism (the state can’t fully wither away until global socialism is achieved).

I’m not an anarchist or anything and don’t agree with a lot of his hot takes, however if you’re interested Murray Bookchin’s analysis on hierarchy is pretty impressive.

I’m aware of the Anarchist critique of Hierarchy, I just don’t see it as the primary issue. Socialism isn’t a temporary sacrifice, but a drastic improvement on the status quo, and Communism an improvement on it.

An unfortunate rarity now a days. Thanks for keeping it classy.

You too!

First off, thanks for bearing with me. This is a good question!

But I agree that we may benefit from narrowing our topic to a more specific field of discussion. I would be interested in knowing how you feel a profit driven SOE is inherently different from a private company.

The framing of this question is important. Are we evaluating effectiveness? Loyalty to Marxism itself? Simply looking for points of divergence? I’ll assume you are more interested in the benefits of SOEs, and whether or not they are loyal to the Marxist idea of Socialism, you can correct me if I’m wrong on that.

Since I am assuming we are evaluating from a Marxist perspective, it truly is important to apply Dialectical Materialism. One of the pillars of DiaMat is that any analysis that doesn’t see the entirety of the system, and purely compares stationary snapshots of entities, is not Dialectical analysis but mechanical.

Within the context of the PRC, SOEs are guided by the CPC, which practices central planning as can be made to work with the rest of the CPCs planning, while private companies in Capitalist countries are the ones lobbying the State for lucrative projects of their own. The fact that SOEs are profit driven does not mean that they are guided by Bourgeois interests. It’s a measure similar to the NEP.

Private companies within the PRC as compared to SOEs obviously see less direct influence and guiding than SOEs do, but similarly exist under the thumb of the PRC, who allows them to act in their own interests as long as they fulfill their role in rapidly building up the productive forces, which we can see is a role that, to this point, has helped dramatically compared to the era of Mao and the Gang of Four, which saw much slower development.

In my opinion so long as the company’s structural hierarchy and it’s inherent purpose remains the same or similar, there’s not really going to be a meaningful difference in how the workers are treated. For example, don’t really see how the workers have seized any more of the means of production than a worker for a company that offers stock options.

This really depends on outside factors, again analyzing the context within which these entities exist. In SOEs and Private Companies within the PRC there are elements of Workplace Democracy, as I showed prior, but the idea that business entities are perfectly democratic within the PRC is false, which is why I haven’t attempted to make such a point. Assuming the CPC is in fact a Dictatorship of the Proletariat (and we must do so for this argument to not spiral into endless discussions again, we can absolutely revisit this as its own argument if you wish), then this is an example of a Proletarian managed market economy, which is different from Social Democracy where the State acts in the interest of the Bourgeoisie. Given that the CPC regularly punishes their domestic bourgeoisie and the CPC itself has a 90%+ approval rate among the people, we can at least see that the CPC appears to be acting and managing for the benefit of society as a whole, and not for their bourgoeis class.

There’s still just as much opportunity and motivation for exploiting workers. There’s still an inherent profit motive that spurs the worst aspects of capitalism. Even if we propose that there could be less destructive competition due to the states monopoly of production, the fact that these SOE are publicly traded still means there’s a competition of capital acquisition. These SOE still have to make sure they invest a significant amount of their excess production value back into the organization to ensure their stock increases in value next year.

You are correctly identifying that there is a contradiction at play. The benefits of the market economy are in rapidly developing the productive forces and educating the working masses in how to manage and run production. This is where Historical Materialism comes in, the CPC can’t beam information into everyone’s brains and mind control them. Instead, market forces result in syndicates and monopolization of Capital, which is dominated and manipulated by the CPC. As the markets develop themselves, they increasingly make themselves easier to directly manage and operate from above. Imagine a million competing factories in earlier Capitalism, and compare it to the era of monopoly Capitalism where a dozen companies practice their own planning, then imagine there is an entity pulling the strings, letting them grow, then seizing them in proportion to their growth.

Thank you for your time, it’s pleasant knowing you can still get into the nitty and gritty with someone you don’t 100% see eye to eye with, and not have it break down to name calling. Cheers.

I try to treat those who treat me with respect with respect in kind. Cheers!

Listen, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but this is an extremely lengthy conversation where each minor paragraph could be the focus of a single conversation, and the information conveyed would be much better. I’m not going to disrespect you and accuse you of gish-galloping. If you want to focus on a particular topic, I am okay to continue, you can pick one strand and develop it into a sizeable argument and we can discuss from there, but as it stands there is no way to do justice to any of these topics in one cohesive lemmy comment thread.

I read your comment, you have points worthy of responding to. I’m not dismissing that, and I don’t want this comment to be interpreted as such, I just wanted to give you the respect of explaining why I would rather focus on one topic at a time, or disengage altogether. Lemmy isn’t the right format for such a convo.

Have a good day if you decide you don’t want to continue, I appreciate your time.

I would like to see sources claiming state ownership has meaningfully increased over time, as the increased disparity in wealth seems counter intuitive to that claim.

Wikipedia has a lot of western-friendly reporting on the increase in SOE’s in quantity and control. Additionally, disparity rising is perfectly in line with state ownership increasing, the private sector has rising disparity and the overall wealth is increasing.

Source for forced labor in China.

Thanks for linking, though it does reference Adrian Zenz, a fascist that claims to be sent from God to punish China. No, I am not exaggerating.

What numbers do you speak of that magically determine how imperialist a nation is?

I assumed you were familiar with Marxist theory, I was not referencing the idea of Socialism in One Country vs Permanent Revolution or anything. Imperialism for Marxists is specifically referring to the process of Financial and Industrial Capital being exported to other countries for hyper-exploitation for super-profits.

Source?

As above with the SOEs.

Soo if the state “owns” the majority of the businesses, yet wealth disparity is growing at breakneck speeds, and the workers still don’t have the same protections as some place as dystopic as America… What does that say? Something isn’t adding up here.

Either the government is purposely creating a bourgeois class on purpose… Or the meaning of ownership is inherently different than what you are implying.

Workers do have protections, much better than Americans in many instances. The private sector disparity is rising as happens with Capital accumulation. It also isn’t at “breakneck speeds,” you’re going to have to describe what that entails. Finally, the bourgeoisie in China exists purely alongside private development, you can read Xi and Deng’s statements. Foreign Capital was brought in to rapidly industrialize, which has factually happened.

You could make the same argument about American bourgeois.

No, I could not, because the American Bourgeoisie controls the state entirely.

And what has that ownership meant for the people who “own the means of production”? What influence does the average worker in China have that surpasses the level of influence of a worker in Detroit? It seems that ownership just enriches the bourgeois with ties to the government now.

Large safety nets, large public infrastructure projects, rapidly improving real purchasing power, there’s even workplace democracy. Simply saying “it seems as though xyz” and gesturing isn’t an argument.

Which is just another barrier lifted that you say precludes them from actually transitioning to a socialized economy.

Yes, it’s a contradiction that requires careful planning.

Is that worker really worker ownership…? One would think that you may increase your own working conditions or pay if you collectively owned the factory you worked at.

How exactly do the workers own the productivity when theres still a management class that capitalizes on the work you produce at the factory you “own”?

Real wages are rising. Additionally, what on Earth is a management “class?”

Right… But my point was there’s not an ideological difference between Marx and Engles as you implied in your statement.

I did not. My statement was that Marx was not a hypocrite for befriending Engels, a factory owner, not that they had different views.

That’s legitimate reasoning for a pre industrialized china, much less so when modern China is basically the production capital of the world.

I don’t think there is a legitimate excuse for the modern wealth disparity, the large transient work force, or the use of forced labor currently happening in China.

The PRC has been increasing state ownership over time and is restructuring the economy. It can’t just push a button and wipe the entire private sector away overnight. I would like to see sources of forced labor though.

The USSR didn’t collapse because they were isolated from the West, leading to dissatisfaction towards the lack of consumer goods. They collapsed because they still utilized empirialist tactics to expand their holdings.

Their failed push into Afghanistan was the final blow, but the Soviet Union had already been spending way too much of their national budget on the military, siphoning away from the robust social safety networks they built in the 60’s.

Russia didn’t want communism in every country, they wanted every country to be Russia, and thus communist. This of course didn’t track well with the East or the West, leading to the schisms between the USSR and the communist East.

This doesn’t really follow. I’d like clarification on what you mean by Imperialist tactics and wanting every country to be Russia, that stands directly in contrast to the stated ideology of the USSR and appears to be fairly ahistorical. Do you have some numbers we can follow with respect to the claims of Imperialism?

But does it? Marx described a dictatorship of the proletariat as workers mandating the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers’ councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership.

Now one would assume that if workers controlled the means of production, then they would have more direct control of their working conditions and pay than somewhere like the United States. We would also hope to see a steady progress towards collective ownership, however in recent history we have seen more and more production being privatized, not nationalized.

This is false, more of production is owned by the state now than it was previously. There is steady progress towards more collective ownership, without disentangling from the global market.

I’m sorry, but cracking down a few billionaires that step out of the party line is not the same as keeping some small enough to “drown in a bathtub”. 1% of the country owns a third of the wealth of their nation, and as you say the disparity is not shrinking.

I said disparity is increasing, yes. However, the state has full ownership of 17 of the 20 largest companies, and 70% of the largest 200. Banking, railways, mining, energy, and more are near totally controlled by the CPC. There is a bourgeois class, yes, and this will need to be confronted, but they do not hold more power than the CPC.

Yes, and now let’s look at modern China under the lens of dialectical materialism. We’ve gone through some of the history already, and can both agree that the transition to collective ownership requires a certain level of productivity to achieve.

Okay.

What is that amount of productivity required, and if modern China isn’t productive enough to make that particular leap…who the hell can?

It can’t be a leap, the next mode of production emerges from the previous. We see this with the CPC gradually increasing ownership of various sectors.

As far as relationships go, China is one of the most globalized nations in the world. When compared to the USSR, who actually achieved a modest level of collective ownership…modern China is one of the most popular nations in the world.

Sure, that’s the direct lesson the USSR taught the CPC with its collapse. The world depends on China for production and thus can’t openly attack it.

Last but not least, contradictions and trajectory. Which I’m grouping together, as their current trajectory seems to contradict the entire purpose of a communist government in the first place. Industrialization has improved the quality of life in the country, but if that isn’t coupled with an increase in a workers control of the means of that production, how is that different than a industrialization in a capitalist nation?

It has coupled with an increase in worker ownership, like I said the CPC has been steadily increasing state ownership, especially in the last decade or so.

Not to belittle your point, but calling Marx a socialist and Engles a capitalist is a kin as calling Jesus a Christian who’s disciples were Jews.

You can’t be a lone socialist, and people tend to wildly extrapolate on what Marx would have thought of modern economics.

Engels was a literal Capitalist. Ideologically he was a Communist, yes, but Engels was a literal factory owner and businessman.

To be fair, this is Lemmy.world, not the entirety of Lemmy.

I can quote Wikipedia articles too. When you intentionally gish gallop to the point of saying it should “keep me busy for a while,” you essentially shut the conversation down there and then. Me asking you to refocus and have an actual conversation based on specifics, as I have been doing the entire time, is not sealioning, incorrectly applying a fallacy is false logic itself.

At that point, just say “disengage” or say you don’t want to have a conversation, without trying to get a jab in to justify why. That’s your right to disengage, you don’t owe me a response, but I’d appreciate the respect I’ve given you returned to me.

My impression is informed primarily by visiting several small and medium sized businesses across China. What I saw in these industrial regions was an incredibly widespread entrepreneurial spirit. Everyone wanted to get ahead and have their own business. When the money gets really big, I don’t have direct experience, but it stands to reason the autocracy takes control. Greedy pieces of shit who Elon it up like Jack Ma find this out when they get too big for their britches.

But Jack Ma was punished. Surely you can see the difference, can’t you? It isn’t the bourgoeisie in control, but the CPC. Regardless of individuals with “entrepeneurial spirit,” how does that translate to subversion of the CPC?

As I’m sure you’re aware, many democracies around the world are largely performative (see e.g. USA) and based on fear, lies, and social engineering. Nothing and nobody in the world could honestly achieve a 90 percent favorability rating, and having observed thousands of workers in China I cannot believe such a number.

So, because the vibes are off, you call it a “libertarian Capitalist hellscape” where billionaires who "Elon it up’ get punished by the state, and you fully trust your gut instead of diving into hard-evidence? You’ll forgive me for not taking much stock in your analysis.

This is rapidly devolving into bad-faith pedantry

Is it bad-faith to ask for examples and critique instead of vibes? I have given analysis and referenced Marx and Engels directly, as well as linked Wikipedia articles so you know how the PRC operates democratically. I find it fairly insulting to call it bad-faith pedantry to ask for similar in return, if you’re going to take a definitive stance.

I would point to the horrifically botched early response to COVID; ongoing suppression of protests on June 4th of every year; the crushing of dissent in Hong Kong; Xi’s very public sidelining of Hu; the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang; mass surveillance; Xi’s undoing of term limits; and the list goes on, but that should be enough to tide you over for now.

Do you have any links at all? What was botched about the COVID response, did another country do it better? This is a firehose of vague statements, the closest of which to an actual point being the abolition of term limits, but you don’t explain how you think that goes against democratic control and operation. You just kind of shot-gunned blanket statements without giving any of them any kind of attention or analysis.

Because they are profoundly authoritarian, and become more so over time.

I have asked, repeatedly, for mechanical analysis. Any change in structure, drop in approval rates, anything. Simply saying “the vibes they give off are scary and the vibes have been getting stronger over time” is not mechanical analysis.

You’re posting in a thread about China’s leader erasing a contrary voice from existence. I’m not sure how much clearer this could all be.

You’ll forgive me for taking the nuances of a Business Insider article with respect to a Socialist country with a grain of salt. Western sources often call firing officials “disappearing” them, because they are intentionally doing Red Scare propaganda. You’ll note that if you read the article, it’s relatively light on facts and hard evidence, and tries to link phenomena without hard basis.

You’ll also notice that the near identical story, down to the format, has been posted to other western media outlets like WSJ, in light of the US approving billions of dollars to discredit the PRC.

This is why I am asking for hard, mechanical analysis.

The most obvious flaw in your narrative is the assertion that China maintains a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is patently false. China is an autocracy of the party elite, with one man at the top. A dictatorship of a dictator. The fact there may be high level power games and intrigue among the upper echelon doesn’t significantly change this. It doesn’t matter that Xi happens to be the dictator du jour.

Can you explain this? The PRC practices Whole Process People’s Democracy, which certainly isn’t Liberal Democracy, but is democratic. Xi is elected according to this process, and the PRC enjoys 90%+ approval ratings even in peacetime. Does the fact that China has a government at all mean, in your eyes, that it isn’t a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or do you have meaningful suggestions for how they may improve in your eyes?

What this means for day-to-day life of the citizenry is something very divorced from socialism or communism. There are some elements of safety net and job placement, but just beneath that is a hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape punctuated by fearful, feigned, and forced reverence of the party. As long as businesses play along and grease the right wheels the exploitative accumulation of wealth is sanctioned and encouraged.

The near totality of the energy, shipping, railways, mining, banking, and construction sectors are state owned, operated, and planned. 17 of the 20 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. 70% of the 200 largest companies are state owned, operated, and planned. The idea that the PRC is a largely state owned and managed “hyper-capitalist libertarian hellscape” with 90%+ approval rates is dizzyingly contradictory. The fact that China has private sectors and heavy international trade with Capitalist countries does not mean it isn’t Socialist. Rather, they learned what happens if you don’t integrate with the global economy by watching the dissolution of the USSR.

Thanks. In my opinion, people easily fall into idealist critiques of Marxists if they don’t read Marx. The Marxist critique of Capitalism is easy enough to grasp the basics of, as well as the Marxist idea of Socialism as Worker Ownership of the Means of Production, but concepts like the Marxist theory of the state, historical development, and Dialectical and Historical Materialism are much less intuitive.

So your stance is essentially “real communism has never been tried”?

No. My stance is that Communism is a stage of development that comes after Socialism, and no existing Socialist society has yet made it to Communism. This is the standard Marxist view of societal development, you cannot adopt Communism through fiat. The CPC tried under Mao and the Gang of Four, and failed because they didn’t develop the Means of Production beforehand.

Technically correct, I suppose, but what really matters is the actions of people who claim to be communists. I refer back to my first post in this conversation where I said “insofar as those labels are used today”. I can’t think of a single practical implementation of political systems by these self-proclaimed communists that makes me think “this is what Marx would have wanted”.

Then I suggest you explain why. I have offered context and analysis of the USSR and PRC as they directly relate to Marx and Engels, without needing to reference Lenin or other Marxists. I would say my number one reading recommendation, if you don’t feel like elaborating on why you believe AES states to be not “Marx approved,” would be Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti. Additionally, the previously linked Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is critical for understanding the Marxist theory of development via Dialectical and Historical Materialism.

They got what they needed, yes.

I don’t think having lines for food for people who need it is a bad thing if it gets results. The US just lets people starve. Can’t have breadlines if you decide not to give out food, after all!

I’m arguing for academic analysis of self-proclaimed Marxists.

China is Socialist. It practices Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, maintaining a Dictatorship of the Proletariat over a Market Economy. The CPC is Communist by ideology, but of course they haven’t achieved Communism yet, nor do they claim to. They tried to directly implement Communism under Mao and later under the Gang of Four, which ended up being a critical error in judgement as the Means of Production were not at all developed enough for it, hence the Gang of Four claiming it was “better for the Proletariat to be poor under Socialism than rich under Capitalism.”

The USSR was Socialist. They never achieved Communism, largely due to refusing to interlock with the rest of the world economy. While they managed to provide many critical necessities like healthcare, education, and so forth for free, shutting out the global market led to consumer jealousy over consumer commodities from the west, which led to democratically instating liberal market reforms, which worked against the centralized nature of the economy, leading to its dissolution.

I won’t reply to all that because you’ve either moved the goalposts or misunderstood my original point.

How can you say that without responding? It seems like you ignored what I wrote, with careful, direct references to Marx and Engels. If I am going to put in the effort of taking everything you said into consideration and responding to the best of my abilities, the least you can do is acknowledge it honestly, not dissavow my efforts entirely. I haven’t undermined your ability to understand what I am talking about, nor accused you of moving the goal posts, so I’d like respect in kind.

Tankies are quintessentially authoritarian. That’s what I’ve been saying since the beginning. I agree that Marx doesn’t advocate for it, which is why I suggested he’d be repelled by tankies.

You’ve been saying this without qualifiers. Advocating for “authoritarianism” isn’t a thing, hence Engels writing On Authority to debunk the very subject entirely. You have yet to meaningfully prove that Communists advocate for a different system and a different process than what Marx and Engels did. Saying that Communists advocate for “authoritarianism” doesn’t mean anything, what structures do Communists advocate for that go against Marx?

I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and they doubled down. Oh well.

Peak liberalism, lmao. Even when I ask for a critique, I can’t get any.

He constantly frames things vis-a-vis the freedom of workers and their having input in their government. Does that sound like China to you, or Cambodia under the Khmer?

How, exactly, does he frame them? Can you give an example? China practices Whole Process People’s Democracy, which absolutely isn’t liberal democracy, but does have more worker participation than Capitalist states.

As for Cambodia, the Khmer denounced Marx and were stopped by the Vietnamese Communists, no Communist supports the Khmer Rouge. No, what Marx described was not adopted by Cambodia, because the Khmer Rouge denounced Marx.

Sure, but what he didn’t advocate for is for a new form of aristocracy to emerge from within workers’ ranks. I think this was Bakunin, not Marx, but the dangers of “labour aristocracy” were already known at the time.

You’re confused on a few things here, the Labor Aristocracy is the Proletariat that makes more than the median wages in the global context due to the impacts of Imperialism, ie in the US median Proletarian wages far exceed that of wages in Chad not because the US Proletariat magically creates more value, but because wages are higher due to vast exploitation of the Global South.

Secondly, there was not a “new form of aristocracy” in AES states. AES presented an increase in democratization, including practices like instant recall elections, and units electing delegates. These delegates weren’t hereditary, had to be elected, and could be recalled at any time.

I’ve read David Harvey’s synopsis of Capital (because life is too short to read the whole thing), Gotha, and of course the Manifesto. I’m actually puzzled that you see Gotha as advocating for authoritarianism. He talks about the eradication of class and about how people should not be “ruled”. Both of those things are endemic to current-day communism. I just can’t imagine that Marx would look at the way the CCP operates and think that was an accurate reflection of his personal politics.

Critique of the Gotha Programme isn’t advocating for “authoritarianism,” nobody does. Critique of the Gotha Programme advocates for centralization, also alluded to by the “ceasing of the anarchy of Capitalist production.” Marx clearly crituques the vagueness of the Gotha Programme in question, along with its flawed conception of the state.

The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word ‘people’ with the word ‘state’.

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of communist society.

Engels elaborates in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (itself a phenomenal work that I highly recommend reading after this conversation), what form of government a Communist society would look like as Marx alludes to in Gotha:

When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not “abolished”. It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase: “a free State”, both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific insufficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand.

You can see that, rather than the anarchy of decentralization, Marx and Engels advocated for centralization. The “centralized” society has no State, but it does have an Administration of Things. Think the Post-Office, and how it still has managers and administrators. These structures remain even into Communism, after Socialism, yet they aren’t considered a “state” by Marx nor Engels.

Where, exactly, was the circular logic? Choosing not to read is your right, of course, but if you saw an error in my comment I’d like to know what it is.