Chapter IV, §6 — What Would It Mean to Go Beyond Democracy?

V. I. Lenin · The State and Revolution

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Section summary

A discussion of party names leads Lenin to a difficult conceptual distinction. The ultimate aim he attributes to Marx and Engels is not merely a more complete democratic state, but the end of the need for a state at all. Democracy, understood here as a political form that organises and enforces collective rule, would disappear with the coercive relationship on which that definition depends.

This does not mean that Lenin expects people to stop coordinating common affairs or cease making collective decisions. He argues that changed social conditions and habits could make systematic compulsion unnecessary. The passage thus turns on a narrower meaning of democracy than everyday uses that include any shared decision-making. Whether the projected habits could develop is a separate empirical question. The chapter ends by directing attention to the economic conditions of such a change, which the next chapter attempts to specify.

Key claims

Lenin uses democracy here to mean a form of state power, not every possible practice of collective decision-making.
The projected end of the democratic state depends on overcoming the need for systematic coercion.
New social habits are treated as part of a historical development, not an immediate effect of changing a party's name.

Pause & reflect

For discussion

Use these questions for individual reflection or a study circle. Return to the passage to support your answer.

How does Lenin's definition of democracy differ from a definition centred only on participation or collective choice?
Could shared decisions and majority voting persist without the state as he defines it? Explain the distinction.
What conditions would make the claim that coercion becomes unnecessary testable rather than simply an expression of hope?

Terms in context

democracy as a state form: In this argument, collective political rule backed by organised enforcement, rather than participation considered on its own.
habit: Learned social conduct that Lenin expects changed conditions to make possible without systematic compulsion.
communism: The projected classless social development in which Lenin expects the state eventually to become unnecessary.

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