Friedrich Engels and the Foundations of Socialist Governance

Roland Boer

Oct 2021 · Springer Nature

About this ebook

This book states that the political systems of China, Vietnam, Cuba and other socialist countries are showing distinct maturity and ability to deal effectively with challenges – the most recent being the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to understand how they have developed their structures, it is time to return to the roots of the Marxist tradition and re-examine the question of socialist governance. It was Friedrich Engels (and less so Marx) who laid out some of the theoretical foundations for socialist governance. On the basis of extensive research in 1870s and 1880s, Engels developed his analysis of the nature of hitherto existing states as a ‘separated public power’; the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its exercise of power; the actual meaning of the ‘withering away of the state’, which would be one of the very last outcomes of socialist construction; and the nature of socialist governance itself. On this matter, he proposed a de-politicised public power that would stand in the midst of society and focus on managing the processes of production for the sake of the true interests of society.

About the author

Roland Boer is a professor in the School of Marxism, at Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. Among numerous works on Marxism and philosophy, he has published the five-book work, The Criticism of Heaven and Earth (2007-14). In 2014, it was awarded the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize. He has recently published Stalin: From Theology to the Philosophy of Socialism in Power (Springer 2017) and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners (Springer, 2021).