p In contrast to bourgeois ideologists, Marxism has demonstrated that the state is not something introduced into society from the outside, but is a product of society’s internal development. The state was brought into being by changes in material production. The succession of one mode of production by another causes a change in the state system.

p The state has not always existed. Primitive society which had no private property and no classes had no state either. Naturally, there were certain social functions, but 282 they were performed by men chosen by all of society which had the right to dismiss these people at any time and to appoint others. In those distant times relations between people were regulated by public opinion.

p The further development of the productive forces, as we have already observed, led to the disintegration of primitive society. Private property appeared, accompanied by classes—slaves and slave-owners. It became necessary to protect private property, the rule and security of its owners, and this brought the state into being. The birth of the state and its further development were accompanied by a fierce class struggle.

The state is a product of class society. It arose with the appearance of classes and it will vanish, wither away with the disappearance of classes. But this will happen only under communism.