p States differ according to the class they serve and the economic basis on which they arose. Four types of state are known in history: slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and socialist. In contrast to the first three, which defend the interests of the exploiters, the socialist state is a state of a new type, a genuine state of the people.

p Each type of state has its intrinsic form of government, i. e., order, organisation of rule by the dominant class. The form of government depends on the concrete historical conditions in each country, on the balance of the class forces and external conditions. However diverse the forms of government, however much they may change, the type of state, its class nature, remains unaltered within the framework of the given economic system.

p Lenin noted that a slave-owning society had different forms of government: a monarchy—the rule of one man, the emperor, the monarch; a republic—elective rule; aristocracy—the rule of a relatively small minority; democracy— 285 the rule of the majority. In spite of these differences, the state in the slave-owning era, Lenin said, was a state of the slave-owners.

p Feudal society presented a similar picture. A monarchy was the most widespread form of government in the feudal state, but at times it also appeared in other forms, for example, a republic. Whatever the form, the feudal state served as an instrument for suppressing the serfs and the artisans.

p Diversity of form is also true of the bourgeois state. Most frequently this state appears as a republic (the United States, France, Italy and other countries). Under capitalism the. monarchic form seldom exists and the rule of the monarch is in one way or another restricted by the constitution (Britain and Belgium). In the imperialist era the bourgeoisie also makes use of fascist dictatorship (Hitler Germany, Franco Spain, and so on). The unlimited power of the bourgeoisie is exercised in any form of the bourgeois state.

With society’s development the types and forms of the state changed.