The revolutionary state

As I see it, there are four political stages to the implementation of communism:

The revolutionary state, which takes power from the capitalist state and wrenches social evolution and development away from refining relations of exploitation to building relations of mutual benefit and builds the foundation of literal participatory democracy.

The revolutionary state must quickly give power to the socialist state, which uses state power directly to manage a large portion of the economy using scientific expertise.

The socialist state will evolve over time to the communist state as more and more capitalist commodity relations are socialized and transformed into mutually beneficial relations.

The communist state will evolve over time into anarcho-communism, when social relations and individual psychology have evolved to the point where maintenance of mutually beneficial relations of production become internalized; at this point, coercive state power will no longer be required.

The revolutionary state is, of course, the most problematic and perilous stage of the transition. There are a lot of ways to go wrong, and only a few ways to go right. Indeed, a revolution is so dangerous that only the catastrophic collapse of capitalism gives us sufficient justification for actually implementing a revolution.

Capitalism is, however, beginning to fail catastrophically, and has already become a substantial fetter on human productivity. We don't have a choice about whether or not capitalism will fail; we have a choice only in what will follow capitalism: a regression to feudalism and monarchical tyranny or an advance to socialism.

The revolutionary state must racially alter the economic foundation of relations of exploitation: the commoditization of labor. Socialize residential housing, thus eliminating rent. Eliminate finance capitalism by becoming the sole source of finance capital. (The current capitalist government is implementing this step even now.) Take over the provision of goods and services necessary for civilized survival: food, shelter, water, sewage, education, ordinary medical treatment, etc. The threat of starvation, homelessness, lack of medical treatment, etc. can no longer serve as an incentive to work. Lacking the threat of starvation, the requirement to work will have to be enforced directly. The revolutionary government will simply make explicit and conscious the de facto conditions under capitalism: everyone has to contribute as a matter of physical necessity.

Politically, the revolutionary state can virtually eliminate the actualization of certain pernicious ideas: sexism, racism, and religious extremism. It's neither necessary nor desirable to censor and suppress speech; it's necessary only to make acts of discrimination illegal and vigorously enforce such laws, enact laws that promote sexual and racial equality (especially sexual equality by giving women absolute, uncompromised control over their own bodies), and use the power of the government to educate people that racism, sexism and religious extremism are wrong. (This means the revolutionary government should actively promote not just secularism, but also atheism.)

Most importantly, the revolutionary government will have to put the success of the revolution and the transition to the socialist state in the hands of the people. The revolution must immediately begin transferring control over the instruments of state power — the police and the army — to the people themselves, and they must complete the transfer before the revolutionary state ossifies into a bureaucratic tyranny — in no more, I think, than ten years at the outside. The people have been kept in ignorance and superstition by millennia of ruling-class and religious propaganda; the revolutionary state must conduct a massive education campaign to prepare people for self-rule, and begin setting up truly democratic institutions.