Marxist theory promised that the state, having served its historical function as an instrument of class power, would eventually become unnecessary.

However, the communist states that actually emerged during the twentieth century proved rather less eager to evaporate. This collection examines that contradiction through studies of party–state relations across the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China, asking how revolutionary governments justified the consolidation of increasingly elaborate political and administrative machinery.

Published in 1981, the volume captures communist systems shortly before their terminal crisis, while their institutions still appeared durable enough to be studied as permanent political forms. The contributors consider Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and other socialist states, attending to constitutions, party control, bureaucracy, legitimacy and the relationship between ideological doctrine and governing practice. Rather than treating “communism” as a single undifferentiated machine, the essays reveal different arrangements of authority beneath the common language of Marxism–Leninism.

A useful historical document for readers interested in communist political systems, state theory and the peculiar fate of revolutionary institutions: structures created in the name of their own eventual disappearance, which instead developed a formidable instinct for survival. The volume was issued as number six in the SAGE Modern Politics Series.

SAGE Publications, 1981. Paperback first edition. Moderate rubbing, creasing and edge wear to covers and spine; light marks and age toning. Binding sound, pages clean.