We, on the other hand, remain convinced, in the light of the revolutionary experiences of Russia, Hungary and Germany, that the socialist state cannot be embodied in the institutions of the capitalist state. We remain convinced that with respect to these institutions, if not with respect to those of the proletariat, the socialist state must be a fundamentally new creation. The institutions of the capitalist state are organized in such a way as to facilitate free competition: merely to change the personnel in these institutions is hardly going to change the direction of their activity. The socialist state is not yet communism, i.e. the establishment of a practice and an economic way of life that are communal; but it is the transitional state whose mission is to suppress competition via the suppression of private property, classes and national economies. This mission cannot be accomplished by parliamentary democracy. So the formula ‘conquest of the state’ should be understood in the following sense: replacement of the democratic parliamentary state by a new type of state, one that is generated by the associative experience of the proletarian class.

in 1919