Once more on the Origin of The Family, Private Property and The State

Once more on the Origin of The Family, Private Property and The State

This post follows on from the one on Lenin’s lecture on “The State”. There are two CU supplementary texts to back up “The State” in this Basics course. One is “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, which we dealt with in January, here.

It may now prove easier to read this text, and in particular to see how the State, as the instrument of domination of all other classes by one ruling class, is a product of a historical development of property relations, a transition which in some parts of the world took place a long time ago, but which in other parts was a much more recent phenomenon.

The arrival, together, of property and the State of class-domination was also the occasion for the downfall of the women. This is something that Frederick Engels demonstrates with more clarity than any other writer, with the possible exception of Evelyn Reed, almost a century later, in her book “Woman’s Evolution” (which is not available in electronic form). Therefore the Engels text, difficult as it may be, is indispensable, even in a basic course.

The simultaneous nature of this triple catastrophe also means that the abolition, or else the “withering away”, of the State, is a feminist issue. Communism is a feminist necessity. The reversal of the downfall of the women can only be achieved by the abolition of property and the State. Likewise, the abolition of property and the State cannot be achieved without the conscious restoration of women to their proper place in human society. All three goals have to be achieved together. The three goals are actually the same goal, and the name of it is communism.

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1109a, Origin of Family, Private Property, & State, C9, Engels