The State and the transition in Mészáros: breaking the straightjacket of bourgeois democracy

Abstract

This article presents the contribution of Hungarian philosopher Istvan Mészáros toward theunderstanding of the role of the state in the socialist transition. Reviving the Marxist traditionof the analysis of political power, the author questions the revolutionary projects of thepast, which demarcated in the field of the struggle for state power the strategy of overcomingcapital. With the expansion of th structural crisis of capitalism – a complex composed by thetriad of capital, salaried work and the State – possibilities emerge on the horizon for a massmovement of a new type, focused on extra-parliamentary struggle for the constitution of asociety of freely associating workers.