Marx was not simply an anarchist. Abolition of the state, in Marxist analysis, is through the gradual collectivization of production and distribution and the eradication of class. Therefore, for a state to wither away, it must be made up of a class that seeks this as a common interest. In other words, it must be a proletarian state. As Marx referred to it, this is the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working classes have the full control of authority.

Marxism-Leninism did not change this analysis. Instead, the development of Leninist party building strategies and theory of revolution worked out the details of actually achieving what Marx described as the historical task of the proletariat. There is no permanence to the state, such a position both goes directly against Marxism-Leninism in general and dialectical materialism in particular.