Poulantzas, the State and the Revolution

Abstract

The article exposes the theory of the capitalist state formulated by Nicos Poulantzas. It is possible to find, in his work, three successive and different formulations of what the state is: a structure, an apparatus and a social relation. Each of these definitions corresponds to a political strategy in regard to the overcome of the capitalist state, so that the two problems, the function of the state and the destruction of the state, must be considered together.