Semi-state

"I think it would be agreed by all that in the last ten or 15 years we have seen a remarkable growth of these State and semi-State companies, by which I mean companies in which our Minister for Finance holds shares and very often holds the dominating number of shares."

"There now remains the fourth side of the square, which is devoted to the state and semi-state carriages. The semi-state carriages, eleven in number, are chiefly of modern make."

"Engels says that, in seizing state power, the proletariat thereby “abolishes the state as state". It is not done to ponder over the meaning of this. Generally, it is either ignored altogether, or is considered to be something in the nature of “Hegelian weakness” on Engels’ part. As a matter of fact, however, these words briefly express the experience of one of the greatest proletarian revolutions, the Paris Commune of 1871, of which we shall speak in greater detail in its proper place. As a matter of fact, Engels speaks here of the proletariat revolution “abolishing” the bourgeois state, while the words about the state withering away refer to the remnants of the proletarian state after the socialist revolution. According to Engels, the bourgeois state does not “wither away”, but is “abolished” by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. What withers away after this revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state."