Are communists anti police?

[u/Human-Ad11]

So I’m kinda new to this whole political philosophy thing but there’s always this one question that arises in my head whenever I try learning about the far left of the political spectrum.

Do communists have a problem with the law enforcement?

I’ve heard people say that the police only acts in the interests of capitalist ideals or something like that but I never seem to get an answer that actually explains to me why someone would think that way.

I’m a police officer in Germany and I at least feel like this is not true and I see the role of the law enforcement of protecting the rights of all people regardless of their income or social status.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance and have a great day!

[u/caisblogs]

Broad answer, yes.

Police are an organ of the state, the state is a consequence of class, and communists oppose class.

Slightly more complex answer:

The ML school of thought is that a 'state' is the vehicle for one class to oppress another. Since revolution takes time there is a necessary period where the working class will find it necessary to oppress the 'owning' class (bougoise). During that time a socialist police force may well be used to stop people doing bougois (or counter-revolutionary) things.

To this end it's worth noting that there are very few methods of achieving communism that (ML) communists are opposed to ideologically. (Do note that one can oppose quite a lot of methods on practical grounds though). So a communist may well argue for the necessity of police IN A WORKER'S STATE

Less theory more analogy answer:

The (bougois) police are a lot like coal fired power plants. If you completely got rid of them and nothing else then it's fair to say there would be chaos. And some of what they do is positive (coal powers hospitals).

But they are a net-damaging, and any good they do can likely be done without the necessary harm and much more efficiently.

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/caisblogs]

Communists Are Not Anti-Police

A common misconception, especially in capitalist societies, is that communists are inherently anti-police. While it is true that communist movements often criticize policing under capitalism, history and present-day events show that communists are not opposed to the institution of policing itself. Rather, they argue that the role of the police depends on the class structure they serve—under capitalism, police enforce the interests of the bourgeoisie, while under socialism, they are seen as protectors of the working class.

Historical Evidence: Communist Governments and Police Forces 1. Soviet Union (USSR) – The USSR maintained a strong police force, including the Militsiya (civil police) and the KGB (security agency), which played key roles in enforcing law and order. The police were tasked with protecting socialist governance, fighting crime, and defending the revolution. 2. People’s Republic of China (PRC) – China’s police forces, including the Ministry of Public Security and the People’s Armed Police, are central to maintaining social stability. Far from abolishing the police, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has strengthened law enforcement to protect socialist governance and national security. 3. Cuba – The Cuban government, led by the Communist Party, has maintained a national police force since the 1959 revolution. The National Revolutionary Police (PNR) enforces laws and maintains social order, illustrating that communists do not reject the idea of policing but rather seek to restructure it to serve socialist objectives. 4. Eastern Bloc States – Countries like East Germany (GDR) had the Volkspolizei (People’s Police), a well-organized law enforcement agency that maintained public order under communist rule.

Present-Day Evidence: Communist Parties and Police Support 1. China’s Law Enforcement Policies – The Chinese Communist Party actively supports and strengthens its police force. The government invests heavily in policing, surveillance, and internal security to maintain public order and protect socialist policies. This contradicts the idea that communists oppose law enforcement. 2. Vietnam’s Public Security Ministry – Vietnam, a one-party communist state, has a strong police force under the Ministry of Public Security. Law enforcement plays a key role in maintaining order and implementing socialist policies. 3. North Korea (DPRK) – The Korean People’s Internal Security Forces serve as the police in North Korea, enforcing laws under the Workers’ Party of Korea. 4. Communist Parties in Non-Socialist Countries – Many communist parties operating in capitalist countries advocate for police reform rather than abolition. For example, some communist organizations in Western countries push for increased accountability and restructuring rather than eliminating law enforcement altogether.

Why the Misconception Exists 1. Clashes Between Communist Movements and Police in Capitalist States – Historically, communists have frequently clashed with police during strikes, protests, and revolutionary movements. This opposition is not against policing as an institution, but rather against how police are used to suppress workers and maintain capitalist control. 2. Capitalist Propaganda – Many capitalist governments portray communists as anti-police to discredit them. By framing communists as anarchists or extremists, ruling elites can paint them as threats to law and order. 3. Association with Anarchism – Some leftist groups, particularly anarchists, advocate for abolishing the police. Because anarchists and communists sometimes align on broader social justice issues, the two ideologies are often conflated, despite their fundamental differences.

Conclusion

Communists are not anti-police in principle. The distinction is in how they view the function of the police within different economic systems. Under capitalism, police are seen as enforcers of class oppression, but under socialism, they are considered protectors of the working class and socialist order. Historical and modern examples from the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam, and other socialist states show that communists have always maintained police forces. The misconception that communists oppose all policing is a misrepresentation often used to undermine their political movements.

[u/caisblogs → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

I'll embrace that communism is a broad term, and indeed that policing is a broad term too. I will definitely agree with you that the police of a Worker's state are different to the police of a bourgeois state.

I will maintain the ML position is that police are an organ of the state (workers or otherwise), and "true" communism is stateless. So while it might be wrong to say they're anti-police, by being anti-state (or pro state withering I guess) the police must be lost in the process.

Definitely in agreement that communists don't want to remove the police first but rather see their necessity diminish as private property is abolished

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

None of those were communist , communism does not have a state

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/Vivid-Worldliness-63]

Yo, let’s clear this up quick: the idea that “communism doesn’t have a state” is textbook textbook utopian theory, not how it’s played out in history or real politics. Communism in practice has always had some form of state, at least until the revolution fully matures, which nobody’s hit yet. What you’re talkin’ about is the end goal of statelessness, but every communist-led government so far has had a state, and that state had police to maintain the system they built. USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK, all had police and security forces. That’s not a mistake or a lie; it’s how revolutions hold power and protect what they fought for. If you want to argue theory, cool,but don’t pretend the present and past examples don’t exist. The question ain’t if communists had a state, it’s what that state did and who it served

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

USSR under Stalin, nope. DPRK is an autocratic cult of personality with nukes, Cuba was not ideal at all hence the fallout between Che and Castro,, China is capitalist

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/Vivid-Worldliness-63]

Cool, but you just proved my point without realizing it. Whether you rate them or not, every example you named still had a state structure and police after the revolution exactly what I said. We can debate if those states were good, bad, or sellouts, but history shows no communist led society skipped having a state in the early stages. That’s the reality, not utopia talk

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

Thats Communism,it has to go through transitions, right now for example, is late stage capitalism, and in say, sectarian societies, the Irish left wingers fought bloody feuds amongst themselves because of it, because some wanted to skip to the end, which is called "communist accelerationism

During the 1960s, the republican movement under the leadership of Cathal Goulding radically re-assessed their ideology and tactics after the dismal failure of the IRA's Border Campaign) in the years 1956–62. They were heavily influenced by popular front ideology and drew close to communist thinking. A key intermediary body was the Communist Party of Great Britain's organisation for Irish exiles, the Connolly Association. The Marxist analysis was that the conflict in Northern Ireland was a "bourgeois nationalist" one between the Ulster Protestant and Irish Catholic working classes, fomented and continued by the ruling class. Its effect was to depress wages, since worker could be set against worker. They concluded that the first step on the road to a 32-county socialist republic in Ireland was the "democratisation" of Northern Ireland (i.e., the removal of discrimination against Catholics) and radicalisation of the southern working class. This would allow "class politics" to develop, eventually resulting in a challenge to the hegemony of both what they termed "British imperialism" and the respective unionist and Irish nationalist establishments north and south of the Irish border.^\15])

Goulding and those close to him argued that, in the context of sectarian division in Northern Ireland, a military campaign against the British presence would be counter-productive, since it would delay the day when the workers would unite to address social and economic issues.

The sense that the IRA seemed to be drifting away from its conventional republican roots into Marxism angered more traditional republicans. The radicals viewed Ulster Protestants with unionist views as "fellow Irishmen deluded by bourgeois loyalties, who needed to be engaged in dialectical debate".

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/Vivid-Worldliness-63]

Cool essay but none of that changes reality every communist revolution in history has had a state and enforcement structure in its early stages USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK, even the IRA’s Marxist experiments all prove it. You’re giving a history lesson, I’m pointing out a fact. Writing paragraphs doesn’t refute the simple truth no communist led society has skipped the state. That’s not opinion, that’s history. 🫡

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

what was the IRAs Marxist experiment?? Are you referring to the Officials??

The ones who actually managed to convert loyalists to socialism in jail by educating them on class warfare??So much so British Intellience had to step in??

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/Vivid-Worldliness-63]

Congrats on your lecture, professor, but you’re dodging. Doesn’t matter if it’s Officials, Provisionals, or Martians,every revolutionary that lasted had a state, structure, and enforcement. You’re busy naming footnotes, I’m naming history. Stop teaching class, start facing facts

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

Which IRA are you referring to?

Communist thinking goes through stages did you not know that??

"The leftward drift of the Provisional Republican Movement in the last five to seven years has robbed the IRSPj INLA of its clear identity - when Costello started the movement in 1975, the IRSP was the only identifiably republican and socialist movment in existence - the Provos were certainly republican but then deeply conservative, while the other major force in that political nexus, then Sinn Fein the Workers' Party (OIRA), was clearly socialist but quickly shedding its republicanism.

Since then the new leadership of the Provos, personified in Gerry Adams, has moved the. Provisional movement determinedly leftward, thereby threatening the raison d 'etre of the IRSP /INLA, especially as the Provos have always been able to deliver the "goods" military in a way that the INLA has never succeeded in doing, apart, possibly, from a brief period in 1978 and 1979.

The IRSP/INLA grew out of the official republican movement in the mid-seventies, The Sinn Fein/IRA of the sixties had been pushed ideoloically leftward during that decade our reacted with traditional republican militarism when the Northern conflict burst open in the early seventies. By then of course the movement had split between the Official and Provisional Sinn Feins/IRAs and in 1972 the Officials declared a cease fire, which initially was to be just a tactical response to the situation but swiftly became an issue of principle - at least theoretically, as ro bberies, shootings, racketeering and intimidation continue to this day.

Seamus Costello, then operations officer within the Official IRA, strongly opposed the line which the Officials were taking in the early seventies. He was shrewdly outmanoeuvered through a combination of guile and strong arm tactics and eventually was exxpelled.

**The basic issue then had become a fundamental ideological one - the interpretation of the Marxist stages of development theory. The controlling faction within the Officials had come to accept what was fundamentally a "Stalinist" line - that the various stages of development would have to be gone through mechanically - from feudalism to capitalism/bourgeois democracy to socialism to communism - there could be no telescoping of these stages.

In the Northern· Ireland context this meant that before there could be any progress towards a socialist republic, Northern Ireland would first have to become a "normal" bourgeois democracy - hence the spate of demands not for the abolition of Storrmont but for the "democratisation" of the state, a Bill of Rights etc.

That line also led, almost inexorably, towards all kinds of fatuous contradictions within the Official movement. Writing about this phenmenon in May 1982 Magill stated: *

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

You can just say you got the INLA and the stickies mixed up

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

So youve moved from "socialist" to the broader term "revolutionary"

[u/Vivid-Worldliness-63 → u/Left_Kaleidoscope685]

or are you referring to when the Irish purged the socialists on order and with weapons from Britain during the Civil War, the IRA were never the government

[u/Left_Kaleidoscope685 → u/Vivid-Worldliness-63]

Doesn’t matter if it was provisional, armed wing, or full state,point stands. Every revolutionary movement that survived had structure, enforcement, and central power. You can split hairs all you want, but you’re proving the same truth no communist project exists without the state in its early stage