The State: The Bourgeois Dictatorship

Salt Lake DSA's Socialist Night School (SNS) is a political education discussion and social group that increases people’s understanding of socialism as a political horizon, builds our chapter’s community, and teaches us how workers can form organizations to pursue socialism. We meet the first Sunday of each month in both Salt Lake City and Ogden from 3- 5 p.m. 

This session is part presentation and part discussion, and we will cover what the state is, where the bourgeois state comes from, and socialist approaches to the state. 

Pre-readings are not required, but will be useful in discussion and provide context for some of the topics presented. These readings provide three separate perspectives on DSA's electoral strategy:

• • Socialist Party Platform of 1912

  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “The Relation of State and Law to Property,” in The German Ideology, Part I: “Feuerbach” (1845–46). 
  • Luke Pickrell, “DSA Is Right: We Need a New Constitution,” Democratic Left, October 7, 2026.
  • DSA Workers Deserve More Program
  • V. I. Lenin, “Class Society and the State,” Chapter 1 of The State and Revolution (1917).

Event Locations:

• Salt Lake City — Ken Sanders Rare Books — 209 E 500 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
• Ogden — Ogden Creative Reuse — 2424 Wall Ave, Ogden, UT 84401