I have some probably dumb questions to ask about marxism and wasn't sure where to go. Is there like a ask marxists or debate marxists forum? Anyway
What and how many branches of marxism want state socialism during the socialist transition period before Communism? I was under the impression that all (or most) leninists wanted state socialism during this period. I have since been told that Trotskyists don't want this. Is this correct if so what do they want instead? How does this all relate to vanguardism?
Furthermore how does marxism define a state? Is this different from how other groups define statehood?
I still don't fully grasp the difference between marxists and anarchists. I thought the difference was mainly that anarchists don't want a state, and encourage mutual aid. Now that I hear not all marxists want a state I am pretty confused.
From what I understand, Marxism is really more theoretical and non-proscriptive. That is, Marx provides a framework and a lens for analyzing society and potentially for how to make decisions, but doesn't give guidance on where one should actually go to or what that looks like. The different implementations that use Marxist analysis are the MLs or the MLMs, or even anarchists utilize class theory, dialectics, and Marx's fantastic capitalist analysis to guide decision making.