Marx’s Critical Reimagining of “State Personality” and Its Relationship with People’s Democracy: Based Primarily on Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
Yu Genxiong
School of Marxism, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Abstract：The “state personality” is, in fact, the true entry point for Marx’s exploration of people’s democracy. In his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx redefined Hegel’s concept of “state personality” and established the fundamental theoretical framework for people’s democracy. The state is, by definition, unified sovereignty. Marx did not oppose the essential connection between the state and sovereignty, what he questioned was the way Hegel derived sovereignty from the state. He argued that the concept of sovereignty should not be derived from the concept of the state. Marx’s argument on the unity of the state and sovereignty focuses on all real subjects and the personality that unfolds in the form of multiplicity. In its fundamental sense, the “state personality” is a collective sovereignty. It is personified sovereignty or the personification of sovereignty. This necessitates that the foundation of sovereignty be based on human characteristics and their activities. The true essence of the “state personality” lies in human social activities, i.e., social traits. These social traits are inevitably connected to each individual as a “fundamental characteristic of the individual”. The reality of the “state personality” is reflected in social groups, families, and other legal entities. What legal entities embody are the social traits of real individuals, not their private traits. The “state personality” is redefined as a popular sovereignty that exists as a whole, and is the highest embodiment of the social traits of human beings grounded in definite relations of material intercourse.From the integrality of sovereignty and the popular nature of sovereignty, Marx concluded that democracy is “the self-determination of the people and the specific content of the people”. Only by engaging with the material life processes of the people can the state system necessarily and effectively connect with them. This existential orientation simultaneously defines the direct and inevitable link of popular democracy with non-political domains. Marx emphasized that “in a democracy, the principle of form is also the principle of material”. The unity of the principle of form and the principle of material merely involves defining the social characteristics—namely, people’s social relations—constructed in material life as universally significant state institutions through legal forms. The axiological orientation of “state personality” lies in the fact that the state is “the highest social reality of humanity”. Human social reality exists in sensory-objective activities. Human social reality and the state system are unified. All material activities of people can only be realized under the guarantee of the state system and its functional activities, and the state system and its functional activities can only achieve “true statehood” by centering around human social reality.To establish a practical “state personality” grounded in popular sovereignty, a thoroughgoing revolution is necessary. This revolution entails not only immersing oneself in the people’s daily lives but, more crucially, transcending all previous revolutionary endeavors. This revolution is the liberation of humanity itself. The establishment of popular sovereignty and the liberation of people follow the same path. People’s democracy seeks to reduce politics to the material realm, striving to infuse political forms of state institutions with material content and to adopt this material content as the principle of state institutions. The continuity of “state personality” encompasses the integrity of sovereignty, the stability of political power, and the unity of social consciousness. The proletariat, as the “whole people”, bears the responsibility of sustaining “state personality”.
余根雄. 马克思对“国家人格”的批判性重塑及其与人民民主的关系[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2026, 56(9): 162-173.
Yu Genxiong. Marx’s Critical Reimagining of “State Personality” and Its Relationship with People’s Democracy: Based Primarily on Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2026, 56(9): 162-173.
2026, Vol. 56 
