It was also motivated by the desire to gain slaves and seize others people's rescources. There were religious motivations, too.
> If the ruling class and its non-ruling class supporters peacefully
> accept the transition to socialism, & if everyone, uncompelled by
> state power, immediately begins to observe rules of peaceful social
> intercourse according to communist principles, the state is
> practically unnecessary. That, however, has not & will not happen.
It is not necessary for the ruling class to accept the transition to socialism for it to be done peacefully. It is only necessary for it's violent agents, police, soldiers, etc., to accept it. One percent of the population cannot enslave 99 percent of the population without getting part of that 99 percent to come on it's side. The workers can seize control of the means of production and reorganize society along libertarian communist lines without coercing anyone or resorting to a state. The state's coercive agents may attempt to prevent this by force and, if they cannot be convinced to stop, the workers are justified in using violence to defend themselves. Not all violence, however, is state violence. One can arm the population and defeat the capitalist's armies without resorting to a state. Anarchist militias in Ukraine from 198-21 are an example of such a strategy successfully defeating capitalists. Any future revolution will have to take care to limit the amount of violence associated with it. If the level of violence goes beyond street fighting and into the full-scale civil wars that have accompanied previous revolutions then nuclear weapons will ensure that both sides are destroyed. Any socialist revolution based on the massive coercive powers of the state is doomed to failure.
Joe R. Golowka JoeG at ieee.org Anarchist FAQ - http://www.anarchistfaq.org
"The State is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behavior; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently" - Gustav Landauer