In this article Leys questions some of the formulations on the post‐colonial state and its bureaucracy developed by Hamza Alavi, Roger Murray and John Saul. The articles referred to are Alavi's ‘The State in Post‐Colonial Societies’ (New Left Review,74, July/August 1972) and Murray's ‘Second Thoughts on Ghana’ (New Left Review,42, March/April 1967). But Leys is particularly concerned to open a debate on John Saul's ‘The State in Post‐Colonial Societies‐Tanzania’, published in The Socialist Register(London, 1974).