 From 1937–1938 Weil revisited her Marxian commitments, arguing that there is a central contradiction in Marx’s thought: although she adhered to his method of analysis and demonstration that the modern state is inherently oppressive—being that it is composed of the army, police, and bureaucracy—she continued to reject any positing of revolution as immanent or determined. Indeed, in Weil’s middle period, Marx’s confidence in history seemed to her a worse ground for judgment than Machiavelli’s emphasis on contingency.