Is the political community a precondition for the establishment of an ethical community?

In Religion, Kant claims that the ethical community cannot be brought into existence if there is not a political community at its basis (RGV 6: 94). My aim in this paper is to understand the origins and the consequences of this claim. My hypothesis is that the political community is a precondition to the establishment of an ethical community because the passage to a civil state can guarantee the minimal conditions for the ethical community to exist.