''The State and Revolution: The Marxist Doctrine of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution'' () is a book written by

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and published in 1917 which describes his views on the role of the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

in society, the necessity of

proletarian revolution A proletarian revolution or proletariat revolution is a social revolution in which the working class attempts to overthrow the bourgeoisie and change the previous political system. Proletarian revolutions are generally advocated by socialist ...

, and the theoretic inadequacies of

social democracy Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

in achieving

revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Background

Lenin began the composition of an early draft of ''The State and Revolution'' while in exile in Switzerland in 1916, under the title "Marxism on the State". "

Soviets The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" (). Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...

", legislative bodies of workers and peasants, were the ''de facto'' governments of

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

and many smaller cities. The Russian public was deeply upset with the continuation of Russia's involvement in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and the continued economic difficulties that it brought on. On November 7, the

Congress of Soviets The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics and national autonomies in the Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1936 and a somewhat simil ...

officially elected a coalition of

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

, Socialist Revolutionaries and

Mensheviks The Mensheviks ('the Minority') were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903. Mensheviks held more moderate and reformist ...

to govern. Through the

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

, paramilitary organizations of revolutionary workers, sailors, and soldiers, the Soviet government was able to storm the

Winter Palace The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. The floor area is 233,345 square ...

and officially abolish the

Provisional Government A provisional government, also called an interim government, an emergency government, a transitional government or provisional leadership, is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revoluti ...

. The revolution was not uniformly accepted among all Russians; resistance and disruption would occur routinely leading up to the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. A particular issue that Lenin covers in ''The State and Revolution'' was the right of nations to secession ("the right to self-determination"); during the composition of this book, the Mensheviks of Georgia declared independence soon after the Revolution, forming the

Democratic Republic of Georgia The Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG; ka, საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა, tr) was the first modern establishment of a republic of Georgia (country), Georgia, which exist ...

. By November 25, the 1917 Constitutional Assembly was elected with a majority of positions going to the

Socialist Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR; ,, ) was a major socialist political party in the late Russian Empire, during both phases of the Russian Revolution, and in early Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Russia. The party memb ...

, which had made a right-ward turn after the revolution with most of the Left-SRs joining the Bolshevik party. In one of the most controversial actions of the early Soviet government, the constitutional convention was dissolved on January 20, 1918.

Synopsis

''The State and Revolution'' is considered to be Lenin's most important work on the state and has been called by Lucio Colletti "Lenin's greatest contribution to political theory". According to the Marxologist David McLellan, "the book had its origin in Lenin's argument with Bukharin in the summer of 1916 over the existence of the state after a proletarian revolution. Bukharin had emphasised the 'withering' aspect, whereas Lenin insisted on the necessity of the state machinery to expropriate the expropriators. In fact, it was Lenin who changed his mind, and many of the ideas of State and Revolution, composed in the summer of 1917 – particularly the anti-statist theme – were those of Bukharin". Lenin's direct and simple definition of the State is that "the State is a special organisation of force: it is an organisation of violence for the suppression of some Social class." Hence his denigration even of

parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...

, which was influenced by what Lenin saw as the recent increase of

bureaucratic Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

and military influences: Citing

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

, Lenin investigates theoretical questions about the existence of the State after the proletarian revolution, addressing the arguments of anti-authoritarians,

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or hierarchy, primarily targeting the state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state w ...

social democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

, and

reformists Reformism is a political tendency advocating the reform of an existing system or institution – often a political establishment , political or religion , religious establishment – as opposed to its abolition and replacement via revolution. ...

, in describing the progressive stages of societal change—the revolution, establishing “the lower stage of communist society” (the socialist commune), and the “higher stage of communist society” that will yield a stable society where personal freedom might be fully expressed. Lenin especially defends Marx's theory of

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

, and

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

generally; to wit, when old revolutionaries die, the bourgeoisie are not content with labelling them “ enemies of the state”, because that would attract political radicals, so they attack the revolutionaries’ theoretic writings by ascribing to them an (anti-revolutionary) social-democratic mediocrity contrary to “the revolutionary nature of Marx”; such bourgeois intellectuals are the “ revisionists” who transform a human being into an abstraction:

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred, and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their deaths, attempts are made to convert them into harmless
icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
s, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names, to a certain extent, for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes, and with the object of duping the latter, while, at the same time, robbing the
revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
ary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge, and vulgarizing it. Today, the
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
and the opportunists within the labour movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure, or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is, or seems, acceptable to the bourgeoisie. All the social-chauvinists are now ‘Marxists’ (don’t laugh!). And more and more frequently, German bourgeois scholars, only yesterday specialists in the annihilation of Marxism, are speaking of the ‘national-German’ Marx, who, they claim, educated the labour unions, which are so splendidly organised for the purpose of waging a predatory war!

''The State and Revolution'' describes the inherent nature of the State as a tool for class oppression, the creation of a social class's desire to control the other social classes when politico-economic disputes cannot otherwise be peacefully resolved; whether a

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

or a

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

, the State remains the social-control means of the ruling class. Even in a democratic capitalist republic, the ruling class never relinquish political power, maintaining it via the “behind-the-scenes” control of

universal suffrage Universal suffrage or universal franchise ensures the right to vote for as many people bound by a government's laws as possible, as supported by the " one person, one vote" principle. For many, the term universal suffrage assumes the exclusion ...

—an excellent deception that maintains the idealistic concepts of “freedom and democracy”; hence,

communist revolution A communist revolution is a proletarian revolution inspired by the ideas of Marxism that aims to replace capitalism with communism. Depending on the type of government, the term socialism can be used to indicate an intermediate stage between ...

is the sole remedy for such

demagogy A demagogue (; ; ), or rabble-rouser, is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, especially through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoat ...

: # The anarchists propose the State's immediate abolishment; Lenin counter-proposes that such idealism is pragmatically impossible, because the proletariat would need to crush the bourgeois resistance through a mechanism, and that is the state. # Were the State immediately abolished, without the “conditions leading to the arising of the State” being abolished as well, a new State would appear, and the socialist revolution would have been for naught. In the event, the

proletariat The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist ph ...

through the dictatorship of the proletariat would establish a communal State (per the 1871

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

model), then gradually suppress the dissenting

bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...

, in achieving the

withering away of the State The withering away of the state is a Marxist concept coined by Friedrich Engels referring to the expectation that, with the realization of socialism, the state will eventually become obsolete and cease to exist as society will be able to gover ...

as its institutions begin to “lose their political character”. Thus, following Marx's conclusions on the

, which Lenin took as his model. Lenin declared that the task of the Revolution was to smash the State. Although for a period under communism, "there remains for a time not only bourgeois right but even the bourgeois State without the bourgeoisie," Lenin believed that after a successful proletarian revolution the state had not only begun to wither, but was in an advanced condition of decomposition. But Lenin also called the state "the armed and ruling proletariat" so McLellan asks whether this, too withers? Yes, according to McLellan, "in so far as it was in any way a power separate from and opposed to, the masses" Lenin had little to say of the institutional form of this transition period. There was a strong emphasis on the dictatorship of the proletariat: "A Marxist is solely someone who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested."

Editions in English

* Lenin, Vladimir. ''State and Revolution''. Aziloth Books, London. 2017. * ibid, ed. Robert Service, ''State and Revolution''. Penguin Books, London. 1992. * ed. Christman, Henry M. ''Essential Works of Lenin: What is to be Done and other Writings.'' Bantam Books, New York, 1966. . *

Footnotes

Sources

External links

*
The State and Revolution
' by

at the

Marxists Internet Archive Marxists Internet Archive, also known as MIA or Marxists.org, is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Enge ...

Original Russian text

Summary and significance
{{DEFAULTSORT:State and Revolution, The 1917 non-fiction books Marxist books Books about revolutions Communist books Marxist theory Russian literature Works by Vladimir Lenin