State and Revolution

by Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Overview

2011 Reprint of 1932 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "State and Revolution" (1917) describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution. It describes the inherent nature of the State as a tool for class oppression, a creation born of one social class's desire to control all other social classes. Whether a dictatorship or a democracy, the State remains in the control of the ruling class. Even in a democratic capitalist republic, the ruling class will never willingly relinquish political power, maintaining it via various strategies. Hence, according to this view, communist revolution is the sole remedy for the abolition of the state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614271925
Publisher:	Martino Fine Books
Publication date:	11/11/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	106
Sales rank:	62,038
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Vladimir Lenin was born in 1870 and was one of the most influential people of the 20th century. He became a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the principal leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and, from 1922, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union.

Table of Contents

	Preface to First Edition	5
	Preface to Second Edition	6
I.	Class Society and the State	7
1.	The State as the Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms	7
2.	Special Bodies of Armed Men, Prisons, etc.	10
3.	The State as an Instrument for the Exploitation of the Oppressed Class	12
4.	The "Withering Away" of the State and Violent Revolution	15
II.	The Experiences of 1848-1851	21
1.	On the Eve of Revolution	21
2.	Results of the Revolution	24
3.	The Formulation of the Question by Marx in 1852	29
III.	Experiences of the Paris Commune of 1871: Marx's Analysis	32
1.	In What Does the Heroism of the Communards Consist?	32
2.	What is to Replace the Shattered State Machinery?	35
3.	The Destruction of Parliamentarism	39
4.	The Organisation of National Unity	44
5.	Destruction of the Parasite-State	47
IV.	Supplementary Explanations by Engels	49
1.	The Housing Question	49
2.	Polemic Against the Anarchists	51
3.	Letter to Bebel	54
4.	Criticism of the Draft of the Erfurt Programme	57
5.	The 1891 Preface to Marx's Civil War in France	62
6.	Engels on the Overcoming of Democracy	66
V.	The Economic Base of the Withering Away of the State	69
1.	Formulation of the Question by Marx	69
2.	Transition from Capitalism to Communism	71
3.	First Phase of Communist Society	75
4.	Higher Phase of Communist Society	78
VI.	Vulgarisation of Marx by the Opportunists	86
1.	Plekhanov's Polemic Against the Anarchists	86
2.	Kautsky's Polemic Against the Opportunists	87
3.	Kautsky's Polemic Against Pannekoek	93
	Postscript to First Edition	101
	Explanatory Notes	102

Editorial Reviews

"Lenin's greatest contribution to political theory." Lucio Colletti

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