State and Revolution Book

This is the famous book in which Lenin asserted (quoting Engels) that “the state will wither away” under Communism, and which is therefore sometimes oddly accused of being “utopian” and “anarchist.” It is neither of these, but it does require some work to parse out.

Historically, this essay was written at the moment when Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, after the February, 1917 revolution and before the October revolution which ended with him and his party in power. One would think that his mind would be on Russia at a time like this, on its possibilities and how it should be handled. There is little evidence of that here. What seems to have preoccupied him at this particular moment is how he could defeat Karl Kautsky, the leading Social Democrat in Germany, in a debate regarding the correct interpretation of Marxist theory. I’d be tempted to interpret that as an attempt to distract himself during a period of depression, but I suspect that it’s not that simple. I suspect that Lenin really was crazy enough to believe that clarifying a minor point of theory by carefully studying the sacred words of Holy Saints Marx and Engels actually was the best way to prepare himself for the coming revolution.

That said, his arguments are still not terribly convincing, even if we take him at his word as a revolutionary and ignore the actual facts of history. Much of his argument is based upon a highly selective reading of Marx’s discussions of the Paris Commune which ignores his (Marx’s) deep ambiguity towards the Commune and the communards' ambiguity towards Marx. He asserts multiple times the importance of the revolution in which the proletariat “smashes the machinery of the state,” and also significance of the “opportunist” Kautsky’s willingness to simply “take it over.” However, his idea of “smashing” the state remains obscure, since he admits that the proletariat will still need its apparatus for an undetermined period, and it seems that many of its previous functionaries will remain in place, albeit at a lowered wage and with the possibility of recall by “the workers” at any time. “The workers,” of course, remains a code for the Vanguard Party which means that the dictatorship of the proletariat remains a dictatorship by an elite with the very police forces which had kept them in line previously.

Lenin’s centralism and authoritarianism remain clear from this book for readers to observe. He takes every opportunity, in fact, to discredit anarchists, utopians, “opportunists,” and “social chauvinists” (his term for Social Democrats who supported their governments in World War One). The centralism, bureaucracy, and authoritarian imperialism of the former Soviet Union are established facts today which serve to discredit his belief in his own interpretation of theory. This book is therefore useful mostly as a warning against hubris in revolutionaries and radicals today.