State and Revolution

The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin wrote the short pamphlet State and Revolution in the midst of the extreme violence of the First World War, and the revolutionary upheaval taking place in Russia in 1917. It was written to win urgent arguments that were taking place about the way forward within the Russian revolutionary movement—just six months after it had overthrown the Tsarist dictatorship.

Lenin argued that the state is not a neutral or benign force, and has not always existed. The state, i.e. the army, judiciary, police, etc, does not represent, as it claims, “the nation” but is an instrument of capitalist class rule. He laid out how the central aim of the workers’ struggle and of the revolution is the winning of state power, and that the existing state machine cannot simply be taken over and used by the workers but has to be “smashed” or “broken up” and replaced by a new state geared to the workers’ needs, i.e. a state based on workers’ councils.

Join us for a discussion on the relevance of this Marxist classic to the struggles against capitalism today, and what we can learn from recent and current revolutionary struggles in tackling the central question of the capitalist state.

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/109239277
Meeting ID: 109 239 277

Read the original at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/

Photo : Tahrir Square, Cairo, Feb. 11, 2011. Jonathan Rashad, CC-BY-2.0