Vladimir I. Lenin

State and Revolution is a book by a famous revolutionist, state and political activist, Vladimir Illich Lenin. The book State and Revolution was written by Lenin in the underground in August-September 1917. Lenin advanced an idea about the necessity of the theoretical development of the issue in the second half of 1916. Back then, he wrote an article in Young Communist International (look Compositions, 4th ed., volume 23, pp 153-156) where he criticized anti-Marxist position of Bukharin in relation to the state issue and promised to write a detailed article about the attitude of Marxism toward the state. In his letter to A.M. Kollontai, dated 17 February 1917, Lenin wrote that he had almost prepared an information about the attitude of Marxism toward the state. This material was written with small handwriting in a notebook with a blue cover, titled Marxism about the State. It contained extracts from the books by Kautsky, Pannekoek and Bernstein with critical notes, conclusions and generalizations by V.I. Lenin. At the first page of the book's manuscript the author is nicknamed as F.F. Ivanovsky. Lenin was going to publish his book under a such pen-name, otherwise the interim government could confiscate it. The book was published in 1918, so there was no need in the pen-name anymore. The second edition of the book with a new section The Statement of the Question by Marx in 1852 that Lenin added to the second chapter was published in 1919.

State and Revolution

The State and Revolution (1917), by Vladimir Lenin, describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.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 - and 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 class." Hence his denigration even of parliamentary democracy, which was influenced by what Lenin saw as the recent increase of bureaucratic and military influences: "To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics".Citing Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin investigates theoretical questions about the existence of the State after the proletarian revolution, addressing the arguments of anti-authoritarians, anarchists, social democrats, and reformists, 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, and Marxism 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 icons, 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 revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge, and vulgarizing it. Today, the bourgeoisie 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 (Annotated)

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin

The two founding texts of the analysis of capitalism and imperialism in one volume, with annotation.

Classic Writings by V. I. Lenin and Nikolai Bukharin

Imperialism and War

Predmetnyj ukazatel' k pervomu izdaniju socinenij V. I. Lenina

Sobranie sočinenij

What Is to Be Done?

CONTENTS Inflammable Material in World Politics Democracy and Narodism in China The End of the Italo-Turkish War Regenerated China Civilised Europeans and Savage Asians The Awakening of Asia The Working Class and the National Question Backward Europe and Advanced Asia On the National Pride of the Great Russians From Socialism and War. Chapter I. The Principles of Socialism and the War of 1914-1915 From A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economy From Replies to Questions put by Karl Wiegand, Berlin Correspondent of Universal Service To the Indian Revolutionary Association Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial Questions to the Second Congress of the Communist International, July 26, 1920 On the Tenth Anniversary of Pravda The Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation" Better Fewer, but Better Notes

The Awakening of Asia

Der Imperialismus als höchstes Stadium des Kapitalismus

Iosif V. Stalin

Über die Ukraine

Revoljucija 1905 - 1906 godov ; 1

gemeinverständl. Abriss

What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement, is a political pamphlet written by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in 1901 and published in 1902. Its title is inspired by the novel of the same name by the 19th century Russian revolutionary Nikolai Chernyshevsky.In What Is to Be Done?, Lenin argues that the working class will not spontaneously become political simply by fighting economic battles with employers over wages, working hours and the like. To convert the working class to Marxism, Lenin insists that Marxists should form a political party, or "vanguard", of dedicated revolutionaries to spread Marxist political ideas among the workers. The pamphlet precipitated in part the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) between Lenin's Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.In 1904 Leon Trotsky published his reply Our Political Tasks, asserting that Lenin's approach will inevitably lead to a bloody takeover of the party by a dictator akin to the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.

[Original Progress Publishers Moscow Edition]

This translation is taken from Volume 23 of V.I. Lenin's "Collected Works" in 45 volumes.

A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism

Lenin created this hugely significant Marxist text to explain fully the inevitable flaws and destructive power of Capitalism: that it would lead unavoidably to imperialism, monopolies and colonialism. He prophesied that those third world countries used merely as capitalist labour would have no choice but to join the Communist revolution in Russia. Throughout history, some books have changed the world, they have transformed the way we see ourselves. They have inspired millions of people with their political views. This is one of those.

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Karl Marx

Friedrich Engels

This unique eBook contains two major Works about Communist Party and Marxist Theory.The Communist Manifesto (originally Manifesto of the Communist Party) is an 1848 political pamphlet by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London (in German as Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) just as the revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, the Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and then-present) and the problems of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.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 - and 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 class." Hence his denigration even of parliamentary democracy, which was influenced by what Lenin saw as the recent increase of bureaucratic and military influences: "To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics".Citing Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin investigates theoretical questions about the existence of the State after the proletarian revolution, addressing the arguments of anti-authoritarians, anarchists, social democrats, and reformists, 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, and Marxism 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.

Marxist Theory and Communist Party

The Communist Manifesto / the State and Revolution ( Annotated )

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main 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. He was the creator of Leninism, an extension of Marxist theory.

Vladimir I. Lenin

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