Running head: LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 1

Lenin, State and Revolution

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Student’s Name

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LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 2

Introduction

The state and revolution is an historical document that was written by Vladimir Lenin in

the year 1917. Vladimir popularly known by the alias Lenin was a Russian communist

revolutionary and a political theorist. He further headed the Soviet Russian government between

the year 1917 and 1924 and also served as the head of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. In

the months of August and September 1917, when he was hiding from the persecution of the

Provisional Government. This paper will consequently look to break down and give a detailed

analysis of this book. To begin with, the Lenin’s document will be categorized into historic

setting and thereafter specific points of interest and orientations in the content will be analyzed.

Eventually, this essay paper will remark on the reliability of the document as a foundation as

well as its worthiness and relevance to a student pursuing the modern European History.

Body

When Lenin composed this publication, the European mainland was engaging in the

World War 1 for a long time and individuals from the Russian Republic were vigorously

experiencing its heaviness. Russians needed a discharge from the war, destitution and yearning.

In this way, country wide revolutions and challenges occurred in the month of February in 1917

ousting out the government of Tsar. Henceforth, an interim regime was built up. All this time,

Lenin was in Switzerland seeking refuge from likely persecution by the provisional

administration. A few months later, Lenin came back to the Russia Republic trusting that the

time was ideal for revolting the Bolsheviks1. In any case, the July challenges fizzled. The built up

pioneers announced that Lenin and alternate pioneers posing the challenges were backed up by

1
Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, and Todd Chretien. State and revolution. Haymarket Books, 2015.
LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 3

the Germans to cause common agitation. Following this, Lenin sort refuge in Finland, during

which he framed his methods of insight on the state on the publication.

The extract from "State and Revolution" that this exposition will look at spotlights on the

state on the move. Concealment is a watchword in the archive. Lenin expresses, that amid the

change to a socialist state, "concealment is as yet vital." By alluding to the state on the move,

Lenin perceives that the February Revolution had caused forward movement towards his optimal

society, however that the errand had not yet been completely proficient 2. In spite of Lenin

clearing up on the concealment that this situation would be the switch of the standard meaning of

the term; the misused larger part, the "wage-slaves" of the past presently expected to smother the

abusing minority.

This would be a "simple, straightforward and characteristic" assignment, as per Lenin,

and would cost less human life than when the conditions were switched, the point at which the

abusing minority had smothered the "ascending of slaves, serfs or wage-labourers."

Undoubtedly, Lenin is alluding to the slaughter that resulted upper class attempted to stifle or

rebuff serfs, and significantly more particularly maybe to World War I, from which the Russians

endured3. With the end goal to stifle the general population, Nicholas II had depended on a

2
Wood, A. The Origins of the Russian Revolution, 1861-1917. London: Routledge, 1993.

3
Phillips, S. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers,

2000.

The State and Revolution, website online. Accessed on 4 May 2007 from

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/.
LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 4

graceless armed force and mystery police. Therefore, Lenin called for the masses to defy the

temporary government set up. While Lenin perceives that the undertaking will not be bloodless,

he argues that it will cost humanity not exactly returning to the old arrangement of concealment

by the misusing minority.

Moreover, Lenin proclaims that "just Communism" will make the requirement for a state

"unnecessary." Through Communalism, there remains nobody to be smothered. With no classes

contending with one another or endeavoring to rule a specific piece of the populace, the state will

not fill any need. Further, Lenin notes that a socialist social setting would not exist without

blemishes on the grounds that a majority of the population would be suppressed. Nevertheless,

the furnished individuals will be sufficient to deal with this concealment, with no requirement for

an "extraordinary machine" or "unique mechanical assembly", that is, the state. Moreover, Lenin

expresses, that the explanation behind those "overabundances" will blur with socialism on the

grounds that the fundamental driver for "overabundances" is the "misuse of the greater part, their

need and their poverty. Thus, the primary driver of abundances will not exist later on state,

making the state in the long run "shrink away.” Here, Lenin suggests Engels' idea of the state

shriveling ceaselessly4. Lenin trusts that with transformation, the procedure to a perfect, however

not "idealistic" culture will be a moderate, but rather beyond any doubt change.

At long last, Lenin refers to Marx's separated periods of socialism, the low and high

phases. The author’s imagined forthcoming state would comprise the higher phase of socialism.

He is however mindful so as mention that this most elevated level of a socialization would not be
4
Lenin, V.I. “State and Revolution” (1917) in The Essentials of Lenin (6) , vol. 2, pp. 202-203,

cited in Anthony Wood, The Russian Revolution, 81-2

LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 5

"utopian". In his document, Lenin points that the higher class in the society uses the state as a

tool to oppress the lowly placed in the society. Interestingly, the author however defends Max’s

theory of communism and Marxism alongside his efforts to fight oppression.

The big query thus remains whether this document by Lenin is dependable as a source or

not. Maybe, the biggest issue that may happen for a British student with this publication is

understanding it made an interpretation of English from Russian. Exact thoughts may deem out

due to insignificant differences in a word basing on different versions. Above all, the reader

ought to recollect that Lenin had a plan behind these works which was the desire to stage a

revolution in Russia and that the composing was not a target philosophical record of issues5.

However, notwithstanding the dependability of the publication, it has a great significance

to the students studying the Modern European History by providing vast knowledge into the

thinkers mind and the philosophical works of a gigantically persuasive leader of the 20 th century.

A few researchers, for example, Alan Wood, contend that at last, the Russian individuals

influenced the Revolution to happen and that scholarly works were just a single feature of the

causal components to it6. Nevertheless, literatures, like Lenin's "State and Revolution" are critical

to peruse, since they portray the basis why Russian individuals revolted and give a sign of what

they would have liked to accomplish. Unmistakably, this article adds to the comprehension and

henceforth is profoundly of great importance.

5
Wood, A. The Origins of the Russian Revolution, 1861-1917. London: Routledge, 1993
6
Phillips, S. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers,

2000
 LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 6

Conclusion

Written in August and September 1917, the document “State of Revolution” remains an

interesting work of art in the history of independence of the Russian Republic. Expanding on

certain key takes a shot at Lenin and his idea, both later and not all that ongoing, it exhibits that

the evidently substantial uniqueness between The State and Revolution and Lenin's years in

power in the Soviet Union is, indeed, very false. It is to be contended here that Lenin, indeed,

visualized a 'fascism of the low class' not far expelled from the rough and abusive routine that

developed in Soviet Russia amid his years in power. Lenin is to be comprehended as an

unpredictable scholar, whose origination of lowly state viciousness was to some degree uncertain

however all things considered clear in that compel was to be the birthing specialist of the

revolution as well as of full socialism also.

Bibliography
Lenin, V.I. “State and Revolution” (1917) in The Essentials of Lenin (6) , vol. 2, pp. 202-203, cited in

Anthony Wood, The Russian Revolution, 81-2

Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, and Todd Chretien. State and revolution. Haymarket Books, 2015.

Phillips, S. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 2000.
 LENIN, STATE AND REVOLUTION 7

The State and Revolution, website online. Accessed on 4 May 2007 from

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/.

Wood, A. The Origins of the Russian Revolution, 1861-1917. London: Routledge, 1993.