Lenin outlines in The State and Revolution the Marxist position on the state, its origins, and what its purpose is.  He then shows the need for revolution, and the need to replace the state with a workers’ democratic dictatorship – a workers’ state.  The leader of the Russian revolution found time during 1917 to write a crucial text on the Marxist position on the state, and the tasks of the proletariat during and after the social revolution.  He was driven by the practical needs of the revolution in Russia at the time: to show that the opportunists (i.e., the Social-Democrats, Kautskyian-centrists, etc) had distorted Marxism and to refute the anarchist claims that all states are reactionary.

Read the rest of this entry »