In 1917, the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin revisited Marx and Engels' views on the state and realised that their ideas had been distorted by the Socialist movement created in their name. Written at the outset of WWI, this classic text puts to rest the notion that Lenin favoured dictatorship over the working class. With great insight and polemical bravado, Lenin elaborates on the Marxist concept of the state as a structure of domination.
Author Biography
V.I. Lenin was a leading member of the Bolshevik party in Russia from 1912 until his death in 1924, and is widely considered to have founded a distinct tradition in the struggle for revolutionary socialism, built from below. He is the author of celebrated works of theory such as State and Revolution, as well as widely misunderstood polemics like What is to be Done? Todd Chretien is a frequent contributor to Socialist Worker and the ISR.
