The State and Revolution

In this classic work by the Great Lenin, the nature of the State is examined. Drawing on the works of the founders, Marx and Engels, Lenin shows that the State arises at a certain period of historical development and that it is the product of irreconcilable class antagonisms. The State is a machine for the suppression of one class by another, it is a dictatorship, and it exercises this class dictatorship through violence. Lenin, by examining the writings of Marx and Engels and the Paris Commune, shows how the working-class cannot simply lay hold of this ready-made State machinery, but must smash it through violent revolution and construct their own State for the suppression of the overthrown capitalist class. This new State is the dictatorship of the proletariat.