The State and Revolution

“Five stars? You must be a filthy Leninist!”

And you must be short-sighted. It's important to read things you disagree with. Challenge what you currently believe, so that you can make your beliefs even more grounded, insightful, and consistent. This book does a great job of that.

Lenin is a fantastic writer. He explains very abstract concepts in terms that anyone with a decent education can clearly understand. His constant references to history remind the reader that his beliefs are not Utopian; rather, “socialism will emerge from the womb of capitalism,” as he says himself.

That isn't to say that Lenin is without faults. This was a man of extraordinary insight and analysis, but he used his talents only to defend Marxism. You can tell that, to Lenin, if Marx/Engels didn't say it, it was wrong. Lenin is a communist not because he believes he will bring greater justice to the world, but because he thinks himself a catalyst of the historically inevitable transformation from capitalism to socialism, as prescribed by Marx. This exceptional fervor (and dogma) incline me to think that Lenin would have made for an excellent missionary in another century.

The amount one learns from this book is absolutely incredible. The state as a tool for oppression of other classes by the ruling class, the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the withering away of the state, the lower and higher stages of communism, the faults of reformism. Lenin is a concise writer; he covers a lot in just 100 pages. I highly recommend annotating as you read.

A very enjoyable reflection exercise is to analyze what Marxism got wrong. Here in America, I think it's because the bourgeoisie has become the majority. Lenin argued that democracies under capitalism are tools for the bourgeoisie to dominate the proletariat class. In his view, the state is for the domination of the majority by the ruling minority. But nowadays in America, we have a democratic republic that can be said to serve the bourgeoisie (as Lenin himself posits). However, the bourgeoisie has become the majority. There is no “inevitable next stage” to socialism here in America; that would be a transfer of power from the majority to the minority. Well, anyways, as you can see, you can still disagree strongly with Lenin and enjoy this book regardless!