The State and Revolution

Previous generations of socialists have failed to reckon with the question of the state. One example is Georgi Plekhanov, whom Lenin insults as a “semi-doctrinaire and semi-philistine” (6.1). He then reminds the reader that Marx and Engels pushed back on anarchist attempts to claim the Paris Commune as a victory for their side, as opposed to the Marxists, even though anarchists have failed to give a satisfactory answer to the question of how to break the power of the state. By failing to discuss the state, Plekhanov and the anarchists are playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie.

Kautsky is a popular figure, particularly in Russia, but Lenin reminds his readers that in 1914, Kautsky made the shameful decision to support Germany’s march to war. The fact that he later changed his mind only provides more evidence of his “opportunism” (6.2), and he has similarly vacillated on the question of the state. In a debate with Eduard Bernstein, he failed to show that Marx was urging the proletariat to take control of the state and smash its machinery, instead claiming that such a question may be “left to the future” (6.