Lenin’s pamphlet
“Can the
Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” is published. This detailed argument starts
by quoting statements in the bourgeois and compromisist press to the effect that
the Bolsheviks could not hold the
power, even that the best way to get rid of them would be to let them try and see
them fail. Lenin disputes the claims made to support these conclusions.
For example, to
the claim the proletariat "will not be able technically to lay hold of the
state apparatus," Lenin replies, first, why bother? The existing state
apparatus, that of the Provisional Government, is broken and useless and
deserves rather to be smashed up altogether. And second, what do you suppose
the soviets are for? They are the new
state apparatus, closer to the people and more democratic. They were already at
work, and, I might add, the only difference between the existing power of the
soviets and “All Power to the Soviets!” was one of degree.
Knowing that
after an insurrection the Bolsheviks would be faced by the question of state
power, Lenin took some of the time of his enforced exile to continue his work
on The State and Revolution, an
analysis of Marxist texts on the evolution of the state through and after a
revolution. When he wrote the pamphlet, he said the book would hopefully be
available soon, but it was not published until after the October Revolution.
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