Lenin “posts” from exile

 

One hundred years ago today, plus three, responding to claims in the bourgeois and right-socialist press that the Bolsheviks would fail if they were given the chance to govern, Lenin caused his pamphlet “Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” to be published while he was in exile. A fuller treatment of this subject may be found in his work The State and Revolution, which can still easily be found in print.

 

Read about it here. Or read the whole chapter on Lenin’s Insurrection here. Or read the whole story from the beginning by following this link.

Mid-August – Early August, 1917: The State and Revolution

Lenin drafts the preface to The State and Revolution while in exile in Finland. It seems as though someone sent him the manuscript – he had left it behind in Switzerland the previous March – via Stockholm. When he got it in July, he wrote Kamenev: “Entre nous. If they bump me off, I ask you to publish my little note-book….” It was not published until after the October Revolution.

Proscription and exile gave him a chance to substantially complete the book. It was meant to help the proletariat understand its coming role in the revolutionary state, leading to the withering away of the state entirely.

This is a supplementary post. Follow the link to the next one in chronological order.

October 14 – October 1, 1917: Lenin on the State Power

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.