Showing results by author "Vladimir Lenin"

State and Revolution (1917) describes the role of the state in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution. It describes the inherent nature of the state as a tool for class oppression, a creation born of one social class's desire to control all other social classes. Whether a dictatorship or a democracy, the state remains in the control of the ruling class. The ruling class will never willingly relinquish political power, maintaining it via various strategies. Hence, according to this view, communist revolution is the sole remedy for the abolition of the state.

Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating profits from imperial colonialism, as the final stage of capitalist development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of Lenin's modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl Marx formulated in Das Kapital. Lenin's book greatly influenced the Core-Periphery model of global capitalist development, as well as World-systems theory and Dependency theory. 

Vladimir Lenin (speaking Russian) was the main theoretician and practical leader of the Blosheviks. He was voted the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Leon Trotsky was a communist theorist, prolific writer, and leader in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Josef Stalin (speaking Russian) was the General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party and a key leader in World War II.