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V.I.LENIN
THE STATE
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
Workers
V.
of All Countries,
I.
Unite!
Lenin
The State
A Lecture Delivered
at the Swerdlov University
July 11, 1919
1
Progress
Publishers
*"
/.
Moscow
PUBLISHERS NOTE
This translation of V. I. Lenin s lecture The State has
made from the text given in the Works of
V. I. Lenin, Vol. 29, Fourth Russian Edition, prepared
by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C.,
C.P.S.U.
been
i-Y
Printed
in
the
Comrades, according to your plan which has been coneyed to me, the subject of today s talk is the state. I do
lot know how familiar you are already with this subject,
f I am not mistaken your courses have only just begun
md this is the first time you will be approaching this subect systematically. If that is so, then it may very well be
hat in the first lecture on this difficult subject I may not
succeed in making my exposition sufficiently clear and
omprehensible to
many
of
my
listeners.
And
if
this
should
)rove to be the case, I would request you not to be perurbed by the fact, because the question of the state is a
nost complex and difficult one, perhaps one that more than
my other has been confused by bourgeois scholars, writers
md
It
various lectures
and
talks.
we
hope that we
may manage
to
exchange
supplementary questions and see what has
emained most unclear. I also hope that in addition to talks
md lectures you will devote some time to reading at least
;ome of the most important works of Marx and Engels. I
lave no doubt that these most important works are to be
ound in catalogues of literature and in the handbooks.
>pinions
on
all
you
is
its
And
in this
question
philosophical
ment
first
of
primitive
there
We
of the clan;
women
we
find this
the position of
women
of
women
today
special
general
ties,
society
itself,
discipline
And
clearly borne in
mind
must always be
known
as slaves.
The form
of relations
ities
and the
2-2694
rise of the
power
9
of
the capital
of
commod
power
whole
disunited and
were converted partly (the
majority) into proletarians, and partly (the minority) into
wealthy peasants who themselves hired labourers and who
capitalism,
the
downtrodden
peasants,
in feudal times,
remembering
political
always possesses
certain
people
is
expressed
of slavery, in
in
of
apparatus
whether
coercion,
this violence
of
over
in
who
ruled,
who
order to maintain
of physical coercion,
why no
state existed
when
when
answer
to the question of
what
is
the essence of
its
significance.
machine for maintaining the rule of one
class over another. When there were no classes in society,
The
state
is
in
prim
itive
when
took part
that
is,
The change
in
the
human
peasant was
slave
as a
tied to the
soil.
opened for
to
some
from
tion
the
name
15
v/ho
owned
The development
ment
when money
16
capitalist society.
I
cannot dwell on
will
it
in detail.
to discuss the
those
who owned
property.
which occurred
century and the beginning
shattered,
And when
feudalism
was
occurred later
was then superseded by the capitalist state,
which proclaims liberty for the whole people as its slogan,
which declares that it expresses the will of the whole peo
ple and denies that it is a class state. And here there de
Russia
it
Socialist Republic
To understand
owning
as their
full
property the
this society,
based on
it
is
not simplicity, or
rule,
all
their
aims were,
and even
in
the
most revolutionary
moments
universal suffrage
all represent great progress from the
standpoint of the world development of society. Mankind
moved towards capitalism, and it was capitalism alone
which, thanks to urban culture, enabled the oppressed
proletarian class to learn to know itself and to create the
world working-class movement, the millions of workers
organised all over the world in parties the socialist
parties which are consciously leading the struggle of the
masses. Without parliamentarism, without an electoral
system, this development of the working class would have
been impossible. That is why all these things have acquired
such great importance in the eyes of the broad masses of
people. That is why a radical change seems to be so
difficult. It is not only the conscious hypocrites, scientists
and priests that uphold and defend the bourgeois lie that
the state is free and that it is its mission to defend the
interests of all; so also do a large number of people who
sincerely adhere to the old prejudices and who cannot
understand the transition from the old, capitalist society
to socialism.
large
number
21
demo
ing class.
Whatever guise
cratic
it
may
be,
if it is
the
programme
tion,
some people by
in the
of capital.
state
others.
And we
We
is
for that
is
about the
a fraud: as
man
have taken
it
over.
We
this
all
no longer
exploitation.
longer exists
exists shall
we
it
First published
Pravda No.
18,
1929,
NOTE
The Y. M. Sverd/ov Communist University was constituted
from the courses for Propagandists and Instructors established in
1918 under the auspices of the All-Russia Central Executive Com
mittee and subsequently reorganised as the School of Soviet Work.
Following the decision of the Eighth Congress of the Russian Com
munist Party (Bolsheviks) to organise a Senior School of the C.C.
1
R.C.P.(B.)
B.
11.
JI
EH M H
O rOCVAAPCTBE
JC
268
U53
Lenin, Vladimir
The state
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