State and revolution was written by Lenin in 1918 in the midst of the turbulent period of the October socialist revolution. It discusses Marx and Engels works to synthesize a Marxist theory of the state.
Read the ProleWiki article on the state, based on the Marxist understanding of it
State and Revolution and Blackshirts and the Reds were what got me out of my anarchist phase and into actually starting to understand how things really work. They’re the top two I recommend to people.
currently going over a reading aloud of it through audible socialism. really love it. on the last chapter atm. feel like i should have been taking notes, but i have been just letting diving into theory and history soak up.
“On the other hand, the “Kautskyite” distortion of Marxism is far more subtle. “Theoretically”, it is not denied that the state is an organ of class rule, or that class antagonisms are irreconcilable. But what is overlooked or glossed over is this: if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and “alienating itself more and more from it”, it is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this “alienation”. As we shall see later, Marx very explicitly drew this theoretically self-evident conclusion on the strength of a concrete historical analysis of the tasks of the revolution. And — as we shall show in detail further on — it is this conclusion which Kautsky has “forgotten” and distorted.” (The state: a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms)
