Vladimir Lenin established the Bolshevik Party in 1912 to seize control of the socialist movement in Russia and to plan and execute a violent revolution against the Tsar, and by 1917 he was successful in this attack. Also in 1917, on the eve of his victory, he wrote his thoughts about the organization of the state and how the revolution should proceed, both to box out his socialist competitors and to establish a theoretical baseline drawing from Marx and Engels for how to organize what became the Soviet Union. That document bears the title The State and Revolution, and in this episode of the New Discourses Podcast, host James Lindsay reads through the first chapter of Lenin's key work to expose to you what Bolshevik Communists think a state exists to do: repression. Join him to learn how history today is rhyming with Lenin's evil.
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