The Pete Quiñones Show Pete and Aaron from Timeline Earth Read Vladimir Lenin's 'State and Revolution' - Complete
Apr 5, 2026
Aaron from Timeline Earth, a contributor and self-described communist commentator, co-reads Lenin's State and Revolution with running commentary. They tackle Marx and Engels on the state as class product. Short takes cover the Paris Commune model, proletarian dictatorship, abolishing careerist bureaucracy, democratic centralism vs federalism, and transitional measures for socialism.
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State Exists Because Classes Are Irreconcilable
- The state is a product of irreconcilable class antagonisms and functions as an instrument of class rule.
- Lenin quotes Engels: the state arises where class conflict cannot be reconciled and serves to legally perpetuate oppression through special coercive bodies like standing armies and prisons.
Smash Old State Machine Before Building New One
- Engels and Marx taught that the proletariat must replace the bourgeois state by smashing the old state machine, not simply inheriting it.
- Lenin stresses that the proletarian state is a special coercive force needed to suppress bourgeois resistance and cannot 'wither away' instantly.
Paris Commune Shows Practical Steps To Diminish State Power
- Engels portrayed the Paris Commune as a template: abolish the standing army, elect officials, pay workmen's wages, and make representatives revocable.
- Lenin treats those Commune measures as practical steps toward proletarian democracy and the beginning of the state's withering away.
