Chapter I, §4 — Revolutionary Replacement and the Withering of Power

V. I. Lenin · The State and Revolution

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Section summary

This section distinguishes two processes that Lenin believes have been wrongly merged. The replacement of the bourgeois state is a political rupture; the eventual disappearance of the transitional workers' state is a longer social process. He reads Engels's account of state decline as applying to the latter, not as a prediction that capitalist institutions will quietly become unnecessary through gradual reform.

The distinction rests on the proposed function of workers' political power. It is supposed to overcome the relations that divide society into exploiting and exploited classes, thereby undermining the conditions that make class coercion necessary. Lenin also insists that democracy itself is a state form and therefore belongs within the question of eventual disappearance. His argument presents revolutionary coercion and future freedom as stages of a transition, but stating that intention does not establish that the transition will occur. Readers should keep the proposed mechanisms and their possible failure separate from the declared goal.

Key claims

Lenin distinguishes the replacement of bourgeois state institutions from the later withering of transitional state power.
He argues that eliminating class antagonisms would remove the social basis for specialised class coercion.
The proposed disappearance of the state includes democracy understood as an organised coercive state form.

Pause & reflect

For discussion

Use these questions for individual reflection or a study circle. Return to the passage to support your answer.

Draw the sequence of changes Lenin proposes. Where does he require a political rupture, and where a gradual transformation?
What would have to prevent a transitional apparatus from acquiring an enduring interest in its own power?
Why does Lenin think appeals to the state's eventual disappearance can obscure present disagreements over capitalist institutions?

Terms in context

withering away: The proposed gradual loss of the need for state coercion as its underlying social conditions disappear.
proletarian state: Lenin's name for transitional political power exercised by the working class against the former exploiting class.
revolutionary rupture: A break in the institutions and class relations of political rule, as distinct from a change of officeholders alone.

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