Lenin's State and Revolution is a broad assault on revisionism. Its impulse lies in Lenin's boundless political ambition, namely his craving to acquire absolute power in Russia in order to instigate a worldwide revolution...If his ambition was to be realized, Lenin had to insist on violent revolution and the abolition of the existing state.

...What Lenin was obliquely arguing was that a clean sweep must be made of the existing political mechanism in order for the Communist party, of which he was undisputed leader, to take power. And that power was to be unrestrained.

"The State and Revolution" describes the role that the state plays in society along with the necessity of proletarian revolution. It is regarded as one of Lenin's most important works and much of it forms the basis for today's Marxist thought. This book includes an essay that offers a skeptical critique of the author's arguments and assertions.