The State and Revolution. Ten Days That Shook the World (Illustrated)

Book excerpt: Lenin wrote The State and Revolution in August and September 1917, when he was in hiding from persecution of the Provisional Government. The need for such a theoretical work as this was mentioned by Lenin in the second half of 1916. The State and Revolution describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ten Days That Shook the World (1919) is a book by the American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders closely during his time in Russia. Reed described the practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Lenin theoretically substantiated.