Lenin's Utopianism: State and Revolution

Abstract

General histories give little credence to the Utopian side of Lenin's revolutionary thought, especially in relation to his only formal Utopian work, State and Revolution. Most histories pass off that book as an “intellectual deviation” resulting from Lenin's “revolutionary fever” of 1917 or as a piece of political opportunism, while offering What Is To Be Done? as the statement of orthodox Leninism. In keeping with the tone of What Is To Be Done? Lenin is generally portrayed as the political realist par excellence, a pragmatist of the first order, a “hard-nosed” strategist confined by neither intellectual theories (not even Marxism) nor human emotions. This neat and simple formula is most convenient in attributing the success of the November Revolution to Lenin's talents for organization and political astuteness.