I just finished listening to the “State and Revolution” audiobook. Wow! so many things Lenin said back then still hold true today.

It is often said and written that the main point in Marx’s theory is the class struggle. But this is wrong. And this wrong notion very often results in an opportunist distortion of Marxism and its falsification in a spirit acceptable to the bourgeoisie. For the theory of the class struggle was created not by Marx, but by the bourgeoisie before Marx, and, generally speaking, it is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Those who recognize only the class struggle are not yet Marxists; they may be found to be still within the bounds of bourgeois thinking and bourgeois politics. To confine Marxism to the theory of the class struggle means curtailing Marxism, distorting it, reducing it to something acceptable to the bourgeoisie. A Marxist is one who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is what constitutes the most profound distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary small (as well as big) bourgeois. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism should be tested.

It resonates to today’s usual bullshit. Like the quote here, libs will often acknowledge the class struggle, even as the most important political aspect. But it was the dictatorship of the proletariat that was Marx’s greatest “discovery.” It’s unfortunate that so many people nowadays butcher Marx’s theories and discoveries.

Then again, in the very first paragraph of the State and Revolution, Lenin wrote

What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetimes of great revolutionaries the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred, and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their deaths attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to speak, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge, and vulgarizing it.

I’m sorry guys but i am going to ‘worship’ this book. it’s just too good haha. Not only Lenin, but also Marx, Engels, Mao, Deng etc cannot be appreciated enough. Sry if this post seems random, i get overly excited when i finish a book and feel the need to share with like-minded people