Class struggle involves periods of calm and periods of turbulence, periods of relative peace and periods of insurrection. Those who admit the principle of a division of society by social class and the struggle between them must admit that a civil war is something natural.

With this understanding Lenin declared:

“The dictatorship of proletariat is the continuity of class struggle under new forms”1

The power of the state is a fundamental issue in every revolution. The fundamental discussion hinging round this issue in the early XX century was between Lenin and Kautsky and reflected two contrary concepts.

Beginning with the introduction below, we will be presenting in the next few weeks a dossier on Lenin's work, published in the ninth issue of the theoretical magazine of IWL-FI, Marxism Alive, in 2004, when it was completed 80 years of Lenin's death. The original title of this article was: "80 years after Lenin’s death, his message is still as operational as ever".