As you know, Marx and Engels believed that a socialist revolution can only triumph simultaneously in all the major capitalist countries or in most of them and cannot win in a single country. This position of Marx and Engels stemmed from an analysis of the laws governing the development of pre-monopoly capitalism.

In the era of imperialism, its omnipotence is undermined by the aggravation of contradictions and the growth of the labor and national liberation movement. The contradictions between the imperialist countries have grown significantly, which creates the possibility of a split in the combined forces of imperialism. Creating a new theory of the socialist revolution, Lenin primarily proceeded from the law of uneven economic and political development in the era of imperialism. “The unevenness of economic and political development,” wrote Lenin, “is the absolute law of capitalism. It follows that the victory of socialism is possible initially in a few or even in one, separately taken, capitalist country” [Ленин, 65].

Since the victory of the socialist revolution in one country, taken separately, inevitably provokes the desire on the part of the bourgeoisie of the imperialist states to defeat the victorious proletariat, the possibility of a new type of war follows from here. During them, the victorious proletariat in alliance with the working masses of the peasantry, with the support of the proletarians of other countries, must defend their socialist fatherland with arms. Summarizing the experience of revolutions in Russia and in other countries, Lenin developed the question of the ways and forms of development of the socialist revolution. Depending on the specific historical conditions, on the correlation of class forces, the socialist revolution takes place in a non-peaceful way, i.e. in the form of the armed struggle of the proletariat and the workers following it with the exploiters, or peacefully, that is, without an armed uprising, without a civil war, or in a dialectical connection and mutual transitions of both forms of development of the revolution.

To ensure such a development of the revolution, the Bolsheviks considered it possible to agree to a temporary agreement with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin wrote: “Only in the name of this peaceful development of the revolution – an opportunity extremely rare in history and extremely valuable, an opportunity extremely rare, only in the name of its Bolsheviks, supporters of the world revolution, advocates of revolutionary methods, can and should, in my opinion, go to such a compromise” [Ленин, 41]. The new theory of the socialist revolution developed by V. I. Lenin was a vivid example of the creative development of Marxism, a classic example of scientific foresight. All the provisions of the Leninist theory of the socialist revolution, developed during the First World War, were confirmed by the course of events. Initially, the socialist revolution triumphed in one single country, in Russia. The revolutionary proletariat of Russia had to endure a long war against internal reaction and the imperialist states.

The victorious country of socialism has become a stronghold of the world labor movement, the success of which is evidenced by the existence of a mighty camp of socialist countries.

An examination of the complex of views of Lenin on the state and power must begin with the question of the class nature of the state. The very first paragraph of the first chapter of “The State and the Revolution” is devoted to this question – admittedly the main work that contains a theoretically systematic exposition of the corresponding Leninist ideas.