One of the most relevant texts to read right now in my opinion because it directly deals with the whole concept of reformist socialism and why it's fundamentally a dead end. This is precisely the stage where the political discussion in the west is currently stuck at.

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. Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This part really stuck with me the longest, back when I first read this I was a baby leftist, so I thought that core of all of Socialism(and Marxism by extension) was the class struggle. And so reading this was quite eye opening and it and other texts by Lenin really helped me to become an ML.

The text that made me an official Marxist-Leninist and taught me about the importance of a proletarian state to prevent the rise of bourgeois reactionaries and protect the workers.

Just to recall, a bit of stuff,

I. Anarchists want to abolish the state IMMEDIATELY, regardless of it being bourgeois-dominated in practice or proletarian-dominated in practice.

II. Reformists, they want to work to make socialism come through the trappings and fetters of the bourgeois state,

otherwise known as Social Democrats [they robbed the title but we let them keep it] or Democratic 'Socialists' -

regardless of it being more 'free' and parliamentarian or openly bureaucratic and militarist, whose state apparatus 'stands above the classes' in order to repress the proletarians, peasants, and other working peoples, and rule on the behalf of the capitalists, especially in the imperial core, and get rewarded by corruption, direct or indirect.

III. Marxists - we want to abolish all of the bourgeois state IMMEDIATELY, to replace it with a proletarian-led state that will only wither itself GRADUALLY, AFTER Capital is vanquished.

also known as Marxist-Leninists, on the other hand.

While the Marxists agree that the bourgeois state should be abolished, like the anarchists did, for reasons you see in II.

This doesn't stop us, Marxists, of making a state that, free of the parasitical bourgeois apparatus that plagued socdems, that fully represents the proletarians, peasants and other working peoples.

::: spoiler possible model of a proletarian state excerpts

The Commune, therefore, appears to have replaced the smashed state machine “only” by fuller democracy: abolition of the standing army; all officials to be elected and subject to recall. But as a matter of fact this “only” signifies a gigantic replacement of certain institutions by other institutions of a fundamentally different type. This is exactly a case of "quantity being transformed into quality": democracy, introduced as fully and consistently as is at all conceivable, is transformed from bourgeois into proletarian democracy; from the state (= a special force for the suppression of a particular class) into something which is no longer the state proper.

It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush their resistance. This was particularly necessary for the Commune; and one of the reasons for its defeat was that it did not do this with sufficient determination. The organ of suppression, however, is here the majority of the population, and not a minority, as was always the case under slavery, serfdom, and wage slavery. And since the majority of people itself suppresses its oppressors, a 'special force" for suppression is no longer necessary! In this sense, the state begins to wither away. Instead of the special institutions of a privileged minority (privileged officialdom, the chiefs of the standing army), the majority itself can directly fulfil all these functions, and the more the functions of state power are performed by the people as a whole, the less need there is for the existence of this power.

In this connection, the following measures of the Commune, emphasized by Marx, are particularly noteworthy: the abolition of all representation allowances, and of all monetary privileges to officials, the reduction of the remuneration of all servants of the state to the level of "workmen's wages". This shows more clearly than anything else the turn from bourgeois to proletarian democracy, from the democracy of the oppressors to that of the oppressed classes, from the state as a "special force" for the suppression of a particular class to the suppression of the oppressors by the general force of the majority of the people--the workers and the peasants. And it is on this particularly striking point, perhaps the most important as far as the problem of the state is concerned, that the ideas of Marx have been most completely ignored! In popular commentaries, the number of which is legion, this is not mentioned. The thing done is to keep silent about it as if it were a piece of old-fashioned “naivete”, just as Christians, after their religion had been given the status of state religion, “forgot” the “naivete” of primitive Christianity with its democratic revolutionary spirit. :::

Oh, and another thing: distortions of the 1900s

According to Marx, the state could neither have arisen nor maintained itself had it been possible to reconcile classes. From what the petty-bourgeois and philistine professors and publicists say, with quite frequent and benevolent references to Marx, it appears that the state does reconcile classes. According to Marx, the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of “order”, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes. In the opinion of the petty-bourgeois politicians, however, order means the reconciliation of classes, and not the oppression of one class by another

On the other hand, the “Kautskyite” distortion of Marxism is far more subtle. “Theoretically”, it is not denied that the state is an organ of class rule, or that class antagonisms are irreconcilable. But what is overlooked or glossed over is this: if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and “alienating itself more and more from it", it is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this “alienation”.

The latter of which, Kautsky rejected and thus became renegade, when he opposed the Bolshevik Revolution, with its proletarian state violently removing that bourgeois state. Hence, Lenin wrote "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky".

::: spoiler My scatter brain notes to write in my own words

1. doesn't require a special standing army, unlike the bourgeois state, the numerous nature and assumed leadership of the working classes necessitates that this army be made to suppress the bourgeoisie and its affiliated allies, who, despite their power, are limited in number, since the working classes that rule are the majority.

---

:::

I'm a little busy so I'll post a more in depth comment after a reread around Friday. But this really is one of my favorite works. I think it's one of the necessary introductory works that basically all young Marxists should read, along with Critique of the Gotha Program and Quotations by Mao Zedong.

Understanding the State and its role in human development is of upmost importance, and personally I'm glad it was one of the first ones I read, and I'm definitely glad it's been selected for the discussion group this week

Edit: Sorry, was way to busy with two exams this week. I shouldn't have said anything before being sure I could actually read it in time

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