Lenin's classic unfinished book "The State and Revolution" is a definitive explanation of the Marxist position on the state. In it Lenin expands and develops Marx and Engels’ work on the question of the state. The clarity of his ideas and clear writing style make this book accessible to anyone. He has an amazing ability to explain complex questions in a clear and simple fashion.

It was written while he was in the underground in August and September of 1917. Initially it was written under the pseudonym Ivanovsky to prevent confiscation by the Provisional Government. However, it was not published until 1918 after the October revolution in Lenin’s own name. It was originally intended to be part of a much larger work, as it stands there are six completed chapters.

Chapter Seven is titled "The Experience of the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917" that is far as Lenin got until as he describes himself: "I was "interrupted" by a political crisis – the eve of the October Revolution of 1917. Such an interruption can only be welcomed but the writing of the second part will probably have to be put off for a long time. It is more pleasant and useful to go through the "experience of the revolution" than to write about it."

The book was written during the First World War when issues surrounding the state were of paramount importance to the workers’ movement in Europe. The leaders of the social democractic parties throughout Europe betrayed the working class by supporting the imperialist war. As Lenin said: "The question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state could not but play an immense role at a time when states, which possess a military apparatus, have turned into military monsters which are exterminating millions of people in order to settle the issue as to whether England or Germany - this or that finance capital is to rule the world."

The book deals with how the state is actually a product of the class system. The capitalist system rests on a class divide; to ensure that this class divide is maintained, the ruling class uses its state. The working class, the majority in society, is oppressed by the capitalist state working on behalf of the dominant class in society i.e. the ruling class. This is the reason why the state is not a neutral body, somehow above society, fair and equal for all. It is a means of control to maintain the status quo. As Engels described it, the capitalist state in the last analysis is "armed bodies of men in defence of private property."

Lenin draws on the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871. The Commune, short lived though it was, gave a living example of how things could be organised in a society for the benefit of the working class. The Commune is used to explain what precisely is meant by the seizure of power. How the standing army, a tool of class oppression, would be replaced by arming the people and how, public representatives and state officials would be regularly elected, open to immediate recall and paid the same wage as all other workers.

Lenin expands and develops Engels’ work on the "withering away of the state" under socialism. He explains that when the transformation of society has been completed to a higher stage of communism the need for a state apparatus will gradually disappear. The purpose of the state, which is to keep one class dominant over the other, will no longer be necessary. The role of the administration of the state will be taken over by the working class. "We will reduce the role of the state officials to that of simply carrying out our instructions as responsible, revocable, modestly paid foremen and bookkeepers."

However, this does not mean that overnight the state will be abolished. In the initial stages of socialism there will still be a class struggle as the capitalist class attempts to regain power and destroy the new fledgling society. An armed working class will be needed to defend the revolution from counter-revolution and imperialist intervention. Also, all of the ills of society such as crime, violence against women etc. will not just disappear overnight. The working class will need a community-controlled police force and a democratically-controlled judicial system for a period of time.

As the new socialist society is consolidated, the need for a workers’ state will gradually recede and disappear or "wither away". In reference to the anarchists Lenin says, "the latter want to destroy the state completely overnight, failing to understand the conditions under which the state can be destroyed."

Although, this pamphlet was written nearly ninety years ago and does not include the experience of the October revolution, it is very relevant to the class struggle today. A clear analysis of the state and the role of the state under capitalism are crucially important to Marxists. Revolutions have been defeated due to a lack of understanding of the role of the state. Lenin made points about the Paris Commune. We can point to what happened in Chile in 1973 and more recently, the attempted coups in Venezuela as a warning to the workers what can happen if they do not destroy the capitalist state apparatus.

If you have never read this book you should get it or if like me you haven’t read it in a long time, you should read it again.

More Irish were killed in World War One than the Easter Rising, War of Independence, Civil War and the recent Troubles combined. Yet particularly in the South the level of awareness of the blood spilt by the Irish, North and South for the British Empire between 1914 and 1918 is quite scant.

Sebastian Barry’s Booker Prize-nominated novel attempts, and mostly succeeds, in giving us an insight into what must have been going through the minds of Irish soldiers on the front line in Flanders when the Easter Rising and its aftermath took place. The story is told through the eyes of Willie Dunne, the son of a Dublin Metropolitan Policeman barracked in Dublin Castle. Willie’s father, though Catholic, is a staunch loyalist and a key influence on Willie’s own outlook.

While he endeavours throughout the novel to live up to his father’s expectations, he lacks his political fervour. He is a gullible man to an extent that sometimes stretches the credibility of the novel. Never firm in his own ideas other than loyalty to his father, he is challenged by the cynical attitudes of his comrades towards the officers and the war itself.

While there was no conscription introduced into Ireland during the war, many in the South signed up to regiments like the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Some, like Lawlor the father of Willie Dunne’s sweetheart Gretta, joined for economic reasons, having been blacklisted, after the 1913 lockout. Others, especially in the North, joined the Ulster Volunteers out of loyalty to the Empire.

Paradoxically others joined the Irish Volunteers under the encouragement of parliamentarians like Redmond with the promise of Home Rule for Ireland in return for playing its part in the war effort.

Willie, an 18 year old building apprentice, joins the Royal Dublin Fusiliers with the expectation that must have been shared by many of his comrades that it would be a short war. However, readers would be familiar with the World War One battle imagery that follows. One of the most gripping episodes is the first gas attack, for which Willie’s regiment were totally unprepared.

The real story of the novel however relates to events back in Dublin. Willie is given a leave of absence and returns home to the loving embrace of his family. However, his return to war is interrupted by the Rising and he is dispatched to confront the rebels. In the short time it takes to return to Flanders there is a shift in mood on all sides. There is the bewilderment of his comrades, bearing in mind that this was the first armed campaign since the time of the Fenians, decades prior. Similarly there is the increased suspicion and racism Willie and his comrades are subjected to by the British officers.

News filters through of the executions and the decisive shift in the mood of southern Irish society has its paler reflection in the ranks of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

During the course of the novel the reader never gets to hear any developed pro-Rising arguments. However, one comrade of Willie’s, Jesse Kirwin, who was earlier thrown into the confrontation with the rebels is deeply affected, coming himself from a pro-independence family. Jesse’s trauma at the events that follow manifests itself as insubordination, a passive non co-operation with orders from above which results in his eventual execution.

Willie’s own turmoil in the face of these events is expressed in a letter to his father. While reaffirming his pride in the uniform of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, expresses regret in the shooting of the 1916 leaders and recalls the pity he felt for the death of a rebel he witnessed first hand before his return to Flanders.His father remains as entrenched as ever in his hostility to the growing movement for independence and shuts Willie out in his subsequent visit home. However it is not just in the family home he is unwelcome. While walking the streets he is now subject to the hostility of locals who view him only as a "Tommy", a British soldier.

During the course of the novel the character of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers changes as the Irish who are killed off are replenished by English soldiers. The overwhelming sensation near the end of the novel is Willie’s sense of being out of place everywhere he goes, and that even with impending victory over the Germans, there is a question mark over how someone like him could fit in to an Ireland that has changed so much, literally behind his back.

Novels where the reader is asked to identify him or herself with the principle character are largely a thing of the past. For socialists, the writings of James Connolly are the most authoritative Irish anti-war perspective of the period. However, for a perspective into the factors that drive working class people into armies that fight imperialist wars to this day, A Long Long Way is worth a look.

Following the Russian revolution of 1917, Lenin and Trotsky recognised that socialism would only be successfully established if the revolution spread internationally. Hence they established the Third or Communist International with the task of building Marxist revolutionary parties acround the globe.

Following the collapse of the USSR the archives of the Communist International became more accessible. University of Ulster historian, Emmet O'Connor went to Moscow to research the archives for information on Ireland.

From the beginning of the twentieth century up until partition, Ireland was convulsed by industrial and political struggle. The 1907 dockers and carters strike in Belfast led by Jim Larkin, 1911 mill workers (Belfast) led by James Connolly, 1913 Lock-out, 1918 general strike against conscription, the 1919 Belfast engineering strike, the Limerick Soviet 1919 are all a taste of the pace and scale of working class struggles that led to the formation of the Irish trade union movement, the Labour Party, and many workers being won over to the ideas of socialism. There was potential for revolutionary change on the island of Ireland, that could have prevented partition and Emmet O' Connor's book explores how from 1920 the Communist International repeatedly attempted to establish an Irish Communist Party.

The struggle between Trotskyism and Stalinism convulsed the Communist International during this period, and this battle was reflected in its attempts to establish an Irish section, and eventually resulted in the formation of a Communist Party dominated by the ideas of Stalinism.

Jim Larkin and Roddy Connolly (James Connolly’s son) were involved in trying to build a communist party and had links to the Communist International. Roddy Connolly was invited to the first congress in March 1919 and began the process of developing links between the International and Irish socialists.

O'Connor traces the attempts to found an Irish Communist Party in 1922 and support being subsequently transferred to Larkin's Workers Union of Ireland. The book outlines a catalogue of failed attempts to build a communist party and the use of dogmatic Stalinist methods and ideas by the bureaucrats in Moscow.

The history of the period from 1919-43 is one of the consequence of mistakes and betrayals of those participants, some of whom later went on to become part of the trade union bureaucracy. The book also deals with Jim Larkin’s failure to take a position on the struggle between Trotskyism and Stalinism. Emmet O’Connor claims that Larkin drifted away from socialist politics and in the 1930s refused to support the Irish men who went to fight fascism in Spain.

Emmet O' Connor contends that Jim Larkin, while a keen supporter of the Russian revolution, was more concerned with his union activities than the development of a party. This claim is later reinforced by Larkin's refusal to allow any branch of his union to support financially or otherwise the Irish volunteers who went to fight Franco in Spain. As well as noting Larkin's refusal to take a position in the battle between Stalinism and Trotskyism he also provides material from the Communist Party of Ireland newspaper defending the purges in Russia. Emmet O’Connor brings to life Irish individuals who were influenced by the ideas of Leon Trotsky and this book gives the reader a deeper understanding of the political situation of the period.