Quiz: The State and Revolution

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. How were Commune officials paid, from the members of the Council down?

   In shares of the property confiscated from the rich At the same rates as ordinary workingmen According to their responsibilities and length of service Not at all, since all served as unpaid volunteers
2. 2. What did “a witty German Social-Democrat of the ‘seventies” call an example of the socialist system?

   The army The railways The post office The co-operative store
3. 3. Which contemporary government does Lenin compare to the regimes that balance between classes?

   The Kerensky Government The Tsar’s government The British coalition government The German Imperial government
4. 4. In his criticism of the Erfurt draft, what does Engels call the democratic republic?

   The final goal of socialism, beyond which there is no further step A form of state fit only for small countries such as Switzerland The specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat A trap set for the workers by the liberal bourgeoisie of Germany
5. 5. Why does Marx call the “equal right” of the first phase “bourgeois right”?

   Because capitalists still own the factories and the land, as before Because it applies the same measure to people who are not equal Because it still pays wages in money, just as capitalism did before Because it is still enforced by the old bourgeois courts and judges
6. 6. Why, according to Lenin, is a “self-acting armed organization of the population” no longer possible?

   Because populations are too large Because modern weapons are too costly for any but a standing army Because society is split into irreconcilably antagonistic classes Because people have lost the habit of arms
7. 7. With whose ideas did Bernstein compare Marx’s programme for the Commune?

   Blanqui’s conspiracies Lassalle’s state socialism Proudhon’s federalism Owen’s co-operatives
8. 8. What did Kautsky say the aim of the political struggle remained?

   A mass general strike to break up the ministries and abolish the state altogether Winning a majority in Parliament and making it master of the Government Destroying the state machine and replacing it with the armed proletariat Organising soviets of workers’ deputies to take over the whole administration
9. 9. What was the Commune’s first decree, as Lenin quotes Marx?

   The election of all judges and magistrates by universal suffrage, revocable at any time The abolition of the standing army and its replacement by the nation in arms The abolition of night work in the bakeries and of all fines in the workshops The separation of church and state and the expropriation of church property
10. 10. Which country did Marx exclude in 1871 from the rule that the state machine must first be destroyed?

    Spain Russia England Italy
11. 11. According to Lenin, in relation to what did Engels say religion is a private matter?

    In relation to the State, not to the party In relation to the trade unions In relation to the family In relation to the party, not to the State
12. 12. What, according to Lenin, happens to revolutionary thinkers after their death?

    They are made “harmless saints” and their teaching is emasculated Their works are banned by the bourgeoisie They are forgotten entirely Their followers carry out their programme faithfully
13. 13. What will the whole of society become in the first phase, according to Lenin?

    A federation of free and self-governing communes A great co-operative market A league of trade unions “One office and one factory with equal work and equal pay”
14. 14. In the polemic with the anarchists, what does Engels call revolution?

    “An act of pure freedom” “The festival of the oppressed and exploited” “The most authoritative thing possible” “The negation of all power”
15. 15. Why does Lenin say he never wrote the seventh chapter, on the Russian revolutions?

    He thought the Russian experience too recent to be judged fairly The political crisis on the eve of the revolution prevented him The tsarist censor forbade publication of anything on the subject He left the subject to Trotsky, who had led the Petrograd Soviet
16. 16. What was the highest salary the Commune paid, as Engels reports?

    600 francs 6,000 francs 60,000 francs Nothing at all
17. 17. What, “in the main,” does the force called the state consist of?

    The great banks and trusts Special bodies of armed men who have prisons at their command The clergy and the schools Elected representatives of the people, sitting in parliament
18. 18. Whom does Lenin name as “the chief representative” of those who distorted Marx on the state?

    Eduard Bernstein Georgi Plekhanov Karl Kautsky Alexander Kerensky
19. 19. What does Europe exclaim, in the Eighteenth Brumaire passage Lenin quotes, when the revolution finishes its preliminary work?

    “The spectre has come at last!” “Well grubbed, old mole!” “Vive la République sociale!” “Workers of the world, unite!”
20. 20. What does Lenin call “Engels’ most important theoretical proposition” in the letter to Bebel?

    “The proletariat needs the State in the interests of freedom.” “The Commune was the first true State of the working class in all history.” “A democratic republic is the best shell for the free people’s State.” “The Commune was no longer a State in the proper sense of the word.”
21. 21. What did every revolution before 1848–51 do to the machine of government, according to Marx?

    Abolished the standing army and the bureaucracy Perfected it instead of breaking it up Handed it over to the workers of the capital and the large towns Broke it up completely and built a new one in its place
22. 22. Whose slogan was the “free popular State” that Engels criticised?

    The Russian Populists of the Narodnaya Volya The German Social Democrats of the 1870s The French followers of Proudhon and Bakunin The English Chartists
23. 23. When does Lenin date his preface?

    March 1918 November 1917 August 1917 January 1917
24. 24. What, according to Lenin, does opportunism breed in the labour movement?

    A class of representatives of the better-paid workers, out of touch with the rank and file A mass revolutionary party drawing in the poorest and least organised strata of workers Anarcho-syndicalist unions that reject all participation in political struggle Peasant co-operatives that draw the most energetic workers away from the towns
25. 25. What is the first, or lower, phase of communist society “generally called”?

    Populism Anarchy Socialism Statism
26. 26. In the first phase of communism, how does each worker receive his share of products?

    By lot According to his needs By a certificate from society for the quantity of work he has done Through wages paid by private employers, as before the revolution
27. 27. Which definition of the state from the Communist Manifesto does Lenin call one of the “forgotten thoughts of Marxism”?

    “A parasitic excrescence” “The State, that is, the proletariat organized as the ruling class” “A particular power of suppression” “The executive committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie”
28. 28. What, for Lenin, does the very existence of the state prove?

    That the bourgeoisie is weak That society has outgrown force That class antagonisms are irreconcilable That classes can be reconciled by it
29. 29. What “purely accidental fact” does Lenin say the name “Bolshevik” expresses?

    That they had a majority at the Brussels-London Conference in 1903 That they were the majority of the working class That they won the Duma elections That they were the largest party in the soviets of 1917 and the Constituent Assembly
30. 30. According to Lenin’s reading of Engels, what happens to the capitalist state?

    It withers away gradually as democracy is extended through universal suffrage It is taken over intact by the workers and transformed into a free people’s state at once It is abolished overnight by a general strike, without any transitional state It is destroyed by the proletariat; only the proletarian state withers away
31. 31. Which conference do the appended theses attack as the “yellow International”?

    The conference held in Berne in February 1919 The Stuttgart Congress of 1907 The Zimmerwald Conference of 1915 The Hague Congress of 1872
32. 32. What will society inscribe on its banner in the highest phase of communism?

    “From each according to his strength; to each according to his merit” “From each according to his labour; to each according to the quantity of his work” “He who does not work, neither shall he eat” “From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs”
33. 33. What does Lenin call “the best possible political form for capitalism”?

    Absolute monarchy Constitutional monarchy The democratic Republic Bonapartism
34. 34. What figures does Lenin give for the most politically active wage-workers in Germany?

    One million party members and three million trade unionists out of fifteen million Three million party members and one million trade unionists out of ten million workers Fifty thousand party members and half a million trade unionists out of fifteen million workers Half of all wage-workers in the party, and nearly all of them in the trade unions
35. 35. How did Pannekoek characterise Kautsky’s position in “Mass Action and Revolution” (1912)?

    As “passive radicalism,” a theory of inactive expectancy As ultra-left adventurism of the Blanquist type As anarchism As Bolshevism
36. 36. Which principle does Lenin say is “already realized” in the first phase?

    “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” “Abolition of all inheritance” “He who does not work neither shall he eat” “Equal pay for unequal work”
37. 37. According to the preface, what has the imperialist war accelerated?

    The return of monopoly-capitalism to the free competition of the earlier era The transformation of monopoly-capitalism into State-monopoly-capitalism The withering away of the state into the self-administration of the people The decline of the great banks before the growing power of the State
38. 38. What, according to Lenin, did Plekhanov’s Anarchism and Socialism (1894) leave out?

    The relation of the revolution to the state The history of the ideas of Proudhon, Stirner and other anarchists The comparison of anarchists with bandits and the criminal underworld Any mention of Stirner or of his book on the individual ego
39. 39. Which work of Engels does Lenin quote first, calling it the most popular of his works?

    The Housing Question The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 Anti-Dühring The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
40. 40. What did Kautsky say, in his book against Bernstein, could “safely” be left to the future?

    The conquest of political power by peaceful, parliamentary means The question of the general strike and of mass action The problem of the proletarian dictatorship The abolition of private property in the means of production
41. 41. In the Anti-Dühring passage Lenin quotes, what is force called?

    The engine of history The last resort of tyrants and of dying ruling classes The mother of all property The midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one
42. 42. According to the passage Lenin quotes from Engels, what is the state?

    The product of society at a certain stage of development A force imposed on society from outside, by conquest and the sword An eternal feature of human life “The reality of the Moral Idea,” as Hegel had asserted it to be
43. 43. What does Engels call universal suffrage, in the passage Lenin quotes?

    “A fraud to be boycotted by every class-conscious worker” The true expression of the will of the labouring majority The sure and peaceful road to socialism in every country “An index of the maturity of the working class”
44. 44. What did Marx say the Commune was to be instead of a parliamentary body?

    A federation of autonomous districts, each governing itself A committee of experts appointed by the Council to administer the city A revolutionary tribunal sitting in permanent session A working corporation, legislative and executive at once
45. 45. To whom did Marx write, during the Commune, that the next French revolution must “shatter” the bureaucratic and military machine?

    Kugelmann Weydemeyer Bebel Bracke
46. 46. Where, according to Engels, will the state machine be banished?

    To the dust-heap of history, beside the crowns and the thrones of the kings To the archives of the International, as a record of the class struggle To the museum of antiquities, beside the spinning-wheel and bronze axe To the colonies, where it will still be needed to rule backward peoples
47. 47. Which event do the theses call “of world-historical significance” for revealing the class character of the German Republic?

    The signing of the Treaty of Versailles by the Republic The Kapp Putsch The abdication of the Kaiser and the flight to Holland The murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg
48. 48. Which two institutions does Lenin call especially characteristic of the centralised state machine?

    The established church and the state schools The parliament and the higher courts of justice The bureaucracy and the standing army The banks and the trusts
49. 49. According to Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, what is the state in the period of transition between capitalism and communism?

    The free people’s state of the Gotha programme No state at all The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat A parliamentary republic
50. 50. In his letter to Bebel, what word did Engels suggest using everywhere instead of “State”?

    Genossenschaft (Association) Bund (Federation) Volksbund (People’s League) Gemeinwesen (Commonwealth)