Lenin began the composition of an early draft of The State and Revolution while in exile in Switzerland in 1916, under the title "Marxism on the State".[1]
"Soviets", legislative bodies of workers and peasants, were the de facto governments of Petrograd and many smaller cities. The Russian public was deeply upset with the continuation of Russia's involvement in World War I and the continued economic difficulties that it brought on. On November 7, the Congress of Soviets officially elected a coalition of Bolsheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks to govern. Through the Red Guards, paramilitary organizations of revolutionary workers, sailors, and soldiers; the Soviet government was able to storm the Winter Palace and officially abolish the Provisional Government. The revolution was not uniformly accepted among all Russians; resistance and disruption would occur routinely leading up to the Russian Civil War. A particular issue that Lenin covers in The State and Revolution was the right of nations to secession ("the right to self determination"); during the composition of this book, the Mensheviks of Georgia declared independence soon after the Revolution, forming the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
By November 25, the 1917 Constitutional Assembly was elected with a majority of positions going to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which had made a right-ward turn after the revolution with most of the Left-SRs joining the Bolshevik party. In one of the most controversial actions of the early Soviet government, the constitutional convention was dissolved on January 20, 1918.
