In Chapter II, Lenin turns his attention directly to the disagreement he has with Marx. In Lenin's opinion, the Communist Manifesto is purely theoretical. Lenin says, "Marx did not indulge in utopias; he expected the experience of the mass movement to provide the reply to the question as to the specific forms this organization of the proletariat as the ruling class would assume." In other words, Marx saw the world as a dynamic conflict between the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie. Lenin, on the other hand, thinks that a communist utopia can be attained through the thorough, brutal annihilation of the ruling class. Things were suddenly shaping up to be like another French Revolution, and Lenin was their Robespierre.
It's completely worth noting that Marx's Communist Manifesto was a commentary of the French Revolution, both an analysis of the nature of revolution, and a philosophical commentary on the caste-systems of the earth. Essentially, a communist views the caste-systems of any given society to be the source of evil in that culture.
Lenin agrees with that idea, but he doesn't think Marx takes it far enough. Marx was satisfied by the concepts as dynamic realities, but Lenin wants to see a utopia formed through the imposition of communism. He sees communism as a force to compete against all other government forms, and he even goes so far as to say that communism should be supported in governments across the world. This is the beginning of the Russian conflict with America, as well, since it pits capitalism as the greatest evil of the modern world, and meanwhile, the philosophies of American thinkers were doing the same thing backwards.
As a literary work, it's pretty informal, but it's still philosophical discourse, so it is academic, and cites sources, and provides first-hand accounts, and that sort of thing. But as a historical artifact, it can easily be argued that The State and Revolution helped shape the entire outcome of geopolitics for almost 100 years. In many ways, Lenin created the Russia we know today.
