ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Lenin's contribution to Marxist theory involved devising first the law of uneven development which posed the possibility of the evolution of societies missing out the complete capitalist stage, and second, the development of the political party as an instrument of the working class to carry out the proletarian revolution. It illustrates the contention by considering the Soviet view of the state, the family and the social phenomenon of 'alienation'. The Soviet Union was the first and is the most developed model of a Marxist-Leninist socialist society. In contrast to the work of modern West European Marxists, alienation finds little place in the thought of Soviet theorists concerned with socialist society. The Soviet interpretation of state socialism has led to a reaction from many Marxists in the West, from Chinese communists and to a lesser extent from Yugoslav socialists.
