This is the conclusion I’ve come to since reading the State and Revolution. The people who are capable of overthrowing the current system aren’t likely to be the same people capable of keeping true to an approach that’s legitimately socialist. There are problems with reformism as well, as it can result in an endless series of small concessions to distract from an equally endless series of measured power grabs.

If I take what I read of Marx and Engels as likely to be accurately predictive, my conclusion has to be that the circumstances they’re discussing haven’t occurred yet. Basically, Lenin jumped the gun with his support of imposing a revolution and a dictatorship of the proletariat. The power structure it creates is too centralized to achieve its goals.

This would suggest to me that if Marx and Engels are correct, a spontaneous and universal proletariat uprising is probably still down the road somewhere. Basically, we see hints at this state reflected in the microcosm of revolution, but have yet to see the circumstances that cause an actual change of prioritization and autonomy rather than simply a changing of the guard.