The State and Revolution is a book by Vladimir Lenin describing the role of the state in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin began the composition of an early draft of State and Revolution while in exile in Switzerland in 1916, under the title "Marxism on the State". The State and Revolution is considered to be Lenin's most important work on the state and has been called by Lucio Colletti "Lenin's greatest contribution to political theory".