The ideas in Lenin's book are relevant to the modern world. They can also be shown to be a basic criticism of the Communist regimes which did not implement the fundamental ideas in "State and Revolution."
1) There should not be a standing army but an armed people - the idea of a militia is enshrined, for example, in the American constitution. This has been perverted to mean every Tom, Dick and Harry should wander around toting a gun. It is clear that in Lenin's view the state was an instrument for the oppression of one class by another and a workers' militia would be a transitional body for the suppression of the remnants of capitalism.
The standing army in China is evidently not under popular control.
2) All officials should be elected and subject to recall. In modern China there are indeed elections. Elections with one candidate for you to vote for!
3) No official should receive more than the average wage of a skilled worker. The monstrous privileges of the bureaucracy in China are an insult to Socialist ideas. Likewise in Australia the workers' organisations support a privileged bureaucracy which gets out of touch with the rank and file because they have a different lifestyle.
4) All bureaucratic tasks should be rotated. We have seen the problem of bureaucrats with "jobs for life" stifling workers' organisations and stifling the workers' states too.
This is what makes "The State and Revolution" relevant to the modern world.
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