Dual power

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Dual power, sometimes referred to as counterpower, refers to a strategy in which alternative institutions coexist with and seek to ultimately replace existing authority. The concept is central to modern libertarian socialist thought, where it describes the creation of directly democratic structures such as worker cooperatives, people’s assemblies, and mutual aid networks that challenge state and capitalist power while prefiguring a self-managed society.

The term was first used by the communist Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924)^[1] in the 1917 Pravda article titled "The Dual Power" (Двоевластие, Dvoyevlastiye), referring to the coexistence of two Russian governments as a result of the February Revolution: the Soviets (workers' councils), particularly the Petrograd Soviet, and the Russian Provisional Government.^[2] Lenin saw this unstable power dynamic as an opportunity for revolutionaries to seize control.

This notion has informed the strategies of subsequent communist-led revolutions elsewhere in the world, including the Chinese Communist Revolution led by Mao Zedong (1893–1976) after the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) and in eastern Europe after World War II (1939–1945).

While the term was initially associated with Bolshevik strategy, its meaning has since expanded among anarchists, municipalists, and other libertarian socialists advocating decentralized, non-hierarchical forms of governance.