Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
An Introduction
Welcome, Comrades!
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the
publication henceforth. It is, first and foremost, an informational
compendium of what we at the Party consider to be the essential texts
of Marxism-Leninism. However it is also a call to arms, a summons to
the barricade of our movement.
Marxism-Leninism is undoubtedly one of the most influential
ideologies on earth. The recent strikes and action due to the collapse of
the Capitalist economy and subsequent growth of the far left stand as
testaments to the relevance of Marxism in the twenty first century, it is
truly the movement of the masses.
As the opportunity presents itself, I would like to emphasize that
this boom merely sets out to explain in detail the theory of the far left
and the position of our party. It does not set out to debunk they various
slanders and outrageous claims hurled at us from the far right and even
centre Bourgeois Parliamentarianism. That will be in another
publication, which I aim to pen myself and release on the Internet for a
small price when the website is up and running.
In the following segments of the book, there will be works from
Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Our party considers these leaders to be
the rightful exponents of Marxism-Leninism, but we try out best not to
fall into the trap of such parties as the CPGB M-L which has become
fanatical and dogmatic, and fallen into what could be called leftist
Revisionism.
We believe that chaining a party to support of a past leader or
country is unhelpful to the struggle. Marx and Lenin, along with the
other founders and contributors to the movement would turn in their
graves if they saw people claiming to represent the left continue to this
day to argue over them.
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
Another issue I hope to finalize in the party programme that will
follow is our stance on revolution. The aims of a Proletarian Revolution
never change in the context of Marxism-Leninism, however there ism
much division over the means. Our Party stance is that the Vanguard
Party must never become legal in the eyes of Bourgeois Law, which
would make it illegitimate in the eyes of the workers. The advantage of
this is that they party would not be accountable to the state the therefore
would not have to conform to their guidelines. We believe the
orchestration and direction of civil disobedience should be the job and
duty of the Party leadership. These strikes should be strategic and
wound the state enough for a total usurpation of the Bourgeois state.
Now this sounds very easy on paper, in reality it would be a lot
different. Whilst we hope directed civil disobedience will be sufficient,
but if it proves not to be, disciplined paramilitary action may be
necessary. We believe if push comes to shove, military action in the
interests of the workers will be justified, not intended to wound, but to
damage government institutions and drive the economy and governance
of the country into chaos. This chaos should be enough for the Party
and workers to take power. Another advantage of this would be security
for party members.
I sincerely hope you enjoy the publication
Christy Grattan
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Karl Marx
A Brief Biographical Sketch With an Exposition of Marxism
Preface
This article on Karl Marx, which now appears in a separate printing, was written in
1913 (as far as I can remember) for the Granat Encyclopaedia. A fairly detailed
bibliography of literature on Marx, mostly foreign, was appended to the article. This
has been omitted in the present edition. The editor of the Encyclopaedia, for their part,
have, for censorship reasons, deleted the end of the article on Marx, namely, the
section dealing with his revolutionary tactics. Unfortunately, I am unable to reproduce
that end, because the draft has remained among my papers somewhere in Krakow or
in Switzerland. I only remember that in the concluding part of the article I quoted,
among other things, the passage from Marx’s letter to Engels of April 16, 1856, in
which he wrote: “The whole thing in Germany will depend on the possibility of
backing the proletarian revolution by some second edition of the Peasant War. Then
the affair will be splendid.” That is what our Mensheviks, who have now sunk to utter
betrayal of socialism and to desertion to the bourgeoisie, have failed to understand
since 1905.
Marx, Karl, was born...
Marx, Karl, was born on May 5, 1818 (New Style), in the city of Trier (Rhenish
Prussia). His father was a lawyer, a Jew, who in 1824 adopted Protestantism. The
family was well-to-do, cultured, but not revolutionary. After graduating from a
Gymnasium in Trier, Marx entered the university, first at Bonn and later in Berlin,
where he read law, majoring in history and philosophy. He concluded his university
course in 1841, submitting a doctoral thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus. At the time
Marx was a Hegelian idealist in his views. In Berlin, he belonged to the circle of “Left
Hegelians” (Bruno Bauer and others) who sought to draw atheistic and revolutionary
conclusion from Hegel’s philosophy.
After graduating, Marx moved to Bonn, hoping to become a professor. However, the
reactionary policy of the government, which deprived Ludwig Feuerbach of his chair
in 1832, refused to allow him to return to the university in 1836, and in 1841 forbade
young Professor Bruno Bauer to lecture at Bonn, made Marx abandon the idea of an
academic career. Left Hegelian views were making rapid headway in Germany at the
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
time. Feuerbach began to criticize theology, particularly after 1836, and turn to
materialism, which in 1841 gained ascendancy in his philosophy (The Essence of
Christianity). The year 1843 saw the appearance of his Principles of the Philosophy of
the Future. “One must oneself have experienced the liberating effect” of these books,
Engels subsequently wrote of these works of Feuerbach. “We [i.e., the Left Hegelians,
including Marx] all became at once Feuerbachians.” At that time, some radical
bourgeois in the Rhineland, who were in touch with the Left Hegelians, founded, in
Cologne, an opposition paper called Rheinische Zeitung (The first issue appeared on
January 1, 1842). Marx and Bruno Bauer were invited to be the chief contributors, and
in October 1842 Marx became editor-in-chief and moved from Bonn to Cologne. The
newspaper’s revolutionary-democratic trend became more and more pronounced
under Marx’s editorship, and the government first imposed double and triple
censorship on the paper, and then on January 1 1843 decided to suppress it. Marx had
to resign the editorship before that date, but his resignation did not save the paper,
which suspended publication in March 1843. Of the major articles Marx contributed
to Rheinische Zeitung, Engels notes, in addition to those indicated below (see
Bibliography),[1] an article on the condition of peasant winegrowers in the Moselle
Valley.[2] Marx’s journalistic activities convinced him that he was insufficiently
acquainted with political economy, and he zealously set out to study it.
In 1843, Marx married, at Kreuznach, a childhood friend he had become engaged to
while still a student. His wife came of a reactionary family of the Prussian nobility,
her elder brother being Prussia’s Minister of the Interior during a most reactionary
period—1850-58. In the autumn of 1843, Marx went to Paris in order to publish a
radical journal abroad, together with Arnold Ruge (1802-1880); Left Hegelian; in
prison in 1825-30; a political exile following 1848, and a Bismarckian after 1866-70).
Only one issue of this journal, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, appeared;[3]
publication was discontinued owing to the difficulty of secretly distributing it in
Germany, and to disagreement with Ruge. Marx’s articles in this journal showed that
he was already a revolutionary who advocated “merciless criticism of everything
existing”, and in particular the “criticism by weapon”, [13] and appealed to the masses
and to the proletariat.
In September 1844, Frederick Engels came to Paris for a few days, and from that time
on became Marx’s closest friend. They both took a most active part in the then
seething life of the revolutionary groups in Paris (of particular importance at the time
was Proudhon’s[4] doctrine), which Marx pulled to pieces in his Poverty of
Philosophy, 1847); waging a vigorous struggle against the various doctrines of pettybourgeois socialism, they worked out the theory and tactics of revolutionary
proletarian socialism, or communism Marxism). See Marx’s works of this period,
1844-48 in the Bibliography. At the insistent request of the Prussian government,
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Marx was banished from Paris in 1845, as a dangerous revolutionary. He went to
Brussels. In the spring of 1847 Marx and Engels joined a secret propaganda society
called the Communist League;[5] they took a prominent part in the League’s Second
Congress (London, November 1847), at whose request they drew up the celebrated
Communist Manifesto, which appeared in February 1848. With the clarity and
brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent with
materialism, which also embrace the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most
comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle
and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new,
communist society.
On the outbreak of the Revolution of February 1848,[6] Marx was banished from
Belgium. He returned to Paris, whence, after the March Revolution, [7] he went to
Cologne, Germany, where Neue Rheinische Zeitung[8] was published from June 1,
1848, to May 19, 1849, with Marx as editor-in-chief. The new theory was splendidly
confirmed by the course of the revolutionary events of 1848-49, just as it has been
subsequently confirmed by all proletarian and democratic movements in all countries
of the world. The victorious counter-revolution first instigated court proceedings
against Marx (he was acquitted on February 9, 1849), and then banished him from
Germany (May 16, 1849). First Marx went to Paris, was again banished after the
demonstration of June 13, 1849,[9] and then went to London, where he lived until his
death.
His life as a political exile was a very hard one, as the correspondence between Marx
and Engels (published in 1913) clearly reveals. Poverty weighed heavily on Marx and
his family; had it not been for Engels’ constant and selfless financial aid, Marx would
not only have been unable to complete Capital but would have inevitably have been
crushed by want. Moreover, the prevailing doctrines and trends of petty-bourgeois
socialism, and of non-proletarian socialism in general, forced Marx to wage a
continuous and merciless struggle and sometime to repel the most savage and
monstrous personal attacks (Herr Vogt).[10] Marx, who stood aloof from circles of
political exiles, developed his materialist theory in a number of historical works (see
Bibliography), devoting himself mainly to a study of political economy. Marx
revolutionized science (see “The Marxist Doctrine”, below) in his Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy (1859) and Capital (Vol. I, 1867).
The revival of the democratic movements in the late fifties and in the sixties recalled
Marx to practical activity. In 1864 (September 28) the International Working Men’s
Association—the celebrated First International—was founded in London. Marx was
the heart and soul of this organization, and author of its first Address [11] and of a host
of resolutions, declaration and manifestoes. In uniting the labor movement of various
forms of non-proletarian, pre-Marxist socialism (Mazzini, Proudhon, Bakunin, liberal
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trade-unionism in Britain, Lassallean vacillations to the right in Germany, etc.), and in
combating the theories of all these sects and schools, Marx hammered out a uniform
tactic for the proletarian struggle of the working in the various countries. Following
the downfall of the Paris Commune (1871)—of which gave such a profound, clearcut, brilliant effective and revolutionary analysis (The Civil War In France, 1871)—
and the Bakunin-caused[12] cleavage in the International, the latter organization could
no longer exist in Europe. After the Hague Congress of the International (1872), Marx
had the General Council of the International had played its historical part, and now
made way for a period of a far greater development of the labor movement in all
countries in the world, a period in which the movement grew in scope, and mass
socialist working-class parties in individual national states were formed.
Marx’s health was undermined by his strenuous work in the International and his still
more strenuous theoretical occupations. He continued work on the refashioning of
political economy and on the completion of Capital, for which he collected a mass of
new material and studied a number of languages (Russian, for instance). However, illhealth prevented him from completing Capital.
His wife died on December 2, 1881, and on March 14, 1883, Marx passed away
peacefully in his armchair. He lies buried next to his wife at Highgate Cemetery in
London. Of Marx’s children some died in childhood in London, when the family were
living in destitute circumstances. Three daughters married English and French
socialists; Eleanor Aveling, Laura Lafargue and Jenny Longuet. The latters’ son is a
member of the French Socialist Party.
The Marxist Doctrine
Marxism is the system of Marx’s views and teachings. Marx was the genius who
continued and consummated the three main ideological currents of the 19th century,
as represented by the three most advanced countries of mankind: classical German
philosophy, classical English political economy, and French socialism combined with
French revolutionary doctrines in general. Acknowledged even by his opponents, the
remarkable consistency and integrity of Marx’s views, whose totality constitutes
modern materialism and modern scientific socialism, as the theory and programme of
the working-class movement in all the civilized countries of the world, make it
incumbent on us to present a brief outline of his world-conception in general, prior to
giving an exposition of the principal content of Marxism, namely, Marx’s economic
doctrine.
Philosophical Materialism
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Beginning with the years 1844–45, when his views took shape, Marx was a materialist
and especially a follower of Ludwig Feuerbach, whose weak point he subsequently
saw only in his materialism being insufficiently consistent and comprehensive. To
Marx, Feuerbach’s historic and “epoch-making” significance lay in his having
resolutely broken with Hegel’s idealism and in his proclamation of materialism, which
already “in the 18th century, particularly French materialism, was not only a struggle
against the existing political institutions and against... religion and theology, but also...
against all metaphysics” (in the sense of “drunken speculation” as distinct from “sober
philosophy”). (The Holy Family, in Literarischer Nachlass[1]) “To Hegel... ,” wrote
Marx, “the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea’, he even
transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (the creator, the maker) of
the real world.... With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material
world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.” (Capital,
Vol. I, Afterward to the Second Edition.) In full conformity with this materialist
philosophy of Marx’s, and expounding it, Frederick Engels wrote in Anti-Duhring
(read by Marx in the manuscript): “The real unity of the world consists in its
materiality, and this is proved... by a long and wearisome development of philosophy
and natural science....” “Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere
has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be....
Bit if the... question is raised: what thought and consciousness really are, and where
they come from; it becomes apparent that they are products of the human brain and
that main himself is a product of Nature, which has developed in and along with its
environment; hence it is self-evident that the products of the human brain, being in the
last analysis also products of Nature, do not contradict the rest of Nature’s
interconnections but are in correspondence with them....
“Hegel was an idealist, that is to say, the thoughts within his mind were to him not the
more or less abstract images [Abbilder, reflections; Engels sometimes speaks of
“imprints”] of real things and processes, but on the contrary, things and their
development were to him only the images, made real, of the “Idea” existing
somewhere or other before the world existed.”
In his Ludwig Feuerbach—which expounded his own and Marx’s views on
Feuerbach’s philosophy, and was sent to the printers after he had re-read an old
manuscript Marx and himself had written in 1844-45 on Hegel, Feuerbach and the
materialist conception of history—Engels wrote:
“The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is
the relation of thinking and being... spirit to Nature... which is primary, spirit or
Nature.... The answers which the philosophers gave to this question split them into
two great camps. Those who asserted the primary of spirit to Nature and, therefore, in
the last instance, assumed world creation in some form or other... comprised the camp
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
of idealism. The others, who regarded Nature as primary, belonged to the various
schools of materialism.”
Any other use of the concepts of (philosophical) idealism and materialism leads only
to confusion. Marx decidedly rejected, not only idealism, which is always linked in
one way or another with religion, but also the views—especially widespread in our
day—of Hume and Kant, agnosticism, criticism, and positivism[2] in their various
forms; he considered that philosophy a “reactionary” concession to idealism, and at
best a “shame-faced way of surreptitiously accepting materialism, while denying it
before the world.”[3]
On this question, see, besides the works by Engels and Marx mentioned above, a letter
Marx wrote to Engels on December 12, 1868, in which, referring to an utterance by
the naturalist Thomas Huxley, which was “more materialistic” than usual, and to his
recognition that “as long as we actually observe and think, we cannot possibly get
away from materialism”, Marx reproached Huxley for leaving a “loop hole” for
agnosticism, for Humism.
It is particularly important to note Marx’s view on the relation between freedom and
necessity: “Freedom is the appreciation of necessity. ‘Necessity is blind only insofar
as it is not understood.’” (Engels in Anti-Duhring) This means recognition of the rule
of objective laws in Nature and of the dialectical transformation of necessity into
freedom (in the same manner as the transformation of the uncognized but cognizable
“thing-in-itself” into the “thing-for-us”, of the “essence of things” into “phenomena”).
Marx and Engels considered that the “old” materialism, including that of Feuerbach
(and still more the “vulgar” materialism of Buchner, Vogt and Moleschott), contained
the following major shortcomings:
(1)
(2)
(3)
8
this materialism was “predominantly
mechanical,” failing to take account of
the
latest developments in chemistry and
biology (today it would be necessary to
add:
and in the electrical theory of matter);
the old materialism was non-historical
and non-dialectical (metaphysical, in
the
meaning of anti-dialectical), and did not
adhere consistently and
comprehensively
to the standpoint of development;
Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
it regarded the “human essence” in the
abstract, not as the “complex of
all” (concretely and historically
determined) “social relations”, and
therefore
merely “interpreted” the world, whereas
it was a question of “changing” it,
i.e., it did not understand the importance
of “revolutionary practical activity”.
Dialectics
As the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development, and the richest in
content, Hegelian dialectics was considered by Marx and Engels the greatest
achievement of classical German philosophy. They thought that any other formulation
of the principle of development, of evolution, was one-sided and poor in content, and
could only distort and mutilate the actual course of development (which often
proceeds by leaps, and via catastrophes and revolutions) in Nature and in society.
“Marx and I were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics [from the
destruction of idealism, including Hegelianism] and apply it in the materialist
conception of Nature.... Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for
modern natural science that it has furnished extremely rich [this was written before the
discovery of radium, electrons, the transmutation of elements, etc.!] and daily
increasing materials for this test, and has thus proved that in the last analysis Nature’s
process is dialectical and not metaphysical.
“ The great basic thought,” Engels writes, “that the world is not to be comprehended
as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things
apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through
an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away... this great
fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated
ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But
to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to
each domain of investigation are two different things.... For dialectical philosophy
nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and
in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of
becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher.
And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of this
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process in the thinking brain.” Thus, according to Marx, dialectics is “the science of
the general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought.” [4]
This revolutionary aspect of Hegel’s philosophy was adopted and developed by Marx.
Dialectical materialism “does not need any philosophy standing above the other
sciences.” From previous philosophy there remains “the science of thought and its
laws—formal logic and dialectics.” Dialectics, as understood by Marx, and also in
conformity with Hegel, includes what is now called the theory of knowledge, or
epistemology, studying and generalizing the original and development of knowledge,
the transition from non-knowledge to knowledge.
In our times, the idea of development, of evolution, has almost completely penetrated
social consciousness, only in other ways, and not through Hegelian philosophy. Still,
this idea, as formulated by Marx and Engels on the basis of Hegels’ philosophy, is far
more comprehensive and far richer in content than the current idea of evolution is. A
development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats
them in a different way, on a higher basis (“the negation of the negation”), a
development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development
by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; “breaks in continuity”; the transformation of
quantity into quality; inner impulses towards development, imparted by the
contradiction and conflict of the various forces and tendencies acting on a given body,
or within a given phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the
closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history
constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and
universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws—these are some of the
features of dialectics as a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional
one. (Cf. Marx’s letter to Engels of January 8, 1868, in which he ridicules Stein’s
“wooden trichotomies,” which it would be absurd to confuse with materialist
dialectics.)
The Materialist Conception of History
A realization of the inconsistency, incompleteness, and onesidedness of the old
materialism convinced Marx of the necessity of “bringing the science of society... into
harmony with the materialist foundation, and of reconstructing it thereupon.” [5] Since
materialism in general explains consciousness as the outcome of being, and not
conversely, then materialism as applied to the social life of mankind has to explain
social consciousness as the outcome of social being. “Technology,” Marx writes
(Capital, Vol. I), “discloses man’s mode of dealing with Nature, the immediate
process of production by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the
mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that flow
from them.”[6] In the preface to his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy,
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
Marx gives an integral formulation of the fundamental principles of materialism as
applied to human society and its history, in the following words:
“In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are
indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond
to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces.
“The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of
society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to
which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of
material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is
not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their
social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their
development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the
existing relations of production, or—what is but a legal expression for the same
thing—with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From
forms of development of the productive forces these relation turn into their fetters.
Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic
foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In
considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the
material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be
determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious,
aesthetic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious
of this conflict and fight it out.
“Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so we
cannot judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the
contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of
material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the
relations of production.... In broad outlines, Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern
bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the
economic formation of society.”[7] [Cf. Marx’s brief formulation in a letter to Engels
dated July 7, 1866: “Our theory that the organization of labor is determined by the
means of production.”]
The discovery of the materialist conception of history, or more correctly, the
consistent continuation and extension of materialism into the domain of social
phenomena, removed the two chief shortcomings in earlier historical theories. In the
first place, the latter at best examined only the ideological motives in the historical
activities of human beings, without investigating the origins of those motives, or
ascertaining the objective laws governing the development of the system of social
relations, or seeing the roots of these relations in the degree of development reached
by material production; in the second place, the earlier theories did not embrace the
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
activities of the masses of the population, whereas historical materialism made it
possible for the first time to study with scientific accuracy the social conditions of the
life of the masses, and the changes in those conditions. At best, pre-Marxist
“sociology” and historiography brought forth an accumulation of raw facts, collected
at random, and a description of individual aspects of the historical process. By
examining the totality of opposing tendencies, by reducing them to precisely definable
conditions of life and production of the various classes of individual aspects of the
historical process. By examining the choice of a particular “dominant” idea or in its
interpretation, and by revealing that, without exception, all ideas and all the various
tendencies stem from the condition of the material forces of production, Marxism
indicated the way to an all-embracing and comprehensive study of the process of the
rise, development, and decline of socio-economic systems. People make their own
history but what determines the motives of people, of the mass of people—i.e., what is
the sum total of all these clashes in the mass of human societies? What are the
objective conditions of production of material life that form the basis of all man’s
historical activity? What is the law of development of these conditions? To all these
Marx drew attention and indicated the way to a scientific study of history as a single
process which, with all its immense variety and contradictoriness, is governed by
definite laws.
The Class Struggle
It is common knowledge that, in any given society, the striving of some of its
members conflict with the strivings of others, that social life is full of contradictions,
and that history reveals a struggle between nations and societies, as well as within
nations and societies, and, besides, an alternation of periods of revolution and
reaction, peace and war, stagnation and rapid progress or decline. Marxism has
provided the guidance —i.e., the theory of the class struggle—for the discovery of the
laws governing this seeming maze and chaos. It is only a study of the sum of the
strivings of all the members of a given society or group of societies that can lead to a
scientific definition of the result of those strivings. Now the conflicting strivings stem
from the difference in the position and mode of life of the classes into which each
society is divided.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” Marx
wrote in the Communist Manifesto (with the exception of the history of the primitive
community, Engels added subsequently). “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian,
lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood
in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now
open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstruction of
society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.... The modern
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Marxism-Leninism Study Guide
bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away
with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of
oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of
the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified class
antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile
camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”
Ever since the Great French Revolution, European history has, in a number of
countries, tellingly revealed what actually lies at the bottom of events—the struggle of
classes. The Restoration period in France[8] already produced a number of historians
(Thierry, Guizot, Mignet, and Thiers) who, in summing up what was taking place,
were obliged to admit that the class struggle was taking place, were obliged to admit
that the class struggle was the key to all French history. The modern period—that of
complete victory of the bourgeoisie, representative institutions, extensive (if not
universal) suffrage, a cheap daily press that is widely circulated among the masses,
etc., a period of powerful and every-expanding unions of workers and unions of
employers, etc.—has shown even more strikingly (though sometimes in a very onesided, “peaceful”, and “constitutional” form) the class struggle as the mainspring of
events. The following passage from Marx’s Communist Manifesto will show us what
Marx demanded of social science as regards an objective analysis of the position of
each class in modern society, with reference to an analysis of each class’s conditions
of development:
“Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat
alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in
the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The
lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant,
all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as
fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative.
Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by
chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer
into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests; they
desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.”
In a number of historical works (see Bibliography), Marx gave brilliant and profound
examples of materialist historiography, of an analysis of the position of each
individual class, and sometimes of various groups or strata within a class, showing
plainly why and how “every class struggle is a political struggle.”[9] The above-quoted
passage is an illustration of what a complex network of social relations and
transitional stages from one class to another, from the past to the future, was analyzed
by Marx so as to determine the resultant of historical development.
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Marx’s economic doctrine is the most profound, comprehensive and detailed
confirmation and application of his theory.
Marx’s Economic Doctrine
“It is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern
society, i.e., capitalist, bourgeois society,”
says Marx in the preface to Capital. An investigation into the relations of production
in a given, historically defined society, in their inception, development, and decline—
such is the content of Marx’s economic doctrine. In capitalist society, the production
of commodities is predominant, and Marx’s analysis therefore begin with an analysis
of commodity.
Value
A commodity is, in the first place, a thing that satisfies a human want; in the second
place, it is a thing that can be exchanged for another thing. The utility of a thing
makes is a use-value. Exchange-value (or, simply, value), is first of all the ratio, the
proportion, in which a certain number of use-values of one kind can be exchanged for
a certain number of use-values of another kind. Daily experience shows us that million
upon millions of such exchanges are constantly equating with one another every kind
of use-value, even the most diverse and incomparable. Now, what is there in common
between these various things. things constantly equated with one another in a definite
system of social relations? Their common feature is that they are products of labor. In
exchanging products, people equate the most diverse kinds of labor. The production of
commodities is a system of social relations in which individual producers create
diverse products (the social division of labor), and in which all these products are
equated with one another in the process of exchange. Consequently, what is common
to all commodities is not the concrete labor of a definite branch of production, not
labor of one particular kind, but abstract human labor—human labor in general. All
the labor power of a given society, as represented in the sum total of the values of all
commodities, is one and the same human labor power. Thousands upon thousands of
millions of acts of exchange prove this. Consequently, each particular commodity
represents only a certain share of the socially necessary labor time. The magnitude of
value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor, or by the labor time
that is socially necessary for the production of a given commodity, of a given usevalue.
“Whenever, by an exchange, we equate as values our different products, by that very
act, we also equate, as human labor, the different kind of labor expended upon them.
We are not aware of this, nevertheless we do it.” [Capital]. As one of the earlier
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economists said, value is a relation between two persons; only he should have added:
a relation concealed beneath a material wrapping. We can understand what value is
only when we consider it from the standpoint of the system of social relations of
production in a particular historical type of society, moreover, or relations that
manifest themselves in the mass phenomenon of exchange, a phenomenon which
repeats itself thousands upon thousands of time. “As values, all commodities are only
definite masses of congealed labor time.” [A Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy].
After making a detailed analysis of the twofold character of the labor incorporated in
commodities, Marx goes on to analyze the form of value and money. Here, Marx’s
main task is to study the origin of the money form of value, to study the historical
process of the development of exchange, beginning with individual and incidental acts
of exchange (the “elementary or accidental form of value”, in which a given quantity
of one commmodity is exchanged for a given quantity of another), passing on to the
universal form of value, in which a number of different commodities are exchanged
for one and the same particular commodity, and ending with the money form of value,
when gold becomes that particular commodity, the universal equivalent. As the
highest product of the development of exchange and commodity production, money
masks, conceals, the social character of all individual labor, the social link between
individual producers united by the market. Marx analyzes the various functions of
money in very great detail; it is important to note here in particular (as in the opening
chapters of Capital in general) that what seems to be an abstract and at times purely
deductive mode of exposition deals in reality with a gigantic collection of factual
material on the history of the development of exchange and commodity production.
“If we consider money, its existence implies a definite stage in the exchange of
commodities. The particular functions of money, which it performs either as the mere
equivalent of commodities or as means of circulation, or means of payment, as hoard
or as universal money, point, according to the extent and relative preponderance of the
one function or the other, to very different stages in the process of social production.”
[Capital].
Surplus Value
At a certain stage in the development of commodity production money becomes
transformed into capital. The formula of commodity circulation was C-M-C
(commodity—money—commodity)—i.e., the sale of one commodity for the purpose
of buying another.
The general formula of capital, on the contrary, is M-C-M—i.e., the purchase for the
purpose of selling (at a profit).
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The increase over the original value of the money that is put into circulation is called
by Marx surplus value. The fact of this “growth” of money in capitalist circulation is
common knowledge. Indeed, it is this “growth” which transforms money into capital,
as a special and historically determined social relation of production. Surplus value
cannot arise out of commodity circulation, for the latter knows only the exchange of
equivalents; neither can it arise out of price increases, for the mutual losses and gains
of buyers and sellers would equalize one another, whereas what we have here in not
an individual phenomenon but a mass, average and social phenomenon. To obtain
surplus value, the owner of money “must ... find... in the market a commodity, whose
use-value possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value” [Capital]—a
commodity whose process of consumption is at the same time a process of the
creation of value. Such a commodity exists—human labor power. Its consumption is
labor, and labor creates value. The owner of money buys labor power at its value,
which, like the value of every other commodity, is determined by the socially
necessary labor time requisite for its production (i.e., the cost of maintaining the
worker and his family). Having bought enough labor power, the owner of money is
entitled to use it, that is, to set it to work for a whole day—12 hours, let us say. Yet, in
the course of six hours (“necessary” labor time) the worker creates product sufficient
to cover the cost of his own maintenance; in the course of the next six hours
(“surplus” labor time), he creates “surplus” product, or surplus value, for which the
capitalist does not pay. Therefore, from the standpoint of the process of production,
two parts must be distinguished in capital: constant capital, which is expended on
means of production (machinery, tools, raw materials, etc.), whose value, without any
change, is transferred (immediately or part by part) to the finished product; secondly,
variable capital, which is expended on labor power. The value of this latter capital is
not invariable, but grows in the labor process, creating surplus value. Therefore, to
express the degree of capital’s exploitation of labor power, surplus must be compared
not with the entire capital but only with variable capital. Thus, in the example just
given, the rate of surplus value, as Marx calls this ratio, will be 6:6, i.e., 100 per cent.
There were two historical prerequisites for capital to arise: first, the accumulation of
certain sums of money in the hands of individuals under conditions of a relatively high
level of development of community production in general; secondly, the existence of a
worker who is “free” in a double sense: free of all constraint or restriction on the scale
of his labor power, and free from the land and all means of production in general, a
free and unattached laborer, a “proletarian”, who cannot subsist except by selling his
labor power.
There are two main ways of increasing surplus value: lengthening the working day
(“absolute surplus value”), and reducing the necessary working day (“relative surplus
value”). In analyzing the former, Marx gives a most impressive picture of the struggle
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of the working class for a shorter working day and of interference by the state
authority to lengthen the working day (from the 14th century to the 17th) and to
reduce it (factory legislation in the 19th century). Since the appearance of Capital, the
history of the working class movement in all civilized countries of the world has
provided a wealth of new facts amplifying this picture.
Analyzing the production of relative surplus value, Marx investigates the three
fundamental historical stage in capitalism’s increase of the productivity of labor: (1)
simple co-operation; (2) the division of labor, and manufacture; (3) machinery and
large-scale industry. How profoundly Marx has here revealed the basic and typical
features of capitalist development is shown incidentally by the fact that investigations
into the handicraft industries in Russia furnish abundant material illustrating the first
two of the mentioned stages. The revolutionizing effect of large-scale machine
industry, as described by Marx in 1867, has revealed itself in a number of “new”
countries (Russia, Japan, etc.), in the course of the half-century that has since elapsed.
To continue. New and important in the highest degree is Marx’s analysis of the
accumulation of capital—i.e., the transformation of a part of surplus value into
capital, and its use, not for satisfying the personal needs of whims of the capitalist, but
for new production. Marx revealed the error made by all earlier classical political
economists (beginning with Adam Smith), who assumed that the entire surplus value
which is transformed into capital goes to form variable capital. in actual fact, it is
divided into means of production and variable capital. Of tremendous importance to
the process of development of capitalism and its transformation into socialism is the
more rapid growth of the constant capital share (of the total capital) as compared with
the variable capital share.
By speeding up the supplanting of workers by machinery and by creating wealth at
one extreme and poverty at the other, the accumulation of capital also gives rise to
what is called the “reserve army of labor”, to the “relative surplus” of workers, or
“capitalist overpopulation”, which assumes the most diverse forms and enables capital
to expand production extremely rapidly. In conjunction with credit facilities and the
accumulation of capital in the form of means of production, this incidentally is the key
to an understanding of the crises of overproduction which occur periodically in
capitalist countries—at first at an average of every 10 years, and later at more lengthy
and less definite intervals. From the accumulation of capital under capitalism we
should distinguish what is known as primitive accumulation: the forcible divorcement
of the worker from the means of production, the driving of the peasant off the land,
the stealing of communal lands, the system of colonies and national debts, protective
tariffs, and the like. “Primitive accumulation” creates the “free” proletarian at one
extreme, and the owner of money, the capitalist, at the other.
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The “historical tendency of capitalist accumulation” is described by Marx in the
following celebrated words:
“The expropriation of the immediate producers is accomplished with merciless
vandalism, and under the stimulus of passions the most infamous, the most sordid, the
pettiest, the most meanly odious. Self-earned private property [of the peasant and
handicraftsman], that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated,
independent laboring-individual with the conditions of his labor, is supplanted by
capitalistic private property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labor of
others.... That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for
himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is
accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by
the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this
centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever
extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor process, the conscious technical
application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the
instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the
economizing of all means of production by their use as the means of production of
combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all people in the net of the world
market, and with this the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with
the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and
monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of
misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the
revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined,
united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.
The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has
sprung up and flourished along with, and under, it. Centralization of the means of
production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become
incompatible with their capitalist integument. The integument is burst asunder. The
knell of capitalist private property sound. The expropriators are expropriated.”
(Capital, Volume I)
Also new and important in the highest degree is the analysis Marx gives, in Volume
Two of Capital of the reproduction of aggregate social capital. Here, too, Marx deals,
not with an individual phenomenon but with a mass phenomenon; not with a
fractional part of the economy of society, but with that economy as a whole.
Correcting the aforementioned error of the classical economists, Marx divides the
whole of social production into two big sections: (I) production of the means of
production, and (II) production of articles of consumption, and examines in detail,
with numerical examples, the circulation of the aggregate social capital—both when
reproduced in its former dimension and in the case of accumulation. Volume Three of
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Capital solves the problem of how the average rate of profit is formed on the basis of
the law of value. This immense stride forward made by economic science in the
person of Marx consists in his having conducted an analysis, from the standpoint of
mass economic phenomena, of the social economy as a whole, not from the standpoint
of individual cases or of the external and superficial aspects of competition, to which
vulgar political economy and the modern “theory of marginal utility” [1] frequently
restrict themselves. Marx first analyzes the origin of surplus value, and then goes on to
consider its division into profit, interest, and ground rent. Profit is the ratio between
surplus value and the total capital invested in an undertaking. Capital with a “high
organic composition” (i.e., with a preponderance of constant capital over variable
capital in excess of the social average) yields a rate of profit below the average;
capital with a “low organic composition” yields a rate of profit above the average.
Competition among capitalists, and their freedom to transfer their capital from one
branch to another, will in both cases reduce the rate of profit to the average. The sum
total of the values of all the commodities in a given society coincides with the sum
total of the prices of the commodities, but, in individual undertakings and branches of
production, as a result of competition, commodities are sold not at their values at the
prices of production (or production prices), which are equal to the capital expended
plus the average profit.
In this way, the well-known and indisputable fact of the divergence between prices
and values and of the equalization of profits is fully explained by Marx on the basis of
law of value, since the sum total of values of all commodities coincides with the sum
total of prices. However, the equating of (social) value to (individual) prices does not
take place simply and directly, but in a very complex way. It is quite natural that in a
society of separate producers of commodities, who are united only by the market, a
conformity to law can be only an average, social, mass manifestation, with individual
deviations in either direction mutually compensating one another.
A rise in the productivity of labor implies a more rapid growth of constant capital as
compared with variable capital. Inasmuch as surplus value is a function of variable
capital alone, it is obvious that the rate of profit (the ratio of surplus value to the whole
capital, not to its variable part alone) tends to fall. Marx makes a detailed analysis of
this tendency and of a number of circumstances that conceal or counteract it. Without
pausing to deal with the extremely interesting sections of Volume Three of Capital,
Vol. I devoted to usurer’s capital, commercial capital and money capital, we must pass
on to the most important section—the theory of ground rent. Since the area of land is
limited and, in capitalist countries, the land is all held by individual private owners,
the price of production of agricultural products is determined by the cost of
production, not on soil of average quality but on the worst soil; not under average
conditions but under the worst conditions of delivery of produce to the market. The
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difference between this price and the price of production on better soil (or in better
conditions) constitutes differential rent. Analyzing this in detail, and showing how it
arises out of the difference in fertility of different plots of land, and out of the
difference in the amount of capital invested in land, Marx fully reveals (see also
Theories of Surplus Value, in which the criticism of Rodbertus is most noteworthy)
the error of Ricardo, who considered that differential rent is derived only when there
is a successive transition from better land to worse. On the contrary, there may be
inverse transitions, land may pass from one category into others (owing to advances in
agricultural techniques, the growth of towns, and so on), and the notorious “law of
diminishing returns”, which charges Nature with the defects, limitations and
contradictions of capitalism, is profoundly erroneous. Further, the equalisation of
profit in all branches of industry and the national economy in general presupposes
complete freedom of competition and the free flow of capital from one branch to
another. However, the private ownership of land creates monopoly, which hinders that
free flow. Because of that monopoly, the products of agriculture, where a lower
organic composition of capital obtains, and consequently an individually higher rate of
profit, do not enter into the quite free process of the equalisation of the rate of profit.
As a monopolist, the landowner can keep the price above the average, and this
monopoly price gives rise to absolute rent. Differential rent cannot be done away with
under capitalism, but absolute rent can—for instance, by the nationalisation of the
land, by making it state property. That would undermine the monopoly of private
landowners, and would mean the sole consistent and full operation of freedom of
competition in agriculture. That is why, as Marx points out, bourgeois radicals have
again and again in the course of history advanced this progressive bourgeois demand
for nationalisation of the land, a demand which, however, frightens most of the
bourgeoisie, because it would too closely affect another monopoly, one that is
particularly important and “sensitive” today—the monopoly of the means of
production in general. (A remarkably popular, concise, and clear exposition of his
theory of the average rate of profit on capital and of absolute ground rent is given by
Marx himself in a letter to Engels, dated August 2, 1862. See Briefwechsel, Volume 3,
pp. 77-81; also the letter of August 9, 1862, ibid., pp. 86-87.)
With reference to the history of ground rent it is also important to note Marx’s
analysis showing how labor rent (the peasant creates surplus product by working on
the lord’s land) is transformed into rent paid in produce or in kind (the peasant creates
surplus product by working on the lord’s land) is transformed into rent paid in produce
or in kind (the peasant creates surplus product on his own land and hands it over to the
landlord because of “non-economic constraint”), then into money-rent (rent in kind,
which is converted into money—the obrok[2] of old Russia—as a result of the
development of commodity production), and finally into capitalist rent, when the
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peasant is replaced by the agricultural entrepreneur, who cultivates the soil with the
help of hired labor. In connection with this analysis of the “genesis of capitalistic
ground rent”, note should be taken of a number of profound ideas (of particular
importance to backward countries like Russia) expressed by Marx regarding the
evolution of capitalism in agriculture:
“The transformation of rent in kind into money-rent is furthermore not only inevitably
accompanied, but even anticipated, by the formation of a class of propertyless daylaborers, who hire themselves out for money. During their genesis, when this new
class appears but sporadically, the custom necessarily develops among the more
prosperous peasants, subject to rent payments, of exploiting agricultural wage-laborers
for their own account, much as in feudal times, when the more well-to-do peasant
serfs themselves also held serfs. In this way, they gradually acquire the possibility of
accumulating a certain amount of wealth and themselves becoming transformed into
future capitalists. The old self-employed possessors of land themselves just give rise
to a nursery school for capitalist tenants, whose development is conditioned by the
general development of capitalist production beyond the bounds of the countryside.”
[Capital, Vol. III]
“The expropriation and eviction of a part of the agricultural population not only set
free for industrial capital the laborers, their means of subsistence, and material for
labor; it also created the home market.” (Capital, Vol. I) In their turn, the
impoverishment and ruin of the rural population play a part in the creation, for capital,
or a reserve army of labor. In every capitalist country “part of the agricultural
population is therefore constantly on the point of passing over into an urban or
manufacturing [i.e., non-agricultural] proletariat.... This source of relative surplus
population is thus constantly flowing.... The agricultural laborer is therefore reduced
to the minimum of wages, and always stands with one foot already in the swamp of
pauperism.” (Capital, Vol. I) The peasant’s private ownership of the land he tills is the
foundation of small-scale production and the condition for its prospering and
achieving the classical form. But such small-scale production is compatible only with
a narrow and primitive framework of production and society. Under capitalism, the
“exploitation of the peasant differs only in form from the exploitation of the industrial
proletariat. The exploiter is the same: capital. The individual capitalists exploit the
individual peasant through mortgages and usury; the capitalist class exploits the
peasant class through the state taxes.” [The Class Struggles in France]
“The small holding of the peasant is now only the pretext that allows the capitalist to
draw profits, interest and rent from the soil, while leaving it to the tiller of the soil
himself to see how he can extract his wages.” (The Eighteenth Brumaire) As a rule,
the peasant cedes to capitalist society—i.e., to the capitalist class—even a part of the
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wages, sinking “to the level of the Irish tenant farmer—all under the pretense of being
a private proprietor.” (The Class Struggles In France)
What is “one of the reasons why grain prices are lower in countries with predominant
small-peasant land proprietorship than in countries with a capitalist mode of
production?” [Capital, Vol. III] It is that the peasant hands over gratis to society (i.e.,
the capitalist class) a part of his surplus product. “This lower price [of grain and other
agricultural produce] is consequently a result of the producers’ poverty and by no
means of their labor productivity.” [Capital, Vol. III] Under capitalism, the smallholding system, which is the normal form of small-scale production, degenerates,
collapses, and perishes.
“Proprietorship of land parcels, by its very nature, excludes the development of social
productive forces of labor, social forms of labor, social concentration of capital, largescale cattle raising, and the progressive application of science. Usury and a taxation
system must impoverish it everywhere. The expenditure of capital in the price of the
land withdraws this capital from cultivation. An infinite fragmentation of means of
production and isolation of the producers themselves.”
(Co-operative societies, i.e., associations of small peasants, while playing an
extremely progressive bourgeois role, only weakens this tendency, without
eliminating it; nor must it be forgotten that these co-operative societies do much for
the well-to-do peasants, and very little—next to nothing—for the mass of poor
peasants; then the associations themselves become exploiters of hired labor.)
“Monstrous waste of human energy. Progressive deterioration of conditions of
production and increased prices of means of production—an inevitable law of
proprietorship of parcels.” [Capital, Volume III] In agriculture, as in industry,
capitalism transforms the process of production only at the price of the “martyrdom of
the producer.”
“The dispersion of the rural laborers over larger areas breaks their power of resistance,
while concentration increases that of the town operatives. In modern agriculture, as in
the urban industries, the increased productiveness and quantity of the labor set in
motion are bought at the cost of laying waste and consuming by disease labor power
itself. Moreover, all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only
of robbing the laborer, but of robbing the soil.... Capitalist production, therefore,
develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social
whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the laborer.”
[Capital, Volume III]
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Socialism
From the foregoing, it is evident that Marx deduces the inevitability of the
transformation of capitalist society into socialist society and wholly and exclusively
from the economic law of the development of contemporary society. The socialization
of labor, which is advancing ever more rapidly in thousands of forms and has
manifested itself very strikingly, during the half-century since the death of Marx, in
the growth of large-scale production, capitalist cartels, syndicates and trusts, as well as
in the gigantic increase in the dimensions and power of finance capital, provides the
principal material foundation for the inevitable advent of socialism. The intellectual
and moral motive force and the physical executor of this transformation is the
proletariat, which has been trained by capitalism itself. The proletariat’s struggle
against the bourgeoisie, which finds expression in a variety of forms ever richer in
content, inevitably becomes a political struggle directed towards the conquest of
political power by the proletariat (“the dictatorship of the proletariat”). The
socialization of production cannot but lead to the means of production becoming the
property of society, to the “expropriation of the expropriators.” A tremendous rise in
labor productivity, a shorter working day, and the replacement of the remnants, the
ruins, of small-scale, primitive and disunited production by collective and improved
labor—such are the direct consequences of this transformation. Capitalism breaks for
all time the ties between agriculture and industry, but at the same time, through its
highest developed, it prepares new elements of those ties, a union between industry
and agriculture based on the conscious application of science and the concentration of
collective labor, and on a redistribution of the human population (thus putting an end
both to rural backwardness, isolation and barbarism, and to the unnatural
concentration of vast masses of people in big cities). A new form of family, new
conditions in the status of women and in the upbringing of the younger generation are
prepared by the highest forms of present-day capitalism: the labor of women and
children and the break-up of the patriarchal family by capitalism inevitably assume the
most terrible, disastrous, and repulsive forms in modern society. Nevertheless,
“modern industry, by assigning as it does, an important part in the socially organized
process of production, outside the domestic sphere, to women, to young persons, and
to children of both sexes, creates a new economic foundation for a higher form of the
family and of the relations between the sexes. It is, of course, just as absurd to hold the
Teutonic-Christian form of the family to be absolute and final as it would be to apply
that character to the ancient Roman, the ancient Greek, or the Eastern forms which,
moreover, taken together form a series in historic development. Moreover, it is
obvious that the fact of the collective working group being composed of individuals of
both sexes and all ages, must necessarily, under suitable conditions, become a source
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of human development; although in its spontaneously developed, brutal, capitalistic
form, where the laborer exists for the process of production, and not the process of
production for the laborer, that fact is a pestiferous source of corruption and slavery.”
(Capital, Vol. I, end of Chapter 13)
The factory system contains
“the germ of the education of the future, an education that will, in the ease of every
child over a given age, combine productive labor with instruction and gymnastics, not
only as one of the methods of adding to the efficiency of social production, but as the
only method of producing fully developed human beings.” [ibid.]
Marx’s socialism places the problems of nationality and of the state on the same
historical footing, not only in the sense of explaining the past but also in the sense of a
bold forecast of the future and of bold practical action for its achievement. Nations are
an inevitable product, an inevitable form, in the bourgeois epoch of social
development. The working class could not grow strong, become mature and take
shape without “constituting itself within the nation,” without being “national”
(“though not in the bourgeois sense of the word”). The development of capitalism,
however, breaks down national barriers more and more, does away with national
seclusion, and substitutes class antagonisms for national antagonism. It is, therefore,
perfectly true of the developed capitalist countries that “the workingmen have no
country” and that “united action” by the workers, of the civilized countries at least, “is
one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat” [Communist
Manifesto]. That state, which is organized coercion, inevitably came into being at a
definite stage in the development of society, when the latter had split into
irreconcilable classes, and could not exist without an “authority” ostensibly standing
above society, and to a certain degree separate from society. Arising out of class
contradictions, the state becomes “...the state of the most powerful, economically
dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically
dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the
oppressed class. Thus, the state of antiquity was above all the state of the slave-owners
for the purpose of holding down the slaves, as the feudal state was the organ of the
nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern
representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage labor by capital.” (Engels,
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, a work in which the writer
expounds his own views and Marx’s.) Even the democratic republic, the freest and
most progressive form of the bourgeois state, does not eliminate this fact in any way,
but merely modifies its form (the links between government and the stock exchange,
the corruption—direct and indirect—of officialdom and the press, etc.). By leading to
the abolition of classes, socialism will thereby lead to the abolition of the state as well.
“The first act,” Engels writes in Anti-Dühring “by virtue of which the state really
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constitutes itself the representative of society as a whole—the taking possession of the
means of production in the name of society—is, at the same time, its last independent
act as a state. The state interference in social relations becomes superfluous in one
sphere after another, and then ceases of itself. The government of persons is replaced
by the administration of things and by the direction of the processes of production.
The state is not ‘abolished,’ it withers away” [Anti-Dühring].
“The society that will organize production on the basis of a free and equal association
of the producers will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into
the Museum of Antiquities, by the side of the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.”
[Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State].
Finally, as regards the attitude of Marx’s socialism towards the small peasantry, which
will continue to exist in the period of the expropriation of the expropriators, we must
refer to a declaration made by Engels, which expresses Marx’s views:
“...when we are in possession of state power we shall not even think of forcibly
expropriating the small peasants (regardless of whether with or without
compensation), as we shall have to do in the case of the big landowners. Our task
relative to the small peasant consists, in the first place, in effecting a transition of his
private enterprise and private possession to co-operative ones, not forcibly but by dint
of example and the proffer of social assistance for this purpose. And then of course we
shall have ample means of showing to the small peasant prospective advantages that
must be obvious to him even today.” [Engels, The Peasant Question in France and
Germany, [1] published by Alexeyeva; there are errors in the Russian translation.
Original in Die Neue Zeit].
Tactics of the Class Struggle of the Proletariat
After examining, as early as 1844-45, one of the main shortcomings in the earlier
materialism—namely, its inability to understand the conditions or appreciate the
importance of practical revolutionary activity—Marx, along with his theoretical work,
devoted unremitting attention, throughout his lifetime, to the tactical problems of the
proletariat’s class struggle. An immense amount of material bearing on this is
contained in all the works of Marx, particularly in the four volumes of his
correspondence with Engels, published in 1913. This material is still far from having
been brought together, collected, examined and studied. We shall therefore have to
confine ourselves here to the most general and brief remarks, emphasizing that Marx
justly considered that, without this aspect, materialism is incomplete, onesided, and
lifeless. The fundamental task of proletarian tactics was defined by Marx in strict
conformity with all the postulates of his materialist-dialectical Weltanschauung
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[“world-view”]. Only an objective consideration of the sum total of the relations
between absolutely all the classes in a given society, and consequently a consideration
of the objective stage of development reached by that society and of the relations
between it and other societies, can serve as a basis for the correct tactics of an
advanced class. At the same time, all classes and all countries are regarded, not
statistically, but dynamically —i.e., not in a state of immobility—but in motion
(whose laws are determined by the economic conditions of existence of each class).
Motion, in its turn, is regarded from the standpoint, not only of the past, but also of the
future, and that not in the vulgar sense it is understood in by the “evolutionists”, who
see only slow changes, but dialectically: “...in developments of such magnitude 20
years are no more than a day,“ Marx wrote to Engels, “thought later on there may
come days in which 20 years are embodied” (Briefwechsel, Vol. 3, p. 127).[2]
At each stage of development, at each moment, proletarian tactics must take account
of this objectively inevitable dialectics of human history, on the one hand, utilizing the
periods of political stagnation or of sluggish, so-called “peaceful” development in
order to develop the class-consciousness, strength and militancy of the advanced class,
and, on the other hand, directing all the work of this utilization towards the “ultimate
aim” of that class’s advance, towards creating in it the ability to find practical
solutions for great tasks in the great days, in which “20 years are embodied”. Two of
Marx’s arguments are of special importance in this connection: one of these is
contained in The Poverty of Philosopy, and concerns the economic struggle and
economic organizations of the proletariat; the other is contained in the Communist
Manifesto and concerns the asks of the proletariat. The former runs as follows:
“Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one
another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this
common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought
of resistance—combination.... Combinations, at first isolated, constitute themselves
into groups ... and in face of always united capital, the maintenance of the association
becomes more necessary to them [i.e., the workers] than that of wages.... In this
struggle—a veritable civil war—all the elements necessary for coming battle unite and
develop. Once it has reached this point, association takes on a political character.
(Marx, The Poverty of Philosopy, 1847)
Here we have the programme and tactics of the economic struggle and of the trade
union movement for several decades to come, for all the lengthy period in which the
proletariat will prepare its forces for the “coming battle.” All this should be compared
with numerous references by Marx and Engels to the example of the British labor
movement, showing how industrial “property” leads to attempts “to buy the
proletariat” (Briefwechsel, Vol. 1, p. 136).[3] to divert them from the struggle; how this
prosperity in general “demoralizes the workers” (Vol. 2, p. 218); how the British
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proletariat becomes “bourgeoisified”—“this most bourgeois of all nations is
apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a
bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie” Chartists (1866; Vol. 3, p. 305)[4];
how the British workers’ leaders are becoming a type midway between “a radical
bourgeois and a worker” (in reference to Holyoak, Vol. 4, p. 209); how, owning to
Britain’s monopoly, and as long as that monopoly lasts, “the British workingman will
not budge” (Vol. 4, p. 433).[5] The tactics of the economic struggle, in connection with
the general course (and outcome) of the working-class movement, are considered here
from a remarkably broad, comprehensive, dialectical, and genuinely revolutionary
standpoint.
The Communist Manifesto advanced a fundamental Marxist principle on the tactics of
the political struggle:
“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement
of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present,
they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.” That was why, in
1848, Marx supported the party of the “agrarian revolution” in Poland, “that party
which brought about the Krakow insurrection in 1846.” [1]
In Germany, Marx, in 1848 and 1849, supported the extreme revolutionary democrats,
and subsequently never retracted what he had then said about tactics. He regarded the
German bourgeoisie as an element which was “inclined from the very beginning to
betray the people” (only an alliance with the peasantry could have enabled the
bourgeoisie to completely achieve its aims) “and compromise with the crowned
representatives of the old society.” Here is Marx’s summing-up of the German
bourgeois-democratic revolution—an analysis which, incidentally, is a sample of a
materialism that examines society in motion, and, moreover, not only from the aspect
of a motion that is backward:
“Without faith in itself, without faith in the people, grumbling at those above,
trembling before those below ... intimidated by the world storm ... no energy in any
respect, plagiarism in every respect ... without initiative ... an execrable old man who
saw himself doomed to guide and deflect the first youthful impulses of a robust people
in his own senile interests....” (Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 1848; see Literarischer
Nachlass, Vol. 3, p. 212.)[6]
About 20 years later, Marx declared, in a letter to Engels (Briefwechsel, Vol. 3,
p.224), that the Revolution of 1848 had failed because the bourgeoisie had preferred
peace with slavery to the mere prospect of a fight for freedom. When the
revolutionary period of 1848-49 ended, Marx opposed any attempt to play at
revolution (his struggle against Schapper and Willich), and insisted on the ability to
work in a new phase, which in a quasi-“peaceful” way was preparing new revolutions.
The spirit in which Marx wanted this work to be conducted is to be seen in his
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appraisal of the situation in Germany in 1856, the darkest period of reaction: “The
whole thing in Germany will depend on the possibility of backing the proletarian
revolution by some second edition of the Peasant War” (Briefwechsel, Vol. 2, p.
108).[7] While the democratic (bourgeois) revolution in Germany was uncompleted,
Marx focused every attention, in the tactics of the socialist proletariat, on developing
the democratic energy of the peasantry. He held that Lassalle’s attitude was
“objectively... a betrayal of the whole workers’ movement to Prussia” (Vol. 3, p.210),
incidentally because Lassalle was tolerant of the Junkers and Prussian nationalism.
“In a predominantly agricultural country,” Engels wrote in 1865, in exchanging views
with Marx on their forthcoming joint declaration in the press, “...it is dastardly to
make an exclusive attack on the bourgeoisie in the name of the industrial proletariat
but never to devote a word to the patriarchal exploitation of the rural proletariat under
the lash of the great feudal aristocracy” (Vol. 3, p. 217). [8]
From 1864 to 1870, when the period of the consummation of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution in Germany was coming to an end, a period in which the
Prussian and Austrian exploiting classes were struggling to complete that revolution in
one way or another from above, Marx not only rebuked Lassalle, who was coquetting
with Bismarck, but also corrected Liebknecht, who had “lapsed into Austrophilism”
and a defense of particularism; Marx demanded revolutionary tactics which would
combat with equal ruthlessness both Bismarck and the Austrophiles, tactics which
would not be adapted to the “victor”—the Prussian Junkers—but would immediately
renew the revolutionary struggle against him despite the conditions created by the
Prussian military victories (Briefwechsel, Vol. 3, pp. 134, 136, 147, 179, 204, 210,
215, 418, 437, 440-41).
In the celebrated Address of the International of September 9 1870, Marx warned the
French proletariat against an untimely uprising, but when an uprising nevertheless
took place (1871), Marx enthusiastically hailed the revolutionary initiative of the
masses, who were “storming heaven” (Marx’s letter to Kugelmann).
From the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism, the defeat of revolutionary
action in that situation, as in many other, was a lesser evil, in the general course and
outcome of the proletarian struggle, than the abandonment of a position already
occupied, than surrender without battle. Such a surrender would have demoralised the
proletariat and weakened its militancy. While fully appreciating the use of legal means
of struggle during periods of political stagnation and the domination of bourgeois
legality, Marx, in 1877 and 1878, following the passage of the Anti-Socialist Law,[9]
sharply condemned Most’s “revolutionary phrases”; no less sharply, if not more so,
did he attack the opportunism that had for a time come over the official SocialDemocratic Party, which did not at once display resoluteness, firmness, revolutionary
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spirit and the readiness to resort to an illegal struggle in response to the Anti-Socialist
Law (Briefwechsel, Vol. 4, pp. 397, 404, 418, 422, 424; cf. also letters to Sorge).
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Joseph Stalin
The Foundations of Leninism
I
THE HISTORICAL ROOTS OF LENINISM
Leninism grew up and took shape under the conditions of imperialism, when the
contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point, when the proletarian
revolution had become an immediate practical question, when the old period of
preparation of the working class for revolution had arrived at and passed into a new
period, that of direct assault on capitalism.
Lenin called imperialism "moribund capitalism." Why? Because imperialism carries
the contradictions of capitalism to their last bounds, to the extreme limit, beyond
which revolution begins. Of these contradictions, there are three which must be
regarded as the most important.
The first contradiction is the contradiction between labour and capital. Imperialism is
the omnipotence of the monopolist trusts and syndicates, of the banks and the
financial oligarchy, in the industrial countries. In the fight against this omnipotence,
the customary methods of the working class-trade unions and cooperatives,
parliamentary parties and the parliamentary struggle-have proved to be totally
inadequate. Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence
as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon-this is the alternative
imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the
working class to revolution.
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The second contradiction is the contradiction among the various financial groups and
imperialist Powers in their struggle for sources of raw materials, for foreign territory.
Imperialism is the export of capital to the sources of raw materials, the frenzied
struggle for monopolist possession of these sources, the struggle for a re-division of
the already divided world, a struggle waged with particular fury by new financial
groups and Powers seeking a "place in the sun" against the old groups and Powers,
which cling tenaciously to what they have seized. This frenzied struggle among the
various groups of capitalists is notable in that it includes as an inevitable element
imperialist wars, wars for the annexation of foreign territory. This circumstance, in its
turn, is notable in that it leads to the mutual weakening of the imperialists, to the
weakening of the position of capitalism in general, to the acceleration of the advent of
the proletarian revolution and to the practical necessity of this revolution.
The third contradiction is the contradiction between the handful of ruling, "civilised"
nations and the hundreds of millions of the colonial and dependent peoples of the
world. Imperialism is the most barefaced exploitation and the most inhumane
oppression of hundreds of millions of people inhabiting vast colonies and dependent
countries. The purpose of this exploitation and of this oppression is to squeeze out
super-profits. But in exploiting these countries imperialism is compelled to build these
railways, factories and mills, industrial and commercial centers. The appearance of a
class of proletarians, the emergence of a native intelligentsia, the awakening of
national consciousness, the growth of the liberation movement-such are the inevitable
results of this "policy." The growth of the revolutionary movement in all colonies and
dependent countries without exception clearly testifies to this fact. This circumstance
is of importance for the proletariat inasmuch as it saps radically the position of
capitalism by converting the colonies and dependent countries from reserves of
imperialism into reserves of the proletarian revolution.
Such, in general, are the principal contradictions of imperialism which have converted
the old, "flourishing" capitalism into moribund capitalism.
The significance of the imperialist war which broke out ten years ago lies, among
other things, in the fact that it gathered all these contradictions into a single knot and
threw them on to the scales, thereby accelerating and facilitating the revolutionary
battles of the proletariat.
In other words, imperialism was instrumental not only in making the revolution a
practical inevitability, but also in creating favourable conditions for a direct assault on
the citadels of capitalism.
Such was the international situation which gave birth to Leninism.
Some may say: this is all very well, but what has it to do with Russia, which was not
and could not be a classical land of imperialism? What has it to do with Lenin, who
worked primarily in Russia and for Russia? Why did Russia, of all countries, become
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the home of Leninism, the birthpalce of the theory and tactics of the proletarian
revolution?
Because Russia was the focus of all these contradictions of imperialism.
Because Russia, more than any other country, was pregnant with revolution, and she
alone, therefore, was in a position to solve those contradictions in a revolutionary way.
To begin with, tsarist Russia was the home of every kind of oppression-capitalist,
colonial and militarist-in its most inhuman and barbarous form. Who does not know
that in Russia the omnipotence of capital was combined with the despostism of
tsarism, the aggressiveness of Russian nationalism with tsarism's role of executioner
in regard to the non-Russian peoples, the exploitation of entire regions-Turkey, Persia,
China-with the seizure of these regions by tsarism, with wars of conquest? Lenin was
right in saying that tsarism was "military-feudal imperialism." Tsarism was the
concentration of the worst features of imperialism, raised to a high pitch.
To proceed. Tsarist Russia was a major reserve of Western imperialism, not only in
the sense that it gave free entry to foreign capital, which controlled such basic
branches of Russia's national economy as the fuel and metallurgical industries, but
also in the sense that it could supply the Western imperialists with milions of soldiers.
Remember the Russia army, fourteen million strong, which shed its blood on the
imperialist fronts to safeguard the staggering profits of the British and French
capitalists.
Further, Tsarism was not only the watchdog of imperialism in the east of Europe, but,
in addition, it was the agent of Western imperialism for squeezing out of the
population hundreds of milions by way of interet on loans obtained in Paris and
London, Berlin and Brussels.
Finally, tsarism was a most faithful ally of Western imperialism in the partition of
Turkey, Persia, China, etc. Who does not know that the imperialist war was waged by
tsarism in alliance with the imperialists of the Entente, and that Russia was an
essential element in that war?
That is why the interets of tsarism and of Western imperialism were interwoven and
ultimately became merged in a single skein of imperialist interets.
Could Western imperialism resign itself to the loss of such a powerful support in the
East and of such a rich reservoir of manpower and resources as old, tsarist, bourgeois
Russia was without exerting all its strengths to wage a life-and-death struggle against
the revolution in Russia, with the object of defending and preserving tsarsim? Of
course not.
But from this it follows that whoever wanted to strike at tsarism necessarily raised his
hand against imperialism, whoever rose against tsarism had to rise against imperialism
as well; for whoever was bent on overthrowing tsarism had to overthrow imperialism
too, if he really intended not merely to defeat tsarism, but to make a clean sweep of it.
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Thus the revolution against tsarism verged on and had to pass into a revolution against
imperialism, into a proletarian revolution.
Meanwhile, in Russia a tremendous popular revolution was rising, headed by the most
revolutionary proletariat in the world, which possessed such an important ally as the
revolutionary peasantry of Russia. Does it need proof that such a revolution could not
stop half-way, that in the event of success it was bound to advance further and raise
the banner of revolt against imperialism?
That is why Russia was bound to become the focus of the contradictions of
impeialism, not only in the sense that it was in Russia that these contradictions were
revealed most plainly, in view of their particularly repulsive and particularly
intolerable character, and not only because Russia was a highly important prop of
Western imperialism, connecting Western finance capital with the colonies in the
East, but also because Russia was the only country in which there existed a real force
capable of resolving the contradictions of imperialism in a revolutionary way.
From this it follows, however, that the revolution in Russia could not but become a
proletarian revolution, that from its very inception it could not but assume an
international character, and that, therefore, it could not but shake the very foundations
of world imperialism.
Under these circumstances, could the Russian Communist confine their work within
the narrow national bounds of the Russian revolution? Of course not. On the contrary,
the whole situation ,both internal (the profound revolutionary crisis) and external (the
war), impelled them to go beyond these bounds in their work, to transfer the struggle
to the international arena, to expose the ulcers of imperialism, to prove that the
collapse of capitalism was inevitable, to smash social-chauvinism and social-pacifism,
and , finally, to overthrow capitalism in their own country and to forge a new fighting
weapon for the proletariat-the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution-in order
to facilitate the task of overthrowing capitalism for the proletarians of all countries.
Nor could the Russian Communist act otherwise, for only this path offered the chance
of producing certain changes in the international situation which could safeguard
Russia against the restoration of the bourgeois order.
That is why Russia became the home of Leninism, and why Lenin, the leader of the
Russian Communist, became its creator.
The same thing, approximately, "happened" in the case of Russia and Lenin as in the
case of Germany and Marx and Engels in the forties of the last century. Germany at
that time was pregnant with bourgeois revolution just like Russia at the beginning of
the twentieth century. Marx wrote at that time in the Communist Manifesto :
"The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on
the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried out under more advanced
conditions of European civilisation, and with a much more developed proletariat, than
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that of England was in the seventeenth, and of France in the eighteenth century, and
because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an
immediately following proletarian revolution." [1].
In other words, the centre of the revolutionary movement was shifting to Germany.
There can hardly be any doubt that it was this very circumstance, noted by Marx in the
above-quoted passage, that served as the probable reason why it was precisely
Germany that became the birthpalce of scientific socialism and why the leaders of the
German proletariat, Marx and Engels, became its creators.
The same, only to a still greater degree, must be said of Russia at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Russia was then on the eve of a bourgeois revolution; she had to
accomplish this revolution at a time when conditions in Europe were more advanced,
and with a proletariat that was more developed than that of Germany in the forties of
the nineteenth (let alone Britain and France); moreover, all the evidence went to show
that this revolution was bound to serve as a ferment and as a prelude to the proletarian
revolution. We cannot regard it as accidental that as early as 1902, when the Russian
revolution was still in an embryonic state, Lenin wrote the prophetic words in his
pamphlet What Is To Be Done? :
"History has now confronted us (i.e., the Russian Marxists-J. St.) with an immediate
task which is the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks that confront the
proletariat of any country," and that … "the fulfilment of this task, the destruction of
the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but also (it may now be said) of
Asiatic reaction, would make the Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international
revolutionary proletariat" (see Vol. IV, p. 382).
In other words, the centre of the revolutionary movement was bound to shift to Russia.
As we know, the course of the revolution in Russia has more than vindicated Lenin's
prediction.
Is it surprising, after all this, that a country which has accomplished such a revolution
and possesses such a proletariat should have been the birthplace of the theory and
tactics of the proletarian revolution?
Is it surprising that Lenin, the leader of Russia's proletariat, became also the creator of
this theory and tactics and the leader of the international proletariat?
II
Method
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I have already said that between Marx and Engels on the one hand, and Lenin, on the
other, there lies a whole period of domination of the opportunism of the Second
International. For the sake of exactitude I must add that it is not the formal domination
of opportunism I have in mind, but only its actual domination. Formally, the Second
International was headed by "faithful" Marxists, by the "orthodox"-Kautsky and
others. Actually, however, the main work of the Second International followed the
line of opportunism. The opportunists adapted themselves to the bourgeois because of
their adaptive, petty-bourgeois nature; the "orthodox," in their turn, adapted
themselves to the opportunists in order to "preserve unity" with them, in the interests
of "peace within the party." Thus the link between the policy of the bourgeois and the
policy of the "orthodox" was closed, and, as a result, opportunism reigned supreme.
This was the period of the relatively peaceful development of capitalism, the pre-war
period, so to speak, when the catastrophic contradictions of imperialism had not yet
became so glaringly evident, when workers' economic strikes and trade unions were
developing more or less "normally," when election campaigns and parliamentary
groups yielded "dizzying" successes, when legal forms of struggle were lauded to the
skies, and when it was thought that capitalism would be "killed" by legal means-in
short, when the parties of the Second International were living in clover and had no
inclination to think seriously about revolution, about the dictatorship of the proletariat,
about the revolutionary education of the masses.
Instead of an integral revolutionary theory, there were contradictory theoretical
postulates and fragments of theory, which were divorced from the actual revolutionary
struggle of the masses and had been turned into threadbare dogmas. For the sake of
appearances, Marx's theory was mentioned, of course, but only to rob it of its living,
revolutionary spirit.
Instead of a revolutionary policy, there was flabby philistinism and sordid political
bargaining, parliamentary diplomacy and parliamentary scheming. For the sake of
appearances, of course, "revolutionary" resolutions and slogans were adopted, but
only to be pigeonholed.
Instead of the party being trained and taught correct revolutionary tactics on the basis
of its own mistakes, there was a studied evasion of vexed questions, which were
glossed over and veiled. For the sake of appearances, of course, there was no
objection to talking about vexed questions, but only in order to wind up with some
sort of "elastic" resolution.
Such was the physiognomy of the Second International, its methods of work, its
arsenal.
Meanwhile, a new period of imperialist wars and of revolutionary battles of the
proletariat was approaching. The old methods of fighting were proving obviously
inadequate and impotent in the face of the omnipotence of finance capital.
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It became necessary to overhaul the entire activity of the Second International, its
entire method of work, and to drive out all philistinism, narrow-mindedness, political
scheming, regency, social-chauvinism and social-pacifism. It became necessary to
examine the entire arsenal of the Second International, to throw out all that was rusty
and antiquated, to forge new weapons. Without this preliminary work it was useless
embarking upon war against capitalism. Without this work the proletariat ran the risk
of finding itself inadequately armed, or even completely unarmed, in the future
revolutionary battles.
The honour of bringing about this general overhauling and general cleansing of the
Augean stables of the Second International fell to Leninism.
Such were the conditions under which the method of Leninism was born and
hammered out.
What are the requirements of this method?
Firstly, the testing of the theoretical dogmas of the Second International in the crucible
of the revolutionary struggle of the masses, in the crucible of living practice-that is to
say, the restoration of the broken unity between theory and practice, the healing of the
rift between them; for only in this way can a truly proletarian party armed with
revolutionary theory be created.
Secondly, the testing of the policy of the parties of the Second International, not by
their slogans and resolutions (which cannot be trusted), but by their deeds, by their
actions; for only in this way can the confidence of the proletarian masses be won and
deserved.
Thirdly, the reorganisation of all Party work on new revolutionary lines, with a view
to training and preparing the masses for the revolutionary struggle; for only in this
way can the masses be prepared for the proletarian revolution.
Fourthly, self-criticism within the proletarian parties, their education and training on
the basis of their own mistakes; for only in this way can genuine cadres and genuine
leaders of the Party be trained.
Such is the basis and substance of the method of Leninism.
How was this method applied in practice?
The opportunists of the Second International have a number of theoretical dogmas to
which they always revert as their starting point. Let us take a few of these.
First dogma: concerning the conditions for the seizure of power by the proletariat. The
opportunists assert that the proletariat cannot and ought not to take power unless it
constitutes a majority in the country. No proofs are brought forward, for there are no
proofs, either theoretical or practical, that can bear out this absurd thesis. Let us
assume that this is so, Lenin replies to the gentlemen of the Second International; but
suppose a historical situation has arisen (a war, an agrarian crisis, etc.) in which the
proletariat, constituting a minority of the population, has an opportunity to rally
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around itself the vast majority of the labouring masses; why should it not take power
then? Why should the proletariat not take advantage of a favourable international and
internal situation to pierce the front of capital and hasten the general denouement? Did
not Marx say as far back as the fifties of the last century that things could go
"splendidly" with the proletarian revolution in Germany were it possible to back it by,
so to speak, a "second edition of the Peasant War" 1? Is it not a generally know fact
that in those days the number of proletarians in Germany was relatively smaller than,
for example, in Russia in 1917? Has not the practical experience of the Russian
proletarian revolution shown that this favourite dogma of the heroes of the Second
International is devoid of all vital significance for the proletariat? Is it not clear that
the practical experience of the revolutionary struggle of the masses refute and smashes
this obsolete dogma?
Second dogma: the proletariat cannot retain power if it lacks an adequate number of
trained cultural and administrative cadres capable of organising the administration of
the country; these cadres must first be trained under capitalist conditions, and only
then can power be taken. Let us assume that this is so, replies Lenin; but why not turn
it this way: first take power, create favourable conditions for the development of the
proletariat, and then proceed with seven-league strides to raise the cultural level of the
labouring masses and train numerous cadres of leaders and administrators from among
the workers? Has not Russian experience shown that the cadres of leaders recruited
from the ranks of the workers develop a hundred times more rapidly and effectually
under the rule of the proletariat than under the rule of capital? Is it not clear that the
practical experience of the revolutionary struggle of the masses ruthlessly smashes
this theoretical dogma of the opportunists too?
Third dogma: the proletariat cannot accept the method of the political general strike
because it is unsound in theory (see Engels's criticism) and dangerous in practice (it
may disturb the normal course of economic life in the country, it may deplete the
coffers of the trade unions), and cannot serve as a substitute for parliamentary forms
of struggle, which are the principal form of the class struggle of the proletariat. Very
well, reply the Leninists; but, firstly, Engels did not criticise every kind of general
strike. He only criticised a certain kind of general strike, namely, the economic
general strike advocated by the Anarchists 2 in place of the political struggle of the
proletariat. What has this to do with the method of the political general strike?
Secondly, where and by whom has it ever been proved that the parliamentary form of
struggle is the principle form of struggle of the proletariat? Does not the history of the
revolutionary movement show that the parliamentary struggle is only a school for, and
an auxiliary in, organising the extra-parliamentary struggle of the proletariat, that
under capitalism the fundamental problems of the working-class movement are solved
by force, by the direct struggle of the proletarian masses, their general strike, their
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uprising? Thirdly, who suggested that the method of the political general strike be
substituted for the parliamentary struggle? Where and when have the supporters of the
political general strike sought to substitute extra-parliamentary forms of struggle for
parliamentary forms? Fourthly, has not the revolution in Russia shown that the
political general strike is a highly important school for the proletarian revolution and
an indispensable means of mobilising and organising the vast masses of the proletariat
on the eve of storming the citadels of capitalism? Why then the philistine lamentations
over the disturbance of the normal course of economic life and over the coffers of the
trade unions? Is it not clear that the practical experience of the revolutionary struggle
smashes this dogma of the opportunists too?
And so on and so forth.
This is why Lenin said that "revolutionary theory is not a dogma," that it "assumes
final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and
truly revolutionary movement" ("Left-Wing" Communism3); for theory must serve
practice, for "theory must answer the questions raised by practice" (What the "Friends
of the People" Are 4), for it must be tested by practical results.
As to the political slogans and the political resolutions of the parties of the Second
International, it is sufficient to recall the history of the slogan "war against war" to
realise how utterly false and utterly rotten are the political practices of these parties,
which use pompous revolutionary slogans and resolutions to cloak their antirevolutionary deeds. We all remember the pompous demonstrations of the Second
International at the Basle Congress, 5 at which it threatened the imperialist with all the
horrors of insurrection if they should dare to start a war, and with the menacing slogan
"war against war." But who does not remember that some time after, on the very eve
of the war, the Basle resolution was pigeonholed and the workers were given a new
slogan-to exterminate each other for the glory of their capitalist fatherlands? Is it not
clear that revolutionary slogans and resolutions are not worth a farthing unless backed
by deeds? One need only contrast the Leninist policy of transforming the imperialist
war into civil war with the treacherous policy of the Second International during the
war to understand the utter baseness of the opportunist politicians and the full
grandeur of the method of Leninism.
I cannot refrain from quoting at this point a passage from Lenin's book The
Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, in which Lenin severely castigates
an opportunist attempt by the leader of the Second International, K. Kautsky, to judge
parties not by their deeds, but by their paper slogans and documents:
"Kautsky is pursuing a typically petty-bourgeois, philistine policy by pretending ...
that putting forward a slogan alters the position. The entire history of bourgeois
democracy refutes this illusion; the bourgeois democrats have always advanced and
still advance all sorts of "slogans' in order to deceive the people. The point is to test
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their sincerity, to compare their words with their deeds, not to be satisfied with
idealistic or charlatan phrases, but to get down to class reality" (see Vol. XXIII, p.
377).
There is no need to mention the fear the parties of the Second International have of
self-criticism, their habit of concealing their mistakes, of glossing over vexed
questions, of covering up their shortcomings by a deceptive show of well-being which
blunts living thought and prevents the Party from deriving revolutionary training from
its own mistakes-a habit which was ridiculed and pilloried by Lenin. Here is what
Lenin wrote about self-criticism in proletarian parties in his pamphlet "Left-Wing"
Communism:
"The attitude of a political party towards its own mistakes is one of the most important
and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it in practice fulfils its
obligation towards its class and the toiling masses. Frankly admitting a mistake,
ascertaining the reasons for it, analysing the circumstances which gave rise to it, and
thoroughly discussing the means of correcting it-that is the earmark of a serious party;
that is the way it should perform its duties, that is the way it should educate and train
the class, and then the masses" (see Vol. XXV, p. 200).
Some say that the exposure of its own mistakes and self-criticism are dangerous for
the Party because they may be used by the enemy against the party of the proletariat.
Lenin regarded such objections as trivial and entirely wrong. Here is what he wrote on
this subject as far back as 1904, in his pamphlet One Step Forward, when our Party
was still weak and small:
"They (i.e., the opponents of the Marxists-J. St.) gloat and grimace over our
controversies; and, of course, they will try to pick isolated passages from my
pamphlet, which deals with the defects and shortcomings of our Party, and to use them
for their own ends. The Russian Social-Democrats are already steeled enough in battle
not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of
self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will
unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working-class movement grows"
(see Vol. VI, p. 161).
Such, in general, are the characteristics features of the method of Leninism.
What is contained in Lenin's method was in the main already contained in the
teachings of Marx, which, according to Marx himself, were "in essence critical and
revolutionary."6 It is precisely this critical and revolutionary spirit that pervades
Lenin's method from beginning to end. But it would be wrong to suppose that Lenin's
method is merely the restoration of the method of Marx. As a matter of fact, Lenin's
method is not only the restoration of, but also the concretisation and further
development of the critical and revolutionary method of Marx, of his materialist
dialectics.
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III
Theory
From this theme I take three questions:
a) the importance of theory for the proletarian movement;
b) criticism of the "theory" of spontaneity;
c) the theory of the proletarian revolution.
1) The importance of theory. Some think that Leninism is the precedence of practice
over theory in the sense that its main point is the translation of the Marxist theses into
deeds, their "execution"; as for theory; it is alleged that Leninism is rather
unconcerned about it. We know that Plekhanov time and again chaffed Lenin about
his "unconcern" for theory, and particularly for philosophy. We also know that theory
is not held in great favour by many present-day Leninist practical workers,
particularly in view of the immense amount of practical work imposed upon them by
the situation. I must declare that this more than odd opinion about Lenin and Leninism
is quite wrong and bears no relation whatever to the truth; that the attempt of practical
workers to brush theory aside runs counter to the whole spirit of Leninism and is
fraught with serious dangers to the work.
Theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its
general aspect. Of course, theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with
revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illumined by
revolutionary theory. But theory can become a tremendous force in the working-class
movement if it is built up in indissoluble connection with revolutionary practice; for
theory, and theory alone, can give the movement confidence, the power of orientation,
and an understanding of the inner relation of surrounding events; for it, and it alone,
can help practice to realise not only how and in which direction classes are moving at
the present time, but also how and in which direction they will move in the near
future. None other than Lenin uttered and repeated scores of times the well-know
thesis that:
"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement"1 (see Vol.
IV, p. 380).
Lenin, better than anyone else, understood the great importance of theory, particularly
for a party such as ours, in view of the vanguard fighter of the international proletariat
which has fallen to its lot, and in view of the complicated internal and international
situation in which it finds itself. Foreseeing this special role of our Party as far back as
1902, he thought it necessary even then to point out that:
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"The role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the
most advanced theory" (see Vol. IV, p. 380).
It scarcely needs proof that now, when Lenin's prediction about the role of our Party
has come true, this thesis of Lenin's acquires special force and special importance.
Perhaps the most striking expression of the great importance which Lenin attached to
theory is the fact that none other than Lenin undertook the very serious task of
generalising, on the basis of materialist philosophy, the most important achievements
of science from the time of Engels down to his time, as well as of subjecting to
comprehensive criticism the anti-materialistic trends among Marxists. Engels said that
"materialism must assume a new aspect with every new great discovery." 2 It is well
known that none other than Lenin accomplished this task for his own time in his
remarkable work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.3 It is well known that
Plekhanov, who loved to chaff Lenin about his "unconcern" for philosophy, did not
even dare to make a serious attempt to undertake such a task.
2) Criticism of the "theory" of spontaneity, or the role of the vanguard in the
movement. The "theory" of spontaneity is a theory of opportunism, a theory of
worshipping the spontaneity of the labour movement, a theory which actually
repudiates the leading role of the vanguard of the working class, of the party of the
working class.
The theory of worshipping spontaneity is decidedly opposed to the revolutionary
character of the working class movement; it is opposed to the movement taking the
line of struggle against the foundations of capitalism; it is in favour of the movement
proceeding exclusively along the line of "realisable demands, of demands
"acceptable" to capitalism; it is wholly in favour of the "line of least resistance." The
theory of spontaneity is the ideology of trade unionism.
The theory of worshipping spontaneity is decidedly opposed to giving the spontaneous
movement a politically conscious, planned character. It is opposed to the Party
marching at the head of the working class, to the Party raising the masses to the level
of political consciousness, to the Party leading the movement; it is in favour of the
politically conscious elements of the movement not hindering the movement from
taking its own course; it is in favour of the Party only heeding the spontaneous
movement and dragging at the tail of it. The theory of spontaneity is the theory of
belittling the role of the conscious element in the movement, the ideology of
"khvostism," the logical basis of all opportunism.
In practice this theory, which appeared on the scene even before the first revolution in
Russia, led its adherents, the so-called "Economists," to deny the need for an
independent workers' party in Russia, to oppose the revolutionary struggle of the
working class for the overthrow of tsarism, to preach a purely trade-unionist policy in
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the movement, and, in general, to surrender the labour movement to the hegemony of
the liberal bourgeoisie.
The fight of the old Iskra and the brilliant criticism of the theory of "khvostism" in
Lenin's pamphlet What Is To Be Done? not only smashed so-called "Economism," but
also created the theoretical foundations for a truly revolutionary movement of the
Russian working class.
Without this fight it would have been quite useless even to think of creating an
independent workers' party in Russia and of its playing a leading part in the
revolution.
But the theory of worshipping spontaneity is not an exclusively Russian phenomenon.
It is extremely widespread-in a somewhat different form, it is true-in all parties of the
Second International, without exception. I have in mind the so-called "productive
forces" theory as debased by the leaders of the Second International, which justifies
everything and conciliates everybody, which records facts and explains them after
everyone has become sick and tired of them, and, having recorded them, rests content.
Marx said that the materialist theory could not confine itself to explaining the world,
that it must also change it.4 But Kautsky and Co. are not concerned with this; they
prefer to rest content with the first part of Marx's formula.
Here is one of the numerous examples of the application of this "theory." It is said that
before the imperialist war the parties of the Second International threatened to declare
"war against war" if the imperialists should start a war. It is said that on the very eve
of the war these parties pigeonholed the "war against war" slogan and applied an
opposite one, viz., "war for the imperialist fatherland." It is said that as a result of this
change of slogans millions of workers were sent to their death. But it would be a
mistake to think that there were some people to blame for this, that someone was
unfaithful to the working class or betrayed it. Not at all! Everything happened as it
should have happened. Firstly, because the International, it seems, is "an instrument of
peace," and not of war. Secondly, because, in view of the "level of the productive
forces" which then prevailed, nothing else could be done. The "productive forces" are
"to blame." That is the precise explanation vouchsafed to "us" by Mr. Kautsky's
"theory of the productive forces." And whoever does not believe in that "theory" is not
a Marxist. The role of the parties? Their importance for the movement? But what can
a party do against so decisive a factor as the "level of the productive forces"?...
One could cite a host of similar examples of the falsification of Marxism.
It scarcely needs proof that this spurious "Marxism," designed to hide the nakedness
of opportunism, is merely a European variety of the selfsame theory of "khvostism"
which Lenin fought even before the first Russian revolution.
It scarcely needs proof that the demolition of this theoretical falsification is a
preliminary condition for the creation of truly revolutionary parties in the West.
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3) The theory of the proletarian revolution. Lenin's theory of the proletarian
revolution proceeds from three fundamental theses.
First thesis: The domination of finance capital in the advanced capitalist countries; the
issue of stocks and bonds as one of the principal operations of finance capital; the
export of capital to the sources of raw materials, which is one of the foundations of
imperialism; the omnipotence of a financial oligarchy, which is the result of the
domination of finance capital-all this reveals the grossly parasitic character of
monopolistic capitalism, makes the yoke of the capitalist trusts and syndicates a
hundred times more burdensome, intensifies the indignation of the working class with
the foundations of capitalism, and brings the masses to the proletarian revolution as
their only salvation (see Lenin, Imperialism5).
Hence the first conclusion: intensification of the revolutionary crisis within the
capitalist countries and growth of the elements of an explosion on the internal,
proletarian front in the "metropolises."
Second thesis : The increase in the export of capital to the colonies and dependent
countries; the expansion of "spheres of influence" and colonial possessions until they
cover the whole globe; the transformation of capitalism into a world system of
financial enslavement and colonial oppression of the vast majority of the population of
the world by a handful of "advanced" countries-all this has, on the one hand,
converted the separate national economies and national territories into links in a single
chain called world economy, and, on the other hand, split the population of the globe
into two camps: a handful of "advanced" capitalist countries which exploit and
oppress vast colonies and dependencies, and the huge majority consisting of colonial
and dependent countries which are compelled to wage a struggle for liberation from
the imperialist yoke (see Imperialism).
Hence the second conclusion: intensification of the revolutionary crisis in the colonial
countries and growth of the elements of revolt against imperialism on the external,
colonial front.
Third thesis: The monopolistic possession of "spheres of influence" and colonies; the
uneven development of the capitalist countries, leading to a frenzied struggle for the
redivision of the world between the countries which have already seized territories and
those claiming their "share"; imperialist wars as the only means of restoring the
disturbed "equilibrium"-all this leads to the intensification of the struggle on the third
front, the inter-capitalist front, which weakens imperialism and facilitates the union of
the first two fronts against imperialism: the front of the revolutionary proletariat and
the front of colonial emancipation (see Imperialism).
Hence the third conclusion: that under imperialism wars cannot be averted, and that a
coalition between the proletarian revolution in Europe and the colonial revolution in
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the East in a united world front of revolution against the world front of imperialism is
inevitable.
Lenin combines all these conclusions into one general conclusion that "imperialism is
the eve of the socialist revolution" 6 (see Vol. XIX, p. 71).
The very approach to the question of the proletarian revolution, of the character of the
revolution, of its scope, of its depth, the scheme of the revolution in general, changes
accordingly.
Formerly, the analysis of the pre-requisites for the proletarian revolution was usually
approached from the point of view of the economic state of individual countries. Now,
this approach is no longer adequate. Now the matter must be approached from the
point of view of the economic state of all or the majority of countries, from the point
of view of the state of world economy; for individual countries and individual national
economies have ceased to be self-sufficient units, have become links in a single chain
called world economy; for the old "cultured" capitalism has evolved into imperialism,
and imperialism is a world system of financial enslavement and colonial oppression of
the vast majority of the population of the world by a handful of "advanced" countries.
Formerly it was the accepted thing to speak of the existence or absence of objective
conditions for the proletarian revolution in individual countries, or, to be more precise,
in one or another developed country. Now this point of view is no longer adequate.
Now we must speak of the existence of objective conditions for the revolution in the
entire system of world imperialist economy as an integral whole; the existence within
this system of some countries that are not sufficiently developed industrially cannot
serve as an insuperable obstacle to the revolution, if the system as a whole or, more
correctly, because the system as a whole is already ripe for revolution.
Formerly, it was the accepted thing to speak of the proletarian revolution in one or
another developed country as of a separate and self-sufficient entity opposing a
separate national front of capital as its antipode. Now, this point of view is no longer
adequate. Now we must speak of the world proletarian revolution; for the separate
national fronts of capital have become links in a single chain called the world front of
imperialism, which must be opposed by a common front of the revolutionary
movement in all countries.
Formerly the proletarian revolution was regarded exclusively as the result of the
internal development of a given country. Now, this point of view is no longer
adequate. Now the proletarian revolution must be regarded primarily as the result of
the development of the contradictions within the world system of imperialism, as the
result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front in one country or
another.
Where will the revolution begin? Where, in what country, can the front of capital be
pierced first?
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Where industry is more developed, where the proletarian constitutes the majority,
where the proletariat constitutes the majority, where the there is more culture, where
there is more democracy-that was the reply usually given formerly.
No, objects the Leninist theory of revolution, not necessarily where industry is more
developed, and so forth. The front of capital will be pierced where the chain of
imperialism is weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the result of the breaking of
the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link; and it may turn out that the
country which has started the revolution, which has made a breach in the front of
capital, is less developed in a capitalist sense than other, more developed, countries,
which have, however, remained within the framework of capitalism.
In 1917 the chain of the imperialist world front proved to be weaker in Russia than in
the other countries. It was there that the chain broke and provided an outlet for the
proletarian revolution. Why? Because in Russian a great popular revolution was
unfolding and at its head marched the revolutionary proletariat, which had such an
important ally as the vast mass of the peasantry, which was oppressed and exploited
by the landlords. Because the revolution there was opposed by such a hideous
representative of imperialism as tsarism, which lacked all moral prestige and was
deservedly hated by the whole population. The chain proved to be weaker in Russia,
although Russia was less developed in a capitalist sense than, say France or Germany,
Britain or America.
Where will the chain break in the near future? Again, where it is weakest. It is not
precluded that the chain may break, say, in India. Why? Because that country has a
young, militant, revolutionary proletariat, which has such an ally as the national
liberation movement-an undoubtedly powerful and undoubtedly important ally.
Because there the revolution is confronted by such a well-known foe as foreign
imperialism, which has no moral credit and is deservedly hated by all the oppressed
and exploited masses in India.
It is also quite possible that he chain will break in Germany. Why? Because the factors
which are operating, say, in India are beginning to operate in Germany as well; but, of
course, the enormous difference in the level of development between India and
Germany cannot but stamp its imprint on the progress and outcome of a revolution in
Germany.
Lenin said that :
"The West-European capitalist countries will consummate their development toward
socialism ... not by the even 'maturing' of socialism in them, but by the exploitation of
some countries by others, by the exploitation of the first of the countries to be
vanquished in the imperialist war combined with the exploitation of the whole of the
East. On the other hand, precisely as a result of the first imperialist war, the East has
definitely come into revolutionary movement, has been definitely drawn into the
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general maelstrom of the world revolutionary movement" (see Vol. XXVII, pp. 41516)
Briefly: the chain of the imperialist front must, as a rule, break where the links are
weaker and, at all events, not necessarily where capitalism is more developed, where
there is such and such a percentage of proletarians and such and such a percentage of
peasants, and so on.
That is why in deciding the question of proletarian revolution statistical estimates of
the percentage of the proletarian population in a given country lose the exceptional
importance so eagerly attached to them by the doctrinaires of the Second
International, who have not understood imperialism and who fear revolution like the
plague.
To proceed. The heroes of the Second International asserted (and continue to assert)
that between the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the proletarian revolution there
is a chasm, or at any rate a Chinese Wall, separating one from the other by a more or
less protracted interval of time, during which the bourgeoisie having come into power,
develops capitalism, while the proletariat accumulates strength and prepares for the
"decisive struggle" against capitalism. This interval is usually calculated to extend
over many decades, if not longer. It scarcely needs proof that this Chinese Wall
"theory" is totally devoid of scientific meaning under the conditions of imperialism,
that it is and can be only a means of concealing and camouflaging the counterrevolutionary aspirations of the bourgeoisie. It scarcely needs proof that under the
conditions of imperialism, fraught as it is with collisions and wars; under the
conditions of the "eve of the socialist revolution," when "flourishing" capitalism
becomes "moribund" capitalism (Lenin) and the revolutionary movement is growing
in all countries of the world; when imperialism is allying itself with all reactionary
forces without exception, down to and including tsarism and serfdom, thus making
imperative the coalition of all revolutionary forces, from the proletarian movement of
the West, to the national liberation movement of the East; when the overthrow of the
survivals of the regime of feudal serfdom becomes impossible without a revolutionary
struggle against imperialism-it scarcely needs proof that the bourgeois-democratic
revolution, in a more of less developed country, must under such circumstances verge
upon the proletarian revolution, that the former must pass into the latter. The history
of the revolution in Russia has provided palpable proof that this thesis is correct and
incontrovertible. It was not without reason that Lenin, as far back as 1905, on the eve
of the first Russian revolution, in his pamphlet Two Tactics depicted the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution and the socialist revolution as two links in the same chain, as a
single and integral picture of the sweep of the Russian revolution :
"The proletariat must carry to completion the democratic revolution, by allying to
itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush by force the resistance of the
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autocracy and to paralyse the instability of the bourgeoisie. The proletariat must
accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semiproletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the
bourgeoisie and to paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.
Such are the tasks of the proletariat, which the new Iskra-ists present so narrowly in
all their arguments and resolutions about the sweep of the revolution" (see Lenin, Vol.
VIII, p. 96).
There is no need to mention other, later works of Lenin's, in which the idea of the
bourgeoisie revolution passing into the proletarian revolution stands out in greater
relief than in Two Tactics as one of the cornerstones of the Leninist theory of
revolution.
Some comrades believe, it seems, that Lenin arrived at this idea only in 1916, that up
to that time he had thought that the revolution in Russia would remain within the
bourgeois framework, that power, consequently, would pass from the hands of the
organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry into the hands of the
bourgeoisie and not of the proletariat. It is said that this assertion has even penetrated
into our communist press. I must say that this assertion is absolutely wrong, that it is
totally at variance with the facts.
I might refer to Lenin's well-known speech at the Third Congress of the Party (1905),
in which he defined the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, i.e., the victory of
the democratic revolution, not as the "organisation of 'order'" but as the "organisation
of war" (see Vol. VII, p. 264).
Further, I might refer to Lenin's well-known articles "On a Provisional Government"
(1905), 7 where, outlining the prospects of the unfolding Russian revolution, he
assigns to the Party the task of "ensuring that the Russian revolution is not a
movement of a few months, but a movement of many years, that it leads, not merely
to slight concessions on the part of the powers that be, but to the complete overthrow
of those powers"; where, enlarging further on these prospects and linking them with
the revolution in Europe, he goes on to say :
"And if we succeed in doing that, then ... then the revolutionary conflagration will
spread all over Europe; the European worker, languishing under bourgeois reaction,
will rise in his turn and will show us 'how it is done'; then the revolutionary wave in
Europe will sweep back again into Russia and will convert an epoch of a few
revolutionary years into an epoch of several revolutionary decades ... " (ibid., p. 191).
I might further refer to a well-known article by Lenin published in November 1915, in
which he writes :
"The proletariat is fighting, and will fight valiantly, to capture power, for a republic
for the confiscation of the land ... for the participation of the 'non-proletarian masses
of the people' in liberating bourgeois Russia from military-feudal 'imperialism'
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(=tsarism). And the proletariat will immediately 8 take advantage of this liberation of
bourgeois Russia from tsarism, from the agrarian power of the landlords, not to aid the
rich peasants in their struggle against the rural worker, but to bring about the socialist
revolution in alliance with the proletarians of Europe" (see Vol. XVIII, p. 318).
Finally, I might refer to the well-known passage in Lenin's pamphlet The Proletarian
Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, where, referring to the above-quoted passage
in Two Tactics on the sweep of the Russian revolution, he arrives at the following
conclusion :
"Things turned out just as we said they would. The course taken by the revolution
confirmed the correctness of our reasoning. First, with the 'whole' of the peasantry
against the monarchy, against the landlords, against the medieval regime (and to that
extent the revolution remains bourgeois, bourgeois-democratic.) Then, with the poor
peasants, with the semi-proletarians, with all the exploited, against capitalism,
including the rural rich, the kulaks, the profiteers, and to that extent the revolution
becomes a socialist one. To attempt to raise an artificial Chinese Wall between the
first and second, to separate them by anything else than the degree of preparedness of
the proletariat and the degree of its unity with the poor peasants, means monstrously
to distort Marxism, to vulgarise it, to replace it by liberalism" (see Vol. XXIII, p. 391).
That is sufficient, I think.
Very well, we may be told; but if that is the case, why did Lenin combat the idea of
"permanent (uninterrupted) revolution"?
Because Lenin proposed that the revolutionary capacities of the peasantry be
"exhausted" and that the fullest use be made of their revolutionary energy for the
complete liquidation of tsarism and for the transition to the proletarian revolution,
whereas the adherents of "permanent revolution" did not understand the important role
of the peasantry in the Russian revolution, underestimated the strength of the
revolutionary energy of the peasantry, underestimated the strength and ability of the
Russian proletariat to lead the peasantry and thereby hampered the work of
emancipating the peasantry from the influence of the bourgeois, the work of rallying
the peasantry around the proletariat.
Because Lenin proposed that the revolution be crowned with the transfer of power to
the proletariat, whereas the adherents of "permanent" revolution wanted to begin at
once with the establishment of the power of the proletariat, failing to realise that in so
doing they were closing their eyes to such a "minor detail" as the survivals of serfdom
and were leaving out of account so important a force as the Russian peasantry, failing
to understand that such a policy could only retard the winning of the peasantry over to
the side of the proletariat.
Consequently, Lenin fought the adherents of "permanent" revolution, not over the
question of uninterruptedness, for Lenin himself maintained the point of view of
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uninterrupted revolution, but because they underestimated the role of the peasantry,
which is an enormous reserve of the proletariat, because they failed to understand the
idea of the hegemony of the proletariat.
The idea of "permanent" revolution should not be regarded as a new idea. It was first
advanced by Marx at the end of the forties in his well-known Address to the
Communist League (1850). It is from this document that our "permanentists" took the
idea of uninterrupted revolution. It should be noted that in taking it from Marx our
"permanentists" altered it somewhat, and in altering it "spoilt" it and made it unfit for
practical use. The experienced hand of Lenin was needed to rectify this mistake, to
take Marx's idea of uninterrupted revolution in its pure form and make it a cornerstone
of his theory of revolution.
Here is what Marx says in his Address about uninterrupted (permanent) revolution,
after enumerating a number of revolutionary-democratic demands which he calls upon
the Communists to win :
"While the democratic petty bourgeois wish to bring the revolution to a conclusion as
quickly as possible, and with the achievement, at most, of the above demands, it is our
interest and our task to make the revolution permanent, until all more or less
possessing classes have been forced out of their position of dominance, until the
proletariat has conquered state power, and the association of proletarians, not only in
one country but in all the dominant countries of the world, has advanced so far that
competition among the proletarians of these countries has ceased and that at least the
decisive productive forces are concentrated in the hands of the proletarians." 9
In other words:
a)Marx did not at all propose to begin the revolution in the Germany of the fifties with
the immediate establishment of proletarian power-contrary, to the plans of our
Russian "permanentists."
b)Marx proposed only that the revolution be crowned with the establishment of
proletarian state power, by hurling, step by step, one section of the bourgeoisie after
another from the heights of power, in order, after the attainment of power by the
proletariat, to kindle the fire of revolution in every country-and everything that Lenin
taught and carried out in the course of our revolution in pursuit of his theory of the
proletarian revolution under the conditions of imperialism was fully in line with that
proposition.
It follows, then, that our Russian "permanentists" have not only underestimated the
role of the peasantry in the Russian revolution and the importance of the idea of
hegemony of the proletariat, but have altered (for the worse) Marx's idea of
"permanent" revolution and made it unfit for practical use.
That is why Lenin ridiculed the theory of our "permanentists," calling it "original" and
"fine," and accusing them of refusing to "think why, for ten whole years, life has
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passed by this fine theory." (Lenin's article was written in 1915, ten years after the
appearance of the theory of the "permanentists" in Russia. See Vol. XVIII, p. 317.)
That is why Lenin regarded this theory as a semi-Menshevik theory and said that it
"borrows from the Bolsheviks their call for a resolute revolutionary struggle by the
proletariat and the conquest of political power by the latter, and from the Mensheviks
the 'repudiation' of the role of the peasantry" (see Lenin's article "Two Lines of the
Revolution," ibid.).
This, then, is the position in regard to Lenin's idea of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution passing into the proletarian revolution, of utilising the bourgeois revolution
for the "immediate" transition to the proletarian revolution.
To proceed. Formerly, the victory of the revolution in one country was considered
impossible, on the assumption that it would require the combined action of the
proletarians of all or at least of a majority of the advanced countries to achieve victory
over the bourgeoisie. Now this point of view no longer fits in with the facts. Now we
must proceed from the possibility of such a victory, for the uneven and spasmodic
character of the development of the various capitalist countries under the conditions of
imperialism, the development within imperialism of catastrophic contradictions
leading to inevitable wars, the growth of the revolutionary movement in all countries
of the world-all this leads, not only to the possibility, but also to the necessity of the
victory of the proletariat in individual countries. The history of the revolution in
Russia is direct proof of this. At the same time, however, it must be borne in mind,
that the overthrow of the bourgeoisie can be successfully accomplished only when
certain absolutely necessary conditions exist, in the absence of which there can be
even no question of the proletariat taking power.
Here is what Lenin says about these conditions in his pamphlet "Left-Wing"
Communism :
"The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions, and
particularly by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follow: it is
not enough for revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand
the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; it is essential for
revolution that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. Only
when the 'lower classes' do not want the old way, and when the 'upper classes' cannot
carry on in the old way, -only then can revolution triumph. This truth may be
expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis
(affecting both the exploited and the exploiters) .10 It follows that for revolution it is
essential, first, that a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class
conscious, thinking, politically active workers) should fully understand that revolution
is necessary and be ready to sacrifice their lives for it; secondly, that the ruling classes
should be passing through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most
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backward masses into politics ... weakens the government and makes it possible for
the revolutionaries to overthrow it rapidly" (see Vol. XXV, p, 222)
But the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of
the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of socialism
has been ensured. After consolidating its power and leading the peasantry in its wake
the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society. But
does this mean that it will thereby achieve the complete and final victory of socialism,
i.e., does it mean that with the forces of only one country it can finally consolidate
socialism and fully guarantee that country against intervention and, consequently, also
against restoration? No, it does not. For this the victory of the revolution in at least
several countries is needed. Therefore, the development and support of the revolution
in other countries is an essential task of the victorious revolution. Therefore, the
revolution which has been victorious in one country must regard itself not as a selfsufficient entity, but as an aid, as a means for hastening the victory of the proletariat in
other countries.
Lenin expressed this thought succinctly when he said that the task of the victorious
revolution is to do "the utmost possible in one country for the development, support
and awakening of the revolution in all countries," (see Vol. XXIII, p. 385).
These, in general, are the characteristic features of Lenin's theory of proletarian
revolution.
IV
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE
PROLETARIAT
From this theme I take three fundamental questions :
a) the dictatorship of the proletariat as the instrument of the proletarian revolution;
b) the dictatorship of the proletariat as the rule of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie;
c) Soviet power as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
1) The dictatorship of the proletariat as the instrument of the proletarian revolution.
The question of the proletarian dictatorship is above all a question of the main content
of the proletarian revolution. The proletarian revolution, its movement, its sweep and
its achievements acquire flesh and blood only through the dictatorship of the
proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the instrument of the proletarian
revolution, its organ, its most important mainstay, brought into being for the purpose
of, firstly, crushing the resistance of the overthrown exploiters and consolidating the
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achievements of the proletarian revolution, and secondly, carrying the revolution to
the complete victory of socialism. The revolution can defeat the bourgeoisie, can
overthrow its power, even without the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the
revolution will be unable to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to maintain its
victory and to push forward to the final victory of socialism unless, at a certain stage
in its development, it creates a special organ in the form of the dictatorship of the
proletariat as its principle mainstay.
"The fundamental question of every revolution is the question of power" (Lenin).
Does this mean that all that is required is to assume power, to seize it? No, it does not.
The seizure of power is only the beginning. For many reasons, the bourgeoisie that is
overthrown in one country remains for a long time stronger than the proletariat which
has overthrown it. Therefore, the whole point is to retain power, to consolidate it, to
make it invincible. What is needed to attain this? To attain this it is necessary to carry
out at least three main tasks that confront the dictatorship of the proletariat "on the
morrow" of victory:
a) to break the resistance of the landlords and capitalists who have been overthrown
and expropriated by the revolution, to liquidate every attempt on their part to restore
the power of capital;
b) to organise construction in such a way as to rally all the working people around the
proletariat, and to carry on this work along the lines of preparing for the elimination,
the abolition of classes;
c) to arm the revolution, to organise the army of the revolution for the struggle against
foreign enemies, for the struggle against imperialism.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to carry out, to fulfill these tasks.
"The transition from capitalism to communism," says Lenin, "represents an entire
historical epoch. Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherish the
hope of restoration, and this hope is converted into attempts at restoration. And after
their first serious defeat, the overthrown exploiters-who had not exploited their
overthrow, never believed it possible, never conceded the thought of it-throw
themselves with energy grown tenfold, with furious passion and hatred grown a
hundredfold, into the battle for the recovery of the 'paradise' of which they have been
deprived, on behalf of their families, who had been leading such a sweet and easy life
and whom now the 'common herd' is condemning to ruin and destitution (or to
'common labour...). In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the broad masses of
the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades of historical experience of all
countries testify that they vacillate and hesitate, one day marching behind the
proletariat and the next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution; that they
become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semi-defeat of the workers, grow nervous,
rush about, snivel, and run from one camp into the other" (see Vol. XXIII, p. 355).
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The bourgeoisie has its grounds for making attempts at restoration, because for a long
time after its overthrow it remains stronger than the proletariat which has overthrown
it.
"If the exploiters are defeated in one country only" says Lenin, "and this, of course, is
the typical case, since a simultaneous revolution in a number of countries is a rare
exception, they still remain stronger than the exploited" (ibid., p. 354)
Wherein lies the strength of the overthrown bourgeoisie?
Firstly, "in the strength of international capital, in the strength and durability of the
international connections of the bourgeoisie" (see Vol. XXV, p. 173).
Secondly, in the fact that "for a long time after the revolution the exploiters inevitably
retain a number of great practical advantages: they still have money (it is impossible
to abolish money all at once); some moveable property-often fairly considerable; they
still have various connections, habits of organisation and management, knowledge of
all the 'secrets' (customs, methods, means and possibilities) of management, superior
education, close connections with the higher technical personnel (who live and think
like the bourgeoisie), incomparably greater experience in the art of war (this is very
important), and so on, and so forth" (see Vol. XXIII, p. 354)
Thirdly, "in the force of habit, in the strength of small production. For, unfortunately,
small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small production
engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously,
and on a mass scale"... for "the abolition of classes means only not only driving out
the landlords and capitalists-that we accomplished with comparative ease-it also
means abolishing the small commodity producers, and they cannot be drive out, or
crushed; we must live in harmony with them, they can (and must) be remoulded and
re-educated only by very prolonged, slow, cautious organizational work (see Vol.
XXV, pp.173 and 189).
That is why Lenin says :
"The dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war waged
by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is
increased tenfold by its overthrow,"
that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is a stubborn struggle-bloody and bloodless,
violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative-against
the forces and traditions of the old society" (ibid., pp. 173 and 190).
It scarcely needs proof that there is not the slightest possibility of carrying out these
tasks in a short period, of accomplishing all this in a few years. Therefore, the
dictatorship of the proletariat, the transition from capitalism to communism, must not
be regarded as a fleeting period of "super-revolutionary" acts and decrees, but as an
entire historical era, replete with civil wars and external conflicts, with persistent
organisational work and economic construction, with advances and retreats, victories
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and defeats. The historical era is needed not only to create the economic and cultural
prerequisites for the complete victory of socialism, but also to enable the proletariat,
firstly, to educate itself and become steeled as a force capable of governing the
country, and, secondly, to re-educate and remould the petty-bourgeois strata along
such lines as will assure the organisation of socialist production.
Marx said to the workers :
"You will have to go through fifteen, twenty, fifty years of civil wars and international
conflicts," Marx said to the workers, "not only to change existing conditions, but also
to change yourselves and to make yourselves capable of wielding political power" (see
K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Vol. VIII, p. 506).
Continuing and developing Marx's idea still further, Lenin wrote that:
"It will be necessary under the dictatorship of the proletariat to re-educate millions of
peasants and small proprietors, hundreds of thousands of office employees, officials
and bourgeois intellectuals, to subordinate them all to the proletarian state and to
proletarian leadership, to overcome their bourgeois habits and traditions," just as we
must "-in a protracted struggle waged on the basis of the dictatorship of the
proletariat-re-educate the proletarians themselves, who do not abandon their pettybourgeois prejudices at one stroke, by a miracle, at the bidding of the Virgin Mary, at
the bidding of a slogan, resolution or decree, but only in the course of a long and
difficult mass struggle against the mass petty-bourgeois influences" (see Vol. XXV,
pp. 248 and 247).
2) The dictatorship of the proletariat as the rule of the proletariat over the
bourgeoisie. From the foregoing it is evident that the dictatorship of the proletariat is
not a mere change of personalities in the government, a change of the cabinet," etc.,
leaving the old economic and political order intact. The Mensheviks and the
opportunists of all countries, who fear dictatorship like fire and in their fright
substitute the concept "conquest of power" for the concept of dictatorship, usually
reduce the "conquest of power" to a change of the "cabinet," to the accession to power
of a new ministry made up of people like Scheidemann and Noske, MacDonald and
Henderson. It is hardly necessary to explain that these and similar cabinet changes
have nothing in common with the dictatorship of the proletariat, with the conquest of
real power by the real proletariat. With the MacDonalds and Scheidemanns in power,
while the old bourgeois order is allowed to remain, their so-called governments cannot
be anything else than an apparatus serving the bourgeoisie, a screen to conceal the
ulcers of imperialism, a weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie against the
revolutionary movement of the oppressed and exploited masses. Capital needs such
governments as a screen when it finds it inconvenient, unprofitable, difficult to
oppress and exploit the masses without the aid of a screen. Of course, the appearance
of such governments is a symptom that "over there" (i.e., in the capitalist camp) all is
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not quite "at the Shipka Pass"; nevertheless, governments of this kind inevitably
remain governments of capital in disguise. The government of a MacDonald or a
Scheidemann is as far removed from the conquest of power by the proletariat as the
sky from the earth. The dictatorship of the proletariat is not a change of government,
but a new state, with new organs of power, both central and local; it is the state of the
proletariat, which has arisen on the ruins of the old state, the state of the bourgeoisie.
The dictatorship of the proletariat arises not on the basis of the bourgeois order, but in
the process of the breaking up of this order, after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, in
the process of the expropriation of the landlords and capitalists, in the process of the
socialisation of the principal instruments and means of production, in the process of
violent proletarian revolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a revolutionary
power based on the use of force against the bourgeoisie.
The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class for suppressing the resistance of
its class enemies. In this respect the dictatorship of the proletariat does not differ
essentially from the dictatorship of any other class, for the proletarian state is a
machine for the suppression of the bourgeoisie. But there is one substantial difference.
This difference consists in the fact that all hitherto existing class states have been
dictatorships of an exploiting minority over the exploited majority, whereas the
dictatorship of the proletariat is the dictatorship of the exploited majority over the
exploiting minority.
Briefly: the dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule-unrestricted by law and based on
force-of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, a rule enjoying the sympathy and
support of the labouring and exploited masses (Lenin, The State and Revolution).
From this follow two main conclusions:
First conclusion: The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be "complete" democracy,
democracy for all, for the rich as well as for the poor; the dictatorship of the
proletariat "must be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletarians and
the non-propertied in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against 1 the bourgeoisie)"
(see Vol. XXI, p. 393). The talk of Kautsky and Co. about universal equality, about
"pure" democracy, about "perfect" democracy, and the like, is a bourgeois disguise of
the indubitable fact that equality between exploited and exploiters is impossible. The
theory of "pure" democracy is the theory of the upper stratum of the working class,
which has been broken in and is being fed by the imperialist robbers. It was brought
into being for the purpose of concealing the ulcers of capitalism, of embellishing
imperialism and lending it moral strength in the struggle against the exploited masses.
Under capitalism there are no real "liberties" for the exploited, nor can there be, if for
no reason than that the premises, printing plants, paper supplies, etc, indispensable for
the enjoyment of "liberties" are the privilege of the exploiters. Under capitalism the
exploited masses do not, nor can they ever, really participate in governing the country,
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if for no other reason than that, even under the most democratic regime, under
conditions of capitalism, governments are not set up by the people but by the
Rothschilds and Stinneses, the Rockefellers and Morgans. Democracy under
capitalism is capitalist democracy, the democracy of the exploiting minority, based on
the restriction of the rights of exploited majority and directed against this majority.
Only under the proletarian dictatorship are real liberties for the exploited and real
participation of the proletarians and peasants in governing the country possible. Under
the dictatorship of the proletariat, democracy is proletarian democracy, the democracy
of the exploited majority, based on the restriction of the rights of the exploiting
minority and directed against this minority.
Second conclusion: The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot arise as the result of the
peaceful development of bourgeois society and of bourgeois democracy; it can arise
only as the result of the smashing of the bourgeois state machine, the bourgeois army,
the bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus, the bourgeois police.
"The working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and
wield it for its own purposes," say Marx and Engels in a preface to the Communist
Manifesto. The task of the proletarian revolution is "...no longer, as before, to transfer
the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to smash it...this is
the preliminary condition for every real people's revolution on the continent," says
Marx in his letter to Kugelmann in 1871. 2
Marx's qualifying phrases about the continent gave the opportunists and Mensheviks
of all countries a pretext for clamouring that Marx had thus conceded the possibility of
the peaceful evolution of bourgeois democracy into a proletarian democracy, at least
in certain countries outside the European continent (Britain, America). Marx did in
fact concede that possibility, and he had good grounds for conceding it in regard to
Britain and America in the seventies of the last century, when monopoly capitalism
and imperialism did not yet exist, and when these countries, owing to the particular
conditions of their development, had as much as yet no developed militarism and
bureaucracy. That was the situation before the appearance of developed imperialism.
But later, after a lapse of thirty or forty years, when the situation in these countries had
radically changed, when imperialism had developed and had embraced all capitalist
countries without exception, when militarism and bureaucracy had appeared in Britain
and America also, when the particular conditions for peaceful development in Britain
and America had disappeared-then the qualification in regard to these countries
necessarily could no longer hold good.
"Today," said Lenin, "in 1917, in the epoch of the first great imperialist war, this
qualification made by Marx is no longer valid. Both Britain and America, the biggest
and the last representatives-in the whole world-of Anglo-Saxon 'liberty' in the sense
that they had no militarism and bureaucracy, have completely sunk into all-European
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filthy, bloody morass of bureaucratic-military institutions which subordinate
everything to themselves and trample everything underfoot. Today, in Britain and in
America, too, 'the preliminary condition for every real people's revolution' is the
smashing, the destruction of the 'ready-made state machinery' (perfected in those
countries, between 1914 and 1917, up to the 'European' general imperialist standard)"
(see Vol. XXI, p. 395).
In other words, the law of violent proletarian revolution, the law of smashing of the
bourgeois state machine as a preliminary condition for such a revolution, is an
inevitable law of the revolutionary movement in the imperialist countries of the world.
Of course, in the remote future, if the proletariat is victorious in the principal capitalist
countries, and if the present capitalist encirclement is replaced by a socialist
encirclement, a "peaceful" path of development is quite possible for certain capitalist
countries, whose capitalists, in view of the "unfavourable" international situation, will
consider it expedient "voluntarily" to make supposition concessions to the proletariat.
But this supposition applies only to a remote and possible future. With regard to the
immediate future, there is no ground whatsoever for this supposition.
Therefore, Lenin is right in saying:
"The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of the
bourgeois state machine and the substitution for it of a new one" (see Vol. XXIII, P.
342)
3) Soviet power as the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The victory of
the dictatorship of the proletariat signifies the suppression of the bourgeoisie, the
smashing of the bourgeois state machine and the substitution of proletarian democracy
for bourgeois democracy. That is clear. But by means of what organisation can this
colossal work be carried out? The old forms of organisation of the proletariat, which
grew up on the basis of bourgeois parliamentarism, are inadequate for this work-of
that there can hardly be any doubt. What, then, are the new forms of organisation of
the proletariat that are capable of serving as the gravediggers of the bourgeois state
machine, that are capable not only of smashing this machine, not only of substituting
proletarian democracy for bourgeois democracy, but also of becoming the foundation
of the proletarian state power?
This new form of organisation of the proletariat is the Soviets.
Wherein lies the strength of the Soviets as compared with the old forms of
organisation?
In that the Soviets are the most all-embracing mass organisations of the proletariat, for
they and they alone embrace all workers without exception.
In that the Soviets are the only mass organisations which unite all the oppressed and
exploited, workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors, and in which the vanguard of the
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masses, the proletariat, can, for this reason, most easily and most completely exercise
its political leadership of the mass struggle.
In that the Soviets are the most powerful organs of the revolutionary struggle of the
masses, of the political actions of the masses, of the uprising of the masses-organs
capable of breaking the omnipotence of finance capital and its political appendages.
In that the Soviets are the immediate organisations of the masses themselves, i.e., they
are the most democratic and therefore the most authoritative organisations of the
masses, which facilitate to the utmost their participation in the work of building up the
new state and in its administration, and which bring into full play the revolutionary
energy, initiative and creative abilities of the masses in the struggle for the destruction
of the old order, in the struggle for the new, proletarian order.
Soviet power is the union and constitution of the local Soviets into one common state
organisation, into the state organisation of the proletariat as the vanguard of the
oppressed and exploited masses and as the ruling class-their union in the Republic of
the Soviets.
The essence of Soviet power consists in the fact that these most all-embracing and
most revolutionary mass organisations of precisely those classes that were oppressed
by the capitalist and landlords are now the "permanent and sole basis of the whole
power of the state, of the whole state apparatus"; that "precisely those masses which
even in the most democratic bourgeois republics," while being equal in law, "have in
fact been prevented by thousands of tricks and devices from taking part in political life
and from enjoying democratic rights and liberties, are now drawn unfailingly into
constant and, moreover, decisive participation in the democratic administration of the
state". 3 (see Lenin, Vol. XXIV, p. 13).
That is why Soviet power is a new form of state organisation, different in principle
from the old bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary form, a new type of state,
adapted not to the task of exploiting and oppressing the labouring masses, but to the
task of completely emancipating them from all oppression and exploitation, to the
tasks facing the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Lenin is right in saying that with the appearance of Soviet power "the era of
bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism has drawn to a close and a new chapter in
world history-the era of proletarian dictatorship-has been opened."
Wherein lies the characteristic features of Soviet power?
In that Soviet power is the most all-embracing and most democratic state organisation
of all possible state organisations while classes continue to exist; for, being the arena
of the bond and collaboration between the workers and the exploited peasants in their
struggle against the exploiters, and basing itself in its works on this bond and on this
collaboration. Soviet power is thus the power of the majority of the population over
the minority, it is the state of the majority, the expression of its dictatorship.
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In that Soviet power is the most internationalist of all state organisations in class
society, for, by destroying every kind of national oppression and resting on the
collaboration of the labouring masses of the various nationalities, it facilitates the
uniting of these masses into a single state union.
In that Soviet power, by its very structure, facilitates the task of leading the oppressed
and exploited masses by the vanguard of these masses-by the proletariat, as the most
united and most politically conscious core of the Soviets.
"The experience of all revolutions and of all movements of the oppressed classes, the
experience of the world socialist movement teaches us," says Lenin, "that the
proletariat alone is able to unite and lead the scattered and backward strata of the
toiling and exploited population" (see Vol. XXIV, p. 14). The point is that the
structure of Soviet power facilitates the practical application of the lessons drawn
from this experience.
In that Soviet power, by combining legislative and executive power in a single state
organisation and replacing territorial electoral constituencies by industrial units,
factories and mills, thereby directly links the workers and the labouring masses in
general with the apparatus of state administration, teaches them how to govern the
country.
In that Soviet power alone is capable of releasing the army from its subordination to
bourgeois command and of converting it from the instrument of oppression of the
people which it is under the bourgeois order into an instrument for the liberation of the
people from the yoke of the bourgeoisie, both native and foreign.
In that "the Soviet organisation of the state alone is capable of immediately and
effectively smashing and finally destroying the old, i.e., the bourgeois, bureaucratic
and judicial apparatus" (ibid)
In that the Soviet form of state alone, by drawing the mass organisations of the toilers
and exploited into constant and unrestricted participation in state administration, is
capable of preparing the ground for the withering away of the state, which is one of
the basic elements of the future stateless communist society.
The Republic of Soviets is thus the political form, so long sought and finally
discovered, within the framework of which the economic emancipation of the
proletariat, the complete victory of socialism, must be accomplished.
The Paris Commune was the embryo of this form; Soviet power is its development
and culmination.
That is why Lenin says:
"The Republic of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', and Peasants' Deputies is not only the
form of a higher type of democratic institution...but is the only 4 form capable of
ensuring the most painless transition to socialism" (see Vol. XXII, p. 131).
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V
THE PEASANT QUESTION
From this theme I take four questions :
a) the presentation of the question;
b) the peasantry during the bourgeois-democratic revolution;
c) the peasantry during the proletarian revolution;
d) the peasantry after the consolidation of Soviet power.
1) The presentation of the question. Some think that the fundamental thing in
Leninism is the peasant question, that the point of departure of Leninism is the
question of the peasantry, of its role, its relative importance. This is absolutely wrong.
The fundamental question of Leninism, its point of departure, is not the peasant
question, but the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the conditions under
which it can be achieved, of the conditions under which it can be consolidated. The
peasant question, as the question of the ally of the proletariat in its struggle for power,
is a derivative question.
This circumstance, however, does not in the least deprive the peasant question of the
serious and vital importance it unquestionably has for the proletarian revolution. It is
known that the serious study of the peasant question in the ranks of Russian Marxists
began precisely on the eve of the first revolution (1905), when the question of
overthrowing tsarism and of realising the hegemony of the proletariat confronted the
Party in all its magnitude, and when the question of the ally of the proletariat in the
impending bourgeois revolution became of vital importance. It is also known that the
peasant question in Russia assumed a still more urgent character during the proletarian
revolution, when the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of achieving and
maintaining it, led to the question of allies for the proletariat in the impending
proletarian revolution. And this was natural. Those who are marching towards and
preparing to assume power cannot but be interested in the question of who are their
real allies.
In this sense the peasant question is part of the general question of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, and as such it is one of the most vital problems of Leninism.
The attitude of indifference and sometimes even of outright aversion displayed by the
parties of the Second International towards the peasant question is to be explained not
only by the specific conditions of development in the West. It is to be explained
primarily by the fact that these parties do not believe in the proletarian dictatorship,
that they fear revolution and have no intention of leading the proletariat to power. And
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those who are afraid of revolution, who do not intend to lead the proletarians to
power, cannot be interested in the question of allies for the proletariat in the
revolution-to them the question of allies is one of indifference, of no immediate
significance. The ironical attitude of the heroes of the Second International towards
the peasant question is regarded by them as a sign of good breeding, a sign of "true"
Marxism. As a matter of fact, there is not a grain of Marxism in this, for indifference
towards so important a question as the peasant question on the eve of the proletarian
revolution is the reverse side of the repudiation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it
is an unmistakable sign of downright betrayal of Marxism.
The question is as follows: Are the revolutionary potentialities latent in the peasantry
by virtue of certain conditions of its existence already exhausted, or not; and if not, is
there any hope, any basis, for utilising these potentialities for the proletarian
revolution, for transforming the peasantry, the exploited majority of it, from the
reserve of the bourgeoisie which it was during the bourgeois revolutions in the West
and still is even now, into a reserve of the proletariat, into its ally?
Leninism replies to this question in the affirmative, i.e., it recognises the existence of
revolutionary capacities in the ranks of the majority of the peasantry, and the
possibility of using these in the interests of the proletarian dictatorship.
The history of the three revolutions in Russia fully corroborates the conclusion of
Leninism on this score.
Hence the practical conclusion that the toiling masses of the peasantry must be
supported in their struggle against bondage and exploitation, in their struggle for
deliverance from oppression and poverty. This does not mean, of course, that the
proletariat must support every peasant movement. What we have in mind here is
support for a movement or struggle of the peasantry which, directly or indirectly,
facilitates the emancipation movement of the proletariat, which, in one way or
another, brings grist to the mill of the proletarian revolution, and which helps to
transform the peasantry into a reserve and ally of the working class.
2) The peasantry during the bourgeois-democratic revolution . This period extends
from the first Russian revolution (1905) to the second revolution (February 1917),
inclusive. The characteristic feature of this period is the emancipation of the peasantry
from the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie, the peasantry's desertion of the Cadets,
its turn towards the proletariat, towards the Bolshevik Party. The history of this period
is the history of the struggle between the Cadets (the liberal bourgeoisie) and the
Bolsheviks (the proletariat) for the peasantry. The outcome of this struggle was
decided by the Duma period, for the period of the four Dumas served as an object
lesson to the peasantry, and this lesson brought home to the peasantry the fact that
they would receive neither land nor liberty at the hands of the Cadets; that the tsar was
wholly in favour of the landlords, and that the Cadets were supporting the tsar; that the
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only force they could rely on for assistance was the urban workers, the proletariat. The
imperialist war merely confirmed the lessons of the Duma period and consummated
the peasantry's desertion of the bourgeoisie, consummated the isolation of the liberal
bourgeoisie; for the years of the war revealed the utter futility, the utter deceptiveness
of all hopes of obtaining peace from the tsar and his bourgeois allies. Without the
object lessons of the Duma period, the hegemony of the proletariat would have been
impossible.
That is how the alliance between the workers and the peasants in the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution took shape. That is how the hegemony (leadership) of the
proletariat in the common struggle for the overthrow of tsarism took shape-the
hegemony which led to the February Revolution of 1917.
The bourgeois revolutions in the West (Britain, France, Germany, Austria) took, as is
well known, a different road. There, hegemony in the revolution belonged not to the
proletariat, which by reason of its weakness did not and could not represent an
independent political force, but to the liberal bourgeoisie. There the peasantry
obtained its emancipation from feudal regimes, not at the hands of the proletariat,
which was numerically weak and unorganised, but at the hands of the bourgeoisie.
There the peasantry marched against the old order side by side with the liberal
bourgeoisie. There the peasantry acted as the reserve of the bourgeoisie. There the
revolution, in consequences of this, led to an enormous increase in the political weight
of the bourgeoisie.
In Russia, on the contrary, the bourgeois revolution produced quite opposite results.
The revolution in Russia led not to the strengthening, but to the weakening of the
bourgeoisie as a political force, not to an increase in its political reserve, but to the
loss of its main reserve, to the loss of the peasantry. The bourgeois revolution in
Russia brought to the forefront not the liberal bourgeoisie but the revolutionary
proletariat, rallying around the latter the millions of the peasantry.
Incidentally, this explains why the bourgeois revolution in Russia passed into a
proletarian revolution in a comparatively short space time. The hegemony of the
proletariat was the embryo of, and the transitional stage to, the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
How is this peculiar phenomenon of the Russian revolution, which has no precedent in
the history of the bourgeois revolutions of the West, to be explained? Whence this
peculiarity?
It is to be explained by the fact that the bourgeois revolution unfolded in Russia under
more advanced conditions of class struggle than in the West; that the Russian
proletariat had at that time already become an independent political force, whereas the
liberal bourgeoisie, frightened by the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat, lost all
semblance of revolutionary spirit (especially after the lessons of 1905) and turned
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towards an alliance with the tsar and the landlords against the revolution, against the
workers and peasants.
We should bear in mind the following circumstances, which determined the peculiar
character of the Russian bourgeois revolution.
a) The unprecedented concentrations of Russia industry on the eve of the revolution. It
is known, for instance, that in Russia 54 per cent of all the workers were employed in
enterprises employing over 500 workers each, whereas in so highly developed a
country as the United States of America no more than 33 per cent of all the workers
were employed in such enterprises. It scarcely needs proof that this circumstances
alone, in view of the existence of a revolutionary party like the Party of the
Bolsheviks, transformed the working class of Russia into an immense force in the
political life of the country.
b) The hideous forms of exploitation in the factories, coupled with the intolerable
police regime of the tsarist henchmen-a circumstance which transformed every
important strike of the workers into an imposing political action and steeled the
working class as a force that was revolutionary to the end.
c) The political flabbiness of the Russian bourgeoisie, which after the Revolution of
1905 turned into servility to tsarism and downright counter-revolution-a fact to be
explained not only by the revolutionary spirit of the Russian proletariat, which flung
the Russian bourgeoisie into the embrace of tsarism, but also by the direct dependence
of this bourgeoisie upon government contracts.
d) The existence in the countryside of the most hideous and most intolerable survivals
of serfdom, coupled with the unlimited power of the landlord-a circumstance which
threw the peasantry into the embrace of the revolution.
e) Tsarism, which stifled everything that was alive, and whose tyranny aggravated the
oppression of the capitalist and the landlord-a circumstance which united the struggle
of the workers and peasants into a single torrent of revolution.
f) The imperialist war, which fused all these contradictions in the political life of
Russia into a profound revolutionary crisis, and which lent the revolution tremendous
striking force.
To whom could the peasantry turn under these circumstances? From whom could it
seek support against the unlimited power of the landlords, against the tyranny of the
tsar, against the devastating war which was ruining it? From the liberal bourgeoisie?
But it was an enemy, as the long years of experience of all four Dumas had proved.
From the Socialist-Revolutionaries? The Socialist-Revolutionaries were "better" than
the Cadets, of course, and their programme was "suitable," almost a peasant
programme; but what could the Socialist-Revolutionaries offer, considering that they
thought of relying only on the peasants and were weak in the towns, from which the
enemy primarily drew its forces? Where was the new force which would stop at
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nothing either in town or country, which would boldly march in the front ranks to
fight the tsar and the landlords, which would help the peasantry to extricate itself from
bondage, from land hunger, from oppression, from war? Was there such a force in
Russia at all? Yes, there was. It was the Russian proletariat, which had shown its
strength, its ability to fight to the end, its boldness and revolutionary spirit, as far back
as 1905.
At any rate, there was no other such force; nor could any other be found anywhere.
That is why the peasantry, when it turned its back on the Cadets and attached itself to
the Socialist-Revolutionaries, at the same time came to realise the necessity of
submitting to the leadership of such a courageous leader of the revolution as the
Russian proletariat.
Such were the circumstances which determined the peculiar character of the Russian
bourgeois revolution.
3) The peasantry during the proletarian revolution. This period extends from the
February Revolution of 1917 to the October Revolution of 1917. This period is
comparatively short, eight months in all; but from the point of view of the political
enlightenment and revolutionary training of the masses these eight months can safely
be put on a par with whole decades of ordinary constitutional development, for they
were eight months of revolution. This characteristic feature of this period was the
further of this period was the further revolutionisation of the peasantry, its
disillusionment with the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the peasantry's desertion of the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, its new turn toward a direct rally around the proletariat as
the only consistently revolutionary force capable of leading the country to peace. The
history of this period is the history of the struggle between the SocialistRevolutionaries (petty-bourgeois democracy) and the Bolsheviks (proletarian
democracy) for the peasantry, to win over the majority of the peasantry. The outcome
of this struggle was decided by the coalition period, the Kerensky period, the refusal
of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks to confiscate the landlords' land,
the fight of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks to continue the war, the
June offensive at the front, the introduction of capital punishment for soldiers, the
Kornilov revolt.
Whereas before, in the preceding period, the basic question had been the overthrow of
the tsar and of the power of the landlords, now, in the period following the February
Revolution, when there was no longer any tsar, and when the interminable war had
exhausted the economy of the country and utterly ruined the peasantry, the question of
liquidating the war became the main problem of the revolution. The centre of gravity
had manifestly shifted from purely internal questions to the main question-the war.
"End the war," "Let's get out of the war"-such was the general outcry of the war-weary
nation and primarily of the peasantry.
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But in order to get out of the war it was necessary to overthrow the Provisional
Government, it was necessary to overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie, it was
necessary to overthrow the power of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks,
for they, and they alone, were dragging out the war to a "victorious finish."
Practically, there was no way of getting out of the war except by overthrowing the
bourgeoisie.
There was a new revolution, a proletarian revolution, for it ousted from power the last
group of the imperialist bourgeoisie, its extreme Left wing, the SocialistRevolutionary Party and the Mensheviks, in order to set up a new, proletarian power,
the power of the Soviets, in order to put in power the party of the revolutionary
proletariat, the Bolshevik Party, the party of the revolutionary struggle against the
imperialist war and for a democratic peace. The majority of the peasantry supported
the struggle of the workers for peace, for the power of the Soviets.
There was no other way out for the peasantry. Nor could there be any other way out.
Thus, the Kerensky period was a great object lesson for the toiling masses of the
peasantry, for it showed clearly that with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks in power the country could not extricate itself from the war, and the
peasants would never get either land or liberty; that the Mensheviks and SocialistRevolutionaries differed from the Cadets only in their honeyed phrases and false
premises, while they actually pursued the same imperialist, Cadet policy; that the only
power that could lead the country on to the proper road was the power of the Soviets.
The further prolongation of the war merely confirmed the truth of this lesson, spurred
on the revolution, and drove millions of peasants and soldiers to rally directly around
the proletarian revolution. The isolation of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks became an incontrovertible fact. Without the object lessons of the
coalition period the dictatorship of the proletariat would have been impossible.
Such were the circumstances which facilitated the process of the bourgeois revolution
passing into the proletarian revolution.
That is how the dictatorship of the proletariat took shape in Russia.
4) The peasantry after the consolidation of Soviet power. Whereas before, in the first
period of the revolution, the main objective was the overthrow of tsarism, and later,
after the February Revolution, the primary objective was to get out of the imperialist
war by overthrowing the bourgeoisie, now, after the liquidation of the civil war and
the consolidation of Soviet power, questions of economic construction came to the
forefront. Strengthen and develop the nationalised industry; for this purpose link up
industry with peasant economy through state-regulated trade; replace the surplusappropriation system by the tax in kind so as, later on, by gradually lowering the tax in
kind, to reduce matters to the exchange of products of industry for the products of
peasant farming; revive trade and develop the co-operatives, drawing into them the
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vast masses of the peasantry-this is how Lenin outlined the immediate tasks of
economic construction on the way to building the foundations of socialist economy.
It is said that this task may prove beyond the strength of a peasant country like Russia.
Some skeptics even say that it is simply utopian, impossible, for the peasantry is a
peasantry-it consists of small producers, and therefore cannot be of use in organising
the foundations of socialist production.
But the sceptics are mistaken, for they fail to take into account certain circumstances
which in the present case are of decisive significance. Let us examine the most
important of these:
Firstly. The peasantry in the Soviet Union must not be confused with the peasantry in
the West. A peasantry that has been schooled in three revolutions, that fought against
the tsar and the power of the bourgeoisie side by side with the proletariat and under
the leadership of the proletariat, a peasantry that has received land and peace at the
hands of the proletarian revolution and by reason of this has become the reserve of the
proletariat-such a peasantry cannot but be different from a peasantry which during the
bourgeois revolution fought under the leadership of the liberal bourgeoisie, which
received land at the hands of that bourgeoisie, and in view of this became the reserve
of the bourgeoisie. It scarcely needs proof that the Soviet peasantry, which has learnt
to appreciate its political friendship and political collaboration with the proletariat and
which owes its freedom to this friendship and collaboration, cannot but represent
exceptionally favourable material for economic collaboration with the proletariat.
Engels said that "the conquest of political power by the Socialist Party has become a
matter of the not too distant future," that "in order to conquer political power this
Party must first go from the towns to the country, must become a power in the
countryside" (see Engels, The Peasant Question, 1922 ed. 1). He wrote this in the
nineties of the last century, having in mind the Western peasantry. Does it need proof
that the Russian Communists, after accomplishing an enormous amount of work in
this field in the course of three revolutions, have already succeeded in gaining in the
countryside an influence and backing the like of which our Western comrades dare not
even dream of? How can it be denied that this circumstances must decidedly facilitate
the organisation of economic collaboration between the working class and the
peasantry of Russia?
The sceptics maintain that the small peasants are a factor that is incompatible with
socialist construction. But listen to what Engels says about the small peasants of the
West:
"We are decidedly on the side of the small peasant; we shall do everything at all
permissible to make his lot more bearable, to facilitate his transition to the cooperative should he decide to do so, and even to make it possible for him to remain on
his small holding for a protracted length of time to think the matter over, should he
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still be unable to bring himself to this decision. We do this not only because we
consider the small peasant who does his own work as virtually belonging to us, but
also in the direct interest of the Party. The greater the number of peasants whom we
can save from being actually hurled down into the proletariat, whom we can win to
our side while they are still peasants, the more quickly and easily the social
transformation will be accomplished. It will serve us nought to wait with this
transformation until capitalist production has developed everywhere to its utmost
consequences, until the last small handicraftsman and last small peasant have fallen
victim to capitalist large-scale production. The material sacrifices to be made for this
purpose in the interest of the peasants and to be defrayed out of public funds can, from
the point of view of capitalist economy, be viewed only as money thrown away, but it
is nevertheless an excellent investment because it will effect a perhaps tenfold saving
in the cost of the social reorganisation in general. In this sense we can, therefore,
afford to deal very liberally with the peasants" (ibid. ).
That is what Engels said, having in mind the Western peasantry. But is it not clear that
what Engels said can nowhere be realised so easily and so completely as in the land of
the dictatorship of the proletariat? Is it not clear that only in Soviet Russia is it
possible at once and to the fullest extent for "the small peasant who does his own
work" to come over to our side, for the "material sacrifices" necessary for this to be
made, and for the necessary "liberality towards the peasants" to be displayed? Is it not
clear that these and similar measures for the benefit if the peasantry are already being
carried out in Russia? How can it be denied that this circumstance, in its turn, must
facilitate and advance the work of economic construction in the land of the Soviets?
Secondly. Agriculture in Russia must not be confused with agriculture in the West.
There, agriculture is developed along the ordinary lines of capitalism, under
conditions of profound differentiation among the peasantry, with large landed estates
and private capitalist latifundia at one extreme and pauperism, destitution and wage
slavery at the other. Owing to this, disintegration and decay are quite natural there.
Not so in Russia. Here agriculture cannot develop along such a path, if for no other
reason than that the existence of Soviet power and the nationalisation of the principal
instruments and means of production preclude such a development. In Russia the
development of agriculture must proceed along a different path, along the path of
organising millions of small and middle peasants in co-operatives, along the path of
developing in the countryside a mass co-operative movement supported by the state
by means of preferential credits. Lenin rightly pointed out in his articles on cooperation that the development of agriculture in our country must proceed along a new
path, along the path of drawing the majority of the peasants into socialist construction
through the co-operatives, along the path of gradually introducing into agriculture the
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principles of collectivism, first in the sphere of marketing and later in the sphere of
production of agriculture products.
Of extreme interest in this respect are several new phenomena observed in the
countryside in connection with the work of the agricultural co-operatives. It is well
known that new, large organisations have sprung up within the Selskosoyuzl, 2 in
different branches of agriculture, such as production of flax, potatoes, butter, etc.,
which have a great future before them., Of these, the Flax Centre, for instance, unites
a whole network of peasant flax growers' associations. The Flax Centre supplies the
peasants with seeds and implements; then it buys all the flax produced by these
peasants, disposes of it on the market on a large scale, guarantees the peasants a share
in the profits, and in this way links peasant economy with state industry through the
Selskosoyouz. What shall we call this form of organisation of production? In my
opinion, it is the domestic system of large-scale state-socialist production in the sphere
of agriculture. In speaking of the domestic system of state-socialist production I do so
by analogy with the domestic system under capitalism, let us say, in the textile
industry, where the handicraftsman received their raw material and tools from the
capitalist and turned over to him the entire product of their labour, thus being in fact
semi-wage earners working in their own homes. This is one of numerous indices
showing the path along which our agriculture must develop. There is no need to
mention here similar indices in other branches of agriculture.
It scarcely needs proof that the vast majority of the peasantry will eagerly take this
new path of development, rejecting the path of private capitalist latifundia and wage
slavery, the path of destitution and ruin.
Here is what Lenin says about the path of development of our agriculture:
"State power over all large-scale means of production, state power in the hands of the
proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very
small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc.-is not
this all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society from the cooperatives from the co-operatives alone, which we formerly looked upon as
huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to look down upon as
such now, under the NEP? Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete
socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is
necessary and sufficient for this building" (see Vol. XXVII, p. 392).
Further on, speaking of the necessity of giving financial and other assistance to the cooperatives, as a "new principal of organising the population" and a new "social
system" under the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin continues:
"Every social system arises only with the financial assistance of a definite class. There
is no need to mention the hundreds and hundreds of millions of rubles that the birth of
'free' capitalism cost. Now we must realise, and apply in our practical work, the fact
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that the social system which we must now give more than usual assistance is the cooperative system. But it must be assisted in the real sense of the word, i.e., it will not
be enough to interpret assistance to mean assistance for any kind of co-operative
trade; by assistance we must mean assistance for co-operative trade in which really
large masses of the population really take part" (ibid., p. 393).
What do all these facts prove?
That the sceptics are wrong.
That Leninism is right in regarding the masses of labouring peasants as the reserve of
the proletariat.
That the proletariat in power can and must use this reserve in order to link industry
with agriculture, to advance socialist construction, and to provide for the dictatorship
of the proletariat that necessary foundation without which the transition to socialist
economy is impossible.
VI
THE NATIONAL QUESTION
From this theme I take two main questions:
a) the presentation of the question;
b) the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples and the proletarian revolution.
1) The presentation of the question. During the last two decades the national question
has undergone a number of very important changes. The national question in the
period of the Second International and the national question in the period of Leninism
are far from being the same thing. They differ profoundly from each other, not only in
their scope, but also in their intrinsic character.
Formerly, the national question was usually confined to a narrow circle of questions,
concerning, primarily, "civilised" nationalities. The Irish, the Hungarians, the Poles,
the Finns, the Serbs, and several other European nationalities-that was the circle of
unequal peoples in whose destinies the leaders of the Second International were
interested. The scores and hundreds of millions of Asiatic and African peoples who
are suffering national oppression in its most savage and cruel form usually remained
outside of their field of vision. They hesitated to put white and black, "civilised" and
"uncivilised" on the same plane. Two or three meaningless, lukewarm resolutions,
which carefully evaded the question of liberating the colonies-that was all the leaders
of the Second International could boast of. Now we can say that this duplicity and
half-heartedness in dealing with the national question has been brought to an end.
Leninism laid bare this crying incongruity, broke down the wall between whites and
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blacks, between European and Asiatics, between the "civilised" and "uncivilised"
slaves of imperialism, and thus linked the national question with the question of the
colonies. The national question was thereby transformed from a particular and internal
state problem into a general and international problem, into a world problem of
emancipating the oppressed peoples in the dependent countries and colonies from the
yoke of imperialism.
Formerly, the principle of self-determination of nations was usually misinterpreted,
and not infrequently it was narrowed down to the idea of the right of nations to
autonomy. Certain leaders of the Second International even went so far as to turn the
right to self-determination into the right to cultural autonomy, i.e., the right of
oppressed nations to have their own cultural institutions, leaving all political power in
the hands of the ruling nation. As a consequence, the idea of self-determination stood
in danger of being transformed from an instrument for combating annexations into an
instrument for justifying them. Now we can say that this confusion has been cleared
up. Leninism broadened the conception of self-determinism, interpreting it as the right
of the oppressed peoples of the dependent countries and colonies to complete
secession, as the right of nations to independent existence as states. This precluded the
possibility of justifying annexations by interpreting the right to self-determinism as
the right to autonomy. Thus, the principle of self-determinism itself was transformed
from an instrument for deceiving the masses, which it undoubtedly was in the hands
of the social-chauvinists during the imperialist war, into an instrument for exposing all
imperialist aspirations and chauvinist machinations, into an instrument for the political
education of the masses in the spirit of internationalism.
Formerly, the question of the oppressed nations was usually regarded as purely a
juridical question. Solemn proclamations about "national equality of rights,"
innumerable declarations about the "equality of nations"-that was the stock-in-trade of
the parties of the Second International, which glossed over the fact that "equality of
nations" under imperialism, where one group of nations (a minority) lives by
exploiting another group of nations, is sheer mockery of the oppressed nations. Now
we can say that this bourgeois-juridical point of view on the national question has
been exposed. Leninism brought the national question down from the lofty heights of
high-sounding declarations to solid ground, and declared that pronouncements about
the "equality of nations" not backed by the direct support of the proletarian parties for
the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations are meaningless and false. In this way
the question of the oppressed nations become one of supporting the oppressed nations,
of rendering real and continuous assistance to them in their struggle against
imperialism for real equality of nations, for their independent existence as states.
Formerly, the national question was regarded from a reformist point of view, as an
independent question having no connection with the general question of the power of
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capital, of the overthrow of imperialism, of the proletarian revolution. It was tacitly
assumed that the victory of the proletariat in Europe was possible without a direct,
alliance with the liberation movement in the colonies, that the national-colonial
question could be solved on the quiet, "of its own accord," off the highway of the
proletarian revolution, without a revolutionary struggle against imperialism. Now we
can say that anti-revolutionary point of view has been exposed. Leninism has proved,
and the imperialist war and the revolution in Russia has confirmed, that the national
question can be solved only in connection with and on the basis of the proletarian
revolution, and that the road to victory of the revolution in the West lies through the
revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent
countries against imperialism. The national question is a part of the general question
of the proletarian revolution, a part of the question of the dictator of the proletariat.
The question is as follows: Are the revolutionary potentialities latent in the
revolutionary liberation movement of the oppressed countries already exhausted, or
not; and if not, is there any hope, any basis, for utilising these potentialities for the
proletarian revolution, for transforming the dependent and colonial countries from a
reserve of the imperialist bourgeoisie into a reserve of the revolutionary proletariat,
into an ally of the latter?
Leninism replies to this question in the affirmative, i.e., it recognises the existence of
revolutionary capacities in the national liberation movement of the oppressed
countries, and the possibility of using these for overthrowing the common enemy, for
overthrowing imperialism. The mechanics of the development of imperialism, the
imperialist war and the revolution in Russia wholly confirm the conclusions of
Leninism on this score.
Hence the necessity for the proletariat of the "dominant" nations to support-resolutely
and actively to support-the national liberation movement of the oppressed and
dependent peoples.
This does not mean, of course, that the proletariat must support every national
movement, everywhere and always, in every individual concrete case. It means that
support must be given to such national movements as tend to weaken, to overthrow
imperialism, and not to strengthen and preserve it. Cases occur when the national
movements in certain oppressed countries came into conflict with the interests of the
development of the proletarian movement. In such cases support is, of course, entirely
out of the question. The question of the rights of nations is not an isolated, selfsufficient question; it is a part of the general problem of the proletarian revolution,
subordinate to the whole, and must be considered from the point of view of the whole.
In the forties of the last century Marx supported the national movement of the Poles
and Hungarians and was opposed to the national movement of the Czechs and the
South Slavs. Why? Because the Czechs and the South Slavs were then "reactionary
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peoples," "Russian outposts" in Europe, outposts of absolutism; whereas the Poles and
the Hungarians were "revolutionary peoples," fighting against absolutism. Because
support of the national movement of the Czechs and the South Slavs was at that time
equivalent to indirect support for tsarism, the most dangerous enemy of the
revolutionary movement in Europe.
"The various demands of democracy," writes Lenin, "including self-determination, are
not an absolute, but a small part of the general democratic (now: general socialist)
world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole, if
so, it must be rejected" (see Vol. XIX, pp.257-58).
This is the position in regard to the question of particular national movements, of the
possible reactionary character of these movements-if, of course, they are appraised not
from the formal point of view, not from the point of view of abstract rights, but
concretely, from the point of view of the interests of the revolutionary movement.
The same must be said of the revolutionary character of national movements in
general. The unquestionably revolutionary character of the vast majority of national
movements is as relative and peculiar as is the possible revolutionary character of
certain particular national movements. The revolutionary character of a national
movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily
presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a
revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a
democratic basis of the movement. The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is
waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle,
despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens,
disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such
"desperate" democrats and "Socialists," "revolutionaries" and republicans as, for
example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan,
Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its
results was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism. For the
same reasons, the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals
are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle,
despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national
movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle
that the British "Labour" Government is waging to preserve Egypt's dependent
position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin
and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they
are "for" socialism. There is no need to mention the national movement in other,
larger, colonial and dependent countries, such as India and China, every step of which
along the road to liberation, even if it runs counter to the demands of formal
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democracy, is a steam-hammer blow at imperialism, i.e., is undoubtedly a
revolutionary step.
Lenin was right in saying that the national movement of the oppressed countries
should be appraised not from the point of view of formal democracy, but from the
point of view of the actual results, as shown by the general balance sheet of the
struggle against imperialism, that is to say, "not in isolation, but on a world scale" (see
Vol. XIX, p. 257).
2) The liberation movement of the oppressed peoples and the proletarian revolution.
In solving the national question Leninism proceeds from the following theses:
a) the world is divided into two camps: the camp of a handful of civilised nations,
which possess finance capital and exploit the vast majority of the population of the
globe; and the camp of the oppressed and exploited peoples in the colonies and
dependent countries, which constitute the majority;
b) the colonies and the dependent countries, oppressed and exploited by finance
capital, constitute a vast reserve and a very important source of strength for
imperialism;
c) the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed peoples in the dependent and colonial
countries against imperialism is the only road that leads to their emancipation from
oppression and exploitation;
d) the most important colonial and dependent countries have already taken the path of
the national liberation movement, which cannot but lead to the crisis of world
capitalism;
e) the interests of the proletarian movement in the developed countries and of the
national liberation movement in the colonies call for the union of these two forms of
the revolutionary movement into a common front against the common enemy, against
imperialism;
f) the victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the
oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation
and the consolidation of a common revolutionary front;
g) the formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat
of the oppressor nations renders direct and determined support to the liberation
movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of its "own country," for
"no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations" (Engels);
h) this support implies the upholding defence and implementation of the slogan of the
right of nations to secession, to independent existence as states;
i) unless this slogan is implemented, the union and collaboration of nations within a
single world economic system, which is the material basis for the victory of world
socialism, cannot be brought about;
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j) this union can only be voluntary, arising on the basis of mutual confidence and
fraternal relations among peoples.
Hence the two sides, the two tendencies in the national question: the tendency towards
political emancipation from the shackles of imperialism and towards the formation of
an independent national state-a tendency which arose as a consequence of imperialist
oppression and colonial exploitation; and the tendency towards closer economic
relations among nations, which arose as a result of the formation of the world market
and a world economic system.
"Developing capitalism," says Lenin, "knows two historical tendencies in the national
question. First: the awakening of national life and national movements, struggle
against all national oppression, creation of national states. Second: development and
acceleration of all kinds of intercourse between nations, breakdown of national
barriers, creation of the international unity of capital, of economic life in general, of
politics, science, etc.
"Both tendencies are a world-wide law of capitalism. The first predominates at the
beginning of its development, the second characterises mature capitalism that is
moving towards its transformation into socialist society" (see Vol. XVII, pp. 139-40).
For imperialism these two tendencies represent irreconcilable contradictions; because
imperialism cannot exist without exploiting colonies and forcibly retaining them
within the framework of the "integral whole"; because imperialism can bring nations
together only by means of annexations and colonial conquest, without which
imperialism is, generally speaking, inconceivable.
For communism, on the contrary, these tendencies are but two sides of a single causethe cause of the emancipation of the oppressed people from the yoke of imperialism;
because communism knows that the union of peoples in a single world economic
system is possible only in the basis of mutual confidence and voluntary agreement,
and that road to the formation of a voluntary union of peoples lies through the
separation of the colonies from the "integral" imperialist "whole," through the
transformation of the colonies into independent states.
Hence the necessity for a stubborn, continuous and determined struggle against the
dominant-nation chauvinism of the "Socialist" of the ruling nations (Britain, France,
America, Italy, Japan, etc.), who do not want to fight their imperialist governments,
who do not want to support the struggle of the oppressed peoples in "their" colonies
for emancipation from oppression, for secession.
Without such a struggle the education of the working class of the ruling nations in the
spirit of true internationalism, in the spirit of closer relations with the toiling masses of
the dependent countries and colonies, in the spirit of real preparation for the
proletarian revolution, is inconceivable. The revolution would not have been
victorious in Russia and Kolchak and Denikin would not have been crushed, had not
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the Russian proletariat enjoyed the sympathy and support of the oppressed peoples of
the former Russian Empire. But to win the sympathy and support of these peoples it
had first of all to break the fetters of Russian imperialism and free these people from
the yoke of national oppression.
Without this it would have been impossible to consolidate Soviet power, to implant
real internationalism and to create that remarkable organisation for the collaboration
of peoples which is called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and which is the
living prototype of the future union of peoples in a single world economic system.
Hence the necessity of fighting against the national isolationism, narrowness and
aloofness of the Socialist in the oppressed countries, who do not want to rise above
their national parochialism and who do not understand the connection between the
liberation movement in their own countries and the proletarian movement in the ruling
countries.
Without such a struggle it is inconceivable that the proletariat of the oppressed nations
can maintain an independent policy and its class solidarity with the proletariat of the
ruling countries in the fight for the overthrow of the common enemy, in the fight for
the overthrow of imperialism.
Without such a struggle, internationalism would be impossible.
Such is the way in which the toiling masses of the dominant and of the oppressed
nations must be educated in the spirit of revolutionary internationalism.
Here is what Lenin says about this twofold task of communism in educating the
workers in the spirit of internationalism:
"Can such education…be concretely identical in great, oppressing nations and in
small, oppressed nations, in annexing nations and in annexed nations?
"Obviously not. The way to the one goal-to complete equality, to the closest relations
and the subsequent amalgamation of all nations-obviously proceeds here by different
routes in each concrete case; in the same way, let us say, as the route to a point in the
middle of a given page lies towards the left from one edge and towards the right from
the opposite edge. If a Social-Democrat belonging to a great, oppressing, annexing
nation, while advocating the amalgamation of nations in general, were to forget even
for one moment that 'his' Nicholas II, 'his' Wilhelm, George, Poincare, etc., also
stands for amalgamation with small nations (by means of annexations)-Nicholas II
being for 'amalgamation' with Galicia, Wilhelm II for 'amalgamation' with Belgium,
etc.-such a Social-Democrat would be a ridiculous doctrinaire in theory and an abettor
of imperialism in practice.
"The weight of emphasis in the internationalist education of the workers in the
oppressing countries must necessarily consist in their advocating and upholding
freedom of secession for oppressed countries. Without this there can be no
internationalism. It is our right and duty to treat every Social-Democrat of an
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oppressing nation who fails to conduct such propaganda as an imperialist and a
scoundrel. This is an absolute demand, even if the chance of secession being possible
and 'feasible' before the introduction of socialism be one in a thousand….
"On the other hand, a Social-Democrat belonging to a small nation must emphasise in
his agitation the second word of our general formula: 'voluntary union' of nations. He
may, without violating his duties as an internationalist, be in favour of either the
political independence of his nation or its inclusion in a neighboring state X,Y,Z, etc.
But in all cases he must fight against small-nation narrow-mindedness, isolationism
and aloofness, he must fight for the recognition of the whole and the general, for the
subordination of the interests of the particular to the interests of the general.
"People who have not gone thoroughly into the question think there is a 'contradiction'
in Social-Democrats of oppressing nations insisting on 'freedom of secession,' while
Social-Democrats of oppressed nations insist on 'freedom of union.' However, a little
reflection will show that there is not, and cannot be, any other road leading from the
given situation to internationalism and the amalgamation of nations, any other road to
this goal" (see Vol. XIX, pp. 261-62).
From this theme I take six questions:
a) strategy and tactics as the science of leadership in the class struggle of the
proletariat;
b) stages of the revolution, and strategy;
c) the flow and ebb of the movement, and tactics;
d) strategic leadership;
e) tactical leadership;
f) reformism and revolutionism.
1) Strategy and tactics as the science of leadership in the class struggle of the
proletariat. The period of the domination of the Second International was mainly a
period of the formation and training of the proletarian political armies under
conditions of more or less peaceful development. It was the period of parliamentarism
as the predominant form of the class struggle. Questions of great class conflicts, of
preparing the proletariat for revolutionary clashes, of the means of achieving the
dictatorship of the proletariat, did not seem to be on the order of the day at that time.
The task was confined to utilising all means of legal development for the purpose of
forming and training the proletarian armies, to utilising parliamentarism in conformity
with the conditions under which the status of the proletariat remained, and, as it
seemed, had to remain, that of an opposition. It scarcely needs proof that in such a
period and with such a conception of the tasks of the proletariat there could be neither
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an integral strategy nor any elaborated tactics. There were fragmentary and detached
ideas about tactics and strategy, but no tactics or strategy as such.
The mortal sin of the Second International was not that it pursued at that time the
tactics of utilising parliamentary forms of struggle, but that it overestimated the
importance of these forms, that it considered them virtually the only forms; and that
when the period of open revolutionary battles set in and the question of extraparliamentary forms of struggle came to the fore, the parties of the Second
International turned their backs on these new tasks, refused to shoulder them.
Only in the subsequent period, the period of direct action by the proletariat, the period
of proletarian revolution, when the question of overthrowing the bourgeoisie became a
question of immediate practical action; when the question of the reserves of the
proletariat (strategy) became one of the most burning questions; when all forms of
struggle and of organisation, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary (tactics), had
quite clearly manifested themselves-only in this period could an integral strategy and
elaborated tactics for the struggle of the proletariat be worked out. It was precisely in
this period that Lenin brought out into the light of day the brilliant ideas of Marx and
Engels on tactics and strategy that been suppressed by the opportunists of the Second
International. But Lenin did not confine himself to restoring particular tactical
propositions of Marx and Engels. He developed them further and supplemented them
with new ideas and propositions, combining them all into a system of rules and
guiding principles for the leadership of the class struggle of the proletariat. Lenin's
pamphlets, such as What Is To Be Done?, Two Tactics, Imperialism, The State and
Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, "Left Wing"
Communism, undoubtedly constitute priceless contributions to the general treasury of
Marxism, to its revolutionary arsenal. The strategy and tactics of Leninism constitute
the science of leadership in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat.
2) Stages of the revolution, and strategy. Strategy is the determination of the direction
of the main blow of the proletariat at a given stage of the revolution, the elaboration of
a corresponding plan for the disposition of the revolutionary forces (main and
secondary reserves), the fight to carry out this plan throughout the given stage of the
revolution.
Our revolution had already passed through two stages, and after the October
Revolution it entered a third one. Our strategy changed accordingly.
First stage. 1903 to February 1917. Objective: to overthrow tsarism and completely
wipe out the survivals of medievalism. The main force of the revolution: the
proletariat. Immediate reserves: the peasantry. Direction of the main blow: the
isolation of the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, which was striving to win over the
peasantry and liquidate the revolution by a compromise with tsarism. Plan for the
disposition of forces: alliance of the working class with the peasantry. "The
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proletariat, must carry to completion the democratic revolution, by allying to itself the
mass of the peasantry in order to crush by force the resistance of the autocracy and to
paralyse the instability of the bourgeoisie" (see Lenin, Vol. VIII, p.96)
Second stage. March 1917 to October 1917. Objective: to overthrow imperialism in
Russia and to withdraw from the imperialist war. The main force of the revolution: the
proletariat. Immediate reserves: the poor peasantry. The proletariat of neighbouring
countries as probable reserves. The protracted war and the crisis of imperialism as a
favourable factor. Direction of the main blow: isolation of the petty-bourgeois
democrats (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries), who were striving to win over
the toiling masses of the peasantry and to put an end to the revolution by a
compromise with imperialism. Plan for the disposition of forces: alliance of the
proletariat with the poor peasantry. "The proletariat must accomplish the socialist
revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the
population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyse
the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie" (ibid.).
Third stage. Began after the October Revolution. Objective: to consolidate the
dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, using it as a base for the defeat of
imperialism in all countries. The revolution spreads beyond the confines of one
country; the epoch of world revolution has begun. The main force of the revolution:
the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, the revolutionary movement of the
proletariat in all countries. Main reserves: the semi-proletarian and small-peasant
masses in the developed countries, the liberation movement of the colonies and
dependent countries. Direction of the main blow: isolation of the petty-bourgeois
democrats, isolation of the parties of the Second International, which constitute the
main support of the policy of compromise with imperialism. Plan for the disposition of
forces: alliance of the proletarian revolution with the liberation movement in the
colonies and the dependent countries.
Strategy deals with the main forces of the revolution and their reserves. It changes
with the passing of the revolution from one stage to another, but remains basically
unchanged throughout a given stage.
3) The flow and ebb of the movement, and tactics. Tactics are the determination of the
line of conduct of the proletariat in the comparatively short period of the flow or ebb
of the movement, of the rise or decline of the revolution, the fight to carry out this line
by means of replacing old forms of struggle and organisation by new ones, old slogans
by new ones, by combining these forms, etc. While the object of strategy is to win the
war against tsarism, let us say, or against the bourgeoisie, to carry through the struggle
against tsarism or against the bourgeoisie to its end, tactics pursue less important
objects, for their aim is not the winning of the war as a whole, but the winning of
some particular engagements or some particular battles, the carrying through
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successfully of some particular campaigns or actions corresponding to the concrete
circumstances in the given period of rise or decline of the revolution. Tactics are a part
of strategy, subordinate to it and serving it.
Tactics change according to flow and ebb. While the strategic plan remained
unchanged during the first stage of the revolution (1903 to February 1917), tactics
changed several times during that period. In the period from 1903 to 1905 the Party
pursued offensive tactics, for the tide of the revolution was rising, the movement was
on the upgrade, and tactics had to proceed from this fact. Accordingly, the forms of
struggle were revolutionary, corresponding to the requirements of the rising tide of the
revolution. Local political strikes, political demonstrations, the general political strike,
boycott of the Duma, uprising, revolutionary fighting slogans-such were the
successive forms of the struggle during that period. These changes in the forms of
struggle were accomplished by corresponding changes in the forms of organisation.
Factory committees, revolutionary peasant committees, strike committees, Soviets of
workers' deputies, a workers, party operating more or less openly-such were the forms
of organisation during that period.
In the period from 1907 to 1912 the Party was compelled to resort to tactics of retreat;
for we then experienced a decline in the revolutionary movement, the ebb of the
revolution, and tactics necessarily had to take this fact into consideration. The forms
of struggle, as well as the forms of organisation, changed accordingly: instead of the
boycott of the Duma-participation in the Duma; instead of open revolutionary actions
outside the Duma-actions and work in the Duma; instead of general political strikespartial economic strikes, or simply a lull in activities. Of course, the Party had to go
underground that period, while the revolutionary mass organisations were replaced by
cultural, educational, co-operative, insurance and other legal organisations.
The same must be said of the second and third stages of the revolution, during which
tactics changed dozens of times, whereas the strategic plans remained unchanged.
Tactics deal with the forms of struggle and the forms of organisation of the proletariat,
with their changes and combinations. During a given stage of the revolution tactics
may change several times, depending on the flow or ebb, the rise or decline of the
revolution.
4) Strategic leadership. The reserves of the revolution can be :
Direct: a) the peasantry and in general the intermediate strata of the population within
the country; b) the proletariat of neighbouring countries; c) the revolutionary
movement in the colonies and dependent countries; d) the conquests and gains of the
dictatorship of the proletariat-part of which the proletariat may give up temporarily,
while retaining superiority of forces, in order to buy off a powerful enemy and gain a
respite; and
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Indirect: a) the contradictions and conflicts among the non-proletarian classes within
the country, which can be utilised by the proletariat to weaken the enemy and to
strengthen its own reserves; b) contradictions, conflicts and wars (the imperialist war,
for instance) among the bourgeois states hostile to the proletarian state, which can be
utilised by the proletariat in its offensive or in manoeuvring in the event of a forced
retreat.
There is no need to speak at length about the reserves of the first category, as their
significance is clear to everyone. As for the reserves of the second category, whose
significance is not clear, it must be said that sometimes they are of prime importance
for the progress of the revolution. One can hardly deny the enormous importance, for
example, of the conflicts between the petty-bourgeois democrats (SocialistRevolutionaries) and the liberal-monarchists bourgeoisie (the Cadets) during and after
the first revolution, which undoubtedly played its part in freeing the peasantry from
the influence of the bourgeoisie. Still less reason is there for denying the colossal
importance of the fact that the principal groups of imperialists were engaged in a
deadly war during the period of the October Revolution, when the imperialist,
engrossed in war among themselves, were unable to concentrate their forces against
the young Soviet power, and the proletariat for this very reason, was able to get down
to work of organising its forces and consolidating its power, and to prepare the rout of
Kolchak and Denikin. It must be presumed that now, when the contradictions among
the imperialist groups are becoming more and more profound, and when a new war
among them is becoming inevitable, reserves of this description will assume ever
greater importance for the proletariat.
The task of strategic leadership is to make proper use of all these reserves for the
achievement of the main object of the revolution at the given stage of its development.
What does making proper us of reserves mean?
It means fulfilling certain necessary conditions, of which the following must be
regarded as the principal ones:
Firstly. The concentration of the main forces of the revolution at the enemy's most
vulnerable spot at the decisive moment, when the revolution has already become ripe,
when the offensive is going full-steam ahead, when insurrection is knocking at the
door, and when bringing the reserves up to the vanguard is the decisive condition of
success. The party's strategy during the period from April to October 1917 can be
taken as an example of this manner of utilising reserves. Undoubtedly, the enemy's
most vulnerable spot at that time was the war. Undoubtedly, it was on this question, as
the fundamental one, that the Party rallied the broadest masses of the population
around the proletarian vanguard. The Party's strategy during that period was, while
training the vanguard for street action by means of manifestations and demonstrations,
to bring the reserves up to the vanguard through the medium of Soviets in the rear and
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the soldiers' committees at the front. The outcome of the revolution has shown that the
reserves were properly utillised.
Here is what Lenin, paraphrasing the well-known theses of Marx and Engels on
insurrection, says about this condition of the strategic utilisation of the forces of the
revolution :
"1) Never play with insurrection, but when beginning it firmly realise that you must
go to the end.
"2) Concentrate a great superiority of forces at the decisive point, at the decisive
moment, otherwise the enemy, who has the advantage of better preparation and
organisation, will destroy the insurgents.
"3) Once the insurrection has begun, you must act with the greatest determination, and
by all means, without fail, take the offensive. 'The defensive is the death of every
armed uprising.'
"4) You must try to take the enemy by surprise and seize the moment when his forces
are scattered.
"5) You must strive for daily success, even if small (one might say hourly, if it is the
case of one town), and at all costs retain the 'moral ascendancy'" (see Vol. XXI, pp.
319-20).
Secondly. The selection of the moment for the decisive blow, of the moment for
starting the insurrection, so timed as to coincide with the moment when the crisis has
reached its climax, when it is already the case that the vanguard is prepared to fight to
the end, the reserves are prepared to support the vanguard, and maximum
consternation reigns in the ranks of the enemy.
The decisive battle, says Lenin, may be deemed to have fully matured if "(1) all the
class forces hostile to us have become sufficiently entangled, are sufficiently at
loggerheads, have sufficiently weakened themselves in a struggle which is beyond
their strength"; if "(2) all the vacillating, wavering, unstable, intermediate elements-the
petty bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois democrats as distinct from the bourgeoisie-have
sufficiently exposed themselves in the eyes of the people, have sufficiently disgraced
themselves through their practical bankruptcy"; if "(3) among the proletariat a mass
sentiment in favour of supporting the most determined, supremely bold, revolutionary
action against the bourgeoisie has arisen and begun vigorously to grow. Then
revolution is indeed ripe; then, indeed, if we have correctly gauged all the conditions
indicated above...and if we have chosen the moment rightly, our victory is assured"
(see Vol. XXV, p.229)
The manner in which the October uprising was carried out may be taken as a model of
such strategy.
Failure to observe this condition leads to a dangerous error called "loss of tempo,"
when the Party lags behind the movement or runs far ahead of it, courting the danger
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of failure. An example of such "loss of tempo," of how the moment for an uprising
should not be chosen, may be seen in the attempt made by a section of our comrades
to begin the uprising by arresting the Democratic Conference in September 1917,
when wavering was still apparent in the Soviets, when the armies at the front were still
at the crossroads, when the reserves had not yet been brought up to the vanguard.
Thirdly. Undeviating pursuit of the course adopted, no matter what difficulties and
complications are encountered on the road towards the goal; this is necessary in order
that the vanguard may not lose sight of the main goal of the struggle and that the
masses may not stray from the road while marching towards that goal and striving to
rally around the vanguard. Failure to observe this condition leads to a grave error, well
known to sailors as "losing one's bearing." As an example of this "losing one's
bearings." We may take the erroneous conduct of our Party when, immediately after
the Democratic Conference, it adopted a resolution to participate in the Preparliament. For the moment the Party, as it were, forgot that the Pre-parliament was an
attempt of the bourgeoisie to switch the country from the path of the Soviets to the
path of bourgeois parliamentarism, that the Party's participation in such a body might
result in mixing everything up and confusing the workers and peasants, who were
waging a revolutionary struggle under the slogan: "All Power to the Soviets." This
mistake was rectified by the withdrawal of the Bolsheviks from the Pre-parliament.
Fourthly. Manoeuvring the reserves with a view to effecting a proper retreat when the
enemy is strong, when retreat is inevitable, when to accept battle forced upon us by
the enemy is obviously disadvantageous, when, with the given relation of forces,
retreat becomes the only way to escape a blow against the vanguard and to retain the
reserves for the latter.
"The revolutionary parties," says Lenin, :must complete their education. They have
learned to attack. Now they have to realise that this knowledge must be supplemented
with the knowledge how to retreat properly. They have to realise-and the
revolutionary class is taught to realise it by its own bitter experience-that victory is
impossible unless they have learned both how to attack and how to retreat properly"
(see Vol. XXV, p. 177)
The object of this strategy is to gain time to disrupt the enemy, and to accumulate
forces in order to later assume the offensive.
The signing of the Brest Peace may be taken as a model of this strategy, for it enabled
the Party to gain time, to take advantage of the conflicts in the camp of the
imperialists, to disrupt the forces of the enemy, to retain the support of the peasantry,
and to accumulate forces in preparation for the offensive against Kolchak and
Denikin.
"In concluding a separate peace," said Lenin at that time, "we free ourselves as much
as it is possible at the present moment from both warring imperialist groups, we take
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advantage of their mutual enmity and warfare, which hinder them from making a deal
against us, and for a certain period have our hands free to advance and to consolidate
the socialist revolution" (see Vol. XXII, p. 198).
"Now even the biggest fool," said Lenin three years after the Brest Peace, can see
"that the 'Brest Peace' was a concession that strengthened us and broke up the forces
of international imperialism" (see Vol. XXVII, p. 7)
Such are the principal conditions which ensure correct strategic leadership.
5) Tactical leadership. Tactical leadership is a part of strategic leadership,
subordinated to the tasks and the requirements of the latter. The task of tactical
leadership is to master all forms of struggle and organisation of the proletariat and to
ensure that they are used properly so as to achieve, with the given relations of forces,
the maximum results necessary to prepare for strategic success.
What is meant by making proper use of the forms of struggle and organisation of the
proletariat?
It means fulfilling certain necessary conditions, of which the following must be
regarded as the principal ones:
Firstly. To put in the forefront precisely those forms of struggle and organisation
which are best suited to the conditions prevailing during the flow or ebb of the
movement at a given moment, and which therefore can facilitate and ensure the
bringing of the masses to the revolutionary positions, the bringing of the millions to
the revolutionary front, and their disposition at the revolutionary front.
The point here is not that the vanguard should realise the impossibility of preserving
the old regime and the inevitability of its overthrow. The point is that the masses, the
million should understand this inevitability and display their readiness to support the
vanguard. But the masses can understand this only from their own experience. The
task is to enable the vast masses to realise from their own experience the inevitability
of the overthrow of the old regime, to promote such methods of struggle and forms of
organisations as will make it easer fro the masses to realise from experience the
correctness of the revolutionary slogans.
The vanguard would have become detached from the working class, and the working
class would have lost contact with the masses, if the Party had not decided as the time
to participate in the Duma, if it had not decided to concentrate its forces on work in
the Duma and to develop a struggle on the basis of this work, in order to make it
easier for the masses to realise from their own experience the futility of the Duma, the
falsity of the promises of the Cadets, the impossibility of compromise with tsarism,
and the inevitability of an alliance between the peasantry and the working class. Had
the masses not gained their experience during the period of the Duma, the exposure of
the Cadets and the hegemony of the proletariat would have been impossible.
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The danger of the "Otzovist" tactics was that they threatened to detach the vanguard
from the millions of its reserves.
The Party would have become detached from the working class, and the working class
would have lost its influence among the broad masses of the peasants and soldiers, if
the proletariat had followed the "Left" Communists, who called for an uprising in
April 1917, when the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had not yet exposed
themselves as advocates of war and imperialism, when the masses had not yet realized
from their own experience the falsity of speeches of the Mensheviks and SocialistRevolutionaries about peace, land and freedom. Had the masses not gained this
experience during the Kerensky period, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries
would not have been isolated and the dictatorship of the proletariat would have been
impossible. Therefore, the tactics of "patiently explaining" the mistakes of the pettybourgeois parties and of open struggle in the Soviets were the only correct tactics.
The danger of the tactics of the "Left" Communists was that they threatened to
transform the Party from the leader of the proletarian revolution into a handful of
futile conspirators with no ground to stand on.
"Victory cannot be won with the vanguard alone," says Lenin. "To throw the vanguard
alone into the decisive battle, before the whole class, before the broad masses have
taken up a position either of direct support of the vanguard, or at least of benevolent
neutrality towards it...would be not merely folly but a crime. And in order that actually
the whole class, that actually the broad masses of the working people and those
oppressed by capital may take up such a position, propaganda and agitation alone are
not enough. For this the masses must have their own political experience. Such is the
fundamental law of all great revolutions, now confirmed with astonishing force and
vividness not only in Russia but also in Germany. Not only the uncultured, often
illiterate masses of Russia, but the highly cultured, entirely literate masses of Germany
had to realise through their own painful experience the absolute impotence and
spinelessness, the absolute helplessness and servility to the bourgeoisie, the utter
vileness, of the government of the knights of the Second International, the absolute
inevitability of a dictatorship of the extreme reactionaries (Kornilov in Russia, Kapp
and Co. in Germany) as the only alternatives to a dictatorship of the proletariat, in
order to turn resolutely towards communism" (see Vol. XXV, p. 228)
Secondly. To locate at any given moment the particular link in the chain of processes
which, if grasped, will enable us to keep hold of the whole chain and to prepare the
conditions for achieving strategic success.
The point here is to single out from all the tasks confronting the Party the particular
immediate task, the fulfillment of which constitutes the central point, and the
accomplishment of which ensures the successful fulfillment of the other immediate
tasks.
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The importance of this thesis may be illustrated by two examples, one of which could
be taken from the remote past (the period of the formation of the Party) and the other
from the immediate present (the period of the NEP).
In the period of the formation of the Party, when the innumerable circles and
organizations had not yet been linked together, when amateurishness and the parochial
outlook of the circles were corroding the Party from top to bottom, when ideological
confusion was the characteristic feature of the internal life of the Party, the main link
and the main task in the chain of links and in the chain of tasks then confronting the
Party proved to be the establishment of an all-Russian illegal newspaper (Iskra).
Why? Because, under the conditions then prevailing, only by means of an all-Russian
illegal newspaper was it possible to create a solid core of the Party capable to create a
solid core of the Party capable of uniting the innumerable circles and organisations
into one whole, to prepare the conditions for ideological and tactical unity, and thus to
build the foundations for the formation of a real party.
During the period of transition from war to economic construction, when industry was
vegetating in the grip of disruption and agriculture was suffering from a shortage of
urban manufactured goods, when the establishment of a bond between state industry
and peasant economy became the fundamental condition for successful socialist
construction-in that period it turned out that the main link in the chain of processes,
the main task among a number of tasks, was to develop trade. Why? Because under
the conditions of the NEP the bond between industry and peasant economy cannot be
established except through trade; because under the conditions of the NEP production
without sale is fatal for industry; because industry can be expanded only by the
expansion of sales as a result of developing trade; because only after we have
consolidated our position in the sphere of trade, only after we have secured control of
trade, only after we have secured this link can be there be nay hope of linking industry
with the peasant market and successfully fulfilling the other immediate tasks in order
to create the conditions for building the foundations of socialist economy.
"It is not enough to be a revolutionary and an adherent of socialism or a Communist in
general," says Lenin. "One must be able at each particular moment to find the
particular link in the chain which one must grasp with all one's might in order to keep
hold of the whole chain and to prepare firmly for the transition to the next link."...
"At the present time...this link is the revival of internal trade under proper state
regulation (direction). Trade-that is the 'link' in the historical chain of events, in the
transitional forms of our socialist construction in 1921-22, 'which we must grasp with
all our might'..." (see Vol. XXVII, p. 82)
Such are the principal conditions which ensure correct tactical leadership.
6) Reforminsm and revolutionism. What is the difference between revolutionary
tactics and reformist tactics?
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Some think that Leninism is opposed to reforms, opposed to compromises and to
agreements in general. This is absolutely wrong. Bolsheviks know as well as anybody
else that in a certain sense "every little helps," that under certain conditions reforms in
general, and compromises and agreements in particular, are necessary and useful.
"To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie," says Lenin, "a
war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted, and complicated than the
most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to refuse beforehand to
manoeuvre, to utilise the conflict of interests (even though temporary) among one's
enemies, to reject agreements and compromises with possible (even though
temporary, unstable, vacillating and conditional) allies-is not this ridiculous in the
extreme? Is it not as though, when making a difficult ascent of an unexplored and
hitherto inaccessible mountain, we were to refuse beforehand ever to move in zigzags,
ever to retrace our steps, ever to abandon the course once selected and to try others?"
(see Vol. XXV, p. 210).
Obviously, therefore, it is not a matter of reforms or of compromises and agreements,
but of the use people make of reforms and agreements.
To a reformist, reforms are everything, while revolutionary work is something
incidental, something just to talk about, mere eyewash. That is why, with reformist
tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are inevitability transformed
into an instrument for strengthening that rule, an instrument for disintegrating the
revolution.
To a revolutionary, on the contrary, the main thing is revolutionary work and not
reforms; to him reforms are a by-product of the revolution. That is why, with
revolutionary tactics under the conditions of bourgeois rule, reforms are naturally
transformed into an instrument for strengthening the revolution, into a strongpoint for
the further development of the revolutionary movement.
The revolutionary will accept a reform in order to use it as an aid in combining legal
work with illegal work to intensify, under its cover, the illegal work for the
revolutionary preparation of the masses for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
That is the essence of making revolutionary use of reforms and agreements under the
conditions of imperialism.
The reformist, on the contrary, will accept reforms in order to renounce all illegal
work, to thwart the preparation of the masses for the revolution and to rest in the
shade of "bestowed" reforms.
That is the essence of reformist tactics.
Such is the position in regard to reforms and agreements under the conditions of
imperialism.
The situation changes somewhat, however, after the overthrow of imperialism, under
the dictatorship of the proletariat. Under certain conditions, in a certain situation, the
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proletarian power may find itself compelled temporarily to leave the path of the
revolutionary reconstruction of the existing order of things and to take the path of its
gradual transformation, the "reformist path," as Lenin says in his well-known article
"The Importance of Gold,"1 the path of flanking movements, of reforms and
concessions to the non-proletarian classes-in order to disintegrate these classes, to give
the revolution a respite, to recuperate one's forces and prepare the conditions for a new
offensive. It cannot be denied that in a sense this is a "reformist" path. But it must be
borne in mind that there is a fundamental distinction here, which consists in the fact
that in this case the reform emanates from the proletarian power, it strengthens the
proletarian power, it procures for it a necessary respite, its purpose is to disintegrate,
not the revolution, but the non-proletarian classes.
Under such conditions a reform is thus transformed into its opposite.
The proletarian power is able to adopt such a policy because, and only because, the
sweep of the revolution in the preceding period was great enough and therefore
provided a sufficiently wide expanse within which to retreat, substituting for offensive
tactics the tactics of temporary retreat, the tactics of flanking movements.
Thus, while formerly, under bourgeois rule, reforms were a by-product of revolution,
now under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the source of reforms is the revolutionary
gains of the proletariat, the reserves accumulated in the hands of the proletariat
consisting of these gains.
"Only Marxism," says Lenin, "has precisely and correctly defined the relation of
reforms to revolution. However, Marx was able to see this relation only from one
aspect, namely, under the conditions preceding the first to any extant permanent and
lasting victory of the proletariat, if only in a single country. Under those conditions,
the basis of the proper relations was: reforms are a by-product of the revolutionary
class struggle of the proletariat... After the victory of the proletariat, if only in a single
country, something new enters into the relation between reforms and revolution. In
principal, it is the same as before, but a change in form takes place, which Marx
himself could not foresee, but which can be appreciated only on the basis of the
philosophy and politics of Marxism...After the victory (while still remaining a 'byproduct' on an international scale) they (i.e., reforms-J.St.) are, in addition, for the
country in which victory has been achieved, a necessary and legitimate respite in those
cases when, after the utmost exertion of effort, it becomes obvious that sufficient
strength is lacking for the revolutionary accomplishment of this or that transition.
Victory creates such a 'reserve of strength' that it is possible to hold out even in a
forced retreat, to hold out both materially and morally" (see Vol. XXVII, pp. 84-85).
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VIII
THE PARTY
In the pre-revolutionary period, the period of more or less peaceful development,
when the parties of the Second International were the predominant force in the
working-class movement and parliamentary forms of struggle were regarded as the
principal forms-under these conditions the Party neither had nor could have had that
great and decisive importance which it acquired afterwards, under conditions of open
revolutionary clashes. Defending the Second International against attacks made upon
it, Kautsky says that the parties of the Second International are an instrument of peace
and not of war, and that for this very reason they were powerless to take any important
steps during the war, during the period of revolutionary action by the proletariat. That
is quite true. But what does it mean? It means that the parties of the Second
International are unfit for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, that they are not
militant parties of the proletariat, leading the workers to power, but election machines
adapted for parliamentary elections and parliamentary struggle. This, in fact, explains
why, in the days when the opportunists of the Second International were in the
ascendancy, it was not the party but its parliamentary group that was the chief political
organisation of the proletariat. It is well known that the party at that time was really an
appendage and subsidiary of the parliamentary group. It scarcely needs proof that
under such circumstances and with such a party at the helm there could be no question
of preparing the proletariat for revolution.
But matters have changed radically with the dawn of the new period. The new period
is one of open class collisions, of revolutionary action by the proletariat, of proletarian
revolution, a period when forces are being directly mustered for the overthrow of
imperialism and the seizure of power by the proletariat. In this period the proletariat is
confronted with new tasks, the tasks of reorganising all party work on new,
revolutionary lines; of educating the workers in the spirit of revolutionary struggle for
power; of preparing and moving up reserves; of establishing an alliance with the
proletarians of neighbouring countries; of establishing firm ties with the liberation
movement in the colonies and dependent countries, etc., etc. To think that these new
tasks can be performed by the old Social-Democratic parties, brought up as they were
in the peaceful conditions of parliamentarism, is to doom oneself to hopeless despair,
to inevitable defeat. If, with such tasks to shoulder, the proletariat remained under the
leadership of the old parties, it would be completely unarmed. It scarcely needs proof
that the proletariat could not consent to such a state of affairs.
Hence the necessity for a new party, a militant party, a revolutionary party, one bold
enough to lead the proletarians in the struggle for power, sufficiently experienced to
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find its bearings amidst the complex conditions of a revolutionary situation, and
sufficiently flexible to steer clear of all submerged rocks in the path to its goal.
Without such a party it is useless even to think of overthrowing imperialism, of
achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This new party is the party of Leninism.
What are the specific features of this new party?
1)The Party as the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must be, first
of all, the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must absorb all the
best elements of the working class, their experience, their revolutionary spirit, their
selfless devotion to the cause of the proletariat. But in order that it may really be the
armed detachment, the Party must be armed with revolutionary theory, with a
knowledge of the laws of the movement, with a knowledge of the laws of revolution.
Without this it will be incapable of directing the struggle of the proletariat, of leading
the proletariat. The Party cannot be a real party if it limits itself to registering what the
masses of the working class feel and think, if it drags at the tail of the spontaneous
movement, if it is unable to overcome the inertia and the political indifference of the
spontaneous movement, if it is unable to rise above the momentary interests of the
proletariat, if it is unable to raise the masses to the level of understanding the class
interests of the proletariat. The Party must stand at the head of the working class; it
must see farther than the working class; it must lead the proletariat, and not drag at the
tail of the spontaneous movement. The parties of the Second International, which
preach "khvostism," are vehicles of bourgeois policy, which condemns the proletariat
to the role of a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Only a party which adopts the
standpoint of advanced detachment of the proletariat and is able to raise the masses to
the level of understanding the class interest of the proletariat-only such a party can
divert the working class from the path of trade unionism and convert it into an
independent political force.
The Party is the political leader of the working class.
I have already spoken of the difficulties of the struggle of the working class, of the
complicated conditions of the struggle, of strategy and tactics, of reserves and
manoeuvring, of attack and retreat. These conditions are no less complicated, if not
more so, than the conditions of war. Who can see clearly in these conditions, who can
give correct guidance to the proletarian millions? No army at war can dispense with an
experienced General Staff if it does not want to be doomed to defeat. Is it not clear
that the proletariat can still less dispense with such a General Staff if it does not want
to allow itself to be devoured by its mortal enemies? But where is this General Staff?
Only the revolutionary party of the proletariat can serve as this General Staff. The
working class without a revolutionary party is an army without a General Staff.
The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat.
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But the Party cannot be only an advanced detachment. It must at the same time be a
detachment of the class, part of the class, closely bound up with it by all the fibres of
its being. The distinction between the advanced detachment and the rest of the
working class, between Party members and non-Party people, cannot disappear until
classes disappear; it will exist as long as the ranks of the proletariat continue to be
replenished with former members of other classes, as long as the working class as a
whole is not in a position to rise to the level of the advanced detachment. But the Party
would cease to be a party of this distinction developed into a gap, if the Party turned in
on itself and became divorced from the non-Party masses. The Party cannot lead the
class if it is not connected with the non-Party masses, if there is no bond between the
Party and the non-Party masses, if these masses do not accept its leadership, if the
Party enjoys no moral and political credit among the masses.
Recently two hundred thousand new members from the ranks of the workers were
admitted into our Party. The remarkable thing about this is the fact that these people
did not merely join the Party themselves, but were rather sent there by all the rest of
the non-Party workers, who took an active part in the admission of the new members,
and without whose approval no new member was accepted. This fact shows that the
broad masses of non-Party workers regard our Party as their Party, as a Party near and
dear to them, in whose expansion and consolidation they are vitally interested and to
whose leadership they voluntarily entrust their destiny. It scarcely needs proof that
without these intangible moral threads which connect the Party with the non-Party
masses, the Party could not have become the decisive force of its class.
The Party is an inseparable part of the working class.
"We," says Lenin, "are the Party of a class, and therefore almost the whole class (and
in times of war, in the period of civil war, the whole class) should act under the
leadership of our Party, should adhere to our Party as closely as possible. But it would
be Manilovism and 'khvostosm' to think that at any time under capitalism almost the
whole class, or the whole class, would be able to rise to the level of consciousness and
activity of its advanced detachment, of its Social-Democratic Party. No sensible
Social-Democrat has ever yet doubted that under capitalism even the trade union
organisations (which are more primitive and more comprehensible to the undeveloped
strata) are unable to embrace almost the whole, or the whole, working class. To forget
the distinction between the advanced detachment and the whole of the masses which
gravitate towards it, to forget the constant duty of the advanced detachment to raise
ever wider strata to this most advanced level, means merely to deceive oneself, to shut
one's eyes to the immensity of our tasks, and to narrow down these tasks" (see Vol.
VI, pp. 205-06).
2) The Party as the organised detachment of the working class. The Party is not only
the advanced detachment of the working class. If it desires really to direct the struggle
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of the class it must at the same time be the organised detachment of its class. The
Party's tasks under the conditions of capitalism are immense and extremely varied.
The Party must direct the struggle of the proletariat under the exceptionally difficult
conditions of internal and external development; it must lead the proletariat in the
offensive when the situation calls for an offensive; it must lead the proletariat so as to
escape the blow of a powerful enemy when the situation calls for retreat; it must
imbue the millions of unorganised non-Party workers with the spirit of organisation
and endurance. But the Party can fulfil these tasks only if it is itself the embodiment of
discipline and organisation, if it is itself the organised detachment of the proletariat.
Without these conditions there can be no question of the Party really leading the vast
masses of the proletariat.
The Party is the organised detachment of the working class.
The conception of the Party as an organised whole is embodied in Lenin's well-known
formulation of the first paragraph of our Party Rules, in which the Party is regarded as
the sum total of its organisations, and the Party member as a member of one of the
organisations of the Party. The Mensheviks, who objected to this formulation as early
as 1903, proposed to substitute for it a "system" of self-enrolment in the Party, a
"system" of conferring the "title" of Party member upon every "professor" and "highschool student," upon every "sympathiser" and "striker" who supported the Party in
one way or another, but who did not join and did not want to join any one of the Party
organisations. It scarcely needs proof that had this singular "system" become
entrenched in our Party it would inevitably have led to our Party becoming inundated
with professors and high-school students and to its degeneration into a loose,
amorphous, disorganised "formation," lost in a sea of "sympathisers," that would have
obliterated the dividing line between the Party and the class and would have upset the
Party's task of raising the unorganised masses to the level of the advanced detachment.
Needless to say, under such an opportunist "system" our Party would have been
unable to fulfil the role of the organising core of the working class in the course of our
revolution.
"From the point of view of Comrade Martov," says Lenin, "the border-line of the
Party remains quite indefinite, for 'every striker' may 'proclaim himself a Party
member.' What is the use of this vagueness? A wide extension of the 'title.' Its harm is
that it introduces a disorganising idea, the confusing of class and Party" (see Vol. VI,
p. 211)
But the Party is not merely the sum total of Party organisations. The Party is at the
same time a single system of these organisations, their formal union into a single
whole, with higher and lower leading bodies, with subordination of the minority to the
majority, with practical decisions binding on all members of the Party. Without these
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conditions the Party cannot be a single organised whole capable of exercising
systematic and organised leadership in the struggle of the working class.
"Formerly," says Lenin, "our Party was not a formally organized whole, but only the
sum of separate groups, and therefore no other relations except those of ideological
influence were possible between these groups. Now we have become an organized
Party, and this implies the establishment of authority, the transformation of the power
of ideas into the power of authority, the subordination of lower Party bodies to higher
Party bodies" (see Vol. VI, p. 291).
The principle of the minority submitting to the majority, the principle of directing
Party work from a centre, not infrequently gives rise to attacks on the part of wavering
elements, to accusations of "bureaucracy," "formalism," etc. It scarcely needs proof
that systematic work by the Party as one whole, and the directing of the struggle of the
working class, would be impossible without putting these principles into effect.
Leninism in questions of organisation is the unswerving application of these
applications of these principles. Lenin terms the fight against these principles
"Russian nihilism" and "aristocratic anarchism," which deserves to be ridiculed and
swept aside.
Here is what Lenin says about these wavering elements in his book One Step
Forward:
"This aristocratic anarchism is particularly characteristic of the Russian nihilist. He
thinks of the Party organisation as a monstrous 'factory'; he regards the subordination
of the part to the whole and of the minority to the majority of 'serfdom'..., division of
labour under the direction of a centre evokes from him a tragi-comical outcry against
people being transformed into 'wheels and cogs'..., mention of the organisational rules
of the Party calls forth a contemptuous grimace and the disdainful...remark that one
could very well dispense with rules altogether."
"It is clear, I think, that the cries about this celebrated bureaucracy are just a screen for
dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the central bodies, a fig leaf....You are
a bureaucrat because you were appointed by the congress not by my will, but against
it; you are a formalist because you rely on the formal decisions of the congress, and
not on my consent; you are acting in a grossly mechanical way because you plead the
'mechanical' majority at the Party Congress and pay no heed to my wish to be coopted; you are an autocrat because you refuse to hand over the power to the old gang"
1
(see Vol. VI, pp. 310, 287).
3) The Party as the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat. The Party is
the organised detachment of the working class. But the Party is not the only
organisation of the working class. The proletariat has also a number of other
organisations, without which it cannot wage a successful struggle against capital: trade
unions, co-operatives, factory organisations, parliamentary groups, non-Party women's
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associations, the press, cultural and educational organisations, youth leagues,
revolutionary fighting organisations (in times of open revolutionary action), Soviets of
deputies as the form of state organisation (if the proletariat is in power), etc. The
overwhelming majority of these organisations are non-Party, and only some of them
adhere directly to the Party, or constitute offshoots from it. All these organisations,
under certain conditions, are absolutely necessary for the working class, for without
them it would be impossible to consolidate the class positions of the proletariat in the
diverse spheres of struggle; for without them it would be impossible to steel the
proletariat as the force whose mission it is to replace the bourgeois order by the
socialist order. But how can single leadership be exercised with such an abundance or
organisations? What guarantee is there that this multiplicity of organisations will not
lead to divergency in leadership? It may be said that each of these organisations
carries on its work in its own special field, and that therefore these organisations
cannot hinder one another. That, of course, is true. But it is also true that all these
organisations should work in one direction for they serve one class, the class of the
proletarians. The question then arises: who is to determine the line, the general
direction, along which the work of all these organisations is to be conducted? Where
is the central organisations which is not only able, because it has the necessary
experience, to work out such a general line, but, in addition, is in a position, because it
has sufficient prestige, to induce all these organisations to carry out this line , so as to
attain unity of leadership and to make hitches impossible?
That organisation is the Party of the proletariat.
The Party possesses all the necessary qualifications for this because, in the first place,
it is the rallying centre of the finest elements in the working class, who have direct
connections with the non-Party organisations of the proletariat and very frequently
lead them; because, secondly, the Party, as the rallying centre of the finest members of
the working class, is the best school for training leaders of the working class, capable
of directing every form of organisation of their class; because, thirdly, the Party, as the
best school for training leaders of the working class, is, by reason of its experience
and prestige , the only organisation capable of centralising the leadership of the
struggle of the proletariat, thus transforming each and every non-Party organisation of
the working class into an auxiliary body and transmission belt linking the Party with
the class.
The Party is the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat.
This does not mean, of course, that non-Party organisations, trade unions, cooperatives, etc., should be officially subordinated to the Party leadership. It only
means that the members of the Party who belong to these organisations and are
doubtlessly influential in them should do all they can to persuade these non-Party
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organisations to draw nearer to the Party of the proletariat in their work and
voluntarily accept its political leadership.
That is why Lenin says that the Party is "the highest form of proletarian class
association," whose political leadership must extend to every other form of
organization of the proletariat. (see Vol. XXV, p. 194)
That is why the opportunist theory of the "independence" and "neutrality" of the nonParty organisations, which breeds independent members of parliament and journalists
isolated from the Party, narrow-minded trade union leaders and philistine co-operative
officials, is wholly incompatible with the theory and practice of Leninism.
4) The Party as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Party is the
highest form of organisation of the proletariat. The Party is the principle guiding force
within the class of the proletarians and among the organisations of that class. But it
does not by any means follow from this that the Party can be regarded as an end in
itself, as a self-sufficient force. The Party is not only the highest form of class
association of the proletarians; it is at the same time an instrument in the hands of the
proletariatfor achieving the dictatorship, when that has not yet been achieved and for
consolidating and expanding the dictatorship when it has already been achieved. The
Party could not have risen so high in importance and could not have exerted its
influence over all other forms of organisations of the proletariat, if the latter had not
been confronted with the question of power, if the conditions of imperialism, the
inevitability of wars, and the existence of a crisis had not yet demanded the
concentration of all the forces of the proletariat at one point, the gathering of all the
threads of the revolutionary movement in one spot in order to overthrow the
bourgeoisie and to achieve the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat needs the
Party first of all as its General Staff, which it must have for the successful seizure of
power. It scarcely needs proof that without a party capable of rallying around itself the
mass organisations of the proletariat, and of centralising the leadership of the entire
movement during the progress of the struggle , the proletariat in Russia could not have
established its revolutionary dictatorship.
But the proletariat needs the Party not only to achieve the dictatorship; it needs it still
more to maintain the dictatorship, to consolidate and expand it in order to achieve the
complete victory of socialism.
"Certainly, almost everyone now realises," says Lenin, "that the Bolsheviks could not
have maintained themselves in power for two-and-a-half months, let alone two-and-ahalf years, without the strictest, truly iron discipline in our Party, and without the
fullest and unreserved support of the latter by the whole mass of the working class,
that is, by all its thinking, honest, self-sacrificing and influential elements, capable of
leading or of carrying with them the backwards strata" (see Vol. XXV, p. 173).
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Now, what does to "maintain" and "expand" the dictatorship mean? It means imbuing
the millions of proletarians with the spirit of discipline and organisation; it means
creating among the proletarian masses a cementing force and a bulwark against the
corrosive influence of the petty-bourgeois elemental forces and petty-bourgeois
habits; it means enhancing the organising work of the proletarians in re-educating and
remoulding the petty-bourgeois strata; it means helping the masses of the proletarians
to educate themselves as a force capable of abolishing classes and of preparing the
conditions for the organisation of socialist production. But it is impossible to
accomplish all this without a party which is strong by reason of its solidarity and
discipline.
"The dictatorship of the proletariat," says Lenin, "is a stubborn struggle-bloody and
bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and
administrative-against the forces and traditions of the old society. The force of habit of
millions and tens of millions is a most terrible force. Without an iron party tempered
in the struggle, without a party enjoying the confidence of all that is honest in the
given class without a party capable of watching and influencing the mood of the
masses, it is impossible to conduct such a strategy successfully" (see Vol. XXV, p.
190).
The proletariat needs the Party for the purpose of achieving and maintaining the
dictatorship. The Party is an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
But from this it follows that when classes disappear and the dictatorship of the
proletariat withers away, the Party also will wither away.
5) The Party as the embodiment of unity of will, unity incompatible with the existence
of factions. The achievement and maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat is
impossible without a party which is strong by reason of its solidarity and iron
discipline. But iron discipline in the Party is inconceivable without unity of will,
without complete and absolute unity of action on the part of all members of the Party.
This does not mean, of course, that the possibility of conflicts of opinion within the
Party is thereby precluded. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but
presupposes criticism and conflict of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it
mean that discipline must be "blind." On the contrary, iron discipline does not
preclude but presupposes conscious and voluntary submission, for only conscious
discipline can be truly iron discipline. But after a conflict of opinion has been closed,
after criticism has been exhausted and a decision has been arrived at, unity of will and
unity of action of all Party members are the necessary conditions without which
neither Party unity nor iron discipline in the Party is conceivable.
"In the present epoch of acute civil war," says Lenin, "the Communist Party will be
able to perform its duty only if it is organised in the most centralised manner, if iron
discipline bordering on military discipline prevails in it, and if its Party centre is a
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powerful and authoritative organ, wielding wide powers and enjoying the universal
confidence of the members of the Party" (see Vol. XXV, pp. 282-83).
This is the position in regard to discipline in the Party in the period of struggle
preceding the achievement of the dictatorship.
The same, but to an even greater degree, must be said about discipline in the Party
after the dictatorship has been achieved.
"Whoever," says Lenin, "weakens in the least the iron discipline of the Party of the
proletariat (especially during the time of its dictatorship), actually aids the bourgeoisie
against the proletariat" (see Vol. XXV, p. 190).
But from this it follows that the existence of factions is compatible neither with the
Party's unity nor with its iron discipline. It scarcely needs proof that the existence of
factions leads to the existence of a number of centres, and the existence of a number
of centres means the absence of one common centre in the Party, the breaking up of
unity of will, the weakening and disintegration of discipline, the weakening and
disintegration of the dictatorship. Of course, the parties of the Second International,
which are fighting against the dictatorship of the proletariat and have no desire to lead
the proletarians to power, can afford such liberalism as freedom of factions, for they
have no need at all for iron discipline. But the parties of the Communist International,
whose activities are conditioned by the task of achieving and consolidating the
dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot afford to be "liberal" or to permit freedom of
factions.
The Party represents unity of will, which precludes all factionalism and division of
authority in the Party.
Hence Lenin's warning about the "danger of factionalism from the point of view of
Party unity and of effecting the unity of will of the vanguard of the proletariat as the
fundamental condition for the success of the dictatorship of the proletariat," which is
embodied in the special resolution of the Tenth Congress of our Party "On Party
Unity." 2
Hence Lenin's demand for the "complete elimination of all factionalism" and the
"immediate dissolution of all groups, without exemption, that have been formed on
the basis of various platforms," on pain of "unconditional and immediate expulsion
from the Party" (see the resolution "On Party Unity").
6) The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements. The source of
factionalism in the Party is its opportunists elements. The proletariat is not an isolated
class. It is consistently replenished by the influx of peasants, petty bourgeois and
intellectuals proletarianised by the development of capitalism. At the same time the
upper stratum of the proletariat, principally trade union leaders and members of
parliament who are fed by the bourgeoisie out of the super-profits extracted from the
colonies, is undergoing a process of decay. "This stratum of bourgeoisified workers,
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or the 'labour aristocracy,'" says Lenin, "who are quite philistine in their mode of life,
in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the
Second International, and, in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the
bourgeoisie. For they are real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class
movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class..., real channels of reformism
and chauvinism" (see Vol. XIX, p.77)
In one way or another, all these petty-bourgeois groups penetrate into the Party and
introduce into it the spirit of hesitancy and opportunism, the spirit of demoralization
and uncertainty. It is they, principally, that constitute the source of factionalism and
disintegration, the source of disorganisation and disruption of the Party from within.
To fight imperialism with such "allies" in one's rear means to put oneself in the
position of being caught between two fires, from the front and from the rear.
Therefore, ruthless struggle against such elements, their expulsion from the Party, is a
pre-requisite for the successful struggle against imperialism.
The theory of "defeating" opportunist elements by the ideological struggle within the
Party, the theory of "overcoming" these elements within the confines of a single party,
is a rotten and dangerous theory, which threatens to condemn the Party to paralysis
and chronic infirmity, threatens to leave the Party a prey to opportunism, threatens to
leave the proletariat without a revolutionary party, threatens to deprive the proletariat
of its main weapon in the fight against imperialism. Our Party could not have emerged
on to the broad highway, it could not have seized power and organised the dictatorship
of the proletariat, it could not have emerged victorious from the civil war, if it had had
within its ranks people like Martov and Dan, Potresov and Axelrod. Our Party
succeeded in achieving internal unity and unexampled cohesion of its ranks primarily
because it was able to in good time to purge itself of the opportunist pollution, because
it was able to rid its ranks of the Liquidators and Mensheviks. Proletarian parties
develop and become strong by purging themselves of opportunists and reformists,
social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists.
The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements.
"With reformists, Mensheviks, in our ranks," says Lenin, "it is impossible to be
victorious in the proletarian revolution, it is impossible to defend it. That is obvious in
principle, and it has been strikingly confirmed by the experience of both Russia and
Hungary.... In Russia, difficult situations have arisen many times, when the Soviet
regime would most certainly have been overthrown had Mensheviks, reformists and
petty-bourgeois democrats remained in our Party...in Italy, where, as is generally
admitted, decisive battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for the
possession of state power are imminent. At such a moment it is not only absolutely
necessary to remove the Mensheviks, reformists, the Turatists from the Party, but it
may even be useful to remove excellent Communists who are liable to waver, and
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who reveal a tendency to waver towards 'unity' with the reformists, to remove them
from all responsible posts....On the eve of a revolution, and at a moment when a most
fierce struggle is being waged for its victory, the slightest wavering in the ranks of the
Party may wreck everything, frustrate the revolution, wrest the power from the hands
of the proletariat; for this power is not yet consolidated, the attack upon it is still very
strong. The desertion of wavering leaders at such a time does not weaken but
strengthens the Party, the working-class movement and the revolution" (see Vol.
XXV, pp. 462, 463, 464).
IX
STYLE IN WORK
I am not referring to literary style. What I have in mind is style in work, that specific
and peculiar feature in the practice of Leninism which creates the special type of
Leninist worker. Leninism is a school of theory and practice which trains a special
type of Party and state worker, creates a special Leninist style in work.
What are the characteristic features of this style? What are its peculiarities?
It has two specific features :
a) Russian revolutionary sweep and
b) American efficiency.
The style of Leninism consists in combining these two specific features in Party and
state work.
Russian revolutionary sweep is an antidote to inertia, routine, conservationism, mental
stagnation and slavish submission to ancient traditions. Russian revolutionary sweep
is the life-giving force which stimulates thought, impels things forward, breaks the
past and opens up perspectives. Without it no progress is possible.
But Russian revolutionary sweep has every chance of degenerating in practice into
empty "revolutionary" Manilovism if it is not combined with American efficiency in
work. Examples of this degeneration are only too numerous. Who does not know the
disease of "revolutionary" scheme concocting and "revolutionary" plan drafting,
which springs from the belief in the power of decrees to arrange everything and remake everything? A Russian writer, I. Ehrenburg, in his story The Percommon (The
Perfect Communist Man), has portrayed the type of a "Bolshevik" afflicted with this
disease, who set himself the task of finding a formula for the ideally perfect man
and...became "submerged" in this "work." The story contains a great exaggeration, but
it certainly gives a correct likeness of the disease. But no one, I think, has so ruthlessly
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and bitterly ridiculed those afflicted with this disease as Lenin. Lenin stigmatised this
morbid belief in concocting schemes and in turning out decrees as "communist
vainglory."
"Communist vainglory," says Lenin, "means that a man, who is a member of the
Communist Party, and has not yet been purged from it, imagines that he can solve all
his problems by issuing communist decrees" (see Vol. XXVII, pp. 50-51).
Lenin usually contrasted hollow "revolutionary" phrasemongering with plain everyday
work, thus emphasising that "revolutionary" scheme concocting is repugnant to the
spirit and the letter of true Leninism.
" "Fewer pompous phrases, more plain, everyday work..." says Lenin.
" "Less political fireworks and more attention to the simplest but vital...facts of
communist construction..." (see Vol. XXIV, pp. 343 and 335).
American efficiency, on the other hand, is an antidote to "revolutionary" Manilovism
and fantastic scheme concocting. American efficiency is that indomitable force which
neither knows nor recognises obstacles; which with its business-like perseverance
brushes aside all obstacles; which continues at a task once started until it is finished,
even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is
inconceivable.
But American efficiency has every chance of degenerating into narrow and
unprincipled practicalism if it is not combined with Russian revolutionary sweep.
Who has not heard of that disease of narrow empiricism and unprincipled practicalism
which has not infrequently caused certain "Bolsheviks" to degenerate and to abandon
the cause of the revolution? We find a reflection of this peculiar disease in a story by
B. Pilnyak, entitled The Barren Year, which depicts types of Russian "Bolsheviks" of
strong will and practical determination who "function" very "energetically," but
without vision, without knowing "what it is all about," and who, therefore, stray from
the path of revolutionary work. No one has ridiculed this disease of practicalism so
incisively as Lenin. He branded it as "narrow-minded empiricism" and "brainless
practicalism." He usually contrasted it with vital revolutionary work and the necessity
of having a revolutionary work and the necessity of having a revolutionary perspective
in all our daily activities, thus emphasising that this unprincipled practicalism is as
repugnant to true Leninism as "revolutionary" scheme concocting.
The combination of Russian revolutionary sweep with American efficiency is the
essence of Leninism in Party and state work.
This combination alone produces the finished type of Leninist worker, the style of
Leninism in work.
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J. V. Stalin
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The Right Danger in the C.P.S.U.(B.)
Speech Delivered at the Plenum of the Moscow Committee and
Moscow Control Commission of the C.P.S.U.(B.)
October 19, 1928
Source: Works, Vol. 11, January, 1928 to March, 1929
Publisher: Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954
Transcription/Markup: Salil Sen for MIA, 2008
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works.
Please credit "Marxists Internet Archive" as your source.
I think, comrades, that we must first rid our minds of trivialities, of personal matters,
and so forth, in order to settle the question which interests us, that of the Right
deviation.
Is there a Right, opportunist danger in our Party? Do there exist objective conditions
favourable to the development of such a danger? How should this danger be fought?
These are the questions that now confront us.
But we shall not settle this question of the Right deviation unless we purge it of all the
trivialities and adventitious elements which have surrounded it and which prevent us
from understanding its essence.
Zapolsky is wrong in thinking that the question of the Right deviation is an accidental
one. He asserts that it is all not a matter of a Right deviation, but of petty squabbles,
personal intrigues, etc. Let us assume for a moment that petty squabbles and personal
intrigues do play some part here, as in all struggles. But to explain everything by petty
squabbles and to fail to see the essence of the question behind the squabbles, is to
depart from the correct, Marxist path.
A large, united organisation of long standing, such as the Moscow organisation
undoubtedly is, could not be stirred up from top to bottom and set into motion by the
efforts of a few squabblers or intriguers. No, comrades, such miracles do not happen.
That is apart from the fact that the strength and power of the Moscow organisation
cannot be estimated so lightly. Obviously, more profound causes have been at work
here causes which have nothing to do with either petty squabbles or intrigues.
Fruntov is also wrong; for although he admits the existence of a Right danger, he does
not think it worth while for serious, busy people to concern themselves with it
seriously. In his opinion, the question of the Right deviation is a subject for noisemakers, not for serious people. I quite understand Fruntov: he is so absorbed in the
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day-to-day practical work that he has no time to think about the prospects of our
development. But that does not mean that we must convert the narrow, practical
empiricism of certain of our Party workers into a dogma of our work of construction.
A healthy practicalism is a good thing; but if it loses sight of the prospects in the work
and fails to subordinate the work to the basic line of the Party, it becomes a drawback.
And yet it should not be difficult to understand that the question of the Right deviation
is a question of the basic line of our Party; it is the question as to whether the
prospects of development outlined by our Party at the Fifteenth Congress are correct
or incorrect.
Those comrades who in discussing the problem of the Right deviation concentrate on
the question of the individuals representing the Right deviation are also wrong. Show
us who are the Rights and the conciliators, they say, name them, so that we can deal
with them accordingly. That is not the correct way of presenting the question.
Individuals, of course, play some part. Nevertheless, the question is not one of
individuals, but of the conditions, of the situation, giving rise to the Right danger in
the Party. Individuals can be kept out, but that does not mean that we have thereby cut
the roots of the Right danger in our Party. Hence, the question of individuals does not
settle the matter, although it is undoubtedly of interest.
In this connection I cannot help recalling an incident which occurred in Odessa at the
end of 1919 and the beginning of 1920, when our forces, having driven Denikin's
forces out of the Ukraine, were crushing the last remnants of his armies in the area of
Odessa. One group of Red Army men searched high and low for the "Entente" in
Odessa, convinced that if they could only capture it—the Entente—the war would be
over. (General laughter.) It is conceivable that our Red Army men might have
captured some representatives of the Entente in Odessa, but that, of course, would not
have settled the question of the Entente, for the roots of the Entente did not lie in
Odessa, although Odessa at that time was the Denikinites' last terrain, but in world
capitalism.
The same can be said of certain of our comrades, who in the question of the Right
deviation concentrate on the individuals representing that deviation, and forget about
the conditions that give rise to it.
That is why we must first of all elucidate here the conditions that give rise to the
Right, and also to the "Left" (Trotskyite), deviation from the Leninist line.
Under capitalist conditions the Right deviation in communism signifies a tendency, an
inclination that has not yet taken shape, it is true, and is perhaps not yet consciously
realised, but nevertheless a tendency of a section of the Communists to depart from
the revolutionary line of Marxism in the direction of Social-Democracy. When certain
groups of Communists deny the expediency of the slogan "Class against class" in
election campaigns (France), or are opposed to the Communist Party nominating its
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own candidates (Britain), or are disinclined to make a sharp issue of the fight against
"Left" Social-Democracy (Germany), etc., etc., it means that there are people in the
Communist Parties who are striving to adapt communism to Social-Democratism.
A victory of the Right deviation in the Communist Parties of the capitalist countries
would mean the ideological rout of the Communist Parties and an enormous
strengthening of Social-Democratism. And what does an enormous strengthening of
Social-Democratism mean? It means the strengthening and consolidation of
capitalism, for Social-Democracy is the main support of capitalism in the working
class.
Consequently, a victory of the Right deviation in the Communist Parties of the
capitalist countries would lead to a development of the conditions necessary for the
preservation of capitalism.
Under the conditions of Soviet development, when capitalism has already been
overthrown, but its roots have not yet been torn out, the Right deviation in
communism signifies a tendency, an inclination that has not yet taken shape, it is true,
and is perhaps not yet consciously realised, but nevertheless a tendency of a section of
the Communists to depart from the general line of our Party in the direction of
bourgeois ideology. When certain circles of our Communists strive to drag the Party
back from the decisions of the Fifteenth Congress, by denying the need for an
offensive against the capitalist elements in the countryside; or demand a contraction of
our industry, in the belief that its present rapid rate of development is fatal for the
country; or deny the expediency of subsidies to the collective farms and state farms, in
the belief that such subsidies are money thrown to the winds; or deny the expediency
of fighting against bureaucracy by methods of self-criticism, in the belief that selfcriticism undermines our apparatus; or demand that the monopoly of foreign trade be
relaxed, etc., etc., it means that there are people in the ranks of our Party who are
striving, perhaps without themselves realising it, to adapt our socialist construction to
the tastes and requirements of the "Soviet" bourgeoisie.
A victory of the Right deviation in our Party would mean an enormous strengthening
of the capitalist elements in our country. And what does the strengthening of the
capitalist elements in our country mean? It means weakening the proletarian
dictatorship and increasing the chances of the restoration of capitalism.
Consequently, a victory of the Right deviation in our Party would mean a
development of the conditions necessary for the restoration of capitalism in our
country.
Have we in our Soviet country any of the conditions that would make the restoration
of capitalism possible? Yes, we have. That, comrades, may appear strange, but it is a
fact. We have overthrown capitalism, we have established the dictatorship of the
proletariat, we are developing our socialist industry at a rapid pace and are linking
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peasant economy with it. But we have not yet torn out the roots of capitalism. Where
are these roots imbedded? They are imbedded in commodity production, in small
production in the towns and, especially, the countryside.
As Lenin says, the strength of capitalism lies "in the strength of small production. For,
unfortunately, small production is still very, very widespread in the world, and small
production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly,
spontaneously, and on a mass scale" (see Vol. XXV, p. 173).
It is clear that, since small production bears a mass, and even a predominant character
in our country, and since it engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously and
on a mass scale, particularly under the conditions of NEP, we have in our country
conditions which make the restoration of capitalism possible.
Have we in our Soviet country the necessary means and forces to abolish, to eliminate
the possibility of the restoration of capitalism? Yes, we have. And it is this fact that
proves the correctness of Lenin's thesis on the possibility of building a complete
socialist society in the U.S.S.R. For this purpose it is necessary to consolidate the
dictatorship of the proletariat strengthen the alliance between the working class and
peasantry, develop our key positions from the standpoint of industrialising the
country, develop industry at a rapid rate, electrify the country, place the whole of our
national economy on a new technical basis, organise the peasantry into co-operatives
on a mass scale and increase the yield of its farms gradually unite the individual
peasant farms into socially conducted, collective farms, develop state farms, restrict
and overcome the capitalist elements in town and country, etc., etc. Here is what
Lenin says on this subject:
"As long as we live in a small-peasant country, there is a surer economic basis for
capitalism in Russia than for communism. This must be borne in mind. Anyone who
has carefully observed life in the countryside, as compared with life in the towns,
knows that we have not torn out the roots of capitalism and have not undermined the
foundation, the basis of the internal enemy. The latter depends on small-scale
production, and there is only one way of undermining it, namely, to place the
economy of the country, including agriculture, on a new technical basis, the technical
basis of modern large-scale production. And it is only electricity that is such a basis.
Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country. Otherwise,
the country will remain a small-peasant country, and we have got to understand that
clearly. We are weaker than capitalism, not only on a world scale, but also within the
country. Everybody knows this. We are conscious of it, and we shall see to it that our
economic base is transformed from a small-peasant base into a large-scale industrial
base. Only when the country has been electrified, only when our industry, our
agriculture, our transport system have been placed upon the technical basis of modern
large-scale industry shall we achieve final victory" (Vol. XXVI, pp. 46-47).
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It follows, firstly, that as long as we live in a small-peasant country, as long as we
have not torn out the roots of capitalism, there is a surer economic basis for capitalism
than for communism. It may happen that you cut down a tree but fail to tear out the
roots; your strength does not suffice for this. Hence the possibility of the restoration of
capitalism in our country.
Secondly, it follows that besides the possibility of the restoration of capitalism there is
also the possibility of the victory of socialism in our country, because we can destroy
the possibility of the restoration of capitalism, we can tear out the roots of capitalism
and achieve final victory over capitalism in our country, if we intensify the work of
electrifying the country, if we place our industry, agriculture and transport on the
technical basis of modern, large-scale industry. Hence the possibility of the victory of
socialism in our country.
Lastly, it follows that we cannot build socialism in industry alone and leave
agriculture to the mercy of spontaneous development on the assumption that the
countryside will "move by itself" following the lead of the towns. The existence of
socialist industry in the towns is the principal factor in the socialist transformation of
the countryside. But it does not mean that that factor is quite sufficient. If the socialist
towns are to take the lead of the peasant countryside all the way, it is essential, as
Lenin says, "to place the economy of the country, including agriculture,* on a new
technical basis, the technical basis of modern large-scale production."
Does this quotation from Lenin contradict another of his statements, to the effect that
"NEP fully ensures us the possibility * of laying the foundation of a socialist
economy"? No, it does not. On the contrary, the two statements fully coincide. Lenin
by no means says that NEP gives us socialism ready-made. Lenin merely says that
NEP ensures us the possibility of laying the foundation of a socialist economy. There
is a great difference between the possibility of building socialism and the actual
building of socialism. Possibility and actuality must not be confused. It is precisely for
the purpose of transforming possibility into actuality that Lenin proposes the
electrification of the country and the placing of industry, agriculture and transport on
the technical basis of modern large-scale production as a condition for the final
victory of socialism in our country.
But this condition for the building of socialism cannot be fulfilled in one or two years.
It is impossible in one or two years to industrialise the country, build up a powerful
industry, organise the vast masses of the peasantry into co-operatives, place
agriculture on a new technical basis, unite the individual peasant farms into large
collective farms, develop state farms, and restrict and overcome the capitalist elements
in town and country. Years and years of intense constructive work by the proletarian
dictatorship will be needed for this. And until that is accomplished—and it can not be
accomplished all at once—we shall remain a small peasant country, where small
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production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously and on a mass
scale, and where the danger of the restoration of capitalism remains.
And since our proletariat does not live in a vacuum, but in the midst of the most actual
and real life with all its variety of forms, the bourgeois elements arising on the basis of
small production "encircle the proletariat on every side with petty bourgeois elemental
forces, by means of which they permeate and corrupt the proletariat and continually
cause relapses among the proletariat into petty-bourgeois spinelessness, disunity,
individualism, and alternate moods of exaltation and dejection" (Lenin, Vol. XXV, p.
189), thereby introducing into the ranks of the proletariat and of its Party a certain
amount of vacillation, a certain amount of wavering.
There you have the root and the basis of all sorts of vacillations and deviations from
the Leninist line in the ranks of our Party.
That is why the Right and "Left" deviations in our Party cannot be regarded as a
trifling matter.
Where does the danger of the Right, frankly opportunist, deviation in our Party lie? In
the fact that it underestimates the strength of our enemies, the strength of capitalism: it
does not see the danger of the restoration of capitalism; it does not understand the
mechanism of the class struggle under the dictatorship of the proletariat and therefore
so readily agrees to make concessions to capitalism, demanding a slowing down of the
rate of development of our industry, demanding concessions for the capitalist elements
in town and country, demanding that the question of collective farms and state farms
be relegated to the background, demanding that the monopoly of foreign trade be
relaxed, etc., etc.
There is no doubt that the triumph of the Right deviation in our Party would unleash
the forces of capitalism, undermine the revolutionary positions of the proletariat and
increase the chances of the restoration of capitalism in our country.
Where does the danger of the "Left" (Trotskyite) deviation in our Party lie? In the fact
that it overestimates the strength of our enemies, the strength of capitalism; it sees
only the possibility of the restoration of capitalism, but cannot see the possibility of
building socialism by the efforts of our country; it gives way to despair and is obliged
to console itself with chatter about Thermidor tendencies in our Party.
From the words of Lenin that "as long as we live in a small peasant country, there is a
surer economic basis for capitalism in Russia than for communism," the "Left"
deviation draws the false conclusion that it is impossible to build socialism in the
U.S.S.R. at all; that we cannot get anywhere with the peasantry; that the idea of an
alliance between the working class and the peasantry is an obsolete idea; that unless a
victorious revolution in the West comes to our aid the dictatorship of the proletariat in
the U.S.S.R. must fall or degenerate; that unless we adopt the fantastic plan of super-
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industrialisation, even at the cost of a split with the peasantry, the cause of socialism
in the U.S.S.R. must be regarded as doomed.
Hence the adventurism in the policy of the "Left" deviation. Hence its "superhuman"
leaps in the sphere of policy.
There is no doubt that the triumph of the "Left" deviation in our Party would lead to
the working class being separated from its peasant base, to the vanguard of the
working class being separated from the rest of the working-class masses, and,
consequently, to the defeat of the proletariat and to facilitating conditions for the
restoration of capitalism.
You see, therefore, that both these dangers, the "Left" and the Right, both these
deviations from the Leninist line, the Right and the "Left," lead to the same result,
although from different directions.
Which of these dangers is worse? In my opinion one is as bad as the other.
The difference between these deviations from the point of view of successfully
combating them consists in the fact that the danger of the "Left" deviation is at the
present moment more obvious to the Party than the danger of the Right deviation. The
fact that an intense struggle has been waged against the "Left" deviation for several
years now has, of course, not been without its value for the Party. It is clear that the
Party has learned a great deal in the years of the fight against the "Left," Trotskyite
deviation and cannot now be easily deceived by "Left" phrases.
As for the Right danger, which existed before, but which has now become more
prominent because of the growth of the petty-bourgeois elemental forces resulting
from last year's grain-procurement crisis, I think it is not quite so obvious to certain
sections of our Party. That is why our task must be—while not in the least relaxing the
fight against the "Left," Trotskyite danger—to lay the emphasis on the fight against
the Right deviation and to take all measures to make the danger of this deviation as
obvious to the Party as the Trotskyite danger.
The question of the Right deviation would not, perhaps, be as acute as it is now, were
it not for the fact that it is connected with the difficulties accompanying our
development. But the whole point is that the existence of the Right deviation
complicates the difficulties accompanying our development and hinders our efforts to
overcome these difficulties. And for the very reason that the Right danger hinders the
efforts to overcome the difficulties, the question of overcoming the Right danger has
assumed particularly great importance for us.
A few words about the nature of our difficulties. It should be borne in mind that our
difficulties should by no means be regarded as difficulties of stagnation or decline.
There are difficulties that arise at a time of economic decline or stagnation, and in
such cases efforts are made to render the stagnation less painful, or the decline less
profound. Our difficulties have nothing in common with difficulties of that kind. The
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characteristic feature of our difficulties is that they are difficulties of expansion,
difficulties of growth. When we speak about difficulties we usually mean by what
percentage industry ought to be expanded, by what percentage the crop area ought to
be enlarged, by how many poods the crop yield ought to be increased, etc., etc. And
because our difficulties are those of expansion, and not of decline or stagnation, they
should not be anything particularly dangerous for the Party.
But difficulties are difficulties, nevertheless. And since in order to overcome
difficulties it is necessary to exert all efforts, to display firmness and endurance, and
since not everybody possesses sufficient firmness and endurance—perhaps as a result
of fatigue and overstrain, or because of a preference for a quiet life, free from struggle
and commotion—it is just here that vacillations and waverings begin to take place,
tendencies to adopt the line of least resistance, talk about slowing down the rate of
industrial development, about making concessions to the capitalist elements, about
rejecting collective farms and state farms and, in general, everything that goes beyond
the calm and familiar conditions of the daily routine.
But unless we overcome the difficulties in our path we shall make no progress. And in
order to overcome the difficulties we must first defeat the Right danger, we must first
overcome the Right deviation, which is hindering the fight against the difficulties and
is trying to undermine our Party's will to fight and overcome the difficulties.
I am speaking, of course, of a real fight against the Right deviation, not a verbal, paper
fight. There are people in our Party who, to soothe their conscience, are quite willing
to proclaim a fight against the Right danger in the same way as priests sometimes cry,
"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" But they will not undertake any practical measures at all to
organise the fight against the Right deviation on a firm basis, and to overcome this
deviation in actual fact. We call this tendency a conciliatory tendency towards the
Right, frankly opportunist, deviation. It is not difficult to understand that the fight
against this conciliatory tendency is an integral part of the general fight against the
Right deviation, against the Right danger. For it is impossible to overcome the Right,
opportunist deviation without waging a systematic fight against the conciliatory
tendency, which takes the opportunists under its wing.
The question who are the exponents of the Right deviation is undoubtedly of interest,
although it is not of decisive importance. We came across exponents of the Right
danger in our lower Party organisations during the grain-procurement crisis last year,
when a number of Communists in the volosts and villages opposed the Party's policy
and worked towards forming a bond with kulak elements. As you know, such people
were cleared out of the Party last spring, a matter specially referred to in the document
of the Central Committee of our Party in February this year.
But it would be wrong to say that there are no such people left in our Party. If we go
higher up, to the uyezd and gubernia Party organisations, or if we dig deeper into the
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Soviet and co-operative apparatus, we could without difficulty find exponents of the
Right danger and conciliation towards it. We know of "letters," "declarations," and
other documents written by a number of functionaries in our Party and Soviet
apparatus, in which the drift towards the Right deviation is quite distinctly expressed.
You know that these letters and documents were referred to in the verbatim report of
the July plenum of the Central Committee.
If we go higher still, and ask about the members of the Central Committee, we shall
have to admit that within the Central Committee, too, there are certain elements, very
insignificant it is true, of a conciliatory attitude towards the Right danger. The
verbatim report of the July plenum of the Central Committee provides direct proof of
this.
Well, and what about the Political Bureau? Are there any deviations in the Political
Bureau? In the Political Bureau there are neither Right nor "Left" deviations nor
conciliators towards those deviations. This must be said quite categorically. It is time
to put a stop to the tittle-tattle spread by enemies of the Party and by the oppositionists
of all kinds about there being a Right deviation, or a conciliatory attitude towards the
Right deviation, in the Political Bureau of our Central Committee.
Were there vacillations and waverings in the Moscow organisation, or in its top
leadership, the Moscow Committee? Yes, there were. It would be absurd to assert now
that there were no waverings, no vacillations there. The candid speech made by
Penkov is direct proof of this. Penkov is by no means the least important person in the
Moscow organisation and in the Moscow Committee. You heard him plainly and
frankly admit that he had been wrong on a number of important questions of our Party
policy. That does not mean, of course, that the Moscow Committee as a whole was
subject to vacillation. No, it does not mean that. A document like the appeal of the
Moscow Committee to the members of the Moscow organisation in October of this
year undoubtedly shows that the Moscow Committee has succeeded in overcoming
the vacillations of certain of its members. I have no doubt that the leading core of the
Moscow Committee will be able completely to straighten out the situation.
Certain comrades are dissatisfied with the fact that the district organisations interfered
in this matter and demanded that an end be put to the mistakes and vacillations of
certain leaders of the Moscow organisation. I do not see how this dissatisfaction can
be justified. What is there wrong about district activists of the Moscow organisation
raising the demand that an end be put to mistakes and vacillations? Does not our work
proceed under the slogan of self-criticism from below? Is it not a fact that selfcriticism increases the activity of the Party rank and file and of the proletarian rank
and file in general? What is there wrong or dangerous in the fact that the district
activists proved equal to the situation?
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Did the Central Committee act rightly in interfering in this matter? I think that it did.
Berzin thinks that the Central Committee acted too drastically in demanding the
removal of one of the district leaders to whom the district organisation was opposed.
That is absolutely wrong. Let me remind Berzin of certain incidents in 1919 or 1920,
when some members of the Central Committee who were guilty of certain, in my
opinion, not very serious errors in respect of the Party line were, on Lenin's
suggestion, subjected to exemplary punishment, one of them being sent to Turkestan,
and the other almost paying the penalty of expulsion from the Central Committee.
Was Lenin right in acting as he did? I think he was quite right. The situation in the
Central Committee then was not what it is now. Half the members of the Central
Committee followed Trotsky, and the situation in the Central Committee was not a
stable one. The Central Committee today is acting much more mildly. Why? Is it,
perhaps, because we want to be more gentle than Lenin? No, that is not the point. The
point is that the position of the Central Committee is more stable now than it was then,
and the Central Committee can afford to act more mildly.
Nor is Sakharov right in asserting that the intervention of the Central Committee was
belated. Sakharov is wrong because he evidently does not know that, properly
speaking, the intervention of the Central Committee began in February of this year.
Sakharov can convince himself of that if he desires. It is true that the intervention of
the Central Committee did not immediately yield required results. But it would be
strange to blame the Central Committee for that.
Conclusions:
1) the Right danger is a serious danger in our Party, for it is rooted in the social and
economic situation in our country;
2) the danger of the Right deviation is aggravated by the existence of difficulties
which cannot be overcome unless the Right deviation and conciliation towards it are
overcome;
3) in the Moscow organisation there were vacillations and waverings, there were
elements of instability;
4) the core of the Moscow Committee, with the help of the Central Committee and the
district activists, took all measures to put an end to these vacillations;
5) there can be no doubt that the Moscow Committee will succeed in overcoming the
mistakes which began to take shape in the past;
6) our task is to put a stop to the internal struggle, to unite the Moscow organisation
into a single whole, and to carry through the elections in the Party units successfully
on the basis of fully developed self-criticism. (Applause.)
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MAO TSE-TUNG July 1964
On Khrushchov’s Phoney Communism
and Its Historical Lessons for the World:
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Comment on the Open Letter
of the Central Committee of the CPSU (IX)
By the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily) and Hongqui (Red
Flag), China, of 14 July 1964. The source is a pamphlet published by Foreign
Languages Press, Peking 1964.
INTRODUCTION
The theories of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat are the
quintessence of Marxism-Leninism. The questions of whether revolution should be
upheld or opposed and whether the dictatorship of the proletariat should be upheld or
opposed have always been the focus of struggle between Marxism- Leninism and all
brands of revisionism and are now the focus of struggle between Marxist-Leninists the
world over and the revisionist Khrushchov clique.
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, the revisionist Khrushchov clique developed their
revisionism into a complete system not only by rounding off their anti-revolutionary
theories of "peaceful coexistence" and "peaceful transition" but also by declaring that
the dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer necessary in the Soviet Union and
advancing the absurd theories of the "state of the whole people" and the "party of the
entire people".
The Programme put forward by the revisionist Khrushchov clique at the 22nd
Congress of the CPSU is a programme of phoney communism, a revisionist
programme against proletarian revolution and for the abolition of the dictatorship of
the proletariat and the proletarian party.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique abolish the dictatorship of the proletariat behind
the camouflage of the "state of the whole people", change the proletarian character of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union behind the camouflage of the "party of the
entire people" and pave the way for the restoration of capitalism behind that of "fullscale communist construction".
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist
Movement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China pointed out that it is most absurd in theory and extremely harmful in practice to
substitute the "state of the whole people" for the state of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the "party of the entire people" for the vanguard party of the proletariat.
This substitution is a great historical retrogression which makes any transition to
communism impossible and helps only to restore capitalism.
The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the press of the Soviet
Union resort to sophistry in self-justification and charge that our criticisms of the
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"state of the whole people" and the "party of the entire people" are allegations "far
removed from Marxism", betray "isolation from the life of the Soviet people" and are
a demand that they "return to the past".
Well, let us ascertain who is actually far removed from Marxism- Leninism, what
Soviet life is actually like and who actually wants the Soviet Union to return to the
past.
SOCIALIST SOCIETY AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF
THE PROLETARIAT
What is the correct conception of socialist society? Do classes and class struggle exist
throughout the stage of socialism? Should the dictatorship of the proletariat be
maintained and the socialist revolution be carried through to the end? Or should the
dictatorship of the proletariat be abolished so as to pave the way for capitalist
restoration? These questions must be answered correctly according to the basic theory
of Marxism-Lenin- ism and the historical experience of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.
The replacement of capitalist society by socialist society is a great leap in the
historical development of human society. Socialist society covers the important
historical period of transition from class to classless society. It is by going through
socialist society that mankind will enter communist society.
The socialist system is incomparably superior to the capitalist system. In socialist
society, the dictatorship of the proletariat replaces bourgeois dictatorship and the
public ownership of the means of production replaces private ownership. The
proletariat, from being an oppressed and exploited class, turns into a ruling class and a
fundamental change takes place in the social position of the working people.
Exercising dictatorship over a few exploiters only, the state of the dictatorship of the
proletariat practices the broadest democracy among the masses of the working people,
a democracy that is impossible in capitalist society. The nationalisation of industry
and collectivization of agriculture open wide vistas for the vigorous development of
the social productive forces, ensuring a rate of growth incomparably greater than that
in any older society.
However, one cannot but see that socialist society is a society born out of capitalist
society and is only the first phase of communist society. It is not yet a fully mature
communist society in the economic and other fields. It is inevitably stamped with the
birth marks of capitalist society. When defining socialist society Marx said:
What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its
own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which
is thus in every respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with
the birth marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.
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[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Selected Works of Marx and Engels,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1958, Vol. 2, p. 23.]
Lenin also pointed out that in socialist society, which is the first phase of communism,
"Communism cannot as yet be fully ripe economically and entirely free from
traditions or traces of capitalism".
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Mos- cow, 1952, Vol. 2,
Part 1, p. 302.]
In socialist society, the differences between workers and peasants, between town and
country, and between manual and mental labourers still remain, bourgeois rights are
not yet completely abolished, it is not possible "at once to eliminate the other
injustice, which consists in the distribution of articles of consumption ‘according to
the amount of labour performed’ (and not according to needs)", and therefore
differences in wealth still exist.
[Ibid., p. 296.]
The disappearance of these differences, phenomena and bourgeois rights can only be
gradual and long drawn-out. As Marx said, only after these differences have vanished
and bourgeois rights have completely disappeared will it be possible to realize full
communism with its principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs".
Marxism-Leninism and the practice of the Soviet Union, China and other socialist
countries all teach us that socialist society covers a very, very long historical stage.
Throughout this stage, the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
goes on and the question of "who will win" between the roads of capitalism and
socialism remains, as does the danger of restoration of capitalism.
In its Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist
Movement dated June 14, 1963, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
China states:
For a very long historical period after the proletariat takes power, class struggle
continues as an objective law independent of man’s will, differing only in form from
what it was before the taking of power.
After the October Revolution, Lenin pointed out a number of times that:
a) The overthrown exploiters always try in a thousand and one ways to recover the
"paradise" they have been deprived of.
b) New elements of capitalism are constantly and spontaneously generated in the
petty-bourgeois atmosphere.
c) Political degenerates and new bourgeois elements may emerge in the ranks of the
working class and among government functionaries as a result of bourgeois influence
and the pervasive, corrupting influence of the petty bourgeoisie.
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d) The external conditions for the continuance of class struggle within a socialist
society are encirclement by international capitalism, the imperialists’ threat of armed
intervention and their subversive activities to accomplish peaceful disintegration.
Life has confirmed these conclusions of Lenin’s.
In socialist society, the overthrown bourgeoisie and other reactionary classes remain
strong for quite a long time, and indeed in certain respects are quite powerful. They
have a thousand and one links with the international bourgeoisie. They are not
reconciled to their defeat and stubbornly continue to engage in trials of strength with
the proletariat. They conduct open and hidden struggles against the proletariat in every
field.
Constantly parading such signboards as support for socialism, the Soviet system, the
Communist Party and Marxism-Leninism, they work to undermine socialism and
restore capitalism. Politically, they persist for a long time as a force antagonistic to the
proletariat and constantly attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat. They
sneak into the government organs, public organizations, economic departments and
cultural and educational institutions so as to resist or usurp the leadership of the
proletariat.
Economically, they employ every means to damage socialist ownership by the whole
people and socialist collective ownership and to develop the forces of capitalism. In
the ideological, cultural and educational fields, they counterpose the bourgeois world
outlook to the proletarian world outlook and try to corrupt the proletariat and other
working people with bourgeois ideology.
The collectivization of agriculture turns individual into collective farmers and
provides favourable conditions for the thorough remoulding of the peasants. However,
until collective ownership advances to ownership by the whole people and until the
remnants of private economy disappear completely, the peasants inevitably retain
some of the inherent characteristics of small producers. In these circumstances
spontaneous capitalist tendencies are inevitable, the soil for the growth of new rich
peasants still exists and polarization among the peasants may still occur.
The activities of the bourgeoisie as described above, its corrupting effects in the
political, economic, ideological and cultural and educational fields, the existence of
spontaneous capitalist tendencies among urban and rural small producers, and the
influence of the remaining bourgeois rights and the force of habit of the old society all
constantly breed political degenerates in the ranks of the working class and Party and
government organizations, new bourgeois elements and embezzlers and grafters in
state enterprises owned by the whole people and new bourgeois intellectuals in the
cultural and educational institutions and intellectual circles.
These new bourgeois elements and these political degenerates attack socialism in
collusion with the old bourgeois elements and elements of other exploiting classes
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which have been overthrown but not eradicated. The political degenerates entrenched
in the leading organs are particularly dangerous, for they support and shield the
bourgeois elements in organs at lower levels.
As long as imperialism exists, the proletariat in the socialist countries will have to
struggle both against the bourgeoisie at home and against international imperialism.
Imperialism will seize every opportunity and try to undertake armed intervention
against the socialist countries or to bring about their peaceful disintegration. It will do
its utmost to destroy the socialist countries or to make them degenerate into capitalist
countries. The international class struggle will inevitably find its reflection within the
socialist countries.
Lenin said:
The transition from capitalism to Communism represents an entire historical epoch.
Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of
restoration, and this hope is converted into attempts at restoration.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Selected Works,
FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 61.]
He also pointed out:
The abolition of classes requires a long, difficult and stubborn class struggle, which
after the overthrow of the power of capital, after the destruction of the bourgeois
state, after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear
(as the vulgar representatives of the old Socialism and the old Social-Democracy
imagine), but merely changes its forms and in many respects becomes more fierce.
[Lenin, "Greetings to the Hungarian Workers", Selected Works, FPLH, Moscow, Vol.
2, Part 2, pp. 210-11.]
Throughout the stage of socialism the class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie in the political, economic, ideological and cultural and educational fields
cannot be stopped. It is a protracted, repeated, tortuous and complex struggle. Like the
waves of the sea it sometimes rises high and sometimes subsides, is now fairly calm
and now very turbulent. It is a struggle that decides the fate of a socialist society.
Whether a socialist society will advance to communism or revert to capitalism
depends upon the outcome of this protracted struggle.
The class struggle in socialist society is inevitably reflected in the Communist Party.
The bourgeoisie and international imperialism both understand that in order to make a
socialist country degenerate into a capitalist country, it is first necessary to make the
Communist Party degenerate into a revisionist party.
The old and new bourgeois elements, the old and new rich peasants ad the degenerate
elements of all sorts constitute the social basis of revisionism, and they use every
possible means to find agents within the Communist Party. The existence of bourgeois
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influence is the internal source of revisionism and surrender to imperialist pressure the
external source.
Throughout the stage of socialism, there is inevitable struggle between MarxismLeninism and various kinds of opportunism – mainly revisionism -- in the Communist
Parties of socialist countries. The characteristic of this revisionism is that, denying the
existence of classes and class struggle, it sides with the bourgeoisie in attacking the
proletariat and turns the dictatorship of the proletariat into the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie.
In the light of the experience of the international working- class movement and in
accordance with the objective law of class struggle, the founders of Marxism pointed
out that the transition from capitalism, from class to classless society, must depend on
the dictatorship of the proletariat and that there is no other road.
Marx said that
"the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat".
["Marx to J. Wedemeyer, March 5, 1852", Selected Works of Marx and Engels, FLPH,
Moscow, Vol. 2, p. 452.]
He also said:
Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary
transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political
transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship
of the proletariat.
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Selected Works of Marx and Engels,
FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, pp. 32-33.]
The development of socialist society is a process of uninterrupted revolution. In
explaining revolutionary socialism Marx said:
This socialism is the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class
dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class
distinctions generally, to the abolition of all the relations of production on which they
rest, to the abolition of all the social relations that correspond to these relations of
production, to the revolutionizing of all the ideas that result from these social
relations.
[Marx, "The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850", Selected Works of Marx and
Engels, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 1, p. 223.]
In his struggle against the opportunism of the Second International, Lenin creatively
expounded and developed Marx’s theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He
pointed out:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is not the end of class struggle but its continuation
in new forms. The dictatorship of the proletariat is class struggle waged by a
proletariat which has been victorious and has taken political power in its hands against
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a bourgeoisie that has been defeated but not destroyed, a bourgeoisie that has not
vanished, not ceased to offer resistance, but that has intensified its resistance.
[Lenin, "Foreword to the Speech ‘On Deception of the People with Slogans of
Freedom and Equality’", Alliance of the Working Class and the Peasantry, FLPH,
Moscow, 1959, p. 302.]
He also said:
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a persistent struggle – bloody and bloodless,
violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative – against
the forces and traditions of the old society.
[Lenin: "‘Left-Wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder", Selected Works, FLPH,
Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 367.]
In his celebrated work On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
and in other works, Comrade Mao Tse-tung, basing hismelf on the fundamental
principles of Marxism-Leninism and the historical experience of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, gives a comprehensive and systematic analysis of classes and class
struggle in socialist society, and creatively develops the Marxist-Leninist theory of the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung examines the objective laws of socialist society from the
viewpoint of materialist dialectics. He points out that the universal law of the unity
and struggle of opposites operating both in the natural world and in human society is
applicable to socialist society, too.
In socialist society, class contradictions still remain and class struggle does not die out
after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production. The
struggle between the two roads of socialism and capitalism runs through the entire
stage of socialism. To ensure the success of socialist construction and to prevent the
restoration of capitalism, it is necessary to carry the socialist revolution through to the
end on the political, economic, ideological and cultural fronts. The complete victory
of socialism cannot be brought about in one or two generations; to resolve this
question thoroughly requires five to ten generations or even longer.
Comrade Mao Tse-tung stresses the fact that two types of social contradictions exist in
socialist society, namely, contradictions among the people and contradictions between
ourselves and the enemy, and that the former are very numerous. Only by
distinguishing between the two types of contradictions, which are different in nature,
and by adopting different measures to handle them correctly is it possible to unite the
people, who constitute more than 90 per cent of the population, defeat their enemies,
who constitute only a few per cent, and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the basic guarantee for the consolidation and
development of socialism, for the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie and of
socialism in the struggle between the two roads.
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Only by emancipating all mankind can the proletariat ultimately emancipate itself.
The historical task of the dictatorship of the proletariat has two aspects, one internal
and the other international.
The internal task consists mainly of completely abolishing all the exploiting classes,
developing socialist economy to the maximum, enhancing the communist
consciousness of the masses, abolishing the differences between ownership by the
whole people and collective ownership, between workers and peasants, between town
and country and between mental and manual labourers, eliminating any possibility of
the re-emergence of classes and the restoration of capitalism and providing conditions
for the realization of a communist society with its principle, "from each according to
his ability, to each according to his needs".
The international task consists mainly of preventing attacks by international
imperialism (including armed intervention and disintegration by peaceful means) and
of giving support to the world revolution until the peoples of all countries finally
abolish imperialism, capitalism and the system of exploitation.
Before the fulfilment of both tasks and before the advent of a full communist society,
the dictatorship of the proletariat is absolutly necessary.
Judging from the actual situation today, the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat
are still far from accomplished in any of the socialist countries. In all socialist
countries without exception, there are classes and class struggle, the struggle between
the socialist and the capitalist roads, the question of carrying the socialist revolution
through to the end and the question of preventing the restoration of capitalism.
All the socialist countries still have a very long way to go before the differences
between ownership by the whole people and collective ownership, between workers
and peasants, between town and country and between mental and manual labourers
are eliminated, before all classes and class differences are eliminated and a communist
society with its principle, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs", is realized. Therefore, it is necessary for all the socialist countries to uphold
the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In these circumstances, the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the
revisionist Khrushchov clique is nothing but a betrayal of socialism and communism.
ANTAGONISTIC CLASSES AND CLASS STRUGGLE
EXIST IN THE SOVIET UNION
In announcing the abolition of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union,
the revisionist Khrushchov clique base themselves mainly on the argument that
antagonistic classes have been eliminated and that class struggle no longer exists.
But what is the actual situation in the Soviet Union? Are there really no antagonistic
classes and no class struggle there?
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Following the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the dictatorship of
the proletariat was established in the Soviet Union, capitalist private ownership was
destroyed and socialist ownership by the whole people and socialist collective
ownership were established through the nationalization of industry and the
collectivization of agriculture, and great achievements in socialist construction were
scored during several decades. All this constituted an indelible victory of tremendous
historic significance won by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet
people under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin.
However, the old bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes which had been overthrown
in the Soviet Union were not eradicated and survived after industry was nationalized
and agriculture collectivized. The political and ideological influence of the
bourgeoisie remained. Spontaneous capitalist tendencies continued to exist both in the
city and in the countryside. New bourgeois elements and kulaks were still incessantly
generated. Throughout the long intervening period, the class struggle between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the socialist and capitalist
roads have continued in the political, economic and ideolgical spheres.
As the Soviet Union was the first, and at the time the only, country to build socialism
and had no foreign experience to go by, and as Stalin departed from Marxist-Leninist
dialectics in his understanding of the laws of class struggle in socialist society, he
prematurely declared after agriculture was basically collectivized that there were "no
longer antagonistic classes" [1] in the Soviet Union and that it was "free of class conflicts" [2], one-sidely stressed the internal homogeneity of socialist society and
overlooked its contradictions, failed to rely upon the working class and the masses in
the struggle against the forces of capitalism and regarded the possibility of restoration
of capitalism as associated only with armed attack by international imperialism. This
was wrong both in theory and in practice.
[1: Stalin, "On the Draft Constitution of the U.S.S.R", Problems of Leninism, FLPH,
Moscow, 1954, p. 690.]
[2: Stalin, "Report to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) on the Work of the
Central Committee", Problems of Leninism, FLPH, Moscow, p. 777.]
Nevertheless, Stalin remained a great Marxist-Leninist. As long as he led the Soviet
Party and state, he held fast to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist
course, pursued a Marxist-Leninist line and ensured the Soviet Union’s victorious
advance along the road of socialism.
Ever since Khrushchov seized the leadership of the Soviet Party and state, he has
pushed through a whole series of revisionist policies which have greatly hastened the
growth of the forces of capitalism and again sharpened the class struggle between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie and the struggle between the roads of socialism and
capitalism in the Soviet Union.
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Scanning the reports in Soviet newspapers over the last few years, one finds numerous
examples demonstrating not only the presence of many elements of the old exploiting
classes in Soviet society, but also the generation of new bourgeois elements on a large
scale and the acceleration of class polarization.
Let us first look at the activities of various bourgeois elements in the Soviet
enterprises owned by the whole people.
Leading functionaries in some state-owned factories and their gangs abuse their
positions and amass large fortunes by using the equipment and materials of the
factories to set up "underground workshops" for private production, selling the
products illicitly and dividing the spoils. Here are some examples.
In a Leningrad plant producing military items, the leading functionaries placed their
own men in "all key posts" and "turned the state enterprise into a private one". They
illictly engaged in the production of non-military goods and from the sale of fountain
pens alone embezzled 1,200,000 old roubles in three years. Among these people was a
man who "was a Nepman...in the 1920’s" and had been a "lifelong thief".
[Krasnaya Zvezda, May 19, 1962.]
In a silk-weaving mill in Uzbekistan, the manager ganged up with the chief engineer,
the chief accountant, the chief of the supply and marketing section, heads of
workshops and others, and they all became "new-born entrepreneurs". They purchased
more than ten tons of artificial and pure silk through various illegal channels in order
to manufacture goods which "did not pass through the accounts". They employed
workers without going through the proper procedures and enforced "a twelve-hour
working day".
[Pravda Vostoka, Oct. 8, 1963.]
The manager of a furniture factory in Kharkov set up an "illegal knitwear workshop"
and carried on secret operations inside the factory. This man "had several wives,
several cars, several houses, 176 neck-ties, about a hundred shirts and dozens of
suits". He was also a big gambler at the horse-races.
[Pravda Ukrainy, May 18, 1962.]
Such people do not operate all by themselves. They invariably work hand in glove
with functionaries in the state departments in charge of supplies and in the commercial
and other departments. They have their own men in the police and judicial
departments who protect them and act as their agents. Even high-ranking officials in
the state organs support and shield them. Here are a few examples.
The chief of the workshops affiliated to a Moscow psychoneurological dispensary and
his gang set up an "underground enter- prise", and by bribery "obtained fifty-eight
knitting machines" and a large amount of raw material. They entered into business
relations with "fifty-two factories, handicraft co-operatives and collective farms" and
made three million roubles in a few years. They bribed functionaries of the
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Department for Combating Theft of Socialist Property and Speculation, controllers,
inspectors, instructors and others.
[Izvestia, Oct. 20, 1963, and Izvestia Sunday Supplement, No. 12, 1964.]
The manager of a machinery plant in the Russian Federation, together with the deputy
manager of a second machinery plant and other functionaries, or forty-three persons in
all, stole more than nine hundred looms and sold them to factories in Central Asia,
Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and other places, whose leading functionaries used them for
illicit production.
[Komsomolskaya Pravda, Aug. 9, 1963.]
In the Kirghiz SSR, a gang of over forty embezzlers and grafters, having gained
control of two factories, organized underground production and plundered more than
thirty million roubles’ worth of state property. The gang included the Chairman of the
Planning Commission of the Republic, a Vice-Minister of Commerce, seven bureau
chiefs and division chiefs of the Republic’s Council of Ministers, National Economic
Council and State Control Commission, as well as "a big kulak who had fled from
exile".
[Sovietskaya Kirghizia, Jan. 9, 1962.]
These examples show that the factories which have fallen into the clutches of such
degenerates are socialist enterprises only in name, that in fact they have become
capitalist enterprises by which these persons enrich themselves. The relationship of
such persons to the workers has turned into one between exploiters and exploited,
between oppressors and oppressed.
Are not such degenerates who possess and make use of means of production to exploit
the labour of others out-and-out bourgeois elements? Are not their acomplices in
government organizations, who work hand in glove with them, participate in many
types of expolitation, engage in embezzlement, accept bribes, and share the spoils,
also out-and-out bourgeois elements?
Obviously all these people belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariat –
they belong to the bourgeoisie. Their activities against socialism are definitely class
struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat.
Now let us look at the activities of various kulak elements on the collective farms.
Some leading collective-farm functionaries and their gangs steal and speculate at will,
freely squander public money and fleece the collective farmers. Here are some
examples.
The chairman of a collective farm in Uzbekistan "held the whole village in terror". All
the important posts on this farm "were occupied by his in-laws and other relatives and
friends". He squandered "over 132,000 roubles of the collective farm for his personal
‘needs’". He had a car, two motor-cycles and three wives, each with "a house of her
own".
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[Selskaya Zhizn, June 26, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Kursk Region regarded the farm as his
"heredetary estate". He conspired with its accountant, cashier, chief warehousekeeper, agronomist, general store-manager and others. Shielding each other, they
"fleeced the collective farmers" and pocketed more than a hundred thousand roubles
in a few years.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 35, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Ukraine made over 50,000 roubles at its
expense by forging purchase certificates and cash-account orders in collusion with its
woman accountant, who had been praised for keeping "model accounts" and whose
deeds had been displayed at the Moscow Exhibition of Achievements of the National
Economy.
[Selskaya Zhizn, Aug. 14, 1963.]
The chairman of a collective farm in the Alma-Ata Region specialized in commercial
speculation. He bought "fruit juice in the Ukraine or Uzbekistan, and sugar and
alcohol from Djambul", processed them and then sold the wine at very high prices in
many localities. In this farm a winery was created with a capacity of over a million
litres a year, its speculative commercial network spread throughout the Kazakhstan
SSR, and commercial speculation became one of the farm’s main sources of income.
[Pravda, Jan. 14, 1962.]
The chairman of a collective farm in Byelorussia considered him- self "a feudal
princeling on the farm" and acted "personally" in all matters. He lived not on the farm
but in the city or in his own splendid villa, and was always busy with "various
commercial machinations" and "illegal deals". He bought cattle from the outside,
represented them as the products of the collective farm and falsified output figures.
And yet "not a few commendatory newspaper reports" had been published about him
and he had been called a "model leader".
[Pravda, Feb. 6, 1961.]
These examples show that collective farms under the control of such functionaries
virtually become their private property. Such men turn socialist collective economic
enterprises into economic enterprises of new kulaks. There are often people in their
superior organizations who protect them. Their relationship to the collective farmers
has likewise become that of oppressors to oppressed, of exploiters to exploited. Are
not such neo-exploiters who ride on the backs of the collective farmers one-hund-redper-cent neo-kulaks?
Obviously, they all belong to a class that is antagonistic to the proletariat and the
labouring farmers, belong to the kulak or rural bourgeois class. Their anti-socialist
activities are precisely class struggle with the bourgeoisie attacking the proletariat and
the labouring farmers.
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Apart from the bourgeois elements in state enterprises and collective farms, there are
many others in both town and country in the Soviet Union.
Some of them set up private enterprises for private production and sale; others
organize contractor teams and openly undertake construction jobs for state or cooperative enterprises; still others open private hotels.
A "Soviet woman capitalist" in Leningrad hired workers to make nylon blouses for
sale, and her "daily income amounted to over 700 new roubles".
[Izvestia, April 9, 1963.]
The owner of a workshop in the Kursk Region made felt boots for sale at speculative
prices. He had in his possession 540 pairs of felt boots, eight kilogrammes of gold
coins, 3,000 metres of high-grade textiles, 20 carpets, 1,200 kilogrammes of wool and
many other valuables.
[Sovietskaya Rossiya, Oct. 9, 1963.]
A private entrepeneur in the Gomel Region "hired workers and artisans" and in the
course of two years secured contracts for the construction and overhauling of furnaces
in twelve factories at a high price.
[Izvestia, Oct. 18, 1960.]
In the Orenburg Region there are "hundreds of private hotels and trans-shipment
points", and "the money of the collective farms and the state is continuously streaming
into the pockets of the hostlery owners".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
Some engage in commercial speculation, making tremendous profits through buying
cheap and selling dear or bringing goods from far away. In Moscow there are a great
many speculators engaged in the re-sale of agricultural produce. They "bring to
Moscow tons of citrus fruit, apples and vegetables and re-sell them at speculative
prices". "These profit-grabbers are provided with every facility, with market inns,
store-rooms and other services at their disposal".
[Selskaya Zhizn, July 17, 1963.]
In the Krasnodar Territory, a speculator set up her own agency and "employed twelve
salesmen and two stevedores". She transported "thousands of hogs, hundreds of
quintals of stolen slag bricks, whole wagons of glass" and other building materials
from the city to the villages. She reaped high profits out of each re-sale.
[Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 27, 1963.]
Others specialize as brokers and middlemen. They have wide contacts and through
them one can get anything, in return for a bribe. There was a broker in Leningrad who
"though he is not the Minister of Trade, controls all the stocks", and "though he holds
no post on the railway, disposes of wagons". He could obtain "things the stocks of
which are strictly controlled, from outside the stocks". "All the store-houses in
Leningrad are at his service." For delivering goods, he received huge "bonuses" –
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700,000 roubles from one timber combine in 1960 alone. In Leningrad, there is "a
whole group" of such brokers.
[Literaturnaya Gazeta, July 27 and Aug. 17, 1963.]
These private entrepreneurs and speculators are engaged in the most naked capitalist
exploitation. Isn’t it clear that they belong to the bourgeoisie, the class antagonistic to
the proletariat?
Actually the Soviet press itself calls these people "Soviet capitalists", "new-born
entrepreneurs", "private entrepreneurs", "newly-emerged kulaks", "speculators",
"exploiters", etc. Aren’t the revisionist Khrushchov clique contradicting themselves
when they assert that antagonistic classes do not exist in the Soviet Union?
The facts cited above are only a part of those published in the Soviet press. They are
enough to shock people, but there are many more which have not been published,
many bigger and more serious cases which are covered up and shielded. We have
quoted the above data in order to answer the question whether there are antagonistic
classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union. These data are readily available and
even the revisionist Khrushchov clique are unable to deny them.
These data suffice to show that the unbridled activities of the bourgeoisie against the
proletariat are widespread in the Soviet Union, in the city as well as the countryside,
in industry as well as agriculture, in the sphere of production as well as the sphere of
circulation, all the way from the economic departments to Party and government
organizations, and from the grass-roots to the higher leading bodies. These antisocialist activities are nothing if not the sharp class struggle of the bourgeoisie against
the proletariat.
It is not strange that attacks on socialism should be made in a socialist country by old
and new bourgeois elements. There is nothing terrifying about this so long as the
leadership of the Party and state remains a Marxist-Leninist one. But in the Soviet
Union today, the gravity of the situation lies in the fact that the revisionist Khrushchov
clique have usurped the leadership of the Soviet Party and state and that a privileged
bourgeois stratum has emerged in Soviet society.
We shall deal with this problem in the following section.
THE SOVIET PRIVILEGED STRATUM AND THE
REVISIONIST KHRUSHCHOV CLIQUE
The privileged stratum in contemporary Soviet society is composed of degenerate
elements from among the leading cadres of Party and government organizations,
enterprises and farms as well as bourgeois intellectuals; it stands in opposition to the
workers, the peasants and the overwhelming majority of the intellectuals and cadres of
the Soviet Union.
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Lenin pointed out soon after the October Revolution that bourgeois and petty-bourgeis
ideologies and force of habit were encircling and influencing the proletariat from all
directions and wre corrupting certain of its sections. This circumstance led to the
emergence from among the Soviet officials and functionaries both of bureaucrats
alienated from the masses and of new bourgeois elements. Lenin also pointed out that
although the high salaries paid to the bourgeois technical specialists staying on to
work for the Soviet regime were necessary, they were having a corrupting influence
on it.
Therefore, Lenin laid great stress on waging persistent struggles against the influence
of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologies, on arousing the broad masses to take part
in government work, on ceaselessly exposing and purging bureaucrats and new
bourgeois elements in the Soviet organs, and on creating conditions that would bar the
existence and reproduction of the bourgeoisie. Lenin pointed out sharply that "without
a systematic and determined struggle to improve the apparatus, we shall perish before
the basis of socialism is created."
[Lenin, "Plan of the Pamphlet ‘On the Food Tax’", Collected Works, 4th Russian ed.,
Moscow, Vol. 32, p. 301.]
At the same time, he laid great stress on adherence to the principle of the Paris
Commune in wage policy, that is, all public servants were to be paid wages
corresponding to those of the workers and only bourgeois specialists were to be paid
high salaries. From the October Revolution to the period of Soviet economic
rehabilitation, Lenin’s directives were in the main observed; the leading personell of
the Party and government organizations and enterprises and Party members among the
specialists received salaries roughly equivalent to the wages of workers.
At that time, the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union adopted a
number of measures in the sphere of politics and ideology and in the system of
distribution to prevent leading cadres in any department from abusing their powers or
degenerating morally or politically.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Stalin adhered to the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the road of socialism and waged a staunch struggle
against the forces of capitalism. Stalin’s struggles against the Trotskyites, Zinovievites
and Bukharinites wre in essence a reflection within the Party of the class struggle
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and of the struggle between the two roads
of socialism and capitalism. Victory in these struggles smashed the vain hopes of the
bourgeoisie to restore capitalism in the Soviet Union.
It cannot be denied that before Stalin’s death high salaries were already being paid to
certain groups and that some cadres had already degenerated and become bourgeois
elements. The Central Committee of the CPSU pointed out in its report to the 19th
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Party Congress in October 1952 that degeneration and corruption had appeared in
certain Party organizations.
The leaders of these organizations had turned them into small communities composed
entirely of their own people, "setting their group interests higher than the interests of
the Party and the state". Some executives of industrial enterprises "forget that the
enterprises entrusted to their charge are state enterprises, and try to turn them into
their own private domain".
"Instead of safeguarding the common husbandry of the collective farms", some Party
and Soviet functionaries and some cadres in agricultural departments "engage in
filching collective-farm property". In the cultural, artistic and scientific fields too,
works attacking and smearing the socialist system had appeared and a monopolistic
"Arakcheyev regime" had emerged among the scientists.
Since Khrushchov usurped the leadership of the Soviet Party and state, there has been
a fundamental change in the state of the class struggle in the Soviet Union.
Khrushchov has carried out a series of revisionist policies serving the interests of the
bourgeoisie and rapidly swelling the forces of capitalism in the Soviet Union.
On the pretext of "combating the personality cult", Khrushchov has defamed the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the socialist system and thus in fact paved the way
for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union. In completely negating Stalin, he
has in fact negated Marxism-Leninism which was upheld by Stalin and opened the
floodgates for the revisionist deluge.
Khrushchov has substituted "material incentive" for the socialist principle, "from each
according to his ability, to each according to his work". He has widened, and not
narrowed, the gap between the incomes of a small minority and those of the workers,
peasants and ordinary intellectuals. He has supported the degenerates in leading
positions, encouraging them to become even more unscrupulous in abusing their
powers and to appropriate the fruits of labour of the Soviet people. Thus he has
accelerated the polarization of classes in Soviet society.
Khrushchov sabotages the socialist planned economy, applies the capitalist principle
of profit, develops capitalist free competition and undermines socialist ownership by
the whole people.
Khrushchov attacks the system of socialist agricultural planning, describing it as
"bureaucratic" and "unnecessary". Eager to learn from the big proprietors of American
farms, he is encouraging capitalist management, fostering a kulak economy and
undermining the socialist collective economy.
Khrushchov is peddling bourgeois ideology, bourgeois liberty, equality, fraternity and
humanity, inculcating bourgeois idealism and metaphysics and the reactionary ideas
of bourgeois individualism, humanism and pacifism among the Soviet people, and
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debasing socialist morality. The rotten bourgeois culture of the West is now
fashionable in the Soviet Union, and socialist culture is ostracized and attacked.
Under the signboard of "peaceful coexistence", Khrushchov has been colluding with
U.S. imperialism, wrecking the socialist camp and the international communist
movement, opposing the revolutionary struggles of the oppressed peoples and nations,
practising great-power chauvinism and national egoism and betraying proletarian
internationalism. All this is being done for the protection of the vested interests of a
handful of people, which he places above the fundamental interests of the peoples of
the Soviet Union, the socialist camp and the whole world.
The line Khrushchov pursues is a revisionist line through and through. Guided by this
line, not only have the old bourgeois elements run wild but new bourgeois elements
have appeared in large numbers among the leading cadres of the Soviet Party and
government, the chiefs of state enterprises and collective farms, and the higher
intellectuals in the fields of culture, art, science and technology.
In the Soviet Union at present, not only have the new bourgeois elements increased in
number as never before, but their social status has fundamentally changed. Before
Khrushchov came to power, they did not occupy the ruling position in Soviet society.
Their activities were restricted in many ways and they were subject to attack. But
since Khrushchov took over, usurping the leadership of the Party and the state step by
step, the new bourgeois elements have gradually risen to the ruling position in the
Party and government and in the economic, cultural and other departments, and
formed a privileged stratum in Soviet society.
This privileged stratum is the principal component of the bourgeoisie in the Soviet
Union today and the main social basis of the revisionist Khrushchov clique. The
revisionist Khrushchov clique are the political representatives of the Soviet
bourgeoisie, and particularly of its privileged stratum.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique have carried out one purge after another and
replaced one group of cadres after another throughout the country, from the central to
the local bodies, from leading Party and government organizations to economic and
cultural and educational departments, dismissing those they do not trust and placing
their protégés in leading posts.
Take the Central Committee of the CPSU as an example. The statistics show that
seventy per cent of the members of the Central Committee of the CPSU who were
elected at its 19th Congress in 1952 were purged in the course of the 20th and 22nd
Congresses held respectively in 1956 and 1961. And nearly fifty per cent of the
members who were elected at the 20th Congress were purged at the time of the 22nd
Congress.
Or take the local organizations. On the eve of the 22nd Congress, on the pretext of
"renewing the cadres", the revisionist Khrushchov clique, according to incomplete
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statistics, removed from office forty-five per cent of the members of the Party Central
Committees of the Union Republics and of the Party Committees of the Territories
and Regions, and forty per cent of the Municipal and District Party Committees. In
1963, on the pretext of dividing the Party into "industrial" and "agricultural" Party
committees, they further replaced more than half the members of the Central
Committees of the Union Republics and of the Regional Party Committees.
Through this series of changes the Soviet privileged stratum has gained control of the
Party, the government and other important organizations.
The members of this pivileged stratum have converted the function of serving the
masses into the privilege of dominating them. They are abusing their powers over the
means of production and of livelyhood for the private benefit of their small clique.
The members of this privileged stratum appropriate the fruits of the Soviet people’s
labour and pocket incomes that are dozens or even a hundred times those of the
average Soviet worker and peasant. They not only secure high incomes in the form of
high salaries, high awards, high royalties and a great variety of personal subsidies, but
also use their privileged position to appropriate public property by graft and bribery.
Completely divorced from the working people of the Soviet Union, they live the
parasitical and decadent life of the bourgeoisie.
The members of this privileged stratum have become utterly degenerate ideologically,
have completely departed from the revolutionary traditions of the Bolshevik Party and
discarded the lofty ideals of the Soviet working class. They are opposed to MarxismLeninism and socialism. They betray the revolution and forbid others to make
revolution. Their sole concern is to consolidate their economic position and political
rule. All their activities revolve around the private interests of their own privileged
stratum.
People have seen how in Yugoslavia, although the Tito clique still displays the banner
of "socialism", a bureaucratic bourgeoisie opposed to the Yugoslav people has
gradually come into being since the Tito clique took the road of revisionism,
transforming the Yugoslav state from a dictatorship of the proletariat into the
dictatorship of the bureaucrat bourgeoisie and its socialist public economy into state
capitalism. Now people see the Khrushchov clique taking the road already travelled
by the Tito clique. Khrushchov looks to Belgrade as his Mecca, saying again and
again that he will learn from the Tito clique’s experience and declaring that he and the
Tito clique "belong to one and the same idea and are guided by the same theory". This
is not at all surprising.
[N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Foreign Correspondents at Brioni in Yugoslavia,
Aug. 28, 1963.]
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As a result of Khrushchov’s revisionism, the first socialist country in the world built
by the great Soviet people with their blood and sweat is now facing an unprecedented
danger of capitalist restoration.
The Khrushchov clique are spreading the tale that "there are no longer antagonistic
classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union" in order to cover up the facts about
their own ruthless class struggle against the Soviet people.
The Soviet privileged stratum represented by the revisionist Khrushchov clique
constitutes only a few per cent of the Soviet population. Among the Soviet cadres its
numbers are also small. It stands diametrically opposed to the Soviet people, who
constitute more than 90 per cent of the total population, and to the great majority of
the Soviet cadres and Communists. The contradiction between the Soviet people and
this privileged stratum is now the principal contradiction inside the Soviet Union, and
it is an irreconcilable and antagonistic class contradiction.
The glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which was built by Lenin, and the
great Soviet people displayed epoch-making revolutionary initiative in the October
Socialist Revolution, they showed their heroism and stamina in defeating the White
Guards and the armed intervention by more than a dozen imperialist countries, they
scored unprecedently brilliant achievements in the struggle for industrialization and
agricultural collectivization, and they won a tremendous victory in the Patriotic War
against the German fascists and saved all mankind. Even under the rule of the
Khrushchov clique, the mass of the members of the CPSU and the Soviet people are
carrying on the glorious revolutionary traditions nurtured by Lenin and Stalin, and
they still uphold socialism and aspire to communism.
The broad masses of the Soviet workers, collective farmers and intellectuals are
seething with discontent against the oppression and exploitation practised by the
privileged stratum. They have come to see ever more clearly the revisionist features of
the Khrushchov clique which is betraying socialism and restoring capitalism.
Among the ranks of the Soviet cadres, there are many who still persist in the
revolutionary stand of the proletariat, adhere to the road of socialism and firmly
oppose Khrushchov’s revisionism. The broad masses of the Soviet people, of
Communists and cadres are using various means to resist and oppose the revisionist
line of the Khrushchov clique, so that the revisionist Khrushchov clique cannot so
easily bring about the restoration of capitalism. The great Soviet people are fighting to
defend the glorious traditions of the Great October Revolution, to preserve the great
gains of socialism and to smash the plot for the restoration of capitalism.
REFUTATION OF THE SO-CALLED STATE OF THE
WHOLE PEOPLE
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At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised the banner of
opposition to the dictatorship of the proleatriat, announcing the replacement of the
state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state of the whole people". It is
written in the Programme of the CPSU that the dictatorship of the proletariat "has
ceased to be indispensable in the U.S.S.R." and that "the state, which arose as a state
of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has, in the new, contemporary stage, become a
state of the entire people".
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the concept of the
state is a class concept. Lenin pointed out that "the distinguishing feature of the state
is the existence of a separate class of people in whose hands power is concentrated".
[Lenin, "The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve’s
Book", Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1960, Vol. 1, p. 419.]
The state is a weapon of class struggle, a machine by means of which one class
represses another. Every state is the dictatorship of a definite class. So long as the
state exists, it cannot possibly stand above class or belong to the whole people.
The proletariat and its political party have never concealed their views; they say
explicitly that the very aim of the proletarian socialist revolution is to overthrow
bourgeois rule and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the victory of the
socialist revolution, the proletariat and its party must strive unremittingly to fulfil the
historical tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat and eliminate classes and class
differences, so that the state will wither away. It is only the bourgeoisie and its parties
which in their attempt to hoodwink the masses try by every means to cover up the
class nature of state power and describe the state machinery under their control as
being "of the whole people" and "above class".
The fact that Khrushchov has announced the abolition of the dictatorship of the
proletariat in the Soviet Union and advanced the thesis of the "state of the whole
people" demonstrates that he has replaced the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state
by bourgeois falsehoods.
When Marxist-Leninists criticized their fallacies, the revisionist Khrushchov clique
hastily defended themselves and tried hard to invent a so-called theoretical basis for
the "state of the whole people". They now assert that the historical period of the
dictatorship of the proletariat mentioned by Marx and Lenin refers only to the
transition from capitalism to the first stage of communism and not to its higher stage.
They further assert that "the dictatorship of the proletariat will cease to be necessary
before the state withers away" and that after the end of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, there is yet another stage, the "state of the whole people".
[Pravda editorial board’s article, "Programme for the Building of Communism", Aug.
18, 1961.]
These are out-and-out sophistries.
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In his Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx advanced the well-known axiom that
the dictatorship of the proletariat is the state of the period of transition from capitalism
to communism. Lenin gave a clear explanation of this Marxist axiom. He said:
In his Critique of the Gotha Programme Marx wrote: "Between capitalist and
communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into
the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state
can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." Up to now
this axiom has never been disputed by Socialists, and yet it implies the recognition of
the existence of the state right up to the time when victorious socialism has grown
into complete communism.
[Lenin, "The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up", Collected Works,
International Publishers, New York, 1942, Vol. 19, pp. 269-70.]
Lenin further said:
The essence of Marx’s teaching on the state has been mastered only by those who
understand that the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for the
proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical
period which separates capitalism from "classless society", from Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 1,
p. 234.]
It is perfectly clear that according to Marx and Lenin, the historical period throughout
which the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat exists, is not merely the period of
transition to the first stage of communism, as alleged by the revisionist Khrushchov
clique, but the entire period of transition from capitalism to "complete communism",
to the time when all class differences will have been eliminated and "classless society"
realized, that is to say, to the higher stage of communism.
It is equally clear that the state in the transition period referred to by Marx and Lenin
is the dictatorship of the proletariat and nothing else. The dictatorship of the
proletariat is the form of the state in the entire period of transition from capitalism to
the higher stage of communism, and also the last form of the state in human history.
The withering away of the dictatorship of the proletariat will mean the withering away
of the state. Lenin said:
Marx deduced from the whole history of Socialism and of the political struggle that
the state was bound to disappear, and that the transitional form of its disappearance
(the transition from state to nonstate) would be the "proletariat organized as the ruling
class".
[Ibid., pp. 256-57.]
Historically the dictatorship of the proletariat may take different forms from one
country to another and from one period to another, but in essence it will remain the
same. Lenin said:
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The transition from capitalism to Communism certainly cannot but yield a tremendous
abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same:
the dictatorship of the proletariat.
[Ibid, p. 234.]
It can thus be seen that it is absolutely not the view of Marx and Lenin but an
invention of the revisionist Khrushchov that the end of the dictatorship of the
proletariat will precede the withering away of the state and will be followed by yet
another stage, "the state of the whole people".
In arguing for their anti-Marxist-Leninist views, the revisionist Khrushchov clique
have taken great pains to find a sentence from Marx and distorting it by quoting it out
of context. They have arbitrarily described the future nature of the state
(Staatswesen in German) of communist society referred to by Marx in his Critique of
the Gotha Programme as the ‘state of communist society’, which is no longer a
dictatorship of the proletariat".
[M. A. Suslov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU,
February 1964 (New Times, English ed., No. 15, 1964, p. 62.]
They gleefully announced that the Chinese would not dare to quote this from Marx.
Apparently the revisionist Khrushchov clique think this is very helpful to them.
As it happens Lenin seems to have foreseen that revisionists would make use of this
phrase to distort Marxism. In his Marxism on the State, Lenin gave an excellent
explanation of it. He said, "...the dictatorship of the proletariat is a ‘political transition
period’... . But Marx goes on to speak of ‘the future nature of the state
(gosudarstvennost in Russian, Staatswesen in German) of communist society’!!
Thus, there will be a state even in ‘communist society’!! Is there not a contrdiction in
this?" Lenin answered, "No." He then tabulated the three stages in the process of
development from the bourgeois state to the withering away of the state:
The first stage – in bourgeois society, the state is needed by the bourgeoisie – the
bourgeois state.
The second stage – in the period of transition from capitalism to communism, the state
is needed by the proletariat – the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The third stage – in communist society, the state is not necessary, it withers away.
He concluded: "Complete consistency and clarity!!"
In Lenin’s tabulation, only the bourgeois state, the state of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the withering away of the state are to be found. By precisely this
tabulation Lenin made it clear that when communism is reached the state withers
away and becomes non-existent.
Ironically enough, the revisionist Khrushchov clique also quoted this very passage
from Lenin’s Marxism on the State in the course of defending their error. And then
they proceeded to make the following idiotic statement:
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In our country the first two periods referred to by Lenin in the opinion quoted already
belong to history. In the Soviet Union a state of the whole people – a communist
state system, the state of the first phase of communism, has arisen and is
developing.
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole Soviet People",
editorial board’s article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8, 1964.]
If the first two periods referred to by Lenin have already become a thing of the past in
the Soviet Union, the state should be withering away, and where could a "state of the
whole people" come from? If the state is not yet withering away, then it ought to be
the dictatorship of the proletariat and under absolutely no circumstances a "state of the
whole people".
In arguing for their "state of the whole people", the revisionist Khrushchov clique
exert themselves to vilify the dictatorship of the proletariat as undemocratic. They
assert that only by replacing the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat by the "state
of the whole people" can democracy be further developed and turned into "genuine
democracy for the whole people". Khrushchov has pretentiously said that the abolition
of the dictatorship of the proletariat exemplifies "a line of energetically developing
democracy" and that "proletarian democracy is becoming socialist democracy of the
whole people".
[N. S. Khrushchov, "Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU", and "On the
Programme of the CPSU", delivered at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, October
1961.]
These utterances can only show that their authors either are completely ignorant of the
Marxist-Leninist teachings on the state or are maliciously distorting them.
Anyone with a little knowledge of Marxism-Leninism knows that the concept of
democracy as a form of the state, like that of dictatorship, is a class one. There can
only be class democracy, there cannot be "democracy for the whole people".
Lenin said:
Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e.
exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people – this is the
change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to Communism.
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 1,
p. 291.]
Dictatorship over the exploiting classes and democracy among the working people –
these are the two aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is only under the
dictatorship of the proletariat that democracy for the masses of the working people can
be developed and expanded to an unprecedented extent. Without the dictatorship of
the proletariat there can be no genuine democracy for the working people.
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Where there is bourgeois democracy there is no proletarian democracy, and where
there is proletarian democracy there is no bourgeois democracy. The one excludes the
other. This is inevitable and admits of no compromise. The more thoroughly
bourgeois democracy is eliminated, the more will proletarian democracy flourish. In
the eyes of the bourgeoisie, any country where this occurs is lacking in democracy.
But actually this is the promotion of proletarian democracy and the elimination of
bourgeois democracy. As proletarian democracy develops, bourgeois democracy is
eliminated.
This fundamental Marxist-Leninist thesis is opposed by the revisionist Khrushchov
clique. In fact, they hold that so long as enemies are subjected to dictatorship there is
no democracy and that the only way to develop democracy is to abolish the
dictatorship over enemies, stop suppressing them and institute "democracy for the
whole people".
Their view is cast from the same mould as the renegade Kautsky’s concept of "pure
democracy".
In criticizing Kautsky Lenin said:
..."pure democracy" is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing a lack of understanding
both of the class struggle and of the nature of the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase,
since in communist society democracy will wither away in the process of changing
and becoming a habit, but will never be "pure" democracy.
[Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Selected Works,
FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 48.]
He also pointed out:
The dialectics (course) of the development is as follows: from absolutism to bourgeois
democracy; from bour- geois to proletarian democracy; from proletarian democracy to
none.
[Lenin, Marxism on the State, Russian ed., Moscow, 1958, p. 42.]
That is to stay, in the higher stage of communism proletarian democracy will wither
away along with the elimination of classes and the withering away of the dictatorship
of the proletariat.
To speak plainly, as with the "state of the whole people", the "democracy for the
whole people" proclaimed by Khrushchov is a hoax. In thus retrieving the tattered
garments of the bourgeoisie and the old-line revisionists, patching them up and adding
a label of his own, Khrushchov’s sole purpose is to deceive the Soviet people and the
revolutionary people of the world and cover up his betrayal of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and his opposition to socialism.
What is the essence of Khrushchov’s "state of the whole people"?
Khrushchov has abolished the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union and
established a dictatorship of the revisionist clique headed by himself, that is, a
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dictatorship of the privileged stratum of the Soviet bourgeoisie. Actually his "state of
the whole people" is not a state of the dictatorship of the proletariat but a state in
which his small revisionist clique wield their dictatorship over the masses of the
workers, the peasants and the revolutionary intellectuals.
Under the rule of the Khrushchov clique, there is no democracy for the Soviet
working people, there is democracy only for the handful of people belonging to the
revisionist Khrushchov clique, for the privileged stratum and for the bourgeois
elements, old and new. Khrushchov’s "democracy for the whole people" is nothing
but out-and-out bourgeois democracy, i.e., a despotic dictatorship of the Khrushchov
clique over the Soviet people.
In the Soviet Union today, anyone who persists in the proletarian stand, upholds
Marxism-Leninism and has the courage to speak out, to resist or to fight is watched,
followed, summoned, and even arrested, imprisoned or diagnosed as "mentally ill"
and sent to "mental hospitals".
Recently the Soviet press has declared that it is necessary to "fight" against those who
show even the slightest dissatisfaction, and called for "relentless battle" against the
"rotten jokers" who are so bold as to make sarcastic remarks about Khrushchov’s
agricultural policy.
[Izvestia, Mar. 10, 1964.]
It is not particularly astonishing that the revisionist Khrushchov clique should have on
more than one occasion bloodily suppressed striking workers and the masses who put
up resistance.
The formula of abolishing the dictatorship of the proletariat while keeping a state of
the whole people reveals the secret of the revisionist Khrushchov clique; that is, they
are firmly opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat but will not give up state
power till their doom.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique know the paramount importance of controlling
state power. They need it for clearing the way for the restoration of capitalism in the
Soviet Union. These are Khrushchov’s real aims in raising the banners of the "state of
the whole people" and "democracy for the whole people".
REFUTATION OF THE SO-CALLED PARTY OF THE
ENTIRE PEOPLE
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU Khrushchov openly raised another banner, the
alteration of the proletarian character of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He
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announced the replacement of the party of the proletariat by a "party of the entire
people".
The programme of the CPSU states, "As a result of the victory of socialism in the
U.S.S.R. and the consolidation of the unity of Soviet society, the Communist Party of
the working class has become the vanguard of the Soviet people, a party of the entire
people". The Open Letter of the Central Committee of the CPSU says that the CPSU
"has become a political organization of the entire people".
How absurd!
Elementary knowledge of Marxism-Leninism tells us that, like the state, a political
party is an instrument of class struggle. Every political party has a class character.
Party spirit is the concentrated expression of class character. There is no such thing as
a non-class or supra-class political party and there never has been, nor is there such a
thing as a "party of the entire people" that does not represent the interests of a
particular class.
The party of the proletariat is built in accordance with the revolutionary theory and
revolutionary style of Marxism-Leninism; it is the party formed by the advanced
elements who are boundlessly faithful to the historical mission of the proletariat, it is
the organized vanguard of the proletariat and the highest form of its organization. The
party of the proletariat represents the interests of the proletariat and the concentration
of its will.
Moreover, the party of the proletariat is the only party able to represent the interests of
the people, who constitute over ninety per cent of the total population. The reason is
that the interests of the proletariat are identical with those of the working masses, that
the proletariarian party can approach problems in the light of the historical role of the
proletariat and in terms of the present and future interests of the proletariat and the
working masses and of the best interests of the overwhelming majority of the people,
and that it can give correct leadership in accordance with Marxism-Leninism.
In addition to its members of working-class origin, the party of the proletariat has
members of other class origins. But the latter do not join the Party as representatives
of other classes. From the very day they join the Party they must abandon their former
class stand and take the stand of the proletariat. Marx and Engels said:
If people of this kind join the proletarian movement, the first condition must be that
they should not bring any remnants of bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, etc., prejudices
with them but should wholeheartedly adopt the proletarian outlook.
["Marx and Engels to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke and Others ("Circular
Letter"), Sept. 17-18, 1879", Selected Works of Marx and Engels, FLPH, Moscow,
Vol. 2, pp. 484-85.]
The basic principles concerning the proletarian party were long ago elucidated by
Marxism-Leninism. But in the opinion of the revisionist Khrushchov clique these
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principles are "stereotyped formulas", while their "party of the entire people"
conforms to the "actual dialectics of the development of the Communist Party".
["From the Party of the Working Class to the Party of the Whole Soviet People",
editorial board's article of Partyinaya Zhizn, Moscow, No. 8, 1964.]
The revisionist Khrushchov clique have cudgelled their brains to think up arguments
justifying their "party of the entire people". They have argued during the talks
between the Chinese and Soviet Parties in July 1963 and in the Soviet press that they
have changed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union into a "party of the entire
people" because:
1. The CPSU expresses the interests of the whole people.
2. The entire people have accepted the Marxist-Leninist world outlook of the working
class, and the aim of the working class - the building of communism - has become the
aim of the entire people.
3. The ranks of the CPSU consist of the best representatives of the workers, collective
farmers and intellectuals. The CPSU unites in its own ranks representatives of over a
hundred nationalities and peoples.
4. The democratic method used in the Party's activities is also in accord with its
character as the Party of the entire people.
It is obvious even at a glance that none of these arguments adduced by the revisionist
Khrushchov clique shows a serious approach to a serious problem.
When Lenin was fighting the opportunist muddle-heads, he remarked:
Can people obviously incapable of taking serious problems seriously themselves be
taken seriously? It is difficult to do so, comrades, very difficult! But the question
which certain people cannot treat seriously is in itself so serious that it will do no harm
to examine even patently frivolous replies to it.
[Lenin, "Clarity First and Foremost!", Collected Works, FLPH, Moscow, 1964, Vol.
20, p. 544.]
Today, too, it will do no harm to examine the patently frivolous replies given by the
revisionist Khrushchov clique to so serious a question as that of the party of the
proletariat.
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become
a "party of the entire people" because it represents the interests of the entire people.
Does it not then follow that from the very beginning it should have been a "party of
the entire people" instead of a party of the proletariat?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become
a "party of the entire people" because "the entire people have accepted the MarxistLeninist world outlook of the working class". But how can it be said that everyone has
accepted the Marxist-Leninist world outlook in Soviet society where sharp class
polarization and class struggle are taking place?
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Can it be said that the tens of thousands of old and new bourgeois elements in your
country are all Marxist-Leninists? If Marxism-Leninism has really become the world
outlook of the entire people, as you allege, does in not then follow that there is no
difference in your society between Party and non-Party and no need whatsoever for
the Party to exist? What difference does it make if there is a "party of the entire
people" or not?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Communist Party should become
a "party of the entire people" because its membership consists of workers, peasants
and intellectuals and all nationalities and peoples. Does this mean that before the idea
of the "party of the entire people" was put forward at its 22nd Congress none of the
members of the CPSU came from classes other than the working class? Does it mean
that formerly the members of the Party all came from just one nationality, to the
exclusion of other nationalities and peoples?
If the character of a party is determined by the social background of its membership,
does it not then follow that the numerous political parties in the world whose members
also come from various classes, nationalities and peoples are all "parties of the entire
people"?
According to the revisionist Khrushchov clique, the Party should be a "party of the
entire people" because the methods it uses in its activities are democratic. But from its
outset, a Communist Party is built on the basis of the principle of democratic
centralism and should always adopt the mass line and the democratic method of
persuation and education in working among the people. Does it not then follow that a
Communist Party is a "party of the entire people" from the first day of its founding?
Briefly, none of the arguments listed by the revisionist Khrushchov clique holds
water.
Besides making a great fuss about a "party of the entire people", Khrushchov has also
divided the Party into an "industrial Party" and an "agricultural Party" on the pretext
of "building the Party organs on the production principle".
[N. S. Khrushchov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the
CPSU, November 1962.]
The revisionist Khrushchov clique say that they have done so be- cause of "the
primacy of economics over politics under socialism" [1] and because they want to
place "the economic and pro- duction problems, which have been pushed to the
forefront by the entire course of the communist construction, at the centre of the
activities of the Party organizations" and make them "the cornerstone of all their
work" [2]. Khrushchov said, "We say bluntly that the main thing in the work of the
Party organs is production" [3]. And what is more, they have foisted these views on
Lenin, claiming that they are acting in accordance with his principles.
[1. "Study, Know, Act", editorial of Ekonomicheskaya Gazeta, No. 50, 1962.]
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[2. "The Communist and Production", editorial of Kommunist, No. 2, 1963.]
[3. N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Election Meeting of the Ka- linin Constituency of
Moscow, Feb. 27, 1963.]
However, anyone at all acquainted with the history of the CPSU knows that, far from
being Lenin's views, they are anti-Leninist views and that they were views held by
Trotsky. On this question, too, Khrushchov is a worthy disciple of Trotsky.
In criticizing Trotsky and Bukharin, Lenin said:
Politics are the concentrated expression of economics . . . Politics cannot but have
precedence over economics. To argue differently means forgetting the A B C of
Marxism.
He continued:
... without a proper political approach to the subject the given class cannot maintain its
rule, and consequently cannot solve its own production problems.
[Lenin, "Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Present Situation and the Mistakes of
Trotsky and Bukharin", Selected Works, International Publishers, New York, 1943,
Vol. 9, pp. 54 and 55.]
The facts are crystal clear; the real purpose of the revisionist Khrushchov clique in
proposing a "party of the entire people" was completely to alter the proletarian
character of the CPSU and transform the Marxist-Leninist Party into a revisionist
party.
The great Communist Party of the Soviet Union is confronted with the grave danger of
degenerating from a party of the proletariat into a party of the bourgeoisie and from a
Marxist-Leninist into a revisionist party.
Lenin said:
A party that wants to exist cannot allow the slightest wavering on the question of its
existence or any argument with those who may bury it.
[Lenin, "How Vera Zasulich Demolishes Liquidationism", Collected Works, FLPH,
Moscow, 1963, Vol. 19, p. 414.]
At present, the revisionist Khrushchov clique is again confronting the broad
membership of the great Communist Party of the Soviet Union with precisely this
serious question.
KHRUSHCHOV'S PHONEY COMMUNISM
At the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchov announced that the Soviet Union had
already entered the period of the extensive building of communist society. He also
declared that "we shall, in the main, have built a communist society within twenty
years". This is pure fraud.
[N. S. Khrushchov, "On the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union",
at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in October 1961.]
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How can there be talk of building communism when the revisionist Khrushchov
clique are leading the Soviet Union onto the path of the restoration of capitalism and
when the Soviet people are in grave danger of losing the fruits of socialism?
In putting up the signboard of "building communism" Khrushchov's real aim is to
conceal the true face of his revisionism. But it is not hard to expose this trick. Just as
the eyeball of a fish cannot be allowed to pass as a pearl, so revisionism cannot be
allowed to pass itself off as communism.
Scientific communism has a precise and definite meaning. According to MarxismLeninism, communist society is a society in which classes and class differences are
completely eliminated, the entire people have a high level of communist
consciousness and morality as well as boundless enthusiasm for and initiative in
labour, there is a great abundance of social products and the principle of "from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is applied, and in which the
state has withered away.
Marx declared:
In the higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the
individual to the division of labour, and therefore also the antithesis between mental
and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life
but life's prime want; after the production forces have also increased with the allround development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow
more abundantly -- only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in
its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs!
[Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme", Selected Works of Marx and Engels,
FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, p. 24.]
According to Marxist-Leninist theory, the purpose of upholding the dictatorship of the
proletariat in the period of socialism is precisely to ensure that society develops in the
direction of communism. Lenin said that "forward development, i.e., towards
Communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do
otherwise".
[Lenin, "The State and Revolution", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 1,
p. 291.]
Since the revisionist Khrushchov clique have abandoned the dictatorship of the
proletariat in the Soviet Union, it is going backward and not forward to communism.
Going forward to communism means moving towards the abolition of all classes and
class differences. A communist society which preserves any classes at all, let alone
exploiting classes, is inconceivable. Yet Khrushchov is fostering a new bourgeoisie,
restoring and extending the system of exploitation and accelerating class polarization
in the Soviet Union. A privileged bourgeois stratum opposed to the Soviet people now
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occupies the ruling position in the Party and government and in the economic, cultural
and other departments. Can one find an iota of communism in all this?
Going forward to communism means moving towards a unitary system of the
ownership of the means of production by the whole people. A communist society in
which several kinds of ownership of the means of production coexist is inconceivable.
Yet Khrushchov is creating a situation in which enterprises owned by the whole
people are gradually degenerating into capitalist enterprises and farms under the
system of collective ownership are gradually degenerating into units of a kulak
economy. Again, can one find an iota of communism in all this?
Going forward to communism means moving towards a great abundance of social
products and the realization of the principle of "from each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs". A communist society built on the enrichment of a
handful of persons and the impoverishment of the masses is inconceivable. Under the
socialist system the great Soviet people developed the social productive forces at
unprecedented speed. But the evils of Khrushchov's revisionism are creating havoc in
the Soviet socialist economy.
Constantly beset with innumerable contradictions, Khrushchov makes frequent
changes in his economic policies and often goes back on his own words, thus
throwing the Soviet national economy into a state of chaos. Khrushchov is truly an
incorrigible wastrel. He has squandered the grain reserves built up under Stalin and
brought great difficulties into the lives of the Soviet people. He has distorted and
violated the socialist prin- ciple of distribution of "from each according to his ability,
to each according to his work", and enabled a handful of persons to appropriate the
fruits of the labour of the broad masses of the Soviet people. These points alone are
sufficient to prove that the road taken by Khrushchov leads away from communism.
Going forward to communism means moving towards enhancing the communist
consciousness of the masses. A communist society with bourgeois ideas running
rampant is inconceivable. Yet Khrushchov is zealously reviving bourgeois ideology in
the Soviet Union and serving as a missionary for the decadent American culture.
By propagating material incentive, he is turning all human relations into money
relations and encouraging individualism and selfishness. Because of him, manual
labour is again considered sordid and love of pleasure at the expense of other people's
labour is again considered honourable. Certainly, the social ethics and atmosphere
promoted by Khrushchov are far removed from communism, as far as can be.
Going forward to communism means moving towards the withering away of the state.
A communist society with a state apparatus for oppressing the people is
inconceivable. The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat is actually no longer a
state in its original sense, because it is no longer a machine used by the exploiting few
to oppress the overwhelming majority of the people but a machine for exercising
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dictatorship over a very small number of exploiters, while democracy is practiced
among the overwhelming majority of the people.
Khrushchov is altering the character of Soviet state power and changing the
dictatorship of the proletariat back into an instrument whereby a handful of privileged
bourgeois elements exercise dictatorship over the mass of Soviet workers, peasants
and intellectuals. He is continuously strenghtening his dictatorial state apparatus and
intensifying his repression of the So- viet people. It is indeed a great mockery to talk
about communism in these circumstances.
A comparison of all this with the principles of scientific communism readily reveals
that in every respect the revisionist Khrushchov clique are leading the Soviet Union
away from the path of socialism and onto the path of capitalism and, as a
consequence, further and further away from, instead of closer to, the communist goal
of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
Khrushchov has ulterior motives when he puts up his signboard of communism. He is
using it to fool the Soviet people and cover up his effort to restore capitalism. He is
using it to deceive the international proletariat and the revolutionary people the world
over and betray proletarian internationalism. Under this signboard, the Khrushchov
clique has itself abandoned proletarian internationalism and is seeking a partnership
with U.S. imperialism for the partition of the world; moreover, it wants the fraternal
socialist countries to serve its own private interests and not to oppose imperialism or
to support the revolutions of the oppressed peoples and nations, and it wants them to
accept its political, economic and military control and be its virtual dependencies and
colonies.
Furthermore, the Khrushchov clique wants all the oppressed peoples and nations to
serve its private interests and abandon their revolutionary struggles, so as not to
disturb its sweet dream of partnership with imperialism for the division of the world,
and instead submit to enslavement and oppression by imperialism and its lackeys.
In short, Khrushchov's slogan of basically "building a communist society within
twenty years" in the Soviet Union is not only false but also reactionary.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique say that the Chinese "go to the length of
questioning the very right of our Party and people to build communism".
[M. A. Suslov, Report at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU,
February 1964.]
This is a despicable attempt to fool the Soviet people and poison the friendship of the
Chinese and Soviet people. We have never had any doubts that the great Soviet people
will eventually enter into communist society. But right now the revisionist
Khrushchov clique are damaging the socialist fruits of the Soviet people and taking
away their right to go forward to communism. In the circumstances, the issue
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confronting the Soviet people is not how to build communism but rather how to resist
and oppose Khrushchov's effort to restore capitalism.
The revisionist Khrushchov clique also say that "the CPC leaders hint that, since our
Party has made its aim a better life for the people, Soviet society is being
bourgeoisified, is 'degenerating'".
[Open Letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to
Party Organizations and All Communists in the Soviet Union", July 14, 1963.]
This trick of deflecting the Soviet people's dissatisfaction with the Khrushchov clique
is deplorable as well as stupid. We sincerely wish the Soviet people an increasingly
better life. But Khrushchov's boasts of "concern for the well-being of the people" and
of "a better life for every man" are utterly false and demagogic.
For the masses of the Soviet people life is already bad enough at Khrushchov's hands.
The Khrushchov clique seek a "better life" only for the members of the privileged
stratum and the bourgeois elements, old and new, in the Soviet Union. These people
are appropriating the fruits of the Soviet people's labour and living the life of
bourgeois lords. They have indeed become thoroughly bourgeoisified.
Khrushchov's "communism" is in essence a variant of bourgeois socialism. He does
not regard communism as completely abolishing classes and class differences but
describes it as "a bowl accessible to all and brimming with the products of physical
and mental labour".
[n. S. Khrushchov, Speech for the Austrian Radio and Television, July 7, 1960.]
He does not regard the struggle of the working class for communism as a struggle for
the thorough emancipation of all mankind as well as itself but describes it as a
struggle for "a good dish of goulash". There is not an iota of scientific communism in
his head but only the image of a society of bourgeois philistines.
Khrushchov's "communism" takes the United States for its model. Imitation of the
methods of management of U.S. capitalism and the bourgeois way of life has been
raised by Khrushchov to the level of state policy. He says that he "always thinks
highly" of the achievements of the United States. He "rejoices in these achievements,
is a little envious at times".
[N. S. Khrushchov, Interview with Leaders of U.S. Congress and Members of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sept. 16, 1959.]
He extols to the sky a letter by Roswell Garst, a big U.S. farmer, which propagates the
capitalist system; actually he has taken it as his agricultural programme.
[N. S. Khrushchov, Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the
CPSU, February 1964.]
He wants to copy the United States in the sphere of industry as well as in that of
agriculture and, in particular, to imitate the profit motive of U.S. capitalist enterprises.
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He shows great admiration for the American way of life, asserting that the American
people "do not live badly" under the rule and enslavement of monopoly capital.
[N. S. Khrushchov, Talk at a Meeting with Businessmen and Public Leaders in
Pittsburgh, U.S.A., Sept. 24, 1959.]
Going further, Khrushchov is hopeful of building communism with loans from U.S.
imperialism. During his visits to the United States and Hungary, he expressed on more
than one occasion his readiness "to take credits from the devil himself".
Thus it can be seen that Khrushchov's "communism" is indeed "goulash communism",
the "communism of the American way of life" and "communism seeking credits from
the devil". No wonder he often tells representatives of Western monopoly capital that
once such "communism" is realized in the Soviet Union, "you will go forward to
communism without any call from me".
[N. S. Khrushchov, Talk at a Meeting with French Parliamenta- rians, Mar. 25, 1960.]
There is nothing new about such "communism". It is simply another name for
capitalism. It is only a bourgeois label, sign or advertisment. In ridiculing the old-line
revisionist parties which set up the signboard of Marxism, Lenin said:
Wherever Marxism is popular among the workers, this political tendency, this
"bourgeois labour party", will swear by the name of Marx. It cannot be prohibited
from doing this, just as a trading firm cannot be prohibited from using any particular
label, sign, or advertisment.
[Lenin, "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism", Selected Works, International
Publishers, New York, Vol. 11, p. 781.]
It is thus easily understandable why Khrushchov's "communism" is appreciated by
imperialism and monopoly capital. The U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk has said:
. . . to the extent that goulash and the second pair of trousers and questions of that sort
become more important in the Soviet Union, I think to that extent a moderating
influence has come into the present scene.
[Dean Rusk, Interview on British Broadcasting Corporation Television, May 10,
1964.]
And the British Prime Minister Douglas-Home has said:
Mr. Khrushchov said that the Russian brand of communism puts education and
goulash first. That is good; goulash-communism is better than war-communism, and I
am glad to have this confirmation of our view that fat and comfortable Communists
are better than lean and hungry Communists.
[A. Douglas-Home, Speech at Norwich, England, Apr. 6, 1964.]
Khrushchov's revisionism entirely caters to the policy of "peaceful evolution" which
U.S. imperialism is pursuing with regard to the Soviet Union and other socialist
countries. John Foster Dulles said:
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. . . there was evidence within the Soviet Union of forces toward greater liberalism
which, if they persisted, could bring about a basic change in the Soviet Union.
[J. F. Dulles, press conference, May 15, 1956.]
The liberal forces Dulles talked about are capitalist forces. The basic change Dulles
hoped for is the degeneration of socialism into capitalism. Khrushchov is effecting
exactly the "basic change" Dulles dreamed of.
How the imperialists are hoping for the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union!
How they are rejoicing!
We would advise the imperialist lords not to be happy too soon. Notwithstanding all
the services of the revisionist Khrushchov clique, nothing can save imperialism from
its doom.
The revisionist ruling clique suffer from the same kind of disease as the imperialist
ruling clique; they are extremely antagonistic to the masses of the people who
comprise over ninety per cent of the world's population, and therefore they, too, are
weak and powerless and are paper tigers. Like the clay Buddha that tried to wade
across the river, the revisionist Khrushchov clique cannot even save themselves, so
how can they endow imperialism with long life?
HISTORICAL LESSONS OF THE DICTATORSHIP OF
THE PROLETARIAT
Khrushchov's revisionism has inflicted heavy damage on the international communist
movement, but at the same time it has educated the Marxist-Leninists and
revolutionary people throughout the world by negative example.
If it may be said that the Great October Revolution provided Marxist-Leninists in all
countries with the most important postive experience and opened up the road for the
proletarian seizure of political power, then on its part Khrushchov's revisionism may
be said to have provided them with the most important negative experience, enabling
the Marxist-Leninists in all countries to draw the appropriate lessons for preventing
the degeneration of the proletarian party and the socialist state.
Historically all revolutions have had their reverses and their twists and turns. Lenin
once asked:
. . . if we take the matter in its essence, has it ever happened in history that a new
mode of production took root immediately, without a long succession of setbacks,
blunders and relapses?
[Lenin, "A Great Beginning", Selected Works, FLPH, Moscow, Vol. 2, Part 2, p. 229.]
The international proletarian revolution has a history of less than a century counting
from 1871 when the proletariat of the Paris Commune made the first heroic attempt at
the seizure of political power, or barely half a century counting from the October
Revolution. The proletarian revolution, the greatest revo- lution in human history,
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replaces capitalism by socialism and private ownership by public ownership and
uproots all the systems of exploitation and all the exploiting classes. It is all the more
natural that so earth-shaking a revolution should have to go through serious and fierce
class struggles, inevitably traverse a long and tortuous course beset with reverses.
History furnishes a number of examples in which proletarian rule suffered defeat as a
result of armed suppression by the bourgeoisie, for instance, the Paris Commune and
the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919. In contemporary times, too, there was the
counter-revolutionary rebellion in Hungary in 1956, when the rule of the proletariat
was almost overthrown. People can easily perceive this form of capitalist restoration
and are more alert and watchful against it.
However, they cannot easily perceive and are often off their guard or not vigilant
against another form of capitalist restoration, which therefore presents a greater
danger. The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat takes the road of revisionism or
the road of "peaceful evolution" as a result of the degeneration of the leadership of the
Party and the state. A lesson of this kind was provided some years ago by the
revisionist Tito clique who brought about the degeneration of socialist Yugoslavia into
a capitalist country. But the Yugoslav lesson alone has not sufficed to arouse people's
attention fully. Some may say that perhaps it was an accident.
But now the revisionist Khrushchov clique have usurped the leadership of the Party
and the state, and there is grave danger of a restoration of capitalism in the Soviet
Union, the land of the Great October Revolution with its history of several decades in
building socialism. And this sounds the alarm for all socialist countries including
China, and for all the Communist and Workers' Parties, including the Communist
Party of China. Inevitably it arouses very great attention and forces Marxist-Leninists
and revolutionary people the world over to ponder deeply and sharpen their vigilance.
The emergence of Khrushchov's revisionism is a bad thing, and it is also a good thing.
So long as the countries where socialism has been achieved and also those that will
later embark on the socialist road seriously study the lessons of the "peaceful
evolusion" promoted by the revisionist Khrushchov clique and take the appropriate
measures, they will be able to prevent this kind of "peaceful evolution" as well as
crush the enemy's armed attacks. Thus, the victory of the world proletarian revolution
will be more certain.
The Communist Party of China has a history of forty-three years. During its protracted
revolutionary struggle, our Party combated both Right and "Left" opportunist errors
and the Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Central Committee headed by Comrade
Mao Tse-tung was established. Closely integrating the universal truth of MarxismLeninism with the concrete practice of revolution and construction in China, Comrade
Mao Tse-tung has led the Chinese people from victory to victory.
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The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and Comrade Mao Tse-tung
have taught us to wage unremitting struggle in the theoretical, political and
organizational fields, as well as in practical work, so as to combat revisionism and
prevent a restoration of capitalism. The Chinese people have gone through pro- tracted
revolutionary armed struggles and possess a glorious revolutionary tradition. The
Chinese People's Liberation Army is armed with Mao Tse-tung's thinking and
inseparably linked to the masses. The numerous cadres of the Chinese Communist
Party have been educated and tempered in rectification movements and sharp class
struggles. All these factors make it very difficult to restore capitalism in our country.
But let us look at the facts. Is our society today thoroughly clean? No, it is not. Classes
and class struggle still remain, the activities of the overthrown reactionary classes
plotting a comeback still continue, and we still have speculative activities by old and
new bourgeois elements and desperate forays by embezzlers, grafters and degenerates.
There are also cases of degeneration in a few primary organizations; what is more,
these degenerates do their utmost to find protectors and agents in the higher leading
bodies. We should not in the least slacken our vigilance against such phenomena but
must keep fully alert.
The struggle in the socialist countries between the road of socialism and the road of
capitalism - between the forces of capitalism attempting a comeback and the forces
opposing it -- is unavoidable. But the restoration of capitalism in the socialist
countries and their degeneration into capitalist countries are certainly not unavoidable.
We can prevent the restoration of capitalism so long as there is a correct leadership
and a correct understanding of the problem, so long as we adhere to the revolutionary
Marxist-Leninist line, take the appropriate measures and wage a prolonged,
unremitting struggle. The struggle between the socialist and capitalist roads can
become a driving force for social advance.
How can the restoration of capitalism be prevented? On this question Comrade Mao
Tse-tung has formulated a set of theories and policies, after summing up the practical
experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in China and studying the positive and
negative experience of other countries, mainly the Soviet Union, in accordance with
the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism, and has thus enriched and developed the
Marxist-Leninist theory of the dictarorship of the proletariat.
The main contents of the theories and policies advanced by Comrade Mao Tse-tung in
this connection are as follows:
FIRST, it is necessary to apply the Marxist-Leninist law of the unity of opposites to
the study of socialist society. The law of contradiction in all things, i.e., the law of the
unity of opposites, is a fundamental law of materialist dialectics. It operates
everywhere, whether in the natural world, in human society, or in the human thought.
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The opposites in a contradiction both unite and struggle with each other, and it is this
that forces things to move and change. Socialist society is no exception. In socialist
society there are two kinds of social contradictions, namely, the contradictions among
the people and those between ourselves and the enemy. These two kinds of
contradictions are entirely different in their essence, and the methods for handling
them should be different, too. Their correct handling will result in the increasing
consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the further strenghtening and
development of socialist society.
Many people acknowledge the law of the unity of opposites but are unable to apply it
in studying and handling questions in socialist society. They refuse to admit that there
are contradictions in socialist society -- that there are not only contradictions between
ourselves and the enemy but also contradictions among the people -- and they do not
know how to distinguish between these two kinds of social contradictions and how to
handle them correctly, and are therefore unable to deal correctly with the question of
the dictatorship of the proletariat.
SECOND, socialist society covers a very long historical period. Classes and class
struggle continue to exist in this society, and the struggle still goes on between the
road of socialism and the road of capitalism. The socialist revolution on the economic
front (in the ownership of the means of production) is insufficient by itself and cannot
be consolidated. There must also be a thorough socialist revolution on the political and
ideological fronts.
Here a very long period of time is needed to decide "who will win" in the struggle
between socialism and capitalism. Several decades won't do it; success requires
anywhere from one to several centuries. On the question of duration, it is better to
prepare for a longer rather than a shorter period of time.
On the question of effort, it is better to regard the task as difficult rather than easy. It
will be more advantageous and less harmful to think and act in this way. Anyone who
fails to see this or to appreciate it fully will make tremendous mistakes. During the
historical period of socialism it is necessary to maintain the dictatorship of the
proletariat and carry the socialist revolution through to the end if the restoration of
capitalism is to be prevented, socialist construction carried forward and the conditions
created for the transition to communism.
THIRD, the dictatorship of the proletariat is led by the working class, with the workerpeasant alliance as its basis. This means the exercise of dictatorship by the working
class and by the people under its leadership over the reactionary classes and
individuals and those elements who oppose socialist transformation and socialist
construction. Within the ranks of the people democratic centralism is practised. Ours
is the broadest democracy beyond the bounds of possibility for any bourgeois state.
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FOURTH, in both socialist revolution and socialist construction it is necessary to
adhere to the mass line, boldly to arouse the masses and to unfold mass movements on
a large scale. The mass line of "from the masses, to the masses" is the basic line in all
the work of our Party. It is necessary to have firm confidence in the majority of the
people and, above all, in the majority of the worker-peasant masses. We must be good
at consulting the masses in our work and under no circumstances alienate ourselves
from them.
Both commandism and the attitude of one dispensing favours have to be fought. The
full and frank expression of views and great debates are important forms of
revolutionary struggle which have been created by the people of our country in the
course of their long revolutionary fight, forms of struggle which rely on the masses for
resolving contradictions among the people and contradictions between ourselves and
the enemy.
FIFTH, whether in socialist revolution or in socialist construction, it is necessary to
solve the question of whom to rely on, whom to win over and whom to oppose. The
proletariat and its vanguard must make a class analysis of socialist society, rely on the
truly dependable forces that firmly take the socialist road, win over all allies that can
be won over, and unite with the masses of the people, who constitute more than
ninety-five per cent of the population, in a common struggle against the enemies of
socialism.
In the rural areas, after the collectivization of agriculture it is necessary to rely on the
poor and lower middle peasants in order to consolidate the dictatorship of the
proletariat and the worker-peasant alliance, defeat the spontaneous capitalist
tendencies and extend the policies of socialism.
SIXTH, it is necessary to conduct extensive socialist education movements repeatedly
in the cities and the countryside. In these continuous movements for educating the
people we must be good at organizing the revolutionary class forces, enhancing their
class consciousness, correctly handling contradictions among the people and uniting
all those who can be united.
In these movements it is necessary to wage a sharp, tit-for-tat struggle against the antisocialist, capitalist and feudal forces -- the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries and bourgeois rightists, and the embezzlers, grafters and degenerates in order to smash the attacks they unleash against socialism and to remould the
majority of them into new men.
SEVENTH, one of the basic tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat is actively to
expand the socialist economy. It is necessary to achieve the modernization of industry,
agriculture, science and technology, and national defence step by step under the
guidance of the genaral policy of developing the national economy with agriculture as
the foundation and industry as the leading factor. On the basis of the growth of
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production, it is necessary to raise the living standards of the people gradually and on
a broad scale.
EIGHTH, ownership by the whole people and collective ownership are the two forms
of socialist economy. The transition from collective ownership to ownership by the
whole people, from two kinds of ownership to a unitary ownership by the whole
people, is a rather long process. Collective ownership itself develops from lower to
higher levels and from smaller to larger scale. The people's communes which the
Chinese people have created is a suitable form of organization for the solution of the
question of this transition.
NINTH, "Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend" is
a policy for stimulating the growth of the arts and the progress of science and for
promoting a flourishing socialist culture. Education must serve proletarian politics and
must be combined with productive labour. The working people should master
knowledge and the intellectuals should become habituated to manual labour.
Among those engaged in science, culture, the arts and education, the struggle to
promote proletarian ideology and destroy bourgeois ideology is a protracted and fierce
clas struggle. It is necessary to build up a large detachment of working-class
intellectuals who serve socialism and who are both "red and expert", i.e., who are both
politically conscious and professionally competent, by means of cultural revolution,
and revolutionary practice in class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific
experiment.
TENTH, it is necessary to maintain the system of cadre participation in collective
productive labour. The cadres of our Party and state are ordinary workers and not
overlords sitting on the backs of the people. By taking part in collective productive
labour, the cadres maintain extensive, constant and close ties with the working people.
This is a major measure of fundamental importance for a socialist system; it helps to
overcome bureaucracy and to prevent revisionism and dogmatism.
ELEVENTH, the system of high salaries for a small number of people should never
be applied. The gap between the incomes of the working personell of the Party, the
government, the enterprises and the people's communes, on the one hand, and the
incomes of the mass of people, on the other, should be rationally and gradually
narrowed and not widened. All working personell must be prevented from abusing
their power and enjoying special privileges.
TWELFTH, it is always necessary for the people's armed forces in a socialist country
to be under the leadership of the Party of the proletariat and under the supervision of
the masses, and they must always maintain the glorious tradition of a people's army,
with unity between the army and the people and between the officers and men.
It is necessary to keep the system under which officers serve as common soldiers at
regular intervals. It is necessary to practice military democracy, political democracy
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and economic democracy. Moreover, militia units should be organized and trained all
over the country, so as to make everybody a soldier. The guns must forever be in the
hands of the Party and the people and must never be allowed to become the
instruments of careerists.
THIRTEENTH, the people's public security organs must always be under the
leadership of the Party of the proletariat and under the supervision of the mass of the
people. In the struggle to defend the fruits of socialism and the people's interests, the
policy must be applied of relying on the combined efforts of the broad masses and the
security organs, so that not a single bad person escapes or a single good person is
wronged. Counter-revolutionaries must be suppressed whenever found, and mistakes
must be corrected whenever discovered.
FOURTEENTH, in foreign policy, it is necessary to uphold proletarian
internationalism and oppose great-power chauvinism and national egoism. The
socialist camp is the product of the struggle of the international proletariat and
working people. It belongs to the proletariat and working people of the whole world as
well as to the people of the socialist countries.
We must truly put into effect the fighting slogans, "Workers of all countries, unite!"
and "Workers and oppressed nations of the world, unite!", resolutly combat the antiCommunist, anti-popular and counter-revolutionary policies of imperialism and
reaction and support the revolutionary struggles of all the oppressed classes and
oppressed nations.
Relations among socialist countries should be based on the principles of
independence, complete equality and the proletarian internationalist principle of
mutual support and mutual assistance. Every socialist country should rely mainly on
itself for its construction. If any socialist country practices national egoism in its
foreign policy, or, worse yet, eagerly works in partnership with imperialism for the
partition of the world, such conduct is degenerate and a betrayal of proletarian
internationalism.
FIFTEENTH, as the vanguard of the proletariat, the Communist Party must exist as
long as the dictatorship of the proletariat exists. The Communist Party is the highest
form of organization of the proletariat. The leading role of the proletariat is realized
through the leadership of the Communist Party. The system of Party committees
exercising leadership must be put into effect in all departments.
During the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletarian party must
maintain and strenghten its close ties with the proletariat and the broad masses of the
working people, maintain and develop its vigorous revolutionary style, uphold the
principle of integrating the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete
practice of its own country, and per- sist in the struggle angainst revisionism,
dogmatism and opportunism of evry kind.
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In the light of the historical lessons of the dictatorship of the proletariat Comrade Mao
Tse-tung has stated:
Class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment are the three great
revolutionary movements for building a mighty socialist country. These movements
are a sure guarantee that Communists will be free from bureaucracy and immune
against revisionism and dogmatism, and will forever remain invincible. They are a
reliable guarantee that the proletariat will be able to unite with the broad working
masses and realize a democratic dictatorship.
If, in the absence of these movements, the landlords, rich peasants, counterrevolutionaries, bad elements and ogres of all kinds were allowed to crawl out, while
our cadres were to shut their eyes to all this and in many cases fail even to
differentiate between the enemy and ourselves but were to collaborate with the enemy
and become corrupted and demoralized, if our cadres were thus dragged into the
enemy camp or the enemy were able to sneak into our ranks, and if many of our
workers, peasants and intellectuals were left defenceless against both the soft and the
hard tactics of the enemy, then it would not take long, perhaps only several years or a
decade, or several decades at most, before a counter-revo- lutionary restoration on a
national scale inevitably occurred, the Marxist-Leninist party would inevitably
become a revisionist party or a fascist party, and the whole of China would change its
colour.
[Mao Tse-tung, Note on "The Seven Well-Written Documents of the Chekiang
Province Concerning Cadres' Participation in Physical Labour", May 9, 1963.]
Comrade Mao Tse-tung has pointed out that, in order to guarantee that our Party and
country do not change their colour, we must not only have a correct line and correct
policies but must train and bring up millions of successors who will carry on the cause
of proletarian revolution.
In the final analysis, the question of training successors for the revolutionary cause of
the proletariat is one of whether or not there will be people who can carry on the
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary cause started by the older generation of proleta- rian
revolutionaries, whether or not the leadership of our Party and state will remain in the
hands of proletarian revolutionaries, whether or not our descendants will continue to
march along the correct road laid down by Marxism-Leninism, or, in other words,
whether or not we can sussessfully prevent the emergence of Khrushchovite
revisionism in China.
In short, it is an extremely important question, a matter of life and death for our Party
and our country. It is a question of fundamental importance to the proletarian
revolutionary cause for a hundred, athousand, nay ten thousand years. Basing
themselves on the changes in the Soviet Union, the imperialist prophets are pinning
their hopes on "peaceful evolution" on the third or forth generation of the Chinese
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Party. We must shatter these imperialist prophecies. From our highest organizations
down to the grass-roots, we must everywhere give constant attention to the training
and upbringing of successors to the revolutionary cause.
What are the requirements for worthy successors to the revolutionary cause of the
proletariat?
They must be genuine Marxist-Leninists and not revisionists like Khrushchov wearing
the cloak of Marxism-Leninism.
They must be revolutionaries who whole-heartedly serve the majority of the people of
China and the whole world, and must not be like Khrushchov who serves both the
interests of a handful of members of the privileged bourgeois stratum in his own
country and those of foreign imperialism and reaction.
They must be proletarian statesmen capable of uniting and working together with the
overwhelming majority. Not only must they unite with those who agree with them,
they must also be good at uniting with those who disagree and even with those who
formerly opposed them and have since been proven wrong. But they must especially
watch out for careerists and conspirators like Khrushchov and prevent such bad
elements from usurping the leadership of the Party and government at any level.
They must be models in applying the Party's democratic centralism, must master the
method of leadership based on the principle of "from the masses, to the masses", and
must cultivate a democratic style and be good at listening to the masses. They must
not be despotic like Khrushchov and violate the Party's democratic centralism, make
surprise attacks on comrades or act arbitrarily and dictatorically.
They must be modest and prudent and guard against arrogance and impetuosity; they
must be imbued with the spirit of self-criticism and have the courage to correct
mistakes and shortcomings in their work. They must not cover up their errors like
Khrushchov, and claim all the credit for themselves and shift all the blame on others.
Successors to the revolutionary cause of the proletariat come forward in mass
struggles and are tempered in the great storms of revolution. It is essential to test and
know cadres and choose and train successors in the long course of mass struggle.
The above principles advanced by Comrade Mao Tse-tung are creative developments
of Marxism-Leninism, to the theoretical arsenal of which they add new weapons of
decisive importance for us in preventing the restoration of capitalism. So long as we
follow these principles, we can consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat, ensure
that our Party and state will never change colour, successfully conduct the socialist
revlution and socialist construction, help all peoples' revolutionary movements for the
overthrow of imperialism and its lackeys, and guarantee the future transition from
socialism to communism.
***
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Regarding the emergence of the revisionist Khrushchov clique in the Soviet Union,
our attitude as Marxist-Leninists is the same as our attitude towards any "disturbance"
-- first, we are against it; second, we are not afraid of it.
We did not wish it and are opposed to it, but since the revisionist Khrushchov clique
have already emerged, there is nothing terrifying about it, and there is no need for
alarm. The earth will continue to revolve, history will continue to move forward, the
people of the world will, as always, make revolutions, and the imperialists and their
lackeys will inevitably meet their doom.
The historic contributions of the great Soviet people will remain forever glorious; they
can never be tarnished by the revisionist Khrushchov clique's betrayal. The broad
masses of workers, peasants, revolutionary intellectuals and Communists of the Soviet
Union will eventually surmount all the obstacles in their part and march towards
communism.
The Soviet people, the people of all the socialist countries and the revolutionary
people the world over will certainly learn lessons from the revisionist Khrushchov
clique's betrayal. In the struggle against Khrushchov's revisionism, the international
communist movement has grown and will continue to grow mightier than before.
Marxist-Leninists have always had an attitude of revolutionary optimism towards the
future of the cause of the proletarian revolution. We are profoundly convinced that the
brilliant light of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of socialism and of MarxismLeninism will shine forth over the Soviet land. The proletariat is sure to acieve
complete and final victory on earth.
J. V. Stalin September 1938
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
First published September 1938;
Transcribed by M.
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Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called
dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of
studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the
phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.
Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to
the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the
phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and of its history.
When describing their dialectical method, Marx and Engels usually refer to Hegel as
the philosopher who formulated the main features of dialectics. This, however, does
not mean that the dialectics of Marx and Engels is identical with the dialectics of
Hegel. As a matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from the Hegelian dialectics only its
"rational kernel," casting aside its Hegelian idealistic shell, and developed dialectics
further so as to lend it a modern scientific form.
"My dialectic method," says Marx, "is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its
direct opposite. To Hegel, ... the process of thinking which, under the name of 'the
Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (creator) of the
real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With
me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the
human mind and translated into forms of thought." (Marx, Afterword to the Second
German Edition of Volume I of Capital.)
When describing their materialism, Marx and Engels usually refer to Feuerbach as the
philosopher who restored materialism to its rights. This, however, does not mean that
the materialism of Marx and Engels is identical with Feuerbach's materialism. As a
matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from Feuerbach's materialism its "inner kernel,"
developed it into a scientific-philosophical theory of materialism and cast aside its
idealistic and religious-ethical encumbrances. We know that Feuerbach, although he
was fundamentally a materialist, objected to the name materialism. Engels more than
once declared that "in spite of" the materialist "foundation," Feuerbach "remained...
bound by the traditional idealist fetters," and that "the real idealism of Feuerbach
becomes evident as soon as we come to his philosophy of religion and ethics." (Marx
and Engels, Vol. XIV, pp. 652-54.)
Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times
dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the
argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were
philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in
thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth.
This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature,
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developed into the dialectical method of apprehending nature, which regards the
phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change,
and the development of nature as the result of the development of the contradictions in
nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature.
In its essence, dialectics is the direct opposite of metaphysics.
1) Marxist Dialectical Method
The principal features of the Marxist dialectical method are as follows:
a) Nature Connected and Determined
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as an accidental
agglomeration of things, of phenomena, unconnected with, isolated from, and
independent of, each other, but as a connected and integral whole, in which things,
phenomena are organically connected with, dependent on, and determined by, each
other.
The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature can be
understood if taken by itself, isolated from surrounding phenomena, inasmuch as any
phenomenon in any realm of nature may become meaningless to us if it is not
considered in connection with the surrounding conditions, but divorced from them;
and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered
in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one conditioned by
surrounding phenomena.
b) Nature is a State of Continuous Motion and Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and
immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and
change, of continuous renewal and development, where something is always arising
and developing, and something always disintegrating and dying away.
The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not
only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from
the standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into
being and going out of being.
The dialectical method regards as important primarily not that which at the given
moment seems to be durable and yet is already beginning to die away, but that which
is arising and developing, even though at the given moment it may appear to be not
durable, for the dialectical method considers invincible only that which is arising and
developing.
"All nature," says Engels, "from the smallest thing to the biggest. from grains of sand
to suns, from protista (the primary living cells – J. St.) to man, has its existence in
eternal coming into being and going out of being, in a ceaseless flux, in unresting
motion and change (Ibid., p. 484.)
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Therefore, dialectics, Engels says, "takes things and their perceptual images
essentially in their interconnection, in their concatenation, in their movement, in their
rise and disappearance." (Marx and Engels, Vol. XIV,' p. 23.)
c) Natural Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a
simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative
changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible
quantitative changes to open' fundamental changes' to qualitative changes; a
development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and
abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not
accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual
quantitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development should be
understood not as movement in a circle, not as a simple repetition of what has already
occurred, but as an onward and upward movement, as a transition from an old
qualitative state to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the
complex, from the lower to the higher:
"Nature," says Engels, "is the test of dialectics. and it must be said for modern natural
science that it has furnished extremely rich and daily increasing materials for this test,
and has thus proved that in the last analysis nature's process is dialectical and not
metaphysical, that it does not move in an eternally uniform and constantly repeated
circle. but passes through a real history. Here prime mention should be made of
Darwin, who dealt a severe blow to the metaphysical conception of nature by proving
that the organic world of today, plants and animals, and consequently man too, is all a
product of a process of development that has been in progress for millions of years."
(Ibid., p. 23.)
Describing dialectical development as a transition from quantitative changes to
qualitative changes, Engels says:
"In physics ... every change is a passing of quantity into quality, as a result of a
quantitative change of some form of movement either inherent in a body or imparted
to it. For example, the temperature of water has at first no effect on its liquid state; but
as the temperature of liquid water rises or falls, a moment arrives when this state of
cohesion changes and the water is converted in one case into steam and in the other
into ice.... A definite minimum current is required to make a platinum wire glow;
every metal has its melting temperature; every liquid has a definite freezing point and
boiling point at a given pressure, as far as we are able with the means at our disposal
to attain the required temperatures; finally, every gas has its critical point at which, by
proper pressure and cooling, it can be converted into a liquid state.... What are known
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as the constants of physics (the point at which one state passes into another – J. St.)
are in most cases nothing but designations for the nodal points at which a quantitative
(change) increase or decrease of movement causes a qualitative change in the state of
the given body, and at which, consequently, quantity is transformed into quality."
(Ibid., pp. 527-28.)
Passing to chemistry, Engels continues:
"Chemistry may be called the science of the qualitative changes which take place in
bodies as the effect of changes of quantitative composition. his was already known to
Hegel.... Take oxygen: if the molecule contains three atoms instead of the customary
two, we get ozone, a body definitely distinct in odor and reaction from ordinary
oxygen. And what shall we say of the different proportions in which oxygen combines
with nitrogen or sulphur, and each of which produces a body qualitatively different
from all other bodies !" (Ibid., p. 528.)
Finally, criticizing Dühring, who scolded Hegel for all he was worth, but
surreptitiously borrowed from him the well-known thesis that the transition from the
insentient world to the sentient world, from the kingdom of inorganic matter to the
kingdom of organic life, is a leap to a new state, Engels says:
"This is precisely the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations in which at certain
definite nodal points, the purely quantitative increase or decrease gives rise to a
qualitative leap, for example, in the case of water which is heated or cooled, where
boiling point and freezing point are the nodes at which – under normal pressure – the
leap to a new aggregate state takes place, and where consequently quantity is
transformed into quality." (Ibid., pp. 45-46.)
d) Contradictions Inherent in Nature
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all
things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a
past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the
struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between
that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is
disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the
process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative
changes into qualitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower
to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a
disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of
opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions.
"In its proper meaning," Lenin says, "dialectics is the study of the contradiction within
the very essence of things." (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, p. 265.)
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And further:
"Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." (Lenin, Vol. XIII, p. 301.)
Such, in brief, are the principal features of the Marxist dialectical method.
It is easy to understand how immensely important is the extension of the principles of
the dialectical method to the study of social life and the history of society, and how
immensely important is the application of these principles to the history of society and
to the practical activities of the party of the proletariat.
If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected
and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social
movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of "eternal justice" or
some other preconceived idea, as is not infrequently done by historians, but from the
standpoint of the conditions which gave rise to that system or that social movement
and with which they are connected.
The slave system would be senseless, stupid and unnatural under modern conditions.
But under the conditions of a disintegrating primitive communal system, the slave
system is a quite understandable and natural phenomenon, since it represents an
advance on the primitive communal system
The demand for a bourgeois-democratic republic when tsardom and bourgeois society
existed, as, let us say, in Russia in 1905, was a quite understandable, proper and
revolutionary demand; for at that time a bourgeois republic would have meant a step
forward. But now, under the conditions of the U.S.S.R., the demand for a bourgeoisdemocratic republic would be a senseless and counterrevolutionary demand; for a
bourgeois republic would be a retrograde step compared with the Soviet republic.
Everything depends on the conditions, time and place.
It is clear that without such a historical approach to social phenomena, the existence
and development of the science of history is impossible; for only such an approach
saves the science of history from becoming a jumble of accidents and an
agglomeration of most absurd mistakes.
Further, if the world is in a state of constant movement and development, if the dying
away of the old and the upgrowth of the new is a law of development, then it is clear
that there can be no "immutable" social systems, no "eternal principles" of private
property and exploitation, no "eternal ideas" of the subjugation of the peasant to the
landlord, of the worker to the capitalist.
Hence, the capitalist system can be replaced by the socialist system, just as at one time
the feudal system was replaced by the capitalist system.
Hence, we must not base our orientation on the strata of society which are no longer
developing, even though they at present constitute the predominant force, but on those
strata which are developing and have a future before them, even though they at
present do not constitute the predominant force.
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In the eighties of the past century, in the period of the struggle between the Marxists
and the Narodniks, the proletariat in Russia constituted an insignificant minority of the
population, whereas the individual peasants constituted the vast majority of the
population. But the proletariat was developing as a class, whereas the peasantry as a
class was disintegrating. And just because the proletariat was developing as a class the
Marxists based their orientation on the proletariat. And they were not mistaken; for, as
we know, the proletariat subsequently grew from an insignificant force into a first-rate
historical and political force.
Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must look forward, not backward.
Further, if the passing of slow quantitative changes into rapid and abrupt qualitative
changes is a law of development, then it is clear that revolutions made by oppressed
classes are a quite natural and inevitable phenomenon.
Hence, the transition from capitalism to socialism and the liberation of the working
class from the yoke of capitalism cannot be effected by slow changes, by reforms, but
only by a qualitative change of the capitalist system, by revolution.
Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must be a revolutionary, not a reformist.
Further, if development proceeds by way of the disclosure of internal contradictions,
by way of collisions between opposite forces on the basis of these contradictions and
so as to overcome these contradictions, then it is clear that the class struggle of the
proletariat is a quite natural and inevitable phenomenon.
Hence, we must not cover up the contradictions of the capitalist system, but disclose
and unravel them; we must not try to check the class struggle but carry it to its
conclusion.
Hence, in order not to err in policy, one must pursue an uncompromising proletarian
class policy, not a reformist policy of harmony of the interests of the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie, not a compromisers' policy of the "growing" of capitalism into
socialism.
Such is the Marxist dialectical method when applied to social life, to the history of
society.
As to Marxist philosophical materialism, it is fundamentally the direct opposite of
philosophical idealism.
2) Marxist Philosophical Materialism
The principal features of Marxist philosophical materialism are as follows:
a) Materialist
Contrary to idealism, which regards the world as the embodiment of an "absolute
idea," a "universal spirit," "consciousness," Marx's philosophical materialism holds
that the world is by its very nature material, that the multifold phenomena of the
world constitute different forms of matter in motion, that interconnection and
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interdependence of phenomena as established by the dialectical method, are a law of
the development of moving matter, and that the world develops in accordance with the
laws of movement of matter and stands in no need of a "universal spirit."
"The materialistic outlook on nature," says Engels, "means no more than simply
conceiving nature just as it exists, without any foreign admixture." (Marx and Engels,
Vol. XIV, p. 651.)
Speaking of the materialist views of the ancient philosopher Heraclitus, who held that
"the world, the all in one, was not created by any god or any man, but was, is and ever
will be a living flame, systematically flaring up and systematically dying down"'
Lenin comments: "A very good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical
materialism." (Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks, p. 318.)
b) Objective Reality
Contrary to idealism, which asserts that only our consciousness really exists, and that
the material world, being, nature, exists only in our consciousness' in our sensations,
ideas and perceptions, the Marxist philosophical materialism holds that matter, nature,
being, is an objective reality existing outside and independent of our consciousness;
that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, ideas, consciousness, and
that consciousness is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a
reflection of being; that thought is a product of matter which in its development has
reached a high degree of perfection, namely, of the brain, and the brain is the organ of
thought; and that therefore one cannot separate thought from matter without
committing a grave error. Engels says:
"The question of the relation of thinking to being, the relation of spirit to nature is the
paramount question of the whole of philosophy.... The answers which the
philosophers gave to this question split them into two great camps. Those who
asserted the primacy of spirit to nature ... comprised the camp of idealism. The others,
who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism." (Marx,
Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 329.)
And further:
"The material, sensuously perceptible world to which we ourselves belong is the only
reality.... Our consciousness and thinking, however supra-sensuous they may seem,
are the product of a material, bodily organ, the brain. Matter is not a product of mind,
but mind itself is merely the highest product of matter." (Ibid., p. 332.)
Concerning the question of matter and thought, Marx says:
"It is impossible to separate thought from matter that thinks. Matter is the subject of
all changes." (Ibid., p. 302.)
Describing Marxist philosophical materialism, Lenin says:
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"Materialism in general recognizes objectively real being (matter) as independent of
consciousness, sensation, experience.... Consciousness is only the reflection of being,
at best an approximately true (adequate, perfectly exact) reflection of it." (Lenin, Vol.
XIII, pp. 266-67.)
And further:
– "Matter is that which, acting upon our sense-organs, produces sensation; matter is
the objective reality given to us in sensation.... Matter, nature, being, the physical-is
primary, and spirit, consciousness, sensation, the psychical-is secondary." (Ibid., pp.
119-20.)
– "The world picture is a picture of how matter moves and of how 'matter thinks.'"
(Ibid., p. 288.)
– "The brain is the organ of thought." (Ibid., p. 125.)
c) The World and Its Laws Are Knowable
Contrary to idealism, which denies the possibility of knowing the world and its laws,
which does not believe in the authenticity of our knowledge, does not recognize
objective truth, and holds that the world is full of "things-in-themselves" that can
never be known to science, Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world
and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by
experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth,
and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which
are as yet not known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of
science and practice.
Criticizing the thesis of Kant and other idealists that the world is unknowable and that
there are "things-in-themselves" which are unknowable, and defending the wellknown materialist thesis that our knowledge is authentic knowledge, Engels writes:
"The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice,
namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our
conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its
conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end
to the Kantian ungraspable 'thing-in-itself.' The chemical substances produced in the
bodies of plants and animals remained such 'things-in-themselves' until organic
chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the 'thing-in-itself'
became a thing for us, as, for instance, alizarin, the coloring matter of the madder,
which we no longer trouble to grow ill the madder roots in the field, but produce much
more cheaply and simply from coal tar. For 300 years the Copernican solar system
was a hypothesis with a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand chances to one in its
favor, but still always a hypothesis. But when Leverrier, by means of the data
provided by this system, not only deduced the necessity of the existence of an
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unknown planet, but also calculated the position in the heavens which this planet must
necessarily occupy, and when Galle really found this planet, the Copernican system
was proved." (Marx, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 330.)
Accusing Bogdanov, Bazarov, Yushkevich and the other followers of Mach of fideism
(a reactionary theory, which prefers faith to science) and defending the well-known
materialist thesis that our scientific knowledge of the laws of nature is authentic
knowledge, and that the laws of science represent objective truth, Lenin says:
"Contemporary fideism does not at all reject science; all it rejects is the 'exaggerated
claims' of science, to wit, its claim to objective truth. If objective truth exists (as the
materialists think), if natural science, reflecting the outer world in human 'experience,'
is alone capable of giving us objective truth, then all fideism is absolutely refuted."
(Lenin, Vol. XIII, p. 102.)
Such, in brief, are the characteristic features of the Marxist philosophical materialism.
It is easy to understand how immensely important is the extension of the principles of
philosophical materialism to the study of social life, of the history of society, and how
immensely important is the application of these principles to the history of society and
to the practical activities of the party of the proletariat.
If the connection between the phenomena of nature and their interdependence are laws
of the development of nature, it follows, too, that the connection and interdependence
of the phenomena of social life are laws of the development of society, and not
something accidental.
Hence, social life, the history of society, ceases to be an agglomeration of "accidents",
for the history of society becomes a development of society according to regular laws,
and the study of the history of society becomes a science.
Hence, the practical activity of the party of the proletariat must not be based on the
good wishes of "outstanding individuals." not on the dictates of "reason," "universal
morals," etc., but on the laws of development of society and on the study of these
laws.
Further, if the world is knowable and our knowledge of the laws of development of
nature is authentic knowledge, having the validity of objective truth, it follows that
social life, the development of society, is also knowable, and that the data of science
regarding the laws of development of society are authentic data having the validity of
objective truths.
Hence, the science of the history of society, despite all the complexity of the
phenomena of social life, can become as precise a science as, let us say, biology, and
capable of making use of the laws of development of society for practical purposes.
Hence, the party of the proletariat should not guide itself in its practical activity by
casual motives, but by the laws of development of society, and by practical deductions
from these laws.
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Hence, socialism is converted from a dream of a better future for humanity into a
science.
Hence, the bond between science and practical activity, between theory and practice,
their unity, should be the guiding star of the party of the proletariat.
Further, if nature, being, the material world, is primary, and consciousness, thought, is
secondary, derivative; if the material world represents objective reality existing
independently of the consciousness of men, while consciousness is a reflection of this
objective reality, it follows that the material life of society, its being, is also primary,
and its spiritual life secondary, derivative, and that the material life of society is an
objective reality existing independently of the will of men, while the spiritual life of
society is a reflection of this objective reality, a reflection of being.
Hence, the source of formation of the spiritual life of society, the origin of social
ideas, social theories, political views and political institutions, should not be sought
for in the ideas, theories, views and political institutions themselves, but in the
conditions of the material life of society, in social being, of which these ideas,
theories, views, etc., are the reflection.
Hence, if in different periods of the history of society different social ideas, theories,
views and political institutions are to be observed; if under the slave system we
encounter certain social ideas, theories, views and political institutions, under
feudalism others, and under capitalism others still, this is not to be explained by the
"nature", the "properties" of the ideas, theories, views and political institutions
themselves but by the different conditions of the material life of society at different
periods of social development.
Whatever is the being of a society, whatever are the conditions of material life of a
society, such are the ideas, theories political views and political institutions of that
society.
In this connection, Marx says:
"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary,
their social being that determines their consciousness." (Marx Selected Works, Vol. I,
p. 269.)
Hence, in order not to err in policy, in order not to find itself in the position of idle
dreamers, the party of the proletariat must not base its activities on abstract "principles
of human reason", but on the concrete conditions of the material life of society, as the
determining force of social development; not on the good wishes of "great men," but
on the real needs of development of the material life of society.
The fall of the utopians, including the Narodniks, anarchists and SocialistRevolutionaries, was due, among other things to the fact that they did not recognize
the primary role which the conditions of the material life of society play in the
development of society, and, sinking to idealism, did not base their practical activities
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on the needs of the development of the material life of society, but, independently of
and in spite of these needs, on "ideal plans" and "all-embracing projects", divorced
from the real life of society.
The strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism lies in the fact that it does base its
practical activity on the needs of the development of the material life of society and
never divorces itself from the real life of society.
It does not follow from Marx's words, however, that social ideas, theories, political
views and political institutions are of no significance in the life of society, that they do
not reciprocally affect social being, the development of the material conditions of the
life of society. We have been speaking so far of the origin of social ideas, theories,
views and political institutions, of the way they arise, of the fact that the spiritual life
of society is a reflection of the conditions of its material life. As regards the
significance of social ideas, theories, views and political institutions, as regards their
role in history, historical materialism, far from denying them, stresses the important
role and significance of these factors in the life of society, in its history.
There are different kinds of social ideas and theories. There are old ideas and theories
which have outlived their day and which serve the interests of the moribund forces of
society. Their significance lies in the fact that they hamper the development, the
progress of society. Then there are new and advanced ideas and theories which serve
the interests of the advanced forces of society. Their significance lies in the fact that
they facilitate the development, the progress of society; and their significance is the
greater the more accurately they reflect the needs of development of the material life
of society.
New social ideas and theories arise only after the development of the material life of
society has set new tasks before society. But once they have arisen they become a
most potent force which facilitates the carrying out of the new tasks set by the
development of the material life of society, a force which facilitates the progress of
society. It is precisely here that the tremendous organizing, mobilizing and
transforming value of new ideas, new theories, new political views and new political
institutions manifests itself. New social ideas and theories arise precisely because they
are necessary to society, because it is impossible to carry out the urgent tasks of
development of the material life of society without their organizing, mobilizing and
transforming action. Arising out of the new tasks set by the development of the
material life of society, the new social ideas and theories force their way through,
become the possession of the masses, mobilize and organize them against the
moribund forces of society, and thus facilitate the overthrow of these forces, which
hamper the development of the material life of society.
Thus social ideas, theories and political institutions, having arisen on the basis of the
urgent tasks of the development of the material life of society, the development of
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social being, themselves then react upon social being, upon the material life of society,
creating the conditions necessary for completely carrying out the urgent tasks of the
material life of society, and for rendering its further development possible.
In this connection, Marx says:
"Theory becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses." (Marx and
Engels, Vol. I, p. 406.)
Hence, in order to be able to influence the conditions of material life of society and to
accelerate their development and their improvement, the party of the proletariat must
rely upon such a social theory, such a social idea as correctly reflects the needs of
development of the material life of society, and which is therefore capable of setting
into motion broad masses of the people and of mobilizing them and organizing them
into a great army of the proletarian party, prepared to smash the reactionary forces and
to clear the way for the advanced forces of society.
The fall of the "Economists" and the Mensheviks was due, among other things, to the
fact that they did not recognize the mobilizing, organizing and transforming role of
advanced theory, of advanced ideas and, sinking to vulgar materialism, reduced the
role of these factors almost to nothing, thus condemning the Party to passivity and
inanition.
The strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism is derived from the fact that it relies
upon an advanced theory which correctly reflects the needs of development of the
material life of society, that it elevates theory to a proper level, and that it deems it its
duty to utilize every ounce of the mobilizing, organizing and transforming power of
this theory.
That is the answer historical materialism gives to the question of the relation between
social being and social consciousness, between the conditions of development of
material life and the development of the spiritual life of society.
3) Historical Materialism.
It now remains to elucidate the following question: What, from the viewpoint of
historical materialism, is meant by the "conditions of material life of society" which in
the final analysis determine the physiognomy of society, its ideas, views, political
institutions, etc.?
What, after all, are these "conditions of material life of society," what are their
distinguishing features?
There can be no doubt that the concept "conditions of material life of society"
includes, first of all, nature which surrounds society, geographical environment, which
is one of the indispensable and constant conditions of material life of society and
which, of course, influences the development of society. What role does geographical
environment play in the development of society? Is geographical environment the
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chief force determining the physiognomy of society, the character of the social system
of man, the transition from one system to another, or isn't it?
Historical materialism answers this question in the negative.
Geographical environment is unquestionably one of the constant and indispensable
conditions of development of society and, of course, influences the development of
society, accelerates or retards its development. But its influence is not the determining
influence, inasmuch as the changes and development of society proceed at an
incomparably faster rate than the changes and development of geographical
environment. in the space of 3000 years three different social systems have been
successively superseded in Europe: the primitive communal system, the slave system
and the feudal system. In the eastern part of Europe, in the U.S.S.R., even four social
systems have been superseded. Yet during this period geographical conditions in
Europe have either not changed at all, or have changed so slightly that geography
takes no note of them. And that is quite natural. Changes in geographical environment
of any importance require millions of years, whereas a few hundred or a couple of
thousand years are enough for even very important changes in the system of human
society.
It follows from this that geographical environment cannot be the chief cause, the
determining cause of social development; for that which remains almost unchanged in
the course of tens of thousands of years cannot be the chief cause of development of
that which undergoes fundamental changes in the course of a few hundred years
Further, there can be no doubt that the concept "conditions of material life of society"
also includes growth of population, density of population of one degree or another; for
people are an essential element of the conditions of material life of society, and
without a definite minimum number of people there can be no material life of society.
Is growth of population the chief force that determines the character of the social
system of man, or isn't it?
Historical materialism answers this question too in the negative.
Of course, growth of population does influence the development of society, does
facilitate or retard the development of society, but it cannot be the chief force of
development of society, and its influence on the development of society cannot be the
determining influence because, by itself, growth of population does not furnish the
clue to the question why a given social system is replaced precisely by such and such
a new system and not by another, why the primitive communal system is succeeded
precisely by the slave system, the slave system by the feudal system, and the feudal
system by the bourgeois system, and not by some other.
If growth of population were the determining force of social development, then a
higher density of population would be bound to give rise to a correspondingly higher
type of social system. But we do not find this to be the case. The density of population
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in China is four times as great as in the U.S.A., yet the U.S.A. stands higher than
China in the scale of social development; for in China a semi-feudal system still
prevails, whereas the U.S.A. has long ago reached the highest stage of development of
capitalism. The density of population in Belgium is I9 times as great as in the U.S.A.,
and 26 times as great as in the U.S.S.R. Yet the U.S.A. stands higher than Belgium in
the scale of social development; and as for the U.S.S.R., Belgium lags a whole
historical epoch behind this country, for in Belgium the capitalist system prevails,
whereas the U.S.S.R. has already done away with capitalism and has set up a socialist
system.
It follows from this that growth of population is not, and cannot be, the chief force of
development of society, the force which determines the character of the social system,
the physiognomy of society.
a) What Is the Chief Determinant Force?
What, then, is the chief force in the complex of conditions of material life of society
which determines the physiognomy of society, the character of the social system, the
development of society from one system to another?
This force, historical materialism holds, is the method of procuring the means of life
necessary for human existence, the mode of production of material values – food,
clothing, footwear, houses, fuel, instruments of production, etc. – which are
indispensable for the life and development of society.
In order to live, people must have food, clothing, footwear, shelter, fuel, etc.; in order
to have these material values, people must produce them; and in order to produce
them, people must have the instruments of production with which food, clothing,
footwear, shelter, fuel, etc., are produced, they must be able to produce these
instruments and to use them.
The instruments of production wherewith material values are produced, the people
who operate the instruments of production and carry on the production of material
values thanks to a certain production experience and labor skill – all these elements
jointly constitute the productive forces of society.
But the productive forces are only one aspect of production, only one aspect of the
mode of production, an aspect that expresses the relation of men to the objects and
forces of nature which they make use of for the production of material values. Another
aspect of production, another aspect of the mode of production, is the relation of men
to each other in the process of production, men's relations of production. Men carry on
a struggle against nature and utilize nature for the production of material values not in
isolation from each other, not as separate individuals, but in common, in groups, in
societies. Production, therefore, is at all times and under all conditions social
production. In the production of material values men enter into mutual relations of one
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kind or another within production, into relations of production of one kind or another.
These may be relations of co-operation and mutual help between people who are free
from exploitation; they may be relations of domination and subordination; and, lastly,
they may be transitional from one form of relations of production to another. But
whatever the character of the relations of production may be, always and in every
system they constitute just as essential an element of production as the productive
forces of society.
"In production," Marx says, "men not only act on nature but also on one another. They
produce only by co-operating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their
activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with
one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on
nature, does production, take place." (Marx and Engels, Vol. V, p. 429.)
Consequently, production, the mode of production, embraces both the productive
forces of society and men's relations of production, and is thus the embodiment of
their unity in the process of production of material values.
b) The First Feature of Production
The first feature of production is that it never stays at one point for a long time and is
always in a state of change and development, and that, furthermore, changes in the
mode of production inevitably call forth changes in the whole social system, social
ideas, political views and political institutions – they call forth a reconstruction of the
whole social and political order. At different stages of development people make use
of different modes of production, or, to put it more crudely, lead different manners of
life. In the primitive commune there is one mode of production, under slavery there is
another mode of production, under feudalism a third mode of production and so on.
And, correspondingly, men's social system, the spiritual life of men, their views and
political institutions also vary.
Whatever is the mode of production of a society, such in the main is the society itself,
its ideas and theories, its political views and institutions.
Or, to put it more crudely, whatever is man's manner of life such is his manner of
thought.
This means that the history of development of society is above all the history of the
development of production, the history of the modes of production which succeed
each other in the course of centuries, the history of the development of productive
forces and of people's relations of production.
Hence, the history of social development is at the same time the history of the
producers of material values themselves, the history of the laboring masses, who are
the chief force in the process of production and who carry on the production of
material values necessary for the existence of society.
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Hence, if historical science is to be a real science, it can no longer reduce the history
of social development to the actions of kings and generals, to the actions of
"conquerors" and "subjugators" of states, but must above all devote itself to the
history of the producers of material values, the history of the laboring masses, the
history of peoples.
Hence, the clue to the study of the laws of history of society must not be sought in
men's minds, in the views and ideas of society, but in the mode of production
practiced by society in any given historical period; it must be sought in the economic
life of society.
Hence, the prime task of historical science is to study and disclose the laws of
production, the laws of development of the productive forces and of the relations of
production, the laws of economic development of society.
Hence, if the party of the proletariat is to be a real party, it must above all acquire a
knowledge of the laws of development of production, of the laws of economic
development of society.
Hence, if it is not to err in policy, the party of the proletariat must both in drafting its
program and in its practical activities proceed primarily from the laws of development
of production from the laws of economic development of society.
c) The Second Feature of Production
The second feature of production is that its changes and development always begin
with changes and development of the productive forces, and in the first place, with
changes and development of the instruments of production. Productive forces are
therefore the most mobile and revolutionary element of productions First the
productive forces of society change and develop, and then, depending on these
changes and in conformity with them, men's relations of production, their economic
relations, change. This, however, does not mean that the relations of production do not
influence the development of the productive forces and that the latter are not
dependent on the former. While their development is dependent on the development
of the productive forces, the relations of production in their turn react upon the
development of the productive forces, accelerating or retarding it. In this connection it
should be noted that the relations of production cannot for too long a time lag behind
and be in a state of contradiction to the growth of the productive forces, inasmuch as
the productive forces can develop in full measure only when the relations of
production correspond to the character, the state of the productive forces and allow
full scope for their development. Therefore, however much the relations of production
may lag behind the development of the productive forces, they must, sooner or later,
come into correspondence with – and actually do come into correspondence with – the
level of development of the productive forces, the character of the productive forces.
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Otherwise we would have a fundamental violation of the unity of the productive
forces and the relations of production within the system of production, a disruption of
production as a whole, a crisis of production, a destruction of productive forces.
An instance in which the relations of production do not correspond to the character of
the productive forces, conflict with them, is the economic crises in capitalist countries,
where private capitalist ownership of the means of production is in glaring incongruity
with the social character of the process of production, with the character of the
productive forces. This results in economic crises, which lead to the destruction of
productive forces. Furthermore, this incongruity itself constitutes the economic basis
of social revolution, the purpose of which IS to destroy the existing relations of
production and to create new relations of production corresponding to the character of
the productive forces.
In contrast, an instance in which the relations of production completely correspond to
the character of the productive forces is the socialist national economy of the
U.S.S.R., where the social ownership of the means of production fully corresponds to
the social character of the process of production, and where, because of this, economic
crises and the destruction of productive forces are unknown.
Consequently, the productive forces are not only the most mobile and revolutionary
element in production, but are also the determining element in the development of
production.
Whatever are the productive forces such must be the relations of production.
While the state of the productive forces furnishes the answer to the question – with
what instruments of production do men produce the material values they need? – the
state of the relations of production furnishes the answer to another question – who
owns the means of production (the land, forests, waters, mineral resources, raw
materials, instruments of production, production premises, means of transportation
and communication, etc.), who commands the means of production, whether the
whole of society, or individual persons, groups, or classes which utilize them for the
exploitation of other persons, groups or classes?
Here is a rough picture of the development of productive forces from ancient times to
our day. The transition from crude stone tools to the bow and arrow, and the
accompanying transition from the life of hunters to the domestication of animals and
primitive pasturage; the transition from stone tools to metal tools (the iron axe, the
wooden plow fitted with an iron coulter, etc.), with a corresponding transition to
tillage and agriculture; a further improvement in metal tools for the working up of
materials, the introduction of the blacksmith's bellows, the introduction of pottery,
with a corresponding development of handicrafts, the separation of handicrafts from
agriculture, the development of an independent handicraft industry and, subsequently,
of manufacture; the transition from handicraft tools to machines and the
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transformation of handicraft and manufacture into machine industry; the transition to
the machine system and the rise of modern large-scale machine industry – such is a
general and far from complete picture of the development of the productive forces of
society in the course of man's history. It will be clear that the development and
improvement of the instruments of production was effected by men who were related
to production, and not independently of men; and, consequently, the change and
development of the instruments of production was accompanied by a change and
development of men, as the most important element of the productive forces, by a
change and development of their production experience, their labor skill, their ability
to handle the instruments of production.
In conformity with the change and development of the productive forces of society in
the course of history, men's relations of production, their economic relations also
changed and developed.
Main types of Relations of Production
Five main types of relations of production are known to history: primitive communal,
slave, feudal, capitalist and socialist.
The basis of the relations of production under the primitive communal system is that
the means of production are socially owned. This in the main corresponds to the
character of the productive forces of that period. Stone tools, and, later, the bow and
arrow, precluded the possibility of men individually combating the forces of nature
and beasts of prey. In order to gather the fruits of the forest, to catch fish, to build
some sort of habitation, men were obliged to work in common if they did not want to
die of starvation, or fall victim to beasts of prey or to neighboring societies. Labor in
common led to the common ownership of the means of production, as well as of the
fruits of production. Here the conception of private ownership of the means of
production did not yet exist, except for the personal ownership of certain implements
of production which were at the same time means of defense against beasts of prey.
Here there was no exploitation, no classes.
The basis of the relations of production under the slave system is that the slave-owner
owns the means of production, he also owns the worker in production – the slave,
whom he can sell, purchase, or kill as though he were an animal. Such relations of
production in the main correspond to the state of the productive forces of that period.
Instead of stone tools, men now have metal tools at their command; instead of the
wretched and primitive husbandry of the hunter, who knew neither pasturage nor
tillage, there now appear pasturage tillage, handicrafts, and a division of labor
between these branches of production. There appears the possibility of the exchange
of products between individuals and between societies, of the accumulation of wealth
in the hands of a few, the actual accumulation of the means of production in the hands
of a minority, and the possibility of subjugation of the majority by a minority and the
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conversion of the majority into slaves. Here we no longer find the common and free
labor of all members of society in the production process – here there prevails the
forced labor of slaves, who are exploited by the non-laboring slave-owners. Here,
therefore, there is no common ownership of the means of production or of the fruits of
production. It is replaced by private ownership. Here the slaveowner appears as the
prime and principal property owner in the full sense of the term.
Rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, people with full rights and people with no
rights, and a fierce class struggle between them – such is the picture of the slave
system.
The basis of the relations of production under the feudal system is that the feudal lord
owns the means of production and does not fully own the worker in production – the
serf, whom the feudal lord can no longer kill, but whom he can buy and sell.
Alongside of feudal ownership there exists individual ownership by the peasant and
the handicraftsman of his implements of production and his private enterprise based
on his personal labor. Such relations of production in the main correspond to the state
of the productive forces of that period. Further improvements in the smelting and
working of iron; the spread of the iron plow and the loom; the further development of
agriculture, horticulture, viniculture and dairying; the appearance of manufactories
alongside of the handicraft workshops – such are the characteristic features of the state
of the productive forces.
The new productive forces demand that the laborer shall display some kind of
initiative in production and an inclination for work, an interest in work. The feudal
lord therefore discards the slave, as a laborer who has no interest in work and is
entirely without initiative, and prefers to deal with the serf, who has his own
husbandry, implements of production, and a certain interest in work essential for the
cultivation of the land and for the payment in kind of a part of his harvest to the feudal
lord.
Here private ownership is further developed. Exploitation is nearly as severe as it was
under slavery – it is only slightly mitigated. A class struggle between exploiters and
exploited is the principal feature of the feudal system.
The basis of the relations of production under the capitalist system is that the capitalist
owns the means of production, but not the workers in production – the wage laborers,
whom the capitalist can neither kill nor sell because they are personally free, but who
are deprived of means of production and) in order not to die of hunger, are obliged to
sell their labor power to the capitalist and to bear the yoke of exploitation. Alongside
of capitalist property in the means of production, we find, at first on a wide scale,
private property of the peasants and handicraftsmen in the means of production, these
peasants and handicraftsmen no longer being serfs, and their private property being
based on personal labor. In place of the handicraft workshops and manufactories there
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appear huge mills and factories equipped with machinery. In place of the manorial
estates tilled by the primitive implements of production of the peasant, there now
appear large capitalist farms run on scientific lines and supplied with agricultural
machinery
The new productive forces require that the workers in production shall be better
educated and more intelligent than the downtrodden and ignorant serfs, that they be
able to understand machinery and operate it properly. Therefore, the capitalists prefer
to deal with wage-workers, who are free from the bonds of serfdom and who are
educated enough to be able properly to operate machinery.
But having developed productive forces to a tremendous extent, capitalism has
become enmeshed in contradictions which it is unable to solve. By producing larger
and larger quantities of commodities, and reducing their prices, capitalism intensifies
competition, ruins the mass of small and medium private owners, converts them into
proletarians and reduces their purchasing power, with the result that it becomes
impossible to dispose of the commodities produced. On the other hand, by expanding
production and concentrating millions of workers in huge mills and factories,
capitalism lends the process of production a social character and thus undermines its
own foundation, inasmuch as the social character of the process of production
demands the social ownership of the means of production; yet the means of
production remain private capitalist property, which is incompatible with the social
character of the process of production.
These irreconcilable contradictions between the character of the productive forces and
the relations of production make themselves felt in periodical crises of overproduction, when the capitalists, finding no effective demand for their goods owing to
the ruin of the mass of the population which they themselves have brought about, are
compelled to burn products, destroy manufactured goods, suspend production, and
destroy productive forces at a time when millions of people are forced to suffer
unemployment and starvation, not because there are not enough goods, but because
there is an overproduction of goods.
This means that the capitalist relations of production have ceased to correspond to the
state of productive forces of society and have come into irreconcilable contradiction
with them.
This means that capitalism is pregnant with revolution, whose mission it is to replace
the existing capitalist ownership of the means of production by socialist ownership.
This means that the main feature of the capitalist system is a most acute class struggle
between the exploiters and the exploited.
The basis of the relations of production under the socialist system, which so far has
been established only in the U.S.S.R., is the social ownership of the means of
production. Here there are no longer exploiters and exploited. The goods produced are
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distributed according to labor performed, on the principle: "He who does not work,
neither shall he eat." Here the mutual relations of people in the process of production
are marked by comradely cooperation and the socialist mutual assistance of workers
who are free from exploitation. Here the relations of production fully correspond to
the state of productive forces; for the social character of the process of production is
reinforced by the social ownership of the means of production.
For this reason socialist production in the U.S.S.R. knows no periodical crises of overproduction and their accompanying absurdities.
For this reason, the productive forces here develop at an accelerated pace; for the
relations of production that correspond to them offer full scope for such development.
Such is the picture of the development of men's relations of production in the course
of human history.
Such is the dependence of the development of the relations of production on the
development of the productive forces of society, and primarily, on the development of
the instruments of production, the dependence by virtue of which the changes and
development of the productive forces sooner or later lead to corresponding changes
and development of the relations of production.
"The use and fabrication of instruments of labor," says Marx, "although existing in the
germ among certain species of animals, is specifically characteristic of the human
labor-process, and Franklin therefore defines man as a tool-making animal. Relics of
bygone instruments of labor possess the same importance for the investigation of
extinct economical forms of society, as do fossil bones for the determination of extinct
species of animals. It is not the articles made, but how they are made that enables us to
distinguish different economical epochs. Instruments of labor not only supply a
standard of the degree of development to which human labor has attained, but they are
also indicators of the social conditions under which that labor is carried on." (Marx,
Capital, Vol. I, 1935, p. 121.)
And further:
– "Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new
productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode
of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social
relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society
with the industrial capitalist." (Marx and Engels, Vol. V, p. 564.)
– "There is a continual movement of growth in productive forces, of destruction in
social relations, of formation in ideas; the only immutable thing is the abstraction of
movement." (Ibid., p. 364.)
Speaking of historical materialism as formulated in The Communist Manifesto,
Engels says:
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"Economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch
necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual
history of that epoch; ... consequently (ever since the dissolution of the primeval
communal ownership of land) all history has been a history of class struggles, of
struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating
classes at various stages of social development; ... this struggle, however, has now
reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer
emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie),
without at the same time for ever freeing the whole of society from exploitation,
oppression and class struggles...." (Engels' Preface to the German Edition of the
Manifesto.)
d) The Third Feature of Production
The third feature of production is that the rise of new productive forces and of the
relations of production corresponding to them does not take place separately from the
old system, after the disappearance of the old system, but within the old system; it
takes place not as a result of the deliberate and conscious activity of man, but
spontaneously, unconsciously, independently of the will of man It takes place
spontaneously and independently of the will of man for two reasons.
Firstly, because men are not free to choose one mode of production or another,
because as every new generation enters life it finds productive forces and relations of
production already existing as the result of the work of former generations, owing to
which it is obliged at first to accept and adapt itself to everything it finds ready-made
in the sphere of production in order to be able to produce material values.
Secondly, because, when improving one instrument of production or another, one
clement of the productive forces or another, men do not realize, do not understand or
stop to reflect what social results these improvements will lead to, but only think of
their everyday interests, of lightening their labor and of securing some direct and
tangible advantage for themselves.
When, gradually and gropingly, certain members of primitive communal society
passed from the use of stone tools to the use of iron tools, they, of course, did not
know and did not stop to reflect what social results this innovation would lead to; they
did not understand or realize that the change to metal tools meant a revolution in
production, that it would in the long run lead to the slave system. They simply wanted
to lighten their labor and secure an immediate and tangible advantage; their conscious
activity was confined within the narrow bounds of this everyday personal interest.
When, in the period of the feudal system, the young bourgeoisie of Europe began to
erect, alongside of the small guild workshops, large manufactories, and thus advanced
the productive forces of society, it, of course, did not know and did not stop to reflect
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what social consequences this innovation would lead to; it did not realize or
understand that this "small" innovation would lead to a regrouping of social forces
which was to end in a revolution both against the power of kings, whose favors it so
highly valued, and against the nobility, to whose ranks its foremost representatives not
infrequently aspired. It simply wanted to lower the cost of producing goods, to throw
larger quantities of goods on the markets of Asia and of recently discovered America,
and to make bigger profits. Its conscious activity was confined within the narrow
bounds of this commonplace practical aim.
When the Russian capitalists, in conjunction with foreign capitalists, energetically
implanted modern large-scale machine industry in Russia, while leaving tsardom
intact and turning the peasants over to the tender mercies of the landlords, they, of
course, did not know and did not stop to reflect what social consequences this
extensive growth of productive forces would lead to; they did not realize or
understand that this big leap in the realm of the productive forces of society would
lead to a regrouping of social forces that would enable the proletariat to effect a union
with the peasantry and to bring about a victorious socialist revolution. They simply
wanted to expand industrial production to the limit, to gain control of the huge home
market, to become monopolists, and to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the
national economy.
Their conscious activity did not extend beyond their commonplace, strictly practical
interests.
Accordingly, Marx says:
"In the social production of their life (that is. in the production of the material values
necessary to the life of men – J. St.), men enter into definite relations that are
indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond
to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces." (Marx, Selected
Works, Vol. I, p 269).
This, however, does not mean that changes in the relations of production, and the
transition from old relations of production to new relations of production proceed
smoothly, without conflicts, without upheavals. On the contrary such a transition
usually takes place by means of the revolutionary overthrow of the old relations of
production and the establishment of new relations of production. Up to a certain
period the development of the productive forces and the changes in the realm of the
relations of production proceed spontaneously independently of the will of men. But
that is so only up to a certain moment, until the new and developing productive forces
have reached a proper state of maturity After the new productive forces have matured,
the existing relations of production and their upholders – the ruling classes – become
that "insuperable" obstacle which can only be removed by the conscious action of the
new classes, by the forcible acts of these classes, by revolution. Here there stands out
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in bold relief the tremendous role of new social ideas, of new political institutions, of
a new political power, whose mission it is to abolish by force the old relations of
production. Out of the conflict between the new productive forces and the old
relations of production, out of the new economic demands of society, there arise new
social ideas; the new ideas organize and mobilize the masses; the masses become
welded into a new political army, create a new revolutionary power, and make use of
it to abolish by force the old system of relations of production, and to firmly establish
the new system. The spontaneous process of development yields place to the
conscious actions of men, peaceful development to violent upheaval, evolution to
revolution.
"The proletariat," says Marx, "during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by
the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class...by means of a revolution, it
makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of
production...." (Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1938, p. 52.)
And further:
– "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from
the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State,
i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total of
productive forces as rapidly as possible." (Ibid., p. 50 )
– "Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one." (Marx,
Capital, Vol. I, 1955, p. 603.)
Here is the formulation – a formulation of genius – of the essence of historical
materialism given by Marx in 1859 in his historic Preface to his famous book, A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:
"In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are
indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond
to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of
these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real
foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material
life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the
consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social
being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the
material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of
production, or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property
relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of
the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of
social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense
superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such
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transformations a distinction should always be made between the material
transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined
with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or
philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this
conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he
thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own
consciousness; on the contrary this consciousness must be explained rather from the
contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive
forces and the relations of production. No social order ever perishes before all the
productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher
relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence
have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets
itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, it will
always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its
solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation." (Marx, Selected
Works, Vol. I, pp. 269-70.)
Such is Marxist materialism as applied to social life, to the history of society.
Such are the principal features of dialectical and historical materialism.
Please read:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wagelabour/index.htm
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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
What Is To Be Done?
BURNING QUESTIONS of our MOVEMENT
I
Dogmatism And “Freedom of Criticism”
A. What Does “Freedom of Criticism” Mean?
“Freedom of criticism” is undoubtedly the most fashionable slogan at the present time,
and the one most frequently employed in the controversies between socialists and
democrats in all countries. At first sight, nothing would appear to be more strange than
the solemn appeals to freedom of criticism made by one of the parties to the dispute.
Have voices been raised in the advanced parties against the constitutional law of the
majority of European countries which guarantees freedom to science and scientific
investigation? “Something must be wrong here,” will be the comment of the onlooker
who has heard this fashionable slogan repeated at every turn but has not yet penetrated
the essence of the disagreement among the disputants; evidently this slogan is one of
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the conventional phrases which, like nicknames, become legitimised by use, and
become almost generic terms.”
In fact, it is no secret for anyone that two trends have taken form in present-day
international[1] [1] Incidentally, in the history of modern socialism this is a
phenomenon, perhaps unique and in its way very consoling, namely, that the strife of
the various trends within the socialist movement has from national become
international. Formerly, the disputes between Lassalleans and Eisenachers,[24] between
Guesdists and Possibilists,[25] between Fabians and Social-Democrats, and between
Narodnaya Volya adherents and Social-Democrats, remained confined within purely
national frameworks, reflecting purely national features, and proceeding, as it were,
on different planes. At the present time (as is now evident), the English Fabians, the
French Ministerialists, the German Bernsteinians, and the Russian Critics – all belong
to the same family, all extol each other, learn from each other, and together take up
arms against “dogmatic” Marxism. In this first really international battle with socialist
opportunism, international revolutionary Social-Democracy will perhaps become
sufficiently strengthened to put an end to the political reaction that has long reigned in
Europe? —Lenin Social-Democracy. The conflict between these trends now flares up
in a bright flame and now dies down and smoulders under the ashes of imposing
“truce resolutions”. The essence of the “new” trend, which adopts a “critical” attitude
towards “obsolete dogmatic” Marxism, has been clearly enough presented by
Bernstein and demonstrated by Millerand.
Social-Democracy must change from a party of social revolution into a democratic
party of social reforms. Bernstein has surrounded this political demand with a whole
battery of well-attuned “new” arguments and reasonings. Denied was the possibility of
putting socialism on a scientific basis and of demonstrating its necessity and
inevitability from the point of view of the materialist conception of history. Denied
was the fact of growing impoverishment, the process of proletarisation, and the
intensification of capitalist contradictions; the very concept, “ultimate aim”, was
declared to be unsound, and the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was
completely rejected. Denied was the antithesis in principle between liberalism and
socialism. Denied was the theory of the class struggle, on the alleged grounds that it
could not be applied to a strictly democratic society governed according to the will of
the majority, etc.
Thus, the demand for a decisive turn from revolutionary Social-Democracy to
bourgeois social-reformism was accompanied by a no less decisive turn towards
bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marxism. In view of the fact that
this criticism of Marxism has long been directed from the political platform, from
university chairs, in numerous pamphlets and in a series of learned treatises, in view
of the fact that the entire younger generation of the educated classes has been
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systematically reared for decades on this criticism, it is not surprising that the “new
critical” trend in Social-Democracy should spring up, all complete, like Minerva from
the head of Jove. The content of this new trend did not have to grow and take shape, it
was transferred bodily from bourgeois to socialist literature.
To proceed. If Bernstein’s theoretical criticism and political yearnings were still
unclear to anyone, the French took the trouble strikingly to demonstrate the “new
method”. In this instance, too, France has justified its old reputation of being “the land
where, more than anywhere else, the historical class struggles were each time fought
out to a decision...” (Engels, Introduction to Marx’s Der 18 Brumaire).[12] The French
socialists have begun, not to theorise, but to act. The democratically more highly
developed political conditions in France have permitted them to put “Bernsteinism
into practice” immediately, with all its consequences. Millerand has furnished an
excellent example of practical Bernsteinism; not without reason did Bernstein and
Vollmar rush so zealously to defend and laud him. Indeed, if Social-Democracy, in
essence, is merely a party of reform and must be bold enough to admit this openly,
then not only has a socialist the right to join a bourgeois cabinet, but he must always
strive to do so. If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then
why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on
class collaboration? Why should he not remain in the cabinet even after the shootingdown of workers by gendarmes has exposed, for the hundredth and thousandth time,
the real nature of the democratic collaboration of classes? Why should he not
personally take part in greeting the tsar, for whom the French socialists now have no
other name than hero of the gallows, knout, and exile (knouteur, pendeur et
deportateur)? And the reward for this utter humiliation and self-degradation of
socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the socialist
consciousness of the working masses – the only basis that can guarantee our victory –
the reward for this is pompous projects for miserable reforms, so miserable in fact that
much more has been obtained from bourgeois governments!
He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new “critical”
trend in socialism is nothing more nor less than a new variety of opportunism. And if
we judge people, not by the glittering uniforms they don or by the highsounding
appellations they give themselves, but by their actions and by what they actually
advocate, it will be clear that “freedom of criticism” means’ freedom for an
opportunist trend in Social-Democracy, freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a
democratic party of reform, freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois
elements into socialism.
“Freedom” is a grand word, but under the banner of freedom for industry the most
predatory wars were waged, under the banner of freedom of labour, the working
people were robbed. The modern use of the term “freedom of criticism” contains the
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same inherent falsehood. Those who are really convinced that they have made
progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by
side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old. The cry heard
today, “Long live freedom of criticism”, is too strongly reminiscent of the fable of the
empty barrel.
We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly
holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we
have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely
adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the
neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached
us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen
the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin
to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort:
What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite
you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to
go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh
is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there.
Only let go of our hands, don’t clutch at us and don’t besmirch the grand word
freedom, for we too are “free” to go where we please, free to fight not only against the
marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!
B. The New Advocates of “Freedom of Criticism”
Now, this slogan (“freedom of criticism”) has in recent times been solemnly advanced
by Rabocheye Dyelo (No. 10), organ of the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad, not as a theoretical postulate, but as a political demand, as a reply to the
question, “Is it possible to unite the Social-Democratic organisations operating
abroad?”: “For a durable unity, there must be freedom of criticism” (p. 36).
From this statement two definite conclusions follow: (1) that Rabocheye Dyelo has
taken under its wing the opportunist trend in international Social-Democracy in
general, and (2) that Rabocheye Dyelo demands freedom for opportunism in Russian
Social-Democracy. Let us examine these conclusions.
Rabocheye Dyelo is “particularly” displeased with the “inclination of Iskra and Zarya
to predict a rupture between the Mountain and the Gironde in international SocialDemocracy”.[2]
“Generally speaking,” writes B. Krichevsky, editor of Rabocheye Dyelo, “this talk of
the Mountain and the Gironde heard in the ranks of Social-Democracy represents a
shallow historical analogy, a strange thing to come from the pen of a Marxist. The
Mountain and the Gironde did not represent different temperaments-, or intellectual
trends, as the historians of social thought may think, but different classes or strata –
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the middle bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat,
on the other. In the modern socialist movement, however, there is no conflict of class
interests; the socialist movement in its entirety, in all of its diverse forms
(Krichevsky’s italics), including the most pronounced Bernsteinians, stands on the
basis of the class interests of the proletariat and its class struggle for political and
economic emancipation” (pp. 32-33).
A bold assertion! Has not Krichevsky heard of the fact, long ago noted, that it is
precisely the extensive participation of an “academic” stratum in the socialist
movement in recent years that has promoted such a rapid spread of Bernsteinism? And
what is most important – on what does our author found his opinion that even “the
most pronounced Bernsteinians” stand on the basis of the class struggle for the
political and economic emancipation of the proletariat? No one knows. This
determined defence of the most pronounced Bernsteinians is not supported by any
argument or reasoning whatever. Apparently, the author believes that if he repeats
what the most pronounced Bernsteinians say about themselves his assertion requires
no proof. But can anything more “shallow” be imagined than this judgement of an
entire trend based on nothing more than what the representatives of that trend say
about themselves? Can anything more shallow be imagined than the subsequent
“homily” on the two different and even diametrically opposite types, or paths, of party
development? (Rabocheye Dyelo, pp. 34-35.) The German Social-Democrats, in other
words, recognise complete freedom of criticism, but the French do not, and it is
precisely their example that demonstrates the “bane of intolerance”.
To this we can only say that the very example B. Krichevsky affords us attests to the
fact that the name Marxists is at times assumed by people who conceive history
literally in the “Ilovaisky manner”.[13] To explain the unity of the German Socialist
Party and the disunity of the French Socialist Party, there is no need whatever to go
into the special features in the history of these countries, to contrast the conditions of
military semiabsolutism in the one with republican parliamentarism in the other, to
analyse the effects of the Paris Commune and the effects of the Exceptional Law
Against the Socialists, to compare the economic life and economic development of the
two countries, or to recall that “the unexampled growth of German SocialDemocracy” was accompanied by a strenuous struggle, unique in the history of
socialism, not only against erroneous theories (Mühlberger, Dühring, [3] the KathederSocialists[14]), but also against erroneous tactics (Lassalle), etc., etc. All that is
superfluous! The French quarrel among themselves because they are intolerant; the
Germans are united because they are good boys.
And observe, this piece of matchless profundity is designed to “refute” the fact that
puts to rout the defence of the Bernsteinians. The question whether or not the
Bernsteinians stand on the basis of the class struggle of the proletariat is one that can
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be completely and irrevocably answered only by historical experience. Consequently,
the example of France holds greatest significance in this respect, because France is the
only country in which the Bernsteinians attempted to stand independently, on their
own feet, with the warm approval of their German colleagues (and partly also of the
Russian opportunists; cf. Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 2-3, pp. 83-84). The reference to the
“intolerance” of the French, apart from its “historical” significance (in the
Nozdryov[15] sense), turns out to be merely an attempt to –hush up very unpleasant
facts with angry invectives.
Nor are we inclined to make a present of the Germans to Krichevsky and the
numerous other champions of “freedom of criticism”. If the “most pronounced
Bernsteinians” are still tolerated in the ranks of the German party, it is only to the
extent that they submit to the Hanover resolution,[16] which emphatically rejected
Bernstein’s “amendments”, and to the Lubeck resolution, which (notwithstanding the
diplomatic terms in which it is couched) contains a direct warning to Bernstein. It is
debatable, from the standpoint of the interests of the German party, whether
diplomacy was appropriate and whether, in this case, a bad peace is better than a good
quarrel; in short, opinions may differ as to the expediency of any one of the methods
employed to reject Bernsteinism, but that the German party did reject Bernsteinism on
two occasions, is a fact no one can fail to see. Therefore, to think that the German
example confirms the thesis that “the most pronounced Bernsteinians stand on the
basis of the class struggle of the proletariat, for political and economic emancipation”,
means to fail completely to understand what is going on under our very eyes. [4]
Nor is that all. As we have seen, Rabocheye Dyelo demands “freedom of criticism”
and defends Bernsteinism before Russian Social-Democracy. Apparently it convinced
itself that we were unfair to our “Critics” and Bernsteinians. But to which ones? who?
where? when? What did the unfairness represent? About this, not a word. Rabocheye
Dyelo does not name a single Russian Critic or Bernsteinian! We are left with but one
of two possible suppositions. Either the unfairly treated party is none other than
Rabocheye Dyelo itself (this is confirmed by the fact that in the two articles in No. 10
reference is made only to the wrongs suffered by Rabocheye Dyelo at the hands of
Zarya and Iskra). If that is the case, how is the strange fact to be explained that
Rabocheye Dyelo, which always vehemently dissociated itself from all solidarity with
Bernsteinism, could not defend itself without putting in a word in defence of the
“most pronounced Bernsteinians” and of freedom of criticism? Or some third persons
have been treated unfairly. if this is the case, then what reasons may there be for not
naming them?
We see, therefore, that Rabocheye Dyelo is continuing to play the game of hide-andseek it has played (as we shall show below) ever since its founding. And let us note
further this first practical application of the vaunted “freedom of criticism”. In actual
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fact, not only was it forthwith reduced to abstention from all criticism, but also to
abstention from expressing independent views altogether. The very Rabocheye Dyelo,
which avoids mentioning Russian Bernsteinism as if it were a shameful disease (to use
Starover’s[17] apt expression), proposes, for the treatment of this disease, to copy word
for word the latest German prescription for the German variety of the malady! Instead
of freedom of criticism slavish (worse: apish) imitation! The very same social and
political content of modern international opportunism reveals itself in a variety of
ways according to national peculiarities. In one country the opportunists have long
ago come out under a separate flag; in another, they have ignored theory and in fact
pursued the policy of the Radicals-Socialists; in a third, some members of the
revolutionary party have deserted to the camp of opportunism and strive to achieve
their aims, not in open struggle for principles and for new tactics, but by gradual,
imperceptible, and, if one may so put it, unpunishable corruption of their party; in a
fourth country, similar deserters employ the same methods in the gloom of political
slavery, and with a completely original combination of “legal” and “illegal” activity,
etc. To talk of freedom of criticism and of Bernsteinism as a condition for uniting the
Russian Social Democrats and not to explain how Russian Bernsteinism has
manifested itself and what particular fruits it has borne, amounts to talking with the
aim of saying nothing.
Let us ourselves try, if only in a few words, to say what Rabocheye Dyelo did not
want to say (or which was, perhaps, beyond its comprehension).
C. Criticism in Russia
The chief distinguishing feature of Russia in regard to the point we are examining is
that the very beginning of the spontaneous working-class movement, on the one hand,
and of the turn of progressive public opinion towards Marxism, on the other, was
marked by the combination of manifestly heterogeneous elements under a common
flag to fight the common enemy (the obsolete social and political world outlook). We
refer to the heyday of “legal Marxism”. Speaking generally, this was an altogether
curious phenomenon that no one in the eighties or the beginning of the nineties would
have believed possible. In a country ruled by an autocracy, with a completely enslaved
press, in a period of desperate political reaction in which even the tiniest outgrowth of
political discontent and protest is persecuted, the theory of revolutionary Marxism
suddenly forces its way into the censored literature and, though expounded in
Aesopian language, is understood by all the “interested”. The government had
accustomed itself to regarding only the theory of the (revolutionary) Narodnaya Volya
as dangerous, without, as is usual, observing its internal evolution, and rejoicing at
any criticism levelled against it. Quite a considerable time elapsed (by our Russian
standards) before the government realised what had happened and the unwieldy army
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of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy and flung itself upon him.
Meanwhile, Marxist books were published one after another, Marxist journals and
newspapers were founded, nearly everyone became a Marxist, Marxists were flattered,
Marxists were courted, and the book publishers rejoiced at the extraordinary, ready
sale of Marxist literature. It was quite natural, therefore, that among the Marxian
neophytes who were caught up in this atmosphere, there should be more than one
“author who got a swelled head...”[18]
We can now speak calmly of this period as of an event of the past. It is no secret that
the brief period in which Marxism blossomed on the surface of our literature was
called forth by an alliance between people of extreme and of very moderate views. In
point of fact, the latter were bourgeois democrats; this conclusion (so markedly
confirmed by their subsequent “critical” development) suggested itself to some even
when the “alliance” was still intact.[5]
That being the case, are not the revolutionary Social-Democrats who entered into the
alliance with the future “Critics” mainly responsible for the subsequent “confusion”?
This question, together with a reply in the affirmative, is sometimes heard from people
with too rigid a view. But such people are entirely in the wrong. Only those who are
not sure of themselves can fear to enter into temporary alliances even with unreliable
people; not a single political party could exist without such alliances. The combination
with the legal Marxists was in its way the first really political alliance entered into by
Russian Social -Democrats. Thanks to this alliance, an astonishingly rapid victory was
obtained over Narodism, and Marxist ideas (even though in a vulgarised form)
became very widespread. Moreover, the alliance was not concluded altogether without
“conditions”. Evidence of this is the burning by the censor, in 1895, of the Marxist
collection Material on the Question of the Economic Development of Russia.[19] If the
literary agreement with the legal Marxists can be compared with a political alliance,
then that book can be compared with a political treaty.
The rupture, of course, did not occur because the “allies” proved to be bourgeois
democrats. On the contrary, the representatives of the latter trend are natural and
desirable allies of Social-Democracy insofar as its democratic tasks, brought to the
fore by the prevailing situation in Russia, are concerned. But an essential condition for
such an alliance must be the full opportunity for the socialists to reveal to the working
class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie.
However, the Bernsteinian and “critical” trend, to which the majority of the legal
Marxists turned, deprived the socialists of this opportunity and demoralised the
socialist consciousness by vulgarising Marxism, by advocating the theory of the
blunting of social contradictions, by declaring the idea of the social revolution and of
the dictatorship of the proletariat to be absurd, by reducing the working-class
movement and the class struggle to narrow trade-unionism and to a “realistic” struggle
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for petty, gradual reforms. This was synonymous with bourgeois democracy’s denial
of socialism’s right to independence and, consequently, of its right to existence; in
practice it meant a striving to convert the nascent working-class movement into an
appendage of the liberals.
Naturally, under such circumstances the rupture was necessary. But the “peculiar”
feature of Russia manifested itself in the fact that this rupture simply meant the
elimination of the Social-Democrats from the most accessible and widespread “legal”
literature. The “ex-Marxists”, who took up the flag of “criticism” and who obtained
almost a monopoly to "demolish Marxism, entrenched themselves in this literature.
Catchwords like “Against orthodoxy” and “Long live freedom of criticism” (now
repeated by Rabocheye Dyelo) forthwith became the vogue, and the fact that neither
the censor nor the gendarmes could resist this vogue is apparent from the publication
of three Russian editions of the work of the celebrated Bernstein (celebrated in the
Herostratean sense) and from the fact that the works of Bernstein, Mr. Prokopovich,
and others were recommended by Zubatov (Iskra, No. 10). A task now devolved upon
the Social Democrats that was difficult in itself and was made incredibly more
difficult by purely external obstacles – the task of combating the new trend. This trend
did not confine itself to the sphere of literature. The turn towards “criticism” was
accompanied by an infatuation for Economism among Social-Democratic practical
workers.
The manner in which the connection between, and interdependence of, legal criticism
and illegal Economism arose and grew is in itself an interesting subject, one that could
serve as the theme of a special article. We need only note here that this connection
undoubtedly existed. The notoriety deservedly acquired by the Credo was due
precisely to the frankness with which it formulated this connection and blurted out the
fundamental political tendency of Economism – let the workers carry on the economic
struggle (it would be more correct to say the trade unionist struggle, because the latter
also embraces specifically working class politics) and let the Marxist intelligentsia
merge with the liberals for the political “struggle.” Thus, trade-unionist work “among
the people” meant fulfilling the first part of this task, while legal criticism meant
fulfilling the second. This statement was such an excellent weapon against
Economism that, had there been no Credo, it would have been worth inventing one.
The Credo was not invented, but it was published without the consent and perhaps
even against the will of its authors. At all events, the present writer, who took part in
dragging this new “programme” into the light of day, [6] has heard complaints and
reproaches to the effect that copies of the resume of the speakers’ views were
distributed, dubbed the Credo, and even published in the press together with the
protest! We refer to this episode because it reveals a very peculiar feature of our
Economism – fear of publicity. This is a feature of Economism generally, and not of
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the authors of the Credo alone. It was revealed by that most outspoken and honest
advocate of Economism, Rabochaya Mysl, and by Rabocheye Dyelo (which was
indignant over the publication of “Economist” documents in the Vademecum[20]), as
well as by the Kiev Committee, which two years ago refused to permit the publication
of its profession de foi,[7] together with a repudiation of it,[8] and by many other
individual representatives of Economism.
This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be
attributed solely to craftiness (although, on occasion, no doubt craftiness is brought
into play: it would be improvident to expose the young and as yet frail shoots of the
new trend. to attacks by opponents). No, the majority of the Economists look with
sincere resentment (as by the very nature of Economism they must) upon all
theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for
organising revolutionaries, etc. “Leave all that to the people abroad!” said a fairly
consistent Economist to me one day, thereby expressing a very widespread (and again
purely trade-unionist) view; our concern is the working-class movement, the workers,
organisations here, in our localities; all the rest is merely the invention of doctrinaires,
“the overrating of ideology”, as the authors of the letter, published in Iskra, No. 12,
expressed it, in unison with Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10.
The question now arises: such being the peculiar features of Russian “criticism” and
Russian Bernsteinism, what should have been the task of those who sought to oppose
opportunism in deeds and not merely in words? First, they should have made efforts to
resume the theoretical work that had barely begun in the period of legal Marxism and
that fell anew on the shoulders of the comrades working underground. Without such
work the successful growth of the movement was impossible. Secondly, they should
have actively combated the legal “criticism” that was perverting people’s minds on a
considerable scale. Thirdly, they should have actively opposed confusion and
vacillation in the practical movement, exposing and repudiating every conscious or
unconscious attempt to degrade our programme and our tactics.
That Rabocheye Dyelo did none of these things is well known; we shall have occasion
below to deal with this well-known fact in detail and from various aspects. At the
moment, however, we desire merely to show the glaring contradiction that exists
between the demand for “freedom of criticism” and the specific features of our native
criticism and Russian Economism. It suffices but to glance at the text of the resolution
in which the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad endorsed the point of view
of Rabocheye Dyelo.
“In the interests of the further ideological development of Social-Democracy, we
recognise the freedom of criticism of Social-Democratic theory in Party literature to
be absolutely necessary insofar as the criticism does not run counter to the class and
revolutionary character of this theory” (Two Conferences, p. 10).
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And the motivation? The resolution “in its first part coincides with the resolution of
the Lubeck Party Congress on Bernstein”. . . . In the simplicity of their souls the
“Unionists” failed to observe what a testimonium paupertatis (attestation of poverty)
they betray with this copying. . .. “But ... in its second part, it restricts freedom of
criticism much more than did the Lubeck Party Congress.”
The resolution of the Union Abroad, then, is directed against the Russian
Bernsteinians? If it is not, then the reference to Lubeck would be utterly absurd. But it
is not true to say that it “restricts freedom of criticism”. In adopting their Hanover
resolution, the Germans, point by point, rejected precisely the amendments proposed
by Bernstein, while in their Lubeck resolution they cautioned Bernstein personally, by
naming him. Our “free” imitators, however, make not a single allusion to a single
manifestation of specifically Russian “criticism” and Russian Economism. In view of
this omission, the bare reference to the class and revolutionary character of the theory
leaves far wider scope for misinterpretation, particularly when the Union Abroad
refuses to identify “so-called Economism” with opportunism (Two Conferences, p. 8,
Paragraph 1). But all this, in passing. The main thing to note is that the positions of the
opportunists in relation to the revolutionary Social-Democrats in Russia are
diametrically opposed to those in Germany. In that country, as we know, the
revolutionary Social-Democrats are in favour of preserving that which exists – the old
programme and the tactics, which are universally known and have been elucidated in
all their details by many decades of experience. But the “Critics” desire to introduce
changes, and since these Critics represent an insignificant minority, and since they are
very timid in their revisionist efforts, one can understand the motives of the majority
in confining themselves to the dry rejection of “innovations”. In Russia, however, it is
the Critics and the Economists who are in favour of preserving that which exists: the
“Critics” want us to go on regarding them as Marxists and to guarantee them the
“freedom of criticism” they enjoyed to the full (for, in fact, they never recognised any
kind of party ties,[9] [9] The fact alone of the absence of public party ties and party
traditions, representing as it does a cardinal difference between Russia and Germany,
should have warned all sensible socialists against blind imitation. But here is an
instance of the lengths to which “freedom of criticism” goes in Russia. Mr. Bulgakov,
the Russian Critic, utters the following reprimand to the Austrian Critic, Hertz:
“Notwithstanding the independence of his conclusions, Hertz on this point on the
question of co-operative societies) apparently remains excessively bound by the
opinions of his party, and although he disagrees with it in details, he dare not reject the
common principle” (Capitalism and Agriculture, Vol. II, p. 287). The subject of a
politically enslaved state, in which nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of
the population are corrupted to the marrow by political subservience and completely
lack the conception of party honour and party ties, superciliously reproves a citizen of
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a constitutional state for being excessively “bound by the opinions of his party”! Our
illegal organisations have nothing else to do, of course, but draw up resolutions on
freedom of criticism.... —Lenin and, moreover, we never had a generally recognised
party body that could “restrict” freedom of criticism, if only by counsel); the
Economists want the revolutionaries to recognise the sovereign character of the
present movement" (Rabocheye Dyelo, No. 10, p. 25), i.e., to recognise the
“legitimacy” of that which exists; they want the “ideologists” not to try to “divert” the
movement from the path that “is determined by the interaction of material. elements
and material environment” (“Letter” in Iskra, No. 12); they want to have that struggle
recognised as desirable “which it is possible for the workers to wage under the present
conditions”, and as the only possible struggle, that “which they are actually waging at
the present time” (“Separate Supplement” to Rabochaya Mysl, p. 14). We
revolutionary Social-Democrats, on the contrary, are dissatisfied with this worship of
spontaneity, i.e., of that which exists “at the present moment”. We demand that the
tactics that have prevailed in recent years he changed; we declare that “before we can
unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines
of demarcation” (see announcement of the publication of Iskra).[10] In a word, the
Germans stand for that which exists and reject changes; we demand a change of that
which exists, and reject subservience thereto and reconciliation to it.
This “slight” difference our “free” copyists of German resolutions failed to notice.
D. Engels On the Importance of the Theoretical Struggle
“Dogmatism, doctrinairism”, “ossification of the party – the inevitable retribution that
follows the violent strait-lacing of thought” – these are the enemies against which the
knightly champions of “freedom of criticism” in Rabocheye Dyelo rise up in arms. We
are very glad that this question has been placed on the order of the day and we would
only propose to add to it one other:
And who are the judges?
We have before us two publishers’ announcements. One, “The Programme of the
Periodical Organ of the Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad – Rabocheye
Dyelo” (reprint from No. 1 of Rabocheye Dyelo), and the other, the “Announcement
of the Resumption of the Publications of the Emancipation of Labour Group”. Both
are dated 1899, when the “crisis of Marxism” had long been under discussion. And
what do we find? We would seek in vain in the first announcement for any reference
to this phenomenon, or a definite statement of the position the new organ intends to
adopt on this question. Not a word is said about theoretical work and the urgent tasks
that now confront it, either in this programme or in the supplements to it that were
adopted by the Third Congress of the Union Abroad in 1901 (Two Conferences, pp.
15-18). During this entire time the Editorial Board of Rabocheye Dyelo ignored
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theoretical questions, in spite of the fact that these were questions that disturbed the
minds of all Social-Democrats the world over.
The other announcement, on the contrary, points first of all to the declining interest in
theory in recent years, imperatively demands “vigilant attention to the theoretical
aspect of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat”, and calls for “ruthless
criticism of the Bernsteinian and other anti-revolutionary tendencies” in our
movement. The issues of Zarya to date show how this programme has been carried
out.
Thus, we see that high-sounding phrases against the ossification of thought, etc.,
conceal unconcern and helplessness with regard to the development of theoretical
thought. The case of the Russian Social-Democrats manifestly illustrates the general
European phenomenon (long ago noted also by the German Marxists) that the much
vaunted freedom of criticism does not imply substitution of one theory for another, but
freedom from all integral and pondered theory; it implies eclecticism and lack of
principle. Those who have the slightest acquaintance with the actual state of our
movement cannot but see that the wide spread of Marxism was accompanied by a
certain lowering of the theoretical level. Quite a number of people with very little, and
even a total lack of theoretical training joined the movement because of its practical
significance and its practical successes. We can judge from that how tactless
Rabocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marx’s statement: “Every
step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.” [21] To repeat
these words in a period of theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral
many happy returns of the day. Moreover, these words of Marx are taken from his
letter on the Gotha Programme,[22] in which he sharply condemns eclecticism in the
formulation of principles. If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then
enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow
any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical “concessions”. This was
Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek-in his name to belittle the
significance of theory!
Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea
cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of
opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of
practical activity. Yet, for Russian Social-Democrats the importance of theory is
enhanced by three other circumstances, which are often forgotten: first, by the fact
that our Party is only in process of formation, its features are only just becoming
defined, and it has as yet far from settled accounts with the other trends of
revolutionary thought that threaten to divert the movement from the correct path. On
the contrary, precisely the very recent past was marked by a revival of non-SocialDemocratic revolutionary trends (an eventuation regarding which Axelrod long ago
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warned the Economists). Under these circumstances, what at first sight appears to be
an “unimportant” error may lead to most deplorable consequences, and only shortsighted people can consider factional disputes and a strict differentiation between
shades of opinion inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy
for very many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or the other
“shade”.
Secondly, the Social-Democratic movement is in its very essence an international
movement. This means, not only that we must combat national chauvinism, but that an
incipient movement in a young country can be successful only if it makes use of the
experiences of other countries. In order to make use of these experiences it is not
enough merely to be acquainted with them, or simply to copy out the latest
resolutions. What is required is the ability to treat these experiences critically and to
test them independently. He who realises how enormously the modern working-class
movement has grown and branched out will understand what a reserve of theoretical
forces and political (as well as revolutionary) experience is required to carry out this
task.
Thirdly, the national tasks of Russian Social-Democracy are such as have never
confronted any other socialist party in the world. We shall have occasion further on to
deal with the political and organisational duties which the task of emancipating the
whole people from the yoke of autocracy imposes upon us. At this point, we wish to
state only that the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is
guided by the most advanced theory. To have a concrete understanding of what this
means, let the reader recall such predecessors of Russian Social Democracy as
Herzen, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, and the brilliant galaxy of revolutionaries of the
seventies; let him ponder over the world significance which Russian literature is now
acquiring; let him. . . but be that enough!
Let us quote what Engels said in 1874 concerning the significance of theory in the
Social-Democratic movement. Engels recognizes, not two forms of the great struggle
of Social Democracy (political and economic), as is the fashion among us, but three,
placing the theoretical struggle on a par with the first two. His recommendations to
the German working-class movement, which had become strong, practically and
politically, are so instructive from the standpoint of present-day problems and
controversies, that we hope the reader will not be vexed with us for quoting a long
passage from his prefatory note to Der deutsche Bauernkrieg,[11] which has long
become a great bibliographical rarity:
“The German workers have two important advantages over those of the rest of
Europe. First, they belong to the most theoretical people of Europe; and they have
retained that sense of theory which the so-called ’educated’ classes of Germany have
almost completely lost. Without German philosophy, which preceded it, particularly
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that of Hegel, German scientific socialism – the only scientific socialism that has ever
existed – would never have come into being. Without a sense of theory among the
workers, this scientific socialism would never have entered their flesh and blood as
much as is the case. What an immeasurable advantage this is may be seen, on the one
hand, from the indifference towards all theory, which is one of the main reasons why
the English working-class movement crawls along so slowly in spite of the splendid
organisation of the individual unions; on the other hand, from the mischief and
confusion wrought by Proudhonism, in its original form, among the French and
Belgians, and, in the form further caricatured by Bakunin, among the Spaniards and
Italians.
“The second advantage is that, chronologically speaking, the Germans were about the
last to come into the workers’ movement. Just as German theoretical socialism will
never forget that it rests on the shoulders of Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen – three
men who, in spite of all their fantastic notions and all their utopianism, have their
place among the most eminent thinkers of all times, and whose genius anticipated
innumerable things, the correctness of which is now being scientifically proved by us
– so the practical workers’ movement in Germany ought never to forget that it has
developed on the shoulders of the English and French movements, that it was able
simply to utilise their dearly bought experience, and could now avoid their mistakes,
which in their time were mostly unavoidable. Without the precedent of the English
trade unions and French workers’ political struggles, without the gigantic impulse
given especially by the Paris Commune, where would we be now?
“It must be said to the credit of the German workers that they have exploited the
advantages of their situation with rare understanding. For the first time since a
workers’ movement has existed, the struggle is being conducted pursuant to its three
sides – the. theoretical, the political, and the practical-economic (resistance to the
capitalists) – in harmony and in its interconnections, and in a systematic way. It is
precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the strength and invincibility of the
German movement lies.
“Due to this advantageous situation, on the one hand, and to the insular peculiarities of
the English and the forcible suppression of the French movement, on the other, the
German workers have for the moment been placed in the vanguard of the proletarian
struggle. How long events will allow them to occupy this post of honour cannot be
foretold. But let us hope that as long as they occupy it, they will fill it fittingly. This
demands redoubled efforts in every field of struggle and agitation. In particular, it will
be the duty of the leaders to gain an ever clearer insight into all theoretical questions,
to free themselves more and more from the influence of traditional phrases inherited
from the old world outlook, and constantly to keep in mind that socialism, since it has
become a science, demands that it be pursued as a science, i.e., that it be studied. The
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task will be to spread with increased zeal among the masses of the workers the ever
more clarified understanding thus acquired, to knit together ever more firmly the
organisation both of the party and of the trade unions....
“If the German workers progress in this way, they will not. be marching exactly at the
head of the movement – it is not at all in the interest of this movement that the
workers of any particular country should march at its head – but they will occupy an
honourable place in the battle line; and they will stand armed for battle when either
unexpectedly grave trials or momentous events demand of them increased courage,
increased determination and energy.”[23]
Engels’s words proved prophetic. Within a few years the German workers were
subjected to unexpectedly grave trials in the form of the Exceptional Law Against the
Socialists. And they met those trials armed for battle and succeeded in emerging from
them victorious.
The Russian proletariat will have to undergo trials immeasurably graver; it will have
to fight a monster compared with which an antisocialist law in a constitutional country
seems but a dwarf. History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is the
most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any
country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not
only of European, but (it may now be said) of Asiatic reaction, would make the
Russian proletariat the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. And we
have the right to count upon acquiring this honourable title, already earned by our
predecessors, the revolutionaries of the seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our
movement, which is a thousand times broader and deeper, with the same devoted
determination and vigour.
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