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[introduction.]

The class struggle of the proletariat proceeds in various forms— economic, political and ideological.

Economic Struggle

p The economic struggle is that waged for improving the workers’ conditions of life and labour: increased wages, a shorter working day, etc. The most widespread method of economic struggle is for the workers to state their demands and, if these demands are not satisfied, to carry out strikes. To defend its economic interests the working class creates trade unions, mutual assistance funds and other organisations.

p Every worker, even the least politically developed, realises the need to protect his immediate economic interests. It is therefore with economic struggle that the workers’ movement begins. But this does not mean that economic struggle is a thing of the past in the class struggle of the proletariat. Defence of economic demands plays a large part also under present-day conditions, even in those countries where a powerful and well-organised working-class movement exists.

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p In the first place, the economic struggle offers definite possibilities of improving the lot of the working class even under conditions of capitalism. This is shown by the experience of many countries, where the workers have wrung important concessions from the bourgeoisie. Communists—the most consistent fighters for the interests of the working class and all working people—therefore devote much attention to the organisation of the proletariat’s economic struggle.

p Secondly, the fight for economic demands, being the most accessible and comprehensible to the masses, draws the broadest sections of the workers into movement and serves them as a necessary school of anti-capitalist struggle, of education in class-consciousness. Hence, to a large extent the success of the higher forms of the working-class movement depends on this fight.

p Economic struggle, however, has definite limitations. Since it does not affect the foundations of the capitalist system it cannot bring satisfaction of the workers’ basic economic interest, it cannot free them of exploitation. What is more, the successes of economic struggle, if they are not reinforced by political gains, cannot be at all secure. The bourgeoisie will seize every chance of withdrawing its concessions and launching an offensive against the economic interests of the working class.

p That is why Marxism-Leninism holds that where the workers’ struggle amounts only to a struggle for their immediate economic interests the working-class movement cannot achieve considerable successes.

The genuine class struggle of the proletariat begins when this struggle goes beyond the narrow limits of defence of the workers’ immediate interests and develops into a political struggle. For this the first requirement is that the advanced representatives of the working class of the whole country should begin to wage a struggle "against the whole class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class" (Lenin).’"

Ideological Struggle

p The working class, like any other class, wages a struggle in its own interests. These interests are the outcome of the economic relations of capitalist society, which condemn the working class to exploitation, oppression and bad living conditions. The workers’ class interests are not something that has been invented by some theoretician or party, they exist objectively.

p But this does not mean that the working class arrives at once, automatically, at an awareness of its interests. The proletariat’s conditions of life give rise, of course, to certain attitudes of mind on the part of every worker. He is constantly encountering facts of injustice and economic and social inequality. This engenders among the workers a feeling of discontent, of spontaneous protest and indignation. 166 But such feelings still do not amount to an awareness of class interests. Class-consciousness, as Lenin defined it, "means the workers’ understanding that the only way to improve their conditions and to achieve their emancipation is to conduct a struggle against the capitalist factory-owner class.... Further, the workers’ class-consciousness means their understanding that the interests of all the workers of any particular country are identical, that they all constitute one class, separate from all the other classes in society. Finally, the class– consciousness of the workers means the workers’ understanding that to achieve their aims they have to work to influence affairs of state....” "

p Such awareness does not dawn in the mind of every worker of its own accord.

p Above all, it is not so simple for the worker to become aware of himself as a representative of a special class. The bricklayer and the engine-driver, the skilled turner and the labourer, the miner and the navvy all have different conditions of labour, and often different standards of life. It is no accident that the working-class movement of many countries has passed through the stage of craft unionism, where the guiding principle of unification is the narrow speciality, the trade. Working on the same railway, for instance, the guards, stokers and couplers may be united in trade unions that are quite separate from each other. And it has happened that the aims of these unions have been confined to winning concessions for their “own” workers at the expense of the others.

p But that is not the whole story. The individual worker by no means always correctly understands his oppressed position in capitalist society. He may, .for instance, regard this position as the result of personal failure. His discontent may then express itself in attempts to "get on in the world" by any means, even at the expense of his comrades. A few individuals may possibly succeed in doing so, but the lot of the millions remains the same.

p The workers’ spontaneous protest may be directed against the wrong opponents. For example, in the age of the industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the movement for wrecking machinery (the Luddites) became widespread among the proletariat. The workers saw that the introduction of machinery was worsening their lot but they could not understand that the root of the evil lay not in the machines themselves but in the fact that these machines belonged to capitalists, who were using them to intensify the exploitation and ruin of the working people.

p The difficulty experienced by the workers in becoming aware of their class interests is increased by the corroding influence of bourgeois ideology, of the propaganda that the bourgeoisie conducts with the definite aim of misleading the working people. The development of class-consciousness among the workers may be hindered particularly by spreading among them ideas about the eternity and immutability of the system of exploitation, about the possibility of 167 improving the workers’ position by agreement and compromise with the bourgeoisie, and by ideas of national dissension calculated to split the ranks of the working people, and so on.

p The formation of the class-consciousness of the proletariat is therefore a complex process. It may proceed faster or slower, with ease or difficulty, depending on the concrete conditions in different countries. This process has been delayed in certain countries, where to a great extent the proletariat remains, as Marx expressed it, "a class in itself”, and not a "class for itself”, a class that has become conscious of itself as a special class, that has understood where its basic interests lie.

p The best school of class-consciousness for the workers is the day– today struggle, including the struggle for their immediate interests. But that alone is not enough. For the working class to reach a high level of class-consciousness a special, ideological form of struggle is needed.

p The ideological struggle of the proletariat involves, above all, the working out of a world outlook, a scientific theory which will show the working class the path to liberation. The struggle of the working class for its immediate interests, the trade-union struggle in particular, is not sufficient to give birth to socialist views. The doctrine of socialism could be created only on the basis of the most advanced philosophical, economic and political theories. This task was performed by the great thinkers Marx and Engels, who devoted their whole lives and creative work to the emancipation struggle of the working class. They evolved a teaching which reveals with scientific accuracy the basic interest of the working class—the need for it to free itself from exploitation; and the way of achieving that aim— the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism, and also the fundamental tactics of the working-class movement.

p But the scientific world outlook of the working class that Marx and Engels created is not a list of cut-and-dried answers to the questions that may confront the working people at later stages in history, under new conditions and in new circumstances. For this world outlook to remain always a sharp weapon that the working class can uso in its struggle for the building of socialist society, it must be constantly substantiated, developed and enriched by means of fresh scientific data and fresh experience of the class struggle of the millions. This creative theoretical work has been and will continue to be an important task for the Marxist-Leninist parties of the working class.

p To play its part in the liberation struggle the scientific world outlook of the working class must become the possession of the masses of the workers. Hence the need for introducing this scientific world outlook into the working-class movement from outside the economic struggle and the sphere of relations between the workers and their employers. This task is performed by the Marxist-Leninist party. 168 According to Lenin’s definition, the party is in fact the combination of the ideas of socialism with the mass workingclass movement.

p Another important task of the ideological struggle is to preserve under all circumstances the purity of the socialist world outlook of the working class, to prevent the enemy from distorting it and thus knocking this sharp weapon out of the hands of the proletariat. As we know, no sooner had Marxism-Leninism become a powerful ideological force than the enemies of the working class began to wage war on it not only from the front but also from the rear, using its agents within the working-class movement. Under the pretext of “ improving” Marxism they constantly strive to distort it and make it harmless to the bourgeoisie and useless to the workers. This is what the “theoretical” work of opportunists of all kinds, reformists and revisionists, amounts to. To combat them is an essential task of all politically conscious workers and, above all, of the Marxist-Leninist parties.

But the proletariat’s ideological struggle is not confined to the tasks of developing class-consciousness among the workers and propagating the ideas of Marxism-Leninism among them. The working class does not carry on its emancipatory struggle in isolation but in alliance with all the working people, of whom it is the vanguard. The liberation of the non-proletarian masses—the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia—from the influence of bourgeois ideas, and winning them over to socialist ideas, is therefore yet another important task in the workers’ ideological struggle.

Political Struggle

p The highest form of the workers’ class struggle is political struggle.

p The proletariat first experiences the need to wage this form of struggle in the course of defending its economic demands. On the side of the capitalists stands the bourgeois state, which helps them to sabotage and crush strikes and hinders the functioning of the trade unions and other workers’ organisations, and so on. Thus, life itself leads the working class to fight not only their own bosses but also the bourgeois state, which protects the interests of the class of capitalists as a whole.

p On the other hand, fully developed political struggle is possible only when the working class or, at least, its advanced section becomes imbued with class-consciousness and correctly comprehends its interests.

p The political struggle of the working class embraces the whole sphere of social life connected with its attitude to other classes and strata of bourgeois society, as well as to the bourgeois state and its activities. "Working-class consciousness,” wrote Lenin, "cannot be genuinely political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases, without exception, of tyranny, oppression, 169 violence and abuse, no matter what class is affected...."’" This presupposes a close connection between the defence of the interests of the working class and the fight for democratic rights and freedoms generally, the fight against the anti-popular foreign policy of the bourgeoisie, and in many countries the fight for national independence, and so on.

p All these directions of working-class political activity are extremely important in themselves, especially in present-day conditions. But to claim that they comprise all the tasks of the political struggle would be incorrect. "It is not enough,” wrote Lenin, "that the class struggle becomes real, consistent and developed only when it embraces the sphere of politics.... Marxism acknowledges the class struggle as being fully developed, ‘nation-wide’, only when it not merely embraces politics but when it goes to the very core of politics—the system of state power.” ^^81^^ Here lies the distinction between the Marxist and the ordinary liberal, who is prepared to acknowledge the class struggle even in the sphere of politics, but on one condition—that it does not include the workers’ struggle to overthrow capitalism and capture state power.

p From what has been said it is clear why Marxist-Leninist theory, while perceiving the root cause of all conflict between classes in their material, economic interests, at the same time stresses the primacy of politics over economics, singles out the political form of working-class struggle as the highest form, and regards all class struggle as political. Economic and ideological forms of struggle are not an aim in themselves; both of them, important though they may be, are subordinate to the workers’ higher, political aims and tasks, to their political struggle, which alone can secure the basic economic need of the working class—freedom from exploitation.

Depending on the situation the working class wages its political struggle by a great variety of methods, ranging from demonstrations, political strikes (i. e., strikes in defence of certain political demands) and campaigning at elections and in parliament, to an armed uprising. The aims and methods of political struggle demand different, higher forms of working-class organisation, above all the creation of a political party of the proletariat. As experience has shown, the appearance of such a party is a natural phenomenon in the history of the working-class movement. Political struggle also demands not only nation-wide but international unity of effort on the part of the working class and all working people.

Proletarian Revolution

p The highest stage of the proletariat’s class struggle is revolution.

p The enemies of communism depict the proletarian revolution as a coup carried out by a small group of communist “conspirators”. That is a deliberate lie. Marxism-Leninism does not recognise the 170 tactics of "palace revolutions”, putsches., and seizure of power by armed minorities. This follows logically from the Marxist conception of social processes. The causes of revolution lie fundamentally in the material conditions of the life of society, in the conflict between the productive forces and production relations. This conflict finds its expression in a clash between large masses of people, classes, which rise to the struggle under the influence of objective clauses that do not depend on the will of separate individuals, groups or even parties. The Communist Party organises the actions of the masses, directs the masses, but does not attempt to make a revolution "for them”, with its own forces.

p A number of important features distinguish the socialist revolution of the working class from all previous social revolutions. Chief among them is the fact that all previous revolutions led merely to the substitution of one form of exploitation for another, whereas the socialist revolution puts an end to all exploitation and leads ultimately to the abolition of classes. It is the most profound of all transformations in history, a complete reorganisation of social relations from top to bottom. The socialist revolution marks the end of the history of exploiting class society that has lasted for thousands of years, the liberation of society from all forms of oppression, the beginning of an epoch of genuine brotherhood and equality among people, the establishment of eternal peace on earth, the complete social regeneration of humanity. Herein lies the tremendous significance of the proletarian revolution for the whole of humanity. It marks a vital turning-point in the development of mankind.

p The new role of the masses in a revolutionary upheaval is determined by the character of the socialist revolution. The masses of the working people took an active part also in former revolutions against slave-owners and feudal lords. But then they were no more than a striking force that cleared the path to power for a new class of exploiters. For the result of the upheaval was merely the substitution of one form of exploitation for another.

p The working-class revolution is a different matter. Here the workers, who constitute a large (in some countries the largest) section of the working people, are not merely a striking force; they are also the inspirers and leaders of the revolution. Moreover, the victory of the working class leads to the complete abolition of exploitation of man by man, to the liberation of the working people from all oppression.

p This means that the proletarian revolution is a revolution of the mass of the working people themselves, which they make for themselves. It is not surprising that in the course of a socialist revolution the working people reveal enormous creative power, produce from their own ranks splendid leaders and revolutionaries, and create new forms of government that are different from anything that has been known in history before.

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p A socialist revolution in any capitalist country covers a fairly long period. First of all, it presupposes a political revolution, i. e., the capture of state power by the working class. The transition from capitalism to socialism can take place only through the setting-up of working-class power.

p The historic mission of the socialist revolution is the abolition of capitalist private ownership of the means of production, and of capitalist production relations, their replacement by public, socialist ownership of the means of production, and by socialist production relations. But this replacement is impossible as long as the bourgeoisie holds power. The bourgeois state is the principal obstacle in the way of changing the capitalist system, for it serves the exploiters and guards their property with the utmost devotion. To take away the property of the ruling classes and hand it over to the whola of society, state power must be taken from the capitalists and put in the hands of the working people. The bourgeois state must be replaced by a state of the working people.

p The creation of such a state is essential also because it is only with the help of state power that the working class can carry out the tremendous constructive tasks with which it is confronted by the socialist revolution.

p Former revolutions were faced mainly with destructive tasks. This is clearly seen in the example of the bourgeois revolutions. Their chief aim was to sweep away feudal relations and thus break the fetters which the old society had placed on the development of production and clear the path for the further growth of capitalism. In so doing the bourgeois revolution fulfilled the greater part of its mission. Capitalist economic relations, however, had been developing for a long time within the framework of the feudal system. This was possible because bourgeois and feudal property are two types of private property. Although there were contradictions between them, they could coexist for a time.

p The socialist revolution also performs the task of destroying obsolete relations—capitalist relations, and quite often feudal relations, too, which have survived as more or less powerful remnants of the past. But added to the tasks of destruction there are now constructive socio-economic tasks on a grand scale and of great complexity, forming the main substance of the revolution.

p Socialist relations cannot come into being within capitalism. They arise after the working class has gained power, when the working people’s state has nationalised the capitalist-owned means of production, factories, mines, transport, banks, etc., and turned them into public, socialist property. It is clearly impossible to do this beforo power has passed into the hands of the working class.

p But nationalisation of capitalist property is only the beginning of the revolutionary transformations the working class has to accomplish. To achieve socialism, it is necessary to establish socialist economic 172 relations throughout the economy, to organise the people’s economic life along new lines, to create an effective planned economy, to reconstruct social and political relations on socialist principles, and solve complex tasks in the field of culture and education. All this means immense constructive work and in carrying it out the socialist state plays an exceptionally important part. It is the chief tool that the workers possess for building socialism, and subsequently communism. To claim therefore, as do the opportunists, that socialism can be built while political power remains in the hands of the bourgeoisie is to deceive the people and give them harmful illusions.

p The political revolution of the working class may come about in various forms. It may be carried out by means of an armed uprising, as in Russia in October 1917. Under particularly favourable conditions it is possible for power to be transferred to the people peacefully, without an armed uprising and civil war. But no matter what form the proletarian revolution takes it is always the highest stage of development of the class struggle. As the result of the revolution the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, that is to say, state power passes into the hands of the working people led by the working class.

p Having gained power, the working class is faced with the question of what to do with the old state apparatus, with the police, the courts, the administrative bodies, and so forth. In former revolutions, when the new class came to power, it adapted the old state apparatus to its needs and ruled with its aid. This was possible because these revolutions led to the replacement of the domination of one exploiting class by that of another class, also composed of exploiters.

p The working class cannot take that course. The police, security services, the army, the courts and other state institutions that for centuries have served the exploiting classes cannot simply pass into the service of those whom they formerly oppressed. The state apparatus is not an ordinary machine that operates whoever controls it; its very nature is such that the bourgeois apparatus cannot serve the working class. The composition and structure of the bourgeois state apparatus are adapted to fulfil its principal function, that of keeping the working people in subordination to the bourgeoisie. That is why Marx said that all previous revolutions merely improved the old state machinery, while the task of the working-class revolution was to smash it and replace it with its own, proletarian state.

p The creation of a new state apparatus is also important because it helps to attract the broad masses of the people to the side of the working class. The population is constantly coming into contact with government bodies. And when the working people see that men from the people are working in the state apparatus, when they see that government bodies are striving to satisfy the vital needs of the working people and not those of the rich, this convinces the masses 173 bettor than any propaganda that the new government is government by the people.

p How the destruction of the old state apparatus proceeds depends on many circumstances, the main one being whether the revolution was achieved peacefully or by force. Under all circumstances, however, the destruction of the old apparatus of state power and the creation of a new one remain a task of the first importance for the proletarian revolution.

p Only the working class can be the chief and decisive force behind the socialist revolution. But the working class does not act alone. The interests of the working class coincide with those of all working people, i. e., the overwhelming majority of the population. Hence the possibility arises of an alliance of the working class as the leader of the revolution with the broadest masses of the working people.

p The mass allies of the working class usually come to support the slogan of socialist revolution and establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat not all at once, but gradually. Historical experience shows that a proletarian revolution may develop from a bourgeois-democratic revolution, from a national-liberation movement of oppressed peoples, from an anti-fascist, anti-imperialist struggle of liberation.

p The proletarian revolution makes enormous demands on the parties of the working class. Resolute and skilful direction, carried out, by the Marxist parties, of the struggle of the masses is the chief condition for the victory of the proletarian revolution.

The epoch of socialist revolutions is a whole stage in the development of mankind. Sooner or later socialist revolutions will embrace all peoples and all countries. Proletarian revolutions in the various countries take specific forms depending on the concrete historical circumstances, on national peculiarities and traditions. But in all countries socialist revolutions develop in accordance with the general laws discovered by Marxist-Leninist theory.