Emacs-Time-stamp: "2007-11-14 22:10:12" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2006.03.22) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __MANUAL_EDITS__ 1. "-" to "---" :DONE, YES. [BEGIN] __NOTE__ Dedication: D. __TITLE__ LENIN THE GREAT THEORETICIAN __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2006-03-22T08:28:27-0800 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov 099-1.jpg 099-2.jpg __PUBL__ Progress Publishers __PUBL_CITY__ Moscow __YEAR__ 1970 [1]

Translated from the Russian

/IEHHH — BEJ1HKHM TEOPETHK.

Ha OHIAUUCKOM

First printing 1970

Primed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

[2] CONTENTS Page Lenin, the Great Theoretician of Communism. By P. N. Fedoscycv 5 How Lenin Developed the Philosophy of Marxism. By A. F. Okulov..................30 Lenin on the Objective Laws of the Building of Communism. liy Ts. A. Slepanyiin..............60 Lenin's Contribution to the Political Kconomy of Capitalism. l',y S. L. Vygodiky..............Si Lenin's Development of the Political Kconomy of Socialism. By G. A. Kozlov...............104 Lenin's Contribution to the Marxist Theory of Socialist Revolution. liy Y. A. Krasin................136 The Strategy and Tactics of Leninism. By N. V. Tropkin . . . 163 Lenin's Theory of the New Type of Proletarian Party. By G. D. Obicbkin..................197 Lenin's Theory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Socialist State. By V. V. Platkovsky.........220 Lenin on the Historic Role of the Working Class. By M. V. Iskrov 249 Lenin's Contribution to Marxist Agrarian Theory. By A. I. Malysb 275 Lenin on the National and Colonial Questions. By V. Y. Zcvin 30; Lenin and Some Problems of the World Communist Movement. By L. M. Minayev..............348 Lenin and Proletarian Internationalism. By V. S. Semyonov . . 375 [3] ~ [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ LENIN,
THE GREAT THEORETICIAN
OF COMMUNISM

By P. N. FEDOSEYEV

Lenin, the continuator of Marx, was a truly great thinker, revolutionary, and theoretician of communism.

The teachings of Marx, Engcls and Lenin are as indispensable to the revolutionary transformation of society and to the guidance of social processes as the natural sciences are to the transformation of nature and to the development of industry and agriculture.

Like any science, Marxism-Leninism is based on our knowledge of the laws of development of the surrounding world. Lenin amplified materialist dialectics, the science of the most general laws of the development of nature, human society and thought. In applying the dialectical method to the cognition of social processes he enriched Marxism with an understanding of new phenomena of historical reality. The laws and the social motive forces of the new epoch that he revealed still determine the development of society in the present day.

Subjecting all historical facts to detailed study, drawing bold theoretical generalisations and perceiving the continuity between past, present and future, the Marxist-Leninist dialectical method transcends the narrow bounds of both empiricism and abstract rationalism.

Since the time when Marx and Engcls lived the world has seen many major social changes, and the theoretical ideas of Marxism have been enriched accordingly.

It is just the same with the physical sciences, or with chemistry and biology. Scientific concepts have changed enormously over the past hundred years. Recall how firmly igth-century physics and chemistry were based on the idea that atoms were the ultimate, indivisible units of matter. Again, the idea of the cell 5 as the basic unit of the organism was regarded as the major achievement of biology in the last century. The development of natural science has shown how limited these concepts are: science is penetrating ever more deeply into the structure of organic and inorganic matter, disclosing the extremely intricate composition of the atom and the organic cell.

It is indeed amazing that the principles formulated by Marx and Engels in the ipth century should have proved valid and viable in the 2oth century. The dialectical conception of development, the materialist approach to history, the theory of surplus value, and the doctrine of the revolutionary transformation of society---all these are as effective a part of the fighting equipment of Communists today as ever.

Lenin developed and enriched Marxism by basing himself on the main propositions of the teachings of Marx and Engels. That is why we say that there is a dialectical continuity between Marxism and Leninism and that Leninism is a new stage of Marxism, Marxism of the modern age. It is nonsense, therefore, to oppose Lenin to Marx and Leninism to Marxism, as some bourgeois and revisionist ideologists do.

An acute struggle centres around the ideas of Marx and Lenin, in which different class and party standpoints arc reflected.

Millions upon millions of people in different countries and continents are attracted to socialism; this in itself speaks of its great influence and growing appeal. Some people would combine Marxism with Christianity to produce so-called Christian socialism; others see a likeness between the views of Marx and Confucius; still others find there is such a thing as ``Muslim Marxism''. But however different such interpretations are--- connected as they may be with the most diverse, often anti-- proletarian, social forces---and however one-sided and distorted an account of the enormous spread of Marxism they represent--- nothing can detract from its universal appeal, nor deny the undeniable fact that the influence of Marxism keeps growing.

Marxism-Leninism is a single international doctrine---its distortions alone arc numerous. One can mention several varieties of revisionism presuming to ``renew'' Marxism, to adapt it to purely national circumstances.

Every Communist Party considers it its duty to apply Marxism-- Leninism creatively to its country's concrete conditions, to enrich revolutionary theory. But it is one thing to develop scientific communism with reference to the special features of this or that country, and quite another to replace the main principles 6 of Marxism-Leninism by opportunist conceptions, whether from the right or the left.

We know that numerous attempts arc made to present revisionist trends as different varieties of Marxism. But it is clear that Marxists-Leninists must resolutely reject all ideas of pluralism, of different varieties of Marxism. Marxism is not to be divided according to geography or national affinity. Marxism is an integral revolutionary doctrine, cast, as it were, from a single block of steel.

Those of our ideological opponents who seek to divide revolutionary theory into national compartments claim that Leninism is a purely Russian development, a generalisation of Russian experience alone, which makes it inapplicable to other countries. Such an understanding of Lenin's teachings is completely divorced from the facts. Just as Marxism, which originated in Germany, was not a theoretical generalisation exclusively of German reality, so Leninism, which originated in Russia, is not an exclusively Russian phenomenon, but a higher stage of Marxism.

Lenin synthesised the experience of three Russian revolutions and that of the initial years of building socialism in the Soviet Republic---itself of enormous international significance. The 1905 Revolution, the first in the epoch of imperialism, furnished a model of popular revolution---bourgeois-democratic in its socio-- economic content but proletarian inasmuch as it was motivated and led by the working class. The brief historical period between the February and October revolutions of 1917 was the first successful example of a bourgeois-democratic revolution developing into a socialist one. The October Revolution marked a great turning point in the history of mankind and ushered in the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale.

This historic movement for the revolutionary transformation of society proceeded under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party with Lenin at its head. Lenin solved the basic theoretical problems that arose in the course of three Russian revolutions and during the transition to the building of socialism in the young Soviet Republic. At the same time he generalised the experience of the international workers' movement and the achievements of scientific thought after Marx and Engels. He amplified and developed further all the aspects and component parts of Marxism---philosophy, political economy and scientific communism---and these do not and cannot belong to any one nation but to the whole of progressive mankind. This is what gives Leninism its universal, international significance. Clearly there can be 7 no specifically Russian, Chinese or Yugoslav dialectics or theory of revolution. The general laws of historical development extend to all countries alike. To set some sort of local limits to Leninism, or to believe it to be merely one variant of Marxism, is to ignore the essential international content of Marxism-Leninism as the one comprehensive scientific world outlook of the working class.

Under present-day conditions Marxism-Leninism plays its great progressive part in the destinies of nations while being constantly renewed and enriched by current social practice, which it continually subjects to analysis. The triumph of socialism and the building of a communist society in the Soviet Union, the establishment and development of the world socialist system, the collapse of imperialism's colonial system, the aggravation of the general crisis of imperialism, and the scientific and technical revolutions of the loth century together form the basis for developing Marxism-Leninism by collective effort.

The greatest contribution to the development of Marxist-- Leninist theory has been made by the Party that Lenin founded, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After being at the helm of a socialist society for fifty years, the CPSU has accumulated immense theoretical and practical experience and has enriched Leninism with new theoretical conclusions and propositions of historic significance not only to the Soviet Union but to all mankind.

The progress of the world communist movement shows that Leninism is being enriched and enhanced by the revolutionary experience and combined theoretical knowledge of all Communist and Workers' Parties. Today, when the centenary of Lenin's birth is being celebrated, the significance of Lenin's ideas, of Leninist theory and practice, for the future of mankind, stands out ever more clearly.

``All the experience of world socialism and of the workingclass and national liberation movements has confirmed the world significance of Marxist-Leninist teaching,'' as is stated in the Address "Centenary of Lenin's Birth'', adopted by the Moscow Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties in 1969.

Leninism is the determined opponent of revisionism, of everything conducive to the unwarranted revision of truths confirmed by practice. Yet Lenin did not believe Marxism to be immutable and inviolable. It would be foolish to regard Marxism as a hoard of ideas kept locked up in a strong-box, to gloat over and to dip into on occasion.

But it is equally ill-advised to regard Marxism as a kind of 8 wide-open box into which one can deposit no matter what odds and ends of various ideological trends, bourgeois-liberal and revisionist among them, for the purpose of ``enriching'' Marxism. Some ``wiseacres'', too, try to ``replenish'', or rather, to ``replace'' Marxist-Leninist theory by Trotskyist, anarchist, nationalist and other adventuristic notions.

Marxism-Leninism has no pretensions to omniscience. As an ever-living, organically developing teaching, it can be likened neither to a locked nor to an open depository but rather to a majestic tree which shoots new branches every year and rises taller and taller, so that ever more distant vistas can be surveyed from its top.

Dialectics, the principle of perpetual change and development, is the soul of Marxist-Leninist theory. The strictly scientific approach, the constant concern for bringing theory into line with social practice, the tireless effort both to reflect the present correctly and, on the strength of an accurate knowledge of reality, to be able to see into the future---all this forms the source of the invincible strength of Leninism and its immense impact on human progress.

__*_*_*__

Lenin became the theoretician and leader of the liberation movement of a new era, the era of socialist revolutions, of society's transition from capitalism to socialism and communism. By examining in detail the vital needs of the practical movement he developed further Marx's theory of the class struggle and the socialist revolution. The problems of the socialist revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat occupy a major place in his theoretical legacy. Basing himself on the changed historical conditions Lenin enriched and made concrete Marxist teachings on the motive forces of the socialist revolution, on the alliance of the working class with the peasantry and other non-proletarian sections of the working people, and on the necessary link between the socialist revolution and the national liberation movement. His ideas on the objective and subjective factors, on the relation of democratic to socialist goals, on the creation of the socio-political forces of the revolution, and on the role of the working class as the leader of both the democratic and the socialist revolutions have all greatly contributed to revolutionary theory.

Lenin observed and analysed the increasing role of the party of the working class in bringing about the triumph of the socialist revolution and in building the new society. To build up the 9 Communist Parties was one of Lenin's major behests to the world communist movement.

Lenin's most important achievements were his discovery of the possibility of socialism attaining victory in at first only one or a few countries, and his logical definition of the modern historical era as one of struggle between two antagonistic systems---socialism and capitalism. After analysing the special features of the age of imperialism, above all the law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism, Lenin concluded that the contradictions of the capitalist system were intensifying, but that the preconditions for the socialist revolution would not mature at the same time in all countries; from which it followed that it would be possible to break the chain of imperialism at its weakest link. Again and again, when we turn to these now widely known propositions of Lenin's, we see his brilliant insight into the future of Russia and into the essence of the current era of world history.

At the beginning of the First World War Lenin clearly envisaged the coming division of the world into two opposing systems, and the struggle between them, following the triumph of socialism in one country. He wrote in August 1915: ``After expropriating the capitalists and organising its own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will rise against the rest of the world---the capitalist world---attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.''^^1^^

A year later Lenin again wrote: ''. . . socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois. This is bound to create not only friction, but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state's victorious proletariat. In such cases a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism, for the liberation of other nations from the = bourgeoisie.''^^2^^

These words no longer merely represent a scientific forecast. The victory of the October Revolution confirmed the possibility of socialism achieving victory first in one country, as well as the _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 542.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 79.

10 need to defend the gains of socialism by armed force. During the period of civil war and armed foreign intervention in Soviet Russia the struggle between the two social systems manifested itself with particular force. The young Soviet Republic not only had to engage in a life-and-death struggle with home counter-- revolution but it also had to beat off the onslaught of fourteen bourgeois states.

While Lenin advocated the principle of peaceful coexistence between states with different social systems, he repeatedly stressed that it was always necessary to be vigilant and ready to repulse imperialist aggression. He understood peaceful coexistence as something necessary and possible, but not as something already accomplished and guaranteed by the immutable laws of history. He explained over and again that the whole world situation was determined by the struggle between the Soviet republics and the imperialist states opposing them.

The assault of nazi Germany and its satellites on the USSR, and the heroic struggle of the Soviet peoples against fascist aggression, showed how far-sighted Lenin had been in warning of the coming class battles in the international arena. By engaging in a just war for its own freedom and independence and by routing the nazi invaders the Soviet Union helped the peoples of some other countries to throw off the foreign yoke and, furthermore, to rid themselves of their native exploiters so as to embark on the path of socialist development.

Thus Lenin's theory of socialist revolution docs much more than simply deal with the questions connected with the triumph of socialism in one country; it is a general and comprehensive theory of the whole world revolutionary process, of the world victory of socialism over capitalism.

By applying the dialectical method to the analysis of capitalism Marx was the first to expose the root contradictions of bourgeois society, which find their expression in the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the exploiting classes and the exploited mass of the people. Lenin carried forward this analysis with reference to the imperialist stage of capitalism and the new historical epoch that dated from the October Revolution. He disclosed the contradictions between socialism and capitalism on a world scale. The struggle between the two systems is a specific expression of the dialectical law of the struggle of opposites in the international arena.

The experience of the initial period of building socialism enabled Lenin to disclose the dialectics of the new society, whose 11 distinctive feature he saw in the fact that under socialism antagonisms disappear while contradictions persist. The law of the unity and struggle of opposites lies at the heart of dialectics, and Lenin uncovered the finest interconnections and interrelations of the main social forces of the modern age. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the world communist movement arc consistently following Lenin's precepts in this respect and developing them.

It is, however, different with the Chinese leaders, who have estranged themselves from Marxism-Leninism.

Peking propagandists do not divide the world into two socio-- political systems, two camps, but into East and West generally into ``world town" and ``world country'', ignoring the fundamental differences between the socialist and capitalist countries. Moreover, they are spreading monstrous slanders about `` American-Soviet collusion against the Chinese people and other revolutionary peoples'', despite the fact that history has shown, and all the peoples of the world recognise, that the Soviet Union is the main force in the fight against world imperialism and its bulwark, US imperialism.

Contrary to the Chinese splitters' giddy imaginings the world communist movement starts from the fact that world development is today determined by the struggle between two camps, two opposing systems. To recognise that this struggle is the pivot of the present era is in no way to underrate the world-wide historical significance of the class struggle of the proletariat and its allies in the capitalist countries or of the national liberation movements. We arc aware that the victory of socialism on a world scale is unthinkable in the absence of an alliance of the revolutionary forces of modern times. We merely wish to emphasise that the world socialist system opposing imperialism is the chief force and mainstay of the peoples' anti-imperialist front.

Revisionists describe the two camps as ordinary military blocs, claiming that the division into camps is an artificial ``political bloc" situation which can be disposed of by a policy of `` nonalignment" and ``convergence'', thus refusing to recognise the historical reality of the class struggle. But the two camps into which the present-day world is divided are not merely rival coalitions but two entirely different socio-economic formations: the outgoing, capitalist formation, and the rising, communist formation. When pointing out the world-historic significance of the Soviet system in 1920, Lenin said: ``Two camps arc now quite consciously facing each other all over the world; this may be said without the 12 slightest = exaggeration."^^1^^ A year later he reaffirmed: ''. . .the world has broken up into two camps: capitalism abroad and Communist = Russia."^^2^^

The existence of the world socialist system and the increasing economic and defence potential of the socialist countries, especially the Soviet Union, are making the socialist camp a decisive factor in world politics and world development.

In terms of world history, the question of which side will win is settled in favour of socialism. However, this is being decided in the course of a tense world-wide struggle between the two systems, between the forces of socialism and progress and those of imperialism and reaction. The imperialists still hope to defeat socialism and counterattack where they can. That is why it is impermissible and dangerous to treat any of their stratagems with complacency, and why it is necessary to wage a relentless struggle against the imperialist camp.

In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism a fierce battle between the working class and the remnants of the exploiting classes is inevitable in every country. Even after the foundations of socialism have been laid, anti-socialist forces continue to resist socialist developments in one way or another. This contradiction between the forces of socialism and reaction is bound up with the struggle between the two systems on an international scale.

In this connection the 1968--69 developments in Czechoslovakia amply confirm the Marxist theory of class struggle today. These developments should not be isolated from the international situation or viewed in separation from the struggle between the two social systems; they are but an instance of the general struggle between socialism and capitalism.

The struggle between the two systems is most stark today in Vietnam, where US imperialists are waging a criminal war, and in the Middle East where armed aggression has also been unleashed against progressive regimes. Things are different in Europe, where imperialists avoid overt and direct armed action, trying instead to undermine the socialist countries by sabotage in a ``democratic'' guise. Here they have to face the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Treaty countries, and they do not dare to interfere in their affairs by force of arms as they do in Vietnam--- which has no common frontier with the USSR but borders on _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, = Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 450.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 36, p. 538.

13 China, the position of whose leaders is being exploited by imperialism in order to disrupt the unit) of the revolutionary forces.

In the class struggle both within individual countries and on the international scene there inevitably appear some elements that vacillate between the two camps. Lenin warned that in a world divided into two systems not only individuals and social groups but entire nations might vacillate between the socialist camp and = imperialism.^^1^^

Sharply criticising unprincipled leaders, Lenin recommended a restrained and flexible attitude towards wavering social and political groups with a view to either neutralising them or winning them over. He said: ``The main task we set ourselves is to defeat the exploiters and to win to our side the waverers---this is a task of historic = significance."^^2^^

Experience has shown that no small proportion of the petty-- bourgeoisie vacillates between socialism and capitalism. In Czechoslovakia, the anti-socialist forces would not have been so dangerous if they had not been able to rely on such wavcrers. That is why it is so important to oppose vacillation and to isolate the anti-socialist forces now.

It should be borne in mind that wavering petty-bourgeois sections of the population and the national bourgeoisie exert a great influence on the balance of class forces in the developing countries. The reactionary military coups recently engineered in some of these countries by the US imperialists and their accomplices were supported by domestic reaction and the wavering intermediate strata of society. This goes to prove that the developing countries can follow the socialist road only in close alliance with the socialist countries, and that in order to advance along that road they must put an end to the vacillations of these intermediate strata. This in turn requires that the exposure of reformism, social-democracy and revisionism, whether Right- or Left-wing, be intensified on a world scale.

Imperialism resorts to various methods of struggle against socialism and the national liberation movement. Nevertheless the confrontation of the two social systems in the world arena remains the basis of the class struggle. To support socialism and actively to defend it from aggression and imperialist encroachments is the internationalist duty of the Communists of all countries.

_-_-_

~^^1^^ See Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 323.

~^^2^^ Ibid.

14

Lenin attached overriding importance to the economic achievements of socialism in the struggle between the two world systems. Depending on the situation, the imperialists stake their hopes now on military, now on political and ideological forms of struggle, but in the long run the economy remains the main field of battle.

Economic competition between the two social systems--- socialism and capitalism---is one of the forms of the class struggle in the international arena, a law of our age under the conditions of the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. Each major victory of socialism on the economic front speeds up the process of mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism and communism, affects the methods and means of the struggle of the working class in the capitalist countries and the prospects of the national liberation movement.

After it has triumphed over its exploiters politically, the proletariat must then demonstrate the advantages of socialist organisation in the economic sphere, too. Lenin said: ``This is a task of world-wide significance. To achieve the second half of the victory in the international sense, we must accomplish the second half of the task, that which bears upon economic = construction."^^1^^

The transformation of capitalist relationships into socialist ones takes a considerable historical period of time. Lenin worked out in detail Party policy for that pcriod---the New Economic Policy, or NEP, which signified the passing over from War Communism in the Soviet Republic to a peacetime economy, from the surplus-appropriation system to tax in kind. Lenin took into account the situation in Russia at that time, the peculiar circumstances that did not exist---nor need they necessarily arise--- in other countries. On the whole, however, NEP remains of international import, since it reflects the principal regularities of the transition from capitalism to socialism that have proved to be common to all countries and facilitates the evolution of forms of alliance between workers and peasants. Lenin proved scientifically that in the process of building and expanding the socialist economy the proletarian state must make use of commodity production, trade and money.

Lenin regarded the establishment of the material and technical basis of socialism as being of top priority, and added that any socialist country could succeed in this task thanks to the superiority of the socialist economic system. Lenin believed the socialist _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 418--19.

15 system, expressing the interests of the broadest mass of the people, to be far superior to any state-monopoly economic organisation catering to the interests of a handful of capitalists.

Lenin was the initiator of the plan for the electrification of the young Soviet Republic, of the radical industrial transformation of old Russia, of socialist industrialisation involving the most recent developments in technology.

Creating the material and technical basis of communism means above all else building a large-scale heavy industry. Without this, Lenin said, "we shall never be able to build socialism and communism".^^1^^ Setting up large-scale production on the basis of electrification is the first important step on the road to communist economic organisation. Establishing the material and technical basis of socialism and then of communism was to Lenin the prerequisite for achieving the highest labour productivity in the world and for solving the task of overtaking and outstripping the advanced capitalist countries economically.

Lenin also considered the establishment of heavy industry to be the first step and the basis for the socialist reorganisation of agriculture, the major condition for eliminating the economic roots of capitalism in the countryside and enabling small peasants to take up large-scale collective farming.

Lenin worked out an agrarian programme that applied not only to his own country but to other countries of the world as well. His programme takes account of the special features of countries where small-scale production predominates, and formulates the general laws to which the socialist reorganisations of the countryside are subject. The methods of socialising production that he suggested encourage the enlistment of nonproletarian sections of the working people in the cause of building socialism, strengthen the alliance of workers and peasants and create the socio-economic basis for re-educating all working people in the spirit of socialism.

Lenin recognised the leading role of national state enterprises in the economy. This is the corollary of the fact that the working class is the most advanced and organised class in socialist society, that it plays the leading role and is connected with the state, or public form of ownership. Having implemented Lenin's ideas on the socialisation of production and established the material and technical basis of socialism, the Soviet Union, in the course of its pre-war five-year plans of economic _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 507.

16 development, left behind all the European capitalist countries and took second place in the world---next only to the United Statcs---in industrial potential and the absolute volume of industrial production.

Now that the Soviet Union has a strong and versatile socialist economy and is engaged in building the material and technical basis of communism, scientific and technological progress has become the main aspect of socialist construction. The most effective utilisation of scientific and technological achievements is the key to success in the economic competition between the two systems. For this reason, accelerating the rate of technological progress was given as one of the principal tasks of economic development by the 23rd Congress of the CPSU.

Leninism provides a comprehensive generalisation of the regularities of socialist development and the transition to communism. As Lenin pointed out time and again, socialism is a real movement of the people that must inevitably lead to communism. But communism can be built only on the basis of a fully fledged socialism, and only Leninism makes it possible to arrive at correct solutions to the cardinal problems of socialist construction, the tasks of achieving further economic development, scientific control of socialist processes, higher labour productivity and more efficient social production.

__*_*_*__

Bourgeois democracy and socialist democracy are two qualitatively different political forms representing two different and opposite socio-economic systems. In fighting socialism, bourgeois ideologists habitually invoke the idea of democracy, exploiting in particular the notions of ``pure'' democracy and the freedom of the individual. They seek to prove that socialism is incompatible with democracy, while covering up the ever more reactionary character of the political regimes in the countries of the capitalist world. They arc supported in this by every kind of revisionists and nationalists. That is why it is so important to have a correct understanding of the essence of socialist democracy, of its principles and its fundamental difference from bourgeois democracy.

In our appraisal and criticism of bourgeois democracy we should begin with the following definition of Lenin's: "Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---1974 17 paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the = poor."^^1^^

Bourgeois theorists gloss over the class nature of democracy by speaking of "democracy in general'', or "total democracy''. They must needs be hypocritical and give the title of " government by the whole people" and "pure democracy" to what is in effect a bourgeois dictatorship, a dictatorship of exploiters. Marxists-Leninists expose this falsehood, explaining to the people that the only way to free labour from the capitalist yoke is to replace this bourgeois dictatorship by the dictatorship of the proletariat, that is, true democracy for the working people. Bourgeois society and its democracy protect the interests of the exploiters. The dictatorship of the proletariat, in defending the gains of the revolution, suppresses the resistance of the bourgeoisie; the socialist state of the whole people will not tolerate any actions directed against the interests of the working people, against the socialist system.

Lenin severely criticised those who ventured so much as to hint at somehow adjusting the political organisation of the socialist state to bourgeois society or at making any concessions in that direction.

Once Georgi Chicherin, the then Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, proposed something of that kind to Lenin. He wrote to him on January 20, 1922: "Dear Vladimir Ilyich, in case the Americans do press their demand for representative institutions, would you think it at all = possible,^^2^^ for a proper compensation, to introduce into our Constitution a small amendment ---quite significant in terms of ideology and principle but nothing to speak of in practical terms---to the effect that parasitic elements, too, should be represented in the Soviets, through their separate meetings? Alongside the election meeting of the workers of a particular factory or the Red Army men of a particular unit the parasites will also hold their election meeting and have two or three representatives against the 200 members of the = Soviet."^^3^^

Chicherin's suggestion found no favour with Lenin. On January 23, 1922, he wrote to the members of the Politbureau:

"I have just received two letters from Chicherin (dated the 2oth and 22nd). He has raised the question of whether we should _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 245.

~^^2^^ Lenin underscored these words four times and wrote in the margin: "Madness II"

~^^3^^ Central Party Archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, Fund 2, Inventory i, Unit 22670.

18 agree, for a proper compensation, to some small changes in our Constitution, namely, representation for the parasitic elements on the Soviets. He says this should be done to please the Americans.

"This proposal of Chicherin shows, I believe, that he should ... be immediately sent to a sanatorium, as any connivance in this respect, any allowance of delay, etc., will, in my opinion, be the greatest threat to all = negotiations."^^1^^

This example is vivid enough proof of Lenin's principled and uncompromising stand on the inadmissibility of any surrender of the principles of socialist democracy.

As regards the political organisation of society, Lenin taught Communists to see the essential difference between bourgeois democracy and socialist democracy. It would be nai've to think that socialist democracy is the same democracy as exists under capitalism, only modified or ``improved''. It would be still more absurd to suppose that one can mechanically transfer the attributes of bourgeois democracy to socialist society. But this is precisely what the social-democratic and revisionist critics of socialism advise Communists to do. Bourgeois democracy fails to give the people the most important thing---the right to make the major economic and political decisions, to be the master of their own destiny. Under bourgeois democracy a country's home and foreign policies are in the hands of a few millionaires and multi-- millionaires who own all the principal means of producing material and cultural benefits. The trimmings change, the forms of government alter, the ruling parties come and go, but the omnipotent moneybags stay.

Socialism is a socio-economic system which, by abolishing private ownership of the means of production, generates a democracy of a new kind. In the Soviet Union, the fullest expression of socialist democracy is to be found in the Soviets as bodies of administration and economic management. Under socialism democracy develops in an essentially different direction to that under capitalism. It does not express itself in parliamentary debates, nor in pretty phrases about human rights, but in the practical implementation of freedom for the working people, in their real participation in the control of social processes for their own benefit.

According to Marxism-Leninism, the foremost freedom is the freedom of the working people from exploitation. The democratic _-_-_

~^^1^^ The negotiations that were scheduled to be conducted in Genoa. (See Collected Works, Vol. 45, p. 449.)

__PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19 character of socialism manifests itself primarily in the socialist relations of production, the main aim of which is to see that all the material goods produced by the people go to the people, and to the people alone. Therefore the basis of democracy, as Lenin repeatedly stressed, is not political phraseology but economic reality; Communists gauge the real worth of democracy by what it actually provides for the people in terms of economic and spiritual benefits.

Socialist revolutions sweep away the class barriers that exploiters put up to prevent the introduction of democracy. The socialist countries turned over to the working people the means they needed to implement democratic rights from the very start. The socialisation of the instruments and means of production, their becoming the property of the whole people, and the handing over to the workers of the press, radio, TV, cultural institutions and educational establishments has produced a qualitative change in the nature of democracy---both production and public affairs arc now managed by the people, not by property owners.

The democratic principles of socialism have become part and parcel of daily life in the Soviet Union, and their implementation a universal habit. To the millions of unemployed in the capitalist countries the right to work is but an idle dream, while for Soviet people it is the normal thing. Socialism has given everybody equal rights of access to the benefits of culture. The cultural revolution has indeed brought education and the achievements of science, literature and art within the reach of working people, and it has given wide scope to amateur talent and initiative. Culture is no longer the privilege of an ``elite'', of a "chosen few'', but is accessible to the widest sections of people. This is one of the greatest achievements of socialist democracy.

Now that the exploitation of man by man has been done away with, it has become possible to solve such an historic question of democracy as the abolishing of national oppression, in this way ensuring the equality of all nations and nationalities. Another, no less important, question of democracy is being solved by socialism, that of bringing real equality to women in all spheres of economic, political and cultural life.

Genuine democracy expresses itself in home and foreign policies that are conducted in the interests of the mass of the people. Lenin said that the most significant expression of democracy is to be seen in the attitudes of countries to the basic question of war and peace. And indeed this is where the great difference between the aggressive policies of the supposedly 20 democratic but actually predatory imperialist powers on the one hand, and the truly democratic, peaceful policy of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, on the other, can be seen.

The extension and development of socialist democracy and the correction of shortcomings that appear in the course of development arc all carried out under the direction of Communist and Workers' Parties. Bourgeois propagandists and anti-- socialist elements do their utmost to turn this essentially progressive process to their own ends. By capitalising on certain difficulties and shortcomings they seek to cast a slur on the activities of the Communist and Workers' Parties, to remove the working class and its Marxist-Leninist vanguard from the leadership of society, and eventually to induce a degeneration of socialist democracy into bourgeois democracy so that the capitalist system can be restored.

The leading role of the Party and the principle of democratic centralism are cried down by bourgeois ideologists. They insinuate that with every heightening of the Party's leading role the activity and influence of other mass organisations diminish. In fact, however, as the leading role of the Party increases all working people's organisations, whether governmental or non-- governmental, begin to function more intensively.

Experience of the struggle for socialism enabled Lenin to draw the following highly significant conclusion: "Parties may represent the interests of their class in one degree or another; they may undergo changes or modifications, but we do not yet know of any better form. The entire course of the struggle waged by Soviet Russia, which for three years has withstood the onslaught of world imperialism, is bound up with the fact that the Party has consciously set out to help the proletariat perform its function of educator, organiser and leader, without which the collapse of capitalism is = impossible."^^1^^

These words of Lenin's should be held sacred by all Marxists-- Leninists. It is the duty of all Communists to rebuff any thrusts at the leading role of their parties, and to expose the treacherous nature of any slogan calling for the ``liberalisation'' of socialism.

Socialism has put an end to the privileges of landowners, capitalists and other parasites, and it grants no privileges to their toadies or to pseudo-democrats who make slogans of freedom serve as a cloak for their crude individualism and selfishness.

With the struggle of the two systems at its present high pitch, _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 367.

21 socialist society has to advance its own criteria of democracy in order to prevent abuses of the freedoms of speech, of the press and of association. It cannot allow democratic rights to be used against the interests of the people, when it is the interests of the people that arc the very gauge of democracy under socialism.

While it brings working people true freedom, socialist democracy obliges them to be well-disciplined and organised for the benefit of society as a whole. The connection between freedom and responsibility is dialectical. The one is impossible without the other: without responsibility, discipline and good organisation socialist democracy neither can nor will ever achieve its all-round development. Petty-bourgeois laxity can only do a great deal of damage.

Socialist democracy is improving all the time, as are its forms and methods. To defend socialist democracy and its gains from attacks by the advocates of imperialism and all those who seek to undermine socialism is the bounden duty of Communists, of the workers of the socialist countries, and of progressive humanity generally.

__*_*_*__

Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution covers the inseparable unity of the national and international factors in the struggle for socialism, and takes account of the diversity that exists in the political, economic and cultural development of different countries and peoples. The possibility discovered by Lenin of the socialist revolution triumphing at first in only one or a small number of countries opened up new approaches to the question of the international mutual aid rendered one another by the national detachments of the working class in the struggle for socialism, democracy and peace. Lenin set great store by the fraternal assistance that the world proletariat gave to the working people of Russia in defending the gains of the October Revolution from foreign interventionists and whiteguards. He saw in it a striking example of workers' solidarity and loyalty to the principle of proletarian internationalism. At the same time he pointed out the enormous revolutionary influence of the Soviet state as the mighty bulwark of the world liberation movement.

The international character of Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution derives mainly from the view that the victories of socialist revolution in different countries arc all part of the world socialist revolution, and do not represent purely national developments. So the experience gained in the course of revolution in 22 only one or a few countries can be utilised, as far as its main, essential aspects go, by other countries and, indeed, by the entire world revolutionary movement. When properly understood, the national interests of the proletariat of one country or another do not run counter to the common international interests of the world proletariat, but coincide with them.

Internationalism is a common law of socialist development by virtue of the fact that socialist countries have a single-type economic base, a single-type state system, a single-type class pattern, and a single aim---communism. Nevertheless, the all-- round economic, political, military and diplomatic co-operation of the socialist countries does not mean that they neither have nor are able to have any specific indigenous features of their own resulting from the historical, geographical and politico-economic characteristics of each country.

Proletarian internationalism certainly docs not reject the diversity of the contemporary world nor does it demand stereotyped, identical methods of building socialism, but it does presuppose both the desire and the ability to find the means of solving common international problems.

Lenin taught Communists to take a single view of international and national interests in building and defending socialism. He never reconciled himself to those who strove to "lock up" socialism in their private national ``compartments'', least of all to nationalists who treacherously sacrificed the interests of the world socialist revolution to limited national interests.

The principle of internationalism makes it incumbent on the workers of all countries to unite their efforts not only within individual countries but on a world scale, too, in order to fight reaction and imperialism and to rally the masses in the struggle for peace.

The CPSU is working to achieve the all-round consolidation of the unity of the socialist countries, especially in the defence of the gains of socialism. That is what the Warsaw Treaty Organisation is for. We must not allow any infringement of the mutual obligation to defend the socialist countries. The steps taken by the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in the critical days of August 1968 to render assistance to fraternal Czechoslovakia fully accord with the Leninist principles of the international defence of socialist states under the present conditions of tense struggle between the two social systems.

For some time now attention has been focussed on the attitude of Communists to the question of national sovereignty. 23 Marxists-Leninists have always recognised the principle of national sovereignty and acted in its defence. With reference to the events in Czechoslovakia, the position of the CPSU on sovereignty has been defined with absolute clarity in Party and Government documents. The Appeal of five socialist governments to the Czechoslovak people clearly stated that troops of the fraternal countries had entered Czechoslovakia because of the menace that loomed over her national sovereignty and socialist achievements.

This noble act of assistance to a socialist country was extensively exploited for the purposes of slandering the USSR. In the United States, West Germany and some other countries leading statesmen publicly alleged that the Soviet Union had altered its stand on sovereignty and national independence and now promulgated a doctrine of interference in other countries' internal affairs.

Yet it is well known that the Soviet Union consistently and resolutely upholds the principle of national sovereignty. By routing the German and Japanese invaders, the USSR helped many European and Asian peoples to regain their national independence and enhance their sovereignty. The Soviet Union took every step to defend the sovereignty of the Korean People's Democratic Republic, helping it to repulse imperialist aggression. The Soviet peoples arc giving every assistance and support to the people of Vietnam fighting for their independence and freedom. And everybody knows of the Soviet Union's efforts to defend socialist Cuba from the US imperialists and their henchmen. Again, all freedom-loving people know about the Soviet country's constant support for the just cause of the Arab peoples fighting for their independence against Israeli aggression inspired by foreign imperialists, mainly those of the United States.

The consistent line that the Soviet Union has pursued in upholding national sovereignty is also clear from the history of its relations with Czechoslovakia. In 1938, the Soviet Union resolutely came out in defence of that country's sovereignty and declared its readiness to defend it from nazi aggressors by every means, including the use of arms. The Western powers, with the consent of the bourgeois Benes Government, betrayed the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia. The Munich Agreement enabled Hitler's invaders to strangle the republic, and to deprive it of its national independence and its sovereignty. After routing the nazi invaders, the USSR restored sovereignty to Czechoslovakia and opened 24 the way to her democratic and socialist development. In 1968, when the socialist achievements of the working people of Czechoslovakia were threatened, the Soviet Union, together with fraternal countries, came to the assistance of the socialist forces and defended Czechoslovakia's sovereignty from the subversive activities of anti-socialist forces at home and the encroachments of world imperialism. This fraternal aid by five socialist countries has been approved wholeheartedly by the Czechoslovak Party and Government delegation in the Joint Soviet-Czechoslovak Statement signed in Moscow on October 27, 1969. This aid, the Statement pointed out, was "an act of international solidarity which helped to bar the way of anti-socialist counter-- revolutionary = forces".^^1^^

Nationalists oppose national sovereignty to working-class solidarity. But that docs not mean that one can, in turn, oppose class solidarity to national sovereignty. Given proper understanding, they do not clash but coincide. We cannot allow national-imperialists or ``national-Communists'' to exploit the banner of the struggle for national independence.

The Soviet Union's stand on national sovereignty was clearly expressed in Comrade Brezhnev's speech to the Fifth Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party. He said:

"The socialist states hold that the sovereignty of every country must be respected. We resolutely come out against interference in the affairs of any states, against any infringement of their sovereignty.

"With that, we Communists show particular concern for the consolidation and defence of the sovereignty of states engaged in building socialism. The forces of imperialism and reaction are striving to deprive the people now of one, now of another socialist country of their hard-won sovereign right to secure the prosperity of their country and the well-being and happiness of the broad mass of the working people by building a society free from oppression and exploitation of any kind. And as soon as violations of that right meet with a concerted rebuff from the socialist camp, bourgeois propagandists raise a hue and cry about `defence of sovereignty' and `non-interference'. It is clear that this is pure humbug and demagogy on their part. In fact, these vociferous individuals are anxious not to preserve socialist sovereignty but to destroy it."

To treasure the inviolable unity of sovereign socialist states--- _-_-_

~^^1^^ Pravda, October 29, 1969.

25 that is the correct dialectical attitude to take on the question of the relation between what is national and what is international in the world socialist system.

__*_*_*__

The division of the world into two camps, into two social systems, has led to the projection of the ideological struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie into the international arena. The question raised by Lenin---whether bourgeois or proletarian ideology shall prevail---has become a point of struggle not only in individual countries but on a world scale.

Lenin attached great importance to the progress of socialist culture but gave no quarter to those who belittled the cultural heritage of bourgeois society. He developed the theory of the cultural revolution, calling both for the absorption of all the achievements of human civilisation and for the creation of a new and higher culture founded on communist ideology. Simultaneously Lenin taught the Party to tolerate no attempts to use cultural progress in order to spread bourgeois ideas and bourgeois morality. Lenin's main propositions on the struggle against bourgeois ideology and on the tasks of educating the working people in the spirit of communism have retained their value to this day.

Lenin linked education directly both with the building of communist society and with the struggle against bourgeois ideology on a world scale.

It should be borne in mind that the development of state-- monopoly capitalism has resulted in major changes not only in the economy but in the state machine, too, and this has affected the content and the forms of ideological influence. Besides exerting an ever greater pressure on the economy, the bourgeois state machine has assumed direct control of the psychological war on communism and all those who support people's liberation movements.

Bourgeois ideologists attack with special venom the ideas of Marxism-Leninism on the inevitable downfall of capitalism and the equally inevitable triumph of socialism throughout the world. They spare no efforts in trying to disprove the fact that the transition from capitalism to socialism constitutes the sum and substance of the modern epoch. They try to assure people that history is not moving towards the collapse of capitalism and the triumph of socialism but rather towards their ``convergence''. 26 In order to give substance to this idea of the growing " convergence" of the two opposite socio-economic systems, of the ``erosion'', ``regeneration'' and ``liberalisation'' of socialism, the apologists of imperialism set out, for example, to misrepresent the essence of the economic reforms now under way in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. They claim that they will result in the emergence of a hybrid society presumably combining the features of both socialism and capitalism. They pin their hopes particularly on the revisionists, who would like nothing better than to ``amend'' socialism by introducing into it some bourgeois principles---so as to create what they arc pleased to call "humanitarian socialism'', "one's own model of socialism'', and so forth.

Rejecting these bourgeois prognostications of ``convergence'', Marxists-Leninists start from the fact that antagonistic contradictions cannot be overcome through any sort of fusion and that the struggle between the two opposite systems is a law of present world development. This understanding of the historical perspective follows from an analysis of the real processes and objective trends of contemporary history. Imperialism is not becoming stronger, and its reactionary and aggressive character is not getting any less but increasing, and that is, perhaps, the best possible refutation of the twaddle about ``convergence''.

The protagonists of the bourgeois world invent sham-optimistic theories in order to present capitalism's future in a rosy light. The most fashionable thing today is to allude to the progress of science and technology, which, it is supposed, will lead to universal affluence. This being so, they maintain, everybody enjoys equal standards, exploitation is being abolished, class differences are being erased, the class struggle is being eliminated, and so the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society is no longer necessary!

However, the Leninist approach to modern imperialism and to the social consequences of scientific and technological progress under private enterprise dispels these illusions which bourgeois ideologists spread. Even a cursory glance at the wealthiest society of the bourgeois world, the United States, is enough to demonstrate how fabulous super profits accumulate at one pole of society, while a hand-to-mouth existence obtains at the other. The class struggle is mounting, not ebbing away.

The historic struggle of the forces of socialism, peace, democracy and national liberation against those of imperialism, reaction, neo-colonialism and war helps to increase the impact of 27 the ideas of Marxism-Leninism on the course of world events. The socialist world, and above all the Soviet Union as the largest socialist country setting an example of the consistent practical implementation of Marxist-Leninist theory, is the most dynamic force of the present day. It is no exaggeration to say that the world has now generally begun to develop at a faster rate both in terms of the social and national emancipation of people and in terms of scientific and technological progress and advances in the spheres of culture, education and health---and that all this was started off and has been mainly carried forward by the forces awakened and organised by the October Revolution, by Lenin's Party, and by the Soviet socialist state.

The world revolutionary process is limiting the sphere of imperialist domination more and more, undermining its foundations. But only socialist revolution in the capitalist countries can finally defeat imperialism.

The cohesion of all anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly forces requires that Communists should adopt flexible and principled tactics, overcome sectarian prejudices against various mass movements affected by reformist or ultra-radical sentiments, and show an ability to draw the people into active struggle against imperialism and to isolate rightist and leftist leaders steeped in anti-communism. The CPSU and other fraternal parties have fought, and continue to fight, on two fronts---against Right-wing opportunists and Left-wing adventurers. The battle against revisionists of all kinds follows from the laws of development of the class struggle and from the very essence of revolutionary theory.

Today, at this complex and decisive stage in the progress of mankind, Leninism remains the compass and lode star that can guide the peoples of the world to the only correct solutions to the urgent problems of history.

Marxism-Leninism is the unfailing weapon which Communists use against bourgeois ideology. Lenin was uncompromising towards alien ideological influences and the exponents of bourgeois mentality and morality. While he highly valued the cultural forces of the bourgeoisie, that is, the experts in the spheres of technology, science, literature and art, he castigated bourgeois intellectual conformers without mercy. It was not seldom that he gave some famous master of culture a dressing down for lapsing into middle-class conventionality.

Lenin's works firmly rebuffed the slavish worshippers of capitalism and bourgeois democracy who took anti-socialist 28 elements under their wing. We should take our example from Lenin and fight all reactionaries, ideological exponents of capitalism and denouncers of socialism as uncompromisingly as he did.

Lenin has left us a great theoretical legacy---an inexhaustible treasure-house of advanced ideas applicable to modern times. Lenin's immortal teachings have become a rousing banner and guide to action for millions of Soviet workers and workers in other socialist countries. They give inspiration to the peoples fighting for their national and social emancipation; and they arm working people with confidence in the triumph of peace and progress, in the ultimate victory of socialism and communism all over the world.

[29] __ALPHA_LVL1__ HOW LENIN DEVELOPED
THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARXISM __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction]

By A. F. OKULOV

With the name of Lenin is associated not only a radical turning-point in human history---the transition from capitalism to socialism---but also a new epoch in the development of Marxist philosophy.

Lenin's genius was marked by the extraordinary scope of his purview of the times, the versatility of his knowledge, and the profundity of his scientific analysis of the laws of historical development. A glance at his work in the sphere of philosophy amazes one by the wide range of his writings. His clear-sighted mind penetrated with equal boldness and sagacity into the past, the present and the future of peoples and states.

Lenin's contribution to the treasure-house of Marxist philosophy marks a new, Leninist stage in its development. His masterly works have been and remain a militant theoretical weapon of the CPSU and the entire world communist movement.

The main feature of Lenin's approach to philosophy is his elaboration of its problems in an indissoluble and organic unity with proletarian struggle. Lenin engaged in the science of philosophy not for any "purely scientific" motives but in order to equip the working class with dialectical and historical materialism---that essential and dependable weapon in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.

Replying to the opportunist leaders of the Second International, and revisionists of all hues, who paid little regard to the philosophical problems of the working class, Lenin wrote: "The controversy over the question as to what is philosophical materialism and why deviations from it are erroneous, dangerous and reactionary always has `a real and living connection' with `the 30 Marxist social and political trend'. . . . Only narrow-minded `realistic politicians' of reformism or anarchism can deny the `reality' of this = connection."^^1^^

This fundamental idea on the necessity of a connection between Marxist philosophy and the proletarian movement runs through all the activities of the Leninist party and is a powerful instrument of all Marxists in the ideological struggle of today.

Lenin's development of the philosophy of Marxism is a most extensive theme, with many facets. To show all the new features that he brought into the philosophy of Marxism calls for a great deal of collective work. In the present article, we have set ourselves a modest task---that of considering, in their general features, the philosophical problems that attracted the attention of Lenin as a philosopher.

__ALPHA_LVL2__ Lenin on the Materialist Conception of History

Like Marx, Lenin devoted a great deal of attention to questions of the materialist understanding of history. In his major works---The Development of Capitalism in Russia, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, The State and Revolution, to name some of them---he raised the Marxist theory of social development to a higher stage.

Lenin lived and worked in a new epoch, which differed significantly from the historical conditions in which Marxism and its philosophy appeared. In extending materialism to the sphere of social phenomena, Lenin provided a profound analysis of that epoch, and revealed its inherent features and the objective pattern of its development.

Already in his very earliest works, Lenin made a profound study of Russian capitalism and the classes of Russian society, i.e., the objective conditions that comprise the foundation of the materialist understanding of history. In his celebrated book The Development of Capitalism in Prussia, Lenin revealed that many facts of Russia's economic and social life were a manifestation of the general historical process. In the Preface to the first edition of this work, he wrote: "It is interesting to note how far the main features of this general process in Western Europe and in Russia are identical, notwithstanding the tremendous peculiarities of the latter, in both the economic and non-economic _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 75.

31 spheres."^^1^^ This conclusion was of tremendous theoretical and practical significance.

Lenin rejected the old Naroclnik concepts of the original development of Russian society. In his writings, he gave a profound analysis, from the positions of the Marxist understanding of history, of the socio-economic conditions of Russia, and showed the inevitability of that country's capitalist development. At the same time, in his consideration of the problem of the general and the particular in historical development, Lenin emphasised that "an independent elaboration of Marx's theory is especially essential for Russian socialists; for this theory provides only general guiding principles, which, in particular, are applied in England differently than in France, in France differently than in Germany, and in Germany differently than in = Russia".^^2^^ Together with the general laws of capitalism, he carefully studied certain specific features of Russian capitalism. He wrote that "in no single capitalist country has there been such an abundant survival of old institutions that are incompatible with capitalism, retard its development, and immeasurably worsen the condition of the producers, who `suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that develop- ment'.''^^3^^

In his all-round analysis of the social and economic structure of Russia, the alignment of classes, and the objective content of the class struggle in the country, Lenin pointed to the decisive role of the Russian working class and all working people in the coming revolution. Lenin's main idea was that only a knowledge of the basic features of the new epoch as a whole could be the foundation for an assessment of the more detailed features of the historical process in one country or another.

His profound knowledge of the laws of capitalist development in the epoch of imperialism and of certain specific features of Russian capitalism, and his knowledge of the dialectics of their development enabled Lenin to uncover the pattern and the motive forces of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the epoch of imperialism, and the law-governed development of the bourgeois revolution into the socialist revolution, to show the guiding role of the proletariat and its Party in the _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, = Collected Works, Vol. 3, p. 27.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 212.

~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 599.

32 revolution, and to determine the Party's strategy and tactics. The conclusions he arrived at have all become part of the arsenal of Marxist theory and to this day have retained all their significance. Without them, present-day Marxism does not, and cannot, exist.

Lenin investigated the development of world capitalism with the same thoroughness. His masterly work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism revealed the basic features inherent in the new, imperialist stage in the development of capitalism. Lenin's doctrine of imperialism as the final stage of capitalism has been fully borne out in practice and is the international ideological weapon of the Communist and Workers' Parties and of the world revolutionary movement.

On the basis of his Marxist analysis of imperialism, Lenin showed that the law of uneven development acquires a decisive significance and is the key to an understanding of the specific nature of the new epoch. The uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries under imperialism conditions the time---difference in the revolutions in various countries. Hence follows Lenin's bold conclusion of the impossibility of socialism being triumphant simultaneously in all capitalist countries, as well as his conclusion as to the possibility of socialism being triumphant first in a few countries, or even in a single one. Only a precise appraisal of history's distinctive features, the ability to apply theoretical propositions to a historical situation, and a knowledge of the way general laws reveal themselves in concrete conditions made possible so great a discovery, which posed in an entirely new way the question of the prospects of the world socialist revolution.

Lenin approached the analysis of the premises of the proletarian revolution as a great representative of creative Marxism. In the epoch of imperialism, he said, an analysis of the premises of the proletarian revolution in a country cannot be approached only from the angle of that country's economic development. On the basis of an all-round study of the world economy and of the objective development of contradictions of the world system of imperialism, Lenin evolved the doctrine of the weak link in the chain of imperialism. Prior to Lenin, the question of where a revolution can begin and where the front of capital can be first pierced, usually evoked from the leaders of the Second International the reply that this would take place where industrial development was most advanced, where the proletariat formed the majority of the population, where culture and democracy were most developed, and so on.

__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---1974 33

Despite the reformists' assertions, the Leninist theory of revolution showed---and this has been confirmed by life---that the front of eapital is broken where the chain of imperialism is weaker; consequently, it may happen that a country which has begun the revolution and broken the front of capital may be less developed economically than other and more developed countries, which, nevertheless, still remain within the framework of capitalism. This spelled the inevitability of an entire period of history, in which individual countries will break away from the system of imperialism and take the road of socialism. Lenin foresaw, in its general features, the course of the further historical development during the world-wide transition from capitalism to socialism. The materialist understanding of history was given fresh development in Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution. It deepened and gave practical implementation to Marxist ideas on the dictatorship of the proletariat and the guiding role of a Marxist party, and mapped out the fundamental problems of the construction of a socialist society.

Lenin resolutely rejected the outworn dogmas of the reformists of the Second International and of the Russian Mensheviks regarding the prospects of the Russian revolution. In a profoundly dialectical spirit he revealed the objective and subjective factors in the Russian revolution. On the one hand, he pointed out, Russia was then economically backward, but on the other, she stood far ahead in the degree of her political maturity, since she had the world's most revolutionary proletariat, which was guided by a Marxist party.

This contradiction was considered irresolvable by the Menshevik doctrinaires. Replying to them, Lenin wrote: ``.~.~. it would be a fatal mistake to declare that since there is a discrepancy between our economic 'forces' and our political strength, it 'follows' that we should not have seized power. Such an argument can be advanced only by a 'man in a muffler', who forgets that there will always be such a 'discrepancy', that it always exists in the development of nature as well as in the development of society, that only by a series of attempts---each of which, taken by itself, will be one-sided and will suffer from certain inconsistencies---will complete socialism be created by the revolutionary co-operation of the proletarians of all countries.''^^1^^

_-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 345--46.

34

Lenin stressed that contradictions arc the foundation of the appearance and development of revolutions. There was nothing surprising or improbable in the proletarian dictatorship revealing in the first place the ``contradiction'' between Russia's backwardness and her ``leap'' over bourgeois democracy. On the contrary, there can be no victory for the socialist revolution otherwise than through contradictions and by means of contradictions. "It would have been surprising had history granted us the establishment of a ?iew form of democracy without a number of = contradictions."^^1^^

These ideas were later given more concrete shape in many of Lenin's writings and speeches after the October Revolution. "History,'' he wrote, "is moving in xigzags and by roundabout ways."^^2^^ He carefully traced the zigzag course of history in the example both of the Russian and of the world revolutionary movement. He gave a negative reply to the question of the probability of the smooth or harmoniously proportional transition of various capitalist countries to the dictatorship of the proletariat, to socialism. There has never been and there cannot be smoothness, harmoniousness or proportionality in bourgeois society. World history is advancing unswervingly towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin wrote, but that advance is along roads that are far from direct, smooth or simple. There may be setbacks, errors and forced retreats but no growing pains or temporary victories of the old world can check the general advance of history, despite all zigzags.

Lenin flayed the opportunist pedants who are incapable of understanding this dialectic of development. "A revolutionary would not 'agree' to a proletarian revolution only 'on the condition' that it proceeds easily and smoothly, that there is, from the outset, combined action on the part of the proletarians of different countries, that there are guarantees against defeats, that the road of the revolution is broad, free and straight, that it will not be necessary during the march to victory to sustain the heaviest casualties, to 'bide one's time in a besieged fortress', or to make one's way along extremely narrow, impassable, winding and dangerous mountain tracks. Such a person is no revolutionary, he has not freed himself from the pedantry of the bourgeois intellectuals; such a person will be found _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 308

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 163.

__PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35 constantly slipping into the camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie. . . ."^^1^^

In Lenin's works, a special place is held by an analysis of problems of the Marxist understanding of the subjective factor in the development of society, i.e., of the role of human consciousness and organisation, will power and energy. Here, too, the new epoch confronted Marxist theory with new problems which called for clear answers. It is common knowledge that the period that Marx and Engels lived in was, in the main, one of the maturing of the objective preconditions for the revolution. In the epoch of imperialism, the objective necessity of the revolution has become manifest, so that the degree of the maturity of the subjective factor has acquired particular significance for the destiny of the revolution.

In his works Lenin scathingly criticised both subjective-- idealist conceptions and vulgar ``economic'' materialism, and the theory of ``spontaneity'' in all its varieties. The policy of a revolutionary party, Lenin showed, can be successful only when it is based on a correct understanding of the relation between the objective conditions and the subjective factor and if that policy recognises the determining significance of the objective conditions while at the same time taking stock of the vast role of the subjective factor which, given the objective conditions, can play a decisive part in the realisation of historically mature transformations.

Lenin attached great importance to such elements of the subjective factor as the consciousness, purposefulncss, enthusiasm, and the creative initiative and organisation of the masses in the process of historical action. The proletariat becomes a powerful historical force, not only because of its class-- consciousness but also as a result of its organisation, because it is guided by a Marxist party, which is the leading element of the subjective factor, the most important instrument and form of the historical process.

Beginning with his book What the "Uriends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, and ending with one of his last articles "On Our Revolution'', Lenin made a thorough study of this problem. He emphasised those features and aspects of the subjective factor which had acquired primary significance in connection with the task of the proletariat in the new epoch---that of the struggle for the triumph of the socialist _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 68.

36 revolution. I,cum gave a proloundlv scientific substantiation of the role of the masses, classes, parties and leaders in social development and the class struggle.

In doing so, Lenin paid particular attention to an analysis of the influence exerted by the development of capitalism, in the epoch of imperialism, on the working-class movement and its organisations. 1 fe revealed the direct link between imperialism and opportunism. In his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism he wrote the following:

"The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists . . . makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the = others."^^1^^

Lenin gave a profound analysis of the reasons for the lengthy domination of opportunists in a number of countries, revealed the essence of their treachery, and defined the tasks of the Marxist parties in the struggle against opportunism. As far back as the end of the last century, he scathingly criticised the first attempts of the revisionists---Bernstein and his Russian fellow-- thinkers---to emasculate the revolutionary content of the Marxist theory and distract the working class from the revolutionary road to that of reconciliation with the bourgeoisie. In his struggle against the subjective sociology of Narodism, against the neo-- Kantian philosophy that had become the theoretical foundation of "legal Marxism" and against the philosophical revisionism of the Second International, Lenin provided answers to the fundamental problems of the materialist understanding of history, which was of primary importance to the revolutionary working-- class movement.

To the doctrinaire schemes of the opportunist leaders of the Second International Lenin contraposcd the living and concrete reality of the world revolutionary process. He emphasised time and again that there is no abstract truth and that the essence of Marxism lies in a concrete scientific analysis of a definite situation. Lie severely strictured those whose conclusions were built only on abstract possibilities and were divorced from revolutionary practice. "Marxism,'' he wrote, "takes its stand on facts, and not on possibilities. . . .'' "One must distinguish the possible from the = actual."^^2^^ The viewpoint _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid, Vol. 22, p. 301.

~^^2^^ Ibid, Vol. 35, p. 242.

37 of life, of practice, should he the primary viewpoint if we wish to cognise actual processes and adopt correct decisions.

Lenin gave a rich content to the concept of concreteness. Concretcness means an appraisal of the process of development, thoroughness of investigation, flexibility of concepts and so on. A study of all aspects, all links and mediations in an object is one of the most important demands presented by the method of Leninism. In his article, "Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism'', Lenin laid special stress on the links between the historical development of Marxism and the conditions of the time, the social set-up, and the definite tasks of the epoch.

"...The aims of immediate and direct action changed very sharply during this period,'' he wrote, "just as the actual social and political situation changed, and consequently, since Marxism is a living doctrine, various aspects of it were bound to become prominent".^^1^^

Lenin gained the upper hand in the struggle against reformism because he contraposccl genuine Marxism, i.e., creative Marxism, to the dogmatism and pedantry of the pseudo-Marxists. His works vividly illustrate a creative approach to theory and practice. They do not contain the least trace of the stereotype or the doctrinaire.

"To seek out, investigate, predict, and grasp that which is nationally specific and nationally distinctive, in the concrete, manner in which each country should tackle a single international task: victory over opportunism and Left doctrinairism within the working-class movement; the overthrow of the bourgeoisie; the establishment of a Soviet republic and a proletarian dictatorship ---such is the basic task in the historical period that all the advanced countries (and not they alone) arc going = through,"^^2^^ he wrote in 1920.

In emphasising the need for a flexible and dialectical approach to tactics, Lenin pointed out that the history of revolution is always richer in content, more varied, more living and more complex than is imagined by the finest parties and the most conscious vanguards of the most advanced classes. That is why the task of Party organisations and Party leaders consists---this in the course of lengthy, industrious, and varied work---in developing the necessary knowledge and gaining the necessary _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, = Collected Works, Vol. 17, pp. 39--40.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 92.

38 experience and the political instinct for a solution of complex political questions.

He taught Communists to learn to use all forms of struggle and be prepared for the most rapid and unexpected shifts in those forms. If this condition is ignored, he emphasised, the Communist Parties may suffer serious reverses, should the new historical conditions call for a rapid transition to new tactics.

Docs not contemporary history provide instances of some, even big and experienced working-class parties, which for many years have overestimated peaceful and parliamentarian forms of struggle against capitalism, proving unprepared for serious clashes with the ruling classes at times of deep crises of bourgeois society?

Lenin compared the activities of a workers' party with those of a well-organised army. That organisation is good, he said, because it is flexible, while at the same time instilling a single will in millions of people.

All of Lenin's works dealing with problems of the materialist understanding of history arc marked by their having been built on the firm foundation of Marxism. In these writings Lenin developed and gave concrete shape to all the components of Marxism---philosophy, political economy and scientific communism. Lenin's analysis of the new epoch, the conditions and the motive forces of the revolution, was grounded in a totality of knowledge and revolutionary practice, this making it possible for him to investigate the most complex and contradictory phenomena in the economic and social life of the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The Marxists, Lenin pointed out, were the first socialists to raise the question of the need to analyse all aspects of the life of society, not only the economic. By pursuing a science---grounded policy based on a knowledge of the dialectics of the objective historical process, a Marxist party is able to exert a tremendous influence on the historical process.

In his writings after the October Revolution, Lenin made a vast contribution to the materialist conception of history. Despite the heavy pressure of state and Party affairs, Lenin continued his profound and all-round elaboration of the materialist understanding of history. He developed the theory of the socialist revolution and the Marxist doctrine of the construction of socialism and communism, the role of the masses, classes and the class struggle during the transition from capitalism to socialism, and further elaborated the Communist Party's policies 39 on the national question. For the first time in Marxist literature, he defined the essence of the cultural revolution and revealed the pattern of its development, the ways in which the scientific world outlook and the morals of the builders of socialism are shaped. He showed the growing role of consciousness of people in the creation and development of the new social system, the way in which the retardedncss of social consciousness from social being can be eliminated, and the methods of struggle for the victory of socialist ideology over bourgeois ideology.

On the basis of a profound dialectical materialist analysis of the general crisis of the capitalist system, Lenin revealed the essence and prospects of the world revolutionary process in the new era and developed the philosophical foundations of the strategy and tactics of the world communist movement. He showed that the world vsocialist revolution takes shape from processes differing in nature and time---from purely proletarian revolutions, revolutions of the bourgeois-democratic type which grow into socialist revolutions, and from those of the national liberation type. He foresaw that "the morrow of world history will be a day when the awakening peoples oppressed by imperialism arc finally aroused and the decisive long and hard struggle for their liberation = begins".^^1^^

In his post-revolutionary appraisal of this great and many-- faceted revolutionary process and its prospects, Lenin provided a theoretical substantiation of the roads and the laws of the development of national liberation movements. He considered them, not as isolated phenomena, but as part of a single world revolutionary process, emphasising that the national liberation movement can achieve success only if it acts in a united front of all revolutionary forces fighting against imperialism.

From Lenin's works we see that every big step in historical development was accompanied by his elaboration of the major problems of the materialist conception of history. Lenin proceeded from society's economic and social structure being characterised by changes without an understanding of which not a single step can be made in any field of social activity. The dialectics of historical development can be understood only on the basis of Marxist dialectics, the theory and the doctrine of development.

_-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 611.

40 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Lenin on Problems of Dialectics

Materialist dialectics is the living soul of Marxism, its theoretical foundation, Lenin said. In his article on the Marx-- Engels correspondence, Lenin wrote that a most important, timely and masterly step forward in the history of revolutionary thought was taken when Marx and Engels applied materialist dialectics to all fields of knowledge---to a re-fashioning of political economy, to philosophy, the natural sciences, and the politics and tactics of the working class. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin was a great master of revolutionary dialectics. Such of his works as What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, What Is To Be, Done?, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Philosophical Notebooks and On the Significance of Militant Materialism are models of the application of the dialectical method to the most varied questions of theory and practice, models of its further development.

The irresistible attraction of Lenin's works on dialectics comes from many factors: first, their innovatory and exploratory spirit, as well as the anti-dogmatism of Lenin's thinking, his implacable hostility to conservatism in the field of thought, to routine, and quasi-revolutionary phrase-mongering. Second, in his analysis of the facts, Lenin always tried to grasp them in all their complexity, variety and plentitudc. Anybody familiar with the writings of Lenin is aware of the tremendous importance he attached to dialectics being "living, many-sided knowledge (with the number of sides eternally increasing), with an infinite number of shades of every approach and approximation to = reality.~.~.''.^^1^^ As Academician V. Adoratsky once pointed out, "it stands to the tremendous credit of Lenin that he saved dialectics from the simplification, vulgarisation and conversion into sophistry, which characterise the renegades of the Second International---Kautsky, Vanderveldc, Otto Bauer and the like---and restored it to its condition under = Marx."^^2^^

Lenin saw the unbreakable link between dialectics and the proletariat's revolutionary struggle and considered Marxist dialectics a means of precise orientation in the actual historical process. From the outset of his revolutionary activities, he showed a tremendous interest in problems of dialectics, an _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 38, p. 362.

~^^2^^ V.~Adoratsky, = Selected Works, Russ. ed., Moscow, 1961, p. 479.

41 interest stemming from the fact that the era of revolutionary storms and upheavals, the exacerbation of all the contradictions of capitalism, and the rapid advances in science and social life called, as never before, for flexible and dialectical thinking. Lenin devoted several years (1913--16) to a study of the writings of Aristotle, Hcraclitus, Leibnitz, Hegel and Feuerbach, so as to write a work on dialectics, based on a critical inquiry into the entire history of knowledge. To extract the main content from the history of human thought in the realms of philosophy, natural science and technology; to sum up both the course and the outcome of the development of that thought; to find the way to a creative elaboration of Marxist dialectics---such was the aim pursued by Lenin in his study of the history of dialectics, as well as his behest to all Marxists. He approached the science of thinking as a science of the historical development of human knowledge. "Continuation of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in the dialectical elaboration of the history of human thought, science and technique."^^1^^

Lenin's development of Marxist dialectics went hand in hand with a criticism of the opponents of dialectical materialism. He wrote Materialism and Empirio-criticism at a time when Marxism was going through a grave crisis in a number of countries. Following in the footsteps of Bernstein, Konrad Schmidt and others like them, the opportunist ``theorists'' of the working-class movement called for a return to Kant, to the subjective-idealist philosophy of Machism. "Through the medium of Machism,'' Lenin pointed out, "downright philosophical reactionaries and preachers of fideism are palmed off on the workers as = teachers!'',^^2^^ this by the lackeys of the bourgeoisie. Amazing in the range of problems dealt with, the vast amount of factual material used, and its profound criticism of the philosophical ideas harboured by the enemy, this work of Lenin's comprised an era in the development of Marxist thought.

In Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin gave prominence to questions of the theory of knowledge, to cognition as a whole, and to the application of dialectics to the theory of knowledge. To empirio-criticism he contraposed dialectical materialism in the entire range of cpistemological questions, and _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, = Collected Works, Vol. 38, pp. 146--47.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 14, p. 220.

42 provided solutions to the major problems of cognition posed by the development of science and the new historical conditions of the life of society.

On the foundations of the advances in the natural sciences, Lenin gave concrete shape and further development to the basic propositions of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism---cognition as a reflection of the objective material world, the laws of reflection and the forms of the reflection of reality. In his analysis of the facts presented by science and his summing up of the experience gained in the struggle of the working class, he gave exhaustive substantiation to the dialectical-materialist doctrine of absolute and relative objective truth, the role of practice as a criterion of truth, and many other problems of importance to the development of dialectics.

The Machists, who gave an idealist interpretation to the new discoveries in natural science, tried to use those discoveries in their struggle against Marxist philosophical materialism, especially the doctrine of matter, which is of such fundamental significance to dialectical materialism's theory of knowledge. Lenin demonstrated the groundlessness of Machist talk about the ``obsoleteness'' of the concept of matter. He showed that, from the viewpoint of dialectical materialism, the discovery of new forms of the motion and the existence of matter testifies, not to the disappearance of matter, but to the limits of our knowledge of matter up to the present. Lenin's development of the concept of matter as a philosophical category signifying objective reality as given to man through his sensations, was a major contribution to dialectical materialism's theory of knowledge.

Lenin's theory of knowledge is grounded in three vital epistemological conclusions: the objective existence of reality, its cognizability, and the dialectical approach to a study of the very process of cognition.

In developing the philosophical problems of the theory of knowledge, Lenin systcmatisccl his theory of reflection as the kernel of the cpistemology of dialectical materialism. He substantiated the vital proposition that reflection is a universal property of matter, that it is not a mechanical process of mirror-- like reflection, but a complex and contradictory process, which begins at the level of sensation and ascends to abstract thinking, reflecting, in terms of concepts, objective reality in all its variety. He showed that the reflection of nature in human thought should be understood, not in a ``dead'' or ``abstract'' 43 manner, without motion of contradictions, but as an eternal process of motion, the appearance of contradictions and their resolution.

Lenin revealed the dialectico-materialist understanding of the interrelation between the object and subject of cognition. This is most noteworthy because, to this day, certain enemies of Marxism assert that the Leninist theory of reflection ascribes to the subject a passive role in cognition. Lenin showed not only man's dependence on the world about him, but also the essence of his active, creative and transforming attitude to nature and to social life. From this active and creative nature of the mind as a specifically human form of the reflection of objective reality, the conclusion necessarily follows that, in his actions and behaviour, man docs not only depend on external circumstances, but himself actively changes those circumstances. The process of cognition and of man's transformation of the world is at the same time also a process of his realising the objective necessity to implement his freedom in one measure or another, a freedom which consists, not in man's abstract possibility of standing above reality and dictating his laws to it, but in concrete activities in accordance with the cognised objective laws of nature and society.

In Materialism and Empirio-criticisrn, Lenin developed the theory of truth, which is a most important problem in the theory of knowledge. It is common knowledge that the question of whether truth is objective or subjective is a fundamental one, on whose solution there is no agreement among adherents of various trends in philosophy. The Machists asserted that objective truth docs not exist, that truth is subjective and conventional. To the Machists any recognition of the relativity of our knowledge precluded the least acknowledgement of absolute truth. In criticising the pseudo-scientific views held by the Machists on this question, Lenin showed the dialectical relation between absolute and relative objective truth.

From the viewpoint of present-day materialism, i.e., Marxism, Lenin wrote, the limits of our knowledge's approach to absolute objective truth are historically conditioned, but the existence of that truth and our approach towards it arc indubitable. The outlines of the picture are historically conditional but what is indubitable is that this picture depicts an objectively existing model.

"In a word, every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, 44 for instance, from religious ideology) there corresponds an objective truth, absolute = nature."^^1^^

By giving a profoundly Marxist interpretation to the dialectics of absolute and relative truth, Lenin dealt a crushing blow, on the one hand, at dogmatism, which regards our mind as something immutable and absolute, and, on the other hand, at scepticism, which has no faith in human knowledge. Human knowledge, according to Lenin, develops from non-knowledge to knowledge, from less complete towards more complete knowledge. Every stage in the development of science, in the individual's practical activities, and in the development of mankind's collective knowledge adds more and more new grains to the sum total of knowledge and concepts of the laws of the development of nature and society. Lenin saw the very essence of knowledge in the advance of scientific cognition, in its historicity. He pointed out that a denial of objective truth is the main vice of the epistemology of empirio-criticism, pragmatism and neo-Kantianism. As we know, this is also a characteristic feature of many present-day trends in bourgeois philosophical thinking, in which cognitive activity is regarded as something subjective and taking place outside and independently of objective factors.

The theory of truth formulated by dialectical materialism, a theory developed by Lenin in all its aspects, is of tremendous importance to present-day science, as it is the theoretical foundation of all its methodological problems. Every step in the development of science bears the correctness of Lenin's words that "by following the path of Marxian theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); but by following any other path we shall arrive at nothing but confusion and = lies".^^2^^

In advancing the Marxist theory of knowledge, Lenin analysed numerous problems stemming from a deep understanding of the revolution in the natural sciences that began at the turn of the present century. The great discoveries in physics not only affected the empirical data amassed by natural science, but radically posed the problem of the very theoretical foundations of natural science. The crisis in physics created a sharp bifurcation in science between the two hostile currents---materialism and idealism. At the time, idealist philosophy attempted to reply in its own fashion to the philosophical questions raised by the new physics.

_-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 136.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 143.

45

In Malcr'ialhin and fciiipirio-criticism, Lenin summarised, in the spirit of materialism, all the major and basic advances made in science, primarily in natural science in the late igth and early 2oth centuries. He characterised as a new revolution in science the tremendous discoveries made in the sphere of natural science. The discovery of the electron, Roentgen rays, the radioactivity of disintegration, and the complex structure of the atom led to a collapse of the mechanistic viewpoint, which saw matter as consisting of absolutely immutable atoms possessing an invariable mass and moving according to the laws of mechanics.

Lenin showed that the new discoveries in physics in no way contradict Marxist philosophy. On the contrary, they confirm most convincingly the correctness of the Marxist doctrine of the unity of matter and motion, the infinite complexity of the structure of matter and the absence of any limit to its divisibility. The Machists' attempts to prove the "disappearance of matter'', Lenin said, stemmed from their ignorance of dialectical materialism. Captives of the dominant ideology and politics, bourgeois physicists proved unable to understand and explain, in terms of materialism, the new discoveries in physics.

The new discoveries in natural science, Lenin wrote, signified, not an "all-round rout of the principles" of physics, as the idealist physicists were proclaiming from the roof-tops, but a smashing of the metaphysical conceptions which many natural scientists had held eternal and immutable. In his analysis of "the latest revolution in natural science" Lenin arrived at the well-known conclusion that "modern physics is in travail; it is giving birth to dialectical = materialism".^^1^^

Lenin gave a profound analysis of the causes engendering the ``physical'' idealism that had led the natural sciences into a dead end. The overall social cause was the "reaction all along the line"---in the economy, politics and ideology---characteristic of the capitalist states in the epoch of imperialism. But ``physical'' idealism also had epistemological roots---causes which derive from certain specific features in the process of cognition, and in the development of science itself. The first cause lay in an erroneous interpretation by idealist philosophers of the mounting role of mathematics in the study of nature. The second cause was their failure to grasp the compatibility of the relativity of scientific knowledge ``(the principle of relativism'') witli _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin. Collected Wurks, Vol. 14, p. 313.

46 recognition of the objective truth that relative knowledge contains elements of absolute truth.

In revealing the contradiction between the new discoveries in physics and the old theoretical conceptions, Lenin showed that the fundamental question can be formulated as follows: is the electron an objective reality? Docs it exist outside and independently of human consciousness?

"The scientists,'' Lenin wrote, "will also have to answer this question unhesitatingly; and they do invariably answer it in the alfir/nativc, just as they unhesitatingly recognise that nature existed prior to man and prior to organic matter. Thus, the question is decided in favour of = materialism.~.~.~."^^1^^

Lenin also replied to another fundamental question of natural science: does there exist "a finite and immutable essence of things" to which all phenomena in nature should be reduced? He showed that, far from the electron being the finite and immutable essence, that kind of essence does not exist in nature in general. "The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom, nature is infinite.~.~.~."^^2^^

This proposition is of tremendous methodological importance in the resolution of fundamental problems in present-day science, and has been convincingly confirmed by the ever greater penetration of physics into the microworld.

In his consideration of the general development of natural science, Lenin arrived at a conclusion of tremendous theoretical and practical importance: not only docs natural science fortify materialism but it is unswervingly advancing to an immeasurably higher and more consistent form of materialism-dialectical materialism. Already in the conditions of bourgeois society, he pointed out, natural science had made the first steps from metaphysical materialism to dialectical materialism. At the same time Lenin said, science in bourgeois society "...is advancing towards the only true method and the only true philosophy of natural science not directly, but by zigzags, not consciously but instinctively, not clearly perceiving its 'final goal', but drawing closer to it gropingly, unsteadily, and sometimes even with its back turned to = it".^^3^^

Despite every kind of idealist speculation, the very experience of natural science has convincingly shown that science finds in _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 261.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 262.

~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 313.

47 dialectical materialism replies to the most complex questions of philosophy. Any nonchalance shown by natural scientists towards philosophical problems, any ignoring of overall problems ot world outlook, contradicts the interests of present-day science, since natural science is developing so impetuously and is witnessing such a revolutionary smashing of the old concepts in all spheres that it cannot do without philosophical conclusions. For the correct conclusions to be arrived at and to avoid any yielding to bourgeois ideology, it is not enough to stand on materialist positions, without attending to their philosophical foundations. As Lenin pointed out, "no natural science and no materialism can hold its own in the struggle against the onslaught of bourgeois ideas and the restoration of the bourgeois world outlook unless it stands on solid philosophical ground. In order to hold his own in this struggle and carry it to a victorious finish, the natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical = materialist."^^1^^

Of tremendous importance to the development of Marxist dialectics were such works by Lenin as "The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism" and "Karl Marx''. In them Lenin showed that Marxism was the lawful successor to everything that had been created by all previous philosophy, and that the Hegelian dialectics as the most universal, profound and rich doctrine of development were considered by Marx and Engels the greatest advance in 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."^^2^^

In these works Lenin laid special emphasis on dialectics as a science of the general laws of motion both in the world about us and in human thinking, on the unity of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. These works pay special attention to a system of categories in dialectics. In his article, "Karl Marx'', in which he gave a most clearcut formulation of some features of dialectics, Lenin wrote: "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 negation'), a _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, = Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 233.

~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 53.

48 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."^^1^^

The variety of features, aspects, elements and categories of dialectics as the most profound doctrine of development forms the main content of Lenin's Philosophical = Notebooks,^^2^^ which were an organic sequel to his main work on phi[osophy-Alaterialis/» and K/npirio-criticism. Lenin convincingly showed that schematism and dogmatism are alien to dialectics. Expressing the most general laws of any development, it calls for a concrete analysis of the boundless wealth of forms in which concrete reality manifests itself.

He formulated and substantiated in every aspect the fundamental proposition that the doctrine of the unity of opposites is the essence, the kernel, of dialectics.

In determining the law of the unity and struggle of opposites as the fundamental law of the development of the objective world and its cognition, Lenin studied and characterised the new types of contradictions in the epoch of imperialism, and the new types of the transformation of opposites into each other, of transitions of some phenomena into others. The struggle of opposites, the appearance and resolution of contradictions, as Lenin pointed out, are the source of the continuous development of the material world and a condition of its progress.

Lenin came out resolutely against the attempts made by the Second International's opportunist leaders to ``purge'' life of contradictions and struggle. He showed that there exist two mutually opposed concepts of development---the metaphysical and the dialectical. In his Philosophical Notebooks he wrote: _-_-_

~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 54.

~^^2^^ The Philosophical Notebooks = contain precis of the works of Marx and I-ngcls, 1'cuerbach, Hegel and Aristotle; notes on books, articles and reviews; marginal notes in numerous works of philosophers and natural scientists; excerpts which set forth Lenin's ideas = (see Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 38).

__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---1974 49
"The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) arc: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).

"In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external-God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of `self'-movement.

"The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the `self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps', to the 'break in continuity', to the `transformation into the opposite', to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new."^^1^^

Of major significance to the development of the very essence of dialectics is that section in Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks which deals with sixteen elements of dialectics, and reveals in laconic but most profound terms all the wealth and the many-- sidedness of the relations between things and processes. The process of cognition, as Lenin shows, comprises a vast range of shades and a boundless wealth of content. The wealth and the complexity of the cognition of the world call for a creative development of a system of categories of dialectics that will make it possible in the greatest degree to reflect, in the dialectic of concepts, the dialectic of things.

Lenin's interest in the development of dialectical materialism was maintained after the October Revolution. The new period of history that set in after the triumph of the October Socialist Revolution confronted Marxist-Leninist philosophy with a number of practical and theoretical problems whose solution was of vast significance for the transition from capitalism to socialism. In the new conditions, special importance attached to a concrete analysis of social contradictions and to the problem of their specific nature, types and forms, of fundamental and non-- fundamental, internal and external, antagonistic and non-- antagonistic contradictions. Lenin devoted particular attention to the distinction between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, emphasising the historically transient character of antagonism as a type of contradiction. Lenin was the author of _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, C.iillffli-tl \Vnrk.<, Vol. jS, p. }ho.

50 the celebrated formula that "antagonism and contradiction arc not one and the same thing. The former will disappear, while the latter will remain under = socialism.''^^1^^

A correct theoretical solution of this problem was of vital importance for an understanding of the alignment of class forces during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. As is common knowledge, both antagonistic and non-- antagonistic contradictions existed in the country at the time. The former contradictions were connected with the relations between the working class and other working people, on the one hand, and, on the other, the bourgeoisie, including the kulaks. It was a question of one side or the other gaining the victory. The non-antagonistic contradictions between the working class and the peasantry were of a quite different nature. Here there was no irreconcilable hostility, and joint interests were predominant. Such contradictions are resolved, not by taking them to extremes but, as Lenin pointed out, through a struggle of a specific kind, the gradual resolution of contradictions.

Lenin's works provided a profound analysis of the nature and forms of the transition from the old qualitative condition to a new one. He did not link this transition with any monovalence. On the contrary, Lenin showed that the transition from the old to the new could take place in various ways and in different forms, this depending on the concrete conditions of development. "It is the type of problem that general formulas, the general provisions of a programme, and general communist principles cannot cope with, but which requires that the specific features of the transition from capitalism to communism be taken into consideration.~.~.~."^^2^^

Lenin's propositions on the interrelation between reforms and revolution in various historical conditions are a vivid example of creative and flexible application and development of Marxist dialectics. Until the revolution is victorious, he pointed out, reforms are a by-product of the proletariat's class struggle. The proletariat's attitude towards reforms must change following its victory even in a single country. Lenin taught the Party to soberly verify in which conditions revolutionary action must be taken, and at what moment the method of "cautious evasion" should be used in fundamental questions of economic construction. In _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin Miscellany XI, Unss. c-cl., p. 3

~^^2^^ Lenin, Collected W'urk.s, Vol. 30, p.

51 his article "The Importance of Gold Now and After the Complete Victory of Socialism" Lenin showed that the concept of ``reforms'' after the victory of the revolution acquires a different quality, distinct from its content under capitalism.

A keen insight into the complex and contradictors process is characteristic of Lenin's analysis of the new economic policy, and of the existence of many economic sectors in the country at the time, the role of trade and the trade unions, and many other major problems, on whose correct solution the fate of the Soviets depended. Lenin came out strongly against those who by momentum continued to use many concepts and categories of dialectics without due account of the new situation. In his article "Once Again on the Trade LInions'', he contrasted to the dogmatically abstract and eclectic arguments of Trotsky and Bukharin concrete dialectical solutions of the problem of the place and role of the trade unions under capitalism and in the system of proletarian dictatorship.

The discussion on the trade unions which the Trotskyitcs imposed upon the Party and which took place between November 1920 and March 1921 turned into a discussion on many vital problems of dialectics and logic, and the operation of the laws of dialectics in the new conditions. In his annihilating criticism of the eclecticism and sophistry of Trotsky and Bukharin, Lenin elaborated, in a creative spirit, the most vital principles of Marxist dialectics, gave a classical definition of the latter, and showed the distinction between dialectical and formal logic.

"Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go, with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops there. When two or more different definitions are taken and combined at random . . . the result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different facets of the object, and nothing more.

"Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in `self-movement'. . . . Thirdly, a full 'definition' of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical 52 logic holds that 'truth is always concrete, never = abstract'.~.~.~.''^^1^^ These most important propositions became the foundation of the further elaboration of Marxist dialectical logic.

In his programmatic article "On the Significance of Militant Materialism'', Lenin developed dialectical materialism in a most thorough way, again giving consideration to the question he had previously raised in his Philosophical Notebooks regarding the necessity of a materialistic re-appraisal of Hegel's dialectics. Marxist philosophers, he wrote, should organise a systematic study of the Hegelian dialectics from the materialist viewpoint, i.e., the dialectics so successfully applied in practice by Marx in Capital and his historical and political writings. Pointing out that the dialectical method is a most important instrument in the cognition and changing of the world, Lenin called upon philosophers to elaborate dialectics from all angles, and to comment on it, using facts taken from economic and political relations and from the practice of the revolution, recent history and the like.

In their struggle against the present-day enemies of Marxism, against revisionist and Leftist trends, the Communist and Workers' Parties have based themselves on the great heritage of Lenin. The Declaration of the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties of 1957 pointed out that dialectical materialism is the theoretical foundation of Marxism-Leninism. This world.outlook reflects the universal law of the development of nature, society and human thought; it is applicable to the past, the present, and the future.

Why is it that only dialectical materialism can be the philosophical foundation of the Communist and Workers' Parties? It is because the working class can change the world only if it grounds itself on a knowledge and due account of the laws of social development. An idealist philosophy cannot express the essence of the world. Idealism disorientates people; it cannot show the working people the real roads of change in the existing position in the capitalist countries. Dialectical materialism is indeed the integral scientific world outlook of our times. All branches of knowledge and all scientific achievements in the study of nature and society are theoretically generalised in dialectical materialism, in Marxist-Leninist philosophy as the advanced philosophy of our times. Dialectical materialism helps the party of the proletariat to set the tasks and determine the strategy and tactics of the class struggle on the foundation of a _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Cull,; l,;l \VurU. Vol. 52, pp. 95--94.

53 sober and all-round appraisal of the concrete historical conditions. "The fundamental task of proletarian tactics was defined by Marx in strict conformity with all the postulates of his materialist-dialectical = Weltanschauung."^^1^^

__ALPHA_LVL2__ Lenin on the History of Philosophy

Lenin did a vast amount of work on the study and elaboration of the history of Marxist philosophy. In his writings he advanced fundamental principles of research into the major methodological problems of the history of philosophy, showed the dependence of philosophy on the economic life of society, the development of science and the needs of practice, and revealed the class and party character of philosophy and the role of the class struggle as a motive force in the development of philosophical thought in a class society. He placed constant emphasis on social motives in the activities of the thinkers and philosophers of various schools and trends.

He always examined the various philosophical trends from the angle of the struggle waged by materialism against idealism. Throughout the history of philosophy, he stressed, a struggle has been going on between materialism and idealism, the line of Dcmocritus and Plato, science and religion. That struggle is continuing. The forms and methods may change but the struggle itself cannot be smoothed over or eliminated while, side by side with the scientific world outlook of dialectical materialism there exists the anti-scientific world outlook of idealism.

Lenin elaborated the problem of continuity of philosophical thinking, and its reflection in historico-philosophical concepts and national and international traditions, and their interaction. We must judge thinkers, he said, not by what they were able to achieve in comparison with the present-day level of science but by their contribution to all previous thinking, to the heritage handed down to them by their predecessors.

From the outset of his revolutionary activities until the end of his life, Lenin paid tremendous attention to the history of philosophy and waged a constant struggle for the preservation of everything valuable created by advanced philosophical thinking in the past. He made a careful study of the history of ancient _-_-_

~^^1^^ Lenin, Cotlccli-il Works, Vol. 21, p. 75.

54 philosophy, the doctrines of Heraclitus, Dcmocritus, Epicurus, Aristotle, and Plato being given an all-round appraisal in his writings.

In his precis of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Lenin came out strongly against falsification of the former's philosophical heritage, against those idealist researchers who concealed everything valuable in Aristotle's philosophy: his criticism of Plato's ideas and the closeness between Aristotle's philosophy and materialism on a whole range of problems.

We know what great attention Lenin paid to the French materialism of the i8th century, German classical philosophy and to progressive Russian philosophy. He gave a profound analysis of the doctrines of the French materialists, of such German thinkers as Hegel, Kant and Feuerbach, as well as of the Russian revolutionary democrats Belinsky, Herzen and Chernyshevsky.

He also made a close study of the history of Marxist philosophy. His numerous writings on this question contain most important methodological instructions: on the historical conditions and theoretical sources of the rise of the philosophy of Marxism; the links between Marxist philosophy and the working-class movement and the history of human thought; the evolution of the philosophical and political views of Marx and Engels; the fundam