Russian text edited by:
Y. Kuskov, A. Rumyantsev
and T. Timofeyev
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
[3] Translated from the Russian
by David Sltvirsky and Yuri Sdobnikov
Designed by Yuri Kopylov
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__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1971This book shows how Leninism influences the development oi the international working class, and deals mainly with the Leninist principles underlying the struggle to strengthen and unite the revolutionary proletarian movement and rally all the world's anti-imperialist forces under the leadership of the working class and its communist vanguard. The Russian edition was published on the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who founded the first proletarian Party of a new type, inspired and led history's first victorious socialist revolution, and created the Soviet state. Brilliant theoretician and strategist of the world working-class and the entire anti-imperialist movement, he profoundly expressed the basic interests and aspirations of the working people of the whole world.
Lenin's theoretical and practical work was devoted to the struggle for the bright ideals of the revolutionary proletariat and the interests of the working masses. Lenin's name is indissolubly associated with the epochal achievements of the international army of labour, with the establishment of the new, socialist system in a considerable part of the globe and with the rise and growth of the modern international communist movement. An exhaustive study of Lenin's vast heritage enables one La understand the laws governing the class struggle of the world proletariat, the trends and prospects of the activity of the proletarian mass organisations and the allies of the working class, and the ways and forms in which the world-wide revolutionary liberal ion process develops.
7One of the cardinal tasks of Marxist-Leninist science is to study and sum up the experience of the international working-class movement. Leninism has always stressed that for class-conscious workers it is exceedingly important "to have an understanding of t/ic significance of their movement and a thorough knowledge of it''.^^*^^ Lenin repeatedly made the point that class-conscious workers had to promote broad international contacts both on the practical and theoretical levels in order to be well-informed "on the forms and theories of the world revolutionary movement''.^^**^^
Problems linked with the assessment of the role played by the working class in the world-wide historical process have not accidentally returned to the limelight in the ideological and political struggle at the present stage, which witnesses an aggravation of the collision between imperialism and the world forces of socialism. This is due to a number of factors, the chief of which are the growing influence of the international working class and its creation---the socialist system---on all aspects of social life and the redoubled attempts of the adversaries of scientific socialism to distort the Marxist-Leninist teaching about the historic mission of the working class and to show that this teaching cannot be applied to present-day conditions. Trends of this kind come to the fore in various forms. They emanate from Right-revisionist and some Left-extremist ideologists, whose preachings in many cases converge or even dovetail. This has found expression in, for example, the malevolent theory of the ``degeneration'' of the revolutionary working-class movement, of the "de-- proletarianisation" of the working class and its ``integration'' with `` neocapitalist'' society.
In other words, present-day bourgeois reformists and the petty-bourgeois pseudo-revolutionary ideologists arc offering their own interpretation of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the leading role of the working class.
Marxists-Leninists are in duty bound to give an argumented rebuff to these anti-scientific concepts, whose purpose is to confuse the working class and all other progressive, anti-imperialist forces. This rebuff becomes convincing and effective if it is based on an opportune and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 363.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 26.
8 profound Leninist analysis of the processes and new phenomena influencing the socio-economic position of the proletariat and defining its political make-up, consciousness and the main direction and prospects of its class struggle.Research in this sphere has been substantially extended in recent years in the USSR and other countries. New research centres studying the international working-class and the revolutionary liberation movements have sprung up, and many fundamental works on this problem have been published. Today, as the CC CPSU stressed in its decision, adopted at the plenary meeting in June 1969, on the results of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, every effort must be made to "promote comprehensive research into contemporary problems and the general laws and specifics of the world revolutionary movement, formulate the key theoretical problems of the building of socialism and communism and step up the struggle of the communist and working-class movement against imperialism''. Measures have been taken to further the study of pressing problems of the class and anti-imperialist struggle. In particular, in order to stimulate a broader and more comprehensive study of the role played by the working class and its allies in the anti-imperialist, democratic movements at the present stage of world social development, the Presidium ol the Academy of Sciences of the USSR has recently set up a Scientific Council to organise and co-ordinate research into problems relating to the position of the proletariat and to co-operation between the working-class and mass democratic movements, ascertain the trends of the class struggle in the light of the modern scientific and technological revolution, analyse the socio-economic and political problems facing the organisations of workers by hand and by brain, and further their alliance in the joint antiimperialist struggle. One of the principal aims of the scientists, whose work is co-ordinated by the Scientific Council, is to produce fundamental works summing up the vast experience that has been accumulated by the world-wide army of labour and generalising the laws and lessons of the class struggle of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard and the trends of the working-class movement in different countries and regions of the world.
These fundamental works are to be brought out in a series under the general heading Inlcrnational Working Class.
9The first monograph in this series is the present volume, which is a collective work by authors from different countries, who responded to the request of the Institute of the International Working-Class Movement, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, to contribute to this publication.
The authors have patterned the monograph mainly on the problem and not the chronological principle in order to focus attention on a number of basic problems of the world revolutionary movement and single out from the wealth of the Lenin heritage and collective Marxist-Leninist thought those aspects which provide the key to understanding the present-day problems of the struggle to achieve proletarian unity and strengthen the world anti-imperialist front. They show the unfading significance of Lenin's ideas, give a rebuff to the latest Right-revisionist and Left-opportunist belittlement of the historic mission of the international working class and their distortions of scientific communism, and expose all sorts of pseudo-scientific concepts of social development.
A study of any aspect of Lenin's immense heritage reveals the internationalist character ol Leninism and its vital significance to the world communist and working-class movement. This has been re-emphasised at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. In the Meeting's Address Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin it is stated: "The acknowledged leader of the world working class, Lenin saw in the proletariat the leading force able to carry out the historic task of overthrowing capitalism and bringing about the socialist transformation of society. It was he who evolved the theory of the alliance between the working class and peasantry. Upholding unity of the working-class movement, Lenin was irreconcilably opposed to opportunism in all its forms. ...
``It is under the banner of Leninism that the revolutionary movement in most countries has risen to a new height, Communist Parties have been formed and have grown strong, and the international communist movement has become a truly world-wide political force, the most inlluential political force of today.''^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. Moscow 1969, Prague, 1969, p. 40.
[10] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ PART ONE __ALPHA_LVL1__ LENINISM---BANNERThere are red-letter days which are marked in all countries and by all peoples. One of them was April 22, 1970, the centenary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, brilliant thinker, theoretician of scientific communism, ardent revolutionary and great leader of the Soviet people, the international working class and the working people of the whole world.
This centenary was marked in a situation witnessing the spread of Lenin's ideas throughout the world. Modern history and all major revolutionary events of the 20th century, the most important of which---the October Revolution---rang in a new epoch in the life of mankind, the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism and communism, are indissolubly associated with Lenin's name and with his ideas and work. At this turning point of world history towers the gigantic figure of Lenin, showing people the road to a new life, genuine freedom, social justice, peace and universal prosperity.
Lenin did not live long---only 54 years. But it was a life of titanic activity, a life of dedicated struggle for the weal of people. He devoted his genius and all his energy to the struggle for the happiness of the working people and the progress of mankind. The name of Lenin and his ideas and work will outlive the ages and millennia.
13 __ALPHA_LVL3__ LENINISM---CONTINUATIONLenin's name is closely associated with the names of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, great leaders of the international proletariat. In Lenin Marxism had its most outstanding champion. He was an erudite, firm and consistent Marxist and a great continuer of the teaching of Marx and Engels. He was tireless in propagating the ideas of scientific socialism formulated by them. More than anybody else he realised that Marxism was giving the working class the knowledge that it needed to secure the triumph of its just cause. "Without knowledge,'' he wrote, "the workers are defenceless, with knowledge they are a force!"^^*^^ Time and again he pointed out that Marxism, which has generalised and absorbed the entire experience of the international revolutionary movement, gives the working class a lucid idea of the aims, tasks and organisation of their struggle.
Far-reaching changes took place in world social development after the death of Marx and Engels, founders of scientific communism and teachers and leaders of the international proletariat. Capitalism entered its imperialist stage, and the problem of mankind's transition to socialism rose to its full stature. The revolutionary movement of the international proletariat acquired new experience of struggle. All this required a thorough scientific analysis, a strictly objective study and theoretical generalisation. To Lenin fell the difficult task of upholding and creatively developing Marxism in the new historical conditions, a task that was vital to the destiny of mankind.
He bared the significance of Marxism, showing that it was the only true revolutionary theory which sprang from the sum total of human knowledge, conformed its conclusions to the development of objective material reality and tested these conclusions in socio-historical practice. All the components of Marxism---philosophy, political economy and scientific communism---were enlarged on, developed and concretised in Lenin's works and practical activity.
Lenin was not an armchair scientist. He developed Marxist theory in the course of the proletariat's class battles, regarding it as a guide to revolutionary action and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 92.
14 upholding its purity against distortion, falsification and forgery. Lenin and the Communist Party founded by him had to wage an uncompromising struggle against numerous adversaries to safeguard the Marxist line and character of the revolutionary movement. The Narodniks (Populists), "legal Marxists'', Economists, Mensheviks, Socialist-- Revolutionaries, Trotskyites,^^*^^ anarchists, Right-opportunists, _-_-_^^*^^ Narodniks---representatives of a petty-bourgeois trend in the Russian revolutionary movement, which arose in the sixties and seventies of the 19th century. They denied that capitalist relations and a proletariat were bound to develop in Russia, and considered the peasantry to be the main revolutionary force. In the eighties and nineties Narodism became a reactionary liberal trend which stood in the way of the massive revolutionary-democratic struggle against tsarism and hindered the political development ol the working class.
``Legal Marxists"---representatives of a socio-political trend in the nineties ol the 19th century among Russian liberal bourgeois intelligentsia. 'Ihey were preaching their views under cover of Marxism in legal newspapers and magazines; hence their name of ''legal Marxists''. They revised almost all the basic postulates of Marxism, discarding its most important feature---the theory of the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Economists---representatives of an opportunist trend in Russian Social-Democracy at the turn of the century. The Economists restricted the tasks of the working class to the economic struggle, asserting that political struggle was the business of the liberal bourgeoisie.
Mensheviks---representatives of an opportunist, anti-Marxist-Leninist trend in the Russian Social-Democratic movement. It took shape at the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903) and was expounded by all the adversaries of the newspaper Iskra, which was headed by Lenin. At the elections to the Party's central organs during the Congress, the Leninists received the majority of the votes and were, therefore, called Bolsheviks, while the opportunists iound themselves in the minority and were called Mensheviks.
Socialist-Revolutionaries---members of a petty-bourgeois party formed in Russia in 1902. Championing the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie and relying' on the support of the kulaks, the Socialist-- Revolutionaries linked old Narodnik dogmas with individual Marxist tenets, which they revised and distorted. They maintained that individual acts of terrorism were the basic tactical means of struggle and, thereby, inflicted enormous harm on the revolutionary movement in Russia. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party disintegrated and ceased to exist at the close of 1920.
Trotskyitcs---representatives of a trend hostile to Marxism-Leninism in the working-class movement. It was called after L. D. Trotsky (1879--1940). The Trotskyites were opposed to Leninism as soon as Bolshevism emerged as an ideological trend. They rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat and held that socialism could not be built in the USSR. On that basis they lormed an anti-Party opposition bloc. The Trotskyitc opposition found no support whatever in the working-class movement. In 1929 Trotsky was exiled.
15 national-deviationists and revisionists of all hues and shades in the international arena were only some of the many ideological and political opponents of revolutionary Marxism against whom Lenin and the Bolshevik Party waged a hitter struggle. There was danger from international revisionism, which claimed it was renewing ``obsolete'' Marxism but. in fact, sought to dilute Marxism with a class-alien ideology and strip it of its militant revolutionary spirit. In exposing revisionism, Lenin wrote: "An ever subtler falsification of Marxism, an ever subtler presentation of anti-materialist doctrines under the guise of Marxism---this is the characteristic feature of modern revisionism in political economy, in questions of tactics and in philosophy generally, equally in epistemology and in sociology.''^^*^^While defending Marxist philosophy against the attacks of the revisionists, Lenin enlarged on the basic problems of dialectical and historicaf materialism. He enriched Marx's and Engels's materialist theory of cognition, strikingly showing the great strength of human intelligence, which is capable of cognising objective truth, and proving that sociohistorical practice is the only reliable criterion of the trustworthiness of knowledge. He wrote with the greatest optimism of the might of human reason, of its achievements and of the prospects opening before it. "Human reason,'' he pointed out, "has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature.''^^**^^
In the classical work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism he made a profound philosophical analysis of the latest discoveries in natural science which had upset a number of principles and concepts in physics. This break-up served as grounds for the spread of idealistic sentiments and views among a section of scientists who had lapsed into the error of believing that the latest data available to science refuted materialism. Lenin convincingly proved that the new discoveries in natural science reaffirmed the truth of materialism and that the adoption of dialectical materialism by scientists was an indispensable condition for progress in science because dialectical materialism was the only teaching correctly and scientifically explaining the world and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 330.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 282.
16 interpreting the processes taking place in it. Precisely this road was taken by many advanced natural scientists.Lenin attached immense significance to the dialectical method, saying that materialist dialectics is the soul of Marxism. In showing the content of dialectics, he convincingly demonstrated that its substance lies in the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, which gives the key to understanding the self-development of matter in the process of which the old is replaced by the new. That is why Lenin always underscored the critical trend and revolutionary character of the Marxist dialectical method, which calls for advancement, for the replacement of the old by the new. Materialist dialectics irrefutably proves the transient nature of capitalist society, which has outworn itself and no longer conforms to the requirements of mankind, and shows that it will be inevitably replaced by a new and advanced social system.
The objective course of social development coincides with the aspirations of the working masses and of their leader, the proletariat, the most revolutionary class. They desire to replace capitalism with the new, communist system and are called upon to achieve this historically necessary change. The Party principle in ideology and politics, substantiated and developed by Lenin, induces people consciously to side with the position of the most progressive social force---the working class---because its revolutionary views and aspirations are the most correct and just.
With the scientific theory of Marx and Engels as his guide, Lenin evolved an integral teaching of imperialism. He put forward and substantiated the proposition that at the imperialist stage of its development capitalism enters a period in which economic and political contradictions reach the bursting point, leads towards the unleashing of imperialist wars and institutes reaction all along the line. This period witnesses a sharp intensification of the exploitation of the working people and increasing national oppression.
On the basis of a searching analysis of the features of the new, imperialist stage of capitalism, Lenin proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the deep-rooted contradictions and ulcers of imperialism are incurable, that in the epoch of imperialism capitalism decays and dies and brings society to socialism. Socio-historical development itself places on the agenda the question of the proletarian revolution, of the __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---2890 17 need for destroying imperialism and replacing it with socialism. "The epoch of capitalist imperialism,'' Lenin wrote, "is one of ripe and rotten-ripe capitalism, which is about to collapse, and which is mature enough to make way for socialism.''^^*^^
Having brought to light new laws governing the development of imperialism as an epoch "much more violent, spasmodic, catastrophic and full of conflict" than the pre-- monopoly period of capitalism, Lenin drew the conclusion that initially socialism could triumph in a few or even in one country. He 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.''^^**^^ The Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia bore out this conclusion, which differs fundamentally from the earlier predominant Marxist view that the proletarian revolution could only be victorious if it was accomplished in the majority of the advanced countries simultaneously.
Lenin's teaching that socialism could triumph in one country was an important new word in the development of Marxism. It showed the working class that the socialist revolution was not something of the remote future and that it had to act confidently in overthrowing the exploiters and taking state power into its own hands as soon as the necessary objective and subjective prerequisites took shape in one capitalist country or another. This possibility, it will be recalled, appeared first and was successfully utilised in Russia, which proved to be the weakest link of the world capitalist system and where the working class was best prepared for the accomplishment of the socialist revolution.
Peerless scientist that he was, Lenin belongs to the phalanx of thinkers who believe that their main task is not only to explain the world but, chiefly, to remake it. Genuine leader of the proletariat, he exhaustively studied the life and struggle of the classes, maintained close contact with the working masses, painstakingly charted the strategy and tactics which brought the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat to victory and personally directed the revolutionary battles of the workers against capitalism. All his works are permeated with the spirit of Marxism as an eternally living, _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 109.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 79.
18 developing teaching that demands fidelity to principles, rejects stereotype patterns and dogmas and always proceeds from a concrete account of the actual historical situation.In preparing the ground for the triumph of the working class, Lenin scientifically substantiated the conditions, ways and means of the struggle for socialism.
He waged an uncompromising struggle against Right and ``Left'' opportunism, upholding and enlarging on the revolutionary content of Marxism and all-sidedly elaborating on the Marxist theory of socialist revolution.
Creatively developing the ideas of Marx and Engels and taking into account the experience of the Communist League and International Working Men's Association founded by them, Lenin evolved a comprehensive teaching of the revolutionary Party of the new type, of a Party that is the vanguard organisation and the principal weapon of the proletariat, without which it cannot overthrow capitalist rule, seize political power and build socialism. In addition to evolving the teaching of the revolutionary Party of the working class, he organised and reared such a party---the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
``In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation,''^^*^^ Lenin stressed. It is only by achieving a high level of organisation that the working class becomes a force which no class enemies can withstand. It must have its own political party to unite and organise it and direct its struggle. Lenin set up such a party and formulated its organisational, ideological, tactical and theoretical principles.
Over the course of many years, in bitter struggle with "legal Marxists'', Economists, Mensheviks and other worshipers of spontaneity and tail-endism, who endeavoured to subordinate the working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie, Lenin worked with indomitable energy to create and strengthen the new type of Party, the Bolshevik Party, in which were embodied all the basic Marxist propositions on the role of the Party as the conscious vanguard of the working class, as its political leader armed with advanced theory and a knowledge of the laws of social development and the class struggle.
The Party of the working class, Lenin taught, can fulfil _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 7, p. 415.
19 its role as a rallying and directing centre if in its work it is guided by Marxist, revolutionary theory, which gives Communists a scientific programme of struggle for society's economic, political and social reorganisation by revolutionary methods.The Party can discharge its role if it is closely linked with the working-class movement and expresses and consistently upholds the vital interests of the proletariat. In its turn, the proletarian struggle will not be successful until it "is led by a strong organisation of revolutionaries".^^*^^ Lenin held that the most outstanding feature of the new type of Party, which differs fundamentally from all earlier existing political organisations of the working class is that it integrates scientific socialism with the revolutionary working-class movement. A genuinely Marxist-Leninist Party closely links theory with practice, the most advanced ideas with revolutionary action.
Founder and leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, great Lenin reared it in the spirit of devotion to the cause of the working class and hatred of the class enemies. He fostered in it the unflinching determination to advance to victory. He taught it to fear no difficulties and to move confidently towards its goal, leading, rallying, inspiring and organising the broadest masses of working people.
He attached paramount importance to unity in the Party and insisted that the Party guard this unity as the apple of its eye. He called for strict discipline, mandatory for all Party members, leaders and rank-and-file alike, and for a relentless struggle against alarmists, capitulationists and opportunists, who violate the Party's general line and corrupt its ranks. He demanded that Communists should not plume themselves on their successes or give themselves up to complacency and self-satisfaction, that they should resolutely criticise and remove errors. It was essential, he maintained, that the Party as a whole and every member should be closely linked with the people, value their trust and know their vital interests. The Communists, he said, were a drop in the ocean of people. They could lead the masses only it they correctly expressed what the people felt.
Democratic centralism, in which democracy and centralism are the indivisible aspects of a single whole, forms the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. r>, p. 475.
20 core of the Leninist organisational principles of the new type of Party.It signifies unity between the Party's ideological, tactical and organisational principles as embodied in its Programme and Rules and whose observation is mandatory for every Communist and every Party organisation. The Party has one supreme organ, the Congress, and in the intervals between congresses, the Central Committee. Discipline in the Party is binding on all members. The Party's activity rests on the unconditional subordination of the minority to the majority, of lower to higher organisations. "After the competent bodies have decided,'' Lenin wrote, "all of us, as members of the Party, must act as one man."^^*^^
The Party, its congresses and Central Committee determine the line to be followed by the entire organisation and, at the same time, give the utmost encouragement to the activity and initiative of all its members and organisations in charting and fulfilling the Party decisions and adapting the single political line to the specifics of local conditions. On this point Lenin said that centralism, understood in a truly democratic sense, creates the possibility "of a full and unhampered development not only of specific local features but also of local inventiveness, local initiative, of diverse ways, methods and means of progress to the common goal".^^**^^
Democracy signifies that all leading Party bodies from top to bottom, are elective, accountable and removable. It signifies collective leadership, initiative and active participation by all Communists in Party life, and the utmost development of criticism and self-criticism. The strict observance and consistent development of inner-Party democracy are an inviolable rule of the CPSU. The Party insists on unflagging attention and respect for the opinions and suggestions of its members. In its turn, the promotion of inner-Party democracy presupposes the utmost strengthening of discipline in the Party and the enhancement of the responsibility of each member for the affairs of his local organisation and of the Party as a whole.
Democratic centralism enables the Party to foster the activity of all its members, unite their boundless energy into a single will and direct it towards the revolutionary _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 11, p. 323.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 208.
21 remaking of society. Small wonder that the enemies of the Communist Party constantly attack democratic centralism, which is the cardinal tenet of Lenin's teaching of the new type of Party.All the principles evolved by Lenin are part and parcel of the arsenal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and form the foundation of its unity and strength. Steadfastly using the Leninist teaching as its guide and strictly abiding by the Leninist principles underlying the organisation of its work and the norms of its inner life, it has become a powerful and monolithic Party with deep-rooted links with the people, the directing and guiding force of Soviet society, and the inspirer and organiser of the Soviet people in their drive to build communism.
The Communist Party enjoys the unbounded trust of the Soviet people, who see in its practical work and policy the expression of their basic interests and therefore give all its undertakings their utmost backing. As the political leader and militant vanguard of the Soviet people, the CPSU has been and remains first and foremost the Party of the working class, the most advanced class of Soviet society. Today it has nearly 14 million members, almost 40 per cent of whom are workers and 15.6 per cent collective farmers. Its membership includes foremost representatives of the production-technological intelligentsia, scientists and workers in culture and art.
Lenin's enlargement of the Marxist teaching of the proletarian dictatorship is of immense significance for the international revolutionary movement. Lenin stressed that the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the basic issue of the socialist revolution and the main element of Marxism; he enlarged, therefore, on the most essential aspects of that dictatorship, its social nature, the conditions under which it is established, its principal functions and forms, and its role and importance. He gave a resolute rebuff to the opportunists who opposed the dictatorship of the proletariat, proving the historical need for this dictatorship as a means of building socialism, the new, exploiter-less society. Mankind, he said, would arrive at socialism only through the dictatorship of the proletariat. To bourgeois democracy, which expresses the interests of the exploiting minority, Lenin counterposed the proletarian dictatorship as a fundamentally new, and higher type of democracy, ensuring the enlistment 22 of the broadest sections of the people into the administration of the affairs of society and the state and expressing the interests of the vast majority of the people.
Lenin's greatest contribution to the creative development of the Marxist teaching of the proletarian dictatorship was his idea of Soviets as the new type of state. Lenin showed the historic importance of the Republic of Soviets as a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is immeasurably more democratic than any bourgeois-parliamentary republic.
Lenin was brought round to this conclusion by the initiative of the masses, who, acting on their own accord, first set up Soviets of Workers' Deputies during the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution in Russia in 1905--07. The Soviets thus spring from the historic initiative of the people. Lenin saw in them the prototype of the working people's socialist state.
Characterising the Soviets as a new, higher type of democracy, he wrote: "It was an authority open to all, it carried out all its functions before the eyes of the masses, was accessible to the masses, sprang directly from the masses; and was a direct and immediate instrument, of the popular masses, of their will.''^^*^^
The victory of the Great October Revolution in Russia and the formation of the Soviet socialist state on one-sixth of the globe was a triumph of the ideas of Leninism. Lenin was the direct inspirer, organiser and leader of the Revolution and the founder and leader of the world's first state of workers and peasants.
He showed the epochal, international significance of that Revolution, calling it the world's turning-point and a new chapter of world history, considering that its contribution was that it "has charted the road to socialism for the whole world and has shown the bourgeoisie that their triumph is coming to an end".^^**^^ Stressing the enormous significance of the Soviet state for the working people of all countries, he wrote: "Our socialist Republic of Soviets will stand secure, as a torch of international socialism and as an example to all the working people.''^^***^^ On the international importance of the October Revolution and Soviet rule he wrote: " _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 352.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 44.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 472.
23 Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done.''^^*^^ Further, he noted that other countries would bring many new features into the forms and means of accomplishing the socialist revolution and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat without deviating from their cardinal principles. This was fully borne out by subsequent proletarian revolutions and by the building of socialism in a number of countries.Guided by the teaching of Marx and Engels and summing up the practical experience of the Soviet state, Lenin specified the problems relating to the two phases of communist society, the building of socialism and socialism's evolution into full-fledged communism. A concrete plan of socialist construction in the Soviet Union was drawn up under Lenin's guidance. He not only indicated the ways and means of building socialism but saw the social forces capable of carrying out this epoch-making task. Socialism, he taught, is the living creative work of the popular masses. The working people, he said, would build the new life themselves and use their own experience to resolve the problems of the socialist organisation of society no matter how difficult they might be.
The theory of scientific communism, evolved by Marx and Engels and amplified by Lenin, is enriched by the practical experience of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and by the experience of fraternal Communist and Workers' Parties. It is embodied in the world socialist system, forms the scientific backbone of the far-reaching socialist transformations being implemented in the countries of that system, and serves as the source inspiring the struggle of the international working class and the liberation movement of all peoples who see their future in socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ LENINIST LINE OF THE CPSUThe Great October Socialist Revolution set the Soviet people the unprecedented task of building a socialist society, which had hitherto been only an object of theory. Lenin and the Communist Party led the Soviet people towards socialism _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 31.
24 along unblazed trails. "The new task before us,'' Lenin wrote, "has never been tackled anywhere else before.''^^*^^ But no matter how difficult it might be, he said, this task was quite feasible. The Republic of Soviets had everything it needed for building socialist society. "Our natural wealth, our manpower and the splendid impetus which the great revolution has given to the creative powers of the people are ample material to build a truly mighty and abundant Russia.''^^**^^Under the leadership of the Communist Party with Lenin at its head, the proletarian revolution resolutely cleared the road to socialism from the historical trash that had been accumulated by the exploiting system in the course of centuries. All the numerous attempts of the Russian and world bourgeoisie to recover their lost domination and restore the old order were heroically repulsed by the people who had been liberated by the revolution. The Soviet state staunchly bore enormous hardships, honourably withstood all trials, emerged victorious in the Civil War and defeated the interventionist forces of 14 capitalist countries.
The October Revolution strikingly demonstrated that when the people are led by a genuinely revolutionary Marxist Party, which can make the masses believe in their own strength, organise and rally them, the revolutionary energy and colossal strength of the people can break down and sweep away all the obstacles to freedom, democracy and socialism.
Lenin considered the active participation of all the working people in socialist construction as an indispensable and the principal condition of the triumph of socialism. The profoundly democratic essence of socialism is manifested in the fact that the people build the new life themselves. Lenin called on the Party to rally the multi-million-strong Soviet people for the immense creative effort and raise, as he put it, the lowest of the lower classes to a level where they could make history. "Victory will belong only to those,'' he wrote, "who have faith in the people, those who are immersed in the life-giving spring of popular creativity.''^^***^^
One of the basic features of Soviet social system is that it gives the widest scope for the activity of the masses, who _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 379.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 161.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 292.
25 are the real makers of history. In the Soviet Union working people, anonymous, unnoticed and frequently redundant under capitalism, are building the new life with their own hands and moving forward from their own midst thousands upon thousands of new heroes and leaders in industry, agriculture, science, technology, culture and art.After the October Revolution Lenin continued to develop the teaching of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism could not be built without that dictatorship. The bourgeoisie was dreaming of recovering the positions it had lost. Only a workers' and peasants' state could paralyse its unremitting attempts in that direction, crush the resistance of the exploiters and organise the building of the new, socialist life. The highest principle of the proletarian dictatorship, Lenin emphasised, is the alliance of the working class with the working peasant masses. He passionately called upon the Party, the workers and the working peasants to strengthen this alliance under the leadership of the proletariat. "The new society, which will be based on the alliance of the workers and peasants,'' he said, "is inevitable ... and we are helping to work out for this society the forms of alliance between the workers and peasants. We shall get this done and we shall create an alliance of the workers and peasants that is so sound that no power on earth will break it.''^^*^^
Time and again Lenin stressed that a monolithic Communist Party which derives its strength from unity, revolutionary theory and unbreakable ties with the people, a Party, whose role, far from diminishing, increases after power has been seized by the working class, is of tremendous significance for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the building of socialism.
Small wonder that the bourgeoisie and their agents fear the revolutionary Party of the working class. The enemies of the Soviet people have always waged a frenzied struggle against the Communist Party, understanding that if they manage to undermine it, the dictatorship of the proletariat will consequently be weakened. The slogan "for the Soviets without the Communists" was put forward by the counterrevolution precisely to that end. The Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, bourgeois nationalists and other antiLeninist groups went to all lengths in an attempt to destroy _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 177.
26 the Communist Party, to form factions within the Party for the purpose of carrying on subversive and divisive activities, and to tear the trade unions, the Young Communist League and other mass organisations away from the Party.However, all the attacks'on the Party were repulsed. The Communist Party developed along the lines charted by Lenin. It strengthened its inner unity and cohesion, enforced strict and, at the same time, conscious discipline, resolutely purged itself of opportunists and renegades and gave the utmost encouragement to the initiative of the Party rank and file, always and in everything setting the interests of the working people above all else.
With crystal clarity and the profundity of genius Lenin formulated the tasks of the Soviet people in the building of socialism, pointing out that socialism could triumph only on the basis of modern technology and a powerful socialist industry. The key tasks of socialist construction were industrialisation and the creation of the economic foundation of the new society. "A large-scale machine industry capable of reorganising agriculture,'' Lenin wrote, "is the only material basis that is possible for socialism.''^^*^^ The capitalist encirclement and the constant menace of attack by the bourgeois states made it necessary to accelerate industrialisation. This strained the means of the young Republic. "We are economising in all things, even in schools,''^^**^^ Lenin said. The great labour effort of the Soviet people under the Party's leadership during the years in which Lenin's electrification programme and the first five-year plans were carried out converted the Soviet Union into a leading industrial power.
The CPSU worked with similar energy to implement Lenin's plan of bringing the peasants to socialism through cooperatives. Lenin regarded the peasants' transition to socialism as a major task conforming to the vital interests of the working class and the peasantry alike, emphasising that "small-scale farming will not bring deliverance from want".^^***^^ The only way to deliver the working peasants from dependence on the kulaks, abolish the economic roots of capitalism in the countryside and thereby resolve one of the cardinal tasks of the socialist revolution was to place the scattered peasant farms on a new, socialist foundation.
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 459.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 426.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 148.
27Some enemies of socialism write that Marx and Engels were not interested in the peasant question, that this was solely a ``Russian'' problem. But that is not true. The founders of scientific communism attached immense importance to this problem. "Our task relative to the small peasant,'' Engels wrote, "consists, in the lirst place, in effecting a transition of his private enterprise and private possession to co-operative ones, not forcibly, but by dint of example and the proffer of social assistance for this purpose.''^^*^^ With the teaching of Marx and Engels as their point of departure, Lenin and the Party all-sidedly enlarged on the peasant problem, substantiating it theoretically and showing the ways and means of resolving it---through socialist co-operatives under the dictatorship of the working class. An alliance with the working class was the sole means showing the peasants the way out of their difficult position under capitalism, and the socialist co-operation of small producers, Lenin stressed, was the only way to build a lasting economic foundation for socialism in the countryside.
Developments have fully borne out the fact that Lenin's policy was correct in all its aspects. The Soviet Union's conversion into a great industrial power created a solid material basis for economic independence and for the technological reconstruction of all branches of the economy. This consolidated the triumph of socialist relations in industry and boosted the defence capability. Implementation of Lenin's cooperative plan gave the Soviet Union the world's largestscale socialist agriculture and strengthened the alliance between the working class and the peasants. The last exploiting class, the kulaks, was abolished on the basis of nation-wide collectivisation.
The attainment of major political and economic aims was accompanied by a cultural revolution in the course of which a new, genuinely people's system of education was built up. Lenin snowed the need for promoting the culture of the peoples of the Soviet Union. The Party, he said, had to make sure that in the Soviet Union "learning shall really become part of our very being, that it shall actually and fully become a constituent element of our social life.''^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Marx and Engels, Selected Works in 3 vols., Vol. Ill, Moscow, 1970, p. 470.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 489.
28The masses were given access to the cultural wealth accumulated by mankind. The cultural revolution made it possible to train a numerous army of intellectuals and ensure the national economy with specialists. Without this it would have been impossible to promote science and technology on a large scale and consolidate socialist ideology.
By pursuing the policies framed by Lenin, the Party brought the country to the complete and final triumph of socialism. This magnificent victory demonstrated the historic mission of the working class in practice and was a triumph of Marxism-Leninism. Socialism unfurled its advantages over capitalism in all spheres: by establishing social ownership of the means of production and liberating the workers and peasants from exploitation it created the conditions for systematically raising the living standard and cultural level of the people, instituting social and national equality, ensuring genuine freedom and democracy and giving people every opportunity for displaying their talents and gifts. The Soviet Union was the first country to bring into operation the basic rule of socialism---"from each according to his ability, to each according to his work"---which for many peoples remains only a cherished dream.
The unity of the multi-national Soviet people and the fraternal friendship and co-operation between workers, collective farmers and intellectuals, between working people of all nationalities, are socialism's greatest gain and source of immeasurable strength. Consolidation of the unbreakable friendship between the peoples of the USSR and the flourishing state of the economy and culture of the socialist republics convincingly demonstrate the correctness of Lenin's teaching and of the Party's policy in the solution of the national problem and underscore the triumph of proletarian internationalism.
The strength and viability of socialism were subjected to a severe test in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against nazi Germany. In that life and death struggle the Soviet people not only upheld the honour and independence of their country but, by utterly defeating the nazi hordes, saved world civilisation from the plague of nazism.
Implementation of the Marxist-Leninist teaching of socialist construction has opened for the Soviet people the prospect for a gradual transition to communism. Lenin had always regarded the building of socialism and communism as 29 two inseparable aspects of the goal before the Party and the Soviet people. He wrote: "In striving for socialism, however, we are convinced that it will develop into communism.''^^*^^ The CPSLJ mapped out the programme of communist construction on the basis of Lenin's injunctions and behests. "The future society we are striving for,'' Lenin wrote of communism, "the society in which all must work, the society in which there will be no class distinctions, will take a long time to build.''^^**^^
The economy inevitably becomes the chief sphere of the struggle for complete communism. The building of the material and technical basis of communism is, therefore, the principal economic task set by the Programme of the CPSU and by the decisions of the 23rd Party Congress. This is the foundation ensuring the systematic enhancement of the people's living standard and cultural level, the steady improvement of socialist social relations and their gradual evolution into communist relations, and the further development of socialist democracy.
The advantages of the socialist system are demonstrated by the high rate of growth of socialist production, which outstrips the growth rates of the capitalist economy. The annual growth rate of industrial output for 1951--67 averaged 10.5 per cent in the USSR, 4.5 per cent in the USA, 2.8 per cent in Britain and 5.5 per cent in France. While maintaining their superiority in the rates of growth, the socialist countries increased their volume of industrial output in 1968 approximately 11-fold as compared with the pre-war level: in the capitalist countries it only increased 4-fold within the same period. Lenin's prevision is coming true. "I am convinced,'' he said, "that the Soviets will overtake and outstrip the capitalists and that our gain will not be a purely economic one.^^***^^
Production rose 79-fold in 1968 over the 1913 level. In 1968 the USSR produced 107 million tons of steel, 639,000 million kwh of electric power and 309 million tons of oil. The Soviet Union has more kilometres of electrified railways than the USA, Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and Japan combined. Lenin's proposition that _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. Zr>, p. MG.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 29, p. 324.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 4r.S.
30 communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country is acquiring real and tangible content.The Party is giving tireless attention to the promotion of a highly developed agriculture capable of fully satisfying the population's food requirements and industry's requirements in raw materials. As a result, compared with the 1961--65 level, total farm output increased 19 per cent in 1966--68. In 1968 the grain output totalled 165 million tons, which was a 30 per cent gain over the average for 1961--65.
The present period in the life of Soviet society is witnessing the building of the material and technical basis of communism under conditions of a full-scale scientific and technological revolution, and the implementation of important measures launched by the Communist Party and the Soviet Government to improve the scientific management of the country's economic, socio-political and cultural life. The key conditions for achieving a rapid growth of the national economy are still largely the enhancement of the efficacy of capital investments and of existing production assets, the promotion of labour productivity and the improvement of the quality of output. A growing role is played in production by science.
The high level attained by the Soviet economy makes it possible, while continuing to give priority to the growth of leading industries, considerably to step up the development of industries satisfying the material and cultural requirements of the people. The feasibility of the plans charted in the Soviet Union is vividly manifested in the fact that the growth rate of the economy in key indices---national income, industrial output, retail trade, real incomes of the population, average wages and salaries, and remuneration for labour at the collective farms---was faster during the current five-year plan period than the average rates envisaged in the directives of the 23rd Congress of the CPSU.
The Party devotes considerable attention to improving planning and providing more economic incentives in the national economy. Here it is guided by the extremely important Leninist principles underlying socialist economic management. Socialism's fundamental advantage, Lenin pointed out, is its planned economic development and centralised regulation by the people. "All should work according to a single common plan,'' Lenin wrote, "on common 31 land, in common factories and in accordance with a common system.''^^*^^
The current economic reform is founded on the efficient enforcement of the laws of the socialist economy, on the advantages of the Soviet system and on the immense experience accumulated by the Party in directing social development. Its chief aim is to promote the democratic foundations of management, enhance centralised state planning and raise the scientific level of economic plans. Improved state planning mirrors the trend towards the further socialisation of production and the attainment of a higher level of state ownership.
In the USSR today the possibility and need for furthering local initiative by the working people and drawing them into more active participation in the management of production and in the utilisation of all the inner reserves of every enterprise are greater than ever before. The new conditions are giving a new content to Lenin's injunctions that along with the attainment of more efficiency in state planning it is necessary to extend the "enterprise and initiative by each large establishment in the disposal of financial and material resources".^^**^^
Soviet society's development strikingly corroborates Lenin's observation that the building of communism must rest also on the use of material and moral incentives. Economic methods of administration, improved in the course of the economic reform, consist in making the fullest use of the advantages of socialism and the identity and features of the economic interests of the working people, the individual enterprises and society as a whole. The planned and active use of commodity-money relations and categories sucli as profit, prices, credit and cost accounting, are called on to play an important role in economic activity. Under the socialist economic system these categories acquire a fundamentally different content than under capitalism: instead of being the vehicles of exploitation, which does not exist under socialism, they serve as economic levers to promote the economy in the interests of the whole people.
The Communist Party places the interests of the people above everything else, being guided by Lenin's tenet that _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 292.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 434.
32 ``only socialism can meet their interests".^^*^^ Under socialism the fullest satisfaction of the people's growing material and cultural requirements and the all-round development of the individual are the direct and principal purpose of production. This is precisely the aim of socialist production in the Soviet Union.In terms of per working person real incomes in the USSR have grown in the period 1913--68 more than 7-fold in industry and building, and 11-fold in agriculture. In 1968 average wages and salaries rose 7.5 per cent. Remuneration for labour on the collective farms has been showing a particularly rapid rise in recent years. The people receive steadily increasing annual allowances and benefits from the social consumption funds, which in 1968 totalled 55,000 million rubles. These funds cover free education and medical service, longer paid leaves, pensions, allowances, scholarships, health home and spa services at considerable discounts for a steadily growing number of people, and large-scale housing construction. Nearly If million people are rehoused annually in the Soviet Union.
The USSR has forged to the forefront in world culture and science. In 1968 it had more than 800,000 scientific workers or one-fourth of the world's total. It was the first country to place an atomic power station in operation, build commercial jet aircraft and inter-continental ballistic missiles, and launch an artificial Earth satellite. The first manned space ilight was accomplished by a Soviet citizen.
All this is evidence of the notable successes that have been achieved in consolidating socialism and building communism. But it does not mean that all problems have been solved. Besides, life constantly poses new problems.
The CPSU is fully aware that the building of communism is a tremendously responsible and difficult task, and, reared by Lenin, it does not indulge in boasting or conceit. The Soviet Union is confronted with tasks of supreme importance. But what has already been achieved by the Soviet people is of epoch-making significance.
A wonderful renewal of all aspects of life is taking place in the Soviet Union, whose road is illumined by the teaching of the great Lenin.
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 333.
33 __ALPHA_LVL3__ INTERNATIONAL CHARACTER OF LENINISMLenin is the pride of all mankind. In him history gave the working masses of the whole world a brilliant champion of their cherished aspirations and hopes, a wise leader and a man who contributed immeasurably towards the happiness of working people in all continents.
A genuine proletarian revolutionary, he took close to heart the revolutionary struggle of the workers of all countries and followed with unflagging attention and sympathy the national liberation movement of the colonial and dependent peoples. His whole life was permeated with the striving to end capitalist slavery all over the world. He contributed immensely towards the elaboration of the scientific principles of the programme, organisation, strategy and tactics of the international communist movement, took a direct part in strengthening the fraternal Parties, shared with them the vast experience of the Bolshevik Party and called on the Communists of all countries to make every effort to promote the international unity of the revolutionary working-class movement and steadfastly expand their link with the masses in order to become the genuine vanguard of all revolutionary forces.
The enemies of Leninism seek to make it appear a purely Russian phenomenon, rejecting its international content. Some of them maintain that the road of the October Revolution is for economically backward countries, that Leninism is a specific interpretation of Marxism applicable to conditions of backwardness. Others assert that the Soviet Union's socialist development is a purely European phenomenon, and that, therefore, it does not suit Asian, African and Latin American countries.
These concepts of Leninism are fundamentally wrong. Leninism is neither an exclusively Russian nor specifically European phenomenon. Having emerged as a continuation of Marxism at a time when capitalism had entered its last, imperialist stage, Leninism expressed the objective requirements of world social development.
The following cardinal circumstances determine Leninism's international character.
First, by virtue of many historical reasons at the turn of the century Russia was the focus of all the basic contradictions of the world imperialist system, while the October Revolution was the starting point and pivot of the 34 contemporary world revolutionary process. The principal laws of this process manifested themselves with increasing force in the successively mounting waves of three Russian revolutions, which were the most significant historical events of the 20th century. These revolutions, particularly the Great October Socialist Revelution, which shook the world, were of immense international importance. They gave a powerful impetus to the revolutionary movement in all countries.
Second, the international character of Leninism springs from the many-faceted experience of the October Revolution itself and of the subsequent experience of building socialism in the USSR. On the eve of the Revolution there were in Russia the most diverse socio-economic systems---large centres of capitalist industry with a working class, a semi-feudal landowning system in the countryside, a colonial and semicolonial regime in Central Asia, and almost primitive backwardness in the Far North---systems and conditions of life intrinsic to different countries. With its many social systems and multi-national population, pre-Revolution Russia personified the specifics of many countries in different continents. Leninism mirrored the extensive experience of the Bolshevik Party, which, at the various stages of its struggle, had to come to grips with problems that arose in economically developed and backward areas, in industrial, working-class centres and in the poverty-stricken countryside, in regions with a high cultural level and in huge areas where illiteracy and lack of culture were predominant.
Third, on account of Russia's position on the fringe of the developed capitalist countries of the West and the colonial, semi-colonial and dependent countries of the East, the Russian working-class movement coalesced with the West European revolutionary working-class movement and with the national liberation movement of the colonial peoples. Leninism emerged and developed as the sum total of the experience not only of the Russian but also of the world working-class and the national liberation, anti-colonial movements. Lenin, whom circumstances forced to live for many years in emigration in Switzerland, France, Britain, Germany, Poland and other countries, had close links with socialist circles in Western Europe and was active in the international socialist movement. Devoting considerable attention to the anti-colonial struggle of the Eastern peoples, he generalised the experience, forms and methods of the 35 revolutionary movement and the national liberation struggle of all countries.
Fourth, Leninism did not appear from nothing. It emerged on the solid foundation of Marxism as its continuation. It summed up the latest achievements of world science and culture. Every cardinal question of the theory and tactics of the international revolutionary movement propounded by Marx and Engels was dealt with in Leninism. Lenin enlarged on and enriched Marxism in line with the fundamental propositions of the teaching of Marx and Engels.
Leninism is the Marxism of the new epoch. It has legitimately become the ideological and theoretical foundation of the contemporary international communist movement.
Lenin made a tremendous contribution towards the development of the world working-class and entire revolutionary liberation movement. He gave every attention to achieving greater internationalist unity of the revolutionary forces. This unity was imperatively demanded by the changed historical situation, capitalism's evolution into its imperialist stage and proletarian revolutions, becoming the task of the day. When the Second International foundered and its collapse became imminent, Lenin set about consolidating the revolutionary wing in the international working-class movement, gradually fashioning the internationalist nucleus from which the Communist International subsequently sprang.
Lenin decisively influenced the charting of the Comintern's ideological and theoretical platform, and the elaboration of the fundamental questions of the strategy and tactics and organisational principles of the world communist movement.
He waged an unremitting struggle for the unity of the world working-class and communist movement on a principled foundation. The united working-class front policy framed by him has been adopted by the international communist movement. This policy calls for united action by the workers in the struggle for their immediate aims, for the enlistment into the front of the most diverse contingents of the working class, including the contingents influenced by reformism and, thereby, raising the general level of the working-class movement and bringing it, on the strength of its own experience, gradually to revolutionary positions.
Lenin helped the newly formed Communist Parties correctly to raise the united workers' front slogan and warned them 36 of Left-sectarian and Right-opportunist errors in the implementation of that slogan. He taught the Communists to combine a principled stand with flexibility in politics. He drew their attention to the need for tying in the united front policy more closely with the tasks of the anti-fascist and anti-war struggle, with the movement for peace, democratic rights and freedoms.
Lenin's treatment of the national and colonial problem was an eminent service to history. Lenin's profound analysis of the imperialist stage of capitalism revealed irreconcilable contradictions between the imperialist countries, on the one hand, and the hundreds of millions of people of the colonial and dependent countries, on the other, and showed that for these peoples imperialism signified the most ruthless exploitation and brutal oppression. Lenin saw that the oppressed peoples of the colonies could be liberated from the imperialist yoke only in struggle against imperialism, and closely linked this liberation with the general struggle of the international proletariat for the overthrow of capitalism. At the same time, he theoretically substantiated the important role played by the national liberation movement in the world revolutionary process, writing: ''. . . the socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their bourgeoisie---no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries, against international imperialism.''^^*^^
From this he drew the conclusion that the international proletariat had to give every possible support to the national liberation movement of the oppressed and dependent peoples, that the actions of these revolutionary forces had to be united in the struggle against imperialism. This was a fundamentally new, Leninist word in the Marxist theory of revolution. The Leninist strategy of strengthening unity and co-- operation between all the main torrents of the world revolutionary process is of the greatest importance for the struggle of the Marxist-Leninist Parties and all other revolutionary forces against imperialism.
Present-day reality uninterruptedly provides confirmation of the immense vitality and fruitfulness of Lenin's immortal teaching. Lenin enriched, developed and moved forward _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin. Ciillcflf/l il'nrkt. Vol. 30, p. ];"><>.
37 Marxist theory to such an extent that today it is no longer possible to be a real Marxist without becoming a Leninist and studying all that Lenin had introduced into the treasure-store of scientific communism. For that reason the Marxism of today is rightly called Marxism-Leninism. Marxism and Leninism form an integral, indissoluble international teaching.Today only he can be considered a genuine, consistent Marxist who is guided by the Leninist method of analysing social processes, who proves his fidelity to Leninism not by words but by deeds, who is uncompromising to the class enemies in the Leninist way. Leninism demands a really scientific approach to all phenomena of life, organic unity between theory and practice and an active struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, which is hostile to scientific socialism.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism believed that for the revolutionary proletariat and its organisations it is of paramount importance to employ all forms of the class struggle: "Ever since the working-class movement came into being the struggle has been waged by plan in all three coordinated and inter-related directions: theoretical, political and economic.'' Subscribing to this proposition, which was expounded by Engels, Lenin pointed out that scientific communism "recognises not two forms of the great struggle" of the working class (political and economic), "but three, placing the theoretical struggle on a par with the first two" ^^*^^
Lenin contended that it was necessary to wage a consistent struggle for the purity and creative development of the revolutionary teaching of the working class. His whole life illustrates this. He resolutely repelled all assaults on revolutionary Marxism by opportunists and nationalists of all hues and called on the international communist movement always to remember that at definite periods the "zigzags of bourgeois tactics intensify revisionism within the labour movement''.~^^**^^ At the same time, he constantly warned the movement against petty-bourgeois ``Left'' adventurism and sectarianism, a trend which "is very revolutionary in words, but not in the least revolutionary as far as its real views ... are concerned".^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 370.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. Hi, p. 3,r>l.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. (i, p. 2SS.
38Lenin's ideological heritage serves as tested weapon for the Communist and Workers' Parties in their struggle against the bourgeoisie and all varieties of opportunism. While persecuting Communists, the imperialists go to all ends to undermine the Party of the working class ideologically. Counting on nationalism, chauvinism, Right-wing opportunism and ``Left'' adventurist revisionism, they seek to disunite the Communist Parties, weaken the socialist countries and drive a wedge between them. To achieve these ends they do not scruple to use any means. They carry on unbridled antisocialist propaganda, slander the policy of the USSR and other socialist countries and make every effort to discredit the noble aims of the Communists.
The Communist Parties oppose the insidious strategy of imperialism and its ideological subversion with proletarian internationalism and a determined struggle against imperialism and its agents.
A great international teaching of the proletariat and all working people, Leninism is a mighty and all-conquering ideological weapon against bourgeois ideology, revisionism and nationalism. It is the banner of our age and a powerful means of remaking the world by revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ LENINISM IS WINNING THE WORLDIn all countries increasing numbers of working people are becoming convinced of the great truth of Lenin's teaching. They see in Leninism a science that answers all the questions being posed by modern social development and are corning to realise that only the road charted by Lenin makes it possible to liberate working people from capitalist oppression, deliver the peoples from wars, emancipate mankind from imperialist tyranny and build a new life. Every major issue agitating modern society---the direction in which imperialism is developing, the class struggle in the capitalist countries, the socialist revolution, the conquest of state power by the working class, the national liberation movement, the questions of war and peace, peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, relations between socialist and capitalist countries, and the ways and means of building socialism and communism---has been profoundly and comprehensively studied by Lenin. The Leninist teaching is a 39 reliable ideological guide for all the revolutionary forces called on to renew the world along communist lines.
This has been fully borne out by historical development over the past few decades.
The far-reaching revolutionary transformations that have taken place during the past fifty years have fundamentally changed the social make-up of our planet. To see that this is so it is sufficient to glance at the political map of the world.
Political Map of the World: 1919 and Beginning of 1969 1919 Beginning of 1969 Territory Population (estimate) Territory Population (cst imate) C r* O o ``O O O _0 Jv sf 0 C 'f _ o 5 £ c c ~ 'o .2 ™ "--- 'B _2 ~ ' o _2 ~ ',' ^ ~ Isr -.0 0 E a - =^) E y. -a O `` ^ ='£ 1. World . . . . 135.8 100 1,777 100 135.8 100 3,520 100 Of which: (a) socialist countries 21.7 16.0 138 7.8 35.2 25.9 1,210 31.4 (b) other countries 114.1 34.0 1,639 92.2 100.6 74.1 2,310 65. G 2. Large imperialist powers* and their colonies . . . . 60.3 44.4 855 48.1 12 3 9 539.2 15.3 3. All colonies and semi-colonies 97.8 72 1,235 69.4 5 3.7 36.3 1 4. Former colonial and semi-colonial countries that became sovereign states after 1919 (excluding socia-- list countries) --- --- --- 79.1 58.2 1,616 45.9 * USA, Britain, France, FRO (in 1919---Germany), Japan and Italy.Capitalism has, thus, irretrievably lost its predominant position in world politics. The epoch of its undivided sway has been supplanted by the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism.
40Exploitation of man has been uprooted in huge areas of the world. Many peoples have shaken off the chains of imperialist oppression. Socialist ideals have won the minds and hearts of hundreds of millions of people and have become a mighty material force.
The world-wide revolutionary process by which capitalism is replaced by socialism continues to develop in width and depth. Today three main torrents interact in this process. They are the world socialist system, the working-class movement in the capitalist countries and the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
In the anti-imperialist struggle the leading force is the world socialist system. Although it has only been in existence for a little over two decades, it has demonstrated its great viability and strength. The following gives an idea of its might. The socialist countries in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance occupy only 18 per cent of the world's territory and have only 10 per cent of its population. However, currently, they account for approximately onethird of the world industrial product.
The achievements of the world socialist system are an inspiring example for the working people of the developed capitalist countries and for the young states that have started out on independent development. "The rise and development ol the international socialist system is part and parcel of the world-wide class struggle. The socialist system is the principal obstacle to imperialism.''^^*^^
The teaching of Leninism, embodied in the practice of the world socialist system, is a powerful weapon in the struggle for social progress and helps to mould the class and revolutionary consciousness of working people throughout the world. Important changes are taking place in the modern working-class movement.
Today the world witnesses unprecedented mass action by the working people. Nearly 10 million people took part in the general strike staged in France in the period from May to June 1968. More than 12 million people took part in the general strike in Italy in November 1968, and in February 1969 a general strike in that country involved over 18 million people. In 1968 14 million Japanese working people came out for the traditional spring offensive. At the present _-_-_
^^*^^ World Marxist Revicw, No. S, August 1909, p. 2.
41 stage of the general crisis of capitalism the strike struggle has reached a scale unknown for a long time in the history of the working-class movement of the imperialist countries.The class battles in the Western countries have been marked in recent years by a number of new phenomena in the mass working-class and anti-monopoly movement. The most important of these phenomena are that the working class there has demonstrated a definite tendency towards united action and that its struggle for social progress is being joined by engineering and technological personnel, office employees, intellectuals, students and the middle strata in town and country. This broadening of the social composition of the participants in anti-monopoly actions has led to a further widening of the rupture between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the upper echelon of the state apparatus linked with it, on the one side, and the rest of the population, on the other.
Today the working class is pressing for demands such as democratic nationalisation, greater representation for the working people in parliament, the enactment of progressive social legislation, and so on. Although these objectives do not go beyond the framework of the capitalist system, the struggle to achieve them undermines monopoly rule and helps the working class to become aware of its political tasks.
Objective development confirms Lenin's teaching that there is an inseparable link between the proletarian struggle for socialism and the broad democratic movements. "The socialist revolution,'' Lenin pointed out, "is not a single act, it is not one battle on one front, but a whole epoch of acute class conflicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., on all questions of economics and politics, battles that can only end in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. It would be a radical mistake to think that the struggle for democracy was capable of diverting the proletariat from the socialist revolution or of hiding, overshadowing it, etc. On the contrary, in the same way as there can be no victorious socialism that does not practise full democracy, so the proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the bourgeoisie without an all-round, consistent and revolutionary struggle for democracy.''^^*^^
Leninism powerfully influences the development of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 144.
42 national liberation struggle of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries. The new balance of socio-political forces in the world has accelerated the disintegration of imperialism's colonial system. Hundreds of millions of people have delivered themselves from colonial slavery during the past 25 years. A far-reaching programme of socio-economic reforms undermining the foundations of capitalism has been launched in some of the young developing states. Former colonial countries are making every effort to consolidate their political and economic independence. The liberation struggle is receiving irreplaceable support from the socialist countries.The socialist countries and the international working class are making consistent efforts to strengthen the alliance between all democratic and revolutionary forces, the teaching of Lenin being the invariable guide of the world revolutionary working-class and liberation movements.
Leninism has been, remains and will continue to be the scientific foundation for a correct solution of the intricate and difficult problems arising on the road to the world-wide triumph of communism. The common duty of the great army of Communists and of all fighters against imperialism is consistently to uphold the purity of this teaching, enlarge on it in the Leninist way and make skilful and all-sided use of the Lenin heritage.
Inspired by Leninist ideals, the international communist movement has achieved grandiose successes and become the most influential political force of modern times. Communist Parties are active in all continents. In a number of countries they are the ruling parties. They function also in imperialist states and in many developing countries, where they are in the front-line of the struggle against reaction, for social progress. The more consistently every Communist Party combines international and national tasks and the more actively and skilfully it applies the principles of Leninism, the more successfully does it fulfil its aims and tasks.
The highly successful International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in June 1969 demonstrated the fidelity of the international communist movement to Marxism-Leninism. Its proceedings and results upset the wishful predictions of the enemies of communism, who hoped that the Meeting would not be held or, if it was held, would end in failure. The changes that had taken place in the world since the international forums of the Communist 43 and Workers' Parties in 1957 and I960 were thoroughly analysed at the Meeting.
The historical truth and international importance of Leninism were underscored at the Meeting, which adopted an Address under the heading of Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir llyich Lenin, stating in part: "The victory of the socialist revolution in a group of countries, the emergence of the world socialist system, the gains of the working-class movement in capitalist countries, the appearance of peoples of former colonial and semi-colonial countries in the arena of socio-political development as independent agents, and the unprecedented upsurge of the struggle against imperialism---all this is proof that Leninism is historically correct and expresses the fundamental needs of the modern age.''^^*^^
The creative spirit of Leninism permeates the key political and theoretical propositions formulated in the Meeting's document headed Tasks at the Present S/agc of the Struggle Against Imperialism and United Action of the Communist and Workers' Parties and All Anti-Imperialist Forces. New social phenomena are closely analysed in this and other documents adopted at the Meeting. These phenomena are:~
first, the development of the world socialist system, which has entered a period in which it has become possible to make considerably fuller use of its great potentialities;~
second, the advance of the scientific and technological revolution, which is opening up unparalleled possibilities for mankind but is running against capitalism, which seeks to use science and technology to prolong its existence at the price of the hardship and suffering of the people;~
third, the intensification of the state-monopoly character of modern imperialism, and the aggravation of the contradictions between labour and capital, between the financial oligarchy and the interests not only of the working class--- the main driving and mobilising force of the revolutionary struggle---but also of the overwhelming majority of the nation;~
fourth, the downfall of the colonial system which has substantially weakened the position of imperialism, and the emergence of sovereign national states as a result of the national liberation movement.
_-_-_^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' I'tirlirs, Moscow 1969, p. 41.
44An analysis of the new social phenomena shows that the present stage has greater possibilities for a further advance of ihe revolutionary and progressive forces. The documents adopted at the Meeting chart an extended, consistent and militant programme of struggle against imperialism, for peace, democracy, national independence and socialism. The Meeting was a major milestone in strengthening the unity of the Marxist-Leninist Parties on the basis of proletarian internationalism. It dealt a resounding blow at the Right and ``Left'' revisionists and also at nationalist tendencies in individual contingents of the communist movement.
Ours is the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. The participants in the Meeting rightly emphasised that despite the increasing aggressiveness of imperialism and despite the fact that it mobilises vast resources for an armed, political, economic and ideological struggle against socialism and the popular liberation movement, the balance of forces is changing in favour not of imperialism but of the forces ot peace, national liberation and socialism. In spite of the difficulties and setbacks of some of its contingents, the world revolutionary movement continues its advance.
As was noted at the Meeting, "imperialism can neither regain its lost historical initiative nor reverse world development. The main direction of mankind's development is determined by the world socialist system, the international working class, all revolutionary forces''~^^*^^
At the same time, the Communists do not underrate the strength and potentialities of imperialism, which remains a menace to mankind and has by no means become a "paper tiger''. As was pointed out at the Meeting itself and in its documents, imperialism has a large military machine, a considerable economic potential and powerful means of influencing the masses ideologically.
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that being forced to adapt itself to the conditions of the struggle between the two systems, state-monopoly capitalism seeks to boost the efficiency of production and increases its allocations for scientific and technological progress. In an endeavour to strengthen their position in the world, the ruling circles of some capitalist powers resort to forming international state-- _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 13.
45 monopoly associations and aggressive military and political alliances.While it is no longer able to reverse the wheel of history, imperialism is still capable of causing the peoples enormous sullering and pain, interfering in the affairs of other nations and unleashing military conflicts. The United States of America, the chief imperialist power, has grown particularly aggressive. The serious threat that imperialism might start another global war still hangs over the peoples of the world. The forces of reaction are more and more frequently having recourse to police persecution. They make every effort to limit the democratic gains of the working people and do not shrink from setting up terrorist forms of domination. In some countries imperialism is trying to recover its lost positions by means of military coups and various forms of intervention. Today imperialism is the chief enemy not only of the international working class but of the whole of mankind, and the main obstacle to world progress.
Underlying the predatory, aggressive policy of imperialism is the aspiration to hinder progress at all costs, undermine the positions of socialism, suppress the national liberation movement, block the struggle of the working people of the capitalist countries for peace and democracy, and use every means to hold up the irreversible general crisis and decline of capitalism.
US imperialism is the principal military, political and economic centre of world reaction and the arch-strangler of the freedom of nations.
Half a century ago the founder of the Soviet state convincingly showed the speciousness and untenability of the assertions that US capitalism is ``peace-loving'' and `` progressive''. "The idealised democratic republic" of the United States of America, Lenin pointed out, "proved in practice to be a form of the most rabid imperialism, of the most shameless oppression and suppression of weak and small nations.'' US imperialism, in Lenin's words, turned to be "the most savage imperialism, which is throttling the small and weak nations and reinstating reaction all over the world".^^*^^
This assessment of US imperialism has been incontrovertibly borne out in our day. The USA has been and remains the largest world exploiter, bulwark of all the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 189--90.
46 anti-popular regimes and the main force of imperialist aggression and brigandage.The reactionary, anti-popular character of US imperialism has manifested itself most distinctly in the aggression against the Vietnamese people. However, US intervention ran into the heroic resistance of the people of Vietnam, who have the support of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, and of all other peace-loving forces in the world.
The war in Vietnam, as was emphasised at the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, is "the most convincing proof of the contradiction between imperialism's aggressive plans and its ability to put these plans into effect. In Vietnam US imperialism, the most powerful of the imperialist partners, is suffering defeat, and this is of historic significance".^^*^^
One of the main tasks of the anti-imperialist struggle today is to compel the US imperialists to end the war of aggression in Vietnam and withdraw their armed forces from that country. "True to the principles of proletarian internationalism and in the spirit of fraternal solidarity,'' states the Appeal Independence, Freedom and Peace for Vietnam! adopted by the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, "the international communist and working-class movement will continue to render the Vietnamese people all the assistance they require until the final triumph of their just cause. They thereby make a large contribution towards the cause of world peace, the cause of freedom and socialism.''~^^**^^
In order to reinforce the unity of the communist movement and the world anti-imperialist front and raise the struggle against imperialism to a new, higher stage every effort must be made to intensify the struggle against those who seek to split the ranks of the international revolutionary movement.
In this connection the adventurist policies of the present leaders of the Communist Party of China, who have broken with Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and are trying to split the world communist movement, is evoking the indignation and deep anxiety of Communists throughout the world. These policies are inilicting enormous _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist mid Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 13.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 44.
47 harm on the international communist movement, the Chinese people and the People's Republic ol China.Policies ol this kind cannot succeed. Marxists-Leninists are sure that sooner or later the ideas ol scientific socialism will inevitably triumph in China and that the Chinese people will make their contribution to the common struggle of the working people oi the whole world against imperialism, lor peace, democracy and socialism.
In all their activities Communists are guided by Lenin's injunction that "no matter what the lurther complications of the struggle may be, no matter what occasional zigzags we may have to contend with (there will be very many of them--- we have seen from experience what gigantic turns the history of the revolution has made...)---in order not to lose our way in these zigzags, these sharp turns in history'',^^*^^ it is important not to lose the general perspective. For the Communists this general perspective has been and remains the implementation of the world-historic task of remaking the world by revolution in order to deliver mankind lor all time to come from exploitation, poverty, hunger, suffering, privation and wars of annihilation, and ensure all peoples with an abundance of material and cultural blessings.
__*_*_*__Under the banner of Leninism, socialism and mankind's social progress have made colossal headway. But the struggle for mankind's future, for the implementation of the great idea of social equality and justice has not ended. Lenin's prediction that the forces of the old world would not quit the stage of history voluntarily is coming true. The old, outworn capitalist system can and must be swept away by the joint efforts of the peoples of the countries building socialism and communism, the proletariat and broad sections of the working masses of the capitalist states, and the peoples lighting to abolish colonial slavery and achieve national independence.
The teaching of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is an inexhaustible source of inspiration ior Communists, for those fighting to destroy reaction and establish peace and socialism. This was underscored at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, in whose Address Centenary of the Birth _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 129--30.
48 of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin it is stated: "Loyalty to MarxismLeninism, to this great international teaching, holds the promise oi lurther successes of the communist movement.``Communists regard it as their task firmly to uphold the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism in the struggle against all enemies, steadfastly to make them a living reality, constantly to develop Marxist-Leninist theory and enrich it on the basis of present experience of waging the class struggle and building socialist society.''^^*^^
The ideas expounded by Lenin are winning the minds and hearts of millions. True to Lenin's behests, the Communists, supported by the growing internationalist unity of the working class, of all revolutionary liberation and anti-imperialist forces, will do everything in their power to bring to its victorious end the great struggle to establish socialism and communism throughout the world.
_-_-_^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 41.
[49] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE HERITAGE OF LENINThe centenary of the birth of Lenin is a major ideological and political event.
Along with Marx and Engels, Lenin unquestionably made the greatest contribution towards the liberation of people and nations. With his name is associated the creative enrichment of Marxism in the new historical conditions, the formation of the new type of revolutionary proletarian Party, the victory of the first socialist revolution in 1917 and the building of the new society, which, under his leadership began to be translated from a dream into reality.
It goes without saying that in all countries of the world the centenary of Lenin's birth is an occasion to pay a further tribute of profound respect to Lenin the man.
But even more important is the fact that this is a further occasion to review his teaching, demonstrate its unfading vitality and show that by its very essence it inspires the struggle waged by our contemporaries: those who are already building the new, socialist society and those, as in France, who are compelled to combat capitalism and its state.
__*_*_*__Capitalism or socialism: such is the alternative determining the life of many countries, including France. The might and attractive force of socialism characterise the epoch in which we Jive. In vain does M. J.-J. Servan-Schreiber 50 impress upon the French working class that it has nothing to do witli revolution because it belongs to the "generation of the epoch of computers": the French worker is sick of seeing the fruits ol his working day at the factory, whether operated or not by computer, used for the upkeep of the idle and rich, of the capitalist class. The worker knows that by appropriating surplus value capitalism exploits him in the literal sense of the word. The worker aspires to socialism, for this system, under which he will at last work for himself and society, consists of working people like himself.
The impact of socialist ideas in the world is such that today we see the agents of capitalism compelled to don the garments of pseudo-Socialists and give themselves out for `` revolutionaries''.
Today when pseudo-Socialists of all hues maintain they can build socialism without affecting monopoly and capitalist ownership, it is necessary more than ever before to remind people of the aims of socialism as they were defined by the founders of scientific socialism---Marx, Engels and Lenin.
It is not enough to destroy capitalist society. We must know how to replace it and with what.
More than anybody else, we Communists criticise presentday society, but at the same time we fight to replace it with a better society, with socialist society.
While the reformists and Right opportunists hold that there is no need for a socialist revolution and rest content with partial reforms without calling in question capitalist rule itself, some Leftist groups declare that they are for selfadministration at factory level but forget to raise the question of to whom the means of production and state power must belong on the national scale.
Yet in order that one fine day the working people could take over factory management in one or another form the principal means of production must cease being the private property of the capitalists and, consequently, political power must pass into the hands of the working class and its allies.
In order to launch and really achieve the socialist reorganisation of society, the bourgeois state must be in fact replaced by a new, socialist state, i.e., by the state which the founders of scientific socialism called the "temporary dictatorship of the proletariat'', the word ``dictatorship'' meaning political hegemony, leadership of society.
``Socialism,'' states the Manifesto of the French Communist 51 Party, "is collective ownership of the basic means of production and exchange, the implementation ol political power by the working class and its allies, the progressive satisfaction of the steadily growing material and intellectual requirements of the members of society, and the creation of the necessary conditions for the florescence of every individual.''^^*^^
Capitalism's apologists try to use the difficulties in the socialist countries in order to hinder the spread of socialist ideas in the world. Some of these difficulties are of an objective nature and spring from historical factors, others are subjective and are due to errors and to the fact that people have not yet learned to make use of all the possibilities inherent in the socialist system. But the circumstance that one or another socialist country has run into difficulties is no reason for underrating the great achievements of the socialist countries, particularly of the Soviet Union. It should not be forgotten that only socialism made it possible to put an end to exploitation of man by man on which the capitalist system is founded.
__*_*_*__Socialism became a scientific doctrine in the mid-19th century, and the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first in which the Marxist teaching was used as a guide.
The immense significance of the socialist revolution of October f917 and of the Soviet Union's experience is that they proved that the working class is capable of overthrowing capitalism and building a socialist society free of the exploitation of man by man.
The October Revolution laid bare the main universal laws of the socialist revolution. In the Declaration adopted by the 1957 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties these laws were formulated as follows:~
conquest of political power by the working class in alliance with the majority of the peasants and other strata of working people;~
establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat in one form or another, understanding this to mean the leadership of society by the working class and its allies and the spread of democracy to all working people, to the whole nation;~
abolition of capitalist ownership, the establishment of _-_-_
^^*^^ L'Ifumanile, December 7, 1968.
52 social ownership of the basic means of production and the gradual socialist reorganisation of agriculture;~the building up of a planned socialist economy aimed at securing a steady rise of the people's standard of living, and active participation of the masses in the direction and administration of affairs;~
solidarity of the working class of the given country with the working class of other countries;~
need for a Marxist-Leninist Party as the genuine revolutionary vanguard of the working class.
At once, in 1917, the followers of reformism and the leaders of the Social-Democratic Parties of different countries adopted a hostile attitude towards the October Socialist Revolution, holding that the road chosen by Lenin for the abolition of capitalism and the building of socialism was wrong because it had cost much too dear.
By coming out with assertions of this kind they made a mistake that was all the more serious in view of the fact that they were subsequently unable to accomplish socialist changes or, at least, start them in any country.
Wilson's Labour Cabinet in Britain and the Socialist Parties which have been in power in the Scandinavian countries for nearly three decades have not attacked the bourgeois monopoly of the basic means of production. They have left representatives of the capitalist oligarchy in their old posts, and today the masses are showing their dissatisfaction with the current policy by refusing confidence to Socialist governments and voting for conservative parties, as has happened in Norway and Denmark.
By trying to adapt the working-class movement to the demands of capitalism and reconcile the working class to the bourgeoisie, the leaders of the Social-Democratic Right wing have, in effect, abandoned their intention to build socialism.
In the different countries this political collapse cannot help but set thinking activists and rank-and-file Socialists who are devoted to socialist ideals and are anxious to find new ways to socialism. The ways that have been followed so far by the Social-Democratic Parties do not lead to socialism. That is a fact.
__*_*_*__However, by relying completely on the general principles of the socialist revolution, one can and must foresee a 53 different path of advance towards socialism than those which Russia and other countries had been forced to take. In the Declaration of the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties it is unequivocally stressed that the general principles of the socialist revolution and socialist construction are implemented in different ways in each country, depending on the historical conditions and the national specifics.
In other words, while the transition to socialism is an historical necessity, the conditions and forms of this transition have differed and will differ in each individual country.
Indeed, each country has its own---high or low---economic and cultural level, its own specific alignment of class forces and its own political traditions, in other words, its own national specific.
Moreover, national factors cannot be examined in isolation from the general situation in the world. How smoothly the transition to socialism can be accomplished in a given country depends on whether the international situation favours the forces of progress or reaction.
Hence, it follows that the methods and ways of transition to socialism are extremely diverse. At a meeting in Amsterdam on September 8, 1872 Karl Marx said: "The worker will some day have to win political supremacy....
``But we have by no means affirmed that this goal would be achieved by identical means.''^^*^^
As regards Lenin, he constantly returned to the thought that the socialist revolution could not be oriented on one and only one example. "All nations,'' he wrote, "will arrive at socialism---this is inevitable, but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life.''^^**^^
At different stages the French Communist Party has endeavoured to enlarge on these conclusions of the founders of scientific socialism. For instance, directly after the Second World War, when the democratic movement was on the upswing and the forces of the big bourgeoisie were experiencing a decline, thus bearing out the importance of united _-_-_
^^*^^ Marx and Kngels. Selected Works in 3 vols.. Vol. II, Moscow, 1969, p. 292.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin. Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. G9-70.
54 action by all contingents of the working class, Maurice Thorcz stated in his famous interview for The Times on November 18, 1946 that "the progress of democracy throughout the world, in spite of rare exceptions which serve only to confirm the rule, permits the choice of other paths to socialism than the one taken by the Russian Communists. In any case, the path is necessarily different for each country. We have always thought and said that the French people, who are rich in great traditions, would find for themselves their way to greater democracy, progress, and social justice. Yet, history shows there is no progress without a struggle. There is no well-paved road along which mankind may advance without toil and sweat. There have always been many obstacles to overcome. That is the very sense of life.''^^*^^True, at the time the stand adopted by the French Communists was criticised by some fraternal Parties. Besides, the situation in the international communist movement, due to the beginning of the cold war, did not make it possible fully to effectuate the prospect that had taken shape. However, our Party has not abandoned it.
In mentioning the Scandinavian countries, we pointed out that socialism presupposes a fundamental remaking of the country's political face, and that becoming the leading class the proletariat acts in alliance with the working peasants and the middle urban strata. Socialism represents a qualitative leap in history, and all this is expressed by the concept "socialist revolution''.
Does this revolution necessarily have to be accomplished in the form of a military clash, of a civil war between the opposing forces? This apocalyptic image of the socialist revolution superbly serves the interests and calculations of the adversaries of progress, but it does not mirror the standpoint of the Communists.
__*_*_*__After the 20th Congress of the CPSU, in the joint Statements of the Communist and Workers' Parties of 1957 and I960 it was stressed that more propitious conditions for the triumph of socialism had appeared as a consequence of the far-reaching and radical changes that had taken place in favour of socialism.
_-_-_^^*^^ The Times, November IS, 1946, p. 6.
55``The forms of the transition from capitalism to socialism may vary for different countries. The working class and its vanguard---the Marxist-Leninist Party---seek to achieve the socialist revolution by peaceful means. This would accord with the interests of the working class and the entire people, with the national interests of the country.
``Today in a number of capitalist countries the working class headed by its vanguard has the opportunity, given a united working-class and popular front or other workable forms of agreement and political co-operation between the different parties and public organisations, to unite a majority of the people, win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the basic means of production to the hands of the people....
``All this will be possible only bv broad and ceaseless development of the class struggle of the workers, peasant masses and the urban middle strata against big monopoly capital, against reaction, for profound social reforms, for peace and socialism.
``In the event of the exploiting classes resorting to violence against people, the possibility of non-peaceful transition to socialism should be borne in mind. Leninism teaches, and experience confirms, that the ruling classes never relinquish power voluntarily. In this case the degree of bitterness and the forms of the class struggle will depend not so much on the proletariat as on the resistance put up by the reactionary circles to the will of the overwhelming majority of the people, or these circles using force at one or another stage of the struggle for socialism.''^^*^^
We wholeheartedly subscribe to these theses, which relate to the various forms that the struggle for the transition to socialism can take.
We believe that the French big bourgeoisie will make a desperate stand in order to preserve its position after the majority of the nation has declared itself in favour of socialist reforms.
However, we consider that in the struggle for socialism, provided it pursues a correct policy, the working class in our country has the possibility of uniting round itself the bulk of the working people and of the middle strata and thereby, at _-_-_
^^*^^ The Struggle for Peace, Democracy and Socialism, Moscow, 1901, pp. 18--19.
56 a definite moment, ensuring a huge superiority of forces capable of paralysing the bourgeoisie's tendency to resort to civil war and discouraging it from using weapons.In their assessments the French Communists also take into account the fact that capitalism is no longer able to dictate its will to the world. However, peaceful transition remains a possibility but not a firm reality, and it will therefore be necessary to take the specific situation into consideration.
__*_*_*__Although Marxist theory maintains that in all cases the transition to socialism represents a qualitative reorganisation of society, i.e., revolution, it does not offer a ready-made pattern of the forms and means of struggle which the working class and its allies must employ in order to win political power and successfully consummate socialist reforms.
On this point Lenin said that to act in a Marxist, revolutionary way meant to adopt a creative, scientific approach which took the specific historical circumstances into consideration. On the problem of the forms of struggle he wrote: "In the first place, Marxism differs from all primitive forms of socialism by not binding the movement to any one particular form of struggle.... Under no circumstances does Marxism confine itself to the forms of struggle that, unknown to the participants of the given period, inevitably arise as the given social situation changes....
``In the second place, Marxism demands an absolutely historical examination of the question of the forms of struggle. To treat this question apart from the concrete historical situation betrays a failure to understand the rudiments of dialectical materialism.''^^*^^
For us Lenin is a model revolutionary, who, in determining the tactics of struggle and the political objective, always proceeded from the real state of affairs at the given moment, from the specific situation and from the possibilities springing from that situation.
In face of the all-powerful, barbarous tsarist autocracy, in the exceedingly difficult conditions of an extremely backward country, many Russian revolutionaries had often taken desperate decisions. They pinned their hopes exclusively on _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp. 213--14.
57 the struggle of lone persons or of small isolated groups, on a courageous but futile struggle because the masses were not involved in it.Considering the futility of this sort of action, Lenin, who was only a youth at the time, decided to find a different road for the socialist revolution.
This was the road of building up a genuinely proletarian Party whose programme, forms and tactics of struggle, organisational principles and cadres conformed to the requirements of living reality. Lenin sought to activate the working class as the main force. As a result of capitalist development the working class was growing numerically and gathering strength. Furthermore, Lenin mapped out a plan under which the struggle of the working class was to be reinforced by the actions of broad masses of peasants and the struggle of the non-Russian peoples against national oppression, from which they suffered in the tsarist empire. He thus moved to the forefront the struggle of the masses and the unity of the democratic forces. Even under these conditions he kept emphasising since 1899 that the "working class would, of course, prefer to take power peacefully".^^*^^ But brutal violence by tsarism directed Russia's history to a different road.
__*_*_*__In Russia Soviets emerged during the revolution of 1905, in which mass political strikes were combined with armed action. When tsarism collapsed in February 1917, at the height of the war, the Soviets reappeared and became a form of power coexisting with the bourgeois Provisional Government.
That was when Lenin advanced the slogan "All power to the Soviets" in order to put an end to capitalist rule and secure the transition to socialism.
He pointed out that in the conditions obtaining in Russia the transfer of state power to the Soviets and the transition from capitalism to socialism could be effected peacefully. Indeed, had the parties which declared themselves adherents of socialism, for example, the Mensheviks, desired like the Bolsheviks to use the favourable conditions for removing the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 276.
58 bourgeoisie from power, the experience of Russia would have differed from the experience which was actually gained by force of circumstances.In the Soviets, as organs of power, there would have been a political struggle between the Socialist and democratic parties. The parties winning the majority would have formed the majority in the Government. The revolution would have developed under conditions witnessing the existence of several Soviet parties and a peaceful struggle for socialism. But the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries had no faith in the possibility of a socialist revolution in Russia.
Instead of co-operating with the Bolsheviks (Communists), they did not hesitate in July 1917, under the aegis of the Kerensky Government, to launch bloody repressions against them and this, somewhat later, in October, led to a military clash.
The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries did not desire to co-operate with the Bolshevik Party, whose influence in the Soviets---in other words, among the worker and peasant masses---was growing not by the day but by the hour.
This was the situation in which the October uprising of 1917 took place under the leadership of the Leninist Party, and Soviet power was established---almost without bloodshed---in the course of a few days.
Several months later, backed by the armed intervention of the Western capitalist powers, the internal counterrevolution started a civil war. The struggle was so violent and destructive that it could not but leave a deep imprint on the new state.
Lenin repeatedly stressed the entire depth of its effects to the young Soviet power from the economic, political, moral and cultural aspects. The war embraced the entire country and for a long time made the functioning of Soviet democracy practically impossible. This was an extremely serious circumstance for a country with autocratic traditions.
Moreover, the situation did not make it possible to establish durable co-operation between the Bolshevik and other parties. Co-operation between the Bolsheviks and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, started on Government level in December 1917, rapidly disintegrated through the fault of the latter.
59Having triumphantly consolidated its right to existence, the Soviet Government had to embark on the building of the new, socialist system in one country. The country was huge, of course, but it was dislocated economically and surrounded on all sides by the hostile capitalist world. That is what determines the historical grandeur of the Soviet experience, and, also, some of its specific features. Consequently, when we analyse this experience we have to distinguish in it features of socialism that are of universal significance and also features intrinsic to the Soviet Union.
Having established the basic principles of the socialist revolution, the October Revolution at the same time facilitated the transformation of the world and the change of the balance of power to the extent that now, thanks to the dedication and heroism of the first builders of socialism in Russia, it is possible to move towards the new society by a road different from that of the October Revolution.
__*_*_*__Immediately after the October Revolution Lenin declared that the Russian Marxists had been triumphant because they had freed themselves from opportunism and dogmatism. In ``Left-Wing'' Communism---an Infantile Disorder he insisted that Communists of the capitalist world should make every effort to learn "to apply the general and basic principles of communism ... to the specific features in the objective development towards communism, which are different in each country and which we must be able to discover, study and predict".^^*^^
The newly formed Communist Parties did not at once appreciate the significance of this injunction. Many stereotype ideas, for example that the Soviets were the only form of working-class power in all countries, became current.
Dogmatism was dealt a crushing blow at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in 1935. The French Communist Party's creative policy and its initiative in setting up the Popular Front were highly appraised at that congress. The report, delivered by Georgi Dimitrov, blasted the view that the road traversed by the Russian Communists had to be repeated in every detail.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 89.
60Take the Vietnamese people. They won independence in North Vietnam in armed struggle against the French colonialists, and today they are winning it in the South in struggle against the US aggressor.
In Latin America the Cuban people also won liberation from imperialism in an armed struggle in order to choose the socialist road of development.
An armed struggle and partisan action combined with other forms of struggle and popular movements may prove to be really necessary in one country or another in order to put an end to a military or fascist dictatorship serving US imperialism.
But this does not at all mean that the armed struggle is the only form of struggle in all countries, in all continents and in all periods.
While it is true that no real revolution developing on national soil can isolate itself behind national exclusiveness and divorce itself from the socialist camp, it is similarly true that no revolution and no revolutionary tactics are items of standardised export.
If in one country or another the alignment of class forces is unfavourable, an armed struggle may lead the movement to defeat and even to disaster by giving reaction cause for starting repressions.
That is exactly what happened in Indonesia in 1965: carried away by Leftist theses about an "armed struggle everywhere'', some leaders of the Communist Party of Indonesia, jointly with a group of progressive officers, made an attempt to remove reactionary generals heading the Indonesian Army by means of an armed action, through a putsch.
This attempt was undertaken in a situation in which the masses knew nothing of what was taking place, despite the fact that Lenin taught that revolution must be a matter ol the masses themselves. For that reason the attempt failed, and everybody knows the result: their hands untied, the reactionary forces exterminated more than 300,000 Communists and rendered leaderless a Party that had 2,500,000 members. The masses of Indonesia found themselves unable to take any effective action.
This and other examples show that ``Left'' adventurism, which insists on an armed struggle ``everywhere'' and "at any time'', can inflict enormous harm on the revolutionary movement.
61Ultimately it is the Communist Party in each country that has to decide on when to go over to specific action and determine the most expedient forms of struggle which would take the situation, the national features and the available possibilities into account.
The ``Left'' opportunists ignore the obvious fact that in a highly developed country like France, democratic and socialist tasks intertwine.
In the present situation and under the obtaining alignment of forces the struggle for advanced democracy, i.e., for far-reaching social reforms, allows making the best use of the revolutionary anti-monopoly potentialities of all the democratic forces and mobilising the energy not only of the proletariat and workin