PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
[1]Translated from the Russian by Yuri Sdobnikov Designed by Sofya Gannushkina
Ejiena J1EHHHH3M H COBPEMEHHAH BOPbBA Ha
First printing 1972 Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
__NOTE__ No copyright. [2] CONTENTS Preface. Aggravation of the Ideological Struggle at the PresentIn the modern world, two ideologies---the communist and the bourgeois---are engaged in a struggle of unprecedented acerbity. This contest is a reflection in mankind's spiritual life of the historical transition from capitalism to socialism.
The struggle between world socialism and world capitalism is the principal contradiction of the present-day development of the world. It is the same class struggle, waged in all its forms, but now unfolding in the international arena. Growing acerbity is the basic and determining law of its development.
Lenin said it was a law that the greater the strength of the revolution, the force of its attack, its energy and determination, the more complete its triumph, the more intense the resistance of the reactionaries. He said: ``The more victorious we are the more the capitalist exploiters learn to unite and the more determined their = onslaught.''^^1^^ He anticipated the inevitable sharpening of the class struggle between socialism and capitalism, when he wrote that capitalism ``does not die at once but puts up increasingly furious resistance the closer death = approaches''.^^2^^ Today, capitalism naturally has even less to go before its demise than it had half a century ago, when Lenin formulated this important task: ``To overcome the capitalists' resistance in every form, not only military and political, but also ideological, which is the strongest and the most = deep-seated.''^^3^^
The task has never been more pressing than it is today. The character of our epoch and the lines along which world history has been running have transformed the ideological struggle into the bitterest and most advanced front of the class struggle.
The law-governed aggravation of the ideological struggle, as a form of class struggle (apart from the general tendencies characteristic of the class struggle as a whole) is determined _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 450.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 412.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 370.
5 by the changing relationship between the principal forms of the class struggle at different stages of history and in different conditions.At the present stage, while the struggle in the economic competition retains its full importance, the class adversaries of the USSR essentially no longer have any hopes for a collapse of socialism because of economic failure, but are, on the contrary, forced to admit that its economy has been growing ever more efficient. Hopes of vanquishing socialism in a frontal military attack have also been blasted. The Soviet people crushed the monstrous Hitler invasion. That is why imperialism has now turned its attention to making the utmost use of weapons on the ideological front.
Meanwhile, socialism has been advancing. In 1917, it accounted for less than three per cent of world industrial production, in 1950, for 20 per cent, and in 1968, for roughly 39 per cent.
This has fully borne out Lenin's prediction that once the socialist revolution has won out, there would be a vast acceleration in the development of society's productive forces. In the years of its peaceful labour, the USSR increased its industrial output at an average of 14 per cent a year; for the whole Soviet period the figure is 9.9 per cent, as compared with two to four per cent for the USA, Britain, France and West Germany.
The community of countries within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) is the most dynamic industrial area of the world. With 18 per cent of the globe's territory and 10 per cent of its population, it accounts for almost 32 per cent of its industrial output. The aggregate industrial potential is roughly double that of the Common Market (EEC) and is edging up on that of the USA.
It is not surprising that the ruling circles of the imperialist powers have devoted vast efforts and resources to subversive political and ideological struggle against the socialist countries, and against the communist and all other democratic movements.
The ideological struggle in the modern world has also grown more acute in view of the obvious successes scored by the national liberation movement. More than 70 sovereign national states have arisen on the ruins of the colonial empires, and their peoples are now faced with a highly important historical task, namely, to emancipate themselves 6 from economic dependence, to escape from the world capitalist system, and to take the way of non-capitalist development. Lenin was quite right when he said that ``the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism''.^^1^^
One of the key international problems today which has largely gone to exacerbate the ideological struggle is the choice of way for the liberated countries. Bourgeois ideologists have been trying hard to denigrate socialism, communism and Marxism, and to cover up the new forms of exploitation of the economically lagging countries---the neo-colonialist methods of imperialist enslavement---so as to get these countries to take the capitalist way.
The growing role of the subjective factor in present-day conditions is another objective law governing the advance of history which is of great importance in sharpening the ideological struggle in the world.
On the whole, the capitalist system is ripe for socialist revolution, that is, it already has the material prerequisites for revolutionary change. But historical laws do not work automatically, and it takes vigorous and conscious action by masses of people to realise the objective laws of social development. However, the working people's consciousness in the capitalist countries largely remains under the influence of the alien, hostile ideology of the ruling, exploiting classes, who have been doing their utmost to prevent the working people from sloughing off their spiritual fetters. It will take very intense effort by the progressive social forces and their conscious vanguard---the Communist and Workers' Parties--- to overcome the pressure of reactionary ideas on the consciousness of the masses. This tends to complexify and sharpen the ideological struggle in the capitalist countries.
In the socialist countries, where development proceeds under a qualitatively new socio-economic formation, the subjective factor has an extremely great part to play in society, with special importance attaching to the tireless struggle against ideas which are alien and hostile to socialism.
A change of tactics by the class adversaries of socialism has had a direct influence on sharpening the world-wide _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 482.
7 ideological struggle. The imperialists have ever more frequently resorted to the treacherous tactics of undermining socialism from inside. ``They are probing for any weak links in the socialist front, setting their sights on subversive ideological activity within the socialist countries. . ., seeking to sow dissent, to drive wedges between them, to encourage and to fan nationalistic feelings and = tendencies.''^^1^^Imperialism seeks to weaken the ideological and political unity of the working people in the socialist countries, relying mainly on the nationalistic and revisionist elements. This active urge to use nationalism and revisionism in the fight against socialism goes hand in hand with ever more overt attempts to shift the centre of gravity of the ideological struggle onto the territory of the socialist countries.
The sharpening of the ideological struggle is also objectively connected with the complexification of this struggle which ultimately stems from the successes scored by the working-class and international communist movement.
Another important factor objectively tending to exacerbate the ideological struggle in the world is the well-geared mass media which technical progress has put at the disposal of those who spread ideas. Radio, television and the mass printing of books, newspapers and magazines have enlarged the scale and potentialities of the ideological struggle, and have intensified it to an unprecedented degree.
Consequently, the sharpening of the ideological struggle in present-day conditions has been quite natural and has been determined by the whole course of the class struggle throughout the world. The growing acerbity of the ideological battles is evidenced by the increasing importance of the subjective factor, the ever fiercer resistance on the part of imperialism, the constant improvement of the forms and methods of this resistance, which includes subtle and extensive use of lies, slander, demagogy, pseudo-scientific conceptions and all sorts of falsifications, the mounting ideological subversion of imperialism against the socialist nations, the revival of revisionism on the Right and on the ``Left'' and the increasingly active attempts by the imperialists to use it in undermining the ideological-political unity of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Speech at the 5th Congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, November 12, 1968, Moscow, 1968, pp. 4-5 (in Russian).
8 socialist community, and the growing scale of the struggle of ideas due to the introduction of ever more powerful technical means.In these conditions, it is of especial importance to assimilate Lenin's ideological legacy, in particular, Lenin's approach to the problems of ideological struggle. At the turn of the century, Lenin declared that socialist and bourgeois ideology were incompatible, and that this was due to the very nature of ideology as a social phenomenon, and also to the qualitative features of the one and the other.
In all his activity in criticising views hostile and alien to socialism, Lenin started from the following basic principles: the bringing out of the class content and epistemological principles of various theories, propositions and concepts; the concrete, dialectical approach to the questions of ideological struggle; the attacking attitude; and the close connection between the struggle against the ideology of imperialism and the struggle against opportunism in all its forms and manifestations. These propositions are just as meaningful in our own day.
The Marxist approach to the questions of the ideological struggle calls for skill in bringing out at every stage the main ideological and political trends which are hostile to the communist cause. Lenin always ranked, alongside the Party's programme and tactics, its assessment of ``... ideological and political trends of the given period, or the most widespread of them, or those which are most harmful for democracy and socialism''.^^1^^
Which then are the trends that are most harmful for democracy and socialism today? Relying on the socio-- historical practice of our day, the policy-making documents of the CPSU and the international communist movement, and the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU, it is safe to say that such trends are above all anti-communism, including anti-Sovietism; nationalism; the ideology of Right-socialist reformism, and revisionism, both Right and ``Left''.
These are the trends that are aimed against the three decisive forces of the world revolutionary process: the socialist community; the international working-class movement and its communist vanguard; and the national _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 280.
9 liberation struggle of the peoples. Anti-communism, the chief ideological and political weapon of modern imperialism, is aimed against all these streams of social progress; reformism splits the working-class movement, thereby weakening the anti-monopoly, anti-imperialist front; revisionism (Right and ``Left'' opportunism) undermines the international communist movement from inside and weakens it. The ideology of reformism and revisionism increasingly coalesces and interacts with anti-communism and nationalism.The decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU say that the fight against anti-communism and against Right and ``Left'' revisionism and nationalism continues to be an important and pressing task. The Congress urged an implacable struggle against any trend seeking to subordinate the workingclass movement to the interests of monopoly capital, and to undermine the cause of the working people's struggle for peace, democracy and socialism. The Congress instructed the CPSU Central Committee to continue pursuing its policy of resolutely resisting the imperialist policy of war and aggression, and exposing and frustrating any schemes hostile to the cause of peace and freedom.
The 24th Congress of the CPSU demonstrated the abiding importance of the great ideas of internationalism, cohesion and unity of the communist movement, of the socialist community and of all the progressive forces of the world.
The Central Committee's Report to the 24th Congress said, in particular, that the Czechoslovakian events were a fresh reminder that under certain conditions the internal antisocialist forces variously remaining in the countries taking the path of socialist construction may become active and may even mount direct counter-revolutionary action in expectation of support from outside, from imperialism, which is always prepared to form blocks with such forces.
In this context, the danger of Right revisionism was fully brought out. Under the pretext of ``improving'' socialism it seeks to kill the revolutionary heart of Marxism-Leninism and paves the way for the penetration of bourgeois ideology.
``It was clear to us,'' L. I. Brezhnev said, ``that this was not only an attempt on the part of imperialism and its accomplices to overthrow the socialist system in Czechoslovakia. It was an attempt to strike in this way at the positions of socialism in Europe as a whole, and to create favourable 10 conditions for a subsequent onslaught against the socialist world by the most aggressive forces of = imperialism.''^^1^^
The Central Committee's Report quoted the following assessment of the importance of the collective assistance of the fraternal states made by a Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in its document, ``The Lessons of the Crisis Development'', which said:
``The entry of the allied troops of the five socialist countries into Czechoslovakia was an act of international solidarity, meeting both the common interests of Czechoslovakia's working people and the interests of the international working class, the socialist community and the class interests of the international communist movement. This internationalist act saved the lives of thousands of men, ensured internal and external conditions for peaceful and tranquil labour, strengthened the Western borders of the socialist camp, and blasted the hopes of the imperialist circles for a revision of the results of the Second World War.'' Having quoted this, L. I. Brezhnev added: ``We fully agree with the conclusion drawn by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Life has once again provided convincing evidence that the fraternal unity of the socialist countries is the most reliable barrier against the forces trying to attack and weaken, the socialist camp, to undermine and invalidate the working people's socialist gains. The peoples of the socialist countries have clearly demonstrated to the whole world that they will not give up their revolutionary gains, and that the borders of the socialist community are immutable and = inviolable.''^^2^^
The reference to the lessons of the crisis development in Czechoslovakia is due not only to the gravity of those events, but also to the importance of the conclusions drawn by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia which followed from that analysis. Conclusions like the undeviating observance of the Leninist principles of leadership; measures in overcoming the revisionist and opportunist legacy; measures designed to protect Czechoslovakia's socialist gains, to consolidate the world's socialist community, the international ties, and the unity of the communist movement _-_-_
~^^1^^ Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, p. 17.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 18.
11 and Czechoslovakia-Soviet brotherhood---all this assures the working people of Czechoslovakia of a radiant path of socialist progress.In fact, the main content of the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia consisted in an examination of the concrete tasks in advancing along this path. At the Congress there was a profound analysis of the halfcentury of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and it was emphasised that in acute political struggle against revisionist, opportunist and counter-revolutionary forces the Communists of Czechoslovakia learned to distinguish friend from foe, receiving in this struggle internationalist assistance from the fraternal socialist countries.
In his speech of greetings at the 14th Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, L. I. Brezhnev stressed that Czechoslovakia's experience is a fresh reminder that in all their activity in building the new society the Communists of a socialist country have the sacred duty undeviatingly to follow the precepts of Lenin, the revolutionary essence of his doctrine, giving resolute rebuffs to any attempts to distort or falsify Leninism, and to any manifestations of opportunism. It goes without saying that the lessons drawn by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from the acute clash with the class enemy are important not only for the further development of Czechoslovakia, but also of the other socialist countries.
Of great importance for an analysis of the problems of the present-day ideological struggle was the conclusion drawn in the Central Committee's report at the 24th Congress of the CPSU that questions of democracy are now central to the ideological and political struggle between the socialist world and the capitalist world. At the Congress, L. I. Brezhnev said:
``Bourgeois ideologists and revisionists raise a hypocritical hue and cry, alleging that we have no democracy. They offer us all sorts of 'advice' on how to 'improve' and 'democratise' socialism. But their concern is not for socialism, of course. They would like to return us to bourgeois practices and, therefore, try to force bourgeois democracy on us, a democracy for exploiters, alien to the interests of the = people.''^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, p. 96.
12The consideration by the 24th Congress of the CPSU of questions arising from the further development of the socialist democracy provided fresh refutation of the inventions of the enemies of socialism. The Congress showed that the political system of Soviet society and the steadily growing initiative of the working people in the Soviet Union are at the service of communist construction. The meaning and content of socialist democracy in the USSR are embodied in the real and ever more active and effective participation by broad masses of people in running the country and social affairs.
The whole system of capitalism is in contradiction with the basic trends of social progress. The very course of social development brings home to ever broader masses of people that socialism has history on its side.
[13] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ LENIN'S LEGACY OF IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction.]In the acute ideological battles raging in the modern world Marxist-Leninist ideas, mobilising and rallying the masses to struggle for communism, have an ever greater role to play. It is also ever more important to study Lenin's rich ideological legacy, and the experience of his ideological fight against various forms and lines of ideology alien and hostile to socialism. This legacy of Lenin's is inexhaustible, and it is an extremely pressing task to master it.
Effective comprehension of Lenin's experience in the ideological struggle is important, first, because criticism and exposure of views alien and hostile to Marxism constitute an integral, organic part of the further development of Marxism (something Lenin brilliantly demonstrated as he enriched and developed Marxism precisely in the course of a relentless fight against its ideological adversaries); second, because Lenin's struggle against bourgeois ideology and opportunism makes it possible to understand and bring out the scientific principles on which he had relied and, consequently, to adopt them for the struggle today, and finally, because the experience of Lenin's ideological struggle helps to define the concrete tasks and guidelines of the present-day ideological struggle. Lenin brilliantly anticipated the essential regularities and tendencies in the development of the struggle of ideas, and present-day bourgeois and opportunist views are frequently no more than modernised versions of the old ideas Lenin had debunked.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. DEVELOPMENT OF MARXISTLeninism is Marxism of the modern epoch. Creatively developing Marxism in the new historical situation, Lenin gave the answers to the fundamental problems posed by the course of social development, enriched Marxism with new ideas, and raised to a higher level all the component parts of Marxism---philosophy, political economy and scientific communism.
14Lenin developed Marxism in unceasing and acute struggle against its ideological adversaries---bourgeois ideologists and opportunists.
Just as Marx and Engels had formulated their revolutionary theory in the course of class battles, so Lenin, taking a stand for the ideological purity of Marxism, based on a scientific cognition of social development and its regularities, carried on a relentless and tireless struggle not only against the avowed ideologists of the bourgeoisie, but also against the enemies of revolutionary Marxism who pretended (through ignorance or hypocrisy) to be friends of the people and of progress---the Narodniks, the ``legal Marxists'', the `` Economists'', the Mensheviks, the anarchists, the Socialist-- Revolutionaries, the Trotskyites, the reformists, the petty-bourgeois nationalists, and revisionists of every stripe. Lenin's ideological struggle was an organic part of his development of Marxist theory, and his formulation of the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary working-class movement. Evidence of this comes from every component part of Marxism, to each of which Lenin made an invaluable contribution of experience in the ideological-theoretical struggle.
While developing and enriching dialectical materialism, the outlook which is at the basis of Marxism, Lenin carried on a relentless struggle against old and new idealistic trends. He dealt a crushing blow at the ideologists of the liberal bourgeoisie in Russia in the early 20th century, proving that the Vekhi collection (put out in 1909 by bourgeois ideologists, P. B. Struve, N. A. Berdayev, S. N. Bulgakov and others) was a full-scale offensive against the scientific materialist world outlook and the best democratic traditions, and provided fresh and incontrovertible evidence that the liberal bourgeoisie was crawling to the reactionaries, and that it was unpatriotic and cosmopolitan.
Lenin's capital philosophical work, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, turned its sharpest critical edge against Machism and those of its followers in Russia who claimed to be reconciling the ``extremes'' of materialism and idealism but were in fact substituting the latter for the former.
Lenin's sharp philosophical struggle against empiriocriticism (most vividly embodied in the collection entitled Essays on the Philosophy of Marxism, 1908) was a struggle for the purity of Marxist theory and for the fundamental principles of Marxist philosophy. Lenin brushed aside the 15 claims that distortions and departures from Marxist philosophy were a personal matter, and that they led to immaterial polemics which had no bearing on the working-class movement. He emphasised that Machism, a brand of idealism, was objectively a weapon of reaction, and that Machist views essentially led to an elimination of Marxism and were an attempt to divert the working-class movement from its path of consistent class struggle. Lenin did not take Machism out of the political context, but saw it as an ideological source of liquidationism, otzovism and the other ideological and political trends alien and hostile to the proletariat.
Defence and development of materialism and dialectics were always central to Lenin's polemics against views and theories hostile to Marxism.
Lenin put into concrete terms the materialist answer to the question of the relationship between mind and matter, by showing the specifics of their interaction in the process of man's cognition and transformation of the world, and developed the theory of reflection, in which he brought out the role of socio-historical practice.
In tackling practical matters, Lenin always proceeded from objective reality, as a consistent materialist dialectician. Nadezhda Krupskaya subsequently recalled: ``It was characteristic of Ilyich that he never deceived himself, no matter how sad the realities were; he was never drunk with success, and always had a sober outlook. He did not always find it easy, though___He felt things very intensely, but he had a strong will, he had lived through a good deal and thought things out for himself, and was able to face the truth without flinching.''^^1^^ Objective reality, as the sole basis for correct conclusions and deductions, the inadmissibility of subjectivism in any assessment and of ignoring the historical circumstances---such was the simple but extremely important conclusion to be drawn from Lenin's defence of materialism.
Carrying forward the development of dialectics, Lenin produced the fullest philosophical definition of the elements of dialectics. He laid special emphasis on the dialectics of objective reality, its objective laws, and above all the core of dialectics---contradiction as the source of development.
Lenin sought a solution to all practical matters on a scientific dialectical-materialist basis. Nadezhda Krupskaya _-_-_
^^1^^ MISSING
16 wrote: ``Questions of a dialectical approach to all events also occupied Ilyich's thoughts-----''^^1^^ He believed that ``Marxist dialectics call for a concrete analysis of each specific historical situation''.^^2^^ In effect, Lenin made a dialectical analysis of each question, ``... dealt with the question in all its aspects and bearing on a number of other fundamental = issues''.^^3^^ As an example Nadezhda Krupskaya cited Lenin's analysis of the question of labour productivity: ``~The raising of the productivity of labour first of all requires that the material basis of large-scale industry shall be assured, viz., the development of the production of fuel, iron, the engineering and chemical industries.. . . Another condition for raising the productivity of labour is, firstly, the raising of the educational and cultural level of the masses of the population. ... Secondly, a condition for economic revival is the raising of the discipline of the toilers, their skill, their dexterity, increasing the intensity of labour and improving its organisation.'``Lenin dealt with the question of raising the productivity of labour from the angle of socialist emulation problems. He pointed out in this pamphlet (The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government---Ed.) that the task of raising labour efficiency was a long-range problem. . . = .''^^4^^
Lenin used dialectics as a powerful weapon in the struggle [ against bourgeois ideologists and the reformist theories of the I opportunists, and in rebutting the unscientific conclusions [some drew from the latest achievements in the natural f sciences.
Lenin's Materialism and Empino-criticism gives a philosophical summing-up of the latest discoveries in the natural sciences and their bearing on the contemporary period. 'Modern physics, for instance,'' Lenin wrote, ``had posed a number of new questions which dialectical materialism had to cope = with.''^^5^^
Lenin enriched historical materialism and scientific communism with a profound elaboration of the questions relating to the importance of objective conditions and the subjective factor in history, and substantiated the role of the people, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 332.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 316.
~^^3^^ N. K. Krupskaya, Op. cit., p. 459.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 460.
~^^5^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 76.
1---1245
17 working class and the Marxist parties in the historical process. While elaborating historical materialism as a general theory, as a method of cognition and transformation of social reality, Lenin also developed the methodology of all the social sciences.A most important element of Lenin's philosophical legacy is his elaboration of the methodology of analysing and criticising bourgeois philosophy, whose main principles he set out in his Materialism and Empirio-criticism. He brought out four of its main aspects.
First and foremost, philosophers and philosophic schools should not be judged by their words or by the labels they attach to themselves, but by the way they tackle the main philosophical problems. ``The theoretical foundations of this philosophy,'' he said, ''must be compared with those of dialectical = materialism.''^^1^^ This means that what needs to be brought out is how a given philosophical trend solves the main question of philosophy: whether it regards as primary matter or consciousness, the physical or the mental, whether it regards the objective, material world as the source of our knowledge, and whether it allows the possibility of its cognition. This idea of Lenin's has always been important, and it is especially so today, when bourgeois philosophers, with their terminological confusion, have been straining to represent their philosophy as being outside of class, above class, unconnected with any party, and standing above both materialism and idealism. However, Lenin said, ``behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism one must not fail to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society. Recent philosophy is as partisan as was philosophy two thousand years = ago.''^^2^^
Both the empirio-critics and the Machists claimed to have novel and original ideas. Lenin observed that all their works were shot through with the stupid claim to have risen ``above'' materialism and idealism, overcoming this ``obsolete'' antithesis; in fact, they were carrying on a wholesale and determined struggle against materialism. But is not our own period characterised by similar tendencies, with a great many big and small schools in bourgeois philosophy, neo-positivism, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 357.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 358.
18 neo-Thomism, existentialism and other philosophical trends straining to declare the main question of philosophy to be metaphysical and pointless? Present-day revisionists have not greatly out-distanced the turn-of-the-century revisionists, and like the latter continue to follow in the wake of bourgeois science, denying the fundamental antithesis between materialism and idealism.The second aspect of Lenin's analysis requires a clarification of the place held by a given philosophical school in the light of the party approach. Lenin did not in any sense ignore the specifics of any given philosophical system and urged the need to determine how each school ranked among the other contemporary trends, so as to bring out its ideological origins and to establish its predecessors. In this context, much importance also attaches to the concrete analysis of the set of arguments used by each school, and Lenin gave a brilliant example of this in his thorough analysis of Machist arguments, combining it with scientifically grounded criticism.
The third aspect of the analysis which Lenin believed to be highly essential is to bring out the attitude taken by a given philosophical school to the natural sciences. This aspect is just as important today, when scientific progress, the latest achievements in physics, cybernetics, physiology and psychology are bound to impel and do indeed impel some scientists to move through relativism to idealism. Difficulties arising in the process of cognition may result in various aspects of it being turned into absolutes, and philosophical idealism is quick to speculate on this and to produce new idealistic schools. Lenin had a profound understanding of this, as he exposed the reactionary attempts to interpret scientific successes for the benefit of idealism. However, he always made a point of drawing a distinction between these attempts and the actual successes in the natural sciences. Marxists have continued this tradition in the present conditions. It would, for instance, be highly erroneous to fail to appreciate the great scientific importance of the discoveries made by Niels Bohr, W. Heisenberg or Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics. But at the same time, it is necessary to expose the philosophical concessions that may be made to idealism in any interpretation of their views.
The fourth aspect of Lenin's analysis entailed the task of establishing the social role of the given philosophical trend in the class struggle. Like the other three aspects, this one is
2*
19 of lasting importance. The party approach by modern bourgeois philosophy boils down to the fact that in using idealistic conceptions that distort objective reality, this philosophy in fact carries on a fight against socialism and against social progress. Many bourgeois philosophers have taken a hand in anti-communist propaganda.Dialectical materialism does not only give a scientific explanation of the world, but also shows the working people the ways and means of changing it, of transforming it on revolutionary lines. The party approach of Marxist-Leninist philosophy coincides with the objective truth in the sense that, as we advance along the Marxist-Leninist path, we approach nearer and nearer to the objective truth (without ever exhausting it because the process of cognition is boundless). Every other way leads to nothing but confusion and falsehood.
This idea of Lenin's, like his other philosophical ideas, is of exceptional importance for a critique not only of contemporary bourgeois philosophy but of the whole of bourgeois ideology, and also for a critique of contemporary revisionism.
Lenin also gave creative development to the second important component part of Marxism---political economy---as he solved its problems in acute clashes with spokesmen of bourgeois and revisionist trends.
In persistent struggle against the views of the ``legal Marxists'' (P. B. Struve, M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky, S. N. Bulgakov and others), and the liberal Narodniks (S. N. Yuzhakov, V. P. Vorontsov and N. F. Danielson), Lenin produced a profound formulation of the question of capitalist development in Russia, and substantiated the hegemony of the working class in the revolutionary movement. This elaboration was based on a dialectico-materialist analysis of the character and tendencies in Russia's economic development.
Lenin's contribution to Marx's theory of reproduction, to the agrarian question, and to the study of the conditions of the working people under capitalism resulted from a profound analysis and devastating criticism of Edward Bernstein's opportunistic views, and the attitudes taken in Russian conditions by the ``legal Marxists'', and also by Menshevik theorists. The methodology of Lenin's criticism of bourgeois economic science and Lenin's conclusions remain, in our own day, the basis for criticism of the diverse socio-economic 20 theories, in particular those of Keynes, Malthus and RightSocialist reformism.
Lenin's theory of imperialism, set out in his work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and in many other writings, is undoubtedly of special importance in Lenin's development of political economy. This theory was truly Lenin's great contribution to Marxism and served as a sound economic basis for the Marxist-Leninist theory of socialist revolution. Just as Marx had discovered the economic law governing the movement of the capitalist mode of production in general, so Lenin discovered the peculiar features of the economic system of monopoly capitalism and its regularities and contradictions.
In contrast to the conditions prevailing in the mid-19th century, which served as a basis for Marx's theory of a simultaneous victory of the revolution in all the developed capitalist countries, under imperialism a simultaneous victory of the revolution throughout the world became inconceivable, and its victory in individual countries quite possible. Considering this change of circumstances, it would be a betrayal of the interests of the working class to await conditions for revolution to mature in all the countries of the world.
Lenin's brilliant analysis of imperialism---the final stage of capitalism---his analysis of its substance and features showed capitalism at this stage to be monopoly capitalism, the threshold of the socialist revolution. Lenin also revealed the process of monopoly capitalism growing into state-monopoly capitalism, which further promoted the ripening of the material prerequisites of socialism, and aggravated the contradictions which were bound to be sooner or later resolved through socialist revolution.
In formulating his theory of imperialism, Lenin grouped bourgeois conceptions of imperialism under two heads: apologetic and bourgeois-critical. Among the outright apologists of imperialism, Lenin sharply criticised Schulze-- Gavernitz, Liefmann and others, but he gave the following generalised characteristic of scientists like John A. Hobson, Alfred Lansburgh and others who took a critical attitude to various aspects of imperialism: ''. . .The monstrous facts concerning the monstrous rule of the financial oligarchy are so glaring that in all capitalist countries, in America, France and Germany, a whole literature has sprung up, written from the bourgeois point of view, but which, nevertheless, gives a fairly 21 truthful picture and criticism---petty-bourgeois, naturally--- of this = oligarchy.''^^1^^
This differentiated approach to bourgeois theorists is of exceptional importance in present-day conditions, when the contradictions in the midst of the bourgeois intelligentsia are ever more pronounced and deep-going.
Lenin's methodological approach in exposing bourgeois theories on various aspects of imperialism has also an essential part to play in contemporary criticism of such theories. Criticising the untenable conceptions based either on a separation of the politics of imperialism from its economics, on an unhistorical view of it, or on a tendency to ignore the internal contradictions of capitalism, while treating as absolutes the tendencies for its integration on a world-wide scale---something, for instance, that was characteristic of Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism---Lenin wrote: ``The best reply that one can make to the lifeless abstractions of 'ultra-imperialism' (which serve exclusively a most reactionary aim: that of diverting attention from the depth of existing antagonisms) is to contrast them with the concrete economic realities of the present-day world = economy.''^^2^^
Lenin's analysis of imperialism, which starts from a keen insight into the substance of objective reality, remains to this day the only truly scientific basis for criticism of bourgeois economic theories and for creative elaboration of Marxist-Leninist economic science.
By safeguarding and further developing the doctrine of the economic prerequisites for socialist revolution, Lenin made a great contribution to Marx's theory, formulating the Communist Party's economic platform in the revolution, and subsequently also the fundamentals of the political economy of socialism.
Lenin elaborated these most important theoretical and practical questions in acute struggle against anti-Marxist views being spread by those who denied the possibility of socialism winning out in one country, and also against those who wanted to send socialist construction along the wrong way, which was fatal for the revolution.
Reformists, like Kautsky, denied the Soviet people's capacity for building socialism. Kautsky was echoed by the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 227.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 272.
22 Mensheviks, whose spokesman, Sukhanov, alleged that Russia had not yet reached the necessary level of development of her productive forces which made socialism possible.In his implacable struggle against bourgeois and reformist ideologists, the Mensheviks, the SRs, the anarchists, the Trotskyites, ``Left Communists'', the ``workers' opposition'' group and other ideological-political trends hostile to Marxism, Lenin boldly put forward and substantiated the fundamental principles, methods and guidelines for socialist economic development.
Subsequently, a great feat was performed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which safeguarded the gains of the revolution and the line of building socialism, armed the Soviet people with a detailed and scientific plan for building the new social system and implemented this line in fierce class struggle against the remnants of the overthrown exploiting classes, against the capitalist elements in town and country, and against the ``Left'' and Right opportunists who sought to divert the country from the Leninist path.
In present-day conditions, ever more extensive and truly international importance attaches to such key economic problems as the economic theory of socialism, the importance of the proletarian dictatorship for carrying through economic policy, Lenin's critique of the anarcho-syndicalist deviation on the question of socialist property and the socialist management of production, Lenin's critique of the ``Left Communists'' on various aspects of labour discipline, Lenin's requirement that commodity-money relations should be combined with consistent state planning on the basis of the democratic-centralism principle, and Lenin's critique of petty-bourgeois levelling tendencies.
Lenin not only enriched Marxist philosophy and political economy, but also developed the theory of scientific communism. In tireless struggle against the ideological-political trends hostile to Marxism inside and outside the workingclass movement, he continued to give a keener edge to the proletariat's weapon.
The struggle was necessary. The ideological-theoretical and political attitudes of these trends distorted the substance and laws of the social process, thereby hampering the formulation of a scientific programme and tactical line for the communist movement.
23While standing up for the principles of Marxism, Lenin creatively developed the Marxist theory of socialist revolution, one of whose organic parts was a profound analysis of the objective prerequisites for revolution and a scientific elaboration of the role of the subjective factor in the historical process, created the doctrine of the new type of party, which in fact became the vanguard in the revolutionary struggle, formulated the strategy and tactics of the international communist movement, carried forward the Marxist doctrine of the national question, and set out the theory of socialist construction.
In the course of this great theoretical activity, which was closely interwoven with his practical activity as leader and organiser of the revolutionary struggle, Lenin made a comprehensive critical analysis of the theoretical views, programmes and tactics of the liberal leaders of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, peasant socialism; exposed international social-reformism as being untenable in theoretical and practical terms; carried on a systematic and steadfast struggle against every brand of revisionism (Right and ``Left'') both within the revolutionary movement in Russia and in the international arena; showed bourgeois nationalism and national nihilism to be scientifically untenable and harmful and carried on a broad principled struggle for a triumph of the ideals of proletarian internationalism. He wrote: ``From the standpoint of ideas, the entire history of Marxism in Russia is the history of the struggle against petty-bourgeois theories... .''^^1^^
The establishment of the revolutionary party of the working class was preceded by Lenin's criticism of petty-bourgeois Narodnik socialism, and his implacable struggle against reformist and other opportunist trends.
It is safe to say that the Great October Socialist Revolution could not have won out without the theoretical defeat of all these trends hostile to Marxism-Leninism, and without the tireless and undeviating struggle against them. Without that intense struggle, Lenin's great contribution to the elaboration of the ideas of scientific communism would also have been inconceivable.
Let us bring out some of the elements in the great many key questions of the theory of scientific communism and the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 486.
24 practice of the revolutionary movement on which it was absolutely necessary to inflict an ideological defeat on the adversaries of Marxism-Leninism so as to bring about the triumph of the scientific theory and the revolutionary cause.In unbending struggle against opportunism, Lenin formulated the basic principles underlying the activity of the new type, Marxist party. The Marxist-Leninist party of our epoch, as CPSU programme documents have repeatedly declared, is:
a revolutionary party working to prepare the proletariat for a take-over of state power, in no other form but a dictatorship of the proletariat. This party is an embodiment of steadfast loyalty to the revolution, boundless courage and determination;
a conscious vanguard of the class, having strong bonds with the masses, marching at their head and raising them to revolutionary consciousness and revolutionary struggle;
an internationalist party whose primary and most important task is struggle against opportunist and philistine-pacifist distortions of the concept and policy of internationalism;
a united efficient fighting organisation based on the principles of democratic centralism, capable of rallying the working class and the other working people in revolutionary struggle, and taking an implacable stand against any brand of opportunism or splitting activity;
a party tirelessly mastering the intricacies of the art of applying the general principles of Marxism to concrete conditions, and capable of standing up for the ultimate goals of the working-class movement in any situation.
Lenin overthrew the subjective-idealist metaphysical view of history taken by the liberal Narodniks, and showed that it was unscientific and reactionary to deny the decisive role of objective economic relations and contradictions in the life of society, and to see society as a casual, mechanical agglomeration of various phenomena, and the state as being something over and above class. At the same time, Lenin provided a scientific basis for the question of the subjective factor, and showed that it was futile to bring out ``heroes'' in contrast to the faceless throng, having brought out the importance of the masses of people in history, the vanguard role of the working class and the need for its alliance with the peasantry and the middle sections.
In his struggle against the Narodniks, Lenin proved that 25 the working class was the only consistent democrat and that only in alliance with and under the leadership of the proletariat was the peasantry able to achieve its democratic aspirations.
Lenin also proved that the toiling peasantry, by virtue of its social status, had an objective interest in overthrowing the power of capital, because socialism alone could provide a radical solution for the agrarian question.
Criticism of present-day petty-bourgeois trends, denying the leading role of the working class in revolutionary struggle and turning the role of the peasantry or of the intelligentsia into an absolute, insistently demands a deep-going study of Lenin's ideas on the question of the working class's allies, and his views concerning the relation between the democratic and the socialist tasks of the revolution, which are of tremendous international importance.
Lenin gave a comprehensive critique of reformism and revisionism. In his work, ``Left-Wing'' Communism---an Infantile Disorder, he considered the question about the enemies within the working-class movement Bolshevism had to fight in order to gain in stature, to establish itself and to be hardened, and gave this answer: ``First and foremost, the struggle against opportunism, which in 1914 definitely developed into social-chauvinism and definitely sided with the bourgeoisie, against the proletariat. Naturally, this was Bolshevism's principal enemy within the working-class movement. It still remains the principal enemy on an international scale. The Bolsheviks have been devoting the greatest attention to this = enemy.''^^1^^
Lenin carried on an implacable struggle against Menshevism, a dangerous opportunist trend within the working-class movement in Russia. It will be recalled that the Mensheviks opposed the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution and the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, and demanded an arrangement with the liberal bourgeoisie, insisting on its hegemony in the revolution, and on a fold-up of the revolutionary struggle. In the period of reaction, the Mensheviks preached liquidationism in an effort to destroy the underground revolutionary proletarian party, and like all the other opportunist parties of the Second International during the First World War took a social-chauvinist attitude.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 91, p. 31.
26Lenin resolutely exposed the social-chauvinism and opportunism of the Second International leaders and theorists, who sought to confine the activity of the labour parties to social reforms and legal, mainly parliamentary, methods.
Together with his unflagging and consistent struggle against opportunism on the Right---the social-reformists and Rightist revisionists---Lenin indicated another enemy of Bolshevism within the working-class movement. ``Bolshevism took shape, developed and became steeled in the long years of struggle against petty-bourgeois = revolutionism,''^^1^^ he wrote.
He remarked on ``the instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another. .. = .''^^2^^ He emphasised the historical stages when, ``the struggle that Bolshevism waged against 'Left' deviations within its own Party assumed particularly large proportions on two occasions: in 1908, on the question of whether or not to participate in a most reactionary ' parliament' and in the legal workers' societies, which were being restricted by most reactionary laws; and again in 1918 (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk), on the question of whether one 'compromise' or another was = permissible''.^^3^^ Lenin's analysis of petty-bourgeois revolutionism is of exceptional importance for the tactics of the revolutionary movement, because it deals with the imperative need to combine legal and illegal forms of struggle, and makes a dialectical examination of the possibility of compromises in the interests of the proletariat, and their inadmissibility whenever they smack of opportunism and betrayal of the class interests of the workers.
Lenin's struggle against opportunism, petty-bourgeois revolutionism and diverse revisionist trends was of great importance for the future of the socialist revolution in Russia and for the revolutionary process in the world.
Trotskyism, with its ultra-revolutionary catchwords, its lack of faith in the strength of the working class, its political adventurism, and neglect for the concrete historical reality, was undoubtedly the most dangerous enemy against which the CPSU had had to fight long and hard. Its neglect of the _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., p. 32.
^^2^^ Ibid.
^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 34--35. For details see V. I. Lenin's Struggle Against Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionism and Adventurism, Moscow, 1966 (in Russian).
27 internal tasks of the revolution, its urge to give the revolution a ``push'' from outside, its twists and turns, its fear of difficulties, its neglect of the tasks of economic construction of the socialist revolution, and lack of faith in the strength of the working people, its slander of the Communist Party, and its attacks on Party discipline---all added up to an outwardly Leftist stand which in fact made it akin to Right-wing social democratism, and ultimately carried Trotskyism along the counter-revolutionary path.The CPSU, relying on Lenin's view of the tasks of socialist construction, exposed Trotskyism ideologically and inflicted a crushing organisational defeat on it. The same thing happened to the Right opportunists, who sought to revise the Party's general line in the spirit of bourgeois ideology, and who opposed the fast pace of industrialisation, collectivisation and the elimination of the kulaks as a class.
The Party's loyalty to Lenin's plan for socialist construction in the USSR ensured the great socialist accomplishments in Russia, which have become a sound basis for the further advance of the revolutionary transformation of the world.
There is no doubt that the successes of socialist construction were scored only because the Party was consistently mindful of Lenin's precepts, including his implacable attitude to the class enemies of the revolution and socialism, and to opportunist trends. Even today, petty-bourgeois revolutionism and political and theoretical adventurism, which is allied with it, and reformist revisionism on the Right, present a great danger to the cause of the revolution and socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. LENINThe idea that the socialist and the bourgeois ideologies were incompatible was expressed by Lenin in 1902, when he said that ``the only choice is---either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There --> --is no middle = course.''^^1^^
Today, with the enemies of socialism trying hard to rebut _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 384.
28 this thesis, with bourgeois scientists actively advocating `` deideologisation'' and the reformists and revisionists suggesting an ``integration of ideologies'', ``emancipation of science from ideology'', etc., it is especially important to consider the objective principles underlying the incompatibility of the socialist and the bourgeois ideologies. They are incompatible because of: 1) the nature of ideology as a social phenomenon; 2) the qualitative features of each of the two ideologies; 3) their distinct attitude to social practice and, accordingly, the different laws of their development; 4) the basically distinct attitude of each ideology to revolutionary struggle; and 5) their essentially opposite content.``Let us consider these five points in greater detail.
1. The socialist and the bourgeois ideologies are incompatible because of the very nature of ideology as a social phenomenon, which is permeated with the party spirit. What is ideology in general? It is a definite level of social consciousness, or to be more precise, a theoretically systematised and generalised reflection of social relations and social practice through the prism of class interests in the form of political, legal, ethical, aesthetic and philosophic conceptions and views.
The scientific Marxist conclusion that consciousness reflects being---and social consciousness, social being---inexorably leads to the conclusion that in a world divided into antagonistic systems and antagonistic classes, there can be no common ideology for all. Consequently, it is not a whim but an objective fact that both the bourgeois and the socialist ideologies are permeated with the party spirit, and that is what Lenin had in mind when he wrote that ``in a society torn by class antagonisms there can never be a non-class or an above-class ideology. . = .''-^^1^^ Consequently, the bourgeois and the socialist ideologies are incompatible and irreconcilable above all because of class divisions, of the objective impossibility of reconciling class interests which are irreconcilable and hostile to each other. In objective reality, the interests of the exploiters and of the exploited never blend; the society based on private capitalist enterprise, and the society based on social property can never be united and brought into a single whole; ideas which are opposed to each other in class substance, content and purpose can never peacefully _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., p. 384.
29 coexist or be ``integrated''. All ideological tricks, like the much-vaunted theory of convergence, which claims that that is possible, always turn out to be---and this will be demonstrated in detail later---nothing but a more or less subtle advocacy of the interests of capitalism, whose postulate is not at all a synthesis but a submergence of the opposite system.But that is not the whole point.
2. While both contending systems of ideas existing in the modern world have a class basis they are far from being equivalent, just as their class roots are inequivalent.
The ideology of the working class, while undoubtedly being a party ideology, is simultaneously a profoundly scientific one, giving an objectively true picture of the world, and providing a reliable beacon in practical activity. Lenin wrote that while being the ideology of the proletariat's class struggle, socialist ideology is simultaneously ``founded on the sum-total of human knowledge, presupposes a high level of scientific development, demands scientific = work''.^^1^^
The conjunction of the scientific view of the world with the scientific programme for its transformation, setting out the scientific ways and means of doing so, led to the discovery of the role of the working class in world history as the grave-digger of capitalism and the builder of socialism. The scientific cognition of social development and of its objective laws coincided with the class purpose of the proletariat in realising the objectively-based historical law, which does not of course operate spontaneously or automatically, but only with the conscious and active participation of the working class. That is precisely why the working class has a vital interest in an adequate, true and scientific reflection of the world and of its objective laws. Truth and science must necessarily be the ideological weapons of the class giving a lead in the struggle for mankind's radiant future. The world can be transformed only on the basis of a knowledge of its objective laws, and that is why the party interests of the working class imply and require an objective, scientific penetration into the substance of social reality.
The diametrically opposite class interests impel the bourgeois consciousness to give a distorted reflection of reality. The objective laws of history undermine the bourgeois _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 163.
30 system and confirm its inevitable destruction, which is why the party spirit of bourgeois ideology goes hand in hand with unscientific social thought.Socialist ideology is scientific to the same extent that the Marxist-Leninist social science is ideological, is an organic connection between socialist ideology and science which Lenin emphasised in his call to ``carry on propaganda for the proletarian ideology---the theory of scientific socialism, viz., = Marxism''.^^1^^ He added: ``Marxism is the theory of the proletarian movement for = emancipation.''^^2^^
At the same time, the Marxist-Leninist doctrine is the highest level in the development of social science, bringing together such of its fundamentals as philosophy, political economy and scientific communism. The party spirit of socialist ideology and the objective nature of scientific knowledge coincide.
3. Socialist and bourgeois ideologies develop according to different laws. Socialist ideology, indissolubly connected with the socio-historical practice, quite naturally serves the cause of social progress and is itself constantly and creatively developed, summing up historical experience in the changing objective conditions. The blend of theory and practice in Marxism-Leninism provides an objective basis for the lawgoverned creative development of socialist theory, which is constantly enriched, giving a scientific reflection of the development of reality itself.
Bourgeois ideology, which by its class essence is hostile to the main line of mankind's socio-historical practice, is incapable of being enriched or developed or of providing an adequate reflection of this practice. The law underlying the development of bourgeois ideology is adaptation to the changing situation in the world, adaptation in the light of the class interests of the bourgeoisie.
4. Socialist and bourgeois ideologies are incompatible also because of their fundamentally distinct attitudes to revolutionary struggle. Lenin stressed that Marxist theory was revolutionary ``completely and = unconditionally'',^^3^^ for it ``combines the quality of being strictly and supremely scientific (being the last word in social science) with that of being _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 342.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 222.
~^^3^^ Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 327.
31 revolutionary . . .[and] does so intrinsically and inseparatably''.^^1^^ This is not surprising because socialist scientific ideology ``directly sets itself the task of disclosing all the forms of antagonism and exploitation in modern society, tracing their evolution, demonstrating their transitory character. . . and thus serving the proletariat as a means of ending all exploitation as quickly and easily as = possible''.^^2^^A basic feature of socialist ideology is the connection between revolutionary theory and revolutionary policy. Lenin wrote: ``The Marxian doctrine has fused the theory and practice of the class struggle into one inseparable = whole.''^^3^^ Lenin warned that unless Marxism was a combination of revolutionary theory and revolutionary policy, it ceased to be Marxism and ``becomes Brentanoism, Struvism and Sombartism''.^^4^^
The connection between bourgeois ideology and bourgeois policies means above all that its main edge is directed against the socialist revolution, against socialism. Bourgeois social science has been turning out a succession of new concepts aimed against communism and in defence of capitalism, in an effort if not to frustrate altogether (something it cannot do) then, at any rate, to slow down the revolutionary transformation of the world.
5. The fundamental distinction of class essence and the resultant features of bourgeois and socialist ideologies inevitably make these systems of ideas antithetical, and consequently incompatible in virtue of their whole content. Considerations of any acute and important question of the present day (for instance, the role of the working class in the modern world, the relation between the national and the international, the assessment of the practice of social construction and the prospects for socialist development and other important questions) ultimately always reveal diametrically opposite class attitudes and assessments, which are just as irreconcilable as are science and pseudo-science, truth and falsehood, progress and reaction. It is, of course, not right to say that bourgeois ideology always appears as blatant defence of imperialist reaction. Its class interests are _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 327.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 12, pp. 107--08.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 107.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
32 usually very thoroughly covered up with references to scientific ``impartiality'', fine talk about humanism, freedom, the interests of the individual, the loftier spiritual values, etc. That is why the struggle against bourgeois ideology necessarily implies an ability to expose it ``regardless of the fashionable and striking garb in which it may drape itself''.^^1^^ __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. LENIN ON THE PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLEIn the present conditions of the ideological battles which have gained in acerbity and complexity especial importance attaches to Lenin's principles of struggle against the ideology which is hostile to Marxism-Leninism.
It is not enough to understand that socialist and bourgeois ideologies are incompatible. There is also need to be able to fight against the ideological adversaries. The working class and all the other working people are confronted by imperialism, with its mammoth machinery of government and propaganda, and the struggle against it requires not only an awareness of the class antithesis, but also sound organisation, knowledge and skill.
In our efforts to master this science, we repeatedly turn to Lenin's legacy. Without making any claim to give full treatment to this most important subject, I shall here deal with some of the principles of ideological struggle which are suggested by Lenin's works.
1. The first and most important one of these principles is undoubtedly the class approach to the struggle of ideas. Lenin urged the need to learn to go beyond the fashionable and gaudy mask of bourgeois ideology to its essence, to learn to expose the social, class content of its ideas, and to break through the smokescreen of demagogic talk, trickery, falsehood, loud catchwords and subtle hypocrisy. He wrote: `` People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and = promises.''^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 342.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 19, p. 28.
3---1245
33This principle is also important because bourgeois ideology, standing up as it does for the interests of the class which has historically outlived itself, always seeks to cover up its class substance and to present itself as objective, `` impartial'' knowledge.
In contrast to the bourgeois claim of rising above party, the working class declares that its ideology is permeated with the party spirit, and expresses not only its own class interests, but also the basic interests of all working people, the interests of social progress. Lenin stressed: ``The nonparty idea is a bourgeois idea. The party idea is a socialist idea.''^^1^^
The bourgeois claim to rise above party, a claim being made behind the screen of ``objectivism'', has nothing in common with scientific objectivity. Lenin exposed the meaning of this camouflage in his work ``The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book'', where he showed that bourgeois objectivism, confining itself to a statement of ``facts'', skims along the surface of social life and does not go to the substance of this or that process or phenomenon, thereby covering up their class roots and objective laws and so distorting reality.
But to bring out the class content of ideas does not mean to engage in vulgar sociologising, by trying to establish a class or party affiliation for the ideologist himself. It is not so important who it is precisely that takes a stand for a set of definite views, but who stands to gain from these views. Great importance now attaches to the meaning of the Latin saying, ``Cui prodest?'' (who stands to gain?), which Lenin strongly emphasised. In effect, just recently we witnessed how, behind a screen of loud talk about ``democratisation'', those who claim to be champions of social progress sought to minimise and weaken the leading role of the Communist Party in society, to create favourable conditions for the political activity of class forces alien and hostile to socialism, and to reject the general laws of the revolution and socialist construction which have been tested and confirmed by the experience of millions. Behind the cover of talk about `` democratisation'' they slandered those who were loyal to the cause of the Party and the working class, and tried to compromise and intimidate them. The Leninist approach to _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 79.
34 ideological struggle inexorably strips from the men who spread such ideas their democratic mantle and shows up their real class substance.2. While the class approach to the battle of ideas is unquestionably the main starting principle, it should not be regarded as the only one. In order to carry on a successful ideological struggle one needs to be able to expose the class roots of the various views, theories and conceptions, and to bring out their epistemological origins. One thing to remember is that for all their hostility to the cause of social progress, for all their reactionary nature, bourgeois theories do reflect reality, even if they do so in a distorted manner. In order to prove that this reflection is wrong, it is necessary to show what precisely, which processes and phenomena in reality are being wrongly interpreted in bourgeois conceptions, and to give these phenomena and processes the correct scientific interpretation. At the turn of the century Lenin wrote: ``It would be a departure from the materialist method were I, when criticising the views of the 'friends of the people', to confine myself to contrasting their ideas with the Marxist ideas. One must in addition explain the 'Narodniks' ideas, demonstrate their MATERIAL basis in our present socialeconomic = relations.''^^1^^
No criticism of present-day bourgeois theories can be considered adequate unless it includes a scientific analysis of the real phenomena on which bourgeois thought speculates and whose reflection it distorts. Let us look, in this context, at the theory of convergence. Is it possible, after all, to give a sufficiently convincing expose of this theory without combining an analysis of the material prerequisites of socialism within the capitalist system, and an analysis of the nature of modern capitalism, together with the social consequences of the scientific and technical revolution both under capitalism and under socialism? Only a deep-going scientific study of reality allows a well-grounded and serious criticism of bourgeois ideology, which is why such criticism is closely bound up with positive, creative efforts to analyse and sum up the socio-historical practice of all mankind, and further to develop Marxism-Leninism. A great stride along this creative path was made by the 1969 Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.
_-_-_^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 1, pp. 233--34.
35Lenin's writings offer an excellent example of how constantly to combine the development of Marxist theory with vigorous criticism of ideological adversaries.
3. Lenin's principle of continuity of ideological struggle is equally important. He wrote: ``To belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois = ideology.''^^1^^ The practice of the last few years has provided many serious lessons which are highly important and instructive and which give a reminder about the vital importance of Lenin's conclusion. It is well-known, for instance, that in some socialist countries the Communists have succeeded in uniting all the socialist forces, overcoming the division of the working class and in banding Communists and socialists together in united parties. This is a great victory for the communist movement, but it makes imperative ceaseless and intensified attention to fostering and re-educating new party cadres, and carrying on serious ideological work and making uninterrupted effort towards the practical achievement of the parties' organisational and ideological unity. In fact, that these MarxistLeninist traditions in party construction were underestimated for some time is evident, for instance, from the unquestionable fact that the efforts by the leading forces in fraternal Czechoslovakia aimed at cutting short the anti-socialist moves of the reactionaries were largely hampered by the existence within the party of men who advocated opportunist views.
There must be no complacency or hope of spontaneous development in ideological work, because this always creates conditions for a revival of opportunist trends. Any relaxation of ideological work is used by our class enemies to translate their hopes of winning back the positions they have lost into practical action so as to regain these positions and use them once again to undermine socialism.
In this context, the keen concern of the ideological adversaries of socialism in the ideological differences and splits within the working-class and communist movement is strikingly evident.
4. It is not surprising that in the general strategy of ideological struggle, Lenin attached the greatest importance to exposing those who brought the bourgeois ideology into the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 384.
36 working-class movement---the ideologists of Right socialist reformism, and those who brought bourgeois ideology into the ranks of the communist movement---the Right and the ``Left'' revisionists. Lenin warned: ``The most dangerous of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism.''^^1^^The concept of opportunism is known to be a broad one, including such concrete manifestations as social-reformism and revisionism. Consequently, alongside the principles of the class approach and continuity in the fight against bourgeois ideology, Lenin substantiated the fundamental need of fighting against anyone who helps this ideology to exert an influence on the working class.
The principle that the struggle against bourgeois ideology and against reformism and revisionism of every stripe is indivisible is just as objectively rooted in life as are all the other Leninist principles of ideological struggle. The objective necessity of this connection is determined above all by the class roots of reformism and revisionism. For all their specifics, the roots of any manifestations of opportunism lie in the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois influence on the working class, on the Communist Parties, which are not shielded by any impenetrable wall from alien class influences. The extension of the front of revolutionary struggle throughout the world, the involvement of petty-bourgeois elements in it, the growth of the communist movement and its successes may in some conditions (loss of political vigilance, underestimation of the Leninist principles of party construction) have a negative outcome and result in a weakening of the party, of its Marxist-Leninist militant stand and firmness.
Furthermore, for all their claims to originality and innovation, the reformist and revisionist views always ultimately turn out to be a rehash of the main motifs of the bourgeois theorists and to be centred on the key problems of the day, inevitably---objectively---coalescing with the main class aspirations of the ideologists and politicians of imperialism.
Finally, the struggle against such a formidable adversary as imperialism requires growing cohesion and unity of the working class and consolidation of the communist _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 302.
37 movement, and this cannot be achieved without a struggle against reformism and revisionism.5. Lenin's theoretical and practical activity was an embodiment of the creative principle, and in matters of ideological struggle he himself was a great materialist dialectician, who displayed tactical flexibility and took all-round consideration of the contradictions in the enemy camp, and was relentlessly consistent in standing up for the interests of the working class and the cause of socialism.
Lenin always took into consideration the complexities of the dialectics of living reality, and consistently applied the principle of the dialectico-materialist approach to the struggle of ideas. In its most profound essentials, the methodology of this approach consists in always bearing in mind the contradictions in the enemy camp, and in one's own ranks, without however forgetting about the movement and dynamics of ideological phenomena, and never regarding them as being static, all the while invariably pursuing the class line, adhering to the fundamental principles of the scientific doctrine, and looking to the decisive strategic, political and class tasks in the revolutionary transformation of the world. Consideration of the contradictions in the enemy camp, and the ability to bring out the dialectics of living reality are inalienable features of Lenin's dialectical analysis.
Even today, bourgeois ideology, whose class essence is alien and hostile to socialism, assumes a diversity of nuances ---from fascist to liberal and bourgeois-democratic---and this is in no sense immaterial. The sharpening ideological struggle intensifies the internal contradictions in the camp of the bourgeois intelligentsia, in whose midst progressive tendencies arise. You will now often find bourgeois scientists who simultaneously condemn (often resolutely and sincerely) such extremely reactionary manifestations of bourgeois policy as racism, aggressive wars, militarism and colonialism, and the corresponding reactionary ideological conceptions, while maintaining an idealist, unscientific view of the world. This should be taken into account.
Lenin required a consideration of the concrete historical situation in every = instance.^^1^^ This Leninist principle of concrete analysis is of exceptional practical importance in the struggle of ideas. It is also of some importance, in the light _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 272.
38 of the concrete dialectical approach to various aspects of the ideological struggle, to consider the direction in which this or that ideological proposition or ideological stand develops, or to be more precise, to establish two points between which these develop. We find a brilliant example of this approach in Lenin's article, ``The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion'' in which he wrote that for some ``the statement 'socialism is a religion' (containing an obvious departure from Marxism---Author) is a form of transition from religion to socialism; for others, it is a form of transition from socialism to = religion''.^^1^^ It is highly important to bear this in mind now that we are frequently faced with the juggling of slogans and propositions which, in definite concrete conditions, at a given historically concrete phase of development, represent great gains along the way of social progress, and the same slogans and propositions in other concrete historical situations, being filled with totally different, frequently even reactionary, class content. These phenomena can be explained only if we take a dialectico-- materialist view of ideological struggle, which never loses sight of the class nature of phenomena, and of the concrete historical approach to them, and never allows itself to be led away into formal scholastics.Is it possible, for instance, to assess the slogan of `` nonalignment'', the policy of ``neutralism'', if they are taken as a static abstraction, without any concrete historical, dialectical analysis? No, it is not. For the emergent country, just escaped from the fetters of overt colonialism and still labouring in the toils of economic dependence on imperialism, a policy of ``non-alignment'' may be and frequently is a great advance along the way of progress, and an important step towards complete political independence and genuine popular sovereignty. But if this slogan of ``non-alignment'' and ``neutralism'' is issued by a leader of a socialist country, which has already established the working people's sovereignty in the course of a socialist revolution and which has already secured its independence from imperialism through the united might of the socialist community, what other meaning can this slogan have except a departure from the cause of socialism, a weakening of the socialist camp, a neglect of the class line of the international front, which _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 15, p. 409.
39 now runs as the principal divide between the forces of progress and reaction?To promote the success of the present-day political and ideological struggle of the working class and the whole international communist movement it is highly important to learn to take the concrete Leninist approach in bringing out the ideological-political trends which are hostile to the cause of communism, and which it is most important to fight at the given historical stage. We have some highly important considerations of a fundamental character in Lenin's works on this question. He established a direct connection between the need to assess the ideological-political trends hostile to socialism and the Party's programme and tactics.
Lenin gave a specimen of concrete historical analysis in application to the Party's electoral platform, which was an inevitable result of ``the way the work is organised, and of its whole trend in the given historical = period''.^^1^^ Lenin saw the platform as resulting from the Party's principles and tactics, and wrote: ``The three main items that make up this total are: (1) the programme of the Party; (2) its tactics; (3) its appraisal of the dominant ideological and political trends of the given period, or the most widespread of them, or those which are most harmful for democracy and socialism. Without a programme a party cannot be an integral political organism capable of pursuing its line whatever turn events may take. Without a tactical line based on an appraisal of the current political situation and providing explicit answers to the 'vexed problems' of our times, we might have a circle of theoreticians, but not a functioning political entity. Without an appraisal of the 'active', current or ' fashionable' ideological and political trends, the programme and tactics may degenerate into dead 'clauses' which can by no stretch of the imagination be put into effect or applied to the thousands of detailed, particular, and highly specific questions of practical activity with the necessary understanding of essentials, with an understanding of `wha is what'.''^^2^^
Lenin then went on to analyse the concrete situation and asked which ideological-political trends were of especial importance for an understanding of Social-Democracy's _-_-_
^^1^^ MISSING. why? ocr glitch?
^^2^^ MISSING. why? ocr glitch?
40 tasks in the period being dealt = with.^^1^^ He drew the conclusion that these were ``the Vekhi trend, which is the ideology of the counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie... and liquidationism, which is the expression of the same decadent and bourgeois influences in a group which has contact with the working-class movement. Away from democracy, as far away as possible from the movement of the masses, as far away as possible from the revolution, that is the theme of the trends of political thought that hold sway in = `society'.''^^2^^The logic of the revolutionary leader, his thought dialectically encompassing the objective political situation and bringing together into a single whole the programme and tactical tasks with the tasks of the ideological struggle offer an excellent example of the dialectical analysis of the historical situation in the light of the revolution's interests.
The present epoch has enlarged the scale of revolutionary action. The International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow said in its Main Document of June 17, 1969: ``Powerful revolutionary processes are gathering momentum throughout the world. Three mighty forces of our time---the world socialist system, the international working-class and the national liberation movement ---are coming together in the struggle against = imperialism.''^^3^^ These are the three powerful forces of social progress that are the targets of the attacks by the ideologists of imperialism, and the reactionary ideological-political theories which do the greatest harm are shaped in this very fight against the three main streams of the world revolutionary process.
What then are the ideological-political trends that are most harmful for democracy and socialism today? On the strength of the programme documents of the CPSU and the international communist movement and in the light of the present-day objective reality, there is good ground to designate these trends as anti-communism, reformism and revisionism, nationalism and the ideology of neo-colonialism.
Anti-communism is the principal ideological-political _-_-_
^^1^^ MISSING. why? ocr glitch?
^^2^^ MISSING. why? ocr glitch?
^^3^^ MISSING. why? ocr glitch?
41 weapon of imperialism. Reformism and revisionism, which seek to split and undermine the working-class and international communist movement from inside, are the ideological accomplices of anti-communism and the vehicles through which reactionary bourgeois ideology exerts an influence on the working people.Before analysing the specific features of these trends, let us consider the state of present-day bourgeois ideology as a whole.
[42] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ CRISIS OF BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGY __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction.]The concrete historical approach, a necessary condition in the Leninist analysis of social phenomena, requires a consideration of the most general features of bourgeois ideology and its main specifics at this stage.
What is the most characteristic aspect of the overall state of bourgeois social thought in this epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism? It is undoubtedly the state of crisis, which is an expression of the spiritual degeneration of a social system that has historically outlived itself. This state of crisis is manifested in a number of general special features of present-day bourgeois ideology as a whole, and is specifically reflected in the basic forms of bourgeois consciousness.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICIs there any ground for drawing the conclusion about there being a crisis in imperialist ideology at this stage of sharply aggravated ideological struggle, at a time when ideological penetration has become one of the main, if not the main weapon of reaction in its fight against the new, socialist world? Imperialist ideology is undoubtedly a dangerous, active and treacherous enemy. Still, there is no doubt about imperialist ideology being in crisis. It is a reflection in the sphere of society's spiritual life of the general crisis of capitalism as a system. The unprecedentedly feverish activity of the bourgeois propaganda machine, turning out, with a kind of desperate obsession, a never-ending stream of anti-- communist myths, is itself evidence that imperialism no longer has any ideas capable of inspiring and giving a lead to the people.
Bourgeois ideology, reflecting the lack of historical prospects before imperialism, seeks by every possible means to vindicate and embellish it in every way, so as to delay the inevitable collapse of the obsolescent system.
The general crisis of capitalism flared up with full force following the victory of the Great October Socialist 43 Revolution, which dealt a decisive blow at bourgeois ideology as well. It blasted the myth that private capitalist relations were there for all time, and opened a new epoch in world history, the epoch of the downfall of capitalism and the establishment of communism. The working people of all countries watched with great sympathy and hope every step taken by the world's first workers' and peasants' state. However, the imperialists likewise kept a close watch on what it did. As the ideas of the October Revolution increasingly became the banner of revolutionary struggle across the worlol, bourgeois ideology became increasingly reactionary. This was due to the fact that capitalism was gradually ceasing to be a global world system, and degenerated spiritually as it lost one position after another.
With the emergence of the Soviet state the anti-communist tenor of bourgeois thought became more pronounced. Bourgeois ideology turned its keenest edge not only against the theory, but also against the practice of socialist construction, this being an expression of the deep-seated fear the bourgeoisie has always had as a class of the law-governed changes taking place in the world, and an expression of its hatred for such changes.
However, despite the hostility of the bourgeois ideologists for the October Revolution, and the savage attempts to prevent the new system from consolidating itself, it developed confidently, refuting the malicious predictions and prognostications by its ideological adversaries about its imminent collapse, and exploding the ideological myths of anti-- communist propaganda one after another.
After the victory of the October Revolution, bourgeois ideologists stubbornly insisted that the Communists were only able to destroy but not to build. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the masses of people, whom the October Revolution had put on the highroad of historical creativity, astounded the world by the great scope of their five-year plans. The Soviet economy displayed unprecedented growth rates, and the way of life in a vast country was fundamentally transformed. Socialism put an end to man's exploitation of man for good, eliminated national oppression and strife, and ensured a new and higher type of democracy.
Bourgeois ideologists, thrown into confusion by the confident advance of the new world, began hypocritically to 44 talk about ``excessive industrialisation rates'' and about ``the excessive price for overcoming backwardness''. History itself has provided convincing evidence that the policy of industrialising and collectivising the country had been a wise and far-sighted one. The fruits of this policy were manifested with especial force during the Great Patriotic War.
Bourgeois ideologists had no doubt that the striking force of imperialism would be able to crush the socialist state, and they circulated the anti-communist myth that the multinational socialist country was ``unsoundly based''. The victory over fascism turned out to be not only a military defeat for Hitlerism, but a powerful blow at all these illusions of the ideologists of racism and militarism, nationalistic chauvinism and aggression.
Just as futile were the hopes that the socialist country would be weakened as a result of the unprecedented devastation and losses during the war. It rose from the ashes and ruins, once again demonstrating to the world the mighty and inexhaustible forces of the socialist system. Its historical successes in developing the economy, science and technology dispelled the old myth of anti-communist propaganda that the economic system of socialism was inefficient.
A new stage in the general crisis of capitalism began when socialism spread beyond the boundaries of one country and formed the world socialist system. This dispelled the myth of bourgeois ideology about the Great October Socialist Revolution having been a ``purely Russian'' national event. Socialist practice provided irrefutable proof that a number of basic features of this revolution are of international and not only of local importance.
The international importance of the ideas of the October Revolution was also confirmed by the world-wide national liberation struggle of the peoples which brought down an old bastion of imperialism, its colonial system. The development of Soviet national republics has shown the countries escaping from colonial oppression what peoples taking the socialist way of development are capable of doing.
The present stage of the crisis of bourgeois ideology is marked by intensified attempts to undermine the authority of socialism and Marxism-Leninism. But whereas some seek the slightest opportunity for using armed force against the socialist system, others prefer a more cautious line, namely, to try to slow down in every possible way the further 45 successes of socialism and to undermine it politically and ideologically from inside, making use of the most subtle methods of falsification and distortion of the truth of life. In practice, both these lines blend together in one line, merely reflecting the contradictions within the various groups of the imperialist bourgeoisie.
The subtlety of bourgeois methods in fighting socialism is also evident in the adventurist attempts to borrow weapons from the ideological armoury of the progressive forces. Needless to say, the crying contradiction between the progressive ideas and the reactionary content of the imperialist system and its policies have made it possible to use these ideas only superficially, in terms of outward form.
This produces a striking contrast between word and deed. Thus, imperialist policy and its aggressive interventions, carried out under the pretext of safeguarding democracy, working for peace and freedom, and defending humanism and civilisation, expose themselves by their deeds. The crisis of present-day bourgeois ideology undoubtedly marks the decline of capitalism, and the final transformation of the bourgeoisie, once a historically progressive class, into a reactionary one.
In the most general terms, this crisis is expressed, first, in that the class content of bourgeois ideology has run into an acute and irreconcilable contradiction with the course of world social development, and has become a drag on social progress.
In content, the function of bourgeois ideology increasingly comes down to a reactionary class defence of the capitalist system. The methods used in this defence are diverse, but concern for this defence permeates every sphere of bourgeois social thinking, being specifically mirrored in its various forms: political and legal ideology, philosophy, and ethical and aesthetic theories.
Second, the development of the new world and its successes have required (in view of the class-rooted negative assessment of this world by the bourgeoisie) the restructuring of the whole of bourgeois ideology. The negative attitude, which has grown into wild anti-communism, anti-Marxism and attacks against any expression of free thought, has led to an abandonment of the bourgeoisie's once progressive heritage. Present-day bourgeois ideologists have been throwing overboard the best achievements of bourgeois thought 46 relating to the period of rising capitalism, or have been distorting them out of all recognition. In the past they used to extol atheism, but today religion is the best mark of `` respectability''; reason and science used to be at the service of education, but today irrationalism and mysticism have been declared the instruments of cognising the world; social progress once used to be their credo, but today this is increasingly confined to technological development. With deep insight Lenin observed: ``A point in history has been reached when the commanding bourgeoisie, fearing the growth and increasing strength of the proletariat, comes out in support of everything backward, moribund and = medieval.''^^1^^
Bourgeois ideology has been increasingly hypocritical. Marx and Engels wrote in The German Ideology: ``The more... the conditions of the ruling class ... develop their contradiction to the advanced productive forces, and the greater the consequent split within the ruling class itself as well as the split between it and the class ruled by it, the more untrue, of course, becomes the consciousness ... and the more do the earlier traditional ideas ... descend to the level of mere idealising phrases, conscious illusion, deliberate hypocrisy.''^^2^^
The development of the new world and its achievements have exerted an influence on the mood and behaviour of the bourgeois ideologists themselves, leading to ferment in their midst, to tactical disagreements, and to serious internal contradictions, frictions and conflicts. The ideologists of imperialism are unable openly to speak of the interests and goals of the ruling classes in capitalist society because these are in crying contradiction with the interests of the people. The hypocrisy to which they must resort is not merely the product of the subjective, personal qualities of the various bourgeois ideologists. It is a historically-rooted social phenomenon.
A characteristic concern of the bourgeois ideologists is not so much the content or the authenticity of their ideology, but the propaganda results from the spread of it. The development and improvement of psychological methods of exerting an influence on the masses, and the use for that end of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 99.
~^^2^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow, 1968, pp. 323--24.
47 ramified organisational and technical propaganda machine reflect the bourgeois ideologists' urge to keep the minds of the people fettered by bourgeois ideology. One very popular term is ``psychological warfare'', with the emphasis on the conditioning of men's minds to have them support a given policy. What the bourgeois propagandists are concerned with is not truth but plausibility, not a knowledge and understanding of men, but the control of their emotions and their responses in favour of the ideas they are spreading. For that purpose, many bourgeois ideologists engage in applied research to meet the requirements of the ruling clique, the militarists, the military establishments and the employers in methods of brainwashing the masses.The crisis of bourgeois ideology (its increasingly glaring reactionary character, resistance to the principal line of social development, scientific untenability, hypocrisy, and deep-going internal contradictions) does not at all mean that it has lost its capacity or power to influence the masses. Its potentialities are still very great. First, the spread of bourgeois ideas is concentrated in the hands of the state machine of imperialism, the monopolies and the corporations, who spend vast amounts of money and use modern techniques and devices for the most extensive spread of bourgeois ideas. Second, there has also been a change in the methods used by bourgeois propaganda, which has been steadily improving and sharpening its ideological weapons. New theories, new systems of views, new lines of bourgeois thinking are thoroughly analysed to see how they can be used for antisocialist propaganda.
No, indeed, imperialist ideology is far from being dead, and it will not automatically collapse without efforts and struggles against it. On the contrary, the crisis processes going forward within it have merely intensified the propaganda activity of its ideologists.
Of course, the ideologists of imperialism are incapable of putting forward noble, lofty ideas, but they have not lost the ability to falsify ideas and to distort social phenomena. Besides, they have been actively speculating on the real difficulties, shortcomings and mistakes in the new world.
Just as the objective historical laws governing the transition from capitalism to socialism do not operate apart from active participation in the social process by men themselves, so the truth of life, the scientific character of Marxist-- 48 Leninist ideas does not overcome bourgeois ideology automatically. For the truth to win out, it has to be driven home to men; there is need to be able to strip the cover of hypocrisy, and to probe deep down to the class interests behind bourgeois ideology which are always there but which are concealed, to show and to prove to the broad masses of people that the theories defending these class interests are unscientific, anti-humanistic and undemocratic.
A tireless, stubborn struggle against bourgeois ideology is just as important and objective a necessity as the economic competition between the two systems, as the political struggle against imperialism and reaction. This struggle can be carried on successfully only on the basis of a knowledge of the concrete crisis processes going forward in the various spheres of bourgeois social thought.
I
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. PRINCIPAL MANIFESTATIONS OF THE BOURGEOIS IDEOLOGICAL CRISIS TODAYAnti-communism is the most vivid reflection of the degradation of bourgeois ideology. The socialist system, born of the Great October Revolution, has been exerting a tremendous influence on the whole course of history, and on the revolutionary liberation struggle throughout the world. More and more people are coming to realise that the new social order is just, and that Marxism-Leninism rests on a deep scientific basis. In 1928, there were only 1,680,000 Communists throughout the world; today there are almost 50 million. Working people on every continent watch with hope and warm sympathy the advance of socialist construction, whose attractive power has been steadily increasing. The bourgeoisie's growing ideological resistance and its struggle against communist ideas is a natural defensive reaction to the successes scored bv socialism, which have exerted a decisive influence on the very content of this struggle. In the present conditions, the bourgeoisie, always inclined to resort to slander and falsification, has been using them ever more actively in the ideological fight against socialism and Marxism. Lenin wrote: ``When the bourgeoisie's ideological influence on the workers declines, is undermined or
4---1245
49 weakened, the bourgeoisie everywhere and always resorts to the most outrageous lies and = slander.''^^1^^It would, of course, be wrong to identify all the bourgeois ideology with anti-communism, which is a reflection of the extreme state of its degradation. However, let us note the fact that the very edge of modern bourgeois ideology is turned against communism, against Marxism, although this does not always appear on the surface as openly as in the instances when anti-communism, anti-Marxism, is immediately involved.
The crisis of bourgeois ideology is expressed not only in the unseemly methods used in the fight against communism and Marxism, but in a peculiar ideological mimicry. The advocates of capitalism, which has outlived itself, no longer dare to call their client by its proper name, and have to invent various new names, asserting that it has already undergone a fundamental change or is bound to undergo one in the very near future. Capitalism is being advertised under a great variety of signboards, including ``people's capitalism'', ``neocapitalism'', ``the welfare state'', ``statism'', ``economic humanism'', and ``the economic republic''. Most noise is being made over the idea of a ``capitalist revolution''. Nor are all these merely a set of arbitrary inventions by the bourgeois ideologists; they are an expression of the deep-going crisis processes in ideology which spring from the objective tendencies of a social system on the way out.
Even before the October Revolution, Lenin remarked on the tendency for the advocates of capitalism to defend it by referring to its reformation, a tendency which he connected with the progress of capitalism and the growth of the working-class movement. He wrote: ``Instead of waging an open, principled and direct struggle against all the fundamental tenets of socialism in defence of the absolute inviolability of private property and freedom of competition, the bourgeoisie of Europe and America, as represented by their ideologists and political leaders, are coming out increasingly in defence of so-called social reforms as opposed to the idea of social revolution. Not liberalism versus socialism, but reformism versus socialist revolution---is the formula of the modern, 'advanced', educated = bourgeoisie.''^^2^^
_-_-_^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 485.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 17, p. 229.
50Today this tendency has been further intensified. Not only have the reformist theorists become captives of bourgeois ideas, but the bourgeois ideologists themselves have become captives of reformism. However, the ``reformation'' itself is now presented as a ``revolution'', and this with good reason. Over vast expanses of the globe, the free peoples are working heroically to erect the magnificent edifice of a new world, which is the result of revolutionary struggle. Accordingly, bourgeois propaganda cannot afford to ignore the attractiveness of the term ``revolution'', and to refrain from using it in its own interests through mimicry. And so we find bourgeois reformism wearing a new mask, that of peaceful ``capitalist revolution''.
The current scientific and technical revolution is also too extensive to fit into the framework of capitalist relations, and impels capitalism to evolve in such a way that private capital is alone no longer equal to the task, and there is need for ever wider participation by society as a whole in economic life. Lenin wrote: ``State-monopoly capitalism is a complete material preparation for socialism, the threshold of socialism, a rung on the ladder of history between which and the rung called socialism there are no intermediate = rungs.''^^1^^ At this point, ``people's capitalism'', the ``welfare state'', and similar other speculative theories are brought up.
The Great October Socialist Revolution inaugurated the revolutionary transformation of the world on the basis of socialism, and has led to an unprecedented acceleration of social progress. The pace of history in the 50 odd years since the October Revolution has never been equalled in any other period of the past. Henceforth, ``social progress'' and `` socialism'' are inseparable concepts.
What effect has this acceleration had on bourgeois social science? The fact that the working class has taken over the banner of social progress has markedly deepened the crisis phenomena in bourgeois sociology. These are, perhaps, their most vivid expressions.
First, modern bourgeois sociology has characteristically abandoned the broad historical approach to social phenomena, and denies the law-governed nature of social development. This has led to a highly peculiar modification in the bourgeois ideologists' attitude to the idea of social progress,
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 359.
4*
51 which is either altogether denied, or the prospects of social development are geared to vindicate the capitalist system, or are reduced to mere quantitative changes.Second, bourgeois sociological science is being increasingly converted into a branch catering for the state-monopoly bureaucratic machine. Catering for the needs of the bourgeois state machine and of private corporations amounts to the rendering of protective assistance to the ruling class in its efforts to produce the illusion of democracy and class peace, the illusion that the social structure of capitalism is being transformed on the basis of ``truly scientific means''.
Let us look in somewhat greater detail at these processes which are highly characteristic of modern bourgeois sociology.
The denial of progress by many bourgeois sociologists was a natural continuation of diverse distortions of the concept of progress in the past. One need merely recall Comte's view of progress as the impact of moral ideas on the world towards the realisation of a moral ideal depicted as a state of harmony between the capitalists and the workers with a simultaneous condemnation of revolutionary transformations, or Spencer's concept of social revolutions as harmful attempts to upset the existing equilibrium.
It was Spencer who substituted the notion of ``evolution'' for ``progress'' without, however, emphasising that development naturally tends to move upwards. A close look at the history of bourgeois sociology from Spencer's day to our own reveals a steadily growing tendency to obscure the substance of the concept of ``progress''. This is something bourgeois sociologists themselves admit.
Concerned for the future of capitalism, the reactionary ideologists of the bourgeoisie now frequently seek to erase from their sociological views not only the word ``progress'', but the very notion of evolution. Some declare, for instance, that the terms ``progress'', ``evolution'' and ``development'' should altogether be expunged because they imply admission of the inevitable succession of social formations.
This admission, more than anything else, testifies to the actual metamorphosis that has taken place. In the epoch of their fight against feudalism, and in the periods before and during bourgeois revolutions, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie put forward ideas which, however limited, were bold and abounded in optimism and faith in mankind's advance. To this day progressive mankind has profound respect for the 52 great French enlighteners, Voltaire and Montesquieu, and the French 18th-century materialists, among them Helvetius, Holbach and Diderot, who worked for the establishment of a more progressive social system. Today, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie deny the objective character of social progress in their efforts to defend the social system which history has doomed to destruction. The concept of ``progress'' has been supplanted by the idea that progress in itself is neither good nor evil but is merely a fact which may have different and even contradictory results, depending on its economic and social contexts.
However, it would be wrong to assume that there is nothing but naked denial of social progress in bourgeois social science. In the last ten years, there has been a wide spread of sociological concepts which distort rather than deny the idea of ``progress''.
As has been said, the fight waged by present-day bourgeois sociologists against social progress is not so much theoretical as purely practical. Bourgeois ideologists have been producing theories designed to ``arrange relations'' between the workers and the employers, engaging in a peculiar ``visitation with the people'', and frequently acting as advisers and consultants for employers in industry.
No wonder the capitalists have been providing generous funds for concrete sociological research. At the Fourth International Sociological Congress, the French sociologist, Stoetzel, observed that three-quarters of the sociological research in the USA is financed and directed by industrial and commercial outfits.
Another fundamental expression of the crisis of bourgeois ideology is its increasing betrayal of the truth, a fact that can be seen from a study of bourgeois philosophy.
Bourgeois philosophy has always given a distorted reflection of reality, but never with such distortions and as such a far cry from true scientific knowledge as today. The main tendencies in the development of bourgeois philosophy testifying to its entry into a phase of irreversible crisis, and distinguishing it from the bourgeois philosophy of the period of rising capitalism, are these: 1) the sway of idealism, and abandonment of the materialistic and dialectical propositions it once advocated, even if in a limited way; 2) development of irrationalism in every form, including mysticism and fideism; and 3) development of philosophical research of a 53 narrowly formalistic type, seeking to evade or eliminate altogether the most important philosophical problems of outlook.
These processes (on the one hand, the theologisation of philosophy, and on the other, the positivist negation of its importance for outlook) result in bourgeois philosophy losing its own subject, and departing from its immediate function of gaining a scientific knowledge of the world as a whole.
Religious ideas, claiming integration with science, command a growing influence in irrationalist philosophy. Thus, the Catholic neo-Thomist philosophy propounds a rationalism which claims that the laws governing the universe are a manifestation of Divine Reason, and the idea of God is put forward as the supreme principle of being. ``Back to the Middle Ages'' is the motto of religious irrationalism.
Existentialism, another trend in philosophical irrationalism, claims to comprehend individual human existence without recourse to science. It isolates man from the crucial social contradictions of reality, severs him from society and the cognition of the objective process of social development, thereby reflecting the confusion and casting about in face of the advancing new world, which is inherent to the capitalist system, and depicts the contradictions of its own surrounding reality as a consequence of the insuperable tragic nature of man's existence itself, which does not present any encouraging prospects.
All these tendencies deprive bourgeois philosophy of its principal role of outlook, because they either dissolve philosophy in logic and semantics, or sink it in the bowels of the abstract human individual isolated from society, or again, integrate it with religion. But the divorcement of bourgeois philosophy and its proper subject does not do away with the question of its class essence, of its party attitude, and merely hampers their identification so long as there is no consideration of its attitude to Marxism. The party stand and the class substance of bourgeois philosophy usually appear quite clearly whenever Marxism is considered.
Modern positivism says, for instance, that materialist philosophy has no scientific meaning; religious deism frequently protests against ``atheistic materialism'', and both join hands under the flag of anti-communism. Existentialism, as an expression of extreme subjectivism and individualism, which sever the human individual from society, is also 54 objectively an adversary of Marxism, and benefits no one but the bourgeoisie. Some philosophical schools (like pragmatism) openly serve directly to vindicate the anti-communist reactionary policies of adventurism and voluntarism. The class substance of present-day bourgeois philosophy corresponds to the condition and world outlook of the historically doomed bourgeoisie. Therein lies the main reason for the belittlement of thinking, the departure from the truth and from reason, and the hostility to the historical approach which are the hallmark of present-day philosophical systems.
More evidence of the crisis of present-day bourgeois philosophy comes from the growing discontent with it among scientists, and its inability to explain the surrounding world and to meet the requirements of the natural sciences, which are in headlong = development.^^1^^
Crisis processes are also eroding bourgeois ethical and aesthetic thinking, assuming forms specific to these fields. Capitalist society itself is in a state of profound moral crisis, breeding evils and crimes and implanting racial discrimination. In a peculiar form, present-day ethical theories reflect the same break with the best traditions of classical bourgeois ethics, a fact that is also characteristic of present-day bourgeois philosophical thinking as a whole, resting as it does on the tendencies of irrationalism and formalism.
The main credo of bourgeois ethics, individualism, which is based on the principle of private property, once used to be historically justified, but today, like the other principles of the bourgeois outlook, it has outlived itself and has become _-_-_
~^^1^^ However, that is not to say that bourgeois philosophers have not put forward or elaborated any important concrete questions. Professor G. A. Kursanov is quite right when he says: ``In the condition of present-day bourgeois society this highly characteristic contradiction arises. On the one hand, numerous epistemological theories cover a very large range of problems in a complex and contradictory cognitive process. The philosophers and natural scientists have posed many questions bearing on an analysis of this process: its empirical and logical components, the role of logico-mathematical methods in cognition, the meaning and significance of the forms of language and terms in scientific cognition, methods of structuring scientific systems, the significance and limits of application of philosophical principles in scientific research, etc. But, on the other hand, the attempts to resolve all these problems are based on a false, idealistic outlook and an unscientific, metaphysical method, and this inevitably leads to a contradiction with the objective content in the development of science and of the whole process of cognition'' (Kommunist, 1966, No. 18, p. 81).
55 a drag on social progress. Bourgeois ideologists themselves admit that there is a crisis of moral awareness in capitalist society, and that this is a basis for the spread of mental disease, hard drinking, and immorality in public and in private life. Of course, the moral crisis of capitalism is not allembracing: today, new moral rules and ideals are being moulded by the progressive circles of bourgeois society in their struggle against reaction.Present-day bourgeois aesthetics is marked by decadence, that is, an aggregate of anti-realistic and anti-humanistic tendencies, which assume diverse and occasionally contradictory forms. The so-called mass culture has been spreading inartistic concoctions designed for immature and degraded tastes, and extolling violence and brutality. Modernism, another form of decadence, is, by contrast, designed for the elite. Bourgeois aesthetics as a rule refuses to make broad philosophical generalisations. Here, as in other spheres of bourgeois thinking, there is evidence of growing mysticism and irrationalism, and the sway of abstractionism. The latter is essentially a refusal to depict the material world and to express any definite attitudes and emotions about it. The abstract form---immaterial art---has absolutely definite class purposes: it is to distract men from real and vital problems and to stop them from thinking and seeking after the truth.
The aesthetic thought of the class ruling bourgeois society cannot allow the artist to make an objective reflection of reality, that is, to depict the true direction of its development, which is why bourgeois aesthetics extols formalism. The disintegration of content, the absolutisation of form, and the subjective idealist exaggeration of the role of symbols are the marks of the crisis in bourgeois aesthetics.
The crisis in bourgeois social thinking and its close connection with the anti-democratic domestic and foreign policy of imperialism are most vividly reflected in bourgeois political theories. The main trends in bourgeois political ideology, showing that it has outlived itself in historical terms, that it has no future before it, and that it is fighting the future tooth and nail, are expressed in: 1) the attempts to justify the use of force as an instrument of domestic and foreign policy; 2) the legal doctrines trampling on bourgeois democratic legality; and 3) the system of politico-sociological conceptions whose edge is turned straight at the main motive forces of social development---the world socialist system, the 56 international communist and working-class movement, and the national liberation struggle.
The doctrine of ``political realism'' is the bourgeois ideologists' main conception used to justify violence and the ``positions-of-strength'' policy. This conception is centred on categories like force, interest, and political reality. Its reactionary essence is revealed most clearly in an analysis of the adventurist character of imperialist policy, which relies on the cult of force. At the same time, the striving to pursue a policy of strength, covered up with slogans about freedom and democracy, and the catchwords of the old bourgeois liberalism, merely goes to emphasise the historical impasse in which both the policy and the ideology of imperialism now find themselves.
The imperialist ideologists' patently negative attitude to socialism and communism, an attitude which is predetermined by the class interests of the imperialists, constantly leads them to make serious miscalculations in their political prognoses. That such miscalculations do occur has been admitted, among others, by US political experts. Fred Warner Neal, one-time consultant at the US State Department, said in a pamphlet, US Foreign Policy and the Soviet Union, published by the US Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, that the USA had failed to anticipate any of the major events in the USSR, including the October Revolution and its success. It had also expected socialism to be repudiated, had treated it on a par with fascism, had given the Soviet Armed Forces only six weeks before they collapsed in face of the nazi drive, had not expected the USSR so rapidly to rehabilitate its economy, to catch up in missile construction, etc.
Are not these systematic errors of judgement and constantly mistaken prognoses visual evidence of the state of crisis in bourgeois political thinking?
The Great October Socialist Revolution and the whole halfcentury of experience in socialist construction have shown that socialism and peace are indivisible, and that the whole of socialist policy is based on true democratism. The October Revolution set the world a practical example of complete national liberation of peoples, and opened up real prospects for national liberation revolutions. The break-up of the colonial system of imperialism and the new stage in the national liberation movement now going forward in a sizable part of the countries provide epoch-making evidence of the 57 viable force of the ideas generated by the October Revolution.
What can the ideology of imperial