50

p While developing the theory of scientific communism and directing the revolutionary struggle and the building of socialism, Lenin consistently upheld the purity of Marxist theory against bourgeois ideology and its accomplices, against idealism and clericalism, against opportunism, in short against all those who distorted and falsified Marxism, and those who, having distorted it, 51 attempted to use it to further the interests of the bourgeoisie.

p At the outset of his political activities, Lenin denounced the ideology of the Russian liberal Narodniks of the 1880s-90s. The Narodniks refused to recognise that the emergence of capitalism in Russia was a natural process, opposed the proletarian class struggle against the bourgeoisie and rejected the idea that the working class played a revolutionary role in society. They pinned their hopes chiefly on the peasants, regarding them as the only champions of socialism, without realising that the peasants could achieve liberation from landowner oppression solely under the leadership of the proletariat. They interpreted history from an idealistic standpoint, rejecting the decisive role of economic factors in the historical process and declaring that history was made not by the people but by “heroes”, by outstanding personalities.

p Showing that Russia’s capitalist development was a natural, law-governed process, Lenin revealed the social stratification of the peasantry, and worked out the tactics of the working class towards the different sections of the peasants. He saw that the peasants would be staunch allies of the proletariat against the capitalists and, later, in the building of socialist society.

p Lenin’s struggle against Right and Left opportunism, trends hostile to Marxism, did much to further the theory and practice of scientific communism.

p He characterised Right opportunism, or revisionism, as “petty-bourgeois reformism, i.e., servility to the bourgeoisie covered by a cloak of sentimental democratic and ‘Social’-Democratic phrases and fatuous wishes”. Revisionism breaks with the economic and philosophical teaching of Marxism, removes its revolutionary substance and replaces it with bourgeois reformist theories. It rejects the Marxist theory of classes and the class struggle, of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and deliberately misrepresents the Marxist teaching about the Party and the ways of building socialism. It is characteristic that all this is screened by the false claim of defending Marxism, of furthering its development. The danger of revisionism was especially great early in the 20th century, when it gained momentum on a world scale, penetrating all the Socialist Workers’ Parties and becoming, 52 practically speaking, the official ideology of the Second International.

p In contrast to Right opportunism, Loll opportunism does not preach reformist ideas. On the contrary, it boasts of its revolutionism, paying no attention to historical conditions and the balance of class forces.

p Despite this outward difference, there is much that Right and Left opportunism have in common: petty-bourgeois mentality and hostility to Marxism, to scientific communism, to the revolutionary working-class movement. Both trends seek to plant bourgeois influence among the working class. The reformism of the Right opportunists and the ultra-revolutionism and, essentially, adventurism of the Left opportunists, the absence in both these trends of proletarian firmness, organisation and discipline seriously harm the revolution, the cause of socialism by foredooming the working class to capitulation to the bourgeoisie, to defeat.

This conciliatory, capitulalory substance of opportunism was countered by Lenin with creative, revolutionary Marxism. He combated not only the Russian opportunists of the Right-wing (Economists, liquidators, Mensheviks) and Left-wing trends (olzovists, “Left Communists”, Trotskyites), but also opportunism in the world workingclass movement. This struggle serves as an example of a lofty Party approach to theory and, to this day, it inspires Communists in their struggle against contemporary opportunism.