249

p By M. V. ISKROV

p Lenin’s teachings on the historic role of the working class rank among the most important in the theoretical heritage that he left behind. The working class, the chief force in the production of material goods, is the most advanced and revolutionary class in society. The historic mission of this class is to abolish capitalism and build communism. Mankind’s social progress, the establishment of a truly just society on earth, i.e., socialism, largely depend on the revolutionary energy of the working class and its ability to rally all democratic and progressive forces around itself. That is why in his revolutionary struggle Lenin relied primarily on the working class as the principal subjective factor in effecting revolutionary changes in society.

p Marx and Engels were the first to discover and define the world-historic role of the working class as the grave-digger of capitalism and the creator of communist society. After studying the laws governing the development of the capitalist mode of production they established that the demise of capitalism and the victory of communism were inevitable. They revealed the contradictory position of the proletariat: while playing the principal part in material production, it is deprived of any right to the means of production and prevented from playing the leading role in the system of capitalist social relations, which it ought to have played as the determining factor of production. Because of this contradiction the proletariat must act as the main force in abolishing capitalist society. Marxism armed the working class with a revolutionary theory and gave a socialist orientation to the labour movement, which had hitherto developed spontaneously. Marx and Engels, in their writings, were the first to 250 demonstrate that socialism is not an invention of dreamers hut a science and the necessary final outcome of the development of the productive forces of modern society. They showed that the most vital interests of the proletariat require the abolition of private ownership and of anarchy in social production, and that only conscious class struggle by organised workers can result in this.

p Throughout their life Marx and Engels bent all their effort on elaborating the revolutionary theory of the working class, on ascertaining and proving its great liberatory mission, on developing the class self-consciousness of the proletariat. As Lenin said, "The services rendered by Marx and Engels to the working class may be expressed in a few words thus: they taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself, and they substituted science for dreams."  [250•1 

p "It is to the great historic merit of Marx and Engels that they indicated to the workers of the world their role, their task, their mission, namely, to be the first to rise in the revolutionary struggle against capital and to rally around themselves in this struggle all working and exploited people."  [250•2 

p The Marxist doctrine is the scientific expression of the most essential interests of the proletariat. Marx created his teachings by summarising in the form of theory the practical experience of the labour movement, and by critically assimilating all that was most valuable in philosophy, political economy and Utopian socialism. The central idea of Marxism is that concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat.

p "And now as to myself,” Marx wrote to Weyclemcyer on March 5, 1852, "no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: i) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production, 2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society."  [250•3 

251

p Lenin’s ideas on the historic role of the working class, which derive from those of Marx and Engels, comprise an integrated system of views of the hegemony of the proletariat in the socialist revolution and in any truly popular, democratic revolution. This theory stresses the proletariat’s leading role among all working people of both town and countryside in the battle to overthrow capitalism, and in the subsequent socialist construction. It is a theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a special form of the class alliance between the proletariat and all exploited people of non-proletarian and semi-proletarian origin. Its highest principle concerns the need to form an alliance between the working class and the peasantry. A lasting alliance of workers and peasants and other non-proletarian working people was considered by Lenin to be an indispensable condition for the victory of revolution.

p In one of his first works, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, Lenin developed in detail the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolutionary movement. He showed that the role of the working class was that of an advanced revolutionary force in society, that the proletariat was the only class capable of leading all exploited and oppressed people in the struggle to abolish the exploitation of man by man, and that it comes forward and must come forward as their leader in the class struggle.

p "The proletariat alone can be the vanguard fighter for political liberty and for democratic institutions. Firstly, this is because political tyranny bears most heavily upon the proletariat whose position gives it no opportunity to secure a modification of that tyranny—it has no access to the higher authorities, not even to the officials, and it has no influence on public opinion. Secondly, the proletariat alone is capable of bringing about the complete democratisation of the political and social system, since this would place the system in the hands of the workers."  [251•1 

p The Marxist-Leninist theory of the historic mission of the proletariat was fully borne out by the October Socialist Revolution in Russia. It demonstrated the inexhaustible strength of the working class. After the October Revolution Lenin repeatedly said that the working class was the most steeled class in the struggle against capitalism, and that it alone would lead mankind to the abolition of all classes and to the building of the most just society possible on earth.

252

p "Classes can be abolished,” Lenin said, "only by the dictatorship of that oppressed class which has been schooled, united, trained and steeled by decades of the strike and political struggle against capital—of that class alone which has assimilated all the urban, industrial, big-capitalist culture and has the determination and ability to protect it and to preserve and further develop all its achievements, and make them available to all the people, to all the working people—of that class alone which will be able to bear all the hardships, trials, privations and great sacrifices which history inevitably imposes upon those who break with the past and boldly hew a road for themselves to a new future—of that class alone whose finest members are full of hatred and contempt for everything petty-bourgeois and philistine, for the qualities that flourish so profusely among the petty bourgeoisie, the minor employees and the ‘intellectuals’—of that class alone which ’has been through the hardening school of labour’ and is able to inspire respect for its efficiency in every working person and every honest man."  [252•1 

p Lenin’s struggle against liberal Narodniks, Economists, Bernsteinians and other revisionists boiled down in the final analysis to his preserving and upholding the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the movement for the emancipation of labour. His book The Development of Capitalism in Russia played a big part in this respect. In his study of the economic ancl class structure of Russian society, Lenin not only ascertained the position of the different classes in the liberation movement, but furnished a scientific proof of the need for the proletariat to lead the revolution, and of the possibility of this. Moreover, he indicated that the proletariat had the ability to lead millions upon millions of working people in the task of overthrowing the rule of the landowners and capitalists. All this completely upset the threadbare dogmas of the opportunists of all kinds, according to whom working-class leadership of a revolution was possible only when the latter comprised the majority of a nation’s population. But in fact, as Lenin observed, "the strength of the proletariat in the process of history is immeasurably greater than its share of the total population".  [252•2 

p The strength of the working class lies in its discipline, organisation and unity, in its ability to rally all exploited people and to direct the movement for their liberation towards one 253 single goal—the abolition of all exploitation. The historic role of the working class thus consists in its liberating not only itself, but all labouring people. The revolutionary struggle of the proletariat encompasses the struggle for freedom of the overwhelming majority of the exploited people. Lenin taught Communists that the working class, connected as it is with advanced forms of production, is in a position not only to rally its own ranks successfully, but also to become, as the one consistently revolutionary class, the true leader of the revolution.

p "One of the chief conditions for the socialist revolution’s victory is that the working class must realise it has to rule and that its rule should be carried through during the transition period from capitalism to socialism. The rule of the proletariat, the vanguard of all the working and exploited people, is essential in this transition period if classes are to be completely abolished, if the resistance of the exploiters is to be suppressed, and if the entire mass of the working and exploited people— crushed, downtrodden and disunited by capitalism—are to be united around the urban workers and brought in close alliance with them."  [253•1  Lenin directly connected the victory of the socialist system and its further strengthening with the leading role of the working class and the steady growth of its authority. Without this directing activity of the working class, he said, the victory of socialism was absolutely unthinkable.

p The opportunist leaders of the Second International at no time considered seriously the question of the allies of the working class, especially its peasant allies. Russian Mensheviks and Trotskyists stubbornly attempted to prove the reactionary nature of the peasantry, and the impossibility of the proletariat leading it along the path of revolution. Lenin exposed these opportunist views and developed the Marxist thesis on the need to combine the proletarian revolution with the revolutionary peasant movement. In What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats he first put forward the idea of a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants.

p In his later works Lenin paid constant attention to the alliance of the working class and peasantry, and to the strengthening of this alliance under the hegemony of the proletariat. He stressed again and again that only the working class is sufficiently numerous, class-conscious and disciplined to attract the majority of working, exploited and poor people to the cause of completely 254 suppressing all exploiters. Lenin also pointed out that it was not just any alliance with the peasantry that the proletariat needed but only one in which the working class could preserve its leading role and which strengthened the position of the working class in the struggle against the bourgeoisie for the abolition of class-= divided society, and in the struggle to build socialism. ”. . .Only the guidance given by the proletariat is capable of leading the mass of small farmers out of capitalist slavery to socialism."  [254•1 

p Lenin not only demonstrated the real possibility of establishing and consolidating the working-class alliance with the peasantry in the course of the revolutionary struggle against tsarism and capitalism; he also brought out the need to strengthen this alliance once the proletariat has won power. "The supreme principle of the dictatorship is the maintenance of the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry in order that the proletariat may retain its leading role and its political power."  [254•2 

p The unscientific conceptions of Maoists obviously contradict Lenin’s teachings on the leading role of the working class in its alliance with the peasantry. Rejecting the leading role of the working class of the developed capitalist countries in the revolutionary process, and speaking of the alleged loss by the working class of its revolutionary spirit, of the “bourgeoisifkation” of the working class, and its consequent inability to wage a struggle to overthrow capitalism, the Maoists claim that the proletariat has now left the arena of revolutionary struggle and is exclusively occupying itself with its own narrow class and economic questions. The working class has supposedly been replaced by the peasantry, "the world countryside”. The Maoists’ plainly contemptuous attitude towards the working class and their rejection of its vanguard role show that their ideas are a direct revision and distortion of Marxist-Leninist theory of the historic tasks of the working class. Lenin emphasised that the great revolutionary potential of the peasantry can be fully revealed and successfully employed in the cause of the revolution only under the leadership of the proletariat. At the same time he warned that ".. .it would be senseless to make the peasantry the vehicle of the revolutionary movement, that a party would be insane to condition the revolutionary character of its movement upon the revolutionary mood of the peasantry".  [254•3 

255

p In this light, Maoism looks like an attempt to replace the proletarian revolution with a petty-bourgeois one.

p If one takes into account the further fact that alongside their counterposing of "the world countryside" to the proletariat of the developed countries, the Maoists also preach chauvinism, and want to antagonise the nations of East and West, it becomes quite clear that it is their views, as remote from Marxism as the sky is from the earth, that nourish their striving to replace the world socialist revolution by the struggle between the nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, on the one hand, and the nations of Europe and North America, on the other. Maoism suggests that the main battle in the world should not be that between socialism and imperialism, the working class and the capitalist class, but one between “poor” and “rich” nations, between “white” and “coloured” peoples. Maoism replaces the class approach to revolution by a geographical, nationalistic and, in the final analysis, racialist one.

p Karl Marx and Frederick Engels stressed that the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary not only in order to abolish the capitalist system but also to build a new, communist society. The working class must exercise its dictatorship not only in the period of the struggle for power but also in the course of the class struggle that follows its conquest of power, in order to transform radically the economy of society by instituting socialist relations of production and setting up an entirely new social system. During this struggle the working class makes use of all political, military, economic and administrative means of coercion in its relations with the bourgeoisie. At the same time, the working class needs its dictatorship in order to educate and steel itself as a force capable of ruling the country, and re-educating petty-= bourgeois elements so that socialist production can be organised.

p "What is needed to enable the proletariat to lead the peasants and the petty-bourgeois groups in general is the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rule of one class, its strength of organisation and discipline, its centralised power based on all the achievements of the culture, science and technology of capitalism, its proletarian affinity to the mentality of every working man, its prestige with the disunited, less developed working people in the countryside or in petty industry, who are less firm in politics."  [255•1 

p Lenin time and again emphasised that only one definite class, 256 the class of industrial workers, has the ability to lead all labouring people in the struggle to overthrow capitalism, to consolidate victory over it, and to create a new, socialist system.

p Lenin also showed that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a new, higher type of democracy. It is proletarian democracy for the working majority and has nothing in common with bourgeois democracy, which is false and hypocritical, though sold as "pure democracy" by its apologists. Exposing the anti-popular essence of bourgeois democracy, Lenin made clear that "pure democracy" was nothing but an empty liberal phrase devised to deceive the workers.

p Lenin discovered a new state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviets. With the establishment of Soviet power as a state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a new epoch of world history was ushered in, the epoch of mankind’s transition to socialism. A new type of state emerged, hitherto unknown in the history of the world. But Soviet power is not the only, universally applicable state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The complexity of the revolutionary struggle of the international working class indicates that the state organisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat can and must assume different forms in different countries. These forms depend on the special characteristics of the class struggle, the alignment of class forces, the home and international situation, different historical conditions and national peculiarities of a country. "The transition from capitalism to communism is certainly bound to yield a tremendous abundance and variety of political forms, but the essence will inevitably be the same: the dictatorship of the proletariat."  [256•1 

p The system of people’s democracy established in a revolutionary way in the 19405 in a number of countries of Europe and Asia represents a new kind of state organisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The political systems of all these countries have one fundamental thing in common: they cannot fulfil their functions successfully unless the working class plays the leading role in social life, under the guidance of Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p The Marxist party is the main guiding and directing force in the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Party grows up as the party of the working class; it has its roots in the labour movement and grows together with the working class throughout the course of its advance.

257

p Lenin worked out the organisational principles of the Communist Party by applying Marx’s and Engels’s ideas of the proletarian party to the new conditions of the working-class struggle in the period of imperialism. He showed that a party armed with an advanced theory of scientific communism acts as the vanguard, class-conscious detachment of the working class. Lenin spoke out against the idea of equating and merging the party of the working class with the whole of the working class, and warned comrades against forgetting "the vanguard’s constant duty of raising ever wider sections to its own advanced level".  [257•1  That is why a party should constantly draw in all the best representatives of the working class and the working people, those selflessly dedicated to the cause of the proletariat.

p A Communist Party, as an organised detachment of the working class and all working people, must represent the highest form of proletarian class organisation. Only when this is so can it lead the practical struggle of the working class and direct it towards the realisation of its historic mission. In this struggle the Party is a weapon in the hands of the proletariat enabling it to establish its dictatorship, and to hold, strengthen and extend it in the interests of the victory of socialism and communism.

p Lenin determined the Party’s strategic line in relation to the working class and established its decisive place in the working-= class struggle.

p "Victory over capitalism calls for proper relations between the leading (Communist) party, the revolutionary class (the proletariat) and the masses, i.e., the entire body of the toilers and the exploited. Only the Communist Party, if it is really the vanguard of the revolutionary class, if it really comprises all the finest representatives of that class, if it consists of fully conscious and staunch Communists who have been educated and steeled by the experience of a persistent revolutionary struggle, and if it has succeeded in linking itself inseparably with the whole life of its class and, through it, with the whole mass of the exploited, and in completely winning the confidence of this class and this mass— only such a party is capable of leading the proletariat in the final, most ruthless and decisive struggle against all the forces of capitalism. On the other hand, it is only under the leadership of such a party that the proletariat is capable of displaying the full might of its revolutionary onslaught, and of overcoming the 258 inevitable apathy and occasional resistance of that small minority, the labour aristocracy, who have been corrupted by capitalism, the old trade union and co-operative leaders, etc.—only then will it be capable of displaying its full might, which, because of the very economic structure of capitalist society, is infinitely greater than its proportion of the population."  [258•1 

p The Party links the vanguard of the proletariat with the working class and all working people. Marxism-Leninism teaches that unless the Party has extensive links with the mass of the people and constantly strengthens these links, and unless it possesses the ability to listen to the voice of the people, to understand their needs, and to learn from them as well as to teach them, it will never be a real leader.

p Lenin attached paramount importance to the trade unions, the widest of the mass organisations of the proletariat. "The development of the proletariat,” he wrote, "did not, and could not, proceed anywhere in the world otherwise than through the trade unions, through reciprocal action between them and the party of the working class.” The emergence of the trade unions was "a tremendous step forward for the working class in the early days of capitalist development, inasmuch as they marked a transition from the workers’ disunity and helplessness to the rudiments of class organisation".  [258•2 

p Marxism-Leninism takes the view that the trade unions, which arose under capitalism as organisations to defend workers’ economic interests, should not confine their activities to economic struggles alone. They should combine struggle for the immediate demands of workers with political struggle for the complete emancipation of the working class from the capitalist yoke. The founders of scientific communism succeeded in defending this idea of the revolutionary role of the trade unions against Proudhonism, anarcho-syndicalism, Lassalleanism, narrow craft-= unionism, Economism and other manifestations of opportunism in the trade union movement.

p Lenin enlarged upon the tenets of Marxism relating to the economic and political forms of the working-class struggle. He believed that the prime importance of economic interests by no means implies the primacy of shop-floor and other economic struggles over the political struggle, since the most essential, economic interests of the working class "can be satisfied only 259 by radical political changes in general. In particular, the fundamental economic interests of the proletariat can be satisfied only by a political revolution that will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat."  [259•1  Lenin’s great contribution was to define the role of the trade unions in the dictatorship of the proletariat. He said that under the dictatorship of the proletariat, the trade unions, which embrace the whole of the working class, function as educational bodies, schools of economic management—schools of communism.

p Lenin saw the necessity of developing the class consciousness of workers, explaining to them their historic mission as a class—that of putting an end to all exploitation and all class society in general, and of building a communist world. "There can be no more important duty for class-conscious workers than that of getting to know their class movement, its nature, its aims and objectives, its conditions and practical forms. That is because the strength of the working-class movement lies entirely in its political consciousness, and its mass = character."  [259•2 

p Lenin took infinite pains to develop the revolutionary theory of the working class, since the advance of this class to its goal is out of the question unless it is based on Marxist theory which is in turn based on the generalisation of the practical experience of mass struggle. "The world’s greatest movement for the liberation of the oppressed class, the most revolutionary class in history, is impossible without a revolutionary theory."  [259•3  Only by relying on the revolutionary theory of Marxism-Leninism, and by constantly seeking to develop it, can the working-class struggle be led to victory.

p Lenin paid special attention to the ideological education of the working class. In his view, the least slackening by Marxists of the ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie leads to the penetration of bourgeois ideology into the labour movement, where it corrodes the movement from within. It is necessary to take into consideration the fact that bourgeois ideology is much older than socialist ideology and hence more experienced; it has far greater opportunities for dissemination in the capitalist world through the mass media financed by capital. Bourgeois ideology is particularly dangerous in countries where the socialist 260 movement has not yet struck deep roots. "And the younger the socialist movement in any given country, the more vigorously it must struggle against all attempts to entrench non-socialist ideology, and the more resolutely the workers must be warned against the bad counsellors who shout against ’overrating the conscious element’, etc."  [260•1 

p Lenin attached overriding importance to the unity of the ranks of the working class. The unity of the actions of the international working class, both at the national level and on the international scale, is vital for the success of the working-class movement. Proletarian unity is the most reliable weapon of the working class. "Complete victory over capitalism cannot be won unless the proletariat and, following it, the mass of working people in all countries and nations throughout the world voluntarily strive for alliance and unity."  [260•2 

p Capitalism preserves itself by applying that old maxim of all exploiting classes: "Divide and rule.” In order to maintain its class supremacy the bourgeoisie never tires of trying to split the ranks of the proletariat by sending its agents into the labour movement. They make a wide use of all kinds of opportunist trends and especially reformism. The ideologists of international opportunism within the labour movement have always abandoned the struggle of the working class and its revolutionary parties against capitalism for the vital interests of working people, socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism and the unity of the communist and labour movement and instead waged a campaign for petty reforms that do not affect the foundations of capitalism, and have sought to disrupt the unity of the revolutionary forces. The plans of ideological counter-attack on the working class and its Marxist-Leninist parties have always prominently figured in the strategic designs of international imperialism. In aligning themselves with imperialist reaction the contemporary reformists are increasingly attacking the working class and its parties, denying their leading role in the present-day revolutionary process and striving to isolate and thus weaken them. This is the political meaning of all Rightist and Leftist opportunist conceptions. Reformism is chiefly responsible for lack of unity within the working-class ranks. Because of this pernicious reformist activity the working class cannot put to full use all its revolutionary 261 potentialities. Only the relentless battle to unite all the contingents of the working class on a principled Marxist basis can frustrate these age-old tactics of the bourgeoisie. "Unity can be effected only by a united organisation whose decisions are conscientiously carried out by all class-conscious workers. Discussing the problem, expressing and hearing different opinions, ascertaining the views of the majority of the organised Marxists, expressing these views in the form of decisions adopted by delegates and carrying them out conscientiously—this is what reasonable people all over the world call unity. Such a unity is infinitely precious, and infinitely important to the working class. Disunited, the workers are nothing. United, they are every- thing."  [261•1 

p Unity of working-class action is the most imperative need of the present day. Such unity is forged in the day-to-day fierce struggles of the workers against the monopolies for the satisfaction of their economic and social demands, and in the movements for peace, democracy, national independence and social progress. The struggle for working-class unity is not merely of tactical significance; it constitutes the general line of all Communist and Workers’ Parties.

p Communists attach decisive importance to working-class unity and favour co-operation with Socialists and Social-Democrats in the struggle first for democracy and later for socialism.

p The revolutionary labour movement has always been an international movement. Marx and Engels were the first to propagate the ideas of proletarian internationalism, in the 18405. The development of these ideas and the creation of the theory of scientific communism, i.e., the elaboration of the revolutionary theory of the proletariat, and the practical struggle of the proletariat to disseminate socialist ideas in the labour movement and to create a proletarian party, proceeded as one single process. Marx and Engels expressed in The German Ideology the very profound idea that the communist movement has international roots and that it is generated by the whole course of development of capitalism, which draws into its orbit all the nations of the world. That is why the struggle of the proletariat takes place not only on a national but on an international scale, and produces radical changes in the destinies both of individual nations and of the whole world.

p The publication of Communist Manifesto crystallised the 262 principles of proletarian internationalism in the international working-class movement. Marx and Engels, realising that international unity was one of the essential conditions for the emancipation of the working class, put forward in the Communist Manifesto the great international slogan: "Working men of all countries, unite!"

p Lenin made a great contribution to the further development of the theoretical principles of proletarian internationalism and to the practical realisation of it. He taught that the vital interests of the working class demanded the fullest trust and the closest alliance between the working people of different countries, and that the only way to defeat the efforts of the bourgeoisie to disunite and weaken the workers by promoting feelings of national enmity among them was constantly to strengthen this international brotherhood.

p After the victory of the October Socialist Revolution the theory and practice of proletarian internationalism have been enriched by the experience of defending the hard-won gains of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR from the attacks of international imperialism. Fraternal relations have been established between the Soviet workers and working people in other countries, between the working class in the Soviet Union and that of the developed capitalist countries, on the one hand, and the national liberation movement, on the other.

The new features of proletarian internationalism after the October Revolution found reflection in works by Lenin such as "The Draft Programme of the RCP (B)”, "Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions”, "The Question of Nationalities or ’Autonomisation’ " and many other writings, documents and materials. Pointing to the new features of proletarian internationalism, Lenin wrote: "One cannot at present confine oneself to a bare recognition or proclamation of the need for closer union between the working people of the various nations; a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation movements."  [262•1  Only the practical realisation of the principles of proletarian internationalism and the maintenance of firm unity in the views and actions of the working class on all cardinal issues of the class struggle can provide a sure guarantee of victory. And this means working-class unity not only on the national, but on the international scale. "The 263 proletariat cannot pursue its struggle for socialism and defend its everyday economic interests without the closest and fullest alliance of the workers of all nations in all working-class organisations without exception."  [263•1 

p As Lenin pointed out, we "know which class stands at the hub of one epoch or another, determining its main content, the main direction of its development, the main characteristics of the historical situation in that epoch. . . ."  [263•2  At the hub of the present epoch stands the working class, which for well over 50 years directs the world revolutionary movement, rallying around itself all progressive forces. It determines the progressive development of society. It leads all the revolutionary, democratic and progressive forces of the modern world fighting for peace, democracy and socialism. The truth of the chief tenet of Marxism-Leninism, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, has been proved by reality. The dictatorship of the proletariat has attained victory in the countries of the socialist world, and the present-= day political struggle for socialism is unfolding under its banner.

p The dictatorship of the proletariat has not only retained its decisive significance for the victory and consolidation of socialism within national boundaries, but it has, besides, assumed an international significance. Lenin’s prediction that the national dictatorship of the proletariat would be transformed into an international one is coming to pass. It is now a dictatorship capable of influencing decisively the whole of world politics. The countries of the socialist commonwealth now implement in practice the dictatorship of the proletariat on an international scale, defending the historic gains of the working people and conducting a working-class policy.

p The working class of the capitalist and developing countries can today rely on the broad support of the world socialist system in its active struggle against the monopoly bourgeoisie. The working class of today is steadily growing in numbers. While in the middle of the igth century there were only nine million industrial workers, there are now 540 million men and women workers and employees. The working class of the developing countries is also growing fast: it was two and a 264 half times as large in 1967 as before the war. The share of the working class in the production of material goods is enormous— it produces over three-quarters of the gross world social product.

p The industrial proletariat has always formed the core of the working class. It is the most class-conscious and organised section of the working class. But there have been noticeable changes in its structure over the years. The great majority of workers have moved to industries producing means of production. The number of workers in heavy industry in Britain grew from 49 per cent in 1911 to 70 per cent in 1951. The number of workers employed in industries manufacturing means of production in the USA comprised, in 1939, 46 per cent of all those employed in the manufacturing industry. But by 1964 this figure had risen to 57 per cent.  [264•1  The movement of the greater part of the working class into industries of such great importance is of big socio-economic and political significance.

p The scientific and technological revolution taking place in all countries with varying degrees of intensity has already resulted in great changes in the structure of the working class. Modernisation and automation have led to the raising of the workers’ qualifications and standards of skill. But at the same time, the scientific and technological revolution has led to the rapid growth of the number of white-collar and technical workers. In the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, white-collar workers, engineers and technologists made up 28.4 per cent of all workers in industry in 1950, but by 1962 they made up 37.5 per cent.  [264•2  The number of such workers in the USA grew by 75.2 per cent between 1952 and i96i.  [264•3  In the electronics industry in France, 30 per cent of all workers were engineers and technicians in 1964. The number of engineers and technicians in Norway grew five times between 1930 and 1960, doubling in the decade 1950-1960.  [264•4 

p In our epoch when science is turning into a direct productive force, the ever growing numbers of engineers and technicians are no longer employed in a managerial capacity, but share directly in the production of material goods, and are thus exploited in just the same way as other workers. Most rank-and-file engineers, technicians, laboratory workers, and other technical employees 265 are therefore close to the rest of the working class both from the point of view of their pay and their place in the process of production. This state of affairs strengthens the position of the working class as a whole. Nevertheless one cannot ignore the cost of assimilating white-collar and technical workers into the wider working class. The class consciousness of these workers, whose social status does not differ much from that of industrial workers, cannot be compared to purely proletarian class consciousness. On being absorbed into the working class they inevitably have a somewhat detrimental effect on its class consciousness; the working class, in its turn, undoubtedly contributes to the formation of a revolutionary outlook in the technicians and other specialists who join its ranks.

p Lenin saw all the difficulties and complexities that arise as more and more new groups of working people join the ranks of the working class and the world revolutionary movement. "One of the most profound causes that periodically give rise to differences over tactics is the very growth of the labour movement. If this movement is not measured by the criterion of some fantastic ideal, but is regarded as the practical movement of ordinary people, it will be clear that the enlistment of larger and larger numbers of new ’recruits’, the attraction of new sections of the working people must inevitably be accompanied by waverings in the sphere of theory and tactics, by repetitions of old mistakes, by a temporary reversion to antiquated views and antiquated methods, and so forth. The labour movement of every country periodically spends a varying amount of energy, attention and time on the ’training’ of recruits."  [265•1 

p Important changes have taken place in recent years in the outlook of engineering and technical personnel employed in capitalist industry. In February 1964, for instance, engineers were active in a strike of French miners for the first time in the history of the strike movement. In many cases when engineers and technicians do not take a direct part in strikes, they render the strikers material and moral support. This implies that ever-= sharpening capitalist contradictions induce rank-and-file engineers and technicians to get closer and closer to the working class and to accept its ideology more and more.

p Indeed, the active role of intellectuals in the political struggle is becoming more and more noticeable. The scientific and technological revolution now in progress is polarising some sections 266 of intellectuals and creating a large body of technical and professional personnel who find themselves close to the workers in their economic position. This leads them to realise the fact that the only certain way they have of securing their future is to ally themselves with the working class. This enhanced role of workers by brain has been seized on by the opponents of Marxism-= Leninism to “prove” that the modern scientific and technological revolution has upset the theories of Marx and Lenin on the leading role of the working class in the social progress of society, and that the working class has supposedly been replaced by intellectuals. But Lenin never failed to take into account the significance of the great scientific discoveries which he himself lived to see. Visualising at the turn of the century the tremendous impact such discoveries have on all aspects of social life, he foresaw the increasing importance of intellectuals and called for their alliance with the proletariat. Moreover, he predicted a great future for this alliance. He believed that no force would be able to withstand an alliance between the representatives of science and technology and the proletariat. But Lenin always stressed, too, that no increase in the role of intellectuals could diminish the world-historic role of the proletariat.

p Bourgeois theorists interpret the changes going on in the working class in their own way. Some speak of the emergence of "a new class of technocrats”, others of the appearance of "a new middle class”. According to yet others, the working class is being “eroded” out of existence and will be entirely replaced in the future by white-collar and technical workers. Some deny that there are classes at all in modern "industrial society”. The West German sociologist, Helmut Schelsy, says that West German industrial progress over the last decade has abolished the class structure of society altogether.

p The groundlessness of such assertions is so obvious that they are refuted by many bourgeois sociologists themselves who have no doubts about the existence of classes in modern society. "If a member of the working class,” writes Vance Packard, "rises to the position of being able to afford a motor car, that does not mean he then belongs to another social class. . . . Far from disappearing, class boundaries have become more marked in our society."  [266•1 

p The working class of the modern capitalist world is not disappearing, it is growing fast. Georges Marchais, a member of the 267 Politburo, put this point well at the Seventeenth Congress of the French Communist Party: "As for those who make use of certain changes which the working class has undergone to support their claim that the working class is tending to vanish should display more caution after the publication of the results of the recent census of the gainfully employed population of France.” After the publication of the figures, one bourgeois newspaper was compelled to admit that the results of the census would make many sociologists and political commentators change their ideas, since they reveal not the disappearing of the working class, however slow, but its growth both absolutely and relative to other classes.

p The facts likewise refute the myth of "the erasing of class boundaries" in capitalist society. They show that it is not the working class that is being dissolved in the "new middle class”, but on the contrary, very many office workers, engineers and technicians arc being drawn closer to the working class. The proletariat makes its presence felt more and more as an independent political force by the unremitting class struggle which it wages with ever-increasing energy against imperialism.

p Mass strikes continue to be the commonest form of the proletariat’s class struggle against the rule of capital. Suffice it to say that from 1960 to 1968 a total of over 300 million persons took part in strikes, as compared with 150 million over the preceding 14 years. In the USA, the citadel of imperialism, there were nearly 5,000 strikes in 1968; in Japan the working people’s spring offensive that same year involved 14 million persons; in France almost 10 million were on strike in May and June 1968; and in Italy 18 million took part in the general strike in February 1969. In all capitalist countries, the working class is the leading force in the strike movement.

p The above-mentioned figures speak clearly enough of the steady growth of the mass labour movement. The working class of the capitalist countries has not lost its will to fight, nor is it being “eroded” out of existence as some bourgeois apologists claim; it is becoming stronger and struggling against the monopoly bourgeoisie all the more actively. The working-class movement is in fact now gaining in strength on a mass scale. There is frequently joint action by workers of different industries, by workers belonging to different trade unions, and by manual and non-manual workers. Mass workers’ actions arc acquiring a more clearly political meaning and a more definite anti-imperialist orientation. Strikers in many cases do not confine themselves to 268 traditional economic demands for wage rises, more overtime pay, better working conditions, etc., hut often come out against, say, a so-called "incomes policy" of freezing wages and speeding up the rate of exploitation of hired labour. They may further demand shorter working hours, longer holidays, higher pensions, and the elimination of the negative consequences of automation.

p Of even greater significance arc demands connected with security of employment, with the rules, speed and content of work, the raising of qualifications and professional standards, and the retraining of workers. The satisfaction of such demands involves the direct intervention on the part of workers’ organisations in an area of production management that has hitherto been inaccessible to them. All this objectively limits the omnipotence of the monopolies. And in the final analysis the struggle for the satisfaction of their demands encourages the shaping in the minds of workers of a socialist outlook and helps them to understand the need to win political power. The recent stormy events in developed capitalist countries show that the monopoly bourgeoisie is powerless to prevent the working class, ever more aware of its role, from bringing pressure to bear on those in authority, and from influencing national policies.

p Workers in the developed capitalist countries arc the principal force in the anti-imperialist democratic front. Peasants and middle strata of the urban population join hands with workers in the struggle to preserve peace and guarantee the democratic rights of the working people and in the fight against monopoly domination and reactionary policies in agriculture. The merging of different social movements has created a powerful anti-= imperialist front, whose central rallying point is the battle to avert a nuclear world war.

p The broad mass of people, led by workers, are now calling determinedly for an end to US aggression against the people of Vietnam. The struggle for the preservation of peace unites hundreds of millions of men and women of various political convictions. Lenin wrote: "Take the question of peace, the crucial issue of today. . . . On this issue the proletariat truly represents the itohole = nation."  [268•1  It is in the course of the struggle for peace that the unity of working people and all progressive forces is forged. And this unity is not only important for the prevention of war but for the deep social transformations of the future.

269

p The struggle for general democratic aims against monopoly rule helps the proletariat of the capitalist countries to build up its political army, to persuade the masses of the correctness of Party policy, and to isolate the more reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie. In the course of this struggle for democracy and for curbing the omnipotence of the big monopolies, millions of working people become organised, receive a political schooling and steel themselves for the future battles for socialism.

p Of course, the fight to satisfy general democratic demands cannot of itself abolish capitalism, as Lenin pointed out. But it is impossible to rally the mass of the people and to strengthen the influence of Communists without it and, with the gradual change in the balance of class forces, to prepare the working people for the conscious struggle to realise socialist ideals. Nowadays, when the world process of revolutionary transformation is clear to see, the connection between the struggle for democracy and that for basic working-class interests has become so close that the two are virtually inseparable.

p Lenin taught revolutionary Marxists to devote all their practical activities to the struggle for socialism and to utilise every possibility for bringing nearer the complete triumph of the new social system. But to this great end the working class and its militant political vanguard must strengthen their links with the broadest sections of the people and should not erect a Chinese Wall to keep away those of different convictions. Lenin wrote: "The proletariat must not regard the other classes and parties as ’one reactionary mass’; on the contrary, it must take part in all political and social life, support the progressive classes and parties against the reactionary classes and parties, support every revolutionary movement against the existing system, champion the interests of every oppressed nationality or race, of every persecuted religion, of the disfranchised sex, etc."  [269•1 

p Now, as before, the general democratic struggle of the people led by the working class and its Marxist-Leninist parties, can appreciably hasten the final victory of socialism.

p Working peasants are the traditional allies of the working class in its anti-imperialist struggle. The rule of finance capital and the implementation of "agricultural programmes" by the monopoly state lead to the ruination of growing numbers of small and middle farmers. This circumstance impels them to rise in protest, as amply evidenced by their recent mass actions. 270 This has been confirmed by mass peasant actions in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and, to a greater degree, in Italy, against the profit-grabbing agricultural policies of the monopolies. Their struggle has a pronounced revolutionary character and links up directly with the class struggle waged by the workers. The strengthening of the worker-peasant alliance is a major condition for a successful struggle against monopolies.

p While upholding the general democratic demands the working class enters into alliance with the middle urban sections, whose vital interests are being trampled upon by monopoly capital.

p We mentioned before that a considerable percentage of these sections now differ little from workers in their social position— which explains why they gravitate towards them. But others retain their characteristic social features and remain in the ranks of the so-called urban middle classes. However, their social interests and creative endeavour are increasingly clashing with the interests of monopolists, which fact alongside the crisis in bourgeois ideology and the attractive power of socialism cannot but impel them to take the path of anti-imperialist struggle.

p In recent years, the youth, including students, whose political activity reflects the deep-going crisis of modern bourgeois society, are increasingly joining the struggle waged by the working class against imperialism and war. The sizable part of the youth have already realised that only their close alignment with the working-class movement can open up a truly revolutionary prospect before them. The working-class movement enjoys the growing support of international women’s organisations. Its aspirations for peace are backed by large numbers of believers.

p Proceeding from this, most Communist Parties of Western Europe favour the establishment of a close alliance with the middle urban sections.

p The Italian Communist Party, for example, believes that in the modern clay and age it is absolutely indispensable for the working class to extend the network of alliances and to revise its methods of struggle. It is faced with the necessity and the possibility of forming a single bloc not only with the rural proletariat and poor farmers, but with the great majority of small land holders, broad sections of the urban and rural middle classes, and with all specialists and workers by brain. Given such unity, the struggles for partial and temporary gains become of great economic and political significance in isolating big capital and dividing the bourgeois camp, in winning stronger positions in the battle against monopoly groups, in securing democratic 271 reforms in the machinery of the state and in getting economic and social reforms which together can open up new ways for the working class to assume power.  [271•1 

p Waldeck Rochet, General Secretary of the French Communist Party, in his speech at the Seventeenth Party Congress, formulated the political line of French Communists concerning other democratic strata of the population as follows: "Our Communist Party has drawn up concrete proposals which could serve as the basis for discussions with other democratic parties and groups and at the same time as a platform for a concrete alliance between the working class, the working peasants, the intellectuals and other urban middle sections."  [271•2 

p An analysis of the tactics of fraternal Parties in many countries of Europe shows that for developed Western capitalist countries the alliance of the working class with middle sections of the urban population is of vast importance today.

p So, from its vanguard position in the anti-monopolist struggle, the working class brings together the main streams of the broad democratic movement. It rallies the various sections of the people under the slogans of the struggle for peace, against monopoly rule, for radical reforms to limit the power of the monopolies (the nationalisation of monopolised sectors of industry, democratic control over capital investments and prices, extending the rights of workers and their organisations at factories), for the further democratisation of the state apparatus and the extension of the rights of public organisations and against the revival of fascism.

p The Conference of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the European capitalist countries held in May 1966 came to the conclusion that the present progress of the social and political struggle in Europe presents favourable opportunities for extending the mass movement and uniting the working class with other anti-monopoly forces:

p "The Conference considers that this alliance can be further broadened so as to effect reforms essential for restricting the political and economic power of the monopolies, introducing genuine democracy in social life, and paving the way to socialism."  [271•3 

272

p Advancing on this broad democratic basis, the anti- imperialist struggle will inevitably draw semi-proletarian and petty- bourgeois elements into the larger struggle to prepare the ground for the future victory of socialism. "Not a single fundamental democratic demand,” Lenin observed, "can be achieved to any considerable extent, or with any degree of permanency, in the advanced imperialist states, except through revolutionary battles under the banner of socialism."  [272•1  The existence of a democratic platform common to both the working class and other broad anti-imperialist sections of a nation brings together all the forces working for democracy and objectively helps the working class in its fight for socialism.

p At the present time the international working class is allied to two other streams of the world revolutionary process—the world socialist system and the national liberation movement. According to Lenin, the alliance between the forces of the international working class and those of the national liberation movement is destined to crush world imperialism. "World imperialism shall fall when the revolutionary onslaught of the exploited and oppressed workers in each country . . . merges with the revolutionary onslaught of hundreds of millions of people who have hitherto stood beyond the pale of history, and have been regarded merely as the object of history."  [272•2 

p The replacement of capitalism by socialism is an objective law-= governed process. The modern capitalist society cannot be automatically transformed into socialism. It is necessary to struggle for socialism. The consistent fighters for the victory of the socialist revolution can only be the working class and the rural proletariat. The most uncompromising adversary of imperialism is the constantly growing working class, deprived of all means of production, most closely connected with the vastly developed productive forces, well organised and possessing rich revolutionary traditions of class struggle. All this predetermines its leading role in the contemporary revolutionary process. It is largely thanks to its position in society that it is the natural leader and inspirer of all forces fighting for democracy and socialism.

p "Today,” said L. I. Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CC, CPSU, at the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, "the necessary conditions arc emerging for uniting all democratic 273 trends in a political alliance capable of greatly limiting the role of the monopolies in the economy of many countries, putting an end to the rule of big capital and carrying out fundamental changes which would ensure favourable conditions for the struggle for socialism.

p "The working class is the leading force of the alliance. It is the only class capable of leading this alliance to victory, and of raising the struggle to a new level, securing the complete abolition of the power of capital and the triumph of socialism. No other class, no other social stratum of society is as strong and organised. The numerical strength of the working class is enormous. Its revolutionary experience is exceptionally rich. Its ideological, cultural and spiritual level has been rising from year to year. Its political and moral prestige in society has grown immeasurably."

p The modern revisionist claim that the working class has "lost its leading role" in the liberation movement, that it has "lost its revolutionariness”, etc., holds no water in the light of the above-mentioned facts and the fundamental Marxist-= Leninist ideas. The anti-socialist revisionist forces aim at disarming the working people ideologically. Under the guise of searching for "a new pattern of socialism" they try to discredit Marxist-Leninist theory and revise its basic principles. The most vigorous attacks are made on the leading role of the working class. What could be the result of the triumph of this anti-= socialist line is obvious for all to see.

p The crucial significance of the working-class movement in present-day conditions for the global victory of socialism was recorded in the documents of the Meetings of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in 1957 and 1960. The same conclusion was made in 1968 at a conference of six socialist states in Bratislava: "The fraternal Parties are convinced on the strength of historical experience that progress towards socialism and communism can be possible only if they are guided strictly and consistently by the general laws of building socialist society and primarily by strengthening the leading role of the working class and its vanguard—the Communist Parties."  [273•1 

p The illuminating point in the Main Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties is that "the working class is the principal driving force of the revolutionary struggle, of the entire anti-imperialist, democratic movement".

274

p Only the working class, aligned with all democratic, anti-= imperialist forces, can put an end to the criminal activities of imperialism, curb aggressors, rid mankind of imperialism and establish socialist society on a global scale.

p Under conditions when the world system of imperialism is ripe for a socialist revolution and has already been destroyed in a number of sectors, decisive importance should be attached, as Lenin taught, to the development and consolidation of the forces destined to carry the revolution through to the end.

p Lenin believed that after the victory of the October Revolution the working class and the working people of the countries building the new, socialist society would play the leading role among these forces.

Today Lenin’s ideas about the great mission of the working class and its historic tasks in the revolutionary rejuvenation of the world are as actual and valid as they were fifty years ago. Their correctness has been confirmed by socialist revolutions in Europe, Asia and America. Their vitality is being borne out by the daily achievements of the socialist countries in the course of their socialist and communist construction, by the broad development of the world revolutionary process.