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p By Y. A. KRASIN

p The theory of socialist revolution figures prominently in Lenin’s works. This is not surprising, since he was the leader of the first victorious socialist revolution which ushered in the historical era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

p Lenin never deviated from Marxist conceptions when developing the theory of socialist revolution, although he went beyond the point reached by the founders of Marxism. He went boldly ahead, elaborating and enriching the Marxist theory of socialist revolution. His theoretical work in this sphere proved convincingly that his devotion to Marxism was combined organically with scientific creativity, with the ability to generalise new historical experience.

p Modern bourgeois critics of Leninism are incapable of understanding the dialectics of this continuity, and the qualitative peculiarities of the different stages in the development of Marxist theory. In their opinion, continuity and creativity mutually exclude each other. Some, alluding to the originality of Lenin’s conclusions, claim that he created an entirely new theory of socialist revolution different from Marx’s. This is the view, for instance, of Prof. Alfred G. Meyer, director of the Soviet Party research programme at Columbia University, who declares that "an entire new theory of revolution has emerged"  [136•1  from Lenin’s ideas. Other “specialists” in Leninism parrot Trotsky by saying that Lenin, because he was a pure politician, introduced nothing new into Marx’s theory of socialist revolution. Witness Herbert 137 Marcuse: "While Lenin from the beginning of his activity reoriented the revolutionary strategy of his party in accordance with the new situation, his theoretical conception did not follow suit."  [137•1 

p It is absolutely impossible to understand the significance of Lenin’s contribution to the theory of socialist revolution, or the historic role this contribution has played in the development of Marxist ideas, without taking into consideration and comparing the two eras in the development of the international revolutionary movement: the era of pre-monopoly capitalism, when the objective and subjective conditions for socialist revolution were still at an early stage of maturity, and the era of imperialism, when the world capitalist system has become ripe for proletarian revolution and mankind is taking the path of transition from capitalism to socialism.

p Marx’s main achievement was to prove that capitalism was fraught with antagonistic contradictions which made the proletarian revolution and the transition to a higher form of social relationships—to socialism and communism—historically inevitable. Having studied the position of the various classes and social groups in the capitalist system of social production, Marx showed that only one class—the proletariat—objectively plays a leading role in production, since it is the main producer of material wealth. At the same time the proletariat is deprived of all the means of production (these are entirely in the hands of the bourgeoisie), and it cannot, therefore, play the leading part in the system of social relations, which rightfully belongs to it by virtue of its role in production. This contradictory position impels the proletariat to struggle against the capitalist system, making it the main force in the destruction of this system and the creation of a new, communist society. To accomplish this historic task, the working class must organise itself, establish a revolutionary political party, take political power, and use its rule—the dictatorship of the proletariat—to overcome the resistance of all exploiters and pave the way to the first phase of communist society— socialism.

p These are the cardinal ideas underlying Marx’s scientific theory of socialist revolution. It was necessary, of course, to apply these ideas to the investigation of the economic and political conditions of capitalist development both in individual countries and in the world as a whole. But this work could no longer, by Lenin’s time, be based solely on the pure analysis of the laws 138 governing capitalist development; it required the precise investigation of existing economic relations, of the level of maturity of the material prerequisites for socialism, of the balance of political forces in particular countries and on a world scale (and the relations between these forces), and a study of the paths along which the socialist revolution was actually developing. The revolutionary experience of the working class alone could provide the basis for this theoretical work. The founders of Marxism advanced a number of important ideas concerning the theory of socialist revolution based on this experience. But the objective conditions for socialist revolution were not yet ripe in the igth century, nor were the existing socio-political forces ready to undertake it and carry it through to a victorious conclusion. Limited historical experience made it impossible to analyse concretely and thoroughly the many problems arising in connection with the theory of socialist revolution. And subsequent developments showed that capitalism became ripe for socialist revolution only at the beginning of this century, when Marx and Engels were no longer alive. By this time the world situation had changed under the impact of a large number of factors, of which we should specially mention the law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism. The decline of capitalism and the development of the world socialist revolution turned out to be a far more complicated and contradictory process than it appeared in the igth century.

p The era of imperialism, of the eve of the first proletarian revolution, had greatly added to the experience of the international working-class movement. The material prerequisites for socialism had matured in the womb of capitalism—a revolutionary situation was developing in a number of countries, the proletariat had become more organised and class-conscious, its ties with democratic allies were taking shape and growing stronger, and the conquest of power by the working class had become a real possibility. The new age thus demanded the creative all-round development of the Marxist theory of socialist revolution, and this work was done by Lenin on the basis of a new historical experience.

p Lenin did more than simply supplement the Marxist theory of socialist revolution with a few conclusions of his own; he enriched the content and the basic principles of this theory with new historical experience. There is in fact no aspect of the theory of socialist revolution that was not creatively enlarged upon in Lenin’s works. The objective conditions necessary for socialist 139 revolution, the role of the subjective factor in the revolution, the national crisis, and associated with it the formation of the socio-political forces of the revolution, the struggle for democracy, the development of the national liberation movements, the various forms of the transition from capitalism to socialism, the laws governing the world revolutionary process —all these and many other questions were painstakingly investigated by Lenin and to all of them he had something new to contribute.

p The concrctisation and development of the most important concepts and principles of the theory of socialist revolution went hand in hand with the clarification of their innermost logical connections and the elaboration of a balanced theory. The chief result of this complex theoretical task of reflecting the new era of imperialism in consciousness was an integrated conception of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism, that is Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution. Just as Leninism as a whole is Marxism of the new era so does Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution represent a qualitatively new stage in the development of the Marxist theory of revolution.

p For this reason alternative “interpretations” or “versions” of Marxist theory to Leninism offered by the Right and “Left” revisionists arc totally untenable. The Marxist-Leninist theory of the socialist revolution is internationally valid and indivisible: it cannot be split into national or regional varieties. In Leninism this theory is elevated to the level of revolutionary practice and the achievements of the present era in the social sciences.

p The creative laboratory of Leninist ideas was working successfully for more than a quarter of a century, absorbing and theoretically synthcsising the varied experiences of the international working-class movement. Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution developed along with the revolutionary movement that nurtured it. The logic of this theory is the result of the historical development of Lenin’s ideas which penetrated deeper and deeper into the laws governing the revolutionary process and reflected these laws in an increasingly adequate form.

p Each stage in the development of the revolutionary movement enabled Lenin to supplement and improve revolutionary theory. The experience accumulated by the international working-= class movement immediately after the victory of the October Socialist Revolution was especially important in this respect. In that period Lenin advanced many ideas which reflected the deep-= going tendencies of the era of transition from capitalism to 140 socialism and which gave his theory of socialist revolution a mature and perfect form.

p Leninism is opposed to the crude mechanical approach to theory which divorces ideas from their concrete historical settings, and treats them as static and ossified things. But this approach serves bourgeois critics and dogmatists well as a methodological basis for distorting Leninism. The creative assimilation of Lenin’s ideas of socialist revolution requires taking an historical approach to his doctrines. It is likewise necessary to consider the theses he advanced after the October Revolution, when he could best appraise the Marxist theory of socialist revolution in the light of the historical experience of the revolutionary movement of his day, and when he could see the laws governing the world revolutionary process more clearly than at any other period.

p Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution was based entirely on an analysis of the relation between the objective and the subjective conditions required for the transition from capitalism to socialism. Bourgeois “specialists” in Leninism usually distort this aspect of Lenin’s doctrine by interpreting his views as a deviation from materialism, as voluntarism. "Lenin gave Marx’s teaching a voluntarist turn,” affirms one prominent anti-= Communist, R. N. Carew Hunt.  [140•1  In a nutshell, this is the argument bourgeois theorists present: Marx naively believed that the collapse of capitalism would follow inevitably from the operation of the objective laws of history. This belief reflected the early stages in the development of capitalist society when it seemed to be burdened with insurmountable contradictions. In the 20th century, it is said, capitalism found a way out of these contradictions and Marxism entered "a phase of disappointment and despair”. In his "desperate effort to save" Marx’s conclusion concerning the inevitability of the proletarian revolution, Lenin was allegedly compelled to renounce historical materialism and to give to consciousness and will the role which Marx assigned to objective laws.

p The sophistry on which this entirely artificial line of argumentation is based lies in the fact that the “critics” mechanically separate the objective laws of history from the conscious activities of people and counterposc these two indivisible, interconnected aspects of a single historical process. Meanwhile 141 it is Marxism-Leninism that has established their dialectical unity. "Marxism,” Lenin stressed, "differs from all other socialist theories in the remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition of the importance of the revolutionary energy, revolutionary creative genius, and revolutionary initiative of the masses—and also, of course, of individuals, groups, organisations, and parties that are able to discover and achieve contact with one or another class."  [141•1 

p If Marx and Lenin did differ in anything on the question of the relation between the objective and the subjective conditions for the socialist revolution, it was only in emphasis. Marx established the fundamentals of the materialist conception of history. In elaborating the theory of socialist revolution, Marx naturally concentrated on proving the objective necessity of the transition from capitalism to socialism. But Lenin worked in a different historical situation: the objective conditions for the socialist revolution had come to maturity in the era of imperialism, yet among the parties of the Second International there prevailed an opportunist theory of spontaneity which in effect negated the role played by the subjective factor in the revolution. Historical materialism was being replaced by economic materialism, a caricature and a parody of Marxism. It is not surprising therefore that in this situation Lenin concentrated on elucidating the laws governing the preparation of the subjective conditions for the proletarian revolution and the creation of its political forces.

p But this difference in emphasis merely makes clearer the fact that Marx and Lenin displayed the same principled approach to the question of the relation between the objective and the subjective conditions for the proletarian revolution. They both proceeded from the unity of the objective and the subjective in the revolutionary process, and from the decisive part that is played in the final analysis by objective conditions. There are absolutely no grounds for claiming that Lenin’s idea of revolution was a “voluntaristic” one. In many of his works, and especially in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin made an exhaustive analysis of the objective maturity of the capitalist system in its imperialist stage for the socialist revolution.

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p The large-scale socialisation of production by monopolies has made it possible to calculate approximately available markets and sources of raw materials, to plan to some extent the distribution of resources, and in general to regulate production. This shows that the material prerequisites for the public regulation of economic life have reached maturity under monopoly capitalism. Observing the growth of state-monopoly capitalism during the First World War, Lenin wrote with reference to Kaiser Germany: "The extent to which present-day society has matured for the transition to socialism has been demonstrated by this war, in which the exertion of national effort called for the direction of the economic life of over fifty million people from a single centre. If this is possible under the leadership of a handful of Junker aristocrats in the interests of a handful of financial magnates, it is certainly no less possible under the leadership of class-conscious workers in the interests of nine-tenths of the population."  [142•1  A few months later in his well-known The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, Lenin proved that the material prerequisites for socialism were so ripe in the era of state-monopoly capitalism that there could be no further intermediate stages before socialism. The complex mechanism of public economic control was essentially the handiwork of state-monopoly capitalism. After it has assumed power, the working class can make use of this mechanism for reorganising the entire system of social relations along socialist lines.

p The growing level of the socialisation of production literally rips the shell off capitalist relations of production. "Socialism,” Lenin wrote, "is now gazing at us from all the windows of modern capitalism; socialism emerges directly, practically, from every important measure that constitutes a forward step on the basis of this modern capitalism."  [142•2  As production is becoming increasingly socialised in character, the working class is becoming more and more the one class capable, by virtue of its objective position in the economy, of guiding the transformation of society along socialist lines. A situation arises under which the " proletariat economically dominates the centre and the nerve of the entire economic system of capitalism".  [142•3  Economically and politically, the proletariat expresses the true interests of 143 the vast majority of the working people in the capitalist countries.

p The aggravation ol the contradictions between labour and capital, between the people and the monopolies, between the oppressed nations and imperialism, and all the other contradictions of the capitalist system, make the socialist revolution inevitable. In his bitter ideological struggle against the opportunist theories of "organised capitalism" and “ultra-imperialism”, Lenin brought out the connection between the socialisation of production by monopolies and the aggravation of the contradictions of the capitalist system. Answering Kautsky, he wrote: "The extent to which monopoly capital has intensified all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the high cost of living and the tyranny of the cartels. This intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the final victory of world finance capital."  [143•1  The socialisation of production and the sharpening of the contradictions of capitalism are two indissolubiy connected aspects of the ripening of the objective conditions required for socialist revolution.

p The whole of the capitalist system became ripe for socialism with the onset of the imperialist era. There remained, of course, areas where feudal and even primitive communal relationships predominated. But even these areas were drawn into the orbit of imperialism, preventing the progress of backward countries and preserving the old social relations. There could be no extensive development of the productive forces in colonies and semi-colonies within the bounds of the all-embracing imperialist system. But to wait until the productive forces in all countries had reached a high level, and to regard this as a definite sign of the maturity of the objective conditions for the socialist revolution, was in effect to renounce socialism.

p Though the world capitalist system was ripe for socialist revolution, the rate of growth of its contradictions was not everywhere the same. This conclusion followed from the law of the spasmodic and conflicting development of capitalism that Lenin had discovered. Because of this unevcnness the sharpness and intensity of contradictions varied from country to country. Contradictions concentrated in certain places and the conditions for breaking the imperialist chain developed in them more quickly 144 than at other places. Consequently, the real possibility existed of the socialist revolution triumphing first in only a few or even in only one country and of capitalism being preserved for some time in other countries. "Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism,” Lenin wrote in 1915. "Hence the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone."  [144•1  A year later, after a more profound study of the economics and politics of imperialism, Lenin advanced an even more categorical proposition: "Socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all = countries."  [144•2  In other words, Lenin now spoke not of the possibility but of the inevitability of socialism attaining victory first in only a small number of countries or even in one country alone. And he presented this conclusion as a law of the world socialist revolution.

p According to the Kautskyist-Menshevik dogma, the proletarian revolution could break out and triumph only in an advanced country, where the productive forces are at a high level. Lenin refuted this and proved that contradictions were likely to be most concentrated in the less developed countries. It is in these countries that the weak links in the imperialist chain were most likely to appear and where this chain was most likely to be broken. The best example of this was tsarist Russia, which by the beginning of this century had become one of the main centres of contradictions in the imperialist chain and its weakest link.

p It would be wrong, however, to conclude from this that the economically most backward countries are potential centres of victorious socialist revolution. This point of view is expounded under the name of the "doctrine of backwardness" by contemporary bourgeois sociologists, by revisionists and theorists of petty-bourgeois revolutionarism. The "doctrine of backwardness" associates the fate of the socialist revolution with countries where the internal economic prerequisites for the transition to socialism do not even exist. Such countries can take the roa’d of socialist development only after they have gone through a number of intermediate stages and after socialism has triumphed in one or several other countries and is capable of influencing the undeveloped nations by the force of example and by giving them assistance and support. The country that is to be the first to break the imperialist chain has to possess a minimum level of 145 economic maturity for the working class to be able to assume control over the economy with its advent to power, to secure the country’s economic independence, and to organise public regulation of production and distribution. This minimum level of economic maturity can be provided by a relatively high level of development of monopoly capitalism in the country. Criticising the "doctrine of backwardness”, Lenin said: "Without a certain level of capitalist development, we could not have achieved anything."  [145•1 

p The victory of the socialist revolution at least in one country naturally entails changes in the criterion of the maturity of the material prerequisites for socialism in other countries. Lenin believed it quite possible that countries in which capitalism was not developed, and which had no or almost no proletariat, could go over to socialism with the help of one or more of the socialist countries without having to go through the capitalist stage of development. The correctness of this conclusion has been fully corroborated by the historical development of the Mongolian People’s Republic, which has by-passed capitalism and made a direct transition from feudalism to socialism.

p Besides the economic conditions of the socialist revolution, Lenin investigated its objective socio-political conditions. For, even when the necessary material conditions have matured, there can be no revolution, unless the balance of class forces is favourable to the working class and. the revolutionary forces capable of carrying through the revolution have come into action, and unless the political rule of the bourgeoisie is in a state of crisis. If all these socio-political contradictions arc available, then there exists a revolutionary situation.

p One of the main symptoms of the revolutionary situation is the growing political activity of the people, destroying the forms of political life established by the ruling class, undermining its power, and creating the mass social basis for revolution. This activity of the people ultimately depends on their economic position. Lenin said that "a revolution can only be made by the masses, actuated by profound economic needs"  [145•2 

p The revolutionary situation is rooted in the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. Its fundamental basis is the conflict between capitalism’s growing productive forces and its obsolete relations of production. But the revolutionary situation 146 docs not arise automatically from the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. There are also political and class relations whose development finally precipitates the revolutionary situation. The precise moment when it arises and the forms and rate of its development depend on the development of the crisis in state power, on the strength and experience of the revolutionary class, on its links with other classes, and on the political situation as a whole. The revolutionary situation arises, therefore, directly from the contradictions within the superstructure, from the contradictions between the political superstructure and the revolutionary classes.

p In a revolutionary situation the socio-political conditions for revolution are ready; but the outbreak of revolution depends not only on objective conditions but on subjective conditions, too. Lenin particularly noted that "it is not every revolutionary situation that gives rise to a revolution; revolution arises only out of a situation in which the above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective change, namely, the ability of the revolutionary class to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old government, which never, not even in a period of crisis, ’falls’, if it is not toppled over".  [146•1 

p The role of the subjective factor becomes more evident as the revolutionary situation matures. Since it takes shape under the influence of the whole complex of socio-political relations, its rise and development also depend on how conscious and well-= organised the working class and its allies are. The subjective factor in the revolution has a definite effect on the balance of class forces and on political relations in general. The rise and development of the revolutionary situation reveal the dialectical unity of the objective and the subjective conditions required for the revolution. This unity was brought out by Lenin in his concept of the national crisis and characterised by him as the fundamental law of any great revolution. The growing political activity of the people at the moment when the revolutionary situation matures clearly pinpoints the presence of the elements of the subjective factor. At this stage the revolutionary classes often enter the political struggle not because they are conscious of their class tasks but because they are driven by class feelings, by indignation, class hatred and other social and psychological emotions.

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p As the revolutionary situation develops, the role of the subjective factor becomes ever more important, and the pace of revolutionary processes, particularly the rate of transition to the highest stage of the revolutionary situation—the nation-wide crisis—becomes increasingly dependent on it. From then on the subjective factor plays the decisive part, leading to the outbreak and victory of the revolution.

p Basing himself on materialist determinism, Lenin exposed the idealist and voluntarist views of the Narodniks and anarchists, who divorced the subjective factor of the revolution from its objective conditions and alleged that it alone could produce a revolution irrespective of the actual possibilities of the environment. According to Lenin, the preparation of the subjective conditions for the socialist revolution ultimately depends on the position of the classes in the economic system. It is capitalism itself which objectively creates the forces that spell its ruin. The possibilities and forms of the revolutionary activity of these forces are also determined at each given stage by the objective situation. But to fulfil their historic mission, these mass forces of the revolution must be both conscious of their aims and well organised.

p While Lenin repudiated subjectivism and voluntarism, he also opposed the other extreme—vulgar cconomism—the belief that the subjective conditions for socialist revolution ripen spontaneously, as the mechanical outcome of economic development. This view finds expression both in the Right-opportunist theory of spontaneity and in Leftist-doctrinaire ideas about the automatic collapse of capitalism. The maturity of the requisite objective conditions makes the outbreak and victory of the socialist revolution a real possibility. But to carry it through there must be well-organised political forces united in their will and action, conscious of their aims, and ready to engage in struggle. If the necessary political forces do not exist, the intensity of social contradictions diminishes after reaching its apogee, the contradictions arc allayed, and the propitious moment is lost.

p What is the class composition of the political forces of the socialist revolution? Their nucleus and leader is the working class. Although it may not constitute the majority of the population, its position in the system of social production makes it the most revolutionary class and the creator of a new social system free of private ownership and exploitation. Economically and politically, the working class defends the interests of all working 148 people and because of this it can carry along with it to socialism all semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois sections of both the urban and the rural populations—in particular, the peasantry. Lenin flatly rejected the sectarian ideas of the theorists of the Second International, and that of the Russian Mensheviks, that peasants were incapable of waging a revolutionary struggle against monopoly capital. In fact, he said, the peasantry was a mighty force capable of playing a very active part in the socialist revolution in alliance with the working class.

p While repudiating the petty-bourgeois ideas regarding the motive forces of the socialist revolution, Lenin also pointed out that economically the peasantry was in an ambivalent position under capitalism, and that it was neither united nor organised. This accounted for its political vacillation and inconsistency. Nevertheless, proletarian leadership could help the petty- bourgeois peasant masses to overcome their vacillation, to become educated in struggle and unite into militant contingents of the political army of the socialist revolution.

p Indeed, the Marxist party of the working class plays an enormous role in the training of the whole political army of the socialist revolution, in leading it and in rallying all democratic forces round it. The existence of such a party, its political experience, its mastery of the strategy and tactics of class struggle, its ideological training, its links with the masses, and its own internal unity are all evidence of the maturing of the subjective conditions for the socialist revolution.

p Bourgeois critics of Leninism and revisionists describe Lenin’s theory of the Party as “vanguarclism”, and claim that he assigned to the Party the role of the “subject” of the revolution, a role which, according to Marx, should belong to the working class. The ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the revisionists have thus invented a riddle: Who is the “subject” of the revolution, the Party or the working class? In reality, of course, there is no such question, since the working class cannot fulfil its historic mission without first creating its own political vanguard. The revolutionary party is not an alien body in the working class. It is an inseparable part of this class, the embodiment of its consciousness, will and organisation, and the force directing its revolutionary activity.

p The question of the working-class party, its designation, functions and principles of activity remains the subject of serious contention within the communist and labour movements. The “Left” doctrinaires try to replace the Party with a militarised 149 organisation which is supposed to blindly obey instructions from above. The Party is likened to a religious sect of a messianic type, divorced from the actual requirements of the labour movement. The Right revisionists are bent on turning the Party into a sort of debating club and to deprive it of the ability to lead the revolutionary struggle of the masses. Both these brands of revisionism tend to belittle the role played by the working-class party in preparing and carrying through the revolution.

p The revolutionary political partv is indispensable to the working class as the bearer of scientific theory, as a political educator with international working-class experience, and as the organiser of the practical struggle of the whole class for both its immediate and its final objectives. The Marxist revolutionary party is the main force rallying the political forces of the socialist revolution. It co-ordinates and directs the activities of the working class in different parts of the country, or at different places of work, as required by the overall programme of the movement. It can thus introduce unity into the actions of the entire class, and can organise broad political alliances with other classes and social groups in the struggle for common objectives. It accumulates, generalises and propagates the experience gained in the class struggle and trains dependable leaders and theoreticians. Only a revolutionary party can ensure the stability and continuity of the proletariat’s class struggle. Only such a party, as the ideological, political and organisational centre of the socialist revolution, can correctly determine and consistently carry out a proletarian political line, without which the victory of the revolution is inconceivable. "In its struggle for power,” Lenin taught, "the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation. . . . The proletariat can, and inevitably will, become an invincible force only through its ideological unification on the principles of Marxism being reinforced by the material unity of organisation, which welds millions of toilers into an army of the working class."  [149•1 

p From the Leninist point of view, the problem of preparing the political force of the socialist revolution is closely bound up with the problem of establishing the true relation between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism.

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p Lenin showed that, in the age of imperialism, the capitalist system (both on a world scale and in every individual country) was a motley mosaic of modern state-monopoly socio-economic relations intertwined with the pre-capitalist relations which imperialism has preserved or revived. It follows that the socialist revolution cannot be a “pure” proletarian revolution. It inevitably merges with the anti-imperialist struggle of the proletariat’s democratic allies from among the middle sections of the population. Though not understanding the aims of the socialist revolution, the democratic allies of the working class nevertheless objectively contribute to it by their own fight for democracy. The proletariat’s policy of forming class alliances with middle strata of the population in the struggle for democracy is an important means of guiding the people towards socialist revolution.

p The organic link between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism was explained by Lenin in his theory of the development of the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution.

p In the era of imperalism, when the objective conditions for the transition to socialism are ripe, the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in those countries that have not yet freed themselves from the fetters of feudalism assume, objectively, an anti- imperialist character. Monopoly capitalism, faced with proletarian revolution, tries to maintain or revive old feudal relationships on a new basis and even merges with them. The success of a bourgeois-democratic revolution under these conditions thus requires very thorough-going socio-economic changes: radical agrarian reforms, the nationalisation of big monopolies, and the democratisation of public life, etc. While such measures cannot of themselves eliminate the capitalist system, they can create favourable conditions for the socialist revolution.

p The intertwining of the contradictions of the feudal system with those of imperialism is the economic basis of the development of the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution.

p The political basis of this development is the hegemony of the proletariat in the democratic revolution. By bringing the democratic revolution to fruition, it creates the conditions for the continuity of the revolutionary process. The proletariat’s hegemony in the democratic revolution politically educates the working class and rallies round it the political forces of the future socialist revolution. It prepares favourable conditions for winning 151 power by the working class and for establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. With the completion of the democratic revolution, the political forces regroup around the working class and a switch over to the socialist revolution takes place.

p The theory of the development of the democratic revolution into the socialist revolution does not, however, cover the whole of the question of the close connection between democratic movements and the socialist revolution.

p Imperialism engenders the tendency towards reaction and violence that is to be found in all capitalist countries; it oppresses all sections of the people and evokes their indignation and protests. This explains why there has been a mighty upsurge in the era of imperialism of general movements for democratic freedoms, for national liberation and the abolition of medieval forms of enslavement preserved by monopolies, against reaction and militarism.

p The working class, which plays the leading role in the era of the maturity and development of the world socialist revolution, naturally unites around itself all the main streams of the democratic movements and enjoys their mass support in the struggle for socialism. In the era of imperialism, the struggle for democracy is linked to the proletariat’s class struggle for the socialist reorganisation of society. Democracy cannot be fully and consistently translated into reality until monopoly rule has been destroyed. And this is a task that the working class alone, by advancing towards socialism, can fulfil.

p "Not a single fundamental democratic demand,” Lenin said, "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."  [151•1 

p But general democratic movements in their turn create some of the objective and subjective conditions necessary for the socialist revolution; they help pave the way to it, draw petty-= bourgeois and semi-proletarian sections into the struggle for socialism, and themselves finally merge with the torrent of the proletariat’s own social revolution. The inner connection between the general democratic anti-imperialist movement and the proletarian movement for socialism and the eventual development of the former into the latter are a law of the socialist revolution discovered by Lenin.

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p The democratic movements and the socialist revolution are not distinguished so much by any radical differences in objectives as by the consistency and thoroughness with which these objectives are set and implemented. Every democratic movement raises partial demands without tying them to the abolition of the capitalist system. The socialist movement, on the other hand, sets itself a wide range of democratic tasks and tics them closely to the abolition of the system of exploitation. Consequently, when the proletariat unites the democratic movements and directcs them towards the socialist revolution, it puts them on the only path that can lead to the fullest and most consistent achievement of the aims of democracy. Refuting bourgeois and opportunist allegations that democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat are incompatible, Lenin stressed that on the contrary only proletarian dictatorship is compatible with full and complete democracy.  [152•1  The dictatorship of the proletariat is democracy of the highest type, democracy for the overwhelming majority, democracy for the working people. The struggle of the proletariat for socialist aims and the struggle of the broad masses for democracy both lead in the end to the conquest of political power by the working class and to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

p The transfer of power from one class to another is, according to Lenin, the principal indicator of revolution in both the scientific and the practical political sense of the term.

p The question of power in the socialist revolution is that of destroying the bourgeois state machine and replacing it by the rule of the proletariat. There has been no idea in the history of Marxism which has been the object of such sharp struggle as the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is this idea which separates the Marxist-Leninist theory of socialist revolution from the various bourgeois, reformist and revisionist ideas of “evolutionary” or “humane” socialism.

p While ostensibly recognising the need for the socialist revolution, the proponents of opportunism—the Bernsteinians, the Kautskyites, the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries— denied that there was any need to destroy the bourgeois state machine and instead propagated a philistine Utopia of "pure democracy”, seeing in this the political content of the transition from capitalism to socialism. Lenin vigorously opposed these opportunists, exposed their betrayal of Marxism, and uncovered 153 the reactionary nature of their notion of "pure democracy”. His criticism fully retains its scientific value for the exposure of modern reformism and revisionism, which associate the transition to socialism with Utopian and reactionary ideas about transforming the bourgeois state into “non-class” instrument of "pure democracy" with its free play of political forces.

p Why must the bourgeois state machine be destroyed? Because it is the instrument of bourgeois rule and is specially adapted to serve and protect the interests of exploiters. It is tied by a thousand threads to the ruling class—it is a prisoner of its ideas, beliefs and prejudices, and is tightly bound to the bourgeoisie by a complicated system of privileges. To make the state the instrument of socialist changes, the content of its work, its structure and class composition have to be altered. These changes cannot be effected smoothly, without struggle within the state itself, because the ruling class would always bitterly resist any such changes. Only stubborn class struggle and the seizure of all power by the working class can break the rule of the bourgeoisie and alter the class nature of state power.

p The destruction of the bourgeois state machine does not involve the destruction of all the bodies of the old state. Only those bodies that directly suppress the people need be destroyed. Institutions that are useful to the working class can be reorganised, transformed and included in the system of proletarian rule—for example, the apparatus of accounting and verification (which becomes quite extensive under state-monopoly capitalism when the state assumes the functions of “regulating” and " programming" the economy). But this apparatus must definitely be purged of everything that served the predatory interests of the monopolies, so that it can be made to serve the interests of the people.

p The forms and methods employed in the destruction of the bourgeois state machine depend on prevailing historical conditions, and on the sharpness of the class struggle. In the Soviet republic, where the class struggle was extremely acute for many reasons, the old system of state institutions and organisations was soon virtuajly replaced by a new system—the Soviets. In the European People’s Democracies, where the forces of reaction were undermined just before and during the revolution, some elements and forms of the old state, filled with a new class content, were included in the state system of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

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p Petty-bourgeois theorists of Lenin’s clay held that the bourgeois state would give way not to the dictatorship of the proletariat but to some sort of "dictatorship of the whole people”. V. Trutovsky, a Left Socialist-Revolutionary theoretician, wrote: "The only slogan that will bring victory to our agrarian-= socialist revolution is the dictatorship of the working people in both town and country, and not the dictatorship of the proletariat and the fictitious village poor."  [154•1  The concept of the "dictatorship of the whole people" was unsound because it ignored the dual, vacillating nature of the petty-bourgeois sections of the population, which cannot be changed the moment the bourgeoisie is overthrown, and which continues to serve for a long time as a social source of various revisionist trends. The solution of the problems confronting the socialist revolution at this juncture calls for a clear vision and conviction and a firm political line— and these can only be ensured by the dictatorship of the proletariat.

p The dictatorship of the proletariat is not an end in itself. It is a means of achieving socialist aims and of paving the way to full democracy. By abolishing all the forms of the exploitation of man by man, the dictatorship of the proletariat—as experience has shown in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries— creates the conditions for the further extension of socialist democracy.

p Lenin also paid great attention to the study of the ways the working class could take power. Marx and Engels had visualised both the peaceful and the non-peaceful forms of revolutionary development. But the opportunist leaders of the Second International reduced everything to the peaceful form, to the winning of a parliamentary majority through elections. They postulated this at a time when, in the conditions of growing political reaction engendered by imperialism, the peaceful conquest of power by the proletariat was very unlikely. Lenin restored Marx’s and Engels’s views that in principle there could be both peaceful and non-peaceful forms of struggle, while emphasising, however, that in the first stage of the world socialist revolution the working class would most probably have to wage armed struggle for power. The chances of a socialist revolution developing peacefully were small then, which explains why Lenin devoted so much space in his works to the theory of armed insurrection.

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p Nevertheless, Lenin considered "highly valuable" the possibility of taking power peacefully, and although there was very little historical experience to fall back on, he thoroughly examined the conditions that would allow it. He showed that the peaceful transition of power into the hands of the working class is possible if the relation of class forces in the political arena makes the armed resistance of the ruling class hopeless and compels it to yield power under the pressure of the objective political situation. Analysing the situation in Russia after the Kornilov revolt (September 1917), when the peaceful development of the revolution looked possible for a while, Lenin wrote: "There could be no question of any resistance to the Soviets if the Soviets themselves did not waver. No class will dare start an uprising against the Soviets, and the landowners and capitalists, taught a lesson by the experience of the Kornilov revolt, will give up their power peacefully and yield to the ultimatum of the Soviets."  [155•1 

p As a result of the continuing shift in the balance of forces on a world scale and within individual capitalist countries in favour of the working class, the possibility of the proletariat assuming power peacefully is increasing. This trend was noted in the documents of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. The world socialist system is becoming a decisive factor in the development of human society, and this is creating increasingly favourable conditions for the peaceful transition to socialism in some capitalist countries. A detailed analysis of the new possibilities opening up before the working class in its struggle for power is given in the policy documents of the CPSU and the international communist movement.

p Despite the apparent contrast between their views, the Right opportunists who worship the peaceful form of transition to socialism and the Leftist doctrinaires who regard the forcible seizure of power as the universal law of socialist revolution, both dogmatically and mechanically oppose these two interconnected forms of the struggle for power to each other.

p Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution, however, provides for a flexible approach to the question of the forms of conquest of power, taking into account the interpenetration and mobility of these forms. This is what Lenin himself wrote: "Marx did not 156 commit himself, or the future leaders of the socialist revolution, to matters of form, to ways and means of bringing about the revolution. He understood perfectly well that a vast number of new problems would arise, that the whole situation would change in the course of the revolution, and that the situation would change radically and often in the course of revolution."  [156•1 

p In Lenin’s view, the peaceful and non-peaceful forms of transition to socialism are not separated from each other by an insurmountable wall. One form may be replaced by another, depending on changes in prevailing historical conditions. The practical experience of the revolutionary movement proves time and again that there can be no easy way to winning power. In those countries where there is a possibility for securing a peaceful approach and transition to socialism the working class is faced at every step with the bitter opposition of bourgeois monopoly reaction relying on the support of the military. The peaceful path to power is not straightforward, as the revisionists believe; it is beset with contradictions and political crises. There is always the danger that it will be cut short by reactionaries resorting to armed violence. This is why, as several documents of the international communist movement state, the working class and the Marxist-Leninist parties must be prepared for both the peaceful and non-peaceful forms of struggle for power.

p Lenin devoted particular attention, especially after the October Revolution, to the elaboration of the concept of the world socialist revolution. The socialist revolution is a product of the extreme aggravation of the contradictions of world imperialism. That is why it is a world revolution in content and its ultimate aim is the complete abolition of capitalist exploitation and the establishment of socialism and communism on a global scale. The world socialist revolution extends throughout a whole era of world history, right up to the victory of socialism throughout the world.

p Lenin severely criticised Trotsky’s mechanical interpretation of the international character of the socialist revolution and his refusal to reckon with the specific conditions obtaining in different countries. The purpose of a revolution in one particular country, in Trotsky’s view, was to instigate a world revolution by extending it mechanically to other countries. Lenin opposed Trotsky’s vulgar conception with the dialectical conception of 157 the connection between the socialist revolution in any one country and the world revolutionary process as a whole. The revolution in any one country is a relatively independent link in the chain of the world revolution. The first of these links was Russia.

p The October Socialist Revolution revealed its international character through its vast influence on the revolutionary movement in all countries and the support it received from the international working class. It undermined the strength of capitalism, paved the path to a new stage in the advance of the world labour movement, tremendously stimulated the national liberation movement, and enriched the treasure-house of revolutionary experience with a practical example of the transition to socialism. Resolutely rejecting the adventurist idea of “exporting” revolution, Lenin stressed that the task of the victorious proletariat was to achieve everything possible within the bounds of its own country in order to rouse, support and stimulate the revolutionary movement in all other countries.

p Lenin warned against the oversimplified interpretation of the laws governing the world revolutionary process. The world socialist revolution has to cope with an extraordinary variety of socio-economic conditions: from modern industry equipped with up-to-date machinery to primitive agriculture, from the highest forms of state-monopoly capitalism to primitive communal societies, from the developed class structure of classic capitalism to tribal relations that have been little affected (if at all) by class differentiation, from bourgeois democracy to feudal despotic regimes. This range of striking contrasts inherent in the world capitalist system refutes dogmatic ideas about the “purity” of the proletarian social revolution.

p "The world revolution,” said Lenin, "is not so smooth as to proceed in the same way everywhere, in all countries. If it were, we should have been victorious long ago. Every country has to go through definite political stages."  [157•1 

p The world socialist revolution is a complex, many-faceted and contradictory process in which the building of socialism in the countries where the working class has won power and the proletariat’s class struggle in the capitalist countries closely intertwine with the democratic and national liberation movements and revolutions, and merge with them to form a single stream 158 of the world liberation movement, which takes different paths in different countries. But, as Lenin showed, this contradictory diversity conceals the profound internal unity of the forces of the world liberation movement. The basis of their unity was their common anti-imperialism, rallying all revolutionary contingents round the main force capable of opposing imperialism, the international proletariat. The working-class struggle for socialism does not merely deal blows to imperialism—by abolishing capitalist exploitation, it destroys the very foundation of imperialism. The revolutionary struggle of the proletariat is at the centre of the world liberation movement, cementing all its various parts into a single whole. The hegemony of the international proletariat in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of the world is one of the most important laws governing the world revolutionary process.

p Since the world socialist revolution matures unevenly, the working class cannot attain victory simultaneously in all countries. The countries where the socialist revolution has triumphed naturally become the main base, the bulwark, and the chief motive force of the world revolutionary process. They assume the main burden of the struggle against imperialism and reaction, facilitating the work of the other sections of the international revolutionary movement, inspiring them to action, and supporting their struggle morally, politically and materially.

p After the October Socialist Revolution Lenin wrote: "...on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities . . ."  [158•1  have inevitably and naturally grouped themselves around the Soviet Russian Republic.

p The main task of the socialist revolution after the working class has taken power into its hands is to establish a new social system. The fate of the proletariat’s social revolution depends wholly on the successful solution of this task. Lenin’s ideas on the role played by the socialist countries in the world revolutionary process have been creatively developed in the policy documents of the international communist movement. The Main Document of the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, held in June 1969, declared: "The world socialist system is the decisive force in the anti-imperialist struggle."

p The ideas of Lenin’s make it possible to understand the vast 159 international significance of the establishment of a new society in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. The building of communism in the USSR and the all-round improvement of Soviet socialist society are the basic contribution made by the CPSU and the Soviet people towards the world revolutionary process, towards the struggle of all peoples against imperialism, for peace, national independence, democracy and socialism.

p It is only in alliance with the world socialist system that the revolutionary potential of all the other forces of the international liberation movement fully reveals itself. Moreover, the balance of forces on a world scale and, following from this, the potentialities and prospects of each contingent of the liberation movement, depend decisively on the unity and cohesion of the world socialist system. Solidarity with the socialist community, therefore, becomes the main criterion of proletarian internationalism for all contingents of the working class. The Third Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties emphasised that "the defence of socialism is an internationalist duty of Communists."

p The era of the socialist revolution is distinguished by rapid developments. The world revolutionary process changes in the torrent of history and goes through a number of different stages. At each stage the laws of socialist revolution manifest themselves in different ways, and themselves undergo certain changes.

p The main trend of the world revolutionary process, the one that has determined the basic qualitative changes in it, is thai transforming socialism from a force victorious in only one country and incapable of determining world politics into an international system exerting a decisive influence on world developments.

p Lenin foresaw, in this connection, the appearance of new possibilities and new forms of development for the socialist revolution, possibilities and forms determined by the regrouping and realignment of class forces in the process of the world revolution. He predicted that no future working-class revolution would find itself in so difficult a situation as the Russian revolution. "We had to exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat in its harshest form,” he wrote.  [159•1 

p Lenin also predicted that the functions of the national 160 liberation movement would alter in the course of the world socialist revolution. Originally spearheaded against the colonial yoke, it would inevitably turn against capitalism, too. In the general torrent of the world revolutionary process "with the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage".  [160•1 

p The new possibilities and forms of development of the socialist revolution foreseen by Lenin have arisen as a result of the profound changes after the Second World War. The international communist movement, loyal to Lenin’s ideals, is creatively exploring the new possibilities opening up before the present-= day revolutionary movement. The emergence of socialism and the division of the world into two opposing social systems have produced deep qualitative changes in international affairs. The struggle between socialism and capitalism is now at the heart of historical developments, and the main focus of the international revolutionary movement.

p Bourgeois ideologues, revisionists and dogmatists, all oppose the socialist revolution to the peaceful coexistence of states with differing social systems. But in Lenin’s conception of the world revolutionary process these two concepts are interconnected. Peace is of the utmost importance for the development of socialism. Because of this, socialism is the chief source and bulwark of peaceful relations between nations. The birth of socialism represented a qualitative leap in the development of international relations: it created the real possibility of peaceful coexistence.

p In Lenin’s lifetime this new possibility could not be fully realised: imperialism then dominated international affairs and the seeds of new wars were ripening in its womb. The full realisation of the possibility of peaceful coexistence depended on the growth and consolidation of socialism and on further advances by the world socialist revolution. The radical change in the balance of forces which occurred after the Second World War as a result of the successful world revolutionary development created conditions for turning this possibility of peaceful coexistence into an objective requirement for historical progress.

p This does not mean, however, the discontinuance of the class struggle on a world scale and the establishment of a status quo 161 in class relations. Socialist states pursue internationalist policies in peacetime too, combat imperialism, support national liberation struggles and promote closer solidarity with the working class and other revolutionary forces in all countries. The policy of peace followed by socialism is not pacifism. It is a class policy. It means that the international working class and the world socialist system, backed by all the democratic forces standing for peace, force upon the imperialist powers forms of interstate class struggle which make it possible to avert world war, and which at the same time accord with the interests of the proletariat. "Any peace, therefore, will open channels for our influence a hundred times wider,” wrote Lenin.  [161•1  He severely criticised “Left” doctrinaires for claiming that the road to the world-wide victory of the socialist revolution lay through war.

p Leninism does not say that revolution is the inevitable outcome of war. What is more, it affirms a different kind of law-= governed development: the socialist revolution paves the way to peace among nations because it eliminates the antagonisms which engender war, dislodges from power the classes interested in war, and creates a social system whose desire for peace is inherent in it. The world revolutionary process has given birth to forces which can, by their struggle, prevent the outbreak of another world war.

p Lenin’s brain ceased to work and his heart to beat forty-six years ago. But his theory of socialist revolution continues to live and develop. It remains to this day a mighty ideological weapon in the hands of the working class and all the revolutionary forces of our time.

The link between Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution and current developments is not mechanical but dialectical. It is maintained through the creative development and adaptation of the theory to the present stage of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The radical change in the world alignment and relation of class and political forces in the last few decades has introduced qualitatively new features into all revolutionary processes and many new elements into the treatment of the problems of the theory of socialist revolution. Not a few of Lenin’s propositions reflect profound trends in historical development which had just begun to take shape in his own lifetime. Today, when these trends are more pronounced, we discover 162 in Lenin’s ideas new insights and shades of meaning of special value, calling for their more thorough study, understanding and adaptation to modern conditions. At the same time the advance of the world revolutionary process raises new questions which did not confront Lenin, and Marxism-Leninism finds answers to these questions by generalising recent historical experience. For this reason one cannot adhere to Leninism and at the same time ignore the present activity of the CPSU and other Marxist-= Leninist parties, the policy documents of the international communist movement, with which the new stage in the development of Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution is associated.