p With the emergence of Marxism as the scientific outlook of the working classes, progressive social thought rose to its highest ever level. All mankind grew by a head, as it were, compared with the thinking of past generations. Casting off the rags of distorted idealistic, metaphysical and mystic notions, mankind received in the theory of Marxism a powerful ideological weapon with the aid of which it could learn to apprehend the true scientific, materialist laws of development of the historical processes, obtain correct foreknowledge of the course of events, and accurately predetermine the concrete tasks of the movement and the ways of achieving its aims. The international working classes have no ideological weapon other than this precious one.

p Marxism is a science of a special kind. It is unique and at the same time universal. Unique because it is of a thoroughly class nature, deeply committed, spearheaded towards the emancipation of all the working classes from the yoke of capitalism, towards the creation of a society in which there will be no social oppression, no economic enslavement and class violence. It is universal because it reveals to man the secrets of scientific cognition of objective reality, of the natural processes of development of nature and society. No real scientist can dispense with this science in any field of research. It is not surprising, therefore, that all progressive minds of the past generation considered it their duty to learn the science of Marxism. In this respect credit should be given to the many distinguished scientists of Russia who, as a rule, were well up in Marxism and to the best of their ability helped to spread it in Russia. The fact that Russia became the home of Leninism, the birthplace of the great proletarian revolution and triumphant socialism is due in no little measure to this circumstance.

p Marxism is a universal, creative and constructive science. It is incompatible with short-lived enthusiasms and utterly alien to dilettantism and dogmatism. It is a science that demands of the true revolutionary not part of his time, but his whole life, tremendous willpower and dedication of all his energies to the service of the working class, the people, to their material and spiritual emancipation. Without the help of the progressive intelligentsia the working class was not able at first to master this science. To give the progressive revolutionary intelligentsia their due, they played a tremendous role in this respect. Significantly, the first Marxists were mainly intellectuals from propertied families, who had broken with their past, sided with the working class and dedicated their all to its services. This was exemplified in Marx, Engels and Lenin. Their teachings, as we know, were formerly espoused by single individuals chiefly from among the educated intellectuals. Now millions of proletarian fighters throughout the world have rallied to the banner of Marxism.

p Marxism is a science of revolutionary transformation and therefore wholly imbued with the passion of revolutionary action. It incorporates not only the doctrine of the laws of social development, but the teaching of the strategy and tactics of revolutionary struggle. In short, it is a synthesis of scientific theory and revolutionary practice, a synthesis of the materialist conception of history and the dialectical method of cognition. Marxism originated in that period when progressive social thought had accumulated immense cognitive material and posed in all their magnitude the urgent problems of society’s material and spiritual life. Marx’s great historic service was that he gave sufficiently full answers to all the questions which life posed to the world’s progressive minds.

p Marxism provides a completely reliable insight into the most complex, often raveled processes of social development. The three components of Marxism form its intricate system of cognition and transformation: political economy, the keystone of which is the theory of surplus value; materialist philosophy, the revolutionary soul of which is dialectics; and scientific communism, the core of which is the teaching of socialist revolution and the regular processes of transition from capitalism to socialism. The ultimate stage of this historical process is communism, the transition to which, 43 beginning with its first phase—socialism—is carried out by the most advanced class in the world today—the working class—and its allies under the leadership of the MarxistLeninist parties.

p It is not surprising, therefore, that Marxist science, from its very birth, became an object of vicious and monstrous persecution by all reactionary forces from top to bottom of so-called civilised bourgeois society. The world has known no other doctrines capable of enduring such ordeals. Marxism stood up to them because its teachings were true and omnipotent, because they were in the interest of all the working people and the oppressed nations. The emergence of Marxism as a political current followed a hard and thorny path. Its development was a series of ups and downs, enthusiasm and disillusion, victories and failures. Nevertheless, the whole strength of .Marxism lies in victorious movement. So long as capitalism exists, Marxism will continue to be an object of persecution, smear campaigns and attacks. So long as the working class exists, Marxism will live on forever, because its ideas are of the flesh and blood of the working class, of its whole intellect. The ideas of Marxism are invincible, as invincible as the determination of the peoples to fight for their complete political, economic and spiritual liberation from the bondage of imperialism.

p Marxism holds another attraction for all the working classes, in that its harmonious system of world outlook contributes to the shaping of the new man, who is attuned to the ideals of the communist society—an intelligent, strong, steadfast man, staunch in the face of any trials; a man endowed with the higher earthly gift—hardworking, humane, ever responsive to the appeal of advanced ideas and thinking; a man of superior intellect capable of seeing far ahead and grasping all the nuances of social life. Gorky expressed these noble human attributes in the pithy maxim "How proud the word rings—Man!"

p But man as the product of nature is one thing and man as the master of his earthly abode quite another. In the first instance he lives, breathes and enjoys the gifts of nature, in the second, man is called upon to improve life, to create, build and remodel it. He is no longer simply Man, but "social Man" who is associated with his whole history. Marx would not have been the great and brilliant theoretician he was if he had confined himself merely to the first 44 nature-aspect of man’s life. Incidentally, many progressive thinkers before him confined themselves to just this aspect. They contemplated and sang the praises of man and sympathised with him, but did not open to him the prospects of creation and the remodelling of social life. Marx’s genius was revealed in the fact that he was the first to draw the attention of advanced social thought to this second aspect of man’s activities—man the creator, fighter, transformer and revolutionary.

p Of course, in the early stages of the social movement few people possessed these qualities of the true champion, but it was the duty of these few to awaken in men’s minds a realisation of the need for acquiring these lofty qualities. Hence the great role that is allotted to the introduction of an advanced, scientific, social consciousness into the midst of the masses. Lenin, Marx’s truest disciple, was deeply inspired by the great ideas of his teacher, which he creatively developed and put into practice.

p That is why we lay special emphasis on Lenin’s teaching about a proletarian party of a new type, about professional revolutionaries capable, in the true sense of that notion, of creating, refurbishing and remodelling the life of society and of man himself. It is pleasant to realise that Lenin’s ideas have been taken into the armoury of the revolutionaries of all countries. Men of labour, the real creators of material and spiritual values, should realise that it is not parliamentary speechmakers and philistines, not anarchist rioters and rebels who can give real freedom to people of need, adversity and privation, but advanced champions, revolutionaries of the Marxist-Leninist type, and that they alone, at the head of the working people’s struggle, can and will accomplish this noble and grateful task. This is strikingly borne out by the entire history of the revolutionary struggle.

In the course of its historic path Marxism-Leninism today has won recognition among the most advanced forces of society on all continents. On the basis of this doctrine there has been built up a developing world system of .socialism embracing a number of countries of Europe, Asia and even the American continent, where the almightiness of capital has been done away with for good and all and where power is in the hands of the working classes, who own all the basic instruments and means of production. The communist movement all over the world has become the most influential 45 political force of the age precisely because it is guided by the scientific, Marxist understanding of the laws of social development. From a spectre of communism this world outlook has grown into a stupendous force of the world liberation movement.