p Pluralism as a theoretical concept is nothing essentially new either. Ideologically, it is the outspoken philosophy of revisionism which traces its origins to the annals of the theoreticians of Social-Democracy. From the political point of view this concept most strongly reflects the essential nature of opportunism, which fights shy of revolutionary proletarian discipline, groans under the burden of centralism and stands in fear of the organisational and ideological unity of the international party ranks. Pluralism is a justification for the splitting of the revolutionary forces, for national insularity, for self-isolation from the general international movement of the working people who are fighting for the complete liberation and equality of the nations.

p Marxism-Leninism maintains that practice, the facts of history, are the sole criterion by which the truth can be gauged. Life itself is the best teacher, the best arbiter of 191 our actions, right or wrong. No one can ever escape the just verdict of history. But what does history show, what do the facts speak? Two terrible world wars have occurred in the lifetime of a single generation. Both of them ended in a way the imperialists had not calculated. The First World War and the socialist revolution in Russia broke the chain of imperialism as a single absolutely predominant world system and led to the establishment of the world’s first socialist state of the workers and peasants. The second sanguinary war again led to the defeat of world imperialism as a result of which many countries of Europe, Asia and even America have embarked on the socialist path.

p Everyone admits this, but not everyone draws from this the relevant political conclusions. It is an historically accepted fact that during 1917 to 1920 many countries in Western Europe had the most favourable conditions for effecting the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie. But the working class of Europe was unable to do what the proletariat in Russia had done because of the deep cleavage in its ranks and because it had no revolutionary parties. The Right social-democratic leaders were, in the words of Lenin, "better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves”.  [191•*  As a matter of fact, already at that time they had espoused ideas which eventually shaped themselves into the concept of pluralism-

p On the specious pretext of popularising different brands of socialism said to be germane to the real conditions prevailing in one or another country, the renegades succeeded in fragmenting not only the scientific theory of socialism, but the revolutionary forces of the working class, the peasantry and the progressive intellectuals, who had been fighting under the banner of socialism. As a result of the ideologically poisonous nationalist propaganda, which continued for over two decades within the Second International, the renegades succeeded in splitting the workers’ parties, the trade unions and other organisations of the working class, which they dragged apart to their "national billets". Forgetting their own vows, the renegades not only did not come out against the fratricidal war, but fanned it up with their appeals to defend the “fatherland”.

p If we take a closer look at the performance of today’s 192 advocates of pluralism we shall have no difficulty in seeing that they have already embarked on that shameful path of nationalism and chauvinism, which has cost the nations so defar. Facing the truth, we cannot blink at the danger of the theory of pluralism, which is not only being propagandised, poisoning the nations with the venom of bourgeois nationalism, but is elevated by some theoreticians to the rank of a key policy, a thing which cannot but gladden the ideologues of imperialism. The attitude of Marxists-Leninists is clear beyond question. They stand firmly for taking into account the national specific features and for international unity. The danger of pluralism is that it is incompatible with internationalism and tends to destroy unity.

p And so pluralism stands for numerous varieties of socialism. Too numerous, in fact, to be listed. We have African, Asian, and European socialisms, and separate national socialisms within each continent. Garaudy in 1969 wrote a voluminous book Pour un modele fran^ais du socialisme in which he virtually arms the Right and “Left” opportunists in their refusal to apply the basic international principles of socialism. In other words, any kind of socialism, so long as it isn’t scientific socialism. Lenin at one time spoke about the diverse paths by which different nations would arrive at socialism and gave a profound Marxist assessment of this thesis.

p Let it be noted that he spoke about the diverse paths towards socialism, about the differences in the forms and speed of socialist transformations depending on the specific conditions in one or another country. But the revisionists put their own interpretation on this thesis of Lenin’s. They deliberately confuse the question of the relationship between the general tendencies (already verified in more than one country) and the special, particular, specific conditions of the socialist revolution and socialist construction applicable only in the context of the given country. According to them only different “models” of socialism were being created in the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries, which could either be accepted or rejected. Hence the case that is made out for different “models” of socialism which ignore the general tendencies, or, to be more exact, count on repudiation of the socialist revolution, of socialism, and a slippingdown into “democratic” socialism within the framework of the bourgeois system.

p In making a breach in the wall of scientific socialism the revisionist tunnelers make believe that they are doing this in the name of true socialism, stripped of etatic- bureaucratic perversions, and swear allegiance to Marxism-Leninism. This is an artful manoeuvre, however. Actually the revisionists have long been seeking a key that would give them access to the heart of the Marxist-Leninist movement by strictly following the example of their revisionist forebears. They are throwing more and more emphasis on the “ creative” development of Marxism, by which they mean nothing more nor less than restriction of the sphere of its application.

p The definition of Marxism as a guide to action, which Lenin always strongly stressed, began to lose its purpose. Under the guise of a “creative” approach, revisionism was implanted. The catchwords of “creative” and “dogmatic” Marxism cropped up everywhere in the writings of these theoreticians. All those who are for regarding Marxism as a guide to action are proclaimed dogmatists, conservatives, etc., by the revisionists. Going further in their tunneling, the revisionist ideologues have started to pull apart the main elements of Marxist theory, to fragment Marxism.

p Marxism-Leninism, as we know, is a balanced, integral doctrine developed and enriched by the Marxist-Leninist Communist and Workers’ Parties. All the components of Marxism-Leninism—philosophy, political economy and scientific communism—are organically interconnected. Marxism-Leninism is integral both in its component parts and in its historical development. It is not surprising therefore to find the bourgeois ideologues concentrating their main efforts on this particular aspect. By falsifying the historical development of Marxism-Leninism they try to break and sunder it apart, artificially detaching one historical phase in the development of Marxism from another and drawing a line between them.

p Typical in this respect is the attempt to depict Marx as an abstract thinker, a sociologist, in contrast to Engels, who is painted as a practical dogmatist. Attempts are made to fish out contradictions in the ideological legacy of Marx himself: the early Marx is contraposed to the later Marx, Marx the humanist to Marx the revolutionary. The falsifiers, if you please, do not like Marx as revolutionary, fighter, politician, and prefer him as man, dreamer, scholar. A multitudinous literature has appeared in which, with more 194 zeal than sense, two Marxes are described: the young Marx and the old Marx. Under the guise of a scientific analysis attempts are made to contrapose Marx to Engels, and both of them in turn to Lenin. It could be said that, as in the nineteenth century, the revisionist stalwarts have reappeared upon the scene, among whom criticism of Marx has become the fashion.

p We would have no difficulty whatever in catching out in plagiarism the fathers of these concepts. It was none other than Bernstein and Kautsky who were the first to experiment with the differentiation of Marxism, with this difference, however, that in their evaluation Marx was divided into three Marxes: (1) Marx the democrat, humanist and contemplator, stuffed with the ideas of the French enlighteners; (2) Marx the revolutionary, rebel, conspirator, admirer of Babeuf and Blanqui, under whose influence the Communist Manifesto had been written; (3) Marx the liberal democrat, advocate of a parliamentary republic, urging the conflict between workers and capitalists to be settled in a peaceful way by buying out from the latter their factories and mills.

p Lenin wrote: "What is now happening to Marx’s theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories "of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonise them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarising it. Today, the bourgeoisie and the opportunists within the labour movement concur in this doctoring of Marxism. They omit, obscure or distort the revolutionary side of this theory, its revolutionary soul. They push to the foreground and extol what is or seems acceptable to the bourgeoisie.”  [194•* 

p In their slanderous fabrications the renegades talked themselves into the allegation that Marx had had nothing to 195 do with the authentication of the theory of the class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, that he had mentioned the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" only once, and that by mere accident. Lenin shared the same fate as Marx and Engels. The Trotskyists, as we know, saw Leninism as a narrowly national phenomenon, applicable only to the conditions of peasant Russia or to poorly developed countries. Other revisionists regarded Leninism as the mechanical application of Marxism and denied the existence of the Leninist phase in the development of Marxist theory.

But there were also hotheads who attempted to place Leninism above Marxism, to represent it as an independent teaching transcending the theory of the founders of scientific communism. Lenin vigorously deprecated such an interpretation and left no doubt as to the idea of any new trend existing in Marxism, in the theory of scientific socialism. Lenin invariably approached all questions from the standpoint of Marx’s and Engels’s teaching. This was not just a tactic on his part to make it easier for him to put over new ideas, but came from a sense of pride at being the true disciple and follower of Marx and Engels, their continuator, who was to apply the teachings of Marxism in the new historical epoch.

p 4

p Marxism as a science is founded wholly upon struggle, upon the remodelling of the old world. Its task is not only and not so much to clarify phenomena as to remake the world, to help speed up its remodelling. It is essentially a creative doctrine and as such does not stand in need of having this creative aspect constantly underlined. The real Marxist is one who uses this positive teaching as a guide to action, to struggle, to the transformation of society. Lenin was quick to grasp this essence of Marxism, and throughout his activities, at the most difficult moments, he was fond of saying "we must talk things over with Marx". Some people are inclined to regard this as dogmatism. Dogmatism indeed! Lenin showed by this his boundless faith in Marxism and the need for ideological purity. Either the Communists held this teaching in firm reliable hands and constantly developed it, or a Right reformism and “Left” revolutionarism would prevail in the Marxist movement as was the case in a number of countries in Western Europe at the turn of the century.

p A prominent place in revisionist literature is given to a 196 revaluation of revolutions. An especially vast amount of material on the history of revolution was dug up by bourgeois propaganda and the various revisionists on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. One can trace here the same attempts to break down and divide the integral Marxist-Leninist teaching concerning revolution. There you have real, glorious revolutions, and here unreal, inglorious ones. All bourgeois revolutions, including of course the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, were classified as real glorious revolutions. The Revolution of 1905 in our country is declared an inglorious revolution undeserving of high marks.

p And what about the October Revolution, which marked a turning point in the history of mankind? Here we have two appraisals. One says that, being a “peaceful” revolution, it was a real one, and the other that, being a people’s, a socialist, revolution, it was not a real one, but a conspiratorial revolution. Is this proposition correct? Lenin did say that the October armed uprising of 1917 was an exceptionally bloodless one, exceptionally easy and successful. But nowhere did Lenin say that the October Revolution was a bloodless and easy one. How can one identify an uprising with a revolution?

p In speaking of the bloodless uprising Lenin thereby emphasised the extent to which the objective conditions for it had ripened and how well-organised the forces of the uprising had been, or, to use his own words, "the fruit had ripened". At the same time, however, Lenin repeatedly stressed that the seizure of power was only half the job, that the important thing under Russian conditions was to hold that power and embark on the building of socialism, and for this it was necessary not only to make the revolution, but to develop it in depth and breadth. But the development of the revolution, as we all know, met with furious resistance on the part of the internal counter-revolution and international imperialism, and took heavy toll in lives and blood. Why then, on what grounds, did some writers try to identify the lessons of the uprising with the process of development of the October Socialist Revolution?

p In this connection I should like to dwell on one historical fact. Lenin was very fond of drawing historical comparisons and he always carefully collated events, processes, alignment of class forces and tendencies of the movement. This it 197 was that enabled him to scientifically demonstrate the laws of the class struggle and frame the Party’s scientific strategy and tactics. Using this approach of Lenin’s I would cite the following comparison. The French bourgeois revolution of the late eighteenth century, as we know, was a classical revolution both as regards the methods of struggle and the results achieved. The prominent French historians Augustin Thierry, Francois Mignet and Francois Guizot, being spokesmen of the republican bourgeoisie, on the whole correctly described the alignment and struggle of the class forces. In his letter to Weydemeyer in 1852 Marx wrote that, strictly speaking, it was not he who had discovered the existence of classes and the class struggle, but that the first to write about it were bourgeois historians,  [197•*  who proceeded from a scientific analysis of the alignment of the class forces operating in the great French revolution.

p But apart from these historians, who understood the objective processes of development of the revolution, there appeared ideologues, who gradually began to reassess the whole course of the French revolution. There appeared a whole school of sociologist pseudo-theoreticians who began to describe the course of the revolution adjusted to the interests of the bourgeoisie. For example, a French sociologist by the name of Paul Janet, who was sharply criticised by Plekhanov, wrote: "The aim of the revolution . . . the winning of civic equality and political liberty . . . was the greatest and most legitimate to which any nation had ever aspired." The means, however, were bad. "All too often they were violent and terrible", and for this the people, the “rabble” were to blame, not the bourgeoisie. Hence the motto was proclaimed: "hold on firmly to the results of the revolution, but reject the spirit of the revolution.”  [197•** 

p It should be said that very soon this trend prevailed. Over a long period of time not a word was said about the revolutionary role of the people, about its truly plebeian methods of struggle, but everywhere the results of the revolution— equality, fraternity and liberty—were proclaimed. It was exactly the same with names. There came to the surface the most reactionary figures, who were elevated to the rank of 198 revolutionaries. For many years the names of such outstanding revolutionaries as Marat, Danton and Robespierre were dragged through the mud. A genuine appraisal of the great bourgeois revolution was given first by Marx and Engels and then by Lenin and other Marxists. It was they who restored the good name and significance of the Great French Revolution and did justice to the people and its real leaders.

p Characteristically, the bourgeoisie does not forget about its revolution even today. Take the facts. The Great French Bourgeois Revolution took place nearly two hundred years ago. Yet the bourgeoisie still jealously guards its heritage. Today, too, it is moulding the youth in the most careful and meticulous manner in the spirit of its class partisanship, in the spirit of its class’s glorification. The bourgeoisie is affirming and trying to din it into people that the means, the methods of struggle used in that revolution were meritless and antipopular, whereas its results were the pinnacle of bourgeois achievement. What is more, there is an attempt to generalise: history, we are told, has shown that the proletariat espoused the mottoes of the bourgeoisie and not that the bourgeoisie espoused the slogans of.the proletariat. And so Marxism is said to be outdated, to have fallen short of expectations, whereas the concepts of the bourgeois ideologues, the ideals of the Great French Bourgeois Revolution fulfilled expectations.

p Does not all this look like what the modern revisionists are trying to do in regard to the Great October Socialist Revolution? Have not the numerous publications of the bourgeois press concerning the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution been a direct attempt to cross out, to blanket all that was revolutionary and heroic in the great Soviet revolution and represent it as a dull, dreary affair that has petered out?

One is entitled to ask, where, what sources does the concept of pluralism spring from? The main source is the sharpening of the class struggle in an epoch when the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale is materialising and the socialist system is becoming a decisive factor of world development. This trebles the efforts of the ideologues of the bourgeoisie to discredit socialism and "soften up" the socialist system. The main cause of the revival and pernicious effects of pluralism lies in disregard of the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism and its dialectical method. Whether this is because it is studiously ignored or simply forgotten is 199 immaterial. What matters is that in the reasoning of these theoreticians revisionism prevails.

What conclusion is to be drawn? In order to blast the theory of convergence and pluralism it is necessary first of all to advance the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the objective laws of development of society and the dialectical method of analysing the phenomena and facts of social development; secondly, to wage a more active and principled ideological struggle from positions of Marxism-Leninism against all and every revisionist concepts. However much our enemies may rave and storm, Marxists-Leninists will never bend before the onslaught of militant revisionism, will never give ground. On the contrary, they are fully prepared to carry out their historical mission, which is to defeat their ideological adversaries and defend the great banner of Marxism-Leninism.