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p Capitalism entered the last stage of its development— imperialism—at the close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. That marked the end of the relatively peaceful phase of capitalist development, and the clouds of the first revolutionary storms began to gather. The socialist revolution appeared on the agenda.

p The new epoch confronted Marxists with a series of acute problems. On the solution of these problems depended their understanding of the substance of the revolutionary process and their choice of the way to liberate the proletariat and all other working masses from capitalist tyranny.

p But it was precisely in this period that a sharp debate flared up in the working-class movement over the future of the movement and over the question of strategy and tactics. The theoreticians of the Second International failed to understand the new processes in the development of capitalism and to chart the ways and means for the struggle of the working class. They regarded the new elements of social development as confirmation of their dogmatic tenets and used these elements for conclusions that were prejudicial to 21 the proletariat and benefited the exploiting classes. In effect, the leaders of the Second International betrayed the working class, and Marxism became the main object of their attacks, which were intensified after the death of Frederick Engels.

p This assault was conducted in two directions. First and foremost, the opportunists tried to ignore the Marxist teaching or to give prominence to those of its aspects that had no direct significance for concrete revolutionary practice. They adopted purely revisionist attitudes and distorted the creative nature of Marxism.

p One of the favourite methods of the enemies of Marxism was, as it is today, to pit the views of the young Marx against the teachings of the mature Marx. They argued that Marx’s early works were more valuable and correct than works like Capital. This theory was combated back in those years by leading exponents of Marxism, in particular, by Franz Mehring in Germany and Georgi Plekhanov in Russia. A scientific study of Marx’s creative and spiritual evolution was made by Lenin, chiefly in the article “Karl Marx”.

p The revisionists, on the other hand, began to falsify Marxism and revise it in all its aspects. In Germany Eduard Bernstein and, after him, Karl Kautsky, Karl Legien, Philipp Scheidemann, Max Schippel and Werner Sombart, and also Emile Vandervelde (in Belgium), Karl Hjalmar Branting (in Sweden), the Mensheviks (in Russia) and other revisionists in the different parties tried to revise Marx’s teaching of the inevitable downfall of capitalism, asserting that capitalism was daily showing greater “adaptability” and that production was becoming increasingly more “differentiated”.

p Bernstein and others suggested a programme for the “gradual introduction of socialism”. According to the theory behind this programme, a professional and political struggle for social reforms would give society greater control of the conditions of production, while through legislation the role of the owner of capital would be steadily reduced to that of an administrator until finally the direction and management of production was wrested away from the capitalist. The revisionists argued that it was possible to “ introduce socialism" through the trade unions, which were called upon to “take over industrial profits”, through associations 22 of workers ensuring the abolition of trade profit, and also through the “democratisation of the state”. Bernstein made an attempt to give “theoretical” grounds for the policy of adapting the working-class movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie. He gave the gist of his views in the phrase: “The end, whatever it may be is, so far as I am concerned, nothing, movement is everything.”

p Revisionist distortions were a serious threat to Marxism and the working-class movement for they obscured the prospects for the class struggle.

p At the time the danger of revisionism was appreciated by many leading exponents and theoreticians of Marxism, among whom were Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Franz Mehring, Clara Zetkin,’Dimitr Blagoyev and Georgi Plekhanov.

p Here reference may be made to two historical examples, which are perhaps the most vivid: they are Rosa Luxemburg and Georgi Plekhanov.

p Recently, in connection with the 50th anniversary of the foul murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, bourgeois propaganda came out with a spate of works misrepresenting the role played by Rosa Luxemburg in the revolutionary movement. In an effort to contrapose Rosa Luxemburg to Lenin, bourgeois theoreticians maintain that there was uncompromising hostility between them, that Rosa Luxemburg did not criticise Bernstein and the -other revisionists while Lenin was unfoundedly and excessively harsh towards them.

p Assertions of this kind distort the facts. Rosa Luxemburg was extremely active in the struggle against Bernstein and his associates. Summing up her review of Bernstein’s economic and political views, she wrote: “...he who favours the legal way of reforms instead of and in opposition to the conquest of political power and a social revolution, in fact chooses not a calmer, more reliable and slower road to the same aim but an utterly different aim, namely, inconsequential modifications of the old social system instead of attaining a new one.”  [22•* 

p Lenin’s principled attitude to Rosa Luxemburg is shown, 23 for example, by the following lines from Notes of a Publicist: “Paul Levi now wants to get into the good graces of the bourgeoisie—and, consequently, of its agents, the Second and the Two-and-a-Half Internationals—by republishing precisely those writings of Rosa Luxemburg in which she was wrong. We shall reply to this by quoting two lines from a good old Russian fable: ‘Eagles may at all times fly lower than hens, but hens can never rise to the height of eagles....’ But in spite of her mistakes she (Rosa Luxemburg—Ed.} was—and remains for us—an eagle. And not only will Communists all over the world cherish her memory, but her biography and her complete works... will serve as useful manuals for training many generations of Communists all over the world.”  [23•* 

p The other example is the eminent Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov. He did much to spread and explain the new revolutionary teaching. He left brilliant models of criticism of revisionism. Revolutionary Marxists cherish in Plekhanov his ability to make revolutionary theory understandable, and precisely for that reason a knowledge of his works, of all that he wrote on Marxism helps in the struggle against present-day “Marxologists”.

p Not only at the close of the 19th century but even during the first assault launched by the proletariat of Russia against tsarism early in the 20th century, it seemed to many revolutionaries that Plekhanov was destined to become the Marxist who would answer the new problems.

p However, although Plekhanov was a militant materialist Marxist and fought bourgeois idealist philosophy, he took the road of opportunism and opposed Lenin’s line towards a socialist revolution in Russia. His Menshevik views adversely affected his philosophical concepts as well.

p Lenin proved to be the only Marxist who was able, by virtue of his theoretical and practical work, to answer the questions that confronted the revolutionary movement. He alone proved to be equal to the new tasks and played a distinguished part in the creative development of Marxism. His services are so immense that with full grounds we now call our teaching Marxism-Leninism. In its Address Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir llyich Lenin, the 1969 24 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties recorded: “Lenin was an eminent man of thought who developed in every -aspect the science which Marx and Engels established: dialectical materialism, political economy, the theory of the socialist revolution and the building of communist society.”  [24•* 

p In this work it is not our purpose to show Lenin’s entire contribution to revolutionary, creative Marxism. We shall only deal with the forms of the transition from capitalism to socialism as charted by him and show the new elements introduced by him into these problems.

p The dialectical method typical of all of Lenin’s theoretical and practical work was brilliantly applied in the elaboration of the forms of transition from capitalism to socialism. Lenin never tired of pointing out that in his work a revolutionary was obliged to apply general principles depending on the concrete conditions of the struggle. In 1907 Lenin wrote: “The duty to safeguard revolutionary traditions demands, at the same time, an analysis of the conditions in which they are applied and not simply a repetition of revolutionary slogans that have a meaning under definite conditions.”  [24•**  The essence, “the living soul of Marxism,” he stressed, was “a concrete analysis of a concrete situation”.  [24•***  He wrote: ”. ..a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday.”  [24•****  A Marxist, he held, had to be able to adapt patterns to life. But a Marxist had never to depart from “the ground of careful analysis of class relations”.  [24•***** 

p Lenin was uncompromising in his stand against the dogmatism of some Communists, who indulged in “slavish” imitation of the past. “They call themselves Marxists,” he wrote, “but their conception of Marxism is impossibly pedantic. They have completely failed to understand what is decisive in Marxism, namely, its revolutionary dialectics.”  [24•*) 

p He criticised those who bowed and scraped before Marx, 25 extolled him and, at the same time, completely lost sight of the cardinal content of the doctrine. He quoted Gotthold Lessing, who said: “We would like to be exalted less, but read more diligently.”  [25•* 

p Profoundly and all-sidedly analysing the practice of social development and the class struggle in different countries, Lenin based his conclusions on facts drawn from real life. He took into account the latest achievements of world science, including the contribution of progressive thinkers towards the elaboration of social problems. His teaching is international and his propositions reflect the regularities of world development as a whole. “Lenin’s teaching,” L. I. Brezhnev said in a report dedicated to the centenary of Lenin’s birth, “incorporated everything that had been produced by mankind’s best minds, generalising and fusing into a single whole the world-wide experience of the working people’s class struggle.”  [25•** 

p The international character of Leninism is seen 

p —in the fact that having arisen on the solid foundation of Marxism it expressed and generalised the experience not only of the Russian but of the entire communist movement, of all its contingents; 

p —in the fact that under new historical conditions of world development it opened the road to fusion in a single revolutionary process: the building of socialism and communism and the growth of the communist and working-class movement and the national liberation struggle; 

p —in the fact that it raised on high the banner of internationalism in opposition to chauvinism and nationalpatriotism and saved Marxism from degeneration, which was desired (and sought in practice) by the leaders of the Social-Democratic parties in the Second International; 

p —in the fact that it is the ideological basis of the education of the proletariat and all other working people in the spirit of fidelity to the lofty principles of internationalist solidarity and the cause of communism.

p Leninists have never been slaves to the letter of Leninism, but they have always checked their thoughts, 26 conclusions and practical work with the attitudes and views left to them by Lenin. They have always taken counsel, and continue to do so, with Lenin in the same way as Lenin had always taken counsel with Marx. The Communists regard the teaching of Lenin not only as a method (regrettably, this definition of Leninism’s significance is still to be encountered) but as a theory, as a guide to action in the present-day revolutionary struggle.

p In this connection we cannot overlook views that have become widespread even among some Communists abroad, according to which the international character of Leninism is confined to chronological or geographical boundaries. In particular, the international significance of the outstanding works written by Lenin when the Bolshevik Party was only emerging is being rejected, and voices are heard urging a return to “original”, “pure” Leninism, to which is attributed the character of an insipid abstraction and which is divorced from the creative experience of revolution intrinsic to it.

p Lenin evolved the theory of socialist revolution, a teaching of the ways of transition from capitalism to socialism. His conclusions form the treasure-store of the communist movement. Many students of this subject are right when they say that Lenin’s teaching of the socialist revolution cannot be considered as static, that it can be fully understood and mastered only when it is examined in development, enriched by the latest revolutionary experience of the masses and of the revolutionary parties.

p Lenin was the creator and organiser of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the practician of the early years of socialist construction in Soviet Russia. He formulated the guidelines of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, the first country to embark on socialist development. On the basis of new revolutionary experience he comprehensively charted the general laws of the socialist revolution, worked out the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in many countries and defined the prospects of the world revolutionary process.

p Lenin’s key concepts are given in works like What Is To Be Done?, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International, The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present 27 Revolution, The State and Revolution, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, the Revolutionary Phrase, “ Left-Wing" Communism—an Infantile Disorder, and in many speeches at Comintern congresses. Vital propositions are to be found in Lenin’s articles, written during the last years of his life. These include “Our Revolution”, “How We Should Reorganise the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection”, “Pages from a Diary”, “Better Fewer, but Better" and “On Cooperation”.

p Lenin’s theory of the socialist revolution is the theory of the world socialist revolution. In historical and philosophical literature it is sometimes regarded only as the theory of the direct accomplishment of the socialist revolution. In fact, Lenin’s teaching of the socialist revolution embraces not only the direct struggle for power but the prerequisites for the socialist revolution and the building of socialism and communism, the very process of socialist and communist construction and the interaction of the revolutionary forces in different countries.

p Without one or some of these components Lenin’s teaching of the socialist revolution would be incomplete and, consequently, distorted. It is precisely on the basis of these general theoretical premises that the author strives to consider the entire spectrum of problems linked with the study of the ways and forms of transition from capitalism to socialism.

p Lenin’s teaching of the transition from capitalism to socialism is an integral concept, all of whose elements are inter-related and inter-dependent. It begins with a thoroughgoing analysis of imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism, as the eve of the socialist revolution, and ends with the unravelling of the laws of transition from capitalism to socialism, the ways of achieving the socialist revolution on a global scale and the ways of building communism. In Lenin’s theory of revolution the Communists find the scientific grounds for the conclusion that socialism can triumph in one country, and the propositions on the growth of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into the socialist revolution, on the allies of the proletariat at the various stages of the revolution, the significance of the national liberation movement to the development of the proletarian 28 revolution, the revolutionary situation, the role of the party in the revolution, and other issues. The range of problems covered by the theory of revolution is wide and all- embracing. It is not limited geographically or chronologically and does not make theory dependent on various issues.

p The history and specific content of Lenin’s teaching of the socialist revolution give the lie to assertions that this teaching was created only in the period of the First World War. This approach, which misrepresents the history of the theory of revolution, can create the impression that Lenin linked the possibility of revolution only with war. Moreover, it reduces to naught Lenin’s preceding and subsequent theoretical work.

p Also untenable are the attempts of some researchers to show that Lenin’s development of the theory of socialist revolution, of the forms of transition from capitalism to socialism was limited to the solution of practical tasks, including the tasks of the revolutionary process in 1917. In some works very little attention is given to an analysis of works which profoundly substantiate the development of the socialist revolution in Russia after the conquest of power by the proletariat and in the light of the world revolutionary process that was unfolding at the time. To close this gap means to give a full and truthful picture of the history and content of Lenin’s concept of socialist revolution.

p Further we shall deal in greater detail with individual aspects of the teaching of the ways of transition from capitalism to socialism. At this point we should like to draw attention to one question: the link between Lenin’s theory of the victory of socialism initially in one country and the prospects for the development of the world revolution. This is a basic issue, and in many ways the mastering of all the other propositions of Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution depends on how correctly it is understood. Another reason for underscoring the importance of this problem is that in stating it some researchers have simplified Lenin’s views.

p The conclusion that socialism can triumph initially in one country and cannot be victorious simultaneously in all countries was finally drawn by Lenin in the works On the Slogan for a United States, of Europe and The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution. “Uneven economic and political development,” Lenin wrote in 1915, “is an 29 absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.”  [29•*  In 1916 he enlarged on this conclusion: “The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois.”  [29•** 

p The conclusion that socialism could triumph initially in one country was reached by Lenin gradually, and later he repeatedly substantiated it, accentuating that the experience of Russia and the course of the struggle between the first socialist state and the capitalist countries bore out this conclusion and showed that the Mensheviks were wrong when they maintained that socialism could not triumph in Russia. In an article headed “Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" he wrote: “... in spite of the lies and slanders of the bourgeoisie of all countries and of their open or masked henchmen (the ‘socialists’ of the Second International), one thing remains beyond dispute—as far as the basic economic problem of the dictatorship of the proletariat is concerned, the victory of communism over capitalism in our country is assured.”  [29•***  At the Seventh All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1919, in a speech devoted to the struggle against imperialism, he pointed out that in Russia the people had “won a tremendous victory, so great a victory that I think we may say without exaggeration that our main difficulties are already behind us.”  [29•**** 

p Uneven economic and political development under capitalism was understood by Lenin in the broadest sense: as the uneven and disproportionate development of the capitalist countries, as the uneven development of individual factors within each of them with consequences for the maturing of the objective and subjective factors of revolution. He pointed out that the unending contradictions and clashes between antagonistic forces were shattering and 30 undermining the front of imperialism. The chain of world imperialism had to be smashed in its weakest links—in countries where the objective and subjective conditions had matured for a socialist revolution. A combination of all these conditions is needed.

p Lenin never considered that only a developed country could be a weak link or, on the contrary, that a weak link necessarily meant a low level of capitalist development. Bukharin’s assertions that the imperialist system was likely to break where the economic development level was low clashed with Lenin’s views.

p While distorting the meaning of Lenin’s theory of the victory of socialism initially in one country, bourgeois theoreticians declare that this theory had been propounded not by Lenin but by Stalin. Indeed, Stalin had given much attention to this theory, upholding it against the attacks of the Trotskyites and other opportunists, but it was evolved by Lenin. This was stated by Stalin himself time and again.  [30•* 

p Another distortion of this theory is that it is attributed to Marx and Engels, thus belittling Lenin’s contribution to the theory of socialism’s victory in one country and the creative nature of the theory itself.  [30•** 

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p Lenin had at one time expressed the opinion that the revolution would be accomplished first in one of the most developed countries, pinning his hopes notably on Germany. However, his was a strictly concrete-historical approach and he saw that the real course of history was indicating that that country would inevitably be Russia and he directed the efforts of the Bolshevik Party and Russia’s revolutionary masses towards the preparation of the socialist revolution.

p He believed that Russia would be followed by other countries and had full grounds for saying that “our banking on the world revolution, if you can call it that, has on the whole been justified”.  [31•* 

p He did not associate himself with any deadline for the revolution, emphasising that “no decree has yet been issued stating that all countries must live according to the Bolshevik revolutionary calendar; and even if it were issued, it would not be observed”.  [31•**  He noted that “West-European revolutions will perhaps proceed more smoothly; nevertheless, very many years will be required for the reorganisation of the whole world, for the reorganisation of the majority of the countries”.  [31•***  In an article headed “Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution" he wrote: “We have made the start. When, at what date and time, and the proletarians of which nation will complete this process is not important. The important thing is that the ice has been 32 broken; the road is open, the way has been shown.”  [32•*  Nevertheless, he acknowledged that the revolution in the West was developing at a slower rate than had been expected. At the Third Congress of the Comintern he said: “...events did not proceed along as straight a line as we had expected. In the other big, capitalistically more developed countries the revolution has not broken out to this day.... We must now thoroughly prepare for revolution and make a deep study of its concrete development in the advanced capitalist countries.”  [32•** 

p He saw the specifics of the West in the maturity of the economic prerequisites for socialism, in the high development level of democratic institutions which influenced the outlook and forms of struggle of the working class, and in the wide dissemination of reformist illusions among the working people. In this connection he stressed that precisely in industrially developed capitalist countries it was more difficult to start a socialist revolution. One of the reasons for this, he said, was that in these countries the working class was confronted by an enemy who not only had powerful economic, political and ideological means of pressuring the masses but had, from vast experience, learned to make skilful use of various methods to split the working class. Lenin noted that for its ability to deceive, corrupt and bribe the workers the monopoly bourgeoisie of the USA and Britain had no equals in the world. He called on Communists to look for ways of approaching the socialist revolution.

p While noting the specific nature of the revolutionary changes in different groups of countries, Lenin regarded these countries as co-participants in the single world revolutionary process. He declared that prior to the epoch of world revolution the national liberation movement was part of the world democratic movement, but that after the Great October Socialist Revolution it had become part of the world socialist revolution.

p He wrote: “We would be very poor revolutionaries if, in the proletariat’s great war of liberation for socialism, we did not know how to utilise every popular movement against every single disaster imperialism brings in order to intensify 33 and extend the crisis.”  [33•*  The growth of the national liberation movement weakened capitalism in the metropolises and, on the other hand, strengthened and augmented the revolutionary forces in the undeveloped countries. In its turn, the socialist revolution rendered economic and political assistance to the countries fighting for liberation. Lastly, Lenin regarded assistance from socialist countries to facilitate the direct transition of the young states to socialism as the third aspect of the relationship between socialism and the national liberation movement. He noted that in countries where the proletariat was numerically weak and could not be the dominant force of the revolution, its role would be carried out by the proletariat of the countries where socialism had already triumphed.

p On the basis of revolutionary practice Lenin elaborated on the problems of internationalism in the epoch of world revolution, and defined the principles underlying the relations between the socialist state and the revolutionary working-class movement, and between the Communist parties of socialist and capitalist countries. These principles were the guidelines of the Communist International created by Lenin. They remain immutable in our day, too, despite the changed forms of relations between the parties and the absence of a single international organisation of the world communist movement.

p A major element of Lenin’s theory of the possibility of socialism being triumphant in one country was the thesis on the armed defence of the socialist state, on just wars against the bourgeoisie seeking to crush triumphant socialism. On the other hand, Lenin was categorically opposed’ to the Trotskyite concept of export of revolution, against “making happy" countries that were not ready for revolutionary changes.

p Socialism’s ideological adversaries aim their main attack on the international aspect of Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution, against the question of the laws governing the world revolutionary process. This is not accidental: it is the international character of the socialist revolution that threatens the capitalist system.

34

p Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution is attacked from several angles.

p First, it is asserted that this theory holds true solely for Russia and cannot be applied to other countries, that Leninism is a purely Russian phenomenon.  [34•* 

p Second, it is alleged that Lenin was a pragmatist, that he did not take the prospects of revolutionary development into account, and so on. These are the very assertions that were used by Trotsky and his followers.  [34•** 

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p Third, specific propositions of Lenin’s theory of revolution are distorted and falsified and it is asserted that they were at variance with the developments in Russia and other countries.

p Fourth, one of the basic lines of the criticism of Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution is in setting it off against the views of Marx and Engels. Though made under the guise of fidelity to Marxism and with the object of “purifying” it of subsequent distortions, this criticism is, in fact, an attack on Marxism-Leninism as an integral international teaching.

p All these “critics” of Leninism are at one in passing over in silence or misrepresenting the fundamental propositions of Lenin’s teaching of the transition from capitalism to socialism. However, the assertions of the bourgeois “ theoreticians" are refuted by the entire practice of the revolutionary movement. They are refuted by the Great October Socialist Revolution, by the socialist revolutions in 13 other countries and the achievements of the peoples of these countries in the building of socialism, and by the successes of the world communist movement, the international working class and the forces of national liberation.

“All the experience of world socialism and of the working-class and national liberation movements,” states the Address Centenary of the Birth of Vladimir llyich Lenin adopted by the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “has confirmed the world significance of Marxist-Leninist teaching—-Today we have every justification for saying about Lenin’s teaching what he himself said about Marxism: it is omnipotent, because it is true. Marxist-Leninist theory and its creative application in specific conditions permit scientific answers to be found to the questions facing all contingents of the world revolutionary movement, wherever they are active.”  [35•*