p Marx and Engels showed that communism was a natural stage in social development. Marxism put forward the key propositions of the theory of social progress and also formulated and gave scientific substantiation to the theory. That is why it is a combat weapon in the struggle against the forces of reaction. In their writings, Marx, Engels and Lenin set forth a coherent scientific theory of progressive social development from the primitive commune across the centuries of exploitation to communism. “The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, which shows how, in consequence of the growth of productive forces, out of one system of social life another and higher system develops—how capitalism, for instance, grows out of feudalism."  [109•33 

p Just as higher mathematics is inconceivable without the Cartesian coordinates of x and y, which divided space along two lines, so it is impossible to study social development without the two basic coordinates of social relations: the relations of production and modes of production. These coordinates help the student of society to find his bearings in the chaotic tide of social phenomena and to understand the 110 various forms of social relations in the various epochs, however patchy these may be, the changes taking place in a given society, however small these may be, and to comprehend ideology and social psychology.

p Once men gain a knowledge of the uniformity of historical development and have at their disposal the scientific criterion for separating the progressive from the reactionary, they cease to blunder about in the darkness and refuse to be the dupes of fraud and self-deception in politics. This enables them to dedicate their spiritual and physical forces to working for the great future of mankind. The Marxist-Leninist doctrine makes it possible to work out a strict and correct assessment of the actions of men, classes and parties, and to bring out the social substance and orientation of political ideas and doctrines. Communism is a natural result of social development; compared with it, mankind’s earlier way comes to no more than a pre-history leading up to its true history. Once free of the fetters of exploitation, society develops at a more rapid pace and obtains unprecedented possibilities for advance. Scientific communism throws a strong light on the future economic, social and spiritual progress of mankind. The theory of social development has become a theory of transforming society, a guide to revolutionary action by the masses.

p The founders of Marxism-Leninism showed that social progress is based on the development of the productive forces and the change in the relations of production which in antagonistic society occurs through social revolution. Marxism also established a scientific criterion for identifying the stages of the historical process, which appear as ascent from lower to higher social forms. Instead of the chaos of “civilisation” and “cultures”, instead of the artificial schemes produced by the idealistic philosophy of history, it gave a scientific picture of mankind’s advance, established the scientific periods in the history of society and showed the succession of socio-economic formations as stages in the progressive development of the economic, political and cultural life of society. Having formulated the most important category in the science of society—the concept of socio-economic formation—Marxism gave a scientific definition of the social whole, a scientific view of social life as the unity and interaction of diverse social phenomena and processes, and revealed the basis of this unity and interaction.

p Marxism faces the modern period and makes it possible to consider any current social phenomena over the long term, in its development and in close connection with the history of social forms. The remarkable writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin shed a strong light of scientific theory on current events and processes, but they are also of vast methodological importance because they reveal the uniformities of social development. The Marxist-Leninist doctrine of society combines a study of the present, an analysis of the past and a scientific view of the future.

p Every social phenomenon can be understood in scientific terms only when it is considered in its connection with other phenomena, and with the developing social whole. The student of society taking the Marxist approach never loses sight of the social whole—the mode of production, the socio-economic formation to which a phenomenon relates—-whatever concrete phenomena he may study. Thus, he never loses sight of the thread of the historical process and the prospect of social development.

p Marxism studies concrete phenomena in modern life in close connection with the given social whole, which is a stage in mankind’s overall social development. At the same time, it studies the given concrete social whole in its movement, and considers all the processes going forward within that whole as being various aspects, component parts and elements in the development of the given socio-economic formation.

p Lenin observed that the stormy revolutions which accompanied the collapse of feudalism in Europe gave a graphic demonstration of the basis of social development and its motive force, the struggle of classes, and added: “The genius of Marx lies in his having been the first to deduce from this the lesson world history teaches and to apply that lesson consistently. The deduction he made is the doctrine of the class struggle."  [111•34  Consistently elaborating the doctrine of the proletariat’s class struggle, Marx showed the historical necessity for the proletarian dictatorship, which puts an end to the domination of the exploiters and ushers in the epoch of the rule of labour. Marxism has shown that mankind’s future is connected with the revolutionary overthrow of the exploitative system and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. This has resulted in the elaboration of a coherent conception of the worldwide historical process, of the doctrine of mankind’s progressive advance. This doctrine is the highest achievement of social thought prepared by its development in the course of the class struggle over the centuries.

p This conception of the world historical process is being most fiercely attacked by bourgeois ideologists because it is closely bound up with scientific communism. It is because of this that bourgeois theorists attack Marxism. The founder of revisionism, Eduard Bernstein, whose slogan was “movement is everything, the aim—nothing”, sought to “release” Marxism from the doctrine of the ultimate goal of the working-class struggle. Bourgeois advocates go wild over the fact that the ultimate goal of the proletariat’s struggle has been scientifically substantiated and derived from an analysis of social development.

p A theory of social development assuming that mankind will have to live under capitalism forever, to hold sacred private property in the means of production forever, and to maintain various forms of bourgeois state and bourgeois ideology ceases to be a theory of development and becomes a doctrine of social stagnation. In our day, no theory of social development which ignores the principles of scientific communism can be scientific.

p The need to do away with man’s exploitation of man was long considered the key question of revolutionary struggle and social thought, and called for an answer. The scientific theory of social development brought out the uniformity according to which society moves from capitalism to a new social system, which may be generated by capitalism but signifies the abolition of the very basis of the exploitative system. The transformation of Utopian socialism into a science meant that the question of this uniformity had been posed and a scientific answer provided on the basis of an economic, historical and philosophical analysis of the whole course of social development.

p The origination and development of Marxism marked a fundamental change in the view of the role of the masses in history, and signified a vast increase in the historical activity of the masses. On the basis of its analysis of capitalism, Marxism has shown the role of the working class which history assigned to it, a role it has started to fulfil. Marxism has provided all-round, scientific substantiation of the idea of an alliance between the working class and the toiling peasantry and other sections of the working people in the fight to abolish exploitation. These ideas worked a fundamental change in the notion of social progress. It is tremendously important for social progress that the great social energy of the masses should be combined with scientific revolutionary theory, and this was demonstrated by the experience of the Paris Commune in Marx’s own lifetime.

p The Paris Commune announced to the world the spontaneous awakening of the mighty power of the working class. The greatness of the Paris Commune consists in the fact that in its history, the “revolutionary instinct of the working class asserts itself despite fallacious theories".  [112•35  The proletarians of Paris were being confused by the theories of the latter-day Utopian socialists, but the common sense of the working class gained the upper hand and it displayed its revolutionary initiative and creative approach. Lenin stressed that “the Commune sprang up spontaneously. No one consciously prepared it in an organised way".  [112•36  That is one of the characteristic features of the great proletarian uprising in the 19th century. Considering the unfavourable conditions 113 which had then taken shape in France for a victorious socialist revolution, Lenin said that “French capitalism was still poorly developed, and France was at that time mainly a petty-bourgeois country (artisans, peasants, shopkeepers, etc.). On the other hand, there was no workers’ party; the working class had not gone through a long school of struggle and was unprepared”. In consequence, “there was no serious political organisation of the proletariat, nor were there strong trade unions”.  [113•37  The masses were yet to master revolutionary theory. This explains above all the serious mistakes made by the Commune, and these were analysed in detail by Marx, Engels and Lenin as they formulated a scientifically based theory of social development and its key component part, the doctrine of socialist revolution.

p When studying the experience of the Commune, Marx and Lenin above all put a high value on the historical initiative of the masses. The experience of the Commune showed very well that the vibrant creative approach of the working people was a necessity in building the new society. Lenin stressed: “The historical initiative of the masses was what Marx prized above everything else."  [113•38  But this tremendous creative revolutionary energy of the masses can be most effectively expressed only when there is a political organisation of the proletariat, its Party, its vanguard, capable of leading the working class and the bulk of the working people.

p The important conclusion which Marx, Engels and Lenin drew from the experience of revolutionary struggle, including the activity of the Paris Commune, bears on the political organisation of society carrying out a socialist revolution, a political organisation which must give the revolutionary energy of the masses the utmost effectiveness and purposefulness. Their profound theoretical conclusion was that the socialist revolution should consist in the proletariat’s breaking up the old state machine and running the country by means of a new state. In his April Theses, Lenin put forward the demand for the establishment of a state of which the Paris Commune had been the prototype. He substantiated this idea in detail on the eve of the Great October Revolution as he elaborated Marx’s ideas. Lenin made a thorough study of the experience in setting up Soviets in Russia, for he saw their great future as the state form in building the new society discovered by the masses themselves. He drew this conclusion on the strength of his study of the revolutionary initiative of the masses and the application of the scientific theory of social development to concrete tasks which sprang from the historical situation. This conclusion has become a part of the 114 treasure house of the ideas of the world communist movement as a whole. The historical importance of this conclusion has now been verified by the vast experience of struggle and victories since then.

p After the Soviet state had been established, Lenin also referred to Marx’s assessment of the experience of the Commune. In his report at the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets, Lenin compared the experience of the Commune and that of the Soviet power and drew the conclusion that since 1871 the international working-class movement had taken a great stride forward and that the Soviet power was in a situation that was immensely more favourable than the Commune. The workers, peasants and soldiers of Russia had succeeded in setting up a powerful apparatus—the Soviet power—which was established throughout the country and enjoyed the wholehearted support of the great majority of the people.

The Commune hoisted its banners just when mankind’s history was moving from one epoch to another, but it served as a symbol of the inevitable dawn of a much greater, third epoch. The epoch of 1789-1871, when bourgeois society was getting rid of feudalism, was becoming a thing of the past. In that epoch, the revolutionary energy of the masses gave bourgeois revolutions power and scope and helped to do away with the rule of the feudals. But at that time the working people were not yet able to set up a sound political organisation of their own, a mighty party to lead them along the way illumined by scientific revolutionary theory. The bourgeoisie sought in every way to limit any expressions of massive revolutionary energy and to keep down the people. For that purpose, the bourgeoisie entered into an alliance with the feudal lords and the serf-holders. After 1871 came the epoch of the decline and rottenripeness of capitalism, the domination of the most reactionary monopoly capital and the mustering of its forces by the new class, the proletariat, whose revolutionary energy was growing. The proletariat was equipped with a scientific theory of social development which indicated its place in the historical process and the way of its revolutionary action. The Paris Commune showed for the first time that state power can and must pass into the hands of the working class, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a real demand of social development, and that the capitalists will have to leave the historical scene and clear the way for the new social system. The revolutionary energy of the proletariat is a great creative force, given the necessary conditions for its expression, and a revolutionary theory to guide it. Scientific communism has proved beyond all doubt that a knowledge of the uniformities of social development and of its potentialities and prospects is the most important prerequisite for the historical activity of the masses and a most potent instrument of progress.