131

[introduction.]

p It is very right to say that great men do not have two dates to their life-span in history—birth and death—but only one—birth. Marx was about to leave the provincial German town of Trier, where he had spent many years, when the weavers of Lyons, in France, raised their banner on which they inscribed this oath: “Live working or die fighting.” Marx brilliantly discerned the emergent tendencies of the historical process. Today, more than 150 years after his birth, we clearly see that Marx continues to live in history, for in a sense he has merged with the historical process to which he made such a great contribution, a contribution that is inseparable from the leading tendency and the chief forces of world development today. Marx produced a doctrine on the development of social life, its foundations and basic elements, and showed that capitalism was a transient social form in the life of mankind.

From then on it was impossible to tackle any new problems without relying on Marx’s doctrine of social development and the answers he had given to the questions arising about the destinies of human society, the nature of the future world and the real ways leading into that future. Lenin’s great achievement is that, starting with Marx’s doctrine, he produced solutions for the new problems and showed that Marxism could and had to develop on its own basis, brushing aside diverse attempts to supplement it with bourgeois views and theories on the plea that the “new times" allegedly required “new songs”.

I

p Marxism emerged at that turning point in history when the idea of development began its triumphant advance, leaving a visible mark in the sciences of nature and when new prospects were opened up in the field of technology. Meanwhile, social thought was lagging behind. In that period, especially much was being written and said about man’s conquest of nature, there was much talk about the age of steam and predictions of an age of electricity. But most theorists believed that capitalism was some kind of everlasting social form which would steadily and ceaselessly be filled with new content as science and technology advanced. Consequently, capitalism was set up as a lasting and as the most convenient form for a unity of society and nature. Of course, people still had visions of a just society, but no one knew how it was to be reached.

p Marx not only showed that man’s knowledge of nature was socially conditioned but also proved that the social structure and social relations in class society were not at all of such infinite scope that they could encompass the scientific achievements transformed into its productive 132 forces. Marx’s greatest discovery was that there was a limit to the development of capitalist social relations, which at a definite stage became a drag on the great productive force of human labour and consequently on the creative power of the human mind.

p Today many claim that this brilliant conclusion of Marx’s is outdated. Since the war, theories praising the “harmonious development" of capitalism have been widespread in bourgeois Europe and in the USA. The ideologists of imperialism have attacked Marx’s theory in every possible way, making exaggerated claims about the “salutary” role of the bourgeois state, which, they claim, can resolve the contradictions of capitalism. The revisionists have followed in the wake of the bourgeois theorists. There has been a hitch in this chorus just now, especially in connection with the grave monetary crisis. It is becoming ever more obvious that the so-called state regulation of the economy under capitalism actually means no more than an expression and ultimately an aggravation of the basic contradiction which Marx discovered, namely, the ever sharper antagonism between social production and private appropriation. The monopoly-capitalist state, which acts in the interests of the whole capitalist class, is in a position to siphon off and use a part of the profits for social manoeuvring. But this inevitably tends to aggravate the struggle between the monopolies for power, generating fresh contradictions between them and political crises, creating opportunities for more vigorous action by the democratic forces and more intense working-class struggle. Those are the facts.

p Of course, even today some insist on trying to “correct” Marx. They are ecstatic over the new machines being developed in the USA, and shout themselves hoarse about the scientific and technical revolution going on in that country. These people pretend not to notice the terrible destructive effect of imperialism equipped with modern technical facilities. There does not appear to be a single achievement which man has wrested from nature that the monopolies have not sought to use to destroy man. War is a continuation of politics in times of peace and, consequently, those who gear their policy to war poison the whole of political and social life with the spirit of destruction and hatred of man. Can this social system, whose incurable ills Marx showed with irresistible conviction, give full scope for creative social energy, when it seeks ruthlessly to destroy the working people, the chief productive force?

p Another characteristic feature of present-day development is that monopoly capital is no longer able to shelve new inventions as it did at the turn of the century, because it is aware that these inventions are soon bound to be used to build up the industrial might of socialism, the Soviet Union in the first place. A highly intense struggle is also being carried on today in production, the main sphere of human activity. Socialism is on the offensive. Monopoly capital is restive: it no longer has a worldwide 133 monopoly and is daily faced with the steadily growing potentialities of socialism, its adversary. This works a change in the picture of world development, but does nothing to alter the nature of capitalism, whatever the revisionists, who have betrayed Marxism-Leninism, may say. In stubborn struggle, socialism has been demonstrating by its victories and achievements that it is the social form that presents boundless potentialities for the boosting of society’s productive forces for the sake of the working man.

p Emphasising the characteristic Marxist approach to the question of socialist society, Lenin wrote: “There is no trace of utopianism in Marx, in the sense that he made up or invented a ‘new’ society. No, he studied the birth of the new society out of the old, and the forms of transition from the latter to the former, as a natural-historical process. He examined the actual experience of a mass proletarian movement and tried to draw practical lessons from it."  [133•81  Therein lies the great power of Marxist-Leninist theory, which today rests on factual experience gained in decades of building the new society, the experience of millions upon millions of working people, without which the modern world cannot be conceived. The basic propositions put forward by Marx and creatively elaborated by Lenin have stood the test of time and have become indefeasible laws of social progress.

p Furthermore, Lenin said that “Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of th’e economic maturity of communism".  [133•82  This problem of the stages of the economic maturity of communism—from the earlier transitional form to full-scale socialist society and the construction of communism—has become a problem in the social practice of millions of men.

p In formulating the theory of socialist society, Marx switched the emphasis to an analysis of production, the problems of the creation and multiplication of collective wealth. The “vulgar socialists”, as Marx called his opponents from among the epigones of Utopian socialism, concentrated on distribution and produced diverse moral and political tractates but ignored production, the basic sphere of human activity. They had no idea about the stages of the economic maturity of communism and did not even consider the problem of the development and maturing of the new socio-economic formation. In effect, the doctrine of Marx and Lenin of the new social system is a doctrine of the new relationship between nature and society, of the new character of man’s use of the forces of nature, which can be achieved only if the social system itself has changed.

Man’s struggle against nature in order to harness its mighty forces has never had such broad and real prospects before it, and never before has 134 the old social structure exerted such a terrible and distorting influence as present-day capitalism is doing. Today, many people outside the socialist countries have come to regard the once sacred words “knowledge” and “science” with superstitious fear. Such is the result of capitalist manipulations. Today, the use of the forces of nature by society has become a most urgent and concrete question of policy, bearing on the interests of millions of people.

II

p Having mapped out the ways for solving the key problems of social development, Marxism also first provided a firm scientific basis for the science of man. Marx proved that man does not exist outside his social ties. Man’s social nature is the definitive starting-point for a study of him. The Marxist requirements for the development of the individual are changing social conditions, abolition of every type of social oppression and creation of new social ties based on creative labour free from exploitation. Without healthy social ties, the human mind is inevitably dulled and man’s spiritual life impoverished. All of this has become an axiom which is attacked only by pharisees and liars in the old world. Nevertheless, the opponents of Marxism have recently developed the habit of claiming, without rhyme or reason, that Marx and his followers had “forgotten about man”. Indeed, some theorists declare that Marxism needs to be “supplemented” with anthropology (the science of man) so as to be “humanised”.

p These are new versions of old songs. For a long time, the bourgeois theorists tried hard to present society as a chaotic conglomerate of individuals. Marxism-Leninism established that after society emerged from the entrails of the primitive system it was divided into classes, which constitute the basis of its social structure. In our day, there are no isolated, “classless” individuals. Social development, the struggle of antagonistic classes leads to the revolutionary abolition of exploitation and oppression, the abolition of antagonistic classes. With this paramount social change, society does not in any sense disintegrate into individuals, as the anarchist Bakunin declared in Marx’s lifetime; on the contrary, social ties, purged of exploitation, become ever more necessary for the development of every individual. The demand for “freedom” for the individual from social ties and, consequently, from social duty is profoundly reactionary. In a state of such “social weightlessness" man tends to lose the sense of his own personality. This can result only in grave degeneration of individual consciousness and a destruction of the whole mechanism of the social motivation behind human activity.

135

p Indeed, Marxism-Leninism considers and scientifically assesses social relations in the light of man’s development and his interests. For that purpose it has introduced the categories of human capacities and requirements, a great achievement in the science of man. Without requirements and capacities there can be no expression of individuality, no ties between it and society, or of the internal structure of personality or individuality. The history of the individual, just as the history of mankind, is the development of human requirements and capacities. An analysis of the history of the human concept of “knowledge” bears out the truth of this. Purged of bourgeois lies, the demand for “freedom of the individual" has no other real content but the demand for the satisfaction of man’s healthy requirements and the development and application of his capacities. The individual, which bourgeois theorists keep contrasting with the social, in fact turns out to be indissolubly connected with the social.

p Scientific communism has substantiated the need for a social structure that would give scope for the boundless development of man’s capacities and their application in labour, and the fullest satisfaction of his requirements.

p Exploitative society—capitalism in particular—ruthlessly distorts these very capacities and requirements. For the purpose of camouflage, bourgeois theorists have invented the mocking theory that capitalism is a society of “equal opportunities for all”. Capitalism, they claim, provides opportunities for everyone to become a millionaire, and gives everyone the right to “eat off gold plate”. Actually, only those who have the power can realise this right.

It is an incontrovertible fact that socialism is a society in which man’s social prestige does not depend on capital but on capacity and work. As history develops, man’s growing requirements can no longer be satisfied on a private-property basis; private-property relations also constitute a barrier to the development of human capacities. It is socialism that requires man’s and mankind’s development.

III

p Marx, Engels and Lenin produced the only scientific theory which says that man is capable of exerting an effect on social conditions, a theory of social action and social change. How do deep-going changes take place in the life of society? That is a question social thinkers had pondered for long. Many believed that social changes were created by will, idea and spirit. Frequently, this spirit was declared to be embodied in the “great personalities" and members of the elite.

p Marxism-Leninism showed for the first time the true importance of men’s conscious activity, which can exert an influence on the historical 136 process when it is based on an awareness of the mature requirements of social development. This activity becomes truly effective when it looks to the working man, when it involves masses of working people, the true architects of history.

p In defending and elaborating Marx’s doctrine, Lenin refuted the Narodist theories, which claimed that history was made by “critically-minded individuals”. In a society which has reached the capitalist stage of development no amount of “outstanding personalities" could turn the tide of history until the working class, the greatest force behind social development, joined in the struggle. Even today some theorists, claiming to be progressive, refuse to recognise this truth which Marx discovered. Among them we find Herbert Marcuse, who denies the fact that the intelligentsia becomes a revolutionary force only when it adopts the standpoint of the working class in its struggle against the bourgeoisie and when it dedicates its knowledge to the victory of the working class.

p In any circumstances, the forces of social progress can win out only if they accept the idea, formulated by Marx and Engels back in 1846, that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat become the two decisive classes of society, and that the struggle between them is the main struggle of our day.  [136•83  This struggle, which began over a century ago, is being continued in new conditions. The struggle between socialism and capitalism is the main struggle of our day. Those who reject this idea inevitably lose their bearings in the revolutionary struggle.

p Other theorists insist that the national liberation movement is now the chief and even the only revolutionary force in the world. They extol mainly the intelligentsia and in part the peasantry—“the world village"—taking part in it, but they say nothing of the fact that the present-day national liberation movement has been developing and tackling the tasks of national liberation and social emancipation by borrowing much of the experience gained in the socialist countries, the Soviet Union in the first place. They forget that the national liberation movement enjoys these countries’ assistance and that the mighty revolutionary tide, which is expressed in the successful construction of the new society, has been ceaselessly on the offensive against imperialism, thereby helping the advance of all the other anti-imperialist forces of our day.

p The anti-communists among the bourgeois ideologists and some revisionists have attacked the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the ways of the revolutionary struggle, claiming that Marx regarded the world revolutionary process as a one-dimensional phenomenon confined to the working-class struggle in Western Europe. On the strength of this, they 137 suggest that Marx’s “model” of the revolution has not worked. Actually, when formulating his theory of the world revolutionary process, Marx invariably linked up the possibility of a revolutionary victory in Europe with support for the European proletariat’s struggle by the revolutionary forces of other countries. Marx said this was a “hard question" and for many years worked together with Engels to give a theoretical answer. They made a study of the mass movements in the countries of the East, in India, and especially of the revolutionary struggle in Russia. Let us recall Marx’s brilliant idea about the need to supplement the struggle of the European working class with something like a second edition of the peasant war in the countries where the peasantry constitutes the bulk of the population. Lenin subsequently gave a creative elaboration of this idea in his coherent doctrine of the alliance between the working class and the toiling peasantry.

p By about roughly the 1870s, Marx had worked out a scientifically substantiated notion of the two streams of the world revolutionary process: the proletarian movement in the West and the peasant revolution maturing in Russia, and the fruitful interaction between the two streams. Marx devoted much attention to Russia and spoke of its revolutionary forces with affection and respect. At the same time, he and Engels kept a close watch on economic and social changes in Russia, attaching ever greater importance to the emergent and rapidly growing proletariat in that country.

p The question of revolution in the countries of the East was a difficult one for that stage of development in the world revolutionary process. These problems were brilliantly solved by Lenin at the following stage, but Marx and Engels already formulated this important sociological law: if the countries lagging in technical and economic terms were to shorten the process of their development along the way to socialist society, they had to see the example of “how it’s done”.

p In the past, bourgeois revolutionaries and Utopians saw the revolution only as a means of destroying the old social system. Marx declared this to be absurd. According to Marx and Engels, the world revolutionary process necessarily includes the construction of a new society, and the successful construction of this society helps to stimulate the world revolutionary struggle.

p The national liberation movement is closely allied with the development of the socialist countries, with the Soviet Union, with the international working-class movement, with the new and majestic phenomena in the life of mankind generated by the struggle and the victories of the working class. These phenomena have changed the whole situation in the world, and the whole course of world history. It is the unity of the three streams of the present-day revolutionary process that gives it the strength to destroy the old, moribund system of exploitation and oppression, and to create new forms of social life. Here, 138 as Lenin stressed, the main trend of the revolutionary process is objectively expressed by the working class, a consistent fighter against the power of capital in all its ugly manifestations.

p Marx, Engels and Lenin also discovered the most important condition for social progress: if the working class is to struggle and win it must be organised. In the past, neither the slaves nor trie-serfs were able to create political parties to lead their struggle. In the past, the conscious element did not have a great part to play in the destruction of socio-economic formations. In its highest form, this organisation should take the form of a political party capable of giving a lead to the working class and the social forces following it: the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the other nonproletarian sections of the working people. Engels wrote: “For the proletariat to be strong enough to win on the decisive day it must—and this Marx and I have been arguing ever since 1847—form a separate party distinct from all others and opposed to them, a conscious class party."  [138•84  In the new condition of struggle, Marx’s doctrine of the working-class party was creatively elaborated by Lenin. Without such a political organisation it is impossible for the masses to display a high level of consciousness, and their influence on the historical process will remain no more than spontaneous.

p The doctrine of the working-class party is central to the MarxistLeninist conception of social action and social change. In our day, with the October Socialist Revolution ushering the world into a period of great social change, with the general trend being transition from capitalism to socialism, the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, the principles of its structure and the structure of its activity constitute the most burning question. The greatest emphasis is being laid on it by bourgeois theorists, who seek to influence all those who hesitate and vacillate between the two camps, socialism and capitalism. These anti-communist attacks on the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the party also show that the working-class parties, loyal to the banner of Marx and Lenin, have become a great historical force, and that the working people, who have set up such parties, who are organised in their ranks and who are inspired by their ideas, have built up a great force.

p In the vast process of social emancipation across the world, socialist ideals are being accepted by hundreds and hundreds of millions of men, affecting their everyday activity and their whole struggle. In the new conditions, imperialism has to make a fierce effort to distort and denigrate socialist ideas. For this purpose, it is prepared to label capitalism as “socialism”, while blackening all the truly important principles of socialism. For the same purpose bourgeois propaganda has 139 been spreading false and distorted notions about socialist society, diverse theories according to which the economic basis of socialism—social property in the means of production—can be combined with the political organisation of bourgeois society to obtain a “harmonious” hybrid society, as if this were a matter of putting a few cubes together instead of the organic laws of development of social and political structure.

p The reactionaries attach much importance to the spread of individualism, which breaks up the working people’s social ties and which rests on private-property illusions and habits. The idea of collectivism is being attacked, although this idea has always accompanied mankind in its social emancipation.

p The present stage of historical development is characterised by the growing role of mass consciousness and the people’s ability to take a correct view of the contending tendencies, to see the objective potentialities for advancing the revolutionary struggle and making use of these possibilities. In the world revolutionary process, spontaneous movements become ever more irrelevant, and there is a growing understanding of the truth that defeat is in store for those who grope their way forward.

p Implacable struggle against bourgeois ideology is a historical necessity, and an important condition for keeping the path of progress clear of the fog of illusion which springs from self-deception and from deliberate deception by the imperialist reactionaries.

p When considering the present strategic line of capitalism in the ideological struggle against Marxism, we find that bourgeois ideologists, terrified by the spread of Marxist ideas, have been attacking Marxism mainly as a system. They can no longer do anything about the penetration of various Marxist ideas into the minds of men, and they fear that these ideas may add up to a system, which is why all their efforts are aimed to break up Marxism-Leninism into fragments and to do their utmost to prove that today Marxism can exist only as a patchwork, with solid incrustations of bourgeois ideological conceptions. That is why the struggle for Marxism-Leninism as a coherent system is being intensified. Bourgeois ideologists ever more frequently resort to a peculiar trick in presenting some bourgeois conceptions as the “last word in science”. In this connection, Marxists seek to have Marxism-Leninism say the truly last word in science in the course of its tempestuous development, in the course of the rapidly changing social scene which produces more and more new problems.

p The whole of mankind, the peoples building socialism, the working class and all the other working people involved in anti-imperialist struggle, the countries swept by the national liberation movement all look to the example of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the half-century of rapid economic, social and cultural development in a vast 140 country, development that would have been inconceivable without the great force inspiring and organising the social energy of the masses, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. All the peoples witness the powerful advance of the socialist community. That is the most characteristic feature of progress today.

p Marx discovered the unity of the vital interests and tasks of the working class on an international scale, as expressed in the slogan: “Workers of all countries, unite!”. That was his starting point when he tackled the questions of organising and enlightening the working class. This key principle of Marxism-Leninism—proletarian internationalism—was subsequently attacked in countless ways. But this principle lives on, because it sprang from life itself and expresses its tendencies. Of course the working class has many tasks which it has to fulfil within the national framework. The number of these tasks has been growing and they themselves have been gaining in complexity. The Communists have shown that they express the best and most advanced traditions of the nations and work to keep them alive. The old attempts by bourgeois slanderers to prove that the Communist parties havabeen imported from abroad and that they are not a product of national life, are no longer seriously considered by anyone. The process whereby the Communist parties are becoming a key factor of national development has gone forward and has gained in depth. That is undoubtedly an important step forward in social progress. But that is only one aspect of present-day world development.

p The other is that there is a steady approximation of the national and the international tasks of the working class. Today there are no historical processes which are bounded from the rest of the world by the national framework. Any historical event taking place in one country variously affects the interests of other countries. The event itself takes place in this or that international situation, and to some extent depends on it. This objective tendency of the world process is now also being realised by many leaders of the national liberation movement, who started out by advocating only nationalistic ideas. Today many of them already realise the importance of the international solidarity of the progressive forces for the success of their cause. Many are already becoming aware of the fact that the solidarity of the progressive forces on the scale of a given region or even a continent cannot be a substitute for broad international solidarity of these forces, and that this is of vital importance for the victory of the cause of social progress.

p The Communists are the most consistent advocates of this tendency of world development. They are aware of their responsibility to the world’s progressive forces for their solution of national tasks at home. This awareness of international responsibility has been growing despite various barriers and obstacles. There is also growing concern among the individual national contingents of the Communists in international 141 affairs, as otherwise it is hard and, in fact, impossible for them to fulfil their tasks within the national framework.

p Bourgeois propagandists are known to hate materialist dialectics, and claim that the national and international tasks facing the progressive forces do not blend. They seek to induce them to look to their national framework and to forget about international solidarity, which they claim to be a relict. They deliberately confuse the question of leadership of the world communist movement from one center and the question of international solidarity, of the unity of this movement on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is quite obvious that today it is no longer possible to run the world communist movement from a single center. That is a past stage. But the international solidarity of the Communist parties, their unity and cohesion on the basis of Marxism-Leninism is a demand of the times. The future belongs to this unity.

p The assertion of the principle of proletarian internationalism, which Marx put forward and scientifically substantiated, is taking place in the conditions of a fierce political and ideological struggle against the enemies of Marxism. That is why it requires that all Marxist-Leninist parties should constantly and persistently carry on organisational and educational work.

p Speculating on the various difficulties, the enemies of scientific communism have long and repeatedly tried to undermine this principle. They have refused to accept it as the expression of an objective historical tendency making its way in struggle against national narrowness, and have claimed that this principle is an artificial onf which will never be realised. But the historical tendencies of social development cannot be destroyed by any trick or dodge, because these tendencies are backed up by classes and parties, the real aspirations of the masses of the working people and their struggle for their vital interests.

In his young years, at the start of his practical revolutionary activity, Marx stressed that communist ideas alone would not help to destroy the private-property system. “It takes actual communist action to abolish actual private property,” he said. He was deeply convinced that “history will lead to it".  [141•85  This communist action has been developing in our day and embracing the whole globe. Millions of people have taken up the banner raised by Marx.

142