The present edition of the book Problems of the Communist Movement (the first appeared in 1975) has been revised to take into account more recent world events.
The 1970s have shown that the world communist movement continues to advance. Today, Communist parties are active in 94 countries. The revolutionary process is developing in accordance with the inexorable laws of history, assuming increasingly varied forms. Existing socialism, the socialist community, is achieving great successes in its socio-economic development. The many millions in the liberated countries are struggling against imperialism for a progressive path of development. In the strongholds of capitalism the bridgeheads of the class struggle are growing and the working-class democratic movement is gaining new ground. All these phenomena of the revolutionary process reflect not only objective laws, but also the growing determination and will of the masses to create a just community in which there will be no more wars, crises, exploitation of man by man, unemployment, suffering and privations, and all the working people will enjoy fully the fruits of the scientific and technological revolution.
The general crisis of capitalism continues to deepen. However, the old, historically obsolete, exploitatory system is mobilising reserves for its self-preservation. To this end capitalism is making use of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution and the strategy of adapting to the coexistence of the two world systems. After a number of failures of state-monopoly regulation and integration policy, transnational companies, the monsters of modern capitalism, 7 have come to the forefront of the international expansion of monopoly capital and economic neocolonialism. A widespread attack has been launched on the rights and interests of the working people in the capitalist countries. For this imperialism is combining police methods of open armed suppression of all forms of protest with profound social manoeuvres. At the same time an "information war" is being waged for the minds of the masses.
The spearhead of the imperialist counter-attack is directed against existing socialism. Each step forward by the forces of progress encounters massive counter-attacks by imperialism: whether it is the revolution in Portugal or the national uprising in Iran, the victory of revolutionary democracy in Ethiopia or the defeat of imperialist agents in Afghanistan.
Also characteristic are the subtle attacks of bourgeois ideologists against the great teaching of Marxism-Leninism, that reliable compass in the struggle for peace, social and national freedom. In recent years Marxism-Leninism has demonstrated its effectiveness, and not only in the socialist countries. It is a vital, creative teaching, constantly developed by the collective efforts of Communists all over the world. It contains a theoretical generalisation of the new facts and processes of the present day.
Bourgeois ideologists are trying particularly hard to argue that Leninism is not applicable to modern conditions. However, history shows convincingly that all the outstanding revolutionary events of the twentieth century are linked with the name of Lenin and his teaching. The Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V. I. Lenin" therefore states quite rightly that "Marxism does not and cannot exist without the new elements which Lenin contributed to its development. Leninism is the Marxism of the modern age, the united, integrated, constantly developing teaching of the international working class.'' For the modern international communist, working-class and national liberation movements Leninism is an inexhaustible source of revolutionary thought and revolutionary action. Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the 26th Party Congress delivered by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev says: "The main thing is that Communists, armed with the Marxist-Leninist teaching, see the essence and perspective of 8 the processes in the world more profoundly and more correctly than anybody else, and draw the right conclusions from them for their struggle for the interests of the working class, the working people of their countries, and for democracy, peace and = socialism.''^^*^^
The power and effectiveness of Leninism lie in its revolutionary-critical spirit, its constant creative development, its consistent and resolute defence of the fundamental principles of Marxism against opportunist distortions.
In face of Marxism-Leninism's misrepresentation and falsification by the anti-Communists and Right and ``Left'' revisionists and their attacks on that teaching it is of the utmost importance to draw attention to the Marxist-Leninist approach to the study and solution of basic and urgent theoretical problems of the world revolutionary process confronting the Communists of different countries today.
Marxist-Leninist method is a powerful and also a flexible master instrument enabling the Communists to determine and correctly explain the most effective ways for the socialist remaking of the world.
This book is an attempt to show the Marxist-Leninist approach to some problems of the contemporary communist movement on the basis of the Leninist ideological heritage and the experience of the CPSU and fraternal Communist and Workers' parties in politics and m the elaboration of theory.
The Leninist approach to the problems of socialist revolution and the world revolutionary process is characterised above all by taking into account the character of the age, combining the general and the particular, the national and the international, the subjective factor and objective conditions and laws, the concrete analysis of the situation at the global and national levels. Lenin emphasised: "The whole spirit of Marxism, its whole system, demands that each proposition should be considered (α) only historically, (β) only in connection with others, (γ) only in connection with the concrete experience of = history.''^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ L.~I. Brezhnev, Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Immediate Tasks of the Party in Home and Foreign Policy, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1981, p. 25
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol, 35, p. 250.
9The Communist parties of the non-socialist countries are searching for the most effective ways and means of the revolutionary transformation of society in the light of the concrete situation which has developed in the world over the last twenty-five years.
The socialist revolution is, first and foremost, the result of the deepening and aggravation of the antagonist contradictions of capitalism both within a given country and in the international arena. Therefore the starting point for the solution of urgent problems of revolution for Communist parties is an analysis of the changes in the objective conditions of the revolutionary movement in the capitalist world.
The substance of all the fundamental problems confronting individual Communist parties and the world communist movement as a whole is determined, above all, by the character of the present epoch as the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism on a global scale.
The Leninist method demands a precise definition of which class stands at the centre of any given period. In the present period it is the working class, the only class capable of leading the masses to the struggle for the revolutionary replacement of capitalism by socialism. This class is growing quantitatively and also changing qualitatively. It now possesses new experience, it is growing culturally, increasing its role in social development, its class self-consciousness.
The leading role of the working class in the modern age is expressed above all in the fact that led by it and its Marxist-Leninist parties the greatest revolution in the history of mankind, the October Socialist Revolution, took place, the first developed socialist society in the world has been built, and a community of like-minded states has been created.
It is not our purpose to analyse the internal processes taking place in the socialist world or the tasks of the Communist parties of the socialist countries. In this book we shall consider only one of the questions linked with the socialist system, namely, that system's influence on the world situation and on the revolutionary movement. It is quite apparent that this influence depends not only on the progressive character of the socialist system but also on the purposeful, planned actions of countries, parties and peoples, with the leading role played by the Communist 10 parties. The laws of socialism do not operate automatically. The road to the triumph of communism can only be cleared by immense organisational work, in the course of which innumerable obstacles are surmounted.
In the light of the present scientific and technological revolution one of the chief problems is that the system of economic management and social administration as a whole, including the forms of organising the creative work of the people, should be consonant not only with the achieved level of the productive forces but also with the modifications of the objective laws of socialist society as it enters a new phase of its economic and social maturity---the stage of developed socialism, the further advance of which to communism is already proceeding on its own basis, when the "repatterning of the totality of social relations on the collectivist principles intrinsically inherent in socialism is = completed''.^^*^^ The 24th and 25th Congresses of the CPSU charted a comprehensive programme for improving the system of administering the Soviet economy and society. Of fundamental importance for the carrying out of this programme is the resolution of the CC CPSU on the further perfection of the economic mechanism (July 1979). Unassailable evidence of socialism's superiority over capitalism in the management of socioeconomic processes and of the efficacy of this management is a powerful factor influencing the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries.
Under socialism a key subjective factor of society's revolutionary reconstruction is the work of the governing Marxist party, which has all the conditions to enable it to play an active role and lead society along the road to communism in accordance with Marxism-Leninism's scientific postulates and conclusions on the laws governing the development of socialist society. The Communist Party's role grows in parallel with the advance towards communism.
In the capitalist countries the Communist parties act on the postulate that though the existing system is doomed it will not perish automatically, that a revolution is needed to accomplish the transition from capitalism to socialism. A revolution takes place only under a definite combination of objective and subjective factors. Inasmuch as the material _-_-_
^^*^^ World Marxist Review, No.~12, December 1977.
11 conditions for revolution have matured in the capitalist world long ago, supreme significance is acquired by the subjective factor---the ability, readiness and determination of the people to wage a struggle with the aim of changing the existing system. In its turn this struggle depends on the condition and political mood of the masses and on the leadership given them by the revolutionary party of the working class.Both the subjective and the objective factors of the revolutionary process do not remain unchanged. One of the requirements of the Leninist approach to the analysis of the correlation of these factors is that the changes must be seen, carefully weighed and considered.
In this book we shall endeavour to show the methodological principles of the Leninist analysis of the changes mainly in the objective conditions of the revolutionary movement in the capitalist world. An analysis of current economic developments is the starting point for mapping out the strategy and tactics of the Communist parties. Our book therefore begins with a methodological analysis of some economic problems of the study of present-day capitalist society, problems that are of fundamental importance to the communist movement and its national contingents.
For Marxists the methodological basis for an assessment of modern capitalism is Lenin's analysis of imperialism's substance, specifics and development trends. The reason for this is by no means that nothing has changed since this analysis was made. On the contrary, capitalism has acquired many new features. Concentration of production and capital and the social division of labour have risen to a new stage on the national and global scale. State-monopoly capitalism has grown immeasurably. Imperialist integration has intensified. The socio-class contradictions and antagonisms of bourgeois society have deepened. But a salient feature of all these changes is that they present mainly the further development of the trends that were pinpointed and studied by Lenin. In Lenin's lifetime some of these trends were only emerging or were in their infancy---for instance, state-monopoly capitalism. Today they have become predominant trends. Besides, the basic laws of capitalism at its imperialist stage have not changed. They continue to operate.
In a study of imperialism it is particularly important and 12 vital to show the new level of aggravation and the new forms of the manifestation of capitalism's contradictions. This is the key to understanding the present changes in the economy of capitalism. The new forms in which capitalist contradictions manifest themselves today were analysed at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. They were characterised in the Meeting's Main Document: 1) "between the unlimited possibilities opened up by the scientific and technological revolution and the roadblocks raised by capitalism to their utilisation for the benefit of society as a whole'';
2) "between the social character of present-day production and the state-monopoly nature of its regulation'';
3) "the deepening of the antagonism between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial = oligarchy''.^^*^^
The first chapter of this book deals mainly with contradictions as the keynote of a study of imperialism, capitalism's general crisis and state-monopoly capitalism.
From their analysis of modern capitalism's contradictions the Marxist parties draw realistic conclusions that spur the struggle for socialism. The development of capitalism's general crisis is seen as an aggravation of its internal contradictions, as a struggle between the two social systems in the process of the worldwide transition from capitalism to socialism.
The second half of the 1970s was marked by a sharp aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism, expressed above all in the economic crisis of 1974--1975, the most profound in the whole of the postwar period, and in a number of structural crises of the world capitalist economy--- the energy, foreign exchange, food, and ecological crises. In spite of all the measures taken by state-monopoly capitalism, the rapid growth of inflation combined with an unemployment rate unprecedented since the Great Depression, i.e. the crisis of 1929--1930, has embraced the whole capitalist world. The crisis of the economic foundation of imperialism is combined with socio-political crises, crises of bourgeois morals and behaviour. A correct assessment of all these phenomena and their further development is extremely _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, Prague, 1969, p.~19.
13 important for the communist movement. Lenin's ideas of the general crisis of capitalism, later developed in the works of modern Marxists-Leninists, are of great methodological importance. Communists have never favoi ..-d underestimating the forces of imperialism, they have never predicted the "automatic collapse" of capitalism, realising that the revolutionary actions of the masses are essential for its destruction. But nor have they ever given way to pessimism when there was a temporary strengthening of the imperialist machinery of exploitation, a temporary establishment of the power of state-monopoly capitalism and the military and industrial complex which it has nurtured. All this is just a flash in the pan.A realistic assessment of the position of modern capitalism was provided by the 25th CPSU Congress, which noted that capitalism still possessed considerable reserves, but at the same time "capitalism is a society without a = future''^^*^^.
Imperialism has tried and failed to stem the tide of history. The sphere of capitalist domination is diminishing while the revolutionary working-class and national liberation movements are steadily gaining ground. For that reason, in order to maintain its domination, capitalism has to look for reserves, adapt itself to the new situation in the world and resort to subterfuges. This, of course, makes an imprint on the contemporary capitalist system. Capitalism is adapting itself under conditions witnessing the further deepening of its general crisis, this being a reflection of the new stage of the aggravation of capitalist contradictions and, at the same time, of world socialism's growing influence over the situation in the capitalist countries. In this context immense theoretical and practical interest centres on methodological problems such as the correlation of the external and internal factors behind capitalism's deepening general crisis, and the extent, depth and limits of the impact of the process of adaptation on the internal laws of modern capitalism.
With the question of capitalism's adaptation to the new situation is also linked the question of applying the Leninist approach to an analysis of contemporary state-monopoly capitalism. The Leninist method of determining the role and _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1976, p.~34.
14 place of state-monopoly capitalism in the replacement of capitalism by socialism is of particularly great importance to the revolutionary forces at the present stage of the revolutionary process: on the one hand, the intensification of monopoly rule and exploitation of the working people, chiefly, the working class, and, on the other, a step towards the further socialisation of production and the aggravation of capitalism's main contradiction, a new stage in its development, the last before the socialist stage. Precisely this aspect of present-day state-monopoly capitalism is mirrored in the programme documents of the Communist and Workers' parties, which constantly take it into account in their practical work.In recent years the problems of state-monopoly capitalism have attracted much attention from the Marxists-Leninists of different countries. Their views do not coincide fully on everything. There are sometimes attempts to ignore the Leninist theses on state-monopoly capitalism, to deviate from them, although reality is confirming them. On the other hand, there are a number of new elements in the development of state-monopoly capitalism which are being assessed by Communists from the Leninist standpoint.
Inasmuch as an analysis of the socio-economic basis of the revolutionary process is indispensable to the Communist parties in the formulation of policy, an inalienable part of this analysis is the translation of the theoretical conclusions in this sphere into the language of programme propositions and demands of the communist movement. The chapter devoted to economics therefore ends with a description of the Leninist approach to the elaboration of economic tasks in the programme documents of the Marxist parties.
The next few chapters give a methodological analysis of the fundamental problems of the Leninist theory of the socialist revolution today. Underlying this analysis is that unity exists between the objective and subjective factors of . revolution. Some readers might possibly find propositions with which they do not agree or which they regard as debatable. Here the authors acted on the principle that a study of the present revolutionary process must be creative. Without claiming that their conclusions are infallible, the authors sought to find a new approach to the new phenomena of our day. This attitude to theory is required by 15 the very spirit of Leninism, by the Leninist method of revolutionary creativity.
The Leninist methodological principles provide the key to the solution of the basic problems of the socialist revolution today. What are these principles?
They require, first and foremost, a strictly scientific analysis of the objective conditions for the revolution in a given country. Today it is a scientifically established fact that the material conditions- for the socialist revolution have reached a sufficient level of maturity throughout the capitalist system. But in individual countries there are glaring distinctions in the extent of this maturity.
Further, to this day it is necessary to take into account the Marxist-Leninist proposition that the revolutionary process passes through several intermediate and transitional stages. That this is inevitable was shown by Marx and- Engels. Lenin evolved the theory of the growth of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution and profoundly analysed all the conditions of this growth. This book presents the main methodological tenets of the Leninist theory and shows how important the Leninist approach to this question is for the contemporary revolutionary movement.
The key to many questions of the theory of revolution is given today by a study of the basic law of revolution and Lenin's approach to an analysis of the revolutionary situation and to the correlation of the objective and subjective factors contributing to the maturing of that situation. Lenin's approach to those questions envisages that some new factors of the revolutionary situation appear at the new stages of the revolutionary process. For instance, today a revolutionary situation may arise without the people being reduced to extreme poverty and suffering. In the industrialised capitalist countries the working class has achieved some successes in its struggle to improve its material condition. But although the living standard today is relatively high on average as compared with the past stages of capitalist development, the determination of the people to fight imperialism and reaction and change the existing social system may reach a crisis level and explode into a revolutionary situation.
In the capitalist countries political crises are frequently precipitated by political oppression, the tightening of dictatorial rule by the monopolies and anti-democratic 16 actions of reactionary governments. Besides, the factor of the material condition of the people can operate in a form su^h as the widening gap between the material possibilities of satisfying the requirements created by the productive forces, particularly by the scientific and technological progress, and the rigid limit placed on the satisfaction of these requirements by monopoly capital, by the laws of capitalist exploitation, and by the "incomes policy" pursued by the bourgeois state.
From the point of view of method it is extremely important that a revolutionary situation should not be regarded as a "gift from heaven" independent of the will and consciousness of the people. It is wrong to think that until such a ``heaven-sent'' opportunity affords itself there is nothing for the revolutionary to do. Through its activities the revolutionary party of the working class helps create a revolutionary situation. In this respect, the subjective factor is an element fostering the moulding of such a situation.
Lenin's ideas about the composition of the driving forces of the revolution, its political army and, above all, the ways and means of setting that army into motion are of topical significance to the revolutionary movement today. The authors have therefore not only enunciated the basic principles of Lenin's approach to the creation of the political army but also analysed the social mechanisms behind the revolutionary actions of the masses, classes and parties.
Lenin's propositions on the inspiring impact of communist ideals, his insistence that the Communist Party should always know the mood of the working class and study the people's state of mind, and his teaching on the relationship between spontaneity and consciousness and on the role and need for organisation are still of great importance to the Communist and Workers' parties.
The approach to the choice of a peaceful or violent means of accomplishing the revolution in a given country, the diversity of the forms of revolutionary activity and the need to master all these forms are major points of departure in the solution of the urgent problems confronting the Communist parties of the capitalist countries. In this book the authors analyse the content of the categories "ways of revolution" and "forms of revolutionary struggle" and show their unity and distinctions. They characterise the 17 methodological principles of the approach to determining the ways of accomplishing the revolution today. It is stressed that in deciding upon an orientation it is necessary to see in advance the entire road to the socialist revolution in a given country and not simply its next stage.
In view of the countless attacks of the anti-Communists and the revisionists on the Leninist teaching of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., on the political power oi the working class in alliance with other social strata of the working people in the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, and their attempts to ``remove'' this indispensable component of Marxism-Leninism from the contemporary revolutionary arsenal as ``obsolete'', it is imperative, in keeping with the Leninist method, to study the place anc! role, the forms and methods by which the working people led by the working class, exercise their power in th< present-day struggle for socialism, paying attention to all nev developments, the experience of the socialist countries and the concerted theoretical investigations of the Communist parties This is the position from which the problems of the proletarian dictatorship are considered in this book.
Today the theory of socialist revolution cannot be complete if it disregards the influence of world socialism on the revolutionary movement of the working class and on the national liberation movement.
Since the formation of the first socialist state world development has been determined by the struggle between socialism and capitalism. The study of the ways, forms and evolution of world socialism's influence on processes in the capitalist world is an urgent problem and has many aspects. With Lenin's method as their guide, the authors have attempted to give only a general characteristic of how this influence operates.
Lenin's teaching on the mounting role of the national liberation movement in the course of the revolutionary remaking of the world is the key to any analysis of the substance and significance of contemporary national liberation revolutions and their place in the process of the worldwide transition from capitalism to socialism.
Lenin's proposition on combining the struggle for democracy with the struggle for socialism and on the relationship between the concepts of democracy and socialism form an 18 inalienable element of the present-day revolutionary strategy and tactics of the Communist parties. This book, consequently, deals at length with the role and prospects of the contemporary anti-imperialist, democratic struggle and with the substance and content of the democratic stage of the revolution in the industrialised capitalist countries and of the national liberation revolutions. It shows the dialectics of the class and national factors in the revolutionary process, the relationship between the evolutionary and revolutionary course of development, and so on. In a volume of this kind these problems can only be delineated, for they are elaborated by the creative efforts of Marxists of different countries.
In recent years the militant enemies of Marxism have been particularly vehement in their attacks on the Communist parties, on the very principle of the vanguard role of the Communist Party in the revolution and in the building of socialism and communism. In this they are being rendered a great service by the revisionists, who in the postwar years have time and again attempted to steer individual Communist parties towards self-liquidation; bourgeois ideologists and propagandists endeavoured to carry out the second part of the task set them by monopoly capital and political reaction, namely, that of flinging mud and slander at the Communist parties in an all-out effort to discredit them. To this end they invented the theory of the ``elitarian'' character of the Communist parties.
In spite of everything, the communist movement has made steady headway, with the Communist parties growing stronger and playing an ever larger role in the transformation of the world. The defence of Lenin's teaching on the party, the application of that teaching in the new conditions and the study of Lenin's method of resolving these problems in keeping with the present situation form one of the cardinal tasks of theoretical work in our day. In recent years there has been no dearth of distortions of the true nature and role of the Communist parties, of arguments that they are no longer revolutionary or that-they have ``degenerated'' into a new "ruling class" in the socialist countries. A spur to arguments of this kind is sometimes given by the shortcomings and errors in the work of individual Communist parties, by the weakening of their position in the political life of a 19 given capitalist country as a result of long years of repressions. The reactionaries use the organs of coercion against the Communist parties and then tauntingly speak of their ``weakness''.
A Communist Party may sometime find itself in a weak position if it inadequately masters the Marxist-Leninist methods of maintaining links with the people and relying on them, or is unable to advance slogans that can draw the people into political activity. The Communist Party is the vanguard of the working people. It is the mobilising and guiding force of massive revolutionary action. The authors consider the significance of these propositions today in the context of Lenin's teaching on the Communist Party.
With Lenin's teaching as their point of departure they show that present-day internationalism is an inalienable characteristic of the Marxist party of the working class and an indispensable condition of the socialist revolution and the anti-imperialist struggle. They draw attention to Lenin's class analysis of the question of combining the struggle for national independence with the struggle for social emancipation, against any exploitation, and to his teaching on the relationship between these struggles. The principles of proletarian internationalism, as formulated by Lenin, include the ability to regard the victory over the bourgeoisie in a given country as part of the common victory of the world proletariat, to regard internationalism as a vital condition of success in the attainment not only of common but also of national objectives.
The Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe produced the following definition of internationalism in present-day conditions. It is "...internationalist, comradely and voluntary cooperation and solidarity on the basis of the great ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, strictly adhering to the principles of equality and sovereign independence of each Party, non-interference in internal affairs, and respect for their free choice of different roads in the struggle for social change of a progressive nature and for = socialism''.^^*^^
In recent years the world communist movement has amassed extensive experience of struggle for the unity of its _-_-_
^^*^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, Moscow, 1976, pp. 40--41.
20 national contingents. Unity is basic to the relations between the fraternal parties. The Leninist principles of struggle for the international unity of the communist movement, principles that have been enriched during the past few decades through the creative efforts of the Communists of all countries, are the means helping the world army of Communists to achieve greater cohesion in their ranks. In this book the authors characterise these principles and criticise their deliberate or unwitting distortion and misrepresentation.The concept of proletarian internationalism is acquiring new features with the development of the revolutionary process, although its basis remains unchanged. Its main point---at any given stage of development---is the understanding and performing of the Communists' internationalist duty, the organic link of national and international tasks and interests. The new features are determined primarily by the existence and development of the world socialist system, support of which is now one of the main principles of proletarian internationalism. What is new is that the concept of internationalism is being accepted by increasingly broad circles of revolutionary democrats, particularly in socialistoriented countries.
Naturally, with the increasing variety in the revolutionary process and an enhancement of the role of both the international and national tasks of the communist movement, the problem of combining the national and international is becoming both more pressing and more difficult. New conditions of class struggle occasionally produce the desire to proclaim a "new internationalism'', which in fact emasculates the very essence of this concept---internationalist duty, the duty of international solidarity of each national detachment of the communist movement. Therefore a clearly-defined Marxist-Leninist standpoint on the question of proletarian internationalism is particularly important in present conditions.
The second edition of the present volume is limited to the range of theoretical and methodological problems of the communist movement that were discussed in the first edition, based on the 1972 edition of the book in Russian. Naturally in the intervening period certain new problems have come to the fore. The struggle for detente and against the activisation 21 of its enemies has acquired major importance. Communist parties are being increasingly confronted with problems of their role in the struggle to solve in the interests of the masses the global problems of mankind, such as averting a new destructive world war, limited energy resources, and ecological phenomena. The methodological approaches to the working out of positions and programmes of action bv Communist parties on these questions are the subject of increasingly active special research by fraternal parties. But this subject is in itself beyond the scope of the present volume.
S.~Novoselov
[22] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ A Leninist AnalysisLenin had to study the system of capitalism half a century after the publication of the first volume of Capital. That alone makes unidentical the range of questions dealt with by Marx in Capital and by Lenin in his theory of imperialism. However, Lenin's points of departure in his study of imperialism are founded on the theory and method evolved by Marx. It is only by seeing that Lenin's theory of imperialism is the direct continuation and further development of the theory and method of Marx that one can understand the indivisible methodological unity and monolithic character of Marxist-Leninist political economy.
An exhaustive study of the capitalist mode of production enabled Marx to reveal that the capitalist system was historically limited and that it would inevitably be replaced by socialism. Capitalism, he wrote, was steadily preparing this replacement on a worldwide scale, first, by unceasingly centralising production and capital, with the result that the number of "magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of this process" steadily diminishes; second, by giving rise to the "international character of the capitalist regime'', in other words, by spreading the rule of these magnates of capital over the whole world; and, third, by the fact that under these historical conditions the "monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which 23 has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are = expropriated.''^^*^^
Marxism holds that social practice is the highest criterion of the correctness of theoretical views. For that reason a Marxist method of research of capitalism after the publication of Capital had to give a clear and profoundly substantiated answer to the fundamental question of whether the actual development of capitalism follows the course forecast by Marx on the basis of his theoretical analysis of the capitalist system.
Lenin's works on imperialism, particularly the book Im perialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, were, so to speak, a check of the correctness of the theoretical prediction of the fate of capitalism expounded by Marx in "Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation" in Volume One of Capital Marx's main conclusions are ``checked'' by Lenin with the historical reality of capitalism at the beginning of tht twentieth century. They determine the entire methodological texture of the work Imperialism, the Highest Stage o Capitalism.
This work has three clear-cut main sections.
The first embraces three chapters: "Concentration of Production and Monopolies'', "Banks and Their New Role' and "Finance Capital and the Financial Oligarchy''. These chapters consider new phenomena in a small group oi countries with the highest level of capitalist development, i.e., in the citadels of world capitalism. As Marx had assumed, in these countries the concentration and centralisation oi production and capital led to the concentration of power in the hands of a tiny group of magnates of capital, the financial oligarchy, which usurped and monopolised all the advantages of the process of socialisation springing from capitalism's historical development.
The second section of Lenin's study of imperialism likewise consists of three chapters: "Export of Capital'', "The Division of the World Among Capitalist Associations" and _-_-_
^^*^^ K.~Marx, Capital, Moscow, 1972, Vol.~I, p.~715.
24 "The Division of the World Among the Great Powers''. In these chapters Lenin brought to light the international network of "dependence on and connections of finance capital'',^^*^^ in other words, the internationalisation of the rule of the magnates of capital, the inevitability of which had been foreseen by Marx. On this point Lenin wrote: "At a definite stage in the development of exchange, at a definite stage in the growth of large-scale production, namely, at the stage which was attained towards the turn of the century, exchange so internationalised economic relations and capital, and large-scale production assumed such proportions that monopoly began to replace free = competition.''^^**^^Thus, succinctly, Lenin characterised the capitalist world economy under monopoly capitalism.
Lastly, in the third and concluding section of the book (Chapters VII-X) Lenin drew "together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of = imperialism''.^^***^^ After scrutinising all the individual economic specifics of contemporary capitalism and of its system as a whole Lenin distinguished the basic qualitative features of imperialism, showing that it was (1) monopoly, (2) decaying and parasitical, and (3) dying capitalism. These features were evidence that the knell of capitalist property was already sounding.
Thus, the foundations of Lenin's approach to the study of the system of monopoly capitalism and to the development of a structure for the theory of imperialism proceed from Capital and are, as it were, its historical and theoretical continuation from the moment when Marx stopped after predicting the inevitable, objectively conditioned development of the formation.
Marx was the first to reveal the inner laws of the capitalist economic system, cleansed of all alien influences. To this end he took in Capital an abstract land of ``pure'' capitalism, in which there existed only two classes---capitalists and their hired workers. This was the only possible strictly scientific method of understanding the actual economic laws of capitalism, its system, free of all political, economic and _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 240.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 104.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 265.
25 ideological influence from without. This methodology oj research raised the political economy created by Marx to the level of a true science on capitalist society.Lenin, however, examined not abstract, ``pure'' capitalism but concrete historical world system of the rule of monopoly capitalism. The sphere of Lenin's research included relations: 1) between monopolies and hired workers; 2) between monopolies and non-monopolistic entrepreneurs; 3) between the monopolies themselves on the basis of their struggle for the highest profits; 4) between monopolies and the state; and 5) between the monopolies and the enslaved peoples. Thus, Lenin not only took a new look at the content of political economy, but also worked out a methodology for studying complex economic reality.
The methodological axis of Lenin's entire research into the economic system of imperialism stands in bold relief. Lenin continued the study of the central theoretical problem of Capital---the accumulation of capital, the qualitatively new level reached by it at the turn of the century and the growth of its internal contradictions. In developing Marx's theory on this basis Lenin showed that in the leading capitalist countries the process of accumulation led to the appearance of industrial and bank monopolies, to the formation of finance capital and of the financial oligarchy. Domination by the financial oligarchy intensified the capitalist oppression of the masses, worsened the conditions of their life and heightened the economic and political struggle, in other words, it aggravated the contradictions of the accumulation of capital in the centres of world capitalism. This accentuated the overall instability of capitalist rule in capitalism's own citadels.
The need to ``resolve'' these contradictions, which are intrinsic to the process of the accumulation of capital, sharply intensified foreign economic expansion by big capital. Forms of this expansion specific to imperialism took shape: export of capital, the economic partitioning of the world, and an unremitting struggle for the direct (territorial) division and redivision of the world among a group of imperialist vultures. Monopoly capital thereby enlarged the sphere of capitalist exploitation to the scale of the entire capitalist world, thus giving rise to the capitalist world economic system, and, in particular, the colonial system of monopoly capitalism --- an instrument for the merciless robbing of 26 millions of people, for retarding their economic development, and for countless material and human losses.
However, on this road monopoly capital did not resolve the antagonistic contradictions springing from its rule. On the contrary, it made these contradictions global, inflamed them to bursting point and thereby made the revolutionary destruction of its system a practical necessity.
This methodological orientation of Lenin's study of modern capitalism dealt a crushing blow at the revisionist interpretations of imperialism as the epoch of the smoothing out of the economic and social contradictions of capitalism.
Lenin, in studying the process of the accumulation of capital by monopolies, examines, like Marx, the basic contradiction of capitalism in motion, in development up to the stage of the maturing of the prerequisites for the collapse of the obsolete system.
Marx's method required that phenomena should be studied not only in their development, relationship and quantitative changes but also in their movement from quantitative to qualitative changes. Lenin's study of imperialism centres on the "transformation of quantity into quality, of developed capitalism into = imperialism''.^^*^^
Hence the principal propositions of the economic theory and method of Karl Marx form the basis of the methodology of Lenin's study of imperialism. This creates a deep-going internal link between Marx's economic teaching and Lenin's theory of imperialism, and turns the entire political economy of capitalism evolved by Marx, Engels and Lenin into an integral science of capitalist society with a consistent orientation, content and method.
The difference in the economic systems as objects of study by Marx and Lenin gave rise to many essential features in the method of understanding imperialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Interpretation of the SubstanceThe interpretation of imperialism's substance is the cardinal problem of the science studying imperialism. This has been and remains the pivotal question of the struggle of _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 267.
27 Marxist theory against bourgeois and revisionist ideolog). , in the past, the ideologists of the old world seek to obscu this struggle. This has always been their principal objectr and all that has changed is their approach to it. In the struggle against bourgeois and revisionist misrepresentations of the substance of imperialism Lenin formulated a fundamentally new and genuinely scientific interpretation of this substance.Enlarging upon the teaching of Marx, he proved that as all other antagonistic systems capitalism has two qualitatively different stages of development---ascendent and descei dent---and that it had entered the second stage.
First, at the turn of the century there had been qualitative leap forward in the economy of capitalism. Th universal spread of monopolies in production, credits an., finances, as well as in all the principal areas of the international economy irrefutably demonstrated that the epoch of free competition had given way to the epoch of monopoly rule. "Economically, imperialism (or the 'era' of finance capital---it is not a matter of words),'' Lenin wrott , "is the highest stage in the development of capitalism, one in which production has assumed such big, immense proportions that free competition gives way to monopoly. That is th economic essence of imperialism. Monopoly manifests itself in trusts, syndicates, etc., in the omnipotence of the giant bankin the buying up of raw material sources, etc., in thr concentration of banking capital, etc. Everything hinges or. economic = monopoly.''^^*^^
Second, this conversion in the economy led to a switch t« political and ideological reaction.
The social, class substance and specific features of in perialism is that a handful of millionaires and billionaire forming the financial oligarchy rules the entire capitalit' world. "The political superstructure of this new economy, o monopoly capitalism (imperialism is monopoly capitalism), i the change from democracy to political reaction. Democrac corresponds to free competition. Political reaction corres ponds to monopoly....
"It is fundamentally wrong, un-Marxist and unscientific to single out `foreign policy' from policy in general, let alone _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~23, p.~42.
28 counterpose foreign policy to home policy. Both in foreign and home policy imperialism strives towards violations of democracy, towards = reaction.''^^*^^Imperialism was seen initially not in scattered, individual (mainly political) phenomena arbitrarily picked out from the general, actual pattern. It was marked out in its entirety as an unavoidable and normal result of social development, as an irreversible stage of capitalism's historical advance towards its inevitable doom.
Over half a century has passed since Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism was written and in that period there have been many changes in the economic relations of monopoly capital rule. These changes affect capitalism's political, legal and ideological relations. Essential changes have taken place also in the functions of the state superstructure of the countries ruled by monopoly capital. When Lenin was writing his study of imperialism these changes were only in their embryonic stage.
But whatever the changes that have occurred in modern capitalism, the immutable methodological foundation of the approach to understanding and interpreting them is given in Lenin's main propositions defining imperialism as a special, monopoly stage of capitalism. In the light of these changes the many theories that have been evolved after the publication of Lenin's brilliant work on imperialism with the aim of whitewashing modern capitalism are seen not in their camouflage attire but in their true class essence.
Indeed, if imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism, the epoch of monopoly domination, all the theories about capitalism's ``regeneration'' clearly pursue the objective of masking this domination.
If the state superstructure over monopoly capitalism is a weapon that the dictatorship of the monopolies uses ever more widely to safeguard and maintain the crumbling economic system, the system of domination by millionaires and billionaires, then all the bourgeois and liberal theories about the "people's'', ``supra-class'' and ``national'' functions of this state are a distortion and falsification of reality, an attempt to disguise monopoly domination. As Lenin had demonstrated, in theories of this kind politics are divorced _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p.~43.
29 from economics. The authors of these unscientific theories ignore the actual link between the economy and policies of modern capitalism and the theories themselves therefore owe their viability not to the fact that there is any truth in them but to the fact that they are badly needed by monopoly capital, which nurtures them, throws sops to their creators and disseminates them through its mammoth ideological and propaganda machine.In their attacks on the basic Leninist proposition that modern capitalism is the monopoly stage of capitalism, the bourgeois theorists have recourse not only to diverse means of directly camouflaging monopoly rule. They resort also to subterfuges, one of which is to erode the very concept ``monopoly'' in order to strip it of its basic content, namely, domination by the magnates of capital.
Marxist economic science rejects this interpretation of monopoly, showing what it really stands for. In the epoch of imperialism, monopoly (in its broadest and, therefore, relatively imperfect sense) signifies a level of concentration of economic power (in production, banking, trade, transport and all other spheres of business) enabling the financial oligarchy to impose on all the classes and strata of capitalist society onerous economic, political and other conditions that benefit nobody save the monopolists.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Definition of the ObjectOne of the main methodological problems is to give an accurate definition of the object of the theory of imperialism. There is widespread opinion that the object of Lenin's theory of imperialism was to show the substance of imperialism by laying bare its attributes.
This interpretation of the object of the theory of imperialism clearly limits the possibility of seeing new phenomena. Indeed, the substance or main content of imperialism took shape with capitalism's transition to its imperialist stage. It remains constant. Its features also arise with the transition to imperialism and become the most constant features of the latter. A theory whose object is solely to show the substance and features of imperialism inevitably 30 draws attention not to the changes taking place in imperialism but to its most constant aspects and is thereby doomed to lag behind developments.
The substance of imperialism is only part of the object of theory of imperialism. One of the great services rendered by Lenin was that he threw light on the system of monopoly, finance capital rule, i.e., the mode of the movement of substance.
In order to clarify the question of the object of the theory of imperialism it would be best to look for the answer to it in the works of Lenin. In a foreword to Bukharin's pamphlet The World Economy and Imperialism, written when he was working on Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin reproached Plekhanov for having broken completely with Marxism by reducing the scientific concept of imperialism to an expletive instead of making an "analysis of the essential properties and tendencies of imperialism, as the system of economic relations of modern highly developed, mature and rotten-ripe = capitalism''.^^*^^ When Lenin drafted the overall plan for the book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, he put together the materials dealing with the economic attributes of imperialism under a general heading: "Economic Analysis (Principal Relations of Production)".^^**^^
However, in his book, which was intended for the lay reader of pre-revolutionary Russia, he avoided using special scientific concepts such as "relations of production" and "system of relations of production''. Instead of "features of the relations of production" under imperialism he preferred to use terms such as "economic features of imperialism''. It was not his intention to list or characterise these features, feeling that J. A. Hobson had given "a very good and comprehensive description of the principal specific economic and political features of = imperialism".^^***^^ Lenin's aim, which was beyond Hobson on account of his limited, petty-bourgeois world outlook, was to ascertain the "connection and relationships between the principal economic features of = imperialism''.^^****^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~22, p.~103.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 39, p. 242.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 195.
^^****^^ Ibid.
31Lenin used an uncommonly harmonious method for his study of imperialism. In the first six chapters of his work he divided the system of monopoly capitalism into separate, interrelated parts, each of which represented a type of monopoly. In each of these chapters he used a two-phased method, the first phase dealing with the history of the given type of monopoly and the second with how this type of monopoly affords the financial oligarchy the possibility for subjugating society, and with the economic relations of exploitation engendered by it.
The study thereby covers the entire field from the history of the rise of monopoly, finance capital to the constantly changing mobile mechanism of its supremacy, to the process of its steady ``perfection''. This makes Lenin's work of inestimable methodological value for research into modern imperialism.
Lenin's postulate that the system of monopoly capitalism does not eliminate free competition is of special methodological significance today. "Nowhere in the world,'' he wrote, "has monopoly capitalism existed in a whole series of branches without free competition, nor will it = exist.''^^*^^ A scientific analysis of this ``combination'' of monopoly and free competition is exceptionally topical, for experience indicates that "it is this combination of antagonistic principles, viz., competition and monopoly, that is the essence of imperialism, it is this that is making for the final crash, i.e., the socialist = revolution''.^^**^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Ultimate Goal of StudyIn the foreword to the first volume of Capital Marx wrote that the ultimate goal of his work was to "lay bare the economic law of motion of modern = society''.^^***^^ In keeping with Marx's method Lenin marked out monopoly, finance capital as the dominant part of the total social capital, and showed the specifics, laws and contradictions of its _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 168.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 465.
^^***^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 20.
32 movement. They are not inherent in small and medium capital. To this day these principles may serve as the methodological foundation for understanding the system of imperialism. They include:1. Monopoly capital reproduces itself as the exclusive and dominating part of the total social capital in opposition to all the other classes and strata, including the non-monopoly bourgeoisie.
2. The process of the reproduction of monopoly capital relies not only on free competition inherited from capitalism but also on a series of new economic and extra-economic methods of appropriation that are inaccessible to small and medium capitalists.
3. Monopoly capital creates new sources of enrichment, likewise inaccessible to small and medium capital, by pillaging the entire nation, thus bringing to bursting point the contradictions between the social character of production and the capitalist form of appropriation, and engendering new ways in which capitalist appropriation manifests itself.
4. In the process of its reproduction monopoly capital unavoidably gives rise to, new motivations for foreign economic expansion.
Monopoly capital ranges beyond national boundaries and acquires an international character. Thus, under imperialism the internationalisation of the capitalist regime, foreseen by Marx, receives its greatest opportunities for development within the framework of the capitalist system. This is the foundation on which the world imperialist system takes shape. Lenin traced the international movement of finance capital and the mode of its reproduction on a world scale in the epoch of imperialism.
He showed the internal contradictions springing from the accumulation of finance capital in the metropolises, how these contradictions were ``resolved'' at the expense of other peoples, and explained the objective laws and contradictions of this mode of their movement. From this analysis he deduced that imperialism's world economic relations were the weak link of its system.
Lenin was the first person in the history of the science to prove that world inter-imperialist wars are a specific form of the movement and ``resolution'' of the contradictions of the imperialist economic system. The present arms race in the 2 --- 660 33 countries of monopoly capital is also produced largely by the inner contradictions of its rule.
Lenin's study of the economic system and contradictions of imperialism provided the unshakeable theoretical and methodological foundation of the new theory of world revolution.
First, Lenin proved that in the epoch of imperialism the working people of all the countries of the capitalist world have a common main enemy---the ruling section of the bourgeoisie, its elite, i.e., the financial oligarchy of the imperialist powers.
Second, as a result of the economic and social contradictions of the financial oligarchy's worldwide rule imperialism brings to life two revolutionary fronts: the front of the socialist revolutions in the metropolises and the front of the national liberation revolutions in colonial and dependent countries. The reciprocal link and support of these fronts is a major condition of the common struggle and victory.
Third, the existence of a common enemy---the financial oligarchy---of all the working classes and strata of bourgeois society creates the conditions for a new decision of the problem of the proletariat's allies and fellow-travellers. The prerequisites have arisen to form an anti-monopoly alliance of all the social segments oppressed and exploited by the handful of millionaires and billionaires.
Fourth, the fact that the revolution cannot triumph simultaneously in all the countries of the capitalist world exploited by the financial oligarchy and the inevitable gradual dropping out of individual countries from the capitalist system give rise to the objective need for an historical epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, of an epoch of decisive revolutionary battles between the old, moribund world gripped by a general crisis and the young socialist system that is replacing capitalism.
Fifth, the gradual dropping out of individual countries from the chain of imperialism leads to the formation of the paramount revolutionary front consisting of socialist countries that comprise the centre of the world revolution and the mainstay of all the progressive forces of modern society.
Lenin's method of studying imperialism thus made it possible to reveal its substance, laws and contradictions and 34 arm the proletariat with a new theory, strategy and tactics of revolution applicable in the specific conditions of imperialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The General Crisis of CapitalismThe subject of the theory of the general crisis of capitalism is the sum total of the phenomena of the decline and degradation of the capitalist system in all social spheres of capitalism---its economy, politics, ideology, morals, etc. In studying imperialism, Lenin discovered the main initial cause of the decline of the capitalist system---the replacement of the predominance of free competition by the rule of monopoly capital. In his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin showed that this rule had been established in all spheres of the economy of highly developed capitalist countries throughout the whole world. Monopoly capitalism is rotting, moribund capitalism. The imperialist World War Of 1914_1918 was historically the first evidence of the profound degradation of the imperialist system and its attempt to solve its economic and social contradictions by armed force. A most important manifestation of the beginning of the collapse of the capitalist system, which is still of great significance, was the withdrawal of tsarist Russia from the capitalist chain. "The First World War and the October Revolution ushered in the general crisis of capitalism,'' says the CPSU Programme.
For the first time in the history of the science Lenin studied the essence of the general crisis of capitalism, the main forms of its manifestation and its place in the historical process.^^*^^ In accordance with Lenin's conclusions, the general crisis of capitalism is the disintegration and beginning of the downfall of its whole world system, its collapse under the blows of socialist revolutions, the beginning of a new age of _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 386--87; Vol. 27, pp. 403, 499; Vol. 29, pp. 58--59, 100--101; Vol. 33, pp. 498--99.
35 world development---the age of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. The general crisis of capitalism is one of the most important processes taking place in this age. It manifests itself in a variety of forms and is not a single act, but a whole series of different crises, their constantly changing sum total. This crisis is the "irreversible decline of = capitalism'',^^*^^ which combines its disintegration "from within" with action on it "from without" by the countries of victorious socialism and the peoples of former colonial and now liberated countries. Being the extreme degree of aggravation of all capitalist contradictions on a global scale, when they have already begun to be solved in a revolutionary way, the general crisis of capitalism is characterised by their further all-round aggravation, particularly in connection with the fact that the material prerequisites essential for socialism have already matured in society. The general crisis of capitalism is developing amid the coexistence and struggle of two social systems---socialism and capitalism.Ever since the victory of the October Revolution two contradictory processes have been taking place in the history of human society. At one end of the scale, in the socialist countries, a new society is growing and flourishing. At the other, in the capitalist countries, the system's contradictions are deepening and its general crisis developing. Its underlying socio-economic cause is, first and foremost, that capitalism as a system has become "mature and overmature'', that it has "outlived itself" and "has become the most reactionary hindrance to human = progress''.^^**^^ The development of capitalism on the basis of all its laws, and particularly the establishment of the monopolies' rule, has led to this position. It has ensured important measures in the preparation of the material prerequisites for socialism and also led to increased oppression of the working class, the broad mass of the population, by capital.
The manifestations of the general crisis of capitalism, its depth and concrete historical forms are not eternal and immutable. At different stages of its history there arise new elements in the general crisis, but the old ones do not disappear. The phenomena of the general crisis are not _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p.~12.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 517.
36 random, transitory, but of a structural nature. Once having arisen, they can disappear only with the disappearance of capitalism, although the intensity of the manifestation of each of them depends on the historical conditions of the functioning of the capitalist system. Therefore in any given concrete historical situation this or that set of phenomena of the general crisis may come to the fore.At the end of the 1920s, for example, certain processes in the world capitalist economy came to the fore among the economic manifestations of the general crisis. There began the rejection of free international trade and the transition to state regulation of it, to bitter trade wars. The "gold standard" collapsed. As a result of this international basis for comparing expenditure on production of goods was lost, which set in motion the collapse of the capitalist foreign exchange system. The Second World War, started by German fascism, was a most obvious manifestation of the crisis of the world capitalist system. It resulted in the defeat of the powerful forces of German, Japanese and Italian imperialism. Its outcome was also connected with the transition of a number of new countries to the path of socialism and a considerable weakening of capitalism in the world in which it had formerly held sway. It became impossible to keep the enslaved peoples under colonial rule. These processes constituted an exceptionally important set of phenomena of the decline of capitalism as a result of the war.
The methodologically primitive interpretation of the general crisis of capitalism as a period when only crisis processes are taking place in the capitalist world is incompatible with Marxism-Leninism. In the capitalist economy the productive forces are growing, the scientific and technological revolution is developing, and the level of the satisfaction of the material requirements of a section of the working people rises at times in the technically advanced countries.
The elaboration of a special theory of the general crisis of capitalism is no accident. The theoretical studies by Marx and Lenin proved the objective inevitability of the degradation of the capitalist system and its collapse. Therefore the phenomena of the progressive decline of capitalism confirm the soundness of the Marxist-Leninist theory, its ability to foresee the future and orientate the working people 37 correctly. Another consideration is equally important. The deeper and more many-sided the development of the general crisis of capitalism becomes, the harder for the masses and the more dangerous for the whole of mankind are the ways and methods applied by the bosses of the capitalist world to prolong the existence of their system. Both these factors make the elaboration of the theoretical and methodological problems of the general crisis of capitalism a matter of special importance and urgency.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Present StageThe Leninist interpretation of the general crisis of capitalism is diametrically opposed to all premises on the stagnation of the productive forces and expecting the exploitatory society to collapse automatically. It takes account of not only objective processes, but also the actions of the subject of the revolution---the working class and the masses, and is thus aimed at activising the revolutionary potential of the masses and the revolutionary parties. In the sixty-odd years that have passed since the October Revolution life has brought much that is specific into the history and theory of the general crisis of capitalism. As it grows deeper in each of its main ``parameters'', new qualitative features appear.
They include, first and foremost, important shifts in the balance of forces between capitalism and socialism, a territorial narrowing of the sphere of supremacy of the capitalist mode of production, the drop in its share of the world = economy,^^*^^ and the increasingly obvious discrediting of its very foundations and principles. Further, they include the spasmodic development of the crisis of the colonial system, its disintegration under the blows of the national liberation struggle, and, finally, the complete collapse of the colonial system, the setting up of new independent states, many of which in some way or other are outside the imperialist orbit. They include the upsetting of the economic balance of capitalism and a peculiar set of crisis phenomena in its economy. The next point is the aggravation and, one might _-_-_
^^*^^ The socialist countries' share of world industrial production has risen from 27 per cent in 1955 to 40 per cent in 1977.
38 even say, explosion of inner class antagonisms and contradictions, and socio-political upheavals in the various capitalist countries. Finally, they include the aggravation of old and appearance of new trends in inter-imperialist contradictions.All together these qualitatively new features provided the methodological criteria for the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in 1960, when it noted the advent of a = new,^^*^^ third stage in the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, which began during the late 1950s.
It is distinguished from preceding stages by the fact that "...it has set in not as a result of the world war, but in the conditions of competition and struggle between the two systems...''^^**^^ With the emergence of socialism capitalism ceased to exist as a self-contained system, the movement of which was determined solely by its own laws. All the subsequent history of capitalism has been influenced by the growing socialist system. The nature of this influence is not immutable. After the October Revolution Soviet Russia, which was still economically weak, influenced mainly the minds of the working people in the capitalist countries, inspiring them by its example in fighting = capitalism.^^***^^ By the period of World War II, the socialist country, now much stronger, was able to make a decisive contribution to the military defeat of the most aggressive imperialist forces. The growth of its might saved many peoples from downright destruction. In the post-war period the influence and attraction of the world socialism have increased even more. The socialist system has shown a remarkable stability both economically and politically and has taken a tremendous step forward in all spheres of social life. A developed socialist society has been built in the Soviet Union, and is in process of construction in a number of other countries. The constant attempts of imperialism to thwart the development of this or that socialist country have failed, even with the use of _-_-_
^^*^^ Its first stage was from the beginning of World War I to the beginning of World War II; its second, from the beginning of World War II to the mid-1950s. See: The Struggle for Peace, Democracy and Social Progress, Moscow, 1963, pp. 43--44.
^^**^^ Ibid.
^^***^^ The influence of socialism on the revolutionary movement in modern conditions is examined in Chapter Three.
39 military force by the strongest imperialist state, as was the case in Vietnam. Socialism has proved capable of attaining wide recognition in the world of new, just and humane principles of international relations. The socialist system has become the decisive factor in world development.The influence of the socialist system extends to the most varied spheres of life in all countries of the world. The achievements of the peoples of the socialist countries are a powerful stimulus in the struggle of the peoples of the liberated countries for social reorganisation on the basis of justice, and inspire the working people of the capitalist world to the struggle for overthrowing the power of the exploiters. Socialism curbs the features of capitalism most hostile to man, forcing the capitalists to make concessions to the working people out of fear at the growth of their revolutionary activity. By its influence socialism cannot, of course, change the nature of the capitalist system, its inner laws, the content and development of its inherent contradictions. It is the very nature of capitalism, which cannot be eliminated as long as capitalism exists, that leads to the aggravation of all its political, economic and ideological problems. It is not the "threat of armed intervention" by socialism in the affairs of capitalist states, invented and widely propagated by the defenders of imperialism, but the development of the general crisis of the capitalist system that is leading inexorably to the weakening and revolutionary destruction of capitalism by the very peoples of these countries.
In recent years the global conflict between imperialism and the liberated countries has entered a new phase. The abolition of the colonial system in its classical forms has been completed. With the victory of People's Republic of Angola the last old colonial empire, the Portuguese disappeared from the face of the earth. But it is not just a matter of the collapse of the old colonialism. Neocolonialism and the whole system of economic relations between the imperialist and developing countries are in a state of crisis. Having freed themselves from colonial oppression, the peoples are now struggling for independent political and economic development, to gain control of their country's natural resources. Many liberated countries choose socialist orientation. This is one of the main factors of the current aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism.
40The growing economic instability of the capitalist system is without precedent in the whole postwar period. Capitalism is showing its inability to overcome the structural crises in its economy, to solve urgent global economic and ecological problems on its own basis. New phenomena are being revealed in the course of the economic cycle when the drop in production and the growth of unemployment are combined with the uncontrollable rise in inflation. The cyclic and structural economic crises are developing into a general instability of the economic system, into major upheavals in the world capitalist economy.
In general, in the long term, economic growth continues in the capitalist world. However, it is still more uneven and leaplike. Alongside it the decay of capitalism accelerates, which is most evident in the rapid increase in military expenditure, the production of new types of mass destruction, and the nonproductive utilisation of material resources. The economic growth rates of the capitalist countries do not bear comparison with those of the socialist economy: from 1970 to 1977 industrial production in the developed capitalist countries rose by 27 per cent compared to 73 per cent in the socialist countries.
The strategy of trying to adapt to changed conditions, to the growing influence of world socialism and revolutionary forces, and to the demands of the scientific and technological revolution, which is carried out with the help of state-monopoly capitalism, is not only failing to deal with capitalist contradictions, but actually leading to their aggravation.
The aggravation of the general crisis, the growth of economic instability has affected all the major countries of developed capitalism. This limits the freedom of manoeuvre of imperialism in the world arena. And, conversely, the influence of the crisis situation both on the economy and on politics is increasing sharply. The activity of the international monopolies and the growing competition on world markets are promoting the spread of crisis phenomena all over the capitalist world. At the same time a kind of "levelling up" of the capitalist countries' economy is exacerbating the uneven, leap-like nature of their economic and political development. The spread of the economic crisis processes of the 1970s to the developing countries has increased social tension and also 41 intensified the struggle for economic independence, for just world economic relations.
The class struggle in the capitalist countries has entered a new phase, when not only in the developing, but also in the capitalist countries socio-political crises are snaking the whole system to the very foundations, threatening the rule of monopoly capital. At the same time it is a period in which new social and political forces are joining the struggle against imperialism and mass anti-imperialist demonstrations are taking place. The present period in international affairs is characterised by the growing struggle against the threat of a new world war, for detente and a strengthening of peaceful coexistence between states with different systems. In this sphere the peace-loving forces have won certain victories, which are consolidated in the Helsinki and other documents. But aggressive imperialist forces seek to invalidate these achievements and undermine detente. The struggle for peace and disarmament, against militarism has today become one of the main factors determining the trend of economic and political world development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Many-Sided Nature of the CrisisAll these new factors in the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism have sharply increased the economic and political instability of capitalism. Not only Marxists, but also bourgeois ideologists and politicians admit that in the 1970s capitalism suffered numerous and varied setbacks. These include: cyclic economic and major socio-political crises in individual countries, energy, foreign exchange, raw materials, food and ecological crises, etc.
As a rule bourgeois ideologists regard these crises as unconnected phenomena and do not link them with the profound contradictions in the capitalist mode of production. Marxists, however, analyse their general roots and causes and see them as manifestations of the laws of capitalism, in general, and its present stage, in particular.
In spite of the different levels and types and the large number of crises in the capitalist countries, we are fully justified in assessing the sum total of these crises as a complex, composite, all-round crisis. It does indeed embrace 42 all spheres of life: the economy, socio-class relations, the bourgeois state and its policies, the whole system of power of bourgeois society, its intellectual life and international relations.
The general crisis of capitalism is now manifesting itself in specific forms that correspond to the new stage of deepening and aggravation of all the contradictions of the capitalist system. This crisis, which is developing unevenly, is organically linked with global processes of the development of society: the progressive change in the balance of world forces in favour of socialism, peace, democracy, social and national freedom; the development of the scientific and technological revolution; the growth of the internationalisation of economic and social life; the high degree of maturity of the material and socio-political prerequisites for socialism throughout the world.
A detailed description of the present crisis of capitalist society was given by Leonid Brezhnev at the 25th CPSU Congress. He pointed to the combination and intertwining of a whole number of capitalist contradictions and crisis processes. Among them, first and foremost, the economic crisis that has developed in recent years and is the most profound and acute since the crisis of the early 1930s, They are also such setbacks in the world capitalist economy as the foreign exchange, energy and raw materials crises. He emphasised the role of inflation in aggravating the crisis processes. It was noted in particular that the crisis had affected the highly-developed state-monopoly economy. The dual nature of the results of capitalist regulation of the economy was pointed out: on the one hand, it made it possible to stimulate economic growth, and on the other, it led to a further aggravation of the contradictions of capitalism. There is an even greater intensification in new forms of inter-imperialist competition, the main trends of which today are the struggle of the three "power centres"--- the USA, Western Europe and Japan. The role of the monopolies in making competition more acute is growing. Reformist and bourgeois ``myths'' about the ability of modern capitalism to do away with crises have been completely invalidated. Capitalism is demonstrating the total futility of attempts to heal its incurably sick organism and to create within its framework a "welfare society''. No less 43 important are the social manifestations of the crisis: rising prices and falling incomes, the rapid increase in the number of unemployed and semi-employed. The ideological and political life of bourgeois society is in a state of profound crisis. In recent years such curses of bourgeois society as corruption at all levels of the state machinery and widespread, uncontrollably growing crime have become particularly evident. The socio-political aspect of the crisis is expressed in the intensification of the struggle of the working class against big capital, in the upsurge of the strike movement and the participation in it of the most varied strata of the working population.
An interesting feature of socio-political development in the capitalist world during the 1970s is the growth of the power, authority and influence of the working class in the masses, the enhancement of its "role of the vanguard in the struggle for the interests of the working people, the true interests of the nation...'' and "the growth of the influence of Communist Parties in the capitalist = world....''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Imperialist StrategyIn a study of present-day capitalism one of the cardinal methodological problems is that of the relationship between capitalism's internal and ``external'' factors linked with the struggle between the two systems, with the world revolutionary process as a whole.
Among Marxists a generally accepted viewpoint is that the development of the capitalist economy can no longer be studied solely from the angle of the internal laws of the bourgeois system, that today capitalism must be analysed as an aspect of the epochal struggle between the two systems. It is necessary to study how the actual forms of capitalist economic management change under the influence of that _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, pp. 34, 36.
44 struggle and how the operation of capitalism's internal economic laws intertwines and combines with the new factors stemming from the world revolutionary process.Of immense methodological importance in this context are the documents of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. As L. I. Brezhnev noted at that Meeting, the "growth of socialism's might, the abolition of colonial regimes, and pressure by the working-class movement increasingly influence the inner processes and policies of = imperialism''.^^*^^ After its hegemony in the world economy had been broken and after it had lost its colonies and its military supremacy, imperialism could not remain unchanged. The forms in which its laws and its contradictions operate are likewise changing.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Struggle of the Two SystemsThe course for mankind's advancement is steered by the world socialist system and all the other forces opposed to imperialism. For that reason in analysing capitalism the influence of these forces on the capitalist economy cannot be left out of consideration.
The method for this approach to the study of the laws of capitalism, a.method under which modifications of these laws are examined with account of the influences of the forces opposed to the bourgeois system, had been worked out by the founders of scientific communism. Marx and Engels had exhaustively delved into the role played by the struggle of the working class in the modification of surplus value and in the transition from its absolute to its relative form. They rejected the Lassallean "iron law" of wages, which ignored the impact of the class struggle on the condition of the working people. Marx showed the immense impact of the working-class movement, notably of the struggle for a ten-hour working day in England, on capitalism's economic development and particularly on technological progress.
To this day the antagonism between labour and capital remains the main inner class contradiction of capitalism. But _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 141.
45 at the same time it developed into a much broader contradiction, into a contradiction between socialism and capitalism on a global scale.Ever since the October revolution the interaction, reciprocal influence and struggle between existing socialism, embodied by history's first state of the working people, and the capitalist system, still predominant in a greater part of the world, has been the pivot of world politics. In 1920 Lenin pointed out that the relations among the peoples, in the entire world system of states, were being determined by the struggle of the Soviet states against imperialism, writing: "The Communist parties, in civilised and backward countries alike, can pose and solve political problems correctly only if they make this postulate their = starting-point.''^^*^^
With the growth of socialism's might the impact of the struggle between the two systems on world politics began to be increasingly supplemented and reinforced by the mounting influence of that struggle on the world economy. As the struggle between them proceeds capitalism and socialism mutually influence each other's economy. But in each system this influence exhibits a different tendency. Capitalism's influence on the economy of socialism tends to weaken gradually. One of the aspects of this influence is the enormous burden of expenditures on defence that socialism has to bear in face of imperialism's aggressive forces. For a long time the Soviet Union had to postpone the solution of many social problems, even to limit the rate of growth of the living standard in order to ensure its defence capability. To this day it has to channel vast resources towards military purposes, especially since it bears the main burden of the responsibility of ensuring the reliable defence of the entire socialist community. However, the USSR's economic potential has grown to the extent where, in parallel with the implementation of this task, it is securing a substantial rise in the standard of living and is able to allocate considerably more funds than before for the development of agriculture, the light and food industries, the services, culture and education.
The countries of the socialist community are now able to eliminate most of the negative elements linked with the _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 241.
46 influence of capitalist factors. In this they rely on the colossal growth of the might of the USSR and the entire socialist community and on the expanding cooperation among themselves.The weakening of capitalism's influence on the development of the socialist economy by no means signifies any diminution of the role played by the economic competition between the two systems in world development. On the contrary, this role is steadily mounting. Neither does it signify any weakening of the economic relations of the socialist countries with the non-socialist world. The strengthening of the socialist community's economic independence and the weakening of the delaying influence of imperialism and its policies on the economic growth of socialism foster the expansion of these relations and enhance the benefit that the socialist countries derive from them.
Socialism's influence on the capitalist economy began to be felt immediately after the October Revolution. However, for some time this influence was relatively limited on account of the specifics of the ``route'' of the revolutionary process and by virtue of the fact that initially the socialist revolution triumphed mainly in the ``outskirt'' area of the world capitalist system---in countries with a medium and low level of development that economically were considerably behind the leading imperialist powers.
Today the economic impact of socialism has grown substantially and acquired a new quality springing from the far-reaching changes that have taken place in the world as a result of the headway made by the revolutionary forces.
The achievements of the USSR and some other socialist countries have turned the region of the socialist community from an ``outskirt'' zone of the world economy into one of the latter's most powerful industrial, scientific, and technical centres. This has made the problem of maintaining capitalism's position in the economic, scientific and technical competition between the two systems of crucial significance to the monopoly bourgeoisie.
The socialist and national liberation revolutions have shattered the system of the world's territorial partition that had been set up by imperialism at the turn of the century. The downfall of the colonial empires, the mounting struggle of the young national states for economic independence and 47 the expansion of their relations with the socialist countries are heavily hitting the capitalist world economy, dealing increasingly telling blows at the position of the monopolies exploiting the developing states, leading to drastic changes in the system of the export of capital and powerfully influencing the economy of the former metropolises.
Another point that must be taken into consideration is that the territorial narrowing of the markets controlled by imperialism and the simultaneous shrinkage of the possibility of redividing these markets by wars between capitalist countries are intensifying the economic rivalry between the imperialists.
The successes achieved by existing socialism are helping to enhance the efficacy of the struggle of the working class in the imperialist citadels themselves. This political factor is evolving into a weighty economic force. The concessions that the working people have wrested from the bourgeoisie after the Second World War have greatly influenced the course of capitalist reproduction.
Lastly, additional channels through which socialism influences the economy of capitalist society are created by the failure of the policy of economically isolating socialism pursued by the US-led imperialist camp and by the expansion of trade relations and scientific and technical cooperation between the CMEA countries and a number of capitalist states.
All the processes determining the present course of capitalist reproduction are being influenced in one way or another by the struggle between the two systems.
Above all, this concerns the scientific and technological revolution, which is one of the principal factors behind capitalism's postwar economic upsurge.
The historical specific that makes the scientific and technological revolution a fundamentally new social phenomenon is linked not only with the qualitative changes in the key branches of science, technology and production but also with the significant changes in the relationship between the scientific-technical and socio-economic spheres. One of the< key features of the scientific and technological revolution is that as distinct from the preceding revolutions in the implements of production, which represented an exceptional form of the development of bourgeois society's 48 productive forces, it is taking place at a time when capitalism has lost its monopoly in the development of science and technology and the revolution itself becomes one of the decisive areas of the worldwide struggle between socialism and capitalism.
The central mechanism through which the political influence of the revolutionary process turns into economic factors is the economic activity of the bourgeois state. The struggle between the two systems has given a powerful impulse to the process of etatisation, that has long been developing under monopoly capitalism, and to the evolution of the economic function of the bourgeois state.
Bourgeois society has never before witnessed such largescale and purposeful efforts as are currently being made by capitalism to strengthen its economic and political positions. In face of the powerful pressure from socialism and all the other revolutionary forces, imperialism is compelled to introduce substantial changes into the forms and methods of its economic management. In its endeavour to adapt itself to the new situation in the world the international bourgeoisie is working out and trying to enforce a manifold state-monopoly strategy.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Basic Orientations of the State-Monopoly StrategyIn the socio-economic sphere the bedrock of the imperialist strategy of adaptation consists of attempts to make bourgeois relations of production more ``elastic'' with the aid of state-monopoly measures in order to use the present scientific and technological revolution in the interests of big capital and, at the same time, soften the economic and social upheavals precipitated by scientific and technological progress in bourgeois society. This is the basis from which imperialism is striving to answer the challenge of the new social system.
What are the main orientations of the strategy of adaptation?
One of these orientations is state stimulation of scientific and technological progress. The state allocates huge funds for the promotion of research, experimentation and design. 49 Initially this state-monopoly policy was, to all intents and purposes, almost entirely subordinated to militarist aims. However, as socialism gained strength it became increasingly obvious that the problem of preserving capitalism could not be resolved by starting a thermonuclear war, and more attention began to be given to other aspects of the scientific and technological competition between the two systems (space programmes, a sharp increase of the allocations on education, and so on).
The second orientation is the so-called anti-cyclic policy. Attempts have been sharply stepped up to stabilise capitalist economic development and increase the annual growth rate of industry. A series of state-monopoly means of regulation have been worked out in the hope of diminishing the scale of the crisis declines of production and "smoothing over" the cycles. Many countries have begun to introduce state programming of the economy in the interests of big capital.
Third, state-monopoly strategy pursues the aim of economically ``cementing'' the system of military and political alliances formed by the USA. The acceleration of the integration processes, the steps taken to coordinate foreign trade and currency policies and the attempts to agree on a reciprocal lowering of tariff barriers and ``liberalise'' trade are directed towards uniting the "nationally exclusive imperialisms" for the sake of the global class aims of international capital.
Fourth, neocolonialist measures, including so-called aid to developing countries, have been set in motion. Imperialism is combining concessions, reforms and undisguised military and political pressure in order to achieve the dual purpose of continuing to exploit, in new ways, the countries that have shaken off the chains of direct colonial oppression and perpetuating capitalist practices in these countries in order to keep them within the orbit of the imperialist system.
Fifth, diverse social tactics have been worked out and employed in imperialism's own citadels. Relying on the additional resources acquired through the appropriation of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution and pursuing a "stick and carrot" policy, the monopoly bourgeoisie is unremittingly trying to ``integrate'' the working-class movement with the capitalist system.
50It would be a mistake to understimate the scale and efficacy of the state-monopoly strategy of adaptation. The revolutionary forces have a dangerous adversary, whose economic and technical potential is not shrinking but increasing. As was pointed out in the Central Committee report to the 24th Congress of the CPSU, the "monopolies have been making extensive use of scientific and technical achievements to fortify their positions, to enhance the efficiency and accelerate the pace of production, and to intensify the exploitation and oppression of the working people.''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Capitalism's Economic Growth and DecayThe employment of new levers of state-monopoly regulation and stimulation has speeded up scientific and technological progress in the imperialist countries and led to a certain rise of the average annual rate of industrial growth in the 1960s. The apologists of the capitalist system have used these facts to propound a theory claiming that the new productive forces called to life by the scientific and technological revolution were ``improving'' bourgeois social relations. But while bourgeois scholars and politicians were inclined to regard capitalism's stepped-up economic growth of the 1960s as evidence that it had regained its former dynamism and was acquiring strength, Marxists have always seen the facade of the "economic miracles" of bourgeois society as hiding the deep-seated processes undermining the foundations of that society and hastening its decay. "...The hidden destructive forces inherent in the capitalist economy are still operating,'' it was pointed out in the Central Committee report to the 23rd Congress of the CPSU, "and ... it will not escape further upheavals.'' This forecast has been fully borne out by developments.
In their attempts to refute the Leninist propositions on imperialism's place in history and its inevitable doom, the apologists of the bourgeoisie invariably have recourse to falsification, attributing to Leninism views that are totally alien to it. As their point of departure they assert that as _-_-_
^^*^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, p. 20.
51 seen by Marxism-Leninism the decay and decline of capitalism mean the ``stagnation'' of the productive forces. Insofar as there has been a growth of these forces, the adversaries of Leninism argue that the theory that capitalism is dying and that its revolutionary replacement by socialism is inevitable is no longer consistent with the actual course of events.Marxist-Leninist science considers decay as inalienable feature of capitalism, which has entered its monopoly stage. But this by no means signifies stagnation. The substance of Lenin's approach is expressed briefly as follows: "Rate of growth and over-ripening... (their compatibility). `Decay' and birth of the = new.''^^*^^
Of the two trends that have intertwined under imperialism---one of which is linked with the monopolies and slows down technical and all other progress, and the other, linked with competition, fosters rapid technical and economic growth---the upper hand may be gained by any one of them in a given country or industry at a given stage. However, as Lenin had noted time and again, this does not signify that decay will necessarily manifest itself in capitalism's economic decline. He made it clear that decay does not rule out the rapid growth of = capitalism.^^**^^ More, in analysing the specifics of imperialism in the USA where at the outset of the 20th century it developed faster than in other capitalist countries, Lenin stressed that it was precisely due to swift development that the "parasitic features of modern American capitalism have stood out with particular = prominence''.^^***^^
As formulated by Lenin, the question of the decay of capitalism is founded on a strictly scientific analysis of the laws governing the development of bourgeois society. This is one of Leninism's basic distinctions from the petty-bourgeois ``romantic'' criticism of imperialism and from the "emotional socialism" of such adversaries of capitalism who, in their condemnation of the imperialist system, cannot rise above emotional accusations.
The close link between the growth and decay of capitalism springs from the fundamental features of the imperialist stage of capitalism's development. At that stage the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 39, p. 239.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 300.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 301.
52 socialisation of production reaches such a level and the objective need for the transition to economic planning on the basis of social property becomes so apparent that the preservation of the ``integument'' of capitalist relations of production irreversibly leads to its parasitical degeneration.Scientific and technological progress, the concentration of production and other changes in bourgeois society's productive forces ultimately intensify the decay of its deep-rooted foundations. "It is clear,'' Lenin wrote, "why imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism: monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism. The tremendous socialisation of labour by imperialism ... produces the same = result.''^^*^^ The question of imperialism's decay is linked directly with the problem of the objective economic and subjective political factors of capitalism's death and replacement by socialism. Lenin noted that "no revolt can bring about socialism unless the economic conditions for socialism are = ripe''.^^**^^ Capitalism, he wrote, "itself creates elements of the new system''. On the other hand, however, he pointed out, "without a leap" "these individual elements change nothing in the general state of affairs and do not affect the rule of = capital''.^^***^^ Without the revolutionary overthrow of the old social order, these elements, forming the material prerequisites of socialism, cannot turn into real socialism.
Through the progress of the productive forces society's economic foundation ripens for socialist changes, and although monopoly capitalism uses various ways and means--- social manoeuvres, reformism in the working-class movement or terrorist dictatorships---to delay the abolition of the bourgeois order, the accumulation of elements of the new, scientific and technological progress and the achievements in the organisation of production inevitably accentuate the parasitical ulcers and centres of decay in the social organism.
The use of scientific and technical achievements in the interests of the monopolies acquires new and more glaring forms. This is seen, first and foremost, in the swelling of the military-industrial complex, which has reached its largest _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 107.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 359.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 16, p. 348.
53 dimensions in the USA. Today even people far removed from Marxism acknowledge that militarism has hideously deformed the entire economic structure, that it disfigures economic and social development in the USA, giving that country a "garrison economy'', that it has led to a fantastic squandering of resources and has heavily hit the people's standard of living.Needless to say, decay is not confined to militarist forms. The gigantic scale of parasitical consumption by the bourgeois elite, while poverty governs the life of tens of millions of people of the "other America'', the all-pervading corruption, the growing crime and drug-addiction, the gangsterism in politics, the spiritual degradation and the moral filth characterise capitalism and are seen in bold relief in its main citadel.
The apologists of imperialism spoke a lot about a new ``cybernetic'', ``technotronic'' capitalism, of a new harmonious "post-industrial society'', which, they claim, is being built on the basis of unprecedented technological progress. Actually, in the hands of big capital machines are a force that have deepened the social vices of bourgeois society to such an extent that today even many of that society's champions have to admit that it is a sick society.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Crisis of the Strategy of AdaptationWhereas at the close of the 1950s and the early 1960s the use of various state-monopoly levers enabled capitalism to muster its resources to a certain extent, speed up the rate of economic development and accelerate scientific and technological progress, in the 1970s we see the accentuation of the economic and social contradictions that accompany stepped-up development on a state-monopoly foundation. In the late 1960s capitalism entered a new phase of its postwar development---a long period of considerable deterioration in conditions of reproduction by comparison with the preceding twenty years. Essentially speaking, we are witnessing a serious aggravation of the internal contradictions of the entire system of state-monopoly capitalism and a crisis of its strategy of adaptation to the new conditions in all its main areas.
54Capitalism of the 1970s is characterised by the joining and intertwining of crisis processes of a cyclic nature with diverse crises of a structural order that extend beyond the framework of the current situation, i.e., monetary crisis, energy crisis, ecological crisis, and the profound social crisis.
With regard to the cyclic crises of over-production, in the 1970s they led to more frequent declines in industry than before, both in the United States and in the other centres of the capitalist world.
The slump of 1969--1971 affected the United States, Italy and a number of other countries. In the course of its development the Bretton Woods capitalist monetary system, based on the undivided monopoly of the dollar, collapsed. A general turning point in the postwar development of capitalism became obvious.
Even more serious in its consequences was the economic crisis of 1974--1975, which extended to all the main capitalist countries simultaneously and proved to be the most profound economic crisis of the postwar period. "It is characteristic,'' Leonid Brezhnev pointed out at the 25th CPSU Congress, "that a crisis of such force should afflict the highly developed state-monopoly economy which emerged in the postwar period. Capitalism did its utmost so to speak, to keep in step with the times, to apply various methods of economic regulation. This made it possible to stimulate economic growth, but, as the Communists foresaw, could not remove the contradictions of = capitalism.''^^*^^
A new slump, the third in the 1970s, began to develop in the United States in the middle of 1979. These increasingly frequent crises have shown clearly that the bourgeois states have by no means mastered the course of economic development, have not become the ``conductors'' of this development. As the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the 25th CPSU Congress states, ".. one of the main myths created by the reformists and bourgeois ideologists has collapsed---the myth that present-day capitalism is able to avert = crises.''^^**^^
The following figures testify to the change in the average annual production growth rates in the capitalist countries: _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 33.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 34.
55 the average annual production growth rates in industry of all the developed capitalist countries were 5.4 per cent in 1951--1973, and only 1.9 per cent in 1974--1978. During this period the average annual growth of industrial production in the United States dropped from 4.3 to 2.3 per cent, in the Common Market countries from 5.7 to 1.0 per cent, and in Japan from 12.0 to 1.2 per cent.But increasingly frequent declines in production are only part of the picture. The most interesting fact is that even when the cyclic crisis decline is replaced by a certain recovery and even a slight rise in production, the economic situation in general remains so tense and unstable that it can also be called a crisis situation. This is determined, primarily, by a combination of two such terrible evils of capitalism as mass unemployment and constant inflation. The number of officially registered unemployed in the United States has risen from 2,800,000 in 1969 to 6,326,000 in 1978. In Japan it has risen from 590,000 in 1970 to 1,260,000 in 1978. In the four largest Common Market countries together (Britain, France, West Germany and Italy) the average annual figure of officially registered unemployed has risen from 1,632,000 in 1970 to 4,818,000 in 1978.
In a number of countries mass unemployment is not resolved even when there is economic upsurge. It is now obvious that the promises of the capitalist leaders to ensure full employment were pure buff. The bankruptcy of capitalist leaders' statements that they could control inflation has also become evident. As before the ruling class is seeking to place the full burden of the economic difficulties on the working masses, which leads to harsh socio-economic consequences. In a number of capitalist countries, first and foremost, the United States, workers' wages have been frozen for long periods and even reduced since the late 1960s. The magazine U.S. News and World Report stated that although the nominal wage of the average American worker with a wife and two children doubled between 1967 and 1977, his real income remained the same. A considerable portion of the increase in nominal wages has been taken up by taxation, but the most of it has been "devoured by inflation'', devaluation of the dollar.
Thus, the colossal progress of the last decade in the development of science, technology and social production has 56 resulted in the capitalist world, and particularly in the United States, in further deterioration of the life of the working people. Today it is becoming obvious to more and more people that in bourgeois society the fruits of scientific and technological progress are not enjoyed by those whose hands create the wonders of modern technology. As Leonid Brezhnev pointed out in his report to the 25th CPSU Congress, "The promises to make capitalism 's'ounder' and to 'create a 'welfare society' within its framework have obviously failed. A heavy burden has fallen on the = masses.''^^*^^
A characteristic feature of the crisis of the state-monopoly strategy of adaptation is the derangement of the system of regulation within the imperialist countries, which manifests itself, in particular, in the serious failures of capitalist economic policy. This policy, the purpose of which was once proclaimed to be the control of inflation and ensuring of full employment, has not only failed to achieve both these aims, but has got lost in a labyrinth of phases of ``strengthening'' and ``weakening'' of governmental price control and is now totally discredited.
Ever since Keynes the system of state-monopoly regulation has been based on the idea that alternating state stimulation of demand when the market is weak and unemployment high with anti-inflationary measures when the economy is ``overheated'' is an effective way of manoeuvring between the ``Scylla'' of inflation and the ``Charybdis'' of unemployment. When, however, inflation and unemployment began to rise simultaneously, this apparently "well-tested method" proved ineffective. Bourgeois economic thought has reached an impasse.
Whatever sphere of economic life and economic relations of the capitalist countries is examined today, one finds extreme instability, a crisis situation. These processes are most strongly affecting the position in the sphere of capitalist international ecomic relations, the capitalist world market.
The unevennes of capitalist economic development is increasing. Between 1960 and 1978 the United States' share of the industrial output of the capitalist world dropped from 41.9 to 37.3 per cent. Over the same period the Common _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 34.
57 Market countries' share also dropped from 30.9 to 25.7 per cent, whereas Japan's increased from 4.8 to 9.4 per cent.The struggle between the three main centres of capitalist competition, the United States, Western Europe and Japan, is becoming more acute. Traditional forms of interimperialist rivalry are being complemented by the struggle for leadership in scientific and technological development, for qualified scientific and technical personnel, etc. A trump card of the US monopolies is the high technological level of production. However, the United States' competitors have recently taken active steps to catch up in technology. In the productivity growth rates the United States is now way behind Japan and the West European countries.
The current state of the world capitalist economy is characterised by a huge balance of trade and payments deficit, by uncontrollable crises of the dollar and other currencies, and the growing trade war. There is increasing confirmation of Lenin's idea that no matter how the imperialists seek to join forces in the struggle for common class aims, the internal strife between them is insuperable.
The 25th CPSU Congress stressed that the "greater power of the international monopolies has made the competitive struggle still more ruthless. The governments of capitalist countries are making repeated attempts to moderate the contradictions and come to terms on joint anti-crisis measures. But the nature of imperialism is such that each endeavours to gain advantages at the expense of others, to impose his will. Differences surface in new forms, and contradictions erupt with new = force.''^^*^^
In recent decades the antagonism between imperialism and the developing countries has deepened even more. The international monopolies are seeking to gain control of the industrialisation of the developing countries and to use it in their own interests. The imperialists are attempting increasingly to create a new type of bondage for the developing countries by locating in them those forms of production which are most labour- and raw-materials-intensive and liable to pollute the environment. Branches of the international monopolies in the developing countries are being assigned the role of specialised departments which are technologically _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, pp. 33--34.
58 highly dependent on the mother companies. A kind of "technological neocolonialism" is emerging.The gap in the levels of economic development of the imperialist and developing countries continues to widen. Whereas in the early postwar period the ratio between them in terms of gross output per head of the population was 1:10, by the late 1970s it had risen to 1:14. This is the result of the neocolonialist policy of imperialism, its aggressive actions to preserve reactionary regimes, its policy of economic and financial diktat, blackmail and provocation.
At the same time there is an activisation of the forces struggling for complete national liberation. The tendencies towards economic liberation and an increase in the degree of control by the national state over its economy are growing. In the 1970s in the developing world there was a wave of nationalisation of foreign assets in the sphere of extracting raw materials, and today the natural resources of the developing countries are for the most part in their hands. This has introduced some important changes in the position of the developing countries on the world capitalist market and in a number of cases made it possible not only to resist imperialist pressure, but also to strike some most appreciable blows at imperialism. Leonid Brezhnev's report to the 25th CPSU Congress emphasised: "It is quite clear now that with the present correlation of world class forces the liberated countries are quite able to resist imperialist diktat and achieve just---that is, equal---economic = relations.''^^*^^
The deterioration of the economic situation in the world capitalist economy and the aggravation of the currency and trade war are enflaming the clash between the developing countries and imperialism. In this area, too, the state-monopoly strategy of adaptation has demonstrated its internal contradictions and historical untenability.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ State-Monopoly CapitalismIf an attempt is made to find common denominator for the multiform combination of crisis developments in the capitalist economy of the 1970s it will be found to consist _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 16.
59 mainly of the state-monopoly system's inability to curb the deeply-entrenched forces of market anarchy. In its efforts to adapt itself to the new situation capitalism used (as none other were available to it) means and methods that could only remove some of the restrictions on capitalist accumulation and somewhat expand the markets, but all these means and methods inevitably accentuated the glaring inconsistency between the present level of the productive forces and the character of the bourgeois relations of production.One sometimes hears the view that modern capitalism and its policies are directed more towards the achievement of political aims than the safeguarding of capitalist profits. But this is largely an artificial and unjustified argument. Of course, capitalism's long-term political interests frequently come into collision with the economic aims of various groups of monopoly capital. But it is also a fact that monopoly profit is the common denominator and concentrated expression of the end purpose of all of state-monopoly capitalism's direct or indirect measures to promote monopoly accumulation and concentration or to safeguard the system of capitalist economic management.
At the same time, a certain duality underlies the system of monopoly capitalism itself and reflects the blend of contradictory elements---monopoly and competition, planning and anarchy, purposeful political action and market chaos.
Lenin had noted that the combination of contradictory elements---monopoly and competition---was essential to imperialism. This combination, he wrote, was leading to collapse, i.e., the socialist = revolution.^^*^^ Internal contradictions and duality were by no means whittled down by the accentuation of capitalism's state-monopoly character. While giving prominence to the monopoly-lauded elements of planning, regulation and ``organisation'' in the capitalist economy and seeking to place them in the service of the international bourgeoisie's global and long-term political aim, state-monopoly strategy constantly nourishes, strengthens and rears those, to use Marx's expression, "furies of private interest" that in their drive for the largest profit and in their ``internecine'' struggle break up the regulating system of _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 465.
60 governments and give licence to the forces of anarchy of production and circulation.One of the principal results of the application of the various means of state-monopoly strategy is the unparalleled growth of the level of private-capitalist concentration.
In the 1960s and 1970s the merging of the monopolies into supergiants, the creation of colossal international monopoly production and financial complexes, a process that had been described by Lenin unfolded in full force. The vast majority of these complexes, frequently called "transnational'', are controlled by definite national monopoly groups, notably by the leading monopolies in the USA.
To further their expansion the supermonopolies rely on a wide range of state levers and, at the same time, create autonomous international systems of domination, i.e., private-capitalist empires, and aspire to restrict interference by national systems of state economic regulation, above all, in countries where they have daughter enterprises and also in their own countries. This situation is observed principally in periods of high business activity, when the capital and profits of the supermonopolies grow swiftly, while the need for protective or rescue actions by the state temporarily recedes.
A distinctive feature of recent years has been the marked re-privatisation of the export of capital, chiefly in the industrially developed zone of the world capitalist economy. Lately, there has been a considerable shrinkage of the share of state investments, especially in the developed capitalist states. Here, as in other areas, state-monopoly measures vitalised private-capitalist initiatives. This circumstance determined the extreme acuteness of the clash between elements of regulation and anarchy in the sphere of international financial relations. The combining and intertwining of two types of monopoly planning---state-monopoly regulation in a national framework and private-monopoly regulation in the framework of the international and ``transnational'' complexes, has resulted not in the ``abolition'' but in the growth of the destructive forces of the market.
Needless to say, it would be wrong to overestimate the scale of the present economic upheavals in the capitalist world. The imperialist leaders have learned the lessons of the crisis of the 1930s and are aware that any repetition of that 61 catastrophe would today be tantamount to the downfall of capitalism. They will unquestionably resort to new means and to new levers to avert such a course of events. Moreover, it should not be considered that where objective factors are concerned the state-monopoly strategy of adaptation has exhausted all its resources.
On the other hand, capitalism's economic difficulties cannot be regarded as transient. They are evidence of the deep-going crisis of the entire capitalist system.
Today the most noteworthy feature of the deepening of capitalism's general crisis is the growth of acute socio-political conflicts in the imperialist countries.
The leaders and ideologists of the capitalist world believed that by using state-monopoly methods of regulating the relations between labour and capital, by combining a policy of social manoeuvring and individual concessions with a policy of repression they would achieve durable political stability and ensure ``tranquillity'' on the home front.
Marxists-Leninists have always seen the futility of attempts of this kind. Today practice itself has shown that the strengthening of the state-monopoly character of capitalism and the appropriation of scientifk and technical achievements by the monopolies inescapably aggravate the contradictions between labour and capital and lead to ever more violent social upheavals and to a further upswing of the class struggle.
Even at the close of the 1960s, when the economic situation was relatively favourable, large clashes took place between the working class and other democratic forces, on the one hand, and the state-monopoly system in France and Italy, on the other; a broad anti-war movement unfolded in the USA, and there was a stormy wave of strikes in Britain.
Today the socio-political situation in the imperialist countries is growing steadily more tense as the monopolies seek to shift the entire burden of economic difficulties to the shoulders of the working people. There are more and more signs that some of the developed capitalist countries are entering a period of their greatest class battles that may lead to fundamental social changes.
62 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. State-Monopoly Capitalism __ALPHA_LVL3__ Monopoly Capitalism's EvolutionThe problem of state-monopoly capitalism is one of the central issues of the economy and policy of contemporary capitalism. State-monopoly processes are among the principal objective preconditions of the socialist revolution today.
Advanced by Lenin, the theory of state-monopoly capitalism is an outstanding contribution to the development of Marxist economic science. Although Lenin observed only the initial phase of the formation of the system of state-monopoly capitalism he drew and proved the conclusion that monopoly capitalism was evolving into state-monopoly capitalism. He saw this process as the merging and fusion of the forces of the monopolies with the forces of the state into a single mechanism.^^*^^ In defining the class character of statemonopoly capitalism he made it clear that the fusion of the monopolies with the state pursued the objective of saving the foundations of the capitalist system and ensuring profits to the financial oligarchy. He regarded the conversion of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism as one of the basic trends and laws of the development of imperialism. Underlying it is the objective process of the development of the capitalist mode of production and the aggravation of all of its contradictions under new conditions.
Lenin studied the conditions for the development of state-monopoly capitalism, showed that this development was inevitable and characterised the main forms (personal union, state property, state regulation of the economy, and so on) and factors that were speeding up the growth of statemonopoly capitalism at the beginning of the 20th century. He laid bare two aspects of state-monopoly capitalism, showing that it is not only a means of saving the capitalist system but also the threshold of = socialism.^^**^^ By exacerbating the contradictions of imperialism to bursting point, state-- _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 403.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 359.
63 monopoly capitalism prepares all the material conditions of socialism, speeds up the maturing of the subjective factor and creates new conditions for the struggle of the revolutionary forces. These tenets underlie the policy of the Communist parties today.In view of Lenin's immense contribution to the elaboration of the theory of state-monopoly capitalism one cannot agree with the assessments that have been given on this question in some Marxist publications. Today more than ever before the developed capitalist countries are countries where monopolies hold absolute power. Their role is growing constantly. And the bourgeois state is increasingly fusing with the monopolies, expressing the collective interests of monopoly capital and defending them. Herein lies the theory of state-monopoly capitalism, created by Lenin as part of his teaching on imperialism. The fraternal parties stress that a deviation from Leninism in assessing state-monopoly capitalism can cause great harm to the revolutionary struggle. In some studies devoted to the theory of state-monopoly capitalism the authors underrate Lenin's role in the elaboration of the theory of state-monopoly capitalism to a ``brilliant'' guess. This is a belittlement of the historic role played by Lenin and of his contribution to the development of Marxist economic theory. It is, of course, incumbent upon Marxists-Leninists to study the new trends in the development of state-monopoly capitalism, but in so doing they must be guided by the general methodological foundations that had been worked out by Marx, Engels and Lenin. In the study of the current problems of state-monopoly capitalism Lenin's theory of state-monopoly capitalism is the point of departure.
Under capitalism's general crisis, particularly at its present stage, the evolution of monopoly capitalism into statemonopoly capitalism acquires a number of new features. Its rate is sharply increasing. State-monopoly capitalism embraces ever broader spheres of social production, circulation, distribution and consumption. As was emphasised in the CPSU Central Committee's Theses 50th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, "modern capitalism is, above all, state-monopoly capitalism, which is adapting itself to the conditions of the struggle between the two world systems''. The further enhancement of the state-monopoly character of modern capitalism was noted in the Main Document adopted 64 at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in June 1969. "It,'' the Main Document stated, "resorts ev«r more extensively to such instruments as state-stimulated monopolistic concentration of production and capital, redistribution by the state of an increasing proportion of the national income, allocation of war contracts to the monopolies, government financing of industrial development and research programmes, the drawing up of economic development programmes on a country-wide scale, the policy of imperialist integration and new forms of capital = export.''^^*^^
The fusion of the monopolies with the state has entered a new stage where state-monopoly capitalism is becoming the predominant force of the economy and policy and one of the major conditions of reproduction in the bourgeois world. This stage is characterised by the high maturity level, breadth and permanence of state-monopoly relations. The monopolies fused with the state are becoming the economic foundation of modern capitalism.
The overwhelming majority of the monopoly associations have a large and ramified network of links with the bourgeois state apparatus. Personal unions between the monopoly elite and the state have become extremely widespread. Mixed companies, the number of which has considerably increased in recent years, are a classical example of the fusion of the private monopolies with the state. Today most of the private monopolies take part, in one form or another, in mixed companies together with the state. This point is illustrated by the bank monopolies in many West European and other capitalist countries. Most of them are mixed enterprises and serve the interests of the private monopolies, which contribute capital, use the resources of the banks to extend accumulation and have accounts in them.. The monopolies make use also of purely state property, which, as a result, acquires a state-monopoly character. From state-operated enterprises they receive cheap raw materials, power, and services. The mechanism of state-monopoly capitalism plays an immense role in ensuring the monopolies with labour, in controlling the conditions of _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 18.
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 3 --- 660 65 the sale of labour, in regulating the use, training and retraining of labour, and so on.The mechanism of state-monopoly capitalism has acquired considerable importance in financing the monopolies (through the budget, the tax system, the conditions of plant depreciation and other specific channels). As a result, in the leading capitalist countries the state-monopoly mechanism accounts for approximately one-third of the investment of the monopolies.
The state plays a big role in the promotion of science. In the USA, for example, the state budget finances 63--64 per cent of the research, in France 63 per cent, and in Britain 57 per cent. This growth of state financing is due not only to the regular increase of expenditures on theoretical fundamental research but, to a large extent, to the militarisation of science. As a rule, in countries with a relatively smaller volume of output for military purposes and correspondingly a lower, than, for example, in the USA, level of the militarisation of science, the state's share in the financing of research and - development is substantially smaller (40.4 per cent in the FRG, 33.1 per cent in Italy, and 27.8 per cent in Japan).
The state market is exceedingly important to the functioning of the monopolies. Many, chiefly military, monopolies work almost entirely for that market. Boeing, for example, sells nearly 70 per cent of its output in the state market. The fusion of the monopolies with the state is seen in the boldest relief in the broad development of the system of economic programming. In some countries, the monopolies today sign special agreements with the state under which they are granted privileges in the development of production, foreign trade expansion and so forth.
As a result, the state-monopoly mechanism has become an inalienable part of the reproduction of monopoly capital.
The fusion of the monopolies with the state inevitably engenders changes in finance capital, too. As Lenin had foreseen, finance capital is acquiring a state-monopoly character and "imperialism is gradually transforming all trusts into organisations of a similar = type''.^^*^^ A stratum consisting of the higher state bureaucracy is appearing in the _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 426.
66 financial oligarchy. The top-echelon official becomes an independent monopolist through the concentration and centralisation of capital with the use of diverse methods and mainsprings. The most important of these mainsprings are family ties with the oligarchal dynasties and the use of the resources of the state apparatus.The conversion of individual representatives of the nonmonopoly bourgeoisie into top-ranking executives, of whom some manage to become independent members of the oligarchy, does not change the character of the capitalist system. Schooled by many years of service, these people undergo an evolution themselves, becoming agents of finance capital or members of the oligarchy, to some extent changing the form but not the substance of modern capitalism.
Fused private-monopoly and state capital is becoming the predominant factor in the decisive areas of present-day capitalist reproduction. The financial oligarchy is acquiring a state-monopoly character and becoming the principal enemy not only of the working class but also of all the other classes and non-monopoly strata of capitalist society.
The process of the fusion of monopolies and the bourgeois state begins with the appearance of monopolies and varies in intensity and scale depending on its historical stage. Having emerged as a tendency, state-monopoly capitalism is now the main content of present-day capitalism, of which the monopoly fused with the bourgeois state has become the economic base. Here one must stress the contradictory nature of the historical development of state-monopoly capitalism. The line reflecting this development, particularly in the case of individual forms of state-monopoly capitalism, is by no means straight. But for all the zigzags and deviations, conditioned by the extreme variety and complexity of the factors influencing the development of statemonopoly capitalism, the fusion of the monopolies and states is a continuous one.
It takes place, firstly, because the growing socialisation of production provides the deep basis of the fusion process. The state-monopoly level of socialisation is the maximum possible under capitalism. The development of the productive forces, accelerated by the scientific and technological revolution, inevitably leads society to a higher level of socialisation.
67The fusion process develops uninterruptedly also because its mainspring is the aggravation of the main contradiction of the capitalist mode of production and of capitalism's other socio-economic contradictions. The state-monopoly mechanism develops as a means for the temporary and partial settlement of some of capitalism's contradictions. But it cannot remove these contradictions, with the ultimate result that it becomes a new form of their development.
Lastly, the fusion process is inevitably speeded up by the changes in the conditions for the class struggle on the world scene and in the capitalist countries. The struggle between the two systems, world socialism's evolution into the decisive factor of historical development and the upswing of the working-class and national liberation movements are powerful accelerators of state-monopoly processes. With the very existence of capitalism at stake, the mechanism of integration with the state becomes for the monopoly bourgeoisie the last means of preserving the capitalist system. This accentuates the irreversible character of the development of statemonopoly capitalism.
But this does not mean that with a change in the situation the monopolies cannot abandon some specific forms of the state-monopoly mechanism (for instance, denationalise some sectors of state property when their operation becomes more profitable, and so forth). But these partial measures will not affect the foundations of the process. Capitalism is unable to reverse the objective course of history; it cannot renounce state-monopoly capitalism. The system of state-monopoly capitalism can only be swept away by the struggle of the working class and other strata of the population.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Present Phase of the DevelopmentThe present stage of development of state-monopoly capitalism is being formed under the influence of the crisis of capitalist society of the 1970s, which has greatly aggravated the development of modern capitalism.
On the one hand, the 1970s have become a border-line, demonstrating the limits of the effectiveness of statemonopoly regulation of the economy. On the other, in this period capitalism has also continued to search for new forms 68 of adapting itself to the sharply increased socio-economic and political difficulties of capitalist society. This means the further evolution of state-monopoly mechanisms, which, in its turn, aggravates the contradictions of world capitalism. The system of state-monopoly capitalism has proved incapable of dealing with the contradictions produced by the interweaving of the cyclic crisis of 1974--1975 and the cyclic crisis which began in the USA in 1979 with the structural crises and inflation.
The crisis of state-monopoly regulation of the capitalist economy has increased the disorder and vacillation among bourgeois economists and representatives of ruling circles in the West. It has produced among bourgeois theoreticians of "free enterprise" a whole wave of criticism of the system of state interference in the economy and nostalgic demands for a return to the old days of the state's ``minimal'' role.
The energetic activity of such advocates of "free competition" in the USA, as William Nutter or the Director of the Center for the Study of American Business, Murray Weidenbaum, is indicative. Attacking supporters of ``planning'', Nutter, for example, invites people to put their trust in the invisible mechanism of the market economy based on private enterprise. According to him, today's serious economic upheavals are symptoms of political diseases, not of defects in the economic system. In his turn, Murray Weidenbaum argues that government regulation should be made less costly and less destructive.
Neo-liberalist ideas are enjoying a kind of renaissance in other capitalist countries also. In France, for example, as the French Communist journal Economie et politique points out, a whole trend of supporters of the so-called "new liberal policy" has developed = recently.^^*^^
A well-known ideologist of the French big bourgeoisie, Michel Drancourt, has stated that the solution to the present troubles lay in rehabilitating a true market economy. Many materials of meetings between the leaders of the main capitalist countries in recent years, such as the Bonn Conference (July 1978), contain demands for encouraging private initiative and increasing the efficiency of private entrepreneurs. According to the Western press there has _-_-_
^^*^^ Economic et politique, Paris, 1979, No.~21 (294), p. 74.
69 been a definite narrowing of the sphere of state-monopoly ownership in some leading capitalist countries recently. Evidence of this are the handing over to the private sector of certain industrial, transport and service enterprises in Great Britain, some railways in Japan, certain branches of communications in the FRG, and areas of the telephone system in France. In our view, of course, it would be wrong to exaggerate the importance of these factors. At the same time the importance of mixed ownership by private monopolies and the bourgeois state is increasing sharply, and such aspects of the bourgeois state's activity as financing, are growing more widespread.Criticism of the inefficiency of state-monopoly bureaucratisation of the modern economy does not mean that all the bourgeoisie wishes to renounce state-monopoly regulation. In the case of the monopolies it is rather a question of an ideological diversion to mask the true causes of the crisis in capitalist society and to mislead the revolutionary forces in their struggle for a democratic solution to the crisis.
The main trend in the policy of the monopoly bourgeoisie in this situation is to attempt to develop state-monopoly mechanisms, to adapt them to present-day tasks.
The desperate search for a way out of the socio-economic crisis affecting all the capitalist countries, is leading most bourgeois economists and big businessmen to support the idea of rationalising the traditional instrumentation of state-monopoly regulation of the economy and attempts to work out a new recipe for saving capitalist society. The General Secretary of the US Communist Party, Gus Hall, said: "Monopoly capital makes noises against government regulation. But it is continually seeking new regulations, but regulations that fit into its need for maximum profits. With each new regulation the role of the state increases... I believe the tendency is inevitable, and is here to stay. The role of the state has reached a point where if its activities were withdrawn, or even appreciably reduced, the economy would go into an anarchistic = tailspin.''^^*^^
But among the numerous supporters of state interference in the capitalist economy today, as in the past, there is lack of agreement on the paths of its future development, which _-_-_
^^*^^ Political Affairs, December 1978.
70 reflects the contradictory nature of state-monopoly capitalism, the existence of acute competition inside monopoly capital, and inter-imperialist rivalry.Some bourgeois authors, fearing the future growth of nationalisation of production, emphasise the extension of the redistributive function of the bourgeois state, in particular, by further budget increases and various forms of state financial assistance to private capital. Thus, Mitsubishi, one of Japan's largest international monopolies, admitting that the world economy is facing a grave crisis, suggests a new global policy. It is essential that there should be state capital investment of a vast sum, similar to that which World War II cost mankind. Other representatives of bourgeois economic science and state-monopoly capital argue for an increase in centralised regulation, focussing attention on the tasks and means of structural policy and on strengthening long-range orientation of state activity.
These views are perhaps reflected most fully in the attempts of many capitalist countries in the crisis conditions of the 1970s to create or improve national systems of economic programming. A striking example is the United States. As we know, in the 1950s and 1960s representatives of ruling circles in the US often showed a negative attitude towards the economic programming of certain West European countries. But the position is changing in the period of crisis. From the mid-1970s there has been heated discussion in the US about the need to organise the country's economic planning.
In 1975 a Bill was introduced into the US Congress on balanced growth and economic planning, which had been drawn up by the Initiative Committee for National Economic Planning headed by the eminent American economist Wassily Leontief with the participation of such specialists as John Galbraith, Robert Rouse and Robert Nathan. The Bill provided for the drawing up of medium-range (6 years) and long-range development programmes and the analysis of the possible trends of this development and of resources required for attaining the goals = set.^^*^^ As the Bill's authors pointed out, the aim of introducing economic planning was _-_-_
^^*^^ See, in particular, W. Leontief, H. Stein, The Economic System in an Age of Discontinuity: Long-Range Planning or Market Reliance?, New York, 1976.
71 to support and strengthen the system of private enterprise. But certainly not, we would note, to weaken or abolish it. In spite of this, however, the Bill aroused great opposition from representatives of the conservative wing of the US bourgeoisie and was not passed. Not until two years later was the idea of national programming endorsed by Congress in vague form in the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill.In referring to the most important positive aspects of this developing "American style" of programming from the point of view of the interests of US business circles, its supporters usually say that it is an attempt to coordinate existing forms of state economic regulation, that it is even less compulsory than, say, the French system of indicative programming, and that it is of great informational importance. According to W. Leontief, American planning should be, first and foremost, "economic forecasts'', "alternative scenarios" of economic development, and "go from information to = action''.^^*^^
Another important trend in the reorganisation of national state-monopoly structures in the crisis conditions of the 1970s is the growing use of methods of selective or goal-directed regulation of individual spheres and branches of the economy which are recognised as "narrow spots''. What we have here is a certain evolution of the traditional anti-crisis policy of the bourgeois state, which first appeared as far back as the Great Depression of the 1930s. The predominant role of structural factors in modern economic development has required substantial changes also in a series of state-monopoly measures and the drawing up of special state programmes and financial measures necessary for their realisation.
The content of this regulation changes according to the specific features of any given country. But there are also certain common features characteristic of most capitalist countries. One example is the energy programmes adopted in recent years by the governments of all the developed capitalist states. As a rule, they include, firstly, a set of measures for developing national energy production, in particular, at the expense of going over to new forms of energy, secondly, a variety of measures to save fuel and energy, including cutting consumption by the broad working masses. An important aspect of this energy policy are the _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid.
72 attempts to organise concerted actions by imperialism in relation to the oil-producing countries, to break the united front of the developing countries, world socialism and the international working-class movement. The new energy programmes of the 1970s have resulted in a considerable extension of the bourgeois state's activity in this key sphere of the economy. But so far their realisation has not provided the West with a solution of the energy problem. This can be seen clearly from the six-year history of the United States' three energy programmes.Following the example of his predecessors, President Carter declared the overcoming of the energy crisis to be the central task not only of his administration, but also of the long-term economic policy of the US state. He admitted the ineffectiveness of all earlier activity in the sphere of energy. July 1979 witnessed the birth of a new energy programme of the US government, the third in recent years, which in fact contained the same provisions as the 1973 and 1975 programmes. A similar situation is developing today in many other capitalist countries (the FRG, Great Britain, France, and others).
The state-monopoly programmes for overcoming energy difficulties by sacrificing the interests of the working masses are strongly criticised by representatives of progressive trade unions and Communist and other Left-wing political parties. The representatives of progressive forces rightly stress, first and foremost, the fact that these programmes ignore the real causes of the energy crisis. The essence of the problem, as Harry Bridges, President of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, has pointed out, lies in the absolute power of oil-industry circles in the US. In the opinion of the United Mine Workers of America the energy crisis is the result of the greed and machinations of the monopolies.
The crisis of capitalist society of the 1970s demonstrated the ineffectiveness of state regulation of the economy within the framework of one country and confronted Western ruling circles with the task of turning to more consistent and regular coordinated action in the economic sphere on an international scale. The 1970s witnessed a qualitative leap forward in forming a system of international regulation of the economics and politics of the capitalist world. This 73 involves a variety of processes covering, on the one hand, the level of international monopolies and their groupings and organisations, and, on the other, the level of state-monopoly mechanisms, many of which originated at this time and are exerting a growing influence on economic processes, the home and foreign policy of the capitalist countries.
The formation and development of international monopolies of the new type with productive activity in various countries, an interweaving of expansion in the sphere of production with commercial and financial activity testify to the emergence of a ramified administrative machinery involving many countries in different regions of the world. The President of FIAT, the well-known international concern, described this organisational network of mechanisms and establishments as "the embryo of the central nervous system of the emergent new economic order".
The further development of mechanisms for coordinating capitalist economics and politics is connected with the emergence of inter-group relations and the expansion of giant financial and industrial groupings, international monopoly ``blocs'', as it were. International business associations are of great importance for strengthening the coordination of capitalist policy at the present time. The growing internationalisation of financial capital has led to more active relations between national alliances of businessmen and their international associations.
A most striking example of the development of international state-monopoly mechanisms is the creation in 1973 of the so-called Trilateral Commission consisting of representatives of the business world and politicians of the United States, the West European countries and Japan.
According to press reports, more than half of the Commission's 200 members in 1978 were businessmen, particularly representatives of multinationals. An analysis of the activity of the Trilateral Commission shows that attempts by the representatives of monopoly capital to smooth over the contradictions in bourgeois society, to reach agreement on ways of overcoming the crisis, have not been successful. This is due to the private-ownership nature of capitalism, which makes imperialist partnership temporary and relative.
Summing up the development of capitalist society in the 1970s B. N. Ponomarev, Candidate-Member of the Politburo 74 and a Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU remarked in his book The Living and Effective Teaching of Marxism-Leninism (A Reply to Its Critics): "In enlarging upon Lenin's theory of state-monopoly capitalism, the CPSU has proved that the further imperialism goes in its attempts to adapt itself to the new situation, the more profound its socio-economic antagonisms = become.''^^*^^ Attempts to reorganise state-monopoly mechanisms within the capitalist countries and in the international arena are leading to a further aggravation of the contradictions of world capitalism. The rivalry between imperialist monopolies and national statemonopoly formations is growing more and more acute. "It is more than obvious that state regulation of the capitalist economy is = ineffective.''^^**^^ Confronted with the new upheavals in the womb of their economy, Western economic policymakers would like to shift the burden of these difficulties even more than before onto the working people of the capitalist countries and the peoples of the developing countries.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ State-Monopoly Capitalism and the Class StruggleThe 1970s was a period of further attack on the interests of the working people by state-monopoly capital. Evidence of this is the unprecedented inflation and rising cost of living, the increase in unemployment, and the growing general instability in the position of the broad working masses. Under pressure from the working class the bourgeoisie has been compelled to take certain measures to reduce the threat to the very existence of the capitalist system.
In a number of countries nominal wages have risen slightly, unemployment benefits increased, and funds for the professional re-training of certain categories of workers expanded. But these social manoeuvres of state-monopoly capitalism have by no means halted the drop in the working people's standard of living, a process based on the exploitatory nature of capitalism and. the aggravation of the contradictions of its development today.
_-_-_^^*^^ B. N. Ponomarev, The Living and Effective Teaching of MarxismLeninism (A Reply to Its Critics), Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, p. 74--75.
^^**^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Immediate Tasks of the Party in Home and Foreign Policy, p. 27.
75The social activity of the present-day bourgeois state testifies yet again to the growing inefficiency of statemonopoly regulation. Even from the view point of the interests of the ruling classes, this activity has not brought the desired results. Far from abolishing the class struggle, it has not weakened it. On the contrary, the 1970s was a period of the further development of class contradictions in the capitalist world. It witnessed major demonstrations of the working class in defence of its interests, a general broadening of the class struggle, and a growth in the level of strikers' demands. According to the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences the number of participants in mass demonstrations by the proletariat was an annual average of 65 million in 1970--1972, 62 million in 1973--1975, 67 million in 1976--1978 and 68 million in 1978. In the first four months of 1979 the number of strikers and participants in mass demonstrations of workers exceeded 20 million in the developed capitalist countries alone.
The increasing difficulties in different sectors of the capitalist system and, primarily, in the socio-economic sphere have led to a growth among the bourgeoisie of the influence of the most reactionary circles, who want a return to the cold war and the use of extreme means, including armed conflicts. This can be seen from the growth of the military and industrial complex in the United States and a number of other capitalist countries, the increasing activity of extreme Right-wing circles in various spheres of present-day capitalist society.
Of course, the further development of state-monopoly capitalism is decisively influenced today by representatives of other groupings of the bourgeoisie who support a flexible line of modern bourgeois reformism, a line which largely takes into account the reality of our age. But the ultimate fate of the historical development of capitalist society depends not only and not so much on the alignment of forces between the afore-mentioned bourgeois groupings.
History has passed sentence on capitalism. The objective laws of state-monopoly capitalism's evolution as a result of the inevitable aggravation of its contradictions and the further development of the class struggle are leading society inevitably to socialist transformations. This applies, first and 76 foremost, to the countries of developed capitalism which possess an established system of state-monopoly relations. Here many Communist parties are basing themselves on Lenin's theory of state-monopoly capitalism and creatively developing it, taking into account the most recent trends in the development of state-monopoly capitalism.
By fostering the growth of the power of the monopolies and reaction state-monopoly capitalism accentuates the need for defending and enlarging democracy. The state-monopoly relations further society's polarisation and thereby create the possibility for beginning the socialist revolution with a democratic phase. What is meant here is drawing into the anti-monopoly torrent all the forces discontented with the state-monopoly system and its replacement with a revolutionary-democratic state. On the other hand, state-monopoly capitalism raises the socialisation level of the economy and arouses the social need for public administration of the economy in the interests of the people. At the same time, it creates the possibility for such administration in the form of the mechanism of state accounting, control and regulation of the economy, which Lenin had called the mechanism of "public economic management''. While destroying the statemonopoly machine of coercion and oppression, the revolutionary forces will not destroy the mechanism of economic regulation. On the contrary, subordinated to the interests of society this machine will be used for the enforcement of anti-monopoly and socialist changes.
Thus, the two trends of state-monopoly capitalism (the growth of reaction which underscores the importance of the struggle for democracy, and the material preparation for socialism that draws the stage of struggle for democracy closer to the stage of struggle for socialism) provide the material basis for the strategy of the anti-monopoly democratic stage of transition. This finds expression in the programmes of the Communist parties of most of the developed capitalist countries.
In an article headed "Impending Catastrophe and How To Combat It'', Lenin predicted that the revolution might take place by stages in industrialised countries and he linked it with the growth of state-monopoly = capitalism.^^*^^ He _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 361.
77 considered that this could prove to be a very effective way for accomplishing the revolution, but stressed that the end goal, the socialist revolution, had always to be borne in mind. It was only on this condition that the strategy of the transition stage could yield the expected results. Moreover, Lenin did not discount the possibility of various twists and turns. A Communist Party could adopt the transition-stage slogan, but the course of events might be such that the need would arise for the immediate overthrow of the capitalist system without any democratic stage of transition. For that reason it was necessary to maintain the greatest vigilance, to be able to assess the situation and to see all the changes in it opportunely.The Communist parties . of the industrialised capitalist states strive to use every possibility afforded by the development of state-monopoly capitalism. They have mapped out a programme of democratic demands (control of the economy, nationalisation, programming, and so on). The attainment of these demands would strike a heavy blow at the financial oligarchy and improve the material condition of the working class and all the other non-monopoly strata of the population. It would help to form the political army of the socialist revolution and clear the way to socialism. The Communists of these countries are doing much to expose the Right and ``Left'' opportunist distortions and speculations. The Rightreformist theories overrate the struggle for democracy and dismiss socialism as the goal of that struggle. The Leftist approach lies in rejecting the enhanced significance of the struggle for democracy and leads directly to political adventurism. The qualitative changes in the development of state-monopoly capitalism have brought to the fore the political task of unfolding a democratic struggle combined with the maximum vigilance relative to the class enemies.
Significant changes are also taking place in countries with a medium and low level of capitalist development. One can speak of an embryonic process of the formation of their own state-monopoly capitalism in these countries. In this process a large role is played by foreign capital, which stimulates the development of a state-monopoly mechanism and uses it in its own interests. In these countries a feature of capitalism is the wide influence exercised by the local bourgeoisie, which collaborates with foreign corporations. Alongside the 78 bourgeoisie, which is closely associated with the foreign monopolies, the big landowners play a fairly large role in the formation of a financial oligarchy. All this gives statemonopoly capitalism in these countries a rabidly reactionary character. The Communist parties in countries with a medium level of capitalist development are fighting to abolish foreign domination and the state-monopoly system backing it. They are striving to carry out the democratic, anti-imperialist, anti-feudal stage of the revolution which will open the road to the next, socialist stage.
As regards countries with a low level of capitalist development it is premature to speak of the formation of a state-monopoly system. For example, state capitalism, which is frequently used by imperialism in its own interests, functions in some African countries. The character of this public sector and the social consequences of its operation depend largely on the conditions for the class struggle and the correlation of forces in the country concerned and in the world. These countries still do not have the conditions for immediate socialist transformations. The Communist and national-democratic parties of these countres face the task of setting up a united front of all democratic, anti-imperialist liberation forces with the aim of consolidating economic independence and putting radical socio-economic reforms into effect. The purpose of these reforms is to prepare the transition of these countries to socialism without passing through the stage of developed capitalism.
In the poorly developed states the revolutionary movement is opposed by internationally united state-monopoly finance capital. This still further accentuates the need for the international unity of the national liberation movement with the socialist countries and the international working-class movement.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. The Principles Underlyng the ElaborationLenin's philosophical, historical and sociological works and his economic studies provide the theoretical basis for the 79 aims and tasks of the proletariat's political struggle and for the ways and means enabling the working class to carry out its great liberation mission. The clarity of purpose in Lenin's theories is expressed in concentrated form in his elaboration of the programmes of the CPSU and of the problems of the international working-class movement.
Today Lenin's theories and method serve as the guideline for charting the programme documents of the communist movement and of its individual national contingents in accordance with the new situation.
The programmes of the Marxist parties deal with two aspects of economic problems. One of these aspects is the economic substantiation of the main programme aims and demands, which is the economic basis of these programmes. This embraces a general characteristic of a country's socioeconomic system as a whole and the trends of its development at the time the programme is drawn up. With this are linked the definition of the tasks of the class struggle, the character of the revolutionary process and the mapping out of the strategy and tactics of the Communist parties. The second aspect covers specific economic aims and programme demands, for example, the specific ways of settling the question of the ownership of the means of production, the promotion of a country's productive forces, and agrarian reforms.
An irrefutable economic substantiation of the aims, tasks and demands of the working class based on a study of reality and the economic development of a given country and of the world economy forms the pivotal feature of the Leninist method of charting the programme of the working-class movement.
The aims, tasks and demands of the Marxist party of the working class are determined, first and foremost, by the actual objective course of economic development, by its laws and their concrete manifestation at any given stage of historical development in any given country and on an international scale.
Lenin began his approach to the formation of the party of a new type with a Marxist, class, dialectical-materialistic analysis of the economy of his day. With a comprehensive, analytical study of Marx's economic theory and materialistic understanding of history as his starting point, he 80 characterised capitalism as a socio-economic system in general and the specifics of Russia's capitalism in particular.
By that time capitalism had reached a higher level of maturity than in the lifetime of Marx. The laws and trends brought to light by Marx could be seen not only in the ``classic'' capitalist countries of the West but also in countries like Russia, where small-commodity production was predominant. For that reason, in characterising the principles of the capitalist mode of production Lenin enlarged on some of the postulates of Marx's economic theory, for instance, on the reproduction of social capital, on capitalism in agriculture and on the condition of the working class. These postulates provided the economic foundation for the Russian SocialDemocratic Labour Party's scientific programme.
All of Lenin's economic studies had a class, committed singleness of purpose, namely, to show the development trends of the socio-economic, class relations in Russia. It was Lenin's aim to show the way out of the system of capitalist exploitation as indicated by economic development. Theory, he wrote, "must furnish an answer to the demands of the proletariat''.^^*^^
Every new stage of social development moves to the forefront new ways and means of struggle and confronts the working-class movement with new tasks. But these tasks are not invented by the leaders of the working class; they are set by the specifics of the given stage of development of the environment in which the working-class movement develops, i.e., capitalist society and its socio-economic structure.
Therefore, when capitalism evolved into imperialism Lenin assessed that stage of capitalist development, elaborated his theory of imperialism and showed that monopoly rule was imperialism's basic economic feature, before drawing a conclusion on the new tasks and the new ways of furthering the revolution. He threw light on the trends of the further development of qualitatively new features in the economy of capitalism and indicated the new possibilities for the class struggle under these conditions. In economic activity Lenin laid bare processes that made it possible to put forward programme demands of the working class and its revolutionary party such as revolutionary democratic control of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 297.
81 economy and of production, which under state-monopoly capitalism had reached a high level of socialisation.To this day the programme aims and demands of the world communist movement and of its individual national contingents are charted on the basis of an exhaustive analysis of economic phenomena, trends and laws. This analysis was the point of departure of the documents adopted at the 1957, 1960 and 1969 international meetings of Communist and Workers' parties.
At the regional conferences and meetings of Communists that followed, in the resolutions of the congresses and conferences of many fraternal parties and in their new programmes and other political documents considerable attention is paid to a profound Marxist analysis of the changes that have taken place in the capitalist economy in the postwar period, and particularly in the last fifteen to twenty = years.^^*^^ Today the programme documents of the communist parties proceed from the fact that the world is going through the age of transition from capitalism to socialism, which began with the Great October Socialist Revolution. Communist parties are discovering new favourable opportunities for advancing the revolutionary process in connection with the successes of socialism and the national liberation movement, the achievements of the struggle for peace and detente, and the gains of the working class in the capitalist countries. At the same time, the programme documents of the Communist parties contain a description of the growing general crisis of capitalism.
Providing such an analysis in the programme documents of the Communist parties involves the important methodological problem of its historical framework. The question arises as to whether the analysis should be confined to new capitalist phenomena at the present stage of development, or whether it should also describe past stages and economic features of this system which took shape earlier. The answer to this question is to be found by studying the Leninist approach to the description of any given stage of capitalist development in the CPSU programmes.
_-_-_^^*^^ See, for example, For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, Moscow, 1976.
82When the first and second programmes of the Russian Communist Party were drawn up Lenin sought to characterise capitalism in such a way as would embrace all its phenomena, its entire structure. Some of the compilers of the second Programme of the CPSU felt it should characterise only the specifics of the new phase of capitalist development, namely, imperialism, without mentioning premonopoly and non-monopoly capitalism. Lenin, it will be recalled, categorically rejected this attitude. He proved that the second Programme, too, should include the basic propositions on the laws governing the development of capitalism generally, because the dialectical unity between the old (pre-monopoly) and new capitalism (imperialism) was a factor of reality. Pre-monopoly capitalism is not only the predecessor but also the permanent basis of imperialism. "Pure imperialism, without the fundamental basis of capitalism,'' Lenin wrote, "have never existed, does not exist anywhere, and never will = exist.''^^*^^
Lenin showed that the decision whether or not to include the propositions on pre-monopoly capitalism in the programme was of fundamental significance to the working-class movement. Imperialism, he said, could not totally remake capitalism. If that had been the case the task of the working class in putting an end to capitalism would have been a very simple one, for it would have entailed only the removal of the monopoly elite. If one accepted the view that there was ``pure'' imperialism, Lenin asked, how was one to decide, for instance, the question of the middle peasants, their origin, interests and future? Lenin proved that under monopoly capitalist rule, too, capitalism continued to spring from small-commodity production. It was not accidental, therefore, that a characteristic of pre-monopoly capitalism was included in the third Programme of the CPSU adopted at the 22nd Congress, and in the programmes of many other fraternal parties.
These Leninist propositions retain their topicality also when the problems of state-monopoly capitalism are considered. Lenin did not draw a dividing line between statemonopoly capitalism and imperialism; he regarded statemonopoly capitalism as one of the principal trends of _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~29, p.~165.
83 imperialism. For that reason the basic characteristic of imperialism applies also to state-monopoly capitalism.Lenin's approach to the elaboration of a strategic and tactical action programme is also characterised by a precise definition of the main orientation of the course of events and to forecast the results. The concretisation of the general principles of Marxism is inevitable in defining the present stage of capitalism. But here attention remains focussed on the main trend determining the development of capitalism from the moment it entered the era of its maturity, namely, the aggravation of contradictions and antagonisms.
In Lenin's theoretical writings and his actual work of drawing up the CPSU programmes, and in his conclusions for the entire communist movement he always gave prominence to economic contradictions and antagonisms and studied the trends of their development. This can be appreciated, for the economic antagonism is what ultimately leads capitalism to its doom. Thus an idea of the actual maturity of the objective conditions for the revolution can only be obtained from a study of the intensity reached by the economic antagonism.
When Lenin worked on the first 1'arty Programme of Russia's Communists he considered that the central task of theoretical work was to make a "concrete study of all forms of economic antagonism in Russia'', to expose that antagonism "wherever it has been concealed by political history, by the peculiarities of legal systems or by established theoretical prejudice''.^^*^^ Lenin considered that the obscuring of capitalism's contradictions was the greatest menace to the revolutionary party and its teaching, for it demobilised the revolutionary forces, blunted their militancy and engendered a tendency towards adaptation to the existing system.
Right-wing opportunists and revisionists unfailingly exaggerate capitalism's new features, regarding the latter in isolation from the constant basic laws and contradictions of this system, and overestimating capitalism's ability to run an organised economy and its ``transformation''. They regard the steps taken to adapt capitalism to the new conditions in order to preserve it as a social system, as signifying the abolition of its antagonisms. In so doing they whitewash _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 296.
84 imperialism, unwittingly or deliberately, blunt the class consciousness of the working people and shatter their determination to overthrow capitalism.An analysis of the new stage of the development and aggravation of capitalism's contradictions forms the quintessence of the Leninist theory of imperialism. Lenin studied the acuteness of these contradictions, showing that under imperialism they are aggravated to bursting point with the result that capitalism begins to decay and die. In addition, Lenin disclosed the specific forms in which these contradictions develop under monopoly rule, showing, in particular, the changes in the ways and means of receiving surplus value (monopoly price and monopoly profit), laying bare the mounting antagonistic social contradiction between the financial oligarchy and the majority of the population at capitalism's imperialist stage and bringing to light the significance of the contradiction between the imperialist monopolies and the peoples of colonial and dependent countries. In studying the development of the contradictions in the era of imperialism as a whole, Lenin threw light on a global form of their manifestation as the general crisis of capitalism. His analysis of these contradictions led him directly to the formiflation of the tasks of the class struggle.
In drawing up Party programmes Lenin paid great attention to the condition of the working class. Lenin's method of studying this question demands an analysis of all the factors that determine the condition of the working class: the movement of real wages, the cost of living and labour power, in particular, the rise in the worker's essential expenditures, living conditions, unemployment, inflation, and changes in the actual structure of the working class. The factors determining the condition of the working class---not only purely economic, but also general socio-political factors---include the form of the political power of the bourgeoisie (dictatorial, military-fascist or bourgeoisdemocratic methods of rule), militarism and the threat of war, etc.
The communist movement today charts its programmes on the basis of its analysis of the modern phase of the development of capitalism's contradictions. These contradictions are characterised in detail in the Main Document of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' 85 Parties, in which some new forms of their development are underscored and their substance revealed. For instance, the Main Document drew attention to the contradiction between the unprecedented possibilities being opened up by the scientific and technological revolution and the barriers being erected to the use of these possibilities for the benefit of society, and to the contradiction between the achieved level of the socialisation of production and the state-monopoly character of its regulation, between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial oligarchy.
Lenin had written of the growth of the contradiction between a handful of monopolists and the vast majority of the earth's population. The development of this contradiction has today widened the base of the class struggle against imperialism. The prospects for creating alliances of antiimperialist forces have improved. This is reflected in Communist programme documents.
When capitalist rule was unchallenged the working class had very scant possibilities for economic gains. The situation changed with the victory of socialism in a number of countries and with the downfall of imperialism's colonial system. Capitalism sometimes has to make substantial concessions to the working class to secure its rule. This is enabling the workers of the capitalist countries to press for further socio-economic gains. The possibility has materialised not only of making but of obtaining the satisfaction of economic demands that formerly had been out of reach. All this is making it vital for the Communist parties to work out in greater detail not only programme but also tactical economic demands.
In each capitalist country the contradictions have a national specific, although basically their content and orientation remain similar. For that reason, in determining the tasks of its struggle each national contingent of the working-class movement must analyse the specific way these contradictions manifest themselves in its own country. Lenin attached immense importance to such an analysis. On no occasion did he formulate the concrete tasks of the Communist Party solely on the basis of a general characteristic of capitalism's contradictions. He always gave the closest attention to all their national forms. The whole experience of the world 86 communist movement shows that an account of national specifics is important not only in determining the tasks of the Communist Party but also in characterising the economic foundations of the Party's programme documents.
Lenin always insisted that an action programme could be worked out correctly only on the basis of an accurate account of the alignment of class forces, of the "actual classes operating in the country, classes that have been placed in certain relationships by = history''.^^*^^ However, he warned against any exaggeration of the role of national specifics, showing that at the back of these specifics there were general laws and trends of the class struggle.
Lenin strongly criticised those who turn national specific features into an absolute. He considered it natural that even in different historical periods the programme documents of Communists of different countries should have mainly a common content. This entity is based on common ultimate goals which proceed from common laws of development, common to all countries within the framework of one and the same system, i.e., capitalism, and common tendencies of class struggle.
When Lenin was accused of ``imitating'' the famous Erfurt Programme,^^**^^ he reasoned by giving an example of the application of the dialectics of the general and particular: "We are not in the least afraid to say that we want to imitate the Erfurt Programme: there is nothing bad in imitating what is good, and precisely today, when we so often hear opportunist and equivocal criticism of that programme, we consider it our duty to speak openly in its favour. Imitating, however, must under no circumstances be simply copying. Imitation and borrowing are quite legitimate insofar as in Russia we see the same basic processes of the development of capitalism, the same basic tasks for the socialists and the working class; but they must not, under any circumstances, lead to our forgetting the specific features of Russia which must find full expression in the specific features of our programme.''^^***^^ These ideas of Lenin's are of methodological importance for the present-day communist movement also. _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 338.
^^**^^ The Programme of the Social Democratic Party of Germany drawn up under the influence of Marx and Engels and adopted in 1891.
^^***^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 235.
87 They provide Communists with a method of deciding correctly the question of taking into account the practical and theoretical experience of all the fraternal parties. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Economic Demands of the Working-Class MovementThe above-said applies to the substantiation of programme aims and demands. But the economic content of the programmes of the working-class movement is not confined to an economic substantiation of its general strategy and tactics. As a rule, the programmes of the Communist parties contain detailed economic demands.
The end goal of the working-class movement concerns the most deeply rooted economic foundations of society. Lenin attached particularly great importance to a clearly worded formulation of this goal in the Party programme: "The conversion of all means of production into social property and the replacement of capitalist production by socialist production''.^^*^^
A key feature of Lenin's approach to defining the Party's programme aims was that he combined economic and political, strategic and tactical, current and end, national and international aims and demands. Thus, immediately after the above-quoted words Lenin wrote: "A declaration of the international character of the working-class movement, a declaration of the political character of the class struggle and its immediate objective (the winning of political = liberty)''.^^**^^ And further, he specified: "to win political power for the accomplishment of these = aims''.^^***^^ The end objective, underlying which is society's deep-going economic transformation, cannot be achieved by any other way save through "the winning of political liberty'', i.e., the power of the working people under the leadership of the working class. This was propounded by Marx and Lenin in the pre-revolutionary epoch and it remains in force today. Any shrinking avoidance to mention this in resolving questions concerning the action programme of the working class can only confuse _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 235
^^**^^ Ibid.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 253.
88 the revolutionary forces (but by no means their enemy, the imperialists).The fundamental significance of combining political and economic programme propositions and demands is that it brings the class struggle of the proletariat closer "to the real interests of the mass of the people, dragging political issues out of the 'stuffy studies of the intelligentsia' into the street, into the midst of the workers and labouring classes, and replacing abstract ideas by real manifestations of political oppression from which the greatest sufferers are the proletariat.''^^*^^
Lenin clearly defined the substance and features of the economic and political struggle, writing: "The class struggle of the proletariat comprises the economic struggle (struggle against individual capitalists or against individual groups of capitalists for the improvement of the workers' condition) and the political struggle (struggle against the government for the broadening of the people's rights, i.e., for democracy, and for the broadening of the political power of the proletariat).''^^**^^ Economic struggle must be combined with political struggle if only because the economic struggle cannot be successful or even conducted on a large scale if the workers have not won elementary political rights. "Every economic struggle necessarily becomes a political struggle, and Social-Democracy must indissolubly combine the one with the other into a single class struggle of the = proletariat.''^^***^^
One of the points made by Lenin relative to the programme of economic measures is that this programme should mirror the experience of the people. Thus, when he drew up the Party's agrarian programme during the revolution of 1905 he closely examined the economic foundations of that programme from the standpoint of theory and took into account the experience of the peasant movement, from the standpoint of practice. "Without the experience of a mass---indeed, more than that---of a nation-wide peasant movement, the programme of the Social-Democratic Labour Party could not become concrete; for it would have been too difficult, if not impossible, on the _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 338.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 212.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 213.
89 basis of theoretical reasoning alone, to define the degree to which capitalist disintegration had taken place among our peasantry, and to what extent the latter was capable of bringing about a revolutionary-democratic = change.''^^*^^Lenin warned against drawing a line between programme demands and tactical requirements. Economic demands could be programme and tactical. He wrote that any "attempt to draw a hard and fast line between programme and tactics can only result in scholasticism and pedantry. The programme defines the general and basic relations between the working class and other classes. Tactics define particular and temporary relations... Thus the distinction between programme and tactics is only a relative = one.''^^**^^
By and large the combination of the end goals of the struggle for the remaking of the economy with current demands within the framework of the capitalist system is one of the most complex problems for the working-class movement. Communists cannot ignore current demands. "The Social-Democrats,'' Lenin wrote, "are fighting for all improvements in the condition of the workers and peasants which can be introduced immediately, when we have not yet destroyed the rule of the bourgeoisie, and which will help them in the struggle against the = bourgeoisie.''^^***^^
At the same time, Lenin stressed the danger of letting oneself be carried away by specific, tactical aims to the detriment of basic programme objectives. "He who goes all out,'' Lenin wrote, "who fights for complete victory, must alert himself to the danger of having his hands tied by minor gains, of being led astray and made to forget that which is still comparatively remote, but without which all minor gains are hollow = vanities.''^^****^^
The difficulty of working out a programme of specific economic demands lies in the extraordinarily fine distinction between what is essential and secondary, between what is general and particular. This was noted by Lenin when he was working on the first programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. "In drawing up this section _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p 256
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 10, p. 178.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 6, p. 397.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 8. p. 427.
90 of the programme,'' he wrote at the time, "we should strive ... to avoid two extremes---on the one hand, we must not omit any one of the main, basic demands that hold great significance for the entire working class; on the other, we must not go into minute particulars with which it would hardly be rational to load the = programme.''^^*^^.All the programme demands drawn up by Lenin were addressed to definite classes and social strata. He made sure that the programme propositions of the Communists relative to a given social group, first, mirrored the actual interests of that group and, second, were formulated accurately and in a manner that could be understood by that group.
Lenin's method on how to put forward various programme demands in accordance with class indications retains its importance. Demands affecting wage workers, including farm labourers, are formulated separately, as are the demands affecting peasants.
One of fundamental principles in Lenin's approach to determining the programme tasks of the Marxist Party is that the international element has to be correctly combined with the national element when general postulates are applied in the context of the reality of a given country, and this must serve as the point of departure for defining specific tasks and the ways and means of carrying them out. He was categorically opposed not only to every manifestation of neglect of international tasks but also to any sign of nihilism with regard to national conditions and aims.
The problem of having basic international tasks and demands mirrored in the programme of every Communist Party is particularly important today when nationalism has become one of imperialism's mainstays against the communist and working-class movement. The programmes of economic demands cannot be identical at the different phases of the struggle for the socialist revolution. In the vast arsenal of the CPSU's historical experience and in Lenin's works we find several groups of economic demands.
First, they form the economic section of the minimum programme designed to enable the working class to win definite economic positions in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Lenin regarded these demands as the starting _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 241.
91 point and springboard of the struggle for the economic programme of the socialist revolution.Second, Lenin held that the programme should have transition or partial demands. For example, in Lenin's draft of the resolution of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International on the question of its programme we read: "The necessity of fighting for transition demands subject to appropriate reservations making these demands dependent on concrete conditions of place and time should be stated explicitly and categorically in the national = programmes.''^^*^^
Third, the maximum programme or basic demands of the socialist revolution. Naturally, in a situation where no socialist country as yet existed in the world, economic demands, giving the fundamental principles of a socialist economy, were listed in the programme of the CPSU in the most general way, chiefly on the basis of the fundamental postulates of Marxism. At the same time, they contained points that related to the specific conditions in Russia.
In addition to these three groups of economic demands the programmes contain current economic demands, of which some can be achieved in capitalist society under a certain alignment of class forces.
The character of these basic groups of programme demands and the correlation between them have today undergone considerable modifications. First and foremost, the question of a minimum programme and of transition or partial demands have acquired a different context. The age of bourgeois-democratic revolutions is long since a thing of the past. But, in the opinion of the Communist parties, in many countries the socialist revolution, too, cannot be accomplished without transition stages or revolutions of an intermediate type---anti-imperialist, national-democratic, anti-monopoly and so on. In the programme of the democratic, anti-imperialist stage of the revolution the minimum programme has therefore been combined with transition or partial demands. Naturally, there have been many changes also in the very content of the demands. They cover much more ground in the direction toward socialist transformations than the programmes of transition and partial measures of the 1920s.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~42, p.~428.
92There have been considerable changes in the demands of the maximum programme.
In treating the question of the final programme goal of the working-class movement the Communists of all countries are able to rely not only on the ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, not only on the theoretical achievements of the world communist movement, but also on more than sixty years of experience in socialist construction and the creation of developed socialism in the USSR, and more than thirty years of experience in the formation and development of the world socialist system. This support, this benefiting from experience, does not mean copying or applying a readymade model. Real socialism is a living organism that develops in concrete conditions. It arose in accordance with the objective laws of social development and concrete historical conditions, both international and internal, national ones. Therefore one must not attempt to try and make it fit other concrete conditions. But existing socialism is the only example of the realisation of the basic laws, features and principles of socialism. To refuse to take into account the experience of existing socialism, and, in particular, to ignore it, would limit the possibilities of advancing towards the achievement of the general international aim of the communist movement. In the programme documents of many fraternal parties, in their work with the masses, the advantages of socialism over capitalism are being demonstrated convincingly, and the main common features and laws of the transition to socialism are being characterised with the example and experience of the socialist countries. The programmes of the Communist parties for the period following the conquest of power by the working class contain many propositions regarding the specific ways and means of resolving various economic problems. For example, the question of socialist industrialisation may be posed differently in the programmes of the Communist parties of industrialised and developing countries. The question of the socialist organisation of agriculture may likewise be resolved in different ways, depending on how much land is owned privately, the size of the estates, the technical level of agriculture, and so on.
Lastly, there has been a sharp growth of the significance of the current economic demands of the working class: these 93 demands have begun to intertwine more closely with political demands and aims. The demands of the democratic stage of the revolution and the current demands of the working class are influenced by the new phenomena characterising the present stage of capitalist contradictions and by the internal processes determining the specifics of that stage.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Main Features of the Programme DocumentsAmong the new processes and phenomena in the capitalist economy which have been reflected in recent documents of the communist movement are: the growth of the forces and influence of world socialism; the development of the scientific and technological revolution and its socio-economic consequences; the intensification of monopoly concentration and the further contradictory development of statemonopoly capitalism; the crisis phenomena which have taken place in capitalist society since the late 1960s (including the economic crisis of 1974--75, the biggest in the whole postwar period), and also a number of structural crises of the world capitalist economy, including energy, foreign exchange, ecology, raw materials and food.
Alongside this the internationalisation of production, imperialist integration, is developing rapidly. Under capitalism this process is expressed in such monstrous forms as the expansion of international, multinational and transnational corporations. Their activity adds even more instability to the already contradiction-ridden capitalist economy. The crisis in relations between the imperialist and developing countries is growing, and the system of economic ties between them, based on the robbing of the developing countries, is collapsing.
All these phenomena testify to a new stage in the aggravation of capitalism's main contradiction---between the social nature of production and private capitalist appropriation. They leave their mark on the economic development of the capitalist world and confront the working-class movement and its Marxist parties with a number of important tasks. The essence of capitalism is not changing, but its whole structure, its whole mechanism, is seriously affected by the processes listed above. Modern capitalism is 94 trying to adapt to the new conditions of its existence, but these attempts are not bringing it any stability. At the same time, capitalism is still displaying considerable reserves for preserving its system.
The analysis of new phenomena and also of the question of capitalism's remaining potential is an important prerequisite for drawing up realistic and effective programmes of revolutionary transformations and economic demands, for which the broad mass of the working people in the capitalist countries is capable of struggling.
The programmes outline a socialist-oriented solution of economic problems, having regard to the level of social consciousness and the class struggle. The Communist parties of some industrialised capitalist countries consider that in the situation obtaining today it is possible to accomplish the transition to socialist principles of economic organisation and to the socialist revolution through a number of intermediate stages.
At the present stage of the class struggle the chief objective is to undermine the rule of the monopoly oligarchy and limit its power. The means for achieving that objective are democratic nationalisation, control of the economy, and participation by the working people in the management of production, and in decision-making, and extending the rights of trade unions.
Moreover, in face of economic upheavals and national crises the Communist Party of the affected capitalist country puts forward a national economic programme in which it proposes infallible ways of resolving national economic problems and regulating the economy in the interests of the people.
In their programme documents the fraternal parties are dealing with the problem of alternatives to the economic crisis which is adversely affecting the life of the masses. Various measures aimed against unemployment, inflation and the declining standard of living of the working people are being proposed. Programmes of economic growth and control of investment policy are being put forward, together with proposals for creating new jobs by organising public works and developing trade relations with socialist and developing countries. To reduce unemployment it is proposed that the working week be reduced to 35--40 hours 95 without wage cuts and that the pension age be lowered. To overcome inflation a programme is being advanced for increasing taxation on monopoly profits, abolishing various concessions and state subsidies to them, and introducing laws to prevent large-scale speculative deals by monopolies. Cgpimunists are proposing an alternative price policy to prevent prices from being inflated by monopolies and to freeze prices for consumer goods. To protect the working people from the pernicious influence of inflation such demands as the introduction of a "sliding scale" of increases in wages, pensions, grants and unemployment benefits in proportion to rises in consumer prices, and the reduction of taxes for the working people are being put forward.
The problems arising from the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution receive prominence in the economic demands of the working-class movement. Here the Marxist-Leninist approach to assessing technical progress under capitalism is being applied.
The Leninist approach requires the separation of the consequences of capitalist use of new machinery from the objective potentialities of that machinery. The purpose of machinery is to lighten human labour and serve as a means of improving the wellbeing of working people. However, in bourgeois society it serves chiefly as a means of increasing the profits of the monopolies and intensifying the exploitation of the working people. This applies to the latest and most sophisticated, including automated, implements of labour.
In connection with scientific and technological progress the working-class movement has defined the following main areas of struggle:
against dismissals, for guaranteed jobs for all unemployed and for all workers made redundant by automation, for an enlargement and fundamental improvement of social insurance for unemployed, for a shorter working day or working week with guaranteed pay;
against labour intensification, for the deintensification of working time, for higher wages in accordance with the increase in output;
for an improvement of working conditions, for the listing in collective agreements of all the factors determining the arduousness of labour;
96for a fundamental improvement of the system of vocational training and general education; a democratic reform in education, which is in a state of crisis, is one of the common objectives of the working class and the students;
for the lowering of the prices of consumer goods in proportion to the growth of labour productivity and of their mass output;
for democratic control of the use of new machinery, research, planning and so on.
Today it is of vital importance to work out concrete demands in the struggle against concealed methods of intensifying labour and against the systems of wages that confuse workers and sow distrust and suspicion among them.
Communist parties' demands are aimed at giving the whole scientific and technological policy new priorities--- improvement of working conditions, more interesting jobs, more humane living conditions in the megapolis and the solution of other pressing human problems on the threshold of the 21st century.
Communists are paying increasing attention in their programmes to the elaboration of alternative solutions to universal, global problems. This is understandable, for Communists, the working class, have no special interests that do not coincide with the interests of the broad mass of the working people. They are advancing their proposals for dealing with the energy crisis. The Communist parties are revealing the true causes of the ecological crisis, which are rooted in the capitalist system of utilising nature, in particular, the use of natural resources for military purposes. But the growing ecological problem is not being ignored. The experience of successfully combatting pollution in the socialist countries and their planned development of energy provide an excellent example of the advantages of socialism.
All the above-mentioned and similar demands are current and partial. They are of significance in the general context of the class struggle in connection with political demands, for they are only elements of the preparations for the revolutionary change of the socio-economic system itself.
In advancing their alternative economic programmes Communists are fully aware, of course, that the practical possibilities of their implementation are extremely limited while power remains in the hands of monopoly capital. 4 --- 660 97 However, firstly, these possibilities also depend on the degree of influence of the progressive forces, the Communist parties themselves, on the mass of the people, their success in creating political alliances, and their influence on the political life of the country. And this is growing in many capitalist countries. Secondly, the Communists' struggle for alternative economic programmes is extremely important for another reason. It helps reveal the falsity of the anti-communist, anti-socialist propaganda (aimed against existing socialism) that is disseminated by the imperialist ideological machine. Thirdly, the struggle for these programmes undoubtedly creates favourable conditions for subsequent action to win power by the working class. It promotes the growth of the class self-awareness of the working class and the setting up of alliances of broad democratic forces led by the working class and its vanguard---the Communist parties.
It was always Lenin's rule that where programme issues were concerned it was imperative to expose the anti-Marxist economic theories, subject them to a well-argumented, scathing criticism and show how in determining the Communist Party's policy they could and did lead to serious errors.
The Communist parties today make sure that this Leninist principle is applied in their programme documents, that no concession is made to bourgeois ideology. An unrelenting struggle against all manifestations of Right and ``Left'' revisionism and opportunism is a vital part of the work of all Communist parties in drawing up the programmes and demands of the working-class movement.
[98] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ Some Problems of the TheoryThe basic principles of the theory of the socialist revolution were laid down in the works of Marx and Engels. The preceding chapter discussed Marxist theory and methodology of analysing capitalism as the last form of the oppression of man by man and showed that it was bound to collapse in the course of socialist transformations.
The founders of Marxism resolutely opposed all adventurist playing at revolution. They stressed that victory over the bourgeoisie was impossible without the creation of a class proletarian party to prepare the working masses for a victorious struggle to establish its political power. They said that the task of proletarian revolutionaries was to determine correctly, on the basis of a comprehensive economic and political analysis, the specific features of the development of the revolutionary process at any given stage and to determine the strategy and tactics of the proletariat's struggle for its liberation accordingly. They constantly emphasised that the proletariat must rally its forces both nationally and internationally.
An important part in elaborating the theory of the socialist revolution was played by Marx's and Engels's ideas on the objectively conditioned nature of the revolutionary process and the need for an alliance of the proletariat with the peasantry. The socialist revolution, Marx and Engels maintained, must culminate in the proletariat winning political power, which plays a decisive role both in abolishing capitalist production relations and in the struggle for the establishment and development of the socialist system.
99 ~ Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/PCM335/20051012/199.tx" Emacs-Time-stamp: "2010-01-16 15:22:17" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.07.04) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+[)]?Thus, Marx and Engels revealed the general laws of the transition from capitalism to socialism and outlined the main tasks and ways of development of socialist revolution. However, their theoretical and practical revolutionary activity took place at a time when the capitalist system had not yet exhausted the possibilities of its development and the proletariat had not yet acquired sufficient practice of revolutionary = struggle.^^*^^
Lenin cherished and multiplied the ideological heritage of Marxism. He was always guided by the Marxist historical method which takes into account the concrete historical conditions of time and place when analysing various social developments. Under new historical conditions this approach enabled him to creatively enlarge upon the principles of the proletarian revolution formulated by the founders of Marxism and evolve a harmonious theory of the socialist revolution.
Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution is a living, creative teaching that is steadily developing along with revolutionary practice.
Before the first Russian revolution of 1905--1907 Lenin worked on a wide range of problems related to the preparations for and the actual accomplishment of the socialist revolution. These include a scientific analysis of the specifics of capitalist development in Russia, the role of the working class as society's main, advanced revolutionary force and consistent fighter against tsarism and capitalism, the revolutionary alliance between the workers and the peasants under the leadership of the working class, the creation of a comprehensive teaching on the new type of revolutionary party, the role of revolutionary theory, of socialist ideology in the working-class movement, and the charting of the political programme and tactics of the revolutionary SocialDemocratic movement. These are the vital points of the theory of the socialist revolution.
__OWNER__ Chinese chop. _-_-_^^*^^ It is no accident that after Marx's death, Engels wrote that both the 1848 Revolution and the Paris Commune had shown that the European countries lacked the economic maturity to overthrow the capitalist system by a revolution. See: Frederick Engels, ``Introduction to The Class Struggles in France 1848 to 1850 by Karl Marx'', in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1979, pp. 191--94.
100During the first Russian revolution Lenin paid particularly close attention to the problems of the democratic revolution's growth into a socialist revolution. He dealt at length with this problem in Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, in which he generalised the experience of that revolution and of the revolutionary processes that were taking place in Russia and other countries on the eve of the First World War. An analysis of this experience provided him with the foundation for the further elaboration of the theory of the socialist revolution during the First World War. He continued working on that theory during the actual preparations for and accomplishment of the socialist revolution in Russia and after it triumphed, drawing upon the vast experience of that revolution, of socialist construction in the Soviet state and of the international revolutionary movement.
It can rightly be said that the Leninist theory of the socialist revolution is a profound scientific study of the most important problems of two historical ages---the age of imperialism as the eve of the socialist revolution and the present age, which began with the Great October Socialist Revolution. This is the theory of the revolutionary renewal of the world, the theory of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism on a worldwide scale. It is being constantly developed creatively in the theoretical and practical activity of the fraternal Communist and Workers' parties.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Growth of the Democratic RevolutionA fundamental principle of the Marxist teaching of the socialist revolution is that it regards social development as a natural historical process. According to that proposition the epoch of social upheavals commences not arbitrarily, not at somebody's will, but only when at a certain phase of their development society's productive forces come into conflict with the existing relations of production, within which they had = developed.^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ See: Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Moscow, 1977, pp. 20--21.
101Economic relations form the objective foundation of historical processes and determine the activity of classes, the changes in the alignment of class forces, and their historical role.
Marxism proceeds from the postulate that the subjective factor plays a key part in the historical process. The people, above all, the producers of material goods, are the actual makers of history; a definite class that has furthered social progress stands in the centre of each epoch. In the process of capitalist society's revolutionary transformation into socialist society the formation of independent proletarian parties and the attainment of proletarian unity on a national and international scale are of the utmost importance.
The organic unity of the objective and subjective factors of social development, the dialectics of their relationship in the historical process, form the methodological basis of the Marxist teaching on the social revolution. This was the foundation used by Lenin in evolving the theory of the democratic revolution's growth into a socialist revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Conditions of GrowthIn analysing the objective conditions of the growth of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution in Russia Lenin showed that two groups of contradictions had taken shape in the country in the epoch of imperialism and that they had given rise to two social wars. On the one hand, there was an acute social conflict between the developing productive forces and the survivals of feudalism and serfdom in society's economic and political structure. These survivals were obstructing capitalism's further development and were the objective basis of the people's struggle against landed property and tsarism.
On the other hand, in the epoch of imperialism the developing productive forces had outgrown not only feudalserf but also capitalist relations of production. The conflict between the social character of production and the private capitalist form of appropriation had reached a high degree of acuteness. This conflict was the objective basis of the struggle of the proletariat against capitalist slavery.
The bourgeois-democratic revolution can resolve the first group of socio-economic contradictions but it cannot bring 102 the productive forces into line with the relations of production. While settling one social conflict, it still further lays bare and aggravates another, thus making inevitable the further development of the revolution, the growth of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution into a socialist revolution.
As a result the historical place and social role of the bourgeois-democratic revolution changes. Prior to this it had been part of the bourgeoisie's ascent to power and was carried out under the leadership of the bourgeoisie, that was at the time the spokesman of advanced relations of production and brought them into line with the character of the productive forces.
In the epoch of imperialism, the bourgeois-democratic revolution that is being accomplished under the leadership of the proletariat, the only really revolutionary class that has become the principal political force, is, in the context of the acute social conflict between labour and capital, an important link in the struggle for the victory of socialism over capitalism.
The Russian revolution of 1905--1907 was the first bourgeois-democratic revolution of the imperialist epoch. Touching upon that revolution, Lenin wrote: "The degree of Russia's economic development (an objective condition) and the degree of class-consciousness and organisation of broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condition inseparably bound up with the objective condition) make the immediate and complete emancipation of the working class = impossible.''^^*^^ Further, he stressed that the democratic stage should not be protracted, that the revolution should not be confined to the attainment of bourgeois-democratic aims: "The complete victory of the present revolution will mark the end of the democratic revolution and the beginning of a determined struggle for a socialist = revolution.''^^**^^
Thus, Lenin assessed the bourgeois-democratic and the socialist revolutions under imperialism as two stages of a single revolutionary process. His approach to the world's revolutionary transformation not as a single act but as a process involving several stages, including a number of different torrents, is of immense methodological importance _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 28.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 130.
103 to the solution of paramount problems of the theory of revolution today.The whole world has now become the scene of revolutionary actions, and new links and components of the single world revolutionary process have emerged. Among these are the national-democratic revolutions. With the world socialist system in existence, the national-democratic revolutions range far beyond the aims of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the past and pursue the objective not only of national but also of social emancipation.
Lenin foresaw this when he wrote that "in the impending decisive battles in the world revolution, the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism and will, perhaps, play a much more revolutionary part than we = expect''.^^*^^
Bourgeois ideologists propagate various ``special'' ways of development for countries that have won national liberation. They seek to isolate the national liberation movement from the world socialist community and from the revolutionary working-class and democratic movements in the capitalist countries, and ultimately direct these countries towards capitalist development. Moreover, we encounter nationalistic attempts at debunking the Leninist proposition that an indivisible link exists between the socialist revolutions and the national liberation movement (with the socialist revolutions playing the determining role) with arguments that the developing countries have a special place in the revolutionary transformation of society. An example of these arguments is the Maoist theory of the special geopolitical and racial community of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, which ignores the leading role of world socialism and the international working class.
National liberation revolutions can solve the main social problems confronting them only in close mutual action with the other main streams of the revolutionary process. The high prestige of the socialist ideas and the historical experience of building socialism in the USSR and other socialist countries, the international support and aid to the national liberation movement from the socialist countries and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~32, p.~482.
104 the working-class movement further social processes in the liberated countries and the overgrowing of democratic into socialist transformations.Thus, the democratic revolutions of the present day are increasingly clearly becoming a part of the world revolutionary process which is advancing towards socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Hegemony of the ProletariatThe teaching on the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and on the growth of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution under the leadership of the working class was worked out in exhaustive detail by Lenin.
While studying the phenomena of the new epoch---the epoch of imperilaism---and the changed political role of the different classes in the struggle for democracy, he came to the conclusion that the working class of Russia had all the makings enabling it to become the leader of the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution. First, on account of its position in social production the proletariat was the most advanced and the only thoroughly revolutionary class. Second, the proletariat was objectively interested in the complete victory of the democratic revolution, for it was through that victory that it could win the democratic freedoms, strengthen its organisation, i.e., ensure the best conditions for the struggle for its rights and interests, acquire the experience of guiding the working masses and lead them to the socialist revolution. Third, the proletariat has its own revolutionary Marxist Party, which has turned it into an independent political force.
However, in order to translate the possibility of the proletariat becoming the leader into reality, there had to be a staunch ally. In Russia, the peasantry was just such an ally of the proletariat. Moreover, it was necessary to isolate the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie, which sought to take over the leadership of the revolution in order to end it with a bargain with tsarism.
At the same time the Bolsheviks did not ignore the discontent and protests of those strata and representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie that acted against tsarism in some form or other. "He would be a fine Marxist indeed,'' Lenin 105 says, "who in a period of democratic revolution tailed to see this difference between the degrees of democratism and the difference between its = forms....''^^*^^
The Bolsheviks supported bourgeois democracy in so far as it actually struggled against autocracy for the establishment of a truly democratic system in the country. At the same time they vigilantly guarded the class independence of the proletariat, not allowing it to dissolve into bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democracy.
By supporting the opposition movement to tsarism, the proletariat of Russia was acting as the leader of all forms of revolutionary-democratic struggle against autocracy for a democratisation of political and social system. In so doing the Bolsheviks attached special importance to the alliance of the working class with the peasantry, to freeing the latter from the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie and winning it over to the side of the proletariat.
Lenin's propositions on the hegemony of the proletariat are of the greatest assistance in helping to understand the place and role of the working class in the struggle for society's revolutionary reorganisation. They show the proletariat as the most active participant and leading political force in the social and political reforms at the democratic stage of the revolution. While fighting for society's vital requirements, for its economic interests and democratisation, the working class and its party constantly keep in sight the main aims of the struggle for power, for society's fundamental social reorganisation along socialist lines.
The constant numerical growth of the working class, its increasing organisation and the emergence of new MarxistLeninist parties, the upsurge in the working-class movement, the broadening of the social basis of the alliance of the proletariat with other progressive strata, the ever growing role of the working class in the national liberation movement---all this testifies to the fact that the working class is the main socio-political force of the present day.
The peasantry, which forms the broadest mass base of the national liberation movement, possesses great revolutionary possibilities in our time.
The scientific criterion for assessing the role of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 52.
106 national bourgeoisie is the principle of historical method. In order to evaluate correctly the extent to which a national bourgeoisie is revolutionary or reactionary, it is essential to establish at what historical stage it is operating, what historical tasks face the country in question, on what socio-economic level this country finds itself, how active and organised are the classes and the popular masses in it.Whereas a national liberation movement can begin under the leadership of any democratic class, leadership by the working class, based on its alliance with the peasantry and headed by the Marxist-Leninist vanguard, ensures the successful completion of democratic transformations and the transition to socialism.
History has brought the working class to the forefront of social life as society's leading political force. This is the basic condition of the evolution of the present-day democratic movements into socialist revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Revolutionary-Democratic PowerThe scale and depth of the democratic revolution and its growth into a socialist revolution depend on the extent to which the working masses participate in this process and also on the class content and policy of the government that comes to power as a result of the democratic revolution.
In analysing the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848-- 1849 in Germany from the standpoint of the prospects for its development as the prologue of the socialist revolution, Marx and Engels made it plain that it could carry out its tasks only if power were seized by the people. The revolutionary people had to take all state power into their hands, and set up a provisional government determined to crush the resistance of the reactionary classes and complete the revolution. Such a government had to rely on the revolutionary initiative of the people, carry out their will and act dictatorially with regard to the enemies of the revolution. Marx and Engels emphasised that any provisional state administration set up after the revolution had to be an energetic = dictatorship.^^*^^
Lenin summed up the experience of the first Russian revolution and came to the conclusion that a victorious _-_-_
^^*^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 7, Moscow, 1977, p. 16.
107 democratic revolution effected under the leadership of the proletariat and its Marxist Party could bring into being a new type of state power that would differ fundamentally from the bourgeois-democratic state, namely, a revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. As Lenin saw it, this dictatorship would be the people's political instrument for completing the democratic revolution and preparing the conditions for the transition to the socialist revolution.Lenin considered that the bourgeois-democratic revolution could develop successfully if at its early stage a provisional revolutionary government were set up as the organ of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants: such a government would enforce fundamental democratic reforms and thereby prepare the ground for the evolution of this movement into a socialist revolution. In reply to the question whether representatives of the proletariat should take part in a provisional revolutionary government, he said that such participation by the SocialDemocrats was permissible in principle, and added: "It stands to reason, however, that the question of permissibility in principle does not solve the question of practical expediency.''^^*^^ He held that the expediency of participation in such a government depended on the situation, the alignment of forces and so on. In advance it was only possible to determine the character and aim of such participation: unrelenting struggle against counterrevolutionary action and the safeguarding of the independent interests of the working class.
Strict control by the Communist Party of its representatives in the government and the need to keep the main objective, the socialist revolution, constantly in sight were, Lenin felt, indispensable conditions for participation in a provisional revolutionary government. "We must propagate the idea of action from above, must prepare for the most energetic, offensive action, and must study the conditions for and forms of such = action,''^^**^^ he wrote.
He stressed that in any case a provisional revolutionary government had to be pressured from below. In order to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 30.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 31.
108 exert such pressure the proletariat had to be armed and had to act under the guidance of the Communist Party. The aim of its armed pressure was to protect, consolidate and extend the gains of the revolution.Lenin's Left bloc tactics were of major significance in the fulfilment of these tasks. The substance of these tactics, as Lenin defined it, was to induce the most numerous democratic sections (peasants, urban petty-bourgeois strata, employees, democratic intellectuals and others) to join the working class in united action against the tsarist regime and against the wavering counter-revolutionary liberal bourgeoisie (joint revolutionary appeals to the people, cooperation in mass, uncommitted organisations, in election campaigns and so on). Further, the temporary agreements on specific issues had to be of a principled nature and should in no way limit the party independence of the members of the Left bloc.
Lenin warned the Communist Party against dangerous relapses into Leftist moods, in particular, against supplanting the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry by a dictatorship of the proletariat. He regarded Trotsky's call "...without a tsar, but a workers' government" as political adventurism. This was in fact an appeal for an adventurist leap across the democratic stage of the revolution. It ignored the revolutionary role of the peasantry as the ally of the working class and, in the long run, spelled out the repudiation of the hegemony of the proletariat.
Lenin regarded the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry as a transient, provisional power, whose task was to complete the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution. This was desired by the workers and peasants and, consequently, meant that the workers and the peasants had a common aim and should therefore take joint action.
The stability of such a government, Lenin said, depended on the durability of the alliance of the working class with the peasantry and other democratic strata, on the consistent employment of Left bloc tactics and on the skilful combination of pressure on the government from above and from below with the purpose of putting further revolutionary transformations into effect.
109 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Alignment and Regrouping of Class ForcesLenin's precept that the growth of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution is achieved not spontaneously but as a result of the class struggle of the working people of a given country under the leadership of the working class against the bourgeois and conciliator elements seeking to halt the further development of the revolution, is of fundamental importance. Hence the special role played by the Marxist proletarian party as the leader and organiser of the revolutionary struggle and the importance of its tactical guidelines. This is one of the principal conditions of the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and its growth into a socialist revolution.
Lenin's teaching on the regrouping of class forces around the proletariat during this period is of the utmost importance to the revolutionary movement today. During the transition to the socialist stage the spotlight shifts to the class contradictions in the democratic bloc, to the struggle for the leadership of the movement, a struggle on whose outcome the destiny of the revolution largely depends.
At this stage the alliance between the working class and the peasantry remains the force capable of crushing the resistance of the bourgeoisie, but now it is not a question of the peasantry as a whole but of the working peasants. In their turn, the labouring peasants are not a homogeneous stratum. They include the poorest sections of the peasantry, i.e., the labouring and exploited elements of the countryside, and the middle peasants, i.e., small proprietors who do not or almost do not exploit the labour of others.
As petty-bourgeois, the middle peasants can go over to the side of the rural bourgeoisie. In that case, taking the instability of the middle peasants into account, the task of the proletariat is at least to ensure their neutrality toward the struggle against the urban and rural bourgeoisie, to prevent them from siding with the bourgeoisie; in order, during the socialist transformations, to enlist the support of the middle peasants and form a lasting alliance with them.
For their part, as victims of capitalist oppression, the middle peasants are interested in the abolition of the capitalist system and may support the revolutionary struggle 110 of the proletariat from the very outset. In this case, while relying on the village poor, the proletariat forms a durable alliance with the middle peasants against the urban and rural bourgeoisie.
Lenin's teaching on the regrouping of class forces should not be reduced to the question of differentiating solely the peasantry or to the attitude of the middle .peasants to the struggle for socialism. Lenin's approach to the Left bloc tactics embraces many variants of the alignment of class and social groups during the transition from the democratic to the socialist stage of the revolution. Everything depends on the specific situation in which the revolution takes place in a given country. For instance, there was a different alignment of class forces during the first Russian revolution of 1905--1907 and during the people's democratic revolution in the countries of Southeastern Europe in 1945--1948.
In Russia at the turn of the century democratic aims were set and achieved by the working class from the angle of furthering the growth of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. In the People's Democracies the democratic tasks of the national liberation, popular fronts sprang chiefly from the anti-fascist struggle. This predetermined some new elements in the tactics of the struggle for democracy and socialism. These elements included: the formation of a people's democratic front, which enabled the Communists to draw the widest sections of the people into the movement, provide them with proletarian leadership and build up a broader social base for the revolution; the willingness of all the labouring peasants and all the labouring sections of the urban population to accept the leadership of the proletariat; a temporary alliance with the bourgeoisie in the struggle for national independence and democracy; a multi-party democratic front government in which the leading role was played by the Marxist-Leninist Party; the employment by the working class of parliamentary means of struggle. Moreover, the vital significance of the external factor, notably the active and all-sided assistance and support of the USSR, must be taken into account.
While drawing a distinction between the democratic and the socialist revolution, Marxism-Leninism regards these revolutions as two links of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle. The democratic revolution creates the conditions 111 for and is the transition stage to the socialist revolution, which, in its turn, is the direct result, continuation and consummation of democratic reforms.
Democratic and socialist reforms are not only closely linked but may also intertwine. For example, in some of the European People's Democracies as the two stages of the revolution drew closer (on account of a growing number of objective and subjective conditions for their increasingly faster and successful evolution), the democratic and socialist reforms intertwined so closely that it was not always possible to draw a line between them.
Moreover, it did not always happen that the first phase consisted of a democratic revolution followed by its growth into a socialist revolution. In Bulgaria, for instance, where feudal-serf relations were practically non-existent, democratic tasks were carried out during the struggle to set up the proletarian dictatorship. Of course, even there democratic tasks were at first moved to the forefront, but they were carried out by the socialist revolution.
The present-day democratic anti-monopoly movements are developing in a situation where the ground for the transition to socialism has been prepared in the imperialist system as a whole.
At the very first, democratic stage the overthrow of the dictatorship of the monopolies may lead to the overthrow of the main forces of reaction. This at once makes it possible to create a large public sector of the economy through the nationalisation of the property of the big monopolies and facilitate the subsequent transition to socialism. In addition, one must take into account the more favourable balance of power in the world, the existence of the world socialist community, the growth of its economic and political influence, its massive assistance to the national liberation movement, the increased activity and stronger organisation of the international working class, the unity of the international communist movement in the struggle against imperialism, and so on. All these are significant external factors furthering the revolutionary struggle for the evolution of the anti-monopoly movement into a socialist revolution.
The various historical features and traditions of individual countries determine the difference in the content of the democratic tasks, rates of development of revolution and 112 paths to power of the working class. This conditions the possibility and need in a number of countries for transition stages in the development of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat and multiformity of political organisation of the society building socialism. This thesis is important because it reveals more broadly the dialectics of the growth of the revolution and encourages a more flexible application of revolutionary theory to the concrete historical conditions of each country.
L. I. Brezhnev noted: "Of key importance today is Lenin's conclusion that in the epoch of imperialism the tasks of the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism draw ever closer and merge into a common = torrent.''^^*^^
At the same time the subjective factor is becoming increasingly important in present-day conditions, first and foremost, the existence of strong Marxist-Leninist parties enjoying the broad support of the masses, and the flexible and skilful policy of these parties which are guided not by a compulsory scheme, but by the general laws of the class struggle, by historical experience, and which take into account the conditions of their countries. In the struggle for democracy, which is seen as an integral part of the struggle for socialism, Communists are constantly strengthening their links with the masses, raising the level of the latter's political consciousness and leading them to an understanding of the tasks of the socialist revolution and the need for it to take place.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Revolutionary SituationA characteristic feature of the Leninist theory of the socialist revolution is its precise scientific definition of all the latter's most important categories and the organic connection between the objective and subjective conditions that determine the possibility of the emergence, development and victory of the revolution.
Basing himself on the experience of the first proletarian revolution Lenin in the article "In Memory of the _-_-_
^^*^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1972, p. 298.
113 Commune" characterises the objective prerequisites of a socialist revolution in any given country as follows: "Two conditions, at least, are necessary for a victorious social revolution--- highly developed productive forces and a proletariat adequately prepared for = it.''^^*^^Noting the absence of these two prerequisites in France at that time, he wrote that, on the one hand, capitalism was poorly developed then: France was still for the most part a country of the petty bourgeoisie. And, on the other hand, it lacked serious political organisation of the proletariat, broad trade unions and other associations, and there was no corresponding preparation, no prolonged training of the working class.
Thus, the objective conditions for a victorious socialist revolution in any given country include material and social prerequisites---certain levels of development of capitalism and of the preparation, organisation and experience of the proletariat.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Revolutionary SituationThe objective conditions for the revolution also include a number of "objective changes, which are independent of the will, not only of individual groups and parties but even of individual = classes...".^^**^^ This sum total of socio-political objective changes Lenin called the revolutionary situation. Its main features constitute the second group of objective conditions for the revolution.
Defining the revolutionary situation, Lenin said: "What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms: (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the 'upper classes', a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for `the lower classes not to want' to live in the old way; it is also necessary that `the upper classes should be unable' to live in _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 141.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 214.
114 the old way; (2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than usual; (3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in 'peace time', but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the `upper classes' themselves into independent historical = action.''^^*^^ Without these changes, Lenin continued "...a revolution, as a general rule, is impossible.''^^**^^ If one were to try to define in a nutshell the revolutionary situation, one might say that it is a crisis of the "upper classes" combined with a crisis of the "lower classes" and, on this basis, a significant increase in the activity of the masses and their transition to independent historical action.The classical formulation of the main features of the revolutionary situation was made by Lenin on the basis of an analysis of revolutionary experience in Russia and the West, and, in particular, of new revolutionary experience---the revolutionary situation which arose in the most developed European countries in connection with World War I. The subsequent revolutionary movement, the experience of the October Revolution and other socialist and people's revolutions up to the most recent revolutions (such as those in Iran and Nicaragua) have fully confirmed the unchanging theoretical and practical importance of Lenin's thesis on the main features of the revolutionary situation.
We cannot fail to note that Lenin accords first place to the following feature of the revolutionary situation: "when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in one form or another, among the 'upper classes'...''. It allows the masses to acquire their own political experience. In pointing to the special importance of this feature, Lenin emphasises that during turbulent times the masses are aroused "...by the `upper classes' themselves" to "independent historical action".
Concerning the second feature of the revolutionary situation, it should be noted that this does not mean a simple deterioration in the material condition of the masses, but a sharp, extreme aggravation of it. It implies a broader _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., pp. 213--14.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 214.
115 concept---the hardship of the masses, which goes beyond the framework of their material, everyday life. In one of his works of this period Lenin defined the concepts of hardship and misery as "...intensified oppression, starvation, poverty, lack of rights, humiliation of the = people...''^^*^^ There is an obvious connection between the second and first features. The aggravation of the poverty and hardship of the oppressed classes has as a direct consequence their discontent and anger, which burst into the fissure created by the crisis of the policy of the ruling class.The revolutionary situation is the process, always objective, usually lengthy, and frequently contradictory, of the growth and maturing of its features. "Revolutions are never born ready-made; they do not spring out of Jupiter's head; they do not kindle at = once.''^^**^^ This methodological thesis is also fully applicable to revolutionary situations which pass through different stages of maturity. From this angle the starting point of the gradual maturing of conditions for a revolutionary situation is the stage of the slow accumulation of strength by the oppressed classes against the stable rule of the oppressors. In this period, clearly a non-revolutionary, relatively ``peaceful'' situation, the contradictions between the oppressed and the oppressors are muted, as it were, and do not manifest themselves actively. Reformist illusions prevail and there is little activity by the masses who, as Lenin put it, uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time''. Their struggle is uncoordinated and predominantly economic. In this period the ruling classes feel confident, they have no real doubts as to the possibility of maintaining "...their rule without any = change...''.^^***^^
In the present age, the age of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism on a worldwide scale, although the principle features of the ``peaceful'' situation are generally preserved, some objective positive changes are taking place in many countries. They are strengthening the position of the ruling classes, on the one hand, and weakening the position of the ruling classes, on the other. The level of consciousness, experience and organisation of the working _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~19, p.~221.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol.~21, p.~451.
^^***^^ Ibid., p.~213.
116 class and the progressive forces is rising, and the content of their day-to-day struggle is acquiring more scope and depth. It increasingly combines economic demands with political ones. A tremendous influence is being exerted on people's thinking and behaviour by existing socialism, the developed socialist society which is today the greatest achievement of human social progress. The attraction of world socialism is particularly impressive against the background of the continuing ever-deepening general crisis of capitalism.The stage of the pre-revolutionary situation is characterised by increased political awareness of the working class and working people at large. Their struggle is acquiring a more organised, mass character. Led by the communist vanguard, and also by other political, professional organisations, the conscious section of the working people is relying on its growing strength and making full use of the democratic rights and freedoms which it has won in the struggle and of the legality declared by the bourgeoisie. The balance of class forces is beginning to change in favour of the oppressed classes. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the ruling classes, who are striving at all costs to check the growth of the revolutionary movement, to solve the growing contradictions within the legal framework of the existing order. Hence the instability of the policy of the upper classes, their lack of confidence, vacillations, and switching from a policy of bourgeois constitutional methods to the use of terroristic and repressive methods. On the other hand, the proletarian parties, which are aware of the inevitability of a decisive revolutionary struggle in the future, have not the "slightest reason to renounce those conveniences in the struggle, that advantage in battle afforded by the fact that the enemy is caught in the toils of his own legality, that the enemy is compelled to 'shoot first', is compelled to shatter his own legality.''^^*^^
Describing the situation on the eve of the socialist revolution Lenin stated: "The chief feature of this peculiar pre-revolutionary situation consists in the fact that the coming revolution must inevitably be incomparably more profound, more radical, drawing far broader masses into a more difficult, stubborn and prolonged struggle than all _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~16, p.~311.
117 previous revolutions.'' And later: "Yet at the same time this pre-revolutionary situation is marked by the greater (in comparison with anything hitherto) domination of legality, which has become an obstacle to those who introduced = it''.^^*^^ Nevertheless at this stage the balance of class forces still favours the upper classes. They are still able on the whole to preserve their rule in unchanged form. In other words, to solve the contradictions, sometimes very acute ones, that arise within the framework of the existing legality by the well-tried methods of the class rule of the bourgeoisie.In the modern age and, in particular, the present period, the features of the pre-revolutionary situation are acquiring maximum depth, qualitative definition and full, rich forms of manifestation. The movements of the oppressed and exploited are becoming larger and more diverse, and the level of their organisation, which is often of a nationwide nature, is rising. Nationwide strikes are being held. The increasingly reactionary policies of the ruling classes are objectively making the democratic tasks confronting the popular movements more diversified and broader in scope. The role of the masses is becoming clearer in the face of mankind's growing tasks, the solution of which is being prevented by the most reactionary circles of monopoly capital. The desire of reaction both nationally and internationally to flout the universally recognised democratic norms and institutions of bourgeois legality is growing. Reaction is increasingly resorting to terroristic methods of preserving power and seeking to give them a pseudo-revolutionary form (``red'' terrorists groups, etc.)
The mature stage of the revolutionary situation, which has been defined in Lenin's classical wording, is characterised by the most acute socio-political aggravation of antagonistic contradictions. This is the stage of "almost evenly balanced forces''^^**^^ when all the objective changes which make a political revolution possible are present.
However, even this revolutionary situation is not enough for a revolution to take place. Lenin explained that "it is not every revolutionary situation that gives rise to a revolution; revolution arises only out of a situation in which the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 16, p. 310.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 9, p. 394.
118 above-mentioned objective changes are accompanied by a subjective = change...''.^^*^^ Consequently, what we have here is the highest stage of the maturing of the revolutionary situation. Subjective change is an inherent feature of this situation. It contains the subjective factor. Lenin called this stage variously: "directly revolutionary crisis'', "directly revolutionary struggle'', "nation-wide crisis'', etc. In this sense the definition "directly revolutionary situation" was introduced into the documents of the Communist International. The change characteristic of it is subjective, in so far as we are dealing with the ability "of the revolutionary doss to take revolutionary mass action strong enough to break (or dislocate) the old = government....''^^**^^ However, it has the right to be included in the concept of the revolutionary situation because of its content which is objectively necessary for the revolution---the final development of the class struggle which brings the oppressed masses directly to revolution and tilts the balance of forces in favour of the revolutionary classes. "The revolution must be allowed to grow to full ripening of the = fruit.''^^***^^ This is how Lenin expressed the objective need for a revolution of this stage. The directly revolutionary situation is a question of the objective changes that concern "the alignment of all the class forces in a given society for the final and decisive = battle....''^^****^^ Developing Marxist views on revolution in relation to the socialist revolution, on the basis of the rich experience provided by the October Revolution, Lenin asks himself a question that reveals the essence of the directly revolutionary situation: "...Whether the historically effective forces of all classes ... are arrayed in such a way that the decisive battle is at hand ... that: (1) all the class forces hostile to us have become sufficiently entangled, are sufficiently at loggerheads with each other, have sufficiently weakened themselves in a struggle...; (2) all the vacillating and unstable, intermediate elements---the petty bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois democrats, ... have sufficiently disgraced themselves through their practical bankruptcy, and (3) among the proletariat, a _-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 214.
^^**^^ Ibid.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 42, p. 355.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 94.
119 mass sentiment favouring the most determined, bold and dedicated revolutionary action against the bourgeoisie has emerged and begun to grow vigorously. Then revolution is indeed = ripe....''^^*^^In the period of the maturing of the subjective factor the three main features of the revolutionary situation do not remain unchanged. The changes in the socio-political position of the classes and, consequently, also in the alignment of the class forces continue and acquire new, more prominent features. The new stage in the situation is not simply characterised by the sum of the objective and subjective changes (3+1). The interaction between them becomes increasingly profound and organic. The question of whether the vacillating, intermediate, petty-bourgeois elements have unmasked themselves sufficiently before the people acquires special importance, because the masses' own political experience is exceptionally important for the maturing of the subjective factor. Thus, the directly revolutionary situation is a qualitatively new stage, characterised by the organic unity of the changes and the distribution of all the class forces in such a way that the decisive battle is imminent.
The need to combine objective prerequisites and objective and subjective changes for a victorious socialist revolution was demonstrated convincingly by the October Revolution for the first time in the history of mankind. Analysing the experience of the October Revolution L. I. Brezhnev stressed that "a revolution triumphs only when the objective conditions for it have taken shape. Nobody can repeal this immutable law. At the same time, the October Revolution showed that, besides having the favourable objective conditions needed for the overthrow of the old system, the working masses must be properly prepared and organised for decisive battles with the class = enemy.''^^**^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Fundamental Law of RevolutionAs can be seen from the foregoing, the emergence, development and victory of the socialist revolution is based _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~31, p. 94.
^^**^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The CPSU in the Struggle for Unity of All Revolutionary and Peace Forces, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p.~34.
120 on the operation of a series of laws. These laws are not of equal importance. Thus, the objective material prerequisites may be created without the socio-political changes taking place, changes which, however, are impossible unless the prerequisites in question are present. A revolutionary situation can arise without the maturing of the subjective factor. This subjective change, however, is impossible unless the necessary objective changes have already taken place.Thus, the law which demands the existence of the subjective change, the subjective factor for the revolution to take place, emerges as the most important compared with the other laws of revolution and, by virtue of this, it is logical to consider it the closest to the concept of the fundamental law of revolution.
If a law in the philosophical sense is the relationship of essences or between essences, a fundamental law is the most characteristic relationship between essences, which most precisely defines the very heart of the process and most fully and directly expresses its content. It is definitive in relation to other laws and plays a key role in the general system of the laws of any given process. By virtue of this the fundamental law cannot be the sum total of all the laws which determine a given process. Such an interpretation of the fundamental law would involve the loss of a definitive link in the description of the process, a lack of understanding of its essence. Following this logic, one would have to say, for example, that the fundamental economic law of capitalism or the fundamental economic law of socialism was the sum total of all the economic laws of capitalism or socialism, that the basic contradiction of capitalism was the sum total or unity of all its contradictions, etc.
The fact that the fundamental law of revolution was revealed by Lenin in his work ``Left-Wing'' Communism, An Infantile Disorder is most significant. Written after the October Revolution and intended for Communists, this work accumulated Lenin's most profound analysis of all revolutions. It is quite logical that in this work, which crowned the revolutionary work of a genius of the strategy and tactics of proletarian struggle, Lenin formulates and substantiates fully the fundamental law of revolutions discovered by him. He points out that "...revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change 121 brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda = alone''.^^*^^ That is to say, revolution is impossible without the subjective change that takes place only on the basis of the masses' own political experience.
Lenin formulates the fundamental law of revolution most clearly in the concluding chapter of his work "Several Conclusions" in which he presents the reader with some "general conclusions concerning the development of communism in all capitalist = countries...''^^**^^
For the full maturing of the subjective factor, "for an entire class, the broad masses of the working people, those oppressed by capital, to take up ... a position either of direct support for the vanguard, or at least of sympathetic neutrality toward it and of precluded support for the enemy ... propaganda and agitation alone are not enough. For that, the masses must have their own political experience. Such is the fundamental law of all great = revolutions".^^***^^
To avoid any misunderstandings Lenin stresses its universal nature. He says that the fundamental law of the revolution is confirmed "with compelling force and vividness" not only by Russia, but also by Germany. "To turn resolutely towards communism, it was necessary, not only for the ignorant and often illiterate masses of Russia, but also for the literate and well-educated masses of Germany, to realise from their own bitter experience the absolute impotence and spinelessness, the absolute helplessness and servility to the bourgeoisie, ... they had to realise that a dictatorship of the extreme reactionaries ... is inevitably the only alternative to a dictatorship of the = proletariat".^^****^^
Of decisive importance in the acquisition by the masses of their own political experience is the objective change, the crisis in the policy of the ruling class "leading to a fissure through which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst = forth".^^*****^^ This enables it to deepen arid extend its political experience with the help of the communist vanguard. Concentrating attention on this key factor, Lenin even calls the "crisis of the upper classes" the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 84.
^^**^^ Ibid., 89.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 93.
^^****^^ Ibid.
^^*****^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 213.
122 fundamental law of revolution (in its concentrated, narrow sense). "The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions and especially by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follows: ... for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old = way.''^^*^^ Expounding this thesis, he goes on to explain that "for a revolution to take place, it is essential ... that the ruling classes should be going through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics (symptomatic of any genuine revolution is a rapid, tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses---hitherto apathetic---who are capable of waging the political struggle), weakens the government, and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to rapidly overthrow it.''^^**^^Lenin's teaching on the fundamental law of revolution was further substantiated at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International. In his report Georgi Dimitrov urgently drew the attention of Communists throughout the world to the "fundamental law of all great revolutions discovered by Lenin, the law that propaganda and agitation alone are no substitute for the masses' own political experience.'' In these cases "it is a question of winning the truly broad masses of the working people to the side of the revolutionary vanguard, without which a victorious struggle for power- is impossible.''^^***^^
The experience of the revolutions of our time is convincing confirmation of the importance of observing the demands of this law for drawing the broad masses into the struggle for the revolutionary reorganisation of the world and the national and social liberation of the peoples.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Creation of a Broad Democratic FrontOne of the laws of the socialist revolution is the creation of a broad democratic front. Distorting the essence and content _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 84--85.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 85.
^^***^^ Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works, Vol.~I (1906--1937), p. 668 (in Russian).
123 of the historical experience of the Bolshevik Party in creating a broad front, bourgeois ideologists argue that it is "unrepeatable'', ``inapplicable'' to other countries and parties, a "purely Russian" phenomenon. Such inventions by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists are theoretically absurd and practically invalid.Before a socialist revolution can be accomplished not only must the material conditions mature but the masses themselves must be convinced that it is necessary and be prepared to fight for the new social system.
The success of the revolution depends, among other factors, on the existence of a mass political army of the revolution, i.e., on the unity of all the revolutionary forces prepared politically, organisationally and psychologically to fight with devotion and dedication under the leadership of the Communist Party for the overthrow of the exploiting system, to overcome all difficulties for the sake of the revolution's triumph, on the existence of a broad democratic front.
The main forces of the revolution are determined by the nature of the revolution, the objective tasks confronting it and the alignment of class forces in the given country and on the international scene. This army is formed of people from all the classes and strata of the population desiring to overthrow the rule of the exploiters and accepting the leadership of the working class.
Lenin took special pains to stress the importance of the revolutionary preparedness, firmness and consistency of the working class and its party as the decisive force behind the broad democratic front of the revolution in the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.
For more than a century the bourgeois ideologists have, as they are still trying to do, sought to prove that the Marxist teaching on the historical mission of the working class has grown obsolete, that it only mirrors the specifics of the 19th century. They assert that the relations between the bourgeoisie and the working class are founded on social ``partnership'', on cooperation, on a ``harmony'' of interests. Present-day bourgeois literature is packed with ``forecasts'' that the working class is disappearing, with arguments to show that its various groups have no common interests and that there is a growing process of ``bourgeoisiefication'' 124 among the workers and peasants. The bourgeois falsifiers direct much of their effort towards trying to prove that there was no industrial proletariat in pre-revolutionary Russia, that the working class was ``immature'', "numerically small'', unorganised and so = on.^^*^^ The principal aim of these fabrications is to dispute the objective inevitability and proletarian character of the October Revolution and prove that the Bolshevik idea of the hegemony of the proletariat is a "purely Russian phenomenon" currently applicable in only some Asian and African countries. The ``Left'' sectarians, too, refuse to recognise the proletariat's hegemony in the revolution. As distinct from the Leninist teaching that there must be an alliance between the working class and the peasantry they call for a war of the "world village" against the "world town".
The bourgeois and reformist ``theories'' are debunked by the historical revolutionary experience of the Soviet Union, and socialist community countries, the revolutionary practice of remaking society in which the principal role was played by the heroic working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party. They are refuted by the experience of the entire international revolutionary movement. The question of the role, the historic mission of the working class in the revolutionary transformation of human society is one of the _-_-_
^^*^^ In an effort to repudiate the socialist character of the October Revolution the West German historian Georg von Rauch wrote: "It would be pure fiction to maintain that on the day of the October Revolution power was seized by the working class.'' The same idea is propounded by the historian Isaac Deutscher, who has won notoriety as a falsifier of history. He asserts that on account of Russia's economic backwardness in 1917 Russia's proletariat "was not strong enough to exercise actual proletarian dictatorship" (Russia in Transition and Other Essays, New York, 1957, p. 8). Similar arguments are offered by the German historian Boris Meissner, Professor Reinhardt Maurach of Munich University, and others.
The revisionists are in the same camp with the ideologists of the bourgeoisie. Zivko Topalovich, for instance, tries to prove that the October Revolution was "neither a revolution of the workers nor of the people" ``(La dictature communiste totalitaire'', La Revue socialiste, No.~114, Paris, February 1958, p.~201).
The bourgeois ideologists and the petty-bourgeois reformists are at one in their efforts to prove that the October Revolution was accomplished by a handful of conspirators. They refuse to recognise that the proletarian revolution was the result of the struggle of millions of people headed by the working class and its Marxist-Leninist Party.
125 most important, fundamental questions of Marxist-Leninist theory. "The chief thing in the doctrine of Marx,'' Lenin wrote, "is that it brings out the historic role of the proletariat as the builder of socialist = society."^^*^^By the beginning of 1917 the working class had become the decisive force and hegemon of the revolutionary struggle in Russia. It was the force on which the Communist Party relied during the preparations for the Great October Socialist Revolution.
Led by the Bolshevik Party's organisations the working class set up Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, trade unions, youth organisations and the Red Guard. With the support of these organisations the Communist Parthy headed the economic and political struggle of the proletariat. Throughout the country the working class took over control of production and distribution: the movement of raw and other materials and fuel. The factory committees took over control of the financial aspects of management. The working class clamped down on subversion and mass lockouts organised by factory owners, on economic counterrevolution. "The October Revolution'', reads the Resolution of the CC CPSU on the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution "demonstrated in a profound and comprehensive manner the working class's great liberating role which is of world = significance.''^^**^^
The Marxist-Leninist teaching on the vanguard role of the working class in society's revolutionary reconstruction and the historical experience of the CPSU in directing the working-class movement in the socialist revolution are of paramount theoretical and practical importance today.
In the postwar period there has been a steady growth of the army of wage workers and of the class battles in the capitalist countries. Compared with the prewar level, the number of wage workers nearly doubled, as did the number of strikers and of people taking part in protest demonstrations and marches. Besides growing in scale, the strike movement has risen to a higher political level. A struggle is being waged for basic social demands, for society's democratic reconstruction.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 582.
^^**^^ On the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Moscow, 1977, p. 4.
126The working class can carry out its great liberative mission provided it ends the split in the ranks of the working-class movement and strengthens its unity. It is vital that there should be cohesion in the working class.
The surmounting of the split in the trade union movement is another paramount aim of the working-class movement today. The largest organisations of the working people and the working class, the trade unions, at present unite over 300 million people, i.e., 50 per cent of the wage workers. They play an important part in the anti-imperialist struggle. But "for the division in the trade union movement in the capitalist world they might be playing an even larger role''.^^*^^ Alongside the World Federation of Trade Unions, a progressive trade union organisation of the working class with 190 million members, considerable influence is still wielded by reformist trade union associations, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, World Confederation of Labour, etc.
In the acute class struggle reformist and other alien influences are surmounted and effective use is made of the world proletariat's experience and finest revolutionary traditions. The political unity of the working class and the communist movement grows steadily.
Present-day capitalist society has a complex class structure. Innumerable political organisations are fighting for influence among the people. There are trade unions and religious, national and other organisations. The success of the revolutionary struggle depends also on the behaviour of the intermediate strata and this complicates the Communist Party's political leadership of the proletarian class struggle. The Communist Party has to determine its attitude to all social groups, classes, parties and other organisations. Its tactics, Lenin wrote, rest "on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary = movements".^^**^^
Unlike the dogmatists and ``Left'' sectarians, who were against drawing broad strata of the population into the _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 25.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 63.
127 revolutionary struggle, the Bolsheviks fought for leadership of the democratic movement of the peasants, craftsmen, artisans and other petty-bourgeois strata.The working class does not take over the leadership of the broad democratic front spontaneously. This is prepared by the Communist Party's long and painstaking work among the people, at factories, in the Navy and Army, in villages and farms, at educational establishments and research laboratories, and so on. The working class assumes the leadership in a sharp and long struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois theories that reject this leadership of the proletariat and its Communist Party.
The Great October Socialist Revolution triumphed in a country with a medium level of capitalist development, a country where capitalism was swiftly evolving into its monopoly phase. In some regions feudal and even clan and tribal relations were still intact and over half of the country's population was subjected to national oppression. The multi-structural economy and the depth of the social and national contradictions determined the diversity of the revolutionary torrents in Russia. The struggle of the peasants for land, of the oppressed nations for national equality and of the broad masses for peace and democracy unfolded parallel with the powerful working-class movement for socialism.
Consequently, in the revolutionary movement in Russia there were various revolutionary torrents that are also typical of the present epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. That is what makes the experience of the CPSU in creating a broad democratic front of tremendous importance today in both developed capitalist and developing countries.
In defining the place of the working peasants in society's revolutionary reconstruction Lenin showed that they were interested not only in the bourgeois-democratic revolution but also in the overthrow of capitalism, for a radical solution of the agrarian question could be furnished only by socialism.
Bourgeois historians misrepresent the CPSU's experience in an effort to prove that no alliance of two classes existed, that the working class ``used'' its ally. They assert that the Leninist idea of the hegemony of the proletariat springs from inequality between classes, that it accords the peasants 128 solely the role of an ally upon whom the proletariat imposes its views.
In non-socialist countries the Trotskyite theory of "permanent revolution'', which does not recognise the revolutionary potential of the peasants as an ally of the proletariat, is propagated by individual groups of radical intellectuals, young people and students.
Where the CPSU's experience is understood creatively it is an effective weapon against anti-Marxist theories of this kind. In Russia the peasant movement in terms of its aims and tasks was a broad democratic movement directed against the landowners and the remnants of medieval practices. But it could achieve its aims only with the support of the proletariat. The victory of the proletarian revolution created the objective possibility for solving the agrarian question. In the socialist revolution the proletariat, for its part, could not seize and hold power without the support of the village poor and the broad mass of working peasants. It was necessary, Lenin wrote, to "combine the purely proletarian struggle against capitalism with the general democratic (arid general peasant) struggle against = serfdom''^^*^^ without mixing them. Lenin formulated the Communist Party's key demands in the agrarian question: confiscation of the landed estates, nationalisation of all the land and its transfer to the local Soviets. He stressed that it was necessary to set up Soviets of Labourers' and Poor Peasants' Deputies as the Communist Party's strongpoints in the countryside.
Headed by the Communist Party the workers of Petrograd, Moscow and other industrial centres began propagating the Party's agrarian programme among the peasants.
The Communist Party's work in rallying the millions of poor peasants and mobilising them for the struggle against the landowners helped to form a broad democratic front and ensured unity of action by the working class and the mass of working peasants for the victory of the socialist revolution.
The historical experience of the Bolshevik Party's work in the countryside among the working peasants is to this day of paramount significance to the Communist and Workers' parties despite the fact that in the capitalist countries the numerical strength of the peasantry has decreased _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 445.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 5 --- 660 129 substantially. In the developed capitalist countries, the peasants comprised 40 per cent of the gainfully employed population in 1920, 30.7 per cent in 1950 and only 14.5 per cent in 1968. But even today the rural population is still a very considerable section in some capitalist countries. "The working peasants,'' L. I. Brezhnev noted, "remain the chief allies of the working class, despite the fact that their number has declined considerably in the advanced capitalist countries.''^^*^^The increasing concentration of agricultural production in the hands of the big entrepreneurs is inevitably accompanied by the ruin of the small and middle farmers and by the aggravation of the social contradictions in the countryside. The movement of the poor and middle peasants against the concentration of agricultural production has the support of the urban working people.
The strike struggle of the farmers for their rights and for united action with the working class is gaining momentum. "The strengthening of the alliance of workers and farmers,'' states the Main Document adopted at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, "is one of the basic prerequisites of the success of the struggle aganist the monopolies and their = power."^^**^^
The work conducted by the Bolsheviks among the soldiers and sailors was a large contribution to the drive for the formation of a broad democratic front. Without winning over the army the proletariat would have been unable to triumph in the revolution and establish its dictatorship. During the war 15 million men were drafted into the army. Lenin wrote that the flower of the people's forces went to form the = army.^^***^^ The army consisted mainly of peasants, and the struggle for the army and navy was an essential element of the struggle for the alliance of the working class with the working peasants.
The strengthening of the proletariat's links with the peasants in army greatcoats fostered the rapid growth of the armed forces of the proletarian revolution. Characterising _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 150.
^^**^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 25.
^^***^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 260.
130 the situation in the army on the eve of the October Revolution Lenin wrote that half of it was on the side of the Communist Party. This was the "political 'striking force"' of the Bolsheviks and it gave them "an overwhelming superiority of forces at the decisive point at the decisive = moment....''^^*^^The Bolshevik Party carried on extensive work among the progressive intellectuals.
Today the bourgeois ideologists portray the intelligentsia as the decisive force of society's progress and try to prove that as a result of the scientific and technological revolution engineers and technicians are moving into the premier role in production and in the whole of social life, while the working class is losing its role and being absorbed by the "middle class".
However, everybody knows that in the capitalist world today considerable numbers of intellectuals are, along with the working class, engaged in industry and are exploited like the workers. The history of the past decade eloquently shows that intellectuals are becoming increasingly involved in the anti-imperialist struggle.
The Bolshevik Party has always devoted unflagging attention to organising and educating young workers, guiding the student movement and setting up youth organisations. Much was done in that direction during the preparations for the socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois parties (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries) failed completely to divert the youth movement from the class struggle. The young workers' organisations resolutely supported the Bolshevik Party in its actions against the imperialist war and the bourgeois Provisional Government. They helped to set up workers' control over production and distribution. Led by the Bolsheviks they fought for the economic and political rights of young people. Young workers participated actively in the common struggle of the working people against reaction, for the socialist revolution. The political consciousness of young people grew in the fire of class battles.
In the capitalist countries today the problem of young people, of their participation in political life and the revolutionary movement has become very acute. Young _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 262.
131 workers are coming out more and more energetically against monopoly rule.The student movement, too, has in recent years assumed a large scale in European, Latin American and other countries of the world. Young people are active in the struggle against the reactionary policies of the ruling classes, in the struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.
But in many countries the youth movement is politically inexperienced and has weak links with the communist movement. For that reason it is frequently of a spontaneous character. "There is no doubt,'' L. I. Brezhnev said, "that once the young fighters against imperialism have mastered the theory of scientific socialism and have acquired experience of class battles, they will do great = things."^^*^^
During the preparations for the October Revolution the Bolshevik organisations conducted extensive agitation among women workers and enlisted their support for the Bolshevik Party and the revolution.
Today there are huge numbers of women in the revolutionary struggle for peace and civil rights. They are more and more insistently demanding equal pay with men and effective measures for the protection of mothers. In the struggle of the Communist parties against monopoly oppression work among women has acquired tremendous importance.
The 1969 International Meeting of Communist and "Workers' Parties drew special attention to the need for organising the urban middle strata, whose vital interests are trampled on by big capital, and for drawing them into the struggle for democratic demands. These strata appreciate the necessity for joint action with the working class.
In their efforts to form a broad democratic front the Bolsheviks did their best to assume the leadership of the national liberation movement of the oppressed peoples in Russia's non-Russian regions and strengthened the proletariat's alliance with that movement.
The glaring socio-economic backwardness of the nonRussian regions, the numerical weakness and fragmentation of the working class, its low cultural level and the small membership of its party organisations in many non-Russian _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 151.
132 regions of Siberia and Central Asia were a serious obstacle to the shaping of an alliance of the working class with the working masses of these = regions.^^*^^ The Bolsheviks therefore waged a determined and unrelenting struggle against the nationalistic organisations and groups: against the Central Rada in the Ukraine and against the Mussavatists, Dashnaks and Georgian Mensheviks in the Caucasus.They attached great importance to organising the nonRussian proletariat in trade unions. Many Bolsheviks from the main industrial centres of Russia were sent to the trade unions in the non-Russian regions.
The struggle waged by the workers and peasants for national equality was part of their struggle against the exploiters. Headed by the Bolsheviks, the working people of the non-Russian regions demanded the confiscation of the land of the Russian and local landowners and its transfer to the peasants, national equality and political freedoms. This struggle fused with the democratic struggle of the workers of Russia for peace, democracy and socialism.
As the preparations for the socialist revolution progressed the national liberation struggle gradually evolved from a democratic into a socialist movement, into a struggle against the Russian and local bourgeoisie. A militant alliance began to take shape between the Russian working class and the broad mass of working people, above all, the working class and peasants of the non-Russian regions.
"History knew of no example of the population of more than a hundred nations and nationalities, which had been under the heel of exploiters for centuries, being lifted up to a new life in such a short time,'' stressed A. P. Kirilenko, the CC CPSU Political, Bureau Member, "whereas under the capitalist system even two or three nations cannot live together peacefully within a single state. Capitalist states pursue a policy of national = oppression."^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ The bourgeois falsifier Alexander G. Park (Bolshevism in Turkestan (1917--1927), New York, 1957) asserts that in Turkestan the revolution was imposed by the Russian working class and had no support from the local working population.
^^**^^ A. P. Kirilenko, "The Banner of October---the Banner of Peace and Creativity'', See: Pravda, November 7, 1979.
133 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Social Mechanisms of Mass Revolutionary Action __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.] __AUTHORS__ Yu.~ZamoshkinUnderstanding of the internal mechanisms and driving forces of the social-transformative revolutionary actions of the exploited masses has always been an indispensable element of the theoretical works of the Marxist-Leninists. In the Theses on Feuerbach Marx warned of the danger of regarding an object of reality only in its form as an object and not "as human sensuous activity, practice, not subjectively''. He insisted that the "coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionising practice" and that the active aspect of the historical process should be analysed.^^*^^
Lenin's theory of the socialist revolution is a brilliant example of a dialectical-materialistic solution and sociological analysis of one of the most complex problems, that of the correlation between the objective conditions for the transition from capitalism to socialism and the revolutionary initiative of the working masses, of the working class and its vanguard, the Communist Party.
Lenin's study of the correlation between the objective course of historical development, the objective trends, contradictions and requirements created by this development, and activity of the masses, classes and parties in remaking society is today one of the cardinal components of his philosophical and sociological heritage. It received prominence as a result of the breadth, scale and impact of the involvement in mass social actions of strata that had usually been inactive in socio-political life. Today millions of people are becoming aware of the objective dependence of their individual destinies on the destiny of society. Personal problems are more and more distinctly becoming socio-political problems that can only be resolved by the collective actions of large masses of people. A direct bond with state and world politics is no longer felt exclusively by the ruling groups forming the minority of a nation.
Wherever exploitation, oppression and denial of rights _-_-_
^^*^^ K.~Marx, F.~Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 6, 7.
134 persist there are diverse and expanding mass moods of discontent and social criticism, protest movements, which are evidence of the gradual accumulation of energy being directed toward the revolutionary renewal of the predominant social practices. This is linked with the further deepening of the crisis of capitalism, and the system of economic and political relations which it engendered, with the revolutionising influence of the world socialist system, the growth of the international communist and working-class movement and the activation of mass national liberation, anti-imperialist and democratic movements.The scale and strength of the working people's influence on the course of history are also furthered by the scientific and technological revolution, which fosters the growth of literacy, the dissemination of knowledge and the development of general education and powerful mass media of information. Millions of skilled factory workers, office employees, engineers and technicians are drawn into various forms of cultural activity, and as their world outlook is broadened and enriched they become involved in social actions.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Objective PrerequisitesThe correlation between the objective laws of historical development and mass action has always been a stumblingblock for the high priests of the bourgeoisie and of revisionism.
Lenin had sharply criticised the voluntarist disdain for a scientific analysis of the objective processes taking place in the world and the absolutisation of purely wilful actions in the Leftist programmes. He had also criticised the opportunism of the Second International, its ideological dogmatism, which turned the sociological theory of Marxism (the teaching on the natural process of the change of social systems and the modes of and relations of production forming the politico-economic skeleton of these systems, the teaching on the historical prerequisites for the socialist revolution) into a lifeless, academic scheme that left no room for the creativity and initiative of the theoretician, of the 135 political party and of the classes, of the broad mass of the people.
Lenin's criticism of vulgar-economic distortions of Marxism is of the utmost importance. He had always derided those who sought to reduce the political, ideological and psychological characteristics and actions of classes, social groups, parties and individuals to a simlple economic function. He categorically condemned any attempt at artificially confining the huge diversity of the mass social protest movements to the narrow and lifeless schemes of "economic determinism''. Moreover, he was emphatically opposed to ideology that ignored the active role of ideals, the aspirations and demands articulated directly in the course of the class struggle and massive revolutionary movements. In keeping with Marx's behests, Lenin always strove to combine "complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition of the importance of the revolutionary energy, revolutionary creative genius and revolutionary initiative of the masses---and also of individuals, groups, organisations and parties that are able to discover and achieve contact with one or another = class" ^^*^^ (author's italics).
Any analysis of the "objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution'', on which Lenin insisted, necessarily presupposes a detailed knowledge of the development level of the productive forces and of the level of industrial, scientific, technical and economic development in a given society at a given stage.
This analysis takes for granted knowledge not only of the objective state of society but also of the course of history that led to and had become objectivised in that state. It inevitably requires a close study of the actual and even incipient changes taking place in the scientific and technical basis of production, in the division of labour, in the economy and the system of economic links, in the mechanisms of the management of social production, in the administration of things and people, in the structure and level of actual mass consumption and in the living conditions of millions of people.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 36.
136With the requirements of the dialectical-materialist method as their point of departure, consistent Marxists-Leninists emphatically oppose all atempts at making the revolutionary activity of the masses directly dependent on the level of industrial and economic development. For that reason they ascertain, first and foremost, the substance, forms and scale of the manifestation and acuteness of the objective contradictions and conflicts in capitalist society, in the mode and system of production, in the economy, in the mechanisms of management, in the system of norms and values, and in the actual life and work of people. Marxism-Leninism concentrates its attention on the internal antagonisms and conflicts, whose growth and accumulation embody the given system's irreversible internal crisis. This crisis is expressed in the eruption of acute social problems for whose practical solution mass revolutionary movements emerge. Confrontation with these problems and the awareness that they exist precipitate protests, a struggle and a striving for change.
That is why in the collective documents of the international communist and working-class movement and in the programmes of individual Communist parties so much attention is given to a comprehensive analysis of the objective contradictions and acute problems arising today in the system of imperialism and attesting to the crisis of that system.
The programme documents, for example, analyse the steadily deepening contradiction between the colossal objective possibilities for social progress engendered in all areas of life by the scientific and technological revolution and the practical realisation of these possibilities in countries ruled by state-monopoly capitalism. This contradiction is very typical of the present stage of state-monopoly capitalism and manifests itself, in particular, in the existence of disproportions in the economy, of "disaster regions'', slums and mass poverty against the background of an extremely high level of industrialisation. It manifests itself in the expenditure of society's wealth on militarisation and the conduct of wars of aggression, in the coexistence of scientific and technological progress with an ever more striking threat of social and economic catastrophes, the constant growth of unemployment and so on. It is manifested in the objectively growing need for national planning in the interests of the people 137 which is obstructed by the selfish interests of the ruling classes, by their determination to preserve and expand their privileges. Within the capitalist system the contradiction between the demands of the development of the national economy, politics and culture and the imperialist forms of the internationalisation of economic, political and cultural life is deepening. At the same time, one can see an increasingly clear conflict between the growing connections of the different states and the bourgeois-nationalistic orientation of the economy, politics and ideology of these states.
Finally, the problem of peace, of curbing the arms race and of international detente, is an increasingly urgent one today. The solving of this problem is an objective imperative of modern history.
A sober, scientific analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution cannot, Lenin felt, fail to include an exhaustive and objective characteristic of the subjects of history---of the main forces operating in society and remaking the conditions of their life and themselves. Moreover, it cannot fail to include quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the given society's socio-class structure at the given stage, and a characteristic of the principal classes, of their relationship to the means of production, their place and role in the division and social organisation of labour, in the system of management of the forms of activity and functional links without which modern society cannot exist and develop.
In addition, it must contain objective characteristics of the classes and social groups that determine the relations and struggle between them, the characteristics that directly indicate the attitude of the given class or group to the irreversible processes taking place in the capitalist mode of production, to the objective contradictions in the statemonopoly organisation of society, in other words, the characteristics by which Marxism-Leninism subdivides classes and groups into objectively advanced and objectively conservative elements and substantiates the proposition on the historical mission of the working class. Further, it is extremely important that these characteristics should contain a concrete study of the numerical strength of the given classes arid groups, of their proportion relative to the entire 138 population and in the various spheres of activity. Numerical expressions must be given of the changes taking place in the former and the latter in the course of scientific and technological progress, and quantitative computations must be made of the further course of these changes in the foreseeable future.
The Leninist sociologist is interested, of course, in all the characteristics reflecting the different aspects of the social life of the groups in the main classes or forming intermediate strata.
The programmes of the Communist parties therefore contain an exhaustive analysis of the character and specifics of the work performed by the different groups in society, the living standard of these groups, the pattern of their actual consumption, their housing conditions and so on. Attention is drawn to the objective dynamics of the changes in the working conditions and life of these groups, for instance, to the intensification of the labour of workers, the deteriorating correlation between wages, consumer goods prices and monopoly profits, the increasing tax burden and so on. Direct experience of tangible changes is what breaks up habits and stimulates action by the working people, their active involvement in the struggle for their rights.
An analysis of the objective characteristics of the social classes and strata that are subjects of the revolutionary movement should include social-demographic characteristics, in particular, the sex and age characteristics of the different groups, for they show the actual distinctions in the conditions of social existence and in the social functions performed by these groups, distinctions that objectively indicate the degree of their exploitation. Further, it should contain characteristics springing from the prolonged existence and evolution of socio-historical communities with a definite harmony of historical destinies, such as, for instance, nations, ethnical groups and racial minorities in a given country. Affiliation to various communities presupposes the existence of objectively different conditions of life, which form the primary prerequisites and framework of the vital activity and social destiny of people.
Lastly, a sober, scientific analysis of the objective state of affairs presupposes a detailed study of objective characteristics of the advanced classes and groups (the subjects of 139 revolutionary action) and of their real and potential allies or enemies that express their actual state of mind, the pattern of their requirements, their expectations and aspirations, their socio-psychological guidelines and attitude to various social processes and phenomena, their readiness to back up their demands with determined action, their capacity for organised action, the degree of their literacy and education and their cultural level. The actual objectively existing state of the mass consciousness at a given moment of history is an important aspect of the state of affairs, and in organising ideological work among the masses the Communist or Workers' Party inevitably studies, realistically assesses and takes it into consideration.
The revolutionary ideologist and organiser working to prepare the ground for the revolution inevitably encounters various real, actually existing characteristics of the masses who are the object of his organisational and ideological work. These characteristics emanate from preceding history and show the objective balance of class forces in the given situation. A sober, scientific analysis of these characteristics is a necessary condition for understanding the actual state of affairs and the prerequisites for the further advance of the revolution, for the further developing of the class struggle. This is a basic methodological requirement that must be satisfied when organising ideological and political work among the people.
This point was unfailingly made by Lenin. For instance, when an acute ideological struggle flared up over the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty he pointed out that the poorest sections of the peasants were tired of the imperialist war and "capable of supporting the socialist revolution" but "not capable of agreeing to fight a serious revolutionary war immediately, at the present juncture''. Addressing the "Left opposition" and the Trotskyists, who were urging voluntaristic, adventurist action, he said: "To ignore the objective balance of class forces ... would be a fatal = error."^^*^^
A thorough study of the actual state of mind and mood, of all the specifics of the actual human material that a revolutionary party has to work with distinguishes true _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 447--48.
140 Marxists-Leninists from the spokesmen of the different trends and forms of Utopian socialism.Besides, the Marxist-Leninists do not merely register the actual state of mind of a strata but study and analyse the internal contradiction of that state, the struggle taking place between the different trends in it. They focus attention not only on the existence in that mind of habits and illusions generated by capitalist relations but, above all, on the trend toward the appearance of a new class, revolutionary-critical self-awareness.
Marxists-Leninists proceed from the fact that the process of renewing the mass consciousness is complex and difficult. Therefore they pay particular attention to an analysis of the real difficulties arising for ordinary members of society, whose views and feelings have been formed under the influence of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology, but who attempt to understand and solve the new problems produced by the dynamics of history.
In the course of the qualitative renewal of the mass consciousness not only are old illusions destroyed, but new ones may be created, the old may appear in new forms, and the new bears the mark of the old or interweaves with the old, producing various conflicts and painful crisis situations in the consciousness. At certain stages of this process there may be wave-like or pendulurn-like vacillations between different moods, ideological and political standpoints (for example, a relative increase in nostalgia for the past, conservative or nationalistic moods and views). Therefore Marxists-Leninists seek to determine as accurately as possible the true balance between old and new elements in the structure of the mass consciousness, the true correlation in this consciousness of temporary, wave-like, pendulum-like vacillations and long-term, irreversible processes of radical progressive renewal.
Here the difference between Marxism-Leninism and the Utopian socialism of the Right opportunist or Left radical type can be seen clearly. When the latter encounter a contradictory and relatively immature class consciousness among the working people in capitalist society, when they encounter habits formed by many centuries of exploitation, rivalry and day-to-day indoctrination, they invariably feel deeply disappointed and bewildered. This is embodied in the 141 nihilistic attitude to the revolutionary potential of the working masses, in talk about the ``integration'' of the working class in the existing system.
Being incapable of making a scientific analysis of the actual contradictory tendencies in the consciousness and mood of the various strata of the working class and being unable to rely on the real specifics of this consciousness and mood, which to a varying extent induce the masses to protest against the existing practices and accept the slogans and ideals of socialism, "Left radical" theoreticians have evolved purely speculative, naively romantic patterns of social reconstruction. All of these patterns invariably presuppose totally new human material that is cleansed entirely by Utopian thought of the specifics and characteristics that had naturally taken shape in the people's way of thinking which has for centuries been influenced by private-property relations forming the object of the activity of the institutions of education and mass propaganda.
Intellectual snobbery and a biased, disparaging attitude to a systematic study of the contradictions in the existing mass consciousness, in the opinion and mood of millions and, in the long run, lack of faith in their revolutionary, socialtransformative energy are features typical of Left extremism, which is seeking a way out in adventurism.
These features are also typical of Right socialism, Right reformism and opportunism, which likewise do not believe in the revolutionary energy of the people and, instead of mass action, urge ``understanding'' with the ruling classes and associate the idea of progress solely with an ``improvement'' of the bureaucratic machinery of administration created by state-monopoly capitalism.
On the other hand, sentimentality towards the masses, blind faith in the spontaneous consciousness of the masses and, most frequently, in the idealised picture of "mass culture" created by the ideologists themselves and regarded by them as reality (inasmuch as they do not make a sober, scientific concrete-sociological analysis of the actual contradictory specifics and trends in the consciousness of the classes, groups and strata forming the working population, for they are unable to make a dialectical assessment of these specifics and trends), are typical features of liberal and ``ultrarevolutionary'' opportunism. Whereas the liberals usually 142 note, painstakingly describe and absolutise the habits and mood of social conformism, opportunism, time-serving, purely consumer attitudes and ``respectable'' philistinism in the social consciousness, the ``ultra-revolutionaries'' accentuate attention solely on existing, clearly expressed moods of anger and rebellion that are visible to the naked eye. Moreover, they inevitably see only individual aspects of public opinion, and only individual groups that most markedly display the forms of consciousness attractive to the subjective ideologist.
Consistent Marxists-Leninists adopt a fundamentally different approach to the actual state of the mass consciousness. In this question they are quided by the method evolved by Lenin, who could not imagine preparations for the revolution without a careful, comprehensive and systematic sociological study and a cautious, differentiated, sober assessment of the opinion, notions and aspirations of all the contingents of working people. "We must learn,'' he wrote, "to approach the masses with particular patience and caution so as to be able to understand the distinctive features in the mentality of each stratum, calling, etc., of these = masses."^^*^^
He constantly urged all Party functionaries to study "how matters stood, what the workers thought about it, and what the mood of the masses = was'',^^**^^ and he brilliantly showed how such a study should be conducted. "Please write speedily and let us know what the feeling = is,''^^***^^ he frequently wrote to the Party functionaries.
He was emphatic on the point that an analysis of social consciousness in capitalist society had to embrace research data and material given by bourgeois sources. He made skilful use even of newspapers and journals that were hostile to the working-class movement, and always insisted on a careful check of the data given by = them.^^****^^
He always insisted on a dialectical analysis and assessment of the mass consciousness, of the contradictory aspects and processes characterising it in a given situation, from the angle of the general prospects for the development of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 192.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 18, p. 425.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 34, p. 153.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 20, p. 382.
143 class struggle and the socialist revolution. For example, he had a clear picture of the concrete, objective state of the class forces in Russia (where the overwhelming majority of the population were peasants, almost the entire population was illiterate, and the thinking and mood of the people had been influenced for years by economic dislocation, the wars and the crises typical of autocratic rule) and in this context he wrote: "Naturally, we shall not submit to everything the masses say, because the masses, too, sometimes---particularly in time of exceptional weariness and exhaustion resulting from excessive hardship and suffering---yield to sentiments that are in no way = advanced."^^*^^ But a study of these sentiments, of their scale and durability, of their causes and, above all, of the possibility of their evolution and change is vital to a party devising the most effective tactics in the struggle to form a revolutionary army of the working people.Further, Lenin wrote that it was necessary to "collect, if one may so put it, and concentrate all these drops and streamlets of popular resentment that are brought forth to a far larger extent than we imagine by the conditions of Russian life, and that must be combined into a single gigantic torrent.''^^**^^
In the fulfilment of this task the principal role is played by the Communist Party, a new type of party, a party of professional revolutionaries that injects a scientific socialist ideology into the consciousness of the people and organises them for a resolute struggle. "A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the = masses''^^***^^ (author's italics). Sharply criticising the proponents of spontaneous action, he noted: "They fail to understand that the 'ideologist' is worthy of the name only when he precedes the spontaneous movement, points out the road, and is able ahead of all others to solve all the theoretical, political, tactical and organisational questions which the 'material elements' of the movement spontaneously = encounter."^^****^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 39.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 420.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 324.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 316.
144 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Spontaneity, Consciousness and the Revolutionary ExperienceThe philosophical-sociological categories of ``spontaneity-consciousness'' play a large methodological part in an analysis of the internal objective logic of the revolutionary process, of mass revolutionary action. They are used by Marxist sociologists and practical workers when they assess the maturity of this process, the degree of organisation and the consciousness level of this action. They are used in ascertaining the Communist Party's attitude to the actual process of the development of the mass revolutionary movement.
Unsurpassed as a master of dialectics, Lenin proceeded from the mobility and flexibility of these categories, from their relationship and transition into each other, and from their contradictory unity which mirrors and embodies the objective dialectics of the maturing of the revolution. That is what makes the utmost concreteness necessary when these categories are applied to the various situations arising in the course of this process. For instance, in characterising the evolution of the strike movement in Russia at the close of the 19th century, Lenin wrote: "...There is spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes occurred in Russia in the seventies and sixties ... and they were accompanied by the 'spontaneous' destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these 'revolts', the strikes of the nineties might even be described as 'conscious', to such an extent do they mark the progress which the working-class movement made in that period. This shows that the 'spontaneous element', in essence, represents ... consciousness in an embryonic = form.''^^*^^
Lenin regarded the sponteneous involvement of the broad masses in the struggle against oppression as an indication of the depth, historical necessity and irreversibility of the objective development of the revolution. Ridiculing outwardly revolutionary but in fact moderately conservative ideology, which absolutises the principles of bureaucratic organisation and invariably fears the spontaneous growth of mass revolutionary action, he wrote: "Those philistine gentlemen _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 374.
145 are probably dreaming of a revolution in which the masses will all rise at once, fully organised."Such revolutions never happen, nor can they happen.... Capitalism cannot collapse except as a result of a revolution which, in the course of struggle, rouses masses who had not hitherto been affected by the movement. Spontaneous outbreaks become inevitable as the revolution matures. There has never been a revolution in which this has not been the case, nor can there be such a = revolution."^^*^^
While always stressing that the leading role of the party and "organisation, organisation and = organisation"^^**^^ were vital to the victory over the bourgeoisie and to the fulfilment of the positive tasks of the socialist revolution, Lenin was categorically opposed to any assessment of specific manifestations of spontaneous actions by the revolutionary masses on the basis of fossilised and hard and fast organisational and theoretical patterns. In this context he drew attention to a situation where a spontaneous upswing of the revolution had grown beyond the organisational framework of the preceding stage of the revolution, a framework mirrored in party documents and theoretical works. He pointed out, for example, that the formation of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in 1905 and in February 1917 was a manifestation of a spontaneous class attitude of the proletariat, that this was an attempt at organisation guided rather by instinct than by consciousness, but that was an instinct without which "the cause of the revolution would be hopeless.''^^***^^
At the 7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party Lenin noted that the establishment of Soviet power in Russia showed how rich was the revolutionary experience of the revolutionary masses themselves. "Soviet power was not established,'' he said, "by decree or party resolution, because it is above parties, and is the outcome of revolutionary experience, the experience of millions of = men.''^^****^^
The skilful utilisation of the categories ``spontaneity-consciousness'' in an analysis of the process that led to the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 396.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 316.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 268.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 497.
146 emergence of Soviets in February 1917 was of fundamental importance because the existence of an element of spontaneity explained why having displayed initiative and the conscious will to set up revolutionary organs of power the masses nonetheless initially elected mainly SocialistRevolutionaries and Mensheviks to the Soviets. At the time they did not yet understand what party was the true spokesman of their class interests. The initial composition of the Soviets reflected, as Lenin put it, the "trusting want of consciousness on the part of the masses" towards the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties and ideologists.For that reason the preparations for and the development of the revolution, in particular the struggle for the triumph of the idea of Soviet power as the organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat, were inevitably linked with securing the leading role to the Bolshevik Party and the ideology of scientific socialism. Lenin wrote: "Without a party of iron that has been tempered in the struggle, a party enjoying the confidence of all honest people in the class in question, a party capable of watching and influencing the mood of the masses, such a struggle cannot be waged successfully.''^^*^^
Lenin linked the "Communist Party's attainment of the leading role with a sober, scientific analysis of the objective logic of the people's revolutionary experience. Further, he held that the programme of struggle for socialism could only be formulated on the basis of a study of that experience. "Our theory,'' he said, "is a guide to action, not a dogma.
"We do not claim that Marx knew or Marxists know the road to socialism down to the last detail. It would be nonsense to claim anything of the kind. What we do know is the direction of this road, and the class forces that follow it; the specific, practical details will come to light only through the experience of the millions when they take things into their own = hands.''^^**^^
Lenin showed that in putting forward specific political slogans at the different stages of the revolution it was imperative to confine them to what was "absolutely essential _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 44--45.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 281.
147 in the interests of promoting the revolution---in no case to endeavour to outrun the people's development, but to wait until a movement forward occurred as a result of their own experience and their own = struggle".^^*^^He levelled principled criticism at ``Leftism'' and sectarianism in the international communist movement, writing: "... That is the whole point---we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses.... You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable.... But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced = elements).''^^**^^ Further, he pointed out that "the ideas and demands of the majority of the working people are things that the working people must discard of their own accord: such demands cannot be either `abolished' or `skipped = over'\thinspace''.^^***^^
The Bolsheviks set brilliant examples of skilful leadership of the masses: they took into account and relied on the experience of their own struggle and gave every consideration to the mechanisms governing the process of the ``overcoming'' by the masses themselves of various moods and habits as the revolution unfolds. Thus, showing why the Bolshevik Party, which had put forward a general programme for the socialist, collectivist organisation of farm labourers, agreed in 1918 to the passage of a law on the equal division of land, Lenin wrote that this law "was at the same time an expression of the conscious will of the vast majority of the peasants and proof that the working class, the workers' Communist Party, aware of their task, are persistently and patiently advancing towards the new socialist construction--- advancing by a series of gradual measures, by awakening the working peasants, and forging ahead only in step with that awakening, only insofar as the peasants are independently organised''.^^****^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p.
141.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p.
58.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p.
309.
^^****^^ Ibid., p. 342.
148 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Socio-Psychological MechanismsIn the guidance of a mass movement no approach can be effective if it is abstract-educational, one-sidedly administrative, based on directives, and wilful. Here the conditions of success are: a consummate, scientific, sociological knowledge of the mechanisms underlying the formation of the experience of the masses and the development of their consciousness and social behaviour; a scientific knowledge of the cause-and-effect links and the system of interaction producing a given situation, change or turn in the objective alignment of class forces; the elaboration of a sociological theory of mass revolutionary action.
In this respect, a generalisation of the revolutionary process from February to October 1917 and of the practical actions of the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin is of immense theoretical and methodological importance.
In works written during this period Lenin made a detailed analysis of the actual state of the mass consciousness on the basis of his knowledge of public opinion and of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of all the main classes and strata. He closely examined the aspirations and demands of the masses forming the internal driving force of their revolutionary energy at the given stage of the struggle. Moreover, he reviewed the attitude of the masses to all organisations and parties operating in the given situation, to their pledges and programmes, and analysed the expectations and hopes that the masses linked with these organisations and parties at the given moment of the revolution. In his works and practical activity Lenin showed that when the masses are faced with the problem of choosing what parties and organisations to support it is of the utmost importance to know, understand and take into account all the conditions and factors that influence or may influence this choice and to be able to bring to light the pivotal elements in which this choice in fact acquires shape and the socio-psychological mechanisms by which it takes root in the minds and hearts of the masses.
For example, a study of the experience of the Bolshevik Party's work with the masses in the period from April to October 1917 shows that the direct development of the 149 revolution is linked with the interaction and collision of expectations and hopes, with the objective course of sociopolitical life giving rise to situations in which the reality or unreality of these expectations and hopes are put to the test. This test modifies the attitude of the various strata to the different organisations and parties, disperses many hopes and illusions, recasts public opinion and introduces changes in the mood of the various strata. All this is embodied in specific social actions by the masses.
Lenin evolved tactics that enabled the Bolshevik Party to participate actively in this process in order to ensure its leading role in the revolution and to direct the revolution toward the achievement of the Party's general strategic aims. These tactics called for support for the demands worked out by the masses themselves and for active participation in giving rise to objective situations that would eloquently show the masses that the bourgeois and conciliator parties neither wanted nor could secure the satisfaction of these demands; situations that would discredit these parties and bring the masses to the side of the Bolsheviks. Further, they envisaged using the situations that would give rise to a change in the consciousness of the masses to specify, enlarge and modify the demands of the masses, ensure their internal selforganisation in the system of demands stirring them to action, which ultimately developed into a struggle for socialism and thereby coincided with the strategic aims of the Communist Party.
The following examples will give a fuller idea of the methodological importance of these propositions and the experience of the Bolshevik Party. The bourgeois-democratic revolution of February 1917 in Russia distinctly showed that peace was one of the fundamental demands of the broadest masses. It expressed the deep-lying hopes and aspirations of the vast majority of the population and in many ways predetermined the explosion of revolutionary energy that destroyed the autocracy. It seemed that "Down with the War!" would be the most natural slogan for the Bolsheviks.
However, a comprehensive, scientific, dialectical analysis of the state of mind and mood of the people showed that at the time there were objective contradictions and heterogeneous elements in public opinion. Alongside their deep-seated anti-war feeling, immediately following the revolution of 150 February 1917 these same people began to think in terms of "revolutionary defencism'', entertaining the illusion that for Russia the socio-political nature of the war had changed as a result of the overthrow of the autocracy. This illusion was vigorously spread by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties. Taking into account this shift in the consciousness of the broad strata of the population, Lenin suggested that the slogan "Down with the War!" be temporarily removed from mass party propaganda. Understanding that the proponents of revolutionary defencism were sincere, Lenin noted: "The slogan 'Down with the War!' is, of course, correct. But it fails to take into account the specific nature of the tasks of the present moment and the necessity of approaching the broad mass of people in a different = way.''^^*^^
Lenin's analysis of the behaviour of the exploited classes thus rests on his recognition of the existence of contradictory elements. This analysis elicited the correlation of these elements, their weight and significance in the system of motivations, in other words, it arranged these elements in their proper order.
In the situation obtaining at the time, a scientific analysis showed that the next stage in the development of the revolution depended on whether the masses would shed the illusions of "revolutionary defencism" used by the bourgeois government for concealing its determination to continue the imperialist war. That brought to the fore the task of combating naive trust for the bourgeois government and for the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks, from whom the people expected action in the direction of peace.
A change took place in April, when the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government made a statement that blasted the expectations of the masses. He declared that his government would remain true to its commitments to the Entente and that it was determined to fight the war to a victorious end. This brought the expectations of the masses into conflict with the actual policy pursued by the government. The first result was the indignation of the soldiers and it was expressed by fraternisation at the firing lines.
Lenin put it on record that the "soldiers have come to feel _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 65--66.
151 instinctively that action must come from = below".^^*^^ The Bolsheviks used this change of mood for a nationwide discussion of the ways and means of ending the war and of the role played by the capitalists, who had started the war and were dragging it out.In the summer of 1917 a deeper political crisis set in and there was a further change in the consciousness of the people, and in early July this led to a spontaneous attempt at an armed uprising in Petrograd. It is indicative that Lenin, considering it important to return to the "Down with the War!" slogan, was at the same time against putting forward a slogan calling for an uprising, for an analysis of the state of the mass consciousness of all its aspects and elements, showed that there "was not at the time that 'savageness', or fierce hatred both of the Kerenskys and of the Tseretelis and Chernovs.... We could not have retained power politically on July 3-4 because, before the Kornilov revolt, the army and the provinces could and would have marched against Petrograd''.^^**^^
This conclusion was deduced also from a sociological analysis of public opinion (of its qualitative and quantitative characteristics) and from a sober understanding of the correlation of the main sectors of public opinion. It was based on the knowledge that compared with the large cities, in the provinces and in the army revolutionary consciousness was maturing unevenly.
Lastly, this conclusion was based on an analysis of a socio-psychological indicator as the degree of the people's emotional attitude ``(absence of fierce hatred'') to the various political forces.
At this stage the illusions about the bourgeois Provisional Government were dispersed, but those concerning the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries entrenched in the Soviets were still intact. The Bolsheviks therefore put forward the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!'', which was in keeping with the prevailing consciousness of the revolutionary masses and, at the same time, put the petty-bourgeois parties in a situation where either they had to dissociate themselves from the Russian bourgeoisie or their conciliatory attitude would inescapably become obvious to the people.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 237.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 24.
152The socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks did not comply with this slogan, which became the demand of the broadest masses. They joined in the bourgeois government's attacks on the Bolsheviks. This led to a polarisation of the forces of the counter-revolution and of the revolutionary forces, which were now headed by the Bolsheviks. This process, tremendously accelerated and deepened by the Kornilov conspiracy, was seen by the majority of the working people. As a result, in October 1917 a situation arose that led to the socialist revolution, to the establishment of Soviet power under the leadership of the Leninist Communist Party. "The majority of the people are on our = side,''^^*^^ Lenin wrote at the time.
A profound change in the national mood thus took place in the period from February to October 1917, a change that would never have occurred without the determined and flexible, sociologically substantiated policy of the Bolshevik Party, which took an active part in the internal process of the shaping of the masses' revolutionary experience.
A study of Lenin's theory and the Bolshevik Party's experience of directing the revolutionary actions of the people are of immense methodological importance today. Small wonder that Leninism's enemies of all orientations and hues are making every effort to distort and revise Lenin's teaching on the attitude of the Communist Party to mass revolutionary action.
One of them, Richard Pipes, a leading expert in Harvard University's notorious Russian Research Centre, attributes to Lenin the assumption that the majority of the population is actually or potentially reactionary and that on this assumption is founded the idea of a ``dictatorship'' of the elite, which takes the name of ``party''. Pipes endeavours to distort the substance of the teaching on the party's guiding role by declaring it an expression of utter distrust not only for entire classes (intellectuals, petty-bourgeoisie, the peasantry and the workers) but even for rank-and-file members of one's own party and its local organisations. In their hatred of the party of the proletariat, the rabid anti-Communists do not scruple to slander it. This is striking evidence of their fear of the Communist Party, of its strength and viability that have been _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 19.
153 demonstrated by the history of class battles.This slander of the imperialist ideologists against the recognised leader of the working people is eagerly echoed by the Right opportunists. Present-day heralds of Left extremism and anarchism also seek crudely to distort the meaning of Lenin's struggle against their confreres and predecessors in Russia (the Makhno anarchists, Left Socialist-Revolutionary insurgents who organised an uprising against the young Soviet power, and the like) and to declare this struggle the embodiment of a "negative attitude" to the liberatory aspirations of the masses.
In misrepresenting Lenin's heritage, the Right opportunists and the ``ultra-Left'' extremists do not disguise the fact that they are apologists of capitalism. They are trying in vain to undermine and hold up the growth and internal consolidation of the new type of proletarian parties, which are the leaders and organisers of the revolutionary movement of the exploited masses. The ideologists of the state-monopoly bureaucracy and the Right Socialists would like to attribute to Lenin their own fear of the growing revolutionary initiative and independent actions of the working people.
As for the Leftist elements, they would like to justify their virtual isolation from the mass organisations and movements of the industrial proletariat in the capitalist countries, and their inability to find the way to the minds and hearts of the industrial proletariat, and set up an operative, large and permanent anti-imperialist organisation.
Present-day world developments fully bear out Lenin's theory of the revolution and the revolutionary party and his principles of mass revolutionary action. The Communist parties successfully discharge their mission wherever they understand and rely on the mechanism and logic of the people's experience. In the capitalist countries they vigorously support the demands being put forward by the people themselves, by the various strata of working people in the economy, internal and foreign policy, education, culture and other spheres. Through their efforts these demands are consistent, conscious, resolute and radical. The Communists head the struggle for their practical realisation and with singleness of purpose create situations that inevitably put the ruling classes and their organisations and parties before the choice of satisfying these demands and enforcing the 154 necessary reforms or openly stating their reluctance to meet the aspirations and demands of the people and thereby exposing themselves in the eyes of those who had been deceived by apologetic and Right-opportunist propaganda.
In the event the ruling circles refuse to make concessions, the Communists use this fact to explain to the working people, especially to those whose illusions have been shattered, why it is necessary to have recourse to revolution to depose the political system that ignores the interests of the people.
When partial reforms are put into effect the Communists construct their ideological and practical work in such a way as to prevent state-monopoly organisations and the Rightopportunist parties from portraying these reforms as a "voluntary gift" and "concern for the welfare of the people'', to give the ruling classes no possibility of confining the struggle of the working people for their rights to a narrow, ``tolerable'', ``institutionalised'' framework, of nullifying the results of this struggle, and to afford them no opportunity for curbing, slowing down and undermining the intensity, vigour and growth of the mass movement.
The Communists use these reforms to help the workers and other exploited classes to become conscious of their strength and possibilities of successfully fighting for their rights and to stimulate their energy and militant spirit of class irreconcilability, determination, courage, unity and organised concerted action. The Communists initiate new, more far-reaching demands and ever more radical alternatives to capitalist policies and the programmes of the opportunists. They work tirelessly to raise the mass movement to a higher level, foster the political activity of the working people, step up the maturing of their class, revolutionary consciousness, heighten the ideological and political intensity of the struggle and unite the working people around the Marxist-Leninist Party and its positive programme of socialist transformations.
In consequence, the working people come to understand that the struggle for aims expressing their vital class interests and the need for social and national development, for the achievement of democratic objectives leads increasingly to socialist (or transitional) transformations.
As a result of the organised actions of the international 155 communist and working-class movement, the socialist prospect today grows out of many sources, out of the struggle for the solution of various social problems, for instance, the problems of inflation, unemployment, energy reserves or ecology. It grows out of the day-to-day struggle for peace, detente, reducing the nuclear war threat, limiting strategic arms and reducing military budgets, for broader democracy or for the rights of ethnic minorities, for giving the working people access to universities and for a fundamental reform of the system of education; out of the struggle to give science a humanistic orientation or for the harmonious development of the individual; out of hundreds of other, more specific issues raised by the objective course of social development and marked up in the consciousness of the masses or of individual social groups or sections of the population but which state-monopoly capitalism and the organisations, parties and ideologies representing it cannot and do not desire to resolve.
The Communist parties see their task in linking the struggle for the solution of all these innumerable specific problems of the various strata at the different stages of development with the struggle for socialism, and in ensuring the success of this struggle by uniting popular actions and movements called to life by concrete social problems and conflict situations and making the socialist revolution the ultimate goal of these actions. In this connection Lenin made an extremely significant observation, namely that "where the objective conditions of a profound political crisis exist, the tiniest conflicts, seemingly remote from the real breeding ground of revolution, can be of the mos,. serious imr lu-nce as the reason, as the last straw, as a turning-point in public feeling, = etc.''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Ways and Forms of the Revolutionary Struggle __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Ways and Forms of Revolution As Seen by Lenin __AUTHORS__ V.~ZagladinThe principles underlying Lenin's approach to the ways and forms of the revolutionary struggle consitute a major _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 276.
156 part of the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution. The range of problems concerning the ways of achieving the revolution and the forms of the revolutionary struggle has the closest attention of all the Communist parties in the world today. It is hardly possible to name a Communist Party that does not take part in resolving these pressing problems of the modern epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism.The Marxist-Leninist teaching takes as its point of departure the premise on the unity of the revolutionary process, on the harmony of the essence and general principles of the socialist revolution in all countries. This is seen in all of Lenin's work as a revolutionary. Lenin always declared that these principles had to be applied in accordance with the specifics of each country.
Accordingly the multiformity of the present day world revolutionary process, forms, ways and means of revolutionary struggle reflects the inexhaustible wealth of the very essence of the socialist revolution. In all cases it is a matter of the seizure of power by the working people headed by the working class and led by the Marxist-Leninist vanguard, of crushing the resistance of the exploiters, breaking up the military-bureaucratic machine of the old ruling class, the setting up a new apparatus of state power reflecting the substance of the new system, i.e., the power representing the dictatorship of the proletariat in one form or another.
In each country the ways of the revolution spring from this alloy of the general and the specific. Accentuating this point in his report to a joint sitting of the Central Executive Committee, the Moscow Soviet and the Factory Trade-Union Committees and the Trade Unions on October 22, 1918, Lenin said: "The revolution proceeds in its own way in every country---we ought to know after seeing and experiencing it---and these ways are so diverse that it may be delayed for a year or two. World revolution is not so smooth as to proceed in the same way everywhere, in all countries. If it were, we should have been victorious long ago. Every country has to go through definite political = stages.''^^*^^
Lenin stressed that the basic principles of communism should be applied in such a way as "will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 123.
157 them to national and national-state = distinctions".^^*^^ Addressing Communists throughout the world at the Third Congress of the Communist International, he said that "fundamental revolutionary principles must be adapted to the specific conditions in the various = countries".^^**^^Without confining himself to a general formulation of the question of the specific ways of the socialist revolution in each country, he characterised the actual elements giving rise to this diversity: the different historical conditions, the socio-economic and political systems and the forms of the working-class movement.
Explaining the reasons for the diversity of the ways of the revolution in the different countries, he wrote: "Even the trusts and banks of modern imperialism, though inevitable everywhere as part of developed capitalism differ, in their concrete aspects from country to country. There is still greater difference, despite homogeneity in essentials, between political forms in the advanced imperialist countries--- America, England, France, Germany. The same variety will manifest itself also in the path mankind will follow from the imperialism of today to the socialist revolution of tomorrow.''^^***^^
Showing the principles behind his approach to the ways of the revolution, Lenin said in May 1918: "We Russian revolutionaries have had the good fortune in the twentieth century to pass through two revolutions, each of which gave us a lot of experience, which has also stamped its impression on the lives of people, of how a deep-going and effective revolutionary movement is prepared; how the different classes in this movement behave, by what difficult path, sometimes by a long evolution, the maturity of new classes comes = about."^^****^^ While noting the specifics that gave shape to the concrete path of the Russian revolution, he touched upon, in particular, the question of limiting suffrage, noting that this was a "national specific and not a general question of the dictatorship''. This question, he said, had to be approached "by studying the specific conditions of the Russian _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 92.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 465.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 69.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 372.
158 revolution and the specific path of its = development''.^^*^^On the basis of Lenin's assessment of the concept of the path of revolution and taking into account the present elaboration of this question by the fraternal Communist parties there is every justification for defining this concept in both its broad and narrow context.
In the broad context the path of revolution means the totality of the specific forms, methods and means by which, in every given country, the general laws of the revolutionary process are applied, i.e., leading the people to the revolution, seizing and holding power, effecting the transition from the democratic to the socialist stage, resolving the problems of the period of transition and building socialism. In the broad sense, to determine the path of revolution means to determine the specifics of the path of the social revolution in a given country.
As Lenin put it, to determine the path of revolution in a given country means "learning to apply the general and basic principles of communism to the specific relations between classes and parties, to the specific features in the objective development towards communism, which are different in each country and which we must be able to discover, study and = predict".^^**^^
It is also legitimate to use the expression "path of revolution" in its narrow context, i.e., as a form of the transition or approach to the proletarian revolution, as a means of seizing power.
After the first tangible step had been taken toward the victory of the revolution, namely, the formation of Communist parties, of revolutionary vanguards, Lenin directed attention towards finding the forms of the approach to or the path of revolution in each given country. "All efforts and all attention,'' he said, "should now be concentrated on the next step, which may seem---and from a certain view-point actually is---less fundamental, but, on the other hand, is actually closer to a practical accomplishment of the task. That step is: the search after forms of the transition or the approach to the proletarian = revolution.''^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 256.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 89.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 92.
159In determining the path of revolution a conscious orientation towards the seizure of power by peaceful means or by armed force is of immense significance. This orientation depends on a long-term assessment of the alignment of forces in a country and on forecasting possible changes in that alignment in favour of the working people. If a Communist Party believes that internal and international factors permit it to achieve a balance of strength that will make the bourgeoisie unable to use the army and the police against the people or, most important, to use armed support from without, and, consequently, it will not be able to prevent the relatively peaceful, stage-by-stage solution of revolutionary tasks, it may orient itself towards a peaceful prospect and secure a peaceful development of the revolution. However, if it feels that open action by the internal and external counter-revolutionary forces cannot be avoided, it makes provision for an armed clash in order to crush the armed resistance of the exploiting classes, in order to solve the main tasks of the revolution in a comparatively short time, by storming the old world.
Naturally, in the final analysis any path of revolution combines to a certain extent the elements of peaceful and armed struggle, of peaceful and armed coercion of the exploiters. On the other hand, as past experience shows, in the course of developments essential changes in the balance of forces are possible which engender the need for a change in orientation. Let us assume that in a given country the Communist Party has oriented itself towards a basically peaceful path of revolution. However, the interference of an imperialist military bloc makes it necessary to repulse the foreign military intervention. For its part internal reaction also becomes active without delay. This compels the Communist Party to reorient itself, take up arms and mobilise the people for an armed struggle. The question of the path of the revolution thus makes it incumbent on a Communist Party to display flexibility and the ability to foresee and take decisive action.
The path of revolution in its broader sense is thus a strategic category and is determined in accordance with the long-term alignment of class forces on a national and international scale.
160 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Forms of the Revolutionary StruggleThe next question is that of the specific forms of the revolutionary struggle --- peaceful or non-peaceful, legal or illegal, parliamentary or non-parliamentary. The concrete forms of the struggle constitute not strategy but tactics, which are determined in accordance with the balance of strength and the situation at each given moment of the revolution's development.
Marxism, to use Lenin's words, does not bind the "movement to any one particular form of = struggle".^^*^^ It recognises the most diverse forms.
It requires a historical, concrete approach to the study of the forms of struggle. To insist on or reject a definite means of struggle without considering the concrete historical situation at the given stage of the revolutionary movement in a given country is, to say the least, ill-reasoned and irresponsible, while in practice it inevitably leads to defeat. Depending on political, national, cultural, living and other conditions at the given moment, various forms of struggle receive prominence, move to the forefront, while the secondary issues of this struggle are given a new shape. The Communists do not consider that it is possible to use only forms of the struggle that are known or exist at the given moment. They hold that new, hitherto unknown forms are inevitable, that these forms cannot be foreseen at present but that they may be evolved by the revolutionary creativity of the people.
Experience shows that whatever form of revolution--- peaceful or non-peaceful---a party decides upon, it must be able to employ all the forms of struggle.
Indeed, as has already been said, within the framework of a peaceful path there may be situations where an armed struggle can hardly be avoided. Let us assume that it may be necessary to suppress some concrete action of a military unit, an action that does not develop into a civil war; there may be clashes between workers and the police that likewise do not grow into a civil war. Elements of such clashes are always present in the class struggle not only during a revolution but also under conditions that are usual in capitalist society.
Take another case. A revolution involves an armed _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~11, p.~213.
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 6 --- 660 161 struggle. The Communist Party orients itself towards the use of armed force against reaction. But in the preparations for the armed struggle and in building up its forces it inevitably uses peaceful methods. Where possible, the Communist Party has representatives in parliament, operates legally in public organisations, conducts a massive propaganda campaign in the given country and so on.In the practice of the Latin American Communist parties, for example, there have been cases where, while orienting itself towards an armed struggle, a party functioned legally, took part in the elections to representative institutions and, at the same time, headed a guerrilla or other armed struggle in remote regions of the country in question.
In other words, as Lenin always insisted, diverse forms of the struggle must be skilfully combined. While recognising that the question of the forms of struggle is highly specific, the Communist parties nonetheless justifiably consider that regardless of the choice of the path of revolution it is always necessary to be able and ready to make skilful use of any form of the revolutionary struggle. They hold that both paths of the revolution---violent and peaceful---require, especially today, immense work among the people. A revolution is the creative work of the masses. Today, more than ever before, the preparations for the revolution require that revolutionaries should display an immense effort, great intelligence, tact and talent. Work among the masses today means working concretely, accurately taking into account the mood, interests and specific behaviour not only of each class, but also of each social group in the given class, of each strata not only in the given country but in a given district. For that reason work among the masses is increasingly involving a profound study of public opinion, of the internal motivations of the behaviour of the different social groups, their willingness to struggle for socialism, their ability (inclination) to apply this or that form of struggle.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Some Features of the Peaceful PathRecent experience of the revolution enables us to pinpoint yet another specific of the present approach to the question of the paths and forms of struggle. There have been a 162 number of revolutions that developed peacefully, i.e., which passed from the democratic to the socialist stage without armed violence, more or less gradually. These were, for example, the revolutions in most of the countries of Southeastern Europe. However, in all or almost in all these cases the peaceful transition to the socialist stage of the revolution was preceded by a sharp armed struggle at the democratic stage (the war of liberation against fascism, the Resistance movement, and so on).
From this it follows that evidently today the question of the path of revolution and the forms of the struggle cannot be considered from the standpoint of their applicability to one of the stages of the revolution---the socialist or the democratic stage. It is obviously necessary to consider the entire course, the entire prospect of the revolutionary process, the evolution of one stage into another or of one revolution into another, and to take into account the possibility that the balance of strength may change not only at some particular stage but throughout the entire course of the revolution.
Today, in some developed capitalist countries and countries where capitalism has reached a medium level of development the Communist parties have oriented themselves towards the prospect of seizing power chiefly by peaceful means. This is mirrored in their programmes. The icreased possibilities for the peaceful development of the revolution are noted also in the documents of the world communist movement. This conclusion of immense practical and theoretical importance is indicative of the changes that have taken place during the past few decades in the overall balance of strength in the world as a result of world socialism's achievements, the victorious national liberation revolutions and the steady advance of the working-class movement. In the situation obtaining today there is every possibility of preventing the export of counter-revolution (as may be seen on the example of Cuba). Moreover, it is easier to set up broad fronts of struggle against imperialism. The fact that it is now possible to speak of a peaceful prospect more realistically thus reflects the successes of the world revolutionary process.
The Communists see yet another important political aspect to this question. This aspect was considered in detail by the Communists of the United States at the 18th Convention of 163 their party in 1966. Gus Hall noted in his report that the adoption of the peaceful path of revolution offers considerable advantages in that it is helping to enhance the Communist Party's influence among the people and to mobilise them for the revolutionary = struggle.^^*^^
Experience indicates that the orientation towards the peaceful prospect can add some weight to the influence exercised by a Communist Party. However, the path of revolution is not an abstract but a specific problem that must be decided in keeping with the actual balance of forces. Whatever the benefits that the orientation towards the peaceful seizure of power yields it can bring results only if the appropriate conditions prevail.
The Communist parties that have adopted the orientation towards the peaceful path justifiably point out that it is attended with serious difficulties. Given all the weaknesses of present-day capitalism, the military-bureaucratic machine of the modern imperialist state has grown considerably, become differentiated and ramified and been improved so that it is by no means easy to break it. The Communist parties that have oriented themselves towards the peaceful prospect constantly underscore the danger emanating from this machine. Besides, the military-bureaucratic machine exists not only in individual countries but on an international scale (witness NATO and other military blocs). It will be recalled that this international military machine was brought into action in Greece. The Italian Communists have repeatedly exposed the plans of the reactionaries, beginning with the conspiracy in 1960, when Tambroni attempted a coup, up to the periods of the general elections of 1976--1979, when NATO did not conceal its intention to interfere in the country's internal affairs if the Left-wing forces were victorious there. NATO has similar plans for other countries as well.
The terror instituted by the military-bureaucratic machine in Chile reached its height in 1973 when the socio-political achievements of the people were forcibly erradicated.
In other words, imperialism's international _-_-_
^^*^^ Gus Hall, For a Radical Change. The Communist View, Report and Concluding Remarks to the 18th National Convention, Communist Party, USA, June 22--26, 1966, New York, 1966.
164 military-bureaucratic machine is a formidable obstacle to the peaceful development of the revolution. This makes the task of accumulating strength and mobilising the people for the revolutionary struggle all the more important and urgent. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Revolutionary ViolenceIn distorting Leninism its enemies endeavour to counterpose the peaceful path of revolution to revolutionary violence and identify the terms ``peaceful'' and ``nonviolent''.
Lenin approached the question of violence in a revolution from the class point of view, writing that "to talk about 'violence' in general, without examining the conditions which distinguish reactionary from revolutionary violence, means being a philistine who renounces revolution, or else it means simply deceiving oneself and others by = sophistry".^^*^^ He stressed that revolutionary Marxists, who are opposed on principle to the use of violence against people, had always considered it essential to use revolutionary violence against the bourgeoisie in the course of the revolutionary struggle, in defence of the freedoms and rights of the overwhelming majority of a nation.
Enlarging on the Marxist view of revolutionary violence, he repeatedly emphasised the principled character of the proposition that revolutionary violence was the midwife of every old society when it was pregnant with the new, and that by means of this weapon the social movement cleared the road for itself and smashed fossilised, moribund systems. Warning against the harbouring of illusions in a class struggle, Lenin said at the 3rd All-Russia Congress of Soviets in January 1918: "We must not depict socialism as if Socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by = violence."^^**^^
It should be noted that in speaking of the need for revolutionary violence, Lenin never identified revolutionary _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 285.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, pp. 458--59.
165 violence always and under all conditions with armed violence, although he considered it "very probable---even most probable---that the bourgeoisie will not make peaceful concessions to the proletariat and at the decisive moment will resort to violence for the defence of its = privileges'',^^*^^ that it would compel revolutionaries likewise to resort to armed violence. In 1899, without undertaking to predict the specific forms of violence---armed or political---he spoke of winning "political power in general without defining the method, for the choice of method depends on a future which we cannot precisely = determine."^^**^^In contrast to the petty-bourgeois criteria of revolutionary violence, the substance of the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of this problem is in underscoring not the armed character of violence but its mass, popular character.In other words, revolutionary violence is not always and not necessarily armed violence, but always and under all circumstances it must be linked with the struggle of the masses. Lenin wrote: "When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters---then we are for it."^^***^^ Revolutionary violence that does not rely on the strength of the revolutionary masses is helpless violence---it is not the proletarian but the petty-bourgeois line in the revolutionary struggle.
The tenet of reliance on the revolutionary strength of the people is the key in Lenin's analysis of the problem of revolutionary violence. While pointing out that all the big issues of the class struggle were ultimately decided by violence, that "no major historical issue has ever been decided otherwise than by 'material = force''',^^****^^ Lenin added yet another touch to the characteristic of the advanced revolutionary role of the proletariat. "Because of its class position in modern society,'' he wrote, "the proletariat can understand, sooner than any other class, that, in the final analysis, great historic issues are decided only by = force."^^^^*****^^^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 4, p. 276.
^^**^^ Ibid.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 459.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 9, p. 177.
^^*****^^ ibid., Vol. 8, p. 539.
166The leaders of the Second International had also been preoccupied with the idea of building up a force that could influence the decision of social problems. However, they regarded this force as merely an arithmetical number of people, as a kind of anonymous or even inert quantity which actually exerted only moral pressure on the exploiting classes. As Lenin understood the problem, the build-up of a people's force capable of influencing the course of developments was linked with the work of the Communist Party. He said that "it is our business to prepare and organise this force and to employ it actively, not only for defence but also for = attack".^^*^^
He combined a profound analysis of the problem with its practical application to the specific conditions obtaining in Russia, pointing out that it was not enough to ascertain the will of the masses. It was necessary to create a preponderance of strength in the decisive place at the decisive moment, and paralyse and crush the resistance of the enemy. The armed uprising of October 1917 has entered history as a classic example of the embodiment of Lenin's propositions on revolutionary violence in revolutionary practice.
After the October Revolution Lenin generalised its experience and widened the formulation of the question of revolutionary violence. In rejecting the attacks of the opportunists, who asserted that the Bolsheviks were blindly devoted to violence, he criticised them for being "incapable of teaching their own proletariat the tactics of necessary violence.
"Under certain circumstances violence is both necessary and useful, but there are circumstances under which violence cannot produce results. There have been cases, however, of not everyone appreciating this difference, so that it must be discussed. In October violence---the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by Soviet power, the removal of the old government, revolutionary violence---resulted in a brilliant success.
"Why? First, because the masses were organised in Soviets, and secondly, because in the long political period, from _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~9, p.~30.
167 February to October, the position of the enemy---the bourgeoisie---was undermined, sapped, washed away, like a block of ice by the spring thaw, and internally had been deprived of his strength; and the movement in October, compared, say, with the present revolutionary movement in Germany, brought us such a complete and brilliant victory for revolutionary violence."May we assume that such a path, such a form of struggle, such an easy victory for revolutionary violence, is possible if these conditions do not exist?
"It would be a very great mistake to assume that. And the greater the revolutionary victories achieved under certain specific conditions the more often does the danger arise of our allowing ourselves to be flattered by such victories and not stopping to think coolly, calmly and attentively, about the conditions that made them = possible".^^*^^
Lenin made it clear that there were diverse forms of revolutionary violence. For the working class, for the people, the peaceful forms of revolution that do not entail a civil war were much more preferable than any others. However, the choice of the means of struggle depended not only on the working class, not only on revolutionaries. An immense factor here was the policy pursued by the enemy, the policy pursued by the exploiting classes. Everything, Lenin said, depended on the balance of forces, on whether the revolutionaries, the working class and its allies were strong enough to give the bourgeoisie no opportunity to put up an armed resistance to the will of the working people, to unleash a civil war in order to decide anew the question of power.
The experience of the revolutions that have taken place since Lenin formulated these propositions, and the experience of the mass struggle have, on the one hand, borne out these propositions and, on the other, given the Communist parties the possibility of drawing new conclusions in this sphere.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, pp. 58--59.
168 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. The Leninist Approach to the ProblemsIn Lenin's theoretical works devoted to the strategy and tactics of the world communist movement considerable prominence is given to problems of the national liberation movements and revolutions, to ascertaining the ways and means of delivering enslaved peoples from imperialist tyranny, to the prospects for their social development, and to defining the role and place of the struggle for national liberation in the world revolutionary process.
In enlarging on the views of Marx and Engels on the problem of the attitude of the working class to massive national liberation movements, Lenin considered these movements against the background of imperialism and showed their relationship with the revolutionary working-class movement. From both the theoretical and political angles he demonstrated that in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions the national liberation movement was an integrated process governed by definite economic and social laws and that it was intrinsically democratic and anti-capitalist.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Marxist-Leninist PrinciplesIn his study of the nationalities question Lenin distinguished three basic methodological principles: "first, ... a precise appraisal of the specific historical situation and, primarily, of economic conditions; second, ... a clear distinction between the interests of the oppressed classes, of working and exploited people, and the general concept of national interests as a whole, which implies the interests of the ruling class; third, ... an equally clear distinction between the oppressed, dependent and subject nations and the oppressing, exploiting and sovereign = nations".^^*^^ Lenin held that the Communist Party had to have not an abstract or formal programme but a concrete, historical formulation of the tasks of the revolutionary struggle.
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~31, p.~145.
169He showed that at the close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century capitalism's conversion into a world system of domination and enslavement of peoples powerfully influenced the content and course of the national liberation movement in the colonial and dependent countries. Using as his point of departure the laws (which he had discovered) governing capitalism's development at the imperialist stage, he scrutinised the economic foundations and social character of the national liberation movements in the new epoch.
One of the economic aftermaths of bourgeois society's entry into the monopoly stage of capitalism was that imperialism accelerated capitalist development in the most backward countries and thereby broadened and intensified the struggle against national = oppression.^^*^^ The world's territorial and economic division, the increased oppression of nations and pillaging of the colonies, the struggle for sources of raw materials, markets and spheres of influence and, lastly, the imperialist war for the redivision of the world formed imperialism's economic and political content in the nationalities and national-colonial questions.
"Imperialism,'' Lenin wrote in 1915, "means the progressive mounting oppression of the nations of the world by a handful of Great Powers; it means a period of wars between the latter to extend and consolidate the oppression of nations; it means a period in which the masses of the people are deceived by hypocritical social-patriots, i.e., individuals, who, under the pretext of the 'freedom of nations', 'the right of nations to self-determination' and 'defence of the fatherland' justify and defend the oppression of the majority of the world s nations by the Great = Powers.''^^**^^
Capitalism's entry into the stage of imperialism was closely linked with the colonial policy of subjugating the peoples of backward countries. In the epoch of monopoly capitalism the intensification of colonial oppression resulted in the broadening of the objective foundation for the spread of the liberation movements in the colonies and gave them a progressive, democratic character.
_-_-_^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 78.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 409.
170They are indeed new movements that differ fundamentally from the bourgeois-democratic national movements of the European bourgeoisie in the epoch when it was on the upswing. In France, Germany, Italy and other advanced capitalist countries the nationalities question was resolved on a bourgeois foundation during the struggle against feudalism. Today, in the epoch of imperialism, the revolutionary forces of these countries are faced, above all, with the social, class tasks of putting an end to oppression by monopoly capital.
A different situation had arisen over the nationalities question in the colonies and semi-colonies. "In those areas, as a rule,'' Lenin wrote, "there still exist oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression.''^^*^^ In exposing the enemies of the subjugated colonial peoples, Lenin showed that under imperialism the national liberation movement had a deep-rooted objective economic and social foundation and that, at the same time, it was acquiring a new content. He upheld the right of enslaved peoples to win liberation by a revolutionary uprising and noted that in these circumstances national wars were the only means of shaking off imperialist oppression.
As he saw it, the epoch of imperialism had introduced the following changes into the national liberation movement:
1. Hundreds of millions of people in Asia had awakened to a new life and ceased to play a passive role. They had become one of the principal revolutionary forces of the 20th century. Lenin noted that the days when the cause of democracy and socialism was linked solely with Europe had irreversibly receded into the past. "The awakening of Asia,'' he wrote, "and the beginning of the struggle for power by the advanced proletariat of Europe are a symbol of the new phase in world history that began early this = century."^^**^^ The working class that was fighting for socialism had acquired a new ally in the peoples of the colonies and dependent countries.
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 59.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 19, p. 86.
1712. As distinct from the preceding epoch, when it was fragmented and local outside Europe, the national liberation movement had begun to evolve into a genuine world force embracing all parts of the globe. Today it speeds up the world revolutionary process.
3. As distinct from the epoch when the bourgeoisie was only forming, when its enemies were the absolute monarchies and the feudal lords, the national liberation movement is now aimed against imperialism, the common enemy of the proletariat, of the working masses of the capitalist countries and the oppressed peoples of the colonial and dependent countries.
Lenin considered the substance of the national-colonial question in the new epoch in close association and unity with the tasks of the socialist revolution, with the proletariat's worldwide mission of delivering mankind from imperialist slavery. The working-class struggle for socialism in the capitalist countries and the national liberation movement of the enslaved peoples were no longer isolated from each other: they now had a common socio-economic basis. Bringing this common feature of the two movements to light, Lenin showed that capitalism had spread in breadth, that its conversion into a global system of social and economic oppression was giving the working class and the oppressed colonial peoples a common basis and common interests. In his study of the prospects for the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism, he wrote that "the socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their bourgeoisie---no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialistoppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries, against international = imperialism".^^*^^
This means that in the former colonies and dependent countries revolutionary transformations do not end with the achievement of national independence. The new vistas of advancing towards socialism together with the revolutionary proletariat is opening up for the peoples of these countries. Lenin raised the question of the fusion of these two revolutionary torrents of the single world revolutionary process. However, this fusion does not mean that the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 159.
172 national liberation revolution is supplanted by the socialist revolution.Lenin showed the relationship and reciprocal influence of the socialist revolution and the national liberation struggle of the peoples of the colonies and dependent countries. He underscored that the liberation of the colonies was possible solely in the context of the strengthening of socialism. In addition, he pointed out that the struggle of the working class for the self-determination of oppressed peoples, a struggle during which the workers united even more closely, was clearing the way for the socialist revolution. He attached immense importance to the Marxist principle that no nation that oppresses other nations can be free.
It was in the interests of the working-class struggle for socialism, Lenin said, for the proletariat to ally itself with all the national movements against imperialism. At the same time, the working class championed the liberation of all peoples from colonial oppression. A successful socialist revolution was simultaneously an achievement of the national liberation revolution, which received the utmost assistance from the proletariat of the country where socialism had triumphed. The national liberation movement was part of the worldwide revolutionary and democratic movement against imperialism.
Looking far ahead, Lenin charted the world communist movement's nationalities policy for the entire epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, up to the completion of the socialist revolution on a worldwide scale. He wrote: "The aim of socialism is not only to end the division of mankind into tiny states and the isolation of nations in any form, it is not only to bring the nations closer together but to integrate them.... In the same way as mankind can arrive at the abolition of classes only through a transitional period of the dictatorship of the oppressed class, it can arrive at the inevitable integration of nations only through a transition period of the complete emancipation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their freedom to = secede."^^*^^
Lenin maintained that during the period of transition the nationalities policy of the revolutionary proletariat had to be so framed as to make it clear that the workers of the _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~22, pp. 146--47.
173 oppressor nations "must demand freedom of political separation for the colonies and nations oppressed by 'their own' nation'', while the socialists of the oppressed nations had to champion and achieve complete and absolute, including organisational, unity between the workers of the oppressed nation with the workers of the oppressor nation.^^*^^In addition to the slogan of international unity between workers of the metropolises and the colonies, Lenin proclaimed the slogan of the self-determination of nations. Freedom of secession for the oppressed nations is vital and mandatory inasmuch as it is directed against imperialism, against its policy of annexation, oppression and war.
"But does this mean,'' Lenin wrote, "that we proletarians wish to separate ourselves from the Egyptian workers and fellahs, from the Mongolian, Turkestan or Indian workers and peasants? Does it mean that we advise the labouring masses of the colonies to 'separate' from the class-conscious European proletariat? Nothing of the kind. Now, as always, we stand and shall continue to stand for the closest association and merging of the class-conscious workers of the advanced countries with the workers, peasants and slaves of all the oppressed countries. We have always advised and shall continue to advise all the oppressed classes in all the oppressed countries, the colonies included, not to separate from us, but to form the closest possible ties and merge with us.''^^**^^ One can appreciate how any attempt to undermine the joint struggle of the socialist countries and the new national states against imperialism can today jeopardise the cause of democracy and socialism.
In 1916 Lenin wrote that when the Bolsheviks seized power and formed a government they would grant the oppressed nations an inviolable right to self-determination. But, he stressed, they would do so "not in order to 'recommend' secession, but, on the contrary, in order to facilitate and accelerate the democratic association and merging of nations. We shall endeavour to render these nations, more backward and oppressed than we are, disinterested cultural assistance. In other words, we will help them pass to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 148.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, pp. 66--67.
174 the use of machinery, to the lightening of labour, to democracy, to = socialism."^^*^^ Such was Lenin's approach to the basic questions of socialism's leading role with regard to the national liberation movement even in the days when no socialist country, let alone a world socialist system, existed on our planet. Developments have fully borne out his conclusions. The following methodological propositions are also of considerable importance to the policy pursued by the Communist parties of the developing countries: 1) Marxists must "render determined support to the more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements for national liberation ... and assist their uprising---or revolutionary war, in the event of one---against the imperialist powers that oppress = them".^^**^^ The history of the national liberation struggle has proved the soundness of this proposition. The Communists of Asian and African countries fought against the colonial regimes, for the creation of independent national states, in a united front with the national bourgeoisie. Where it was unassociated with imperialism, the national bourgeoisie showed that it was capable of fighting, together with the working class, against colonial regimes for the creation of sovereign states (India, Ceylon, and others). 2) The question of whether to support the anti-imperialist movement is resolved by the Marxists not "in general" but concretely in each individual case. History knows of many cases where the actions of various classes and political forces were progressive in form and reactionary in content.In some Asian, African and Latin American countries developments over the past few years attest to the fact that reactionary circles of the national bourgeoisie use antiimperialist slogans as a cover while they pursue an antipopular policy and proceed to demand that for the sake of preserving the ``unity'' of the nation the labouring masses should renounce their efforts to improve their condition. Developments have proved that the anti-imperialist struggle cannot dovetail with anti-communism and anti-Sovietism. For that reason the Communists give their support only to the anti-imperialist struggle which is combined with a progressive internal policy and a consistent policy of cooperation with the socialist countries.
_-_-_^^*^^ Ibid., p. 67.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, pp. 151--52.
175 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Questions of the Theory and TacticsThe victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which not only gave a powerful impetus to the national liberation movement of the peoples of the East but opened up new prospects for the growth of that movement, marked a new phase in Lenin's work of developing the theory and tactics of the Communist parties in the nationalities question. The experience of the national liberation struggle in the countries of the East during the initial years after the October Revolution gave Lenin abundant material for study and generalisation and enabled him to offer penetrating surmises regarding the prospects for revolutionary development in the colonial and dependent countries.
The October Socialist Revolution started mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism. The new economic and social factors operating in the epoch opened up by that revolution exercise the decisive influence on the course and outcome of the national liberation struggle of colonial and dependent peoples. Lenin's study of these new conditions and factors was based on the following methodological premises. He proceeded from the contention that henceforth world development would be determined by the competition and struggle between socialism and capitalism; that through the young socialist state the international working class would be able to render the national liberation movement not only moral but also material, financial, military, diplomatic and all other assistance. The victory of socialism, even initially in one country, thus became one of the prime factors of the development of the national liberation movement.
While attaching great importance to the external factor, Lenin proceeded, naturally, mainly from the situation in each country where the people were waging a struggle against imperialism. He scrupulously studied the balance of strength in a given country and closely analysed the position and potentialities of international imperialism in that country. Keeping all these factors in mind, he examined the tasks and potentialities of the national liberation movement in different countries and regions.
Lenin took every opportunity to press home the 176 importance of united action by the working class fighting for socialism and by the peoples of colonial and dependent countries. For him this was not merely a political slogan. He saw the maturing material and social prerequisites for such unity and made it plain that the close cohesion and fraternal solidarity of all the revolutionary forces were a vital condition for the successful unfolding of the world revolutionary process and for the victory of each of its elements. "World imperialism,'' he said, "shall fall when the revolutionary onslaught of the exploited and oppressed workers in each country ... merges with the revolutionary onslaught of hundreds of millions of people who have hitherto stood beyond the pale of history and have been regarded merely as the object of = history."^^*^^
He regarded the revolutionary struggle of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries for liberation from foreign oppression as part of the liberation struggle of the peoples of all countries, of all nationalities and races against the imperialist bourgeoisie, and called for a united antiimperialist front of the proletarian movement in the metropolises and the national liberation struggle in the colonies.
He named the objective prerequisites for the formation of such a front, showing that these prerequisites stemmed from the class condition of the proletariat, that was fighting for socialism, and of the colonial and dependent peoples out to achieve national liberation. The social basis of the anti-imperialist front would be provided by the alliance between the international working class and the labouring masses of the subjugated countries. Lenin not only showed why an alliance between the working class of the capitalist countries and the oppressed peoples was necessary. This alliance was given physical shape by the world's first proletarian state.
A point he repeatedly made was that the proletariat of the developed states was the only dependable ally and friend of the oppressed peoples, writing, for instance, that "the hundreds of millions of Asian working people have a reliable ally in the proletariat of all civilised countries. No force on earth can prevent its victory, which will liberate both the peoples of Europe and the peoples of = Asia."^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 232.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 100.
177While attaching paramount importance to the national liberation revolutions, he took pains to stress thaf the struggle of the international proletariat, of the socialist forces was the pivot of the world revolutionary process. History had given the role of vanguard to the working-class movement, that was striking the most telling blows at imperialism.
The working-class movement and world socialism possess a scientific theory that shows clearly the aims and ways of struggle. The international proletariat can always render ideological assistance to fighters for national liberation. The proletariat is the most resolute and consistent force in the anti-imperialist struggle.
Lenin attached great importance to the balance of strength in the world following the appearance and consolidation of the first socialist state. Stressing that the revolutionary struggle of the colonial and dependent peoples was inseparably linked with the struggle of the international working class for socialism, he wrote that the "revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can now develop effectively, can reach a successful issue, only in direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet Republic against international = imperialism".^^*^^
This was not simply a wish but a scientific conclusion drawn by Lenin from a comprehensive study of all the economic and political forces in the world after 1917. He based this conclusion on the immutable fact that in its drive for maximum profits, broader economic supremacy and so on imperialism was striving to dominate the world. "The chief factor in politics today,'' he wrote, "is the violence being used by the imperialists against peoples ... and this world policy of imperialism is leading to closer relations, alliance and friendship among all the oppressed = nations."^^**^^ Hence the conclusion that there had to be united action by the working people of the socialist state and the peoples subjugated by imperialism. In order to bring this struggle to victory, Lenin said, "a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance, with Soviet Russia, of all the national and colonial liberation = movements".^^***^^
Lenin minutely examined the internal factor of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 151.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 491.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 146.
178 national-colonial revolutions, defined the substance and motive forces of these revolutions and made it clear that the struggle of the colonial and dependent peoples could be successful only in the event it was persevering and organised. His survey of the distribution and balance of class forces in the national liberation struggle is of fundamental importance to the charting of the strategy and tactics of the working class and other revolutionary forces in the national liberation revolutions.He warned the revolutionary forces against possible errors, against attempts to leap over any stage of the revolution. It was necessary, he said, to use objective conditions as the point of departure, to determine the character, tasks and motive forces of the national liberation revolutions in accordance with the actual historical situation.
In his speeches at the Second Congress of the Communist International he used his study of the national liberation struggle in India and China in 1918--1920 to give an example of a dialectical approach to an analysis of the extremely complex socio-economic and political development of that part of the world.
While noting that the "overwhelming mass of the population in the backward countries consists of = peasants'',^^*^^ that the colonial countries were economically backward and had no industrial capacity to speak of, he predicted that the emergent working class of these countries would be the most consistent force of the national liberation movements.
Indeed, in the upswing of the anti-imperialist struggle in the Eastern countries following the October Revolution in Russia the working class was the most organised revolutionary force and widely used proletarian forms of struggle.
Lenin's approach to the problems of the national liberation movement entailed an analysis of the conditions and specifics of the development of individual countries and regions. He held that where the struggle of the peoples against imperialism was concerned no issue was secondary or minor.
The destiny of the working-class movement in the colonial and dependent countries was always a matter of concern to him. In view of the religious, communal, caste, national, racial and other prejudices that had been cultivated for _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 241.
179 centuries by the colonialists and expertly used by them in their policy of divide and rule, Lenin attached the utmost importance to educating the working class and the labouring masses in a spirit of solidarity, writing: "Only when the Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Persian and Turkish workers and peasants join hands and march together in the common cause of liberation---only then will decisive victory over the exploiters be = ensured."^^*^^In keeping with the Marxist tenet that the proletariat is the leading revolutionary force, Lenin spoke of the need for uniting and organising the workers. He urged the formation of "independent contingents of fighters and party organisations in the colonies and the backward = countries'',^^**^^ insisting that the working class and the Communists of these countries should look for allies and unite all elements capable of taking part in the national liberation movement. In this connection, he gave much of his attention to the role of national bourgeoisie in the struggle for independence. He assessed this role dialectically in the context of the socio-economic and political development of these countries. In the colonial and dependent countries the local bourgeoisie was oppressed by imperialist capital and it was therefore objectively interested in fighting for independence. Lenin's clear understanding of the prospects for the development of the national liberation struggle enabled him to draw the conclusion, prior to the October Revolution, that "in Asia there is still a bourgeoisie capable of championing sincere, militant, consistent democracy, a worthy comrade of France's great men of Enlightenment and great leaders of the close of the eighteenth century".^^***^^
He regarded the revolutionary capability of the bourgeoisie in the countries of the East in close association with concrete conditions. At the Second Comintern Congress he acted on his analysis of these conditions when he recommended support for the bourgeois-national movement in the East on definite terms and as long as these terms were met. In Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions he wrote that "the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 138.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 244.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 18, p. 165.
180 movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeoisdemocratic movements within their own nations. The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with = it."^^*^^He warned the Communists of the East against the threat from the Right, against the danger of overrating the revolutionary potential of the bourgeoisie and against the threat of the proletarian movement losing its class character. Speaking in the Comintern's National-Colonial Commission on the question of amendments in the theses on the national and the colonial questions Lenin stressed: "We, as Communists, should and will support bourgeois liberation movements in the colonies only when they are genuinely revolutionary, and when their exponents do not hinder our work of educating and organising in a revolutionary spirit the peasantry and the masses of the = exploited".^^**^^ He argued that Communists had to support anti-imperialist, anti-feudal actions that were furthering the interests of the labouring masses, in other words, that they should cooperate with the national bourgeoisie if such cooperation served the interests of the working class and all other working people. However, they had to safeguard their organisational and ideological independence and continue their struggle against bourgeois-reformist tendencies in the national liberation movement.
A thorough study of the socio-economic specifics of development in the countries of the East brought Lenin round to the conclusion that in colonial and dependent countries the bourgeoisie had distinctive features and that an internal differentiation was proceeding in it. In it he marked out the different social strata, each of which had its own place and role in the liberation struggle. He noted the inconsistency and duality displayed by the national bourgeoisie in that struggle. In his analysis of the role played by the bourgeoisie in the upsurge of the national liberation struggle in India and China following the October _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, pp. 149--50.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 242.
181 Revolution in Russia, he pointed out that there "has been a certain rapprochement between the bourgeoisie of the exploiting countries and that of the colonies, so that very often--- perhaps even in most cases---the bourgeoisie of the oppressed countries, while it does support the national movement, is in full accord with the imperialist bourgeoisie, i.e., joins forces with it against all revolutionary movements and revolutionary = classes".^^*^^ Fear for the destiny of its capital compels the national bourgeoisie (above all, the big bourgeoisie) to solicit the support of the imperialists against the revolutionary actions of the working people.Thus, while not repudiating the revolutionary potential of the bourgeoisie, Lenin recommended that the Communists should ally themselves with it only at definite stages of the national liberation struggle; moreover, he exhorted Communists to bear in mind the second aspect of the character of the national bourgeoisie, namely, its inclination to compromise with imperialism, especially when the upswing of the revolutionary struggle reaches its highest level and involves the largest number of people.
On the basis of historical experience Lenin enunciated the guideline principles of the attitude of the Communist parties to the national bourgeoisie in the struggle for national liberation. "Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor,'' he wrote, "we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour, for we are the staunchest and most consistent enemies of oppression. But insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation stands for its own bourgeois nationalism, we stand against."^^**^^ He earnestly advised the Communists to evolve flexible tactics and to know exactly when to form an alliance and agree to compromises and when to act with determination against the bourgeoisie of their own countries. Lenin considered compromises inevitable in Communist policy, saying that a Communist Party had to be able "through all compromises... remain true to its principles, to its class, to its revolutionary purpose, to its task of paving the way for revolution and educating the mass of the people for victory in the = revolution".^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 242.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 20, pp. 411--12.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 25, p. 305.
182He attached similarly great importance to the question of the role played by revolutionary democracy as a leading sociopolitical force in the national liberation struggle. He showed the social nature of revolutionary democracy, gave a class appraisal of its revolutionary potential and snowed that the Communists had to cooperate with the revolutionary democrats. "The petty-bourgeois democrats...'' he wrote in "LeftWing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder, "inevitably vacillate between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and the Soviet system, between reformism and revolutionism, between love for the workers and fear of the proletarian dictatorship, etc. The Communists' proper tactics should consist in utilising these vacillations ... utilising them calls for concessions to elements that are turning towards the proletariat---whenever and in the measure that they turn towards the proletariat---in addition to fighting those who turn towards the = bourgeoisie."^^*^^
Guided by the concrete historical approach formulated by Lenin, the Communists of many countries pursue a policy of united action with all democratic, progressive forces in the struggle against imperialism, feudalism and monopoly capital.
In countries that have adopted a socialist orientatio.n the Communists cooperate closely with the revolutionary democrats in the interests of fostering the advance towards socialism. In the process of that cooperation they strive to influence the finest among the revolutionary democrats and win them over to scientific communism.
At the same time, they keep the contradictory nature of revolutionary democracy in mind. By strengthening the position of the democratic forces and furthering the revolutionary struggle they strive to consolidate the revolutionary democratic regimes and make certain that they progress towards socialism.
Lenin did not confine himself to analysing what had become historical experience. Using the Marxist dialectical method and on the basis of the established tendency of the movement of peoples towards socialism, he scientifically showed the path of development of the peoples and countries that would achieve liberation from imperialism. An _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~31, p.~75.
183 attentive study of the situation in Asian and African countries allowed him to draw the unprecedented conclusion that the capitalist stage of development was not mandatory for backward = peoples.^^*^^In his report to the second Comintern Congress, in the pamphlet entitled The Tax in Kind, in his report to the 2nd All-Russia Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East, in a letter headed "To the Comrades Communists of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Daghestan and the Mountaineer Republic" and in some other works Lenin gives two conditions on which backward peoples could advance to socialism bypassing the capitalist stage of development: (1) the growth of the political consciousness, independent political activity and organisation of the working masses and (2) the help of the victorious proletariat, i.e., the existence of the world socialist system, which is able to influence the course of world = development.^^**^^ The 1960s and 1970s have shown how brilliant this prediction of Lenin's was. Only a period when the world socialist system was already so developed and strong that it had begun to influence the whole course of historical development could produce revolutionary-democratic regimes which have proclaimed the non-capitalist path of development in a number of countries. The development of such socialist-oriented states as Syria, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Angola, Ethiopia has shown that Lenin was right.
In a number of his later works, such as Our Revolution, The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, The Tax in Kind, Lenin returns to the idea of the formation of the political consciousness of the masses and the importance of the role of conscious actions factor in the interests of non-capitalist development. He draws attention to such factors as: the socio-economic and political content of this process; the forms of development; the class character of power and the prospects of its turning into a dictatorship of the proletariat; the importance of a Marxist party; the role of organising the peasant masses on cooperative lines, = etc.^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Coltecied Worfa, Vol. 31, p. 244.
^^**^^ Ibid.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol.~33, pp. 476--80; Vol.~25, pp. 319--65; Vol.~32, pp. 329--65.
184Lenin's advice, addressed to the Communists of the regions that had been colonies of tsarist Russia, that there the transition to socialism should be slower, more circumspect and more = systematic,^^*^^ is of exceptionally great importance today to the strategy and tactics of the Communist parties of the liberated countries of Asia and Africa.
Lenin's method of analysing the key problems of the national liberation movement gives the scientific basis for the strategy and tactics employed today by the Communist parties of Asian and African countries. The national liberation movements and revolutions are now developing under new conditions and they are confronted with new historical tasks. But however complex and novel they may be, their objective content can always be ascertained by applying Lenin's method. Over half a century has passed since Lenin expressed, for the last time, his views on cardinal theoretical and political problems of the struggle of colonial and dependent peoples for national and social liberation. Time has fully borne out the correctness of his method for analysing the national liberation movement, which has developed along the path predicted by him. He evolved the principles underlying the present-day theory and programme of the communist movement in the nationalities question.
The successful development of the national liberation struggle after World War II is closely linked with the defeat of the forces of reaction and fascism, with the emergence of the world socialist system and its turning into the decisive force of the anti-imperialist struggle. The new distribution of forces in the world arena created favourable conditions for the colonial peoples' struggle for political independence. Today all that remains of the former colonial system are a few areas with total population of less than I per cent of mankind. About a hundred new states have appeared, most of which are taking an active part in world politics with the help, first and foremost, of the United Nations, striving to create a united front of the struggle against neocolonialism and for the establisment of a new economic order. Lenin's prediction that the "period of the awakening of the East in the contemporary revolution is being succeeded by a period in which all the Eastern peoples will participate in deciding _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~32, p.~317.
185 the destiny of the whole world" has come = true.^^*^^Important changes are taking place within the developing countries. The national liberation struggle has now entered a new stage there, when the tasks of economic and social liberation are coming to the fore. The struggle around the choice of paths of further development is becoming most acute. It is closely linked with the growing social stratification in these countries. The social changes taking place in them vary in character, depth and scale. However, the prevailing trend of the processes in most of these countries is a radicalisation of the working masses, their growing understanding of the need for struggle not only against foreign imperialism, but also against local reaction and those groups of their own bourgeoisie which are no longer able to express the interests of the broad mass of the people.
In a number of regions the progressive social forces and broad masses are inclining towards a socialist choice. The number of countries that have chosen a socialist orientation is growing. Some revolutionary-democratic parties are proclaiming Marxism-Leninism as the ideological and political foundation of their activity. The national liberation movement is, thus, beginning to unite with scientific socialism. The 1970s have shown that, in spite, of the difficulties, the tendency towards a socialist orientation has not lost its force.
Foreseeing the inevitability of revolutionary changes in the former colonies, Lenin attached great importance to the activity of the Communist parties. He constantly drew their attention to the specific nature of the socio-economic processes in these countries. The law of the development of Communist parties and their activity in the national liberation movement, substantiated by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International, is becoming particularly relevant in modern = conditions.^^**^^
The Communist parties of the Afro-Asian countries see their strategic task as the completion of the nationaldemocratic revolutions to prepare the objective and subjective prerequisites for the transition to the socialist revolution. Lenin's method of the problems of the national liberation struggle is helping Communists to solve this complex task.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 160.
^^**^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 240--45.
[186] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ Socialism: Its Political OrganisationOne of the most important questions of the socialist revolution, whatever form it may take, is that of the winning of political power by the working class in an alliance with the whole working people.
Already in the middle of the 19th century Marx and Engels, defining the direct tasks of the socialist revolution, stressed: "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling = class....''^^*^^
The shift of power into the hands of the working class and its allies, i.e., the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, determines, first and foremost, the class content of the new power, the new socialist state. This state embodies the leading role of the working class in the socialist transformation of society. Herein lies the main meaning of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat".
"\thinspace'Dictatorship of the proletariat','' Lenin wrote in his A Great Beginning, "...means just the following:
"Only a definite class, namely, the urban workers and the factory, industrial workers in general, is able to lead the _-_-_
^^*^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. I, p. 126.
187 whole mass of the working and exploited people in the struggle to throw off the yoke of capital, in actually carrying it out, in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the work of creating the new, socialist social system and in the entire struggle for the complete abolition of = classes.''^^*^^The whole previous experience of the revolutionary struggle, the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the creation of a socialist society in the USSR, and the socialist transformations in other countries show that the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the power of the working class, allied with the whole working people, is an inherent feature of the socialist revolution and socialist construction. "...Transition to socialism is possible only if the working class and its allies, having gained real political power, use it to end the socio-economic domination of capitalist and other = exploiters...".^^**^^ The concrete forms of the organisation and exercising of the political power by the working class inevitably assume a different nature in different political conditions. The socialist revolution in Russia took place in a complex international situation and a bitter class struggle within the country. This struggle was "bloody and bloodless,'' Lenin remarked, "violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative---against the forces and traditions of the old = society.''^^***^^
Lenin's description of the variety of forms of the class struggle in the transition period is important for an understanding of the causes of the aggravation of this struggle in certain socialist countries at certain periods in their history. The historical experience of the socialist states shows convincingly that the exploiter classes, the anti-socialist forces, can rear their heads even many years after the victory of the proletarian revolution, if the vigilance of the party has weakened.
The bitter economic, political and military resistance of the internal reaction conditioned the special acuteness of the class struggle in Russia after the victory of the October Revolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat gave the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 420.
^^**^^ L.~I. Brezhnev, The Great October Revolution and Mankind's Progress, Moscow, 1977, p. 19.
^^***^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 44.
188 working people the possibility to withstand and conquer in the Civil War, defeat the interventionists, overcome the terrible devastation and begin to build a new = life^^*^^ in the difficult conditions of capitalist encirclement, and to build socialism. The victorious proletariat cannot solve the tasks of the socialist transformation of society without overcoming the resistance of the exploiter classes in the course of the class struggle.Socialism can be established only if the' power of the working people can defend the revolution from all attacks by the class = enemy.^^**^^ The forcible aspect of the proletarian state, which is exercised in relation to the class enemy, gradually loses its importance as the main task of the proletarian state, the liquidation of the hostile exploiter classes, is solved. It is precisely this that the anti-Sovietists, who slander socialism, in general, and socialist democracy, in particular, refuse to admit.
An organic part of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the new type of revolutionary power is the proposition on its creative functions: "...The dictatorship of the proletariat,'' Lenin wrote, "is not only the use of force against the exploiters, and not even mainly the use of force. The economic foundation of this use of revolutionary force, the guarantee of its effectiveness and success is the fact that the proletariat represents and creates a higher type of social organisation of labour compared with = capitalism."^^***^^ The creative activity of the proletarian state is its main function. It is precisely this important proposition of the Leninist teaching on the proletarian state that bourgeois ideologists ignore.
The proletarian state is called upon to carry out radical changes in the sphere of economics, politics, science and technology, and in the sphere of social relations and the education of the masses.
Bourgeois propaganda alleges that the working class "lacks the gift of creation" and is capable only of destroying. _-_-_
^^*^^ See B. N. Ponomarev, The Living and Effective Teaching of MarxismLeninism, p. 45.
^^**^^ See L. I. Brezhnev, The Great October Revolution and Mankind's Progress, p. 19.
^^***^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 419.
189 Bourgeois sociologists are echoed by the revisionists, who repeat the fabrications of bourgeois propagandists, trying to ``disprove'' the creative functions of the proletarian state and the creative potential of the working class. The rich experience of the USSR and the other socialist countries refutes the slanderous inventions of bourgeois ideologists and revisionists. This experience shows irrefutably that the working class is capable not only of winning power, not only of defending the socialist state, but also of inspiring the mass of working people by its revolutionary heroism to build socialism.One of the most important questions of Marxist-Leninist teaching on the state of the working class and the whole working people is that of the attitude to the old state apparatus and the creation of the apparatus of the socialist state. The victorious class cannot simply "take over" the ready-made state machine of the bourgeoisie, ``perfecting'' it for its own purposes. Lenin explained that the bourgeois state does not "wither away'', but is destroyed by the proletariat. At the same time Lenin stressed the need to approach this problem in a concrete and differentiated way. The proletariat must "smash everything that is oppressive, routine, incorrigibly bourgeois in the old state apparatus and substitute its own, new = apparatus."^^*^^
Apart from the apparatus of oppression the modern state possesses an apparatus which the proletariat can and should use, for example, the apparatus for social regulation of production and distribution, etc. "This apparatus must not,'' Lenin said, "and should not, be smashed. It must be wrested from the control of the capitalists; the capitalists and the wires they pull must be cut off, lopped off, chopped away from this apparatus; it must be subordinated to the proletarian Soviets; it must be expanded, made more comprehensive, and = nation-wide.''^^**^^ The victorious proletariat, he pointed out, must persuade the intelligentsia, financiers, engineers, and specialists of all kinds to take part in socialist construction under the control of the working masses.
The ways of breaking the old state machine and creating the new apparatus of the proletarian state vary in different _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 102.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 106.
190 countries. The nature of breaking the old state machine is determined, first and foremost, by the existence and strength of the bourgeois military bureaucratic apparatus, and also by the level of the country's economic development, the degree of consciousness and organisation of the working class, the sum total of national, historical features, and the existence or lack of democratic forms of state apparatus. When the forces on the side of the working class and its allies are overwhelmingly superior there may be no need for such bitter forms of class struggle as those observed in Russia during the breaking of the old state machine. In other socialist countries the breaking of the old state machine took place gradually, sometimes by retaining certain traditional forms and institutions of state which were given a new class content,.In the first period after the victory of the October Revolution the enemies of the revolution and opportunists sought to frighten the working class in the Soviet country by saying that it would not be able to manage the highly complex task of running the state and setting the state apparatus in motion. Revealing the invalidity of these arguments, Lenin wrote: "We have a 'magic way' to enlarge our state apparatus tenfold at once, at one stroke, a way which no capitalist state ever possessed or could possess. This magic way is to draw the working people, to draw the poor, into the daily work of state = administration."^^*^^
Socialist democracy is characterised by the political activity of the masses, their participation in the running of the state, of economic and social affairs, which bourgeois democracy cannot provide. The Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution emphasises that "the establishment and strengthening of Soviet power as a form of dictatorship of the proletariat ensured freedom and democracy for the great majority of working people, a kind of democracy which did not and could not exist in any capitalist = country.^^**^^
The socio-political foundation of the proletarian state is the alliance of the working class with the working masses, _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 111--112.
^^**^^ On the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Moscow, 1977, p. 5.
191 with the broad democratic strata of the population led by the working class. Lenin saw this alliance as the foundation of the whole political essence of the Soviet = state.^^*^^ The task of the victorious proletariat is to educate, convince and draw the working masses into the active construction of the new life. Lenin taught that petty commodity producers "...cannot be ousted, or crushed; we must learn to live with them. They can (and must) be transformed and re-educated only by means of very prolonged, slow, and cautious organisational work.''^^**^^The alliance of the working class with the non-proletarian working masses has an objective basis---all these classes and strata have a vital interest in the abolition of the exploiter classes. The creation of the socialist system is in keeping with their interests and aspirations. Socialism cannot be built by the working class alone. The solution of this task is possible only with the most active participation of broad strata of the population under the leadership of the working class.
The problem of this alliance is of great theoretical and political importance today. The peasantry still accounts for a considerable proportion of the population in a number of capitalist countries. Lenin's proposition on the village poor as the main ally of the working class in the struggle to create and strengthen the proletarian state, in the building of a socialist society has been further developed in the documents of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. The Meeting stresses that "the strengthening of the alliance of workers and farmers is one of the basic prerequisites of the success of the struggle against the monopolies and their = power."^^***^^
Today the circle of the working class's allies is becoming wider. There is growing understanding of the need for joint action with the working class among the broad masses of the urban middle strata. In connection with the developing scientific and technological revolution and the swelling of the ranks of hired labour by members of the intelligentsia new possibilities are emerging for an alliance of white- and _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 44, p. 487 (in Russian).
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 44.
^^***^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 25.
192 blue-collar workers. There are increasing possibilities "for uniting all democratic trends into a political alliance capable of decisively limiting the role played by the monopolies in the economies of the countries concerned, of putting an end to the power of big capital and of bringing about such radical political and economic changes as would ensure the most favourable conditions for continuing the struggle for socialism.''^^*^^The experience of the creative activity of the working class and its allies is of fundamental theoretical and political importance for the working class of all countries fighting for democracy and socialism. The sum total of the basic tasks which have been carried out by the working people of the USSR under the leadership of the working class and its Party reflects the general law of the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into socialist society: the creation of the material and technical base of socialism, the abolition of the exploiter classes, the planned industrialisation of the country, the collectivisation of agriculture and the cultural revolution. To educate the masses, to give them access to the cultural riches accumulated by mankind, is one of the most important functions of the socialist state.
The Soviet Union has demonstrated great creative and transforming power most strikingly in its successes achieved through the hardest struggle. Capitalist states made frequent attempts to destroy the socialist state of the working class by armed force and economic blockade. Socialism has turned from a drearn into reality.
The opponents of socialism exaggerate the difficulties that arise in the building of socialism. But the CPSU and the other fraternal parties of the socialist countries do not seek 'o conceal these difficulties and unsolved problems. The new society cannot emerge straightaway in its ideal ``finished'' form. The Party's ideal, socialism and then communism, is being realised gradually as socialism develops. The presentday socialism "is still a young and growing social organism,'' said Leonid Brezhnev at the 24th CPSU Congress, "where not everything has settled and where much still bears the marks of earlier historical epochs... Its development naturally runs through struggle between the new and the old, through _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p. 27.
__PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 7 --- 660 193 the resolution of internal = contradictions."^^*^^ This is precisely what anti-Soviet bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists refuse to see.The entire foreign policy of the socialist state serves the aims of the revolutionary transformation of society and mankind's transition from capitalism to communism. In the very first days of its existence the Leninist policy of peace, freedom and independence of the peoples, a policy of true humanism, was proclaimed. This peace-loving foreign policy expresses the interests not only of the Soviet people, but of all the peoples of the world. It aims to ensure favourable international conditions for the successful building of socialism, for pursuing a policy of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, and for detente.
The Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee on the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V. I. Lenin stresses that "Lenin's teachings on imperialism, the socialist revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the party, the class allies of the proletariat in the struggle for democracy and socialism ... have become a priceless ideological, theoretical and methodological weapon in the arsenal of revolutionaries all around the world''. The great mission of "preparing and leading history's first successful socialist revolution and combining the theory of scientific socialism with the broadest practice of the popular = masses"^^**^^ has fallen to Lenin and the Bolshevik Party.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The General and the Particular in the DevelopmentThe question of the state form of the political power of the working class was first posed by Marx in 1871, when the Paris Commune was formed as a result of the heroic struggle of the French proletariat. The experience of the Commune, although short-lived, enabled Marx in his work "The Civil War in France" to draw the conclusion that the Commune was a highly flexible political form of realising the power of the working class. Later, in the work "A Critique of the _-_-_
^^*^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, pp. 18--19.
^^**^^ Moscow News, December 23, 1979, p. 4.
194 Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891" Engels proposed a democratic republic as the form of state for carrying out the transition from capitalism to socialism. He noted that it was: firstly, the most suitable form of state for winning political supremacy, and, secondly, the most convenient for carrying out the dictatorship of the proletariat. These remarks of Engels were aimed against the opportunism of German Social-Democracy, which was arguing that the workers could obtain their demands even within the framework of a constitutional monarchy in Germany. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Soviets as the Form of Proletarian StateThe further development of the teaching of Marx and Engels on the form of the socialist state is connected with the name of Lenin. In his works "Letters from Afar" and the famous April = Theses^^*^^ he generalises the experience of the bourgeois democratic revolutions in Russia in 1905 and February 1917 and concludes that a Republic of the Soviets is the best form of state of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia. "If the creative enthusiasm of the revolutionary classes,'' Lenin wrote, "had not given rise to the Soviets, the proletarian revolution in Russia would have been a hopeless cause, for the proletariat could certainly not retain power with the old state apparatus, and it is impossible to create a new apparatus = immediately.''^^**^^ Lenin's great service was that he saw the Soviets as the new form of state of the proletarian type.
Kautsky, Blum, Laski, Schumacher and other SocialDemocratic theoreticians tried desperately to show the advantages of bourgeois state forms over the Soviets. Anti-communist ideologists, like Social-Democrat theoreticians, usually contrast the Soviet form of state with the bourgeois form and try to prove that the latter expresses the interests of the people better. In fact the Soviets were a form of state unprecedented in history. They were produced by the creativity of the masses and were designed to carry out _-_-_
^^*^^ The theses of a report "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution" which Lenin delivered in Petrograg on April 4(17), 1917. These theses were a plan for the transition in Russia from the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution to a socialist revolution.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 104.
195 their will. In his works of that period Lenin showed this most fully. Consideration of all the features that determine the importance and role of the Soviet form of state power is most important methodologically.Thus, examining the specific nature of the Soviet form of state in his work Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, Lenin wrote: "The Soviets are a new state apparatus which, in the first place, provides an armed force of workers and peasants... Secondly, this apparatus provides a bond with the people, with the majority of the people, so intimate, so indissoluble, so easily verifiable and renewable, that nothing even remotely like it existed in the previous state apparatus. Thirdly, this apparatus, by virtue of the fact that its personnel is elected and subject to recall at the people's will without, any bureaucratic formalities, is far more democratic than any previous apparatus. Fourthly, it provides a close contact with the most varied professions, thereby facilitating the adoption of the most varied and most radical reforms without red tape. Fifthly, it provides an organisational form for the vanguard, i.e., for the most class-conscious, most energetic and most progressive section of the oppressed classes, the workers and peasants, and so constitutes an apparatus by means of which the' vanguard of the oppressed classes can elevate, train, educate, and lead the entire vast mass of these classes, which has up to now stood completely outside of political life and history. Sixthly, it makes it possible to combine the advantages of the parliamentary system with those of immediate and direct democracy, i.e., to vest in the people's elected representatives both legislative and executive = functions."^^*^^
In the early years after the revolution the organs of the Soviet state had to deal with all manner of economic questions. However, even in those years, when planning the grandiose development of the country's economy, Lenin thought of the need for creating a ramified, well organised administrative apparatus and said that it was essential to raise the level of professional knowledge of workers in the state apparatus.
It is extremely important from the methodological point of view to take into account the dialectics of form and content _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 103--04.
196 when dealing with the question of the choice of a state form for the power of the working class. There have been cases when the enemies of socialism, not daring to demonstrate openly against the form of state power of the working people established in the course of the socialist revolution, have sought to fill it with a content hostile to the cause of socialism and the proletariat.In 1921, for example, the inspirers of the Kronstadt counter-revolutionary mutiny advanced the slogan "For the Soviets but without Communists" in an attempt to overthrow the power of the working class. Essentially a similar demand was put forward by the leaders of the counter-revolutionary uprising in Hungary in 1956. In Czechoslovakia in 1968 also the reaction did not demostrate openly against the state and did not seek to change the form of power by force. The aim of the enemies of socialism and their foreign inciters was to change gradually the content of the activity of the state and its essence. The process of changing the content of power may, thus, begin within one and the same form of power.
Having discovered the Soviets as the new form of the proletarian state, Lenin never turned it into an absolute, never said that it was the best form in all conditions. On the contrary, he frequently stressed that the transition from capitalism to communism could not, of course, fail to yield a vast abundance and variety of political forms. The development of history has fully confirmed this idea.
In the course of the Second World War, for example, People's Democracies arose in a number of countries in Central and Southeast Europe, and also in Asia. Whereas in the USSR the dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the form of a Republic of the Soviets, in these countries the state form of the power of the working class was a people's democratic republic.
In accordance with the Leninist methodology of analysing state forms of the dictatorship of the proletariat created as a result of the victory of socialist revolutions in a number of countries, one must take into account: firstly, the differences in the balance of class forces within each of these countries; secondly, the alignment of class forces in the international arena and the foreign policy situation; thirdly, the national composition of the population; and, fourthly and lastly, the traditions and the level of cultural development in these 197 countries. In the final analysis the decisive role is played by economic factors.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Common Features of the Proletarian StateIn discussing the different forms of the proletarian state, Lenin, nevertheless, always stressed the existence of common features shared by these different = forms.^^*^^ This is explained by the unity of the content, essence and functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The experience of building the state in the People's Democracies which arose in the course of the Second World War fully confirms Lenin's conclusions on the similarity of the different forms of the proletarian state. The people's democratic republic is the same type as the Soviet republic, which predetermines the existence of many basic features common to both forms of socialist states, namely:
1. All socialist states are republican in their form of administration. Both in the USSR and in the People's Democracies the political basis consists of elective organs composed of its representatives (National and People's Soviets, People's Assemblies, Hurals of People's Deputies, etc.).
2. The constitutional and actual equality of the nationalities in all spheres of life is juridically ensured by the form of state organisation of the socialist countries. Socialist states inhabited by several nationalities are either federative (the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia) or the specific interests of the nationalities inhabiting the territory of these states are guaranteed by granting them autonomy.
3. A feature common to all forms of socialist states is their truly democratic nature.
The features of the Soviet and people's democratic forms are the objective of bitter attacks by the enemies of socialism, both open and masked. Bourgeois, reformist and revisionist ideologists, for example, argue tirelessly that the Soviet form of state is ``unique'' and that Soviet experience cannot be applied to other countries. They say that the experience of _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 68.
198 the Russian revolution cannot serve as a model for other countries. Recently bourgeois ideologists have started to say that they have nothing against the building of socialism in other countries as long as it is not similar to the "Soviet way" and has a "purely national character''. The defenders of the capitalist system are frequently prepared to ``tolerate'' Communist parties in capitalist countries and even establish contacts with them provided only that their activity is anti-Soviet. Thus, during the events in Czechoslovakia in 1968, for example, many bourgeois newspapers recommended "getting away from Soviet experience'', choosing a ``national'' form of building socialism, and ``liberalising'' democracy. Leonid Brezhnev said in this connection: "Bourgeois ideologists ... offer us all sorts of 'advice' on how to 'improve' and 'democratise' socialism. But their concern is not for socialism, of course. They would like to return us to bourgeois = practices...''^^*^^The experience of state building in China shows the result of refusing to acknowledge the features common to all forms of socialist states. The Chinese Constitution of 1954 established the socialist form of state in China. Unfortunately, the practical activity of the state organs in China ignored the provisions of the Constitution from the very outset. In the late 1950s the breaking up of the forms of a socialist state began in China. The autonomous rights of the national minorities have in effect been abolished and internationalism has given way to Great-Han chauvinism and hegemonism. Socialist legality has been supplanted by illegal persecution.
Thus, disregard of general laws is fraught with dire consequences for the cause of socialism. The CPSU and other fraternal Communist parties stress in their documents that the path to socialism and the socialist system itself are characterised by a number of basic features and laws that are common to socialist societies in any country. Not only the Communist parties of the socialist countries, but also those contingents of the communist movement that are searching for ways of effecting the transition to socialism in their countries are guided by this proposition. Thus, in his Report to the 23rd Congress of the French Communists the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the French _-_-_
^^*^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, p.~99.
199 ~ Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/PCM335/20051012/299.tx" Emacs-Time-stamp: "2010-01-16 15:39:47" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.07.04) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+[)]? Communist Party, Georges Marchais, speaking of the variety of forms of transition to socialism, drew attention to the existence of principles common to all countries which have embarked on the path of building = socialism.^^*^^ The existence of general scientific laws of the stage of transition to socialism was given special emphasis in the Programme of the Communist Party of Syria adopted by its 4th Congress in = 1974.^^**^^ __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Creative Application of Lenin's TeachingIn drawing attention to the features common to all states of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin also stressed that these states should not be identical to one another in every way. As early as 1916 he wrote: "All nations will arrive at socialism---this is inevitable, but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own ... to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social = life.''^^***^^ And further: "There is nothing more primitive from the viewpoint of theory, or more ridiculous from that of practice, than to paint, 'in the name of historical materialism', this aspect of the future in a monotonous grey.''^^****^^ The forms of state in socialist countries are a vivid illustration of the creative application of Lenin's ideas. Alongside the features common to the Soviet and people's democratic forms of state, there are certain differences between them. In the countries of the socialist community, for example, the people's democratic, national and patriotic fronts are an interesting form of linking the Communist and Workers' parties with the broad mass of the working people and drawing the latter into the building of the new society. In most of these countries it has proved possible from the very outset to do without the disenfranchisement of individual citizens. It is a special feature of the People's Democracies that the transition to socialism there is effected under a _-_-_
^^*^^ See: Pravda, May~11, 1979.
^^**^^ See: Programme of the Communist Party of Syria. Adopted by the 4th Party Congress held in Damascus from 26 to 28 September, 1974. Published by the Communist Party of Syria (in Arabic).
^^***^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 69--70.
^^****^^ Ibid., p. 70.
200 multi-party system. Finally, in the People's Democracies the system of the organs of state, their powers and the relations between them are somewhat different.In developing the Soviet state, the Party and Government have sought to pursue Lenin's policy of improving the state apparatus and its functioning. Thus, with the completion of socialist construction changes were made in the state system, and in the way local organs of state power are formed, the structure and powers of these organs were altered, democratic changes were introduced into the electoral system, and the rights of Soviet citizens were extended.
The Soviet path to socialism was not an easy one. In the prewar period there were some unjustified restrictions of democracy and violations of the law connected with the Stalin personality cult. Bourgeois and revisionist ideologists now use this to assert that these negative phenomena are an organic part of the Soviet state. Their arguments are totally invalid. They are refuted by the fact that the Central Committee of the CPSU in its resolution of June 30, 1956 and in other Party documents and the Party press has strongly condemned the above-mentioned phenomena and resolutely put an end to the violations of democracy, law and order that has taken place.
In a developed socialist society, a natural stage on the path to communism, the Soviet state, which arose as the dictatorship of the proletariat, has become a state of the whole people. This was a manifestation of the operation of the objective laws of the transition from socialism to communism.
The founders of Marxism-Leninism expressed the idea that the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat would later be replaced by a "state of communist = society".^^*^^ The development of the Soviet state has confirmed this idea fully and has shown in practice that the need for a dictatorship of the proletariat disappears with the destruction of antagonistic classes and the establishment of socio-political and ideological unity.
The 1977 Constitution of the USSR is a most important document that has consolidated the essence and form of the Soviet state of the whole people. In working on the draft of _-_-_
^^*^^ See, for example, Karl Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Programme'', in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 3, p. 26.
201 the new Constitution, the CPSU and the Soviet Government "stood firmly on the ground of continuity, The draft retains ... the characteristic features of a socialist Constitution outlined by = Lenin."^^*^^ Thus, for example, according to the Soviet Constitution of 1977 and preceding Soviet constitutions, the political foundation of power in the country are the mass, electoral organisations of the working people, the = Soviets.^^**^^At the same time the 1977 Soviet Constitution creatively develops Lenin's idea on the form of the socialist state. It not only generalises the whole experience of the constitutional development of the Soviet state, but also enriches this experience with a new content that meets the demands of the present stage in the development of the Soviet state and the modern age. The Soviet Constitution of 1977, for example, extends the powers of the Soviets even further and calls them the Soviets of People's Deputies. This stresses the nature of the state as a state of the whole people. The new Constitution also increases the rights of the Union and Autonomous Republics.
Partial changes in the forms of state have also taken place in the People's Democracies. Thus, in the GDR the president has been replaced by a collegiate head of state. In Czechoslovakia the federation on the basis of Slovakian autonomy has been replaced by a union of two republics (Czech and Slovak) enjoying equal rights. In Rumania and Hungary multi-party systems have given way to a single-party system. Until recently many questions of state in socialist Cuba were resolved by direct expression of the will of the people. In 1976 the country adopted a Constitution in accordance with which the working people exercise power through representative institutions (the National Assembly of People's = Power).^^***^^
The forms of the socialist state will continue to develop. As the levels of economic and socio-political development of the socialist countries draw closer together, their forms of state do the same.
_-_-_^^*^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Our Course: Peace and Socialism, Moscow, 1978, p. 6.
^^**^^ See: Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Moscow, 1977, Article 2.
^^***^^ See: The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, Articles 67, 101, 102, Moscow, 1977 (in Russian).
202 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Socialist DemocracyThe essence and form of a socialist state determines the character of its democracy. Together with the state socialist democracy passes through a number of stages in its development. Thus, for example, in the transition to socialism, which is characterised by a bitter class struggle, Soviet democracy was proletarian in character. In the specific conditions which obtained in the Soviet Republic during the period of the transition to socialism, the leading role of the working class in the system of Soviet democracy was juridically consolidated in higher norms of representation of the working class in elections and a number of other institutions.
In his works Lenin devoted great attention to the question of the truly democratic nature of the proletarian state.
He proceeded, first and foremost, from the fact that democracy is an historical category. In examining the question of the nature of democracy in this or that society, Lenin pointed out that "every kind of democracy ... is ultimately determined by the relations of production in a given = society".^^*^^ Therefore in a class society (with the existence of antagonistic classes) democracy is always one of the forms of exercising the power of the ruling classes. Criticising Kautsky, who championed "pure democracy'', Lenin wrote: "Kautsky does not understand this truth, which is so clear and obvious to every worker, because he has `forgotten', `unlearned' to put the question: democracy for which = class?''^^**^^
A proletarian state, where the working class holds power and exercises its political supremacy in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people, cannot fail to be a democratic state. "Proletarian democracy...'' Lenin wrote, describing Soviet power, "has brought a development and expansion of democracy unprecedented in the world, for the vast majority of the population, for the exploited and working = people."^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 81.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 249.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 246.
203In the early years of Soviet power Lenin formulated in a number of his works the basic principles of socialist democracy: the leading role of the working class in the democratic system, the guiding role of the Communist Party in the life of society, its genuine, all-embracing and informal nature, the drawing of the masses into the management of the state, equality of all citizens, and all nationalities, democratic centralism, socialist legality, the constant extension of democracy and improvement of all its forms.
In developed socialist society Soviet democracy has become democracy for the whole people. In essence Soviet democracy is the socialist type of democracy at the present stage, as at the early stage. There has merely been a further broadening of the social base of democracy, which in a developed socialist society is the whole Soviet people. In a mature socialist society the working class retains its leading role in the system of Soviet democracy. However, in present conditions there is no need in the USSR for juridical consolidation of the leading role of the working class. The social homogeneity of Soviet society is increasing under the leading role of the working class, with the gradual erasing of the essential differences between town and countryside, between physical and brain labour, and the constant drawing together of all nations and nationalities, and strengthening of their fraternal friendship and = unity.^^*^^ There are no classes or social strata in the country to whom the working class has to ``dictate'' its will.
The leading role of the working class in the USSR manifests itself in the fact that it is linked with the basic form of socialist ownership, state ownership. It makes a decisive contribution to the creation of the material and technical base of communism. The ranks of the Soviet working class now number about 80 million. It now creates more than 80 per cent of the social product. As the largest social group in the population, the working class plays a decisive role in the management of the state, in the formation of communist social relations and the education of all Soviet people in the _-_-_
^^*^^ See: 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V.~I. Lenin. Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee, December 16, 1979, Moscow News, December 23, 1979, p. 4.
204 spirit of the principles of communist = morality.^^*^^ The morality of the working class characterises the features of communist morality. The strengthening of the leading role of the working class in Soviet society is explained mainly by the fact that its ideals---the building of communism---reflect most fully the aspirations of the whole Soviet people. Therefore the working class is vitally interested in the constant strengthening of democracy in the USSR.Unlike bourgeois democracy, which by numerous subterfuges prevents the working masses from taking part in the management of society, socialist democracy ensures true sovereignty of the people and truly equal rights of all people in the society. Under developed socialism all the citizens of the USSR without exception enjoy in full the social, economic, political and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the Constitution of the = USSR.^^**^^
Over the years of Soviet power the most important institutions of Soviet democracy have been constitutionally consolidated: the Soviets, the Communist Party, the nationalstate system, the broadly ramified system of social organisations and organs of public self-administration, and the Soviet electoral system.
In the developed socialist society Lenin's ideas on the question of the nature of Soviet democracy have been most fully embodied in the functioning of the entire system of Soviet democracy of the whole people.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Some Institutions of Socialist DemocracyA most important institution of socialist democracy is the organs of people's representation. Lenin saw the representative establishments as sovereign, working organs of the socialist state. Their deputies not only discuss and take decisions (laws), but also implement them. They are the practical workers of the socialist state, and not professional parliamentarians, which the deputies of bourgeois parliaments are. They themselves, Lenin taught, "...have to work, _-_-_
^^*^^ Workers account for 42.3 per cent of the deputies of Soviet organs of state power.
^^**^^ See: Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Section II "The State and the Individual''. It should be noted that the Soviet Constitution has extended democracy considerably in the USSR.
205 have to execute their own laws, have themselves to test the results achieved in = reality...".^^*^^As in the Soviet state, the organs of popular representation in the People's Democracies are also sovereign, working institutions.^^**^^
Lenin wrote that elections to the organs of popular representation of the socialist type should be held in a truly democratic way, without bureaucratic formalities. He drew attention to the fact that the deputies should be responsible to their electors, and that electors should have the right to recall deputies before their term = expires.^^***^^ This right of recalling deputies who have not justified the confidence of their constituents is embodied in the constitutions of socialist states and is exercised in practice by = electors.^^****^^
Naturally, the representational system was not something fixed for all time. As the Soviet state developed, complex problems of its improvement arose and were solved, sometimes not without difficulties and complications. This is logical because, as Lenin wrote, "every step onward and upward that we take in developing our productive forces and our culture must be accompanied by the work of improving and altering our Soviet = system....''^^*****^^
The main feature peculiar to the development of the Soviets is the steady extension of their powers in all spheres of life. This tendency is most strikingly expressed in the 1977 Soviet Constitution. In it the democratic principles of the formation and activity of the Soviets have been further developed and their role in deciding questions of major social importance has been = enhanced.^^******^^
Apart from the representational institutions, the most important forms of drawing the masses into the management _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 424.
^^**^^ See, for example, The 1971 Constitution of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, Articles 66, 67 and 110--113.
^^***^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 336--37.
^^****^^ See, for example, Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Article 107, and the 1952 Constitution of the People's Republic of Poland, Article 2.
^^*****^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 112.
^^******^^ Thus, for example, in accordance with the 1977 Soviet Constitution the minimum age for election to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR has been reduced from 23 to 21 (see Article 96), and local Soviets' of People's Deputies have been given the right to take part in the discussion of matters of Republican and Union significance (see Article 146).
206 of the state in socialist countries, are organisations and organs of public self-administration (trade unions, Young Communist Leagues, cooperative societies, voluntary societies, professional unions, societies that unite working people according to their interests, various types of committees and commissions, etc.). Thus, Soviet trade unions, with a total of 116,500,000 members, have a whole number of state functions, including managing social insurance funds that form part of the state budget. One of the forms of self-management in industry is the activity of the 5,500,000 members of the standing production conferences. More than 9,500,000 People's Controllers take part in the conservation and economic utilisation of the nation's resources.The 1977 Soviet Constitution, which consolidated the political system of the state under developed socialism, greatly extended the rights of public organisations and work collectives in all spheres of = life.^^*^^
The constantly growing political and working activity of Soviet people, says the CPSU Central Committee Resolution "On the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V. I. Lenin'', their participation in the discussion and solution of all social and state affairs confirm the correctness of Lenin's conclusion that vital, creative socialism is the creation of the masses themselves.^^**^^
Soviet citizens enjoy all the socio-economic, political and personal rights and freedoms proclaimed and guaranteed by the Constitution of the USSR and Soviet law. The socialist system ensures the extension of rights and freedoms and constant improvement of the life of citizens as the programmes of socio-economic and cultural development are carried out.
Soviet citizens have the right to work, rest and leisure, health protection, maintenance in old age, housing, education, enjoyment of cultural benefits, and participation in the management of state and public = affairs.^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ See: Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Articles 7, 8. For example, in accordance with the 1977 Constitution of the USSR public organisations have the right to initiate legislation (See Article 113).
^^**^^ See: Pravda, December 16, 1979.
^^***^^ See: Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Articles 40--48.
207The importance of Lenin's instructions on ways of drawing the working people into the management of the state is also confirmed by the experience of other socialist countries.
The rights and freedoms of citizens in socialist states are of an informal nature and are not limited to the sphere of politics, but extend to all spheres of social life. The right to work deserves special attention. Another feature of the rights and freedoms of the working people in a socialist society is their material guarantees. Thus, for example, the right to education, guaranteed by the Soviet Constitution, is ensured by free provision of all forms of education, by the institution of universal compulsory secondary education, by the development of extramural, correspondence and evening courses, by the provision of state scholarships and grants and privileges for students, by the free issue of school textbooks, etc.
Lenin's approach to the rights and freedoms of the individual in socialist society assumes that citizens should also bear certain obligations, for "one cannot live in society and be free from = society".^^*^^ The observance by the citizens of socialist states of their obligations is an indispensable condition of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by them. Historical experience fully confirms the correctness of Lenin's idea of the need for an harmonious combination of the rights and obligations of citizens in socialist countries. "Socialist democracy,'' stresses the CPSU Central Committee Resolution of January 31, 1977, "means oneness of rights and duties, of genuine freedom and civic responsibility, harmonious combination of the interests of society, the work collective and the = individual."^^**^^ In the section "The State and the Individual" the 1977 Soviet Constitution describes in detail the duties of Soviet citizens. Guided by Leninist methodology, the countries of the socialist community also proceed from the principle that citizens' rights and obligations are inseparable.
Lenin devoted great attention to the question of the guarantees ensuring the stability of socialist democracy. These are the economic system, the social structure of _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 48.
^^**^^ On the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of January 31, 1977, Moscow, 1977, p. 12.
208 society, Marxist-Leninist ideology, which promotes the steady growth of political culture and consciousness of citizens, the political system and the guiding role of the Communist Party. In addition to this, law and order provide the juridical guarantee that all the institutions of the socialist democracy function smoothly. It is no accident that Leonid Brezhnev, in a speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU in November 1979 requested that stricter measures be taken to combat the slightest violation of Soviet socialist law and order. In so doing he drew special attention to the fact that this struggle was profoundly democratic in content. On the one hand, law and order guarantee the rights and freedoms of the working people are not violated. On the other, they defend the working people's gains against attacks by the enemies of socialism.Rejection of socialist legality and violation of law and order may lead to the deformation and destruction of democratic institutions and jeopardise the future of socialism. The example of China, particularly in the period of the "cultural revolution'', is especially instructive. Lenin paid special attention to the fact that the "slightest lawlessness, the slightest infraction of Soviet law and order is a loophole the foes of the working people take immediate advantage = of".^^*^^ In generalising the experience of the development of Soviet society, the improvement of the institutions of socialist democracy, and the elimination of individual defects in its system of functioning, the CPSU stressed in its Programme the need to "enforce strict observance of socialist legality, eradicate all violations of law and = order."^^**^^ In their Programme documents the fraternal Communist parties also stress the importance of strict observation of legality and law and order in the period of building socialism in their countries.
Thus, unlike bourgeois democracy, which is formal at best, socialist democracy extends to all spheres of the life of society, economic, social, political and intellectual, and creates the necessary conditions for the all-round development of the individual. "Our democracy in action,'' Leonid Brezhnev stresses, "is the right of every citizen, every collective and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 556.
^^**^^ Programme of the CPSU, Moscow, 1961, p. 96.
209 every Republic to take part in deciding questions of social life, combating any departures from the rules and principles of socialist community living, criticising shortcomings and taking an active part in eliminating = them."^^*^^The Directives of the 25th CPSU Congress on the further development of Soviet democracy were reflected in the new Soviet Constitution. The further development of socialist democracy envisages ever broader participation of citizens in managing the affairs of society and the state, improvement of the machinery of state, heightening of the activity of public organisations, strengthening of the system of People's Control, consolidation of the legal foundations of the functioning of the state and of public life, greater openness and publicity, and constant responsiveness to public opinion.^^**^^
An essential condition for the further extension of socialist democracy, the improvement of its forms and institutions, is the successful implementation of the programmes of economic, social and cultural development and the guiding role of the Communist Party in the country.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. World Socialism's InfluenceThe formation of the world socialist system is one of the greatest achievements of the international working class, of the revolutionary forces of the whole world. It marks a tremendous advance in socialism's historic battle against capitalism and is a powerful factor of the struggle for the final liberation of all working people from social and national oppression. The socialist community's influence on the revolutionary movement in the non-socialist world broadens in proportion to its growth and consolidation.
__NOTE__ ALPHA_LVL3 seen immediately below goes here. Moved due to footnotes anomoly (two LVL3's inbetween footnote anchors in body and footnotes themselves). _-_-_^^*^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1972, p. 279.
^^**^^ See: Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the USSR, Article~9.
210 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Leninist Approach to Determining the FormsThe question of how, in what way and in what forms the socialist system can and does influence the development of the world revolutionary movement is of great theoretical and practical importance. A correct understanding of these problems is an important condition of the future growth of revolutionary forces and their struggle for peace, democracy and socialism.
Marxists-Leninists have to struggle constantly not only against bourgeois ideologists and politicians who distort the position of the Socialist and Communist parties on these questions, but also against all manner of ``Left'' and Right opportunists in the ranks of the working-class and communist movements, preaching wrong views on these problems.
Thus, Trotskyites, Maoists and the like propagate the thesis that the decisive method for the further development of the world proletarian revolution must be armed onslaught by the socialist countries against the capitalist world. They therefore reject peaceful forms of the influence of world socialism on the development of the revolutionary movement and do their utmost to encourage the socialist countries to embark on an armed struggle against the capitalist countries.
Right opportunists, on the contrary, deny that socialist countries have any right to use armed means to ensure the victory of the revolutionary forces and defend this or that revolution against the export of counter-revolution. Recognising only peaceful forms of the influence of world socialism on the development of the world revolutionary process, Right opportunists encourage the socialist countries to play a passive role in the revolutionary movement, to renounce armed military assistance to liberation movements and even other socialist countries, when they are attacked by counter-revolution.
Both ``Left'' and Right opportunists usually quote Lenin in support of their views. ``Left'' opportunists, who support armed methods of the struggle of the socialist countries against capitalism, readily quote Lenin's famous statements on the need for and duty of the socialist state in certain circumstances to render armed assistance to revolutionary forces in capitalist countries. The Right opportunists, on the contrary, ignore these pronouncements but keep repeating Lenin's similarly well-known words to the effect that the socialist state furthers the development of the world revolution through its economic policy.
211To back up their views, both' the Right and the ``Left'' opportunists also refer to the experience of the Soviet state and to the forms of its assistance to the revolutionary forces in other countries. Moreover, the Leftist elements use examples from the period of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, while the Right opportunists operate with data from the peaceful period of the Soviet Union's development.
What was Lenin's approach to this question?
First, it must be recalled that Lenin had never absolutised any forms and means of struggle. What was said above on this question in relation to the revolutionary struggle in individual = countries^^*^^ applies to the class struggle on the world scene, to the struggle of the proletariat of the socialist countries against the forces of world capitalism, and to the revolutionary movement throughout the world.
The only correct course of action that triumphant socialism can adopt in these issues is to have in its political arsenal all possible and necessary means and methods and to use the most suitable of these at a given moment and in a given situation, to be constantly prepared to switch to other means and methods as required by circumstances, substitute one form of struggle for another, evolve new forms of assistance and change the balance between individual means and methods.
Precisely this skilful use of various forms and means of assistance to the revolutionary forces of the whole world has been demonstrated by the Soviet socialist state. The arsenal of its experience includes armed assistance to revolutionary forces, the crushing of the international counter-revolution by military force, and influence through revolutionary socio-economic transformations at home, the demonstration of the advantages of socialism in peaceful economic construction, the ideological struggle on the international scene, and diplomatic actions. One or another form received prominence under different conditions and at the different, stages of the development of the Soviet state and the capitalist world.
The choice of the means of struggle depends not only on the policy of the socialist countries but, first and foremost, on the policy of international reaction and the capitalist _-_-_
^^*^^ See Chapter Two, Section~5.
212 countries, on the international situation, the balance of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary forces in the world arena, and the opportunities at the disposal of the socialist states. Lenin wrote that "the interests of the world revolution demand that Soviet power, having overthrown the bourgeoisie in our country, should help that revolution, but that it should choose a form of help which is commensurate with its own = strength".^^*^^In line with the situation in the world Lenin determined the possibility and necessity of various methods and forms of struggle by the Soviet state against the forces of world reaction and capitalism.
Lenin taught that the socialist countries, like the proletariat of the capitalist countries, would naturally like to achieve the victory of revolutionary forces without armed struggle, without wars. However, as historical experience has shown, this path has often proved to be impossible because of the policy of the bourgeoisie, which, in defending its rule and privileges, resorts to the armed suppression of revolutionary movements, to armed intervention against the revolution in this or that country. With this in mind, Lenin did not rule out the possibility that under certain circumstances socialist state might have to use armed force to help the developing revolutions in other countries. A case in point is the period 1918 through 1921, when the bourgeoisie not only strangled the revolutionary movement in its own countries but used military strength in an effort to overwhelm the victorious proletarian revolution in Russia. In those years Soviet Russia's armed struggle against the imperialist interventionists merged with the struggle of the workers in the capitalist countries. In that situation the CPSU found it possible to render armed assistance to the working people of other countries in their struggle against capitalism. But while recognising the possibility and necessity of rendering armed assistance to the revolutionary forces of other countries under certain circumstances, the CPSU resolutely rejected armed actions that would forcibly impose the Soviet system on other countries and peoples. Led by Lenin the Communist Party of Russia opposed the ``Left'' extremist elements in the international communist movement and in its own ranks _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 72.
213 who believed that the world proletarian revolution could be furthered chiefly through the ``export'' of revolution from Soviet Russia.In "Strange and Monstrous'', an article written in February 1918, Lenin denounced the theory of ``pushing'', i.e., exporting revolution. "Such a 'theory','' he wrote, "would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to 'pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions.''^^*^^ The revolution cannot be imposed upon peoples from without, by the bayonets of the socialist state. But if in one country or another the conditions have matured for the revolution, if the revolution has begun, it is the duty of the socialist state, Lenin wrote, to facilitate its triumph with all the strength and means at its disposal, including armed force in certain circumstances.
This was exactly how the Soviet state acted during the first years of its existence and in subsequent years. During the Civil War the Russian proletariat rendered direct armed assistance to its class brothers in the former colonies and semi-colonies of the tsarist autocracy. This armed assistance created the decisive preponderance of strength, was the crucial factor behind the victory of the revolution of the other peoples of the former Russian Empire, and helped them to form their own national socialist states and then to unite in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Armed assistance from Soviet Russia played a vital role in the struggle of the Mongolian people for national liberation. It helped to create the conditions for the victory of the democratic and then of the socialist revolution in Mongolia.
Soviet Russia's victories during the Civil War likewise exercised an immense influence on the workers and all other /working people in the capitalist countries, giving them an inspiring example and spurring their struggle against the bourgeoisie, against the capitalists.
During the Second World War the course of world events and the development of the revolutionary movement were influenced mainly by the armed struggle of the Soviet people against the fascist states and their allies. The Soviet people's Great Patriotic War against the nazi invaders was not only a _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~27, p.~72.
214 war for their own freedom and independence. It was a great revolutionary war in defence of socialism and the revolution throughout the world.The Soviet Army entered European and Asian countries as an army of liberation, as a genuinely socialist, proletarian army that helped the peoples in their struggle for social emancipation. The Soviet people made enormous sacrifices during the Second World War not only to defend their socialist motherland but also to promote and strengthen the victory of the forces of progress and revolution throughout the world. The destiny of all mankind was decided in the battles of the Great Patriotic War.
But while recognising the possibility and need of rendering armed assistance to the forces of the revolution, Lenin stressed that this assistance should be rendered only in exceptional conditions.
Lenin regarded the peaceful, creative activity of the socialist countries, their economic achievements and their demonstration of the advantages of socialism over capitalism as the main means by which the socialist states influence the development of the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries.
In 1921, when the Civil War and foreign armed intervention ended, Lenin wrote: "We are now exercising our main influence on the international revolution through our economic policy....
"The struggle in this field has now become global. Once we solve this problem, we shall have certainly and finally won on an international scale. That is why for us questions of economic development become of absolutely exceptional importance.''^^*^^
As the Soviet Union became stronger, expanded its economy, the international impact of its economic achievements became an increasingly more significant factor in furthering the growth and strengthening of the revolutionary forces throughout the world. This was strikingly seen during the period of the historic first five-year plans of the 1930s. When the capitalist world found itself in the vice of a crippling economic crisis, when in the capitalist countries production was sharply curtailed, the productive forces were _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 437.
215 cracking, millions of people were losing their jobs and the condition of the labouring masses was sharply deteriorating, in the Soviet Union the economy showed unparalleled rates of growth, science and culture were developing swiftly and there was a considerable rise of the Soviet people's standard of living. In these years millions of people, who had been deluded by bourgeois propaganda, began to ponder seriously over what lay behind the Soviet Union's strength and swift growth, what socialism was, what benefits it could bring the working people and how it could be established in the capitalist countries.Even today, in the age of the emergence and consolidation of the world socialist system, the age of the existence and struggle in the international arena of the two world social systems, the peaceful construction in the socialist countries and their successes in economic and cultural development, in socialist democracy and in raising the living standard of their peoples remain the principal means by which world socialism influences the revolutionary process, the more so due to the fact that "these years have seen a further growth of the power, activity and prestige of the Soviet Union and the other countries of the socialist = community."^^*^^
Socialism has many advantages over capitalism. But the working people of the capitalist countries are most powerfully influenced by the fact that in socialist society there are no exploiting classes and exploitation of man by man, social and national oppression have been abolished and true equality of all the working people has been established.
Unlike capitalism, in which political power and ideological supremacy belong to a privileged minority, i.e., the owners of the basic means and implements of production, in the socialist countries political power belongs entirely to the working people and its political and public organisations. For the first time in the history of mankind, in the socialist countries the formerly oppressed masses of workers and peasants have become the true masters of their fate and of all the society's riches. This has created the conditions for an _-_-_
^^*^^ L.~I. Brezhnev, Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Immediate Tasks of the Party in Home and Foreign Policy, p.~6.
216 unprecedented development of the creativity and initiative of the working people, their active participation in the discussion and solution of all state affairs.The advantages of socialism over capitalism are tremendous in the sphere of economy as well. The socialist economy is free of economic crises and the accompanying break-down of the productive forces and chronic underloading of production capacities.
The people of the capitalist countries are greatly impressed by the socialist economy's high rates of development which far exceed the economic development rates in the capitalist states. The whole world now knows of the Soviet Union's swift economic advance. During the years of peace the annual industrial output increment averaged 14 per cent, while throughout the period of Soviet rule it averaged 9.9 per cent as against 2-4 per cent in the leading industrialised capitalist states---the USA, Britain, France and West Germany. In 1978 industrial output in the USSR was 11.5 times higher than in 1951.
Other countries of the socialist community have also achieved great successes in economic development. In 1978 industrial output was 22 times higher in Bulgaria than in 1951, 8.3 in Hungary, 8.4 in the GDR, 13 in Mongolia, 14 in Poland, 29 in Rumania, and 7.9 in Czechoslovakia. In general, industrial output of the CMEA countries was 11 .times higher in 1977 than in 1951, and in the developed capitalist countries only 3.6 times higher. The CMEA countries' share of world industrial output has increased from 19 per cent in 1950 to one-third in 1977, while the share of the Common Market countries has dropped from 20 per cent to one-seventh in the same = period.^^*^^
Socialism's economic achievements influence the revolutionary movement not only by revolutionising the thinking of the people. They strengthen world socialism's international position and thereby create more favourable conditions for the further advance of the world revolutionary movement. Moreover, they create the foundation for increasing material assistance to peoples who have started society's revolutionary reconstruction.
_-_-_^^*^^ Kommunist, No.~3, 1979, p. 16.
217Rapid rates of economic development are one of socialism's principal advantages in the economic competition with capitalism. They ensure the steady growth of the socialist countries' share of the world's output. Indeed, prior to the socialist revolution Russia accounted for only 3 per cent of the world product; today the Soviet Union's contribution has reached 20 per cent. The share of the other socialist countries is likewise growing swiftly.
Also significant is the fact that the economic achievements of the socialist countries are the basis for the rapid rise of the standard of living. Unemployment, that eternal scourge of the working people in the capitalist world, has been abolished in the socialist countries.
In the socialist countries the right to work, which is of prime importance to all working people, is not only laid down in their Constitutions but is ensured by the whole system of the states. There the life of the people is steadily improving, consumption growing and real incomes rising. By comparison with 1960 in 1977 real incomes were 1.8 times higher in Bulgaria, 1.6 in Hungary, 1.8 in Poland, 2 in Rumania, 1.7 in the USSR, and 1.6 in Czechoslovakia.
Against the background of the scientific and technological revolution a particularly deep impression is made on the working people of the capitalist countries by the achievements of the Soviet system of secondary and higher education, by the fact that today the USSR trains four times as many engineers as the USA, and by the development of the health services in the socialist countries. The impact of these achievements is made all the greater by the fact that in capitalist countries higher education and skilled medical attention are inordinately expensive.
Socialism's achievements still further accentuate capitalism's contradictions and ulcers and spur the struggle of the working class for the socialist revolution.
In many cases they compel the bourgeoisie to make considerable concessions to the working class, concessions that they would have never made under other circumstances.
Further, the example set by the socialist countries stimulates the national liberation struggle and deepens its antiimperialist, democratic content. The peoples who are fighting for national liberation or who have achieved political independence see that by building socialism they can quickly 218 put an end to the backwardness inherited from the colonial past.
Le Duan, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Working People's Party of Vietnam, noted that the achievements of the socialist countries, chiefly of the USSR, were of immense significance to the revolutionary movement throughout the world, saying: "The Soviet Union's conspicuous achievements in all spheres are still further strengthening its economic and defence potential, making a large contribution towards consolidating the forces of socialism and the international revolutionary movement, which are on the offensive, and serving as a powerful factor inspiring the peoples in their struggle against imperialism, for the basic aims of our epoch: peace, national independence, democracy and = socialism."^^*^^
The achievements of the peoples of the socialist countries in the building of socialism and communism and, consequently, world socialism's influence on the development of the revolutionary process might have been even greater had there not been a number of obstructing factors. The organisation of resistance to the aggressive actions of the imperialists requires the outlay of considerable material means that are diverted from other objectives. Socialism is strong enough to ensure a reliable defence and promote the economy, although without considerable expenditures on defence the socialist economy would have advanced much faster.
Considerable harm is inflicted on the cause of world socialism by the divisive actions of the Maoists, whose ideological and political platform on fundamental issues of international politics and the world communist movement is incompatible with Leninism. They are conducting a hostile propaganda campaign against the Communist parties of the socialist countries, notably against the CPSU, and have made claims to Soviet territory. They went so far as to launch armed attacks on the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. These actions by the Chinese leaders have by no means helped to further the growth of the forces of socialism or of the international prestige of the world socialist system. On the contrary, they have given the anti-Communists the _-_-_
^^*^^ Pravda, April 1, 1971.
219 pretext for slandering socialism a'nd redoubling their efforts to undermine its influence on the labouring masses of the capitalist countries.The Communist parties of the socialist states are displaying tireless vigilance with regard to the intrigues of the imperialists and of hostile, opportunist and counterrevolutionary elements in the socialist countries themselves. They are "building a new, socialist world, and a type of truly just, equal, and fraternal relations between states never seen in history = before.''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Leading Force in the Struggle for PeaceThe growth and consolidation of the world socialist community are changing the balance of power in the world in favour of socialism and making it possible to begin carrying out many of the historic tasks currently confronting the revolutionary movement.
One of the most acute and urgent problems is to avert another world war and ensure world peace. Today peace is a vital and indispensable condition of progress and of the development of the worldwide revolutionary movement. In this connection substantial assistance is rendered to the revolutionary forces by the struggle of the socialist countries for the consistent implementation of the principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. This principle calls, above all, for the renunciation of war as a means of settling outstanding issues between states, for the settlement of all issues by negotiation. It stands for the equality of all states, for non-interference in their internal affairs, for the right of all peoples to decide their own problems, for the strict respect of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, and for the promotion of economic and cultural cooperation on the basis of complete equality and mutual benefit.
The socialist countries are doing everything to achieve a relaxation of international tension and a peaceful settlement _-_-_
^^*^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the XXVI Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Immediate Tasks of the Party in Home and Foreign Policy, p.~8.
220 of major problems. Much of their effort is directed towards ensuring peace and security in Europe. This can be appreciated, for Europe has been the arena of two world wars and today world peace depends primarily on the preservation of peace in Europe. Throughout all the years since the Second World War the guideline of the socialist countries has been that the inviolability of the European frontiers is the foundation of lasting peace in Europe. The inviolability of these frontiers is now unequivocally recognised in the treaties signed by the Soviet Union, Poland and the GDR with the Federal Republic of Germany.The socialist countries are consistently denouncing the policy of splitting Europe into opposing groups and urge the establishment of a system of collective security and the reduction of arms and armed forces in Central Europe.
The struggle for peace in Asia and Africa, above all in Indochina, occupies a central place in the policy of the socialist countries. They did everything in their power to ensure the triumph of peace and justice in the countries of this region. The failure of the US military adventure in Vietnam has eloquently shown the power of the international solidarity of the socialist countries and of all revolutionaries and fighters for peace and progress.
The socialist countries are concentrating much of their effort to achieve peace in the Middle East.
The resolute struggle of the USSR and other socialist countries fdr peace and peaceful coexistence is showing results. It is the decisive factor in ensuring the shift in international relations from cold war to detente, to a healthier international climate and a reduction in the immediate danger of a new world war.
An agreement on general and complete disarmament would be a radical means of ensuring lasting peace and deepening detente. Imperialism has foisted on the peoples the unparalleled burden of the arms race. Socialism sees its duty to mankind in delivering it from this senseless squandering of material and cultural wealth. For humanity the attainment of this goal would be of historic significance. The utilisation of the money now spent on the arms race would deliver many millions of people from poverty, starvation, disease and illiteracy.
Thanks to the efforts of the socialist countries and other 221 peace forces some headway has been made in that direction: the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons has come into force, treaties have been concluded on banning the siting of nuclear weapons in outer space and also on the beds of seas and oceans, and the SALT-2 Treaty has been signed. But these are only the first steps. The attainment of general disarmament remains the cardinal objective of the socialist countries.
The efforts of the socialist states to ensure world peace and security are strongly influencing all the peoples of the world and winning growing support for these countries and their governing Communist parties.
The socialist community is a natural centre of attraction for all - peace-loving forces. More and more non-socialist countries are grouping around the socialist community in the struggle for peace and international security. The peoples of the capitalist countries are joining in the fight for peace. Popular anti-war movements are unfolding in the USA, Britain, France, Japan, West Germany, Italy and other capitalist states. This is giving rise to a peace front that can, if its actions are vigorous and united, disrupt the designs of the imperialists and prevent another world war.
The problems of the struggle for peaceful coexistence of states of the two systems, for the deepening of detente, are today the subject of a bitter ideological struggle. Bourgeois and Right-reformist activists argue that the socialist countries' policy of supporting revolutionary liberation forces is contrary to the principles of peaceful coexistence, is intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, and testifies to the ``imperialist'', ``aggressive'' aspirations of the Soviet Union, etc. Leftist elements, on the contrary, argue that the policy of peaceful coexistence is a policy by which the Soviet Union refuses to support the revolutionary movement, a policy of ``collaboration'' and imperialism, of preserving the status quo, a policy which, they assert, hampers the development of the world revolutionary process and conflicts with the vital interests of the revolutionary movement.
However, the facts of life and of the struggle of the working class and all liberation forces in the non-socialist countries prove irrefutably that the policy of peace and peaceful coexistence is creating more favourable conditions for the struggle for democratic and socialist aims and is a 222 most important prerequisite for the further development of the world revolutionary process, the essential basis of all social progress.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Principal Force and MainstayThe mainstay and principal force in the struggle against imperialism, the socialist countries render political, moral and material assistance to peoples fighting for liberation. At the 25th Congress of the CPSU L. I. Brezhnev said: "Our Party supports and will continue to support peoples fighting for their freedom. In so doing, the Soviet Union does not look for advantages, does not hunt for concessions, does not seek political domination and is not after military bases. We act as we are bid by our revolutionary conscience, our communist = convictions.''^^*^^
The form taken by the national liberation and socialist revolutions depends on the situation. The influence of the world socialist community orients these revolutions towards transformations involving the least bloodshed.
The enhanced might of the world socialist community has broadened the possibilities not only for armed but also for relatively peaceful forms of struggle for national liberation and for society's social reconstruction. This has greatly improved the prospects of the revolutionary movement and given the struggle for the development of the world revolutionary process a new and unprecedented scale.
Social revolutions are the business of the peoples of the countries where they are accomplished. Each nation decides its own destiny and it is only the people themselves who can change the social system of their country. However, the working people are far from indifferent to the international situation in which their struggle proceeds, to whether they have to look for ways of abolishing capitalism unaided or whether they can rely on the combined might of the socialist countries and utilise their experience. The existence of the world socialist community and its assistance to the revolutionary forces create a favourable international situation for _-_-_
^^*^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 16.
223 the struggle of the working people "of all countries and facilitate that struggle.At the same time, the socialist community's might is an essential factor in the struggle against the attempts of the imperialists to interfere in the internal affairs of the peoples who have initiated socialist transformations, against the export of counter-revolution. The world socialist community renders the utmost assistance to the revolutionary peoples in their struggle against armed intervention and ensures favourable international conditions for their struggle for independence, democracy and socialism.
The very fact that there is a powerful socialist community hamstrings the main forces of international reaction and undermines imperialism's positions.
The socialist countries help the revolutionary forces of the capitalist countries by their ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie, against bourgeois propaganda.
An important role is also played by the political and diplomatic actions of the socialist countries on the world scene. In the United Nations, at international conferences and meetings and in vancus organisations the representatives of the socialist countries expose the aggressive designs, ideology and policy of the rulers of the capitalist states.
The existence of the socialist community creates the conditions making it possible to abolish the last vestiges of imperialism's colonial system and enabling formerly oppressed peoples to win political and economic independence. International developments since the war have shown the close bond between the growth of the world socialist community's might and the successes of the revolutionary struggle of peoples for national liberation. National liberation revolutions triumphed in many Asian and African countries precisely during the years when the world socialist community began to evolve into the decisive factor of social development.
The peoples who have achieved political independence have the opportunity of using the many-sided and steadily growing assistance of the socialist community and thereby cutting short the attempts of the imperialists to re-enslave them. The socialist countries have reached a level of economic development where they no longer confine themselves to moral and political support for the liberated peoples 224 but extend considerable material and technical assistance to them. The CMEA countries have built, or are building, about 4,000 economic enterprises in Asia, Africa and Latin America, many of which are already operating.
The developing states are receiving particularly extensive and valuable assistance from the Soviet Union, which is helping them to build over 600 large industrial enterprises. The iron and steel works built at Bhilai, India, with Soviet assistance is the most sophisticated and efficient metallurgical enterprise in that country. The Aswan High Dam and hydropower station, built with the assistance of the Soviet Union, are of immense significance to the development of Egypt's entire economy. The hydropower station is the Egyptian economy's central source of electricity. The waters of the storage lake formed by the Aswan Dam are to be used to increase the area of irrigated land. Syria is using Soviet assistance to build a hydropower complex on the Euphrates that will give her electric power for industrial development and enable her to double her area of irrigated land.
Aid in the construction of industrial and agricultural enterprises in the developing countries is linked in most cases with the granting of credits by the socialist countries for financing the building. These credits are usually granted for ten or fifteen years at 2.5 per cent annually. This period makes it possible not only to create the industrial enterprise and start production, but also to use accumulations from the running of the enterprise to pay off credits.
The CMEA countries, have trained about a million qualified workers, engineers, technicians and other specialists for the developing countries.
The assistance rendered by the socialist countries to the liberated states and the very existence of the world socialist community have brought the imperialist states and the monopolies face to face with the fear of being deprived of important spheres of investment and profitable markets for their products and this has compelled them to make some concessions to the liberated states.
The foreign policy pursued by the socialist countries is effectually helping the liberated countries to consolidate their independence. When necessary the socialist countries, notably the Soviet Union, do not confine themselves to moral support for the struggle of the peoples against the 8 --- 660 225 colonialists but afford substantial material and, if circumstances demand it, armed assistance.
But the use of the possibility of extending armed assistance to the cause of the revolution and the protection of its gains has nothing in common with the theory that there must be another world war before the world socialist revolution can triumph. With the development and victory of the revolution as their guideline, the Communists contend that today the prospects for the further advance of the world revolutionary movement should be linked not with another world war but with the struggle for peace and peaceful coexistence of the different countries in the world.
Thus, among the principal present-day revolutionary forces---the world socialist community, the international working-class movement and the national liberation movement---the leading role is played by the world socialist system. The socialist countries are the bulwark of the entire revolutionary movement. World development today is increasingly determined by the growing might and influence of the socialist states and by the course of the competition and struggle between the opposing social systems, between socialism and capitalism. "The development and strengthening of the world socialist system,'' L. I. Brezhnev said, "are the most valuable contribution of the peoples of the socialist countries to the common revolutionary cause of Communists and the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses throughout the = world."^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1972, p. 292.
226 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ Methodological Problems of the Anti-ImperialistAs it approaches the turn of the century, world history is distinguished, above all, by a general increase in the influence of world socialism and the transformation of the latter into the main trend of mankind's social progress. The growth of the communist socio-economic formation is the revolutionary process of the transition from "mankind's pre-history" to its real history.
World socialism has already shown its historical superiority over capitalism. Against the background of the deepening general crisis of capitalism, the stable economy, smooth development and constant rise in the material and cultural standard of living of the working people of the socialist countries present a sharp contrast.
A most important indicator of the historical progressiveness and strength of socialism is the consistent struggle for the realisation of the socialist alternative to the anti-humane military methods of solving contradictions and conflicts between states.
The emergence, establishment and development of civilisation with its social relations of cooperation and mutual assistance, the principles of social equality and justice, freedom of the individual and harmony of social and personal interests is taking place amid a bitter struggle between the old and the new in all spheres of social life.
227As the position of world socialism grows stronger and the historical struggle of the forces of progress and reaction, socialism and capitalism, becomes more acute, a profound analysis of the new revolutionary possibilities is of special importance.
From this point of view the methodological problems of determining the historical place and prospects of the anti-imperialist struggle, the correlation of socialist and democratic tasks and tendencies in the anti-imperialist movements, and the essence and content of present-day anti-imperialist democratic revolutions are of great scientific and political interest.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Democratic MovementsLenin stressed that in explaining this or that historical process the materialist, unlike the bourgeois objectivist, must first ascertain "exactly what social-economic formation gives the process its content, exactly what class determines this necessity."^^*^^ The main content and the main direction, the dominant tendency of social development and its main features are determined by the class that is the driving force, the mainspring of social progress in the concrete situation.
The specific features of the content and the main trends of the liberation progressive movements in the present age are deter mined, first and foremost, by the nature of the present age, that of the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world-wide scale. The most important feature of the modern age is that the exploiter class no longer stands at its centre, but the main productive and political force of the present day, the international working class. The chief result of the carrying out of its historical mission by the working class is the creation of the world socialist system. In connection with this a mass, active struggle is developing by the peoples for _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~1, p.~401.
228 national and social equality, for the abolition of relations of dominance and subordination between classes, states and nations, and for the establishment of true equality of large and small states and peoples, and of cooperation and mutual assistance between them.The present-day world revolutionary process has acquired an international nature. Unlike former local and regional liberation movements it embraces all countries and peoples who are in different formations or at different stages of this or that formation. The objective foundation of the tendencies towards internationalisation is the increasingly social nature of the modern productive forces and production as a whole. The present-day revolutionary process extends to all spheres of life. It is evident in the social, scientific and technological, ideological and political, national and cultural spheres, leads to changes in the objective conditions of the manifestation and operation of general sociological laws, and leaves an historical imprint on the social role of all social phenomena, all social movements.
The nature and main tendencies of the present-day liberation movements are determined by the new objective conditions of the development of the revolutionary process. These include capitalism's loss of historical initiative and the turning of the socialist tendency into the decisive one in the struggle between socialism and capitalism; the unique intertwining of socio-political revolutionary transformations with the social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution, which has caused a sharp clash between the interests of international imperialism and the local industrial and financial oligarchy, on the one hand, and the interests of hired labour and petty owners, on the other, and the true national interests of all peoples; the narrowing of the social base of the rule of the monopolies and the extension of the front of progressive, patriotic and democratic forces that are struggling against imperialism, as a result of the neocolonialist policy of the international, and particularly the transnational monopolies.
In these new historical conditions international imperialism is the main source and centre of antagonisms and conflicts. These conflicts and antagonisms run through the socio-economic, political, national, scientific and technological, and cultural social relations in the non-socialist world.
229 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Relationship of the Struggle for DemocracyMarx and Engels showed the historical and class character of democracy and democratic movements. Lenin developed these propositions and enriched them by taking into account the special features of the socio-economic, and class structure of society, and also of social liberation movements in the period of imperialism and in the age of the transition from capitalism to socialism.
Describing the special features of the social processes in the age of imperialism, Lenin showed in the article "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" that the "political superstructure of this new economy, of monopoly capitalism (imperialism is monopoly capitalism) is the change from democracy to political = reaction.''^^*^^
In these conditions the importance of the democratic tasks of the class struggle of the proletariat is objectively enhanced. As we know, Lenin regarded the struggle for the retention and extension of democratic gains as part of the struggle of the working class for socialism. He wrote: "The very position the proletariat holds as a class compels it to be consistently democratic. The bourgeoisie looks backward in fear of democratic progress which threatens to strengthen the proletariat. The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains, but with the aid of democratism it has the whole world to = win.''^^**^^
The struggle for democratic aims does not divert the proletariat from its end goal. On the contrary, it facilitates the attainment of that goal. "It would be a radical mistake,'' Lenin wrote, "to think that the struggle for democracy was capable of diverting the proletariat from the socialist revolution or of hiding, over-shadowing it, etc. On the contrary, in the same way as there can be no victorious socialism that does not practise full democracy, so the proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the bourgeoisie without an all-round, consistent and revolutionary struggle for = democracy.''^^***^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~23, p.~43.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 9, p. 51.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 144.
230The new historical conditions we have mentioned have considerably broadened the democratic aims of the class struggle and modified the historical content of the democratic movements. The usurpation of power and national wealth by the monopoly oligarchy and the widening of the sphere of capitalist exploitation have intensified the socio-economic and political polarisation of the ``upper'' and "lower classes" all along the line, including national interests.
Special note must be taken of the growth of the national element among the democratic aims of the social movement. This is linked with the utter and obvious failure of the attempts to solve the nationalities question even in the industrialised capitalist countries (for instance, in the USA, Canada and Britain); with the penetration of the economic and social life of non-socialist countries by the international monopolies which has aggravated the problem of true national interests and national sovereignty (this is to be observed in the capitalist countries of Europe, too); with the fact that the proletariat now comprises the absolute majority of the population of some industrialised capitalist countries, still further accentuating the identity between national interests of the working people, of the proletariat in particular, and the disharmony between the interests of the nation and those of the bourgeoisie, which had formerly acted as the spokesman of the nation; with national consolidation and the development of nations and nationalities in the former colonies and dependent countries and with the increased influence of a new type of relations between them taking shape in the socialist community countries.
The entire range of socio-economic and political contradictions in the countries of the non-socialist world objectively draws a dividing line between international imperialism and the mass of the people and gives the democratic movements their anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly content.
The class composition of the participants in the presentday anti-imperialist struggle is extremely diverse. This struggle involves, in addition to the working class and peasantry, innumerable strata of intellectuals, white-collar workers and small proprietors, while in some countries it is joined even by the non-monopoly petty and middle bourgeoisie.
231The content and objectives of the democratic struggle change depending on the level of socio-economic and political development, the composition and alignment of the class forces and the extent to which the existing contradictions have been aggravated. In some capitalist countries, especially those ruled by dictatorial military-political regimes, the immediate democratic objective is to attain and extend representative bourgeois democracy. Moreover, a new orientation---anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist---has clearly taken shape in the democratic movements of many capitalist states. In this context these movements may be regarded, in the modern historical age, as democratic in a new way, for through them the objectively inevitable socialist orientation of social development is blazing the road for itself. The democratic movements are turning more and more against monopoly exploitation, the usurpation of power, and the economic and political domination of international and national monopoly oligarchies.
The growing importance of the democratic objectives of the proletariat's class struggle, the widening composition of the participants in the democratic movements and their increasingly more pronounced anti-imperialist and antimonopolist orientation are creating the conditions for furthering the union between the democratic and socialist torrents of the revolutionary process and imparting new features to the revolutionary, Communist-led struggle of the working class of the capitalist countries for socialism. The working class and all the other participants in the democratic movements have one and the same principal enemy--- imperialism, monopoly capital. The joint assault of the revolutionary working-class and democratic movements on monopoly capital is therefore directed towards the attainment of some of the aims of the socialist revolution.
The actions against the monopolies strike at modern capitalism's main forces in whose hands power is concentrated. This is underscored in the new programme of the Communist Party of the USA: "The anti-monopoly struggle does not supplant the struggle for socialism. On the contrary, the struggle for socialism---the ultimate aim---is inherent in the struggle against the main opponent of that goal--- monopoly capital. Every gain wrested from monopoly capital, small or large, strengthens the forces of socialism. Indeed, 232 the basic forces in the anti-monopoly coalition also constitute the basic forces for the achievement of socialism."
The fusion of the struggle for democracy, against imperialism, with the struggle for socialism has induced the Communist parties to include in their programmes new propositions regarding the prospects for the socialist revolution in their countries. Some Communist parties consider the overthrow of monopoly rule and the establishment of a new, anti-monopolist (but not yet socialist) democracy as the direct objective of the revolutionary working-class movement of their countries.
Progressive democracy in the countries of state-monopoly capitalism, acting under a variety of names, has a definite revolutionary meaning. It means a system which will take decisive measures to limit the rule of big capital in the national economy, will ensure the nationalisation of the main branches of industry and the large banks, and also the democratic management of enterprises, and will attempt gradually to satisfy the important demands of the working masses, to abolish elitist power and establish the sovereignty of the people. It goes without saying that by carrying out these measures aimed against the monopolies, a progressive democracy does not abolish the exploitation of man by man, but it will gradually and systematically reduce the power of the monopolies and create better conditions for the transition to socialism.
There can be no doubt that the profound democratisation of the economic, social and political life of the country, for which the Communists struggle, will extend beyond the framework of the classical bourgeois democracy, although it will not mean the establishment of a socialist democracy.
In the Programme adopted by the Mannheim Congress of the German Communist Party it is stated: "The shift to democracy and social progress leads to the weakening of monopoly capital, contributes to the strengthening of unity of actions, leads to the formation of broad democratic fronts. This shift means an appreciable change in the balance of forces within the country in favour of the working class and other democratic forces, creates real prerequisites that allow the working people to find strength and resoluteness for achieving deep anti-imperialist transformations and, in the 233 final account, for blazing the road to socialism in the course of the"class = struggle."^^*^^
Consistent anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly democracy may be regarded as a transitional socio-political system, as a new and important link drawing society closer to direct socialist transformations. The transitional social systems that may arise as a result of the victory of the anti-monopoly democratic forces in countries with state-monopoly or even a medium level of capitalism obviously cannot be identified with the conventional understanding of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism that begins after the working class seizes political power. All the more is this true of the social system of the former colonial and dependent countries that have adopted the socialist orientation in the national liberation revolution. At the same time, the intertwining of democratic and direct socialist objectives gives rise to some common features of the period of transition from capitalism to socialism and of pre-socialist transitional social systems.
That anti-monopoly democracy is transitional does not imply that it must be classless. Its class nature is seen in the fact that monopoly rule will be replaced by democratic rule under working-class leadership and in the fact that its establishment brings society's socialist reconstruction nearer. This prospect will depend on a favourable alignment and balance of class forces, on the establishment of political hegemony by the working class and its party. This possibility was mentioned also in the Main Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties: "In the course of anti-monopolist and anti-imperialist united action, favourable conditions are created for uniting all democratic trends into a political alliance capable of decisively limiting the role played by the monopolies in the economies of the countries concerned, of putting an end to the power of big capital and of bringing about such radical political and economic changes as would ensure the most favourable conditions for continuing the struggle for = socialism."^^**^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Mannheim Congress of the German Communist Party. October 20--22, 1978, Moscow, 1979, p. 295 (in Russian).
^^**^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow, 1969, p. 27.
234What are the actual ways of realising the possibilities for anti-imperialist democracy? The answer to this question requires an analysis of the correlation between the quantitative, evolutionary, and qualitative, revolutionary, aspects of the anti-imperialist struggle, of the struggle for reforms and revolution. From the theoretical angle it is evident that the social reform signifies a quantitative change relative to the whole (society, political system) and a qualitative transformation of the given area, of part of the whole. But on account of the resistance of the ruling classes the objectives of anti-imperialist democracy, much less of socialism, cannot be attained by partial transformations, by reforms. However, the struggle for reforms is indispensable not only in order to satisfy the direct requirements of the people and bring social pressure to bear on the exploiters but also to muster, unite and organise the progressive forces and enhance their militant readiness for revolutionary actions.
The social reforms put into effect as a result of the class struggle do not come into conflict with the revolution. The social revolution is a process by which the given society undergoes a qualitative transformation that is expressed in a fundamental change of the political power's class content, of the character of democracy and of economic and other social relations. But in actual life it is necessary to reckon with the fact that objective socio-economic conditions and the subjective factor may give rise to a more or less clearly defined transition phase, which, given favourable conditions, leads the masses to socialism, or they may precipitate antiimperialist or anti-monopoly democratic revolutions as a relatively independent process objectively orientated towards socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Specific Nature of the Revolutionary ProcessA theory universally accepted by Marxists is that as a whole the capitalist system has matured for socialist transformations. However, the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries and the differences in the course of the scientific and technological revolution there give rise to special features in the material, technical and objective socio-political prerequisites of the revolution. Hence 235 the need for a separate examination of the problems of the anti-monopoly struggle and the revolution in the industrially developed capitalist countries and in countries with a medium or low level of capitalist development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Prospects for the RevolutionIn the industrially developed capitalist countries the anti-monopoly struggle is, first and foremost, the struggle of the working masses against state-monopoly capitalism and the international monopoly associations.
We have examined above the Leninist principles for assessing the nature and essence of present-day statemonopoly capitalism and its influence on the revolutionary struggle. Here it is important to stress, firstly, that statemonopoly capitalism means full material preparedness, the threshold to socialism; secondly, that it embodies, concentrates the growing, increasingly acute contradictions of capitalist development.
Consequently the material and technical prerequisites for socialism have fully matured in the industrially developed capitalist countries. They include a high level of the development of the productive forces, the concentration and centralisation of production and capital, a developing system of production management, planning and programming, and also the organisation of the education and training of the army of hired labour which constitutes an absolute majority of the population with a comparatively high level of consumption.
However, as we know, the sum total of material, technical and favourable objective socio-political prerequisites and the existence of the subjective factor of the revolution are necessary for a socialist revolution.
Such an ideal correlation of all the prerequisites has never existed in practice in the history of the revolution. The historical delays or temporary defeat of socialist revolutions in capitalist countries are explained by the immaturity of this or that prerequisite for the revolution, and particularly by the strength and organisation of the counter-revolutionary subjective factor. In this connection special emphasis must be laid on the need for study, for scientific analysis of the social 236 role of the counter-revolutionary subjective factor, its strength, organisation and ideological and political influence on this or that social stratum.
The social consequences of the scientific and technological progress have greatly changed the content of the material prerequisites for the revolution, and of the whole system of antagonistic contradictions of modern capitalism by influencing the composition, distribution and balance of the class forces. Together with the basic class contradiction of the whole formation, that between labour and capital, and on its basis other social and national antagonisms are developing. They include, notably, the antagonism between the objective demands of the scientific and technological revolution and the policy of the monopolies; between the growing army of hired workers and the whole system of state-monopoly capitalism; between the true interests of national progress and the supra-national monopoly associations and military and industrial complexes.
The latter contradiction is acquiring a special significance in the social development of the capitalist countries. The emergence of military and industrial complexes in the largest and most developed capitalist states, and also of supranational closed associations testifies to the anti-national social role of state-monopoly capitalism.
The financial oligarchy is trying to make use of the objective tendency of internationalisation of production and social life for its own selfish, anti-popular ends, for the struggle against world socialism and the international revolutionary movement of the working class. At the same time, within the "common markets" and economic blocs an acute inter-imperialist struggle is taking place. This is a characteristic symptom of the rot and parasitism of the monopoly oligarchy, which is interested in national economic and social development only insofar as the latter helps to create surplus value, monopoly profits or supports its economic and political supremacy.
It is highly characteristic that the ideological and political concepts of Atlantism, Eurcpeanism, supra-national power, etc., now fashionable in bourgeois propaganda, correspond to the development of the processes of imperialist integration. Through the mechanism of the "European Parliament" the international monopolies, which are connected primarily 237 with US capital, are hoping to gain control of the economy, policy and defence of the Common Market countries, thereby violating the latter's national sovereignty. On the other hand, violation of national sovereignty leads to a strengthening of the ideology of nationalism as a countermeasure.
All in all, both the development of ihe integrational processes and the growth of the international monopolies is aggravating and deepening even more the antagonism between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and the monopoly oligarchy and giving the antimonopoly struggle a national, democratic nature.
The system of contradictions which has grown up under the growth of state-monopoly capitalism is objectively extending the social base of anti-monopoly democratic movements. Serious class shifts are taking place, which are one of the most important social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution in the industrially developed capitalist countries. The practical application of the latest scientific achievements (automation, ``chemicalisation'', and the use of cybernetics in management) is changing the balance of industrial and agricultural production and imparting new features to the contradictions between town and countryside, between brain and physical labour. In particular, the industrialisation of agricultural production is reducing the number of peasants and accelerating the differentiation of the peasantry. In the social structure of society as a whole there is an increase in the share of the middle strata, including new detachments of the intelligentsia and officeworkers, a section of which is drawing objectively closer to the working class in terms of status.
These shifts in the social structure are seriously affecting the whole system of economic and social contradictions of modern capitalism. The turning of the absolute majority of the population into hired workers and the growth of the working class, are imparting new strength to the class struggle and confronting it with new tasks. The scientific and technological revolution is extending the functions of a section of the hired workers concerning production management, while the management of people and political supremacy are concentrated in the hands of the ruling monopolists. Control of the progress and results of production and 238 distribution by the producers of material goods themselves is becoming a demand of the struggle for political and economic (production) democracy.
The limitation and abolition of the absolute power of the monopolies is becoming the main point of all democratic demands: to ensure the participation of the masses in the affairs of society and the state, to attain the right of control by the working people over the economic activity of the large proprietors, the demands to defend peace against the threat of war and the attainment of genuine national economic independence by shaking off international monopoly exploitation. The contradiction between the monopolies and the majority of the nation have to be resolved before these democratic reforms can be enforced.
This socio-economic contradiction is nourished by and springs from the contradiction between labour and capital, a contradiction that has today moved into the foreground in some industrialised countries. The solution of the contradiction between the monopolies and the majority of the nation does not directly and automatically lead to the solution of capitalism's main contradiction.
The transition from capitalism to socialism is obviously preconditioned by the revolutionary solution of the determining contradiction of the entire process, namely, the contradiction between labour and capital. Moreover, the socialist revolution resolves not only the main contradiction but also all the derivative contradictions. As regards the contradiction between the monopolies and the majority of the nation, its solution can significantly influence the course of the struggle between labour and capital and in many ways change the content of the bourgeois socio-economic and political structure, but it cannot abolish the capitalist system.
In the industrialised capitalist countries the struggle for anti-monopoly democracy is thus directly linked with the socialist prospect, with the socialist revolution.
The historical situation, the socio-economic contradictions, the balance of class forces and the combination of democratic and socialist objectives are recorded in the programmes of the Communist parties of the developed capitalist states.
For instance, in its new programme, adopted in 1969, the Communist Party of the USA has charted three stages of the advance towards socialism: political pressure on the 239 dictatorship of the monopolies, the struggle for political power and socialist transformations. It accentuates the importance of the struggle for reforms, regarding them as a component of the process speeding up the alteration and replacement of the existing system. The struggle for reforms, it says, must lead to the formation of a popular anti-monopoly government committed to give effect to American society's socialist reconstruction.^^*^^
This line of strategy was set out concretely and precisely in the main political resolution of the 22nd Convention of the Communist Party of the USA in 1979. Of ideological interest is the problem, posed in the resolution, of the "advanced stage" of state-monopoly capitalism in the United States, the new level of the monopolisation process and the new role of the state, which are imparting a new scale to the antimonopoly and class struggle.
The general idea of a struggle for a new, anti-monopoly democracy and its growth into a socialist democracy is to be found in the Programme documents of other Communist parties of the countries of state-monopoly capitalism. Most of these documents contain an independent development of the concept of anti-monopoly democracy and the search for practical forms of realising it. For example, the Programme of the Communist Party of Great. Britain "Britain's Path to Socialism" adopted at its 35th Congress in 1977 stresses the need to win a new popular majority, to create a new type of Labour government, and the revolutionary transfer of state power into the hands of the working class and its allies.
The Theses of the 15th Congress of the Italian Communist Party (1979) advance a new interpretation of the "strategy of a democratic path to socialism": democratic planning of the economy, democratic political power, associations and cooperatives as the main feature of the transition to a more advanced socio-economic system under the leadership of the working class.
The complex questions of the dialectical relationship of the evolutionary and revolutionary lines, the democratic and socialist tendencies in the anti-monopoly struggle and antimonopoly revolution, are at the centre of the present-day _-_-_
^^*^^ See: New Programme of the Communist Party USA, New York, 1970.
240 ideological struggle. Monopolist ideologists and opportunists of all kinds distort and falsify the true content, tendencies and driving forces of modern social movements, particularly the problems of the anti-monopoly struggle. A secondary role in distorting the present picture of the socio-economic contradictions in the developed capitalist countries, between them, and also between world capitalism and world socialism has been played by the well-known bourgeois theories of the "industrial society'', the "developed society'', the "convergence of the two systems'', etc. The concept of the so-called proletarian and bourgeois nations, which shifts the internal class antagonisms of state-monopoly capitalism to the international arena and replaces them by national ones is basically a similar attempt to conceal the growing contradictions between the monopolies and the peoples. In order to demoralise the anti-monopoly democratic forces, the West German monopolies are preaching the theory of "German national unity''. Fascist, militaristic, nationalistic and racist ideas are being revived under the flag of "German national unity".The socio-economic role of state-monopoly capitalism, the prospects and driving forces of social progress are also distorted in the concepts of present-day opportunists. They regard and assess state-monopoly capitalism as a refutal of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. From their point of view, this is a new formation in which elements of socialism are developing in production relations and there is a change in the role of the state, which is becoming an instrument of supra-class economic regulation. Lastly, the opportunists depict state-monopoly capitalism as a new society that is replacing the old capitalism and the present socialist system.
From the gnosiological angle the theories of the Right opportunists that state-monopoly capitalism is evolving into socialism and their concepts of ``humane'' and ``democratic'' socialism are founded on their absolutisation of evolutionary changes, of reforms as the fundamental objective, on their absolutisation of the social role played by intellectuals, students, young people, the middle strata, and so on.
In the industrialised capitalist states the actual prospects for the revolutionary process are in many respects 241 determined by the subjective factor. The realisation of democratic aims and tasks and the political leadership of the working class in the anti-imperialist alliance have become the prime condition of the fulfilment of the proletariat's historic mission.
Lenin formulated the methodological principle of the correlation of socialism and democracy. In particular, he wrote that "socialism is impossible without democracy because: 1) the proletariat cannot perform the socialist revolution unless it prepares for it by the struggle for democracy; 2) victorious socialism cannot consolidate its victory and bring humanity to the withering away of the state without implementing full = democracy.''^^*^^ The struggle for democracy is not a transient tactic. It is the fundamental policy of the working class and the Communist parties, who act in line with the common basic interests of the proletariat, the peasantry and the middle strata. Both in theory and practice the actual turn of the masses involved in the anti-imperialist and democratic movements towards scientific socialism is determined largely by the ideological struggle not only against anti-communism but also against nationalism and modern opportunism. The overall shrinkage of the social basis of monopoly rule is compelling international imperialism to modify its strategy and tactics and have more frequent recourse to ideological, political and military subversion. These circumstances make it incumbent upon Communists to heighten their revolutionary, ideological and political vigilance.
It is vital that in the ideological struggle and in their organisational and political work the Communist parties should correctly understand and use the experience of the socialist revolution in the USSR and of the people's democratic revolutions. Of cardinal importance in this experience are the problems of the immediate and end objectives, the motive forces and the changes in the policy of alliances at the different phases of the struggle and the actual revolution, in particular, the problems of the growth of democratic movements into the socialist revolution.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~23, p.~74.
242 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Problems of the Revolution In Countries with a MediumA specific of the countries with a low or medium level of capitalist development is that most of them may be characterised as states of dependent capitalism. While being formally, legally independent, they are financially, economically, militarily, politically and ideologically dependent on the international monopolies arid comprise subordinate elements in the world capitalist system (they include most of the Latin American states and some European countries).
Another feature common to countries with a medium and low level of capitalist development is the relatively lower maturity of the material and technical prerequisites of socialism. However, viewed from the standpoint of Leninist methodology, this does not rule out the possibility of a direct socialist revolution. Lenin used his law of the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries to show new elements in the correlation between the objective and subjective prerequisites and conditions for the revolution.
In particular, he made it plain that the weak links in the imperialist system could be breached provided the objective socio-political prerequisites had reached a high level of maturity and there was a sharp aggravation of contradictions, with the subjective factor of the revolution adequately attuned to the situation. This was, for example, Lenin's argument against the Mensheviks and other Right and ``Left'' opportunists, who contended that in Russia the socialist revolution could not be accomplished because the development level of the productive forces was low and the material and technical prereqxiisites for the revolution had not matured.
In countries with a medium and low level of capitalist development there is a specific system of socio-economic contradictions arid a unique correlation of democratic and socialist objectives. In most of these countries capitalist evolution has been slow and largely modified through penetration by the foreign monopolies. The multiform capitalist-based economy that in many cases features a single commodity or a single crop, and the direct or indirect dependence on the foreign monopolies give rise to specific 243 socio-economic contradictions and to a specific composition and alignment of the class forces.
In countries of dependent capitalism, parallel with the growth of the main class contradictions stemming from the capitalist basis, the contradiction between labour and capital, the old contradictions emanating from the pre-capitalist forms of the economy still retain their significance and new contradictions emerge and loom large.
Since all these countries are in one way or another dependent on the imperialist states and international monopolies economically, financially and politically, one of their main contradictions is with imperialism and occasionally also with arising pro-imperialist local monopolies.
At the present stage of social progress in these countries, particularly in countries with a low level of capitalist development, the principal contradictions are between their peoples and foreign, chiefly US, imperialism, which relies on local reactionaries consisting of the remaining landowners and of the conciliatory bureaucracy and financial oligarchy. In pursuing the aim of achieving economic liberation, abolishing the remnants of feudalism and other pre-capitalist systems and democratising the political regimes, the revolutionary struggle in countries with a medium and low level of capitalist development acquires an anti-imperialist orientation. Needless to say, in these countries there are distinctions in the combination of anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist objectives, distinctions that are determined not only by the development level but also by the place a given country occupies in the capitalist system, by its historicallyshaped links and even geographical location.
These distinctions are reflected in the programme documents of the Communist parties of countries with a medium or low level of capitalist development. In some of them, according to the specific relationship of democratic and socialist tasks for that particular country, and also the alignment of class forces and the nature of the political regime, the immediate aim is to restore, win or extend bourgeois democracy.
Thus, the documents of the 12th Plenary Meeting (1969), the Theses to the 9th Congress (1971) and the draft Programme of the Communist Party of Greece regard the contradiction between foreign imperialism, which relies on 244 the Greek plutocratic oligarchy, and the people as the main contradiction. It advanced as its most immediate revolutionary aim the overthrow of the dictatorship, the formation of a government with participation of representatives of all the anti-dictatorial parties and resistance organisations, the restoration of constitutional democratic freedoms and the annulment of the neofascist constitution. After the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship and the establishment of a bourgeois democracy the Greek Communists at their 10th Congress in 1978^^*^^ drew up a "programme for a people's democracy''. They proceeded from the fact that Greece is a capitalist industrial-agrarian country with a medium level of development of production forces, the main feature of which was its very considerable dependence upon foreign monopoly capital and international imperialism. In Greece state-monopoly capitalism is developing and growing stronger.
An analysis of the changes in the economic, social and political structures led the Greek Communists to the conclusion on the need for anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly, democratic revolutionary transformations, for a transitional political regime which would later turn into a socialist democracy.
The specific features of the revolutionary process are also to be found in the Latin American countries. Most of them (with the exception of socialist Cuba, and the remaining colonies) have been following the capitalist path of development for about a century and a half. Here a special system of socio-economic, political and national contradictions provides the objective foundation for the revolutionary process. It includes the main contradiction of the whole process, which for the vast majority of countries is the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie; social contradictions connected with the existence of pre-capitalist structures, in particular, with vestiges of feudalism and archaic agrarian relations; and, finally, contradictions between international imperialism, particularly North American, and the majority of the people in the given country. The latter contradiction is not only common to many countries on the continent, but it has changed from an external to an internal one and now provides the objective basis for determining the similarity of _-_-_
^^*^^ See: The Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Greece, Moscow, 1979, pp. 195--97 (in Russian).
245 the nature and immediate aims of the revolutionary process. In other words, the contradiction between the majority of the peoples of Latin American countries and North American imperialism has become the main contradiction of the present historical age in this region.Here the nature of the revolutionary process is indissolubly linked with the peculiarities of the class structure. They include, firstly, the special features of the emergence, formation and development of the main classes. This concerns, in particular, the change in the historical (European) system of forming the working class and local bourgeoisie. In many countries the agricultural or mining proletariat in enterprises of foreign monopolies was formed before the local bourgeoisie, and today both quantitatively and qualitatively the working class of Latin America occupies the leading place in the social structure. Secondly, in the capitalist Latin American countries the composition, condition and dynamics of the old and new intermediate strata and groups have specific features of their own. There are also other peculiarities both in the class-social structure and in the relationship of democratic and socialist tasks, which the Communist parties of the capitalist countries in Latin America take into account in assessing the prospects for .revolution. In some cases these are anti-imperialist, national liberation revolutions, in others, anti-imperialist, anti-feudal (agrarian) and in yet others, democratic, socialist ones. The content of the democratic objectives differs in each of these countries, for the aim is to establish not only anti-imperialist, but, frequently, also anti-dictatorial democracy, particularly in countries ruled by tyrannical military dictatorships.
Of course, the question of the socialist prospect of the anti-imperialist revolution in countries with a medium or low level of capitalist development is raised differently, depending on the combination of material, technical and objective socio-political conditions and the maturity of the subjective factor of revolution. However, the programmes of all the Communist parties underscore direct or mediated socialist prospect, i.e., the inseverable link of the modern antiimperialist, democratic revolution with the transition to socialism. In the 1968 programme of the Communist Party of Argentina and subsequent documents the future revolution is defined as democratic, agrarian and anti-imperialist with 246 the prospect of evolving into a socialist revolution. In the documents of the Communist Party of Chile the revolution is, for its essence and objectives, formulated as antiimperialist, anti-monopoly and agrarian with socialism as the ultimate prospect.
In the Latin American countries the revolutionary processes were traditionally associated with the national liberation movement. However, this is true notably in the sense that the objective is to achieve real social, economic and national equality and real economic independence. Because of their national-democratic character the anti-imperialist revolutions in Latin America may be regarded as part of the national liberation movement with certain reservations. Although these revolutions are directed mainly against oppression by foreign imperialism, in some countries that have achieved a medium level of development a struggle is in progress against the emergent national monopolies. Consequently, these revolutions display what, in effect, may be described as a class orientation, which is not only anti-imperialist but also directly anti-capitalist.
The certain differences in the character, objectives and phases of the revolutionary process in countries with a low or medium level of capitalist development do not rule out their common interests and unity in the anti-imperialist struggle. Relative to Latin American countries the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties noted that in that "part of the world militant democratic, anti-imperialist movements and revolutionary processes are developing which pave the way to = socialism".^^*^^ This forecast has been confirmed and enriched by revolutionary practice.
Thus, for many of the countries with a low or medium level of capitalist development one of the most acute methodological problems from both the theoretical and political angles is that of the motive forces, character and content of the anti-imperialist democratic revolution and its relation to the socialist revolution. It is obvious that by restricting and abolishing monopoly rule the anti-imperialist revolution undermines the foundations of present-day world capitalism and changes the content of the bourgeois _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, pp. 29--30.
247 socio-economic system. Moreover, it is equally obvious that, as such, the anti-imperialist democratic revolution cannot change the substance of the capitalist system. That system can be changed fundamentally only by a socialist revolution for, as Lenin said, "taken separately, no kind of democracy will bring = socialism".^^*^^ The difficulty of the problem lies in the fact that democracy cannot be "taken separately''. Modern anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly democracy is the broad, massive foundation of social progress, in the thick of which the historical need for socialism paves the way for itself.It is only in the context of the modern epoch's overall socialist tendency that one can understand the historical place, content and significance of the anti-imperialist revolutions in the capitalist countries and of the anti-imperialist, national-democratic revolutions in countries that have won state independence as a result of the downfall of the colonial system.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Some ProblemsNew democracy is a feature distinguishing the national liberation movements and revolutions that have demolished the old colonial system and are fighting neocolonialism. The fact that the liberation struggle pursues national interests and aims has given the anti-colonial movement a nationaldemocratic, anti-imperialist character.
The new features of the national liberation movement stem directly from the growth of the world socialist community and of its influence on world developments and the revolutionary process. Its social content and successes depend largely on the solidity of its links with world socialism, which is the leading force of the revolution. This draws the consistent national liberation revolutions ever closer to the struggle of the proletariat in the industrialised capitalist countries.
Today the national liberation revolutions pursue the aim not only of winning national-state independence but also of resolving the agrarian question and smashing the old colonial economic and socio-political structure. The fact that in some _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~25, p.~452.
248 countries they are directed against feudal and pre-feudal relations and practices or colonial capitalism does not rule out but, on the contrary, presupposes the abolition of domination by foreign imperialism, which sustains these obsolete relations and practices. For that reason the national liberation revolutions cannot be viewed as bourgeoisdemocratic even though in many cases they are directed not only against imperialism but also against pre-bourgeois relations. Besides, in a number of countries the national liberation movement has in practical terms begun to grow into a struggle against exploitative relations, both feudal and capitalist.It goes without saying that each country where the people have risen to a national liberation struggle has its own specific contradictions, whose solution is a major step towards social progress. This accentuates the importance of a Marxist study of the dialectics of the internal and external contradictions determining the historical prospects of each country that has won state independence.
However, all countries that have achieved state independence have essential features in common. One of them is that international imperialism is the barrier to their unhampered political, economic and national progress. In most of these countries the contradiction with foreign imperialism closely intertwines with internal contradictions and, for many of them, is the determining factor at the present stage of their development. Precipitated by the contradictions of the majority of the nation with imperialism and the internal exploiting oligarchy, the successive national-democratic revolutions lead to actual political and economic independence and strike a tangible blow at capitalism, although they cannot abolish it as a world system.
A noteworthy point is that the ``Left'' extremists and petty-bourgeois nationalists absolutise the role of the national liberation movements in order to obscure the revolutionary potential of the working class in the industrialised countries. In tune with these views certain ``Left'' pseudo-Marxists maintain that the revolutionary initiative against capitalism, which in Marx's day belonged to the proletariat in the advanced countries, has allegedly passed into the hands of the impoverished masses in the developing countries. The ideologists of Maoism go even further, urging the national 249 liberation movement's complete rupture with the developing countries, the world socialist community and the workingclass movement.
The historic role of the national-revolutionary movements is enhanced with their intensification and union with the principal channel of progress today, the struggle for socialism. This union grows closer with the dissemination of the teaching of scientific socialism and with the numerical growth of the working class and the vanguard Mai-xist parties and the enhancement of their leading role.
In characterising the substance of the national liberation movements and underscoring their revolutionary role, Lenin showed that the "revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can now develop effectively, can reach a successful issue, only in direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet Republic against international imperialism".^^*^^ As was foreseen by him, the struggle of the oppressed and exploited peoples has developed into a struggle against the entire system of imperialist and colonial oppression.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Class ContentExperience has shown that the attainment of political, state independence is still a far cry from the solution of all the problems of social and national liberation.
Political independence is only the first step towards and an indispensable condition of complete social and national liberation, for, as Lenin pointed out, the main thing is economic = liberation.^^**^^ The problem of the class content and social prospects of the national-democratic revolutions arises precisely at that phase of the national liberation struggle.
The anti-imperialist orientation of the present-day national liberation revolutions has powerfully affected the struggle for state independence, when the imperialist territorial division of the world was ended. Today the national liberation struggle is directed against the economic division of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 151.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol.~18, p.~398.
250 world among the monopolies, against imperialist socioeconomic oppression and rule.Despite all the distinctions between the countries that have at different times achieved state independence but remain economically dependent on imperialism, their social structures have some national and class features in common. In many Asian and African countries one of these common features is, for instance, that political liberation has not yet brought them economic independence, the attainment of which remains a major national problem.
Economic liberation presupposes, on the one hand, genuine sovereignty in the use of natural and manpower resources and in the promotion of the productive forces, whose development is hindered chiefly by the technical and technological expansion and iieocolonialist exploitation of these countries by the imperialist monopolies. On the other hand, unequal economic relations in the world market can only be abolished with the surmounting of technical and economic backwardness. In both cases the solution of these problems requires not only a new international economic order, but also a deepening of the anti-imperialist socioeconomic transformations that affect all the social and political forces of the developing countries.
A serious and often highly acute national democratic problem for many peoples fighting for their freedom is the solution of the internal and external aspects of the nationalities question. Apart from dependence on imperialism other obstacles to anti-imperialist democracy are vestiges of earlier formations and structures and an acute nationalities question, in particular, relations between existing socio-ethnic communities. Political consolidation within the framework of an independent national state is only a preliminary condition for the development and transformation within the nation of such socio-ethnic communities as tribes and nationalities. In many of the liberated Asian and African countries the dissension between tribes and nationalities, and religious groups, which is sown and supported to this day by imperialism, is an obstacle to the consolidation of the people into a nation. Therefore the abolition of this dissension (for example, tribalism and separatism) is a most important national democratic problem for many countries.
251The unification of peoples who have been arbitrarily separated by colonisers in the past and are now living in different territorial-state formations continues to be an important problem.
Finally, the most important national problem is the choice of a development path and social prospects, i.e., the capitalist or socialist orientation.
As we know, today there are many countries in Asia and Africa which have decided upon the course of building a socialist society.
The point of departure for a scientific understanding of the national liberation revolutions is recognition of the general laws of revolution and their specific forms of manifestation. In them as in all other types of social revolution historical necessity is manifested. All national liberation revolutions have a concrete economic basis (the conflict of existing production relations and national productive forces). In each of the former colonial and dependent countries, of course, the economic basis of the revolution has a concrete historical content of its own.
In the former Portuguese colonies, for example, the main socio-economic contradiction was imperialist exploitation in the form of a fascist system of oppression. Therefore the abolition of the colonial regime in some of these countries inevitably developed into the stage of armed struggle for independence. This stage was the main content of the national liberation revolution. It was embodied in the declaration of independence and the creation of modern people's republics.
As in every type of social revolution the main question was that of power. The struggle against foreign imperialist aggression and internal reaction and the establishment of revolutionary political power, a revolutionary democratic dictatorship, completed the stage of political liberation and the establishment of state independence.
The aggravation of the class struggle against imperialism and internal reaction accelerated the growth of the anticolonial revolution into a national-democratic social revolution, an anti-imperialist revolution with the choice of socialism. At plenary meetings of popular movements and revolutionary vanguard parties the historical stages of the people's revolution and the prospects for socialist development have been defined.
252The main content of the internal class struggle under a revolutionary democratic dictatorship is the carrying out of a programme of national reconstruction and the creation of the prerequisites of building socialism. The fulfilment of these historical, socio-economic and political tasks make it possible to advance directly to socialist transformations. These, in the most general form, are the main stages of the revolutionary process in the former Portuguese colonies.
However, even in these most general considerations one can trace the universal laws of social revolutions. The embarking on a socialist-oriented path is the continuation and development of national liberation, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist revolutions. The specific features of the modern age of transition to socialism on a worldwide scale are manifested in the socialist orientation. In revolutionary periods, to quote Lenin, the "clash of contending social forces, in a comparatively short space of time, decides the question of the country's choice of a direct or zigzag path of development for a comparatively very long = time.''^^*^^
The conflict of the revolution and counter-revolution, the polarisation of classes and social groups, manifests itself in the questions of political power and the choice of the path of social development.
A characteristic feature of the social life of the Afro-Asian countries is that wrongly interpreted national problems often overshadow the class content of revolutionary movements. In the young states the peculiarities and complexity of the class structure become apparent at the very first stage of the national-democratic revolution.
One of the peculiarities of some of these revolutions springs not only from the fact that they get their main support from the peasants but also from the condition of the peasantry as a class. As distinct from the classical evolution of capitalism from feudalism in Western Europe, the peasants in some of the former colonial and dependent countries, for instance in Tropical Africa, had not become petty-bourgeois prior to the revolution. Most of them did not own land. In some Asian and African countries, for example, the peasants own land in common and are united in the corresponding economic system.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 22.
253These peasant masses are not proponents of capitalist relations and the accompanying bourgeois ideology. In their eyes the colonialists embody capitalism and for that reason patriarchal, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist feeling prevails among them.
In the conflict between independent economic development and dependence on the international monopolies the majority of the peasants, despite the growing stratification, are inclined to adopt revolutionary-democratic positions. These masses regard the quests for a fundamentally new modern society as the way to end age-old backwardness and poverty and achieve national rejuvenation.
Lenin foresaw that "in spite of the fact that the masses of toilers---the peasants in the colonial countries---are still backward, they will play a very important revolutionary part in the coming phases of the world = revolution".^^*^^
The peasants together with the rural and urban workers and artisans were the social backbone of the national liberation, anti-colonial revolutions in some African countries. However, the national-democratic movement is much broader than the usual peasant movements pursuing the aim of achieving political freedom and receiving land as the principal means of production. The movement to attain wider national and democratic objectives is joined by other classes and social strata in the dependent countries. They are potentially an anti-capitalist force, for they, too, are oppressed by international imperialism.
Yet another distinction of the class structure in some of the new states economically oppressed by the international monopolies is that the two main classes of capitalist society, the working class and the bourgeoisie, are underdeveloped. In some Asian and African countries the industrial bourgeoisie was practically non-existent, while the relatively large strata of the trade and, in particular, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie were dependent on the international monopolies both economically and politically. For that reason in these countries the bourgeoisie was unable to become the leader even at the stage of the struggle for political independence, conceding that role to the revolutionary democrats. From the standpoint of theory and practice it is important _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 482.
254 to note the new processes of the rise and formation of the bourgeoisie and the working class. The classical European model of capitalist evolution in a feudal society, of the successive emergence of the trade, industrial and then the rural bourgeoisie, is not followed in the colonial and dependent countries. Correspondingly, the historical sequence in which the different contingents of the working class appear is likewise frequently dissimilar from the European model. In the former colonial and dependent countries contingents of the working class took shape at monopolyoperated enterprises (for instance, in the mining industry in Zaire, and at the agricultural estates in South America and Africa) prior to the appearance of the corresponding contingents of the local bourgeoisie. In individual countries contingents of agricultural, transport and trade workers were formed before the appearance of an industrial proletariat. In other countries, contingents of an industrial, particularly mining, proletariat appeared, in effect, before any other contingent.The fragmentation of the bourgeoisie and the working class (as a rule, workers were employed at innumerable small enterprises and this inadequate concentration accounted for their poor organisation and low level of class consciousness) K due to the long colonial rule and the imperialist deformation of the national economy that was compelled to specialise in one crop or in one commodity.
The underdevelopment of the main classes in the dependent countries, the uncompleted class differentiation of society and the very process of the formation of the different social forces have powerfully enhanced the role of the local intermediate strata. The local bourgeoisie's inability to head the anti-imperialist struggle and the fact that the revolutionary potential of the nascent working class in Asia and Africa has not yet unfolded have in many cases placed the leadership of the democratic national liberation movement in the hands of the intermediate social strata---the civilian and military revolutionary-democratic intelligentsia.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ National-Revolutionary DemocracyAs an ideological and political trend national-revolutionary democracy occupies a prominent place in the anti-imperialist 255 liberation struggle. The scientific method of studying social processes worked out by Lenin has made it possible to ascertain the place and role of revolutionary democracy. In Marxist literature revolutionary democracy is usually regarded (quite justifiably) as a pre-proletarian liberation movement. At the present phase of the national liberation and national-democratic revolutions revolutionary democracy has acquired considerable importance as a social problem.
It has passed through several periods in world history. The first stage was the revolutionary democracy of the epoch of transition from feudalism to capitalism, chiefly in the backward countries of Europe, including Russia. The end of that epoch saw the activities of Jose Marti, the apostle of liberation in Latin America. The second stage of revolutionary democracy infolded in the epoch of imperialism in feudal and semi-feudal dependent countries (for example, in Turkey and China). In its first and second stages in capitalist countries revolutionary democracy gradually merges with the proletarian socialist liberation movement. The present-day revolutionary democracy in the developing, former colonial and dependent countries may be defined as the third historical period and corresponding type of revolutionary democracy. Obviously in each of these historical types there are differences in the social content and role of revolutionary democracy. The socialist trend of the present age, the development of the proletarian movement, by no means excludes the possibility of the emergence or development of revolutionary democracy.
Historical experience testifies to a sharp rise in the role of national revolutionary democracy not only in the anti-colonial struggle. In a number of liberated countries where the level of industrial development is fairly low and the working class numerically small and insufficiently organised, consistent national revolutionary democrats can be, and in a number of cases are, an important element of the subjective factor of the revolutionary process.
The problems of national revolutionary democracy are assuming a special importance in the strictly scientific analysis of the balance and distribution of class forces, and also of the revolutionary prospects in the liberated countries and zones. Naturally in this or that country or zone one finds the most 256 varied tendencies in revolutionary democracy. Insofar as revolutionary democrats are subject to bourgeois influence and are recruited mainly from students and intellectuals, non-proletarian middle strata, they tend to vacillate in ideology and politics from pseudo-Left extremism to Rightwing nationalism and chauvinism.
The change in the social positions and social role of the national revolutionary democratic trends demands a special, extremely concrete study in each country. In particular, it is essential to take into account the specific features of the state of and prospects for socio-ethnic and racial relations, their immediate link with the class-political problem of antiimperialist national unity. The revolutionary unification of all the working people irrespective of nationality and race, the establishment of the local working class as the bearer of the will, the subject of the liberated nation, are essential principles of the socialist standpoint of revolutionary democrats.
Relative to revolutionary democracy Leninism has timetested methodological guidelines. The following pronouncement by Lenin helps us to understand the historical place and social role of national-revolutionary democracy: "By revolutionary democracy is meant the consistent and firm democratic currents that accept the whole democratic programme of Social-Democracy, do not hold back from any revolutionary measures, but lack the clear Social-Democratic class-consciousness."^^*^^ Consequently, it is imperative to continue fostering and inculcating socialist class-consciousness in the democratic movement, and drawing up concrete positive economic and political programmes of action by the nationalrevolutionary democrats.
To use Lenin's words, like its classical petty-bourgeois counterpart, national-revolutionary democracy, which occupies such a prominent place in the democratic movements, takes into account, assimilates and uses in its political struggle only individual aspects of Marxist theory. Referring to a _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 187. In this case "Social Democracy" means "The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party" as the party of Communists was called in Russia at the time when these lines were written (1905), which are taken from the materials of the 3rd RSDLP Congress.
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 9 --- 660 257 similar instance, Lenin noted that the "rate at which capitalism develops varies in different countries and in different spheres of the national economy. Marxism is most easily, rapidly, completely and lastingly assimilated by the working class and its ideologists where large-scale industry is most developed. Economic relations which are backward, or which lag in their development, constantly lead to the appearance of supporters of the labour movement who assimilate only certain aspects of Marxism, only certain parts of the new world outlook, or individual slogans and demands, being unable to make a determined break with all the traditions of the bourgeois world outlook in general and the bourgeois-democratic world outlook in = particular".^^*^^The ideology of the national-democratic movements derives its complexity from a number of objective and subjective factors. Of considerable social significance is the growing gravitation towards scientific socialism. In characterising the turn of the petty-bourgeois masses to socialism, Lenin wrote: "It is not enough to encourage this change of front and amicably greet those who are making it. A politician who knows what he is working for must learn to bring about this change of front among the various sections and groups of the broad mass of petty-bourgeois democrats if he is convinced that serious and deep-going historical reasons for such a turn = exist.''^^**^^
The acutal turn of the mass of participants in the democratic movements and revolutions to the theory and practice of scientific socialism is hindered not only by the specifics of the present-day struggle between socialism and capitalism on a world-wide scale but also by the specifics of socio-economic development and democratic traditions, the established system of political parties and the influence exercised by these parties, among the people.
Hence the growing importance of the ideological struggle not only against anti-communism, against the direct adversaries of the socialist ideology, but also against all varieties of modern nationalism and opportunism. As in the past, many opportunists specialise in counterposing democracy to centralism, in playing off democracy against dictatorship, in an _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~16, p.~348.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol.~28, p.~191.
258 effort to prove their incompatibility. The revisionist theories about ``true'', ``pure'', ``total'', ``integral'' and other democracies, about decentralisation in the economic, state and party leadership of socialist countries and the specious protests of the opportunists against violence, centralism and dictatorship are in fact designed to poison the minds of the participants in the revolutionary movement.These subterfuges were exposed by Lenin, who made it clear that to speak of a dictatorship in general, of democracy in general (or of "pure democracy''), of violence in general, without discriminating between the conditions distinguishing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie from the dictatorship of the proletariat, bourgeois democracy from socialist democracy, and reactionary violence from revolutionary violence was tantamount to renouncing the revolution, to being a philistine or simply deceiving oneself and others by = sophistry.^^*^^ A point Lenin constantly made was that abstract democracy had never existed and would never exist, that democracy always had a class content.
The course of the struggle between socialist and bourgeois ideology always mirrors the state of the mass consciousness. The working masses vacillate psychologically and ideologically as a result, for example, of pressure from bourgeois mass media or from bourgeois ideological counter-offensives. In such cases the consciousness of individual strata and contingents of the anti-imperialist movements falls under the influence of or is adapted to the prevailing ideology of the exploiting classes or to traditional conservative world outlooks.
Despite the complexity of the ideology of the national liberation movements, the successes of these movements and their consistency in putting socio-economic transformations into effect depend largely on the predominant ideological and political trends. In addition to their political and organisational difficulties and weaknesses, the political forces heading the new states are finding that they have to give much of their attention to problems of ideology.
The innumerable external and internal contradictions of the national liberation struggle are leading to an intricate _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., p.~285.
259 interlacing of ideological influences in the social life of the new states. In this situation considerable social importance is acquired by the growing predisposition to apply the experience of the socialist revolution and the theory of scientific socialism. __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Socialist Trend of the National LiberationThe movement for social and national equality is a highlight of the present epoch. However, this essentially socialist necessity is encountering formidable difficulties in the countries dependent on imperialism. The unevenness and backwardness in socio-economic development are compounded by the fact that in these countries there still are practically all forms of socio-ethnical communities, beginning with clans and tribes and ending with nationalities and nations. Demographers have estimated that in the world today there are nearly 2,000 different socio-ethnical communities. People belonging to these communities live in 200 countries.
The diversity of socio-ethnical communities, the problems of their territorial distribution, the natural movement of the population and particularly the social condition of the peoples of the young states are evidence of the growing role of the national factor in their social structure and, correspondingly, in the liberation movement. In many economically and socially backward countries on account of the low level of class differentiation and the immaturity of class relations the public mind frequently absolutises national problems, which it regards as isolated from class relations. Ideologically, this absolutisation and distortion of national problems is embodied in the innumerable nationalistic theories. For that reason in many of the liberated countries nationalism influences or dominates official ideology and policy.
In some of these countries nationalism is the banner and political programme not only of the bourgeoisie but also of the national-revolutionary democrats. Various forms of nationalism are widespread among the labouring masses, particularly the peasants, who have yet to understand their class interests. Different forms of nationalism also influence the nascent working class.
260This may be partly explained by the fact that nationalism's reactionary character is not exposed to view, and it is not easy for the inexperienced and unschooled participants in the national liberation movements to understand that nationalism has nothing in common with true national interests. It is even harder to understand that reactionary nationalism usually masquerades as national interests and that its exponents are in many cases active participants in or leaders of the national liberation movement.
As a distorted view of the place and role of the national factor in social life nationalism quite easily and quickly finds points of contact with both Right and ``Left'' opportunism, which misrepresent the true revolutionary objectives, prospects, means and forms of the revolutionary struggle. One of the points of contact between nationalism and political opportunism is that today nationalism is the medium nourishing reformist and petty-bourgeois pseudo-revolutionary trends. Nationalism is a serious obstacle to the international unity of the revolutionary forces.
In stressing that national problems had to be approached from the class point of view, Lenin wrote: "We must strive to unite the workers of all nations as closely as possible, strive to unite them for a joint struggle against all chauvinism, against all national exclusiveness, against all = nationalism".^^*^^
The true place and social role of nationalistic psychology and ideology are brought to light by an analysis of nationalism's gnosiological and socio-political mainsprings. From the gnosiological standpoint the national element's conversion into a nationalistic element springs from an anti-dialectical approach to national problems, an approach adopted by many non-Marxists in the national liberation movements. It manifests itself in dogmatic or relativist understanding of the assessment, place and role of the national element, in sophistic or eclectical methods of studying the links between the human, class and national elements, in anti-historicism, bigotry and subjectivistic authoritarianism. All this ultimately leads to the absolutisation of the national element, to an exaggeration of its role, to a rupture between the national specific of a social movement and its class content.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 224.
261However, the gnosiological possibilities of the national element turning into a nationalistic trend does not in itself give rise to nationalism. The latter takes shape primarily under the impact of socio-political factors that translate gnosiological possibilities into reality.
The economic, social and cultural distinctions between socio-ethnical communities provide the social basis for turning the national element into a nationalistic trend. A certain influence is exercised by imperialism's deformation of national and social processes and international relations, and by the reaction of the dependent nations to racism and chauvinism, especially on the part of the imperialist states which pursue a neocolonialist policy. The internal causes of the emergence or revival of nationalism include the conservative continuity of traditions, way of life and religious cults; the consolidation or encouragement, and sometimes the resurgence, of nationalistic prejudices, habits and views in acute social situations, notably, during clashes between the new states.
The class-political factor thus plays the principal role in turning the national element into a nationalistic trend. It manifests itself in the use of the national element by certain social groups, classes and political blocs for the attainment of their special aims in external and internal policy, for screening the mercenary, egoistical interests of various social groups and giving them out as the interests of the nation, and for obscuring irreconcilable class contradictions in a socio-ethnical community.
These are the aims pursued by the nationalistic ideological and political theories of the reactionary circles, by their nationalistic socio-political projects, including the fostering of nationalism in the minds of the people and objectivising it in social practice.
A vital criterion showing the attitude of really progressive forces to the different varieties and forms of nationalism is whether they take steps to surmount the nationalistic distortion of reality and give democratic elements the possibility of making headway, shaking off this distortion and drawing close to and fusing with the socialist ideology, with the working-class and communist movement.
With the aggravation of the internal and international class struggle the local reactionaries and, particularly, the imperialist 262 monopolies intensify their efforts to disarm the national liberation movement ideologically and prevent the spread of Marxism-Leninism, of scientific socialism.
Clerical ideologies occupy a prominent place in the national mind of the developing countries. They play on the religious feelings of the people, using these feelings to mask class contradictions and ideologically disorient the masses. The reactionary essence of these ideologies is seen notably in their obstruction of the spread of scientific socialism, in their justification of the old, conservative social relations and in their direct and indirect opposition to fundamental revolutionary changes.
Historical practice has shown, for instance, the inability of Catholicism to hold up the growth of the national liberation revolutions. It gradually exposes and rejects the new means, used by the clericals, including attempts to impede the revivalist tendencies in religions, the mass social activisation of believers. The local reactionaries and the imperialist bourgeoisie are making every effort to adapt other religions---Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism---to their needs. Religious strife and intolerance, and national discord are utilised as the principal ideological and political weapons of the international monopolies for splitting and undermining the national-democratic movements from within.
A synthesis of nationalistic and clerical ideologies is, according to the design harboured by internal and international reaction, to form the ideological platform of a so-called third way for the developing states. Precisely this role is currently played by theories containing an eclectic mixture of nationalism, clericalism and speciously interpreted socialism. Sukarno, one of the founders of so-called Indonesian socialism, said: "We have taken spiritual socialism from Islam and Christianity; we have taken scientific socialism from Marxism.... Give this mixture national originality and you get a national ideology."
Revolutionary practice and the resistance put up by internal and external reactionary forces are inducing the leaders of the national-democratic revolutions to act with growing determination in putting into effect transformations that inevitably range beyond the framework of capitalism. The ideological views of the leaders of the national liberation movements change under the impact of this revolutionary 263 practice, converting many of them from petty-bourgeois democrats and nationalists into national-revolutionary democrats, who tend more and more to adopt the socialist orientation. Although some revolutionary leaders hold contradictory and inconsistent socialist ideas they clearly display a tendency to shake free of nationalism and clericalism and this is crowned by the creation of vanguard parties of scientific socialism.
The epochal achievements of world socialism, its disinterested economic, political and ideological assistance to the peoples of the developing countries and the growing international prestige and influence of the theory and practice of scientific socialism are fostering the spread of socialist consciousness in the young national states. Particularly those which have chosen socialism.
At the dawn of the working-class movement Lenin showed that socialist consciousness is injected into the working class from without. In enlarging on this thesis we must underscore the importance of inculcating socialist consciousness into the minds not only of all the leaders but also of the rank and file of the national liberation movement. It would be, of course, premature to say that true socialist ideology has taken firm root in the minds of the leaders and rank arid file of the national liberation revolutions and in their programmes of socio-economic development. The transition to socialism without any initial capitalist development is unquestionably a long and difficult process. However, no difficulties and obstacles, nor the national and socio-economic specifics of the development of the countries oppressed by imperialism today, can overshadow or alter the objective historical prospect of consistent anti-imperialist, national-democratic revolutions: all nations will inevitably arrive at socialism.
[264] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ Lenin's Teaching on the Communist PartyLenin's teaching on the party and the further development of that teaching comprise one of the basic and inalienable components of revolutionary theory. It is among the cardinal problems in the theory and practice of the Communist parties and becoming the main issue of the ideological struggle.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Ideological Struggle Over the QuestionIn their attempts to hold up mankind's progress the reactionaries are directing their assault mainly at the Communist parties with all the means at their disposal, from the poison of slander to repressions and aggression against countries ruled by Communist parties. Thereby they acknowledge the growing role of the Communist parties as the leaders of the revolutionary movement.
Communists remember well Lenin's statement that "the strength of a revolution, its energy, its victory and its triumph intensify the resistance of the bourgeoisie. The more victorious we are the more the capitalist exploiters learn to unite and the more determined their = onslaught."^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 450.
265 This conclusion is also a law of the class struggle at the present age.More and more often today the ruling class openly unites with fascist elements and forces, which use methods of bloody terror, cruel repression and unrestrained demagogy. Eloquent proof of this is the behaviour of the Chilean bourgeoisie during the development of the revolution in this country. Communist parties are concerned to note the growth of the Right-wing, and sometimes even neofascist threat in certain states.
The bourgeoisie is doing its utmost to preserve its ideological influence on the working class. In this connection Lenin stressed that when the "bourgeoisie's ideological influence on the workers declines, is undermined or weakened, the bourgeoisie everywhere and always resorts to the most outrageous lies and = slander".^^*^^ The correctness of his words is confirmed by the fact that after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution slander of the first socialist country has increasingly occupied pride of place in the bourgeoisie's ideological arsenal. The consistent and principled struggle of the Communist parties against bourgeois ideology and policy for the dissemination of Marxist-Leninist ideas, which is promoted by the peaceloving policy of the USSR and other socialist countries is leading to the collapse of the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie and, consequently, its control of the masses.
Imperialist ideologists and politicians see a direct connection between the preservation of peace, detente, and peaceful coexistence, on the one hand, and the dissemination of Marxist-Leninist ideas, the strengthening of socialism, and the growth of the Communist parties and the international communist movement, on the other. This is why reactionary, aggressive forces are trying to subvert both detente and peaceful coexistence, and the prestige of the international communist movement and of each Communist party. Bourgeois ideologists are aware of the importance and role of the CPSU in the struggle to preserve peace and detente and in the rallying and strengthening of all peace-loving progressive and revolutionary forces.
_-_-_^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~20, p.~485.
266The real socialism that exists in the USSR is exercising a growing influence on the working people of the capitalist world and the course of world development. This is why the imperialist bourgeoisie is seeking to strike a blow, first and foremost, at the CPSU, to undermine its prestige in the world, in the international communist movement, and its influence among the Soviet people. The main weapon for this is anti-communism, the spearhead of which is antiSovietism. The imperialist bourgeoisie is seeking to achieve its aim by falsifying the true role of the CPSU in the life of Soviet society and then implanting this distorted view in the minds of the broad mass of the population, giving it a firm picture of the CPSU and other Communist parties as organisations that are alien and hostile to the interests of the majority of people.
Anti-communism and anti-Sovietism are the ideological and political basis of the forces of war, aggression, reaction and fascism. They support a policy of militarism and confrontation with the socialist countries and, first and foremost, the Soviet Union. Under the flag of anticommunism repressions are being carried out not only against Communists, but also against all those who are struggling for democratic rights, who are protesting against exploitation and national oppression, against the rule of monopoly capital, and for social progress. Anti-communism is opposed to the national interests of all countries. Therefore there can be no successful struggle for peace, social progress, the vital interests of the working people, and the national interests of the country, without a consistent and principled struggle against anti-communism and antiSovietism. The main aim in this struggle is to expose the anti-scientific allegations and lies of bourgeois propaganda about the foreign and domestic policy of the CPSU, about the Communist parties, and to spread the truth about existing socialism.
Outworn anti-communist propaganda is being bolstered by ``new'' methods, while the battered theories are being supplemented with ``new'' arguments trimmed in scientific terminology. Efforts are made to reinforce them with ``historical'' facts and examples. While in the heyday of the cold war, communism and the Communist parties were portrayed as the handiwork of the devil and an early doom 267 was forecast for the socialist countries, today this sort of propaganda is abortive. Bourgeois propaganda can no longer deny communism's achievements and the role played by the Communist parties in facilitating these achievements, but it seeks to persuade the masses that a prohibitive and unacceptable price has been and is being paid by the people for them. At the same time, recognising the strength of communism, anti-communist propaganda endeavours to use this recognition to intimidate the philistine.
In pseudo-scientific language the stream of anti-communist literature spreads unscientific notions about the nature and role of the Communist parties in the socialist countries, distorts the aims and work of the Communist parties in the capitalist countries and misrepresents the relationships in the world communist movement, in particular the relations between the CPSU and other Communist parties.
Moreover, in anti-communist writings it is alleged that the governing Communist parties are "parties of the elite'', in which rank-and-file members are required to carry out decisions automatically. The hackneyed thesis that all Communist parties are subordinated to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has been supplemented with the new thesis that these parties are "fighting for independence''. The anti-communist interpretation of ``Eurocommunism'' is given as confirmation of this ``struggle''. The attacks of the counter-revolutionary and anti-socialist elements against the existing order in the socialist countries are depicted as the initiation of change in the nature of socialism and the governing Communist parties.
In some capitalist countries reactionary elements continue to allege that the Communist parties are ``spy'' organisations acting in the interests of a foreign power, and that Communists are "foreign agents''. Although the number of people believing these propaganda fabrications of the cold war period is rapidly diminishing, the ability of bourgeois propaganda to concoct and spread myths about communism and the Communist parties should not be underrated.
The bourgeoisie commissions ``experts'' on communism to revive old anti-communist theories and to give the anticommunist postulates an aura of plausibility. These are the people who give the battered theses of anti-communist propaganda a pseudo-scientific dressing in order to sow 268 distrust of the Communists among those who are trying to analyse the reasons for socialism's achievements, the character of the communist movement and the essence of the Communist parties. For instance, they endeavour to add a "new touch" and thereby make more convincing their charge that the CPSU and other governing Communist parties are an ``elite'' on the allegation that when the Communist Party was formed at the turn of the century Lenin himself had given it the character of an ``elite'' = body.^^*^^ They assert that a Communist Party degenerates as soon as it becomes the ruling party.
Over the last decade the Leftist elements among students and intellectuals, to say nothing of the Trotskyists, have intensified their attacks on the CPSU and other MarxistLeninist = parties.^^**^^ These elements call themselves revolutionaries and claim they belong to the communist movement.^^***^^ They justify their attacks with the pretext that they are fighting for the revolution, hastening determined revolutionary action, seeking the immediate overthrow of the bourgeois governments by armed force and endeavouring to start a guerrilla war and even a world ``revolutionary'' war against imperialism.
The Communist parties that denounce these ``ultrarevolutionary'' and, in effect, adventurist guidelines are accused of no less than having lost their revolutionary character, of having renounced the revolution and the revolutionary struggle for the abolition of imperialism, of sliding into reformism, of bourgeois degeneration.
Marcuse, the Cohn-Bendits and other "New Left" theoreticians and leaders have attempted to give a ``scientific'' foundation for their fabrication that the Communist parties have lost their revolutionary features. They portrayed the inevitable temporary failures in individual sectors of the world revolutionary movement and the temporary setbacks _-_-_
^^*^^ See: Bertram D. Wolfe, A Party of a New Type. The Comintern: Historical Highlights. Essays, Recollections, Documents, Ed. by Milorad Drachkovitch and Branko Lazitch, New York, Washington, London, pp. 20--44.
^^**^^ See: Gabriel und Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Linksradikalismus---Cewaltkur gegen die Alterkranheit des Kommunismus, Rowohlt, 1968.
^^***^^ In addition to the Peking theorists, who are conducting anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda on a massive scale, mention must be made of various groups and groupings in Western Europe and Latin America.
269 of individual contingents of that movement as the result of ``degeneration'' and the inability of the Communist parties to lead the revolutionary struggle in the age of the scientific and technological revolution. Accusing the Communist parties of degeneration and alleging that they have withdrawn from the revolutionary scene, these theoreticians claimed that "new revolutionary forces" had appeared on the scene and taken the place of the ``old'' revolutionary forces, i.e., of the working class. Their argument is that the structure of society in the industrialised capitalist countries has undergone a change, that the students arid some strata of the intelligentsia have grown more active and that there is growing discontent among broad sections of the working people and the petty bourgeoisie.Larry Seigle, editor of the journal Internationa/ Socialist Review, has given a summary of the results of that movement, writing that the "New Lefts" had advanced three main tenets: 1) Leninism and parties of the Leninist type are unacceptable under developed capitalism, with the result that it is necessary to evolve new forms of organisation for the conduct of the revolutionary struggle; 2) the workers have become conservative or entirely shed their political consciousness and that it is necessary to look for other elements of social changes; 3) Marxism is a Victorian theory and has therefore grown obsolete. This, Seigle wrote, means that revolutionaries must go beyond the principles and provisions of Marxism and evolve new economic, political and sociological theories that would fit in better with present-day conditions.^^*^^
All these ``new'' doctrines reject the scientific character of Marxism-Leninism, the revolutionary role of the working class and the Leninist teaching on the proletarian party and its role in the revolutionary struggle of the working people.
One of the principal objectives of these attacks of the ``Lefts'' on the CPSU and other Communist parties is to undermine their prestige, remove them from the leadership of the revolutionary struggle, use the mounting popular movement against the monopolies for their own ends and _-_-_
^^*^^ Larry Seigle, ``Ten Years of the New Left'', International Socialist Review, May 1970, p.~26.
270 take over the leadership if not of the whole then of at least part of the international communist movement.It is noteworthy that in their attacks on the communist movement the Right and the ``Left'' are unanimous in rejecting the need for Communist parties under present-day conditions, distorting the essence of the revolutionary Leninist Party and its features, attempting to prove that the Leninist teaching on the party is unacceptable today and that it is necessary to set up a ``new'' independent organisation that would champion ``national'' interests and have ``national'' features.
Views of this sort influence individuals in some Communist parties. These individuals contend that to be successful a Communist Party and the working-class movement have to be ``independent''. The true worth of these "independent positions" of the opportunist elements in the Communist parties and the inevitable sliding of these elements from nationalism into anti-Sovietism was exposed at the 24th Congress of the CPSU.
"It is precisely the nationalistic tendencies, especially those which assume the form of anti-Sovietism,'' L. I. Brezhnev said at the Congress, "that bourgeois ideologists and bourgeois propaganda have placed most reliance on in their fight against socialism and the communist movement. They have been trying to induce the opportunist elements in the Communist parties to make something of an ideological deal. They appear to be telling them: just give us proof that you are anti-Soviet, and we shall be prepared to proclaim that you are the true 'Marxists', and that you are taking completely 'independent attitudes'. The course of events has shown, incidentally, that such men also take the way of struggle against the Communist parties in their own countries.''^^*^^ At the Congress it was accentuated that the "struggle against anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, and also against Right- and `Left'-wing revisionism, and nationalism continues to be an important and pressing = task".^^**^^ Life, revolutionary practice, has fully confirmed the accuracy of the assessments and conclusions of the 24th CPSU Congress. It has also confirmed the urgent need to promote the Leninist approach _-_-_
^^*^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, p. 27.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 216.
271 in defining the character and specifics of the proletarian revolutionary party today.The consolidation of the international communist movement's unity is due to the fact that the Communist parties have specified their attitude to urgent, crucial issues. They are defining in more precise terms their role in the revolutionary movement and in the leadership of the class struggle in their countries, analysing their former policies and charting a new policy in keeping with the changed situation.
In this process various views are sometimes stated on the role of the Communist Party at the different stages of the class struggle, on the principles underlying its organisation and on the principles and character of its policy. For instance, contrary to the Leninist teaching, it is proposed, that local party organisations should enjoy complete and absolute autonomy and be, in effect, released from party discipline, that democratic centralism should be abandoned, and so on.
The enemies of the communist movement spread various revisionist ideas about the present-day essence and character of the proletarian revolutionary party, and all sorts of suggestions for ``specifying'' the Leninist teaching on the party or on its ``development'' and ``adaptation'' to presentday conditions. This is tantamount to rejecting or revising that teaching.
It goes without saying that like any other living organism, the party develops and changes. The changing situation poses it with new tasks and brings to the fore various spheres of its work and forms of struggle. The conditions actually obtaining for the revolutionary struggle in a given country influence the party's work, strategy tactics and organisational structure. It would be a dangerous mistake to represent this specific as a common regularity and try to impose it on the other Communist parties. Such attempts are sometimes the cause of disagreement between individual parties.
In order to reconcile such disagreements it is of the utmost importance to apply and develop the methodological principles of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the party creatively, to apply these principles under specific conditions. By methodological principles we mean the fundamental tenets 272 that determine the character and specifics of a Marxist Party in a given country and at a given phase of the class struggle. By applying these principles a party is able to gear its work correctly to the needs of social development, harmoniously combine the basic features that are immutable throughout an entire epoch and represent the laws governing the formation, development and work of a revolutionary MarxistLeninist Party embodying national features and specifics of the given period of history.
The fundamental propositions of Lenin's teaching on the party, of his approach to defining the role and place of the Communist Party in the revolutionary movement, of its character, of the guidelines and principles of its work and its relations with the people and with mass organisations of the working people are of unfading methodological importance to this day. Serious harm is inflicted on the revolutionary movement where these principles are buried in oblivion or disregarded. Moreover, historical experience shows that the inability to find the correct way for applying general principles to the conditions obtaining in a given country and disregard or underestimation of that country's specifics likewise adversely affect the work of a Communist Party and the development of the revolutionary movement.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Ideological-Theoretical FoundationIn line with Lenin's teaching on the party of the new type it is necessary, first and foremost, to mention the decisive impact of the theory of scientific communism on its work.
The ideological and theoretical basis of the Communist Party is Marxism-Leninism, which consistently expresses the vital interests of the working class and all working people and is also a scientific theory, tested by experience, that gives an objective picture of the world, a reliable guide to practical action. Marxism-Leninism is of decisive importance for ensuring the vanguard role of the Communist Party in the revolutionary struggle. For a ruling party Marxism-Leninism is even more important, because without it it would be impossible to assess the general prospects for the development of society and work out a correct policy.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 10 --- 660 273Marxism-Leninism is a powerful instrument for the revolutionary transformation of the world, with which the people of many countries have equipped themselves.
Many imperialist ideologists and politicians have been compelled to acknowledge the growing influence of Marxism-Leninism. Fear of the invincible power of revolutionary theory is one of the reasons for the constant attempts to refute Marxism-Leninism, to discredit the ideological and theoretical foundations of the Communist Party. The fact that Marxism-Leninism is the revolutionary party's theoretical foundation raises no question among true MarxistsLeninists. However, this key proposition is the target of unceasing and steadily mounting attacks and falsifications by bourgeois ideologists, reformists and revisionists.
Bourgeois ideologists are busy developing various conceptions and refined arguments in an attempt to prove that Marxism-Leninism is ``unscientific''. These include the argument that Leninism is a specifically Russian doctrine, and the conception of the ``disintegration'' or ``pluralism'' of Marxism-Leninism. Bourgeois pseudo-Marxists are spreading the view that Marxism is ``out-of-date'', urging that it be ``renewed'', and attempting to revise it by linking it with Freudism or existentialist = philosophy.^^*^^
Bourgeois and revisionist ideologists are trying to isolate "pure humanist Marxism" and set it against present-day revolutionary theory, which they proclaim to be ``antihumanist'' and ``anti-democratic'', to divide Leninism into "pre-October revolutionary" and "post-October pragmatic" and again to set these two against each other.
Lenin uncompromisingly fought the attempts of the Right opportunists in the international and Russian SocialDemocratic movements to revise Marxism. In championing Marxism, he upheld the theoretical basis of the proletarian revolutionary party in Russia. He noted that the theory of Marx sheds light on and scientifically defines the actual objective and task of the revolutionary party, namely, "to _-_-_
^^*^^ A comprehensive critique of the various attacks on Marxism-Leninism and a profound analysis of its role for the progress of mankind in the present period and for the revolutionary transformation of the world can be found in B. N. Ponomarev's The Living and Effective Teaching of MarxismLeninism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979.
274 organise the class struggle of the proletariat and to lead this struggle, the ultimate aim of which is the conquest of political power by the proletariat and the organisatoin of a socialist = society".^^*^^ Emphasising the significance of revolutionary theory to the Marxist Party, he wrote: "There can be no strong socialist party without a revolutionary = theory."^^**^^As Lenin saw it, revolutionary theory---Marxism---is the foundation for the unity of all like-minded Socialists. With its aid they mould their world outlook, evolve the methods of struggle and define the forms of their work.
While stressing that it was necessary to safeguard revolutionary theory against attacks and distortions, Lenin warned against turning Marxist propositions and formulas into unalterable, fossilised dogmas. He insisted that true Marxists should not regard the theory of Marx as complete and inviolable. While regarding it as the teaching that had laid only the corner-stone, he held that it was the duty of all true revolutionaries to develop all its aspects. This was the finest defence of Marxism, for it enabled the revolutionary party to keep pace with life, to be equal to the requirements of the developing revolutionary movement.
The attempts of Peking theoreticians to replace MarxismLeninism by an anti-scientific subjectivist conception represent a serious threat to the revolutionary movement and the vanguard role of the Communist Party. Pointing to such a quality of Marxism-Leninism as the need to develop in accordance with the changing world conditions, they argue that the ideas of Mao Zedong are the further development of revolutionary theory. As we know, Mao's ideas were used in upholding the thesis of the inevitability and need for a new world war, the policy of the "Great Leap Forward'', and the carrying out of the "cultural revolution'', which did great harm not only to the socialist cause in China, but also to the revolutionary movement throughout the world. They olunged the Communist Party of China into a state of extreme crisis. The ``ideas'' of the Peking leaders have nothing whatever in common with the true development of revolutionary theory. The principle of the development of Marxism-Leninism lies in its very essence as the indissoluble _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~4, p.~211.
^^**^^ Ibid.
275 unity of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. Herein lies the source of the vitality of Marxism-Leninism which makes it possible to enrich the theory and at the same time to turn it into revolutionary action, into effective policy, into victorious struggle.The most important Leninist principles of the creative development of revolutionary theory are, first and foremost, its correct application to the changing world, generalisation of the current changes a class approach and a concrete historical analysis of reality from the standpoint of the working class.
In Lenin's theoretical activity Communists can draw on the experience of the creative development of revolutionary theory. A concrete historical analysis of reality, consideration of specific national features organically combined with use of the experience of the international revolutionary movement and with generalisation of vast social material enabled Lenin to enrich and develop revolutionary theory as a guide to action.
The need to defend and develop revolutionary theory in present-day conditions is growing in connection with new phenomena in the world and new opportunities for the revolutionary movement. Past and present revolutionary experience shows that with the successes of the working class, achieved under the guidance of the Communist parties in the revolutionary struggle, in building the new society, the need for theory, for the theoretical interpretation of reality is increasing, as the resistance from all the opponents of communism grows.
Each Communist Party develops revolutionary theory independently and at the same time takes part together with the other fraternal parties in its collective elaboration. A tremendous role in this is played by the parties' research work, exchange of opinions, and various types of discussion on urgent, pressing problems of the revolutionary movement. On the basis of a profound analysis of the revolutionary process the Communist parties establish the tendencies taking shape in social development and the class struggle and work out a strategy and tactics accordingly, arming the party with methods of struggle against the enemy's new devices.
In stressing that each revolutionary party had to enlarge upon the theory of Marx independently, Lenin acted on the 276 principle that the Marxist provisions are applied differently in different countries and situations. At the same time, the general governing principles of Marxism provide the methodological basis for the independent elaboration of revolutionary theory by each party in line with the conditions obtaining in its country. Moreover, these principles form the basis for developing revolutionary theory on an international scale, for generalising the national and international experience of revolutionary struggle.
Revolutionary theory can be developed successfully as the common international teaching of the working class only if the general principles of Marxism-Leninism are consistently applied in a definite period of the modern epoch and the international experience of revolutionary struggle is generalised in the light of the experience of each country. This generalisation gives rise to different views and sometimes to differences. A study of the experience of Bolshevism, the Comintern and also of the international communist movement in the postwar period shows not only the complexity of this process but brings to light the reasons for the appearance of differences and the ways of overcoming them. Most frequently, differences begin in the area of theory and then spread to organisational principles, tactics and policy. Ideological unity and clearcut ideological and theoretical positions are a major condition for the success of the work of the Communist Party. This still further accentuates the significance of revolutionary theory to the revolutionary movement. "Before the proletariat fights out its victories on the barricades and in the battle lines it gives notice of its impending rule with a series of intellectual = victories."^^*^^
Revolutionary theory cannot appear spontaneously, nor can it spread spontaneously among the working class. It is the duty of the revolutionary party to disseminate revolutionary theory and effect the bond between the working-class movement and socialism. Lenin's conclusion that the "role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced = theory"^^**^^ is of fundamental significance today. The practice of the Communist parties has shown that _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, Moscow, 1978, p. 485.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 370.
277 any departure from or rejection of Marxism-Leninism under any guise inescapably incurs serious consequences and leads to setbacks in the revolutionary struggle. Lenin's conclusion orientates the Communist parties towards the creative development of revolutionary theory, towards tireless efforts to instil a socialist consciousness into the working-class movement and into the protest movement of the other strata and groups of modern bourgeois society. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Criteria of the Revolutionary SpiritAs we have already noted, the Marxist Party is the advanced revolutionary detachment of the working class. What is the revolutionary spirit of the Communist Party today, in the present situation in the world? Are there criteria of that spirit and in what way is it manifested?
The fundamental principles for determining a true revolutionary spirit were formulated by Lenin. Only by using these principles as the point of departure and by applying Marxist dialectics can one characterise the criteria of the revolutionary spirit of the Communist parties today and show the speciousness and adventurism of the ultrarevolutionary zeal of the groups and parties that seek to proclaim themselves the vanguard of the revolutionary forces and the revolutionary movement.
Lenin defined the revolutionary spirit of the proletarian party as its ability to orientate the working-class movement and social development towards the quickest and most direct way to the worldwide victory of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Generally speaking, the proletarian party's revolutionary character consists of its ability to lead the working class, in alliance with the other working masses of its country, to the victory of the socialist revolution, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the building of socialism in its own country, and to render all possible assistance and support to the working class and the oppressed peoples of other countries in their struggle to abolish imperialism, accomplish socialist and national liberation revolutions and build socialism. These are the inalienable features of the proletarian party's revolutionary spirit.
278In Lenin's assessment of a proletarian party's revolutionary spirit the acuteness of the struggle was never a criterion. As Lenin saw it, the most direct and quickest way to the victory of the socialist revolution did not mean recognition and application of only one, namely armed, form of struggle. Recognition of only one form of struggle unavoidably leads a party to serious defeats.
The proletarian party's revolutionary spirit is tested by practice, by the concrete results of its work. The most incontrovertible indication of the revolutionary spirit is the revolution itself accomplished under the party's leadership. But the party's revolutionary qualities are manifested also during the preparations for the revolution. These qualities are the extent of the party's influence among the people, the efficacy of its slogans, its ability to mobilise broad sections of working people for the struggle against the anti-popular policies of the government and the monopolies, the level of unity achieved by the revolutionary, anti-monopoly forces, the given party's contribution to the efforts to strengthen the unity of the international communist movement.
Lenin held that the objectives of the working class and the revolutionary movement could be attained provided the proletarian party mastered all forms of struggle, was able to select the most effective form in the given moment of the revolutionary movement's development and display the ability to switch to different forms of struggle depending on the change of the situation as the revolution developed.
"Inexperienced revolutionaries,'' he wrote, "often think that legal methods of struggle are opportunist because, in this field, the bourgeoisie has most frequently deceived and duped the workers (particularly in `peaceful' and nonrevolutionary times), while illegal methods of struggle are revolutionary."^^*^^ In showing that this was a misconceived attitude, he noted that revolutionaries who were unable to combine illegal and legal methods of struggle could not call themselves true revolutionaries.
The proletarian party's revolutionary spirit manifests itself and is important not only in periods of revolutionary upsurge and revolutionary battles. It is similarly important _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~31, p.~96.
279 in periods of relative tranquillity, particularly in periods of decline, in periods witnessing setbacks for the revolution and reactionary terror, when it is much harder to be a revolutionary and champion the interests of the revolution. In periods such as these the revolutionary finds the masses inert, unresponsive to the calls of the party. During periods of decline and setbacks of the revolution its temporary, unreliable and casual fellow-travellers defect to the camp of reaction. In this situation the proletarian party's revolutionary spirit consists of the ability "to seek, find and correctly determine the specific path or the particular turn of events that will lead the masses to the real, decisive and final revolutionary = struggle."^^*^^Among the criteria of a proletarian party's revolutionary spirit Lenin included unity between words and deeds, and between will and action, the ability to bring to light, acknowledge and rectify mistakes, the preservation and development of revolutionary traditions, the ability to unite the working class and other working people, and lead them through the difficulties of struggle, through defeat and retreat to the decisive victory of socialism.
These criteria have stood the test of time and shown their viability in different situations and under different conditions of the work and struggle of the revolutionary proletarian parties.
One of Lenin's fundamental conclusions was that unity between revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice formed the foundation of a proletarian party's revolutionary spirit. The indivisible link between revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice is expressed in the unity of programmes and of organisational and tactical principles and in the testing of theoretical conclusions in practice.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Immutability of Organisational PrinciplesA party of struggle, Lenin taught, had to be the highest form of the proletariat's class organisation, the advanced, organised detachment of the working class. It must thereby be built up on the principles of democratic centralism, _-_-_
^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~31, p.~97.
280 maintain strict descipline that must be observed at all levels, safeguard the purity of its ranks, educate its members in the spirit of self-criticism, and promote the activity of its rank and file on the basis of inner-party democracy. Leninism's organisational principles form the general laws governing the upbuilding and development of the revolutionary party and giving it the possibility not only of charting policy successfully but also of organising the working masses for the implementation of that policy.These principles have become the guidelines not only of the CPSU but also of the entire world communist movement. This occurred not through the imposition of these principles "from above" or "from the side'', not through bourgeoispropaganda-invented relations of ``command'' and subordination in the international communist movement, but by virtue of the fact that they had been borne out by life, by the experience of each Communist Party. Their viability has been proved by the epochal victories of the working class of Russia and other countries under the leadership of the Communist parties.
While the basic organisational principles are immutable, the forms of the Communist Party's work and the structure of its organisation are mobile. They depend on the obtaining conditions and on the tasks confronting the party in the given period. But neither the modifications of the organisational forms nor the turns in the situation in which the party functions change the party's type, its class revolutionary essence which is expressed in a definite sum of ideological and organisational principles.
The diversity of conditions and of the organisational forms of a party's work---this being quite natural and inevitable--- does not and cannot signify that in type one Communist Party differs from another. The Communist League set up by Marx and Engels, the Bolshevik Party founded by Lenin and the present-day Communist parties of the socialist and capitalist countries operate and continue to operate under different historical and national conditions. They adapt, as they have always done, their organisation and methods of work to various conditions. But they are essentially parties of one and the same type and are founded on common Marxist-Leninist ideological and organisational principles. A Leninist norm of party life is that discussion is an 281 indispensable means of working out the party's attitude to various questions of party policy. But if this attitude has been adopted it is the duty of all Communists to act in line with that attitude and pursue the endorsed policy. Rejection of this principle, of the right of disputing questions concerning party activity even after a decision has been passed on these questions by party organs, would only precipitate discord and vacillation in the party and create the soil for a split. If the autonomy of local party organisations were made absolute and the fulfilment of the decisions of higher party organs made dependent on a vote in the local organisations, this would undermine discipline and in the long run lead to disunity and to the party's fragmentation and dissolution. Ultimately, all this would signify a weakening of the Communist Party's role as the leader of the working-class movement, of the struggle of the working people.
An inevitable outcome of any infraction or disregard of the Leninist organisational principles is that a party ceases to be the highest form of class organisation of the proletariat and the militant leader and guide of the struggle of the. masses. It inescapably turns into either a loose, formless mass or into a narrow, closed group isolated from the masses.
It is no accident that the most savage and malicious attacks are levelled at the Leninist organisational principles, particularly at the principle of democratic centralism. The bourgeois falsifiers portray that principle both as a means of suppressing dissent and criticism in the party and as a means of subordinating the party to one person and turning it into a mechanism that is easily governed by one person. The purpose of this falsification is to sow distrust for Leninism's revolutionary principles and hinder the growth and consolidation of the Communist parties as parties of struggle.
The main aim of the efforts to discredit the Communist parties is to render the revolutionary forces leaderless and avert the abolition of the exploiting system. To a large extent this is facilitated by the fact that in the Communist parties themselves, on account of objective and subjective conditions, elements appear whose activities weaken a party by undermining its unity and strength. As a rule, these elements oppose the Leninist organisational principles, which are a barrier to anti-party elements, to all sorts of factionists and disorganisers. That gives urgency to the further 282 organisational strengthening of the revolutionary Marxist parties of the working class.
In this context the experience gained by Lenin and other Bolsheviks is extremely instructive.
In Russia the Communist Party took shape and developed in the course of a sharp, principled struggle against opportunism of all shades and hues, and this was not accidental. It mirrored the laws of the class struggle. It mirrored the struggle between the Bolsheviks, who championed the revolutionary development of the working-class movement in Russia and throughout the world, and the Mensheviks, who propounded a reformist development of that movement.
As was stated by Martov, one of the Menshevik leaders, they started a "rising against Leninism''. They opposed democratic centralism, proclaimed the mandatory fulfilment of congress decisions as "formalism and bureaucracy" and declared that the subordination of the minority to the majority was "barracks discipline''. They tried to portray their actions as a struggle against a "state of siege" in a party with "exceptional rules against individual groups''. They maintained that they were against the ``horrors'' of centralism, against turning the party into a "huge factory" headed by a ``director'' in the shape of the Central Committee, with the party members playing the role of "wheels and cogs''. By and large, the Mensheviks were against the formation of a party of struggle, a revolutionary party. They did not believe that it was possible to accomplish a socialist revolution in Russia and sought to create a party after the model of the parties of the Second International.
Lenin fought the opportunists relentlessly, for they were eroding the strength of the revolutionary party and preventing the working class from carrying out its historic mission and achieving its aims. A Communist Party cannot fulfil its role unless it rids itself of opportunism and of the opportunists. The struggle need not necessarily end with the organisational severance of the opportunists. On this issue Lenin always acted in the interests of strengthening the party, enhancing its role and influence. Those who acknowledged their mistakes were re-educated and drawn into revolutionary work. They were tested on concrete revolutionary deeds.
283In showing that the views of the Mensheviks on the Marxist Party were wrong in theory and untenable in practice, Lenin set his sights on building up a truly revolutionary party capable of leading the masses and organising them for the struggle to change the old society and create a new social system. Such a party, he held, had to consist of the most worthy and dedicated people, who could carry on the difficult, day-to-day work among the masses. He made exacting demands of every party member, his point of departure being that the strength of the party organisations depended on each member, on his capabilities and merits. The party's influence among the masses depended on whether it consisted of real revolutionaries, of fighters.
In speaking of professional revolutionaries it was never Lenin's intention to limit the party membership to them. He underscored the party's immense, actually decisive significance as the true revolutionary leader of the movement, and the role of leaders as the party's guides. The experience of the revolutionary movement and of the struggle waged by the Communist Party during and after Lenin's lifetime reaffirms that neither the movement nor the party itself can be strong without a stable leadership which maintains continuity. The leadership influences new members by educating them in the traditions of the revolutionary struggle and preserving the continuity of generations.
A point made by Lenin time and again was that a revolutionary party was strong through the consciousness of its members. For that reason the build-up and consolidation of the Bolshevik Party was inseparably linked with the struggle for Marxist staunchness, for the party's purity, for an enhancement of the honour of belonging to the party. A lofty sense of political aw*»jseness is fostered in party members through the study and mastering of revolutionary theory. That is why Lenin devoted so much attention to the study of theory by party members. Party study, the theoretical understanding of the revolutionary struggle and its ups and downs always received Lenin's closest attention, even during the most tense days of the revolution. However, the political awareness of party members does not mean solely the mastering of abstract truths. It is manifested in their practical work and actions. As that of each of its members, the political consciousness of the party 284 as a whole is indivisibly linked with practice and is tested by it.
The party ensures its leading role in the class struggle of the proletariat and in the building of the new society by observing the organisational principles evolved by Lenin. Organisation is the proletariat's sole weapon of struggle. This organisation is imparted to the proletariat by the party. To do this it has to be organised itself. Lenin contended that the party's organisation was founded on discipline that was compulsory for all its members, for both its leaders and rank and file, on the fulfilment of the duties of a party member not only by the rank and file but also by the people at the top, on the conversion of the authority of ideas into the authority of power, and on the subordination of lower party bodies to the higher organs.
The revolutionary spirit of the Marxist-Leninist Party finds expression in its organisational principles. It is manifested not only in action but also in the ability to unite all the forces opposed to imperialism, to monopoly capital, and draw ever broader masses into the struggle because, as Lenin put it, the "only effective force that compels change is popular revolt tionary = energy".^^*^^
The organisational principles formulated by Lenin enable the Communist Party to accumulate such energy and direct it towards a victorious revolutionary struggle, towards the victory of the socialist revolution.
Those who directly or indirectly reject the significance of the Leninist principles of organisation, who preach organisational opportunism, thereby reject the party's significance as the principal weapon of the working class in its struggle for power, for society's revolutionary transformation. Without united action, the working class cannot hope to achieve its aims. Lack of united action undermines its strength. Unity of action is possible only where there is unity of will, and that is given by the party. Unity of will is founded on unity of ideological and organisational principles.
The example of the Communist Party of China is eloquent evidence of the grave consequences arising from the violation and flouting of the Leninist principles of organisation. The eradication of democratic principles from the life of the _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 213.
285 party, the distortion of centralism and its conversion into a method of command and unquestioning subordination to the will and instructions of a single person are the direct road to the dissolution of the party. The attempts of the Maoist leadership to camouflage the actual dissolution of the Communist Party of China with declarations about its conversion into a "revolutionary party" cannot deceive true Leninists.Marxism-Leninism sees a genuine revolutionary spirit in the fullest and consistent utilisation of the possibilities for consolidating the new progressive social system. The wisdom of a revolutionary party's leaders is demonstrated by their correct understanding of the trends of political development in a given epoch and by the assistance they give the party through their work in developing theory and furthering the party's organisation. The historical experience of the CPSU and other Communist parties, and of the international communist movement as a whole, has irrefutably confirmed that solely a party of the Leninist type is the true leader and organiser of the struggle of the working class and of all exploited and oppressed people.
The Communist parties see a key to success in safeguarding the purity and creatively developing and applying Lenin's teaching on the party, and in strengthening the unity of the Communist parties and of the international communist movement. "The principled stand of the CPSU and its relentless struggle for the purity of the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the party was of international significance, helping, as is emphasised by the fraternal parties, the Communists and millions of working people to maintain a correct = orientation.''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Communist Party and the People __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.] __AUTHORS__ L.~GililovThe Communist Party, Lenin taught, had to maintain the closest possible links with the people. During the preparations for and in the actual accomplishment of the revolution the party plays the role of an organisational and political _-_-_
^^*^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, p.~122.
286 lever by means of which the most advanced section of the working class gives the entire proletariat and its allies the true orientation.Lenin's concept of the revolutionary party regards the latter as the force capable of heading the people's struggle for power. Lenin always maintained that it was vital to win the broadest sections of the working people to the side of the party. At the Third Congress of the Communist International, when the proponents of the Leftist "theory of offensive" argued that a well-organised party, even if it was small, could accomplish the revolution, Lenin demonstrated that the Bolshevik Party was able to overthrow the bourgeoisie in Russia in October 1917 only because it had the support of the broad masses---of the majority of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies throughout the country and of nearly half of the 10-million-strong army. This, Lenin stressed, was the principal lesson of the Russian = revolution.^^*^^
He showed that far from being static, the masses on which the party relied in the revolutionary struggle were extremely variable, that they changed with the changes in the character of the struggle. At a certain stage of the struggle several thousand revolutionaries were enough to speak of the masses. But during a revolutionary upsurge, particularly during a revolution, the concept ``masses'' covers the majority of the exploited. Lenin wrote that "what is essential to win and retain power is not only the majority of the working class ... but also the majority of the working and exploited rural = population".^^**^^
Today it is especially important to draw the majority of the working people to the side of the party, for the struggle is waged for the overthrow of an experienced and strong bourgeoisie possessing a more sophisticated militarybureaucratic machine. Moreover, today it is possible to draw into the struggle against exploiters larger sections of the population, many of which had earlier been inactive in socio-political life. Communist parties set the task of forming a broad anti-monopoly (or anti-imperialist) front and win over most of the social strata brutally exploited by the monopolies, by the oligarchy and thereby interested in _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~32, pp. 473--75.
^^**^^ Ibid., p.~476.
287 fundamental changes. Lenin's united working-class front tactics and also the tactics of struggle for broad political alliances, developed and applied by the Communist parties in the 1930s in a broad popular anti-fascist front and during the Second World War in the fighting patriotic Resistance movement, today serve as the point of departure of the struggle for the support of the people.Nevertheless, various opportunist theories ignoring the role of the masses and the need to win their support are enunciated to this day. The Leftist elements accord the decisive role not to the people but to "heroic personalities" and the "active minorities'', i.e., to a handful of selfsacrificing revolutionaries, who disregard the need for the maturing of the objective and subjective factors of revolution. Underlying the Leftist theories that a revolution can be accomplished without preparing the people (let alone the assertions that a revolution must be the result of a push from without) is the typically petty-bourgeois mentality of confusion in face of a strong enemy and inability to conduct prolonged, painstaking work among the people, work requiring self-discipline.
On the other hand, although the Right-opportunist theories attach significance mainly to winning the support of the electorate, they likewise ignore the role played by the masses in society's revolutionary reorganisation. That is why the struggle for the masses requires tireless efforts to expose both ``Left'' and Right opportunism. However, the innerparty struggle should not affect the party's links with the people. The Communist parties sharply criticise cases where work among the people has been relaxed. The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of Austria, held in 1970, found that the prolonged lack of ideological and political unity in the party was the main cause sapping its influence among the = people.^^*^^ The Communist parties denounce the attempts of Communists with sectarian views to justify the inadequate work among the people by arguing that considerable attention has to be given to inner-party work. The Communist parties describe this attitude as the failure to understand that inner-party work is not an end in itself but a necessary factor for successful work among the people.
_-_-_^^*^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 13, No.~8, 1970, p. 10.
288Lenin always pointed out that it was an extremely difficult task to win the masses over to the party, to prepare them as the political army of the revolution, writing that the "process of converting the party into the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat without permitting it to become divorced from the masses, but, on the contrary, by linking it more and more closely with them, imbuing them with revolutionary consciousness and rousing them for the revolutionary struggle, is a very difficult, but most important = one."^^*^^
The bourgeoisie strives to divert the masses from revolutionary actions, steer them away from their class positions and ``integrate'' them with the capitalist system. It has made some headway in ``depolitising'' the masses and manipulating public opinion. Despite the people's growing discontent with monopoly rule and imperialist policies, despite the aggravation and expansion of the class struggle and despite the fact that the protests of the most diverse sections of the population are directed against the present system of monopoly rule, the majority of these masses still do not regard socialism as the alternative.
To lead the masses means to enjoy their trust, to march at their head and educate them in the spirit of understanding that only Communists armed with the knowledge of the laws of social development, Marxist-Leninist theory, can show the working people the true path of liberation from all forms of exploitation.
The Communist Party does not become the leader of the people merely by proclaiming itself as such. However correct its programme and policies may be, this is still not enough to get the masses to acknowledge the Communist Party as their leader. The party wins that role mainly when correct policy is reinforced by organisational work among the people. In order to accept the leadership of the Communist Party the masses must become convinced that it correctly expresses and champions their interests and that by its policies and actions it proves its fealty to their cause, clearly shows them the road to their objective and answers the problems worrying them. For that reason the Commuinst Party not only proclaims correct slogans but organises the struggle to implement these slogans.
_-_-_^^*^^ V.~I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~33, p.~209.
289 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Art of Political LeadershipLenin demonstrated that the winning of influence among the people was linked with the Communist Party's ability to work with them.
This ability consists mainly in the Communist Party accepting the people as they are, with all their prejudices, without fearing their bias, without taking offence at their backwardness, at the fact that they as yet do not understand its policies and slogans. The Communist Party cannot count on "very virtuous men and women reared in special hothouses and cucumber = frames".^^*^^ It looks for the way to the minds and hearts of the people, gradually leading them to understanding Party policy. It is dangerous in leading the masses to believe that what is clear to the party is clear to the people, to overestimate the consciousness level of the masses, to take only their revolutionary zeal into account and forget their prejudices and illusions, and the influence of the capitalist system and of bourgeois ideology.
Lenin insisted that prejudices should be recognised as such and that it was vital to "soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness ... of all the working = people".^^**^^
By demanding that the people should be prepared for the revolution Lenin meant that the Communist Party should, by day-to-day work, raise the people's political consciousness and draw them closer round itself.
He showed the ways and means of raising the level of the people's political consciousness. The mastering of these ways and means formed a vital component of the art of giving the people political leadership. One of the most important ways of achieving this is to organise efficient agitation and propaganda which must help the people to understand the Communist Party's aims and policy and to appreciate the need for overthrowing capitalism and replacing it with the socialist system. In order to maintain propaganda and agitation at the appropriate level, Lenin insisted that unremitting attention should be given to the training of propagandists and agitators.
Touching on the content of propaganda and agitation, he pointed out that political exposures were of immense _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 388.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 58.
290 significance in imbuing political consciousness in the people and drawing them into revolutionary action, writing that "comprehensive political exposures are an essential and fundamental condition for training the masses in revolutionary = activity".^^*^^ These exposures show the people the anti-popular character of capitalist society, the limitations of bourgeois democracy, the denial of rights to and exploitation of the working class.The Communist parties stress the importance of propagating the economic and cultural achievements of the socialist countries, their successes in fostering the cultural and physical development of their citizens, in resolving fundamental social problems (the abolition of unemployment, the promotion of education, social insurance and the health services, the solution of the nationalities question, and so on). This propaganda brings the vices of capitalist society into bold relief.
The exposure of the bourgeoisie's anti-communism is a major area of propaganda and agitation by the Communist parties. Anti-communism is not only a theory but also a policy directed against the socialist countries and against the struggle for society's fundamental reorganisation. The bourgeoisie attaches enormous significance to the dissemination of anti-communism. In order to strengthen their rule, the governing classes bring the ideological sphere under their direct control and through a centralised and wellorganised system of education they seek to control all the information and entertainment media and thereby mould public opinion.
Important as exposures were, alone they could not, Lenin felt, win the masses. It is immensely important, particularly today, for the Communists to draw up programmes of concrete demands and action against monopoly rule and the main aspects of bourgeois policy. Communist parties proceed from the fact that it is not enough to show the people that what the bourgeoisie gives out as an attempt to satisfy their requirements is limited and questionable; it is not enough (although very important) to lay bare the essence of the bourgeoisie's policy of social manoeuvres which sows reformist illusions. It is imperative to draw up programmes calling _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~5, p.~413.
291 for the settlement of new problems in the interests of the working people. The need for such programmes is made all the more pressing by the scientific and technological revolution.Communists explain to the masses that technical progress makes it possible to satisfy all the requirements of society, including the demands of the working people for the solution of basic social problems. But the hindrance to this lies in the capitalist mode of production and in the attempts of the monopolies to be the sole beneficiaries of scientific and technical achievements.
Under these conditions the programmes drawn up by the Communists allow uniting the broad masses around the Communist parties in the struggle against the monopolies.
By their work Communists prove that the interests of the working people are their prime concern. They fight to improve the people's living conditions and broaden their democratic rights and freedoms without putting this off until the victory of socialism. Party propaganda is effective only if it answers the questions posed by life, the questions affecting the vital interests of the broad masses, and if it shows how these problems can be resolved.
In their agitation and propaganda the Communist parties take the consciousness level of the people into consideration. But this by no means signifies that their work has to be adapted to that level. What it means, as Lenin put it, is that the Communist Party should not divorce itself from the people, that it should not run ahead of them but, at the same time, it should not lag behind them, that it should follow the mood of the people, constantly verify and specify its slogans and bring them into line with the level of the class struggle. In keeping with these requirements, in December 1968, following the popular actions in May of the same year, the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party adopted a Manifesto in which it stressed that the FCP was combating manifestations of sectarianism in its ranks and was emphatically opposed to survivals of the anarchistic theory of "active minorities'', which was generating a trend to disregard the actual mood of the people. The FCP countered this pernicious trend with the MarxistLeninist policy of maintaining constant contact with the bulk of the working class and keeping only a step ahead of the 292 masses. Ten years later, Georges Marchais again recalled that May 1968 made French Communists pay more attention to the demands and aspirations which were advanced by different strata and to which they had previously not reacted sufficiently.
Lenin had always been opposed to presenting political and social problems to the people in a simplified form. He required party propaganda (both printed and verbal) to teach the masses not semi-science but science proper.
Communist parties note that today the problem of the scientific character of party propaganda acquires special significance. The level of the people's revolutionary consciousness cannot be raised without creatively elaborating and explaining vital problems of social life. This requires the enlistment of experts and a study of the mood and opinion of the different strata. Communist propaganda combines a scientific content with clarity of exposition. The language in which the Communist Party speaks to the people is of the utmost importance. "The art of any propagandist and agitator,'' Lenin wrote, "consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive."^^*^^ Proceeding from the fact that Communists have limited access to the mass media, for the dissemination of their ideas and alternatives, and for denouncing the false, anti-communist and anti-socialist propaganda, prime importance is attached to the publications and dissemination of communist books, newspapers, brochures, leaflets and other printed material of the Communist Party and its organisations. In their newspapers Communists explain general problems of the struggle for peace, against the aggressive policy of imperialism; problems of existing socialism, its successes and difficulties; problems linked with the deepening crisis of capitalism, with methods of increasing the exploitation of the working people in conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and the rule of international monopolies, and pay special attention to local problems and the successes in the working people's struggle for their interests.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 341.
293In the capitalist countries it is not easy for the Communist parties to put over their ideas. The bourgeoisie has vast material means of exercising an ideological influence on people and employs a huge army of very experienced professional propagandists to black out the minds of the masses, to divert them from pressing political problems and draw them away from participation in the class struggle. This complicates the work of the Communists in educating the masses. However, the strength of ideas lies in their content and not in the form in which they are disseminated. The strength of communist ideas lies in their truth and they therefore reach the people and are assimilated by them. The aims pursued by the Communists attract the broad masses, and sooner or later they win all the working people.
But this does not mean that the Communists can remain indifferent to learning how to spread their ideas. The accessibility of these ideas depends on how precise and clear is the language of party propaganda and of party documents and on how that language conforms to reality. Lenin had always condemned the revolutionary verbiage, tub-thumping and bombast used instead of an analysis of developments and of clear argumentation.
In view of the scientific and technological revolution it is of the utmost importance for the Communist parties to use modern mass media---radio, television, films, the press and so on.
However profound and broad propaganda and agitation may be, they alone, as Lenin pointed out, are not enough to raise the level of the people's political consciousness and prepare them for the revolution. A fundamental law of all great revolutions, Lenin held, is that propaganda and agitation must be backed up by the people's own political experience.^^*^^
Through their own political experience the people must see that the ideas and slogans of the Communist parties are correct, that capitalism must be replaced by socialism. However, the people's education on their own political experience is not a spontaneous act. The Communist parties contend that the people have to be helped to draw the necessary conclusions from their own social experience, that _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 98.
294 they have to be helped to see their class interests and learn to identify their enemies and friends.They strive to use every possibility to help the people acquire a better understanding of the lessons of life, of each success or setback, and inspire them to continue the struggle and enlarge the circle of its participants. They take into account the problems uppermost in people's minds and explain to them the most complex social developments in such a way as to make them understand why they put forward various slogans and set definite tasks.
Communist parties proceed from the fact that the masses learn in action, in the course of the class struggle. "The real education of the masses,'' Lenin wrote, "can never be separated from their independent political, and especially revolutionary, struggle. Only struggle educates the exploited masses. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its = will."^^*^^ Communist parties organise and actively support the mass campaigns of working people for concrete demands, in the course of which various forms of mass protest are used (for reforms in education and health service, against unemployment, the rising cost of living, inflation, etc.).
The masses acquire important political experience, and Communist parties regard this struggle as a strategic way of creating broad class and political alliances, winning over the majority of the population and leading it to revolution. Then the broad masses see a well-substantiated programme of the Communists, on the basis of which an alliance can be created. Then they can observe the independent, more consistent standpoint of the Communists who suggest going further than their allies in their demands for transformations. When Communists manage to organise a broad discussion of programmes of alliance or a front, it is easy for the masses to see which party's policy best meets their interests.
An important means of strengthening the link between the Communists and the masses, of activating the struggle of the masses, is the parliamentary and municipal activity of Communists, which enables them to gain more concrete knowledge of the needs and mood of the working people, to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 241.
295 develop their social activity, and to link Communist proposals with propagating the aim of the party.The most effective way to enable the people to accumulate experience is skilfully to combine the struggle for their day-to-day requirements with the struggle for the end goal. It is perhaps most difficult to find the surest way to achieve such a combination and formulate the slogans ensuring this combination. Lenin had always opposed the attempts to separate the struggle for pressing demands, for democratic reforms from the struggle for socialism. In the resolution of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International on the question of a programme, a resolution that Lenin helped to draft, it was stressed that "the Comintern emphatically condemns both the attempts to represent the inclusion of limited demands in the programme as opportunism, and all and any attempts to use limited demands to obscure and side-track the basic revolutionary = task".^^*^^ The same principles underlie the tactics endorsed at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow. In the Meeting's Main Document it is stated that as distinct from the Right and ``Left'' opportunists the Communist parties do not draw a dividing line between the struggle for radical economic and social reforms, for democracy, and the struggle for socialism. The radical democratic reforms that will be achieved as a result of the struggle against the monopolies will help ever larger numbers of people to see the need for socialism.
The Communist Party teaches the people by propaganda and agitation and by helping them to acquire their own political experience. However, Communists believe that it is necessary not only to teach the people but also to learn from them. The Communist Party is guided by this key Leninist tenet and it consults the people, thereby drawing closer to them and enriching its own experience. It attentively follows all the processes taking place among the people and gives its backing to all the new developments that arise in the struggle waged by the people and furthers the growth of the revolutionary movement. Lenin linked the charting of a scientifically sound policy with the study and generalisation of the people's struggle. A striking example is his attitude to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 428.
296 the Soviets that sprang up during the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905--1907 in Russia. He and the other Bolsheviks regarded the Soviets as the embryo of the future proletarian power and gave them their unqualified support.At the same time, the Communist Party opposes everything that can undermine or weaken the struggle of the people, divert the people from their main aims, and warns against premature actions. Lenin taught that it was necessary to take into account innervation brought on by excessive burdens, crises and, in particular, a long and unsuccessful civil war, when the exhausted masses can succumb to moods that are far from = progressive.^^*^^ In this sense Communists always warn the masses against dangerous support of extremists, particularly terrorist groups and leaders, who gamble on the needs and impatience of individual strata that provoke unprepared actions, on forms of struggle that do not correspond to the situation and therefore serve the interests of reactionary forces.
Lenin showed that the art of political leadership included the ability to determine the forms of struggle and work in line with the obtaining situation, the ability to change these forms quickly when the situation changed and the ability to accentuate the main tasks and determine the main link in the chain of revolutionary developments. Thus, by taking the mood of the people into account and raising the level of their revolutionary consciousness by means of wellconsidered propaganda and agitation that meets with their requirements and on the basis of the people's own political experience the Marxist-Leninist Party wins the support of the broad masses and organises them for the struggle for socialism. However the trust of the people and the influence that the Communist Party exercises over them may be lost if nothing is done to maintain and strengthen this trust and influence.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Ways of Maintaining and Strengthening InfluenceThe art of political leadership consists not only in winning influence but also in maintaining and strengthening it. This _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.~33, p.~39.
297 entails constant, day-to-day work among the people and the maintenance of contact with them. Lenin wrote that "it is our duty always (author's italics) to intensify and broaden our work and influence among the masses.... Without this work, political activity would inevitably degenerate into a = game."^^*^^ Revolutionary Marxists, Lenin said, would never renounce day-to-day work among the masses "which they regard as the real preparation for the decisive = fight".^^**^^ The entire Communist Party, from its Central Committee to every rank-and-tile member, constantly educates the people and strengthens its links with them. In this work Lenin accorded an important role to the primary party organisations, writing that "these cells, which are to be in close touch with one another and with the party centre, should by pooling their experience, carrying on work of agitation, propaganda and organisation, adapting themselves to absolutely every sphere of public life and to every variety and category of the toiling masses, systematically educate ... the party, the class, and the masses".^^***^^Through the primary organisation, which is its foundation, the Communist Party keeps in touch with the people and conducts extensive work among them. Discussing the role of primary organisations Communist parties stress that it is the duty of these organisations to help the people to define their demands democratically and work out the best ways of fighting for the attainment of these demands; to help the people examine problems from the political angle by showing the link between the government's policy, its main aims and the actual condition of the working people, by exposing the anti-social, demagogic policy pursued by the bourgeoisie. By its political work the primary organisation wins the support of the maximum number of people for the party's democratic proposals. Moreover, it is active in the ideological struggle. The primary organisation thus becomes a centre of political activity among the people and through it every Communist joins in the work among the people.
This work should not be irregular and it should not be activated only, for example, during election campaigns or _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 8, p. 453.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 27.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 192.
298 during preparations for a party congress. It should be conducted uninterruptedly and its aim, as Lenin defined it, is to enable the party to draw closer to and fuse with the people. Lenin showed how this closer link with the people could be achieved: the Communists had to work among the people everywhere, especially in public organisations. Lenin explained to Communists why they had to attach paramount importance to work in these organisations (trade unions, women's, youth, sports organisations, cooperatives, and so on), and defined the principles for this work, demonstrating how to win influence in public organisations while preserving their autonomy and unitary character.The Communists make every effort to win decisive influence in public organisations, and in this they are helped by the fact that they neither have nor can have special interests in opposition to the interests of the working people belonging to the these organisations. They believe that democratic rules and regulations are a major condition preventing these organisations from becoming an adjunct of bourgeois and conciliatory political forces and from falling under the control of reactionary elements. Only where broad democracy reigns do the Communists get the opportunity to propagate their views, conduct broad discussions, give every member of the organisation a correct understanding of its aims and criticise misconceived views and actions.
By acting within the framework of the rules of mass organisations and showing themselves to be active and consistent fighters for the aims of these organisations, Communists strengthen their influence in them, make their work more effective, and are elected to their governing bodies.
The Communist parties attach particularly great importance to winning influence in the trade unions, which are the largest uncommitted organisation of the working class.
In the trade unions the efforts of the Communists are directed towards securing the consistent defence of the people's interests and preventing the trade unions from sliding into class collaboration. Lenin scathingly denounced the proponents of trade unions' ``neutrality'', which limited their activity to the economic struggle and rejected the need for close ties between the Communist Party and the trade unions. Although he regarded the trade unions as entirely 299 ~ Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/PCM335/20051012/336.tx" Emacs-Time-stamp: "2010-01-16 15:43:25" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2005.07.04) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+[)]? independent associations of the working people, as a school of unity, he saw in them an organisation linking the workers with the Communist Party, with its aims and ideals. These conclusions retain their significance to this day.
It will be recalled that Marx wrote that the trade unions "must convince the world at large that their efforts, far from being narrow and selfish, aim at the emancipation of the downtrodden = millions".^^*^^ In exposing the opportunism of the theory that the trade unions are ``neutral'', Lenin showed that it pushed the trade unions towards neutrality relative to the political and, above all, the class struggle. Renunciation of the political struggle only played into the hands of the bourgeoisie. In actual fact neutrality in the political struggle signified dependence on the bourgeoisie. Without participating in the political struggle the trade unions could never achieve the emancipation of the working people from exploitation, for that was a political task. The closer the link between the Communist Party and the trade unions, the more active the latter become in the political struggle.
Every Communist Party defines the content, forms and methods of its work in the trade unions, and the way to win influence in them in keeping with the obtaining situation, the level of class consciousness and the traditions of the class struggle and of the trade union movement in the given country. The Communists make sure that the trade unions put forward their own alternative to all aspects of the policy of the ruling classes. As seen by the Communist parties, the new, enhanced role of the trade unions springs from the fact that the socio-economic struggle waged by them is ranging beyond traditional limits, rising to the level of the national interests of the working people and becoming a struggle for the solution of key political problems of social development. The significance of the new demands of the trade unions is that they are designed to ensure trade union influence on the economic and political activities of the state (from individual enterprises to the national level).
Changes in trade union policy induce changes in the anti-labour strategy of the bourgeoisie, which endeavours to belittle the role of the trade unions and outlaw strikes. The _-_-_
^^*^^ K.~Marx and F.~Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Moscow, 1969, Vol.~2, p.~83.
300 assaults of the bourgeoisie on the trade unions make it imperative for the Communists to take a more active part in the struggle to preserve and broaden the rights of the trade unions, to democratise them and ensure their independence of the state and the entrepreneurs.The Communists attach paramount importance to the struggle for the unity of the trade union movement on the national and the international scale. To this end they work for united action with the other political parties in the trade unions, notably with the Social-Democratic parties that in many of the industrialised countries exercise the predominant influence in the trade unions. In some countries (chiefly Italy, France and Finland) such unity has in large measure been achieved and the attempts of the Right-opportunist leaders to break it have proved to be abortive.
In addition to the trade unions the working class has mass organisations to which Communists are not admitted freely. Lenin urged Communists to learn to penetrate closed premises where the workers were influenced by the bourgeoisie, noting that the Communists who refused to understand and learn to do so could not hope to win the support of the majority of the = workers.^^*^^
It cannot be said that this injunction by Lenin is complied with everywhere. Many Communist parties note the need for more vigorous activity in organisations with bourgeois leaders or with leaders collaborating with the bourgeoisie.
Lenin closely studied the social psychology of all strata of the population and urged the Communists to "go among all classes of the population ... dispatch units of their army in all directions".^^**^^ He constantly reminded the Communists that to win the support of the masses they had to adopt a different approach to the various strata of the population. "We must learn,'' he wrote, "to approach the masses with particular patience and caution so as to be able to understand the distinctive features in the mentality of each stratum, calling, etc., of these = masses."^^***^^ The Communist Party, he pointed out, could not use the same words, arguments and slogans for all the strata of the population. Arguments understood _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 333.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 5, p. 422.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 31, p. 192.
301 by one stratum might not be understood by another. Without taking into account the specifics, problems and professional interests of each social group and without a special approach to common problems the Communist Party could not unite the majority of the working people around itself.As the political organisation of the working class the Communist Party strives to influence, above all, the working class, to unite around itself the majority of the most revolutionary class, the proletariat, which is capable of consummating the struggle for the abolition of capitalism and building the new socialist society. A split in the working class and the Right Social-Democrats' policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie raise formidable difficulties in achieving such unity. In line with the tactics of a united working-class front evolved by Lenin, the Communist parties are striving to cooperate with the Social-Democratic parties and act for united action with all the detachments of the working class.
However, in this cooperation one of the most crucial and most difficult problems is that united action by the Communists and the Social-Democrats should be unmistakably antimonopolist at all levels. This is hindered by a number of circumstances, notably by the fact that the influence of Social-Democrats avoiding a clearcut class attitude is still very strong.
One of the circumstances impeding the growth of the workers' class consciousness is the appearance of new strata of the working class employed in advanced, progressive branches of the economy brought into being by the scientific and technological revolution. From the standpoint of their class consciousness these strata differ substantially from workers in traditional industries and therefore require considerable attention.
The Communist parties should not ignore the impact of the various opportunist theories rejecting the revolutionary character of the working class and trying to persuade the workers that the scientific and technological revolution can resolve all economic, social and political problems in the interests of the working people without a social revolution.
Consequently, the Communist parties have to give their unremitting attention to the political education of the workers.
302For this purpose many Communist parties arrange conferences of Communist workers at which they discuss problems of the class struggle, the aims of the working class and the measures to be taken to step up the work of Communists at factories. Lenin stressed the significance of the work conducted by party organisations at the factories, writing that this work was particularly important to the party, that "the main strength of the movement lies in the organisation of the workers at the large = factories".^^*^^
In recent years the Communist parties have been giving more attention to work at the factories and enlarged the number of organisations functioning directly at industrial enterprises. At their latest congresses the French and Italian Communist parties noted the considerable increase in the number of primary party organisations at factories and the need for enlarging the party organisations at industrial enterprises. By the beginning of 1979, 10,000 Communist Party organisations had been set up at industrial enterprises in France.
Gus Hall's Report to the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the USA stressed that in their policy American Communists pay most attention to the working class, because the capitalist production process turns the workers into a class force. They have fewer and fewer illusions about capitalism; they are the only class in history that cannot solve its problems without assuming leadership of the struggle to solve the problems of society. The daily work of the Party from year to year should be planned and organised from top to bottom so as to focus constantly on the working class. Communist parties also note that the majority of their new members are workers.
The course of events is stimulating the spread of very strong anti-monopoly and anti-oligarchic moods in agriculture. Communist parties are advancing their programmes of defending the interests of agricultural workers, small farmers, the owners of family farms, and other groups of rural workers, that are threatened by the policy of ruining and abolishing the peasantry, pursued by the monopolies with the help of the state.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 243.
303Today the Communist parties attach considerable importance to work among intellectuals and young people. As allies of the working class these groups have moved to the fore-front in many countries because their numerical strength, their weight in social production and society in general, and their activity have risen steeply and tend to continue growing as a result of the scientific and technological revolution.
The increasing exploitation of these groups of the population and their awareness of the injustices under the existing system are pushing them, along with the working class, into the struggle against monopoly rule. The intelligentsia is becoming more conscious of the contradiction between its creative aspirations and the policy of the monopolies, and it is beginning to see that monopoly capitalism has subordinated everything to the law of profit and hinders the utilisation of the productive forces in the interests of society. This is establishing the objective basis for joint action by the intelligentsia and the working class against the monopolies. However, it is not an easy matter to form this alliance because, on account of its isolation, due to its social origin, environment and system of education, the intelligentsia cannot at once take the road of a consistent revolutionary struggle, adopt the position of the working class and understand that cultural advancement and the full development of the individual's creative potentiality are only possible as a result of society's fundamental reorganisation, which cannot be achieved without the leadership of the working class.
Lenin attached great importance to work among young people, associating with them the future of the communist movement. But being heterogeneous in composition and politically inexperienced young people easily fall under the influence of bourgeois ideology. However, the class interests of the bourgeoisie inevitably come into conflict with the natural aspiration of young people for all-round physical and cultural development. But the struggle waged by young people against capitalist, practices is not always purposeful, frequently acquiring the character of turbulent anarchistic actions without a constructive programme.
Pseudo-revolutionary, Leftist elements take advantage of the militancy of young people and their growing discontent 304 with the existing practices. They prod them into illconsidered, frequently adventurist and unfounded actions that cannot be successful and only facilitate the attacks of the bourgeoisie on the youth movement.
It is the duty of the Communist parties to give the youth movement a sure orientation. But this is an extremely difficult task. In tackling this task the Communists are guided by Lenin's injunction that young people move towards socialism "in a different way, by other paths, in other forms, in other circumstances than their = fathers".^^*^^
The Communist parties clearly see that their task is to help the young people shake off the influence of the bourgeoisie and Leftist, adventurist elements, educate them in the spirit of socialist ideals and draw them into the struggle against imperialism, for peace, democracy and socialism. The Communists show young people the danger harboured by pseudo-revolutionary ideas and help them find the correct road in the struggle against imperialism, in the joint struggle with the working class in defence of their interests.
In recent years various mass movements have developed, in which the most varied strata of the population take part and which Communists are able to influence. These are the campaigns against the arms race, for human rights, and against racism, the demonstrations by nature conservationists and tenants, etc. In a number of countries such traditional forms as rural residents' meetings have been revived.
Communists and leaders of Communist parties disseminate newspapers and other party publications, give the public information, and explain the Communists' standpoint on the most pressing questions. Workers' press days have become traditional for many Communist parties and are a vivid demonstration of their close links with the broad mass of the working people. "Action days'', "action weeks" and mass campaigns organised by Communists on a wide range of problems affecting the concrete interests of the broad masses, have become widespread. Communist parties successfully organise mass demonstrations of working people in support of the liberation struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 164.
__PRINTERS_P_305_COMMENT__ 11 --- 660 305The Communist parties are constantly renewing and extending their forms of work in the masses, taking into account the requirements of the day, and ensuring that their influence reaches more and more working people. In the crisis that has developed the Communists has initiated mass actions connected with the problems of ensuring employment, against inflation, the rising cost of living, and the monopolies' attack on the socio-economic gains of the working people.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Internationalism as an InalienableLenin showed that the proletarian party's internationalist character is determined by the objective condition of the working class, by its place in social production and by the character of the working-class struggle and the conditions under which the socialist revolution is accomplished. The communist movement regards proletarian internationalism as one of the laws of the socialist revolution and of building socialism.
Lenin explained that the workers of all countries had to unite, first and foremost, because capitalism was international in character. "Capitalist domination,'' he wrote, "is international. That is why the workers' struggle in all countries for their emancipation is only successful if the workers fight jointly against international = capital.''^^*^^ To defeat capitalism as an international force, Lenin said, there had to be an international alliance and brotherhoood of = workers.^^**^^ The common cause giving rise to the class struggle (protest against the growing exploitation of the working people by the bourgeoisie) had given the proletariat of all countries a common aim, that of overthrowing the power of the bourgeoisie and building a classless society. In a letter to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 109.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 292.
306 Inessa Armand, in which he explained the significance of Marx's words to the effect that the worker had no fatherland, Lenin noted that the economic condition of the workers was not national but international, that he had an international class enemy and that the conditions for his emancipation were also = international.^^*^^ This community of socio-economic conditions of the proletariat and other working people exploited by capitalism is the foundation of proletarian internationalism.Lenin demonstrated that the economic links between countries and regions of the world, the international division of labour and the internationalisation of capital arising from the development of productive forces grew broader and deeper with the evolution of capitalism. They were used by the bourgeoisie to intensify the exploitation of steadily larger groups of working people and were, at the same time, the objective basis for strengthening proletarian internationalism, giving the various national contingents of the working class closer links with each other and furthering the common struggle of the working people of different regions of the world against international capitalism.
Under state-monopoly capitalism and the expansion of the transnational monopolies the internationalisation of productive forces determines the internationalisation of the class struggle. Today the workers of a given country cannot be successful in their struggle against transnational monopolies without the support of the workers employed in the enterprises of these monopolies in another countries.
The objective trend towards the internationalisation of the productive forces is used by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist states to oppress weaker countries and nations and squeeze super-profits from enslaved countries. The national liberation struggle undermines imperialism's foundations in colonies and dependent countries, deprives it of reserves and thereby becomes part of the common revolutionary struggle for the abolition of imperialism. Hence the proletariat's consistency in supporting and fostering the national liberation struggle. On the other hand, as Lenin pointed out, without the struggle of the working class of the capitalist countries, a struggle that undermines the strength of the _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol.~35, p.~247.
307 local bourgeoisie and international imperialism, the "oppression will remain of nine-tenths of the nations of the whole world.''^^*^^Lenin revealed the content of the struggle of the working class of oppressor and oppressed nations. The proletariat of the oppressor nation waged a struggle for the freedom and independence of the oppressed nations, while the Communists of the oppressed nations upheld the "full and unconditional unity, including organisational unity, of the workers of the oppressed nation and those of the oppressor = nation.''^^**^^ Without that interaction it was impossible to defend the independent policy of the proletariat and its class solidarity with the proletariat of other countries, for the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations was always endeavouring to use the slogans of national liberation to deceive the working people and cement its alliance with the bourgeoisie of the ruling nations against the revolutionary movement.
In its turn, the bourgeoisie of the ruling nation used democratic slogans and institutions to deceive the working people of its own country. In documents written for the Second Congress of the Communist International Lenin defined the internationalism of the Communists of an oppressor nation. He stressed that an international communist organisation could admit to its ranks only that party that inexorably exposed the fraudulent practices of the imperialists of its country in the colonies, supported every liberation movement in other countries, demanded the expulsion of the imperialists of its country from the colonies, fostered in the workers of its country a sense of fraternal friendship for the working people of the oppressed nations and conducted agitation among the armed forces of its country against the oppression of the = peoples.^^***^^
Today, with the disintegration of imperialism's colonial system, the internationalism of the Communists of a former oppressor nation is expressed in support for the struggle waged by the working people of a former oppressed nation for complete independence, for economic and cultural development, against all forms of neocolonialism and _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p.~274.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 148.
^^***^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 209.
308 attempts to set up military bases on the territory of the former oppressed nations, and so on. An example of this stand was the policy pursued by the French Communist Party towards Algeria and other former French colonies. This policy was instrumental in hastening the liberation of these countries. The internationalism of the working people of a former oppressor nation today demands the special support of liberated peoples' struggle for a new economic world order.Moreover, internationalism is dictated by the constant threat of war emanating from imperialism. By means of war imperialism seeks to divide spheres of influence, reduce nations to bondage, suppress the revolutionary movement and abolish socialist gains in countries where they have been won. It is in the fundamental interest of the working people of all countries to preserve peace, to deliver the world from wars as the most important condition of social progress. However, as long as imperialism exists, peace can be preserved and wars averted only by the concerted efforts of the democratic forces of the world. Hence, the preservation of peace is the international task of all working people.
During the First World War, when the governments and the bourgeoisie of the belligerent states sought to disunite the workers and set them against each other, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party called for united action by the workers of all countries against the imperialist war and urged turning the imperialist war into a civil war. In that period Lenin gave his closest attention to the problem of proletarian internationalism. He showed that the stand adopted by the working class depended on the character of the war, that the working class and its Marxist Party supported revolutionary wars pursuing the objective of liberating the working people; as regards the imperialist war of aggrandisement, in which every bourgeoisie (even of the smallest country) became an accomplice in the pillage, the working class approached it not from the standpoint of its own country, but from the standpoint of its participation in the preparations for, propagation and the hastening of the world socialist revolution, for it was only the socialist revolution that could save the world from the horrors of = war.^^*^^ Hence the task of _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 287.
309 achieving understanding and solidarity between the working people of all countries against the warmongers, the bourgeoisie.Today the solidarity and coordinated efforts of the Communist parties are a most important condition of the unification of the broad masses on our planet to frustrate the dangerous adventures of militarism, connected with the arms race and the unleashing in various parts of the world of new armed conflicts, fraught with the danger of a nuclear world war. Today the peace movement is extremely heterogeneous and its strength depends chiefly on the vigour of the working class and on the efficacy of proletarian internationalism.
Internationalism is a means of consolidating the successes of the working-class movement. Lenin warned that with the growth of the successes of the working people in the class struggle the bourgeoisie would redouble its efforts to take concerted action on an international scale against the revolutionary movement. It had tried to strangle the world's first socialist state, which is the bastion of the world proletarian revolution. Today in spite of the contradictions between the imperialists, international imperialism is setting up military and other blocs against the revolutionary forces and the socialist system. This trend in the policy and practices of imperialism is making it imperative to reinforce the solidarity of the anti-imperialist forces and intensify united action by the international working class against the international bourgeoisie.
The actual distribution of class forces thus gives rise to the objective foundations for proletarian internationalism. Lenin wrote that the actual content and criteria of internationalism were determined by the theory and practice of the class struggle, by the class objectives of the international working class. In a letter to Austrian workers in August 1920 he wrote that the Communists resolved the great issues of the workers' struggle for emancipation by taking into consideration the experience, knowledge and will of the workers of different countries, thereby achieving unity in the class struggle of the workers for communism throughout the world.^^*^^ Proletarian internationalism is increasingly being _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 269.
310 embodied in the united action of proletarians of different nationalities fighting for freedom and socialism.Proletarian internationalism is part and parcel of the ideology and practice of the working-class movement. Lenin insisted on the uncompromising exposure of those who recognised internationalism only in words, on drawing a clear dividing line between them and those who abide by it in deeds. Thus, as Lenin defined it, the internationalism of the Communist parties spells out effective solidarity and fosters the development of the world proletarian revolution. This definition is of unfading significance.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Combination of National and International AimsAs the continuer of the work of Marx and Engels Lenin comprehensively enlarged upon the problems of the relationship and interdependence of the national and international aims of the working-class struggle.
Today, this crucial Marxist proposition is frequently distorted: emphasis is laid mainly on one aspect---the need for taking national specifics into account---while nothing is said about the other, extremely important aspect, namely, the internationalism of each Communist Party and its significance in the successful attainment of national aims.
Lenin had always underscored that it was necessary to take national aims and national specifics into consideration. The Communists are the most consistent spokesmen of national interests for they represent the vanguard of the most progressive class and, being armed with Marxist-Leninist theory, are able to express these interests more profoundly.
Disregard of national distinctions may adversely affect the emancipation struggle of the working class. Success in the attainment of the proletariat's international aims depends on how closely the aims being pursued conform to national conditions. In other words, it is as dangerous to underestimate national distinctions as it is to ignore international aims. At the same time, any overrating or overemphasis of national specifics weakens the position of the revolutionary forces, pours grist on the mill of the reactionaries and undermines the proletariat's common positions in the struggle against the bourgeoisie.
311In present-day conditions the scope of the national tasks in the activity of Communist parties has grown considerably, and they cannot disregard this. On the contrary, they are advancing the most radical paths of national progressive development. But at the same time the international factor is playing an increasingly important role in the solution of national tasks, and therefore the scope of internationalist tasks in the solution of national ones is growing.
But the importance of Lenin's method of dealing with this problem lies not only in the fact that it establishes the relationship between the common and the national specific. Lenin showed how to combine these aims, to what extent the national specific is mirrored in the common, international aim. The unity of international tactics, he wrote, requires the "application of the fundamental principles of communism, which will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-scale = distinctions".^^*^^ The working class must approach every national problem from class positions because it is the true champion of the interests of the nation. Hence the significant Leninist requirement that the question of national independence should be considered from the standpoint of the interests of the class struggle. Lenin condemned the abstract, non-class concept of the independence of nations. The principal objective of the party of the proletariat, he said, was to facilitate the self-determination not of peoples and nations but of the proletariat of each nation. "The several demands of democracy, including selfdetermination,'' he wrote, "are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general-democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be = rejected.''^^**^^ Lenin saw in this the difference between the Marxist and the bourgeoisdemocratic formulation of the nationalities question. The reason for this formulation of the question is that national oppression can only be abolished together with social oppression. Lenin noted that in practice the proletariat could preserve its independence only if the struggle for democratic _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 92.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 22, p. 341.
312 demands was subordinated to the revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the = bourgeoisie.^^*^^The topicality of Lenin's propositions regarding the dialectics of the national and the international under present-day conditions was underscored at the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. "The proletarian party,'' L. I. Brezhnev said at that Meeting, "derives its strength from its ability to use to the full the internal opportunities for struggle in the interest of its people, for its country's progress and at the same time, in the interest of the common internationalist cause of revolution and socialism."^^**^^ Luis Corvalan, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, told the Meeting that the Communist Party and working class of his country had been brought up on the tradition of fusing the defence of national interests with proletarian internationalism. Patriotism and internationalism complemented each other, and the Communists did not run a dividing line or look for a contradiction between = them.^^***^^
"The national element,'' said Rodolfo Ghioldi, who led the delegation of the Communist Party of Argentina at the Meeting, "is not something self-contained; it is dialectically linked with the international and, as is always the case in such interconnections, the international cannot be sacrificed to the national.'' He pointed out that the struggle waged by the Communists against national nihilism did not signify that nihilism was tolerated in regard to the international. National narrowness led to = defeat.^^****^^ "We place a high priority,'' declared Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, "on our working-class concept of internationalism. We do not view internationalism as a burden, a concession, or a cross to bear.... It is a basic ingredient that adds indispensable, revolutionary content to the class = struggle.''^^*****^^ In the Main Document adopted by the Meeting it is stated that the national and international responsibility of each Communist or Workers' Party were indivisible.
_-_-_^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 149.
^^**^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 161.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 269.
^^****^^ Ibid., pp. 338--39.
^^*****^^ Ibid., p. 426.
313Another major aspect of Lenin's approach to the problem of the relationship between the national and the international is that the international is given special emphasis. Using the example of the Brest Peace = Treaty,^^*^^ Lenin showed that Marxists had to understand that it was necessary to make "great national sacrifices for the sake of the supreme interests of the world proletarian = revolution".^^**^^ While saving the gains of the socialist revolution in Russia, the Bolsheviks above all safeguarded the bastion of the world proletarian revolution. Lenin stressed that "the international unity of the workers is more important than the = national".^^***^^ He regarded as internationalist only that tactic (as was the tactic employed by the Bolsheviks) which pursues the "utmost possible in one country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all = countries.''^^****^^ In writing of the national pride of the Great Russians, of the fact that they loved their language and country, Lenin noted that the source of this pride was, first and foremost, that along with other nations, the Great Russians had demonstrated their ability to fight for freedom, against violence and, as a result, were in the front ranks of the international revolutionary movement.^^*****^^
At the 7th All-Russia Congress of Soviets Lenin declared that the failure of the international intervention to crush the socialist revolution was not only a military victory of the world's first proletarian state over international imperialism, which was overwhelmingly more powerful, but that it was "actually a victory of that international solidarity of the working people for which (author's italics) we began the whole revolution, and which we pointed to and said that, however numerous the trials we would have to undergo, all these sacrifices would be repaid a hundredfold by the development of the world = revolution.''^^******^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Signed by Soviet Russia and the German bloc (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) at Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. Annulled by the Soviet Government in November 1918 when revolution broke out in Germany.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 187.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 247.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 292.
^^*****^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 103.
^^******^^ Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 212.
314The Soviet people encountered enormous difficulties in building the new, socialist state. In those days the young Soviet Republic had the support of working people throughout the world. However, even in the years of these incredible hardships Lenin declared that "Soviet Russia considers it a matter of the greatest pride to help the workers of the whole world in their difficult struggle to overthrow = capitalism."^^*^^ In 1918 when revolution broke out in Germany Lenin, speaking on behalf of the Bolshevik Party, called upon the Soviet people to be prepared for the greatest sacrifices in the interests of internationalism, and in the meantime to increase the procurement of grain for their own needs and for the German = workers.^^**^^
However, giving the international pride of place by no means contradicts the truly national, vital national interests. The founders of Marxism stressed that correctly expressed national interests do not conflict with international interests. Thus, the problem is to express national interests correctly, and it is the working class that does this. By virtue of its place in social production it is the bearer of progress. The working class approaches national problems from its own class standpoint, from the viewpoint of the struggle for the ultimate aim, that is, from the viewpoint of international tasks.
Leninism does not set the national against the international, nor does it separate one from the other, but, quite the reverse, it expresses their combination. Lenin is stressing, above all, the revolutionary nature of the transformations achieved within a national framework, which serve the interests of the struggle of the working people of all countries. Lenin wrote: "There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is---working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception.''^^***^^
A very important aspect of Lenin's approach to the relationship between the national and the international is _-_-_
^^*^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 417.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, pp. 102--03.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 75.
315 that the victory over the bourgeoisie in one country is regarded as a component of the common victory of the international proletariat over the world bourgeoisie, as part of the world ,socialist revolution. This point was repeatedly made by Lenin. He linked the stability of the victory within the national framework with the international support of the working people of all countries for the proletariat that had overthrown the bourgeoisie.Long before the first socialist revolution Lenin wrote that the "international revolutionary movement of the proletariat does not and cannot develop evenly and in identical forms in different countries. This full and all-round utilisation of every opportunity in every field of activity comes only as the result of the class struggle of the workers in the various countries".^^*^^ In this he saw the relationship and close bond of the struggle waged by different national contingents of the working class. He pointed out why the struggle of the different contingents of the working class had to be regarded in this close interrelation, saying that each country contributed something of its own to the common stream but that in each country the movement was invariably one-sided in one way or another.
Since the proletarian revolution in one country was part of the world proletarian revolution, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat of that country was a contribution to the attainment of the international aim of the proletariat of all countries. By breaching the front of imperialism in a weak link, the socialist revolution in one country was a blow to the entire system of imperialism. Lenin regarded the victorious proletarian revolution in Russia as part of the world socialist revolution, stressing that "in fighting for a socialist system in Russia, we are fighting for socialism all over the = world".^^**^^ By achieving the fundamental national aim, the proletariat of Russia thereby made an invaluable contribution to the achievement of the international aim of the world proletariat.
The international proletariat regards the victorious revolution in one country as part of the world revolution and therefore considers that its cardinal internationalist duty is to _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 187.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 82.
316 defend, safeguard and strengthen the victorious revolution.Even before the October Revolution Lenin wrote that without the support of the working people of the world socialism that triumphed initially in one or several countries could not be lasting. In a work headed "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" he wrote that the Communists would make every effort to draw close and fuse with the Mongols, Persians, Indians and Egyptians, for without this the victory of socialism in Europe would not be durable.^^*^^ Touching on the aid extended by the American workers to the famine-stricken areas in Russia in 1921 he underscored that the significance of that aid had to be regarded from the standpoint of the common interests of the international proletariat, for "any victory of the international bourgeoisie over Soviet Russia would mean the greatest possible victory of world reaction over the working class in general" and that "among the peaceful means of struggle against the yoke of international finance capital, against international reaction, there is no other means with such rapid and certain promise of victory as aid in the restoration of the economy of Soviet = Russia".^^**^^
For that reason after October 1917 the defence of the world's first socialist state and concern for its advancement and presage became a criterion of internationalism of every revolutionary workers' party.
Today, in view of the existence of a community of socialist countries that comprises the leading force in the world revolutionary process and powerfully influences the workingclass movement in the capitalist countries and the national liberation movement, solidarity with these countries, where the working class is in power and is solving the tasks that the working class and all the working people of other countries will have to solve, and the protection of socialism's positions against the attacks of imperialism form the criterion of proletarian internationalism and are the highest internationalist duty of each Communist Party.
The task of strengthening further the socialist community is of paramount importance and, at the same time, extremely complex. Lenin foresaw the tremendous significance of the _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 67.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 35, pp. 526, 527.
317 existence of a number of socialist countries. In "Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions" for the Second Congress of the Communist International he underlined that a community of socialist countries would be able to exercise the decisive influence on world = politics.^^*^^ At the same time, he foresaw that it would not be easy for such a community to develop. He stressed that an alliance of nations founded on implicit trust and a clear awareness of fraternal unity could not be achieved at once, that "we have to work towards it with the greatest patience and circumspection".^^**^^While overcoming the difficulties springing from the different levels of economic, political and cultural development and from the survivals of past relations between nations, the socialist countries give shape to international relations founded on genuine equality. The economy of the member-states of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance is being intergrated on the basis of the Leninist principles of proletarian internationalism, free will, mutual benefit and respect for national sovereignty, and it is leading to the creation of an international economic complex of socialist countries. Objectively, the economic integration of the socialist countries is proceeding in line with the need for utilising the advantages of socialism within the framework of the socialist community. In the relations between the socialist countries the principles of internationalism are manifested in political solidarity and concerted action against imperialism to safeguard peace and the sovereignty of the socialist states. Proletarian internationalism provides the basis for solving pivotal problems of the socio-economic development of the socialist countries.
In the relations between the socialist countries internationalism has received a new orientation of development in the sense that the international interests of socialism embrace the national interests of individual socialist states. Internationalism is a key condition for the fulfilment of national tasks for without close cooperation with the other socialist states no single socialist country can successfully resolve its national problems or achieve major and stable advances outside the common successes of the socialist community as a _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148.
^^**^^ Ibid., vol. 30, p. 293.
318 whole. Every success scored by the community expedites the development of each individual socialist country. In the course of cooperation and the deepening of integration the most difficult and most important task for all the socialist countries, and particularly for those which were most backward in the past, is that of making all the economic levels the same. Hence the conclusion that in the final analysis true national interests do not clash with internationalism, but, quite the reverse, actually favour it, and that international interests do not hinder the realisation of socialist national interests. Here, too, internationalism is not so much a duty as a need, as a benefit, particularly in the case of the development of numerically small nations. One of the main tasks of a ruling Communist Party is to educate the people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, in a spirit of condemnation of all manifestations of nationalism.Lenin brought to light the roots of nationalism, showing the difficulties of eradicating it. The bourgeoisie uses nationalism in order to split and subordinate the working-class movement. The stronger the working-class movement, Lenin wrote, the more persevering become the efforts of the bourgeoisie to suppress and dismember it, using refined nationalism as one of its = weapons.^^*^^ "Bourgeois nationalism and proletarian internationalism---these,'' he said, "are the two irreconcilably hostile slogans that correspond to the two great class camps and express the two policies (nay, the two world outlooks) in the national = question.''^^**^^ He insisted on an uncompromising struggle against nationalism, putting the question as follows: "Those who seek to serve the proletariat must unite the workers of all nations, and unswervingly fight bourgeois nationalism, domestic and = foreign."^^***^^ He stressed that the "proletarian revolution calls for a prolonged education of the workers in the spirit of the fullest national equality and brotherhood".^^****^^
He foresaw that nationalism would not be eradicated immediately after the socialist revolution, and that for a socialist country nationalism was particularly disastrous. In _-_-_
^^*^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 289.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 26.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 25.
^^****^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 105.
319 the "Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions" for the Second Congress of the Communist International he warned that the struggle against nationalism would become more and more pressing as the dictatorship of the proletariat emerged from the national framework (i.e., the framework of one country) and became = international.^^*^^Imperialism is doing its utmost to provoke the manifestation of nationalism in the socialist countries by its propaganda, subversive activity, and economic pressure. In his Report on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro stressed that imperialist strategists hope to ``tame'' the revolutionary government. They are inspired by the example of China. The imperialists are counting on the fact that chauvinism is still a powerful force, and that under socialism there is still national egoism capable of destroying the spirit of internationalism, that their financial and technological possibilities are a weapon against which progressive governments are helpless because of the economic difficulties they are experiencing. That is why the Communist parties regard the eradication of all manifestations of nationalism and the consolidation of proletarian internationalism as one of their principal objectives.
Internationalism is closely linked with the special role played by the Soviet Union in the development of the world revolutionary process.
The representatives of many fraternal parties declare that a correct, principled attitude towards the Soviet Union and recognition of its special role remain a major aspect of internationalism, for led by the CPSU the Soviet people continues to bear the greatest responsibility for the cause of internationalist duty. Colossal responsibility for the defence of the socialist countries, creation of conditions for disrupting the plans and intrigues of international imperialism and huge material outlays form a major part of the internationalist duty being discharged by the Soviet Union. Another major aspect is the immense assistance being rendered by the Soviet Union in order to strengthen the independence of countries that have embarked on non-capitalist development. The highest internationalist duty of the Soviet Union is to ensure the utmost headway in the building of communism.
_-_-_^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 48.
320In present-day conditions in connection with the increased coordination of the actions of international imperialism against existing socialism, the revolutionary democratic and liberation movements, the significance of internationalism and the united actions of all the anti-imperialist forces, has increased sharply. Therefore the attempts to give a narrow, one-sided interpretation of the term "proletariat internationalism" on the basis that the representatives of the most varied strata have recourse to united action, are clearly invalid.
One must definitely adopt the historical approach to the concept of proletariat internationalism. As the world revolutionary process develops, the actual principle of proletarian internationalism does likewise, its content is enriched, and the social composition of those who adhere to it broadens. The extension of the sphere of action of proletarian internationalism is seen today in the fact that the representatives of the most varied non-proletarian strata are joining more and more in the concerted actions of the working class, which does not mean that the concept of proletarian internationalism has become too narrow to establish the relations of solidarity between all democratic and anti-imperialist forces. The ideas and principles of proletarian internationalism are the nucleus of broad antiimperialist solidarity.
The international character of the class struggle is today more pronounced than ever before and this is influencing the growth of contacts between the revolutionary and progressive movements. The external factor now plays a larger role in furthering and consolidating the successes of the revolutionary struggle in each country. Enhanced importance is attached to internationalism, which today covers assistance from the socialist countries to the anti-imperialist forces.
The radical changes that have taken place in the world balance of strength in favour of peace, national independence, democracy and socialism are opening up new possibilities for a sweeping offensive against imperialism. The utilisation of these possibilities depends on the solidarity of the anti-imperialist forces and on the efficacy of the proletarian internationalism of the Communist parties. Today when the forces fighting for socialism determine the main content of the epoch and the main orientations of 321 civilisation's development, when the possibilities for breaching more of the weak links in the chain of imperialism (regardless of a country's size or geographical position) have grown considerably, these enhanced possibilities can be utilised provided the various torrents of the world revolutionary process act in a united front, which is likewise bound up with the implementation of proletarian internationalism.
However, one cannot fail to see that today imperialism is desperately trying to disunite the anti-imperialist forces, to make the most of the difficulties and contradictions in the relations between socialist countries and between fraternal parties. Conducted in every possible form, this unremitting class struggle requires ever closer proletarian internationalist unity in the socialist community and the communist movement.
In line with the content and enhanced role of internationalism and in keeping with the Leninist methodology, the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties formulated the following new slogan which expresses the essence of internationalism today: "Peoples of the socialist countries, workers, democratic forces in the capitalist countries, newly liberated peoples and those who are oppressed, unite in a common struggle against imperialism, for peace, national liberation, social progress, democracy and = socialism!"^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. The Marxist-Leninist Approach to the PrinciplesThe principles underlying the relations between fraternal Communist parties form one of the central questions of the theory and practice of the international communist movement.
During recent decades the fraternal parties have drawn a number of important conclusions concerning the principles of the relations between them at the present stage of world development. The documents adopted by the meetings of Communist and Workers' parties in 1957, 1960 and 1969, the Berlin Conference in 1976, the Havana Conference in _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 39.
322 1976, numerous multilateral and bilateral documents of the fraternal parties, and the materials of their congresses contain numerous, very important propositions on this question. And atlhough in the vast majority of cases, the proposed solutions are similar or identical, debates and even divergences sometimes arise in the interpretation of seemingly generally recognised propositions.To understand the essence of the various viewpoints and correctly evaluate them it is necessary, above all, to ascertain the methodological foundation of the Marxist-Leninist approach to the analysis of the principles of inter-party relations in the communist movement.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Principles of Relations as ReflectingFirst and foremost, it must be stressed that these principles themselves and their content are not self-contained or even independent. Essentially, they reflect in politics the actual relations taking shape between the various parts of the single whole, namely the revolutionary vanguard of the international working-class movement. In their turn, these relations mirror the very essence of the working-class movement, its class character.
One of the fundamental errors often made by the authors of works published from time to time on this question in the West is that they either consider the principles of inter-party relations as a sum of abstract categories or apply to them a yardstick borrowed from quite different spheres, for example, from the sphere of relations between countries (and, sometimes, the sphere of relations between countries with different social systems). Yet the prime condition for a correct approach to this question is that it is necessary to understand that these principles emanate from the very nature of the communist movement.
What does the relationship between the nature of the communist movement and the principles of the relations between fraternal parties consist of and in what does it manifest itself?
The Marxist-Leninist propositions on the nature of the communist movement are known universally. The Communist parties are the militant revolutionary vanguard of the 323 working-class movement, a vanguard which has a scientific understanding of the aims and purposes of that movement and therefore most fully expresses its basic interests. Inasmuch as the working-class movement is international, the communist movement cannot be other than international, too. In What Is To Be Done? Lenin wrote that the "Social-Democratic movement is in its essence an international = movement".^^*^^
The international character of the class struggle and of the entire revolutionary process is steadily growing more pronounced under the impact of the international division of labour, the internationalisation of production, and other socio-economic factors. Obviously, the significance of the unity of the communist movement, of the solidarity and interaction of the individual fraternal parties grows in proportion.
The international unity of the communist movement is just as much an inalienable part of the essence of that movement as the principles of scientific communism underlying its actions. The one is inseparable from the other. The communist movement as such cannot exist without internationalism, without international unity.
The international character of the communist movement determines the common aims and fundamental positions of the Communists of the world, which are most fully expressed in their fealty to the cause of the working class, to the ideals of socialism and communism, which are generalised and formulated with scientific depth in the teaching of MarxismLeninism.
It will be appreciated that the role and significance of the community of aims and fundamental positions of the communist movement grow in proportion to the development of the revolutionary struggle. This is clearly understood by the class adversary who makes every effort to undermine the solidarity of the Communists precisely in that area. This motivates his attacks on the ideological principles of the communist movement and the devotion of the Communists to their common ideals (propagation of the bourgeois ideals of "national communism'', attempts to set off the purposes of the Communist parties of the socialist _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 370.
324 countries against the purposes of the Communist parties of all other regions of the world, and so on).The community of the aims and fundamental positions of the Communists of the world is expressed in the community of basic political interests of the individual contingents of the communist movement. Not only ideological,- theoretical, but also practical considerations, i.e., the essential requirements of their day-to-day struggle, quite naturally underlie the policy of unity pursued by the fraternal parties. This makes it obvious that the practical need for coordinating the actions of the fraternal parties is a constantly operating factor of the development of the communist movement.
Being international in character, the communist movement nonetheless develops primarily within national boundaries, and each Communist Party champions the class struggle in its own country. In principle, the national interests of each contingent of the communist movement coincide with the interests of the movement as a whole. Here we must make a short digression. The opinion has been expressed recently in the literature of a number of fraternal parties that the use of the term ``contingent'' in relation to the individual parties is wrong, because this term suggests an unjustified analogy with military contingents, units of an army which is commanded from above by a single centre. There is no single commander in the communist movement---everyone agrees on that. And we by no means regard Communist parties here as dependent units of some sort of mechanism. If the term ``contingent'' continues to be used, it is only as a synonym of the concept "national Communist party".
To return to the subject in hand, it must be said that the strengthening of the positions of each Communist Party in its .own country conforms not only to its interests but also to the interests of the entire movement, because this creates a reliable foundation enabling the given party to unfold its potentialities on the international level as well. On the other hand, while strengthening the common front of the communist movement, the coordination of the actions of the fraternal parties on the international scene conforms to the interests of each Communist Party individually because it helps to strengthen its positions in its own country.
Of course, situations may arise where the interests of one or another contingent of the movement come into temporary 325 conflict with the movement's common interests. However, in such cases a correct policy by the Marxist-Leninist leadership makes it possible to arrive at the proper decisions bringing the two groups of interests into line with one another.
Marx, Engels and Lenin held that the principles underlying the relations between fraternal parties had in all cases to be founded on and mirror the above-mentioned objective circumstances. Let us examine what this means in practice.
First, the principles of the relations between Communist parties must unfailingly take into account the essence of the communist movement as an international movement, whose individual contingents have close ties and render each other the utmost assistance and support. These principles ensure the unity of the Communist parties in their common struggle. In other words, they must embody and fully reflect proletarian solidarity.
Second, they must take into account the interests of the various parties, the national conditions under which they operate and the specifics of each party as a national contingent of the communist movement, and ensure to each of them conditions enabling them to achieve their specific aims. In other words, this means that the given principles must take into account the actual national character of each party as the revolutionary vanguard of a given contingent of the working-class movement.
Third, these principles must as in the above-mentioned cases, most fully take into account the need for organically combining the international and national aims of the communist movement, i.e., take mto account the fact that the relations between parties must facilitate the attainment of various aims simultaneously and, in case contradictions and divergences arise, create the most propitious basis for their settlement.
Accordingly, in their collective documents the fraternal parties have recorded that the relations between the Communists of the world are founded on proletarian internationalism, on mutual support and solidarity.
At the same time, it is quite evident that all-embracing cooperation can be achieved between the fraternal parties only if they are equal parties in such cooperation. Where equality is absent cooperation degenerates into subordination of one party to another. Precisely this was the CPSU's point 326 of departure when at its 20th--26th congresses it denounced hegemonism of all kinds and emphatically declared that respect for the independence and equality of fraternal parties was the prime condition for active cooperation and mutual assistance between them.
Acting on the need for ensuring the effective national development of each fraternal party, the CPSU, as other contingents of the communist movement, underscores the importance of observing the principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs.
This is the substance of the fundamental propositions on these questions recorded in the various international documents of the communist movement.
An important point that must be made is that all these principles of relations between Communist parties must, in our view, be regarded as an inter-related whole. Taken separately, none of them can guarantee either the internationalist unity of the communist movement or the effective work of a given fraternal party as a national contingent of the communist movement.
Indeed, the absolutisation of the principle of international support, with the equality and independence of fraternal parties buried in oblivion, could prejudice the position of the Communists as leaders of the class struggle in their countries, for this would be tantamount to isolation from the national environment in which the given party operates.
On the other hand, the absolutisation of the principles of independence and non-interference in internal affairs, especially where the principles of international solidarity are ignored, would spell out the given party's national isolation, its separation from the communist movement. In effect, such an attitude would signify the repudiation of internationalism. This was eloquently put by Luigi Longo, who wrote that "the requirements of independence cannot and under no circumstances should relegate to the background the main requirements of proletarian international solidarity for otherwise the communist movement would sink to the level of Social-Democracy".^^*^^
Luigi Longo pinpointed an extremely important problem, that of the correlation between the various principles of _-_-_
^^*^^ Rinascita, October~20, 1967.
327 relations between Communist parties. Nevertheless, one of these principles, namely, the principle of international solidarity, is decisive. This was repeatedly pointed out by Lenin, who wrote: "Petty-bourgeois nationalism proclaims as internationalism the mere recognition of the equality of nations, and nothing more ... preserves national self-interests intact, whereas proletarian internationalism demands ... that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country should be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a worldwide scale, and ... that a nation which is achieving victory over the bourgeoisie should be able and willing to make the greatest national sacrifices for the overthrow of international = capital."^^*^^Marxism's adversaries frequently declare that this formulation of the question by Lenin ``belittles'' the principles of the independence and equality of parties. Nothing can be more mistaken than an assertion of that kind. Actually consistent internationalism is the strongest guarantee both of true equality and of non-interference in internal affairs.
Indeed, is the equality of the Communist parties conceivable without a genuinely internationalist attitude to each other? What non-interference in internal affairs can one speak of outside international respect for the contribution of each party to the common cause? Lastly, it is obvious that internationalist mutual assistance is the best guarantee of the defence of the interests and independence of each fraternal party.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Improvement of the Forms of International UnityIn discussions of the principles of relations between Communist parties it is frequently argued that the present situation demands a "new unity" of the communist movement, that in our day the principles of relations between parties must be modified in view of the changes that are taking place on the international scene. We feel that this point of view stems from a confused understanding.
It is unquestionable that the principles of relations between fraternal parties develop and are enriched parallel with the development of the communist movement itself. But _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 148.
328 here it is a case of their development and enrichment with their socio-political essence remaining unchanged. It cannot be otherwise, for the essence, the social character of the communist movement does not and cannot change depending on the conditions and situation in which it operates. Any renunciation of this point of view would be tantamount to making allowance for the class degeneration of the communist movement.Thus, the principles of relations between Communist parties develop and are enriched within the framework of unchanging socio-political foundations. The forms in which these principles are manifested and the forms and methods of applying them are a different matter. All these forms and methods not only can but must change, depending on the specifics of each given historical stage, i.e., depending on the maturity level of the communist movement and of its individual contingents, the development of the world situation, and so on.
From this standpoint it may be said that for its basic content the unity of the Communists today cannot be ``new'' and it should not differ from the unity for which they fought throughout all the preceding decades.
Today, as yesterday, the Communists need unity based on common historical aims, on an understanding of these aims and the general ways of achieving them, on a common worldwide struggle against the common enemy, and on international class solidarity of the parties representing, above all, the interests of the proletariat and also of all other working people. No new conditions cancel or can cancel any of these elements of unity, that comprise the foundation of the norms of relations between Communist parties.
On the other hand, it is evident that today the conditions under which the fraternal parties operate differ so considerably from the conditions that obtained 50 or even 30 years ago, that the forms of the development of the relations between the fraternal parties cannot fail to be new. From that standpoint a "new unity" is indeed necessary. It is not only necessary but it actually already exists, and is developing and growing stronger.
Suffice it to recall the following. In the period from 1919 to 1943 all the fraternal parties were united under the Communist International. Its rules stated that it was the sole 329 international organisation of the Communists in which each party enjoyed the rights of a section. It will be appreciated that in an indivisible organisation like the Comintern the direction of the work of the sections was centralised.
After the Second World War the specific forms of the relations between Communist parties inevitably had to undergo changes. These changes were put into effect after long quests and unilateral and multilateral consultations among the Communist parties. The Comintern was dissolved as early as 1943. Centralised direction was replaced by voluntary coordination, with international meeting becoming the highest form of such coordination.
In showing the dialectics of the correlation between essence and form in the question of the principles of relations between Communist parties, Gilberto Viera, who led the delegation of the Communist Party of Colombia, declared at the 1969 Meeting: "Of course, there cannot be a single centre, or leading or led parties. At the present time there cannot be a centralised world leadership of the communist movement. But neither can the Communist and Workers' parties be parts of a polycentric mechanism. For regional centres, covering continents or specific areas of the world, would come up against the same obstacles that ruled out the possibility of a single centre. But this certainly does not mean that the international communist movement is doomed to division. There is no single leading centre, but bilateral and multilateral meetings of our parties, complemented by coordination of solidarity campaigns and concerted action, provide a general orientation helping all Communists analyse major issues, the systematic study of which each party must = continue."^^*^^
The actual forms of the relations between Communist parties will undoubtedly change in the future as well. The victory of the socialist revolution on a global scale gradually draws the Communist parties closer together, and in time this will lead to the emergence of new forms of unity, far closer and more organic than the present ones. Needless to say, this is a question of the very remote future and it is mentioned only to re-emphasise the historical character of _-_-_
^^*^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 134.
330 the forms of relations between the individual national contingents of the communist movement.Today the forms in which relations between fraternal parties are promoted, the forms by which the unity of the communist movement is secured have become new and they are being constantly improved. Nonetheless, the talks about a "new unity" has by no means ceased. What, in this case, is the object?
The proponents of the "new unity" thesis argue, for example, that formerly the prevailing concept in the communist movement was that of "monolithic unity'', which allegedly ignored the distinctions in the conditions under which individual parties functioned and automatically subordinated them to a single pattern, and that today there is a need for "unity in multiformity''. It must be stated plainly that, properly speaking, as a concept "monolithic unity" never existed.
In order to see this it will suffice to refer to Lenin's works and to the documents of the Comintern dating from the early years of its existence. Lenin forcefully stressed the need for the international unity of the Communists of the world, above all for their unbreakable solidarity, but at the same time he never overlooked the fact that this unity should take into account the conditions obtaining in the various countries, that a common communist strategy could be employed effectively only if it took into account the specifics of the given country.
In keeping with Lenin's teaching the Comintern spared no effort to take the conditions existing in the different countries into consideration. From the very outset the Comintern's Executive passed mandatory decisions only on major issues that were of fundamental international significance. Issues that lacked such importance were decided by the Communist parties independently, acting autonomously and remaining autonomous.
At the Seventh Congress of the Communist International it was re-emphasised that the specifics of the position of each party had to be taken into account and that its leadership could not be supplanted in the adoption of decisions concerning its work.
As the common organisation of the Communists the Comintern had, needless to say, a common leadership, the 331 Executive, which exhaustively and scrupulously considered questions concerning the work of each contingent belonging to that organisation. The decisions of the Executive touched also on many issues of the inner life of parties. There could be and, in some cases, actually were errors, including errors which violated the autonomy and independence of one party or another. This is stated openly and clearly in the documents of the Comintern itself and of a number of fraternal parties (although it must be stated bluntly that far from everything that is now sometimes regarded as an error was indeed erroneous). But in all cases this concerned practice and the errors that were made in the practical implementation of the Comintern's policy. The very concept of the Third International, as we have already stated, was by no means a concept of "monolithic unity" and, moreover, we repeat, it envisaged as mandatory consideration for the specific position and interests of each individual member-party.
Thus, to demand the renunciation of the concept of "monolithic unity" is tantamount to forcing an open door, all the more so in view of the fact that, as we have already noted, during the past decades the forms of the relations between parties, i.e., the forms of applying the principles of unity, have undergone cardinal changes.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Unity and MultiformityMarxist-Leninist thought has lately given considerable attention to the study of the question of the principles of relations between fraternal parties. This has given rise to various theories and propositions, some of which are of immense interest as attempts to deal with the question of the relations between fraternal parties with account of the new historical conditions. However, it must be pointed out that in these theories, too, any absolutisation of some aspect may lead to serious errors.
The formulation of the question of unity in multiformity is an example where a generally correct approach contains a distorted interpretation and becomes not only erroneous but harmful.
From the methodological point of view it must be emphasised that the formula "unity in multiformity" is none other than a philosophical expression of the synthesis of the 332 common and the particular. Marx, for example, put the question as follows: "The concrete is concrete because it is the synthesis of many definitions and, consequently, represents the unity of = multiformity.''^^*^^
Applied to the problems of the present-day communist movement the formula "unity in multiformity" essentially reflects only objective reality, within whose framework it develops. Taken in its pure form, without slanted interpretations, this formula only mirrors the circumstance that each party functions under specific conditions and that all the parties, nevertheless, preserve and consolidate their international unity. That is how this thesis was understood by Lenin, who always said that multiformity in conditions and even in positions cannot and should not hinder the unity of the revolutionaries of all countries.
However, it must be pointed out that some of the interpretations of this thesis steer away from understanding it in its pure form. Here are some examples.
Sometimes only one aspect of this thesis is accentuated with emphasis on the multiformity of the conditions under which Communist parties function and on the resultant distinctions in their attitude to one problem or another. Actually, this is an attempt to counterpose the multiformity of conditions and the resultant possible distinctions in their positions to unity as such, and sometimes even more concretely to the unity of the common principles of the communist movement. It will be that this interpretation seeks, consciously or unconsciously, not to consolidate the principle of unity in its pure form but to undermine it.
In other cases it is argued that the main thing lies in the differences in the positions of the Communist parties. Here it is contended that an "independent position" necessarily means that the position of a given party differs from that of other parties (meaning chiefly that the positions of the Communist parties of non-socialist countries differ from the positions of the Communist parties of socialist countries). This, it is contended, is the main feature distinguishing present-day unity from the unity of the past. It is perfectly obvious that in this case the specific character of an attitude is turned into an end in itself while this end, as in the first _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Vol. 12, p. 727 (in Russian).
333 case, misses the main point, namely, the international unity and solidarity of the Communists in the common class struggle.There is evidently no need to prove that both these positions are in fact an obstacle to the strengthening of the international unity of Communists. Obviously, Lenin's wellfounded approach to the thesis of "unity in multiformity" signifies, first, recognition that all fraternal parties function under specific conditions and that these conditions should be taken, into consideration; second, recognition that distinctions, even fundamental distinctions, are possible in the attitude of individual parties to various issues; last, and third, that unity of the common principles of the international class struggle and genuine solidarity among Communists wherever they are active are not only possible but, in all cases, vital.
This approach, which respects the individuality and views of each party and, at the same time, conforms to the principle of the international unity of the Communist ranks, helps to strengthen that unity.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Ways of Surmounting DifferencesThe fundamental problems of method which arise when the above-mentioned questions are considered, concern the correlation between unity and debate, between unity and divergence in the views of individual fraternal parties.
As regards the first question, that of unity and debate, there is a close dialectical interrelation between these two elements. This was enunciated by the classics of Marxism.
The free discussion of basic issues of theory, strategy and tactics by the Communists of different countries is an indispensable element in the charting of the common policy of the communist movement as a whole. In this discussion the Communist parties compare the experience accumulated by different countries and the views of the different fraternal parties on the most important issues. This is the most fruitful way to unity. Let us recall the views expressed on this point by the founders of the communist movement. "In order to avoid degenerating into a sect,'' Frederick Engels wrote on August 12, 1893, "we must allow for discussion, but common principles must be unfailingly observed. Free association and the voluntary contacts maintained by congresses are sufficient to ensure our victory, which no force in the world will wrest 334 from our = hands."^^*^^
Lenin enlarged on this, writing: "Discussing the problem, expressing and hearing different opinions, ascertaining the views of the majority of the organised Marxists, expressing these views in the form of decisions adopted by delegates and carrying them out conscientiously---this is what reasonable people all over the world call = unity.''^^**^^
Attention must be drawn to the approach adopted by Engels and Lenin to the aim and platform of discussion. They saw the aim in working out a common policy, and regarded the platform as consisting of the common principles that must be unfailingly observed.
Of course, during a discussion there may be differences and very essential ones, between Communists. However, if they are real Communists then these differences, as Lenin wrote, "are differences between representatives of a mass movement that has grown with incredible rapidity; and the Communists have a single, common, granite-like foundation---recognition of the proletarian revolution and of the struggle against bourgeois-democratic illusions and bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism, and recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power.
"On such a basis differences are nothing to worry about, they represent growing pains, not senile = decay."^^***^^
Obvious errors, wrote the leader of the October revolution, "must be combated openly; the differences must not be exaggerated since it must be clear to everyone that in the near future the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat, for Soviet power, will wipe out the greater part of them".^^****^^
Addressing the ``Left'' group, which broke away at the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Germany in October 1919 and somewhat later formed the Communist Labour Party of Germany, Lenin wrote: "A careful discussion of differences and an exchange of views on an international scale could assist in advancing the cause of German communism and in mustering its = forces."^^*****^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, Bd. 22, S. 408--09.
^^**^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 519.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 30, p. 55.
^^****^^ Ibid., pp. 57--58.
^^*****^^ ibid., pp. 89--90.
335Thus, obvious errors must be combated openly but they must not be exaggerated; an attentive discussion of differences can only assist in advancing the cause.
These Leninist conclusions remain in force today when in the ranks of Communists divergences on a number of fundamental questions have not yet been completely surmounted.
It goes without saying that not all differences are similar in character and for that reason not all of them evoke a similar response from the fraternal parties. In cases where there is a clear departure from the Marxist-Leninist guidelines the fraternal parties consider that the corresponding views and actions must be combated resolutely and consistently. In other cases, even when different views are expressed on fundamental issues in a manner that does not undermine the united front of the Communists and does not hinder their militant cooperation, the fraternal parties consider that they can be surmounted in the course of joint action and by creative discussion. Lastly, there are cases where differences in views on specific issues do not affect the fundamental guidelines of the communist movement. These differences usually reflect the multiformity of the conditions under which the fraternal parties function; they are normal phenomena and cannot inflict any appreciable harm on the unity of the Communist ranks.
This differentiated approach is the communist movement's point of departure in its efforts to surmount existing differences and foster the political and ideological unity of all the fraternal parties.
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