Timur Timofeyev
__TITLE__ WORKERS IN SOCIETY __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-05-31T22:00:31-0700 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov" __SUBTITLE__ Polemical EssaysProgress Publishers
Moscow
[1]Translated from the Russian by David Fidlon and Dudley Hagen
Designed by Leonid Ishkhanov
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__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1981Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
T 10506--408 56_81 014(01)-81
0302020300~ [2] CONTENTS Page Preface..................................... 5 I. THE SOCIO-HISTORICAL ROLE OF THE WORKING CLASS AND THE BATTLE OF IDEAS............... 8 Contrasting Appraisals of the Working Class............ 9 The Controversy over the Concept of Class.............. 25 Leading Force of Social Progress................... 37 II. BOURGEOIS-REFORMIST VIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROLETARIAT................... 58 Anti-Scientific Conceptions....................... 59 Against Falsification of the History of the Working Class ... 74 III. BASIC STAGES IN THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT. . 87 Periodisation of the Proletariat's Revolutionary Emancipation Struggle................................ 87 The October Socialist Revolution: a Radical Change in the International Working-Class Movement............... 98 IV. THE WORKING CLASS AND THE GROWING CRISIS OF CAPITALISM................................ 120 Tendencies in the World Revolutionary Process.......... 120 Growing Contradictions of Capitalism................ 129 Bourgeois Ideological Manoeuvres................... 150 V. THE TRADITIONS OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE AND THE PRESENT DAY........................... 157 Revolutionary Theory and Practice: Two Parts of a Single Whole..................................... 158 The Struggle for the Integrity of Revolutionary Theory .... 185 Against ``Neo''-Kautskyism....................... 209 On Non-Proletarian Utopias....................... 233 Under the Banner of Revolutionary Internationalism...... 248 VI. THE STUDY OF THE WORKING CLASS AND OF THE WORKERS'MOVEMENT........................ 257 Aspects of the Development of Research on the Workers' Movement.................................. 257 3 The Situation of the Proletariat in the USA and Its Struggle . 273 The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process..... 289 A Promising Field for International Cooperation among Scholars.................................... 301 Name Index.................................... 314 Geographical Index............................... 317 Subject Index................................... 318 [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ PrefaceThe working class is the decisive force in the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of the world. As the world revolutionary process grows and the activity of the progressive, anti-imperialist, peace-loving forces in different continents increases, so does the role of the working class as the main motive force of historical progress, the role of the communist and workers' parties as the vanguard of the working class, and that of their effective policy and of Marxism-Leninism---the most advanced ideology of modern time.
The creative activity of the working class in the socialist countries has assumed particularly great dimensions. There is an increase in the influence of the working class and its organisations on the various aspects of public life in the industrial capitalist countries and developing states. Mankind's progress in various fields is inseparably linked with the numerical growth of the working class and the expansion of its mass movement.
Taking all these factors into account it is very important, on the one hand, to examine the historical experience accumulated by the working class and its organisations since its emergence and 5 consolidation into an independent and influential social and political force and, on the other, to study the concrete conditions in which it fulfils its world historic mission in the contemporary epoch.
The experience of the world communist movement shows that the success of the struggle for communist ideals depends to a great extent on fidelity to Marxist-Leninist principles, on close bonds between revolutionary theory and practice, and on the creative development of theory on the basis of the international experience of the revolutionary struggle.
It is quite logical that questions of the appraisal of the historical mission of the working class and of one's attitude to the single international Marxist-Leninist teaching and the fundamental problems of the theory and history of the revolutionary working-class movement have found themselves, especially at the present stage, in the focus of the political, ideological and theoretical confrontation of antagonistic social forces. Among such questions are: the development of the proletariat and the role of its class organisations at the various phases of the historical process, periodisation of the modern and recent history of the class struggle, patterns of the revolutionary process and changes in the conditions and forms of its development, basic trends and results of the working-class movement after the Great October Socialist Revolution, at the various stages of the deepening general crisis of capitalism.
The author of this book which deals with certain aspects of these problems examines topical theoretical and historicgraphic problems in their interconnection. An historical, economic or sociological analysis alone will not suffice. An essential condition for ascertaining the basic laws of the development of the working class in the period of the con- ( temporary scientific and technological revolution is an inter-disciplinary approach ensuring a truly comprehensive study of social phenomena. With due regard for all the characteristic features of the concrete historical situations in different years and for all possible specific national modifications, the struggle of the working class seen as a single process as concerns its basic patterns, lengthy in time and developing dialectically, is no mere sum of ``national'' working-class movements but a phenomenon that is international in character.
The most important trends and prospects of the class struggle at the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism are examined in the light of the struggle of the working people for democracy and socialism, the interaction of proletarian actions and the general democratic movements of the masses and the correlation of international and 6 national, objective and subjective factors that influence the development of the working-class movement. These and other related questions, as we know, have become the subject of an intense struggle between scientific socialism, on the one hand, and its adversaries, including outspoken anti-communists and reformist ideologists, on the other.
The author centres his attention on a critical analysis of anti-Marxist conceptions in the working-class movement, and some variants of ``neo-Marxism'' whose proponents groundlessly dispute the integrity of the revolutionary theory.
[7] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ I __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SOCIO-HISTORICAL ROLEThe greater the influence of the working class and its revolutionary vanguard on the course of world events in current century, the higher is the universal interest in the history of the proletariat and its role in the world historical process, and in key problems of the working-class movement in modern .and recent times.
But various social strata and their ideologists display this interest in different ways. Representatives of Marxist theoretical thought study the laws of the development of the working class as the leading revolutionary and creative force which has the decisive role to play in the establishment of a new civilisation.
The opponents of Marxism hold a different position. If (at best) they recognise, to some extent, the proletariat's active role in society, they at the same time narrow the significance, the historical limits and the possibilities of revolutionary activity of the working masses headed by the working class, its conscious vanguard. Leading 20 thcentury bourgeois historians and philosophers propagate different variants of the ``theory of cycles"^^1^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ Employing subjective criteria, Arnold J. Toynbee, among other bourgeois scientists, on the basis of his ``typology of societies" estimates that the past 5,000 years have witnessed some fifteen to thirty different types of society (see: Arnold __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 9. 8 and are particularly anxious to smooth over the basic distinctions between bourgeois civilisations, antagonistic socioeconomic formations in general, and the exploiting system, on the one hand, and the basically new, highest form of civilisation in the history of mankind, which socialism is creating, on the other.
This is a question of immense fundamental importance. The tendency to underestimate the international historic significance of the gains of existing socialism, which is still upheld here and there in the West, some reformist functionaries of the working-class movement included, is largely a product of the inability to appreciate the fact that the Great October Revolution not merely signified the advent of a new historical era, but also marked the beginning of a qualitatively new civilisation.
Many nations are now following the road paved by the Great October Revolution. Assessing the international significance of the revolutionary gains which began with the October Revolution of 1917 and their great impact on the course of world history, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet Leonid Brezhnev said: ``Understandably, the problems solved by the October Revolution were primarily Russia's problems, posed by its history, by the concrete conditions existing in it. But basically, these were not local but general problems, posed before the whole of mankind by social development. The epochal significance of the October Revolution lies precisely in the fact that it opened the road to the solution of these problems and thereby to the creation of a new type of civilisation on earth.~"^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Contrasting AppraisalsExisting socialism is just over sixty years old, while capitalism came into being as a system more than two centuries ago.
The period that has elapsed since the October Revolution of 1917 has demonstrated before the whole world the great creative power of the working class, the dynamism of the new society which it has built, and its basic, indisputable advantages in all key spheres of public life over the exploiting system.
Let us briefly recall what tsarist Russia was like on the eve of the October Revolution of 1917. If we take, for example, _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 8. J. Toynbee, The Challenge of Our Time, Oxford University Press, London. 1966, p. 69.
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The Great October Revolution and Mankind's Progress, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1977, p. 7.
9 the consumption of iron, it was very low in spite of the fact that it had risen fivefold after the reform of 1861. The situation was similar in other industries. As regards the social reasons for Russia's economic lag, it was, as the Bolsheviks showed, mainly due to the fact that a handful of exploiters, monopolists and landowners, who relied on ``state aid'', had doomed ``five-sixths of the population to poverty, and the entire country to stagnation and decay".^^1^^ The only thing that could save the country was a revolution led by the proletariat which, as Lenin emphasised, played ``the role of a truly advanced class, a class... really capable of saving Russia from decay".^^2^^Already at that time Lenin wrote: ``The Russian proletariat is steadfastly following its revolutionary course, apart from which there is no salvation for a Russia that is suffocating"^^3^^ Having accomplished the socialist revolution the proletariat solved the country's vital socio-economic problems with which tsarism and bourgeois-landowner reaction had been unable to cope.
In a relatively short historical period after the October Revolution the country became a mighty industrial power. The Soviet Union moved into first place in the world in per capita production of steel, oil, mineral fertiliser, cement and other key products.^^4^^ Today it has a highly mechanised socialist agriculture, and the Soviet people have achieved outstanding successes in solving national problems and promoting culture and science.
Social development had never been as rapid as in the post-October period. The transition to feudalism from the preceding mode of production lasted many many centuries, while the establishment of capitalism in Western Europe alone took several centuries.
The world historical process since the October Revolution shows that socialism considerably surpasses other social systems in rates of development and consolidation of its positions, and in the speed with which it replaces the preceding social system on a world scale. Now that socialism has become a world system it is augmenting its might and exerting an ever increasing positive influence on international relations, on the conditions and forms of the anti-imperialist struggle of the masses on different continents for social _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``How Can Per Capita Consumption in Russia Be Increased?~'', Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 293.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 223.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 227.
~^^4^^ See: National Economy of the USSR. Sixty Years. Statistical Yearbook, Moscow, 1977 (in Russian).
10 progress, and has contributed to the solution of basic global problems of the 20th century in the interest of the working people.Mankind's historical transition from capitalism to socialism set off by the October Revolution is a logical result of social development. By discovering the objective laws of this development Marxism-Leninism bared capitalism's inherent contradictions and showed that they unavoidably lead to a revolutionary explosion and the building of socialism. MarxistsLeninists proceed from the premise that the material prerequisites for socialism and objective conditions for socialist revolution have matured in the world. More than sixty years ago, shortly before the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, Lenin wrote that ``socialism is now gazing at us from all the windows of modern capitalism".^^1^^ This conclusion has since been confirmed by history. The victory of Russia's revolutionary proletariat at the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism was followed by revolutions in Germany, Finland, Hungary and other countries and a mighty upsurge of the national liberation movement in some of the colonies and dependencies.
The mass movement of the working people at the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism, primarily at the end of the 1940s, which as a rule developed under anti-fascist, general democratic slogans, resulted in the victory of socialist revolutions in a number of countries.
At the present stage of social development the objective processes occurring in the world lead to the creation of ever new economic and social prerequisites for the transition of the whole of mankind to communism. The capitalist system is weakening as a result of the strengthening positions of world socialism, the growth of the national liberation movements and the broadening of the world anti-imperialist front, and also as a result of the further aggravation of all the basic contradictions of the capitalist formation and the deepening of social antagonisms.
All this profoundly influences the attitude of the antagonistic classes---the bourgeoisie and the working class---towards the crucial social problems and processes of the contemporary epoch. It manifested itself most vividly in connection with two anniversaries which were marked in the 1970s---the 60th anniversary of the Soviet socialist state, and the 200th anniversary of the United States of America. Among the numerous manifestations of the antipodal class interests and ideological aims the most striking were the contrary appraisals of the _-_-_
^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 363.
11 role played by the working class in world history.The period since the October Revolution of 1917 has forcefully confirmed the Marxist-Leninist conclusion that the ``working class has, once and for all, come to occupy the central place in public life today".^^1^^ It is not surprising that the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution was marked as a holiday not only by the Soviet people, but by working people throughout the world, by peace champions and fighters for the national and social emancipation in other countries, by the entire progressive mankind.
Bourgeois ideologists, on the other hand, have always had a different view of the role of the working class. For example, the role of the working masses and their liberation/ struggle in the historical process was clearly understated in official speeches and many US press reports marking the 200th anniversary of the United States.
This line manifested itself in many ways, including tributes to the allegedly inexhaustible creative potentialities of the bourgeoisie whose activity, according to its ideologists, was progressive also in the contemporary epoch, the epoch of mankind's transition from the exploiting system to socialism, of the general crisis of capitalism, and attempts by representatives of the US Administration to galvanise the illusions that the fundamental revolutionary changes that have taken place in the world in the years since the October Revolution can be reversed. Some people still nurture the hope of ``wresting the historical initiative" from existing socialism both in politics and in the ideological struggle. But these are impossible, unrealistic hopes.
Similar aims are pursued by the quasi-scientific ``denials'', which appear in the West from time to time, of the MarxistLeninist theory of classes and the class struggle, of the world historic mission of the working class and its revolutionary-transformative, creative role as the force which plays the leading role in bringing about the downfall of capitalism and building communist society.
Yet it has to be noted that the concrete ``arguments'' by the proponents of these views are modified depending on the changes in the actual historical situation. In other words, the adepts of anti-proletarian conceptions camouflage them more skilfully and subtly than before, particularly in the period preceding the October Revolution.
For a long time many Western, including American, bourgeois historians, economists and sociologists openly justified the ruling exploiting class and its prominent _-_-_
~^^1^^ On the 60th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1977, p. 15.
12 representatives, and the system of private enterprise as a whole. In the 1870s, when the United States marked its centenary, American ruling circles boasted about the rapid rate of enrichment of the bourgeoisie in the country and portrayed the knights of profit as the motive force of social progress, as examples of industriousness, thrift and enterprise, endowed with ``extraordinary'' abilities and standards of behaviour allegedly determining the moral and spiritual image of capitalism.^^1^^But in conditions of a radical shift in the alignment of class forces in the world arena and considerable growth of the influence of the international working class and the mounting anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions in many regions of the non-socialist world, life itself compelled certain bourgeois ideologists and politicians at least to pay some attention to the consequences of the profound revolutionary changes in the world. Neither could they fully ignore that in these circumstances imperialism was falling into increasing ideological and political disrepute. For instance, Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to the US President from January 1977 to January 1981, wrote in an article entitled ``America in a Hostile World" that traditional American values of individualism, free enterprise, production ethics and effectivity were challenged within the country and even more so without, and that a gap had appeared between America and the majority of other nations in their concepts of values and perceptions. Saying that this suggests an idea of America's isolation in a hostile world, he expressed the fear that philosophical and political isolation could also develop into economic and social isolation.^^2^^
Such fears were largely responsible for the new manoeuvres of the anti-Marxists, including, for example, the false assertions that the American revolution was still going on in our day, and the spread of the myth about what they call ``transformed'' capitalism which allegedly upholds human rights which as a rule are construed from abstract, non-class positions.^^3^^ On the other hand, bourgeois historians and _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Gustavus Myers, History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. 1, Charles H. Kerr&Co., Chicago, 1910; Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1958; George H. Davis, ``The Puritan Ideas of Success''. In; Present in the Past. Source Problems in American History, ed. by Armin Rappaport et a/., Macmillan, New York, 1972, pp. 1-6.
~^^2^^ See: ``America in a Hostile World'', Contemporary Review, Vol. 229, No. 1330, November 1976, pp. 225--44.
~^^3^^ See: John D.Rockefeller, The Second American Revolution, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1973; Peter Viereck, ``The Philosophical `New Conservatism'\thinspace". In: The Radical Right (The New __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 14. 13 sociologists cannot completely ignore the role played by the working masses in history. Bearing this in mind the organisers of official measures marking the bicentennial of the United States decided to put out a publication describing the participation of the working people in various events in American history.^^1^^
That, however, was only one, ostentatious side of the matter. The other was that the above official publications continued to put forward conceptions that misrepresented the role of the working-class movement and denigrated the importance of the proletariat in history.
Influential Washington circles made special efforts to question legitimacy of the very concept ``working class''. None other than the former US Secretary of Labour Willie Usery in an Epilogue to the above anniversary publication stated that in America there was no working class as a clearly defined social group with established views, ambitions and needs and that the workers were just as differentiated as the country itself.^^2^^
Such views are typical of many bourgeois sociologists, philosophers and historiographers in the West.
The history of the class struggle exposes the manoeuvres of bourgeois ideologists. Thus the preamble to the Rules of the Industrial Workers of the World, which was one of the more active organisations of the American working people that functioned at the beginning of the 20th century, noted that the working class and the class of employers had nothing in common and that peace between them was out of the question. It is interesting to note that this document is quoted in the above publication of the US Department of Labour.^^3^^ Facts overturn the myths about the non-class nature of the labour movement and the harmonious social partnership between labour and capital as permanent attributes of the modern and contemporary history of the United States.
The fallacy of such conceptions is even more strikingly revealed by the strike battles and other mass proletarian actions in which the history of the United States and other capitalist countries abounds.
It is not the statics of social relations and institutes that interests progressive Marxist researchers in the first place, but _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 13. American Right Expanded and Updated), ed. by Daniel Bell, Anchor Books Doubleday Company. Inc., Garden City (N. Y.), 1964, pp. 185--207.
^^1^^ See: The U.S. Department of Labor, Bicentennial History of the American Worker, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1976.
^^2^^ Ibid., Dedication and Epilogue by Secretary of Labor W. J. Usery. p. 296.
~^^3^^ Ibid.,p. 165.
14 their dynamics, collisions and development, i. e., the progressive, revolutionary aspect of the reality. As they analysed each stage of human development their main concern was to bare the contradictions of society which generated the force capable of destroying the old, stagnant forms of social relations and securing the transition to better and progressive forms. A particularly important place in the Marxist-Leninist conception of the interconnection of the development of the productive forces ano^ relations of production, the replacement of the decaying socio-economic formations by more progressive ones, is occupied by the teaching about classes and the class struggle.Even before Karl Marx some authors recognised the existence of social classes and social conflicts. ``As to myself,'' wrote Marx in a letter of March 5, 1852 to Joseph Weydemeyer, ``no credit is due to me for discovering either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes."^^1^^ Marx rendered a great service by confirming the fact that the very existence of classes is directly connected with definite historical phases in the development of production; that the struggle of the classes is the main motive force of socio-- historical progress and of necessity leads to the winning of power by the working class and that it was merely a transition to the elimination of all classes, to a classless society.
Employing the key law of materialist dialectics---the law of unity and struggle of opposites---in the analysis of social phenomena, the founders of scientific communism showed that class conflicts and revolutionary actions of the masses are above all the product of the contradictions between the forces of production and production relations inherent in antagonistic modes of production. Noting that the very emergence and development of classes were connected with definite phases of production, Marx proceeded from _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 64. In this letter Marx ridiculed both Disraeli's presumptuous declaration that England's ruling circles endeavoured ``to terminate that strife of classes'', and the attacks by the American economist Henry Charles Carey, and by John Mill, Jean B. Say and other European scholars on Marx and Engels who, they claimed, were `` rending society asunder and preparing civil war because they show that the economic bases of the different classes are bound to give rise to a necessary and ever growing antagonism among them''. Marx predicted that the time would come ``when the views which we are now spreading about the classes become platitudes and part of the equipment of the 'ordinary common sense'\thinspace" (Ibid., pp. 64--65).
15 the premise that the dynamics of class contradictions and the causes that aggravated them should be analysed chiefly in the context of relations of production, the property relations.It is, however, impossible to agree with those who interpret the materialist understanding of history as though the founders of scientific communism regarded economic factors as the sole source and the mainspring of socio-historical progress. On more than one occasion Marx and Engels criticised this vulgar interpretation of their views. Denouncing such perversions of Marxism, Engels in a letter to Joseph Bloch written in September 1890 stressed: ``The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure---political forms of the class struggle and its results, such as constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and especially the reflections of all these real struggles in the brains of the participants...---also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases determine their form in particular. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents ... the economic movement is finally bound to assert itself."^^1^^
Revolutionary Marxism does not confine its examination of the changes in the class structure of society and the development of social contradictions and conflicts to an economic analysis; it also studies the operation of socio-- political, ideological and other factors. Moreover, Marxists take into account new phenomena both in the structure of the basis and in the inner pattern of the superstructure and endeavour to coordinate their analyses. As he studied socioeconomic, ideological, political and other phenomena Marx did not confine himself to theoretical abstractions and, as a result, was able to carry out a precise, concrete social analysis of the given concrete historical reality.
In order to disclose the basis of the main social antagonism of the capitalist society---the one between the working class and the bourgeoisie---Marx ascertained the nature of surplus value. In this way he defined the socio-economic essence of the relations between employers and workers and showed that whatever the concrete forms of the antagonism between capital and wage labour which such exploitation engenders, it, in the final analysis, aggravates the contradictions of bourgeois society. And these contradictions are not smoothed over but become even deeper with the growth of capitalist production and the continuing scientific and technical progress.
The key component of Marx's revolutionary teaching is the conclusion about the proletariat's historical role and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 394--95.
16 the importance of its class struggle for the progressive development of the whole of society.History has confirmed this. Indeed, since the mid-19th century the role played by the struggle of the working class and its organisations in promoting social progress has been increasing with each successive historical epoch.
Take the epoch of free competition capitalism, for instance. It was a period of the development of the bourgeois class and the spread of the capitalist mode of production.
In the middle of the 19th century the total number of industrial workers in the world did not exceed ten million. The bourgeoisie was still the leader of the biggest mass revolutionary movements of that epoch. But already then there were clear indications of the mounting importance of the class struggle and the growing influence of the workers on public affairs. Let us recall the first independent actions of the proletariat: the uprisings of the Lyons weavers in the 1830s; the Chartist movement and the first major strike battles of the working class in England; the participation of workers in the revolutions of 1848, particularly the June uprising of the Paris proletariat. It should be noted, however, that the proletariat, as Marx observed, could and ``sought to assert its own interests side by side with the interests of the bourgeoisie" (inasmuch as it was still unable to enforce its own interests ``as the revolutionary interests of society itself'').^^1^^ But already then many of workers' actions could have been qualified as a struggle of the proletariat, which was beginning to hold up its head, against the ruling classes.
The consolidation of the working class as an independent political force began in that period; it was an epoch of the rise of the working-class movement.
The next historical epoch was marked by the development of free competition capitalism into monopoly capitalism. At the time the new features in the development of the capitalist economy, which became more and more pronounced in the last third of the 19th century, were spotted by Engels and he mentioned them in his writings, particularly in the supplements to Volume III of Marx's Capital, which he wrote in the mid-1890s.
The antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in that period became the most important social contradiction. For the working-class movement it was an epoch when the entire working class mustered its forces in preparation for the imminent major class battles.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Karl Marx, ``The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 57.
17The tanks of the European and North American proletariat swelled most rapidly in that period. The working class in other parts of the world also began to grow. At the beginning of the 20th century there were more than 40 million industrial workers in Britain, the USA, Germany, France, Russia and Japan. The trade unions also grew at a faster pace (by 1913 their membership was approximately 15 million) and workers' parties began to step up their activity.
The growing influence of the working class and its organisations made itself felt on the course of a number of bourgeoisdemocratic revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century. The active role played by the working masses in them left its imprint on the development of the revolutionary struggle. A particularly good example is the 1905 Revolution in Russia where the working class, in spite of the fact that it comprised the minority of the population, became the principal leading force in the struggle of the masses against tsarism and for social justice.
Workers are not only a growing but the best organised class. Today over 200 million workers throughout the world are members of trade unions and tens of millions are members of workers' parties. The role played by the working class in the socio-economic and political progress of society is much greater than its proportion in the total population, and the activity of revolutionary workers' parties and trade unions is much higher than that of other public and political organisations.
Workers are the main productive force of society. By the mid-2 Oth century the working class produced not less than three-quarters of the world social product. The class struggle of the working people by no means impedes the growth of productive forces and technical progress; on the contrary, it accelerates and stimulates them. This applies to the struggle of workers for their fundamental, ultimate objectives, as well as for their immediate, direct socio-- economic demands.
The activity of the mass workers' organisations and their unremitting efforts to improve conditions of life and secure the satisfaction of other urgent needs of the working people definitely stimulate economic and socio-political processes in bourgeois society. Without overestimating the significance of this struggle, Marx made the point that it should not be underestimated either. Addressing the sittings of the General Council of the First International, Marx, on the one hand, emphasised that ``the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles" it conducts in capitalist society, inasmuch as ``they are righting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects''. 18 He called upon the workers and their organisations not to limit themselves to ``a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system" but simultaneously to try ``to change it ... using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class'',^^1^^ that is, for the struggle for the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism.
At the same time Marx noted that the struggle between labour and capital in bourgeois society was progressive and useful. He criticised those who in effect urged the workers to stop fighting for at least a partial improvement of their material status. ``By cowardly giving way in their everyday conflict with capital,'' he wrote, ``they would certainly disqualify themselves for the initiating of any larger movement.~"^^2^^
When he said that the working class was a force capable of solving the main, fundamental social problems facing the whole of mankind, he proceeded above all from the objective status of this class in the system of social relations and its bonds with the more progressive forms of production. The realisation of the historical role of the working class depends on the extent to which its foremost representatives are capable of assimilating the scientific views on society and implementing them in a mass movement. It is from this standpoint that Marxism considers the correlation of elements of consciousness and spontaneity in the struggle of the working people and the role played by the revolutionary vanguard in the'working-class movement.
In the 20th century the problems of the class proletarian struggle are inseparable from the basic social problems facing the whole of mankind.
The working class is by no means a passive and not only a suffering mass of people, but an increasingly active and conscious force. The efforts of some reformist ideologists to identify revolutionary Marxist theory with the vulgar dogmas of Lassalleanism are futile. It will be expedient to note that Marx refuted Lassalle's theory of the ``iron law of wages" and universal poverty as an essential precondition for an upsurge of the class struggle of the proletariat.
Producing arguments in support of his teaching about the historical mission of the working class Marx countered the false assertions that the class struggle of the working people could be successful only if the working class fell to the level of declassed elements and dregs of society, to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, ``Wages, Price and Profit''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 2, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp. 75,76.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 75.
19 status of the lumpen-proletariat.One of the basic conditions permitting the workers to uphold their vital rights and interests and to raise their level of organisation and consciousness is their ever broader participation in a vigorous class struggle. Only in the course of that struggle does the working class assert itself as the leader of all the progressive forces, as the hegemon of social progress. It was not accidental, therefore, that Marx stressed that by refusing to participate in such a struggle the workers ``would be degraded to one level mass of broken wretches past salvation".^^1^^
The proletariat has covered a long and difficult road. In the course of a bitter and protracted struggle the masses influence the development of society and at the same time change themselves in many respects.
The progress of the working class and scientific and technical progress are interconnected. Experience confirms this Marxist conclusion.
In his Capital Marx mentioned the following basic stages in the development of large-scale machine production.
The first stage: simple cooperation of all-purpose machines or ``the co-operation of a number of machines of one kind''. Such, basically, was what factory production was like in the latter half of the 19th century.
The second stage was the division of the manufacturing process into successive stages and the specialisation of machines: ``a real machinery system ... that characterises manufacture'', ``co-operation by division of labour" and ``a combination of detail machines''.
The third stage was the highest form of machine systems: ``an automatic system of machinery".^^2^^
While the second stage of the development of machine production---automated line mass production---became predominant in many industries between the two world wars, the third stage---automated line production---began to develop rapidly in present conditions. The development of the instruments of production, Marx wrote, was a gauge of the qualitative development of the labour force and the working class. The skill of the labour force and the intensification of its work were another side of the development of large-scale machine production.
Marx studied the various stages through which the working class passed in its development by the 1860s. In the first volume of Capital he examined the common features and distinctions between:~
the proletariat of the simple capitalist cooperation;~
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977 pp. 357, 358, 360.
20 the proletariat of the capitalist manufacture; and~the factory proletariat at the first stage of large-scale machine production.
Marxist science thoroughly analyses the distinctive features of the working class of conveyor production and the working class of conveyor and automated line production. Such an analysis required joint efforts of sociologists, economists, legal experts, psychologists and other specialists.
Marx laid the foundation for a comprehensive analysis of the most important trends and prospects of the development of manpower and the working class. One such trend is the accumulation of knowledge and experience by the workers and improvement of their general training, all of which enhances their aptitude for complicated mental work. He pointed out in his ``Theories of Surplus Value" (Volume IV of Capital) that ``the degree of skill of the existing population is always the pre-condition of production as a whole: it is therefore the principal accumulation of wealth and the most important result of antecedent labour".^^1^^
Until recently non-Marxist economists and sociologists as a rule did not attach due importance to this key source of accumulation.
In Capital Marx examined the relationship between aggregate capital and aggregate labour, reducing the latter to ordinary average labour (i.e., to workers engaged in simple manual labour). As a result, he was able to ascertain in its pure form the essence of the process of the extraction of capitalist profit.
Some of Marx's new and old ``critics'' used his method to misinterpret Marxism,^^2^^ including the Marxist concept of the working class, and endeavoured to reduce the latter only to manual workers. It should be noted that in conditions of the domination of simple capitalist cooperation and manufacture it was not yet a fundamental misinterpretation, for creative, mental labour was still the privilege of the employers who had a monopoly on education.
But with the growth of machine production an ever bigger proportion of the working class undergoes serious training and is gradually drawn into the sphere of mental labour in spite of the fact that the hunt for profits hinders and lends a certain one-sidedness to the development of the spheres _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Part III, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 295.
~^^2^^ See: Louis B. Bouding, The Theoretical System of Karl Marx in the Light of Recent Criticism, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1967; Marx's ``Capital'' and Capitalism Today, ed. by A. Guttler, B. Hindess, P. Hirst, A. Hussain, Vol. 2, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1978, pp. 233--93.
21 where highly skilled labour power is trained (education, health protection, culture, art, etc.).In capitalist society the scientific and technical progress and the structural changes in the economy which it engenders lead to major changes both in the general level of qualification, and in the qualification structure of the workers. An ever increasing influence on these changes is exerted by automation which diminishes the importance of some mass professions (machine-operators, for instance) and gives rise to new professions (programmers, operators, adjusters and repairmen of automatic machines) and stimulates the numerical growth of qualified workers of a new type. At the same time more and more engineers and technicians are trained who also join the production process.
According to Marx the ``aggregate worker" includes factory workers engaged in manual labour and workers (including a part of technicians and engineers) who contribute their mental labour to the creation of the product, or perform auxiliary functions essential to the production process.
The working class is a social organism consisting of numerous strata and the fact that its composition is becoming more complex testifies to its continuous growth and progress. Simultaneously, various sections (depending on their standard of life, qualification, conditions of work, consumption pattern, interests, etc.) objectively draw closer to one another.
This creates additional conditions for the growth of class awareness and the joint actions of various contingents and organisations of the working class. The growing class awareness of ever broader, including new, sections of the working people raises the working class, and its factory nucleus in the first place, to the level of understanding complex social, economic, political, national and international problems.
One of the main trends of the development of the working class is its increasing activity and territorial and occupational mobility. This is also a result of the modern large-scale machine production.
In his time Marx showed the inevitability and the progressive nature of the gradual spread of machine production to all spheres of human activity. Especially in its contemporary forms of conveyor and automated production this process is a major step towards the approximation of conditions of life and work and, consequently, of the demands of different groups of the working people.
An example of this are the changes in the conditions of life and work of office and other employees. First, the expansion of serial production, cooperation and 22 specialisation tremendously increases the flow of production and market information and gives rise to industrial methods of processing it (mechanisation of accounting, introduction of electronics and cybernetics, etc.). Second, this means that machines more and more compete not only with office employees but with workers as well. Third, the present standard of life of many office employees in the West is not higher but often even lower than that of a qualified worker. Fourth, the old function of office employees as ``supervisors'' of the speed and the quality of the workers' labour at this stage is being increasingly performed by machines regulating the rhythm of work and by the workers themselves.
On the other hand, there are processes which preserve and broaden the gap in the position of different strata of the working class. They include the uneven development of capitalist production in different regions, countries, and economic branches, the coexistence of enterprises of simple capitalist cooperation, capitalist manufactures, small-batch and mass machine production, and the coexistence of dwarf and giant capitalist enterprises.
Uneven development makes itself felt also in the regional specialisation typical of the army of hired labour. For instance, in some developing Asian, African and Latin American countries agricultural labourers, miners, workers who have no machines to help them, i.e., a proletariat of simple cooperation or manufacture, comprise the majority of the working class.
Typical of another group of capitalist countries (chiefly those where industrialisation is nearing completion) is the rapid growth of the factory proletariat. And only in relatively few industrially more advanced capitalist countries the image of the working class as a whole is increasingly determined by workers engaged in conveyor production and in the maintenance and technical spheres.
It follows, then, that while the trend towards the approximation of the conditions of life and work of the different groups of working people (the narrowing gap in the wages of workers of different qualifications, different branches of production, workers and employees, etc.) has been developing over the past few decades in some capitalist countries, the distinctions in the position and structure of the working class in different regions of the world capitalist system of economy, far from disappearing, are, on the contrary, increasing.
Yet such distinctions in the complexity and nature of labour, in the standard of life of the various contingents of the working class do not by themselves stand in the way of stronger class solidarity and unity of the working people 23 even if they can to a degree impede the rapid development of such unity. Class unity strengthens above all in the course of the class struggle, which is increasing in scale in the capitalist countries and is characterised by an ever growing complexity and diversity of the forms of mass action. Workingclass organisations broaden their influence on the widest sections of the population and are coming to play an increasingly prominent role in all spheres of human activity. However uneven is the intensity and magnitude of the mass struggle, it is clear that the working-class movement and all the left, peace-loving, progressive forces are making definite headway. Processes are developing in the majority of Western countries which tend to radicalise the working masses and broaden the influence of the working class on social progress.
Dwelling on the enormous potentialities of the class struggle of the working people, Engels wrote: ``The struggle will be long and vicious. But if the workers display political perspicacity, patience, self-control, unanimity and discipline, qualities to which they owe so many brilliant successes, their ultimate victory will be assured. Historical necessity, both economic and political, is wholly on their side."^^1^^
__*_*_*__The spread of the influence of socialist ideas in width and in depth depends on the successful struggle of the revolutionary working-class movement both against bourgeoisreformist falsifications of the major precepts of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and against leftist sectarian patterns of petty-bourgeois revolutionarism. The international communist movement relies on the vast experience and traditions of the struggle of the founders of scientific socialism. In their works Marx and Engels organically combined a profound, all-embracing and positive formulation of major problems related to revolutionary theory and practice with well-reasoned polemics against all the opponents and vulgarisers of scientific socialism.
As the founders of scientific socialism formulated their conclusion about the historical role of the working class, they did not confine themselves to economic, or, say, historical or philosophical studies alone. Problems related to the position and the struggle of the working class could be correctly studied and generalised not only on the basis of a specialised approach, but also by dialectically combining it with general methodological principles of Marxism as a coherent, integral theory.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 22, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1963, p. 312.
24Here is what Marx and Engels wrote in The Holy Family: ``Since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman form'', since the proletariat ``is driven directly to revolt against this inhumanity'', then it ``can and must emancipate itself. But it cannot emancipate itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation.''^^1^^
It is noteworthy that when scientific socialism was still in the early period of its development, its founders, who in many respects had anticipated the great difficulties which were in store for the class struggle, pointed out the dialectical interconnection between the movement for the satisfaction of everyday demands of the working people and the struggle for the ultimate aims of the proletariat, between the elements of spontaneity and consciousness in the mass working-class movement. ``Not in vain does it [proletariat---T.T.] go through the stern but steeling school of labour,'' they wrote in the same work. ``It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do."^^2^^ This important premise which was further elaborated in some works of the classics of MarxismLeninism is still in the focus of ideological battles.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Controversy overOne of the main aims of scientific socialism's struggle against its opponents is to rebuff all efforts to distort and falsify the Marxist theory of classes and the class struggle.
Attempts to question the possibility of scientifically defining classes, and, especially, to deny the applicability of the basic class-forming features to the proletariat are typical of many of bourgeois ideologists. Some of them, including Pitirim Sorokin and Raymond Aron,^^3^^ allege that Marxism does not give a clear theoretical conception of social or economic classes and that it does not scientifically _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 4, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, pp. 36--37.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 37.
~^^3^^ Pitirim Sorokin, Contemporary Sociological Theories. Through the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, Evanston and London, 1956, pp. 542, 543; Raymond __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 26. 25 substantiate the term ``proletariat''. There are anti-Marxists, such as J. R. Commons, S. Perlman, H. Wilensky and W. Haber,^^1^^ on the one hand, and social-reformists (E. Lederer, G. Myrdal) and philosophers of the Frankfurt school, on the other, who allege that ``a clearly defined working class no longer exists" in the 20th century in the industrialised capitalist countries. Even if these authors did concede the possibility of the class consciousness appearing among industrial workers in the zone of developed capitalism, it was only as a transitional phenomenon characterising workers not yet accustomed to the modern metropolis and the modern work place^^2^^ (i. e., typical, as they claim, primarily of the sections called ``marginal'' or, to be precise, of the lumpen-- proletariat).^^3^^
Another part of Western sociologists, historians and anthropologists, among them Hans Kohn, Milton Gordon and Helmut Konrad, attempt to counter the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes and the class struggle by propagandising the concept ``ethnoclass''^^4^^ and the myth about the natural growth of nationalism in relations between working people of different nationalities.^^5^^ It is clear that instead of the scientific, Marxist definition of the proletariat as a class which is international both in nature and in terms of its ultimate aims, they would have liked to portray it as an aggregate of _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 25. Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, Penguin Books, London, 1976, pp. 137--40.
~^^1^^ J. R. Commons et al, History of Labor in the United States, Macmillan, New York, 1969; Harold L. Wilensky, ``Class, Class Consciousness and American Workers''. In: Labor in a Changing America, ed. by William Haber, Basic Books, New York, London, 1966, pp. 12--44.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ In our opiniqn the term ``marginal sections" now current in some European countries (not without the influence of American sociology) cannot be used to characterise the lumpen-proletariat. It makes it impossible to clearly and precisely disclose the fundamental class and political distinctions between the lumpen-proletariat and the working class.
~^^4^^ They argue that the ``ethnoclass'' arises as a result of the `` combination of ethnic origin and class position''. Some sociologists, for instance, believe that many people in the USA would rather be of a certain nationality than be identified with the working class (Milton Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, Oxford University Press, New York, 1964; Dennis H.Wrong, ``How Important Is Social Class? The Debate Among American Sociologists''. In: Dissent, Special Issue, The World of the Blue Collar Worker, New York, 1972, p. 282; Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, ``Introduction to the Second Edition: New York City in 1970''. In: Beyond the Melting Pot, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1970.
~^^5^^ Hans Kohn, Idea of Nationalism, Macmillan, New York, 1946.
26 national and ethnic, or cultural groups. At the same time some West European proponents of 'Katheder socialism'^^1^^ are making repeated attempts to rehabilitate the heritage of the ideologists of ``Austro-Marxism'' beginning with Viktor Adler and ending with Karl Renner.The desire to discredit the scientific definition of class, to prove the historical ``futility'' of the struggle of the proletariat and to belittle its role in the socio-historical process permeates the conceptions of many authors. On the one hand, some of them doubt that the Marxists correctly pick out the working class from the whole mass of hired workers.^^2^^ On the other hand, many Western sociologists and philosophers unreasonably narrow the limits of the proletariat, saying that for the most part it includes only manual workers and predict that its influence will soon end.^^3^^ Attempts are also made metaphysically to counterpose the concepts `` proletariat" and ``working class"^^4^^ in order to cast doubt on their scientific validity.
Here some authors endeavour to replace the scientific criterion of class affiliation with other, subjective definitions.
Scientific socialism maintains that an analysis of class relations characteristic of one or another socio-economic formation should rest on the determination of the essence of the relations of production in the given society. (Yet it would be wrong to ascribe to Marxism a desire to mechanically infer such a connection: it should not be forgotten that ``production relations" and ``class relations" are by no means identical concepts, for class relations arise from production relations; at the same time it should always be remembered that in a class society production relations have a class nature.) Marx always coupled the study of the basic classes of society where the capitalist mode of production is dominant with a searching analysis of the essence of this mode of _-_-_
^^1^^ Katheder socialism was a political trend in Germany in the last third of the 19th century which embraced bourgeois economists who opposed Marxism and advocated reforms to prevent the doom of capitalism. The Fabian Society, which was formed in England in the 1880s, also repudiated the necessity of class struggle and favoured small-scale reforms which were regarded as ``socialist''.
^^2^^ See, for instance: Pitirim Sorokin, Op. cit., pp. 541--43; Ideology in Social Science. Readings in Critical Social Theory, ed. by Robin Blackburn, Collins, Fontana, 1972, pp. 119--63.
^^3^^ Raymond Aron, L'Opium des intellectuels, Gallimard, 1968, p. 55; Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.), 1959; Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, Basic Books, New York, 1973.
^^4^^ Irving Howe, ``Sweet and Sour Notes. On Workers and Intellectuals''. In: Dissent, Special Issue, The World of the Blue Collar Worker, New York, 1972, pp. 264--66.
27 production and ascertainment of the laws governing the economic development of bourgeois society.^^1^^Attacks on Marx's and Engels's scientific definition of class are a widespread form of repudiating the proletariat's social and historical role. Traditions in this field were laid back in the 19th century in works by Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer and then in the works of Max Weber and other leading bourgeios sociologists.^^2^^ Their followers in the epoch of the general crisis of capitalism, alongside the frank exponents of capitalist social relations, include a group of bourgeois-reformist authors. They counterpose Marx's teaching of classes with a non-economic conception of social class.^^3^^ But they pass over in silence the fact that Marxism views class from dialectical positions, not only as an economic but as a broader concept. Similar views are entertained by some of the New Left ideologists who either insist that the basic class contradiction is shifting from the economic basis to the superstructure,^^4^^ or uncritically echo the views of W. Lloyd Warner^^5^^, and interpret class as a ``psychological'' phenomenon.
Another group of such writers maintains that the very idea of the natural growth of the proletariat being an indispensable condition enabling it to fulfil its revolutionary mission is basically wrong.^^6^^ They also put forward the thesis that there is neither a clearly defined working class nor a scientific concept of class.^^7^^ This view is also upheld by many ideologists of contemporary technocracy.^^8^^
In this respect some ``left''-extremist ideologists join hands with those authors who preach that the Marxist theory of class should be subjected to sociological criticism. They repudiate the significance of social division of labour and character of the development of the proletariat. With this aim in view they misrepresent Marx's interpretation of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, pp. 885--86.
~^^2^^ See: Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundrisse der Sozialokonomik, Part 3, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, 1922, pp. 631--41.
~^^3^^ See: Dennis H. Wrong, Op. cit, pp. 278--85; Stanislaw Ossowski, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness, Macmillan Free Press, New York, 1963; Harold L. Wilensky, Op.cit., pp. 12--44; Half Dahrendorf, Op. cit.
~^^4^^ Nouvel observateur, No. 189,1974, pp. 3-9.
~^^5^^ W. Lloyd Warner, Structure of American Life, Edinburgh, 1952.
~^^6^^ See: Irving Howe, Op. cit, pp. 264--65.
~^^7^^ See: Harold L. Wilensky, Op. cit., pp. 12--44.
~^^8^^ See, for instance: Kerr C. Marshall, Marx and Modem Times. The Multi-Dimensional Society, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1969, pp. 96--97.
28 aggregate worker category and maintain without adducing any proof that Marx's use of this concept allegedly laid the basis for reformist and revisionistic interpretations of the concept ``working class".^^1^^Many of the errors that are made in the course of an analysis of social relations, particularly in defining the above concept, are a direct result of the incorrect interpretation of the well-known Marxist definition of class. ``Classes,'' Lenin wrote, ``are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it."^^2^^
It follows that Marxist-Leninist theory determines classes by several basic features. The class-forming criterion, which more precisely defines the place of a class in social production, is its relation to the means of production. ``The fundamental criterion by which classes are distinguished,'' Lenin emphasised, ``is the place they occupy in social production, and, consequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production."^^3^^
It will be interesting to see how the role of a social group in the social organisation of labour is defined.
Analysing the role of workers and the role of the intelligentsia some authors maintain that it is precisely the distinctions between the predominantly physical nature of labour of the former and the predominantly mental nature of labour of the latter which prove that they do not play the same role in the organisation of social production. In this way they spread the idea that the distinctions between workers and the intelligentsia by the nature of their labour form the basis of class distinctions.^^4^^
There are sociologists who regard Lenin's definition of classes as inadequate to characterise the basic elements _-_-_
~^^1^^ Andre Gorz, ``Technique, techniciens et lutte des classes''. In: Critique de la division du travail, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1973, pp. 249--95.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Great Beginning'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 421.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Vulgar Socialism and Narodism as Resurrected by the Socialist-Revolutionaries'', Collected Works, Vol.6, pp. 264--65.
~^^4^^ One proponent of such views was Milovan Djilas who asserted that the technically educated stratum of working people allegedly belonged to the growing middle class. On his part the American sociologist Daniel Bell groundlessly strives to ascribe the same point of view also to Marxist scholars of the socialist countries, and alleges __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 30. 29 of the social structure of modern society. That is the sole reason why some of them have found it necessary to ``correct'' or rather misinterpret his premises and claim that by pointing out the different role the classes play in the social organisation of labour he had in mind distinctions in the character of labour.
But the identification of the social organisation of labour and the character of labour proposed by these authors simplifies and, consequently, misrepresents Lenin's views and is at odds with his profoundly dialectical thinking.
It is true that Lenin viewed the role of a given social group in the organisation of production as an important class-- forming criterion. But if one was to agree with those who identify this role with the mental or physical character of labour it would also be necessary to concede that distinctions between mental and manual labour are of a class-forming nature and that, consequently, mental workers are a special class.
The methodological untenability of this conclusion is obvious. It will be opportune to recall that back in 1902 Lenin ridiculed the premise about the ``trinity'' of the revolutionary classes---the intelligentsia, the proletariat, the peasantry---advanced by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. ``If one sets the intelligentsia against the proletariat and the peasantry,'' he wrote, ``it means that one considers the former a definite social stratum, a group of persons occupying just as definite a social position as is occupied by the wage-workers and the peasants."^^1^^ Such a conclusion, he noted, revealed ``a hopeless confusion of concepts".^^2^^
The intelligentsia is not a class inasmuch as it is not the basic class-forming criteria that distinguish it from the rest of the working population but its belonging by profession chiefly to the sphere of mental labour.^^3^^
Actually the different role of classes in the social organisation of labour is manifested in their participation (or nonparticipation) in managing production, governing people, etc. Another factor of great social importance is the extent to which the objective organisation of labour solidifies the given group into a single whole, makes it disciplined, capable of _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 29. that they do not believe that Lenin's definition of class applies to present-day society, and that they place increasing emphasis on professional distinctions (Daniel Bell, Op. cit., p. 104). These efforts are unfounded: the works of an overwhelming majority of Marxist scholars offer no grounds for such an erroneous interpretation of their views.
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Revolutionary Adventurism'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 198.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ See: World Marxist Review, Vol. 16, No. 5, May 1973, p. 11.
30 collective action and objectively prepared for historically creative activity or, on the contrary, whether it atomises the activity and world outlook of its members. It is these factors that make the role played by a group in the social organisation of labour one of the class-forming criteria. By itself the difference in the character of labour, between labour of a higher or lower qualification, is not a class-forming criterion.Of course, the distinctions between mental and manual labour have a definite social content. The division of labour into mental and manual is not simply a professional but a social distinction arising from certain forms of social division of labour. It is due to these distinctions that the intelligentsia comprises a special social group which ``will persist until we have reached the highest stage of development of communist society".^^1^^
At the same time Lenin justly did not reduce any social distinction to a class distinction. Class divisions reflect the fundamental and the most profound bounds and contradictions of the social structure. The role played in the social organisation of production is one of the determinant features of these basic divisions, and the nature of labour, whatever its social content, lacks such significance.
According to this definition, the antithesis between mental and manual labour under capitalism is ``one of the principal sources of modern social inequality".^^2^^ This antithesis is due to the fact that in antagonistic societies, owing to their place and role in social production many mental workers as a rule belonged to the ruling, exploiting classes or were close to them, while the overwhelming majority of manual workers made up the exploited classes.
The revolutionary working-class movement takes these circumstances into account but counters attempts to portray the contrast between mental and manual labour under an exploiting system as an antagonism between the interests of all wage-earning mental workers, on the one hand, and the interests of all manual workers, on the other. Such attempts are absolutely futile.
As long ago as in 1899 Lenin noted that the intelligentsia occupied a specific position in society because it partly adhered to the bourgeoisie in terms of ties and views, and partly to the hired workers in view of the fact that capitalism increasingly deprived the intellectual of his independent status and turned him into a dependent wage-earner. It would _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions Under the New Economic Policy'', Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 194.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The State and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 473.
31 also be opportune to recall that Engels noted that the proletariat which was engaged in mental labour was destined shoulder to shoulder with its brother workers engaged in physical labour to play a major role in the impending revolution.^^1^^It is disregard for this circumstance that in some measure forms the basis for erroneous positions and views which objectively result in the contraposition of the industrial nucleus of the working class to other strata of the army of wage-earners, including engineering and technical personnel.
From the false thesis about the erosion of the social base of the working-class movement the conclusion is drawn about the inevitable decline in the leading role of the working class and its communist vanguard in society. The untenability of these claims is obvious. By incorrectly interpreting the changes in the structure of the contemporary working class, particularly the growth in the number of workers of new professions, chiefly non-manual, bourgeois reformist theoreticians such, for example, as Daniel Bell and his associates, unjustifiably narrow the limits of this most dynamic, leading revolutionary class of our age, and absolutely without any grounds include all mental workers (draftsmen, team leaders and the more educated highly qualified workers and technical specialists employed in the sphere of material production) into the so-called new middle class.
It is easy to see that this is not an invention of contemporary sociologists. Those of them who in one way or another uphold the theory of the new middle class, largely rely on the conceptions of Emil Lederer, Werner Sombart, Eduard Bernstein and others.
Marxists have always given a rebuff both to trends aimed at belittling the advanced, leading role of the industrial nucleus of the proletariat, and to the just as harmful vulgarising efforts to drive a wedge between wage-earning mental and manual workers, and underrate the importance of the struggle for raising the educational level of the workers and enhancing their political consciousness.
It is appropriate to recall that on this score scientific socialism was on the one hand opposed by the conceptions of anarchists who without any reason at all also included declassed individuals into the proletariat. In our epoch ``expansionistic'' conceptions are expressed by neo-- anarchistic ideologists. On the other hand, Marxism is opposed by a conception which very narrowly fixes the limits of the working class. At the turn of the century, when more and _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 22, p. 415.
32 more wage-earning mental workers appeared in Western Europe and North America, Katheder Socialists, disregarding the well-known Marxist conclusions about the growth of the ``proletariat of mental labour'', evidently thought that the time had come (after the death of Engels) to revise the fundamental propositions of scientific socialism about trends ensuring greater cohesion between wage-earning mental and physical workers. With this aim in view they, referring to mythical processes of deconcentratipn and ``democratisation'' of capital, and some sort of a diffusion of property and redistribution of profits and, consequently, to the allegedly inevitable deproletarianisation of the working class, began to spread the idea of a new middle class which, according to its adepts, consisted of the growing stratum of white collar workers.Since we are examining the sources of this theory, we should not overlook the fact that in its time it penetrated the social-democratic movement in Western Europe from the German ``new historical school" and from bourgeois sociology. It was spread by authors who maintained that the working class consisted only of hired manual workers. This point of view, for instance, was reflected in works by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, particularly, in The History of Trade Unionism.
The same idea was upheld by John A. Hobson. In his characterisation of ``occupations of the people" he tried to produce arguments in support of the thesis about the growing middle class (whose distinctive feature, he maintained, was ``the superior social consideration'').^^1^^ As regards Bernstein, he also advocated the idea of a ``new middle class" and regarded its growth as one of the main arguments confirming his reformist inventions about the softening of class antagonisms under capitalism.
It is not accidental that the contemporary apologists of the post-industrial society are now reviving such conceptions. For instance, Daniel Bell reminds readers of the views of such adept of the ``new middle class" theory as Emil Lederer.
In his work on the economic role of white collar workers (published shortly before the First World War), Lederer not only echoed narrow interpretation of the working class but also insisted that office workers (including rank and file) had some sort of special class interests which made it necessary for them to form their own trade unions separately from the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: John A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modem Capitalism. A Study of Machine Production, The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd., New York and Melbourne, 1917, pp. 388, 397.
33 industrial workers.^^1^^ He maintained that these separate ``class'' interests prevented wage-earning mental workers from supporting workers' parties. Assailing the scientific definition of classes, he gave priority not to basic socio-economic criteria but to other factors, including ``psychological distinctions"^^2^^Bell speaks with admiration about these and subsequent efforts undertaken by Lederer to revise the Marxist theory of historical classes. Nor does he conceal the practical political objectives of these aspirations. Bell acknowledges that they were intended to knock the ground from under the feet of those who regarded wage-earning mental workers as a `` white-collar proletariat" inclined to adopt working-class attitudes.^^3^^ It is obvious that neither Lederer half a century ago, nor Bell today, would have wanted this process to gain increasing momentum.
The theory of the ``new middle class" tends to split the working class along occupational lines, weaken the anti-capitalist activity of hired workers engaged in nonmanual labour and set them against the vanguard of the working class.
Exposing the shopworn methods of various critics of Marx, Lenin in his time pointed out that the substance of their views was the allegation that the contrast between the interests of the different classes manifested itself not more than the contrast ``between the various strata of the working class, between urban and rural workers, between skilled and unskilled labour".^^4^^ He showed the unscientific nature of such conceptions. ``Confounding trade differences with class differences; confounding differences in the way of life with the different positions of the various classes in the system of social production---what better illustration is needed of the complete absence of scientific principles in the fashionable `criticism' and of its practical tendency to obliterate the very concept `class' and to eliminate the very idea of the class struggle."^^5^^
The untenability of these conceptions which are alien to Marxism is all the more obvious in present-day conditions. The joint actions of manual and mental workers are _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Die Privatangestellten in der Modernen Wirtschaftsentwicklung von Dr. Emil Lederer, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, 1912, pp. 52, 56,58, 291,292.
~^^2^^ See: Emil Lederer, Jacob Marschak, ``Der Neue Mittelstand''. In: Grundriss der Sozialokonomik, Vol. I, Tubingen, 1926.
~^^3^^ See: Daniel Bell, Op. cit., pp.70, 71.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Agrarian Question and the `Critics of Marx'\thinspace", Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 193.
~^^5^^ Ibid.
34 increasing in the countries where the situation is characterised by an aggravation of social contradictions and deepening of the general crisis of capitalism.Just a few decades ago the division of workers into those working by brain and by hand in the capitalist countries could practically coincide with division by basic class-forming criteria (but only coincide, and by no means be identical). The bulk of the mental workers either belonged to the ruling classes or to the petty bourgeoisie (that part of it which united the so-called professional people).
Things have changed since then. Mass strata of mental workers completely deprived of the means of production and largely unconnected with capitalist exploitation have appeared in the capitalist world. The position of a part of the engineers and technicians employed at factories and other enterprises is the same as that of the bulk of the proletariat. It goes without saying that the industrial nucleus of the proletariat continues to play the leading role in the antimonopoly struggle.
The attempts to draw a class distinction between the proletarianised part of the engineering and technical personnel and the industrial core of the working class on the basis that the former are brain workers and many of the latter are engaged in physical work, prompt bourgeois and reformist theoreticians to draw the conclusion that some sort of a new middle class or the ``intellectual class" has come into being. Such a division sheds no light on the origin of the proletarianised part of the technical specialists who belong neither to the bourgeoisie nor to the petty bourgeoisie.
It was Lenin who discovered the unscientific essence of the idea of an independent class position of the intelligentsia. He emphasised that the latter was ``not an independent economic class and therefore" was ``not an independent political force".^^1^^
The meaningful changes occurring in society's social structure in conditions of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution, including professional, qualification and other modifications in the composition of the working class itself, do not weaken but, on the contrary, further strengthen the positions and the influence of the working class and augment the impact of the policy and communist world outlook of its vanguard on the working people on all continents.
Since the ranks of the international working class (both _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Concerning an Article Published in the Organ of the Bund'', Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 380.
35 as a mighty international force in general, and its main contingents in particular) continue to swell and inasmuch as major changes are taking place in the structure of the working class in conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, it is only natural that the discussions, including those among Marxists in different countries, of questions related to the scientific appraisal of various aspects and trends of these processes have livened up in the past ten years. In the course of these discussions concerning the changes in the structure of the working class (both in the historico-economic and in the topical socio-political sense), the majority of Marxist researchers rejected the ``narrow'' interpretation of the limits of the working class. The classical Marxist-Leninist theory, they justly note, defines classes in the first place according to their property relations and their role in the social organisation of labour and not according to the nature of their activity. This means that the increasing share of mental labour in the production of material and spiritual values promotes the numerical growth of the working class, and by no means diminishes it.The international working class and its progressive organisations resolutely repulse all attempts to split the ranks of the working people. At the same time the proletariat's class organisations reject the claims that the engineering and technical workers belong to the so-called new middle class.
The growing participation of engineers and technicians in the general struggle of the working people has been mentioned in the documents of world trade union congresses. These forums rejected the unscientific, divisive conceptions that the engineering and technical workers constituted an intermediate class supposedly called upon to resolve the differences between workers and employers with the sole objective of isolating these categories of working people and counterposing them to the other categories in order to increase the exploitation of both.
The contemporary revolutionary working-class movement takes account of the fact that ``the alliance of workers by hand and by brain is becoming an increasingly important force in the struggle for peace, democracy and social progress'', and that the working class has always been and remains ``the principal driving force of the revolutionary struggle, of the entire anti-imperialist, democratic movement''.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, Peace and Socialism Publishers, Prague, 1969, pp. 25, 24.
36 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Leading Force of Social ProgressThe revolutionary creative mission of the working class has strikingly manifested itself in victorious socialist revolutions and the achievements made by people in the countries of existing socialism in the construction of a new society, of a new, communist civilisation. The working class of the USSR, which was the first in the world to accomplish a socialist revolution and ensure the complete victory of socialism under the leadership of the CPSU, having built a developed socialist society and successfully pursuing communist construction, has corroborated and continues to provide fresh evidence confirming Marxism-Leninism's basic conclusion that the working class plays the leading socio-political role in society.
In the present epoch the historical mission of the working class found its most concentrated expression in the successes of the people of the USSR and other socialist countries in building a new society, because these successes are having an increasing influence on the course of the entire world revolutionary liberation process.
It is clear that all the crucial tasks involved in communist construction can be accomplished only with the active and decisive participation of the working class. This is also true of the basic socio-economic tasks which have to be fulfilled in order considerably to raise the material and cultural level of life of the Soviet people by enhancing the efficiency of the entire national economy, accelerating scientific and technical progress and applying its gains in production. This also concerns the fulfilment of the basic ideological and political tasks ensuring the gradual growth of developed socialism into a communist society.
The intense political and labour activity of the Soviet working class strengthens the positions of world socialism and the entire international anti-imperialist front.
The development of the world revolutionary process, the historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in socialist countries, the gains of the peoples of these countries in socialist and communist construction disclose the untenability of anti-Marxist, anti-Leninist conceptions designed to belittle the historical achievements of the working class and its role in the revolutionary transformations of the contemporary epoch.
The ranks of the working class swell as socio-economic and scientific and technical progress gains momentum. In 1924 workers accounted for 10 per cent of the gainfully employed population of the USSR and 32.5 per cent in 1939, while the working class in 1970 made up more than 57 37 __MISSING__ Missing table. Forgot to scan rotated table. [38] per cent of the employed population and approximately 66--67 per cent in 1977.
It is highly indicative that the growth of the Soviet working class over the last few decades has been registered in all spheres of the economy (see Table 1), with the number of workers increasing at a particularly rapid pace in branches where the working class had played a relatively smaller role in the past. For instance, the number of agricultural workers increased almost twofold in the 1950s and 1960s and today they account for more than 13 per cent of the working class. Now workers and office employees make up more than 40 per cent of the total number of people employed in agriculture. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a rapid increase in the number of workers employed in the non-productive branches and in the infrastructure of the economy. This was due to the development of the scientific and technological revolution and the shift in the Soviet economy towards the fulfilment of tasks designed to improve the well-being of the working people. Today almost 25 per cent of the total number of workers are employed in these branches (see Table 1). Workers make up about 65 per cent of the personnel employed in trade, everyday housing-- andcommunal services. Even in science and scientific servicing, culture, administration, etc., the proportion of workers has reached approximately 30 per cent in view of the general industrialisation of the service industry and management.
The rapid increase in the proportion of workers in relatively new branches of the economy is concurrent with the steady growth of the absolute number of people comprising the traditional nucleus of the working class, i. e., industrial, building, transport and communication workers. The industrial nucleus remains the main part of the working class.
Similar processes are going on in the majority of other socialist countries. Their economic development is accompanied by the numerical growth of the working class whose branch structure is becoming increasingly complex. At the same time the industrial nucleus retains its leading role (see Table 2).
The working class has turned into the biggest social group in the majority of the socialist countries. In Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Hungary, Poland and the USSR it constitutes the absolute majority of the gainfully employed population. Together with their families the working class in most cases embraces from two-thirds to three-quarters of the populations of these countries.
The numerical growth of the working class is accompanied by qualitative changes: its cultural and technical standards are rising and so is its labour and political activity. The 39 __MISSING__ Missing table. Forgot to scan rotated table. [40] number of workers who annually improve their skills and acquire new professions has almost doubled in the 1960s alone.
The creative initiative of the Soviet working class manifests itself in the participation of an ever greater number of working people in the management of public affairs both through state bodies and through mass organisations of the working class. An important part in drawing the people into the administration of state and public affairs is played by the trade unions which embrace practically the entire working class, the working intelligentsia and large contingents of agricultural workers.
The new social system which the working class sets up after coming to power is an embodiment of the highest type of democracy. No matter how the enemies of Marxism misrepresent the class nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they will never be able to refute the fact that essentially it is nothing else but the rule of the working majority over the overthrown exploiting minority. It is common knowledge that with the victory of socialism and the increasing effort to create the material and technical basis of communism in the USSR the dictatorship of the proletariat became no longer necessary for the country's internal development. The Soviet state ceased to be an organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat and turned into the state of the whole people.
At all stages of socialist society's development, including the period of full-scale communist construction, the working class continues to be the decisive force of its forward movement. Moreover, the working class and its communist party come to play an increasingly leading role in society.
The practice of socialist and communist construction in the USSR has fully justified Lenin's confidence in the inexhaustible creative forces of the working class which transformed itself as it transformed society. Its vast numerical growth is accompanied by profound qualitative changes, the transformation of the proletariat, formerly an object of exploitation and oppression, into a new social class-^the socialist working class which is now the real master of its country.
The revolutionising influence of the gains of the working class of the socialist-community countries on the working people in the non-socialist world is steadily increasing. More and more of them are coming to realise that regardless of its level of development a country can make genuine progress only along the socialist road.
In our day and age it is impossible to correctly appraise the main trends in world development without taking into 41 account the influence of the new, socialist society. Socialism, with its lofty appeals for an effective struggle for peace and real social progress, is having an increasing influence on the course of world events. The mighty community of socialist countries is narrowing the sphere of operation of the laws of capitalism on the international scene to an ever greater degree.
The outstanding gains of existing socialism influence the course and the prospects of the class struggle in the capitalist countries and promote the consolidation of the forces of the working class and its organisations.
The break-away from capitalism of more and more countries; the weakening of imperialist positions in the economic competition with socialism; the collapse of the imperialist colonial system; the growing internal instabilty of the capitalist economy; the mounting struggle between labour and capital; the acute intensification of contradictions within the world capitalist economy; the profound crisis of bourgeois policy and ideology are manifestations of the general crisis which has gripped the capitalist system from top to bottom, a system which, as the CPSU Programme emphasises, is historically doomed. The new phase in the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism did not set in as a result of world wars, as was the case in the past, but in conditions of the peaceful competition of the two social systems.
Irrefutable facts prove imperialism's inability to solve the basic social problems of the contemporary epoch. It is capitalism, a system whose inherent features are economic instability, crises, chronic unemployment and the wanton waste of labour and productive forces of society as a whole, which is responsible for the fact that in the 20th century, with its enormous growth of the productive forces and scientific and technological revolution, an end has not been put to the illiteracy, cultural backwardness and poverty of hundreds of millions of people and that there is still no abundance of material and spiritual wealth for all people on earth. Capitalism, which is the last exploiting system, carries with it the threat of war, rampant militarism and the arms race and, consequently, imposes fresh hardships and privations on the working people.
In these conditions bourgeois ideology is also beset by a profound crisis. Reactionary Western historians, economists, sociologists and philosophers are no longer able to produce ideas capable of attracting the masses for a lengthy period of time.
Recently capitalist ideologists sought to prove that social revolutions in the contemporary epoch were an ``unnatural'' phenomenon. But the powerful upsurge and the successes of 42 the international revolutionary working-class and national liberation movement compelled them to modify their attitude. We are at the height of the still unfinished revolution, writes the American bourgeois sociologist and historian Adam Ulam. He admits that the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas is increasing everywhere, since they reflect the aspirations of large masses of the population. ``Without having read a word of Marx or Lenin,'' he writes, ``an illiterate peasant who is being squeezed economically or forced to give up his land and work in a factory experiences almost instinctively the feelings that Marxism formulates in a theoretical language.... To such people, Communism may come ... as a systematic expression of their own feelings and reactions, something which again makes sense out of an apparently senseless world.~"^^1^^ More and more appeals are made in the bourgeois West to recognise that the twilight of capitalism and world imperialism is now a fact.^^2^^
At the dawn of Soviet power the enemies of communism were mainly concerned with spreading the thesis that the socialist system was shortlived and that socialism could never win in the USSR. But now, sixty years later, the adepts of capitalism no longer venture to question the successes of existing socialism. In these circumstances bourgeois ideologists have increased their output of subjectivistic, arbitrarily constructed ``models of socialism" which are usually set off against existing socialism. In doing so bourgeois-reformist historians and sociologists adhere to a ``typology'' resting on the mechanistic contraposition of the basic forms of the class struggle of the proletariat (for instance, ideological and political and socio-economic), and incorrectly interpret their role. As a rule the authors of the reformist trend pick out the following models (or types of development of the workingclass movement): revolutionary, Marxist; Fabian, Kathedersocialist; pragmatic, trade unionist.
While social-democratic theoreticians in Western Europe usually advertised the ``advantages'' of the second of these so-called models, the ideologists of US trade unionism (beginning with John Commons and Selig Perlman and ending with Philip Taft, Adolf Sturmthal and James Scoville) regarded as too ``radical'' even some of the conclusions of the Fabians (for instance, about the importance of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Adam B. Ulam, The Unfinished Revolution. An Essay on the Sources of Influence of Marxism and Communism, Random House, New York, I960, p. 284.
~^^2^^ See: Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1976; Andrew Gamble and Paul Walton, Capitalism in Crisis. Inflation and the State, Macmillan, London, 1976.
43 political aspects of the working-class movement in combination with other forms of struggle of the working people). They maintained that pragmatic individualism, the striving for partnership with the employers, and not realisation of the ideas of socialism, should determine the image of the working-class movement.^^1^^A truly scientific analysis of the trends and the basic patterns of the historical process in recent and present times discloses the untenability of bourgeois-reformist theories of ``class cooperation'', and assertions that the revolutionary trend is losing its influence in the world working-class movement. It is the developmet of the proletariat's ability to undertake independent revolutionary actions, which was predicted by the classics of Marxism-Leninism, that refutes the Utopian views of those who criticise capitalism and play up the antagonism between the exploited and the exploiters, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but are unable to appreciate the role of the working class as the leading and the most advanced, consistent and revolutionary force of the contemporary epoch.
In the epoch of the scientific and technological revolution ever greater attention is being attached to the question of the historical role of the working class. Quoting dubious data the Commission on the Year 2000 set up by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences attempted to prove that towards the end of the 20th century only something like 10 per cent of the entire able-bodied population of the USA and other industrialised capitalist countries would be directly employed in the sphere of production.
Referring to the development of cybernetics, atomic power engineering, rocket technology, automatics and the increasing employment of computers in production and in the non-productive spheres, bourgeois ideologists claim that scientific and technical progress deprives the revolutionary working-class movement of all prospects for success because the proletariat is conceding its role as the main force of economic, scientific and technical development to the middle sections of the population. Hence the false thesis that Marxist-Leninist conclusions do not correspond to the new phenomena in society.
The opponents of scientific socialism hunted for all sorts of arguments which they hoped would enable them to portray the Marxist premise about the leading role of the _-_-_
^^1^^ Sclig Perlman, A Theory of the Labor Movement, Macmillan, New York, 1949; Philip Taft, The American Federation of Labor in the Time of Gompers, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1957; The International Labor Movement in Transition. Essays on Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, ed. by Adolf Sturmthal and James G. Scoville, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London, 1973, pp. 2-5.
44 proletariat as a Utopia.It is easy to see that these conceptions are unsound ideologically and politically, as well as theoretically. The newly born ``overthrowers'' of the theory of scientific communism vulgarise its basic premises and pass over in silence the fact that it was Marxism-Leninism which predicted that the role played by different kinds of skilled and mental labour in production would increase in the course of industrial, scientific and technical progress and related changes in the structure of the economy and scientifically substantiated this growth as a natural law. Bourgeois and reformist ideologists ignore the fundamental Marxist proposition that the working class includes both industrial workers engaged in manual labour and other categories of workers (the agricultural proletariat; people performing auxiliary functions in production; those sections of the working people which the founders of scientific socialism classified as the trade and office proletariat, the proletariat of mental work, etc.).
While in the mid-19th century the number of industrial workers in the world did not exceed 10 million and at the beginning of the current century the world proletariat totalled approximately 80 million, in the 1970s the world labour force counted more than 640 million. Over the last few decades its growth has been particularly rapid in those branches of the economy where technical progress is the highest (in electrical engineering, chemical, automobile and aircraft industries).
Following in the wake of the proletariat ever broader masses, including petty-bourgeois urban and rural sections, join the anti-imperialist movement and the revolutionary struggle for socialism. This fact, too, is portrayed by some ideologists of petty-bourgeois radicalism as a sign that the leading role of the working class in the struggle against imperialism is declining. They maintain that the most active revolutionary force today are the non-proletarian strata, such, for instance, as the peasantry or the petty-bourgeois urban ``new middle class''. As regards the Maoists, they raised the negation of the leading role of the working class in the world revolutionary movement to the rank of official policy a long time ago.
The anti-proletarian conceptions now in vogue among the splitters hold no water. ``The country cannot be equal to the town under the historical conditions of this epoch,'' Lenin wrote. ``The town inevitably leads the country. The country inevitably follows the town. The only question is which class, of the `urban' classes, will succeed in leading the country, will cope with this task, and what forms will 45 leadership by the town assume?~"^^1^^
Some bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologists make believe that it is the students who are the vanguard of the class struggle and not the working class. They insist that the so-called youth revolution and not the proletarian revolution is now in a position to express society's new revolutionary requirements, and that the struggle of classes has given way to a conflict of generations. This is merely a rehash of the old, bankrupt conceptions of Trotskyism that declared the young people to be but the only ``barometer'' of revolutionary sentiments. Such conceptions are faulty because they are not based on a class analysis of social phenomena.
The Communists who regard the progressive youth movement as a component of the anti-capitalist struggle stress the importance of increasing its interaction with the workingclass movement.
The steadily rising technical and cultural standards of the working class under socialism and the growing number of engineers, technicians and other specialists employed in the material production or related spheres consolidate and bring together all working people. Contrary to the expectations of the opponents of Marxism-Leninism, the scientific and technological revolution brings the working class even closer to the engineering and technical intelligentsia. This convergence, just as the growing social homogeneity and the strengthening social, ideological and political unity of socialist society, takes place on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, the scientific world outlook of the working class.
The growth of the influence of the Marxist-Leninist Party on the masses in socialist society is largely due to the growing role and weight of the working class in its ranks. It is not by chance that the proportion of workers in the composition of the majority of the fraternal parties in the socialist community steadily increases. In the CPSU, for example, it rose from 32 per cent at the beginning of the 1950s and 34 per cent early in the 1960s, to 40--41 per cent in the first half of the 1970s.
The leading position of the working class in society is fully manifested in the activity of its Marxist-Leininist vanguard. Lenin's premise that only the political party of the working class---the Communist Party---is in a position to guide its entire activity, i. e., to lead ``it politically, and through it, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Constituent Assembly Elections and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 257.
46 whole mass of the working people'',^^1^^ is just as important today as it was in his time.A decisive factor of the successful fulfilment by the working class of its historical mission is the growing influence of its scientific world outlook, Marxist-Leninist ideology, on all working people, on the broadest masses.
Being a comprehensive, integral teaching, Marxism-- Leninism provides the theoretical, methodological basis for correctly determining the place of the working class in the system of social production and its growing role in world history. That is why opportunists of all hues level their heaviest attacks precisely on the theoretical and methodological principles of the revolutionary teaching on the working class and its historical role.
Consequently, in their ideological and theoretical activity Marxists-Leninists should concentrate first and foremost on rebuffing all attempts to negate in any form the dialectical interconnection of the international and national tasks of the working-class movement, to misrepresent the correlation of common class, political and specific national-historical factors in the struggle of the proletariat and in the development of the world revolutionary process, to distort the anti-imperialist nature of the policies of the CPSU and other Marxist-Leninist parties;~
counteracting all trends towards fragmenting the integral international theory of the world working class and, in the first place, the efforts artificially to fence off Leninism from Marxism, belittle the international significance of Lenin's legacy, and to hunt out in opposition to it ``special'' interpretations of Marxism (particularly great efforts here are being made by Ernest Mandel and other neo-Trotskyites and also by some revisionists who laud Maoism);~
exposing the opportunistic line of those who in effect seek to weaken the role of the revolutionary proletariat in the anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist struggle.
The basic theoretical and methodological positions of revisionism are unsound because, among other things, they negate the integrity of Marxism-Leninism. We find such negation, for example, in Roger Garaudy's efforts to ``revise'' what is most important in Marxism---the conclusion about the historical mission of the proletariat---by quoting at random passages from Marx's economic works.
But in substantiating the cornerstone of Marxism---the teaching about the world historic mission of the working class---the founders of scientific communism did not confine _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Tenth Congress of the R. C. P. (B.)", Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 246.
47 themselves to a ``purely economic" or, say, a ``purely philosophic" approach, and organically combined their economic and philosophic analysis with a general socio-political analysis. The all-round scientific substantiation of the conclusion about the historical mission of the proletariat is not a subject of any one component of Marxism, but of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist teaching as an integral theory.It is very important to deliver an effective rebuff to doctrinaires, ultra-leftist petty-bourgeois vulgarisers who fetishise technology. As a rule they are incapable of resolving fundamental problems of concern for the whole of humanity, and endeavour to attribute this inability to the ``impossibility'' of solving these matters in general.
Some of the opponents of scientific communism who want to soften up the class principles of Marxist-Leninist theory often shroud themselves in quasi-Marxist attire. All of them, including petty-bourgeois philosophers of the Frankfurt school, Maoists and some ideologists of the ``New lefts" in the countries of the bourgeois West, claim to be the ``legitimate heirs" and ``continuers'' of the cause of the founders of Marxism. But a more searching examination of the socio-- political and epistemological roots of all these conceptions will disclose their basic similarity. They are united by their negation of the class principles of analysis, disagreement with the conclusions of scientific communism about the historical mission of the proletariat and the leading role of the international working class and its main achievementexisting socialism---in the world revolutionary process.
For all their ``revolutionary'' demagogy, revisionists from the left, including Trotskyites and the so-called neoTrotskyite ideologists, falsify the proletariat's socio-political role and the most important questions concerning the activity of its class organisations, and do nothing to strengthen their links with the allies of the working class. In their time Marx and Engels criticised Lassallean and other ``left''-- opportunistic conceptions which underestimated the significance of an alliance of the working class and the peasantry, just as all attempts artificially to set off the advanced intelligentsia against the proletariat.
The harm which dogmatic sectarian conceptions of pettybourgeois revolutionarism (alongside right-opportunistic conceptions) cause the working-class movement is compounded by the attempts of the imperialist ideologists and politicians to ascribe all deviations from the theory and practice of scientific socialism to the Marxist-Leninist teaching and portray them as realisation of the ideals of the communist movement. But neither the efforts of Trotskyite ideologists (E. Mandel) nor of those sociologists who 48 sympathise with them (Andre Gorz) and want to drive a wedge between the working intelligentsia and other sections of the contemporary proletariat can deceive those who stand up for the vital interests of the working people.
The intensification of the anti-monopoly struggle in capitalist countries shows that the platforms of the right and ``left'' revisionists and their attempts to, depreciate the role of the working class and dissolve it in general democratic movements are unscientific.
Not so long ago the opportunists, referring to the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution, predicted an inevitable modification of class relations, that is, the softening of class contradictions under state-- monopoly capitalism. Yet how can anyone talk about changes or modifications in class relations in imperialist states if facts prove that the ruling monopoly circles use the scientific and technological revolution to intensify the exploitation of ttye working people and net bigger profits and if in the citadels of imperialism, on the one hand, the domination of the monopolies is strengthening and, on the other, the process Of proletarianisation which increasingly affects not only manual but also mental workers is continuing? Today wage-earners account for 90 per cent of the gainfully employed population in the USA, 93 per cent in Great Britain, 81 per cent in the FRG and 76 per cent in France.
The scientific and technological revolution cannot rid capitalism of its inherent contradictions. Imperialism's adjustment to the new conditions does not signify stabilisation of capitalism whose general crisis is continuing. Events in the capitalist world attest to the aggravation of the basic social antagonisms of bourgeois society and in the first place the contradictions between labour and capital. (These are examined in detail in other sections of this book.)
The greater the scope of the proletarian movement and the stronger the positions of world socialism, the clearer mankind perceives the noble aims and the great liberation mission of the working class as the leading force in the struggle against imperialism, for peace, for real national liberation and social emancipation of the peoples, for the triumph of communist ideas.
Lenin's prediction that ``socialism will be the beginning of a rapid, genuine, truly mass forward movement, embracing first the majority and then the whole of the population, in all spheres of public and private life'', has come true.^^1^^
The economic potential of the Soviet state has changed _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The State and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 477.
49 beyond recognition in the past sixty years. The output of Soviet Union's modern socialist industry is 145 times greater than that of Russia's in 1913 and 225 times greater than in 1917.^^1^^ It takes the USSR two or three days to manufacture as much industrial output as pre-revolutionary Russia produced in a year. Soviet industrial output surpasses that of the FRG, Great Britain and France taken together and is only 1.25 times less than that of the United States.^^2^^Profound changes have taken place in countryside with its large-scale collective agriculture. There are 2.4 million tractors, 700,000 grain harvesters and almost 1.5 million lorries at the disposal of Soviet collective and state farms. The development of agriculture over the past few decades has been accompanied by fundamental changes in the employment pattern. Prior to the Revolution 75 per cent of the working population were engaged in agricultural production, whereas now only 23 per cent of the working people are occupied in this sphere.^^3^^
In general, the change in the population pattern is just as much a feature of accelerated social progress under socialism as is the development of the national economy. Industrialisation not only resulted in a drop in agricultural employment but also in a decrease in the rural population as a whole. It is possible, therefore, to improve the social and cultural services in the rural areas and accelerate their development to a degree that would obliterate the essential distinctions between town and country.
The revolutionary overthrow of the exploiters and the social transformations that followed led to a steady growth of the population connected with public ownership of the means of production. The numerical growth of the working class was accompanied by a rapid growth of the intelligentsia which in 1976 made up more that 22 per cent of the population compared with 2 per cent in 1913.
Industrial and office workers in the USSR now comprise almost 84 per cent of the population, whereas prior to the Revolution and in the 1920s they accounted for only 17 per cent. This fact attests to the great social progress of the Soviet people.^^4^^
The economic growth and the change in the population pattern under socialism have opened the broadest prospects for the development of culture, science, art, health _-_-_
~^^1^^ National Economy of the USSR. Sixty Yean, p. 912.
~^^2^^ USSR in Figures, 1977, Moscow, 1978, pp. 60, 73 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ See: National Economy of the USSR. Sixty Years, pp. 294, 459.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 8.
50 protection, education etc. In 1913 a mere 1 per cent of the gainfully employed population worked in these spheres, while today they account for more than 16 per cent of the total number of people employed in the national economy. Soviet science occupies now a leading place in the world. Approximately 25 per cent of the total number of scientific workers in the world live and work in the USSR, the home of 6-7 per cent of the world population.^^1^^ Soviet science has made great headway in studying the processes of social development and has moved into leading positions in some branches of mathematics, nuclear power engineering, space research and many other fields of knowledge. Soviet literature and art tremendously enrich world culture. A splendid feature of the progress of culture under socialism is its democratic nature and the fact that it is within the reach of the masses.The organised and planned development of culture ensured the rapid growth of the cultural and educational level of the people. In the Soviet Union education of the majority of the population---more than two-thirds of the employed---ranges from incomplete secondary to higher education.^^2^^
Our picture of economic, social and cultural progress in the USSR will be incomplete if we do not mention its stable high rates which, with the exception of the war years, have been maintained throughout all six decades. This stability, particularly against the background of the crises and depressions which regularly plague the capitalist world, demonstrates socialism's indisputable advantages.
In addition to production growth, the contemporary stage of development of the socialist economy is characterised by the appearance in it of qualitatively new features. One of them is the implementation of long-term comprehensive programmes for transforming vast parts of the country. The intensive implementation of programmes for the development of the non-black earth zone of Russia and Western Siberia and the industrial development of Eastern Siberia and regions bordering on the Baikal-Amur Railway will be continued in the next five-year periods.
However great the importance of indicators showing the results of socialist transformations, the growth of the economic potential, progressive changes in the population pattern and the development of science and culture, it should be borne in mind that all these changes are mainly the means for attaining the ultimate aims of communism. The supreme aim of the Communists is not simply the development of the productive forces or perfection of the social structure and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.,p. 141.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 56--57.
51 not even the efflorescence of culture. This aim, which Lenin formulated at the inception of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, is to ensure ``full well-being and free, all-round development for all members of society"^^1^^ on the basis of social and economic development.It is now, in conditions of developed socialist society, that the improvement of the well-being and culture of the masses is attaining the scope and the pace inherent in the very nature of socialism. It is at this stage that the humanistic nature of socialist society manifests itself to the full without being distorted by attendant subjective or objective circumstances.
The socialist revolution in Russia promptly destroyed the political rule of the bourgeoisie and landlords and undermined the system of exploitation and thus radically improved the position of the masses. Exploitation of man by man was ended for all time during the building of the foundations of socialism. Socialist industrialisation banished unemployment for the first time in the history of modern society, and collectivisation put an end to agrarian overpopulation. The working people of the USSR became confident in their future. Universal, compulsory and free education, free medical assistance and a far-flung system of cultural facilities became part and parcel of the life of the working masses. Beginning with the first days of the establishment of Soviet power the Communist Party and the state have been doing their best to improve the well-being of the people. But, as Leonid Brezhnev noted, ``for well-known historical reasons our possibilities were limited for a long time".^^2^^
It required time to build socialism and to reorganise the national economy along socialist lines. Furthermore and most importantly, the need to protect the socialist homeland made it necessary for the Soviet people to concentrate their efforts on strengthening the defence capability of the country and on smashing fascism in the Great Patriotic War. After that it was necessary to rehabilitate tens of thousands of mills, factories, towns and villages that had been wrecked by the enemy. Naturally, all this affected the well-being of the population in the first place, particularly the sphere of material consumption and everyday life. But ``millions of Communists and non-Party people consciously accepted privations and hardships, were content with the bare essentials and denied themselves _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Notes on Plekhanov's Second Draft Programme'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 54.
~^^2^^ 24th Congress of the CPSU, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1971, p.51.
52 the right to demand any special amenities".^^1^^The situation changed substantially at the stage of developed socialism. Working heroically the Soviet people created a giant economic complex which ensures the country's economic growth and improves the people's standard of living.
The CPSU took into account the changed situation. In the resolutions of its congresses it set the task of ensuring an accelerated improvement of the material and cultural standards of the people as the immediate practical objective of its economic policy. The main purpose of the Soviet five-year plans is to enhance the well-being of the people. The CPSU holds that the policy of steadily raising the people's living standard determines ``the general long-term orientation of the country's economic development''. It notes that ``the increased economic potential and the requirements of the development of the national economy make it possible and necessary to concentrate the economy more definitively on accomplishing a variety of tasks related to the raising of the people's standard of living".^^2^^
A generalising indicator of the rising well-being of the people is the growth of real incomes, i. e., the aggregate of material benefits and services available to the population. In a mere 15 years, from 1961 to 1975, the per capita real incomes of the working people approximately doubled.^^3^^ The 25th CPSU Congress stressed with justifiable pride that this figure attests to the radical improvement in the standard and way of life of the people, to what may be termed as a revolution in their well-being.
The average wages of industrial and office workers almost doubled over the period from 1960 to 1977, while the pay of collective farmers more than trebled over those years.^^4^^
In the past few decades payments out of social maintenance funds also increased sharply: sick-leave and maternity benefits and, to an even greater extent, payment of all sorts of pensions. The number of people receiving old-age pensions rose from 5.4 million in 1961 to 30 million in 1977, i. e., include practically all veteran workers of pension age. (Incidentally, this age in the USSR is considerably lower than in the majority of other countries.) The total number _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 63.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 221.
~^^3^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXV Congress of the CPSU, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1976, p. 48.
~^^4^^ National Economy of the USSR in 1972. Statistical Yearbook, Moscow, 1973, p. 388; National Economy of the USSR in 1977. Statistical Yearbook, Moscow, 1978, pp. 271, 385 (both in Russian).
53 of pensioners increased over this period from 22 to 46 million.^^1^^The new level of cash incomes signifies a tremendous growth in the consumption of material and spiritual values. Soviet people now dress much better than before, their diet has improved greatly and there are durable goods in every home.
The growth of incomes and the resultant increase in consumption alone do not give a full picture of how the well-being of the people improves under socialism. In the USSR the cost of 10 to 15 per cent of the aggregate material and cultural values consumed by families is not paid out of their cash incomes but is covered by benefits and services afforded to the population free of charge or on easy terms out of public consumption funds. These benefits are all the more important because in addition to increasing the real incomes of the people, they facilitate the solution of the basic problems of improving their well-being.
Free medical aid is available to the entire population of the USSR. The CPSU holds that ``no social task is more important than concern for the health of Soviet people".^^2^^ One of the most striking indicators of the accelerated development of health protection are figures illustrating the growth of its material and organisational base, and in the first place the number of doctors and the number of people they serve. While in the ten pre-war years the number of doctors increased by approximately 10,000 a year and in the period from 1951 to 1960 by 17,000, the corresponding figure in the 1970s was 28,000. As a result, health protection improved greatly in the country. Today, when its cost is rising sharply due to the development and extensive use of complicated medical equipment, longer periods of treatment and so forth, free medical assistance becomes a matter of special social significance.^^3^^
The role played by similar services in the Soviet system of educating the rising generation is just as great. Their beneficial influence is felt in the early stages of education. Preschool establishments in the USSR care for children on easy terms with the parents paying only a fraction of the cost involved. The proportion of children attending kindergartens and nurseries had increased from 13 per cent in 1960 to 41 per cent in 1977.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ National Economy of the USSR. Sixty Years, p. 521.
~^^2^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 49.
~^^3^^ The Social Development of the Working Class in the USSR, Moscow, 1977, pp. 189--90 (in Russian).
~^^4^^ Statistical Yearbook of the CMEA Member States, 1978, Moscow, 1978, p. 436 (in Russian).
54It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the system of free education which has been operating in the USSR since the establishment of Soviet power and which has expanded to an unprecedented degree under developed socialism. In the 1930s all children received free primary education and in the 1950s an incomplete secondary education, whereas today practically all children from 7 to 17 years of age receive secondary education in general education schools, secondary vocational and technical schools, etc.
The housing shortage which the USSR inherited from capitalism and the accelerated urbanisation which began in the 1930s reached a critical level as a result of the damage caused by the war. The nazi invaders burned down and destroyed 1,700 towns out of 2,800 and more than 70,000 villages out of 400,000 (not counting farmsteads each with less than 25 inhabitants). In the 1950s-1970s Soviet society put in an enormous amount of effort to solve the housing problem. More than 47 million homes (flats and individual houses) were built by the state and by the population which received funds and credits from the government. In order to picture the scale of housing construction it should be borne in mind that there are approximately 60 million families in the USSR. In the 1960s and 1970s an overwhelming majority of the population either moved into new and better flats or were granted additional floor space in the old houses.
The socialist way of raising the well-being of the people has certain distinctive features which must be taken into consideration in order correctly to assess the onward movement of Soviet society towards its supreme goal---the highest possible well-being and all-round development of all Soviet people.
The main distinction is that society which consciously guides its social development ensures the planned and proportional growth of all its aspects. The increase of some indices of the living standard may sometimes appear to be slower than in societies where consumption growth is spontaneous. But the balanced development of all conditions of life ensures socialist society against the extremes of consumerism. It lends the growth of well-being a truly humane content so that it does not lead to senseless accumulation of things but creates preconditions for the harmonious spiritual and physical development of the individual. As a result the balance of material types of consumption and diversity of the forms of social and cultural services that is taking shape in the USSR differs from that in the bourgeois West.
In terms of the available social and cultural amenities Soviet society has outstripped many industrialised capitalist countries.
55For instance, there are over 30 doctors per every 10,000 of the population in the USSR compared with slightly over 20 in the USA and the FRG and even less in France and Japan. The standard of school training in the USSR today is the same and perhaps even higher than in countries with the biggest national income. The great role which is played by culture in the lives of Soviet people stands out in even bolder relief if we study figures showing the access of the masses to cultural values. In 1977, for example, 139 million people visited museums and 116 million attended theatrical performances, i. e.. nearly one-half of the total population, including children.^^1^^
The Soviet people are justly regarded as the most avid readers in the world. More than 1,800 million copies of books are published annually in the USSR, i. e., approximately 6 or 7 books per capita. Moreover, there are 350,000 free lending libraries with a total stock of 4,200 million books.^^2^^
The Communist Party guides the improvement of the well-being of the people in such a way that the growth of living standards goes hand in hand with the consolidation of the social homogeneity of the Soviet people and the provision of the maximum guarantees which are possible in present conditions, assuring social equality and social justice. The rapid improvement in the conditions of life in Soviet society finds expression not only in average statistics but is a real improvement for all people.
For almost 50 years there has been no unemployment in the USSR. Therefore the benefit from wage increases which are the main source of the growth of well-being is available to all working people in socialist society. It is indicative, for example, that from 1971 to 1975, only as a result of special measures, 75 million people, or more than 70 per cent of industrial and office workers, had their wages raised. In other words, almost all Soviet families benefited from wage increases in the course of only one five-year plan period (without taking into account that wages also rose as a result of growing labour productivity).^^3^^ Living standards in the Soviet Union improve by 100 per cent every 15 years.
The gap between the earnings of workers, collective farmers and specialists has narrowed considerably. In the early 1960s the earnings of industrial workers were approximately two-thirds and those of collective farmers only one-fifth of _-_-_
~^^1^^ National Economy of the USSR in 1977. Statistical Yearbook, 514.516.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 507,521.
~^^3^^ The Social Development of the Working Class in the USSR, p. 148.
56 that of engineers and technicians, whereas in the middle of the 1970s the earnings of industrial workers were around four-fifths and those of collective farmers about one-half of the earnings of engineers and technicians.^^1^^The trends towards ensuring social equality are even more pronounced in the development of those aspects of wellbeing which are connected with public consumption funds, particularly with those that are allocated free of charge or at a discount. Since medical services and education are free, they are available to all Soviet people whatever their financial standing. Moreover, in view of the fact that certain services are provided either free of charge or at a discount, the benefits from public funds are primarily allocated to those who need them most, i. e., families with many children, ailing people, etc. That is why it is important that the growth of public funds should outstrip the growth of wages.
The development of social consumption funds reflects more vividly than anything else the actual social content of the improvement in people's well-being under socialism, namely, its trend to provide increasingly equal conditions of life for all people, to promote their abilities and ensure their implementation, and to attain greater collectivism.
The successful construction of a new society and the consolidation of socialism's international positions are of vital importance for the working people in all countries. History repudiates all attempts to belittle the role played by the Soviet Union and other fraternal socialist countries in the struggle against imperialism, and artificially to counterpose the interests of the USSR to those of the working-class movement in capitalist countries. Permeated as they are with fidelity to the principles of proletarian internationalism, the Leninist course of the CPSU and the policy of the communist parties of other socialist countries effectively strengthen the revolutionary liberation movement and consolidate the positions of the progressive, peace-loving, anti-imperialist forces today.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 280--81.
[57] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ II __ALPHA_LVL1__ BOURGEOIS-REFORMIST VIEWThe creation of scientific socialism set off a bitter ideological and political struggle over the question of the revolutionary liberation mission of the proletariat and the interpretation of the processes that were responsible for its rise and development into the leading revolutionary force of society. This theme occupied an important place in the writings of bourgeois authors adhering to diverse ideological and political trends, ranging from the conservatives to radicals. Even social-- reformist and ultra-``left'', including anarchist, theoreticians offered their own interpretations of the social processes which developed in modern times.
Some authors maintained that the working class is an ``ungovernable'' destructive force which disrupts the natural course of history. Others looked upon it as a passive mass lacking enlightened leadership. Still others tried (and are still trying) to prove that the working class allegedly ``integrates'' into the capitalist system. There were also people who lauded the spontaneity of the proletarian movements, idealised their early forms, likened the working class to the lumpen-proletariat and sometimes even substituted the latter for the former.
58Very often the perverted interpretation of the socio-- historical role of the working class at the initial stage of its formation was not so much the product of abstract methodology as of concrete political considerations. That is why a thorough scientific critique of different variants of speculative interpretations of the history of the working class and the workingclass movement has been and will continue to be both a primary research task and an important factor of the ideological and political struggle.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Anti-Scientific ConceptionsThe theoretical and practical activity of Marx and Engels was marked by an unceasing ideological struggle against the falsifiers of the history of the working class and its role in society. In the course of this struggle the founders of scientific communism formulated the basic methodological principles which have lost none of their significance to this day.
One principle is that polemics should bear a scientific character. ``Socialism, ever since it became a science, demands that it should be treated as a science,'' Marx noted.^^1^^ In the opinion of the classics of Marxism polemics will have a scientific character only given an organic combination of well-argumented criticism of erroneous (all the more so, of deliberately distorted) views with a profound, comprehensive and positive elaboration of the basic problems of revolutionary theory. It is not by chance that all their theoretical works are of a polemical nature and that their polemics are characterised by a well-grounded substantiation of important theoretical propositions.
Many non-Marxist conceptions of the role played by the working class lack an historical approach. Yet without employing the historical method it is impossible to ascertain the preconditions for the formation of the proletariat and the main factors and stages of the intensification of its class struggle at the various phases of the evolution of antagonistic social relations.
A scientific, materialist understanding of history rests on the teaching about socio-economic formations and the revolutionary replacement of one formation by another. Alongside consideration for the laws governing the development of human society, which operate throughout world history, and the general laws of the given formation, it is necessary to take into account the distinctive features of each epoch _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 18, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1969, p. 517.
59 within the formation, i. e., the basic, dominating class contradiction and the motive social forces of that epoch.As applied to the capitalist system it is a question of the degree of the proletariat's maturity and trends of development, of the sources which augment its ranks and the dynamics of its inner structure, of its level of class awareness and equally of those concrete social (socio-economic and political) tasks which confronted and continue to confront the proletarian masses and all progressive, democratic forces. Only if all these factors are taken into account will it be possible to discover the real historical calling of the proletariat and its services to humanity.
In order to obtain a clear understanding of the proletariat's great and difficult road it is necessary to subject the historical preconditions of the rise and formation of this class at different periods to a comprehensive analysis. Pointing out the central themes involved in the study of the concrete processes responsible for the birth and growth of the working class, the development of its revolutionary world outlook and the formulation of the basic principles of the proletarian vanguard, Engels emphasised the importance of elucidating the history of the question. ``I begin: What is communism?~" he wrote in a letter to Marx in the course of his work on the Manifesto of the Communist Party. ``And then straight to the proletariat---history of its origin, difference from workers in earlier periods, development of the antithesis between proletariat and bourgeoisie ... and in conclusion the Party policy of the Communists."^^1^^ Lenin attached great importance and often referred to Engels's considerations assessing this document as an ``historical letter".^^2^^
Violation of the principle of historism and elaboration of subjectivistic ``suprahistorical'' conceptions may and do lead to a depreciation of the proletariat's historical role, to a vulgarisation of the complicated problems of titanic, centurylong struggle of the working people, to a denigration of the aims of the revolutionary working-class movement. Such trends were fostered by Heinrich Cunow, Max Adler and other old reformist, right-opportunist ideologists, on the one hand, and revisionist authors of all hues under the cover of ``left'' phraseology, on the other. A typical example of the latter sort of publications is the History of the World Communist Movement, which came out in Peking in 1978 and is based on a conception which manifestly contradicts _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, 40.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Marx-Engels Correspondence'', Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 558.
60 the historical truth. Its editors and authors who comprised a group that was specially set up to study the international working-class movement arbitrarily delete many decades from the early history of the rise, development and struggle of the proletariat.A thorough scientific study of the history of the class struggle presupposes an examination of the general laws of history and the specific conditions in which they are expressed in one country or another in diverse concrete circumstances. It does not prevent ``the same economic basis--- the same from the standpoint of its main conditions---due to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc., from showing infinite variations and gradations in appearance, which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically given circumstances".^^1^^ At the same time a national opportunistic tendency to overstate the specific features of the historical development of individual countries or regions is at odds with a class approach to the study of the historical process. Likewise untenable are doctrinaire conceptions that ignore the diversity of objective conditions and forms of the creative activity of the working masses and seek to make the historical process fit the Procrustean Bed of vulgar patterns.
Typical of non-Marxist conceptions of the rise and development of the working class are a one-sided approach to phenomena, disregard for the subtle interconnection of the processes going on at different levels of the social structure, and random selection of examples and facts. Yet it is impossible to ascertain the laws governing the development of the working class without a comprehensive, dialectic analysis of the aggregate of key economic, political, socio-psychological, ideological and other factors that ensured its strengthening and were responsible for the maturing of objective and subjective conditions that invigorated the proletariat's class struggle, and ensured tangible progress towards the cognition and fulfilment of its historical mission.
The proletariat is a dynamic, developing class. It is society's leading productive force whose importance is increasing all the time. Since its appearance the proletariat has been not only a suffering class, but a militant, increasingly strengthening, actively fighting and transforming class. Its formation and growth are connected with society's economic, sociopolitical, cultural and ideological progress. The development of the proletariat depends directly on certain socio-economic, ideological and political factors. An important role is also _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, p. 792.
61 played by the qualitative changes and the level of capitalist production at different stages: in conditions of simple cooperation, capitalist manufacture, large-scale machine production, etc. In view of the uneven development of capitalism in different countries and even within the confines of one and the same state, the different phases of capitalist production not only succeed one another but sometimes coexist. This circumstance, as well as others, accounts for the complex structure of the working class. In addition to contingents connected with the most sophisticated methods of production, it also includes groups of hired workers whose status reflects the forms of organisation of labour typical of the earlier stages of the development of the productive forces.It is also important to bear in mind the actual degree of differentiation and polarisation of classes, the distinctive features of the general trend of the socio-political and ideological struggle in one historical epoch or another, and the substance and character of its contradictions.
In order to correctly assess the socio-historical role of the working class it is imperative to take into account its worldwide character (which the classics of Marxism regarded as a historically changing concept). In the first half of the 19th century this concept included, from the point of view of the rise of the working class, a relatively small number of countries, primarily those in Western Europe and North America that had just embarked on the road of capitalist development. In the last third of the same century the concept broadened substantially because the working class began to grow at a rapid pace in Eastern and Southeast Europe, and in some parts of Australia, Asia and Latin America as a result of the spread of capitalist relations. Later, particularly in the 20th century, the concept of the world-wide nature of the working class acquired a new and broader meaning.
Disregard for the dialectic essence of the concept `` world-wide nature" is fraught with the danger of underestimating the historical services of what were the more organised and militant contingents of the working class in their time and, simultaneously, of overestimating the role, the significance and experience of the actions of the pre-proletarian and lumpen-proletarian masses. In some cases such an unscientific understanding of what is meant by ``world-wide nature" serves as an ``argument'' to characterise the Marxist analysis of the process of the rise and development of the working class as ``Eurocentric'', and to replace it with an approach that has all the features of ``Asiacentrism''.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The New World History published in China in the 1970s provides a good example of this. Its authors tried to interpret the historical __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 63. 62
All this fully applies to the study of the history of the working-class movement. Having arisen together with the proletariat this movement deepened and broadened as the class of hired workers came to occupy an ever bigger place in the social structure, became aware of its world historic mission and acquired a better understanding of its long-term, ultimate objectives and ways of attaining them. At the same time under the impact of general political processes the study of the history of the working class became more searching and comprehensive.
Since the working-class movement is an object of ideological clashes, it, in turn, leaves an imprint on ideological processes. Just as an ideological struggle in society cannot be correctly understood without taking the influence of the working-class movement into consideration, so the workingclass movement cannot be understood if viewed out of context of ideological trends which appeared, interacted and clashed throughout the period of its emergence and development.
The objectively international nature of the working-class movement manifests itself in the course of the historical process. The international struggle of the working class, which is a higher phase of the working-class movement, takes place on the basis of the development, intertwining and interaction of the national movements of the proletariat. As a result of the uneven character of the historical process the ``centre of gravity"^^1^^ of the international revolutionary movement tends to move. This means that the proletariat of the country which has become such a centre has to assume greater commitments and responsibilities, but in no way belittles the significance of the struggle of the movement's other national contingents.
From the point of view of studying the trends and _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 62. process in such a way as would make it fit their spurious geopolitical conceptions which misrepresent the concept ``working class" (they substitute semi-proletarian and lumpen-proletarian strata for the working class). On the one hand, they manage to discover ``proletarian revolutions" in the period preceding the 17th-century bourgeois revolution in England and, on the other, they endeavour to play up the importance of the spontaneous actions of non-proletarian and preproletarian social groups in Asia and Africa (including those that followed in the wake of semi-feudal movements) and simultaneously play down the importance of the rise and development of Marxism, the activity of the First International and the role played by organised militant actions of the working class (Shijie jindai shi, Shang ce, Shanghai, 1973).
~^^1^^ The General Council ofrthe First International 1870--1871, Minutes, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 475.
63 prospects of the international working-class movement the experience of all its national contingents is equally important. Communism among the French and Germans, Chartism among the English, wrote Engels about the working-class movement of the 1840s, could no longer appear as something accidental. In the light of the materialistic understanding of history discovered by Marx, these movements presented themselves ``as a movement of the modern oppressed class, the proletariat, as the more or less developed forms of its historically necessary struggle against the ruling class, the bourgeoisie; as forms of the class struggle, but distinguished from all earlier class struggles by this one thing, that the present-day oppressed class, the proletariat, cannot achieve its emancipation without at the same time emancipating society as a whole".^^1^^Since the history of the international working-class movement is above all the history of its struggle to fulfil its world historic mission, it should be studied in all its key aspects: economic, political and ideological. The relative significance and the role of diverse forms of struggle are not identical in different concrete historical circumstances. The initial phases of the proletariat's liberation movement were characterised by a predominance of economic clashes against the bourgeoisie, and simultaneous participation in general democratic movements. But as it moved into its higher stages independent political actions of the proletariat came to play a greater role in it. The ideological struggle as a form of activity of proletarian organisations also increases in importance as the proletariat turns from a ``class in itself" into a ``class for itself''.
One of the most important methodological principles of Marx and Engels is a strictly differentiated approach to ideological opponents depending on their class positions. Consistently adhering to the principle of partisanship the founders of Marxism always exactly determined the scale, the forms and the key of a polemic depending on the class whose interests their ideological opponents defended and on whether they had to deal with outspoken proponents of social relations based on the exploitation of man by man, or with misguided people who nevertheless were not unconcerned with promoting the interests of the working masses.
Marx and Engels had no mercy whatsoever for ``diplomaed lackeys" of the bourgeoisie who belonged either to its conservative or liberal faction. Directing their main blow at _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ``On the History of the Communist League''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973, p. 179.
64 outright anti-socialist bourgeois-apologetic theories, they also taught how to distinguish socialist teachings of different colours and hues---``socialism conscious and unconscious, socialism prosaic and poetic, socialism of the working class and of the middle class".^^1^^ Deriding the fashion among certain bourgeois circles ``of affecting a mild dilution of socialism"^^2^^ they warned that proletarian socialism was not to be confused with its bourgeois and petty-bourgeois distortions. ``The very people,'' wrote Engels, ``who, from the ` impartiality' of their superior standpoint, preach to the workers a socialism soaring high above their class interests and class struggles, and tending to reconcile in a higher humanity the interests of both the contending classes---these people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or they are the worst enemies of the workers---wolves in sheep's clothing.~"^^3^^At the same time the founders of Marxism always bore in mind that the principles of scientific socialism were and always would be defended in conditions in which the working class, as the vanguard force of social progress, performs its mission of leading all progressive mass general democratic movements, including those which spread non-proletarian ideology.
They maintained that the revolutionary working-class movement had either greater or smaller opportunities of using diverse forms of effecting the transition to socialism depending on certain factors, including the general correlation of class forces, the level of consciousness of the working class and its abilities to ensure the unity of action of the broad masses of the working people. Only correct strategy and tactics, effective work among the masses, and a principled ideological and political struggle of the revolutionary vanguard contribute to the fulfilment of the proletarian movement's long-term tasks.
Ever since the proletariat entered the scene as a developing, independent social and socio-political force, the attitude to it on the part of reactionary ideologists has been characterised by fear of the new and incomprehensible factor which threatens to overthrow the ``established'' social order under which an insignificant minority of highborn or wealthy people determines the future of the majority of downtrodden working masses. It was on this basis that the apologists of feudal and bourgeois relations began to act in unison. Both _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ``Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in England''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 3, p. 450.
~^^2^^ Ibid.,.p. 451.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 444.
65 Frangois Rene de Chateaubriand, whose obscurantism surpassed even that of other ideologists of the French aristocracy, and Saint Marc Girardin, editor of the Paris Journal des debats, a mouthpiece of the wealthy French bourgeoisie, with amazing unanimity slandered the French workers who rose against capitalist exploitation, calling them new barbarians who menaced the existing society.^^1^^Conservative German economists, historians and sociologists also negated the proletariat's revolutionary, creative potentialities, and regarded it as a destructive force deprived of creative abilities and, consequently, as an instrument of ``demagogues''. In an article entitled ``The Demands of the Working Classes" written in 1837, a leading proponent of vulgar German political economy Carl Rodbertus-Jagetzpw whom Engels called ``the real founder of specially Prussian socialism"^^2^^ frightened his compatriots by alleging that the fulfilment of the demands of the working classes would be a ``grave for the whole of contemporary culture".^^3^^ Like the French conservatives he held that the mounting revolutionary movement of the proletariat was a new invasion of `` barbarians''.
This anti-proletarian conception occupied an especially prominent place in the views of the German historian and economist Lprenz von Stein. A precursor of contemporary anti-communism, he claimed that the emancipatory aspirations and the struggle of the proletariat were a threat to the existence of the magnificent and precious benefits which man acquired in the course of heavy labour, and the foundations of civilisation which the proletariat rejected with hatred and doomed to complete destruction.^^4^^
These conceptions are echoed in twentieth-century bourgeois conservative literature.
Conservative historians portray the mass popular movement, proletarian in the first place, as a source of the fatal development which has been responsible for just about all the ``misfortunes'' of modern civilisation (beginning with the crisis of the parliamentary system and ending with the decay of ``traditional'' morals and culture). Some representatives of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fernand Rude, L 'insurrection lyonnaise de novembre 1831. Le mouvement ouvrier a Lyon de 1827--1832, Editions Anthropos, Paris, 1969, pp. 664, 670--71.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 11.
~^^3^^ Carl Rodbertus-Jagetzow, Zur Beleuchtung der sozialen Frage, Vol. 2., Puttkammer & Muhlbrecht, Berlin, 1885, p. 195.
~^^4^^ See: Lorenz von Stein, Der Sozialismus und Kommunismus des heutigen Frankreichs. Bin Beitrag zur Zeitgeschichte, Verlag fon Otto Wigand, Leipzig, 1848, pp. 10,11.
66 this trend insist that human progress (in conditions of the mounting revolutionary actions of the masses and as their result) was not real progress. They claim that it contributed to the collapse of what they call ``historical order'', a circumstance which undermined many of the preceding norms and the very concept of the normative function of the intellect. By freeing man of traditions and habits, social development which was promoted by revolutions, they allege, resulted in complete ideological and political disorientation accompanied by universal anarchy and forfeiture of spiritual values. According to them such development leads to extreme forms of Caesarism with all the ensuing tragic consequences.^^1^^In keeping with such an interpretation of historical development, the ``blame'' for all the upheavals which afflicted capitalist society in the course of the past two centuries, including reactionary coups, and the rise of dictatorial counter-revolutionary regimes---from Bonapartism to fascism^^2^^ -4s imputed to the popular masses, the proletariat in the first place. Even Jean-Jacques Rousseau who, they say, substantiated the idea that civilisation was a result of humanity falling into sin, and who coined a slogan which was caught up by the masses and aimed at emancipating man from the false values of this civilisation and turning him into a healthy animal relying on its instincts, is sometimes portrayed as one of the ideological ``culprits'' responsible for this sort of development.^^3^^
Nazism's ideological fathers, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich W. Nietzsche and later Rudolf Spengler, who were adepts of the so-called historico-culturological trend, also adopted a negative attitude to progress and, naturally, to the proletariat, the chief social force that personifies it.
Needless to say, not all proponents of this conception adhere to such reactionary political positions. But objectively all of them negate real social progress, and that means that they negate, directly or indirectly, its leading force.
A somewhat different interpretation of the problem will be found in the works of representatives of the bourgeoisliberal school. They concede that society is progressing, but since all of them are idealists they look for its motive force only in the ideological, spiritual field. Their works are characterised by an insistent, if not obtrusive, propagation of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Hermann Rauschning, Die Zeit des Deliriums, Verlag Amstutz, Herdeg & Co., Zurich, 1947, pp. 135--36.
~^^2^^ Gerhard Ritter, Die Damonie der Macht. Leibniz Verlag, Munich, 1948.
~^^3^^ Hermann Rauschning, Masken und Metamorphosen des NihiKsmus. Der Nihilismus des XX. Jahrhunderts, Humboldt-Verlag, Frankfort on the Main and Vienna, 1954, p. 174.
67 absolute significance of ``eternal values" of bourgeois democracy, of the idea of the automatic inevitability of the victory of reason and the conviction that everything which cannot be ``rationally'' explained is accidental.When adherents of this trend raise the question about the class that is responsible for social progress, they vigorously deny that this mission is performed by the working class. This approach is manifest in numerous works by American bourgeois historians written on the occasion of the bicentennial of the War of Independence and the proclamation of a republic in the USA. Some authors maintain that it was not the working masses, including workers, and not their struggle for social progress, but the bourgeoisie and bourgeois revolutions that have determined over the past two centuries and will continue to determine the course of world events and the destiny of humanity.^^1^^ The basic theses of this conception chiefly designed to exalt the great and everlasting historical services of the capitalist employers were elaborated over a long period by adherents of diverse trends in bourgeois historiography: by the followers of the ``social law" school (Rudolf Stammler, Karl Diehl and others) and the``new historical school" of Gustav Schmoller, by the ideologists of ``institutionalism'' (Thorstein Veblen), by ``historians of business'', ``neo-liberals'', and the school of ``managerialism'' (Joseph A. Schumpeter and others).
They never failed to understate the acuteness of class contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and to insist that there was an ``identity of the interests of capital and labour" and ``universal harmony" as a consequence of free competition.^^2^^
In this sense a definite ``tradition'' was created by bourgeois historians of the first half of the 19th century. For instance, they advanced the ``consensus'' theory according to which the appearance of the proletarians and the bourgeoisie in the historical arena was attributed to the all but voluntary division of humanity into owners of labour and owners of capital for the sake of accumulating the latter. Such ideas were spread by Edward Wakefield, Gustave de Molinari and _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Henry Steele Commager, ``America and the Enlightenment''. In: The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality, Library of Congress, Washington, 1972, pp. 7-29; Jack P. Greene, ``The Reinterpretation of the American Revolution 1763--1789'', Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1968; Idem, ``The Preconditions for American Republicanism: A Comment''. In: The Development of a Revolutionary Mentality, pp. 119--23.
~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 36.
68 other ``mild, free-trade vulgar" economists,^^1^^ and some other authors who portrayed ``energetic capitalists" as the ``feeders of all people" and well-nigh the only productive workers in the supreme sense of the word.Somewhat more subtle were the attempts to smooth over the fundamental contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, without refuting in principle the existence of the class struggle. Such, for instance, was the purpose of the thesis about the ``consensus'' of the basic interests of the undifferentiable middle class.^^2^^ In this connection it is possible to spot a continuity of the views of liberal-bourgeois historians and economists of the first half of the 19th century and those of the latter-day reformists. The first signs of this continuity appeared in the works of Jean-Baptiste Say, Frederic Bastiat and other apologists of the bourgeoisie.^^3^^
At the initial stages of the struggle of the working class the most widespread method of belittling its historical role was to misrepresent the motive social forces in the early bourgeois revolutions of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, above all to detract from the role of the nascent proletariat in the revolutionary battles and transformations of the time.^^4^^
Just as irrational were the attempts to exaggerate the objective and subjective possibilities of the proletarian masses _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 721.
~^^2^^ Attempts to substitute the ``middle class" category for the scientific, Marxist concept of proletariat were made at the turn of the century by Bernstein, Lederer, Sombart and others. The thesis about the absence of a fundamental antagonism between workers and capitalists underlies the conceptions of some liberal-bourgeois and reformist historians of the imperialist epoch. Similar though modified views are propagated by contemporary bourgeois ideologists who negate the revolutionary potentialities of the proletariat and belittle the importance of Marxism (Werner Conze, Theodor Schieder and others).
~^^3^^ Say rejected any thought about the exploitation of the workers by capitalists (Jean-Baptiste Say, Traite d 'economic politique..., Vols. 1-2, Deterville, Paris, 1803); Bastiat wrote about a ``harmony of the interests of workers and those who hired them" (Fr. Bastiat, Harmonies tconomiques, Meline, Cans et Compagnie, Brussels, 1850, p. 16).
~^^4^^ Bernstein, for instance, regarded the movement of ``true Levellers'', ideologists of the rural poor in England, as an insignificant episode of the 17-century English bourgeois revolution, which had little or no connection with the latter's basic tasks (E. Bernstein, Sozialismus und Demokratie in der Grossen Englischen Revolution, J. H. W. Dietz Nachfolger, Stuttgart, 1922). Falsifying the social ideals of ``true Levellerism" many contemporary bourgeois researchers maintain that they were not connected with the development of the latter-day ideology of socialism. They say that the fighters for social justice in England in the 1640s ``looked back and not ahead'', not to Marx, but to the Holy Writ and the Fathers of the Church.
69 which in that period were still incapable of conducting independent, well-considered political actions on a national scale. This overestimation is the basic shortcoming of the views of Daniel Guerin and other leftist historians.^^1^^ Having lost sight of the historical perspective, they have also forgotten that the antagonism between labour and capital was only in its initial stage at the time; though hired workers could and did speak up for their interests and rights more and more often, they fought side by side with the bourgeoisie against the nobility. This was the main social contradiction of that historical epoch.In the early bourgeois revolutions, the classics of Marxism emphasised, the struggle was conducted in a ``plebeian way"^^2^^ inasmuch as the ``capitalist mode of production, and with it the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed".^^3^^ The early proletariat was a force which was still ``incapable of independent political action".^^4^^ The validity of these assessments is fully confirmed in the works of Soviet and progressive foreign historiographers.^^5^^
While scientific socialism has always maintained that the increase in the proportion of the working class in the gainfully employed population is a natural process, its adversaries, including right and ``left'' revisionists, think otherwise. Paying no attention to facts they claim that the Marxist conclusions that the general law of capitalist accumulation operating in an exploiter society will inevitably deepen and broaden the process of proletarianisation are no longer valid in our day and age.
_-_-_~^^1^^ In his book about the struggle of the classes in the French bourgeois revolution at the end of the 18th century, Guerin characterised that epoch as ``coexistence'' of the bourgeois revolution with the ``embryo'' of the proletarian revolution and the ``enrages'' (they comprised the extreme left faction of the democratic camp during the French bourgeois revolution of the 18th century and upheld the interests of the plebeian-pre-proletarian strata) as precursors of the proletarian revolution who appeared much too early on the scene (Daniel Guerin, La lutte des classes sous la Premiere Republique. Bourgeoisie et ``brasnus''(1793--1797),Vol. l.Gallimard,Paris, 1946,pp. 5, 8,253).
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 8, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 160.
~^^3^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring, p. 304.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 305.
~^^5^^ See, for instance: Albert Soboul, Les sans-culottes parisiens en Van II. Mouvement populaire et gouvemement revolutionnaire 2 juin 1793-9 thermidor an II, Librairie Clavreuil, Paris, 1958; Albert Mathiez, La vie chere et le mouvement social sous la terreur, Payot, Paris, 1927; Georges Lefebvre, Questions agraires au temps de la terreur, Publ. par le ministre de 1'instruction publique, Strasbourg, 1932; __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 71. 70
Moreover, this negation also provides the basis for leftist constructs designed to repudiate the teaching about the revolutionary mission of the proletariat and to proclaim the petty bourgeoisie, including the peasantry and the semi-- proletarian and lumpen-proletarian strata, the main motive force of social progress.
The opportunists lauded the role played by the lumpenproletariat in the historical development of some European countries and accused Marx and Engels of allegedly ``speaking with the utmost contempt" about the ``poverty-ridden proletariat'', which, as the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin averred, alone embodied the entire mind and the entire strength of the future social revolution. At the same time, in contrast to revolutionary Marxism, the anarchists were mainly hoping for a mutiny of the peasantry.^^1^^
Opportunists of all hues, including anarchists, in subsequent historical epochs, too, failed to identify the leading social force of the revolutionary transformation of society. Proponents of the petty-bourgeois point of view likewise often make the same mistake. In countries with a medium level of development of capitalist relations, asserts a 20 thcentury petty-bourgeois theoretician, the main political conflicts ``will not derive from the opposition between the interests of the owners of the means of production and the proletariat, rather the main sources of political conflict would be the conflicting interests of the growing middle class and the growing unemployed and underemployed sectors of the working class".^^2^^
Aggravating the error of the leading anarchists, some of their disciples did not confine themselves to merely dissolving the proletariat in the masses of the indigent, and advanced the thesis about groups ``which replaced the proletariat" as a revolutionary force.
Michael Harrington, for example, insisted that as history followed its course it became more and more difficult for _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 70. Herbert Aptheker, The American Revolution. A History of the American People: An Interpretation (1763--1783), International Publishers, New York, 1960; A. Bimba, The History of the American Working Class, International Publishers, New York, 1927; Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States. From the Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor, International Publishers, New York, 1947, pp. 32--47.
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, ``Konspekt von Bakunins Buch 'Staatlichkeit und Anarchic'\thinspace''. In: Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 18, pp. 599, 627--28.
~^^2^^ Glaucio Ary Dillon Scares, ``The New Industrialisation and the Brazilian Political System''. In: Latin America. Reform or Revolution? A Reader, ed. by James Petras and Maurice Zeitlin, Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich (Conn.), 1968, p. 196.
71 true revolutionaries to act in the name of the working class. He wrote that the role which Marx in his time had assigned to organised workers was being performed by peasants, the urban lumpen-proletariat, the military and the intellectual elite. The elevation of these sections which replaced the proletariat, according to him, was a matter of the most profound significance, for the hopes of the Marxists that the proletariat of the West would in the long run fulfil its revolutionary mission did not materialise.^^1^^ Special attention is attached to the new lumpen-proletariat whose status in society lends it striking resemblance to the early lumpen-- proletariat, for it belongs to the lowest layers of the urban society, to those which have fallen into reckless despair, and not to the working class. The behaviour of this declassed section of society forms the basis on which theoreticians of petty-bourgeois radicalism build their strategic conceptions, and who, according to Harrington, act as adepts of Bakuninism in our epoch.^^2^^The attempts to substitute the lumpen-proletariat for the proletariat are fraught with grave political consequences. In effect it is a question of quite different social groups. The working class, which occupies a key position in the system of production, creates the basic social wealth. Furthermore, it is connected with the development of the most advanced forms of production. In contrast to the proletariat, the lumpen-proletariat is a ``passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society".^^3^^ The existence of the lumpen-proletariat is indication of the ruthless nature of capitalism which continually recreates a mass layer of social ``outcasts''. In view of its place in society the lumpen-- proletariat is invariably hostile to the system of exploitation and the oppressor classes. But it also exhibits a negative attitude to society as a whole. It rejects the achievements of world culture, and its ideals do not go beyond the primitive redistribution and vulgar, egalitarian pseudo-communism.
Unlike the proletariat which by virtue of its place in the system of social production is a disciplined and organised class, the lumpen-proletariat is disorganised and easily succumbs to the social demagogy of the reactionary forces. The status of the lumpen-proletariat often prompts it to stage desperate mutinies. But these actions cannot be genuinely revolutionary and historically promising. Emphasising that _-_-_
~^^1^^ Michael Harrington, Socialism, Saturday Review Press, New York, 1972, pp. 264--65.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 286.
~^^3^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976, p. 494.
72 ``the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class'', Marx and Engels wrote that the lumpen-proletariat ``may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue".^^1^^ History has confirmed this conclusion more than once.Reliance on the lumpen-proletariat can easily discredit revolutionary proletarian ideals and, consequently, isolate the social forces working for thorough-going social transformations. Such reliance may result in abuse of progressive slogans and their employment by social groups whose aims are hostile to the cause of social progress.
Just as harmful for the cause of social progress is the incorrect view of the role played by petty-bourgeois masses. The urban and rural petty bourgeoisie is a victim of the capitalist social system. That explains its opposition to various aspects of capitalist development, which, in turn, creates conditions for its joint actions with the working class. But to attribute an independent revolutionary role to this social group is tantamount to sabotaging the process of the radical social transformation of society.
The desire to minimise the world historic mission of the working class and to ``elevate'' the role of the petty-- bourgeoisie is manifest in the conception upheld by Harvard University Professor Barrington Moore. In an attempt to repudiate the Marxist teaching about the historical mission of the proletariat (and about socio-economic formations) he expounds the idea of three main routes (or types) of the development of the human society. The first is the route of bourgeois revolutions which leads to capitalist democracy. The central role here is played by relations between the peasantry and the landowners, and the principal object of investigation is the modern history of Britain, France and the USA. The second route is premature and reactionary capitalist revolutions ``from above''. Here bourgeois-democratic impulses are much weaker and the outcome is fascism, as was the case in Germany or Japan. The third route is peasant revolutions which lead to communism. The vast peasant mass is the main destructive force which overthrows the old order,^^2^^ and the central object of study are the countries of the world socialist community. It is easy to see that this conception ignores the impact of the proletariat's struggle on socio-historical development in modern and contemporary _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ See: Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, Beacon Press, Boston, 1966, pp. XV-XVI.
73 times, and pass over in silence the leading role of the working class in the victorious socialist revolutions, in particular.Outwardly the reformist Fritz Sternberg, who examines the problems of the working-class movement, does not share Moore's views. He even employs Marxist terminology and lays claim to continuing the traditions of materialistic and dialectic study of history. But as soon as the question of the transforming mission of the working class turns up, his views draw closer to those of an outspoken bourgeois researcher. By attacking Marx, Sternberg pursues the same aim as Moore, i.e., to prove that Marx allegedly overestimated the role of the proletariat and cbnsequently erred in what is the main thing.^^1^^ His attacks, however, are just as futile as all other similar ones.
The opponents of scientific conmmunism attack its stand on yet another major issue---the role of the ideological struggle in the working-class movement. In this case the main aim of the falsifiers is, on the one hand, to misrepresent the views of Marx and Engles on this role and, on the other, to depreciate the vital importance of their struggle for the triumph of the revolutionary proletarian scientific theory and world outlook.
Falsifiers of the first type reduced the entire complicated history of the struggle of ideas in the working-class movement to the ``intolerance'' of Marx and his associates. A particularly active role in this respect was played by Bakunin and his followers, whose ranks in the past decades were replenished by neo-anarchists, neo-Trotskyites and Maoists. Some of them, in the hope of whitewashing the subversive activity which the CPC leadership conduct in the international arena, endeavour to portray splits as a ``law'' of the development of the proletarian movement. They assert that Marx and Engels regarded splits as the sole means for surmounting differences in the ranks of the working class. On this basis, they ignore the great traditions and lessons of the struggle for the unity of the revolutionary working-class movement, for rallying the broadest masses of working people, of all progressive forces round the working class. Naturally, such falsifications are resolutely exposed by the Communists.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Against Falsification of the HistoryThe trend to counterpose the laws governing the development of the proletariat up to the last decades of the 19th _-_-_
^^1^^ See, for instance: Fritz Sternberg, Anmerkungen zu Marx--- heute, Europaische Verlaganstalt, Frankfort on the Main, 1965.
74 century to its specific position in society in the 20th century has turned into a special form of struggle against the Marxist teaching about the world historic mission of the working class. In order to make this trend, which has become particularly popular in the West, more convincing its proponents are even prepared to recognise the validity of Marx's conclusions about the working class of the 19th century. At the same time they insist more and more doggedly that Marxism cannot be applied to the contemporary epoch, and simply ignore all the facts which abundantly prove that its basic propositions are fully valid in the changed conditions of the 20th century.This approach to Marxism was energetically propagated by a prominent theoretician of Austrian social-democracy Karl Renner, and later adopted not only by many social-- reformists but also by bourgeois authors in Britain, France, the USA and other capitalist countries.^^1^^ ``The heroic proletariat in the sense in which Marx, Engels and Lenin presented it no longer exists,'' wrote the West German philosopher Herbert Schack. ``Consequently, there is also no emancipation of the proletariat in the interests of the whole of mankind."^^2^^
Schack's assertion provides the key to understanding the essence of the thesis that the Marxist teaching concerning the liberation mission of the working class is ``inapplicable'' in the 20th century. The claim that the basic distinctive features determining the transforming social role of the proletariat disappeared or fundamentally ``changed'' in the 19th century as a consequence of historical development means that in spite of the incontrovertible results of Marx's studies his conclusions are ``historically limited" and that the proletariat's transforming mission terminated in the last century.
_-_-_^^1^^ See, for instance, reports delivered by Sidney Hook, Raymond Aron, Daniel Bell and others at an international conference which gathered in the USA to ascertain the influence of Marxism in the contemporary world (Marxism in the Modern World, ed. by Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Stanford University Press, Oxford, 1965; Marxist Ideology in the Contemporary World. Its Appeals and Paradoxes, Burns & MacEachern, New York, 1966). The same conception is presented by Bertram D. Wolfe, George Lichtheim, Rudolf Schlesinger and other bourgeois ``Marxologists'' (Bertram D. Wolfe, Marxism. One Hundred Years in the Life of a Doctrine, The Dial Press, New York, 1965; George Lichtheim, Marxism, An Historical and Critical Study, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961; Rudolf Schlesinger, Marx, His Time and Ours, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1950).
~^^2^^ Herbert Schack, Die Revision des Marxismus-Leninismus. Chancen und Grenzen einer Ideologic, Duncker & Humblot, (West) Berlin, 1959, p. 92.
75Marxism was the first to place the study of social processes on a truly scientific basis. And it was on this basis that the teaching about the world historic mission of the working class appeared. That is why one of the aims of the ideological attacks on this teaching has always been to question its scientific nature.
Official bourgeois science gave a hostile reception to Marx's epochal work Capital. The anonymous author ( presumably it was the bourgeois economist Julius Faucher) of a review of the first volume of this work denied its original nature and called Marx a pupil of the vulgar economist Bastiat. Other bourgeois economists said that Capital was faulty both in form and content.^^1^^ In the latter half of the 19th century Marxism was attacked by the school of Katheder socialism which consisted for the most part of university professors, including Gustav Schmoller, Lujo Brentano and Werner Sombart, all of whom strenuously sought to disprove the basic propositions of the Marxist economic theory. They also alleged that Marx's works were based on what they called an ``abuse'' of the deductive method.^^2^^
In a somewhat modified form this trend in the ``criticism'' of Marxism's scientific nature is in evidence today, too. The American anti-communist Bertram D. Wolfe in his book on the centenary of the publication of Capital wrote that ``history ... has ruled against its [Capital---T. T] dynamic schemata'', and that ``of Das Capital's basic intellectual structure nothing now stands up".^^3^^ The West German reactionary ideologist Heinrich Falk goes even further in his denial of Marxism's scientific nature. He calls this teaching ``a denial of all the incalculable ... knowledge accumulated in the course of two thousand years of the development of culture".^^4^^
Social-reformists also contributed their share to the negation of the scientific nature of Marxism. There is clear evidence of disregard for the scientific nature of Marxism in the works of English opportunists of the last third of the 19th century, particularly in the writings of the ideologists of so-called Fabian socialism. This trend became apparent at the turn of the century, in the period of a sharp intensification of the struggle between revolutionary and opportunistic trends in the international working-class movement.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Vierteljahresschrift fiir Volkswirtschaft und Kulturgeschichte Vol. 20, No. 28,1868.
~^^2^^ See: Essays on the History of the Ideological Struggle over Marx's ``Capital'', 1867--1967, Moscow, 1968 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Bertram D. Wolfe, Op. cit., p. XI.
~^^4^^ Heinrich Falk, Die ideologischen Grundlagen des Kommunismus, Giinter Olzog Verlag, Munich, 1961, p. 7.
76Heading his pamphlet with the question, ``Is Scientific Socialism Feasible?~'', Eduard Bernstein replied in the negative. ``The foundation of any real science is experience and it builds its edifice on accumulated knowledge,'' he wrote. ``As regards socialism it is a teaching about the future social order, and that is why its most characteristic feature cannot be scientifically established."^^1^^
Replying to Bernstein's followers Georgi Plekhanov wrote: ``If Mr. Bernstein was correct when he said that no `ism' can be a science, then clearly, for example, Darwinism is also not a `science'.... If that old thought that the present is pregnant with the future is true, then a scientific study of the present should enable us to judge the future not on the basis of some sort of mysterious forecasts or arbitrary and abstract discourses, but precisely on the basis of knowledge accumulated by science. If Mr. Bernstein seriously pondered the question about the feasibility of scientific socialism which he set himself ... he would have seen that the impossibility of the existence of scientific socialism could be proved only if it becomes clear that it is impossible scientifically to foresee social phenomena."^^2^^ We know that the course of events confirmed Marxist criticism of Bernstein's reasoning.
At the turn of the century Eduard Bernstein, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Emile Vandervelde, Thomas Kirkup and others^^3^^ laid the foundation of social-reformist historiography of the working-class movement. Later its typical representatives were Karl Kautsky, Paul Louis, G. D. H. Cole, Julius Braunthal and others.^^4^^ Their works abound in fundamental errors which make social-reformist historiography incapable _-_-_
~^^1^^ Eduard Bernstein, Wie ist wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus moglich?, Verlag der Socialistischen Monatshefte, Berlin, 1901, p. 35. Bernstein's disciples have used and continue to use the same arguments. For instance, the right Social-Democrat Ulrich Lohmar in a series of articles published in the early 1970s attempts to question the scientific character of Marxism and portrays it as an exclusively ``integral political" conception (Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, No. 8, 1973, pp. 3-10,32--37).
~^^2^^ G. V. Plekhanov, ``A Critique of Our Critics. Articles Against Bernstein'', Works, Vol. 11, pp. 66, 67 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Sidney Webb, Socialism True and False, Fabian Society Publishers, London, May 1894; Beatrice Webb, The Cooperative Movement in Great Britain, G. Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1930; Thomas Kirkup, A History of Socialism, Black, London, 1906; Emile Vandervelde, Neutrale und sozialistische Genossenschaftsbewegung, Dietz Verlag, Stuttgart, 1914.
~^^4^^ G. D. H. Cole, A History of Socialist Thought, Vols. 1-5, Macmillan, London, 1953--1956; Julius Braunthal, Geschichte der Internationale, Vol. 1, Dietz Nachf., Hannover, 1961; Paul Louis, Cent cinquante ans de pensee socialiste, Riviere, Paris, 1953.
77 of disclosing the general historical laws of the class struggle and proletarian revolution, and of presenting a true picture of the international working-class movement.This historiography has passed through several stages in its development. Literature which appeared at the first stage clearly reflected the views of the various trends in social-- reformism---the centre, which sought to unite Marxism with diverse bourgeois teachings, the rightists, who repudiated Marxism and directly accepted bourgeois ideology, and so on. Works about the international working-class movement in the early 20th century written by the Webbs, Cole, Louis and other social-reformists contained numerous facts about some, chiefly individual, questions. But with time, and particularly after the First World War, the right-wing reformist trend became predominant.
The attitude of the social-reformists to the history of the working-class movement was inconsistent for, while approving the desire of the working people to improve their condition, they, as a rule, condemned the determined revolutionary actions of the masses against the oppressors. Having no clear-cut class positions the social-reformists became politically biased and viewed the vital interests of the proletariat with hostility.^^1^^
A distinctive feature of social-reformist historiography of the international working-class movement is its eclecticism. Almost all historians who adhere to this trend frequently resort to Marxist concepts and terminology and at the same time borrow the methods used by bourgeois authors. Socialreformists repudiate the objective laws of the working-class movement and the scientific periodisation of its history, and incorrectly interpret cause-and-effect linkages, the correlation of objective and subjective factors, etc. Such an approach opens the door to subjectivism, makes a consistent narration impossible and gives rise to one-sidedness and schematism. Another distinctive feature of social-reformist historiography is the desire to dissociate the development of the mass working-class movement from the development of socialist thought, to view them without consideration for the objective connection that exists between them, and thus falsify the history of the mass movement of the working people and socialist thought.^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See, for instance: The Encyclopaedia of the Labour Movement, ed. by H. B. Lees-Smith, Gale, Detroit, 1971; Carl Landauer, European Socialism. A History of Ideas and Movements from the Industrial Revolution to Hitler's Seizure of Power, Vol. 2, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1959.
~^^2^^ See: G. D. H. Cole, Op. cit.; Henry Felling, A Short History of the Labour Party, Macmillan, London, 1961; S. Miller, Das Problem __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 79. 78
Like the Kautskyites, social-reformist historians regard imperialism as a policy of financial capital, as a ``political phenomenon'', and not as a stage in the development of capitalism. And even if they do connect the new phenomena in the economy and politics with the working-class movement, they view them in the first place from the standpoint of expanding cooperation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.^^1^^ Such an approach is designed among other things to substantiate the historical ``legitimacy'' of what they regard as a challenge to Marx from Bernstein whom right social-democratic leaders usually call the founding father of democratic socialism,^^2^^ and attribute the emergence of revisionism to the contradictions between Marxist doctrines, on the one hand, and a certain improvement of the economic condition of the proletariat, on the other.
It was on the basis of their disregard for the exacerbation of fundamental social antagonisms of bourgeois society in the imperialist epoch that social-reformists sought to prove that there were no objective preconditions for a socialist revolution on a world scale and also in individual countries (including Russia).
Furthermore, social-reformist historiography interprets the relatively ``peaceful'' last thirty or so years of the 19th century in the history of the international working-class movement as a period of decline of the class struggle, and the beginning of the 20th century merely as a continuation of the so-called peaceful period in spite of the radical changes in the conditions in which the working-class movement was developing and, most importantly, of the aggravation of the social and political situation in the leading capitalist countries.
At the same time they exaggerate the significance and gains of the social-reformist trend and portray it as the highroad of the international working-class movement. They either praise revisionism and other related varieties of socialreformism,^^3^^ or underestimate the danger of revisionism and laud centrism. Both of these opportunistic trends are _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 78. der Freiheit im Sozialismus; Freiheit, Staat und Revolution in der Programmatik der Sozialdemokratie von Lassalle bis zum Revisionismusstreit, Europaische Verlaganstalt, Frankfort on the Main, 1964.
~^^1^^ G. Arfe, Storia del socialismo italiano (1892--1926), Turin, 1965.
^^2^^ Peter Gay, The Dilemma of Democratic Socialism. Eduard Bernstein's Challenge to Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1952; Vorwarts, January 17, 1974; H. Wachenheim, Die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung 1844 bis 1914, Westdeutscher Verlag, Cologne, Opladen, 1967; Histoires des doctrines sociales du Parti Ouvrier Beige au Parti Socialists Beige, Brussels, 1974, pp. 30--31.
~^^3^^ See, for instance: Harry W. Laidler, History of Socialist Thought, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1933; Daniel Ligou, Histoire __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 80. 79 unjustifiably likened to Marxism.~^^1^^ The social-reformist trends in workers' parties at the turn of the century and also in the Second International are described as a line which allegedly conformed to the objective conditions of that time and to the interests of the proletariat. In defiance of the historical truth all the gains of workers' organisations of those years are attributed to the opportunists and not to the class struggle of the working people.~^^2^^
As a rule, social-reformist authors deny that revolutionary Social-Democrats have their social roots in the masses and rely on them.^^3^^ Historians of the social-reformist trend endeavoured to fog the acute and profound nature of the differences in the Second International at the beginning of the 20th century and conceal their class essence.^^4^^ Typical in this respect are the views entertained by the leadership of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (FRG). According to these views, ``one wing of the working-class movement existed comfortably side by side with the other. An all-- embracing creative and solidary democracy---such was the common position of Marx and Lassalle, Bebel and Bernstein.''^^5^^
This attitude, which is alien to scientific socialism ( whether it is a question of the attitude to so-called solidary democracy interpreted in a bourgeois-democratic and not _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 79. du socialisme en France (1871--1961), Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1962; F. Manzotti, // socialismo riformista in Italia, Le Monnier, Florence, 1965; John Price, The International Labour Movement, Oxford University Press, London, New York, 1947; L. Valiani, // partita socialista italiano del 1900 al 1918, Milan, 1965.
~^^1^^ Julius Braunthal, Op. cit., Vol. 1; A. C. A. Compere-Morel, Grand dictionnaire socialiste du mouvement politique et economique national et international, Publications Sociales, Paris, 1924; Paul Louis, Op. cit.; etc.
~^^2^^ See, for instance: Harry W. Laidler, Op. cit.; Norman Mackenzie, Socialism. A Short History, Hutchinson's University Library, London, 1936.
~^^3^^ See: J. R. Conlin, Bread and Roses Too. Studies of the Wobblies, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1970; Patricia van der Esch, La Deuxieme Internationale. 1889--1923, Riviere, Paris, 1957; Henry Felling, Op. cit.; James Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in America. 1902--1925, Monthly Review Press, New York, London, 1967; Hans-Josef Steinberg, Sozialismus und deutsche Sozialdemokratie. Zur Ideologic der Partei vor dem 1. Weltkrieg, Verlag fur Zeit und Zeitgeschehen, Hannover, 1967.
~^^4^^ See, for instance: G. D. H. Cole, Op. cit.; Patricia van der Esch, Op. cit.
~^^5^^ Willy Brandt, Friedrich Engels und die soziale Demokratie. Rede zum 150. Geburtstag von Friedrich Engels in Wuppertal, Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, G.m.b.H., Bonn, Bad Godesberg, 1970, p. 38.
80 in a proletarian sense, or of assessment of the basic problems of Marxism's struggle against doctrinairism and opportunism), is a continuation of Bernsteinian tradition. Lenin noted in his time that Bernstein's ``commentaries'' to critical remarks by the founders of scientific communism lacked ``a precise, clear and frank characterisation of the opportunist errors of Lassalle and Schweitzer which Marx and Engels exposed".^^1^^Another distinctive feature of social-reformist conceptions is that they underestimate the significance of the general laws of the class struggle and exaggerate the specific character of the working-class movement in individual countries.^^2^^ Usually such exaggerations are used to justify opportunism, particularly nationalistic trends, and result in the belittlement and sometimes in negation of the community of aims and tasks of the working class, and international unity. Moreover, the International is viewed as a formal union of national workers' organisations, and the role of international linkages and the interaction of workers is underestimated.
Some of these features are also typical of overtly bourgeois interpretations and assessments of the history of the workingclass movement. Bourgeois historiography of the international working-class movement, both reactionary and liberal, is even less objective today than it was in the 19th century, and its scientific value is not too great. In the final analysis the purpose of its efforts in this field is to disclose the weak points of proletarian organisations and the entire working-class movement and thus be able to chart more effective ways of fighting against the working class.
Nevertheless, there are bourgeois authors whose works contain valuable information. In his time, for instance, Werner Sombart wrote about nationalistic trends in the social-democratic movement in Germany and Austria, while Robert Brunhuber pointed out the discrepancy between the programmes of the parties and the feelings of their electors.^^3^^
As always, bourgeois historians view the working-class movement and the activity of proletarian organisations out of touch with socio-economic conditions and the struggle of the working masses. They are even farther away from _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Marx-Engels Correspondence'', Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 552.
~^^2^^ See, for instance: Harry W. Laidler, Op. cit.; B. G. de Montgomery, British and Continental Labour Policy. The Political Labour Movement and Labour Legislation in Great Britain, France and the Scandinavian Countries. 1900--1922, Oxford University Press, London, 1923.
~^^3^^ Robert Brunhuber, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie. Sine kritische Wertung ihrer wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen und eine soziologische Untersuchung ihrer praktischen Parteigestaltung, G.Fischer, Jena, 1906.
81 understanding the condition and historical tasks of the working class than the social reformists. Judging by their most detailed works, no one of them managed to find his bearings in the complicated struggle of diverse trends in the working-class movement.~^^1^^The majority of bourgeois historians regard the workingclass movement either as apolitical one which wants only an improvement of the condition of the working people,^^2^^ or as an unconscious weapon of the triumph of liberalism,^^3^^ i. e., of the bourgeoisie, or as a democratic movement but one that is alien to socialist ideas.^^4^^ They also make little of the contradictions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and negatively assess the mass actions of the working people. Their sympathies are usually with bourgeois-reformist or social-reformist organisations. The ideological and political struggle in the working-class movement is at times oversimplified by likening the centrists to revolutionary Social-- Democrats, and the revolutionary Social-Democrats to anarchosyndicalists.^^5^^ Many of the conclusions of the bourgeois historiography of the working-class movement are widely empployed in the contemporary mass anti-communist literature.
A false interpretation of the history of the international working-class movement is also found in the works which reflect the world outlook of petty-bourgeois ``ultra-- revolutionary" trends, ranging from the New Left to Trotskyites, neo-anarchists and Maoists. As a rule, these works identify the proletariat's class interests with those of their own sect or non-proletarian social groups that are close to it, and overtly ignore scientific objectivity and historism for the sake of ``political expediency''.
In the opinion of their authors mass proletarian parties are exclusively ``economic'' organisations of the working class. They assess the gains of the individual national contingents of the working class in their economic and social struggle as a factor that allegedly weakens the revolutionary potential of the proletarian masses. Accordingly, they negatively assess _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for instance: Elie Halevy, Histoire du socialisme europeen, Gallimard, Paris, 1948.
~^^2^^ See: R. Taft, The American Federation of Labor in the Time of Gompers, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1957; Gerald N. Grob, Workers and Utopia. A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement. 1865--1900, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1969.
~^^3^^ See: B. Croce, Storia d'ltalia dal 1871 al 1915, Laterza, Bari, 1943; G. Spandolini, // mondo di Giolitti, Florence, 1969.
~^^4^^ See: Edward P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Victor GoUancz Ltd., London, 1963.
~^^5^^ See: Elie Halevy, Op. cit.
82 the policies of trade unions and cooperatives, and deny the experience of the parliamentary activity of mass workers' parties. They also claim that the activity of the Second International was completely opportunistic and reformist, and liken this organisation to the one which replaced it after the First World War.Although on the surface the ideologists of ``left'' opportunism differ from the right revisionists, they, like the latter, present an anti-scientific interpretation of problems related to the socio-economic causes, the ideological content, political results and consequences of the contention between the various trends in the working-class movement. Writings by authors adhering to anarcho-syndicalist or Trotskyite positions are characterised by a desire to misrepresent the differences of principle in the international proletarian movement and to detract from the significance of the objective laws of the class struggle. They are particularly eager to overstate the role played by personal sympathies and antipathies unsuccessfully attempting to question the legitimacy of the MarxistLeninist methodological premise that it is necessary to take as a ``basis, not individuals or groups, but a class analysis of the content of social trends, and an ideological and political examination of their essential and main principles''.^^1^^
From the standpoint of a class approach the efforts of the ideologists of the old and ``new'' Trotskyites to discredit their enemies at all costs, even by slapping on labels, are utterly hopeless. A continuation of this line are the attempts of Maoist ``theoreticians'' to interpret key issues of the history of the international working-class movement, the concepts ``revisionism'', ``social-imperialism'', etc., out of the context of the class struggle, and to use them in the struggle against true Marxists-Leninists, against the ideals of the world-revolutionary working-class movement.
``Left" opportunists (beginning with the above-mentioned ideologists of anarcho-syndicalism at the turn of the century and ending with the disciples of the Frankfurt school of philosophy and Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul M. Sweezy, Andre Gorz and other contemporary spokesmen of petty-bourgeois radicalism)^^2^^ distort the trends and prospects of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Under a False Flag'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 154.
~^^2^^ Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique de la raison dialectique, Gallimard, Paris, 1960; Paul M. Sweezy, ``Marx and the Proletariat'', Monthly Review, Vol. 19, No. 7, December 1967, pp. 25--42; Andre Gorz, Strategic ouvriere et neocapitalisme, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1964; Idem, Le socialisme difficile, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1967. See also: Contemporary Existentialism. Critical Essays, Moscow, 1966, pp. 192--203 (in Russian).
83 development of the world proletariat. On top of that they also falsify the Marxist-Leninist precepts about the social roots of reformism in the international working-class movement under imperialism. When subjected to closer scrutiny their `` ultra-revolutionary" interpretation of the changes that have taken place in the structure of the working class since the beginning of the 20th century and the socio-economic situation of its sections proves to be largely a rehash of the myths about the whole proletariat ``turning bourgeois" and about the growth of a ``new middle class'', which were propagated by Sombart, Struve and others.Consistently welding the unity of proletarian ranks on a principled, class basis, Marx, Engels and Lenin waged a battle on two fronts, i. e., against right and ``left'' opportunism. ``Left'' opportunists ignored the dialectic interconnection of both sides in this struggle, and hampered the efforts of the revolutionary proletarian vanguard to consolidate the positions of the working class.
It is not accidental that diehard bourgeois anti-communists have picked up precisely the ``left-opportunistic, Trotskyite-Maoist interpretation of many problems of the working-class movement, and particularly those of the Second International.^^1^^
Marxist-Leninist historians counter the false interpretations of the history of the international working-class movement with truly scientific, comprehensive studies.
The Marxist historiography of the world working-class movement in the period prior to the October Revolution in Russia made major headway in the 1960s and 1970s. Such themes as the world historic significance of Leninism and of the Bolshevik Party were comprehensively expounded. The services of revolutionary Social-Democrats were studied and objectively described. The activity of the Second International and many workers' parties and also mass proletarian organisations was duly assessed. The various stages of the rise and evolution of opportunistic trends, their influence and the correlation of the revolutionary and opportunistic trends in the international working-class movement of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were thoroughly investigated.^^2^^
On the basis of concrete historical facts progressive authors have drawn conclusions that are of major ideological and political significance for the working-class movement in _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. Nollau, Die internationalen Wurzeln und Erscheinungsformen des proletarischen Internationalismus, Verlag fiir Politik und Wirtschaft, Cologne, 1959.
~^^2^^ See pp. 257--313 of the present volume.
84 contemporary conditions, too. Having found new, convincing evidence corroborating the Marxist-Leninist teaching about the class struggle of the proletariat and the decisive role that is played by the working class in the revolutionary transformation of the world, they have incontrovertibly proved that the responsibility for the split in the international working-class movement rests with the opportunists who at first hampered the efforts of the working class to fulfil its world historic mission and then betrayed Marxism, the International and the vital interests of the working class, and openly sided with imperialism. Workers' parties and other proletarian organisations owe their main gains to the revolutionary trend which indicated the ways for solving new problems that confronted the working class and devised the means and forms of class struggle which were consistent with the changed conditions.Marxist-Leninist historiography has proved the groundlessness of the efforts of present-day social-reformists to appropriate the legacy of the international proletarian organisations of the past. Right-wing Socialists can only claim to be legal heirs of the opportunistic trend in the working-class movement.
As regards the true heirs of the revolutionary trend of the past, they are communist parties and the international communist movement. The First International, states the Programme of the Comintern, laid the ideological foundations for the proletariat's international struggle for socialism. The Second International in the best period of its activity paved the way for the broad expansion of the working-class movement. The Third International furthered the cause of the First International and having absorbed the finest achievements of the Second International, resolutely discarded its opportunism, social-chauvinism and misinterpretation of socialist ideology, and worked for the realisation of the political power of the proletariat.
Lenin pointed out that revolutionary theory grew out of ``the sum total of the revolutionary experience and the revolutionary thinking of all countries in the world''.^^1^^ It is with good reason that in its documents the 25th Congress of the CPSU noted the importance of carrying on ``the scientific generalisation of the world historic experience of the CPSU and the experience gained by the international communist and working-class movements".^^2^^
The veracity of a teaching is indispensable for its victory _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Voice of an Honest French Socialist'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 354.
~^^2^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p.232.
85 in ideological battles. That is why neither bourgeois, nor reformist, nor national-opportunistic and ``left''-extremist ``critics'' of Marxism, past or present, have been able to stop its onward march.But the scientific defeat of untenable ideological conceptions does not mean that they have disappeared altogether. Since they express specific class interests they may reappear in a different casing and imitate a ``new'' approach to reality and, at certain stages, find themselves in the focus of attention of some sections of society. This applies to the antiMarxist versions of the role and place of the working class in the socio-historical process. The ideological struggle in this field never abated and continues in contemporary conditions. And each round brings new outstanding victories to Marxism-Leninism.
[86] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ III __ALPHA_LVL1__ BASIC STAGES IN THEThe scientific periodisation of the history of the proletariat's class struggle in modern and contemporary times is called upon .to reflect, in concentrated form, the history of the world revolutionary proletarian movement, the distinctive features of its basic historical stages, the trends, the real possibilities and the gains of the working class at each successive phase of the class struggle.
Periodisation and the chronological limits which it sets to the study of social processes are naturally more or less relative. ``Here, of course, as everywhere in Nature and society, the lines of division are conventional and variable, relative, not absolute,'' Lenin wrote. ``We take the most outstanding and striking historical events only approximately, as milestones in important historical movements."^^1^^
For those, however, who conduct a searching study of the growth trends of the proletariat >nd its place and role in world history the landmarks in social progress are chiefly determined by the course of the class struggle and its general laws which characterise the activity of the working class, and the latter's _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Under a False Flag'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 146.
87 influence on world events.Historical epochs and periods in the world history of modern and contemporary times can be conducted on the basis of a series of socio-economic, political, ideological and other class criteria. The works of the classics of Marxism-- Leninism sometimes offer different periodisations of the history of the proletariat's revolutionary struggle, depending on the genesis of the phenomena they examine. In all cases, however, they centre on the rise and growth of the proletariat, the fusion of the struggle of its national contingents into an international movement and the development of the working class into the main factor of the world revolutionary process.
What were the most important milestones on this historical road?
The period from the Great French Revolution to the Paris Commune (1789--1871), which, according to Lenin's definition, ``completed this development of bourgeois changes'',^^1^^ was an epoch of ``the rise of the bourgeoisie, of its triumph, of the bourgeoisie on the upgrade, an epoch of bourgeoisdemocratic movements in general and of bourgeois-national movements in particular, an epoch of the rapid breakdown of the obsolete feudal-absolutist institutions".^^2^^ Already then, in the period of pre-monopoly capitalism when the bourgeoisie as a class had not yet exhausted its potentialities which in those times were progressive, the capitalist society was increasingly breaking up into two hostile camps, two opposing classes-Hhe bourgeoisie and the proletariat.^^3^^
This is abundantly proved by the proletariat's first independent battles, such as the uprisings of Lyons weavers in 1831 and 1834, the Chartist movement and the first great strike battles of the working class in England, the participation of workers in the revolutions of 1848, and especially the uprising of the French proletariat in June which Lenin called the first great civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.^^4^^ ``The shooting of the workers by the republican bourgeoisie in Paris in the June days of 1848,'' he wrote, ``finally revealed that the proletariat alone was socialist by nature."^^5^^ In general, the period up to 1848 which _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 583.
~^^2^^V. I. Lenin, ``Under a False Flag'', Collected Works, Vol.21, p. 146.
~^^3^^ See: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol, 6, p. 485.
~^^4^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The Third International and Its Place in History'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 309.
~^^5^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 583.
88 Lenin singled out as the first major stage in the development of the international working-class movement was marked by the birth of socialist ideas and the embryonic class struggle of the proletariat.^^1^^A turning point in the development of the revolutionary struggle of the world proletariat was the historical period which followed the European revolutions of 1848 and ``ended with the complete victory of Marxism, the collapse (especially after the Revolution of 1848) of all pre-Marxian forms of socialism, and the separation of the working class from petty-bourgeois democracy and its entry upon an independent historical path".^^2^^
The enormous ideological, theoretical, organisational and political work performed by Marx and Engels, the teachers and leaders of the world proletariat, resulted in the formation at the end of the epoch of bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the International Working Men's Association (First International) which laid ``the foundation of an international organisation of the workers for the preparation of their revolutionary attack on capital'',^^3^^ ``the foundation of the proletarian, international struggle for socialism".^^4^^
Once the vanguard of the working class became aware that the overthrow of capitalism and the socialist reorganisation of the world were a single international task of the world proletariat, it became necessary to determine its attitude to other classes and social groups. Marx and Engels, who had rallied round themselves the first cohort of proletarian revolutionaries, steered the working class towards forming an alliance with broad democratic forces, especially with the peasantry. If this policy is successful, Marx wrote, ``the proletarian revolution will obtain that chorus without which its solo song becomes a swan song in all peasant countries".^^5^^
As the proletariat turned from a ``class in itself" into a ``class for itself" and became increasingly revolutionary, the bourgeoisie's role as hegemon of bourgeois-democratic transformations declined; it frequently joined forces with reactionary feudal groups and gradually turned into an impediment to social progress. The proletariat's class battles were having an ever increasing impact on the course of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``August Bebel'', Collected Works, Vol.19, p. 295.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Third International and Its Place in History'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 306.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 307.
~^^5^^ Karl Marx, ``The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, p. 484.
89 European and world history.This was strikingly demonstrated in the next historical period, which began in the early 1870s and lasted until the First Russian Revolution of 1905--1907, and was marked by the development of free competition capitalism into monopoly capitalism. The emergence of new features in the world economy---rapid growth of joint-stock companies and trusts; the increasing role of stock exchanges and banks in industry and in the export of capital; the rivalry for spheres of influence and distribution of colonies---were accompanied by the strengthening of reactionary trends in the domestic and foreign policy of the bourgeoisie.
It was the heroic uprising of the French proletariat which proclaimed its rule in the very centre of Europe that opened up a new period in world history. The Paris Commune of 1871 not only showed that the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie had turned into a key social contradiction, but opened the eyes of the whole world to the fact that the working class was capable of assuming power and running the affairs of society. The working class proved that it was a political force which could attain not only specific class aims, but fulfil general democratic and national tasks. In a word, it was turning into a class whose example caught the imagination of ever greater sections of the nation, and which undertook the task of leading the democratic opposition to the bourgeois regime, a task that had been outlined in theory at the preceding stage of the struggle.
Summing up the development of the working-class movement in that historical epoch, Lenin wrote that it was a period of ``the formation, growth and maturing of mass socialist parties with a proletarian class composition. This period is characterised by the tremendous spread of socialism, the unprecedented growth of all kinds of organisations of the proletariat, and the preparation of the proletariat in the most varied fields for the fulfilment of its great historic mission.''^^1^^
Yet it would have been a grave mistake to ignore the fact that the growth of the proletariat in breadth resulted in a ``temporary drop in the revolutionary level".^^2^^
Another reason for the weakening of the struggle of the working class in some capitalist countries was that certain objective factors more or less isolated it from the national liberation movements of the colonial peoples. At the time the proletariat was just turning into the hegemon of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``August Bebel'', Collected Works, Vol.19, pp. 295--96.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Third International and Its Place in History'', Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 306.
90 progressive forces in individual European capitalist countries. Lenin wrote that while after the defeat of the Paris Commune ``the West entered a phase of `peaceful' preparations for the changes to come'', the East had not yet attained the level of maturity necessary for bourgeois-democratic revolutions.~^^1^^ At the time the development of individual links and streams of the world revolutionary process was still chiefly of a parallel and spontaneous nature. Very often they groped blindly for the ways and means of providing mutual support and assistance which subsequently became more consciously manifest and assumed a greater scale. The lack of effective cooperation between the various progressive, anti-imperialist forces which were active in different parts of the world weakened their joint assault on imperialism.The struggle of world revolutionary forces, above all the mass working-class movement which was set off by the Paris Commune, was given a new direction by the revolution of 1905--1907 in Russia to where the centre of the world proletarian movement in the epoch of imperialism had shifted as a result of the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries. Assessing the significance of the events of that time and the role of the struggle of the masses which was gaining in intensity everywhere, Lenin wrote: ``The revolutionary movement in various European and Asian countries has latterly made itself felt so weightily that we see before us the fairly clear outlines of a new and incomparably higher stage in the international proletarian struggle."^^2^^
The Russian revolution of 1905--1907 was of immense international significance inasmuch as it proved in practice that the strength of the working class was incomparably greater than its proportion in the population. The Russian proletariat was the hegemon of that general democratic revolution and turned into the leading revolutionary force in the struggle waged by the broadest masses against tsarism, and for social emancipation and the eradication of national oppression.
In view of the heightened role of the working class it became even more important for the success of its political and ideological struggle to solve the question of its allies, and to increase the influence of the ideas of socialism on broad, including non-proletarian, sections of the working people. As they worked to consolidate the alliance of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 583.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Inflammable Material in World Politics'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 182.
91 working class with all the exploited, downtrodden urban and rural masses, the Bolsheviks consistently fought on two fronts---against the right opportunism and tail-endism of the ``Economists'' and the Mensheviks, and against ``left''-- sectarian trends. On the one hand, Lenin warned against the oblivion of the ultimate socialist aims of the proletariat and, on the other, against sectarian disregard for the general democratic demands and aspirations of its allies. For instance, in his criticism of the ideological and theoretical platform of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, he emphasised (when, for instance, dwelling on their conception of the stability of the peasant economy which in some respects resembled Proudhonistic, Bakuninist and other doctrines of petty-bourgeois socialism) that ``the Russian `Socialist-Revolutionaries', who are wholly in thrall to the ideas of petty-bourgeois Narodism, inevitably turn out to be 'birds of a feather' with the European reformists and opportunists, who, when they would be consistent, inevitably arrive at Proudhonism".^^1^^ But he also instructed the Party to ``extract the sound and valuable kernel of the sincere, resolute, militant democracy of the peasant masses from the husk of Narodnik Utopias'',^^2^^ and to support the just struggle of the working peasants for land.Leninism linked the successful preparation of the proletariat for the forthcoming decisive battles for socialism with the all-round development of an effective alliance of the hegemon class with the peasantry, the middle urban strata, the working intelligentsia and with all the oppressed peoples.
The revolution of 1905 during which the influence of the proletariat and its characteristic forms of struggle manifested themselves more fully than ever before, a revolution whose experience was thoroughly analysed and generalised in Lenin's immortal works, immeasurably enriched the international working-class movement. The interaction of the different streams of the world revolutionary liberation struggle increased under the impact of the Russian revolution. Analysing one of the trends of such interaction Lenin wrote: ``A new source of great world storms opened up in Asia. The Russian revolution was followed by revolutions in Turkey, Persia and China. It is in this era of storms and their ' repercussions' in Europe that we are now living."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Les beaux esprits se rencontrent (Which May Be Interpreted Roughly as: Birds of a Feather Flock Together)'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 434--35.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Two Utopias'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 359.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Historical Destiny of the Doctrine of Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 584.
92When Lenin formulated the principle of the interaction of the international working-class movement and the national liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples, he underscored the leading role of proletarian revolutions as harbingers of the impending communist renovation of the world.
True Marxists evolved their conception of the world revolutionary process at the beginning of the 20th century in the course of their struggle primarily against opportunists in the Second International, who maintained that since there were no revolutions in the West ``social peace" was possible, and revolutionary storms impossible under the parliamentary system prevailing in West European countries.
Lenin's theory of world revolution was spearheaded also against the standpoint of ``people who were inattentive to the conditions for preparing and developing the mass struggle" and who ``were driven to despair and to anarchism by the lengthy delays in the decisive struggle against capitalism in Europe".^^1^^ Simultaneously, he rejected the subjectivist views of those who considered that the East was more fully prepared to assimilate and implement the ideas of the socialist revolution.
When in the course of the First World War the socio-- political crisis began to deepen in some European countries, Lenin with great perspicacity spoke about the maturing of elements of a revolutionary situation, the inevitability of profound social upheavals, and the possibility of sundering the chain of world imperialism at one or another of its links. Here, too, the central point was the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat on a national and international scale, which was formulated on the basis of a scientific generalisation of the trends and prospects in the development of the revolutionary movement throughout the world, including Russia, a country which ``matured with exceptional rapidity, and assimilated most eagerly and successfully the appropriate 'last word' of American and European political experience".^^2^^
Russia's entire course of internal and international development brought it up to the victorious socialist revolution that turned a fresh page in world history.
``The abolition of capitalism and its vestiges, and the establishment of the fundamentals of the communist order,'' Lenin wrote, ``comprise the content of the new era of world history that has set in."^^3^^ In the period following the October _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 26.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``On the Struggle Within the Italian Socialist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 392.
93 Socialist Revolution, implementation of the world historic mission of the working class has risen to a qualitatively new, incomparably higher stage.Generalising the historical road of the world revolutionary movement ushered in by the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, Marxists-Leninists distinguish the following basic periods of the progressive development of the world revolutionary process:
The first period began with the victory of the socialist revolution and was marked by the completion of socialist construction in the USSR, the intensification of the struggle of the working class and the democratic movements of non-proletarian masses and also national liberation movements in some regions of the world; and the formation of Marxist-Leninist parties in many countries at the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism.
The second period which was characterised by the rout of fascism in the Second World War, the emergence of socialism from the confines of one country and the rise of the world socialist system, which led to the further growth of the influence of the ideas of the October Revolution, the weakening of world imperialism at the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism as a result of the aggravation of its inherent antagonisms, and the crisis of imperialism's colonial system; by a considerable enhancement of the role and influence of the working class and its organisations in social life; and the expansion of the class struggle which manifested itself in the most diverse forms.
The third period was marked by a further change in the balance of world class forces in conditions of the third stage of the general crisis of capitalism, which did not set in as a result of the Second World War but began due to the growing might and the consolidation of the international positions of the USSR and other socialist countries, the collapse of colonialism and the rise of dozens of independent national states, the powerful expansion in width and depth of the working-class movement in the citadels of imperialism, and the increase of objective and subjective preconditions for a major upsurge of the anti-monopoly struggle of the working people in the capitalist world.
Anti-communists have always sought to disprove the scientific nature of Marxism-Leninism's revolutionary conclusions. Some of them propagate the thesis about the ``stability'' of world capitalism and ``futility'' of the anti-imperialist movement, and claim that the prospect for a revolutionary overthrow of imperialism in the zone of developed 94 capitalism has now retreated into the background.^^1^^ Other authors (including the French philosopher Raymond Aron, Richard L\"owenthal, an expert in bourgeois ``Marxology'' and `` Sovietology'', the Spanish revisionists such as Fernando Claudin and others) talk about a ``decline of Marxism" in the contemporary historical epoch. Their crude, frankly anti-communist fabrications are supplemented with all sorts of disguised concoctions, namely national-opportunistic, ``neo-Marxist'' and other revisionist conceptions whose proponents, on the one hand, try to set off Marx's theory against Lenin's ideas and, on the other, to prove the limited, ``local'' character of Leninism and to replace scientific socialism with their pettybourgeois distortions.~^^2^^
Nonetheless, experience has fully confirmed Leninism's conclusions about the character, the main motive social forces and the general laws of the world revolutionary process of our epoch. As Lenin had predicted, the world capitalist system is steadily weakening as a result of the victorious socialist revolutions in a number of countries, the development of the class, anti-monopoly struggle of the proletariat and its allies in the citadels of imperialism, and the great upsurge of mass anti-imperialist movements in the zone of the national liberation struggle. All these factors were instrumental in increasing the scope and broadening the social basis of the world revolutionary process, and accelerating the revolutionary transformation of society under the leadership of the working class and its communist vanguard.
Marxists-Leninists also take into account the uneven development of the world revolutionary process. Back in the early 1920s Lenin urged the Communists in foreign countries to ``give up the left illusions that the world revolution is allegedly advancing at its initial rapid pace ... and that the victory of our banner depends wholly on the will and the activity of the Communist Party".^^3^^ That is why MarxistLeninist parties must make a detailed analysis of both the general laws of the revolutionary process and the specific way _-_-_
~^^1^^ Such assertions, for example, are made by R. L. Heilbroner in The Limits of American Capitalism (Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, 1966).
~^^2^^ What strikes the eye is that in these questions, just as in the interpretation of other key premises of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary theory, the ``arguments'' advanced by bourgeois-reformist and ``left~"-extremist ideologists often coincide. This proves, among other things, that their conceptions have, in many respects, common epistemological, ideological and social roots.
~^^3^^ From Lenin's conversation with Clara Zetkin in 1921. See: About Lenin. Reminiscences of Foreign Contemporaries, Moscow, 1962, p. 45 (in Russian).
95 in which they manifest themselves in different countries and regions of the world.One of the basic requirements of the Marxist-Leninist method of studying the class struggle on an international scale is to take account of specific national factors and universal socio-historical laws. Otherwise it will be impossible to make a profound study of the interaction of the struggle of the international working class and its main accomplishment, the world system of socialism, with other streams of the world revolutionary process, and of the impact of existing socialism on the development of all these streams and contingents.
The founders of scientific communism always warned of the danger of national nihilism and underestimation of the influence of the national-historical factor on the development of the class struggle. They maintained that it was necessary to study ``each particular revolutionary situation" and to analyse ``the lessons of the experience of each particular revolution"^^1^^ and its contribution to the common treasurehouse of the experience of the world proletarian movement.
On the other hand, Leninism resolutely opposes national narrow-mindedness and disregard for the world-wide character of the revolutionary process. This process owes its international character to a number of factors, chiefly to the internationalist character of the working class, the formation of the world capitalist economy (with the advent of the epoch of imperialism) and the operation of general historical laws which inevitably result in the replacement of the exploiting system by the socialist system.
Hence, all signs of national seclusion and trends towards weakening the unity of the revolutionary movement of the given country with the world socialist forces may, in the final analysis, be detrimental to the working people of the country concerned, as well as to the interests of the world anti-imperialist front.
Particularly great harm is caused by the proponents of anti-Sovietism. The imperialists have always relied heavily on those who split the ranks of progressive, revolutionary forces, oppose the consolidation of the unity of the main streams of the world revolutionary movement, the Leninist course of enhancing the leading role of the working class and its creation, the world socialist system, in the international liberation movement.
Right-wing social-democratic ideologists and some ``left''-- revisionist authors would have liked to replace the basic class _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The State and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 406.
96 antagonism of the contemporary epoch---that between socialism and capitalism---with other, non-antagonistic contradictions (for example, the ``antagonism'', the `` insurmountable gap" between the countries of the ``North and South'', between ``poor and rich nations'', between `` industrial" and ``underdeveloped'' countries).^^1^^One can hardly consider as justified Hobsbawm's rather freely defined ``temporal'' parameters of periodisation of the contemporary epoch, the epoch of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. According to him this epoch began at the turn of the 20th century and includes the collapse of traditional semi-colonial monarchies in Persia and China, and also the Mexican revolution of 1910.^^2^^ He also advanced the thesis that the general crisis of capitalism allegedly ended in the latter half of the 1940s. In effect, he refutes the Marxist-Leninist conclusion about the main class contradiction of the contemporary epoch and claims that the antagonism between labour and capital, between the working class and the bourgeoisie, has lost its former significance.
Such conceptions are the result of the obvious underestimation of the gains of existing socialism and its role in world social development. Yet a scientific analysis of factors which more than other contributed to the establishment of new, more favourable conditions for the development of the world revolutionary process makes it possible to conclude that they appeared mainly as a result of a radical change in the balance of forces on the international scene in favour of socialism. Furthermore, they emerged following the regrouping of the social and political forces in capitalist states in conditions of sustained aggravation of imperialism's basic contradictions and, finally, as a result of the changes in the organisational capacity of the working class.
The process of the replacement of capitalism by socialism on a truly global scale has been taking place in stages ever since it began in the wake of the 1917 October Revolution. The general crisis of capitalism will take up a long historical period. The revolutionary working-class movement endeavours to take full account of the key features of every phase of this crisis and the trends of the class struggle typical of each one of them.
The international scope and character of the class struggle are particularly obvious in the period of the aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism. This is borne out by the all-encompassing nature of the crisis phenomena which have _-_-_
~^^1^^ Professor Eric Hobsbawm, ``The Crisis of Capitalism in Historical Perspective'', Marxism Today, Vol. 19, No. 10, October 1975 p 306
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 303.
97 gripped the capitalist system, and by the organic unity of the tasks confronting the different contingents of the international revolutionary movement. In present-day conditions it is especially important to take into consideration the actual alignment of forces in the world.A genuinely revolutionary movement proceeds from the premise that this alignment will continue to change in favour of peace and socialism. It is based on the need to keep on strengthening existing socialism whose successes in the construction of a new society and whose international policy increasingly influence crucial processes in the capitalist countries, the position and the struggle of the working people in the capitalist world, and the world revolutionary liberation movement.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The October Socialist Revolution:Far from losing its importance the question of the international significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution and its results, of the ways and main directions of their influence on the world revolutionary process, the international working-class movement in the first place, has become even more topical in present conditions. For many years now it has been in the centre of political discussions and ideological and theoretical debates both within and without the working-class movement.
Lacking the arguments to refute the tremendous influence the October Revolution exerted on the masses throughout the world in the years immediately following its victory, some bourgeois and reformist authors strive to play down its importance and even narrow the bounds of this influence, as well as the very limits of the epoch ushered in by the October Revolution.~^^1^^ Among the ideologists of the Maoist-type anti-Sovietism who preach the anti-scientific theory of ``three worlds" and spread the myth that the policy of the Leninist Party has ``shed its revolutionary character'', there are those who go to the extent of putting the Soviet Union on the same plane with the imperialist powers and slanderously depicting it as all but the ``main adversary of revolutionary peoples''.
_-_-_~^^1^^ See, for instance: Marc Ferro, Victor Fay, Pierre Broue, La Revolution d'Octobre et la mouvement ouvrier europeen, EDI, Paris, 1967; Commentary, Vol. 59, No. 3, March 1975, pp. 31--44; Communists and Social Progress, Moscow, 1978 (in Russian).
98But Soviet Russia's working class which took power into its hands in October 1917 has every reason to regard this victorious revolution as a contribution to the common cause of the international proletariat. The course of world social development fully demonstrates the enormous international significance of the first victorious socialist revolution, its gains and experience.
The development of the world revolutionary movement over the past sixty-odd years has collaborated Lenin's conclusions about the correlation of the general historical patterns and certain national specifics in the experience of the Great October Revolution.
Not infrequently the opponents of scientific communism of all hues portray the influence of the October Revolution on other countries in a manner designed to show that the CPSU has allegedly engaged in ``exporting revolution" and is doing so today. But they will never be able to dodge the fact that it is the laws of development of capitalism itself which creates conditions for its demise and the transition of the whole of contemporary society to socialism. A major role in revolutionising the masses has always been played by the example set by the October Revolution, by the working people of the USSR and other countries which have made historical gains under socialism.
In spite of assertions to the contrary by some of the so-called critics of Marxism-Leninism, the influence of the October Revolution and its consequences on social development throughout the world increases as the years go by. This being the case it would be incorrect both methodologically and in the light of a concrete historical analysis of the distinctive features of the various phases of world history over the past sixty-odd years to confine the study of the problems connected with the influence of the October Revolution on the world revolutionary process merely to the period from 1918 to 1923.
The influence of the October Revolution and its ideas on mankind is even greater at the present stage of the struggle between the two world systems than, say, fifty or sixty years ago. There are several reasons for this but we shall list only the most important ones.
In the first place it is necessary to mention the enormous growth throughout the world of the very class whose vanguard led the October Socialist Revolution and secured its victory. Mention should also be made of the vast numerical growth of the international working class and major qualitative changes in the world proletarian movement, including the growth of consciousness, organisation and fighting capacity of the working class; a new, higher level of the maturity of the
99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/WISPE319/20070531/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.05.31) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ working-class movement in capitalist countries; the mounting influence of the revolutionary tendency in its ranks, and so forth.Furthermore, account should be taken of the tremendous acceleration of the world revolutionary process in the past decades. The new, bigger dimensions of the revolutionary breakdown of capitalism (i. e., the further development of the process that began in October 1917) attest, among other things, to the growth of the international influence of the ideas of the October Socialist Revolution and its results, and to the expansion of the very sphere of operation of the main laws governing the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. At the same time the leading role played by the international working class and its main achievement, the socialist system, in the development of the world revolutionary process does not decline but, on the contrary, becomes even more decisive.
Today, more than sixty years after the October Socialist Revolution, existing socialism in no small measure influences the course of world events. The mighty socialist system can to a certain extent limit the sphere of the spontaneous operation of the laws of capitalism.
As they guide the struggle of the masses against imperialism and for the revolutionary transformation of society along new, socialist and communist lines, the fraternal MarxistLeninist parties rely on the vast experience of the October Revolution which they thoroughly analyse and creatively apply in the concrete conditions of their respective countries.
An honourable role has fallen to the lot of the Soviet Union's working class, that of the vanguard of the world socialist revolution. It is because of the different level of economic and socio-political development in the various countries and the increasing unevenness of this development that socialist revolutions do not triumph in all countries and regions at one and the same time. Lenin noted that objectively ``the socialist revolution is maturing by the hour in all countries of the world'',^^1^^ and at the same time predicted that this revolution ``will consist of many years of fighting, of several periods of onslaught with intervals of counter-- revolutionary convulsions of the bourgeois system".^^2^^
His forecast came true. The history of the past six decades is one of unceasing struggle between socialism and imperialism which is conducted in many forms, including open _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 471.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Kautsky, Axelrod, and Martov---True Internationalists'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 399.
100 clashes of individual contingents of the international working class and its creation---the world socialist system---against the shock forces of imperialist reaction. The power of the onslaught of the international working-class movement against reactionary monopoly circles and the course and the results of their struggle were not the same in different periods. Unlike, too, were the concrete forms of ``counter-- revolutionary convulsions of the bourgeois system" which ranged from direct military intervention, war against the world's first socialist state, and the establishment of reactionary, including fascist and military, dictatorships in some countries, to the employment of state-monopoly trends in other forms when the methods of direct class violence are combined with all sorts of bourgeois-reformist measures whose social purpose is to blunt the class awareness of the working people and weaken the revolutionary trend in the working-class movement. On the whole, however, in spite of the energetic resistance of the reaction and modifications in the strategy and tactics of world imperialism, the cause of the proletarian revolution has prospered and continues to prosper on a world scale.After the Great October Socialist Revolution the international revolutionary working-class movement has gone through several historical stages. The first stage, which began in 1917 and lasted until the end of the 1930s, was marked by the victory of the socialist revolution in the USSR, rapid growth of the consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, upsurge of the struggle of the working class against the domination of the bourgeoisie in a number of European countries in conditions of the political crisis that was provoked by a sharp aggravation of social antagonisms in the capitalist countries towards the end of the First World War and by the revolutionising influence of the ideas of the October revolution on the masses. Communist parties were formed in many states: in 1918 there were ten and in 1921 34 of them.^^1^^ The proletarian revolutions in Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, the November 1918 Revolution in Germany, the revolutionary actions of the working class in Italy, Bulgaria, Poland and other countries, the great upsurge of class battles in France, Britain, the USA and other capitalist states in the period from 1918 to 1923 overturn bourgeoisreformist claims about the so-called irregularity of the intensification of the class struggle. Life has confirmed Leninism's conclusion that the world capitalist system had on the whole become objectively mature for social revolution.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The International Communist Movement, ed. by V. V. Zagladin, Moscow, 1974, p. 15 (in Russian).
101The European revolutions of that period should be viewed as a part of the international revolutionary movement against imperialism and for peace. It was not by chance, for example, that the November 1918 revolution in Germany was launched under the slogans of handing over power to the Soviets and the establishment of ``contacts with the international proletariat and especially with the Russian workers' republic".^^1^^ The struggle of the revolutionary masses in other European countries in that period was conducted under similar slogans.
At the same time a whole range of serious difficulties appeared in the development of the working-class movement in the capitalist world. The basic ones were created by the policy of the social-democratic leaders in Germany and other countries who at the most crucial moment sided with the bourgeoisie in the struggle against the revolutionary proletariat, and were also due to the weakness and inexperience of the young communist parties. The Communist International analysed the conditions of the development of the revolutions of 1918--1923 in Germany, Hungary and Finland and brought to light the main cause of the proletariat's defeat in these revolutions: ``The objective conditions for a victorious revolution were at hand,'' it justly noted. ``But the most important subjective factor was lacking---namely, a determined, trained, prepared, alert, revolutionary working-class party."^^2^^
The ideological and political dissociation of the young communist parties from both right and ``left'' opportunism in the international working-class movement strengthened them organisationally and ideologically. A major role here was played by Lenin and the Communist International which was set up under his leadership in early 1919. This stimulated the further development of processes which resulted in the crystallisation of revolutionary elements in the world working-class movement and their adoption of the experience of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia. Representatives of the revolutionary proletariat from various countries of Europe, America and Asia who assembled in Moscow for the First Congress of the Communist International declared: ``It is our object to summarise the revolutionary experience of the working classes, to purge the movement from the decomposing admixtures of opportunism and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, in eight volumes, Vol. 3, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1966.
~^^2^^ Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International Held in Moscow Nov. 7 to Dec. 3,1922. Published for the Communist International by the Communist Party of Great Britain London, 1922, p. 104.
102 `social-patriotism', to unite the efforts of all truly revolutionary parties of the world's proletariat.^^1^^ __NOTE__ Missing '' at end of above paragraph?With the help of the Comintern, Communists in different countries more rapidly overcame the vestiges of social-- democratic and anarcho-syndicalist ideology and gained a better understanding of how to prepare the masses for an active struggle against the rule of the monopolies and for social revolution.
This was one of the ideological and political consequences of the October Revolution, of its influence on the minds of many West European left-wing Social-Democrats. ``Under the influence of the great victory of the Russian proletariat and the revolutionary crisis in our own countries,'' wrote O. V. Kuusinen, ``we, yesterday's left-wing Social-Democrats, have lived through a profound (of course, some through a more profound and some through a less profound) ideological change in our consciousness: we turned into more purposeful revolutionaries fighting under the banner of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was a decisive step in our transition to the communist camp."^^2^^
Referring to the influence of the experience of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia and of its ideas on the French working-class movement, Maurice Thorez justly observed: ``After the October Revolution, in spite of the opportunists, the workers who were members of the old French Socialist Party were attracted by Lenin's bright ideas. He showed them the correct road and they joined the Third International''. He went on to write that ``the revolutionary workers of France declared their support for the Marxist-Leninist thesis about the dictatorship of the proletariat which the Party of Bolsheviks defended and translated into reality."^^3^^
The Comintern, whose activity in that period was directed by Lenin, attached serious attention to the struggle against sectarian trends and ultra-revolutionary rhetoric, and against the ``\thinspace`left-wing' infantile disorder of communism''.
The revolutionary battles of 1918--1923 did not pass without a trace for the world proletarian movement and its vanguard. They not only enhanced the class awareness of the proletariat and increased the authority and membership of its mass organisations, but also inaugurated the difficult work of improving the tactics of the communist movement. The young communist parties were now confronted with the enormous task of learning effectively to employ the principles of Leninism in the concrete conditions _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Communist International, No. 1,1919, p. 6.
~^^2^^ O. V. Kuusinen, Selected Works, Moscow, 1966, p. 666 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Maurice Thorez, Selected Articles and Speeches (1930--1964), Moscow, 1966, pp. 504, 557 (in Russian).
103 of their respective countries and finding ways for broadening their influence among the masses.On the one hand, in many respects the French Communist Party owed its formation to the revolutionary forerunners in the country: the Babeuf movement, the French Section of the First International and the French Workers' Party headed by Jules Guesde. On the other hand, as progressive French historiographers justly point out, ``the fundamental principles on which the French Communist Party was built were formulated on the basis of the experience of the international proletariat and, above all, on the basis of the entire experience of the first party of the working class which attained ultimate victory".^^1^^ Analysing the main factors that helped to strengthen the French Communist Party, Maurice Thorez, in addition to the powerful upsurge of the struggle of the masses in France proper, also mentioned the colossal importance of the ``development of new ideas in France which took place under the influence of the socialist revolution in Russia and Lenin's ideas".^^2^^
William Gallacher also noted this fact. ``The more I talked with Lenin and the other comrades,'' he wrote, ``the more I came to see what the party of the workers meant in the revolutionary struggle. It was in this, the conception of the party, that the genius of Lenin had expressed itself."^^3^^
Li Tachao, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, was an active advocate of correct assimilation and implementation of the experience of the October Socialist Revolution in dependent and semi-colonial countries. He harshly criticised those in China who interpreted Marxism-Leninism as a ``narrow nationalist" theory allegedly inapplicable in colonies and dependencies. Li Tachao noted that ``the theoretical level of the Party (CPC), unfortunately, did not satisfy the political requirements of the revolutionary struggle'', and set the Chinese Communists the task of `` acquiring the necessary experience from Russian revolutionaries and then applying it in China in conformity with our conditions".^^4^^
The world revolutionary working-class movement could not disregard the fact that although the October Socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jean Bruhat, Histoire du mouvement ouvrier Francois. Vol. 1, Des origines a la revolte des canuts, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1952. p. 19.
~^^2^^ Maurice Thorez, Op. cit., p. 466.
~^^3^^ William Gallacher, Revolt on the Clyde. An Autobiography, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1936, pp. 252--53.
~^^4^^ Li Tachao, Selected Articles and Speeches, Moscow, 1965, pp. 26--27 (in Russian).
104 Revolution dealt a very powerful blow at the mainstays of world capitalism, the imperialist bourgeoisie managed to take advantage of disunity in the ranks of the workingclass movement and weakness of the young communist parties in the first half of the 20th century to repulse the proletariat's revolutionary onslaught.At the time the communist movement in capitalist countries could not win over the majority of the working class to its side, let alone the middle sections of the urban and rural population. Not the last role here was played by certain errors in tactics and inability to creatively apply the experience of the Leninist Party in the specific conditions of their countries, as, for example, the full utilisation of the general democratic demands (in the struggle for peace, land, democratic freedoms and national independence). In many cases Communists still did not know how effectively to combine their activity in legal organisations with the struggle for their ultimate objectives; neither did they know how to surmount reformist illusions and left-sectarian trends.
Lenin consistently advised proletarian revolutionaries, both in the industrialised capitalist countries and in the colonies, to keep close watch over the changes in the tactics of the imperialist bourgeoisie. ``Our tactical and strategic methods (if we take them on an international scale),'' he wrote in the early 1920s, ``still lag behind the excellent strategy of the bourgeoisie, which has learned from the example of Russia and will not let itself be `taken by surprise'.''^^1^^
A very great role in defining a correct course for the revolutionary working-class movement in those conditions was played by the Third and Fourth Congresses of the Communist International (1921--1922). In that period the Communists put forward the slogan ``To the masses" and, under Lenin's guidance, formulated the principles of struggle for a united workers' front. The theses on the structure and organising activity of the communist parties adopted at the Third Congress of the Communist International played an important role in improving the work of the young communist parties.^^2^^ Leinin, who directly participated in these congresses, urged the proletarian revolutionaries in other countries to exercise restraint and presence of mind in the class struggle, warned them against premature uprisings and _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Letter to the German Communists'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 522.
~^^2^^ For more detail see: Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the III World Congress of the Communist International, The Press Bureau of the Communist International, Moscow, 1921, pp. 36--55.
105 advised foreign Communists to ``systematically rectify the mistakes of the past; steadily win over the mass of the workers both inside and outside the trade unions; patiently build up a strong and intelligent Communist Party capable of giving real leadership to the masses at every turn of events".^^1^^The main results of the development of the revolutionary working-class movement on an international scale in the years immediately following the Great October Socialist Revolution were consolidation of proletarian statehood in the Soviet Republic, increased influence of the ideas of that revolution among the broad working masses on different continents, and the formation of communist parties and the Comintern.
In spite of a series of temporary setbacks and even a certain ebb of the revolutionary tide in some regions of the world, the proletariat in a number of capitalist countries, after the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia, managed to wrest a range of serious political concessions from the bourgeoisie (introduction of an eight-hour working day, promulgation of laws on social maintenance and minimum wage, extension of trade union rights, legislative recognition of the right to strikes, conclusion of collective agreements, etc.). At the same time the basic socio-economic changes in Soviet Russia exerted an increasing influence on the foreign workers.
The rapid pace of revolutionary transformations and socialist construction in the USSR overturned the fabrications of the opponents of communism who declared that it was ``impossible'' to build socialism in such a relatively economically backward country as tsarist Russia. The successes of Soviet Russia more and more forcefully demonstrated to proletarians in other countries that working people could splendidly administer the country themselves, without capitalists and landowners, and build a new life. ``Today there is not a single significant political event in the world that does not experience the influence of the existence of the Soviet Union,'' wrote Ernst Th\"almann. ``A new epoch has begun in the history of the class struggle."^^2^^
In the period when the contradictions of imperialism became much more acute as a result of the deepening of the general crisis of capitalism and of the world economic crisis of 1929--1933, the young socialist system of economy eloquently proved its superiority over the capitalist system. And while production sharply declined and unemployment _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Letter to the German Communists'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 513. ..
~^^2^^ Ernst Thalmann, Uber proletarischen Internationalismus. Reden und Artikel, Verlag Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig, 1977, p. 16.
106 increased in the capitalist world, the USSR remained the sole country where industrial production and the well-being of the people rapidly increased. Working people in foreign countries displayed growing sympathy with and interest in the Soviet Union.In the very difficult conditions in which the pressure of the petty-bourgeois element and its ideology was at times felt even among some sections of the working class, Lenin and the Bolshevik Party successfully implemented the principles of scientific, proletarian socialism. It is clear from historical experience that not in all countries political leaders calling themselves Communists are able to hold their ground against the pressure of petty-bourgeois ideology and that occasionally they adopt the dangerous course that is alien to MarxismLeninism, that of weakening the leading role of the working class and its organisations in social development. Lenin warned about the possibility of small-proprietor instincts of the past triumphing over the proletarian-communist consciousness of the future even after the revolution, especially in countries with a predominantly peasant, petty-bourgeois population.^^1^^ Leninism teaches that in order to overcome such trends it is necessary not to weaken but, on the contrary, to enhance the role of the working class and its party and also its ideology in the life of society, and their effective leadership of the broad masses in the struggle for socialism.
Such was the very important lesson which true MarxistsLeninists drew from the victory of the October Revolution in Russia and the construction of socialism in the USSR. Pointing out the enormous significance of the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union for the development of the world proletarian revolution, Georgi Dimitrov, the outstanding figure of the Bulgarian and international working-class movement, noted that the world working class ``has before it the inspiring example of the Soviet Union, the country of victorious socialism, an example of how the class enemy can be defeated, how the working class can establish its own government and build socialist society".^^2^^
As the world's first socialist state gained in strength the more obvious became the unity of its national and international objectives, and the interconnection of the Soviet people's successes in socialist construction and the gains of revolutionary forces in other countries. On the one hand, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``On the Famine'', Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 398.
~^^2^^ VII Congress of the Communist International. Abridged Stenographic Report of Proceedings, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1939, p. 385.
107 period between the two world wars was on the whole characterised by the further growth of the Soviet Union's might, and, on the other, by an upsurge of the struggle of the working masses and the development of broad anti-fascist, general democratic movements in some capitalist countries.~^^1^^ Major gains were achieved by the working-class and democratic movement in France in the period of the Popular Front. The biggest mass revolutionary action of the working people against reaction which took place in Western Europe after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, in the period between the two world wars, was the national revolutionary war of the Spanish people which began in 1936.The second crucial stage (which in the main coincided with the 1940s) of the contemporary world revolutionary process was marked by a bitter struggle between the forces of socialism and extreme imperialist reaction on the international scene, and major changes in the alignment of class forces in favour of socialism and national and social liberation. The positions of socialism and the international revolutionary working-class movement as well as the cause of the October Revolution, were not only safeguarded in the crucible of the Second World War, but were even enhanced as a result of the world historic victory of the world's first socialist state over nazi Germany and militarist Japan. The main gains of the forces of socialism and the world proletarian movement in that period were the rout of the shock forces of imperialism -German fascism and Japanese militarism; the victory of socialist revolutions in a number of countries and, as a result, the further narrowing of the sphere of domination of world imperialism; a powerful upsurge of the national liberation movement in many colonies and dependencies; the consolidation of the positions of the working-class movement and workers' organisations and the unification of non-proletarian masses in the majority of the capitalist countries. In some of them socialist ideas won over not only the vanguard but also considerably broader sections of the working population (and not only in the East European states but also in France, Italy, Finland and Greece and in some Afro-Asian and Latin American countries).
The further development of the international revolutionary movement, including its new phase which began in conditions of the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism, is connected with the continuing shift in the alignment of class forces on the international scene as a result of the growing might of the world socialist system and its increasing _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: The Communist International. An Historical Outline, Moscow, 1969 (in Russian).
108 influence on the course of world events. It was a period of the victorious Cuban revolution, of powerful anti-imperialist, revolutionary movements in Vietnam, Laos and other countries, of the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism and of the rise of dozens of new sovereign national states. It was also a period when the unremitting aggravation of the basic contradictions of contemporary state-monopoly capitalism gave fresh impetus to the class struggle of the proletariat and general democratic, anti-monopoly movements of the masses in the imperialist countries.When analysing the changes in the struggle of the international proletariat, which, in the final analysis, were a consequence of the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, it is necessary to take into account the factors that influenced the rate and forms of development of the revolutionary working-class movement in the capitalist countries in that period. Two basic groups of factors are of particular importance.
First, they were-the changes which occurred in the international arena and continued to gain in magnitude as world socialism gained in strength.,This was due above all to the victory of the socialist revolution and the building of socialism in the USSR, the successes of socialist construction in other countries, the upsurge of the national liberation movement in Eastern countries, the further expansion of the social basis of the world proletarian revolution, the involvement of fresh millions of people on all continents in the revolutionary process, the narrowing of the sphere of domination of world capitalism, the aggravation of its antagonisms, the weakening of the positions of the imperialist bourgeoisie in the contemporary world, etc.
Second, they were the changes that took place inside each individual country, certain national and regional features (specific aspects of historical traditions and contemporary economic and socio-political development of the given country or region of the world). Naturally, these factors leave their imprint on the concrete forms in which the general historical laws of the class struggle manifest themselves in different countries and are continuing to influence the preparation of the masses for revolution, the rates of the realisation of socialist transformations, the forms of development of socialist democracy, the practical ways, methods and rates of construction of a new, socialist and communist society, etc.
Leninism takes into account that changes are inevitable in the objective international situation and, consequently, in the tactics of the communist movement as a result of the new alignment of forces on the world scene after the 109 victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Back in April 1921, in an appeal to the Communists of Transcaucasia, Lenin mentioned the substantial differences in the external conditions in which the first Soviet Republic, the RSFSR, came into being, and the international conditions in which the new socialist republics were formed. ``We fought to make the first breach in the wall of world capitalism,'' he wrote. ``The breach has been made.... You ... have no need to force a breach. You must take advantage of the favourable international situation in 1921, and learn to build the new with greater caution and more method. In 1921, Europe and the world are not what they were in 1917 and 1918".^^1^^ Today, several decades later, Europe and the world are by far ``not what they were in 1917 and 1918''. The international situation, particularly as a result of the mounting gains of the world socialist system, has become much more favourable for the successful development of the working-class and the revolutionary liberation movement in different countries. The working class of the USSR and other socialist countries exercises its influence over the working people in other countries mainly by force of example, by its moral and political integrity. Thanks to its growing might world socialism is in a position to undertake political and other moves on the international scene which ever more effectively counteract the efforts of the reactionary, imperialist circles to suppress the revolutionary working-class and national liberation movements in various parts of the world. In the period of the first revolutionary upsurge (1918--1923) which set in after the October Socialist Revolution, imperialism managed to drown in blood the actions of the proletariat in all countries (with the exception of Russia), and in the 1930s international reaction temporarily defeated the Spanish revolution and suppressed the movement of the masses in some other countries. But after that the world situation had changed: by the middle of the 1940s, with the rout of fascism in the Second World War, the might of the Soviet Union had increased considerably. This created favourable conditions for some countries to take the path of socialist construction. Gradually, the general alignment of class forces on the international scene changed to an even greater extent in favour of the world revolutionary movement, chiefly as a result of the consolidation of the socialist community. Undoubtedly, this created broader opportunities for cutting short imperialism's efforts directly to export counter-- _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``To the Comrades Communists of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Daghestan, and the Mountaineer Republic'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 317--18.
110 revolution not only in the vicinity of Soviet borders but also in some other regions of the world.It would be wrong to underrate the indirect influence of the social gains of the working people of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries on the position of the proletariat in the capitalist world and on the course and results of the unremitting struggle for its social and economic demands. Fear of the proletarian revolution and the fresh gains of the forces of socialism compels the monopoly bourgeoisie to give in to the pressure of the masses and make certain concessions in matters bearing on conditions of work, wages, etc. Lenin wrote in 1923 that in view of the general crisis that had gripped capitalism, the bourgeoisie in ``the oldest states in the West" decided to grant the oppressed classes certain concessions ``which, insignificant though they are, nevertheless retard the revolutionary movement in those countries and create some semblance of `class truce'\thinspace".^^1^^ Taking into account the unquestionable influence on the working people of the whole world of the social measures which were consistently introduced in the USSR, in the interests of the broad masses, and a quarter of a century later in other socialist countries, and also the mounting struggle of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries became somewhat more ``amenable'' to the demands of the working class. Over the past few decades it has found itself compelled to agree to the introduction of laws on labour, social maintenance, reduction of the working week, longer paid holidays, and also to resort to new, more subtle forms of exploiting the working class (employment of the so-called systems of human relations at enterprises, ``social partnership'', and so forth). There are reformists who at times put a ``socialist'' colouring on some of the latest economic and social measures, introduced by state-monopoly capitalism in order to preserve and strengthen the domination of the big bourgeoisie, and thus win the support of the masses, beguile them with illusions about a ``radical change" in the exploiting nature and the gradual ``transformation'' of capitalism.^^2^^
Finally, the successes of the USSR and other socialist countries in the struggle for peace and against the threat of a world nuclear war definitely influence the internal socio-political situation in the non-socialist countries and the struggle waged by the working class and its creation---the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Better Fewer, but Better'', Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 498--99.
~^^2^^ See: J. Gole.biowski, ``Social-Democracy and the Crisis of Contemporary Capitalism''. In: The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process, Moscow, 1977, pp. 66 et seq. (in Russian).
111 world system of socialism---play an ever greater role in bridling the imperialist aggressors and averting another world war. Among other things, this induces important changes in the socio-political life of the capitalist countries, including an intensification of the struggle which results in the isolation of ultra-reactionary and most aggressive circles of monopoly capital, exacerbation of conflicts and contradictions in the camp of the bourgeoisie, which, as Lenin taught, the workingclass movement should use in its own interests. This circumstance also promotes the growth of mass anti-war and other general democratic movements led by the proletariat and enhances its authority and influence among the middle sections in town and country and ever broader sections of the population as a whole.The material preconditions of revolution have become more mature, especially in the imperialist countries where important changes in the socio-economic structure of society have taken place. Here state-monopolistic trends which, according to Lenin's definition, constitute a ``complete material preparation for socialism"^^1^^ have become even more pronounced, and the basic social contradictions inherent in capitalism have aggravated considerably. Countries that had cast off the colonial yoke are also developing in different conditions. The popular masses of the countries that have taken the non-capitalist path of development can rely on powerful support from the Soviet Union and the entire world socialist system.
The events that have taken place in the world over the past few decades have confirmed the sagacity of Lenin's prediction that there will be no pure social revolution and 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"^^2^^ in the long run. The intensification of the struggle waged by the popular masses in Asia, Africa and Latin America for national sovereignty and independence of their countries, while objectively merging with the proletariat's class struggle into a general stream, inevitably helps to prepare these masses for the struggle for socialism.
The correct, Leninist approach to the combination of national and international tasks is consistent with the interests of the international proletariat. Marxists-Leninists _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It", Collected Works, Vol. 25, p.363.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Third Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 482.
112 proceed from the premise that national distinctions persist for a relatively long period of time after the victory of socialist revolution. Therefore, in their policy the communist parties pay close attention to the national interests, distinctive features and traditions of the peoples.At the same time the rise of the world system of socialism has imposed greater internationalist duties on the working class of each socialist country. The ruling Marxist-Leninist parties bear responsibility for the future of the world socialist system and its further consolidation. The guiding principle of all truly Marxist-Leninist parties is not to infringe upon national interests in the process of solving general problems of the world revolutionary movement and to remain loyal to proletarian internationalism.
In spite of the ebbs and flows of the revolutionary tide, the world revolutionary process has on the whole developed successfully over the past few decades. And though the vanguard of the working class encountered difficulties and suffered temporary setbacks in individual countries, the general historical laws governing the revolutionary transformation of the world along new, socialist lines have had and are having an increasing effect on the human progress.
Today the working-class movement cannot attain its national objectives without the active participation of all the contingents of the communist movement in the solution of common problems. The need to adhere firmly to proletarian internationalism is one of the important lessons to be drawn from the more than 60-year-long path covered by the communist movement since the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. ``This kind of comradely solidarity,'' said Leonid Brezhnev, ``which Communists have held aloft for more than a century has lost none of its great significance to this day."^^1^^
As the world revolutionary movement broadens and develops, the people of the world become more and more convinced of the sagacity of Lenin who showed that the Great October Revolution is of international significance not only because of the enormous effect of the successes of the Soviet Union on all countries, but also in the sense that repetition of the main features of that revolution on a world scale is historically inevitable.^^2^^
But the radical shift in the alignment of class forces on the world scene does not mean that the new international _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1976, p. 22.
~^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 21.
113 situation, which is much more favourable for the proletariat, can spontaneously or ``automatically'' help the working-class movement in the imperialist countries to attain its objectives. The victory of the proletarian revolution there depends primarily on the active struggle of the working people themselves headed by the conscious vanguard of the working class.Leninism teaches that it is much more difficult to start a socialist revolution in imperialist countries than it was in Russia. This is due above all to the greater experience and resistance of the monopoly bourgeoisie, and also to the long-standing reformist illusions which are deep-rooted in many Western countries.
Underscoring the enormous significance of Lenin's recommendations to the effect that Communists in the industrially advanced capitalist West had to introduce certain changes into their tactics, the founder of the Italian Communist Party Antonio Gramsci wrote that Lenin ``realised the need to turn mobile warfare which was victoriously applied in the East in 1917 into trench warfare, the only possible one in the West''.^^1^^
Among the new and very important trends which have become particularly conspicuous of late in France, Italy, Spain, Japan and some other countries is the sharply increased desire of the working people, including Socialists and Catholics, to act together with Communists and to secure the unity of the working class. More and more often it is a question of their desire to cooperate not only in the struggle for the vital daily demands of the masses but also in the struggle for power and the construction of socialist society. There is evidence of a certain shift in the attitude of the socialist parties, Christian and other reformist trade unions.
The struggle for the cohesion of anti-monopoly forces, and for consistent democratic socio-economic transformations which transcend the limits of ordinary reforms, is now an important component of the strategic and tactical course of the Communists in capitalist countries. Today mass action for certain deep-going progressive socio-economic and political reforms in the imperialist countries may become an effective way of leading the masses up to a social revolution.
Life imperatively demands a transition to the socialist principles of production and distribution. The scientific and technological revolution aggravates imperialist contradictions, for under capitalism scientific and technical progress inflicts even greater privations on the working people. For _-_-_
~^^1^^ Antonio Gramsci, Note sul Machiavelli sulla politico e sullo stato moderno, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Turin, 1949, p. 68.
114 instance, automation, which in a socialist society leads to abundance and the emancipation of man from heavy manual labour, is a veritable scourge for the working people under capitalism for it results in mass unemployment, loss of qualification and reduction of wages.The bourgeois state is compelled to interfere more and more into production, circulation and distribution but only to meet the selfish interests of the monopolies and not for the benefit of society. In its struggle the working class takes into consideration the contradictory, dual nature of state interference in capitalist economy. Conducted in the interests of the monopolies, this interference, moreover, enhances the socialisation of labour and most forcefully exposes the parasitism, the uselessness of the monopoly bourgeoisie as a class.
When examining the prospects of the working-class movement in the imperialist countries it is necessary to take account of the emphasis Lenin laid on the specific conditions of the struggle waged by that contingent of the international proletariat. ``In Europe, where almost all the proletarians are organised,'' he said at the Third Congress of the Comintern, ``we must win the majority of the working class and anyone who fails to understand this is lost to the communist movement; he will never learn anything."^^1^^ This means that Communists must work energetically in the masses in order to clear the road for the abolition of monopoly rule and for the revolutionary transition to socialism.
Oppression by finance capital which has accreted to state machinery has extremely deepened the antagonism between the monopolies and the people. The mass expropriation of the peasants, the proletarianisation of the urban middle strata and the exploitation of the growing army of wage-earning mental workers all acquire greater dimensions under state-monopoly capitalism. Owing to objective conditions the unification of all healthy national forces around the proletariat in the struggle against the omnipotence of the financial oligarchy, for real social progress has become a vital necessity.
Imperialism's productive, military and political forces are concentrated chiefly in the industrialised capitalist countries. And it is the proletariat which, as society's main productive force, experiences more directly than other sections of the population the intensification of exploitation there. In conditions of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution not a single stratum of the working _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin. ``Third Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 470.
115 class in those countries is ensured against unemployment.The socio-economic condition of different strata and contingents of the working class gradually levels out. Under state-monopoly capitalism a broader range of methods of social manoeuvring aimed at fostering reformist illusions among the working people are used, and the gap between the wages of relatively high-paid and low-paid workers narrows.
The level of organisation of the working masses and their class awareness increase steadily. One indication of this is the strengthening of the trade union movement whose importance Lenin emphasised on more than one occasion. ``Winning the trade unions is one of the most important political issues,'' he wrote.^^1^^ Prior to the First World War approximately 16 million people were members of trade unions.^^2^^ Today more than 250 million industrial and office workers are members of trade unions. The influence of militant class trade unions has increased particularly over the past decades. The development of the proletariat's class struggle in the capitalist world has demonstrated the untenability of reformist conceptions of ``cooperation of labour and capital'', ``social partnership'', etc.
The intensification of the class struggle and the vanguard role played by communist parties in class battles have increased their influence among the masses in many countries. ``The Communist Parties in a number of capitalist countries achieved major successes of late,'' said Leonid Brezhnev in 1976. ``They have broadened their social basis and consolidated their prestige, their weight in the political life has increased."^^3^^
At the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism, when the basic contradictions of imperialism have become more acute and increasingly favourable conditions for strengthening the cohesion of the masses in the struggle against the monopolies and the formation of broad anti-monopoly coalitions are being created, a revolutionary situation can take shape when there is no increase (as it had often happened during wars and economic crises) in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Note to E. Varga and Theses on the Organisation of an Information Institute on Questions of the International Labour Movement'', Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 338.
~^^2^^ L. B. Moskvin and Y. R. Skvirsky, International Trade Union Movement in the Struggle for the Interests of the Working People, Moscow, 1978, p. 5 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Speech at the Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on October 25, 1976, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1976, p. 52.
116 impoverishment of the masses. A revolutionary crisis, for instance, can ripen also as a result of an upsurge of the mass movement against the threat of war, against foreign imperialist oppression and against the omnipotence of the financial and industrial oligarchy.It is with good reason that communist parties in the leading imperialist countries have found it necessary to pose the question of the role of transitional slogans under contemporary state-monopoly capitalism in a new way. The matter turns on such slogans as struggle for effective curtailment of monopoly rule, for the nationalisation of monopolised industries, for democratic control over capital investments, for the extension of the rights of workers and their organisations at enterprises, etc.
The very fact that such demands are made by the organised working-class movement in capitalist countries definitely reflects the growing influence of the successes of the socialist countries and the higher level of struggle of the working class. Needless to say, the adoption of reforms designed to meet only the general democratic demands would not signify the liquidation of exploitation of man by man and the transition to socialism. All these measures, as the communist parties in a number of capitalist countries note, are of a democratic nature. And their introduction would curb the power of the monopolies and reduce their means, enhance the prestige and the political weight of the working class in the life of the country, help to isolate the more reactionary social groups and facilitate the formation of a bloc of all progressive forces, of all social sections which suffer from the activities of the monopolies. In the course of the development of the antimonopoly struggle even partial concessions that are wrested from the bourgeoisie can be turned into an important bridgehead for continuing the drive against monopoly capital.
The achievement of vital progressive socio-economic transformations, which is what communist parties in some countries of Western Europe are now working for, will become possible only if the broad masses wage an effective struggle. Only such an active independent struggle of the masses, Lenin noted, ``can bring real gains to the workers or transform half-hearted and hypocritical `reforms' under the existing system into strong-points for an advancing workingclass movement towards the complete emancipation of the proletariat".^^1^^
The actions of the working class for reforms have nothing in common with reformism if they are viewed as stages _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Conference of the Extended Editorial Board of Proletary'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 440.
117 in the struggle for the reorganisation of society and the winning of power by the proletariat and its allies.Communist parties in Italy, France, Finland and other countries point out that the road to socialism in the industrialised capitalist countries lies through a consistent struggle for broader democracy in all spheres of social activity. It is in the course of this struggle that the proletariat enhances its political awareness, strengthens its ties with other oppressed classes and social strata and consolidates its leading role in the development of contemporary society.
The time has come for the majority of developed capitalist countries to introduce such anti-monopoly measures as democratic nationalisation of key industries, the initiation of an agrarian reform in the interests of the working peasantry, the establishment of democratic control over monopolies, the democratisation of the administration of the state sector and economic planning in the interests of the masses, the substantial improvement of the living standard of the working people, the granting of broader rights to trade unions and other mass organisations, and the re-establishment and extension of democratic freedoms. These are not superficial reforms in the spirit of ``neo-capitalism'' with the help of which the monopolies and their right-wing socialist henchmen endeavour to brush aside the demands of life which imperatively calls for measures to centralise the management of the economy, planning, expansion of markets, etc.
How the class, revolutionary struggle will develop and what will be the forms of the liquidation of monopoly rule and transition to socialism depend on the alignment of social forces in each country. The employment of more diverse methods, including peaceful forms of the assumption of power by the working class and its allies in conditions of the new alignment of forces, is becoming more and more practicable in many countries. Yet it is impossible to preclude a different turn of events, particularly in view of the growing activity of ultra-right, pro-fascist forces.
Leninism teaches that the vanguard of the working class should ``master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception ... must be prepared for the most rapid and brusque replacement of one form by another".^^1^^ Under contemporary conditions ``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 _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 96.
118 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".^^1^^The struggle for a relatively peaceful development of the revolution by no means repeals (in spite of the claims of social-reformist and revisionist ideologists) the general laws of socialist revolution which are common to all countries. No matter whether the transition to socialism is peaceful or non-peaceful, it requires vigorous and organised actions from the masses headed by the working class and its MarxistLeninist vanguard. This has always been and will continue to be the main condition for the transition to socialism.
Of topical significance is the thesis which has been substantiated by international forums of Communists about the possibility of using different forms of struggle, peaceful or non-peaceful, during the transition to socialism, depending on the concrete alignment of class forces in one country or another, on the level of organisation and political maturity of the working class, on the prestige and the abilities of its vanguard, on the degree of resistance of the ruling classes and on the international situation.
Back in 1917, Lenin in his Letters from Afar predicted that the successes of the first victorious revolution would considerably facilitate the winning over of the majority ``of the people for socialism" in other countries and speed up ``encouragement and development of the socialist reyolution in the West''; new vistas will open up for a ``relatively peaceful" development of these processes.^^2^^
His prediction has materialised. The Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia greatly facilitated the struggle of the working class in capitalist countries for its immediate and ultimate objectives. The conditions and forms of this struggle undoubtedly become more favourable for the proletariat and its allies as the forces of world socialism grew and the entire world revolutionary movement of the working class gains in strength.
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 27.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp. 331--32.
[119] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ IV __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE WORKING CLASSThe general crisis of capitalism has been aggravated by the manifold successes of world socialism, the downfall of colonialism, and a dramatic intensification of the basic contradictions of imperialism.
A major characteristic of the present phase of the world revolutionary movement is that notable progress has been achieved during a period of peaceful coexistence and economic competition between socialism and capitalism, rather than during a world war or the immediate aftermath of a world war.
The opponents of communism often assert that the success of the international proletarian revolution hinges on world wars. For example, in Robert V. Daniels's The Nature of Communism we read that `` Communist success has depended heavily on the strategic utilisation of a certain kind of situation---world war and postwar chaos. The connection between war and the Communist movement is underscored by the fact that ... the Communists made no further gains of any importance as long as the world remained at peace."^^1^^ Such assertions have no basis in fact. The claims of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Robert V. Daniels, The Nature of Communism, Random House, New York, 1962, pp. 168--69.
120 bourgeois and reformist ``critics'' of Marxism-Leninism that communism cannot make significant gains in peacetime are, in effect, being refuted by the events unfolding before our eyes.The notable progress achieved by the international revolutionary movement during the present phase of the general crisis of capitalism is unconnected with world war or its aftermath. The success of the forces of revolution in Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola and other countries is due, to a considerable extent, to a fundamental change (in favour of socialism) in the international balance of power.
As early as 1935 the claim that Communists want war in the hope that it will bring revolution was justly labeled slander by the Seventh Comintern Congress. The resolution passed by the Congress states that ``the leading role of the Communist Parties of all countries in the struggle for the preservation of peace ... proves that the Communists are striving with all their might to obstruct the preparations for and the unleashing of a new war".^^1^^
The Programme of the CPSU emphasises that revolutions arise from deep domestic and international contradictions within capitalism, and cannot be made to order or forced upon a country from without.^^2^^ The decade that preceded the Second World War, for example, was marked by an acute intensification of the economic, social and political contradictions within capitalism and by major gains in the building of socialism in the USSR. This increased the international authority of the Soviet Union and enhanced the revolutionising influence exerted by it on the struggle of the working people in capitalist countries. Several years before the Second World War revolutionary working-class, anti-- fascist and national liberation movement arose in a number of capitalist countries. Communist parties were in the vanguard of this growing revolutionary and democratic movement. It is not surprising that Communists became increasingly influential in many countries during this period. In 1928 MarxistLeninist parties outside the USSR had a total membership of 443,000. In 1935 the total had grown to 785,000; by the beginning of 1939 it had reached 1,200,000.
Thus war was not, and is not, a primary factor in bringing about a revolutionary crisis. In the past the world wars _-_-_
~^^1^^ Seventh World Congress of the Communist International. Resolutions and Decisions, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R., Moscow-Leningrad, 1935, p. 44.
~^^2^^ The Road to Communism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961, p. 484.
121 unleashed by imperialism merely accelerated the development of the revolutionary process; the forces of reaction seeking to stem the revolutionary tide, to drown the international proletarian revolution in blood, accomplished the opposite.Socialism, whose importance as an international force grows with every passing year, has done much to ensure that the basic contradiction of our time---that between imperialism and socialism---will be resolved by ways and means that benefit the working people: by the class struggle in the form of peaceful coexistence and economic competition between the two systems.
During the first and second phases of the general crisis of capitalism, when the forces of imperialist reaction unleashed world wars, the rulers of the principal capitalist countries saw war as, among other things, a means for partially resolving, or at least relieving, the external and internal contradictions plaguing the capitalist system: economic crises, mass unemployment and other evils born of capitalism's antagonisms.
The rise of socialism as a world system has made it more difficult for imperialism to bring about armed conflicts among nations.
It is possible to distinguish the leading tendencies in the development of the world revolutionary process. Among them are the advancement of socialism to leadership in world social progress; successes of the communist, working-class, national liberation movement; the increasing importance of revolutionary working-class internationalism and its vanguard organisations in stepping up the fight against imperialism and in coordinating the basic streams in the world revolutionary process; the growing interrelatedness of the struggle of working people for social progress and the struggle of nations for peace and the relaxation of international tensions.
Another important characteristic of the present phase of the world revolutionary process is the broadening of its social base: new millions in Asia, Africa and Latin America have joined the struggle against imperialism.
Today not only socialist revolutions but also powerful national liberation anti-imperialist movements are sapping the strength of world capitalism. With the fall of the last colonial empire---that of Portugal---and the achievement of independence by the peoples of Mozambique, Angola and GuineaBissau the old colonialism has in the main been eliminated. Ever new blows that many peoples in Asia and Africa have dealt imperialism in their struggle for genuine economic liberation have given Communists reason to speak of an ``emerging crisis in the economic base and entire political 122 superstructure of neo-colonialism".^^1^^
The new nations of Asia and Africa, although some of them are still part of the system of world capitalism, are not associated with the imperialist blocs. The human, material and military-strategic resources of these countries are no longer at the disposal of world imperialism. Over the past few years important gains have been made in countries that have thrown off the yoke of colonialism; among these gains are a shift in emphasis towards social and economic reform, the elimination of the vestiges of feudalism, the nationalisation of foreign enterprises, the activisation of the masses of the working people, and a number of other progressive changes. The struggle for the realisation of anti-feudal and anti-- imperialist programmes is intensifying. The success of this struggle presupposes close cooperation between communist and revolutionary-democratic parties. Revolutionary democracy is now an important trend in the struggle for national liberation. Under its influence many governments have chosen a socialist orientation and joined the fight against imperialistic neo-colonialism.
The further development of these progressive trends depends heavily on international resistance to neo-- colonialism and ever closer cooperation of the newly free nations with the forces of revolution and democracy, in particular with the USSR and the other fraternal socialist countries, whose achievements and internationalist policies help to create the necessary conditions for the rapid economic, social and political advancement of newly liberated peoples.
The specifics of the world revolutionary process during the present phase of the general crisis of capitalism are also characterised by an increase in the importance of general democratic mass movements, which develop under the influence and leadership of the working class, its vanguard in the industrially advanced capitalist countries. As state-- monopoly capitalism develops, not only the working people, but also non-proletarian strata (the peasantry, the intelligentsia, the petty and middle bourgeoisie) come to be increasingly oppressed by the monopolist elite economically and politically. The vital interests of these social strata come into irreconcilable contradiction with the interests of the financial and industrial oligarchy. This is the objective basis for the development of democratic, anti-monopolist mass movements in imperialist countries.
In the struggle for democracy the masses broaden their political horizons and acquire political experience and _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. N. Ponomarev, Selected Works. Speeches and Articles, Moscow, 1977, p. 579 (in Russian).
123 staunchness. The growth of general democratic movements does not postpone, but rather promotes, the attainment of the socialist goals of the working class. Participation in these mass democratic movements brings the proletarian vanguard and the entire working class into closer contact with its natural allies in the common fight against the principal force of imperialism---the monopolist oligarchy. On the basis of such contacts anti-monopolist coalitions arise and develop. The increasing scope of mass general democratic and anti-monopolist movements makes it easier for the working people and their organisations to secure fundamental reforms which, in conditions of the growing mass struggle, may limit the arbitrary power of the monopolies.The character of the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism also manifests itself in certain new elements in the development of the strike movement in capitalist countries. Previous turning points (following the First and Second World Wars) in the struggle of the international proletariat were marked by waves of strikes (including the revolutionary upsurges of 1919--1923 and 1945--1947). The present phase, which is not connected with a world war, has also seen a mighty upsurge of workers' strikes. Strikes have become more frequent in the developed capitalist countries, with the number of political strikes increasing and the importance of national strikes growing. These strikes often help to bring social and political crises to a head in the countries where they occur. In the course of these confrontations economic demands come to be more closely linked with political demands; among the latter the call for radical social and economic reform is ever more clearly heard. The general democratic struggle is thus increasingly tied to the struggle for socialism.
The number of strikes in the countries of the European Economic Community has increased 50 to 100 per cent over the number that occurred in the first years of the Common Market. Imperialist integration, despite the hopes of its organisers, has not alleviated the social antagonisms of Western Europe.^^1^^
A heated ideological and theoretical controversy has developed over the evaluation of this new phase in the class struggle. The various ``critics'' of Marxism-Leninism have engaged in ideological sabotage, including attempts to _-_-_
~^^1^^ For further detail see: Western Europe: Working People Versus Monopolies. Recent Developments in the Position and Struggle of the Working Class in the Common Market Countries, Moscow, 1965; and The International Working-Class Movement, Moscow, 1976, pp. 76--85 (both in Russian).
124 undermine the communist position on the nature of state-- monopoly capitalism and the communist-proposed programme for struggle against it. The fraternal communist parties' platforms have come under attack from two groups: the social-- reformists and revisionists, on the one hand, and the ultra-radicals and pseudo-revolutionaries (semi-anarchists or Trotskyites), on the other.The former, espousing a ``neo-capitalist'' conception, have tried to show that the communist analysis is in error, that capitalism has put its house in order and alleviated its internal contradictions. They often claim that scientific and technical progress damps the revolutionary spirit of the proletariat. But in fact scientific and technical progress, far from lessening the social antagonisms of bourgeois society, brings into sharper relief the contradictions between the social nature of production and the private capitalist mode of appropriation. Attempts to shore up the bases of capitalism with government regulation, state-monopoly ``programming'', and the like will in the end, by the dialectics of history, create objective conditions that will intensify the mass struggle and finally shatter the capitalist system. Insofar as the bourgeois state, serving the interests of the monopolies, plays an ever more active role in controlling relations between labour and capital, the working people and their organisations, including trade unions, inevitably come into conflict with the government apparatus, even in the struggle for their immediate goals. As for the ideologues of petty-- bourgeois ``left'' radicalism, a number of them, in disputing the communist political line, have clearly shown that they do not understand the consequences of the processes taking place deep within contemporary state-monopoly capitalism. They call for ``immediate action" in ultra-radical, pseudo-- revolutionary language; they usually ignore the real opportunities the working class has before it today to attract new allies, to broaden the front of the anti-monopolist struggle and to patiently prepare the political army of the socialist revolution.
The right and ``left'' opportunists failed to understand the importance of transitional slogans under state-monopoly capitalism (in particular the demands, to be found in the documents of many communist parties and of the international communist conferences, for effective limitations on the power of monopolies, the nationalisation of monopolised sectors of industry, the democratic monitoring of capital investments, the expansion of the rights of workers and their organisations in businesses, etc.).
Formerly (say, in 1920s), as can be seen in the documents of the Communist movement, it was considered expedient to call for the nationalisation of industry and to advance other 125 transitional demands only in a revolutionary situation. But at present Marxists-Leninists in a number of major capitalist countries are demonstrating that it is possible to advance such demands at other stages of the class struggle, including those prior to the development of an immediately revolutionary situation.
The right revisionists and ``left'' opportunists are unwilling to admit that broader and more effective mass struggle for such demands today will lead to more rapid development of the objective and subjective preconditions of a social and political crisis. They apparently cannot comprehend the new role played by general democratic movements in the development of the revolutionary process in imperialist countries. The number of general democratic tasks facing the working class has increased sharply, and such tasks have taken on new content. In view of this the communist parties of a number of capitalist countries raised the question as regards the favourable conditions for creating and developing broadly based democratic, anti-monopolist coalitions in those countries. Under the present new disposition of class forces the anti-monopolist movement has come to include the fight for democratic reforms, which undermine the position of the monopolies.
Today's doctrinaires cannot, or will not, understand the consequences of the fundamental change (in favour of socialism) that has taken place in the world balance of class forces. And that is at the heart of the economics and politics of the modern world, and of the current strategy and tactics of the working-class movement.
Existing socialism has become a key force in the world. It is a law-governed aspect of the new stage in the struggle between socialism and capitalism rather than a transient factor. The programmatic documents of communist parties proceed from this scientific conclusion in outlining their positions on war and peace, the forms and methods of the working-class struggle for power, etc. One of the main tasks of the ideological and theoretical struggle facing MarxismLeninism is'to disclose the mechanism and concrete effects of the influence of the socialist community on the major processes in the non-socialist world. (In doing so, communist parties should obviously strive to avoid slipping into `` automatism" or a ``wait and see" policy, keeping in mind the primary importance of the active struggle of the masses.)
World socialism has a powerful influence on the ways, means and forms of solving the basic contradiction of our era---that between socialism and capitalism---and the contradictions within modern capitalism, including those among the various imperialist powers and their coalitions. 126 Formerly such inter-imperialist antagonisms never failed to lead to wars. But now, although the uneven economic and political development of capitalism has intensified the contradictions within the imperialist camp, although the militarisation of the principal capitalist countries have increased, and although the threat of war---which results from the very nature of imperialism---is still great, forces that serve to prevent armed confrontations have appeared in the world.
The international communist movement, in making its analysis of the trends and prospects of social development, is guided by the well-tried principles of scientific socialism. On this solid scientific basis Communists determine the degree of maturity of the objective conditions and the state of the subjective factors in the struggle against monopolism and imperialism; they then work out their political strategy and tactics for the present phase of the general crisis of capitalism. The revolutionary party of the working class is thus armed with a scientific ideology---Marxism-Leninism. It is based on the principles of democratic centralism, and has numerous and close ties with the working masses. It is the ``soul and brain of the modern progressive movement, of every one of today's liberation, anti-imperialist battles. The ideological and organisational reinforcement of communist parties is a pledge of new victories in the struggle for peace and socialism."^^1^^
As noted above, the general crisis of capitalism is a complex, long-term process, and manifests itself in a variety of ways. It finds expression, first and foremost, in a progressive reduction of the imperialist sphere of influence and in a weakening of the position of capitalist states in the economic competition with socialism. Its manifestations also include the collapse of colonialism, the growing economic and political instability of imperialism, and the acute intensification of the economic contradictions within the world capitalist system. The general crisis of capitalism also involves the social antagonisms of state-monopoly capitalism, the most important of which is the growing struggle between labour and capital. The latter serves to bring about new social and political crises and revolutionary upheavals in various parts of the capitalist world, and to encourage the masses to oppose ever more actively the policies of imperialism, especially of its most aggressive and reactionary contingents. Finally, the general crisis of capitalism is expressed with increasing clarity in the intensification of the overall crisis of bourgeois politics and ideology. In other words, the general crisis of capitalism has grown more acute and increased in scale. The crisis has _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. N. Ponomarev, Op. cit., p. 111.
127 affected the system of capitalism's world economic ties, caused an exacerbation of inter-imperialist rivalry and led to new marked shifts in the relations between the imperialist ``centre'' and its former colonial ``periphery''. The economic and political instability of bourgeois society has increased and all of its contradictions---social, political, economic and monetary---have grown sharper. Classes are increasingly polarised and their relative positions have altered significantly.These trends convincingly demonstrate the correctness of the conclusion reached by the Leninist Party and its Central Committee that modern imperialism's attempt to adapt to the new world situation ``does not mean that capitalism has been stabilised as a system. The general crisis of capitalism has continued to deepen.''^^1^^
Contrary to the expectations of state-monopolistic circles, the class struggle in capitalist countries has intensified, rather than abated, as a result of the growing crisis phenomena there. On this background, the clash of two opposing tendencies has become increasingly violent over the past few years.
The first of these tendencies appears in the monopolists' attempt to use the crisis to shift the main burden of economic difficulties onto the shoulders of the working people. Rising prices have dealt a heavy blow to them. Meanwhile unemployment continues to grow. Temporary closings, cuts in the working week and mass firings of white- and blue-- collar workers have become common. The forces of reaction have renewed their attack on the rights and gains of the working class, and are striving to shift the course of political life to the right.
The effects of the crisis phenomena have made it possible for neo-fascist and other ultra-reactionary forces to undertake new provocative sorties; the threat from the right in the internal policies of a number of capitalist countries has increased. Communist parties, aware of the dangers presented by reactionary proposals for ``solving'' the crisis, are calling for watchfulness, prompting the working class and its allies to increase their effective rebuff to reaction.
The second tendency (which opposes the strivings of reaction) represents the interests and aspirations of the proletariat and the working masses at large. It is seen in the ever more active struggle of the working people against the anti-popular schemes of state-monopoly capitalism. This struggle is no longer confined to resistance to the class enemy. Situations in which such resistance grows into an _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course. Speeches and Articles, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972, p. 339.
128 attack on capitalism are arising more and more often. The increasingly subtle and persistent machinations of the forces of reaction are counterbalanced by a broadening in the popular base of progressive and revolutionary movements under the leadership of the working class and its communist vanguard.These tendencies are strengthened by a number of longrange objective factors: the continuing proletarianisation of the population, the consequences of the present scientific and technological revolution and the related changes in the structure of society and the composition of the working class, the convergence in the interests of white- and blue-collar employees, the worsening of the employment situation, etc.^^1^^
Like the general crisis of capitalism, the economic crisis phenomena are fraught with new social upheavals.
Thus, despite recessions and other manifestations of the economic crisis (and contrary to the hopes of monopolists), there has been an unprecedented increase in the number and scale of strikes in many capitalist countries.
In its current stage the class struggle of the proletariat is increasingly influenced by growing internationalisation, which is why there is an urgent necessity for concerted international (as well as national) efforts. Working people's vanguard organisations are calling for coordinated action against multinational companies by the workers of different countries; for a solution to the complex migrant-labour problems that will benefit working people; for greater international solidarity with the struggle of the peoples of developing countries; for complete political and economic independence and for sovereign rights in managing their natural resources.
Guided by Lenin's teachings, the communist parties of capitalist countries continue to lead the struggle and to keep close watch over the organised workers' movement and over the mood of the general masses of the working people. The Communists' analysis has brought them to the conclusion that the necessary conditions for activising the struggle of the proletariat and its allies are growing in a number of the countries that form the world imperialist system.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Growing Contradictions of CapitalismFundamental changes in the balance of power among classes have taken place all over the world. This is due, _-_-_
^^1^^ These factors are discussed in more detail in other sections of the present work.
129 first, to the confirmed strength and manifold successes of the USSR and other socialist countries and, second, to the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism, whose basic antagonisms, manifested in diverse aspects of the life of society, grow more and more acute. Grave political and ideological crises, and increased social tensions, have accompanied the growing disorganisation of the economic structure of world capitalism.In the past one hundred and fifty years capitalism has undergone approximately twenty cyclic economic crises. Since 1917, when the October Revolution divided the world into two opposite social systems, these crises have been especially serious and extensive---eloquent testimony that history has doomed capitalism to extinction.
In the period immediately following the Second World War of 1939--1945 capitalism went through two economic cycles: the first began with the world cyclic crisis of 1948--1949; the second, with the crisis of 1957--1958.
During the subsequent industrial boom the proponents of imperialism worked to spread the myth of state-monopoly capitalism's ``crisis-free'' nature and of the possibility of favourably settling all its contradictions.^^1^^ The rulers of the leading Western powers hoped that they could eliminate the cyclic character of capitalist reproduction. They relied on the growing role of state-monopolist measures on a national and regional scale: expansion of the bourgeois state's interference in economic life, development of imperialist `` integration" and the related new forms of struggle for market redivision; the present scientific and technological revolution and the ensuing structural changes in the economy, and so on.
The concrete forms of the economic cycle were, of course, altered to an extent by the growth of state-monopolism. But state-monopolism can never eliminate the reproduction cycles of capitalism or the other manifestations of its fundamental contradictions. Marxist scholars, analysing the economic development of modern capitalism, repeatedly pointed out that the theory of its ``crisis-free'' character had no basis in fact. Capitalism's inherent economic and social problems (including underloading in industry, inflation and chronic unemployment) remained unresolved. Accordingly, new shocks were in store for the world capitalist economy.^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See, for example: Capitalism Today, ed. by Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol, Basic Books, New York and London, 1971, p. VIII; Is the Business Cycle Obsolete? ed. by Bronfenbrenner, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 1969.
~^^2^^ Timur Timofejew, Das Programm der KPdSU und der Westen. Aus sowjetischer Sicht, Europa Verlag, Vienna, Cologne, etc., 1963, __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 131. 130
Concretising these conclusions and propositions based on the scientific-methodological principles of studying imperialism, Marxist researchers called attention to clear signs of ``over-heating'' in the world capitalist market conditions during the 1960s, especially in those countries where the previous period had been marked by relatively rapid growth. These symptoms betokened growing market problems, further underloading in key industries, increased unemployment, a crisis of capitalism's world monetary system, etc. They were proved right: a decline in production in 1969--1971 marked the beginning of the third post-war cycle.
No economic crisis in the past four decades was as intense or prolonged as the world crisis of the 1970s, ``the intensity and scope of which even bourgeois politicians admit to be comparable only with the crisis of the early thirties".^^1^^
As during any cyclic crisis, there were cutbacks in orders; difficulties in output realisation increased, which brought a drop in industrial production and a decrease in gross output. The growth of underloading in industry led to a decline in investment activity. There was a significant increase in the number of bankruptcies, which were accompanied by closings of businesses and mass firings of white- and blue-collar workers. Production cuts and greater unemployment further reduced effective demand, thus deepening the recession and crisis tendencies in the economy.
A characteristic feature of the world economic crisis of the 1970s was that a whole series of crises were intertwined in it. The cyclic crisis, which arose against the background of the structural crisis, aggravated the latter and accelerated its development. For example inflation, which had begun earlier, grew significantly worse. Meanwhile unemployment rose. The drop in production did not solve the energy and raw _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 130. pp. 162, 163. Zbigniew Brzezinski, referring to my article ``The Leading Revolutionary Force" which appeared on December 24, 1968 in Pravda, wrote: ``Authoritative Soviet analysts have, moreover, argued that they detect signs of intensified crisis in the more advanced capitalist states. 'Political crises now occur far more often than, let us say, ten to twenty years ago, and no longer only on the ``periphery'' but in the chief centres of imperialism. The socio-political crises in the capitalist states are now spreading under conditions of an exacerbated financial crisis and deterioration in the over-all economic situation of the imperialist camp.'~" Referring again to my publication, Brzezinski stated that Soviet analysts devote considerable attention to the manifestations of the intensified crisis of developed capitalism. See: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages. America's Role in the Technetronic Era, Viking Press, New York, 1970, pp. 147, 318.
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 33.
131 materials crises; on the contrary, it made them more difficult to solve. The foodstuffs crisis grew more acute in a number of regions in the capitalist world. The position of many of the world's major cities deteriorated. Crisis phenomena in international economic relations intensified. So did the ecological crisis. And so on and on. In other words, an important characteristic of the crisis of the 1970s was its complex make-up.The crisis was a vivid demonstration of the ineffectiveness of some of state-monopoly capitalism's principal regulatory levers. It showed once more that today's capitalist bosses have less and less room to manoeuvre.
Another characteristic of the overproduction crisis of the 1970s (as opposed to the earlier post-war economic fluctuations and recessions) was that it was of a more synchronous nature. This synchronism shows that it is becoming harder to make use of the major reserves that---not so long ago---enabled world capitalism to alleviate acute manifestations of the crisis in any one of its sectors at the expense of the others. The greater intensity of the crisis of the 1970s (as compared with the other post-war recessions in capitalist production) was due, to a great extent, to the synchronism of its manifestations.
Militarism, the arms race, and their social, economic and other consequences have, unquestionably, worsened the economic troubles of bourgeois society and intensified its inherent contradictions. They have contributed to the growth of inflation and to the general destabilisation of the capitalist economy.
Wars, and preparations for war, involve colossal expenditures of public funds; they have always been a heavy burden on the working people. Today's arms race is an unprecedented threat to all mankind. For these reasons the workers' movement devotes a great deal of attention to all aspects, theoretical and practical (socio-economic, political, moral, psychological, etc.), of the arms race.
Mass unemployment, coupled with inflation, added to the grave social and political consequences of the economic crisis of the 1970s, which, in turn, intensified the crisis of the capitalist political system and increased social and political instability in capitalist countries. The ideological crisis of capitalism also grew more severe.
Speaking at the 25th Congress of the CPSU, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev remarked: ``Now everyone can see that one of the main myths created by reformists and bourgeois ideologists has collapsed---the myth that present-day capitalism is able to avert crises ... Promises to make capitalism `sounder' and to create a `welfare society' 132 within its framework have obviously failed.''^^1^^
The growth of social tensions and the increased resistance of the working class hindered the state-monopolist circles in several countries in their attempts to resolve the crisis entirely at the expense of the working class.
The crisis of the 1970s decreased the total wage funds, or slowed their growth, in capitalist countries. This was the result of reductions of the working day for the bulk of working people; the switch of a significant number of workers to short hours; the lay-off of 7 to 9 per cent of employed personnel; a reduction in bonuses, a marked decline in social expenditures, and a growth of taxes. Such changes contributed to a halt in the expansion (in some cases, to a fall) of personal consumption. Purchases of consumer goods and services were at times 10--12 per cent below the pre-crisis maximum for some quarters. Meanwhile the employment problem, which became a rallying-point in the class struggle of the proletariat, grew markedly worse. Even according to the official statistics, 16--18 million people lost their jobs in the industrial capitalist countries alone. In a number of countries nearly 9 per cent of the work force was unemployed.
In several capitalist countries the cyclic production slump gave way to unsteady growth during the second half of the 1970s. Nevertheless, a crisis is developing deep within world capitalism, manifesting itself in the economic and socio-- political spheres. Unemployment and inflation have not abated, and the decay of bourgeois ideology, politics, culture and morals continues.
During the present phase of the general crisis of capitalism the working class and its allies have steadily increased their activities. In a number of countries the growing political consciousness and organisation of the working class ( especially of its vanguard detachments) have made it possible not only to defend but also to strengthen the position of workers and their organisations in the struggle against the policies of monopoly capital.
It is no coincidence that the cyclic crisis of the 1970s (unlike a number of earlier crises) was characterised by an overall increase in strikes in the leading capitalist countries. For example, in 1974--1976 the total number of striking workers in the seven leading imperialist countries (the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Japan), far from diminishing, grew significantly---to 87.5 million---over the total for the previous four-year _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 34.
133 period. The number of man-days lost to strikes increased accordingly. In Italy, for example, nearly twice as many workers were out on strike in 1975 (at the very height of the crisis) as in the previous year. During the same period 10--14 million workers took part in traditional mass campaigns---the ``spring and autumn offensives"---in Japan.Thus the forecasts of bourgeois and reformist ideologues, who had expected strikes to wane (as had typically occurred during previous economic crises), fell wide of the mark. The experience of the class struggle has demonstrated that there is no fatal necessity compelling the working class to retreat before the aggressive, anti-worker onslaughts of national or international monopolies. In those countries where proletarian organisations have firmly established themselves they are able to thwart, at different phases of the capitalist cycle, the state-monopolist circles in their attempts to place the burden of crises entirely on the working class.
As a result of the protracted slump that followed the world economic crisis of mid-1970s, general strikes have become common in a number of key industries. Examples of this sort of strike are the French workers' Day of Struggle Against Inflation and Unemployment (December 1, 1977), in which every major trade union organisation in the country participated and a series of general strikes by the workers of Italy (10 million participants in March 1977, about 15 million in May and June of that year, 8 million in November, 19 million in December, and nearly 19 million again in the spring of 1978). In the USA a strike by 130,000 miners, which lasted over three months (from December 6, 1977 to March 25, 1978), had important social and political consequences.
Strike tactics are being improved; trade unions have found new ways of pressuring the owners and managers of factories and service companies. There are various kinds of short-term strikes, slowdowns, boycotts of the output of a particular company, picketing of enterprises, etc. Seizures of enterprises by workers are becoming more common in capitalist countries. This weapon, which has been used repeatedly in Western Europe, is now being taken up by workers in Japan and the New World.
At the present phase of the workers' struggle strike tactics are increasingly coordinated by common strike committees. Such committees help to organise the workers and keep them steadfast and thus make strikes more effective. Workers held shops of the important Bordeaux Sud (France) road construction equipment factory for nearly two years (through March 1978). The strikers emerged victorious: government organisations were forced to allocate money 134 for the reconstruction of the factory. One of Bordeaux's major garment factories, the Saint-Joseph, was in the hands of its workers on strike for about a year. The Parisien Libere printing house was held by printers for twenty-one months.
The class struggle is also intensifying in West Germany. At the end of February 1978 the biggest printers' strike in the post-war history of the Federal Republic began. At first the strike affected four cities, later it became general. Newspaper publication virtually halted for three weeks. Another major strike, which lasted from March 20 to April 6, 1978, affected northern Baden-Wurttemberg, one of the country's principal industrial areas. Over 100,000 workers in the machine-building, automobile, electrical, and machine-tool industries demanded not only cost-- ofliving pay increases, but also stabilisation of employment levels.
The fight against unemployment is not confined by national boundaries; it is also waged regionally and internationally. On April 5, 1978 many workers participated in a Day of Struggle Against Unemployment, which was organised by European trade unions. Several months earlier, in November 1977, there were international meetings in several countries to discuss the problem of unemployment among young people. In 1978 a number of international professional, social, scientific and other organisations, recognising the gravity of the problem and its importance to working people, devoted conferences to the fight against unemployment in capitalist countries.
The monopolists, when forced to fall back in one area, regroup and seek revenge, by various manoeuvres, in others. If, for example, they find themselves unable to lower hourly wages, they reduce total wage funds by ``economising'' the labour force: in other words, by increasing unemployment. Striving to maintain, and even to enlarge, their huge profits, the monopolies do all they can to ``economise'' by cutting social benefits and reducing expenditures for housing construction, labour safety, the preservation of the environment, etc. These areas have, accordingly, become centres in the growing class struggle against the monopolies. ``The desire of the masses in the capitalist countries for radical changes is mounting,'' stated Leonid Brezhnev in a speech made on November 2, 1977 at a meeting in the Kremlin. ``In this situation the communist parties are working to perfect the strategy and tactics of their revolutionary struggle.... We warmly wish the communist and workers' parties and their allies, who are fighting the dictatorship of capital, who are struggling for freedom, peace, and 135 social progress, every success."^^1^^
During the present intensification of the general crisis of capitalism the events of the class struggle have proved repeatedly that workers' attempts to solve their current economic problems are most effective when combined with political actions. Various forms of protest marches and the observation of ``days'' and ``weeks'' are alternated with strikes. Protest meetings, demonstrations and marches are often accompanied by short-term work stoppages affecting many businesses. These unified economic and political campaigns are more than an expression of the new scale of the proletariat's struggle; they serve to unite workers' organisations of various orientations. Demands made during protest ``days'' and ``weeks'' have been brought before parliaments and municipal legislatures in.several countries by representatives from left parties. Today the increasingly unified political struggle of the working class is of enormous importance. More and more often, organisations of the working class and its allies present a united front in the struggle against monopolism and militarism. Some of the principal demands brought forward in the course of this struggle have taken on an international character, strengthening the solidarity of the working people. These demands include the satisfaction of the social and economic needs of working people; guarantees of the political and economic independence of all nations; the elimination of backwardness, and the building of a new and just international economic order; the total eradication of colonialism, fascism and racism; the implementation of political and economic democracy and the all-round development of the rights of working people; the preservation and strengthening of peace, detente and international cooperation; and disarmament.
During the exacerbation of the general crisis of capitalism the organised workers' movement faces a number of new problems in waging the class struggle. The proletariat has adopted a wider range of goals, workers are making concerted national and international efforts. The vanguard organisations of the working class are striving to coordinate the workers of different countries in their struggle against multinational companies, to strengthen international solidarity with national struggles for complete political and economic independence and for sovereign rights in managing their natural resources, and to solve the complex migrant-labour problem in a way that will benefit working people.
The communist movement has made a realistic appraisal _-_-_
^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The Great October Revolution and Mankind's Progress, pp. 24, 26.
136 of the situation in the camp of its class enemy and of the dislocations in the economic and political systems of imperialism. Increased interference by the bourgeois state in economic life, the creation of international state-monopolist associations, the arms race---none of these can remedy the growing economic and political instability of contemporary imperialism or halt the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism.Under the present conditions a proper understanding of the interaction of economics and politics is of primary importance.
The approach to this problem taken by the most politically conscious part of the proletariat, of its vanguard, seeks to avoid two opposite extremes. The first of these is seen in attempts to tie the prospects for activising workers and their organisations mainly to economic prosperity, i. e., to the periodic upswings of the capitalist cycle. At the opposite extreme is the position that the class struggle of the proletariat can be intensified only during declines in production.
These views are characteristic of the anti-scientific ideological platform and adventurist policies of Trotskyism and some of its latter-day followers. They interpret certain important Marxist doctrines, such as the theory of economic cycles and crises, the general law of capitalist accumulation determining the position of the proletariat in bourgeois society, and so on, in vulgar-mechanistic fashion.
The Trotskyites and their followers, including the Maoisttype doctrinaires, base their view of the prospects for world development on the anti-Leninist theory of the ``botting-up'' of capitalist productive forces under imperialism. They speak of the ``beneficial'' effect of world wars and prolonged economic crises on the revolutionary struggle of the working class. Experience has shown, however, that economic crises and outbursts of militarism may also bring about events that are the exact opposite of the class goals of the working class. It is enough to recall the events in Germany during the economic crisis of 1929--1933, which ended in the establishment of a fascist dictatorship.
Marxists-Leninists reject this reformist underrating of the important effects of capitalist economic crises on the revolutionary workers' movement, and oppose any mechanistic interpretation of the interconnection of these phenomena. In explaining the possible effects of a crisis on the revolutionary workers' movement Lenin warned against oversimplification: ``Undoubtedly the detailed study of the industrial crisis is of the greatest importance. But it is also beyond doubt that no data about the crisis, even if they were ideally accurate, can in reality decide the question of whether 137 a rise of the revolutionary tide is at hand or not: because such a rise depends on a thousand additional factors which it is impossible to measure beforehand.... To answer such a question there is only one way: to keep a careful finger on the pulse of the country's whole political life, and especially the state of the movement and of the mood of the mass of the proletariat."^^1^^ The fatalistic view of production slumps and their consequences for workers is also unacceptable.
The political and ideological consequences of the intensification of the crisis of capitalism must be kept in view. As events have repeatedly shown, among the most important of these consequences is a growing lack of faith in the capitalist system among the masses.^^2^^
Even the ideological and political defenders of capitalism are forced to acknowledge this lack of faith. Daniel Bell, for example, writes that in the West the reasonableness and legitimacy of existing institutions are increasingly doubted, especially by young people. Moreover, a general loss of faith in the nation's future can be observed among the population.^^3^^ Not a few Western authors have predicted a worsening of different crisis phenomena in both the basis and the ideological and political superstructure of imperialism for the years ahead.
A growing number of proponents of social-reformists in Western Europe and elsewhere have begun to speak of the ``twilight of welfare capitalism" and of the ``demise of capitalism."^^4^^ They are joined by other philosophers and economists, who note the gravity and scope of the economic and political crisis that is shaking capitalism.^^5^^
The development of the revolutionary workers' movement requires a scientific, class-conscious approach to the theory of the general crisis of capitalism and to the analysis of several manifestations of the crisis characteristic for the 1970s. This requirement is the more urgent because quite a few contradictory interpretations of the preconditions, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Assessment of the Present Situation'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 278.
~^^2^^ For further detail see, for example: T. T. Timofeyev, The Working Class and the Crisis of Anti-Communism. Some Current Problems in the Ideological and Theoretical Struggle, Moscow, 1977 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ See: Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Basic Books, New York, 1976, p. 244.
~^^4^^ Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism, pp. 11--12, 320--21.
~^^5^^ See, for example: Andrew Gamble and Paul Walton, Capitalism in Crisis. Inflation and the State, Macmillan, London 1976; and Michel Bosquet, Capitalism in Crisis and Everyday Life, trans, by John Howe, Harvester Press, London, 1977.
138 character and consequences of the general crisis of capitalism have appeared in the West. These interpretations represent not only various opposing scientific hypotheses, but also the conflicting interests of various classes. State-monopoly capitalism has sought, and will seek, to use the crisis and its consequences to strengthen its position, to take different measures against the working class; it will seek, if possible, to bring the many victories of the working people to naught. The revolutionary workers' movement, in resisting these attempts, is called upon to lead an active struggle against monopoly capital, and does in fact lead that struggle.Traditions going back to the time of Marx and Engels are of great importance in working out a class position and a scientific programme for action by proletarian organisations during declines in capitalist production.^^1^^ In this context one should remember Lenin's criticism of the ``Russian Legal Marxists" (such as Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky, who postulated that it was possible for capitalist production to develop and expand without limit),^^2^^ on the one hand, and his exposures of the anti-scientific, adventurist nature of left-sectarian conceptions (which tended to disorient the revolutionary workers' movement), such as the ``automatic collapse of capitalism" and the ``bottling-up of productive forces" under imperialism, on the other.
During the present phase of the international revolutionary workers' movement the role of the working class and its vanguard organisations in public life has grown; demands for the satisfaction of the social and economic needs of the working class, and the toiling masses in general, have expanded and been radicalised; the social and political importance of trade unions has increased; the trend towards unification in the trade union movements has become stronger; associations of trade unions, attached to various international trade union centres, have adopted similar positions on a number of social and economic questions; and the demands of various international trade union organisations have coincided.
Among the international problems that form the basis for coordinated action by the various organisations of the workers' and trade union movement the problem of strengthening peace and the security of nations is first and foremost. The easing of international tensions and the achievements of the peace-loving policies of the USSR and other socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ For further detail see, for example: The International WorkingClass Movement. Questions of History and Theory, Vols. 1-2, Moscow, 1976 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See V. I. Lenin, ``A Characterisation of Economic Romanticism", Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 172.
139 countries are an important precondition for further activisation of the struggle for peace and social progress.The successful solution of many of today's problems depends heavily on mutual support and solidarity among the world's various progressive, democratic and peace-loving forces. This is especially true of the problems of guaranteeing peace and security for all nations and of attaining genuine social, economic, scientific, technical, political and cultural progress. The community of socialist nations, the international working-class movement and its vanguard organisations which attract an ever growing number of allies in their struggle for peace and social progress, are the central forces in the trend towards unification.
The struggle against the monopolies is being waged in capitalist countries with a high and middle level of development.
The class battles of the 1970s were characterised by great persistence and self-sacrifice on the part of workers, a true fighting spirit and a growing solidarity with the proletariat of those countries where the fight is most bitter and which are the key centres of resistance to the arbitrary rule of monopoly capital. In capitalist countries, as noted in the final document of the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe, ``the struggle of the working class-Hhe main force in social development and which represents the interests of the whole mass of working people, the interests of social progress and overall national interests--- and the struggle of the other democratic and anti-monopolist forces are developing with increasing strength. These struggles are directed against the foundations of rule by monopoly capital. Ever broader sections of society are realising the historical necessity of replacing capitalist society by socialist society, which will be built up in accordance with the desires of each people.''^^1^^
__*_*_*__A growing ecological crisis is characteristic of the situation in the bourgeois world today. This crisis is one of the most important consequences of the scientific and technological revolution, and of the intensification of the inherent, longterm contradictions within world capitalism. At the present phase of the general crisis of capitalism the energy crisis, the natural resources crisis and similar new phenomena make themselves ever more strongly felt, along with the traditional _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1976, p. 35.
140 manifestations of the general crisis. These new phenomena are especially stimulated by the fact that the productive forces develop in conditions of capitalist production, which cannot meet the social and economic requirements of our times.As early as the beginning of the last century penetrating minds understood and sharply criticised capitalism's inherently destructive attitude towards nature. John Stuart Mill accused bourgeois society of destroying nature and the animal world. Today's deep concern over this problem can be seen in the growth of mass social movements to protect the environment, in various government measures, and in the large number of diverse (biological, technological, economic, social, etc.) scientific studies devoted to it. Environmental problems have been taken up by international government and public organisations and studied from many points of view by scientific associations.
Surveys of public opinion in the USA, for example, show that a significant part of the population considers the protection of the environment one of today's most important tasks. Thus it is not coincidental that the statemonopolistic circles are now forced to devote more and more attention to the environmental problem. Government and big business in the USA can no longer ignore the complexity and many-faceted nature of this problem, whose solution, moreover, requires considerable outlays.
As for public and scientific organisations for the protection of the environment, they sometimes lack a clearly defined programme, and occasionally come under the influence of conservative, even reactionary, ideological doctrines: conservative romanticism, anti-technicist utopianism, etc. To solve ecological problems a well-integrated, global conception, encompassing all the essential aspects (social, economic, etc.) of the ecological crisis, is needed. The absence of such a conception is typical of bourgeois social thought.
The chief characteristic of most bourgeois doctrines of the ecological crisis is an attempt to place responsibility for it on the scientific and technological revolution. Such doctrines are part of the current theories about ``industrial'' and ``post-industrial'' society. The adherents of these theories hold industrial development and intensive urbanisation chiefly to blame for unemployment and poverty, the crisis of the cities, the spread of slums, the inaccessibility of education, the pollution of the environment, and the like.
The ecological crisis took contemporary bourgeois sociologists and futurologists by surprise. In predicting future economic growth many bourgeois authors of long-term ``prognoses'' for the 1970s and 1980s had stated that 141 mankind was hardly likely to be troubled by a shortage of raw materials or fuel in the near future. To cite an example, a group of American authors associated with the Resources for the Future Corporation predicted that there would be no general trend towards exhaustion of resources in the coming forty years.^^1^^ Today bourgeois economists are much less sanguine in their estimates of the condition of the environment and the levels of non-renewable resources. Their uncertainty is an expression of the growing economic instability of capitalism, and shows once more that the bourgeoisie is becoming incapable of managing its own productive forces, which have outgrown its authority and guidance.
Since the early 1970s many bourgeois scholars have called for a re-examination of the theory and practice of economic growth. They are alarmed about the condition of the environment and the levels of natural resources. Bourgeois economists, philosophers, sociologists and demographers have written in favour of halting extended reproduction, prescribed ``zero population growth'', and so on. Among the authors who have presented such views are Kenneth Boulding, Jay Forrester, Gunnar Myrdal, Robert Heilbroner, D. Meadows and other bourgeois researchers.
The opponents of economic growth theory speak of the incompatibility of the present forms and ways of economic development current in the West with the demands of maintaining a stable ecosystem. They believe that retention of these forms will, sooner or later, bring chaos upon the human race; afterwards, production will be resumed at an extremely low level.
The first political economist to raise the question of limits to the growth of capitalism was Thomas Malthus. But history has proved Malthus's prognosis incorrect.
Marx's law of capitalist accumulation expresses a truly scientific view of this question. Marx viewed these limits to growth as the basic social and economic contradictions of capitalism; for him extended capitalist reproduction meant, first and foremost, the reproduction of the relations of exploitation of hired labour and the polarisation of classes. In modern times the general crisis of world capitalism has vividly confirmed Marx's views.
The proponents of capitalism, ignoring the social and economic aspects of the ecological crisis, represent it as a consequence of the overpopulation of the planet, the incipient exhaustion of natural resources, the disappearance of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: H. H. Landsberg, L. L. Fischman and J. L. Fischer, Resources in America's Future. Patterns of Requirements and Availabilities 1960--2000, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1963.
142 unsettled, unexploited territory, and the like. The Limits to Growth, written by a group of scholars headed by D. Meadows, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an example of this tendency. The authors maintain that, as a result of the progressing pollution of the biosphere and shortages of mineral resources, foodstuffs, etc., there will be, even in the next century, a reduction in the population of the planet. The only way to avert a world catastrophe, the authors believe, is to hold population to its present level and abandon the extended reproduction. ``Equilibrium'', which is characterised by the curtailment of demographic and economic growth, is offered as an alternative to modern economic development.The basic defect in Meadows's approach is its complete failure to take socio-political conditions and factors into account. Within the biosphere-society system there are two kinds of connection between society and nature: the first is determined by the level of development reached by productive forces; the second, by the class, social structure of society, which, under capitalism, is antagonistic and thus gives rise to an antagonistic relationship between nature and society. The latter circumstance is ignored in the models of Meadows and his fellow authors. They present an abstract, unreal world, a world without national boundaries, without inequalities in the human and mineral resources of different countries and, most importantly, without differences in social organisation.
The authors do not reckon with the influence, which literally grows with every passing day, of the world socialist system on the course of international affairs. Over a third of the world's population, and 26 per cent of its territory, are now included in this system. The Soviet Union alone has 40 per cent of the world's iron ore, 60 per cent of its coal, and so on. The laws of social development in socialist countries, which govern their economic growth and forms of interaction between society and nature, are radically different from those of capitalist society.
Developing countries account for more than half the world's territory and 46 per cent of its population. The extremely rapid and multifarious social and political processes taking place in these countries are evidence of their ever greater disentanglement from the reactionary influence of world imperialism. Socialism and the national liberation movement are the principal forces shaping our planet's social and economic future.
The conception of the ``zero growth of the national product'', which is often proposed as a goal by Western economists, would (supposing that it could be realised) 143 inevitably come into conflict with the laws of extended capitalist reproduction. Any attempt to attain zero growth would require stricter control over the use of natural resources and increased taxation of manufacturers in those industries that do the most damage to the environment. Foremost among such industries are those that guarantee long-term economic growth: the generation of electric energy, the automobile, chemical, oU and coal industries, etc. Control over and taxation of these industries would lower the population's purchasing capacity and decrease consumer expenditures, the growth of the gross national product would slow down.
Among the consequences of zero growth, the first that should be considered is unemployment. The dimensions it would reach, were zero growth to be attained, can be calculated theoretically, but it is difficult even to imagine, however, the hardships and deprivations that would be the lot of millions of working people.
Any significant decrease in the growth of the national product, including personal and corporate incomes (i. e., the chief sources of tax revenue), would undoubtedly affect the financial capabilities of the government---first of all allocations for social needs: health care, education, unemployment allowances, etc.
Since the publication of The Limits to Growth its proposals have been criticised sharply by many bourgeois scholars in the West. Publications by scholars at the University of Sussex (in the February and April 1973 issues of Futures) may be mentioned as an example. The focus of this criticism, however, has been Meadows's undervaluation of the potential of scientific and technical progress. Bourgeois authors regard the ecological crisis itself as the consequence of a one-sided approach to the choice of a direction for scientific and technical progress. These authors do not connect the rise of ecological tensions with the contradictions of the capitalist economy; they attribute it entirely to the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution. Insisting on the universality of their conception of the origin of ecological conflicts, bourgeois authors have also applied it to socialist society. They believe that the development of productive forces presents capitalism and socialism with virtually identical problems (Robert Heilbroner, Marshall Goldman, et ah). Some bourgeois scholars have worked to advance the conception of ``organic growth" elaborated by Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See: Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point. The Second Report to the Club of Rome, E. P. Dutton/ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 145. 144
It is important that communist ideologues and theoreticians should resist such views, subject them to scientific criticism, and point out the differences in the principles by which capitalist and socialist countries are guided in approaching environmental problems.
Criticism of ``zero growth" by Marxist scholars, and by those bourgeois social scientists who are more hopeful about the future of interaction between nature and society, has helped to discredit that conception.
Marxist scholars oppose all forms of pessimistic conceptions (current in the West) that scientific and technical progress is inevitably destructive to nature. They uphold confidence in the ability of socialism, with the help of science and technology, to solve the problem of preserving the environment.^^1^^
There is growing discontent in the West with the consequences of predatory exploitation of natural resources by the monppolies. Western ruling circles and their ideologues have be«n forced to take some political and ideological measures to calm this discontent, to keep it from growing into a form of social and political struggle against the capitalist system.
The worsening ecological problems in the West have generated new waves of liberal reformism, social criticism, anti-technologism, and left radicalism. Most bourgeois liberals acknowledge the existence of an ecological crisis, but they offer various explanations and remedies for it. Daniel Bell and the other adherents of the theory of post-- industrial society regard the crisis as a relic of industrial society, a consequence of the use of particular types of raw materials and a low-level technology. They believe that scientific and technical progress will automatically resolve the ecological crisis.
Bourgeois liberals sharply criticise government ecological policies. But behind their abstract humanitarian slogans one finds, in essence, traditional liberal ideas for the reform of capitalism, demands for further centralisation of state power in order to monitor scientific and technical advances more effectively. Bourgeois liberals do not advocate the radical _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 144. Reader's Digest Press, New York, 1974. For a critical analysis of ``organic growth" see: V. Zagladin and I. Frolov, ``Contemporary Global Problems: Socio-Political and Ideological and Theoretical Aspects'', Kommunist, No. 16,1976.
~^^1^^ See: I. Gerasimov and M. Budyko, ``Current Problems of the Interaction of Man and Nature'', Kommunist, No. 10, 1974; B. G. Kuznetsov, The Philosophy of Optimism, Moscow, 1972; and T. T. Timofeyev, The Philosophy of Historical Optimism, Moscow, 1975 (all in Russian).
145 trasformation of capitalist society. They cannot show a realistic way of solving the ecological crisis: that can be done only by the working class armed with the social doctrines of Marxism-Leninism.Success in solving the crisis phenomena in man's interrelationship with nature requires that both the necessity of remaking nature to meet man's needs and the necessity of protecting the environment, of reproducing its cause-- andeffect linkages and relations, be considered. Capitalism, with its unending struggle of private interests, is clearly incapable of fulfilling this double requirement, and thus of solving ecological problems effectively and in the interests of the working people.
The working class and its politically conscious vanguard are confronted with the fact that the development of production demands both that natural resources be exploited and that the biosphere be renewed through natural processes. An attempt to meet the first demand while ignoring the second would lead to a serious aggravation of the ecological crisis. An attempt to limit, as far as possible, the first demand and focus attention on meeting the second (as suggested by some bourgeois authors) would mean abandoning endeavours to increase the productivity of labour and to promote the welfare of working people.
Man's new interrelationship with nature calls for the working class to struggle for a more highly developed social structure, one that is capable of solving today's problems. In order to overcome the ecological crisis it is necessary to make certain modifications and redistribution of financial resources and to radically alter the technological basis of production, the machinery of decision-making and, finally, the very forms of ownership. The quest for solutions to the ecological crisis necessarily leads from technical to social problems. The alarming state of the air, water and soil, which is actually threatening people's health in the most advanced capitalist countries, calls for immediate restructuring of the entire economy. Such a restructuring, however, would be contrary to the interests of the monopolies, who do not want to let go of even a fraction of their profits.
The ruling classes showed interest in environmental problems only when they began to directly affect the quality of life of the bourgeoisie, and when corporations began to see these problems as a possible source of new profits. The ``ecological'' measures now being taken in the developed capitalist countries are basically fragmentary, directed at the solution of narrow, local problems; they are far from affecting all sectors of the economy. These measures are extremely limited even in comparison with the programmes 146 for restructuring the economy offered by bourgeios theoreticians. Actions taken by the governments of industrial capitalist countries to protect the environment are often ineffective.
Under capitalism the working people usually bear the principal burdens and expenses of the modernisation or closing of enterprises that no longer meet environmental standards, the relocation of industrial sites, etc. The inclusion of expenditures on the solution of environmental problems in prices on goods, which fact is a form of the working people's participation in financing measures for environmental protection, may aggravate inflation and affect the national balance of payments.
Meadows's critics at the University of Sussex maintain that the Western conception of environmental protection and renewal expresses the interests of the privileged classes. It is hardly coincidental that Meadows's conception stresses the problems of world resources, leisure, and the aesthetic value of nature, and so on, while the working class is mainly interested in improving working conditions, preventing industrial accidents, the elimination of slums, etc.
Meadows's programme, which is organically connected with zero growth, was met with suspicion by the working class. The ideologues of the ruling class associate the realisation of such a programme with a limitation of personal consumption and a maximal expansion of the services of the public sector. Thus they plan to make working people bear the expense of eliminating flaws in the infrastructure, monitoring the biosphere, etc., through increased taxes. It is no accident that bourgeois economists speak of the need for ``social discipline" in dealing with pollution problems and in economising natural resources. Their appeals, addressed mainly to the working people, are a preparation for future tax increases, wage freezes, bans on strikes, and the like.
The approach of the working class to the solution of environmental problems is opposed to that of the bourgeoisie, which remains entirely within a capitalist framework. The most important aspect of the former is the steady pressure that workers' organisations exert on government and corporations to increase allotments for the elimination of slums, the improvement of working conditions, the development of inexpensive public transportation, etc. Progressive circles in capitalist countries are calling for business to assume full responsibility for the pollution of the environment. Democratic conservationist organisations in several countries have demanded that the private firms that have caused the most severe environmental damage be declared bankrupt and placed under special government trusteeship.
147The movement for a democratic solution to ecological problems touches on the most important aspects of the social and political struggle in capitalist society. A bitter political struggle is being waged over the choice among the various social and economic solutions to the ecological crisis. The masses of the working people are becoming increasingly involved in that struggle. In the USA, for example, national and local organisations are actively working for a radical improvement of the environment; mass movements with the same goal are on the upgrade.
Capitalism's predatory exploitation of natural resources threatens the existence of mankind; it is imperative that various democratic movements now fighting for a solution to environmental problems should agree on a general democratic platform, which must include the goals of peace and progress for all.
Young people feel concern with the most important and complex problems of today; they are highly critical of the negative aspects of urbanisation, the ecological crisis, etc. In the West protest movements among young people played a significant, even unique, role in awakening mass interest in the ecology. Radical youth movements performed an important public service by connecting the struggle for the solution of ecological problems with the entire complex of spiritual, aesthetic, social, economic and political problems confronting contemporary capitalism.
But the struggle of radical youth against the monopolies has been highly inconsistent in both ideology and practice. The chief manifestation of this inconsistency has been the revival of a romantic-reactionary, anti-technicist attitude towards ecological problems, which divorces the scientific and technical progress from its social, class and political factors. Theodore Roszak and Charles Reich, American ``counter-culture'' ideologues popular among radical youth, see the technocracy---a ``super-class'' corporate and government apparatus---as the main culprit in the destruction of the environment by technology.
The maximalist anti-technicism of left-radical youth, which rather quickly proved to be a dead end, tended to disenchant youth as a whole with ultra-left strategies for preserving the environment. In reaction against such strategies there has been an increasing trend in recent years to deny any connection between the socio-political and ecological struggles.
Left-radical youth in the West is more and more directing its efforts towards ``small'' ecological problems, towards the prevention of disturbances of the ecological equilibrium, rather than towards the underlying causes of such disturbances.
148Communist parties and youth alliances are at the head of the working people's movement for the preservation of the environment. Communist parties are working to make the working class, and the broad masses in general, realise the vital importance of the struggle against the degradation of the environment in the course of capitalist production. The working class and its communist vanguard are assuming leadership in the promotion of this idea in capitalist countries. Communist parties are also working out a programme for solving environmental problems that will unite all the democratic forces at work in society.
Leonid Brezhnev, addressing the 25th Congress of the CPSU, declared: ``Global problems such as primary materials and energy, the eradication of the most dangerous and widespread diseases, environmental protection, space exploration and the utilisation of the resources of the World Ocean are already sufficiently important and urgent. In the future they will exercise an increasingly perceptible influence on the life of each nation and on the entire system of international relations. The Soviet Union, like other socialist countries, cannot hold aloof from the solution of these problems which affect the interests of all mankind."^^1^^
The communist movement places major importance on analysing and solving ecological problems on the basis of Marxist-Leninist social doctrines. Far-ranging research into the social aspects of ecological problems promotes understanding by the general masses in capitalist countries of the great dangers that the ecological crisis represents to the very existence of mankind. Working people are coming to the realisation that environmental problems can be solved only if the threat of war is eliminated and lasting peace and cooperation among all nations ensured. It is significant that the final document of the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe stressed that the enormous sums now being spent on arms would, if directed towards raising national standards of living, aiding developing countries, and preserving the environment, contribute immensely to the progress of all mankind.^^2^^
As Marxist-Leninist parties have emphasised, fundamental social change is necessary for the resolution of the ecological crisis. The chaotic destructive development of productive forces must be brought under control: it must be transformed into scientifically regulated process. One of the most _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 67.
~^^2^^ See: For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, pp. 57--58.
149 important tasks before the international workers' movement is the elaboration of appropriate programmes for this transformation, programmes which take into account the concrete conditions in each country. In recent years the communist parties of various countries have devoted considerable attention to solving this problem.^^1^^ __ALPHA_LVL2__ Bourgeois Ideological ManoeuvresFaced with the growing influence of existing socialism and the aggravation of imperialism's internal and external contradictions. Western ruling circles have resorted to various political and ideological strategems in an attempt to shore up their resistance to the international workers' and national liberation movement and to the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. It is possible to grasp, by class analysis, the sources and real intentions of the ideological manoeuvres of today's anti-- communist ``theoreticians'': they are trying, by various means, to ``de-Leninise'' the revolutionary workers' movement.
The successes of the progressive, peace-loving forces headed by the working class, together with the broadening and deepening of the world revolutionary process, have driven the opponents of scientific communism to make more and more frequent adaptations to changing circumstances by ``remodelling'' their arguments. This process of adaptation is apparent both in politics and in ideology itself.
There was a time when Western ruling quarters placed their bets mostly on political apathy. They cultivated ideological neutrality among the masses, and tried to place this policy line on a certain scientific basis in the form of theories about the ``exhaustion'' of the world views of antagonistic classes, the ``end of the ideologies'', the propaganda of the myth of the ``deideologisation'' of international relations, etc. But they lost their bets. Events have forced the imperialists to look for other weapons in the ideological struggle.
A remarkable discussion has been going on for some time among bourgeois authors. Some of them, deploring the weakening of capitalism's position in the competition with _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for example: ``Protecting the Environment. Materials of an International Symposium of the Representatives of Communist Parties and Marxist Scholars from 36 Countries'', World Marxist Review, No. 6, 1972; Louis Perceval, ``L'environnement---nouveau champ de la bataille politique'', Economic et politique, No. 213, April 1972, pp. 13--32; Gus Hall, Ecology: Can We Survive Under Capitalism?, International Publishers, New York, 1974; and Idem, The Crisis of US Capitalism and Fight Back, Report to the 21st Convention of the Communist Party U.S.A., International Publishers, New York, 1975.
150 socialism, insist that the old ideology be propounded with new vigour, that frontal counterattacks be mounted against communist ideology and politics from the old position. Others call for a ``remodelling'' of the ``old ideas''. In an editorial entitled ``The Pain of Old Ideas" the London Economist develops, in particular, the following thesis: ``No pain is so great as that of a new idea.... But the greater pain has suddenly become the tendency for statesmen [in the West---T.T.] to flee from the old sensible ideas ... to older...."^^1^^Calls for a ``reappraisal of values" are heard more and more often from bourgeois ideologists. John Kenneth Galbraith, the former US Ambassador to India, has contrasted ``the great certainties in economic thought in the last century with the great uncertainty" of bourgeois economists in facing the problems of our times. Why the change? Galbraith sees the reason in the ``new social alignments" which became clearly apparent on the world scene in the second decade of the twentieth century and which led to the fact that `` political and social systems, centuries in the building, came apart''. If, Galbraith writes, until then ``aristocrats and capitalists felt secure in their position'', ``it was never to be so again" over the past six-odd decades.^^2^^
Echoing Galbraith, Harvard Professor George C. Lodge writes that ``America in the mid-1970s is an apprehensive nation, lacking a sense of direction,'' and that ``the old ideas and assumptions that once made our institutions legitimate are being eroded. They are slipping away in the face of a changing reality.'' Under these circumstances, Lodge declares, a vigorous ideological defence of the interests of state-- monopoly capitalism is necessary. In a tome pretentiously entitled The New American Ideology he presents recommendations for the re-enforcement of capitalism's ideological foundations.^^3^^
The works cited above show bourgeois ideologues anxiously searching about for methods of fighting Marxist-Leninist doctrines; the old, bankrupt arguments will no longer do. More and more founders of ``new'' schools of thought are appearing in the West: Alyin Toffler, an American futurologist, calls for the construction of some sort of meta-ideology, which will be ``above'' the opposing communist and bourgeois philosophies; Professor Edward Wilson proposes a new _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: The Economist, March 4,1978, p. 9.
~^^2^^ John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty, Houghton Mifflin. Boston, 1977, pp. 7,133, 160.
~^^3^^ George C. Lodge, The New American Ideology, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1975, p. 3.
151 behaviour theory and insists on a ``new synthesis" of sociology and biology for the investigation of the dynamics of human behaviour and consciousness. Acquaintance with his book Sociology. The New Synthesis (Belknap Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1975) shows that the task of the vulgar ``social-Darwinist'' schemes of the adepts of this conception is to justify the capitalist system, employing in particular racist argumentation. As if this were not enough, `` sociobiology" claims to ``combine'' the ideas of Darwin, Lenin, Freud and Einstein. Others maintain that the ``new microtechnology" will, all by itself, transform the system of exploitation into some sort of ``post-industrial'' or ``technetronic'' society, where class contradictions will fade away.At bottom, however, all these ``innovative'' ideas are no more than dogged (but futile) attempts to revive old ideas by tricking them out in new presentations. Their purpose remains the same: to substitute scientific and technical progress for social revolution and---most of all---to minimise the international and world historic import of the great revolutionary social transformations that were begun in Russia in October 1917.
There is much talk in the West about the ``reideologisation'' of public life. In fact, bourgeois ideologues have simply put aside the mask of ``deideologisation''. Ideological conflicts are characteristic of all phases of the international class struggle, but today, both in the international arena and within capitalist society, the ideological aspects of the class struggle are more important than ever.
Imperialism has been forced to accept the ideological challenge of socialism. Such acceptance does not mean, however, that imperialism is ready for an honest, open confrontation of progressive, socialist ideas with reactionary, bourgeois ideology. The apologists of imperialism have tried various ploys: making a show of ``modernising'' non-Marxist conceptions, they have brought forth ``neo-liberalism'', ``neo-conservatism'', ``neo-technocratism'', or the ``new philosophy" and ``neo-internationalism'', as well as an opportunistic ``neo-Marxism'', which are opposed to the theory of scientific socialism, and still other doctrines.
The reason for all these ploys is the fundamental, irreversible change that has taken place in the balance of class forces all over the world, which has extensive ideological and political consequences. Anti-communists cannot help but feel concern when they see that the international position and authority of existing socialism are steadily growing stronger and that the forces of peace, of national and social liberation, are winning ever new victories. The editors of Time, remarking the indisputable ``global advances socialism has made" in 152 recent decades, write that by their reckoning ``self-proclaimed socialists of one variety or another rule 53 of the world's sovereign states, controlling 39 per cent of its territory and 42 percent of its population".^^1^^ Citing Encounter, they quote this observation by French political philosopher Raymond Aron: ``In most countries, socialism carries the connotation that whatever is good is socialist, whatever is bad originates in capitalism."^^2^^ Time also quotes a well-known American economist Milton Friedman: ``[For many,] socialism implies egalitarianism and that people are living for society, while capitalism has been given the connotation of materialism, `greeedy', `selfish', `self-serving', and so on."^^3^^
The intensification of economic contradictions and social antagonisms associated with the unfolding of the general crisis of capitalism has made the system of exploitation less and less attractive to the general masses. Confidence in the capitalist mode of production has been further undermined by the world-wide economic crisis of the 1970s; mass unemployment; galloping inflation; the aggravation of energy, environmental and other problems; and the inability of Western ruling circles to resolve, through state-monopolist regulation, the social and economic contradictions that arose in the wake of the modern scientific and technological revolution. In the West, F. A. Hayek comments, ``it is no longer possible to ignore that more and more thoughtful and well-meaning people are slowly losing their faith in what was to them once the inspiring ideal of [bourgeois---T. T. ] democracy."^^4^^ These are the words of a scholar who supports ``free enterprise''; as such, they bespeak the indisputability of growing disenchantment with the capitalist system.
This disenchantment also accounts, to a certain degree, for the collapse of the illusion that the social, economic, ideological and other differences between capitalism and socialism are diminishing. ``The old convergence theory," as Raymond Aron notes, ``is out of fashion."^^5^^ Instead of convergence, Aron calls for ``divergence'' (differentiation based on _-_-_
~^^1^^ Time, March 13, 1978, p. 12. Of course, not all of these countries are headed by adherents of scientific socialism. But the important fact here is that there are fewer and fewer people in the world for whom a system of exploitation is attractive; even among bourgeoisreformist politicians, the number who dare to openly defend capitalism before the masses is declining.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ F. A. Hayek, ``The Miscarriage of the Democratic Ideal'', Encounter Vol. L, No. 3, March 1978, p. 14.
~^^5^^ Raymond Aron, ``My Defence of Our Decadent Europe'', Encounter, Vol. XLIX, No. 3, September 1977, p. 34.
153 principle) between capitalist and socialist countries.The social conflicts of the capitalist world and the chronic difficulties and disorders in its economic base also contribute to the crisis processes in its ideological and political superstructure. The crisis of the political system of capitalism is growing more acute: its basic social and political forces are sharply polarised; the masses are becoming radicalised, their political orientation is shifting to the left, and they are demanding fundamental social change; ever more frequently the machinery of manipulation is frustrated by the behaviour of the majority of voters. As the crisis intensifies, the ruling circles have less and less room to manoeuvre.
As Leonid Brezhnev told the 25th Congress of the CPSU: ``The politico-ideological crisis of bourgeois society is more acute. It afflicts the institutions of power and bourgeois political parties, and undermines elementary ethical standards. Corruption is increasingly open, even in the top echelons of the state machinery.''^^1^^
There have been repeated disclosures and legal proceedings in connection with bribe-taking in high places: the actions of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in Japan, Italy and other countries are examples. The moral and political reverberations of the Watergate affair can still be felt in the USA; the discussion concerning its origins and significance continues. Such scandals have deeply shaken the ideology of bourgeois society. America's leaders, George C. Lodge writes frankly, ``seem to suffer from downright ideological schizophrenia''; confronted with new conditions that they cannot accept subjectively, ``they persist in trying to legitimise the new in the language of the old. The result is ... confusion, hypocrisy, paralysis, and the danger that ... rights and liberties of the individual... will be trampled down."^^2^^
Marxist-Leninist parties maintain that in conditions of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems neither international ideological and political contradictions nor the internal social antagonisms of capitalism abate; on the contrary, they continue to develop, manifesting themselves in diverse ways.
The monopoly bourgeoisie have tried to derive a ``new'' justification for reactionary policies from terrorist acts by ``left'' and right extremists in capitalist countries, as well as the actual rapprochement, in certain areas, of the two groups' ideological platforms.
Henry Kissinger, speaking on American television, has _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 34.
~^^2^^ George C. Lodge, Op. Cit., pp. 276--77.
154 attempted to convince his audience that the concepts `` terrorism" and ``communism'' are identical, that Communists are responsible for terrorist acts by extremist, including ultra-left and pseudo-revolutionary, groups. The purpose of these false accusations is to steer political life to the right under cover of an outcry about a ``rampant anarchy" that requires drastic measures to restore ``order''.The actions of ``left'' extremists prove that, in fact, they oppose the working people in their fight for the creation of a broad coalition of anti-fascist forces: they are trying to sow discord in the ranks of the progressive, anti-imperialist movement. The same is true of the Maoists who, rejecting the policy of peaceful coexistence and the relaxation of international tensions and supporting reactionary, militarist forces, unleashed an aggressive, criminal war against socialist Vietnam. The writings of extremist ideologues bring to mind Thomas Mann's apt remark about turning the tables: Mussolini and some of the nazi leaders, seeking to vindicate the aims of fascism, sometimes even tried to disguise it as a sort of ``left'' socialism.
In practice all the trends discussed above are, despite their external dissimilarity, alike in their opposition to the policies of progressive working people's organisations, to the interests and ideology of the working class. They are also strikingly similar in their systematic attacks on existing socialism. In essence the lack of a clearly defined class position places France's petty-bourgeois ``new philosophers'', as well as other ``left''- and right-opportunist ``neo-Marxists'', in the camp of the ``traditional'' reactionary bourgeois and Katheder-socialist ideology which has long since---and unsuccessfully---disputed the international significance of the October Revolution and its world historic consequences.
Many of these petty-bourgeois ideologies have (like bourgeois historians) belittled the significance of Leninism and distorted the actual social nature of the results of the world's first successful proletarian revolution. They present a vulgar interpretation of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the state, and ignore the achievements of existing socialism.
In recent years several French authors, among them Maurice Duverger and Roger Garaudy, have vainly tried to ``overthrow'' Marxism-Leninism. They write of the need to ``overcome'' Leninism and the theoretical and methodological bases of the integral communist philosophy. It is not hard to see that the forces of reaction are hoping that renewed attacks on existing socialism, whatever the source, will help them to stifle internal criticism of the glaring violations of human rights in the capitalist world.
The words of Leonid Brezhnev may be cited as a decisive 155 answer to the sundry critics of socialist democracy: ``We stand firm by the position that the democracy of socialism is incompatible with any barracks-type bureaucratic order or any anarchistic libertarianism in relation to socialist principles, standards and laws."^^1^^
Marxists-Leninists contrast their own analysis of social phenomena, which is rigorously scientific and dialectical, with the actual petty-bourgeois or bourgeois interpretation of the problems of democracy and government, which pretends to be ``above'' class considerations. The advocates of pettybourgeois democracy (such as the ideologues of the Second International, for example) are usually characterised, as Lenin noted, by ``an aversion to class struggle, by their dreams of avoiding it, by their efforts to smooth over, to reconcile, to remove sharp corners. Such democrats, therefore, either avoid recognising any necessity for a whole historical period of transition from capitalism to communism or regard it as their duty to concoct schemes for reconciling the two contending forces instead of leading the struggle of one of these forces."^^2^^
In the mounting confrontation of the two world systems, the main tactics of world imperialism are, first, to prevent the new opportunities, opened up by the relaxation of international tensions as a result of the broadening and deepening of the world revolutionary movement, from being used to unite the forces of peace and democracy; second, to halt the growth of the appeal of socialism to the general masses; and, third, to draw attention away from the major processes of social development, which unswervingly lead to the weakening of the position of world capitalism.
But none of these devices can attain the chief goal---to halt the spread of socialist ideas. Events in the capitalist world are confirming, in every way, the conclusion reached at the 25th Congress of the CPSU: the revolutionary process, whose social base and principal motive force is the proletariat, is intensifying.
Today capitalism is undergoing a grave ideological crisis; it is totally unable to oppose scientific socialism by offering alternatives that would be attractive to the masses. The ideological decline of the bourgeoisie is a characteristic manifestation of the crisis of capitalism, which became more grave during the 1970s.
_-_-_~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, ``A Historic Stage on the Road to Communism'', World Marxist Review, No. 12, December 1977, p. 11.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 108.
[156] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ V __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE TRADITIONSIn analysing the strategy and tactics of the international communist movement of today Marxists-Leninists* regularly refer back to the movement's ideological and theoretical primary sources.
, The rise of Bolshevism is the principal landmark in the history of the world proletariat's struggle; the communist movement fully appreciates the experience gained by the Party of Lenin in its heroic battles and victories, and the value of that rich experience for the forces of revolution today.
``We now possess quite considerable international experience,"^^1^^ wrote Lenin in 1920. Today that experience has been immeasurably broadened. Following Lenin's methodology, it is possible and necessary to speak in two senses of the international significance of the activities of the CPSU: first (more broadly), of the direct effect of the revolutionary, class policies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on world affairs and, second (more narrowly), of the international importance of the .Party's manysided experience for the development of the international communist _-_-_
~^^1^^ V.I. Lenin, ''~`Left-Wing' Communism--- an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31. p. 21.
157 and workers' movement of today.Many fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties have emphasised the vast importance for all nations of the great experience of Lenin's Party. In a congratulatory message sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, declared: ``Under the leadership of Lenin a historically new type of party came into being, a party armed with a Marxist-Leninist programme. The development of the world communist movement and its evolution into the most influential political force of our time are inseparable from the glorious course of the Party of Lenin: the triumph of the October Revolution and the building of a developed socialist society.... Soviet Communists are confidently leading the way to victory in the cause first taken up by Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks at the Second Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. Today the Soviet people, mankind's pioneers in social progress, are moving forward, under the leadership of the CPSU, towards the building of communism and the removal of the scourge of war."^^1^^
At the centre of Marxist-Leninist theory today are vitally important topics such as the application of Leninist methodology in working out a scientific strategy for the workers' movement, and the tactics by which that strategy can best be realised during the present intensification of the general crisis of capitalism; the proper evaluation of the balance of social and political forces in the modern world as a necessary condition for effective implementation of correct, class policies by the revolutionary workers' movement; the interaction, under modern conditions, of the struggle for democracy with the struggle for socialism; analysis of new opportunities for broader socio-political alliances of the working class and its vanguard with other progressive social and political forces; and the connection between the policy of peaceful coexistence of states with different social structures and the struggle of the revolutionary workers' movement (and of all democratic forces) for social progress.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Revolutionary Theory and Practice:Lenin wrote that revolutionary Marxist theory dialectically ``combines the quality of being strictly and supremely _-_-_
~^^1^^ Pravda, August 3,1973.
158 scientific ... with that of being revolutionary".^^1^^ Communist strategy and tactics are based on careful consideration of the sum and interaction of all subjective and objective factors at the given historical moment; they require a scientific assessment of the level and contradictions of social development.Given this scientific approach, the success of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard depends not a little on the degree of maturity of the workers' movement, on the state of its organisation, on its ideological and political development, and on its links with the masses.
The thorough study and creative application of Lenin's theory of the growth of bourgeois-democratic revolutions and general democratic mass actions into socialist revolutions is invaluable for Marxists-Leninists, as is Lenin's experience in working out, on the basis of that theory, an effective programme of political struggle for the working class.^^2^^ Lenin repeatedly stressed that Marxists must never, even in the thick of the struggle, lose sight of the fundamental goals of the workers' movement. ``To reduce the entire movement to the interests of the moment means...'' as Lenin wrote, ``artificially to break the link between the working-class movement and socialism, between the fully defined political strivings of the advanced workers and the spontaneous manifestations of protest on the part of the masses."^^3^^
Leninist strategy and tactics take into account the dialectical interconnection between the objectives of the general democratic and socialist struggles. ``To the Marxist,'' wrote Lenin, ``the problem is simply to avoid either of two extremes: on the one hand, not to fall into the error of those who say that, from the standpoint of the proletariat, we are in no way concerned with any immediate and temporary non-proletarian tasks, and on the other, not to allow the proletariat's co-- operation in the attainment of the immediate democratic tasks, to dim its class-consciousness and its class distinctiveness."^^4^^
Lenin saw the consistent combination and coordination of the proletarian and general democratic movements (with the former in the leading, defining role) as one of the basic principles to be applied in formulating a correct political strategy for the proletarian party and for working out _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``What the `Friends of the People' Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats'', Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 327.
~^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats", Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 328.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-- Democracy", Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 284.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Reply to Criticism of Our Draft Programme'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 446.
159 methods for the effective realisation of that strategy in the revolutionary struggle. His position was, as history showed, opposed both to that of the right revisionists and to that of the ``left'' doctrinaires. The social-reformists, who misinterpreted the relationship of general democratic movements to the struggle for socialism, tended to underestimate the importance of the proletariat's ultimate, socialist goals; some of the ``left'' adventurists, on the contrary, underestimated or totally ignored the objectives of the working class during the general democratic stage of its struggle.The question of the social and political alliances of the proletariat is of ever greater importance. The working class, Lenin maintained, is the leader in the fight for democracy; as he set the stage for the first Russian revolution, he insisted that no one can call himself a socialist who forgets in practice that the proletarian vanguard supports all revolutionary movements, ``who forgets in practice his obligation to be ahead of all in raising, accentuating, and solving every general democratic question".^^1^^
Leninism does not at all construe the leadership of the proletariat and its revolutionary vanguard in the liberation movement as a barrier that cuts other social forces and political parties off from participation in the struggle for democracy and socialism. On the contrary, it has been the strategy and tactics of Leninism to direct the working class and its party towards the activisation of all revolutionary and opposition strata in society. In pursuance of this goal the revolutionary ``Social-Democrats must go among all classes of the population; they must dispatch units of their army in all directions".^^2^^
In carrying out their historical mission the working class and its revolutionary vanguard must accomplish a dual task: first, to unite the various strata of the proletariat---in particular, to secure the alliance of white- and blue-collar workers; second, to set up a system of alliances and agreements with non-proletarian social strata and groups. In the words of Lenin: ``The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skilful and obligatory use~... of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally.... Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general."^^3^^ The working class, in Lenin's view, _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``What Is To Be Done?'', Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 425.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 422.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 70--71.
160 ``becomes revolutionary only insofar as it does not restrict itself to the narrow framework of craft interests, only when in all matters and spheres of public life, it acts as the leader of all the toiling and exploited masses".^^1^^In treating the question of the allies of the proletariat, Lenin took into consideration all strata and groups that might be able to undertake such a role. Lenin's teaching on the alliance of the working class and the peasantry in the democratic and socialist revolutions, and also in the building of socialism, was---and remains---one of the leading theoretical principles in the strategy and tactics of the international communist and workers' movement.
Furthermore, as Lenin perspicaciously noted, the development of capitalism works steadily to ally the intelligentsia with the proletariat, since ``capitalism increasingly deprives the intellectual of his independent position, converts him into a hired worker and threatens to lower his living standard".^^2^^
Lenin's works spell out the political (as well as social) attitude of the proletarian vanguard towards its alliances. Lenin saw the vindication of the revolutionary proletariat's ideological positions of principle, and the criticism of nonproletarian ideas, as an indispensable requirement in such alliances and agreements; he demanded that the ability to make the necessary compromises be combined with strict adherence to communist ideas.^^3^^
Events in several countries have shown that the relation of the proletariat and its organisations to the armed forces may be of major importance in the light of the problem of political alliances. Here again, the traditions established by Lenin and his comrades-in-arms in the years before the 1905--1907 revolution in Russia, and subsequently augmented and elaborated by the Bolsheviks, are highly instructive for the workers' movement.^^4^^ Again and again Lenin declared that Socialists must devote the most serious attention to the army, emphasised the importance of revolutionary `` _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 194.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Review. Karl Kautsky. `Bernstein und das sozialdemokratische Programm. Eine Antikritik'~'', Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 202.
~^^3^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party'', Collected Works, Vol.12, p. 473; ``The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party in the Russian Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 358.
~^^4^^ See: The Struggle of the Bolsheviks for the Army in Three Revolutions, Moscow, 1969 (in Russian).
161 propaganda and agitation in the army'', and recommended that ``all efforts should be made for the speediest strengthening and proper channeling of all the existing contacts among the officers and other ranks".^^1^^Opportunities for strengthening connections with the armed forces have grown still greater during the present intensification of the general crisis of capitalism, under which the armed forces more and more come to be a sort of replica of society. The ruling class ordinarily regards the armed forces as an instrument for social repression; in their own way, however, they also reflect (although not always adequately) the social and class structures of society, and the struggle of different political forces for one or another political orientation.
Leninism teaches that all sides of the concrete historical situation must be taken into account. Here is what Lenin wrote about the various forms of struggle: ``In the first place, Marxism differs from all primitive forms of socialism by not binding the movement to any one particular form of struggle.... Under no circumstances does Marxism confine itself to the forms of struggle possible and in existence at the given moment only, recognising as it does that new forms of struggle, unknown to the participants of the given period, inevitably arise as the given social situation changes.... In the second place, Marxism demands an absolutely historical examination of the question of the forms of struggle. To treat this question apart from the concrete historical situation betrays a failure to understand the rudiments of dialectical materialism."^^2^^
Lenin maintained that the choice of methods, and their application in the revolutionary struggle, must depend on a number of considerations, including the particular circumstances (international and internal) at the moment, the degree of political activity among the masses, and the condition of, and growth of contradictions among, the forces of counter-revolution. He insisted that a true revolutionary must be skilled in all forms of struggle, and must be ready to switch quickly from one form to another as circumstances alter. At the same time he stressed the importance of keeping the overall strategic goals of the international proletariat in view, of choosing tactics and forms of struggle that accord with those goals and with basic international principles. He saw the general and the particular in the revolutionary _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Second Congress of the R. S. D. L. P., July 17 (30)-- August 10 (23), 1903'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 480.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Guerrilla Warfare'', Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp. 213,214.
162 activity of the proletariat and its organisations as a dialectical unity, and spoke of applying the general principles of revolutionary theory in a way ``which will correctly modify these principles in certain particulars, correctly adapt and apply them to national and national-state distinctions".^^1^^Lenin affirmed that national opportunism can result from forgetting the general principles of revolutionary strategy in the pursuit of immediate, tactical considerations, from absolutising the specific, national side of the policies of a particular segment of the world proletariat, to the detriment of its internationalist duties. He held it necessary to fight ``against small-nation narrow-mindedness, seclusion and isolation, consider the whole and the general, subordinate the particular to the general interest".^^2^^
Lenin's understanding of the dialectics of the internal and external factors in the revolutionary process is opposed to the one-sided, metaphysical interpretations of this inter-- relation made by sundry opportunist ``theoreticians''. As Lenin repeatedly emphasised, the unity of action of the international working class does not consist in a mechanical aggregation of revolutionary efforts by workers in different countries; the Communists of every country, in carrying out their revolutionary tasks, must in every way support the world anti-imperialist movement and thus fulfil their duty to the international working class. Communist and workers' parties base themselves on the principles of action worked out by Lenin for a proletarian party of a new type; they strive to creatively develop and effectively implement those principles under the conditions of today.
A fierce battle has been, and is being, waged between scientific communism and its various opponents over the character, goals and achievements of the CPSU, a party of a new type, and over its theoretical, political and organisational principles. The reason for this struggle is obvious: as the world revolutionary process continues to unfold, and as the effect exerted by the victorious working class and its communist vanguard on the course of world history and on the development of present international relations steadily increases, the masses of the planet's working people ask themselves more and more often about the sources of the strength, and the causes of the success and growing world influence of the Party of Lenin and of its policy and ideology.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 92.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up'', Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 347.
163Some Western propagandists, forced by the striking achievements of the CPSU to acknowledge, more and more frequently, the effectiveness of the policies of Soviet Communists, have sought new, more ``refined'' weapons for their struggle with Marxist-Leninist ideology. One of their devices is a spurious opposition of the goals of the proletariat's struggle for socialism to the general democratic demands of the masses. Sydney Hook, a noted bourgeois philosopher, is among those who have used this device. While acknowledging the indisputable achievements of Leninism (``the organisation of the Russian Communist Party into a new and unique political party" and ``the conquest of political power in Russia by this new and unique party''), he tries to suggest that the reason for the mounting international popularity of the CPSU's policies lies not in the programme of the Bolsheviks, but simply in their humanitarianism, their opposition to war. Moreover, we are. told that this anti-- militarism is ``contrary'' to the class goals of the revolutionary proletarian movement.^^1^^
But this opposition is artificial: it has no basis in reality. The founders of scientific socialism proclaimed lasting peace and the triumph of ethical norms in international relations to be one of the chief goals of the revolutionary workers' movement, a goal which is dialectically connected with the struggle of the masses for genuine freedom and social progress, against reactionary, imperialist aggression. The deep expression of this connection in the documents of the CPSU and of the world communist movement is confirmed in practice by the Soviet Communist Party's active, successful implementation of the Peace Programme approved at the 24th and further elaborated at the 25th Congress of the CPSU.
A favourite contrivance of the opponents of communism is the claim that the social base of the CPSU is ``deteriorating'' and that consequently the Party's social leadership has ``weakened'' and the class orientation of its policies ``shifted''. Such claims have been made by bourgeois-reformist authors, and seconded by Maoist and Trotskyite ideologues. Daniel Bell, for instance, has circulated the counterfeit argument that under today's conditions the Communist Party can no longer play a vanguard role. He has tried to validate his assertion by arbitrarily interpreting the changes that the scientific and technological revolution has brought about in the structure of society as an ``erosion of the working class in post-- industrial society''. On these doubtful grounds Bell alleges _-_-_
~^^1^^ Sidney Hook, ``Lenin and the Communist International'', The Russian Review, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 1973, pp.1-2, 4-5.
164 that Marxist-Leninist parties are suffering an ideological crisis, that they are losing their class identity and undergoing a social and ideological metamorphosis.^^1^^It is not hard to see that the ``reasoning'' of Bell and his followers is based, first, on a distortion of the Marxist-Leninist doctrines about the historical mission of the proletariat, including scientific communism's conceptions of the principles governing the quantitative and qualitative growth of the working class. Second, they place an incorrect interpretation on the changes that have taken place in the structure of the modern working class; in particular, the increase in the number of workers in new professions, which usually do not involve physical labour, is misrepresented as a deepening of class distinctions. In this way the ever rising level of education inherent in the working class as a consequence of its growing culture and communist consciousness is ``alienated'' from it with no reason whatsoever.
As Leonid Brezhnev has pointed out: ``At the dawn of his revolutionary activity V. I. Lenin spoke with respect about 'intellectual workers' who formed the vanguard of their class. There were few of them at the time. Now they number millions, and this is quite natural. This is one of the great achievements of our Party, of socialism. The nearer we get to communism, the closer the ties between physical and mental labour. Nowadays a worker often operates big and sophisticated sets of machinery which not every engineer could cope with before."^^2^^
The opponents of scientific socialism have also made countless attempts to belittle the international significance of the CPSU, to place unwarranted limitations---either strictly national or regional---on the realm of application of Leninist principles. Paul Hollander, a bourgeois sociologist, in his ``comparative study" of Soviet and American society and politics writes that ``the Communist Party of the Soviet Union arose in response to specific political needs and Lenin's perception of them. Its elitist character reflected Russian socio-political conditions, in particular the difficulty of organising and mobilising the peasant masses."^^3^^
Events have long since exploded such fictions and proved (despite the protests of the anti-communists and the diverse revisionists) that the experience accumulated by the CPSU over the past decades is a major organic part of the body of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting, Basic Books, New York, 1973, pp. 40, 99--105.
^^2^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Following Lenin's Course, Moscow, 1975, p. 225.
~^^3^^ Paul Hollander, Soviet and American Society. A Comparison, Oxford University Press, New York, 1973, p. 54.
165 international revolutionary experience.Communists actively resist all forms of distortion of the relation between the general patterns of the revolutionary workers' movement and its specific features in various countries or regions.
Marxists-Leninists reject the attempts of right revisionists (Roger Garaudy, Ernst Fischer), who attempt to minimise the international significance of the fundamental conclusions of the unified internationalist Marxist-Leninist doctrine, to question their applicability in every country, and to belittle the importance of class principles and of the experience of the CPSU for the international revolutionary movement.
Marxists-Leninists also reject certain recent anti-Soviet theories, which are sometimes camouflaged in ``leftist'' phrases. The supporters of these theories, seeking to vindicate policies and ideology alien to Marxism-Leninism, would like to replace Soviet experience, which has become the property of the working people of the whole world, with Maoist, nationalchauvinist schemes, to artificially segregate it from the experience of the world-wide revolutionary, workers''and anti-imperialist movement. Leonid Brezhnev has written: ``We value the contribution of each people, of each MarxistLeninist party to the international treasure-house of socialism. From these common constructive efforts, expressing all the multiformity of reality, there grows up the great experience of world socialism, which is the possession of all mankind.''^^1^^
The great Party of Lenin is the first proletarian party of a new type; it carried out the first successful socialist revolution in history and is paving the way to communism for mankind. Because of its unique role in the entire course of the world revolutionary process, Lenin's Party has also made the largest contribution to the working out of diverse forms of struggle: legal and illegal, overt and covert, peaceful and violent. It has shown great proficiency in applying, and in rapidly alternating, these forms of struggle, and great effectiveness in organising and leading the working class and the general masses. Thus the many-sided experience of the CPSU can serve as a model for revolutionary working-class organisations under the most varied circumstances.
Other socialist parties recognise that reference to the experience of the CPSU and skilful application of that experience are among the major preconditions for determining their correct policy, and for strengthening their influence among the masses. Todor Zhivkov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, _-_-_
~^^1^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The CPSU in the Struggle for Unity of All Revolutionary and Peace Forces, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 44.
166 notes: ``Studying the experience of the CPSU and other fraternal parties, our Party finds the answers to many vital questions, thus avoiding unnecessary search and waste of time."^^1^^ The same idea has been expressed by the leaders of communist parties in capitalist countries, where the vanguard of the working class must strive patiently and persistently to strengthen its ties with the masses, to broaden its class alliances, and to draw more and more social strata into the fight against imperialism. Rodney Arismendi, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uruguay, has written that the study of the international experience of the communist movement, and in particular of the CPSU, makes it possible for Marxist parties to apply the general truths of Marxism-Leninism more effectively to the revolutionary movement in various countries and on various continents.^^2^^The workers' movement in every country must make use of the experience of the proletarian parties of other countries, but this problem must not be interpreted subjectivistically or arbitrarily. A proper, genuinely scientific approach to this problem must be founded on the MarxistLeninist doctrine of the dialectical relation between the international and the national. Lenin's writings contain many statements of the importance to Communists of the ability ``to seek out, investigate, predict, and grasp that which is nationally specific and nationally distinctive, in the concrete manner in which each country should tackle a single international task".^^3^^
The communist and workers' movement in capitalist countries is enriching its own experience as it fights its class battles; at the same time it strives to make the fullest use possible of the experience of the CPSU and of other fraternal parties. On these two bases the movement has constructed a platform for the struggle against the monopolies that takes into account the new balance of class forces in the world, the concrete historical conditions of each country, the level of class consciousness of the proletariat, and the activity of other social strata allied to the working class. The successes of a number of communist parties in uniting the left forces attest to their creative approach to Lenin's idea about the formation of broad class alliances.
The enemies of communism have vainly claimed that _-_-_
~^^1^^ World Marxist Review, Vol. 14, No. 4, April 1971, p. 2.
~^^2^^ See: Rodney Arismendi, Problemas de una revolucion continental, Bdiciones Pueblos Unidos, Montevideo, 1962, p. 58.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 92.
167 Marxists-Leninists deny the existence of a variety of ways and means for leading the masses to revolution and specific forms for making the transition to socialism. It should be recalled that the variety of possible means for making that transition was recognised earlier, in the Party Programme approved at the Second Congress of the Russian SocialDemocratic Labour Party, which states that proletarian organisations in different countries, ``on the path to a common ultimate goal, which is determined by the ascendancy of the capitalist form of production all over the civilised world ... must set themselves unlike immediate goals, both because the development of capitalism is not uniform throughout the world and because in different countries that development is proceeding under different social and political circumstances".^^1^^But while noting the natural diversity of the concrete forms and methods of the class struggle, the Bolshevik Party bore constantly in mind the laws of social and historical development, which are the same for all countries. This can be seen in the programmatic documents of the Party, in the way that Lenin and his followers treated basic theoretical and ideological questions in analysing trends and prospects for change in the social structure, of the exploitative society and in the documents of the international communist movement.
Vanguard proletarian organisations in capitalist countries derive useful lessons not only from the theoretical and programmatic documents of the CPSU but also from its tactical and political principles. As representatives of fraternal communist parties have rightly pointed out, the power of big capital cannot be destroyed in the chief centres of modern imperialism by a frontal attack; instead, the struggle must concentrate on strategic objectives, and on uniting all of the forces of progress and democracy. In pursuing such aims Communists are holding true to the Leninist tradition. During his term as President of the Administrative Council of the Maurice Thorez Institute, Georges Cogniot wrote: ``Lenin himself repeatedly stressed that in order to attain socialism the forces of the proletariat must be united with the forces of other social strata and classes into a broad front of progressive elements. To be sure, all the enemies of Marxism-Leninism, all the licensed enemies of the Soviet Union, distort this doctrine. They repeat, one after the other, that the Bolsheviks never succeeded in uniting the left.... In fact, the Bolsheviks often employed the tactics of the united _-_-_
~^^1^^ The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1970, p. 62 (in Russian).
168 front, and their fight against the errors in the policies of the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in no way precluded joint actions [with these groups]. We are reminded of just this ... by the use of left-bloc tactics and compromises in Russia during the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolutionary movement.... The Bolsheviks formed effective alliances with parties to the left of the big bourgeoisie on several occasions. And later on, when Lenin insistently recommended ... a united-front policy to the non-Russian parties at the Third International, he had every right to adduce the experience of his own party, his own country.''Cogniot wrote further that ``if the Marxist party is to be truly a vanguard of the proletarian and non-proletarian masses ... it must not hang back from forming a left bloc. A united front must be effected, as Lenin demanded, for the struggle and in the struggle.''^^1^^
The strategic, tactical and organisational principles of the Bolshevik Party have proved correct over many years of successful struggle; this is convincing evidence of their historic significance.
Thus, as recognised by other fraternal parties, the experience of the CPSU in the realm of ideological, political and organisational principles, in strategy and tactics and in political and ideological practice is an enormous asset to the world revolutionary proletarian movement, to vanguard proletarian organisations working in the most varied circumstances: in the countries of the world socialist community, in industrial capitalist countries (both those with a relatively high and those with an intermediate level of development of state-monopoly capitalism), and in Asian, African and Latin American countries.
The effective dissemination and skilful use of the wealth of experience accumulated by the Party of Lenin have an enduring significance for other countries: they are destined to be the means of attracting ever more working people on every continent to the bright ideals of communism, and of involving them more rapidly in the struggle for the triumph of those ideals.
__*_*_*__The objective conditions, concrete forms and scale of mass movements of the working people at the present stage in the international class struggle are not a little different from those of past decades. As the years have gone by a number of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Cahiers d'histoire de {'Institute Maurice Thorez, January-- February-March 1973, pp. 11, 12, 13, 15.
169 new tendencies and phenomena have appeared in world social and political life. But it is impossible to gain a deep understanding of the preconditions of these changes, or to correctly evaluate their sources, without turning to the study of the legacy of Lenin and of the experience of the Communist International (in whose formation Lenin actively participated) and the other progressive mass organisations that cooperated with it. The study of the lessons of that period, of the experience of those days in mass struggle and in the elaboration of policy for the workers', anti-monopolist and anti-- imperialist movement, is of the greatest importance for the proletariat and its class organisations.The Communist International played a major role in the formation of the modern international communist movement. It did much to strengthen the ideology, policies and organisation of communist parties, and to unify them under the banner of proletarian internationalism. The Comintern made a highly valuable contribution to the development of the Marxist-Leninist strategy and tactics of the revolutionary workers' movement. It snowed the ways to ensure an effective alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry both internationally and under the conditions of various countries; it advanced the idea of a unified popular and workers' front against fascism and imperialism, it evolved a basis for communist parties' policies on war and peace; it led a decisive struggle against various types of right and ``left'' opportunism, against nationalism and attempts to falsely oppose the interests of different segments of the world proletariat, or of different currents in the world revolutionary movement, to one another. The Comintern was an invaluable aid in the joining together of Leninism and the international revolutionary workers' movement. The Leninist legacy of the Comintern is of vital importance in the struggle of the international proletariat. ``The whole of the many-faceted activity of this international organisation of Communists was directed towards the attainment of the supreme goals of the working class, towards the development of the world revolutionary process."^^1^^
The principal aspects of the activity of the Communist International have been treated from every angle in the works of Georgi Dimitrov, Otto Kuusinen, Palmiro Togliatti, Bela Kun, Dmitri Manuilsky and other important figures in the international communist movement. Bela Kun, in writing about the importance of thorough assimilation of every element of Leninism by communist parties all over the world, _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. N. Ponomarev, ``On the 60th Anniversary of the Formation of the Communist International'', Kommunist, No. 5, 1979, p. 24.
170 has rightly insisted that the study and ``popularisation of Lenin's teachings among the working-class masses, including those outside the Communist Party, is one of the most important immediate political tasks of every communist party....``One can say that the communist parties of Western and Central Europe stand perhaps in greater need of a thorough assimilation of Lenin's precepts than the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). And this is not only because they have not at their disposal an old guard seasoned by prolonged struggle against opportunism and by revolutionary action, but because they are, as the whole history of the Communist International shows, very much given to veering either to the left or to the right and vice versa, and are less able to resist such tendencies than the masses of the Russian Communist Party. Under such circumstances the best remedy is---a thorough assimilation of Lenin's teachings."^^1^^
It must be kept in mind that the opponents of MarxismLeninism do everything in their power to belittle the experience of the Comintern and to distort its legacy. Many of them (such as, for example, Franz Borkenau and Raymond Aron) try to maintain that almost the entire work of the Comintern was characterised by ``defeats'', that it was ``condemned to failure between 1917 and 1939".^^2^^ Others (such as Milorad M. Drachkovitch and Branko Lazitch) assert with no justification that the Comintern was theoretically and intellectually barren, speak of ``the decrease in the Comintern's combat strength'',^^3^^ and so on.
These modern ``critics'' of the Comintern have forgotten that even the reformist ideologues of its time were of a completely different opinion about its activities. For example, Otto Bauer, a social-reformist theoretician, was forced to admit that the strength of the Comintern was in its active internationalism.^^4^^
These are the facts, which no one will ever succeed in doing away with: the Comintern, acting in a period of growing internationalism in the workers' movement, was the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Bela Kun, ``The Propaganda of Leninism'', The Communist International, No. 2,1924, pp. 104, 106.
~^^2^^ Raymond Aron, World Communism. A History of the Communist International, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1962, PP. 3, 6-7.
^^3^^ Milorad M. Drachkovitch and Branko Lazitch, ``The Communist International''. In: The Revolutionary Internationals, 1864--1943, ed. by Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1966, pp. 159--202.
~^^4^^ The Communist International, No. 12 (49), 1925, p. 147 (in Russian).
171 most powerful and all-embracing international workers' organisation in the history of the revolutionary proletarian movement; it fought in the front lines against the forces of imperialist reaction, and was at the centre of the worldwide revolutionary liberation process between the First and Second World Wars, i. e., throughout the first phase of the general crisis of capitalism.While acknowledging the growth of communist-led mass movements, the foes of Leninism often seek to attribute the successes of some communist parties to a sort of `` pragmatism'', their ``renunciation'' of the ultimate goals and revolutionary ideals of the proletarian movement. Some writers in the West have even circulated the lie that the Comintern was ``ultimately transformed ... into an anti-- revolutionary [?~!] organisation".^^1^^
What we are dealing With here, obviously, are attempts to set up an artificial opposition between the adherence to revolutionary principle, and the tactical flexibility that are equally characteristic of the communist movement. The logic employed in these attempts is more or less the following: if the Comintern, and the world communist movement as a whole, have achieved important victories, this is the `` handiwork of Moscow'', the result of an ``international conspiracy'', and therefore, we are told, contrary to the national interests of the masses; if the policies of some sections of the Comintern met with growing approval among the masses, exerting an ever greater influence on the social life of the nation, this was virtually an indication of the ``failure'' of international communism, or testimony to a ``weakening'' of loyalty to the principles of internationalism among the working people of that country and their politically conscious vanguard.
Bourgeois-reformist ideologues cannot, or will not, comprehend the organic unity of the fundamental national and international tasks of the revolutionary workers' movement, the dialectical relation of Leninist world strategy to the policies of each fraternal party.
This relation was clearly manifested in the working out of the most important questions facing the revolutionary proletarian movement, including the strategy and tactics of the united front. Because of the effectiveness in practice of this Comintern policy, the enemies of communism have made a special effort to falsify the historical truth about its genesis and development. They try to distort the essense of the resolutions, indeed of the entire tenor of the Seventh _-_-_
~^^1^^ Helmut Gruber, International Communism in the Era of Lenin. A Documentary History, Cornell University Press, Ithaca (N. Y.), 1967, p. 14.
172 Comintern Congress, and make believe that the call for a united front issued in the thirties was some sort of unexpected and short-lived ``zigzag'' in the politics of the world communist movement. Most of the Social-Democrats (from Friedrich Adler, Leon Blum and Karl Kautsky to reformist historians such as Julius Braunthal)^^1^^ have made such assertions.Such claims, however, are not supported by the generally recognised historical facts. The struggle for a united workers' front was not in any way an ``aberration'' from the general political line of the communist movement; it was and is a natural result of the consideration of the long-range interests of the proletariat and from the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin repeatedly stressed, even before the creation of the Comintern, the necessity of securing unity among the working class. In his article ``Working-Class Unity" (1913) he wrote: ``The working class needs unity.... Such a unity is infinitely precious, and infinitely important to the working class. Disunited, the workers are nothing. United, they are everything."^^2^^ The problem of the united workers' front was discussed a number of times at the plenums of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and at its Third and Fourth Congresses (1921, 1923).^^3^^ Lenin declared: ``We need a united front.... We adopted united front tactics ... and we shall pursue these tactics to the end."^^4^^ Long before the middle of the 1930s some of the leading figures in the international communist movement (Georgi Dimitrov, Clara Zetkin and others) were speaking of the need to unify anti-fascist forces.
It is true that after Lenin's death a tendency to look at the united workers' front from a tactical, rather than strategic, point of view appeared in some of the documents of the Comintern. As Mikhail Suslov has remarked there was no justification for the thesis, advanced by the Comintern in the late 1920s and early 1930s, that ``the Social-Democrats _-_-_
~^^1^^ Julius Braunthal, Geschichte der Internationale, Vol. 2, Verlag J.H.W. Dietz, Nachf. GMBH, Hannover, 1963, pp. 500--02; Marie Granet, ``L\'eon Blum, chef de gouvernement 1936--1937'', La Revue Socialiste, No. 183, May 1965, pp. 502--22.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 519.
~^^3^^ Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the III World Congress of the Communist International, June 22nd-July 12th, 1921. Published by the Press Bureau of the Communist International, Moscow, 1921. Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International Held in Moscow Nov. 7 to Dec. 3, 1922. Published for the Communist International by the Communist Party of Great Britain, London, 1922.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``We Have Paid Too Much'', Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 334.
173 presented the greatest danger; the fact that for a time the main attack was directed against them was essentially a manifestation of sectarian tendencies''. But these miscalculations were not cardinal points in the activity of the Comintern. In evaluating the entire history of the Comintern, its errors (although of course they must not be repeated) are dwarfed by comparison to its enormous positive value in raising the international workers' movement, and the revolutionary movement as a whole, to a new, higher level.^^1^^ In the 1930s, before, during and after the Seventh Congress, the Comintern not only embraced all of Lenin's ideas about the struggle for a united workers' front but also enriched them, creatively developed them to meet new circumstances; Lenin's ideas became the property of the entire world communist movement.^^2^^Moreover, the highly important decisions made in the mid-1930s about communist strategy and tactics, which helped accelerate the advance of the forces of world socialism, were based not on ``subjectivist considerations" but on the generalisation of the experience of the masses and on thorough analysis of recent processes. The Seventh Congress of the Communist International ``demonstrated the Communists' ability to make sober, realistic analyses and evaluations of their activity, to revise obsolete attitudes, and to apply Marxism-Leninism creatively in arriving at decisions that open the way to the future".^^3^^
These conclusions were prompted, in part, by an inquiry into the reasons for certain failures by the European proletariat, and by an analysis of the whole of its experience in the struggle against reaction and fascism. Let us recall, for example, the sharp criticism the Comintern made (back in the 1920s) of the views of Amadeo Bordiga^^4^^ and, in particular, of his incorrect, sectarian attitude, in the face of the rise of fascism in Italy, towards the formation of a united political front by the working class and all other anti-fascist forces. After the 1923 anti-fascist uprising in Bulgaria the Executive Committee of the Comintern and the leadership of _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. A. Suslov, On the Way to the Building of Communism. Speeches and Articles, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1977, p. 179 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See: The Seventh Congress of the Communist International and the Struggle Against Fascism and War, Moscow, 1975; The Communist Movement in the Lead of the Struggle for Peace, National and Social Emancipation (Towards the 40th Anniversary of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern), Moscow, 1976 (both in Russian).
~^^3^^ B. N. Ponomarev, ``On the 60th Anniversary of the Formation of the Communist International'', Kommunist, No. 5, 1979, p. 24.
~^^4^^ One of the leaders of the Italian Communist Party in the first half of the 1920s, known for his sectarian views.---Ed.
174 the Bulgarian Communist Party, which was headed by Georgi Dimitrov, rightly advocated the formation of a Popular Front for the fight against the forces of extreme reaction.~^^1^^ And, of course, the international proletariat and its communist vanguard could not fail to draw a serious lesson from the tragedy of the rise of fascism in Germany: not the least among the conditions that made Hitler's seizure of power possible was the split in the working class.But, on the other hand, the years preceding the Seventh Comintern Congress also saw some major gains in the mass workers' movement, foremost among which was a growth in trends towards unification. Recognising the growing fascist danger, the Communist Party of Spain began to form workers and anti-fascists into a united front. The first positive results of this policy began to appear in 1933--1934: broad-based mass organisations were formed; Communists entered into ``workers' alliances''; an agreement on united action was concluded with the Socialist Party; the Communists, Socialists and anarchists made concerted efforts during several important strikes and later, in 1934, during the heroic revolt of the miners of Asturias.
Highly important questions arose about the nature, limits and prospects of the united front. Is it merely a defensive policy, or can it also be used offensively? Do various workers' and other progressive groups close ranks only during outbreaks of reaction, only when ultra-right forces mount a frontal assault that threatens the bourgeois-- democratic order? Could a similar unity be achieved in the struggle of the masses against the very mainstays of monopoly capitalism, in the struggle for socialism? For the working class in capitalist countries a correct political orientation depended (and still depends) to a great extent on a proper approach to these questions.
Tied up with these questions is the discussion about the relation between general democratic and socialist goals in the policies of the united front. Two opposing, and equally incorrect, positions can be identified in this connection.
On the one hand, there was a desire to lay emphasis on the general democratic content of the policy of the united workers' and popular front pursued by the European communist parties in the mid-1930s and the decade that followed. It has even been suggested that the class interests of the proletariat and the socialist elements of the struggle were subordinated to general democratic goals. The openly _-_-_
~^^1^^ For further detail see: Georgi Dimitrov: An Outstanding Leader of the Communist Movement, Moscow, 1972, pp. 195 et seq. (in Russian).
175 revisionist conceptions of Earl Browder (USA) may serve as an example of this sort of right-opportunist distortion of the idea of the united front.Others have attempted to belittle the importance of the general democratic elements in the anti-fascist struggle and artificially oppose them to the struggle of the working class for socialism. The adherents of this point of view maintain that the communist movement of the 1930s `` neglected" socialist tasks, or that ``frontism'' was merely a ``defensive policy".^^1^^
Neither conception corresponds to historical reality. The struggle to unite the working class and all the other democratic forces, of which the policy of a united workers' and popular front is one aspect, has never been an end in itself for Communists. Nor have they ever considered it to be only a means of defence.
The struggle for unity also includes a powerful offensive policy;' it helps to bind the struggle for democracy and socialism, for the most favourable conditions for the revolutionary overthrow of the rule of the monopolies, with the struggle for peace and against the war danger. The united front policy is inseparable from the problem of the means of preparing the masses for a socialist revolution.
The Communist International always devoted considerable attention to the problem of the pursuit of intermediate goals by the vanguard of the working class in its struggle against capitalism. The principled discussion of this problem unfolded back in the early 1920s in connection with the preparation of the Comintern Programme. After the creation of the programme commission in 1922, some of the participants in the discussion (e. g., Bordiga, Zinoviev, Bukharin) argued that the Programme should not include provisions on communist parties' demands intended for the stage of bringing the masses up to the tasks of the proletarian revolution. Others (especially Clara Zetkin, Bohumir Smeral and E. Varga) maintained that the Programme should lay out the foundations of a strategic plan embracing not only general principles but also concrete questions on the practical methods of the proletariat's struggle for political power in different countries and on intermediate demands that would serve to mobilise the masses of the workers.^^2^^
This discussion, which came to be focused on the question of the correlation of so-called transitional demands and the goals of the struggle for socialist revolution, was continued at _-_-_
~^^1^^ Critica marxista. No. 2, 1965, pp. 7-8; No. 4, pp. 11--20, 36--63.
~^^2^^ See: On the Question of the Programme of the Communist International, Moscow, 1924, p. 16 (in Russian).
176 the Fourth Congress of the Comintern.Carrying this approach further, the Seventh Comintern Congress promulgated the well-known theses about a united front government (which is to achieve fundamental revolutionary goals) as a major form of transition to socialist revolution.~^^1^^
As the Seventh Congress maintained (and as the experience of the 1930s and 1940s confirmed in Spain, France, Italy and a number of countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America and other regions of the world) it is not only possible, but also desirable and necessary for Communists to participate in government during the general democratic phase of the struggle. As Palmiro Togliatti stressed, this course of action had ``nothing in common ... with the old policy of collaboration actuated by the Social-Democrats to check the mass movement and ward off a revolution. The Communists sought to participate in government in order to annihilate fascism and save democracy. At the same time they declared openly that it was impossible to save and develop the democratic order if it did not take on a new content through the support of the popular masses and through political and economic reforms that would destroy the roots of fascism and reaction."^^2^^
It was the Comintern that, taking into consideration the lessons of the mass struggle, worked out the concept of a new type of democracy in the mid-1930s. The bases of the struggle for this new, people's democracy and the elements of the people's-democratic form of rule by the working class and its allies were, to a certain degree, marked out in the course of the heroic national revolutionary war in Spain (1936--1939) and in the years of struggle for a united workers' and Popular Front in France and several other countries.
The effectiveness of this course of action was confirmed again and again in the years that followed. The correctness of the policies of the Communists, which were based on the organic connection between the general democratic aspirations of the masses and the struggle for a revolutionary transition to socialism, was amply demonstrated as early as the first half of the 1940s when a revolutionary situation arose in many countries during the fight against fascism, and favourable chances for the establishment of a new, people' sdemocratic form of government appeared in a number of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Georgi Dimitrov, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1957, p. 394 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Palmiro Togliatti, Problemi del movimento operaio intemazionale (1956--1961), Editori Riuniti, Rome, 1962, p. 328.
177 European and Asian countries.The working people of France gained valuable experience in undertaking concerted actions. At the beginning of the 1930s the Central Committee of the French Communist Party called for the creation of committees for a `` Worker-Peasant Bloc" and of united trade unions, the Communists led an active campaign to close the ranks of the working class, to bring together all popular forces.^^1^^ A new phase in the struggle for unity in the workers' movement was ushered in by the participation of millions of working people, members of diverse political and professional organisations, in a protest against the fascist putschists (February 1934). The striving of the various strata of the French proletariat for unity soon led to such actions as the agreement on joint action between the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party (July 1934), the creation of the Popular Front and the uniting of trade union centres into a single General Confederation of Labour.^^2^^
The policies of the French Communist Party would not have evoked such a large response in the country if they were not rooted in the rich experience and enormous authority the Party had acquired in previous decades. French Communists made a deep analysis of the changing situation, and creatively applied the principles of Marxism-Leninism to the situation in their country; they sought for an innovative solution expressing the vital interests of working people. This was the indubitable contribution of the French Communist Party and of its leading core headed by Maurice Thorez who took an unflagging interest in the theoretical education of Party cadres and in the development of the Party's tactics.
It would not harm those who want to falsify history, to distort the true nature and policies of the Popular Front and its important consequences, to recall the words of Georgi Dimitrov at the Seventh Comintern Congress. He stressed that the ``unification of working people into a broad popular front, with the working class at its centre, for the fight against the onslaughts of capital and reaction, against fascism and the threat of war, both in the international arena and in each individual country" was an important and urgent task for Communists. Dimitrov declared further: ``We did not _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Maurice Thorez, Fils du peuple, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1949, pp. 52, 82--84.
~^^2^^ See: Maurice Thorez, ``Les succ\`es du Front Unique Antifasciste'', OEuvres de Maurice Thorez, Book 2, Vol. 9, Editions Sociales, Paris, May-October 1935, pp. 95--153; E.-A. Kravchenko, The Popular Front in France (1934--1938), Moscow, 1972; and Y. V. Yegorov, The Popular Front in France (The Domestic Political Struggle in France 1934-- 1938), Leningrad, 1972 (second and third in Russian).
178 invent this task. It was put before us by the experience of the world workers' movement and first of all by the experience of the proletariat of France. The contribution of the French Communist Party was that it understood what must be done today, disregarded the sectarians who kept on distracting the Party and interfering with the implementation of a united front for the fight against fascism and, having boldly (in the tradition of the Bolsheviks) concluded an agreement on joint action with the Socialist Party, prepared a united proletarian front that served as the basis for the formation of an anti-- fascist popular front. By this action, which responded to the vital needs of all working people, French workers, Communists and Socialists have once again advanced the French workers' movement to the leading place in the capitalist countries of Europe; they have shown that they are worthy followers of the communards, continuers of the proud traditions of the Paris Commune.'' Further on Dimitrov rightly emphasised that ``it was the French Communist Party and the French proletariat who, with their practice of struggle in a united proletarian front against fascism, helped to pave the way to the decisions of the Congress, which have such an immense importance for the workers of all countries".^^1^^The policies of the French Communist Party reflected those traits of the working class that mark it as the bearer of the nation's future. A number of important conclusions resulted from this fact: the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat concerned itself with the national heritage, including the cultural heritage. The working class's realisation of its proper national role also determined its relation to the intelligentsia, which was drawn nearer to the proletariat.
Maurice Thorez described the objective preconditions and deep causes of this phenomenon in the following words: ``One of the key events of our era is the transfer of national responsibilities from one class to another. The bourgeoisie is more and more abandoning the defence of the national interests, while the proletariat, firmly establishing itself in the course of the class struggle as the leading class of the nation, is assuming the care of its material and spiritual heritage."^^2^^
As French Communists have noted, ``the Popular Front is the first successful realisation, in an advanced capitalist country, of a union of the working class and the middle _-_-_
~^^1^^ Georgi Dimitrov, In the Struggle for a United Front Against Fascism and War. Articles and Speeches. 1935--1939, Moscow, 1939, p. 92 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Cahiers du communisme. No. 12, December 1970, p. 89.
179 strata against ... the monopolists".^^1^^ This policy expressed the development of an anti-monopolist strategy that will guarantee the success of the working class and its allies.In August 1934, one year before the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, a cooperation pact was concluded between the Communist and Socialist parties of Italy.^^2^^ A similar agreement was concluded in 1934 between the Communists and Socialists of Greece.
There were also signs of progress towards the unification of democratic forces on the American continent. The united front policy showed its vitality in the USA, for example, during a July 1934 general strike in San Francisco. Tendencies towards unification strengthened perceptibly among the ranks of the unemployed and in youth and other mass organisations; as a result, a number of successes were achieved in the creation and reinforcement of unions of industrial workers, and there was an increased cooperation between the Communist Party and other progressive organisations in a number of states (Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, New York, etc.). These accomplishments seriously hindered the further activisation of pro-fascist elements in the USA.
In speaking of the prospects for the development of the revolutionary process (in industrially advanced capitalist countries as elsewhere) Lenin stressed that the working people's revolutionary struggle ``cannot be anything other than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry oppressed and discontented elements. Inevitably, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will participate in it---without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible--- and just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and errors. But objectively they will attack capital, and the class-conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it".^^3^^
Lenin performed a historic service in laying a thorough groundwork for the communist movement's programmatic conclusion about the necessity of securing a united anti-- imperialist front both nationally and internationally.
The opponents of Marxism-Leninism (bourgeois authors _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanit\'e, June 4,1966, p. 1.
~^^2^^ ``Trenta anni di vita e lotte del P.C.I.'' In: Quaderni di Rinascita, Rome, No. 2,1952, pp. 146--47.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Discussion on Self-Determination Summed Up'', Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 356.
180 such as Arnold Toynbee and Hugh Seton-Watson, socialreformist theoreticians such as B. Kautsky, petty-bourgeois radicals such as Frantz Fanon, Herbert Marcuse and Regis Debray, and the Maoist ideologues) have persistently tried to show that Leninist strategy and tactics for anti-imperialist, national liberation revolutions are ``unsound''. Some of them, to be sure, recognise the achievements of the Comintern and of Marxist-Leninist parties in this area, but in so doing they falsely declare such policies to be ``incompatible'' with Marxism.But in fact it is precisely due to the activity of the Comintern that the international communist movement has received certain extremely valuable directives on this question. Among them are:
1) Communists support any national revolutionary movement against imperialism;
2) the necessity of uniting various anti-imperialist forces is not temporary, not tactical, but strategic; it is ``dictated by the prospects of a prolonged struggle against world imperialism demanding the mobilisation of all revolutionary elements'';
3) the workers' movement must ``secure for itself the position of an independent factor in the common anti-- imperialist front'';
4) the successes of the world anti-imperialist front are based, first and foremost, on the union of the working people of economically underdeveloped countries with the working class of the industrialised countries; this union is dictated ``not merely by the interests of a common struggle against imperialism, but also by the fact that only by a victory of the proletariat of the advanced countries can the workers of the East obtain unselfish aid in the development of their productive forces".^^1^^
These principles found expression in the development of the fundamental slogans of the revolutionary working class in the 130 years since the appearance of the Communist Manifesto with its epochal summons: ``Working Men of All Countries, Unite! ''. In the 1920s Lenin's idea about the struggle for unity among all progressive and revolutionary forces, which was advanced just before the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of a study of the varied international experience and new manifestations of the fight for liberation, was joined to the proletarian idea of class solidarity in the slogan ``Workers and Oppressed Peoples of All _-_-_
~^^1^^ Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International Held in Moscow Nov. 7 to Dec. 3,1922. Published for the Communist International by the Communist Party of Great Britain, London, 1922, pp. 59, 57.
181 Countries, Unite!''With the formation of the world socialist system a new kind of international solidarity came into being: the internationalism of brotherly states, which includes not only the unity of the working class and its parties but also the manifold solidarity of nations, of the governments of socialist countries in every area of their relations. The increasing successes of the national liberation movement, the emergence of a number of socialist-oriented countries in Asia and Africa and the development of cooperation between the forces of national liberation and the world socialist, communist and workers' parties also gave rise to new forms of international solidarity. All this made it possible for the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties to put forth the following slogan of international solidarity: ``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!~"^^1^^ This represented a further creative development of Marxist-Leninist tenets on the struggle to reinforce international solidarity and the unity of all the primary revolutionary and progressive forces of our time.
It is no coincidence that in many parts of the world there is a new wave of interest in the lessons of the international class struggle and in the historical experience of the world revolutionary workers' and anti-imperialist movement, and especially in the major ideas and conclusions advanced by communist parties about the strategies and tactics of the struggle of the proletariat, the united workers' and popular front, the interconnection of working people's fight for peace with their fight for social progress, and the interaction of mass general democratic movements with the struggle for socialism.
But at the same time there has been no cessation of efforts to discredit these ideas and conclusions. For example, pettybourgeois radicals (such as Andre Gorz or the ideologues of the Italian ``left''-revisionist group ``Il Manifesto'', to which Lucio Magri belongs) maintain that today's fighters, keen on revolutionary transition to socialism in advanced capitalist countries, ``owe nothing to the schemes which since the Seventh Congress of the Comintern have dominated the policies and ideology of the communist parties".^^2^^ Some _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 39.
~^^2^^ Andre Gorz, ``The Way Forward'', New Left Review, London, No. 52, November-December 1968, p. 63.
182 Spanish authors have recently tried to portray the policies approved at the Seventh Comintern Congress as nothing less than a ``departure from Leninism''. Certain Italian ex-- communists have written that the revolutionary proletarian movement in capitalist countries must ``reconsider'' directions about the creation of a united workers' front and of a broad anti-monopolist coalition. Lucio Magri and other ``left'' opportunists have an incorrect view about the relation of politics and economics; they place a vulgar-mechanistic interpretation on the processes that lead to the growing economic and political instability of imperialism and ignore the revolutionary potential of general democratic mass movements directed by the working class. Attempting to call into question the anti-monopolistic course of the communist movement, Magri has propagated the myth that ``popular frontism" is fraught with insoluble contradictions and claims that there are no great prospects for communist policy, which has ``for years been based on those contradictions".^^1^^Fraternal communist parties rely on Marxist-Leninist principles of strategy and tactics; they seek to develop these principles creatively and to apply them effectively under changing historical circumstances.
The important gains made by contemporary Marxist-- Leninist collective thought are, to a large extent, ``a continuing development of the theses advanced in the 1930s, which have not lost their importance because they deal not with partial problems but with the fundamental problems of the means of struggle for peace, democracy and socialism. Today, too, Communists are persistently conducting a policy of unity of action with all who are ready to stand up for their vital interests against the growing oppression of the monopolies, with all who are ready to fight the threat of a world thermonuclear war, who are against fascism and for peace, democracy and independence for all nations."^^2^^
This is demonstrated most clearly by:
1) the activisation and ever more effective struggle of Communists for peace, for the prevention of a new world war, and for the strengthening and deepening of detente. The CPSU plays an especially important role in this through its exceptionally purposeful and successful implementation of Leninist foreign policies, which find concentrated expression in the Peace Programme adopted'by the 24th Congress _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lucio Magri, Cable analysis in consideration! sui fatti di maggio, De Donado, Bari, 1968. Cited in: Andre Gorz, Socialism and Revolution, Allen Lane, London, 1975, pp. 42--43.
~^^2^^M. A. Suslov, Selected Works, Moscow, 1972, pp. 458--59 (in Russian).
183 of the CPSU and in the Programme of Further Struggle for Peace and International Cooperation, and for the Freedom and Independence of the Peoples advanced by the 25th Party Congress;2) the direction of the main thrust of the workers' movement against monopoly capital, against its ultra-right, profascist and extreme reactionary forces, and against rabid anti-communism. This strategy unites an ever broadening front of peace-loving, democratic and popular forces around the demands of the vanguard of the working class. In recent years the correctness and vitality of this policy has been proved by the successful struggles of the peoples of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and other countries against fascist, reactionary regimes;
3) the creation of new and promising opportunities for expanding the union of all left and democratic forces, of which the recent experience of a number of West European, Latin American, etc., countries is convincing proof;,
4) the further development of the mass general democratic and anti-monopolist struggle both through the formation of a broad popular front and through the inevitable growth of the link between the struggle for progressive democracy and the struggle for socialism.
As a result of fundamental changes in the international balance of power among classes, which is mainly the result of the growing might and consolidated position of the family of socialist countries, the development of the revolutionary workers' and mass general democratic, anti-monopolist movements has accelerated.
The successes of existing socialism in the building of a new society and in international politics exercise an enormous influence on the condition and struggle of working people in capitalist countries and on the world-wide revolutionary liberation movement as a whole. At the same time world capitalism has been weakened by a number of factors such as the recent dramatic aggravation of the conflicts within the capitalist system, the launching of an anti-- monopolist offensive by the proletariat and its allies in the very citadels of imperialism, and the intensification of the fight between anti-imperialist and reactionary forces in the countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa.
Lenin's theses about the united workers' front^^1^^ armed the international workers' and anti-imperialist movement with scientifically substantiated strategic and tactical principles. The Seventh Congress of the Communist International, _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``We Have Paid Too Much'', Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 334.
184 which was guided by Lenin's principles and creatively applied them to a new situation, sharpened and developed the anti-fascist strategy of the revolutionary working class, which has become an important component of the strategy and tactics of the modern communist movement. __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Struggle for the IntegrityThe scientific world outlook of the working class and of its politically conscious vanguard is founded on the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism. Communists have always maintained that the principal constituents of their revolutionary theory are parts in a dialectical whole and that the creative development of that theory in successive historical stages of the struggle for socialism and communism should be seen as a continuum.
It is not surprising that most of Marxism's opponents, past and present, have concentrated their ``critical'' attacks on this interpretation of the doctrine as an evolving whole: they oppose the ``early'' to the ``late'' Marx, the legacy of Engels to the works of Marx, and Leninist thought to the theses and conclusions of Marx and Engels.^^1^^ On the basis of such oppositions they pretend to overhaul well-established Marxist concepts and principles which follow from a scientific analysis of capitalism and the theory of classes and the state, of socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fundamental distinctions between bourgeois and socialist democracy, the primary directions and laws of the evolution of socialism into communism, etc. They make obvious attempts to minimise the achievements of existing socialism by ``confronting'' them with arbitrary interpretations (made by the ``critics'' of Marxism-Leninism) of the ideals of socialism or with the Utopian dreams of the predecessors of scientific communism.
Particular efforts have been made to counter classical Marxism by propagandising ``neo-Marxism'' (opportunism, right or ``left'' revisionism) in order to divide the unified _-_-_
~^^1^^ For scientific criticism of such attempts see: Marxism and Our Epoch, Moscow, 1968; V. V. Keshelava, The Myth of Two Marxes, Moscow, 1963; Idem, Humanism, Real and Imaginary, Moscow, 1973; T. I. Oizerman, The Problem of Alienation and the Bourgeois Legend About Marxism, Moscow, 1965; Idem, The Formation of the Philosophy of Marxism, Moscow, 1974; and P. N. Fedoseyev, Marxism in the Twentieth Century, Moscow, 1972 (all in Russian).
185 international doctrine of the revolutionary workers' movement into ``national'' or ``regional'' versions. Such efforts are linked with the calls issued by bourgeois ``Marxologists'' and certain petty-bourgeois ideologues for a ``rethinking'' of the ideas of Marx and Engels,^^1^^ for a consideration of the `` unknown Marx'',^^2^^ or for a repudiation of Leninism, which is often opposed to conceptions advertised by them as `` Western Marxism".^^3^^Here it will be appropriate to analyse the actual content of some of the theses of classical Marxism (including certain aspects of the theory of classes and the class struggle) that are frequently distorted in the West.
__*_*_*__The triumphs of Marxist theory have at times forced even its enemies to adopt a Marxist disguise. This subterfuge has been put to especially intensive use by the modern vulgarisers of scientific socialist theory, who time their manoeuvres to coincide with the commemoration of dates connected with the names of Marx, Engels and Lenin. For the various ``Marxologists" and ``rebutters'' of Marxism-- Leninism these anniversaries serve as yet another occasion for attempts to distort (often under the banner of `` modernisation'') this doctrine. The ideological and theoretical positions of the various revisionists are strikingly similar', from the ``left'' and right alike comes the appeal to return ``from Marx who is understood wrongly to Marx who is understood rightly~".^^4^^
Anti-Marxists and anti-communists, including the ideologues of clericalism and the representatives of various modern reformist and right-revisionist schools, have waged a campaign against the theoretical and methodological bases of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Maximilien Rubel, Karl Marx. Essai de biographie intellectuelle, Riviere, Paris, 1957. See also: Friedrich Engels 1820--1970. Referate. Diskussionen. Dokumente, Verlag fiir literatur und Zeitgeschehen, Hannover, 1971, pp. 255--56.
~^^2^^ See, for example: Martin Nicolaus, ``The Unknown Marx''. In: Ideology in Social Science. Readings in Critical Social Theory, ed. by Robin Blackburn, Collins, Fontana, 1972, pp. 306--33; Marx's `` Capital" and Capitalism Today in two volumes, ed. by A. Guttler, B. Hindess, P. Hirst, A. Hussain, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1977-- 1978.
~^^3^^ Perry Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism, Humanities Press, London, 1976; Fernando Claudin, Eurocommunism and Socialism, Schocken BKS., London 1978.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Marxism and Revisionism'', Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 38.
186 Marxism. Similar efforts have been made by a number of West European bourgeois-reformist philosophers: Gu'nter Bartsch, for example, writes that Marxism remained a unified philosophy ``only during Marx's lifetime; other views were advanced even by Engels".^^1^^ The social-democratic myth that Engels was the first, and virtually the foremost, ``revisionist'' finds its counterpart in the assertions of bourgeois anti-- communists such as Raymond Aron, George Lichtheim, Robert Tucker^^2^^ and others.The enemies of Marxism-Leninism seek to invalidate it as a unified theory. Thus the efforts of the participants in an international symposium (held at the University of Notre Dame, USA, in April 1966) with the theme ``Marx and the Western World" were devoted mainly to denying that Marx himself had anything to do with the creation of a unified, systematic doctrine of dialectical materialism, which they depict not as the essence of Marxism but as the result of a subsequent systematisation and revision by others, especially Engels and Lenin. Here is how the anti-communist ideologues summed up their ``indictment'' of Engels and Leninism: ``What cannot be doubted is that it was Engels who was responsible for the subsequent interpretation of `Marxism' as a unified system of thought.... There is no logical link between Marx's conception and the 'dialectical materialism' of Engels.'' They maintained that Leninism and Soviet Marxism rooted in Engels's interpretation of Marx were ``likewise linked to the preMarxian traditions of the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia".^^3^^
There is nothing very original in this attempt to artificially sever Marxism from Leninism, depict the latter _-_-_
~^^1^^ G\"unter Bartsch, Die neue Gesellschaft, Vol. 2, March-April 1968, p. 200; Iring Fetscher, ``Von der Philosophic des Proletariats zur proletari'schen Weltanschauung'', Marxismusstudien, Second Series, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, 1957, pp. 26--60. See also: Iring Fetscher, Karl Marx und der Marxismus von der Philosophic des Proletariats zur proletarischen Weltanschauung, Piper Paperback, Munich, 1973; Der Sozialismus. Vom Klassenkampf zum Wohlfahrtsstaat, ed. by Iring Fetscher, Oesch, Munich, 1968.
~^^2^^ Raymond Aron, Marxismes imaginaires. D'une sainte famille a I'autre, Gallimard, Paris, 1970; George Lichtheim, Marxism. An Historical and Critical Study, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961, pp. 58--60; Robert Tucker, Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, London, 1961.
~^^3^^ George Lichtheim, ``In the Interpretation of Marx's Thought''. In: Marx and the Western World, ed. by Nicholas Lobkowicz, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame (Ind.), London, 1967, pp. 6-7, 10.
187 as something peculiarly Russian and distort the class considerations from which it springs (the primary goal being to prove that Marxism-Leninism is ``unacceptable'' for the workers' movement in the capitalist West). It merely demonstrates once again that attacks on Engels and on Leninism are inseparable from falsification of the very bases of Marxist doctrine.^^1^^Maximilien Rubel, another falsifier of Marxism, has maintained for several years in his numerous publications and lectures that Engels ``revised'' Marx's theories in his declining years and that, moreover, there were always ``fundamental differences" between Marx and Engels in their interpretation of scientific socialism.^^2^^
Rubel has also expended no little effort in trying to distort the ideas and text of Marx's Capital: in place of Engels's edition of the second and third volumes of that work, which are acknowledged and accepted all over the world, he has published his own, falsified text, which has been `` disencumbered" of Engels's additions and prefaces.^^3^^
Left-revisionist authors have also been busy trying to _-_-_
~^^1^^ It is no coincidence that George Lichtheim, in the symposium lecture cited above, went directly from attacks upon Engels to `` criticism" of Marx himself. He argued that both the orthodox `` codification" undertaken by Engels and the various subsequent ``revisions'' have their source in Marx's own ambiguities as a thinker. As for his claims (which are as pretentious as they are unfounded) that the views of Marx differed from those of the author of Anti-Duhring, it is a well-known fact that Engels preliminarily acquainted Marx with that work, and that one of its chapters was written by Marx himself.
~^^2^^ Maximilien Rubel, ``Marx's Sociology and Social Philosophy'', Introduction to: Karl Marx. Selected Writings in Sociology & Social Philosophy, ed. by T. B. Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel, McGrawHill Book Company, New York, Toronto, London, 1964, pp. 1-28; Idem, ``Did the Proletariat Need Marx and Did Marxism Help the Proletariat?''. In: Marx and the Western World, ed. by Nicholas Lobkowicz, pp. 45--51. In the second of these works Rubel declares that it is necessary ``to make a clear distinction between the thought of Marx and that of Engels, in particular, if one considers the latter's attempt to systematise certain theoretical conceptions of his friend" (Marx and the Western World, p. 46.)
~^^3^^ As was rightly noted in the progressive journal La Pensee, this new edition is testimony to ``~Rubel's persistence in presenting not the text of Marx or of Engels, but a text 'revised and corrected', `pruned', and `condensed' by himself''. Refusing to accept Marx's text as published by Marx and Engels themselves, he has ``reduced Engels to the role of an interpreter of Marx on a par with the others, and has set himself the task of improving on the very imperfect performance of Engels" (Gilbert Badia, ``Br\`eves remarques sur l'\'edition des oeuvres de Marx dans la Bibliotheque de la Pleiade'', La Pensee, No. 146, 1969, pp. 82, 85).
188 vulgarise the teachings of Marx and Engels. This group includes Herbert Marcuse,^^1^^ Paul M. Sweezy,^^2^^ and their allies, the modern West European Trotskyites,^^3^^ anarchists and Maoist theoreticians who base their theories on an arbitrary interpretation of the ideas of Marx (in particular, on his analysis of the experience of the Paris Commune) and not on the ``revisionist'' ideas of Engels, whom they accuse of a certain degree of theoretical ambiguity.This anti-Engels and anti-Lenin bias, which is characteristic of the social and political doctrines of petty-bourgeois ideologues, manifests itself in revision of the conception of the world historic mission of the working class and its revolutionary vanguard and also of other cornerstone theses in the teachings of Marx and Engels; furthermore, it affects several other highly important philosophical questions.
Attempts to distort the doctrine of Marx and Lenin are tied up with a number of salient features of the class struggle in the citadels of imperialism. The consequences of the ongoing scientific and technological revolution, the increasing polarisation of social and political forces, the activisation of reaction on the one hand, and a new wave of major anti-monopolistic battles on the other, the entry of new groups (working youth, students, the intelligentsia,etc.) into political life---all of these are also reflected in the ideological sphere.
Thus the attacks of contemporary revisionists on Engels and Lenin are not an isolated phenomenon. They are connected with attempts to belittle the role of revolutionary theory and to fragment it with numerous ``special'' interpretations of Marxism. Similar plenomena occurred at earlier stages of the development of the international workers' _-_-_
~^^1^^ An incorrect interpretation of the origin and development of dialectical materialism is expressed in this author's books (in particular: Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism. A Critical Analysis, Columbia University Press, New York, 1958, pp. 137--38) and also in a number of his articles and lectures.
~^^2^^ Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital. An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order, Monthly Review Press, New York and London, 1966, p. 5.
~^^3^^ The neo-Trotskyites oppose Marx to his great comrade-in-arms in a number of ways: by accenting the ``theoretical'' (Marx) versus the ``practical'' (Engels) aspects of their work, by subjective, sectarianschematic interpretations of certain fundamental Marxist theses, etc. This can be seen, for example, in Ernest Mandel, La formation de la pensee economique de Karl Marx. De 1843 jusqu'd la redaction du ``Capital'', Librairie Francois Maspero, Paris, 1967, pp. 11--12; and Idem, ``L'accumulation primitive et Pindustrialisation du Tiers-- Monde''. In: En partant du ``Capital'', Editions Anthropos, Paris, 1968, pp. 144--49.
189 movement. One example is the campaign at the beginning of our century against the unified teachings of Marx and Engels and, in particular, against dialectical materialism, Marxist political economy, and the theory of the proletarian revolution. It was waged not only by Eduard Bernstein and his followers but also by the ideologues of petty-bourgeois revolutionism, including ``ultra-revolutionary'' syndicalist theoreticians (Georges Sorel,^^1^^ Arturo Labriola, Hubert Lagardelle and others). Characteristically, both groups tried to set Marx against Engels. ``I am convinced,'' wrote Labriola, ``that Engels more than once betrayed the spirit of Marxism, he adapted it to certain minor contingencies of everyday politics.... Therefore I do not think it right to accord Engels's specific theoretical constructs the value of true and proper Marxist doctrine.~"^^2^^ And what did Labriola regard as Engels's ``specific constructs"? It turns out that this includes the theory of coercion, the doctrine on revolution, and even the conception of socialism.~^^3^^ It is not surprising that from this Labriola soon moved---following Sorel---to wholesale condemnation of the ``communist thought of Marxism".^^4^^Lenin and his followers decisively resisted this sort of manipulation. For example, Lenin sharply criticised assertions that Engels's views were ``obsolete'' and attempts to ``oppose'' Engels to Marx (in particular, to accuse Engels of naive dogmatic materialism, of crude materialistic dogmatism). He wrote: ``This is typical philosophical revisionism, for it was only the revisionists who gained a sad notoriety for themselves by their departure from the fundamental views of Marxism."^^5^^
As for the unfounded claims that Engels was carried away with ``everyday political tactic'', Lenin maintained that Engels, while being flexible in defining the tactics to be used by the workers' movement in achieving its revolutionary goals, never made the slightest concession to right opportunism or revolutionary phrase-mongering.
With the coming of the general crisis of capitalism, the opponents of Marxism-Leninism were more and more often _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for example: Georges Sorel, Reflexions sur la violence, Riviere, Paris, 1912.
~^^2^^ Arturo Labriola, Riforme e riuoluzione sociale, Lugano, 1906, pp. 138--39.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 140--60, 164--66.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 77. For criticism of Labriola's views see, in particular: G.V. Plekhanov, ``A Critique of the Theory and Practice of Syndicalism''. In: From Defence to Attack, Moscow, 1908; Idem, Works, Vol. XVI, Moscow, 1925, pp. 3-126 (both in Russian).
~^^5^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Materialism and Empirio-Criticism'', Collected Works, Vol. 14, p. 20.
190 forced, by the revolutionisation of the masses, to camouflage their philosophical-revisionist ideas in ``left'' language. The example of Karl Korsch is instructive: he began with a call to abandon dialectical materialism for Hegelian dialectical idealism with demagogic demands that ``true Marxism" be defended from Engels; later he and his followers attacked Leninism.Today the ideologues of ``left'' and right revisionism have resurrected, to a degree, the ideas of Korsch. Once again they are trying to depict dialectical materialism as a mistake made by Engels. They unjustly accuse him of corrupting Marxism with vulgar materialism and fatalism or, on 'the contrary, of uncritically adopting Hegel's idealist dialectics. In a word, they follow in the footsteps of the Frankfurt school philosophers in distorting the views and activity of Engels.
Thus we see that the boundaries between the ``left''-- extremist and right-opportunist trends in philosophical revisionism are quite fluid. At times the revisionists hail ``revolutionary syndicalism'', interpreting Marxist philosophy in the spirit of Hegelian idealism; at others they acclaim an eclecticism combining elements of various right-opportunist and ``anarcho-communist'' theories.
The works of several members of the Frankfurt school not only present the thesis that Marx's teachings were `` vulgarised" by Engels but also advance the idea that there was a virtual ``split'' between Marx and Engels in philosophy. Thus Jiirgen Habermas, in his Theorie und Praxis, not only reactivates the revisionist conception of Korsch but also often follows reactionary philosophers in maintaining that Marx limited dialectics to social, and in particular production, relations. It was Engels, he claims, who extended dialectics to the realm of being and elevated it to the rank of an absolute law. He writes: ``For the young Marx dialectics was essentially historical, and a dialectics of nature, independent of social movements, was utterly unthinkable.... But Engels degrades the dialectics of history to a discipline among other disciplines: the dialectics of nature and the dialectics of logic. The world in conceived by him as a materially grounded unity and as a process of development whose essence can be interpreted with the help of the dialectical method."^^1^^ Most of the Frankfurt school philosophers ``accuse'' Engels of smuggling the categories of causal conditionality and necessity from the natural sciences into the sphere of social life and thereby, it is _-_-_
~^^1^^ Jiirgen Habermas, Theorie und Praxis. Sozialphilosophische Studien, Hermann Luchterhand-Verlag G.m.b. H. & Co., Neuwied and Berlin, 1969, p. 270.
191 claimed, reducing the individual to a passive appendage of historical necessity.It is not hard to discover the true aims of this sort of tendentious falsification of the scientific legacy of Engels. One can get an idea of their essence and main purpose from the pronouncements of the existentialist philosopher Nicola Abbagnano, who is close to the conceptions of the Frankfurt school. He writes in his History of Philosophy that Engels (primarily in Anti-Duhring) attempts to reduce the rational necessity of Hegel's dialectics to a naturalistic determinism expressed in empty formulas taken from that dialectics. ``From the point of view of Engels's materialism even the face of historical materialism is changed. The formation of production relations, and hence of the social structures and the ideological superstructures (which for Marx were the product of autonomous human activity), became for Engels natural products, determined by materialist dialectics. And for this reason man's entry into such relations and his power to actively transform them became a by-product of the `praxis' of history, and namely a reaction of human consciousness to material conditions, the reverse of the action that they exert on it."^^1^^
The philosophising revisionists call Engels to account for ``dogmatising'' Marxism and especially for ``arbitrarily'' interpreting historical tendencies as objective laws.
But for Engels a materialist conception of history was a necessary condition for the understanding of its laws. In order to gain a proper perspective on the content of history at any given stage of the development of mankind, it is first of all necessary to discover which class is at the centre of that era as the leader in the struggle which is the ``mainspring of the progress possible in those concrete conditions".^^2^^
Engels, like Marx, did much to substantiate (both on a generally philosophical and methodological plane and in concrete economic, historical, philosophical and sociological studies) the main thesis of scientific communism: that the working class has a world historic mission. Engels's early works on economics, especially The Condition of the Working-Class in England, were of enormous importance in accomplishing that task. Here is how Engels formulated his idea about the inevitable growth of the importance of the proletariat as the leading force in the struggle for _-_-_
~^^1^^ Nicola Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia, Vol. 3, La filosofia del Romanticismo. La filosofia tra il secolo XIX e il XX, Unione Tippgrafico-Editrice, Turin, 1963, p. 218.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Under a False Flag'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 143.
192 the revolutionary trasformation of society: ``The condition of the working-class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present because it is the highest and most uncoricealed pinnacle of the social misery existing in our day."^^1^^Some authors (such as, for example, the French sociologist Pierre Naville), while recognising the value of the concrete material contained in Engels's researches into the position of the working class, underestimate the independence of his theoretical thought and the importance of the methodological principles that he advanced for the study of the working class, vainly asserting, for example, that The Condition of the Working-Class in England is ``permeated with Sismondi and Buret".^^2^^ Herbert Marcuse and his followers also belittle the scientific significance of Engels's investigations of the working class. They have tried to show that the Marxist doctrine of the historical mission of the proletariat is ``out of date'', that it is ``inapplicable'' to the conditions of modern state-monopoly capitalism.
One of the main trends in the distortion of the teachings of scientific socialism by right and ``left'' opportunists is the falsification of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle and socialist revolution, and of the strategic and tactical principles of the revolutionary workers' movement. In this area, too, the revisionists have made mighty, but fruitless, efforts to oppose the views of Marx to those of Engels or to those of Lenin.
The dogmatists of the ``ultra-left'' focus their attention exclusively on violent forms of the class struggle. Absolutising these forms, they depict Engels as a ``reformist''. Certain West European neo-Trptskyites and a number of Maoist historians have made similar attempts. They maintain that the basis of the development of the world revolutionary process was and is armed conflict, rather than qualitative socio-historical changes connected primarily with the development of the various forms and trends of the class struggle and with the growing importance of the working class. They distort the sense of isolated statements by Marx and Engels (in particular, their evaluation of the Paris Commune and the meaning of its experience); on this basis they assert that the proletariat should ``win the right to its own liberation" solely by force of arms. The ``left'' revisionists interpret the ``cause started by the Paris workers" in a manner which _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 302.
~^^2^^ Pierre Naville, Le nouveau Leviathan, Vol. I, De I'alienation a la jouissance. La genese de la sociologie du travail chez Marx et Engels, Riviere, Paris, 1957, p. 77.
193 supposedly allows for only one, purely ``military'', path to socialism.Social-reformist ideologues criticise the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle and revolution from their own position. Citing certain of Engels's last works (especially his call for workers' parties to be tactically flexible, to make skilful use of the opportunities offered by legal forms of struggle for furthering the interests of working people) right-reformist authors from Werner Sombart down to the modern ideologues of right socialism have tried to portray Engels as a ``Katheder Socialist" who, in his declining years, virtually renounced the basic theses of Marx's teaching on socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Social-reformists sometimes go so far as to make utterly groundless attempts to resurrect Bernsteinian ideology and policies. The editors of the Italian social-democratic journal Critica sociale, for instance, maintain that Bernstein's arguments against materialism and determinism were correct. They are seconded by Luciano Pellicani, an Italian social-- reformist, who writes in an article ``Marxism and Revisionism" that ``revolutionary methods ... were criticised and rejected" not only by Bernstein but even ``by Engels in his old age".^^1^^ At the Wuppertal symposium held to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Engels, Hans-Josef Steinberg, a West German professor, used similar arguments in his lecture, which considered Engels's views on the strategy of the workers' movement and advanced the thesis that these views ``evolved'' from revolutionary to opportunist.
But such assertions are contrary to fact. It is well known that Marx and Engels, and later Lenin, advocated the effective use by proletarian organisations of various forms of class struggle at the various concrete historical stages of the workers' movement, and held that the choice among these forms must be determined by an analysis of the given situation and of the actual relation of forces between the parties to the struggle.
The calls of Marx, Engels and Lenin for flexibility in tactics are not at odds with their commitment to revolutionary principles. The revolutionary proletarian movement can achieve its long-term strategic goals only by proper use of tactics and by knowing how to work with the masses.
Right opportunists have advanced the claim that towards the end of his life Engels grew ``disenchanted'' with the experience of the Paris Commune and with the Marxist theory of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Perhaps they have forgotten Engels's famous words, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Critica sociale, January 20, 1970, pp. 56--57.
194 addressed on the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Commune to those who had, as he put it, ``been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good, gentlemen, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."^^1^^These distortions of the views of Marx and Engels on the basic questions of revolutionary theory have been undertaken with the primary aim of setting Marx's conclusions on these questions against Leninism. Furthermore, social-- democratic theoreticians are trying, first, to ``link'' their arbitrary interpretation of Engels's views with the reformist doctrines of right social-democracy and, second, to put an anti-Leninist construction on the ideas of Engels (falsely ascribing to Leninism not a Marxist but a Blanqui's conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat).
But in fact it was Lenin and his followers who, as a result of the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution, first put the ideological and theoretical legacy of Engels into practice. Before the Revolution and during it Lenin turned again to the works of Marx and Engels; all of his efforts were directed towards bringing their ideas to life. The teachings of Lenin demanded, and still demand, effective application of the revolutionary teachings of Marx and Engels.
The number of possible means that the revolutionary workers' movement can use to attain socialism varies in accordance not only with the international balance of class forces but also with the degree of political consciousness among the masses of the working people and the intensity of their struggle. In order to make a profound study of the position and struggle of the working people in different regions of the world, and to properly understand them, it is imperative that sufficient attention be paid to all the objective and subjective factors that influence the class and general democratic struggle of the masses. Today that struggle is increasingly influenced by scientific and technical progress. In socialist society the door is wide open for the scientific and technological revolution: the socialist system meets its objective demands, and the rapid growth of science and technology is making important contributions to the material and technical basis of communism. Capitalism, on the contrary, sets obstacles in the way of using the enormous potential of this revolution for the benefit of society as a whole.
After the death of Marx, Engels continued to study the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ``Introduction to Karl Marx's The Civil War in France''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 2, p. 189.
195 development of world economics and politics. In his additions to Volume III of Capital he called attention to the rapid advance of joint-stock companies and trusts, to the increasing importance of the stock exchange and of banks in industry, to the growing tendency to export capital, and to the division of colonies among monopolist companies. Lenin continued the investigation of capitalist economics and politics into the twentieth century; generalising all the relevant data collected up to his time, he created an integral theory of imperialism.Reviewing the social and economic preconditions of the rise of mass struggle against the policies of reaction in the industrially advanced countries, Engels noted, as early as the beginning of the 1880s, a number of new social and political phenomena such as, for example, the increasing role played by the bourgeois state in the life of capitalist society. He perceived that these phenomena were two-sided, that they were dialectically contradictory. He pointed put that ``the transformation, either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces".^^1^^ At the same time he stressed that ``state ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution"^^2^^
The founders of scientific socialism foresaw the general trend towards the rise of mass struggle for democratic nationalisation and other progressive changes. Developing these ideas under new historical conditions, Lenin reached his conclusion (on the basis of the observable intensification of state-monopolist tendencies) on the patterns of the struggle against the rule of the monopolies and on the inevitable expansion of this struggle in the era of the general crisis of capitalism.
Marx, Engels and Lenin taught the vanguard of the proletariat to work among the masses with patience, skill and persistence. They warned against forgetting the class interests of the proletariat in the course of the struggle and likewise against the various forms of extremist impatience. They labelled as a mistake the idea that ``the revolution is something that can be made overnight. As a matter of fact it is a process of development of the masses that takes several years even under conditions accelerating this process."^^3^^ The _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ``Socialism: Utopian and Scientific''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol 3, p. 145.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 343.
196 Marxists-Leninists of the twentieth century continue to develop the traditions of Marx and Engels in combating the various attempts (both by right-reformist, revisionist doctrinaires or by pseudo-revolutionary dogmatic sectarians) to pervert scientific socialism, to vulgarise Marxism or to distort its creative essence.The service that Marx and Engels performed for the working class, as Lenin wrote, ``may be expressed in a few words thus: they taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself, and they substituted science for dreams".^^1^^ Marx and Engels showed that ``socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society".^^2^^
Lenin's own words speak eloquently about his attitude towards the ideological and theoretical legacy of Engels: ``It is impossible to understand Marxism and to propound it fully without taking into account all the works of Engels."^^3^^ Lenin himself followed this principle undeviatingly. The ideas of Marx and Engels, their revolutionary legacy, were his invariable point of departure for the further development of the theory and tactics of the revolutionary workers' movement.
Agreement between the founders of scientific communism on general philosophical questions had its natural complement in the independence and originality of each man's contribution to the development of revolutionary theory.
The integral nature of Marxism-Leninism is a result, in part, of the dialectical interconnection of all of its major elements: political economy, philosophy and the theory of scientific socialism.
The wholeness of Marxism-Leninism as an international doctrine is, moreover, a result of the dialectical link between revolutionary theory and practice. This link is one of the centres of the ideological and theoretical struggle over the legacy of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Scientific socialism demands unity of revolutionary theory and revolutionary action. The opposition of theory to practice was equally foreign to Marx, Engels and Lenin.
The essence of Marxism-Leninism as an integral theory is the doctrine of the working class and its vanguard role in the struggle for social progress. In political economy the working class often represents the ``labour force''; in historical materialism it is usually regarded as the basic productive force of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Frederick Engels'', Collected Works, Vol. 2, p. 20.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 19.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 91.
197 society. As a category of Marxist-Leninist theory the working class combines in itself all these and other characteristics which are naturally dialectically interconnected and, in the final count, internally unified. It represents the principal force for a revolutionary transformation of the world, for the creation of a new society. Therefore in the exposition of the many sides of the world historic mission of the proletariat a complex approach is required.Every theoretical and political advance of the international proletariat---the class to whose interests the founders of Marxism-Leninism devoted their life's work---and every recruit to the army of its allies is another contribution to the struggle for the triumph of the bright ideals of socialism and communism.
__*_*_*__Leninism, which is a continuation and development of Marxism under new historical conditions, contributed to each of the main components of Marxist revolutionary theory: philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism. Generalising every aspect of the experience of the world proletariat, the entire revolutionary liberation movement, Lenin marked out the ways of its further successful development and deeply analysed the directions and prospects of the international class struggle. For the international working class and its communist vanguard Leninism is ``a powerful theoretical weapon, a fully elaborated ideology, and a programme for revolutionary action".^^1^^
Lenin left a rich revolutionary legacy: he worked out problems of the dialectics of social development and the principles of a strictly scientific approach to the study of the theory and history of the class struggle, and of the tendencies and forms of the revolutionary workers' movement. His achievements serve as a methodological base for identifying the laws and motive social forces of the world revolutionary process of today. At the same time they serve, as they did in the past, as a reliable support and point of orientation in the ideological and theoretical fight of Communists against those who, while trying to ``refute'' the conclusions of scientific socialism, argue against the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist theory of classes and the class struggle, the theory of socio-economic formations, of the inevitability of a revolutionary transition from one mode of production _-_-_
~^^1^^ On Lenin's Birth Centenary. Theses of the CPSU Central Committee, Moscow, 1969, p. 7 (in Russian).
198 to another, of the laws of the growth of the world proletariat, of the world historic mission of the working class and of the way to carry put that mission.Lenin's philosophy of historical optimism, which underlies the active, purposeful and effective policies of the CPSU and of the fraternal communist and workers' parties, presupposes a scientific, class-oriented analysis of social processes. Lenin taught that in order to fully and scientifically analyse social phenomena and to elaborate correct policies for the revolutionary workers' movement it is necessary to objectively consider the entire system of class relations, and the degree of development of the given society and of international class antagonisms. This teaching guides Communists in characterising the main stages in the history of the class struggle, in substantiating their conception of today's world revolutionary process, in identifying the ways of growing interaction between the struggle of the working people for peace and their struggle for social progress, and in treating other questions.
The international significance of scientific socialism and its ever increasing influence on the contemporary world are now generally recognised not only in countries where socialism has triumphed, not only in the ranks of the communist vanguard of the world proletariat, but also among broader sections of world public opinion. Experience has shown again and again that the twentieth century is the age of socialism. Marxism-Leninism is our century's banner and a guide to action for all of the world's working people and anti-imperialist forces.
Today few authors, even among bourgeois reformists, dare dispute (as was done earlier) the international significance of Leninism. A sign of the times is the acknowledgement of Peter T. Bauer, a professor at London University, that ``the Leninist extension of the Marxist analysis has gained enormous influence not only in the underdeveloped countries".^^1^^
Contemporary anti-communist ideologues heavy-heartedly acknowledge the enormous authority of Leninist doctrine among the masses. Alfred G.Meyer, director of a Columbia University research programme on the history of the CPSU, writes: ``It is undisputable that the ideas and behaviour traditions of V. I. Lenin, the leader of the Russian revolution, have caught the imagination of millions in our day.'' Wherein _-_-_
~^^1^^ Peter T. Bauer, ``Marxism and the Underdeveloped Countries''. In: Marxist Ideology in the Contemporary World---Its Appeals and Paradoxes, ed. by Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1966, p. 140.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/WISPE319/20070531/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.01) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ lies the great attraction of Leninism? In answering this question Meyer is forced, despite his manifest enmity towards communism, to admit that ``this appeal has a number of roots. For one thing, Leninism ... represents a major contribution to contemporary social science.'' It analyses ``a number of phenomena of which most other theories take less account, particularly the life situation of the working class and the problems of underdeveloped areas. Furthermore, Leninism speaks as the voice of `progress', a word that has a magical effect, particularly among the underprivileged.'' Leninism ``exerts a tremendous appeal on men".^^1^^It is precisely the tremendous appeal of Leninism and its revolutionary conclusions that makes it the principal target for ideological sabotage by modern anti-communists and for distortion by the anti-scientific conceptions of social-reformists, right and ``left'' revisionists and sundry national-opportunists.
The fight against attempts to belittle the historic significance of Leninism, to narrow the concept of the Leninist stage in the development of Marxism, is obviously of cardinal importance. Every effort to ``drive a wedge" between Marxism and Leninism, or between Lenin's undying theoretical legacy and the practice of the CPSU and other fraternal communist parties, must be unmasked.
A pitched ideological and theoretical struggle is developing over the general assessment of Lenin's theoretical legacy. The enemies of Leninism try to distort the essence of Lenin's creative contribution to materialist dialectics and dialectics of socio-historical progress, and to the elaboration of the theory and methodology of a scientific, class-oriented approach to the analysis of social phenomena. They try either to represent Leninism, which is the acme in the development of Marxism in the twentieth century, as no more than a reflection of the views of ``the Russian Narodniks and their ideological forerunners"^^2^^ or to generally disparage Lenin's rich theoretical legacy (as, for example, in Was Lenin wirklich sagte? by Ernst Fischer and Franz Marek). In essence both groups deny the continuity of the development of scientific socialist theory and practice. Ex-communist Ernst Fischer has declared openly---``I have the greatest aversion for the concept ` Marxism-Leninism'."^^3^^ The Austrian revisionist sees this concept as _-_-_
~^^1^^ Alfred G Meyer, Leninism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1957, pp. 1,285.
~^^2^^ See, for example: Carl Landauer, Die Sozialdemokratie. Geschichtsabriss und Standortsbestimmung, Verlag Weltarchiv GMBH, Hamburg, 1972, p. 32.
~^^3^^ Hans Kalt, ``Was Ernst Fischer wirklich sagt...'', Weg und Ziel, No. 1,1970, p. 18.
200 something ``theological'' and urges that it be abandoned.^^1^^ Ota Sik, another renegade, is similarly eager to discredit the unified doctrine of scientific socialism; in an attack on communism he proclaims the humbug that ``there is no all-embracing, once and for all correct social theory".^^2^^Marxist-Leninist parties reject attempts by revisionists to dismember the unified theory of Marxism-Leninism. More than half a century ago the Fifth Congress of the Communist International (held in 1924, shortly after the death of Lenin) approved a document stating that ``in the person of Lenin ... who continued the theoretical and practical work of Marx--- the Communist International and all the Communist Parties possessed a reliable guide indicating every `right' or `left' deviation on the field of theory and political practice''. The delegates to the congress pointed out that ``only by a real and organised assimilation of Marxism-Leninism can the Parties reduce the possibilities of political, tactical, and organisational errors to a minimum and bring about the emancipation of the working class".^^3^^
The international communist movement, past and present, has actively resisted all efforts to falsify or emasculate the revolutionary teachings of Leninism. Working to fuse Leninism with the international workers' movement and opposing revisionist attempts to set up an antithesis to Marxism-Leninism, or to make a mechanical distinction between Marxism, as the theory, and Leninism, as the practice of the revolutionary workers' movement, back in the 1920s, during the first phase in the general crisis of capitalism, communist parties firmly maintained that ``both Marxism and Leninism comprise the theory and practice of the working-class struggle for emancipation. They mean the unity of revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. Leninism is not only the revival of revolutionary Marxism, but also an extension of its theoretical and practical content."^^4^^ Furthermore, ``under present conditions there can be no revolutionary Marxism without Leninism."^^5^^ The truth of these words _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ernst Fischer, Die Revolution ist anders, Rowohlt, Hamburg, 1971, pp. 51--57.
~^^2^^ Ota Sik, Der dritte Weg. Die marxistisch-leninistische Theorie und die modeme Industriegesellschaft, Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg, 1972, p. 13.
~^^3^^ ``Theses and Resolutions Adopted by the Fifth World Congress of the Communist International. Propaganda Theses'', International Press Correspondence, Vol. 4, No. 62, 1924, pp. 662, 661.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 664.
~^^5^^ ``Theses and Resolutions Adopted at the Session of the Enlarged E. C. C. I. (1925)'', International Press Correspondence, Vol. 5, No 47, 1925, p. 615.
201 has been demonstrated with new force in the decades that have passed since they were written. Sooner or later every revisionist who has taken up arms against Leninism has also rejected the main revolutionary theses of Marx and Engels.Social-democratic ideologues (from Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer down to the modern apologists of ``neo-- capitalism'') have long been trying to instil into working people the idea that Lenin's revolutionary theory is the expression of something peculiarly Russian. As far back as September 1920 the theoretical organ of the German Social-Democratic Party printed an article, entitled ``Lenin's Marxism'', whose author, without any reason, ascribed to Lenin a ``misunderstanding'' of the specific conditions of the West, and in this sense tried to counter Lenin's works with Otto Bauer's book Bolshevism or the Social-Democrats?
Heinrich Cunow, a German reformist, found fault with Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, claiming that its author had not outgrown ``revolutionary voluntarism" and failed to understand ``the strict laws of historical evolution'', and that economic development had ``taken a course essentially different from the one ... Lenin predicted".^^1^^
In our times, too, reformists maintain that the general laws of the revolutionary struggle for socialism, which were set forth by Marxism-Leninism and have been practically tested in the USSR and the other fraternal socialist countries, are ``inapplicable'' to other regions of the world. Thus in a posthumous work Fritz Sternberg, one of the leading ideologues of the right Social-Democrats, tried to belittle the international significance of Leninism by declaring that it does not represent a development of Marxism under modern conditions. He even announced that only if Marxism purges itself of Leninism can it become a creative force, a force to which the future will belong.^^2^^
But experience has proved the correctness of Lenin's (and not the reformists') analysis of imperialism's main problems, the class struggle and the proletarian revolution and has demonstrated the unsoundness of the reformist approach to these phenomena.
The basic trends and results of the world revolutionary movement show clearly that Leninism's major conclusions, and not those of antithetical teachings and doctrines, correctly and scientifically express the general historical laws of our era.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Die Neue Zeit, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1922, pp. 1,5.
~^^2^^ Fritz Sternberg, Anmerkungen zu Marx---heute, Europaische Verlaganstalt, Frankfort on the Main, 1965.
202Contemporary anti-communist ideologues deny the organic unity of revolutionary theory and practice. Raymond Aron, for example, has argued that the victory won by the Bolsheviks under the leadership of Lenin in October 1917 contributed to the intellectual decline of Marxism. After the October Revolution, he maintains, the international workers' movement produced no more outstanding theoreticians: ``No new Mondolfos or Labriolas appeared in Italy, no new Kautskys or Hilferdings in Germany, no Jaures in France. Classical Marxism had lost its power of attraction."^^1^^
The enemies of Leninism are obviously indulging in wishful thinking, misrepresenting the true state of affairs. It is true that the theory of international social-democracy is, in our times, undergoing a profound and ever more grave crisis. But there can be no justification whatever for claiming, as anti-communist ideologues have done, that the revolutionary workers' movement is theoretically sterile. The Great October Socialist Revolution itself was a triumph of Leninist doctrine; the revolutionary era it opened saw the emergence of many eminent thinkers and fighters. Following Lenin, they learned to creatively apply the theory of scientific socialism in the concrete situations of their countries. Furthermore, Marxism-Leninism continues to be developed and enriched through the collective efforts of today's communist parties and of their leaders.
One of the favourite devices of the ideological and political antagonists of Leninism is to deny its constructiveness. They make every effort to pass over in silence, or to distort, the international significance of Lenin's theoretical and practical activity after the triumph of the October Revolution, for example, the contribution of Lenin and his followers to the working out of the problems of building socialist and communist society.
The importance of Leninism for the development of all parts of revolutionary Marxist theory is underestimated not only by right-reformist theoreticians but also by some of the ``left'' opportunists, who pervert the theory of scientific socialism from positions of petty-bourgeois extremism and nationalism.
While the right reformists try to revise Lenin's teachings, calling them ``out of date'', the Maoists try to prove that Leninism ``is overcome and surpassed" by the ideas of their leader. ``Left''-opportunist ideologues trick out their revision of scientific communism in pseudo-revolutionary phrases. The Maoists have gone as far as to assert that the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marxism in the Modern World, ed. by Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Stanford University Press, Stanford (Cal.), 1965, p. 12.
203 experience of China's ``cultural revolution" has ``surpassed'' and ``overshadowed'' the experience of the Great October Socialist Revolution and of the liberation movement in other countries of the socialist community accumulated under the banner of Leninism.Marxist theory and practice in the post-October era, and the work of the genuinely proletarian, revolutionary ideologues who have developed in that era, cannot be properly understood without taking into account the influence of Leninism on their ideological and political formation and development. Palmiro Togliatti, for example, had every reason to maintain, in his article on Gramsci and Leninism, that ``the appearance and development of Leninism on the international scene became the decisive factor in the entire evolution of Gramsci as a thinker and as a political man of action".^^1^^ The leaders of fraternal parties (Maurice Thorez, Georgi Dimitrov, Ernst Thalmann and many others) have noted the great historic service performed by Lenin and stressed that Leninism heightened the creativity of revolutionary Marxism, transforming it into a guide to action for our era.
Leninist doctrine is profoundly internationalist. Lenin emphasised (in his polemic with Karl Kautsky) that the policies and tactics of the Bolsheviks ``were correct; they were the only internationalist tactics''. He wrote: ``These tactics have been justified by their enormous success, for Bolshevism ... has become world Bolshevism, has produced an idea, a theory, a programme and tactics which differ concretely and in practice from those of social-chauvinism and social-pacifism."^^2^^
Leninism helps to strengthen the position of the genuinely revolutionary proletarian movement in every country, and to determine the correct relation between the general laws of the revolutionary struggle of the working class and their particular manifestations in different countries and in changing circumstances. Try as they may the sundry opponents of scientific socialism can never obscure Lenin's achievement as the creator of the ideological and tactical bases of today's world communist movement.
The enemies of Leninism have frequently argued that certain new phenomena in the life of society do not confirm the theses of Marxism-Leninism. Improperly interpreted data about the present scientific and technological revolution, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Palmiro Togliatti, ``Gramsci e il leninismo'', Rinascita, Vol. XV, No. 3, March 1958, p. 182.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 292.
204 for example, have been used to ``refute'' the Leninist conception of the world revolutionary process or the doctrine about the historic mission of the working class. Socialism's opponents have prophesied that modern science and technology will erode, or even completely eliminate, the proletariat, and weaken its international importance; they conclude that the international workers' movement has reached a ``dead end''.It is true that mankind is experiencing the effects of unprecedentedly rapid and great scientific and technical change. But these effects in no way confute, but rather confirm, Lenin's analysis of imperialism and testify to the viability of Lenin's teachings. The facts show that the development of science and technology does not weaken but strengthens the fundamental social contradictions of our time, intensifying the economic and other antagonisms characteristic of capitalism.
Of course, the mounting strength of the workers' movement forces the capitalists to resort more and more often to social manoeuvres. In place of their former crude and open abuse of working people they have advanced the doctrine of ``class cooperation'', combining repressions with economic concessions to workers and making use of various bourgeoisreformist stratagems. Engels, observing the change in bourgeois tactics in the more than forty years that had passed since he published his analysis of the condition of the working class in England, wrote: ``A new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades' Unions.... The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the war against the working class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony."^^1^^ Today, when the world is split into two camps, the fear of revolution, of the attractive power of the victorious working class in the socialist countries, as well as the qualitatively new level of its demands, reflecting the growing requirements and consciousness of the working class, compel the ruling circles of present state-monopoly capitalism to resort to more refined forms of exploitation of white- and blue-- collar workers.^^2^^ The bourgeoisie has learned certain lessons _-_-_
~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ``Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in England''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 3, pp. 441--42.
~^^2^^ For further detail see: New Forms of Exploitation and the Workers' Movement. Materials of an Exchange of Opinions Among Marxists from a Number of European, American and Asian Countries on the Theory and Practice of ``Human Relations" in Capitalist Enterprises, Moscow, I960, p. 344 (in Russian).
205 from the fierce class struggle.It would also be wrong to underestimate the important changes that have taken place in the past few decades in the make-up of the working class, in the conditions of its struggle and under the influence of a number of objective factors: the effects of the scientific and technological revolution, the changing conditions of the reproduction of labour, the new international balance of social and political forces, the intensification of the class, anti-monopolist struggle of working people in capitalist countries.
Of course, the working class of today, which is employed in automated industry, differs greatly from the working class of the nineteenth century in its patterns of consumption, class consciousness, education and organisation, and socioeconomic gains won in its long struggle against the monopolies.^^1^^ But does this mean right revisionists such as Earl Browder^^2^^ are justified in asserting that the conclusions of Marx and Engels about the intensification of capitalist exploitation have proved theoretically faulty today? Of course not. As science transforms the jobs of more and more tens of millions of people in imperialist countries, and as industry comes to employ a huge number of not only bluebut also white-collar workers, the amount of surplus value increases greatly. In the USA, for example, the total amount of surplus value has increased more than ninefold over the past four decades.
Some changes in the form of capitalist exploitation, far from altering its essence, are, on the contrary, connected with the growing scale of this exploitation and with the widening cleavage between the monopolies and the popular masses. Engels noted that all the minor grievances ``which aggravated the workman's fate" at earlier stages of the history of the proletariat would of necessity be eliminated and that precisely because of their elimination ``it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself. "^^3^^ The events of our time increasingly bear out their predictions. Engels, as if in answer to such revisionists as Browder and the other advocates of the ``America is _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: The Working Class in the Social Structure of Industrially Developed Capitalist Countries, Moscow, 1977 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ Earl Browder, Marx and America. A Study of the Doctrine of Impoverishment, Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, New York, 1958, pp. XII 6.
~^^3^^ Frederick Engels, ``Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in England''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 3, p. 442.
206 different" theory, wrote: ``True, the external surroundings in which the working class is placed in America are very different, but the same economical laws are at work."^^1^^Bourgeois ideologues have a distorted understanding of the moving force behind today's scientific and social progress. For this reason all of their attempts to predict social development fall wide of the mark.
Lenin, continuing to develop Marxism under new historical conditions, made an immense contribution to socialist thought and revolutionary action. Lenin's analysis was well founded and perceptive; it enabled him to predict the crucial problems of social development in the twentieth century. Here are just a few examples.
Lenin made a scientific analysis of the principal changes in the politics and economics of world capitalism. (In particular, he drew correct conclusions from the specific operation of the law of unequal economic and political development of capitalist states in the era of imperialism.) On this basis he was the first to prove that the socialist revolution can and must take place first in one or several countries. The events of October 1917 and the years that followed proved him right.
Studying the new trends in social development and the international class struggle Lenin pointed out that in the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism not only the growth of the revolutionary working-class movement is natural, but also the involvement in the anti-- imperialist struggle of the ever broader masses of the peasantry, the intelligentsia and the middle urban and rural strata in the East and West alike.
Lenin also foresaw many of the features and consequences of modern scientific and technical progress; he anticipated their significance for the fate of nations and for science itself. It may be positively stated that all of the principal changes the world has seen in the past decades, and especially the deep revolutionary transformations in social life in a sizable part of our planet, demonstrate with new force the vitality of Lenin's ideas and the well-foundedness of his predictions. But, of course, some or other concrete prognoses are not the only point. It is no less important to grasp the scientific methodology of Lenin's thought, of his revolutionary teachings and legacy.
For Lenin materialist dialectics was the point of departure in the theory and practice of scientific prevision. The objective world (including the socium) is dialectical by nature: it always represents a unity of the past, the present and the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 443.
207 future. From this follows that maximally full and correct scientific cognition of any object demands that not only the past and present, but also the future of that object be taken into account. To take a dialectical position means to investigate phenomena (including social phenomena) from every aspect, taking into account both the past and the future. Lenin repeatedly emphasised that it is necessary ``to examine all phenomena in their process of development, and not to be content merely with superficial descriptions".^^1^^ Thus for Leninism prevision represents an indispensable element of scientific cognition conditioned by the dialectical character of objective reality and its reflection in consciousness. It is only by knowing the objective logic and laws of development of social processes in general that it is possible to accurately predict the basic directions and stages of the further course of events in any area of the life of society.For Lenin social prognostication was both a precondition to, and an essential means of, correcting practical action. He wrote: ``For us theory forms the basis of actions to be undertaken, it gives us confidence in those actions".^^2^^
Lenin demanded that more attention be paid to ``the tasks of tomorrow, and not of yesterday".^^3^^ He believed that the point of view of the past is just explanation, whereas the point of view of the future aims to turn explanation into a lever for changing the world, an instrument of further progress.^^4^^ On these grounds Lenin called for both scientific prevision and practical action directed towards the realisation of its predictions.^^5^^
Lenin always devoted considerable attention to the socioeconomic and socio-political aspects of prevision. He postulated that investigation must proceed from economics to the structure of society and thence to politics and ideology. It is the interrelations of classes (and of various social strata and groups within classes) that underlie political and ideological events and struggles. Lenin repeatedly pointed out that only an objective and exact class analysis makes it possible to work out well-grounded social and political predictions, to maintain perspective and avoid getting lost in _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers' Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp. 220--21.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Speech on the Nationalisation of the Banks Delivered at a Meeting of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, December 14 (27), 1917'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 389.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``~`Left-Wing' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality'', Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 352.
~^^4^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``Report on the Unity Congress of the R. S. D. L. P. '', Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 345.
~^^5^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 72.
208 the twists and turns of history.^^1^^ At the same time he called for consideration of the experience of the masses, which makes it possible to create ``something infinitely loftier than the greatest genius can foresee".^^2^^The further evolution of the life of society showed the correctness of Lenin's methodology. Even in 1917--1920, when the young Soviet Republic was in the grip of the armed intervention, economic dislocation and blockade, Lenin did not doubt that Soviet Russia would catch up with, and surpass, many advanced capitalist countries not only in social development but also in economics, culture and other areas. He foresaw that less developed countries might, with the aid of the working class of advanced countries, by-pass the capitalist stage on the way to socialism.^^3^^
The world today is witness to the foresight of Lenin, who wrote that ``the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism"^^4^^ and indicated that the struggle of the working people against the bourgeoisie of one's own country will inevitably fuse with the struggle of all imperialist-oppressed colonies and dependent countries against international imperialism.^^5^^
Lenin's theoretical and political legacy is and will ever be an inexhaustible treasure of revolutionary experience for the world proletariat and its politically conscious vanguard.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ Against ``Neo''-KautskyismAll reformist revisions of Marxism, which are socially uniform in origin and essence, take on certain nationally specific features in different countries. In 1918, comparing the views of Karl Kautsky with those of other opportunists (in particular of Emile Vandervelde, who at one time was Chairman of the International Socialist Bureau), Lenin wrote: ``Both represent the complete bankruptcy of the Second International, and both ... `skilfully' mask this bankruptcy _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R. C. P. (B.)'', Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 130.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 474.
~^^3^^ See, for example: V. I. Lenin, ``The Second Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 244.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Third Congress of the Communist International,'' Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 482.
~^^5^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East, November 22, 1919'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 159.
209 and their own bankruptcy and desertion to the bourgeoisie with Marxist catchwords. One gives us a striking example of what is typical of German opportunism, ponderous, theorising and grossly falsifying Marxism by trimming it of all that is unacceptable to the bourgeoisie. The other is typical of the Latin---to a certain extent, one may say, of the West-- European (that is, west of Germany)---variety of prevailing opportunism, which is more flexible, less ponderous, and which falsifies Marxism by the same fundamental method, but in a more subtle manner."^^1^^ Every type of ``national'' opportunism in the contemporary epoch is the same, however, in rejecting the scientific, class definitions of such concepts as democracy and dictatorship, revolution and the state. Noting the general characteristics of the concrete forms of opportunism, specifically of the views of Kautsky and Vandervelde, Lenin commented (1918): ``Both radically distort Marx's teaching on the state as well as his teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat; Vandervelde deals more^^2^^ with the former subject, Kautsky with the latter. Both obscure the very close and inseparable connection that exists between the two subjects. Both are revolutionaries and Marxists in word, but renegades in practice, who strain every effort to dissociate themselves from revolution."^^3^^The founders of Marxism-Leninism were militant partisans and, in Lenin's words, the polemical edge of their writings ``provides an exact picture, in theory, of all the contradictions that are present in reality. For this reason, incidentally, all attempts to master `Marx's system' without mastering its 'polemical nature' are and will continue to be unsuccessful."^^4^^
The revisionist approach to the theory of revolution is fundamentally different from the genuinely scientific approach of Marxism-Leninism. Abandoning the class orientation, opportunists try to conceal, or to gloss over, the inherent antagonisms in the basis and superstructure of the exploitative order, which unfailingly find expression in an ideological struggle. They strive to reconcile the irreconcilable: Marxism and reformism, revolutionary Marxist-Leninist doctrine and Kautskyism. Not long ago, for example, a fashionable revisionist journal published in England noted an increasing willingness in the Western _-_-_
^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky", Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 319.
~^^2^^ The work under discussion is Vandervelde's Socialism versus the State published in Paris in 1918.
^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 319.
^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Once More on the Theory of Realisation'', Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 85.
210 communist parties to ``evoke the ideas of Kautsky with some benevolence'', and at the same time spoke of ``the need for a soberly critical assessment of Lenin's achievement''; it is asserted that ``a key weakness in Lenin's stance" is ``his failure to give adequate weight to the question of ... democracy."^^1^^Certain revisionist ideologues in Spain are even more open in their attempts to revitalise Kautskyism. Declaring a number of the corner-stones of Marxism-Leninism ( including those on the state, revolution and democracy) ``obsolete'', they criticise and at bottom repudiate entirely the experience of the first victorious socialist revolution and the achievements of existing socialism; they think it necessary to reconsider the basic problems of the theory and history of the revolutionary workers' movement. Fernando Claudin, for example, has tried to theoretically substantiate contemporary national opportunism in a number of books, pamphlets and articles on the West European and international workers' movement (which in the past few years have been issued and re-issued with surprising eagerness by various bourgeois and reformist publishers not only in Spain but also in other West European countries, and even in the New World). He appears before various audiences, pretentiously claiming to be ``one of the leading experts" on the theory of Marxism and the history of the Comintern and of communist parties.
In 1977 a Mexican publisher brought out a book on Lenin's polemic with Kautsky. It included the text of Kautsky's 1918 pamphlet ``The Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and Lenin's ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', which appeared in the same year. Instead of presenting, in his preface, an objective analysis of the real sources, preconditions and content of the polemic between Lenin and Kautsky, Claudin took the opportunity to distort revolutionary Marxism. (Claudin's lampoon against Lenin have been translated and acclaimed in West European publications^^2^^~.) Claudin's chapter on overcoming the bourgeois state, which appeared in a book on the socialist theory of the state,^^3^^ shows the same approach, as also do his books, pamphlets and other publications, which have appeared during the 1970s in various capitalist countries in Spanish, English and French.
_-_-_~^^1^^ New Left Review, No. 106, November-December 1977, p. 2.
~^^2^^ Fernando Claudin, ``Democracy and Dictatorship in Lenin and Kautsky'', New Left Review, No. 106, November-December 1977, pp. 59--76.
^^3^^ See: Teoria socialista del estado, Editorial Mariana, Madrid, 1978, pp. 127--44.
211Claudin does not try to hide why he decided, in the 1970s, to return to the legacy of Kautsky who, as the Spanish revisionist reminds us, became the chief theoretical opponent of Bolshevism after the October Revolution. And so it appears that one of the goals of these recent attempts to rehabilitate Kautskyism, to revive its long-lost influence in the world working-class movement, is the activisation of anti-Soviet and anti-communist agitation, the strengthening of attacks on Leninism and the Party of Lenin, on the land of the October Revolution, on the fundamental ideological and theoretical principles, organisational foundations, history and policies of the communist movement as an international force.~^^1^^
Some Western opportunist and social-reformist ideologues (certain French Socialists, for example) resort, in Lenin's words, to ``more flexible, less ponderous" methods in distorting Marxism; others (including Spanish revisionist ``theoreticians'' such as Fernando Claudin) have, by all appearances, adopted Kautsky's own more ponderous, theorising and crude^^2^^ methods of debasing revolutionary Marxism.
The neo-Kautskyites have called for a ``re-examination'' of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the revolution and the state, for a repudiation of class approach to the concepts of democracy and dictatorship, for a ``re-evaluation'' of the international significance of Leninism, of the international influence and importance of the experience of proletarian revolutions and the building of a new type of society in the countries where socialism has become reality. All these matters are given a national-opportunist treatment in the preface by Claudin mentioned above, which is full of talk about a ``democratic path to socialism'',^^3^^ and also in a number of other reformist works (for example those of Roger Garaudy and Jean Elleinstein _-_-_
~^^1^^ In evaluating the significance of the attacks of Kautsky and his followers on Bolshevism, Claudin once again expresses not only his own opinion but also that of many West European social-democratic ideologues, such as the Labourist historian Professor G. D. H. Cole, who commends the ``historic services" of Kautskyism in the ideological struggle against communism. See: G. D. H. Cole, Socialism and Fascism 1931--1939, Vol. 5 of A History of Socialist Thought, Macmillan, London and New York, 1960.
^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 319.
~^^3^^ See also Claudin's report on a ``West European path to socialism'', which presents the idea of a ``third force" supposedly ``above'' the contradictions between Leninism and social-democracy (Sistema, Madrid, No. 15,1976).
212 in France).^^1^^Garaudy, Claudin, Elleinstein and others make specifically ``theoretical'' charges against Marxism-Leninism. Revising Marxism from reformist, Kautskyite (or even openly Bernsteinian) positions, these modern opportunists perpetuate the myth that revolutionary theory is in the throes of a protracted crisis, and that it is not in accord with the practice of the class struggle. Furthermore, they make a false ``division'' of Marxism into ``Western'' and ``Eastern'' Marxism, occasionally call for an eclectic ``blend'' of revisionist ``neo-Marxism'' with scientific socialism, etc.
What are the real ideological and theoretical, epistemological sources of these ``theories''? It is not hard to see that they were borrowed from bourgeois philosophers and historians, their roots go back to certain anti-Marxist ideas that are widespread in Western historiography. Many of the weapons of Claudin, Elleinstein, Garaudy and other national-- opportunists were forged in the subjectivist, anti-proletarian schemes of admitted anti-communists such as, Raymond Aron.^^2^^ Bourgeois ideologues do not hide the fact that they accept ``Western Marxism" in an attempt to lead the working masses away from Leninism, away from the revolutionary principles of international solidarity among working people, towards the repudiation by the working class and its organisations of the general historical laws of the class, revolutionary struggle substantiated by scientific communism and tested by the experience of the October Revolution and of other victorious socialist revolutions.
Although they call themselves Marxists some of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Denying the international significance of the central theses of Marxism-Leninism (in particular on the state, democracy and revolution), contemporary revisionist ideologues have even begun to allege that the October Revolution and the subsequent transformations were not socialist, and to deny that genuine democracy exists under the new social order in the USSR and the other fraternal socialist countries. In addition to the already mentioned and several other publications by Spanish opportunists, ``neo''-Trotskyites (such as Ernest Mandel in Belgium) and the modern followers of Bernstein have made similar attacks on existing socialism. Jean Elleinstein's Lettre ouverte aux frangais sur la republique du programme commun (Michel, Paris, 1977), published not long before the parliamentary elections of March 1978, is openly anti-Soviet, as are a number of his pronouncements, interviews, etc. (see: Le Monde, April 13, 1978, pp. 1, 9; and Jean Elleinstein, The Stalin Phenomenon, trans, by Peter Latham, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1976).
^^2^^ Raymond Aron, Main Currents in Sociological Thought, Penguin Books, London, 1972. This book was first published in 1965; since then it has been reprinted repeatedly in England, the USA and elsewhere in the West.
213 revisionists follow the anti-communists in placing a completely false interpretation on the trends in the international revolutionary workers' movement and the results it has achieved (both during the period of the Communist International and in the decades since the war), blaming the socialist countries, rather than imperialist reaction, for the difficulties the working people of capitalist countries encounter in the struggle for their class goals.The heart of the views, for example, of the opportunist Fernando Claudin (whom some in the West consider to be one of the most zealous propagandists of the idea of bourgeois integration of Western Europe) is the postulation of a ``crisis'' in the world conmmunist movement.
Claudin presents his distinctly national-opportunist conception in pseudo-scientific form in his work on the history of the communist movement,^^1^^ whose first volume, devoted mainly to the history and theory of the communist movement, appeared in Spanish in 1970; in the mid-1970s expanded editions appeared in French and English. In 1977 the next volume, devoted to Eurocommunism and socialism,^^2^^ appeared first in Spanish, then in English translation.
Claudin and his followers postulate that the world communist movement has suffered an ideological and political ``breakdown''; they offer cures for this mythical ``general crisis" of the workers' movement.
Claudin carries on the fiction, originated by bourgeois ideologues, of a protracted crisis in scientific communism.^^3^^ Attempting to ``justify'' and ``deepen'' this unfounded claim, he pretends to make a historical, social and epistemological analysis. Like the bourgeois ``Marxologists'' (Maximilien Rubel, Raymond Aron, et al.), he tries to separate Marxism from Leninism while artificially severing the scientific from the ideological in Marxism. Like the other national-- opportunists, he makes a real effort to distort the main lines of the history and theory of the international communist movement.
In essence Claudin distorts virtually the entire history of communist parties in the era of the October Revolution, including the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism, the Comintern period, etc., seeing it through the prism of the revisionist myth of a ``long crisis"^^4^^ in the world _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement from Comintern to Cominform, Penguin Books, London, 1975. First published in two volumes by Ruedo Iberico, 1970.
~^^2^^ Fernando Claudin, Eurocomunismo y socialismo, Siglo XXI, Mexico, 1974.
~^^3^^ Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement..., pp. 7--8.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 15.
214 revolutionary workers' movement. Part One of his book is entitled ``The Crisis pf the Communist International"^^1^^; one of its chapters is devoted to the so-called ``crisis of theory" in Marxism-Leninism.^^2^^ In another part of the book, devoted to a mythical political crisis in the communist movement, the author attempts a critique of the basic principles of the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary proletarian vanguard (including, for instance, communist parties' propositions on the united workers' and popular front, the Comintern's decisions on the national-colonial question, etc.).^^3^^ In the same book Claudin disputes in vain the Marxist-Leninist principle of democratic centralism.Underlying Claudin's national-opportunist conceptions are attacks on Leninism and an attempt to derogate from the international significance of the experience of the Party of Lenin. Claudin openly advocates the rejection of `` Marxism in its Bolshevik version'', and speaks of the `` underestimation of the national originality of other countries---those of advanced capitalism as well as those oppressed by imperialism".^^4^^ In the spirit of Kautsky and the Mensheviks he makes baseless assertions such as the following: ``The tremendous international repercussions of the October Revolution helped to conceal how essentially Russian it was, in the type of objective contradictions involved, in the characteristics of its social agents, its strategic paths and tactical methods, etc."^^5^^
Claudin denies Leninism's international character; he writes that ``as regards the theoretical forces available to the Comintern" after 1917, ``account must be taken ... of the fact that nearly all the theoretical cadres of the Second International remained in the reformist camp''. This, he says, leads to a ``divorce between the [Marxist---Ed. ] theory of the revolution ... and the development of the social sciences".^^6^^
It is not by coincidence that such fabrications are combined, in the works of modern national-opportunists, with exaggerated praise of Kautskyism and vain efforts to discredit Marxist-Leninist theory.
A peculiar division of labour may be noted among recent critics of Marxism-Leninism: while one group refuses even to acknowledge the existence of a scientifically developed and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid. pp. 15--304.
~^^2^^ Ibid. pp. 46--102.
~^^3^^ Ibid. pp. 126--304.
~^^4^^ Ibid. p. 93.
~^^5^^ Ibid. p. 664. For criticism of conceptions such as these see sections III and IV of the present work, and also: The Great October Revolution and the World Revolutionary Process, Moscow, 1967 (in Russian).
~^^6^^ Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement..., p. 664.
215 substantiated Marxist doctrine on the state, another group of opportunist ideologues seeks to substantiate (or rather to falsify) that doctrine through Kautskyism, calling in essence for a ``return to Kautsky''.For some time a group of Western social-reformist authors (among them the Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio) has specialised in attempts to deny the existence of a unified Marxist conception of the state while crudely distorting Marx's and Engels's conceptions of democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat and the class content of these notions. ``Does the Marxist Theory of the State Exist?" was the title of an article published by Bobbio in Mondo Operaio, the journal of the Italian Socialist Party, which in the mid-1970s organised a debate on the question of the state. In an attempt to substantiate a negative answer to the question raised, Bobbio distorted above all the correlation in Marxism of the ``destructive'' and the revolutionary-transformative, creative functions of the proletarian state; he maintained that the ``principal, if not the only, interest of socialist theoreticians" is ``in attaining power, whence the emphasis on the party at the expense of the consideration of the state".^^1^^ He maintained further that the founders of scientific socialism did not hand down a finished theory of the state; Marx, in Bobbio's words, did not accomplish his intention of writing ``a political critique to accompany his economic critique''. Hence, concludes this reformist ideologue, the legacy of Marx is no longer appropriate for the analysis of the problems of the state and of the relations of its forms to democracy.^^2^^
The main thrust of such ``criticisms" of the Marxist doctrine of the state is apparent in the attempts of Bobbio (and of several more of the Participants in the discussion on the pages of the Mondo Operaio journal^^3^^ to interpret the concepts`` democracy" and ``dictatorship'' from abstract ``supra-class'' positions. They ignore the historical achievements of existing socialism and belittle the superiority of the new social order over capitalism; they even go so far as to claim that our era has not produced an alternative to representative democracy.^^4^^
But every true follower of socialism must see the basic distinctions between the capitalist and socialist systems, between bourgeois and proletarian democracy. This is an elementary truth. That is why social-reformist ideologues are at such pains to obscure these fundamental, class distinctions.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Il marxismo e lo stato. II dibattito aperto nella sinistra italiana sulle tesi di Norberto Bobbio, Mondo Operaio, Rome, 1976, p. 1.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 6.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 63--72.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 28.
216Claudin, Elleinstein and other ``neo''-Kautskyian revisionists are, at bottom, trying to do the same thing. They pay lipservice to the Marxist doctrine of the state, but in practice they falsify and distort it, artificially counterposing revolutionary theory to revolutionary practice. They speak of the need to ``overcome'' the distinctions between (in Claudin's words) ``the Leninist" and ``the social-democratic versions of Marxism'', including the idea of ``the transformation of the state, i.~e., the system of power".^^1^^
By what means would the ``neo'VKautskyites ``ease'' or ``eliminate'' the contradictions between Marxism-Leninism and social-reformism? As it transpires, by way of Communists abandoning the principled, class position of Leninism. Claudin, for example, unblushingly writes of the supposedly inevitable ``turn of the European Communist Parties to Kautskyism"^^2^^ and asserts that ``the international communist movement which succeeded from the Communist International began to adopt the Kautskyian strategy''. By dint of wishful thinking he reaches the conclusion that Kautskyism ``became de facto (without being recognised openly) the general line of the communist movement in the developed capitalist countries (as well as in some which were not so developed)".^^3^^
All of these arguments are patently dishonest. Neither overt attempts, whatever their origin, to refute the MarxistLeninist class conception of the state (or to deny its integrity), nor the covert efforts of the opportunists to ``change'', to pervert its revolutionary essence and slant under the banner of a ``rehabilitated'' Kautskyism correspond to the actual trends in the world revolutionary movement. Such myths are exploded by recent and current developments in the international working-class movement.
The ideological and theoretical struggle over questions of the state, of revolution and of democracy has always been one of the centres of the polemic of revolutionary Marxism with its various opponents and vulgarisers (whether of the reformist, right-revisionist or of the anarchist, ``left''-- doctrinaire type). That this was so even in the middle of the past century can be seen in the works of Marx and Engels on the eve of the 1848 revolution and in the class struggle of 1848--1851. The same thing can be seen again in their polemic, after the Paris Commune of 1871, with the reformist and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fernando Claudin, ``La via al socialismo en Europa'', Sistema, Madrid, No. 15, 1976, p. 38.
~^^2^^ Fernando Claudin, ``Democracy and Dictatorship in Lenin and Kautsky'', New Left Review, No. 109, November-December 1977, p. 66.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
217 anarchist elements in the ranks of the international workers' movement. The same was in the period of the Second International. The opportunist leaders and chief theoreticians of the Second International took small interest in questions of the state and the social revolution.^^1^^ Commenting on this position, Lenin wrote that their ``evasiveness over the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state---an evasiveness which benefited and fostered opportunismresulted in the distortion of Marxism and in its complete vulgarisation".^^2^^ At the same time Lenin and his followers, as well as the left wing of the international socialist movement of those years, struggled vigorously against the reformist falsification and debasement of Marxist doctrine in general and of its teachings on revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.That struggle became even more intense during the First World War and the general crisis of capitalism. It continued to grow in the period when, as Lenin saw it, proletarian revolution became the order of the day in a number of countries.^^3^^
It is not surprising that in 1917 and the years that followed Lenin paid special attention to the Marxist doctrines of the state, of revolution and of democracy.^^4^^ He defended the fundamental theses of Marxism in the struggle against the reformists and revisionists who, in his words, had ``thrown overboard ... the 'class struggle' as applied to democracy".^^5^^ Moreover, he creatively developed Marxist revolutionary theory under new conditions, showed the historical law-- governed nature and practical inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat under those conditions, and scientifically substantiated the conclusions about the creation and development of a fundamentally new type of state: the socialist state.
Lenin's theses and report on bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat^^6^^ were, with good reason, _-_-_
~^^1^^ For further detail see: L. S. Mamut, Problems of the Theory of the State in the Contemporary Ideological Struggle (Against Bourgeois Critique of Marx's Views on the State), Moscow, 1976 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Sate and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 480.
~^^3^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 229.
~^^4^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``The State and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, pp. 385--497.
~^^5^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 108.
~^^6^^ See: V.I. Lenin, ``First Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 455--56, 457--75. See also: ``Theses on __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 219. 218 among the main topics of discussion at the First Comintern Congress (March 1919).
In connection with the decisions of the Second Comintern Congress (1920) it was the approach to these fundamental questions of policy and theory, and especially to the question of the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, that became the final parting of the ways between the social-- democratic reformists and the communist movement.~^^1^^
It was then, in the period of the formation of the Comintern, that two concepts were distinguished: the dictatorship of the proletariat as a fundamental principle of Marxism-- Leninism, and that as an immediate slogan at a particular stage of the political struggle. Recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a principle was made into a mandatory condition for the admission of proletarian organisations into the ranks of the Comintern.^^2^^
At the same time it would be wrong to think that Leninism adopted a sectarian, adventurist position on the use of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a direct political demand, as an immediate slogan in the mass struggle.^^3^^
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 218. Bourgeois Democracy and Proletarian Dictatorship Adopted by the First Comintern Congress'', The Communist International 1919-- 1943. Documents, Vol. I, 1919--1923, Oxford University Press, London, 1956, p.7.~^^1^^ See: ``Theses on the Basic Tasks of the Communist International Adopted by the Second Comintern Congress'', The Communist International 1919--1943, Documents, Vol. I, 1919--1923, pp. 113--27.
~^^2^^ In his article ``A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship'', first published in 1920, Lenin wrote: ``When the revolution has already become an unquestioned force, when even the liberals `recognise' it, and when the ruling classes not only see but also feel the invincible might of the oppressed masses, then the entire question---both to the theoreticians and the leaders of practical policy---reduces itself to an exact class definition of the revolution. However, without the concept of `dictatorship', this precise class definition cannot be given. One cannot be a revolutionary in fact unless one prepares for dictatorship. This truth was not understood in 1905 by the Mensheviks, and it is not understood in 1920 by the Italian, German, French and other socialists, who are afraid of the severe ' conditions' of the Communist International" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 344).
~^^3^^ Lenin repeatedly indicated the need for the revolutionary workers' movement to change its slogans with changes in circumstances. In ``On Slogans" (July 1917) he wrote: ``Too often has it happened that, when history has taken a sharp turn, even progressive parties have for some time been unable to adapt themselves to the new situation and have repeated slogans which had formerly been correct but had now lost all meaning" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 185). See also Lenin's note ``Demonstration Slogans'', written at the close of 1917 (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 41).
219In our day, too, the fraternal communist parties in the capitalist world understand the differences between the tasks of the various stages of their struggle against the rule of monopolies and for the advancement to socialism. And in this light they work out the main lines of the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary workers' movement, which involve decisions on questions of theory and policy, and choose slogans appropriate to the task at hand. The programmatic documents of communist parties outline the prospects and goals of the class struggle in each of its stages, including the stage following the triumph of anti-monopolist forces, the transition period between capitalism and socialism, during which the power of the working class, or of a bloc of left forces headed by the working class, must be established in one form or another. Many communist parties, especially in the industrially developed capitalist countries, have seldom used the term ``dictatorship of the proletariat" in characterising the power of the working class in the decisions of their party congresses over the past few years. But this circumstance cannot, and does not, lead to the rejection of the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat (which is substantiated by scientific socialism) by Marxists-Leninists.
As many communist parties have pointed out, their change in formulation gives no occasion to speak of a repudiation of fundamental theses of scientific communism. Franz Muhri, the Chairman of the Communist Party of Austria, has written, for example, that ``the employment or non-employment of this concept by one or another Communist Party is not of decisive importance. What is important is the essence of this scientific category, the content which Marx, Engels and Lenin imparted to it. And this retains all its validity in the present, in many ways changing conditions and forms of transition to socialism, for such propositions as the leading role of the working class, the introduction of broad democracy for the working people, the resolute attack on the positions of the exploiting minority, etc., are fully relevant today too.''^^1^^
During the present phase of the class struggle the exacerbation of the contradictions within world imperialism has placed new, and very significant opportunities before the workers' movement in a number of capitalist countries. The objective conditions that have arisen make it possible to broaden the social and political alliances led by the working class and its vanguard organisations and to reinforce the link between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for _-_-_
~^^1^^ Franz Muhri, ``Political Democracy and Class Dictatorship'', World Marxist Review, Vol. 20, No. 4, April 1977, p. 11.
220 socialism, between the general-democratic demands of the masses and the long-range class goals of the proletarian movement.Marxist-Leninist thought has been further developed and enriched with new ideas and tactico-strategical conclusions, and in these conditions it strives to take account of the changes taking place (both within individual capitalist countries and internationally) in the balance of social and political forces. This fact illustrates the connection between revolutionary theory and the practice of the class struggle.
The creative development of revolutionary theory also involves the advancement of some debatable propositions. One group of these concerns the concrete historical conditions of the political struggle in a particular country or the specific traditions and characteristics of the workers' movement there. It is clear that such propositions can best be tested in the thick of the battle between working people (led by the proletariat, its vanguard) and the rule of statemonopoly capital (which is not merely ``national'', being supported by cosmopolitan-international imperialist forces).
Another group of debatable propositions directly concerns the international historical experience already accumulated by the working class in the course of its revolutionary struggle in various countries, including the countries of existing socialism. This many-faceted experience has often been interpreted one-sidedly or subjectivistically, especially by Western opportunists and social-reformists. Marxist scholars, including those of the socialist countries, cannot allow these arbitrary, incorrect interpretations to pass without comment.
The tendency to ``revise'' scientific communism's theory finds expression, for example, in the attacks of certain West European quasi-Marxists on the Marxist-Leninist conception of socialist revolution and also in their attempts to rehabilitate Kautskyism or ``overcome'' the antithesis between it and Leninism.
Like Kautsky, the modern opportunists are fond of the notion of ``pure'' democracy, of ``democracy in general''. Claudin, Elleinstein and their supporters have attacked the class, Marxist-Leninist conception of democracy, contriving myths about ``serious errors" in the Bolshevik assessment of bourgeois democracy, about communist undervaluation of ``democratic rights and freedoms under capitalism''.^^1^^ Falsifying history, the opportunists and their allies maintain that Leninism does not elucidate ``with sufficient clarity" the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Teoria socialista del estado, Editorial Manana, Madrid, 1978 p. 140.
221 question of the use by the workers' movement of the bourgeois-democratic norms and gains, including parliamentarism, and that Leninism conceives bourgeois democracy ``too abstractly".^^1^^ But all these claims are nothing but bluffs and deceptions.First of all, Leninism, despite the assertion of various opportunists, has not at all shown itself ``one-sided'' in its approach to the forms (legal and illegal, parliamentary and extra-parliamentary, etc.) of the class struggle. It favours the use of a wide variety of these forms in pursuit of the interests of the revolutionary workers' movement. Lenin specifically acknowledged the possibility that at some stage in the Russian revolutionary movement a ``combined type" of state system might arise, under which the country's working class could strive for its goals ``once power is in the hands of the Soviets'', keeping parliamentary institutions intact.^^2^^ Later, in a speech made in 1920 on the occasion of the Comintern's first anniversary, he declared: `` Disagreements are again arising, for example, over the question of using parliaments, but since the experience of the Russian revolution and the Civil War, since the figure of Liebknecht and his role and importance among parliamentarians, have become known to the world, it is absurd to reject the revolutionary use of parliaments. It has become clear to people of the old way of thinking that the question of the state cannot be presented in the old way, that the old, bookish approach to this question has been succeeded by a new one based on practice and born of the revolutionary movement."^^3^^
It is well known that Lenin was highly critical of those ``left'' who failed to appreciate the importance of active representation of proletarian parties in the parliaments of capitalist countries. Similarly well known are the clearly defined positions of many fraternal communist parties on this question (as seen in the documents of today's communist parties and of their regional and international conferences) and the numerous facts that show that the world revolutionary working-class movement has amassed valuable and many-sided _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fernando Claudin, ``Democracy and Dictatorship in Lenin and Kautsky'', New Left Review, No. 106,November-December 1971,p. 69
~^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``Letter to Comrades'', Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 200. Of course, Lenin and his followers conceived the combining of mass democratic bodies (such as the Soviets were in Russia) with a parliamentary system as possible only if such a combination did not lead to a repudiation of the setting up of a workers' and peasants' rule.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Speech at a Meeting of the Moscow Soviet in Celebration of the First Anniversary of the Third International, March 6, 1920'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, pp. 420--21.
222 experience in the use of parliamentarism.Furthermore Leninism, in contradiction to revisionism, holds that ``a united and centralised force of the proletariat must be counterposed to the united and centralised force of the bourgeoisie.'' This means that after the triumph of the proletarian revolution the question of the state and of democracy ``has ... been shifted to a new plane.... The old division of the working-class movement has yielded to new ones, the attitude towards Soviet government and to the dictatorship of the proletariat having assumed prime importance.... Our experience and the study of it have shown that all the groups of the old issues are now reduced to one: for or against Soviet rule, either for bourgeois rule, for democracy (for those forms of democracy which promise equality between the well-fed and the hungry, equality between the capitalist and the worker at the ballot-box, between the exploiters and the exploited, and serve to camouflage capitalist slavery), or for proletarian rule, for the ruthless suppression of the exploiters, for the Soviet state.''^^1^^
Revolutionaries versus reformists, proponents versus opponents of the overthrow of the exploitative order, friends versus enemies of existing socialism, those who study Soviet experience in good faith versus those who reject it out of hand---these divisions of the workers' movement the ``neo''-- Kautskyites refuse to admit.
Lenin's brilliant characterisation of the views held by the opportunists of his time can be applied as well to the positions of quasi-Marxists such as Garaudy, Elleinstein and Claudin: ``The Bernsteinians accepted and accept Marxism minus its directly revolutionary aspect. They do not regard the parliamentary struggle as one of the weapons particularly suitable for definite historical periods, but as the main and almost the sole form of struggle making `force', `seizure', `dictatorship' unnecessary.'' This is a ``vulgar philistine distortion of Marxism".^^2^^
Those who laud the West's ``democratic'' tradition, who propose that Marxism be ``integrated into the Western liberal tradition'', would do well to remember that West European history knows, for example, of the bloody suppression of the Paris Commune by the French bourgeoisie, of the long years of fascist domination in Spain, Portugal and Italy, and so forth.
The best, progressive historical traditions of these nations are mainly the result of the revolutionary struggle of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 421.
~^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, ``A Contribution to the History of the Question of the Dictatorship'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 356.
223 working masses, of their triumphs in hard-fought class battles; they have little to do with the decaying, and by no means eternal, ``liberalism'' of the West European bourgeoisie.Time and again the ``critics'' of Leninism (among them the national-opportunist ideologues whose publications were cited above) present a metaphysical, one-sided interpretation of the functions of the proletarian state, undervaluing the world historic significance of its transforming, creative activity. On the whole they misinterpret the problem of the relation between democracy and the revolutionary process, thus showing once again the correctness of the Marxist-- Leninist thesis that there is a difference in principle between the ``democracy of the reformists" and the ``democracy of the revolution".^^1^^
Disregarding historical truth, authors such as Garaudy, Elleinstein and Claudin allege that the chief task of a socialist government is to suppress the exploiting classes. But Leninism has always seen the essence of the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat not only in routing the exploiters and crushing their resistance but also in ``winning over all working people'', enlightening and organising them, as well as in ``neutralising those vacillating''. It is to accomplish these tasks that the new order must improve the position of the exploited at the expense of the exploiters.^^2^^
In clarifying this question with representatives of other communist and workers' parties Lenin stressed that the victory of socialism over capitalism requires that the revolutionary working class accomplish three main tasks; `` Firstoverthrow the exploiters...; utterly rout them; crush their resistance, absolutely preclude any attempt on their part to restore the yoke of capital and wage-slavery. Second---win over and bring under the leadership of the Communist Party, the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat, not only the entire proletariat, or its vast majority, but ^11 who labour and are exploited by capital; educate, organise, train and discipline them...; imbue it [the vast majority of the population in all the capitalist countries], through its own practical experience, with confidence in the leading role of the proletariat and of its revolutionary vanguard. Third---neutralise, or render harmless, the inevitable vacillation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, between bourgeois democracy and Soviet power, to be seen in the class of petty proprietors in agriculture, industry and commerce---a class _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for example: V. I. Lenin, ``Plan for an Article `On the Question of the Role of the State'~'', Collected Works, Vol. 41, p. 382.
~^^2^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Fifth Russ. Ed., Vol. 41, pp. 439--40.
224 which is still fairly numerous in nearly all advanced countries, although comprising only a minority of the population."^^1^^ Lenin also regarded the second of these tasks as an independent function of the proletarian state.^^2^^ Where, one wonders, is the emphasis on its coercive functions that the ``neo''-- Kautskyites so persistently (and so unjustly) attribute to Leninism? The main intent of such slanders is to denigrate the experience of the USSR and other socialist countries; it is claimed that their new social order is not truly socialist.^^3^^ This fabrication is tied to a completely misleading, antiscientific appraisal of the overall disposition of international class forces and their balance and of trends in the world revolutionary process, its prospects and contradictions, and the social forces behind it. In other words, the ``neo''-- Kautskyites knowingly distort the political situation of the modern world and the regularities of the development of the workers' movement as an international force, painting a bleak picture of the possibilities and real prospects for the successful proletarian struggle.In order to ``resolve'' the problems that, the revisionists pretend, are facing the international workers' movement it is imperative, they maintain, to replace Marxism-Leninism with ``Western Marxism''. What they are driving at is nothing more than the following: Communists must renounce Leninism, the basic theses of the revolutionary theory of the state, socialist revolution and proletarian internationalism; they must repudiate the general laws of the struggle for socialism. But if all this is done it is unlikely, as the opportunists admit, that the forces of socialism in Western Europe will be able to ``overcome Social-Democratic reformism''. Their conclusion is gloomy: ``the path to socialism in that part of the world may be closed for an indefinite period."^^4^^
These forecasts share features with certain notions that are being propagandised in the West by ``neo''-Marxist philosophers, historians and sociologists, semi-Trotskyite ``theoreticians'' and other ``left''-revisionist ideologues as well as by right opportunists.^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 185--86.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 186.
~^^3^^ See: Sistema, Madrid, No. 15, 1976; Le Monde, Paris, April 13, 1978, p. 9.
~^^4^^ Fernando Claudin, Eurocomunismo y socialismo, Siglo Veintiuno, Madrid, 1977, p. 180.
~^^5^^ For example, such views are expressed in: P. Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism, Humanities Press, London, 1976; __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 226. 225
Despite the external (especially terminological) differences between right-revisionist and left-doctrinaire ideologues, the two extremes of contemporary national-opportunism often meet. Both groups of ideologues are alike in their attitude towards existing socialism, in their very approach to integral Marxist-Leninist doctrine, and in their position on a number of cardinal questions of the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary working-class movement. These similarities have been pointed out by several figures in the workers' movement in the West.^^1^^
Among such coincidences in the views of ``left'' and right-revisionist ideologues are the following:~
1) a peculiar ``new'' (abstract, ``non-class'') interpretation of the relation between socialism and democracy;~
2) attacks on Leninism for its supposed ``undervaluation'' of the democratic gains of the working class and its organisations under capitalism;~
3) a review of the Marxist-Leninist assessment of the nature of the socialist society, and false declarations that socialist society is ``undemocratic'', that there is no democracy under existing socialism^^2^^;~
4) a negative attitude towards Marxism-Leninism, which the opportunists unjustly portray as a ``dogmatisation'' of Marxism;~
5) calls for a ``reconsideration'' and ``re-evaluation'' of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the proletariat's leading social and historical role, coupled with a narrow and incorrect interpretation of the scientific and technological revolution on the social structure of modern society;~
6) an ``above-class'' outlook on central questions of the strategy and tactics of the struggle against monopolism, of the transition from capitalism to socialism, and of the theory and practice of the revolutionary process; and~
7) an understatement of the importance of the general historical regularities of the class struggle and of the revolutionary overthrow of the exploitative order, which have been tested in the experience of the October Revolution and of the modern international workers' movement.
The unscientific schemes of the national-opportunists devote much attention to the relation between the general _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 225. Ernest Mandel, Late Capitalism, NLB, London, 1976; Idem, Revolution in Western Europe, London, 1977.
~^^1^^ See, for example: Eurored, London, No. 5,1978, p. 19.
~^^2^^ Some of the Spanish revisionists take exception to the theses of the CPSU about developed socialism 'and even deny that the Soviet order is socialist, by which they mean that it does not correspond to their ``new'' abstract model of ``democratic'' socialism; they consider the existing socialist governments ``transitional'' at best.
226 and the particular, between the international and the specifically national, in the class struggle. In contrast to scientific socialism, the authors of these schemes treat this question metaphysically rather than dialectically.Karl Marx, writing about the first stirrings of the proletariat in Europe ( the actions of the workers of Lyons in the 1830s and the rising of the Silesian weavers in the 1840s), noted that their ``specific character" must be considered, but at the same time he unequivocally declared that ``however partial the uprising ... may be, it contains within itself a universal soul''.^^1^^
History's first victorious socialist revolution, its consequences and its rich and many-faceted experience are no less universal. The October Revolution, for all the uniqueness of some of its specific, ``partial'' features, unquestionably reflected the major general historical regularities of the era of mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism.
Marxists-Leninists have always maintained that it is imperative to make a deep and thorough study of the experience of the international class struggle and to generalise it, and to analyse the main lessons learned by revolutionary working people's movements in every corner of the world: first and foremost, the experience of socialist revolutions and of the proletariat's struggle against exploitation and imperialist oppression and for peace, democracy and socialism. Of paramount theoretical, ideological and political significance here is research into the effect of the October Revolution and its consequences on the struggle of working people in different parts of the world, into both its immediate and its long-term influence on the course of world events.
The workers' movement in its class essence and nature is an international phenomenon; it is conditioned by different social, economic, political, ideological, theoretical and other factors. This is also helped by internationalisation processes observable in each of the principal spheres of social life, which affects the conditions and main trends of the proletariat's class struggle. An appreciable role in this respect also belongs to the ultimate goals of the communist movement, arising out of the scientific, Marxist-Leninist world view, and to the objectively international character of the world revolutionary process in which in the twentieth century the working class and its politically conscious vanguard play the part of leading force or hegemon.
Boris Ponomarev is right in emphasising that after the rise _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: Karl Marx, ``Critical Marginal Notes on the Article `The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian'~''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1976, pp. 202, 205.
227 of the workers' movement it gradually became ``international not only in theory but also in practice. For a long time the class struggle of the proletariat was waged within national borders, since the early economic development of capitalism was based chiefly on national markets. Nonetheless, the general laws of the proletarian movement very soon began to appear as it grew more and more active as one great international force."^^1^^The general direction and international laws of the class struggle manifested themselves with increasing clarity at the subsequent stages of the international revolutionary movement of the working class. This was repeatedly pointed out by Marx, Engels and Lenin.^^2^^
The dialectics of the world historical process is such that, as the proletarian movement increases its successes, the influence of workers' parties on the masses grows steadily and in many countries (especially in the twentieth century) such parties become truly authoritative national forces, which more and more frequently act in concert with certain non-proletarian strata and their organisations, and the social base of the struggle against monopolism and imperialism inevitably broadens. More and more segments of the population, more and more participants in general democratic, anti-imperialist movements, are drawn into the world revolutionary process.
These facts have been the basis for a prolonged and heated discussion, in various social and political circles, of the relation between international and national-specific factors in the class struggle; this discussion continues in our day. ``What is more important for the proletariat and its organisations: national interests or the international goals of the revolutionary workers' movement?---this ``dilemma'' is often posed by bourgeois authors, social-reformists and national-opportunists.
But such ``dilemmas'' usually spring from vulgarisations or misunderstanding of the foundations of scientific socialism by some of its would-be ``rebutters''. A scientific, dialecticalmaterialist, rather than metaphysical, examination of these questions shows, in fact, that no such opposition is justified.
_-_-_~^^1^^ B. N. Ponomarev, Introduction to: The International WorkingClass Movement. Questions of History and Theory, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1976, p. 11 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See, for example: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 495--502, 519; Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol.1, pp. 192--93, 200--01; and V. I. Lenin, ``The Voice of an Honest French Socialist'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 354; ``\thinspace`Left-Wing' Communism---an Infantile Disorder'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, pp. 25--26.
228Such questions come down to the relation between form and content in the historical process. In analysing relations between the general and the particular, between the international and the national in the class struggle Marxists-Leninists bear in mind the concrete historical unity of the basic class content of the working people's struggle in any given historical period and of the national-specific forms of the revolutionary processes taking place in that period in any given country.
For the revolutionary workers' movement and for genuine consistent proletarian revolutionaries the ``unresolvable contradictions" invented by bourgeois historians, philosophers and political scientists, and by sundry opportunist ideologues, do not exist and never have. The communist position on the question under discussion was set forth by Marx and Engels. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party they wrote: ``Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle.'' The founders of scientific socialism went on to declare that the struggle of each country's proletariat to topple its own bourgeoisie is international in its class and social essence.^^1^^ In a different historical setting (characterised by the onset of imperialism) Lenin emphasised the importance of combining, in the struggle of the proletarian vanguard, due consideration of the concrete historical circumstances of the given stage in the class struggle and of the national-specific conditions of each country with the undeviating pursuit of the international goals of the revolutionary workers' movement.
The present era has brought with it an unprecedented growth in the influence of the vanguard of the international working class---of communist parties, their ideology and their policies---on the unfolding of the world-wide liberation process and on the course of international events. Moreover, the transformation of many communist parties into important political forces helps to increase the scope and significance of their national tasks. These parties increasingly come to be advocates of national interests by uniting all of the sound, progressive forces of society in the struggle to resolve the intensifying crisis of capitalism in favour of the working people. As several fraternal communist parties have pointed out, underestimation of the national peculiarities in the conditions of the class struggle in different countries is an obstacle to the further development of the communist movement and to the broadening and strengthening of its ties with the masses, with an ever increasing number of segments _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 495.
229 of the working population. The documents of the fraternal parties stress that it is vital to consider both the main events of international life and the characteristics of ``national reality.~"^^1^^In its struggle against the proletariat and its politically conscious vanguard, the monopolistic bourgeoisie and its reformist henchmen have repeatedly tried, and will obviously go on trying, to make use (in their own narrow interests) of the perfectly natural circumstance that the various conditions under which the organised workers' movement has arisen and developed in the various countries of the world and the differences in their concrete, especially immediate, goals sometimes lead to discrepancies among Communists from different countries in their approach to such questions as, for example, the forms and means of resolving the complex problems of the class struggle. It is vital for Marxists-Leninists not to permit the enemies of socialism to interfere (for the accomplishment of their own ends) in discussions among Communists on such questions. The anti-communists would like to foster the growth of such discrepancies among Communists into irreconcilable differences, so as to weaken the revolutionary struggle of the working class and its influence (in the interests of peace and social progress) on the course of national and international events.
The communist movement, mindful of this imperialist stratagem, attaches great importance to the strengthening of international ties and solidarity among the working people of different countries and their progressive organisations. In a speech made in Berlin at the 1976 Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe Leonid Brezhnev who headed the CPSU delegation was fully justified to say: ``Each Communist Party is born of its own country's working-class movement. And it is responsible for its actions above all to the working people of its own country, whose interests it expresses and upholds. But this is what international communist solidarity is based on. As distinct from the ineradicable, as Lenin put it, difference of interests among the exploiters ... no such differences exist among the working people of all countries; their interests and aspirations are the same. On the other hand, it is obvious that the more influential a Communist Party is in its own country, the greater can be its contribution to the struggle for the common goals of the Communists in the international arena.~"^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ XIII congresso del partita comunista italiano. Atti e risoluzioni, 13--17 mono, 1972, Editori Riuniti, Rome, 1972.
~^^2^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe p. 22.
230The revolutionary workers' movement has always held that internationalist revolutionary ideology and policies are among the basic features distinguishing communist parties from social-reformist organisations. In their writings Marcel Cachin, Maurice Thorez, Antonio Gramsci, Palmiro Togliatti, Georgi Dimitrov, Jose Diaz and many other prominent revolutionary-internationalists unfailingly urged the working people of the capitalist world to study deeply, and to put to use in their own countries, the experience of the October Revolution and of existing socialism.
As the class struggle unfolds under more and more varied circumstances, and as mass progressive, anti-imperialist movements take on more and more forms in different countries, the importance of international proletarian solidarity increases accordingly. Despite the existing (and in some cases growing) differences in the forms and methods of working people's struggle in different countries, there is an overall tendency ``towards increasing interdependence and interaction among the workers of different nations".^^1^^ This is why it is so important that Communists remain true to the internationalist principles of the revolutionary workers' movement.^^2^^
The communist vanguard of the working class must recognise that monopoly capital is an ``international force. To vanquish it, an international workers' alliance, an international workers' brotherhood, is needed."^^3^^
Modern proletarian internationalism, as the leading figures of many fraternal communist parties have emphasised, is characterised by a correct understanding of the organic, dialectical ``oneness of the national self interests of one's class, and the world-wide nature of the class struggle".^^4^^
For all the variety of the forms of the class struggle and of the conditions under which it unfolds in different countries one sees in the final count a continuation of ever greater tendencies reflecting processes of internationalisation in the major spheres of social life, processes which in our epoch are growing in breadth and in depth. These processes create the conditions for the reinforcement of revolutionary _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: The International Working-Class Movement. Questions of History and Theory, Vol. 1, pp. 23--24 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See: Per L'internazionale Comunista (Antonio Gramsci, I'Ordine Nuovo 1919--1920, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Turin, 1955, pp. 19--22); Maurice Thorez, Oeuvres, Vol. XI, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1964, pp. 89--94.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine Apropos of the Victories over Denikin'', Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 293.
~^^4^^ Gus Hall, Imperialism Today. An Evaluation of Major Issues and Events of Our Time, International Publishers, New York, 1972, p. 288.
231 internationalism, for the development of international solidarity, mutual assistance and cooperation among all the principal forces in the world anti-imperialist front, and for effective international political, ideological and theoretical activity by Communists. The communist movement continues to consider the waging of a vigorous battle against bellicose anti-- communism one of its most important internationalist duties; as the participants of the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe pointed out: ``Anti-- communism was and remains an instrument which imperialist and reactionary forces use not only against Communists but also against other democrats and against democratic freedoms. These forces are conducting campaigns against the communist parties, the socialist countries, beginning with the Soviet Union, against the forces of socialism and progress, campaigns which aim to discredit the policy and the ideals of Communists among the mass of the people and to prevent unity within the working-class movement and cooperation among the democratic and popular forces. It is in the interests of the aspiration of the popular forces for progress and for democratic development to isolate and overcome anticommunism."^^1^^Most communist parties are agreed that the common aims of the Communists of all countries result from the objective laws of the development of the world revolutionary process, from the unity of the historical mission of the working class, which mission is indivisible and internationalist in essence, despite the fact that different detachments within the. international workers' and communist movement are at different stages on the way to its aims. In the experience of each fraternal party, apart from unique and specific features which are related to national peculiarities, there are also ``common features that are of interest to our entire movement".^^2^^
The internationalism of the working class and its scientific communist world outlook has its sources in the body of the revolutionary experience of the working people in all countries. In the twentieth century the international communist movement has amassed much valuable experience, which must not be underestimated. The participants of the Berlin Conference unanimously adopted a final document proclaiming that Communists ``will develop their internationalist, comradely and voluntary cooperation and solidarity on the basis of the great ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin, _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, pp. 41--42.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 24.
232 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. The struggle of each Party for socialism in its own country and its responsibility towards the working class and the people of that country are bound up with mutual solidarity among working people of all countries and all progressive movements and peoples in their struggle for freedom and the strengthening of their independence, for democracy, socialism and world peace."^^1^^The entire course of world history and the development of international events in our day validate the class internationalist policy line of the CPSU and the fraternal communist parties, which call for the consolidation of the world working-class movement on the basis of Marxist-Leninist principles.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ On Non-Proletarian UtopiasThroughout its development scientific socialism has confronted ideological opponents. The main lines of that struggle have been the following:
1) against overtly bourgeois ideology. Marxism has rebutted undisguised attempts to justify and perpetuate the exploitative order. It has shown that capitalism is of a transient nature and that its revolutionary replacement by socialism is historically inevitable. The efforts of the foes of the proletariat to slander the ideals of socialism, and the policies and goals of the revolutionary workers' movement have been unmasked;
2) against the right-opportunist conceptions. Marxism has proved that capitalism can be deposed, and socialism installed, only through revolution, and that the working class, led by an independent political proletarian party, is destined to guide the mounting struggle of the working people against all forms of exploitation and oppression and for the building of socialism and communism.
3) against the left-adventurist ``revolutionarism'' of a petty-bourgeois, anarchist and lumpen-proletarian hue. In its struggle with the various pseudo-revolutionary ideologies Marxism has convincingly demonstrated all the dangers and harmfulness of attempts to replace a politically conscious, organised movement of the working people, its scientifically substantiated revolutionary strategy and tactics, with various _-_-_
~^^1^^ For Peace, Security, Cooperation and Social Progress in Europe, pp. 40--41.
233 conspiracies or plots to seize power, and absolutisation of violence, regarding the revolution, as Marx put it, ``not as the product of realities of the situation but as the result of an effort of will".^^1^^ Noting the characteristic features and social roots of ``left''-sectarian tendencies in the workers' movement, Marx emphasised that typical of their representatives was the adventurist desire to ``anticipate the process of revolutionary development ... to launch a revolution on the spur of the moment, without the conditions for a revolution.... [They] have the profoundest contempt for the more theoretical enlightenment of the proletariat about their class interests. Hence their plebeian rather than proletarian irritation at the ... people of a greater or lesser degree of education who represent that aspect of the movement."^^2^^In recent years Marxists in several countries have devoted more and more attention to the principal differences between the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of socialism and petty-- bourgeois notions of it.
The distinction between the policies and internationalist ideology of the proletariat and the extremist, nationalistic conceptions of petty-bourgeois ``ultra-revolutionaries'' appears with special clarity at turning points in history, when the forms and scale of the class struggle undergo radical change.
In our times history has come to just such a turning point, as can be seen in the intensification of the international class struggle. The socialist countries achieve ever new successes; the attraction of socialist ideals grows; the international proletariat is exercising an increasing influence on the course of world affairs. Imperialism, meanwhile, is redoubling its efforts to counter the gains made by socialism; this is witnessed by its policies in various parts of the world.
Marx and Engels repeatedly cautioned the workers' movement against supporting ``ultra-revolutionaries'' who substituted petty-bourgeois ideals for the ultimate goals of proletarian socialism, an absurd ``barrack-room communism" for the free communist society of the future, the denial and suppression of culture for its flourishing, and irresponsible calls for destruction for the constructive tasks of the working class.
This sort of ``communism'', as Marx emphasised, ``negates the personality of man''; it has nothing to do with scientific socialism. In actual fact it reflected and continues to reflect _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 626.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Reviews from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-okonomische Revue No. 4'', Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 318.
234 crude equalitarian petty-bourgeois sentiments, the influence of private ownership psychology, and the envy and thirst for levelling-down characteristic of that psychology. ``Crude communism,'' wrote Marx, ``is only the culmination of this envy and of this levelling-down proceeding from the preconceived minimum. It has a definite, limited standard.'' This ``crude communism" would require the ``negation of the entire world of culture and civilisation, the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and crude man who has few needs".^^1^^The defence and development of the theory of scientific socialism is inseparable from the criticism of the ideology of the primitive equalitarian ``communism'' preached from the sixteenth through the first half of the nineteenth century or advocated by pre-proletarian and lumpen-proletarian ideologues in societies with a very low level of productive forces (and also by some who have reverted to such views in our day). In order to secure the victory of Marxist theory in the workers' movement it was necessary to overcome the influence of these and other non-proletarian doctrines.
As Lenin worked out his revolutionary programme for a new type of proletarian party in Russia he fought consistently and uncompromisingly against the pseudo-socialist ideas of the petty-bourgeois democrats. In the course of this struggle he devoted special effort to criticising the ideology and policies of the Russian ``Socialist-Revolutionaries'', who expressed the contradictory position of small rural owners.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks also criticised, at various stages in the development of the revolution, the ideology of the urban petty-bourgeoisie and of sundry declassed elements.
To ensure the victory of the socialist revolution and the building of socialism in the USSR it was necessary to overcome the influence among the masses both of the right-opportunist ideas of the petty-bourgeois democrats and of their ultra-revolutionary, adventurist (anarchist, Trotskyite, or ``left-communist'') illusions, which at times exerted a certain impact on the workers' movement. Lenin noted after the October Revolution that ``If we had made any concessions to petty-bourgeois illusions ... we would have ruined the whole cause of the proletarian revolution in Russia".^^2^^
In the course of the further development of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, ``Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, p. 295.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Moscow Party Workers' Meeting, November 27, 1918'', Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 207.
235 international revolutionary working-class movement several new types of petty-bourgeois socialism have arisen.The vitality of petty-bourgeois socialism in our day is due, in large measure, to the economic backwardness of a given country. Not every revolutionary has the discipline, experience and steadfastness needed to resist the pressure of petty-bourgeois ideology, doubts, vacillations and prejudices.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks, working in a huge country with a predominantly peasant population, successfully struggled for many years with the various manifestations of petty-bourgeois socialism, defending and developing the principles of scientific socialism and ultimately realising them in practice and strengthening the alliance between the working class and the peasantry. In doing all this they performed a great, historic service for the working class of Russia and of the whole world.
Petty-bourgeois 'revolutionaries usually strive for crude equalitarianism, actual absolutisation of economic backwardness and elevation of this backwardness to the rank of factors which, despite logic and historical experience, supposedly accelerate the proletarian revolution and aid the building of socialism. They not only ignore the splendid example of the working class of the socialist countries, but portray it, at times, as a ``regeneration of the bourgeois order''.
Such notions are worlds away from proletarian socialism. The preaching of crude equalitarianism and calls for the preservation of poverty and for ``equality'' based on economic backwardness (which are characteristic for Mao and his followers) must be classified as a reflection of petty-- bourgeois doctrines.
As far back as 1912 Lenin exposed the unfoundedness and impracticability of the ideas of the Chinese petty-bourgeois socialists of a populist bent who were propagandising a version of ``the worse the better" doctrine. He showed up as reactionary their dreams that the lack of progress in China would make the ``social revolution" easier there.^^1^^ Even more incorrect is the notion that economic and cultural backwardness is a blessing, that such backwardness can aid in the building of socialism in one or another country.
As the revolutionary struggle of the international working class broadens and deepens, and as its front ranks draw nearer to the final goal, reversion to earlier, immature, ``crude'' forms of communism becomes ever more _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Democracy and Narodism in China'', Collected Works, Vol. 18, pp. 166--67.
236 ideologically and politically reactionary.Anti-human distortions of the principles of scientific socialism are especially unpardonable now that the revolutionary international workers' movement and the countries of the world socialist community have built up a rich store of positive experience in the accomplishment of socialist revolutions and the building of new societies. The masses of the working people in many parts of the world rely on that experience; it is ignored only by those who have been poisoned by chauvinism and so consign to oblivion the welfare of their people and the interests of the world revolutionary liberation movement.
Petty-bourgeois ideologues deny the leading role of the working class in the revolutionary movement and in the building of socialism and communism. For this reason many of them make incorrect assessments of the role of the socialist system, which is the creation of the international proletariat, and belittle the significance of the main social antagonism of our time: the contradiction between socialism and capitalism.
The ideologues of petty-bourgeois socialism see the motive force of the revolution either in the armed forces, students, declassed, lumpen-proletarian elements, or the peasantry (or in some combination of these groups).
Also typical of these ideologues is their incorrect assessment of the driving social forces and ways of development of the revolution in a world scale, and their exaggeration of the independent value of the struggle of the non-proletarian masses against imperialism. What is the worth, for instance, of the anti-Marxist thesis that ``popular'', peasant war is the main thrust in the development of the world revolution in our time? This thesis underlies the idea of ``surrounding'' the industrial capitalist countries with a ``world village" so as to destroy imperialism. The roots of such an idea are heedlessness of the laws of the class struggle, lack of faith in the revolutionary potential of the proletariat of capitalist countries, an attempt to replace the primary conflict between labour and capital with the contradiction between ``rich'' and ``poor'' nations, and the absolutisation and extension to international compass of certain peculiarities of the tactics of partisan wars in agrarian countries. All such efforts to contrapose the actions of the peasant masses to the revolutionary workers' movement are foreign to Marxism-Leninism.
One of the principal conditions for the victory of socialist revolution in the USSR and in most of the other socialist countries was the establishment by the working class and its communist vanguard of an alliance between the ``peasant war" and the struggle of the proletariat; the founders of 237 Marxism had foreseen the possibility and inevitability of just such an alliance. It is only within such an alliance, only when the revolutionary workers' movement informs ``peasant wars" with purppsefulness and organisation, that the progressive mass actions of non-proletarian strata make a substantial contribution to the success of the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society along socialist lines.
Marxists-Leninists do not at all underrate the revolutionary transformation of the peasant masses; but they reject the setting up of peasant actions, or of the entire liberation movement among the peoples of former colonies and semicolonies, against the class struggle of the proletariat in industrially developed capitalist countries. Such an opposition, by undermining the unity of the anti-imperialist forces, can only harm the world revolutionary movement.
Attempts to oppose the peasant masses to the world communist and workers' movement were also made at the Second Comintern Congress, when the committee on national and colonial questions discussed the theses of M.Roy, the delegate from India. In the course of that discussion, and also in his address to the Congress, Lenin stressed the importance of a close alliance between the peasantry of backward countries and the proletariat of advanced countries, which is called upon to give ``help to the working masses of the backward countries".^^1^^
Lenin saw the most reliable way to success in the struggle against world imperialism precisely in support for the peasant masses and the national-revolutionary movements of the East from the international working class, in the uniting (and not counterposing and disuniting, as today's ``left'' adventurists and national-opportunists insist) of the actions of the revolutionary proletariat of industrial capitalist countries with those of the revolutionary masses of the countries where there is no proletariat or practically none, with those of the oppressed masses of the colonial East.
__*_*_*__A discussion of contemporary anti-proletarian Utopias cannot ignore the views of the ``left''-radical petty-bourgeois ideologue Herbert Marcuse. He casts himself in the role of a ``thinker'' ``generalising'' the theories of revisionist ``neo''-Marxists such as Andre Gorz, Ernest Mandel, Paul M.Sweezy, Stanley Aronowitz, the leaders of the Italian ``left''-revisionist group ``Il Manifesto'', etc.
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Second Congress of the Communist International, July 19-August 7'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 244.
238An analysis of Marcuse's views and of their ideological and theoretical roots shows that, despite his resounding ``ultra-revolutionary'' phraseology, Marcuse's scheme is anti-revolutionary both in its theoretical content and in its social and political orientation.
Marcuse belittles the influence of the manifold successes of the socialist community on international life and misinterprets the basic contradiction of our time. He maintains that the true ``revolution of the 20th century" has not yet occurred, that the social upheavals whose stirrings are now being felt in the capitalist world will eventually produce ``the most radical of all historical revolutions''; this, he claims, will be the ``first truly world-historical revolution".^^1^^ We are cleajly dealing here with an attempt (theoretically unjustified and in practice inimical to the international workers' movement) to treat the revolutionary development in abstraction from its decisive force: the socialist community and the success of the working class of the USSR and the fraternal socialist countries in the building of socialism and communism.
No less clear is Marcuse's animus towards the working class, as seen, for example, in his attitude towards the workers' movement in the capitalist countries, which, he alleges, has degenerated, been co-opted into the imperialist system, and lost its revolutionary spirit.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Marcuse and his followers wrongly interpret the very concept of social revolution. They in fact fail to make a distinction between proletarian revolutions and spontaneous ``mutinies'' with the overwhelming participation of petty-bourgeois or of declassed elements.
Their deeply mistaken theoretical assessment of the moving force behind the world revolutionary process quite naturally conditions their pessimistic political forecasts. And so once again ``ultra-revolutionaries'' in theory do an aboutface in practice. In an obvious tribute to petty-bourgeois timidity before imperialism, Marcuse writes that in the world today ``the initiative and the power are with the counterrevolution".^^2^^ On this basis he makes gloomy predictions about the inevitable ``defeats'' in store for the world revolutionary movement. This sort of thinking is typical of those who are overwhelmed by the unavoidable difficulties of the class struggle, are unable to understand its true scope, and so cannot see the actually existing prospects of the deepening _-_-_
~^^1^^ Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Beacon Press Boston, 1972, pp. 2, 8.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 29.
239 and successful development of the world revolutionary process.Marcuse's scheme most clearly expresses these moods of defeatism. One can hardly expect anything else of it, for it is in effect hostile to the working class. In our times no one can be a true revolutionary who belittles the world historic significance of the struggle of the foremost revolutionary class, or who is blind to the tremendous (and growing) significance of its signal triumph: existing socialism. As has been proved again and again the relevance of petty-bourgeois Utopias is in inverse relation to the extent of actual historical development. As Marx and Engels noted in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, although the originators of socialist utopias ``were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects".^^1^^
Among the most important differences in principle that divide Marxism-Leninism from every sort of anti-proletarian social doctrine (including ``left-radical schemes like Marcuse's) are: fundamental disagreement about the overall assessment of the driving force behind the world revolutionary movement, and most of all about the laws of the development of the modern working class and about its destined task in world history; opposite attitudes towards successful proletarian revolutions and towards today's socialist states and their achievements; and dissimilar points of view concerning the experience of revolutionary movements in countries fighting for national liberation.
Marxism-Leninism has always clearly distinguished genuine proletarian revolutionaries from petty-bourgeois ``left'' extremists, who ``substitute the catchword of revolution for revolutionary development".^^2^^ Reaction, as Lenin noted, clutches ``at every opportunity to discredit the revolution".^^3^^ And today's revisionist and reformist supporters of the bourgeoisie continue the attempt to identify scientific socialism with petty-bourgeois Utopias. This is especially noticeable in their treatment of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of the working class.
The Maoists, for instance, have virtually made poverty the criterion of membership in the working class. Marcuse asserts that there is only one ``part of the American working class which could reasonably be called the contemporary _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 516.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, ``Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne''. In: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 11, Moscow, 1979, p. 403.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Socialism and Anarchism'', Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp. 73--74.
240 successor of the proletariat: blue-collar labour".^^1^^ Similar views have been advanced by the philosophers of the Frankfurt school and by renegades such as Ota Sik. They maintain (like Milovan Djilas) that the proletariat is composed mainly of low-paid, unskilled workers; for them highly qualified, educated workers, whose numbers are growing rapidly, belong to some sort of ``new middle class''. The ideologues of nineteenth-century Utopian socialism would like to see the human society reorganised in their own way, i.e., they want a ``bourgeoisie without a proletariat'', as the authors of the Manifesto of the Communist Party put it; similarly, the modern opponents of Marxism-Leninism would like to have ``neo~''-capitalism without a working class. This is just one more manifestation of the dread inspired in the ideological lackeys of the bourgeoisie by the strengthening of the proletariat and the growth of its political consciousness and organisation.No less vicious are the efforts of another group of pseudosocialist ideologues (among them right opportunists such as Roger Garaudy) who, on the contrary, expand the working class to include petty-bourgeois strata. Marx identified the essence of such attempts in his time: ``Just as the democrats abused the word `people' so now the word `proletariat' has been used as a mere phrase. To make this phrase effective it would be necessary to describe all the petty bourgeois as proletarians and consequently in practice represent the petty bourgeois and not the proletarians."^^2^^
The founders of scientific socialism noted that the scope of capitalist exploitation would inevitably widen and various segments of society would become increasingly proletarianised; they pointed out that bourgeois society ``is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat".^^3^^ Latter-day ``critics'' of Marxism-Leninism assert that although this may have been true in the nineteenth century it is now ``out of date''. Marcuse, for example, claims that Marxist doctrine on the natural growth of the proletariat's revolutionary potential is not borne out by the reality of our time because the proletariat does not comprise the majority of the population.
But Marxist theory, for all its steady interest in the quantitative growth of the working class, has never seen its revolutionary potential as a mere matter of numbers. Marx and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Herbert Marcuse, Op. cit., p. 38.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 626.
~^^3^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 485.
241 Engels wrote: ``Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product."^^1^^ The applicability of this idea to today's conditions has been explicitly affirmed by the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in 1969, the Berlin Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of Europe in 1976 and other authoritative international forums. The revolutionary potential of the working class is the product of its objective position in the system of production relations, its class consciousness, its ever increasing political activity and organisation, etc.Moreover, the arguments of Marcuse and his followers are upturned by the well-known and irrefutable facts: the proportion of proletarians among wage-earners and among the gainfully-employed population as a whole is growing continually in the principal countries and regions of the capitalist world.
It is important to note that scientific and technical progress has not slowed that growth; on the contrary, it helps to confirm the proletariat's position as the most dynamic social force in capitalist countries. And so, despite attempts to deny the universality of proletarianisation (or to represent it as limited by certain national-specific conditions), it continues to broaden and deepen in modern capitalist society. There can be no doubt that it is a general law of history.
The ``critics'' of scientific communism misrepresent the effects of the changing educational, professional and qualificational make-up of the proletariat. They foster various divisive conceptions antipathetic to the unification of the workers' movement and of the anti-monopolistic movement as a whole.
But despite their hopes and efforts, the present phase in the general crisis of capitalism is witnessing a further development of the social, economic, political and ideological processes tending to increase the solidarity of workers. Momentous positive changes are occurring in the workers' and trade union movement---its scope has grown and class battles are rising to a new and higher level.
Latter-day anti-proletarian Utopians are not content with ignoring the facts that disprove their allegations about loss of fighting spirit among the proletariat in industrial capitalist countries. According to Marcuse, it is not the working class but the inhabitants of ghettos and declassed, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 494.
242 lumpen-proletarian elements who could, together with students, present a serious threat to modern capitalism. Marx and Engels called the lumpen-proletariat ``that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society".^^1^^ It is not a class but a social stratum; it comprises people from all classes of bourgeois society (including, of course, the oppressed classes) who have been expelled from the system of social production.It should be noted that the very existence of the lumpenproletariat is proof of the anti-humane essence of the capitalist system, which continually renews this multitude of outcasts driven, as it were, beyond the pale of society. No wonder, considering his social status, that the lumpen-- proletarian often feels hostility not only towards the system of exploitation and the oppressor classes but also (and sometimes to a greater degree) towards society as such, towards all material or spiritual production. He does not value the achievements of world culture: he has been deprived of the capability of understanding them. His ideals reach no higher than primitive redistribution and a crudely equalitarian pseudo-communism.
The proletariat's place in the system of social production gives it self-discipline; it is the most organised and politically conscious class. The lumpen-proletariat, by contrast, is liable to fragmentation; it easily falls prey to reactionary social demagogues. The despair of its condition, to be sure, often leads it to rebelliousness (the great hope of Marcuse's Utopia). But such rebellions are ephemeral, having no revolutionary discipline or perspective. Marx and Engels, affirming that ``the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class'', remarked that the lumpen-proletariat ``may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue".^^2^^ The truth of these words has been demonstrated more than once by history.
One of the main thrusts of contemporary revisionism has been directed against the strategy of struggle for democracy (which is an integral part of the struggle for the accomplishment of socialist revolution) set forth in the classics of Marxism-Leninism and consistently followed by the communist movement. Marcuse and other ideologues of pettybourgeois ``reyolutionarism'' would like to obscure the fact that the interconnection between the struggle of the working class for the steady democratic transformation of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 494.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
243 society and the struggle for socialism is one of the central theses of Marx an Engels. Lenin, in his turn, developed their idea further: ``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."^^1^^Marcuse attacks the communist parties of capitalist countries, calling them ``reformist''; he maintains that the radicalisation of the demands of working people is a ``threat'' to the communist movement. For all the quasi-Marxist falderal of Marcuse and his followers, their ``oriticaT'-utopian position is supported neither by historical experience nor by the realities of today. The historical bankruptcy of these conceptions was shown up by Marx and Engels. They decisively rejected the claim that in the revolutions of 1848--1849 the Communist League steered a course towards the immediate victory of the proletarian revolution, which would be accomplished, so to speak, at one fell sweep; they also rejected all attempts to deny the political and ideological independence of the workers' movement. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party the founders of scientific socialism exhorted Communists to work for ``the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries" and to support ``every revolutionary movement''. At the same time they emphasised that Communists ``in the movement of the present ... take care of the future of that movement''. Even in those days Marx and Engels saw that the chief aim of the workers' revolution must be the establishment of the political power of the proletariat, which will make it possible 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".^^2^^ Lenin rightly took their words as an expression of one of the primary ideas of Marxism: ``the dictatorship of the proletariat".^^3^^
That is how matters stand with history. Once again in our times the ``critics'' of scientific communism are attacking the working class, denying its ability to build around itself a wide coalition of anti-monopolist forces. They refuse to recognise _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 51.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, pp. 519, 518, 504.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The State and Revolution'', Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 402.
244 the growing connection between the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism, or the importance of the growing progressive movements (whose demands for radical democratic changes are directed against the power of the monopolies) among the masses. Communists are working among the masses in capitalist countries; they work patiently, persistently and with due regard for the development of subjective and objective conditions for a socialist revolution. Marcuse and his followers would supplant this work with ``ultra-revolutionarist'' calls for, and the apology of, a spontaneous ``revolt'' and commando-style actions by small, isolated groups.Communists believe, as stated at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, that in the capitalist countries ``the radical democratic changes which will be achieved in the struggle against the monopolies and their economic domination and political power will promote among the broad masses awareness of the need for socialism".^^1^^ Unfolding its struggle in this direction the working class can achieve not only its own social aims, but also, as the leader of all working people, can attain the aims of its allies, i.e., the middle urban and rural strata---the very forces on whose behalf the anti-proletarian ideologues pretend to speak.
The unscientific schemes of these ideologues were disproved during the first stage in the general crisis of capitalism, back in the 1930s, by the triumph of the Popular Front in France, the creation of a Popular Front government in Spain and the success of the policy pursued by the united workers' and broad democratic fronts (uniting all progressive forces) in a number of other countries.
The working class, the most consistent fighter for the interests of all working people, can accomplish its historical mission only if it shows the same consistency, in that fight, in following its own class policy line. The spokesman for its primary interests, and its conscious political vanguard, is the communist party.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that many petty-- bourgeois ideologues level their critical broadsides directly at the communist movement.
The anti-revolutionary essence of the pseudo-Marxists' ``ultra-left'' phrase-mongering appears most clearly and miserably in their attempts to misinterpret and belittle the vanguard role of the communist movement in the struggle for liberation, to show that communist parties armed with _-_-_
~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 24.
245 Leninism are ``unnecessary''. The arguments advanced in support of this thesis, which is meant to enfeeble the revolutionary workers' movement, are utterly untenable. Thus Marcuse, in his paean to ``spontaneous'' revolutionary passion, declares that the concept of the proletarian revolutionary mass party, whose organisation and activity are based on the principle of democratic centralism, is ``historically outdated".^^1^^The latter-day ``critics'' of scientific communism, however, make vain efforts to ascribe to Marx their own enthusiasm for spontaneous mass actions, and on this ``basis'' set up an artificial opposition between Marxism and Leninism. But did not Marx and Engels bid revolutionaries of future generations to maintain the true proletarian party spirit? In the famous resolution on the political action of the working class adopted in 1871 at the London Conference of the First International, Marx and Engels expressly stated that ``the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party".^^2^^ They considered the existence of such a party an indispensable condition for the successful preparation and accomplishment of a socialist revolution; they declared that proletarian revolutionaries must strive to ``knit together ever more strongly the organisation ... of the party".^^3^^
The history of the communist movement leaves no doubt about the correctness of a major Marxist proposition that Communists ``have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole''.^^4^^ By the natural course of social and historical development they have come to leadership in their class and act in its interests.
Despite the repression Marxists-Leninists suffer in capitalist countries the ties between communist parties and the masses continue to expand. Convincing evidence of this is the increase in the ranks of the communist movement, which has developed into the most influential ideological and political force of pur time.
The Communist League, one hundred and twenty-five years ago, was made up of just a few hundred persons. Half a century ago the number of Communists in the world was around two million. Today the world's Communists are numbered in the tens of millions. In the past thirty years _-_-_
~^^1^^ Herbert Marcuse, Op. cit., p. 42.
~^^2^^ The General Council of the First International 1870--1871, Minutes, p. 445.
~^^3^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 2, p. 170.
~^^4^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, ``Manifesto of the Communist Party'', Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 497.
246 communist party membership in the capitalist countries of Europe has grown more than fivefold; in the New World it has doubled; in Africa it went up more than twelvefold.The growth of the communist movement has been accompanied by important qualitative changes in its ranks. Many fraternal communist parties have enhanced their battle-- readiness and become more skilled in leading the masses.
Would all this have been possible if there were no congruity (as Milovan Djilas and other revisionists have dared to assert) between Communists and the working class? In order that Communists might yet further increase their contribution to the solution of the problems facing the world proletariat it is imperative that the communist movement close ranks under the banner of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of revolutionary internationalism.
These principles have been vehemently attacked by the ideologues of the petty bourgeoisie. They deliberately exaggerate and misrepresent the differences in the circumstances encountered by the revolutionary movement in the various countries and regions of the world, and the manifoldness of revolutionary experience.
Communists do not counterpose the principles of the independence and equality of every nation's revolutionary working class to the task of securing and strengthening unity in the world communist movement: they understand that their national and international responsibilities are inseparable.
The International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Moscow in 1969 stressed that each party, guided by the principles of Marxism-Leninism and taking account of concrete national conditions, is complety independent in working out its policies and deciding on the direction and forms of struggle for, or means of building, socialism in its own country. ``At the same time, the different approaches to practical tasks and even differences on certain questions must not hinder concerted international action by fraternal Parties, particularly on the basic problems of the anti-imperialist struggle."^^1^^ Communists, who have borne the brunt of the onslaught of international reaction, point out that the fight against imperialism demands energetic, consistent and purposeful action for the reinforcement of the unity of the revolutionary movement.
Both right and ``left'' deviations from the Marxist-Leninist policy line are particularly dangerous whenever they are connected with manifestations of nationalism and hegemonism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, Moscow 1969, p. 37.
247 __ALPHA_LVL2__ Under the Banner of RevolutionaryIn our era the life of the world's nations has become more and more international. The class struggle is intensifying internationally as well as nationally. For this reason each of the chief antagonists in the world class conflict is striving for the international consolidation of its forces and the forces of its allies. The outcome of the international class struggle in no small measure depends on whose socio-political and ideological influence will prevail in this process.
Now as in the past the success of the revolutionary workers' movement requires that proper attention be given to the interconnection between the national and the international. The working class of every country and its communist vanguard must, in solving its own tasks, also discharge its class internationalist duty by supporting in every possible way the world-wide revolutionary and anti-imperialist movement. History has demonstrated convincingly, especially in the epoch opened up by the October Revolution, that the supreme national interests of the working people of each country are best and most truly served when the struggle for these interests is waged with an eye to the fundamental demands of the international struggle against imperialism. That is exactly the way Leninism has always posed this question. In our time the 25th Congress of the CPSU in its historic documents has reiterated in concentrated form the necessity of continually strengthening the international solidarity of working people. At the Congress Leonid Brezhnev declared: ``We Soviet Communists consider the defence of proletarian internationalism the sacred duty of every Marxist-Leninist."^^1^^
The processes occurring under contemporary capitalism also account for much of the special import that proletarian internationalism has today. The .nonopolistic bourgeoisie and the ruling circles of the imperialist countries are trying to turn to their own ends the objective processes of the Intel-nationalisation of productive forces accelerated by the scientific and technological revolution. These attempts found expression in the frenzied efforts of the state-monopolists to intensify the integration processes in Western Europe, in the US Administration's strivings to coordinate the economic policies of the USA, Western Europe and Japan in the teeth of growing contradictions among the imperialist powers, and in the continuing elaboration of the ramified _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 37.
248 network of supranational corporations. In other words, the class enemies of the revolutionary workers' movement are opposed to it internationally.At the same time the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism has created new hotbeds of national contradictions in many parts of the imperialist world. When compounded with worsening economic frictions and disorders, and with manifestations of a social crisis, these contradictions often become critically acute, leading to outbursts of nationalism both in everyday life and in ideology.
Influential forces in the capitalist countries have sought to make use of the growth of nationalism to their advantage so as to divide the ranks of the working class, to set various detachments of workers, or the workers of different nationalities, against one another. The most effective weapon that the working class and its organisations can use to combat such attempts is the revolutionary theory and practice of proletarian internationalism. No wonder then that these problems have become the centre of a fierce ideological, theoretical and political struggle.
Some bourgeois authors openly espouse racism and reactionary nationalism in opposition to the revolutionary internationalism of the working class. Such arguments are presented in their crudest form by the ultra-right spokesmen of the exploiter classes, anti-communist philosophers and sociologists such as Karl Popper, Hans Kohn and Bertram Wolfe. Popper, a rabid anti-Marxist, writes: ``Nationalism appeals to our tribal instincts ... and to our nostalgic desire to be relieved from the strain of individual responsibility which it [nationalism---T. T.\ attempts to replace by a collective or group responsibility.'' He tries to represent today's bourgeois nationalism (despite its ``inherent reactionary and irrational tendencies'') as a ``revolutionary and liberal creed".^^1^^ Other anti-communists, too, have presented pseudo-scientific proofs that proletarian internationalism is ``not viable" and ``lacks historical perspective''.
A number of bourgeois ideologues and politicians, clearly disturbed by the increasingly grave national and other (social, economic, political, etc.) contradictions of the non-socialist world, have wrongly portrayed the deepening of national discord and racial strife characteristic of exploitative societies as a phenomenon facing ``all'' human civilisation today.
Concern about the upsurge of nationalism in many capitalist countries and the intensification of contradictions and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. II, The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1957, pp. 49, 51.
249 their consequences among the imperialist powers (for this is seriously weakening the positions of world imperialism in the confrontation of the two systems) has been quite plainly expressed by representatives of the ruling circles of the United States and by politologists, sociologists and commentators whose views are, in actual fact, the same. The same concern can be felt in some of the publications of the Trilateral Commission dealing with the relations among the USA, Western Europe and Japan---the three main centres of modern imperialism. The Trilateral Commission was created in the 1970s; it was made up of about two hundred prominent businessmen, politicians and scholars: members from the USA included John D. Rockefeller, the multimillionaire president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and Jimmy Carter, at that time the Governor of Georgia, as well as George Ball and others with many years' service in the State Department and other Washington agencies. The Commission's first director was Zbigniew Brzezinski.^^1^^The book by the well-known specialists Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki (introductory note by Z. Brzezinski) on the political crisis of modern capitalism expresses regret that d\'etente and the resulting ``decline in the external military threat produced a general slackening of concern throughout the Trilateral countries with the problems of security'', and that the ``pressures in favour of nationalism and neo-mercantilism" are mounting. Those pressures, the authors state, grow especially quickly in times of the aggravation of crisis processes, ``economic scarcity and inflation'', and of a general decline in people's confidence in their leaders and in existing political institutions.^^2^^
Certain imperialist circles see in national-chauvinist trends and moods a means for resolving the extremely grave political and economic troubles that have arisen from the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism. Their recent attempts to use these trends in the struggle against the workers' _-_-_
~^^1^^ Publications prepared by the Trilateral Commission up to the mid-1970s include: The Crisis of International Cooperation; A Turning Point in North-South Economic Relations; Directions for World Trade in the Nineteenth Seventies; and Energy: The Imperative for a Trilateral Approach.
~^^2^^ Michel Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy. Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission, New York University Press, New York, 1975, pp. 166, 167. The authors express particular uneasiness about the situation in Western Europe, which, they believe, is faced with a ``crisis from within as well as a crisis from without = __NOTE__ Missing '' (76id., p. 171). See also: Richard H. Ullman, ``Trilateralism: `Partnership' for What?'', Foreign Affairs, Vol. 55, No. 1, October 1976, pp. 1-19.
250 movement and the principles of revolutionary proletarian internationalism testify to a weakening of the position of imperialist reaction rather than to its strength.The ``critics'' of Marxism-Leninism interpret the very concept ``internationalism'' from anti-scientific ``super-- historical'', non-class positions. They assert, for example, that internationalism in the broad sense of the word ``is as old as human civilisation".^^1^^ Arnold Toynbee has arbitrarily projected the concepts ``proletariat'', ``nationalism'' and `` international solidarity" onto sundry periods of world history, including ancient history. He alleges that racism and nationalism are ``permanent'', that not even socialist revolutions can eradicate them.~^^2^^
Some anti-Marxists have tried to draw a veil over the opposition between the revolutionary internationalism of the working class and nationalism (which they protest is permanent) by asserting that internationalism itself grows out of nationalism. Meanwhile some authors in the West have been propagandising the notion of a certain ``human'' solidarity. The adherents of such ideas are ignoring the essence and social content of our times, the character of its main contradictions, and the class force that is its mainspring.
The exponents of many of the schemes and conceptions of our times are not averse to the term ``internationalism''. There is no shortage of demagogic phrases about the `` common" goals and interests of ``all mankind'', ``international solidarity'', the ``brotherhood'' of all nations, and so on and so forth. But in fact the interpretation that many bourgeois authors and various reformist and national-opportunist ideologues give these concepts is inimical to the revolutionary workers' movement. With their diffuse, amorphous interpretations of the global problems of today (which, moreover, are touted as being unbiased by class considerations) they misrepresent the actual deployment and dynamics of international class forces and the relation between them. They commonly ignore or belittle the historical mission of the working class and of its communist vanguard, and the function of its internationalist policies and ideology in the world revolutionary process.
Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, members of the Club _-_-_
~^^1^^ Marxism, Communism and Western Society. A Comparative Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, ed. by C. D. Kernig, Herder and Herder, New York, 1972, p. 329.
~^^2^^ Arnold Toynbee, ``Looking Back Fifty Years (The Impact of the Russian Revolution 1917--1967)'', introductory essay to: The Influence of Bolshevism on the World Outside Russia, Oxford University Press, New York, London, Toronto, 1967, pp. 5, 7.
251 of Rome,^^1^^ take a very peculiar attitude towards mankind's global problems. Speaking in supposedly ``planetary'' terms about the solidarity of all peoples and nations, they insist on the need to ``overcome'' social disorders and the ``present fatal divisions that tear mankind apart".^^2^^ In a general declaration of the importance of developing the various aspects of international solidarity Peccei and King (and other representatives of the Club of Rome) state that it should ``spread not only horizontally to all nations---or rather to all peoples and human groups---but also vertically, to penetrate all strata of society''. They depict the struggle between classes, between ``the rich" and ``the poor" (which in fact is inevitable in our era) as a relic of bygone times.^^3^^The authors of Goals for Mankind proclaim that the internationalist bonds can be strengthened, and even a world solidarity revolution achieved, by turning away from the class-centred philosophies and ideologies of today. They write that most of the ``great social transformations" of the past, including the revolution in Russia, ``have had an `ideological' background and motivation''. Today, on the contrary, ``we are in the midst of another revolution in consciousness ... activated by the spread of communications and technology. It is a `revolution of rising expectations'\thinspace".^^4^^
Nevertheless, the Club of Rome authors are forced to acknowledge the historic achievements of socialism and the triumphs of the world revolutionary workers' movement. They note that ``forms of Marxist socialism and communism dominate the economic, social and political behaviour of as much as a third of mankind".^^5^^ They recognise the influence that revolutionary Marxist humanism exerts on the broad masses of the people, and state the indisputable fact that today the followers of Marx, Engels and Lenin are counted in the tens of millions. But despite these admissions the Club of Rome authors see certain ``new alternative cultures" (which they oppose to the existing ideologies, including ``Marxist communism" and its internationalist principles) as the main hope for strengthening ``world solidarity".^^6^^
The true nature of such diffuse bourgeois-liberal and social-reformist schemes for ``world-wide'' solidarity, which _-_-_
~^^1^^ Club of Rome is an organisation of ecology experts created by representatives of several Western countries.---Ed.
~^^2^^ Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, Foreword to: Ervin Laszlo et at. Goals for Mankind. A Report to the Club of Rome on the New Horizons of Global Community, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1977, p. X.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. XI-XII.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 415.
~^^5^^ Ibid., p. 403.
~^^6^^ Ibid., p. 412.
252 is ``above'' class considerations, was exposed back at the beginning of the twentieth century in Lenin's deep and thorough analysis of the analogous views of opportunist ideologues such as Pavel Axelrod and Karl Kautsky. The writings of these authors were full of high-flown and vague phrases about the importance of mobilising the working people for ``international'' actions; they maintained that during the growth of crisis phenomena the problem ``of internationalising the working-class movement is not identical with the question of revolutionising ... forms and methods of struggle''. In conditions of a maturing revolutionary situation they asserted that the job of the proletariat and its organisations consisted mainly in ``internationalising the day-by-day struggle for the demands of the moment''. Criticising this position, Lenin wrote sarcastically: ``All international opportunists or international liberals, from Lloyd George to Friedrich Naumann and from Leroy Beaulieu to Milyukov, Struve and Guchkov, will eagerly subscribe to the scientific, profound and objective `internationalism' of Axelrod, Martov, and Kautsky.... But what about the proletarian revolution?''^^1^^An important trend' of the ideological and theoretical work of Marxists in present conditions consists in working out questions relating to the strengthening of the alliance between existing socialism and the peoples of developing countries in their struggle for genuine national, social and economic liberation. Communists also have a responsibility to make full and well-grounded critiques of false, unscientific, and Utopian conceptions in this sphere.
The discussion of the problems of developing countries at various international (including inter-governmental) gatherings of public figures and scholars, and of the diverse ``new models of the world" produced in the West has made it clear that bourgeois ``experts'' are busily devising their own distinctive view of the course and future of world economic development. They see that future is nothing more than a ``continuation of the social and political status-quo": they disingenuously question the importance of deep-going social, revolutionary changes in accordance with the fundamental interests of the masses, minimise the support socialist nations give to the peoples of developing countries, and belittle the significance of the working class and its organisations. The ideas of Karl Brunner, an American economist, are typical of this bourgeois school of thought. The transition to a ``new international order'', he maintains, requires that the Marxist assessment of capitalism be ``revised''. Brunner's _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Kautsky, Axelrod, and Martov---True Internationalists'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, pp. 395, 396, 397.
253 ``new" thesis is that social and political leadership rests with the intelligentsia rather than the proletariat. By the intelligentsia, he hastens to add, he means the ``intellectual elites in the Third World" who have been exposed to ``the influence of Western intellectual traditions'', i.e., predominantly pro-capitalist groups.^^1^^Along with the deliberate misrepresentation of the international solidarity of working people by anti-communist ideologues and the opportunistic attitudes of social-- reformists on this question, certain progressives among Western scholars, too, make questionable assessments of some or other aspects of international solidarity. Sometimes these are due to an arbitrary interpretation of fundamentally important concepts such as the general crisis of world capitalism or a definition of an epoch and of the world revolutionary workers' movement as an international phenomenon, etc. It is impossible to agree, in particular, with the notion that the era opened by the October Revolution is drawing to a close, or that proletarian internationalism is on the wane. The English historian E.J. Hobsbawm, for example, writes: ``We are today at the end of that historical epoch in the development of socialism which began with the collapse of the Second International in 1914 and the victory of the Bolsheviks in October 1917."^^2^^ The same author alleges that there has been a certain ``disinternationalisation'' of the world revolutionary workers' movement, its ``decay'' as an international force and a ``disintegration'' of its internationalism: ``Today ... the international communist movement,'' we are told, ``has largely ceased to exist as such."^^3^^
These arguments are accompanied by a declaration of the need to integrate Marxism into the liberal tradition of the West, that is to say, to adopt a bourgeois-democratic attitude (which is supposed to be ``above'' class considerations) towards the categories ``democracy'' and ``the state''.
Life has shown, however, the groundlessness of such illusions and ``above-class'' Utopias.
Scientific communism takes a scientific, class-oriented approach to the assessment of trends in the workers' movement and of its prospects and to the questions of international solidarity of working people and the true extent of its influence. The same approach is used in weighing national and international factors in the era opened up by the October _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Brunner, ``The New International Economic Order: A Chapter in a Protracted Confrontation'', Orbis, Vol. 20, No. 1, 1976, p. 103.
~^^2^^ E. J. Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries. Contemporary Essays, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1973, p. 3.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 5.
254 Revolution, under the conditions of the general crisis of capitalism and its gradual intensification.As Lenin pointed out shortly after the October Revolution, the radical distinction of our era, which was and is the era of mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism, is that all of the principal ``world political developments" are of necessity concentrated on a single focus---the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Land of Soviets, ``around which are inevitably grouped, on the one hand, the ... movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities".^^1^^ Thus Lenin gave a highly exact, class-oriented assessment of the main axis of international politics in our times.
Marxists hold that the world proletarian movement is more than the mere sum of all national workers' movements. ``It unites the national movements and at the same time reflects the general content of the class struggle, which underlies the internationalist essence of the working class."^^2^^
Marxists-Leninists, guided by the principle of historism, have analysed the basic factors contributing to the development of proletarian internationalism and to the broadening of its influence on other progressive forces and movements.
In collective Marxist-Leninist theoretical works an analysis is made of a wide range of fundamentally important questions in this field, relating to the various aspects, major trends and manifestations of the growing internationalisation of public life in conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and in the period of detente.^^3^^
Today an author in the West will question the vitality of proletarian internationalism, noting the need to ensure that the policies of working people's organisations keep pace with the realities of modern social development and pointing out the broadening of the domain of international revolutionary solidarity among working people.
But proletarian internationalism, as the leading figures of many fraternal communist parties have rightly emphasised, is a phenomenon unquestionably gaining in strength and scope. Today it comprises the relations among the world working _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions'', Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 146.
~^^2^^ B. N. Ponomarev, Op. cit., p. 8.
~^^3^^ See: ``The Alliance of the World Socialist System and the National Liberation Movement. The International Scientific Conference in Baghdad'', Prague, 1975; ``International Detente and the Revolutionary Process. Based on the Materials of the International Theoretical Conference `The Interaction of the Three Revolutionary Streams in Conditions of International Detente'~'', Prague, 1977 (both in Russian).
255 class; the relations among the Marxist-Leninist parties of different countries; the essence of the inter-relationships among fraternal socialist countries (for, as a result of the enrichment and ever wider spread of the principles of the revolutionary internationalism of the working class, which have been accepted by the socialist states and the broad popular masses as a whole, socialist internationalism has taken shape and gained in strength as a component of proletarian internationalism and a consequence of its further development), and the relations between the international working class, including its victorious segments, and the progressive, anti-imperialist forces leading the battle for national liberation. The fact that the class policies and revolutionary ideology of the workers' movement is more and more frequently adopted by certain non-proletarian strata in no way compromises the class essence of proletarian internationalism, and must not lead to underestimation of its significance.In order to prevent the class, proletarian character of revolutionary internationalism in the workers' movement from ``dissolving'' in the naturally growing general democratic movements of today, Communists strive to bring working people and the general masses more and more under the influence of the politically conscious proletarian vanguard, its policies and its ideology. The founders of scientific communism insisted on this point. For example Engels, in a letter to August Bebel (24 November 1879), warned: ``True, the inflow of petty bourgeois and peasants into the movement attests to the enormous successes of this movement, but at the same time this is becoming dangerous for it as soon as one forgets that these people are compelled to come, and they come precisely because they are compelled to do so. Their joining the movment shows that the proletariat has really become a leading class. But since they come with petty-bourgeois and peasant ideas and aspirations, one should not forget that the proletariat will not perform its historic leading role if it makes concessions to these ideas and aspirations."^^1^^ The same holds true, as it did in the past, of the ideological struggle around proletarian internationalism.
The growing variety of conditions under which the class struggle is waged, and of the forms that progressive, anti-- imperialist movements of today take in different countries does not detract from but, on the contrary, further enhances the importance of international proletarian solidarity, of the interaction between all revolutionary forces. The main bond uniting revolutionary forces is the international communist movement; its reinforcement is of decisive importance for the unity and cooperation of these forces.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 34, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1966, pp. 425--26.
[256] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ VI __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE STUDY OF THE WORKINGA noteworthy feature of the social sciences in all parts of the world today is a great and ever increasing interest in the working class. This is easily understandable: as the development of the proletariat proceeds, its organisations become stronger and exert a more powerful influence on various aspects of public life; accordingly, there is a heightened interest everywhere in the growth (national and international) of the workers' movement.
The investigation of this topic is, quite naturally, pursued most intensively by organisations connected with the workers' movement, and especially by Marxist research centres associated with communist and workers' parties.
Despite certain difficulties ( particularly in the organisation of international comparative studies) notable gains have been made over the past several years in this area of research. The number of books and publications on the workers' movement has increased, and many new institutions for the historical and theoretical study of the workers' movement have been founded.
_-_-_~^^1^^ This section employs materials from a report made by the author in 1975 at a conference (held in Mexico City) of representatives from centres and institutes for the study of the workers' movement.
257These institutions Eire established by trade unions or universities, a number of them have been created within the academic system at the initiative of governments. In the past few years new institutes, research centres and societies for the study of the workers' movement have been set up in the USSR, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Cuba, Mexico, Italy, France, Spain, Finland, Greece, Japan, the USA, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and several other countries. The number of scholarly periodicals devoted to the workers' movement has also grown.
In 1972 the academies of sciences of the socialist countries formed a special commission for multilateral cooperation in the study of the working class and its place in the world revolutionary process. Scholars from Bulgaria, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, the Mongolian People's Republic, Poland, Romania, the USSR and Vietnam participate in the work of this commission.
A scientific council for the comprehensive study of the history of the international workers' and national liberation movement operating under the auspices of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences carries on large-scale scientific and coordinating work.
A significant characteristic of the present stage in the study of the working class is a marked shift from analytic to comprehensive studies, from the investigation of relatively narrow (albeit often crucial) questions to the identification of the general problems and laws of the history of the workers' movement. This trend (which may be conventionally called generalising) stems from today's urgent need for works that go beyond the individual stages in the history of the working class to deal with the basic principles of its development, the need for extensive, panoramic studies that epitomise the experience the working class has accumulated in its struggle which, despite the occasional dissimilarity of its manifestations is in essence a single process. The struggle of the working people must be summed up; the different facets of the development of the workers' movement must be examined from a single point of view: that of the problems facing the movement in the twentieth century. This demand has led to the undertaking of generalising historical and theoretical studies.
Comprehensive treatments of the history of the international workers' movement have been undertaken in several socialist countries. One example is the multi-volume work being carried out by the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 258 The International Working-Class Movement. Questions of History and Theory,~^^1^^ which covers the period from the origins of the workers' movement to the October Revolution.
The Soviet scholars have begun a deep and many-sided study of the history of the social, economic, political and spiritual evolution of the working class, of its maturation and accession to leadership in social progress. Generalising the manifold experience of the struggle of the working class, they have set out to elucidate its basic laws.
In planning this work the authors and the Central Board of Editors (headed by Academician B. N. Ppnomarey) took into consideration the need for a deep analysis of the international workers' movement as the history of an unceasing struggle and as a quest for ways and means by which to establish a radically new form of government, a government founded on social justice. The authors attempt to trace in detail the undeniable tie between the origin and rise of the working class and the successes of the movement to which it gave birth, on the one hand, and the social, economic and spiritual advancement of mankind, on the other; they seek to explain why the struggle of the working class and its allies was and is the prime motive force in social change and the progress of mankind.
To this end capital facts were gleaned from history and classified. Copious and scientifically verified documentation was used. The work in question is a profound study and generalisation of the enormous practical and spiritual experience amassed by the workers' movement over an extended period---from the first stirrings of the manufactural proletariat and the first bourgeois revolutions in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries (in which the working class, though not yet organised, took an active part) down to the time when the working class became the leading social class in many countries and emerged as a politically conscious and organised force.
The workers' movement is presented in this complex study as the totality of the various forms of action the working class takes to fight exploitation and win freedom.
The world workers' movement, due to its multiformity, _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: The International Working-Class Movement. Questions of History and Theory (in seven volumes, introduction by Academician B. N. Ponomarev), Vol. 1, The Origin of the Proletariat and Its Rise as a Revolutionary Class, Moscow, 1976; Vol. 2, The Working-Class Movement in the Period of Transition to Imperialism, Moscow, 1976; and Vol. 3, The Beginning of the Revolutionary Battles of the Twentieth Century, Moscow, 1978 (all in Russian).
259 must be studied systematically. The authors of The International Working-Class Movement meet this requirement by complementing historical analysis of different periods with theoretical synthesis, thus making it possible to see the development of the class struggle of the proletariat as a whole at its various stages and at the same time to distinguish the features peculiar to each stage. Moreover, a rather complete social history of the working class and its emancipatory struggle is presented side by side with the political history of the proletariat and its organisations.The stages in the social development of the working class are marked by growth in its numbers and by changes in its occupational and qualificational structure, economic position and socio-psychological outlook; the study of these stages throws light on the characteristics and succession of the stages in the growth of the workers' movement.
This study brings to light the natural socio-historical dynamics of the working class and the workers' movement, which is precisely what has made the proletariat the chief agent of social progress. The stages in the rise of the proletariat include, for example, the change from purely economic struggle to independent political actions, from spontaneity to political consciousness. Since the intellectual development of the working class is one of the most important factors in its ascendancy, the authors from the Institute of the International Labour Movement devote a great deal of attention to the development of social consciousness among workers at various historical phases: first in the form of Utopian ideas, then, after the rise of Marxism, in the form of the latter's fusion with the workers' movement and, later, as a result of the activities of mass workers' political parties, in the form of struggle between various trends within their ranks.
The book is based on a global approach to the history of the world workers' movement; it goes beyond the confines of traditional studies limited to a single country. This broad approach makes it possible to distinguish the stages in the growth of the working class itself and of its social, economic, political and spiritual activity; these stages, although not necessarily simultaneous or outwardly identical, are nevertheless repeated in every historical setting.
The authors have sought to present a truly world-wide history of the working class, to show the unity of the struggle of working people everywhere. Their work differs significantly from Western studies whose authors, notable for their Europpcentrism, wrongly assume that certain peoples are exceptional, and show little concern with the struggle of the working masses in many areas of the world.
260The multi-volume work deals in depth with the antiimperialist, national liberation movement and the share the working class has in it, especially in the period of imperialism, which marked the beginning of the era uniting the struggle ``by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries and a whole series of democratic and revolutionary movements, including the national liberation movement, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations".^^1^^
A large-scale collection of source materials on the history of the workers' movement in Russia during the nineteenth century, which remains the most complete publication of its kind, was published in the USSR (1950--1963) under the guidance of Academician A. M. Pankratova.
There have also been numerous publications of local documents. One example is a large anthology of archival materials on the history of the working class in the Uralsone of the most highly developed industrial regions in the USSR.^^2^^
Materials on the history of the workers' movement in other major industrial centres of the USSR (for example, Leningrad, the cradle of the October Revolution) have also been published.^^3^^
Several interesting collections of documents on the history of the Moscow working class have been published. These are the basis for a more general work, The History of Moscow,^^4^^ in which several chapters are devoted to the workers of Moscow and the part they have played in the history of the city and of the country as a whole.
The history of the country's largest enterprises, a vast and highly important field, continues to be intensively studied; a large archive of documents and investigations on the history of plants and factories has been built up. More than 800 books have been published on this subject (300 of them in the past decade) and considerable experience has been amassed in the scientific investigation of production collectives.^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism'', Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 60.
~^^2^^ The Position of Workers in the Urals in the Second Half of the Nineteenth and the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (1861--1904). A Collection of Documents, Moscow, Leningrad, 1960 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ The Workers' Movement in Petrograd 1912--1917. Documents and Materials, Leningrad, 1958; Leaflets of the Petersburg Bolsheviks, Vols. 1-3, Moscow, Leningrad, 1939--1957 (both in Russian).
~^^4^^ The History of Moscow. A Short Sketch, ed. by S. S. Khromov, Moscow, 1976 (in Russian).
~^^5^^ For more detail see, for example: V. A. Yezhov, Z. V. Stepanov and V. M. Kovalchuk, ``Experience in the Scientific Elaboration of __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 262. 261
In addition to these collections of documents by industry or by locality, research has been conducted into the history of different occupational groups within the working class (for example, the agrarian proletariat, the nucleus of the working class at plants and factories, etc.).
Source materials have been published on the history of trade unions---mass organisations of working people that arose in Russia at the oeginning of the twentieth century.^^1^^ A multi-volume series of materials on the history of the CPSU has been issued, along with a number of other large collections of documents based on institutional classification.
Another very widespread type of research focuses on events. It would be hard to name a significant event in the history of the workers' movement (or of the revolutionary movement in general) in Russia on which the relevant materials have not been collected and published. There are several comprehensive collections of documents on the first Russian revolution^^2^^ and several dozen books of memoirs by participants.
Historical research (in the strict sense) on the workers' movement in Russia is conducted along several lines. Some studies are based on city archives. An adequate conception of the history of the workers' movement can be arrived at by thorough local research in any country, and particularly in a huge and multinational country such as the USSR. Studies of the workers' movement in important industrial centres and regions are especially interesting. Examples are the two-volume collective work The History of the Workers of Leningrad (Leningrad, 1972)^^3^^; and monographs such as On the History of the Working Class in the Urals. Essays on the Condition of Worker-Serfs in the Central Urals and Their Struggle for the Liquidation of Serfdom (1800--1870) (Sverdlovsk, 1954) by M. A. Gorlovsky and A. N. Pyatnitsky---both professors at Sverdlovsk University--- and The Workers of Siberia in the Era of Capitalism (1861--1917) (Moscow, 1972) by A. A. Mukhin.
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 261. the History of Plants and Factories in the USSR," Ukrainian HistoricalJournal, No. 9,1972 (in Ukrainian).~^^1^^ Trade Unions of the USSR. Documents and Materials, Vols. 1-5, Moscow, 1963--1974 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See, for example: The Revolution of 1905--1907 in Russia. Fifty Years. Documents and Materials, Books 1-8, Moscow, Leningrad, 1955--1965; The Revolution of 1905--1907. Documents and Materials, Moscow, 1975; and Leaflets of Revolutionary Workers'Organisations 1905--1907, Moscow, 1956 (all in Russian).
~^^3^^ Translator's note: the notation ``in Russian" is not added in the text (as opposed to the footnotes) after titles of works published in the Soviet Union.
262The study of topics in history is actively pursued by Soviet scholars. The rise and development of the working class in Russia, for example, is a problem that has interested many researchers. An outstanding recent work on this subject is M. K. Rozhkova's The Formation of Cadres of Industrial Workers from the 1860s to the Early 1880s. Based on Materials from Moscow Gubernia (Moscow, 1974). The formation of the working class in Lithuania and Byelorussia has been studied by V. Merkis and V. Panyutich, respectively.
Scrupulous local studies have paved the way for general studies of the formation of the working class in Russia at the various stages in the development of capitalism. A. M. Pankratova, the author of The Formation of the Proletariat in Russia (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries) (Moscow, 1963), has made a valuable contribution to the study of the early stages of that process. The study of this topic was put on a statistical basis by A. G. Rashin in works that appeared between 1940 and 1958.
The conditions under which workers lived are studied as an integral part of the problem of the development of the working class. Such research is not confined to the material conditions of life: it extends to the culture and way of life of workers.~^^1^^
Of landmark importance is the preparation and publication in the Union Republics of works such as the threevolume History of the Working Class of Uzbekistan (Tashkent, 1964--1966); The History of the Working Class of Turkmenistan (Ashkhabad, 1969); the two-volume History of the Working Class of Tajikistan (Dushanbe, 1972--1973); The Working Class of the Ukrainian SSR (Kiev, 1972) by V. E. Romantsev; The Working Class of Estonia... (Tallinn, 1969) and others.
Mariy studies have been made of the part played by the working class in the three Russian revolutions of the twentieth century and of the history of the Communist Party, of the Soviets, of trade unions, unions of youth, their local organisations, etc.
Of special interest to Soviet scholars is the participation of the masses of the working people in the 1917 revolutionary events. 1. 1. Mints, in his three-volume work on the history of the October Revolution, has presented a panoramic view of the revolutionary activities of the masses and _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for example: V. Y. Krupyanskaya and N. S. Polishchuk, The Culture and Way of Life of Workers in the Mines of the Urals (Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries), Moscow, 1971 (in Russian).
263 of the Soviets on the eve of, and following, the October Revolution. (The first edition was completed in the first half of the 1970s).^^1^^ A second, enlarged edition of this work is in preparation. Soviet historians have published numerous other studies on the same theme.^^2^^Many Soviet scholars have investigated the leading role of the working class in the Russian revolutionary movement of the twentieth century, especially in the Great October Revolution.^^3^^ Their works are all the more important because erroneous conceptions are still current in the West that underestimate the real strength of the Russian working class and its ability to rally ever wider masses of the people around itself with its revolutionarytransforming and creative activity. Such underestimation belittles the international significance of the October Revolution. Soviet scholars have presented critical analyses of such conceptions in a number of works on concrete (economic, historico-sociological, etc.) topics^^4^^ and also _-_-_
~^^1^^ 1.1. Mints, The History of the Great October Revolution, Vol. 1, The Overthrow of Autocracy, Moscow, 1967: Vol. 2, The Overthrow of the Provisional Government. The Establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Moscow, 1968; Vol. 3, The Triumphal Progress of Soviet Power, Moscow, 1973 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See, for example: L. K. Bayeva, The Social Policies of the October Revolution,, Moscow, 1977; Idem, Problems of the History of the October Revolution and the Civil War in the USSR, Tomsk, 1975; A. P. Nenarokov, 1917. The Great October Revolution, Moscow, 1977; V. V. Anikeyev, Documents of the Great October Revolution. An Historiographical Sketch, Moscow, 1977 (all in Russian).
~^^3^^ This problem has been dealt with by a number of scholars at the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The following may be cited as examples: The Great October Revolution and the World Revolutionary Process, Moscow, 1967; T. Timofeyev, The October Revolution and the International Working-Class Movement, Moscow, 1967; The Comintern and the East, Moscow, 1977; The October Revolution, the Working Class and Modern Historiography, Moscow, 1977 (all in Russian); and Leninism and the World Revolutionary Working-Class Movement, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.
~^^4^^ See, for example: ``The Strikes and the Revolutions, 1850--1917''. In: S. G. Strumilin, Essays on the Economic History of Russia and the USSR, Moscow, 1966; The Working Class and the Workers' Movement in Russia in 1917, Moscow, 1964; V. I. Startsev, Essays on the History of the Petrograd Red Guard and the Workers' Militia, Moscow, Leningrad, 1965; The International Significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Moscow, 1968; L. S. Gaponenko, ``The Working Class---the Leading Force in the Armed Uprising of October''. In: The Historical Experience of the Great October Revolution. For the Eightieth Birthday of Academician I. I. Mints, Moscow, 1975, pp. 128--36; A. S. Sumbatzade, ``On the Socio-Economic Preconditions __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 265. 264 in special historiographies.^^1^^
The past several years have seen great strides forward in the field of international comparative studies in history. A number of historians have compared and contrasted the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century and the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, noting that, just as nineteenth-century thinkers were principally concerned with defining their views of the French Revolution, so modern authors are chiefly occupied with the 1917 October Revolution in Russia.^^2^^
The study of materials on the history of the working class in Russia serves Soviet scholars as a basis for generalising studies. Examples are: A Short History of the Workers' Movement in Russia. 1861--1917 (Moscow, 1962); A History of the Working Class in Russia. 1861--1900 (Moscow, 1972); and V. A. Yezhov, The Working Class in the USSR (Leningrad, 1974).
Thanks to the long tradition of the study of the working class in Soviet social science the historiography of this question is well developed. The 1970s saw the appearance of historiographical works by I. E. Vorozheikin, V. A. Yezhov, M. A. Zaborov, V. I. Kasyanenko, V. S. Lelchuk, V. E. Poletayev, B. I. Rasputnis, S. L. Senyavsky and others, in which important publications by Soviet authors on the working class were analysed.^^3^^
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 264. of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Law-Governed Nature of the Triumph of Soviet Power in the South-Eastern Outskirts of Russia'', Ibid., pp. 241--47; and A. S. Smirnov, The Bolsheviks and the Peasantry in the October Revolution, Moscow, 1977 (all in Russian).~^^1^^ See Y. I. Igritsky, The Myths of Bourgeois Historiography and the Reality of History. Modern American and English Historiography of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Moscow, 1974; Y. I. Igritsky and N. V. Romanovsky, A Critique of Bourgeois Historiography of the Three Russian Revolutions, Moscow, 1975; The Party and the Great October Revolution. An Historiographical Essay, Moscow, 1976; B. I. Marushkin, G. Z. loffe and N. V. Romanovsky, The Three Russian Revolutions and Bourgeois Historiography, Moscow, 1977 (all in Russian).
~^^2^^ See: World Politics, Vol. 18, No. 3, April 1966, p. 452.
~^^3^^ See: Questions of the Historiography of the Working Class of the USSR, Moscow, 1970; I. E. Vorozheikin, A Sketch of the Historiography of the Working Class in the USSR, Moscow, 1975; I. E. Vorozheikin and S. L. Senyavsky, The Working Class---the Leading Force in Soviet Society. Questions of Methodology and Historiography, Moscow, 1977; Developed Socialism: the Historiography and Methodology of the Problem, Moscow, 1976; V. A. Yezhov, ``The Working Class of the USSR in Modern Soviet Historiography''. In: The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process, Moscow, 1975; V. A. Yezhov __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 266. 265
Even this extremely brief survey shows clearly the unflagging interest of Soviet scholars in questions of the development of the workers' movement in Russia.
A similar interest is displayed by researchers in other socialist countries. It is manifest both in publications of documents (since historians naturally turn to the materials on the history of the working class in their native countries, which are most readily available to them) and in theoretical studies.
In Bulgaria, for example, work has been done on the history of the trade union movement and of the Communist Party: The History of the Trade Union Movement in Bulgaria (Sofia, 1973, in Bulgarian); The History of the Bulgarian Communist Party (Moscow, 1971, in Russian).
In Hungary, work has been completed on a three-volume History of the Hungarian Revolutionary Workers'Movement (Russian translation 1970--1974).
Scholars in Poland have issued a number of fundamental studies in preparation for the publication of a multi-volume generalising work on the history of the workers' movement in Poland. They are also pursuing basic research into various problems and periods of the history of the workers' movement in their country. Some of the results of this research are reflected in the five volumes, devoted to various themes, of the collection titled The Polish Working Class: Historical Studies,
In the 1970s scholars in Romania published several large works on the history of the workers' movement in their country, among them three volumes of documents on the workers' and socialist movement in nineteenth-century Romania.
Scholars in Czechoslovakia have also accomplished much in the study of the history of the workers' movement in their country.
The eight-volume History of the German Workers' Movement published in the German Democratic Republic in 1966 deserves special mention here. Nearly three hundred collections of documents were published in the GDR between 1960 and 1967; of particular note is the series Archivalische Forschungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung. Many volumes have already appeared in _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 265. and V. A. Ovsyankin, ``The Study of the Working Class of Developed Socialism in the Period Between the 24th and 25th Congresses of the CPSU''. In: The Working Class at the Present Stage, Book 4, Leningrad, 1976; B. I. Rasputnis, Soviet Historiography of the Modern Workers' Movement. Questions of Theory and Methodology, Part 1, Lvov, 1976 (all in Russian).
266 this series; they contain valuable materials on the activity of the German Social-Democratic Party under the special anti-socialist law, on the influence of the Russian revolution of 1905 and the Great October Socialist Revolution on the workers' movement in Germany, etc.Soviet scholars and their colleagues in the other fraternal socialist countries are also interested, of course, in the history and modern development of the world proletariat. An authorial collective in Hungary, for example, has published a History of the International Workers' Movement 1830--1945 ( Budapest, 1973), in which attention is focused mainly on the events and processes of the twentieth century. During the 1970s a number of works on the history of the world proletariat and its organisations appeared in Warsaw.
Unique documents and collections of unpublished materials in the archives of the USSR have made it possible for scholars in socialist countries to make exhaustive studies of many themes, for example, the history of the International Working Men's Association---the first international proletarian organisation---whose activity is connected with the names of Marx and Engels. A multi-volume series of the protocols of the General Council of that organisation was published in Moscow between 1961 and 1970. A large work on its history and historiography was issued in several parts in the 1960s.^^1^^ Allied problems are considered in the series titled Marxism and the International Workers' Movement issued by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Another large historical question being studied by Soviet researchers is the history of the first workers' government---the Paris Commune of 1871. The archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism has a collection of its protocols. In 1959--1960 they were published in two volumes under the editorship of the noted Soviet historians Academician V. P. Volgin, Professors A. I. Molok and E. A. Zhelubovskaya. Documents on the attitude of the First International towards the Paris Commune have also been published (Moscow, 1972). A number of monographs on the history of the first proletarian revolution have been published; these include theoretical works (for example, The Paris Commune and Marxism, published in Moscow, 1973). The Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences marked the centenary of the Paris Commune with a collective work: The International _-_-_
~^^1^^ The First International. 1864--1876, Vols. 1-2, Moscow, 1964-- 1965; The First International in Historical Science, Moscow, 1968 (both in Russian).
267 Heritage of the Paris Commune.These are just a few examples of the results of work by Soviet scholars, of their numerous books and other scientific publications devoted to the various stages of the revolutionary class struggles of the proletariat, to the history of socialist doctrines, etc.
__*_*_*__The methodological basis of the study of the workers' movement, its history and theory---both nationally and internationally---is of particular interest, all the more so because ever wider studies are being made, both inside and outside the USSR, into problems of the development of the working class and its struggle in various parts of the world.
Historicism is one of the main scientific and methodological principles by which Soviet scholars are guided in the study of the workers' movement. This principle, as applied to the study of the proletariat and to the place of the working masses in world history in general, means primarily that the proletariat is viewed not as something frozen and immutable but as a dynamically developing class. In its progressive development it passes through several stages. Its living conditions, position and struggle, and the objective and subjective factors influencing the workers' movement are all studied in connection with the concrete historical circumstances, with the changes in the life of society in the given country (and internationally) in different historical periods, at different stages of the world historical process. This principle makes it possible to define correctly and realistically the capabilities and role of the proletariat, for example, in the first or second periods of modern history, at the present day, etc. The proper understanding and application of this principle helps to overcome the influence of various mistaken, ``anti-proletarian'' conceptions whose adherents ( beginning with Daniel Bell and concluding with the philosophers of the Frankfurt school and ``left'' doctrinaires like Andre Gorz) ignore recent developments in the life of society, misinterpret the facts about the continuing growth of the working class in conditions of the scientific and technological revolution, and denigrate the historic mission of the proletariat and its revolutionary potential.
A complex approach is another important principle of the study of the workers' movement. This means that a truly scientific history of the working class can and must be written by scholars in different fields, i. e., on an interdisciplinary basis. This task is made more difficult by the fact that optimal results are achieved at the interface of 268 various scientific disciplines (and not by ``parallel'' studies in separate disciplines): social history, economic history, sociology, social psychology, philosophy, the history of ideas, political economy, legal aspects of labour relations, various aspects of political studies, etc. In recent years quantitative methods have come to be more and more widely applied in social sciences and the humanities; these methods include the use of mathematics in economics, psychology, applied sociology and in the comparative studies of the dynamics of the strike movement.
This complex approach makes it possible to take into consideration all of the main influences on the development of the workers' movement: processes in the economic basis of society, which also affect its class structure, and changes in its political and ideological superstructure.
In attempting complex studies of this kind Soviet scholars are guided by a tradition of many years, which is based on putting into practice important ideas stated and substantiated by Lenin. More than half a century ago, in 1921, Lenin recommended that investigations of economic, social and political problems be combined. In his theses on the organisation and working methods of an institute for the study of the workers' movement (addressed to the noted Marxist scholar E. Varga), he suggested that such a research institution be called the ``Institute for the Study of Forms of Social Movement".^^1^^
Among the themes that Lenin recommended for study were the following:~
``---~---elections and their statistics (or results) to judge the strength of the trends in the labour movement;~
``---~---the history of outstanding strikes and ``incidents'' ( demonstrations, actions, etc.) and so on."^^2^^
In discussing other aspects of the research programme and working methods of the institute, Lenin stressed that in addition to the study of the chief political organisations representing working people (communist, socialist and other parties)
`` + questions of the trade union movement should be specially dealt with in detail from the political angle....~
`` + workers' co-operatives: ditto....~
`` + all transitional political formations (like the
workers' and farmers' party in the United States) are
_-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Note to E. Varga and Theses on the
Organisation of an Information Institute on Questions of the International
Labour Movement'', Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 337. ~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Letter to G. Y. Zinoviev and Instructions to the
Secretary'', Collected Works, Vol. 42, p. 335.
``... Parties of the II and II '/2 Internationals---much more detailed.
`` + attitude to own colonies---and to imperialism in practical politics---much, much more detailed.
`` + all pacifist and petty-bourgeois-democratic groups and trends---much more detailed.
``And so on.~"^^1^^
Thus Lenin proposed that the study of the workers' movement be undertaken not from a narrow, sectarian position but in organic connection with the struggle of the broadest strata of society. Guided by these principles, Soviet scholars seek to study all the main forms of the struggle of the working class: economic, political and ideological. History knows many examples of the interweaving of the social, economic, political and other demands of the masses, of the various factors in, and aspects of the class struggle.
In studying the history of the working-class movement it is essential to avoid one-sidedness, unjustified exaggeration and the metaphysical opposition of one aspect of the problem to the others. A sharp discussion, for example, resulted from the conclusions made by Professor John R. Commons and other representatives of the Wisconsin school of historians of the workers' movement (Selig Perlman and his followers) in the USA. They exaggerated the importance of trade unions, which they wrongly interpreted in a purely pragmatic spirit, and ``projected'', without any justification, the experience of Gompersism onto the entire world workers' movement. In doing so they obviously underestimated the social and political sides of the class struggle. Many historians of the workers' movement, even within the United States (at a number of universities and in scientific periodicals), questioned the postulates of the ``Commons school''.
Similarly unjustified is the mechanical opposition of the economic aspects of the workers' movement to its ideological and political aspects and the undervaluing of the latter's role, no matter whether this concerns the history of the strike movement or the criteria of the maturity of the workers' movement in a country. Adolf Sturmthal's critique^^2^^ of _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``A Note to E. Varga and Theses on the Organisation of an Information Institute on Questions of the International Labour Movement'', Collected Works, Vol. 42, pp. 338--39.
~^^2^^ See: Adolf Sturmthal, ``Industrial Relations Strategies''. In: The International Labor Movement in Transition. Essays on Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, ed. by Adolf Sturmthal and James G. Scoville, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Chicago, London, 1973, pp. 2-4.
270 the theses of Marx and of the well-known predictions by Sidney and Beatrice Webb about the growing interconnection of political and economic forms of struggle is completely unconvincing (Sturmthal makes his critique from the old methodological position of Perlman). The facts, after all, show that the dominant trend in the history of the workers' movement in many countries (especially in the past few decades) is towards a closer connection between the various forms of the struggle of the working class. Hence the marked ``politicisation'' of actions by working people (even of actions taken on social and economic questions) during the intensification of the crisis of capitalism.The development of the world revolutionary workers' movement, especially in the twentieth century, should be viewed as a complex, multifaceted process. It has common laws everywhere, and the actions of the workers of one country influence workers in other countries. This is precisely the position taken by Soviet scholars in their investigations of the principal problems of the history and theory of the international workers' movement.
Studies of the proletariat and its organisations, both world-wide and regional in scope, have also been undertaken in the West. An interesting example is the book by W. Abendroth, of West Germany, on the social history of the workers' movement in Europe.^^1^^ An American scholar, Carl Landauer, has published a two-volume work dealing with allied problems.^^2^^ The authors of a number of other publications, which pretend to ``European and regional universality'', actually touch on only a few questions; an article by Val R. Lorwin^^3^^ is an example. Some have undertaken an examination of the history of the workers' movement in Europe, but only within a very limited time frame. Such, for example, is the study by American historians Mitchell and Stearn,^^4^^ which confines itself to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
_-_-_~^^1^^ W. Abendroth, Sozialgeschichte der europaischen Arbeiterbewegung, Suhrkampf, Frankfort on the Main, 1965.
~^^2^^ See: Carl Landauer, European Socialism. A History of Ideas and Movements from the Industrial Revolution to Hitler's Seizure of Power, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1959.
~^^3^^ See: Val R. Lorwin, ``Working-Class Politics and Economic Development in Western Europe," American Historical Review, Vol. 63, No. 2, 1958, pp. 338--51.
~^^4^^ See: Harvey Mitchell and Peter N. Stearn, Workers and Protest. The European Labor Movement, the Working Class, and the Origins of Social-Democracy, 1890--1914, F. E. Peacock Publishers, Itasca (111.), 1971.
271The aim of these works is largely pragmatic; they concentrate on the exposition of facts. The interpretative works that have appeared on the history of labour take an extremely broad, at times indeed diffuse, view of their subject.
The following topics are discussed at the annual conferences of European historians of the workers' movement at Linz: the state of the workers' movement in Europe before the First World War,^^1^^ the importance of memoirs as a source in the study of the history of workers' organisations, comparative research into the strike movement, and the spread of Marxism.
The many scholars investigating the history of the working class and its contemporary development belong to different scientific schools and various ideological and theoretical trends; they include not only historians but also sociologists, philosophers, economists, psychologists, legal experts and specialists in other fields.
In recent times various forms of contact between specialists in this area of study have become more and more common.
Soviet scholars combine work on theoretical questions with the investigation of ongoing processes in the workers' movement. They reject the theory of ``deproletarianisation'' and the ``new middle class'', whose adherents (e. g., Daniel Bell) misrepresent the differences in the character of labour between white- and blue-collar employees as ``class-forming'' characteristics in an attempt to justify their assertions about tiie ``disappearance'' of the proletariat. Soviet scholars likewise reject the ``left''-revisionist notion that the working class is being ``bourgeoisified'', which in fact serves as a basis for the belittling of the role of the proletariat as the leading force in social and historical process.~^^2^^
Many studies by Soviet scholars emphasise the increasing effect of the struggle of the working class on other social _-_-_
~^^1^^ In 1969 the author presented a paper entitled ``V. I. Lenin and the Workers' Movement in Western Europe up to the Beginning of the First World War" at the fifth Linz conference.
~^^2^^ A number of works by Soviet scholars have been devoted to the criticism of such conceptions. See, for example: T. T. Timofeyev, The Philosophy of Historical Optimism (Towards a Critique of AntiProletarian Doctrines), Moscow, 1975; Idem, ``The Modern Working Class and the Crisis of Anti-Proletarian Doctrines''. In: The International Working-Class Movement, Moscow, 1974, pp. 30--57; A. Shulgovsky, ``A Critique of Bourgeois and Petty-Bourgeois Theories About the Role of the Working Class in the Liberation Movement''. In: The Proletariat of Latin America, Moscow, 1968, pp. 374--419; M. Okuneva, ``On the Role of the Working Class in Latin America. A Critique of Bourgeois and Ultra-Left Conceptions'', Modern and Contemporary __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 273. 272 strata, which leads to a widening of the front of democratic, revolutionary forces. Regardless of the specific features of the revolutionary process in various countries and its possible temporary setbacks or retreats by certain segments of the workers' movement in some countries, the leading tendency of the present era appears in the growing influence of the working class and its organisations in every important area of the life of society.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ The Situation of the ProletariatThe study of the workers' movement and the development of general democratic, anti-monopolist actions within the main citadel of world imperialism---the United States of America---is of great scientific, ideological and political importance for the understanding of recent trends in the class struggle. For this study it is vital to properly define the relationship between the general laws of the struggle, which are manifest throughout the capitalist world, and the concrete forms that they take in the USA.
Present-day anti-Marxism is often based on the idea that the development of American capitalism is ``special'', that it has ``exceptional'' features making it different in principle from capitalism in other countries. This idea is further connected with reformist and revisionist assertions that the American workers' movement is ``conflict-free'', and that the experience of the class struggle in the rest of the world does not apply to it.
Past and present ideologues of the American bourgeoisie--- from Henry Ch. Carey and Frederick Turner in the nineteenth century to John Kenneth Galbraitn, Alvin H. Hansen, Massimo Salvador! and Louis M. Hacker in our day---have all propounded, in one form or another, the theory that American capitalism is an ``exception''. This theory has also been propagandised by right-wing union leaders---from Samuel Gompers to George Meany---and by opportunist, revisionist elements active at various periods in the American communist movement: Jay Lovestone, Earl Browder, John Gates and others.
Despite certain differences among them (in their _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 272. History, No. 3, 1974, pp. 70--79; Idem, ``Bourgeois Sociology and the Formation of the Working Class of Developing Countries'', World Economics and International Relations, No. 11, 1974, pp. 104--09; D. Kukharchuk, ``~`Left' Radicalism and `Makhayevism' '', The Working Class and the Modern World, No. 6,1973, pp. 120--37 (all in Russian).
273 concrete ``arguments'', in their political points of departure, etc.) all of the adherents of the ``theory of exceptionality" deny that the foreign policy of American capitalism is aggressive, supporting the myth that the USA is ``anti-colonial''. They reject the Marxist theory of crises and deny the applicability to the United States of the Marxist doctrine of class contradictions and the class struggle in capitalist society and of the inevitability of the aggravation of social antagonisms under capitalism. Their ``theoretical generalisations" amount to a denial of the universality of the laws of social development set forth by Marxism-Leninism. __*_*_*__The revisionist versions of the concept of American ``exceptionality'' are, in content, hardly any different from other versions. But in form the arguments of the followers of Browder and of other opportunists were intended first and foremost for people who were influenced by Marxism. At times they used citations from Marxist works. Publishers in the United States proclaimed Browder himself an ``expert on Marxism" for many years, even after his expulsion from the Communist Party of the USA. All of this was done in an attempt to give some hint of authority to his revisionist ``refutation'' of Marxism.
As early as 1942--1945 Browder was trying to whitewash the essence of monopoly capitalism. He advanced the false idea that after the Second World War the international conflict between imperialism and socialism, and between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie within the USA, might ``die away".^^1^^ Communists sharply criticised and condemned Browser's views.^^2^^ In 1946 he was expelled from the Communist Party of the USA; thereafter he was regarded for many years as the ``ideological leader" of the renegades who had deserted the Party.^^3^^ Browder himself did not deny his revision of Marxism; he acknowledged that his revision _-_-_
~^^1^^ Earl Browder, Victory---and After, International Publishers, New York, 1942; Idem, Teheran. Our Path in War and Peace, International Publishers, New York, 1944.
~^^2^^ See, for example: Marxism-Leninism vs Revisionism, ed. by William Foster, Jacques Duclos, Eugene Dennis and John Williamson, New Centuries Publishers, New York, 1946; and a number of other publications by the Communist Party of the USA.
~^^3^^ Sundry opponents of Leninism---from right opportunists to Trotskyite ideologues and anti-communists such as Irving Howe, Joseph R. Starobin, Philipp Jaffe, Bertram D. Wolfe, et a/.---joined in praise of Browder. See, for example: Irving Howe and Lewis Coser, The American Communist Party. A Critical History (1919--1957), Beacon Press, __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 275. 274 of Leninism had led him to ``re-examining'' a number of Marx's central theses.^^1^^
In 1957--1958 Browder presented two series of lectures ``repudiating'' Marxism. The materials used for these lectures became the basis for a book on Marx and America,^^2^^ in which he claimed that the ``special'' position of the USA made the laws of Marxism-Leninism inapplicable to it.
Browder took up arms against Lenin's theory of imperialism. He called Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which lays bare the roots of imperialist wars and is one of the sharpest weapons in the hands of peoples fighting for peace, ``one of the greatest ideological obstacles to world understanding and world peace".^^3^^
Here is a small example of Browder's method of `` theoretical argumentation''; he declares that Marx and Engels proved that nations cannot enrich themselves plundering other nations. He tries to shore up this thesis with a quote from Engels's Anti-Diihring.
Browder's ``citation'' is a crude distortion. Criticising Diihring's explanation of transition to capitalism, Engels wrote: ``Even if we exclude all possibility of robbery, force and fraud ... the progressive development of production and exchange nevertheless brings us of necessity to the present capitalist mode of production.... The whole process can be explained by purely economic causes; at no point whatever are robbery, force, the state or political interference of any kind necessary."^^4^^
Browder seizes on the last part of this passage and conveniently ``forgets'' to cite the first part. He uses this device in an attempt to convince his readers that Marx and Engels denied that force and the robbing of enslaved peoples are part of the development of capitalism. This approach represents deliberate falsification. Let us recall the famous passage from Chapter XXXI of Marx's Capital: ``The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 274. Boston, Beacon Hill, 1957; Joseph R. Starobin, American Communism in Crisis, 1943--1957, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass ) 1972, pp. 51--70, XI-XV; and Philipp J. Jaffe, The Rise and Fall of American Communism, Introduction by Bertram D. Wolfe Horizon Press, New York, 1975.
~^^1^^ Earl Browder, Marx and America. Lectures at Rutgers University, New Brunswick (N. J.), New York, 1957, p. 4.
~^^2^^ Earl Browder, Marx and America. A Study of the Doctrine of Impoverishment, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York, 1958
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 104.
~^^4^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring, pp. 200--01.
275 East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momento of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre ....These methods depend in part on brute force, e. g., the colonial system. But they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition."^^1^^Like the other American revisionists---Gates, Starobin, et a/.---Browder propagandises the thesis that the foreign policy of the USA is ``non-imperialist'' and ``anti-colonial''. He is plainly dissatisfied that many nations see ``Uncle Sam" as a despicable ``Uncle Shylock the miser, whose riches are coined from the blood and flesh of others".^^2^^ Former ``Marxist'' Browder undertakes to restore the ``good name" of American imperialism, and tries to deny that the international policies pursued by American monopolies are expansionist and predatory.
But Browder's assertions fly in the face of reality. The facts show that the development of the USA, like that of other capitalist countries, is inseparable from force and from the enslavement and exploitation of other nations.
It is a fact, after all, that the monopolies of the United States unleashed the Spanish-American War in 1898, which went down in history as one of the first aggressive wars in the era of imperialism and resulted in the extension of the domain of North American capitalists to the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam. It was American monopolies that backed ``big stick" policies and the methods of ``dollar diplomacy'', which were nothing other than a combination of predatory wars with large-scale economic expansionism and brutal exploitation first of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere and then also of the peoples on other continents. Although American imperialism appeared on the international scene after the colonial and semi-colonial countries had already, in effect, been divided among the other imperialist powers, monopoly capital in the United States, using financial, political and military pressure tactics, established, over the first few decades of the twentieth century, tight control over the economies of many countries---the equivalent of colonial subjugation.
Similarly false are assertions that American capitalism has _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 703.
~^^2^^ Earl Browder, Op. cit., p. 5.
276 undergone a change in the modern era and that colonialism is, at present, alien to the economics and politics of the USA. Colonialism, old or ``new'', and an aggressive foreign policy are inherent in the nature of capitalism. The mainspring of the capitalist system is profit; as long as that system exists, imperialist monopolies will seek to export their capital to other countries where returns on investments are especially large due to the exploitation and impoverishment of their peoples.American capitalism, past and present, develops according to the same laws that govern the development of the capitalist mode of production everywhere. This does not mean, of course, that the development of capitalism and imperialism in the USA does not have certain peculiar features. In the United States, as everywhere, the general laws manifest themselves in nationally specific forms.
But Browder artificially opposes the specific forms taken by the laws of social development to the content of those laws. This is another example of the anti-scientific methods characteristic of his approach.
Browder does not pause to explain what it is that `` excludes" American capitalism from the realm of application of the laws of social development substantiated by MarxismLeninism. He ascribes to the United States the ability to `` revitalise" capitalism in other countries, to make it into a beneficent and prospering social system whose welfare is ensured against social disturbances. The ``ideological leader" of the American revisionists reproaches Marx and Lenin for haying ``overlooked'' the ``vitalising'' properties of American capitalism and for having ``erred'' in their scientific conclusions and political prognoses. Lenin, claims Browder, made a mistake in putting his hopes in revolution in Western Europe, particularly in Germany, because he failed to see that American capitalism would be able to transmit its ``special'' properties to European capitalism and thus extend to the countries of Europe its immunity to socialist revolution.
But the entire course of historical development shows that neither American nor any other form of imperialism can bring a ``second youth" to the decrepit capitalist order. American and other reactionaries, despite all of their political, economic and military efforts, were unable to overthrow the first socialist state or, later on, to prevent the creation of the world socialist system. These facts show up claims that Lenin's teachings are ``revisionist'', that Marx was `` dogmatic'', and that American capitalism has miraculous `` special" properties.
Revisionists usually defend their attacks on scientific communism by asserting that theirs is a ``creative'' approach; 277 consequently, they accuse the defenders of Marxism-- Leninism of ``dogmatism''. But opportunists who proclaim themselves ``innovators'' are mainly occupied with repeating old anti-Marxist ideas and conceptions with tiresome monotony. This is true of Browder too: he borrows not only his basic ``ideas'' but also many of his concrete ``arguments'' from Eduard Bernstein; Browder's ``innovative'' ideas are, in fact, of venerable antiquity.
Like Bernstein, Browder comes out against Marx's theory of value and, in particular, against the doctrine that labour is a commodity. He tries to ``refute'' the Marxist thesis that the value of labour is determined by the value of the means of existence necessary for the production and reproduction of labour.
In an attempt to ``support'' his attacks on Marxism Browder resorts to falsification: he claims that Marx had two mutually exclusive theories of wages-H;he ``theory of the subsistence wage" and the ``theory of the social wage''. Marx's followers, he maintains, did not notice the second of these.
All the enemies of Marxism-Leninism are fond of distorting and vulgarising some or other proposition of Marxist theory and then presenting a critique or refutation of this proposition. They are also fond of discovering alleged `` contradictions" in Marxist theory and of turning Marx into a liberal. Browder, too, uses these methods. He ascribes to Marx the scientifically unfounded ``theory of the social wage" which was devised in fact by bourgeois scholars and, at the same time, asserts that according to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism the proletariat of all capitalist countries should experience a daily worsening of its living conditions.
Having ascribed this absurd thesis to Marxism-Leninism Browder cites the comparatively high (relative to other capitalist countries) standard of living of certain segments of the American working class and on this basis concludes that Marx's theory about the accumulation of capital at one pole of bourgeois society and of increasing poverty at the other is unfounded.
Browder would like his readers to believe that Marx and his followers did not admit the possibility of uneven development in different capitalist countries, did not see the tendencies which in concrete conditions of a certain country might run counter to the general laws. Browder asserts that Marxists evaluate social and economic processes in different countries with a single measuring-stick.
All this is nothing more than a falsification. In formulating the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation 278 Marx, in reality, noted that ``like all other laws it is modified in its working by many circumstances".^^1^^ Browder, like other anti-Marxists, would like to see in these modifications proof of the unfoundedness of the laws. He maintains that ``under the laws of capitalist accumulation and of wages" formulated by Marx ``it is impossible to explain the rise of modern industry in America" and that, as far as Marxists are concerned, the ``rise of modern industry in America constitutes an unexplainable miracle".^^2^^
In fact Marxists-Leninists have given a full explanation of the reasons for the comparatively rapid growth of American capitalism during one particular period. These reasons include the absence of a feudal past in a significant part of the country's territory, its rich natural resources, its strategic position, which long protected the United States from the destructive consequences of war, etc.
Neither are Marxist-Leninist theoreticians at a loss for an answer to the question of why the wages of certain segments of the American proletariat are higher than the wages of workers in other capitalist countries.
Marx emphasised that the value of labour, as opposed to the value of all other commodities, is composed of two elements: the physical and the historical (social). The first of these elements determines only the lower limit of the value of labour, which presupposes ``not mere physical life, but ... the satisfaction of certain wants springing from the social conditions in which people are placed and reared up''. Marx went on to note that ``this historical or social element, entering into the value of labour, may be expanded, or contracted, or altogether extinguished".^^3^^
In the USA the historical, social element in the value of labour was rather great at the outset and, for a number of reasons, continued to grow for a certain time. Among the most important reasons for this growth were the shortage of labour in rapidly developing capitalist industry, which continued for several decades, and the existence, even in the second half of the nineteenth century, of ``free'' lands in the western part of the country. For many years this made it possible for the working people of America to struggle for their demands in relatively more favourable conditions than those existing in other countries and to win important concessions from the capitalists. Marx wrote: ``As to the limits of the value of labour, its actual settlement always depends _-_-_
~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 603.
~^^2^^ Earl Browder, Op. cit., pp. 21--22.
~^^3^^ Karl Marx, ``Wages, Price and Profit''. In: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, in three volumes, Vol. 2, pp. 71--72.
279 upon supply and demand. I mean the demand for labour on the part of capital, and the supply of labour by the working man. In colonial countries^^1^^ the law of supply and demand favours the working man. Hence the relatively high standard of wages in the United States.~"^^2^^But do these facts justify the conclusion (advanced by Browder and other apologists of American capitalism) that Marx's theses on the exploitation of the proletariat under capitalism lose their significance in the USA? Although that conclusion is to the liking of American capitalists it has nothing to do with the truth.
It is necessary to keep in mind that the exploitation of working people is many-sided and finds expression not only in the level of wages but also in many other matters. The position of the proletariat is affected by the growing gulf between the value of labour and real wages, which is connected with the existence of unemployment and rural overpopulation, by the pressure of a ``reserve army of labour" on employed workers, by the growing intensity of labour, by the exploitation of women workers, by economic discrimination against women and young people and members of oppressed minorities in the labour force, and by the effects of wars and militarisation of the economy and economic crises on the working and living conditions of the working class. Finally, it would be wrong to consider the position of working people in the developed capitalist countries, including the United States, without taking into account the hunger under which millions of working people live in the developing countries.
The relative impoverishment of the proletariat appears most clearly in the decreasing share of the working people in the national income, i. e., in the tremendous growth in the wealth of the capitalists relative to the wages of working people.
Objective study of American reality shows that the factors mentioned above are all in operation there.
It is necessary to take into account, first, full and partial unemployment, second, the position of low-paid segments of the working population of the USA, and, third, the undoubted fact that the standard of living of certain segments of the working class is affected by cyclical crises. The time when the law of supply and demand more or less favoured the working people of the USA has long since _-_-_
~^^1^^ In the 1860s Marx considered the United States a colonial country since, as Marx put it, the USA was still a ``colony'' of Europe ``in the economic sense''.
~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Op. cit., p. 73.
280 passed. Browder, by the way, is forced to admit (however partially and unwillingly) that even in the best years `` pauperism" was observable in America, although only (he claims) on a ``local scale" or only for ``brief periods".^^1^^ In the decades since the Second World War unemployment and the deprivations it brings to many segments of the working people have been particularly grave in the USA.Trade union leaders and the most perspicacious bourgeois economists and politicians have been alarmed by the growth of unemployment; they have called increasing unemployment ``America's number one problem.'' Black, Puerto Rican and other ``coloured'' workers have experienced the greatest hardships due to unemployment.
Browder, like the other proponents of the theory of America's ``exceptionality'', advances the deceitful claim that the real earnings of workers in the USA have increased in proportion to the growth in the productivity of labour.^^2^^
Browder's fabrications are refuted by the fact that American monopoly capital is now, as in the past, trying to use unemployment to make further significant increases in the intensiveness of the labour of employed workers, to sharply raise the norms of the exploitation of the working class.
Thus Browder's arguments falsify reality. But he does not stop at that; he vainly attempts to prove that Marxism-- Leninism is ``inapplicable'' to modern capitalism as a whole, to separate Lenin's contribution to the theory and practice of socialism from the legacy of Marx and Engels. Setting up an unnatural opposition between Marxism and Leninism, he attempts to ``prove'' that Marxism is hopelessly obsolete and that Leninism is not applicable to the industrialised countries of the West, which (we are told) can either get along without socialism altogether or arrive at it without a socialist revolution.
Like other revisionists Browder has argued against the basic theses of Marxism-Leninism on the proletarian revolution, trying to belittle the importance of Lenin's contribution to the theory of socialist revolution. Browder works especially hard at distorting the Leninist position that it is possible for socialism to triumph in a single country. He asserts that this thesis was advanced by the CPSU only after the death of Lenin. Not content with this falsification, Browder attempts in every possible way to ``refute'' Lenin's views on the fate of socialism in Russia.
According to Browder, the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in 1917 in ``the most backward great country" _-_-_
~^^1^^ Earl Browder, Op. cit., p. 22.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
281 was ``not a development of the successful application of theory, but ... a dilemma resulting from the breakdown of theory".^^1^^ Thus, despite the indisputable facts of history, and in the teeth of sound reasoning, Browder would have his readers believe that the history of the revolution in the USSR is not a striking confirmation of the correctness of Marxist-Leninist theory but a proof that the Bolsheviks had ``abandoned'' or ``deviated from" the ideas of Marx.But Browder's inventions collapse when confronted with the facts. Even before October 1917 Lenin, as a result of his study of the monopolistic stage of capitalism, had established the thesis that it is possible for socialism to triumph in a single country at the outset. This keystone of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution has been vividly confirmed in practice by the building of a socialist society in the USSR.
Browder avers that, in the middle of the twentieth century, ``socialist ideology openly based itself upon the backward sections of the world economy'',^^2^^ among which he includes the USSR.
The fabrications of Browder and his followers are typical for opportunist ideologues, who began asserting, in the very first years after the October Revolution, that Russia was ``not ready" for socialist transformations, that Russia and a number of other countries in Eastern Europe and Asia had not developed the economic conditions necessary for the transition to socialism. And indeed, tsarist Russia passed on to the Soviet government a backward and shattered economy. But even at that time Lenin refuted and held up to ridicule the timid and fruitless views of the right opportunists who tried to hobble the revolutionary initiative and creativity of the masses. Experience has demonstrated the correctness of Lenin's courageous revolutionary ideas and disproved the assertions of the dogmatists and time-servers. At present socialism is being built with success both in a number of once economically backward countries and in certain more industrially developed states ( Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic). Practice, the chief criterion of the correctness of any theory, has shown the truth of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and its vitality for the widest possible variety of countries and nations.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 131.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 132.
282 __*_*_*__As Lenin repeatedly stressed, scientific socialism ( unlike the various pseudo-socialist doctrines or the ideas of primitive socialism) does not ``concoct'' the various forms and means used by the working people in their struggle ``but only generalises, organises, gives conscious expression to those forms... which arise of themselves in the course of the movement".^^1^^ Marxism-Leninism demands ``an attentive attitude to the mass struggle in progress" and ``positively does not reject any form of struggle".^^2^^
Noting the importance of applying the principle of historicism in the analysis of trends in the workers' movement and its forms, Lenin emphasised that at various stages in the proletariat's class struggle and in different concrete historical circumstances and ``depending on differences in political, national-cultural, living and other conditions, different forms of struggle come to the fore".^^3^^ Leninism has always held that it is indispensable to make a detailed examination of ``the concrete situation of the given movement at the given stage of its development".^^4^^
Marxist scholars investigating the workers' movement in America oppose the biased emphasis on the peculiar features of the social and historical development of the United States typical among the bourgeois-reformist and the sundry revisionist, national-opportunist proponents of the `` exceptional" status of America who deny, in one form or another, the applicability of the universal laws of the class struggle to that country. They likewise, and with full reason, reject ``left''-sectarian, pseudo-revolutionary ideas and abstract schemes, divorced from reality, that ignore the specific features of the mass workers' movement in the USA, the real disposition of class forces there, and the level of organisation and political consciousness and independence achieved by the American proletariat at different stages in the history of the country.
This is the position adopted by American Marxist historians in their valuable works (the works of William Foster and Ph. S. Foner's multi-volume work on the history of the workers' movement in the USA deserve special mention).^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Guerrilla Warfare'', Collected Worfes.Vol.il, p. 213.
~^^2^^ Ibid.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 214.
~^^4^^ Ibid.
~^^5^^ William Z. Foster, Outline Political History of the Americas, International Publishers, New York, 1951; Idem, History of the Communist Party of the United States, International Publishers, New York, 1952; Ph. S. Foner, The History of the US Workers'Movement, Vol. 1, __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 284. 283 In the 1960s and 1970s a number of Soviet scholars published monographs on the history of the American proletariat and its class struggle.~^^1^^ A special place among these works is occupied by an extensive study by a group of Soviet historians of the chief problems of the development of the working class in the USA during the general crisis of capitalism.^^2^^
The authors have examined the history of the workers' movement in the USA at every stage of the general crisis of capitalism, beginning with a characterisation of the position and make-up of the American proletariat in the period after the First World War and of its class struggle in the years of the revolutionary upsurge that followed the October Revolution. Much attention is devoted to the strike movement among American working people and to the criticism of the positions taken by reformist trade union leaders.
The authors, in analysing the sources of the revolutionary workers' movement in the USA, bring to bear numerous _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 283. From the Colonial Times to the Eighties of the XlXth Century, Moscow, 1944; Vol. 2, From the Creation of the AFL to the Emergence of the US Imperialism, Moscow, 1958; Vol. 3, The Policies and Activities of the AFL. 1900--1909, Moscow, 1968; and Vol. 4, The Industrial Workers of the World. 1905--1917, Moscow, 1969 (in Russian) and others.
~^^1^^ See: L. I. Zubok, An Outline of the History of the Workers' Movement in the USA (1865--1918), Moscow, 1962; S. M. Askoldova, The Beginning of the Mass Workers' Movement in the USA (1880s), Moscow, 1966: Idem, The Formation of the Ideology of American Trade-Unionism, Moscow, 1976; S. A. Ovanesyan, The Upsurge in the Workers' Movement in the USA in 1919--1921, Moscow, 1961; A. V. Berezkin, The October Revolution and the USA (1917--1922), Moscow, 1967; V. L. Malkov, The Workers' Movement in the USA in the Period of the World Economic Crisis 1929--1933, Moscow, 1961; B. Y. Mikhailov, Problems of the Workers' Movement in the USA in American Bourgeois Literature 1945--1975, Moscow, 1977; A. I. Kats, The Position of the Proletariat in the USA Under Imperialism, Moscow, 1962; A. N. Shlepakov, Immigration and the American Working Class in the Era of Imperialism, Moscow, 1966; A. A. Mkrtchyan, The Workers' Movement in the USA: Current Problems and Tendencies, Moscow, 1970; Y. N. Keremetsky, The USA: Trade Unions in the Struggle Against Capitalism, Moscow, 1970; P. A. Shishkin, The Class Struggle in the USA 1955--1968, Moscow, 1972 (all in Russian) and others.
~^^2^^ Recent History of the Labor Movement in the United States 1918--1965, ed. by B. Y. Mikhailov (Chief Editor), N. V. Mostovets and G. N. Sevostyanov, Vol. 1, 1918--1939, Moscow, 1970; Vol. 2, 1939--1965, Moscow, 1971. A third volume of this work is now in preparation. Progress Publishers has issued the first two volumes in English.
284 facts that show the falsity of the claim by reactionary bourgeois historiography that the American communist movement is ``alien'' in origin and nature. It is the left wing of the workers' movement, with Communists at its head, that has most consistently struggled, and continues to struggle, for the broadening and strengthening of the social base of the mass democratic and anti-monopolist movement in the USA, in which various segments of the working class, farm workers and the middle urban strata are engaged.Consideration of the struggle for independent political action by working people has great significance for the activities of progressive forces in the USA opposing the politics of reaction and monopoly capital and fighting for peace. The above-mentioned work deals at some length with these questions. Important conclusions result from the study of the lessons of the development of the democratic movements in the USA in the early 1920s, of marches on Washington by war veterans and the unemployed, and of other forms of mass action in the years of the economic crisis of 1929--1933 as well as of the mighty upsurge in the struggle of the working class and its allies that marked the years of Roosevelt's ``New Deal''.
The authors' work justifies their consistent use of the topical-chronological principle. It makes for a sounder link between their exposition of the events in the history of the workers' movement and their analysis of the general economic, social, political and ideological processes of American society, and of the changes in the position of different segments of the working population, in the struggle of Blacks, in the development of other progressive move-, ments, and of the social manoeuvres in ruling quarters.
A correct evaluation of state-monopolist trends is of capital importance for the workers' movement and its left wing. Marxists-Leninists have opposed two extreme positions in this matter.
One of these has sometimes found expression in an undervaluation of the objective economic processes and of the growing social contradictions that determine the increasing role of bourgeois government both in domestic affairs ( including its economic, social, political and ideological aspects) and in the foreign policy of imperialist states, a role that grows larger as the general crisis of capitalism grows more grave. The authors of Recent History of the Labor Movement in the United States have given appropriate consideration to these processes. Marxist scholarship takes as its point of departure the Leninist doctrine that as capitalism develops ``the state can on no account be something inert, it always acts and acts very energetically, it is always active and 285 never passive".^^1^^
Right-socialist ideologues and revisionist ``theoreticians'' usually play down the class character of the state-monopolist tendencies; they would like to depict them as proof of a spontaneous ``evolution'' from imperialism to a ``welfare society"---a sort of hybrid of ``neo-capitalism'' and socialism. American Marxists have repeatedly warned against ignoring the fact that government policies are based on class considerations; they have tirelessly resisted the conceptions propagated by reformists and right opportunists (and even by revisionist elements within the communist movement in the USA, as justly noted by the authors of the History). The New Program of the Communist Party U.S.A., characterising relations between government and the monopolies under state-monopoly capitalism, notes that ``as monopoly capital has grown, its grip on the state machinery has tightened and extended. The government has virtually become the political instrument of the small group of top monopolists to control the rest of society.
``Since the days of the Great Depression, big business has increasingly used the economic power and resources of the government to bolster its profits and strengthen the dominance of U.S. corporate power at home and abroad.
``Increasingly, monopoly uses the state to provide markets, capital and subsidies to guarantee foreign markets and investments, to provide shock absorbers against losses in depression.
``They look especially to cold-war and hot-war operations, which involve the most enormous expenditures, the very large profits, and the most intimate merging of big business and big government.
``American monopoly capitalism has grown into state-- monopoly capitalism. Its most sinister offspring is the military-industrial complex."^^2^^
The revolutionary workers' movement, in elaborating a scientific strategy and appropriate tactics for the struggle against the monopolies, must consider both the further growth of state-monopolist trends and the peculiar forms under which they develop in different regions of the capitalist world. History shows that the imperialist bourgeoisie can employ various forms of class domination, and that the pace and methods used for realising state-monopolist _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, ``The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book'', Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 355.
~^^2^^ New Program of the Communist Party U.S.A., New Outlook Publishers, New York, 1970, pp. 18--19.
286 measures can differ. It is not a matter of indifference to working-class organisations whether these measures are realised by bourgeois-reformist methods or, say, by the establishment of an openly fascist, terrorist dictatorship. Fundamentally alien to Marxists-Leninists is the vulgar, anti-scientific doctrine of ``the worse the better" proclaimed by a number of anarchists, Trotskyites and Maoist ideologues.It is an objective fact that opportunities for activising the struggle of the working class and its allies increase when, due to the intensification of the class struggle both domestically and internationally, the reformist wing of the ruling clique of state-monopolists is forced to make certain concessions to the working people, thus heightening discord among the various groups within the bourgeoisie. This is confirmed by the well-documented fact of the growth of the organised workers' and mass democratic movements in the USA during the 1930s.
In analysing the economic position of the working people of the USA during the Second World War and the development of the strike movement in subsequent years (during the cold war and the USA's armed military intervention in Korea) it is vital to take full account of the effect of militaristic state-monopoly capitalism on the living and working conditions of the proletariat and on American social and political life as a whole.
Recent History of the Labor Movement in the United States presents an undoubtedly valuable analysis of the effects of the scientific and technological revolution on the mass workers' and trade union movements in America, in particular, of the influence of automation on the working class, of the changes in position and structure that it caused in the American proletariat, and of the acute problems for trade unionism and the shifts in the working class's strike movement that are associated with it. A correct interpretation is presented of the struggle of progressive elements in the American workers' movement for more active participation by trade union members in political actions.
The authors of the History consistently oppose anti-- communism and reformist and revisionist distortions of scientific socialism. Considerable attention is devoted to generalising the experience of the Communist Party of the USA in exposing and overcoming various right-opportunist and left-sectarian tendencies.
Each volume of the work concludes with a historiographical survey. The authors review the main bourgeois-reformist conceptions of the history of the workers' movement in the USA for the first stage in the general crisis of capitalism 287 and for the period between the two world wars. First and foremost they present a telling critique of the views of the Wisconsin school (as represented by Commons, Perlman, Taft, et al). The ideological and theoretical platform of the Wisconsin school was based on an attempt to interpret the history of the workers' movement in the USA from the position of the ``exceptionality'' of America; it represented an effort to justify the pragmatism and opportunism of Gompersism. Marxist historians have shown convincingly that both the general methodological principles of this conception and its basic theses (such as the claim that classes and the class struggle do not exist in American society) are scientifically untenable.
It is important to connect analysis of the ideological and theoretical struggle over basic issues in the workers' movement in the USA and of the causes for intensifications in the debate on these issues in American historiography and sociology with an analysis of the progress made by the workers' movement itself and of the general worsening of the contradictions between the monopolies and the broad masses of the American people. It is from this angle that Marxist scholars view new tendencies in the historiography of the workers' movement during the present stage in the general crisis of capitalism.
Recent Marxist studies, which (to a degree) sum up the many years of scholarly research on the class struggle in the USA, represent a significant contribution to the investigation of many aspects of that phenomenon and have stimulated their further detailed study. The following may be named among the important scientific and methodological questions that merit closer examination by economists, historians and sociologists: the interrelations of various forms of the class struggle; the relationship of economics to politics under state-monopoly capitalism; the development of international monopolies and their fight against the workers' movement and other anti-monopolist forces; the effects of the crisis of imperialist foreign policy on the growth of anti-war and other mass general democratic movements; and the interrelation of the struggle of the working class and that of its allies in the light of the present scientific and technological revolution.
The important problems that recent events have set before Marxist-Leninist social science mean that still greater efforts must be made in the study of the class struggle of working people in imperialist countries.
288 __ALPHA_LVL2__ The Working Class in the WorldImportant changes are taking place in the international arena; new forms are emerging under today's conditions in the struggle between the progressive, anti-imperialist forces headed by the working class and its communist vanguard, on the one hand, and imperialists and their various allies, on the other. These developments call for MarxistsLeninists to make a deeper analysis of the evolution of the class struggle and to study new phenomena in the struggle, strategy and tactics of the proletariat and its vanguard organisations.
The world workers' and anti-imperialist movements are topics of vital importance for revolutionary theory and practice. Of similar significance is the study of the relation between new (and more favourable) international conditions and internal factors in the development of the struggle of the working class and of all progressive, democratic forces. Great benefits are to be reaped from a comprehensive approach to the study of the influence of existing socialism and of the Leninist foreign policy of the CPSU and of the fraternal communist parties of socialist countries on the struggle of the working people in the capitalist world. Further work on the problem of the interaction between the general and the particular in the proletarian movement (and in the anti-imperialist movement as a whole) also has considerable importance in this connection.
The present course of international relations confirms the principles of peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems. Despite the assertions of sundry opportunists, peaceful coexistence does not hinder, but rather furthers, the struggle of the working people and accelerates positive processes in the workers' movement in capitalist countries. The crisis phenomena facing the capitalist world serve to further polarise and regroup social and political forces there. The masses of the working people are more and more eager for cooperative action in the struggle against monopoly politics and for peace and social progress.
The intensification of the class struggle is also reflected in ideology. Imperialist attempts to launch an ideological and political counter-offensive against the communist movement, the working class and other progressive forces take various forms: successive anti-Soviet and anti-communist propaganda campaigns; attempts to discredit the political strategy of today's revolutionary workers' movement; and the use of new, slightly ``modernised'' devices against 289 revolutionary, proletarian ideology by the enemies of Marxism. The main goal, as before, is to disorient the working class, to sow confusion in the ranks of the working people, and to hamper cooperation by various streams in the modern world revolutionary process.
These actions by the ideological foes of socialism call for energetic counter-action by Marxists-Leninists, for further offensives on the ideological front.
In the light of these tasks the rnultifaceted cooperation of scholars from the fraternal socialist countries is growing in importance, as does their common work on the study of recent events in international life and of the ideological, theoretical and other current problems associated with the world revolutionary workers' movement.
As was noted at the 25th Congress of the CPSU, recent years have seen a significant increase in ideological cooperation among the countries in the socialist family of nations. As Leonid Brezhnev declared: ``Many scientific trends are now being developed by the collective effort of scholars of socialist countries.''^^1^^
The 1971 Agreement on Multilateral Scientific Cooperation among the Academies of Sciences of the Socialist Countries brought improved coordination and greater unity to the activities of scholarly institutions and thus also to the study of social and economic problems. The Agreement defines a wide range of goals towards which scholarly efforts are to be directed on a cooperative basis, and sets forth concrete forms and methods guaranteeing multilateral collaboration. Most prominent among them are the coordination and cooperative conduct of scientific research; the publication of cooperative works on topics of current interest to scholars; and the organisation of scholarly conferences, symposia, etc. Also provided for is the establishment of special commissions to promote multilateral cooperation on problems selected for study.
Scientific research institutions under the auspices of the central committees of the communist and workers' parties of a number of socialist countries also carry out multilateral investigations on questions connected with the workers' movement.
In May 1972 the first meeting of the commission for multilateral study by scholars from socialist countries of the problem ``The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process" was held in Moscow. Scholars from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 13.
290 Poland, Romania and the USSR took part. In connection with the creation of the commission a scientific conference devoted to the analysis of recent events in the world revolutionary workers' movement was held.^^1^^ At the conference scholars exchanged opinions on theoretical questions connected with that topic. Current questions of the struggle for greater unity among communist and workers' parties, for example, were discussed in papers by V. Zagladin (USSR), Zoltan Komocsin (Hungary) and others.At the conference special attention was devoted to the following questions: main trends in the growth of the international working class; quantitative and qualitative changes in the working class in socialist countries; the development of the proletariat and its class struggle under modern statemonopoly capitalism in the light of the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution and, in particular, of the changes it has brought about in the structure of the working class in capitalist countries; and the analysis of the general laws of the world revolutionary workers' movement and of certain characteristics of its development at the present stage in the international class and anti-imperialist struggle.
Many of the participants at the conference touched on the dialectical connection between quantitative and qualitative factors in the growth of the working class, which is of capital scientific and methodological importance. Marxists-Leninists oppose any sort of one-sided, metaphysical approach to this issue and reject the attribution of independent significance to either of these factors and the artificial opposition of one to the other.
Scientific communism maintains that the leading role of the working class in the struggle for a revolutionary transformation of the world is not merely the result of the growth of its numbers. The strength of the proletariat cannot be measured solely on the basis of its numbers in a country (as Kautsky tried to do in his time). It is the organisation, strength, discipline, political consciousness, and moral and political authority of the working class in society that make it a revolutionary force.
It would be wrong, however, to underestimate the importance of the continuing growth in numbers of the proletariat. The founders of scientific communism never opposed to one another the various criteria (including quantitative and qualitative) of the development of the working class.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The materials of the conference were published as The Working Class---the Principal Revolutionary Force (Moscow, 1973) in Russian.
__PRINTERS_P_292_COMMENT__ 19* 291In analysing the growth of the working class Marxist scholars seek to determine which new professions serve as a source for its expansion. At the conference scholars from the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Bulgaria and other countries emphasised the great political importance of changes in the composition and structure of the working class. In their observations on the growth of the working class the Soviet scholars at the conference were guided by the important theses set forth in the resolutions of the congresses of the CPSU and in Leonid Brezhnev's speech at the 15th Congress of the Trade Unions of the USSR in which he pointed out the insolvency of anti-Marxist conceptions of the ``shrinking'' of the working class and noted that its further growth is to be expected as a result of the present scientific and technological revolution. This position found support among scholars from the other fraternal socialist countries.
Basing themselves on the analysis of a large body of facts the participants at the conference noted that claims by right revisionists that the working class will ``dissolve'' into the general mass of wage-earners are without scientific support. At the same time they rejected the position of ``left'' revisionists (which coincides in some particulars with that of bourgeois sociologists) who hold that only bluecollar workers employed in industry can be considered members of the working class, which leads them to the conclusion that the working class as a whole is ``shrinking''.
As was noted in the presentations of representatives of various scientific research centres in the fraternal socialist countries, the scientific and technological revolution has expanded, diversified and complicated the concept `` proletariat''. The delegation from the German Democratic Republic, for example, noted that certain groups of engineers and technicians are coming more and more to resemble the working class in both their social and economic position in the process of reproduction and their income; indeed, some of them have unquestionably become part of the working class already. Lene Berg, a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, remarked that as far back as the early 1930s the Communist Party of Germany, under the leadesrhip of Ernst Thalmann, concluded that a significant number of white-- collar workers should be considered members of the working class.
Much discussed at the conference was the expansion of the working class under the conditions resulting from the scientific and technological revolution. Large-scale scientific research on this question is under way in the socialist 292 countries. The results of this research were reflected in the communications and statements made at the conference by many of its participants, in particular by members of the Polish, Czechoslovak, Hungarian and other delegations who rightly noted that the political and social activity and creative potential of the working class had been still further strengthened by the growing number of highly skilled workers, by the increase in the importance and proportion of white-collar workers in industry, and by the higher educational and professional level of today's workers.
The unity of the working class of the countries in the socialist family of nations entered a new phase with the advent of socialist integration. Under the conditions of today, when many countries share common tasks of economic intensification, socialist integration is called upon to accelerate the scientific and technological revolution in all of the CMEA countries; this will in turn bring about new shifts in the ranks of the working class and raise its cultural, professional and educational level.
Marxist scholars from the fraternal socialist countries are agreed that the modern scientific and technological revolution will lead to an expansion and strengthening of the working class rather than to the ``shrinking'' of its ranks predicted by revisionists. For example, the Programme of the Bulgarian Communist Party, adopted at its Tenth Congress, stresses that as socialist construction proceeds, ``there is a rapid growth in the proportion, in the ranks of the working class, of representatives of professions connected with the latest achievements of the scientific and technological revolution''.
A scientifically substantiated analysis of the processes that determine the leading role of the working class in socialist society presupposes a careful study of the changes in the make-up of the working class. As was emphasised at a conference of sociologists in the German Democratic Republic: ``The clich\'e that basically equates the working class with blue-collar workers in the narrow sense denies the ongoing structural change in the working class that results from the increased proportion of white-collar workers. However, the notion that all members of the intelligentsia active in the sphere of public property belong to the working class ignores the essential distinctions that still exist between the working class and the intelligentsia, mainly in the realm of relation to material production.'' In the opinion of the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the working class ``is the best organised class and the one most closely connected with public property; with its physical and mental work it... creates the bulk of material values''.
293An important aspect of the activity of the working class and its communist vanguard in the socialist countries is the further development of socialist democracy, which is based on the steady growth of the role of the working class in social and political life and the ever wider participation of working people in the management of production.
The abundant factual and analytical material brought to bear by scholars from the fraternal socialist countries shows once again the correctness of the thesis that the activity of the working class of the socialist countries in work, politics and social life in large measure serves to promote the might of the great international army of labour and the pace of its uninterrupted progress towards socialism.
The Marxist scholars at the May 1972 founding conference of the commission stressed the importance of a proper analysis of the development of the proletariat, of its social, economic and political activity, and of the growth of its class consciousness in capitalist countries under modern state-monopoly capitalism. Participants heard reports on this question by Academician Otto Reinhold, the head of the scholarly delegation from the German Democratic Republic, and by other scholars, in which the increasing internationalisation of the conditions and forms of the class struggle was noted, as well as the fact that the much-lauded islands of ``social peace'' in the West are becoming fewer and fewer.
The upsurge in the class struggle among the working people of the main imperialist countries serves as an especially vivid proof of the falsity of right-opportunist and ``left''-- revisionist anti-scientific notions about trends in the development of capitalist society resulting from the present scientific and technological revolution.
As the mass anti-imperialist struggle unfolds, noted the participants at the conference, there are ever clearer manifestations of a dual tendency: = (1) increased activity among the industrial proletariat, and = (2) the expansion of the social base of anti-monopolist actions, the mustering into the ranks of the revolutionary workers' movement of new segments of the working population. This tendency bears witness to the further growth of the leading role of the proletariat in the class struggle and in the social and political life of the capitalist countries. This subject was analysed in a report presented by the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
As noted in that report, the following are among the characteristics of the proletariat's class struggles at the present stage in the general crisis of capitalism:~
an increase in the scale of strikes as the result of the entry into the struggle of new occupational categories within the 294 working class and the more frequent calling of general and national strikes and the conduct of ``days of struggle'', ``days of unified action'', and so on;~
a greater degree of coordination, unanimity and organisation in actions by working people, and the perfection of various stride tactics;~
a growing tendency towards a convergence of the positions and unity of action of workers' organisations, including trade unions of different orientations;~
an increased proportion of political actions, including solidarity strikes, protests against anti-labour legislation, actions in support of demands for radical progressive reforms, against reactionary policies, etc., and~
a broadening of the anti-monopolistic front led by the proletariat resulting from the recruitment of new segments of the working population, and from the interaction of working-class strikes and actions by the peasantry, intelligenttsia, students and middle strata.
The social battles of the 1970s reflect the unquestionable growth of class consciousness among the proletariat and its greater experience in the fight against monopolism.
Even in the thick of battle against monopoly capital the working class and its vanguard organisations do not loose sight of the ultimate goals of the revolutionary proletarian movement. Marxists-Leninists reject both attempts by reformists to show that social revolution is ``unnecessary'' in developed capitalist countries and left-sectarian disdain for the general democratic aspects of the growing mass antimonopolist movement; in Italy, France, Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, the USA, Canada and other countries they are working out, as can be seen in many documents of the revolutionary workers' movement of those countries, the strategy and tactics of their struggle for antimonopolist democracy which, under the influence of the masses of the working people, may open new possibilities for the revolutionary transition to socialism.
In the years that followed, the commission on the study of the working class worked chiefly on the coordination of research on topics such as the laws of the development of the world proletariat and its class struggle, the methodology of criticising anti-Marxist conceptions of the workers' movement, the working class and the policies of communist parties in the socialist countries, the workers' movement and the struggle against monopolism in capitalist states, the working class and youth, and automation and industrial workers. Coordination of work on each of these six themes was carried out by the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and scholarly institutions 295 in Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, respectively.
Since 1972 the commission has held a number of sessions, at which important questions of theory and research coordination were discussed. For example, exchange of opinions on certain aspects of the history and theory of the revolutionary workers' movement, the main tendencies and results in the social and political development of the socialist countries of Europe over the decades since the war, and the international and domestic factors influencing the forms and pace of revolutionary processes in those countries took place at the commission's eighth session, which was held in Bulgaria in October 1974. The main tendencies in the growth of the working class and in the rise of its leading role in the construction of a developed socialist society were analysed in reports and communications by Professors R. Avramov and G. Girginov of Bulgaria and by members of the delegations from Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland and the USSR. Professor Girginov, for example, made a number of interesting observations on theoretical and methodological aspects of the problems under consideration, including the significance of applying the dialectical-materialist principle of development to the study of processes that determine the dynamics of the working class. In this connection he and other speakers justly noted the role of the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution, the economic and social changes that have occurred during the construction of developed socialism, and other factors.
Much attention was devoted at the sessions of the commission to activising criticism of the anti-scientific conceptions of reactionary bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideologues who try to belittle the role of the working class in world history and the significance of the international solidarity of working people at the various stages of the development of the world revolutionary process.
Problems of the general and the particular in the workers' movement (especially at the second and third stages of the general crisis of capitalism) were at the centre of attention at the international symposium held in Hungary during the commission's ninth session (September 1975). The Soviet delegation presented a report on both the general laws of the world revolutionary process and the particular forms in which they were manifested in the 1970s during the effective implementation of the Peace Programme advanced at the 24th Congress of the CPSU. The chief aspects of the influence of the successful struggle of the USSR and the other fraternal socialist countries for peace and detente 296 on the activity of all the progressive, democratic forces headed by the working class were reviewed in the report. Leading trends and recent phenomena in the development of the working class under the conditions resulting from the scientific and technological revolution, and the chief processes at work in the international workers' movement in the past few years were analysed in reports generalising the results of research carried out at the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Scholars from the other fraternal socialist countries who took part in the session agreed in principle with the conclusions expressed in the reports of Soviet participants and in the theses ``The Working Class and Its Allies'',^^1^^ which were prepared by the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The international political and ideological struggle over the role in society and prospects of the working class grows more and more intense; Marxists-Leninists, under these circumstances, decisively resist those who would vulgarise or distort scientific communism and replace Lenin's famous definition of class with anti-scientific schemes in which class differences are supplanted by ``differences among people according to the character of their work''.
Scholars from the fraternal socialist countries have done a great deal of work to comprehensively analyse and discuss these questions and to activise elaboration of problems connected with research into trends in the development of the working class resulting from scientific and technical progress, and with the criticism of false, vulgar views on these questions.
In opposing fallacious interpretations of the processes behind the growth of the working class, participants at the session fully supported the conclusion made by M. A. Suslov, member of the Politburo and Secretary of the CC CPSU, in a speech at a scholarly conference held in Moscow to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Seventh Comintern Congress: ``The correctness of the Marxist-Leninist position on the natural growth of the working class and on the steady enhancement of its leading role in the revolutionary struggle and the creation of a new society has once more been confirmed at the present stage of social development. Objective conditions favour the growth of the political unity of the working class. As contradictions between labour and capital become more grave, and as the political and cultural level of the working class continues to _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: World Marxist Review, No. 7, 1975, p. 29.
297 rise, the factor that unites all of its contingents and segments (with their differences in profession and character of labour) into a single class assumes more and more importance. That factor, as defined by Lenin, is its place in the historically determined system of social production, its relation to the means of production, its role in the social organisation of labour, and its common interests in the struggle against the exploiters."^^1^^Participants at the ninth session of the commission noted that the sole correct method for the further and deeper study of the distinguishing characteristics and social boundaries of the working class is a truly Marxist-Leninist analysis of social processes, and that there is nothing to be gained from a ``reconsideration'' of Lenin's definition of the class.
As a result of the present revolution in science and technology the working class is expanding under the influence of factors such as structural readjustments in the economy, changes in the technology of production, growth in the service industries, etc. The result of these factors is further growth in the leading social and historical role of the working class which, in Lenin's words, is ``the intellectual and moral motive force and the physical executor"^^2^^ in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the building of a new society. Events have again and again confirmed the correctness and relevance of Leonid Brezhnev's remark that the working class and its role ``as the main productive and sociopolitical force in the world will continue to grow. Despite the fashionable anti-Marxist theories which allege that the scientific and technological revolution is narrowing the scope of the working class and even eliminating it altogether, the facts testify to the contrary: scientific and technical progress everywhere leads to the growth of the working class, due among other things to the new occupations introduced by the modern methods of production."^^3^^
Participants at the ninth session of the commission discussed the relation between general and particular features in the development of the new state system of the fraternal socialist countries; special attention was devoted to the leading role of communist parties. They reviewed problems of the dialectic of the national and the international and the relations between the general and the particular both in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. A. Suslov, On the Path to the Building of Communism. Speeches and Articles, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1977, p. 471 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, ``Karl Marx'', Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 71.
~^^3^^ L. I. Brezhnev, The CPSU in the Struggle for Unity of All Revolutionary and Peace Forces, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 287.
298 strengthening of the leading role of the working class during the building of developed socialism and in the course of the growth of the class struggle in the imperialist countries at the present stage in the general crisis of capitalism.A five-year plan for work by the commission in 1976--1980 was adopted at its September 1975 session. Additional themes for collaborative research were written into the plan; these included the development of the working class in the countries of the world socialist system, the working class and the scientific and technological revolution, etc. Several questions connected with the preparation of new collective works were considered. The session's participants considered it appropriate to widen research and coordinative efforts connected with the elaboration of problems of the struggle for unity in the workers' movement and of the effect of international political changes in Europe on the struggle of the proletariat in capitalist countries.
The conclusions expressed in the materials of the 25th CPSU Congress were at the centre of attention at the commission's tenth session, which was held in Berlin in March 1976. Scholars from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland and the USSR took part. Academician Otto Reinhold (GDR) presented a report on the class struggle during the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism. The Soviet delegation presented a series of reports, including: ``The Working Class and Social Progress" (P. N. Fedoseyev), ``Current Problems of the Struggle of the Working People of Europe for Peace and Social Progress in the Light of the Documents of the 25th Congress of the CPSU" (T. T. Timofeyev), etc.
In the course of the scientific discussions much attention was devoted to the changes that had taken place in the workers' movement of Western Europe, and especially in the Common Market countries; account was taken of the characteristics of the current class strategy of imperialism. A number of speakers noted that the West European system of imperialist integration had undergone serious trials in the preceding yearsH;he effects of a cyclic economic crisis and also of energy, raw-material and structural crises. Hermann Neubert (GDR), A. Galkin (USSR), D. Szanto (Hungary), Y. Borko (USSR) and other speakers stressed that under these conditions bourgeois politicians are more and more drawn to political integration which, they hope, will ``ease'' the difficulties of monopolist integration at the economic level. J. Gol&etail;biowski (Poland) and a number of other participants noted that in the near future the West European workers' movement will be faced with greater activity among the bourgeoisie and reformists in the field 299 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1981/WISPE319/20070531/319.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.06.01) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ of political integration.
Many of the reports delivered at the tenth session of the commission were devoted to the analysis of the concrete forms of the struggle of the working class and its organisations on the European continent. Recent events in the West European workers' movement and current questions of criticism of anti-communist and anti-Marxist conceptions misinterpreting the trends and prospects of the class struggle in Western Europe were reviewed.
National sections of the commission have also organised, over the past few years, several scientific conferences and symposia. Such meetings have been held in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, the USSR and Mongolia. Among the questions discussed at the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany, for example, were the class origins of the defeat of fascism and various aspects of today's ideological and theoretical struggle connected with it, and generalisation of the experience accumulated by the world revolutionary workers' movement in the course of the struggle against the policies of imperialism and against the policies and ideology of fascism and neo-fascism.
The need for a systematic exchange of opinions on the results of the analysis of the dynamics of the class struggle in various countries has increased as a consequence of the intensification of the general crisis of capitalism and important changes in the world workers' movement. An international symposium on the theme ``Current Problems in the Workers' Movement in the Light of Events in Chile" was held in Moscow in the summer of 1974 at the initiative of the Soviet section of the commission for the study of the working class. Prominent figures in the Communist Parties of Chile and Portugal, as well as scholars from the socialist countries, participated in the symposium.
One form of collaboration among Marxist scholars is the discussion of methodological questions connected with the preparation and publication of works on the laws governing the development of the international revolutionary workers' movement. The published volumes of the generalising work by Soviet scholars entitled The International WorkingClass Movement. Questions of History and Theory have attracted considerable attention. This work, like a number of other investigations, is being translated by publishers in the various fraternal socialist countries.
The International Workers' Movement (Professor J. Gol&etail;-- biowski, Chief Editor), a two-volume work by scholars at the Polish Institute of the Workers' Movement, appeared in Warsaw in 1976. The first volume brings the history of the 300 struggle of the world proletariat up to 1945; the second covers the following thirty years and concludes with a chapter devoted to the international significance of the 25th Congress of the CPSU and to current questions of the world revolutionary process in the light of the documents of the Congress. Shortly before a two-volume work by Hungarian scholars on the international workers' movement appeared in Budapest.
A number of collective works, scholarly anthologies and monographs have also appeared under the auspices of the commission.^^1^^
The appearance of a systematic anthology. The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process (now issued annually by Nauka Publishers), marked the beginning of a new publication by the commission, devoted to important results of research, the conclusions of the most interesting conferences and symposia, and other scientific and informational material, including bibliography.
The scholarly institutions in the fraternal socialist countries participating in the work of the commission plan to collaborate in the preparation and discussion of the results of research on topics such as new phenomena in the workers' movement at the present stage in the general crisis of capitalism, various trends in social-democratic organisations, current problems in the historiography of different stages in the development of the international workers' movement, problems of working youth, etc.
Representatives of the commission's national scholarly and members of its bureau spoke in favour of cooperative efforts for the improvement of contacts between scholarly institutions and publishing organisations of the fraternal socialist countries.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ A Promising Field for International``Collaboration between scientists and workers'', which Lenin repeatedly urged be enhanced,^^2^^ is now developing in a multitude of forms and a variety of directions. Its importance is growing with particular rapidity under the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See, for example: The Historic Mission of the Working Class and the Ideological Struggle, Moscow, 1974; The Working Class in the World Revolutionary Process, Moscow, 1977--1978 (both in Russian); Die Arbeiterklasse---fuhrende Kraft im revolutiondren Weltprozess, Berlin, 1974; and Idee Lenina a miedzynarodowy ruch robotniczy, Warsaw, 1974.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 402.
301 influence both of advances in science and technology and of the increased scope and tempo of the world revolutionary process, which is involving ever new masses, more and more millions of people, in actively shaping history.In the spring of 1980 the International Forum on the Labour Movement and Working Class, sponsored by UNESCO, was held in Paris. It brought together scholars, representatives of variously oriented unions, and the heads of over a hundred research institutes and university centers both from the socialist and developing countries and from many capitalist countries. They discussed a wide range of questions concerning the past and present of the study of social movements in general and of the international workers' movement in particular.
The forum was opened on April 22 on behalf of the General Director of UNESCO by his social science assistant, the noted Mexican scholar R. Stavenhagen. Stavenhagen declared: ``Today we commemorate the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Leninone of the most important figures in the world workers' movement. The most fitting tribute we can pay to his memory is to consider the history of that movement on a worldwide scale, and the problems it faces in particular countries, with the purpose or helping to better the living conditions and promote the personal fulfillment of the working people throughout the world.'' Among the others who spoke of the services rendered to the world workers' movement by the founder of the Bolshevik Party and of the Soviet state was the French historian Professor E. Labrousse, himself a veteran of the workers' movement.
P. N. Fedoseyev, head of the Soviet delegation and vicepresident of the USSR Academy of Sciences, reminded his audience that in considering today's working class and its role in society proper attention must be paid to the scientific and technological revolution, which has affected literally every area of modern life, including work and mass recreation, and reorganised certain aspects of the life of society. It has significantly changed both the historical environment in which workers' spiritual, social, and cultural outlook is formed, and the forms and methods of their economic and political struggle. The new demands being made by workers today are largely the product of the new interrelations between man, technology, and nature brought about by the scientific and technological revolution. All over the world the need to master scientific and technological development, to place it under the guidance and control of society, is perceived with new clarity. This need can be met only with workers and' their organisations playing a 302 leading role.
Fedoseyev, as well as a number of those who spoke after him, presented a well-grounded critique of the technocratic concepts, current in the West, which suppose that the revolution in science and technology will reduce the importance, both in production and in public and political life, of the working class and of the masses of workers in general. It was repeatedly noted at the forum that the working people are not only an object of the scientific and technological revolution but also a subject in history---the moving force behind progress in science and technology, and also in society. Which problems of economic, social, and spiritual development a society will resolve, and the manner in which it will resolve them, depends first and foremost on the working people. Various aspects of this topic were analysed by representatives from research institutes in Poland, the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the German Democratic Republic, and from progressive scientific centres in France, the FRG, Japan, India, Australia, some American countries, etc.
The forum had four themes: the workers' movement as an object of study, the working class and culture, the importance of worker education for the development of society, and trends and conclusions in research on the workers' movement over the past thirty years. The last theme encompassed the treatment of the history of the working class and the workers' movement in university lecture courses and books and secondary school textbooks, and also of the collecting and preserving of documents on the history of the workers' movement.
The principal paper on the workers' movement as an object of study was presented by the director of the Institute of the Labour Movement of Poland, Professor J. GoIfbiowski; reports were also made by G. Sapelli (director of the Gramcsi Institute for Socio-Economic Research in Turin), J. Schleifstein (director of the Frankfurt am Main Institute for Marxist studies), F. Devine (representative from the Irish Labour History Society), Professor H. Steiner of Austria, C. Strbac (director of the Belgrade Institute of the International Labour Movement), R. Van Der Leeuw (director of the Amsterdam International Institute of Social History), D. Elazar (director of the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Communist Party at the CC of the BCP), and other scholars.
Doubts were expressed both during the planning of the forum and during the sessions themselves as to the appropriateness of singling out the international workers' movement for separate study. Certain investigators equated the history of the international workers' movement with 303 the development of international working-class organisations. Soviet scholars argued against such a view, pointing out the important concrete results Soviet research has attained in this field. In particular they described the work being done, under the guidance of Academician B. N. Ponomarev, on the multivolume study The International Working-Class Movement. Questions of History and Theory.
The Soviet scholars noted that the international workers' movement has certain characteristic laws that are not apparent (or are but partially manifested) on a national scale. Certain general features appear in the movement's development in every country without exception, leaving a deep imprint on its entire aspect. But in every individual country the workers' movement is also part of society as a whole; their histories are, to a large extent, parallel. The characteristics of the society have an enormous influence on the workers' movement, which actively adopts traditions along with the entire complex of the nation's social and political experience.
Because of the unevenness of economic, social, and political development in different countries and regions of the world the development of the working class, and hence of the workers' movement, is asynchronic-Hhe lag is indeed often quite large. Nevertheless interaction among the national segments of the workers' movement increases steadily; the experience of analogous or similar trends in other countries has a significant impact on their formation, character, value system, social and policial orientation, and forms and methods of struggle. In particular, this enables some segments of the workers' movement to develop at an accelerated pace.
Scholars from the socialist countries pointed out that generalising works on the history of the workers' movement help shed light not only on its well-investigated aspects but also on little-studied periods and problems. They also stressed the importance of thorough study of the development of the workers' movement both in times of revolutionary uprisings and in periods when the conflicts that later erupt in such uprisings are building up.
An important exchange of opinions took place on the relation between history in general and the history of the working class. Various points of view were expressed on this question; the materials presented by the Raggionieri Institute (Italy) cautioned that too much emphasis on the specific features of the history of the proletariat could confine students of the workers' movement within unjustifiably narrow bounds; Professor G.Bravo (Italy) argued for the complete autonomy of the history of the workers' movement.
304Most participants expressed no doubt that there are close ties between the history of the working class and that of society in general. This position was championed, in particular, by Professor Labrousse. Soviet scholars noted that the emancipation of the proletariat and the growth of its class consciousness and organisation begin with the rise of the workers' movement, but that at the same time the working class is involved (indeed is a leading force) in the development of society as a whole. The two sides of this process have unequal importance at various stages in the history of the workers' movement. At the time when the first international workers' organisations were being formed the chief factor in transforming the proletariat into the prime mover of social progress was its social, political, and ideological individuation from the general-democratic mass; of great importance thereafter was participation by the working class in all areas of the life of society, in resolving basic social, national, and human questions.
A number of speakers (for example scholars from the USSR, Bulgaria, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic) emphasised that particular aspects can be distinguished in the history of the working class and the workers' movement: socio-economic, political, and ideological. The Marxist scholarly tradition in this field is rich and fruitfulit is enough to recall the classic works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin: Capital, The Condition of the Working-Class in England, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, and many others.
Problems of the social history of the working class are coming increasingly to the fore. Up to now these problems have been relatively little studied in the Western capitalist countries. Meanwhile it is important to rightly understand what the proletariat was like in the class battles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries---the groups it was made up of, their system of values and demands, their eyeryday mentality, their receptiveness to various ideological influences, their ability to work out a class-oriented, proletarian outlook, etc. Without such an understanding it is hard to properly grasp and fully appreciate the course, trends, and individual moments of the historical process, or the sociohistorical role of the working class and its vanguard in any given age.
For this reason there is growing interest in coordinated, collaborative investigations both of history and of modern society. It is now possible, and indeed imperative, to conduct cooperative international projects that collect and generalise many forms of information, including sociological, on the development of the working class. Considerable progress 305 in this direction has been made in recent years, as evidenced by several studies of the social development of the working class in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. Also of great interest to scholars are summarising works on the social activity of working people in other parts of the world, including their economic, social, and political struggle in the capitalist and developing countries.
Interesting discussions developed around the theme of the working class and culture. The authors of the introductory paper were G. Crossick of Great Britain and J. Lequin of France, other speakers included outstanding scholars, such as Professor M. David (France), Professor A. Davidson (Australia), Dr. G. G. Diligenski, and Dr. S. I. Velikovski (USSR). Marxist researchers showed the unfoundedness of concepts that belittle the importance of progressive elements---both proletarian and human in general---for cultural development. They also presented a critique of attempts by some bourgeois authors to draw a hard and fast line between the culture of the active part of the workers' movement (``working leaders'') and that of the working class as a whole. The Marxist scholars convincingly demonstrated the practical impossibility of treating this problem in isolation from a general theory of cultural development---both national and global. The working class, as a part of society, receives and accumulates all available cultural information; its cultural level varies with the economic, social, and cultural processes taking place in society at large. This accounts, to a large extent, for the different manners and degrees in which the working class adapts culture at various stages of historical development and in different countries and regions.
At the same time it is particularly important to keep in mind that the working class not only receives cultural information but also reworks it in accordance with its own system of values, with its needs as a class. Because of its place in the system of production the proletariat has special need of the knowledge stored up by humanity; on its way to acquiring that knowledge, however, it meets with social barriers. The resulting conflicts make the working class one of the most active forces in working out and applying the cultural heritage. In this sense there is every reason to speak of proletarian culture as an important part of national cultures and of human culture in general.^^1^^
The interrelation of general human, bourgeois, and proletarian elements in national cultures is a question of special importance. Soviet participants at the forum expressed the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 32.
306 opinion that among certain Western intellectuals the place and role of general human and proletarian elements in existing culture is undervalued. Given certain conditions this undervaluation can become the basis for extreme cultural nihilism, which was seen, for example, in some forms of protest among young people in the late '60s and early '70s. China's ``cultural revolution" had a different social basis, but similar consequences. Another serious danger is underestimation of the bourgeois element in culture and of its power to influence the mentality, values, and cultural requirements of the working masses, including the working class: this underestimation is an obstacle to properly understanding the complex and contradictory process through which the culture of the working class arises and matures.An extensive ideological and political struggle has developed around the evaluation of the role of the working class in society, and of the direction and prospects of its development. On the day the forum opened L'Humanite, the organ of the French Communist Party, carried an article convincingly criticising the theory that the proletariat will be ``eroded'' by the scientific and technological revolution, leading to the inevitable ``disintegration'' of the workers' movement. L'Humanite characterised such assertions as a form of ``ideological counterattack" by monopolistic capital and its partners: ``The purpose of these manoeuvres is clear-Hhey are an attempt to diminish the working class in the eyes of the broad masses of workers and of young people, and moreover to cause the working class to doubt itself and its historical role, to interfere with its function as the driving force in reshaping society... But the very dimensions of the means thrown into the `subjugation' of the working class bespeak the difficulty of realising such a plan.''^^1^^
Authors who are hostile to the working class seize upon specific features of the formation of its political consciousness and of the social and psychological processes taking place in certain groups of workers. Occasional attempts are made to show that the class consciousness of the proletariat today is radically different from that of the past and that moreover it is developing in a completely different direction. These attempts are directly related to concepts that reduce the workers' movement to purely economic, trade-union forms of struggle, denying the importance of the political organisations and actions of the working people.
A typical example of the bourgeois-conservative approach _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanite, 22 April 1980.
__PRINTERS_P_307_COMMENT__ 20* 307 to this topic is Consciousness and Action among the Western Working Class by M. Mann, a British sociologist. This work is built on an artificial opposition of the interests of workers in different countries. Mann tries to prove that the working class is no longer a force capable of bringing about revolutionary change.^^1^^ The French sociologist A. Tourain in his new book also seeks to deny the world-wide historic mission of the working class.^^2^^ He alleges that the working class has become a ``conservative'' force, no longer in the center of political struggle in society, nor an advocate of new ideas, and that the place of the working class has been taken by ``marginal'' social groups and new social movements---the anti-technocratic, ecological, regionalist, women's movements, etc.Such views were subjected to convincing criticism in the course of the discussions. Marxist scholars maintained that while the working class, as the most active and advanced social force, naturally reacts to changes in society---first of all by changing itself---its basic character in capitalist society remains constant regardless of the development of productive forces and the degree to which the scientific and technological revolution affects them. The scientific and technological revolution serves to bring new trades and professions into the working class, including those connected with technologised white-collar work.
An important new development, demanding thorough analysis, is the presently accelerating equalisation, at the highest level, of both the needs and the concrete demands of the working class. That which for many decades was the object of the struggle of the proletarian vanguard and the segments of the workers' movement closest to it is fast becoming the fixed goal of the great mass of wage workers.
Participants discussed the meaning of worker education for the development of society. M. Piolot, the representative of CGT (France's largest labor union center), Professor M. David, and teachers and activists in workers' organisations from Belgium, Ireland, Canada, and other countries reviewed the specific features of general and professional education for workers, and spoke of the activities of unions in this area. There was rich empirical material in detailed reports by Soviet scholars (presented by E. V. Klopov, L. A. Gordon, and V. N. Shubkin, together with G. A. Cherednichenko, V. K. Kuchko, and others) on the combination of work with study and on the bettering of the professional _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Mann, Consciousness and Action among the Western Working Class, London, 1975, p. 69.
~^^2^^ A. Tourain, L 'Apres-Socialisme, Paris, 1980.
308 qualifications and general culture of working people. Participants were acquainted with the results of several international comparative studies (on the social problems of young student-workers, for example) conducted by scholars at the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences in cooperation with their colleagues in other socialist countries.It should be noted that in the past several years UNESCO has sponsored a number of interesting studies on the accessibility of education to workers. These studies have devoted much attention to the problem of making education more democratic. It is not surprising that the struggle of workers and their organisations for these goals aroused considerable interest at the forum; it was the theme of reports by Professor S.A. Tangyan (UNESCO), Professor David, and a number of scholars from the socialist community and other countries.
A special section considered the place of social history and the history of the working class in university and school curricula. One of the principal papers on this topic was presented by the Institute of the International Labour Movement of the USSR Academy of Sciences. During the discussion R. Van Der Leeuw (Netherlands), A. A. Galkin (USSR), T. Halay (Hungary), D. Elazar (Bulgaria), M. Aymard, M. Reberioux (France), and others spoke of the part the history of the workers' movement should play in general and special education. Several scholars from capitalist and developing countries noted that this theme is not adequately treated in university and school texts there.
Representatives of the leading research centres described the results of basic work on the history of the working class and its movement in certain countries and regions, and exchanged information on the activities of research institutes and scientific societies. During the ensuing discussion scholars from the socialist community and Marxist scholars from capitalist countries insisted on a scientific, class-- oriented approach to the study of the international workers' movement.
The results of studies conducted in the socialist countries on the past and present of the workers' movement were the object of great interest at the forum. A considerable number of these works were on view at a large exhibit devoted to the influence of Lenin's legacy on the development of science, culture, and education. The exhibit opened in the UNESCO building on April 22, 1980---the 110th anniversary of Lenin's birth. Soviet social scientists were represented by a whole series of studies on the main problems of Marxist-Leninist theory, the unfolding of the world revolutionary process, and the struggle for peace, 309 disarmament, detente, and peaceful international cooperation.
Among the exhibits was a book issued in French by the Soviet publishing house Nauka to mark Lenin's anniversary; it contained works by Politburo member and Secretary of the Central Committee, CPSU, M. A. Suslov (``Lenin and Human Progress''), Politburo candidate and Secretary of the Central Committee, CPSU, B. N. Ponomarev (``Real Socialism and Its International Significance''), by Academician P. N. Fedoseyev, and others.^^1^^ These works show the vitality of Lenin's ideas, analyse the chief tendencies in the realisation of the historical mission of the working class, and review the methodological bases of Lenin's scientific concept of the world revolutionary process and the means through which it is being fulfilled in practice today.
Speaking at the exhibit's opening ceremony P. N. Fedoseyev said, ``Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, a great thinker and revolutionary, an outstanding figure in the international workers' movement, maintained that the culture and education of working people must be a natural development of the stores of knowledge laid up by mankind over the many ages of its history. We in the Soviet Union are guided by just this principle in cultural work and scientific research. Soviet science takes as its goal the explication, understanding, and evaluation of the laws of social progress and their concrete manifestations in order to use the results in practical social and economic activity and in improving the educational and cultural level of the people as a whole. In doing so we rely on Lenin's rich legacy---his analyses of social structures and relations and of their functioning and dynamics''. Fedoseyev expressed confidence that the exhibit would help to acquaint the French public and representatives of other nations with the Soviet people's gains and with some trends in the work of Soviet social scientists and its results.
Great satisfaction with the work and results of the Paris forum was expressed at the closing plenary session by the heads of scientific organizations in many countries, among them Professor M. Aymard (vice-director of the Paris Centre for the Human Sciences), P. N. Fedoseyev, and Professor Del Bo (Director of the Milan Institute for the History of the Liberation Movement). L'Humanite, in an article titled ``UNESCO Forum on the Working Class'', called this international meeting of specialists on the workers' movement ``significant'', and stressed that here, ``for the first time, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Presence de Lenine. Les idees de Lenine et I'epoque contemporaine, Nauka, Moscow, 1980.
310 sociologists, union leaders, historians, and theoreticians from all over the world, representing countries with different social systems, were able to discuss together the results of their study of the role and development of the working class".^^1^^The materials of the forum are of great interest to science. It marked a notable step forward in the unfolding of the ideological and political struggle around the question of the place of the working class in today's world, and also a certain stage in the development of scientific research on the working class.
The Paris forum reflected a clear advance in the political consciousness of society, and particularly of researchers. It showed that scholars in the capitalist and developing countries are rejecting the most obvious attempts to subordinate the study of the history of the working class and the workers' movement to ideological gambits. Serious scholars representing dozens of scientific centres and universities repudiated efforts to belittle the role of the working class in the modern age. The whole work of the forum demonstrated that the majority of research specialists, regardless of their ideological orientation, take as the point of departure in their work the huge and growing importance of the working class in today's world.
A statement made by R. Stavenhagen may be cited as a characteristic example. He noted that in recent decades ``the study of the history of the working class and the workers' movement has made perceptible gains in all countries. This study is essential for the understanding of the radical changes---not only in economics and politics but also in society and culture---that began with the industrial revolution and that have been proceeding at an increased rate all over the world since the middle of this century. Modern urban society has arisen through a succession of changes or transformations in the earlier rural society. It brings with it new relations to nature and the environment, new social laws, and new ways of organising labour. The history of the working class, which from the very outset has been under the influence of revolutionary ideology, is now becoming central to all of contemporary history.''
Both UNESCO leaders and forum participants spoke of the broadening of horizons in research that has made the history of the working class into a dynamic and diversified field of inquiry. They noted that the enormous growth of interest in the history of the working class further increases the need for active cooperation among institutions and _-_-_
~^^1^^ L'Humanite, 8 May 1980.
311 organisations in various countries that specialise in the study of these subjects.The forum reflected the ever-widening recognition by scholars of the objective truth of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine concerning the place of the working class in the system of social relations. At the same time the important social and political questions with which the forum was concerned continue to arouse sharp ideological conflicts.
Despite the certain increase in international tensions that has resulted from the aggressive policies pursued by the reactionary monopolists of the USA in many regions of the world, scholars of diverse political orientations continue to show a lively interest in contacts with colleagues from the socialist countries and with Marxist scholars in general. The prevailing opinion at the Paris forum was that the cooperation among scientific, university, and other centres for research on the workers' movement that UNESCO had initiated should be continued. It was decided that topics for discussion at the next forum should include the social consequences for the working class of the scientific and technological revolution, and the interaction of the workers', national-liberation, peasants', and other social movements.
It was suggested to the international secretariat for the planning of the next forum that research groups be created to study the following problems: the influence of advances in science and technology on the working class and on the structure of society as a whole, tradition and change in the cultural development of the working class, migration of work force and its consequences, and the evolution of social doctrines and their influence on working people.
These themes call for more detailed study and discussion of the formation and preparation of the working class, the changes in the interrelations between industrial and agricultural workers, the changes in social and family structures resulting from accelerated scientific and technological progress and their consequences for culture, the new needs of workers, and the problems of adapting various strata of society to scientific and technological development---both in work and in other spheres. UNESCO representatives expressed their readiness to support and aid the realisation of programmes in keeping with the goals of their organisation.
The Paris forum showed that important changes are taking place in the professional methodology of research on the working class. The working class has been the object of special studies for over a hundred years, but until recently these studies were conducted as parts of different scholarly disciplines: the place of the working class in production and the material conditions of its existence were studied mainly 312 by economists, the way of life, culture, and mentality of workers by sociologists; the workers' movement by historians; and the everyday life of workers by ethnographers.
This approach served to shed light on important aspects of the history of the working class, and to amass basic materials on which to base an analysis of the laws of its development. But it has long been clear that isolated studies of separate features of the working class and the workers' movement cannot provide a deep, scientific understanding of their role in today's world.
The additional significance of the forum is that its work as a whole, the materials presented, and the discussions they generated mark an important step towards a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to the study of the working class. The centre of gravity in research is gradually shifting to such an approach, and it produces the most significant results. The socio-economic, socio-political and sociological study of the working class is beocming an independent area of research, a distinct, interdisciplinary realm of knowledge. This new branch opens large prospects before researhcers.
The comprehensive research on the working class as an integral social organism must be based on the laws set forth by Marxist-Leninist philosophy, political economy, and history. An essential condition for the success of this research is the strengthening of international cooperation among scholars of the working class and the workers' movement; this condition can be met only in a climate of detente. Meanwhile aggressive groups in the USA are trying desperately to destroy detente. This gives special importance to the conclusions reached at the Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties held in Paris in April 1980. B. N. Ponomarev, head of the delegation from the CPSU, noted in a speech before the meeting that the potential of detente is especially great in Europe, and that it is necessary to work actively and persistently to realise that potential.^^1^^ The fraternal communist parties, and all democratic forces, are confident in the ability of nations to resist imperialism and to continue along the road to peace, democracy, and genuine national and social liberation.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Pravda, 29 April 1980.
[313] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEXA
Abbagnano, Nicola---192
Adler, Friedrich---173
Adler, Max-60
Adler, Victor---27
Arismendi, Rodney---167
Aron, Raymond---25, 95, 153,
171,187,203,213,214 Aronowitz. Stanley---238 Aymard, M---309, 310
B
Babeuf, Francois Noel ( Gracchus)---104
Bakunin, Mikhail-17, 74
Bartsch, Giinter---187
Bastiat, Frederic---69, 76
Bauer, Otto---171,202
Bauer, Peter T.---199
Bebel, August---80
Bell, Danfel-29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 138, 145,165, 268, 272
Bernstein, Eduard---32, 33, 69, 77, 79,80,190,278
Blum. Leon---173
Bobbio, Norberto---216
Bordiga, Amadeo---174,176
Borkenau, Franz---171
Boulding, Kenneth---142
Braunthal, Julius---77, 173
Bravo, G.---304
Brentano, Lujo---76
Brezhnev, Leonid Uyich---9, 52, 113, 116, 132, 135, 149, 154, 155, 165, 166, 230, 248, 290, 298
Browder, Earl---176,206, 273--78, 280--82
Brunhuber, Robert---81
Brunner Karl---253
Brzezinski, Zbigniew---13,131, 250
C
Cachin Marcel---231
Carey, Henry Charles---15, 273
Chateaubriand, Francois Rene de-66
Cherednichenko, G. A.---308
__COLUMN2__Claudin, Fernando---95, 211--15,
217,221,223,224 Cogniot, Georges---168 Cole, G. D. H.-77, 78 Commons, John R.---26, 43, 270,
288Comte, Auguste---28 Crossick, G---306 Cunow, Heinrich---60, 202
D
Daniels, Robert V.---120
Darwin, Charles---152
David, M.-306, 308, 309
Davidson, A.---306
Debray, R6gis---181
Del Bo-310
Devine, F.---303
Dfaz. Jose---231
Diehl, Karl---68
Diligenski, G. G.-306
Dimitrov, Georgi---107, 170, 173,
175,178, 179, 204, 231 Djilas, Milovan---29, 241, 247 Duverger, Maurice---155
E
Einstein, Albert---152
Elazar, D---303, 309
Elleinstein, Jean---212, 213, 217, 221,223,224
Engels, Frederick-15--17, 24, 25, 28, 32, 33, 48, 59, 60, 64--66, 71, 73--75, 81, 84, 89,139,185-- 97, 202, 206, 216, 217, 220, 228, 229, 232, 234, 240, 242-- 44, 246, 252, 256, 267, 275, 305
F
Falk, Heinrich---76 Fanon, Frantz---181 Faucher, Julius---76 Fedoseyev, P. N---302, 310 Fischer, Ernst---166, 200
314Forrester, Jay---142 Friedman, Milton---153 Freud, Sigmund---162
G
Galbraith, John Kenneth---151,
273Galkin, A. A.-309 Gallacher, William---104
Garaudy, Roger---47, 155, 166, 212,213,223,224,241 Gates, John---273, 276 Goldman, Marshall---144 Golebiowski. Ya.---303 Gordon, L. A.---308 Gordon, Milton---26 Gorz, Andre-49, 83, 182, 238,
268Gramsci, Antonio---114, 204, 231 Guerin, Daniel---70 Guesde, Jules---104
H
Haber, William-26
Habermas, Jiirgen---191
Hacker, Louis M.---273
Halay, T.-309
Hansen, Alvin---273
Harrington, Michael---71, 72
Hayek, F. A.-153
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich---
192Heilbroner, Robert---142,144 Hobsbawm, Eric---97, 254 Hobson, John A.---33 Hollander, Paul---165 Honecker, Erich---158 Hook,Sydney---164
K
Kautsky, Karl---77,173, 202, 204,
209--12,215,216,221 King, Alexander---251, 252 Kjrkup, Thomas---77 Kissinger, Henry---154 Klopov, E. V.-308 Kohn, Hans---26, 249 Konrad, Helmut---26 Korsch, Karl-191 Kuchko, V. K---308 Run, Bela---170 Kuusinen, Otto---103, 170
L
Labriola, Arturo---190
Labrousse, E.---302, 305
__COLUMN2__Lassalle, Friedrich---19, 80, 81
Lederer, Emil---26, 32--34, 69
Leeuw, R. Van Der---303, 309
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich---10,11,24, 29--31, 34, 35, 41, 43, 45--47, 49, 52, 75. 81, 84, 85. 87--93, 95, 99, 100, 102--05,107,110-- 17, 119, 137,139,152,156--63, 165--71, 173, 174, 180, 181, 184--87, 189, 190, 193--200, 202--05, 207--12, 215, 218, 220, 222--24, 228. 229, 232, 235, 236, 238, 240, 244, 252, 253, 255, 269, 275, 277, 281-- 83, 298, 302, 305, 310
Lequin, J.---306
Liebknecht, Karl-222
Li Tachao---104
Lodge, George C.---251, 254
Louis, Paul---77, 78
Lpvestone, Jay---273
Lowenthal, Richard---95
M
Magri, Lucio---182, 183
Malthus, Thomas---142
Manuilsky, Dmitri---70
Mann, M.---308
Marcuse, Herbert---181, 189, 193, 238--44, 246
Marek, Franz---200
Marx, Karl-15--22, 24, 25, 27--29, 34, 43, 47, 48, 59, 60. 64, 71-- 76, 79--81, 84, 89, 13^9, 142, 185--97, 202, 206, 210, 216, 217, 220, 227--29, 232--35, 240, 241, 243, 244, 246, 252, 267, 275, 277--80, 305
Meadows, Dennis---142, 143, 144, 147
Meyer, Alfred G.-199, 200
Mesarovic, Mihajlo---144
Mill, John S.-15, 141
Mohnari, Gustave de---68
Moore, Barrington---73, 74
Muhri, Franz---220
Myrdal, Gunnar---26,142
N
Naville, Pierre---193 Nietzsche, Friedrich W.---67
P
Pankratova, A. M.---261, 263 Peccei, Aurelio---251, 252 Pellicani, Luciano---194 Perlman, Selig---26, 43, 270, 288
315Pestel, Eduard---144 Piolot, M.---308 Plekhanov, Georgi---77 Ponomarev, Boris---227, 259, 304,
313 Popper, Karl---249
R
Reberioux, M.---309 Renner, Karl---27, 75 Rodbertus-Jagetzow, Carl---66 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques---67 Roy, M.-238 Rubel, Maximilien---188, 214
S
Salvador!, Massimo---273 Sapelli, G.---303 Sartre, Jean-Paul---83 Say, Jean B.---15,69 Schack, Herbert---75 Schleifstein, J.---303 Schmoller, Gustav---68, 76 Schopenhauer, Arthur---67 Schumpeter, Joseph A.---68 Scoville, James---43 Seton-Watson, Hugh---181 Shubkin, V. N---308 Sik, Ota---201, 241 Smeral, Bohumir---176 Sombart. Werner---32, 69, 76, 81,
84,1^4
Sorel, Georges---190 Sorokin, Pitirim---25 Spencer, Herbert---28 Spengler, Rudolf---67 Stammler, Rudolf---68 Stayenhagen, R.---311 Stein, Lorenz von---66 Steiner, H.---303 Sternberg, Fritz---74, 202
__COLUMN2__Strbac, C.---303
Sturmthal, Adolf---43
Struve, Pyotr---84
Suslov, Mikhail---173, 297, 310
Sweezy, Paul M.-83,189, 238
T
Taft, Philip---43, 388 Thalmann, Ernst---106, 204 Thorez, Maurice---103, 104, 178,
204,231
Toffler, Alvin---151 Togliatti, Palmiro-170, 177, 204,
231Toynbee, Arnold---181, 251 Turner, Frederick---273
U
Ulam, Adam---43 V
Vandervelde, Emile---77, 209, 210 Varga, E---176 Veblen, Thorstein---68 Velikovski, S. I---306
W
Wakefield, Edward---68 Warner, W. Lloyd---28 Webb, Beatrice-33, 77, 78, 271 Webb, Sidney---33, 77, 78, 271 Weber, Max-28 Wilensky, Harold---26 Wilson, Edward---151 Wolfe, Bertram D.-76, 249
Z
Zetkin, Clara---173,176 Zhivkov, Todor---166
[316] __ALPHA_LVL1__ GEOGRAPHICAL INDEXA
Afghanistan---121
Africa---23, 62, 63,112,122, 182,
184, 247
Angola---121,122 Asia-23, 62, 92, 112, 122, 178,
182,184
Australia-62, 258 Austria---81
B
Bulgaria-39, 40, 101, 174, 258, 266, 290, 292
C
California---180
Canada---133, 295
China (People's Republic of China)
-62,97,104,204,236 Cuba-109,121, 258 Czechoslovakia---39, 40, 258, 290,
296E
Eastern Siberia---51
Ethiopia---121
Europe-62, 91--93,110,178
F
Federal Republic of Germany---49,
50,133,135,258,295 Finland-11,101,108. 258 France-18, 49, 50, 73, 101,108, 114, 133, 134, 177--79, 245, 258,295
G
German Democratic Republic---39, 40, 258, 290, 292, 296
Germany-11, 18, 73, 102, 137, 175
Great Britain---17, 18, 49, 50, 73, 88,133, 258
Greece---108,180,184, 258
Guinea-Bissau---122
H
Hungary-11, 39, 40, 101, 258, 266, 267, 290, 296
I
Italy---101, 108. 114, 133, 134, 174,177,180, 203, 258, 295
__COLUMN2__J
Japan-18, 73,114,133,134, 248, 250, 258
L
Laos---109
Latin America---23, 62, 112, 122, 177,184
M
Minnesota---180 Moscow---102 Mozambique---12 2
N New York---180
P
Poland---39, 40, 101, 258, 266,
291, 292, 296 Portugal---184
R
Romania---258, 291 Russia---9-11, 18, 94, 106, 110, 113, 161, 164, 202, 235, 282
S
Soviet Union-10, 37--39, 41, 43,
50--57,94,99,106--12
Spain---114, 177, 184, 211, 245,
258U
United States of America---11--14, 18, 44, 49, 206, 248, 250, 258, 270, 273--77, 279--81, 283--88, 295
V
Vietnam-109,121, 258 W
Western Europe---10, 33, 43, 108, 124, 138, 184, 223, 248, 250, 277
Western Siberia---51
Wisconsin---180
317 __ALPHA_LVL1__ SUBJECT INDEXB
Balance of forces on the international scene---97, 98, 110,113, 114,126
C
Capitalism---11,16--17, 62, 125
---American capitalism---273,
274, 276--81
---capitalist system---11,95,100 Class---15, 24--31, 35, 36 Class struggle---15, 17--20, 24, 87,
128, 129, 136, 137, 140, 222,
223 Communist Party---46, 47, 52, 53,
101--06, 116. 117, 121, 122,
126, 127,149 183, 229--31
---Communist Party of China---
104---Communist Party of Great Britain---104
---Communist Party of Spain---
175---Communist Party of the Soviet Union-157,158,163,164,
166--70, 183, 184
---Finnish Communist Party---
118---French Communist Party---
104,118,178,179
---Italian Communist Party---
118 Contradictions (antagonisms)
---between labour and capital---
16,70
---between socialism and capitalism---126
---between the monopolies and the people---115
---between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie---16,17, 97 Crisis
---crisis of bourgeois ideology---
42,43,150
---crisis of capitalism---42, 97,
__COLUMN2__98, 106,116.127--30, 137--39 ---crisis of the 1970s---131--34 ---ecological crisis---140--42, 145--49
---socio-political crisis---93, 153-- 54 Critics of Marxism
---on classes and the class struggle---25--29, 48, 49, 67, 68, 80, 81,193,194
---on democracy---221, 243--44 ---on ideological struggle---74, 151, 152
---on internationalism---249--52, 254
---on Marxism-Leninism---76,94, 95, 185--88, 201--05, 209--13, 215 ---on mass workers' parties---80-
82, 164, 165, 245
---on models of socialism---43,
44-on the ecological crisis---142,
143---on ``the new middle class"---
32,33
---on the working class---12--14,
31, 32, 43--45. 65, 66, 71, 72,
83, 84,192, 193, 240--43
---on the working-class and the communist movement---77--79, 81--83,213--15,269--72 ---on ``transformed'' capitalism---13, 14,125, 276, 277
F
Forms of the proletariat's class struggle-64. 118, 119, 162, 194,222,283
G
Great October Socialist Revolution
---influence on other nations--- 8, 10, 11, 98--100, 102, 103, 119,227
318---international historic significance---5, 8,9,98--100,113,155 ---historical experience---102, 103, 107
I
Intelligentsia---30--32, 50, 51, 160, 161
International
---First International---85 ---Second International---83, 84 ---Communist International (the Comintern)---85, 102--05, 121, 169--78
Internationalism---182, 225, 250, 251
---proletarian---113, 231, 232, 248, 249, 255, 256 ---relation between international and national-specific factors---228, 229, 247, 248, 256 ---socialist---256
M
Marxism-Leninism -16, 47,75, 76, 92, 93, 96, 118, 162, 185-- 87,197--205, 207--09
N
National liberation movement---
122,123,143 ``New middle class"-32--35,45,69
P
Paris Commune---88, 90, 91, 194, 195
Policy of a united front (united actions )-175 176,178--80,183
Progressive youth movement---46, 148
Proletariat---10, 25--27, 60, 61, 70, 73, 241, 242
---dictatorship of the proletariat-45, 46, 219, 220, 244 ---historical role---16 ---proletariat in capitalist countries---106, 284
---lumpen-proletariat---71--73, 243
---allies of the proletariat---160, 161
R
Revolution---112,113,121
---Russian Revolution of 1905-- __COLUMN2__ 1907---90--92 ---socialist---11, 52,114
S
Scientific and technological revolution---46, 49,114,141
Socialism---152,153, 234. 235 ---influence of socialism---42, 107,143
---world socialist system---110, 112
---petty-bourgeois---235--37 ---ways and means for making the transition to socialism---119, 168,195 ---developed---53 ---existing---42, 49, 97, 98,100, 126
Social-reformist and petty-- bourgeois trends
---Kautskyism (``neo''-- Kautskyism)-211> 212, 217 ---Marcuse, theory---238--40 ---opportunism---209--11 -revisionism---79
State
---functions of the bourgeois state-115, 125
---functions of the proletarian state-224 225
---Marxist doctrine on the state---216--18
Strike movement---124, 125, 133, 134
T
Trade union movement---116 25th Congress of the CPSU--- 53,156,164,165,184,248
W
Wages---53, 54, 277--80
World communist movement---6,
24, 25, 90, 100, 101, 104--06,
108, 109, 139, 181, 201--02,
246,247 World revolutionary process---93,
95, 96,113
---tendencies in the development---122, 123
---periods of the development---
94, 108,109 Working class-14, 18--20, 27, 90,
161---development of the working class---20, 22, 296
---historical mission of the 319 working class---19, 37, 47, 75,
76---numerical growth of the working class---18, 37--40, 99
---socio-nistorical role---5, 18,
31, 32, 35, 36, 41, 59, 62, 69,
70---structure---22, 23, 206
---study of the working class--- __COLUMN2__ 257--70
---working class and scientific and technical progress---20, 22 ---working class of the USSR--- 100,110
Working-class movement---14, 31, 63, 81, 82, 115,175,227,228 -history-62--64, 77--79, 84, 259, 260
[320] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] ~ [321]