{"id":3221,"date":"2020-11-05T02:18:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T02:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2020-11-05T02:18:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T02:18:30","slug":"more-leninist-distortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/more-leninist-distortions\/","title":{"rendered":"More Leninist Distortions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Binay Sarkar,<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 World Socialist Party (India)<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Claim that state capitalism is socialism<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin arbitrarily created a so-called \u201cscientific distinction between socialism and communism\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution<\/em>, written April 10, 1917, Lenin proclaimed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social ownership of the means of production and the distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual. Our party looks further ahead: socialism must inevitably evolve gradually into communism, upon the banner of which is inscribed the motto, \u201cFrom each according to his ability, to each according to his needs\u201d.1<\/sup>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, in the State and Revolution<\/em>, written in September 1917:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the \u201cfirst\u201d, or lower, phase of communist society.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx did distinguish, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme<\/em> (1875), between \u201cthe first phase of communist society\u201d and \u201ca higher phase of communist society\u201d. However, he used the terms \u201csocialism\u201d and \u201ccommunism\u201d alternatively and synonymously to describe the post-revolutionary society based on common ownership, so he could also have written about these phases of \u201csocialist society\u201d. In both phases the production relations of society were certainly to be communist (or socialist) with not even an iota of the relations of production of capitalism there:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithin the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labour embodied on the products appear here as the value of these products, \u2026 since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour.\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, in communism (or socialism, the same), phase aside, you do not have the economy with money. In the first phase Marx did suggest a \u2018labour voucher\u2019 (not wage or salary) system \u2013after some six necessary deductions from the \u201cproceeds of labour\u201d. At the same time, however, he argued that it was a \u201cdefect\u201d. And that it would be overcome in \u201ca higher phase of communist society\u201d, as Marx had envisaged in his Critique of the Gotha Programme<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly \u2013 only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!\u201d4<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that time (1875) productive abundance was lacking, hence Marx\u2019s distinction. But we cannot endorse any \u201clabour voucher\u201d scheme as such, since it conforms to a form of economic rationing with exchange, alienation and in effect voucher circulation, which has no function in a non-exchange economy as sought by socialists. The liberation of abundance has been waiting now since the beginning of the twentieth century, so any such scheme would not be necessary anyway. Abundance does not have a measure of measures. Its only measure is satisfaction of needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas Lenin proposed: \u201cthe distribution of products according to the amount of work\u201d. He didn\u2019t consider \u201cthe abolition of the wages system\u201d as Marx and Engels. For him the wages system was to continue in his \u2018socialism\u2019 (actually state capitalism) with indexation of the wage rates \u201caccording to the amount of work\u201d performed by respective workers. This was no different from capitalist indexation of wage structures, the only difference being that Lenin hunted for all-round nationalisation proposing that \u201call<\/em> citizens are transformed here into hired employees of the state\u201d, 5<\/sup> \u2013 whereby actually the top state functionaries would become the new employer class \u2013 the de facto<\/em> owners of the nation\u2019s means of production and articles for distribution entirely and collectively.      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Lenin made a trick that changed \u201cneeds\u201d with \u201cwork\u201d. It was not a tenet of Marx. Given the wages system, workers do not receive for what they produce, but only for what they require for producing and reproducing their ability to work. They receive less than what they produce \u2013 leaving a surplus at the disposal of their employer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Marx and Engels socialism and communism were synonymous. Therefore, when Marx distinguished between \u201cthe first phase of communist society\u201d and \u201ca higher phase of communist society\u201d he meant the same production relation \u2013 communist or, alternatively, socialist.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What we need to clinch here is that in view of the enormous development of the productive forces whereby these have evidently outgrown the production relation, the two phase programme for changeover from capitalism to communism or socialism (the same thing) has become obsolete. Full communism awaits recognition by the society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this way all that is on and in the Earth would be turned into the common heritage of the whole humanity exercising democratic control over production for use and distribution according to self defined needs. Since, according to Marx, as also to us, it is the time for communism when \u201call the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin spoke of achieving \u2018socialism\u2019 just by replacing control by \u201cthe Junker capitalist state\u201d of the sort of state capitalism that existed in war-time Germany by \u201cworkers\u2019 control\u201d (actually Bolshevik control and ultimately his own control). In Lenin\u2019s own phraseology:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody talks about imperialism. But imperialism is merely monopoly capitalism… And what is the state? It is an organization of the ruling class \u2013 in Germany, for instance, of the Junkers and capitalists. And therefore what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call \u201cwar-time socialism\u201d is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and clearly, war-time penal servitude for workers and war-time protection for capitalist profits. Now try to substitute<\/em> for the Junker capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic<\/em> state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all<\/em> privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state-monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism\u2026 it is a step towards socialism<\/em>. For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people <\/em>and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.\u201d6<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, according to Lenin \u201cstate-capitalist monopoly\u201d is just another name of \u2018socialism\u2019 On this count Marx and Engels would have emphatically opposed Lenin because for them socialism negates capitalism irrespective of capitalism\u2019s form. Moreover, as we have just seen, for them the terms socialism and communism meant one and the same thing \u2013 the post-revolutionary democratically run society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, according to Lenin:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout big banks socialism would be impossible<\/em>\u2026<\/em> <\/em>we take ready-made<\/em> from capitalism: A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist<\/em> apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping<\/em>, country-wide accounting<\/em>, of the production and distribution of goods, this will, so to speak, something in the nature of the skeleton<\/em> of socialist society\u2026 The important thing will not be even the confiscation of the capitalists\u2019 property, but country-wide, all-embracing worker\u2019s control over the capitalists and their possible supporters. Instead of confiscation, we could easily impose a fair<\/em> tax\u2026 Compulsory syndication<\/em>, i.e., compulsory amalgamation in associations under state control \u2013 this is what capitalism has prepared the way for, this is what has been carried out in Germany by the Junkers\u2019 state, this is what can be easily carried out in Russia by the Soviets, by the proletarian dictatorship, and this is what will provide us with a state apparatus<\/em> that will be universal, up-to-date, and non-bureaucratic.\u201d7<\/sup>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In determining and differentiating the class nature of the same capitalist economic structure based on the class origins of the persons in charge of it and their motives, instead of by the relations of production, Lenin alienated himself from the materialist historical framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Lenin was an idealist can be seen when you work out answers to the following questions: Could capitalism i.e. capital\/wage labour relationship, whatever its form, ever be \u201cmade to serve the interests of the whole people\u201d \u2013 both the exploiters and the exploited? Did Marx and Engels, as well as other genuine socialists, not warn the working class repeatedly about the state ownership of capital to be merely another form of capitalist private property, which has nothing to do with socialism? Moreover, could banks exist in socialism where exchange and money would have ceased to exist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin\u2019s claim \u201csocialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people<\/em>\u201d is absurd, since nobody can get capitalism \u201cto serve the interests of the whole people<\/em>\u201d. Capitalism works objectively to serve the interests of the capitalist class against the interests of working class. Socialism is the negation of capitalism. However, Lenin lacked the courage to present his absurdities without Marx\u2019s name, lest people would catch him in the act of an anti-Marxist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx and Engels made it clear that state ownership did not negate capitalism but was a form of capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844<\/em>, Marx recognized \u201cindustrial capital<\/em> is the accomplished objective form of private property\u201d.8<\/sup>  In Capital<\/em>, he pointed out that the relation of appropriation of surplus labour as surplus value relates workers with the capitalist, \u201cwhether he be an isolated, or as in joint stock companies, a collective capitalist\u201d.9<\/sup>  Further, \u201cthat the social capital is equal to the sum of the individual capitals (including the joint-stock capital or the state capital, so far as governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc., perform the function of industrial capitalists) and that the aggregate movement of social capital is equal to the algebraic sum of the movements of the individual capitals\u201d.10<\/sup>  Again, \u201ccapitalist enterprise \u2026 being essentially private even if the associated capitalist takes the place of the individual capitalist\u201d11<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin\u2019s \u201cstate-capitalist monopoly\u201d was just what Marx and Engels called: a collective capitalist \u2026 social capital \u2026 state capital \u2026 the associated capitalist \u2026 the national capitalist, notably in Engels\u2019 argument that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe transformation, either into joint-stock companies [and trusts], or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. \u2026 The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalistic machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizen does it exploit. The workers remain wageworkers \u2013 proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with.\u201d12<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point of fact is that, although state ownership of the productive forces formally appears to be a relation of property whereby production has been socialized, it conceals another relation of property, which remains essentially private, in appropriation via exchange on the market. Thus, under state ownership capital functions as another \u201caccomplished objective form of private property\u201d, the capitalist private property of the top state functionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capitalist private property was the first negation of the pre-capitalist self-earned and self-owned private property. Communism or socialism will be the negation of the negation, abolishing capitalist private property in all its forms, such as rent, interest, wage or salary, profit, tax with budget and philanthropy. Instead, we will have \u201ca society based upon communal ownership\u201d, \u201cthe co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production\u201d or Universal Ownership as we call here now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. One-party dictatorship<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 5 March 1852, Marx wrote to Joseph Weydemeyer in New York:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs of myself, no credit is due to me for discovering either the existence of classes on 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. What I did that was new to demonstrate: 1) that the existence of classes<\/em> is merely linked to particular historical phase in the development of production<\/em>, 2) that class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat<\/em>, 3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes<\/em> and to a classless society<\/em>.\u201d13<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again in 1875, he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBetween capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat<\/em>.\u201d14<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marx had learnt the term \u201cdictatorship of the proletariat\u201d from the French revolutionaries he met when he lived in Paris in the mid-1840s. But differently, while the French revolutionaries  envisaged it as a minority dictatorship supposedly on behalf of the working class (or proletariat), Marx inserted a democratic content in it and sketched it as exclusive exercise of political power by the working class on its own behalf. This Marx did because \u2013 he envisaged a <\/em>\u201cpolitical transitional period\u201d between the end of the capitalist political rule and the establishment of socialism (or communism, the same thing) when the majority class \u2013 the working class would exercise political power within a democratic context. In addition, according to him this democracy including freedom of speech and universal suffrage would cover the whole people including even the former capitalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels referred to the Paris Commune as an example of the \u201cdictatorship of the proletariat\u201d and although it cannot really be seen as the beginning of a transition to socialism, it was an elected council with competing parties. As Engels wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible until such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat<\/em>. Well and good, gentle men, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the Proletariat.”15<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier, in 1881, Engels had upheld the Paris Commune Principle \u2013 election of delegates via universal suffrage revocable at short notice \u2013 as \u201c\u2026a new prospect \u2026 The new weapon \u2026 scarcely ever unsheathed \u2026 For the full representation of labour in Parliament, as well as for the preparation of the abolition of the wages system, organization will become necessary not of separate trades, but of the working class as a body. And the sooner this is done the better.\u201d16 <\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin held a different view. \u201cYes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position \u2026,\u201d17 <\/sup>declared he in 1919.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Lenin\u2019s objective was to establish a dictatorship in Russia under the pseudonym \u2018Marxist\u2019, he introduced the doublespeak about \u2018socialism\u2019 as the \u2018state capitalist monopoly\u2019 \u2013 the transitional stage between capitalism and communism under of the one single Bolshevik party with all people as \u201chired employees of the state\u201d who would \u201cunquestioningly obey the single will<\/em> of the leaders of labour\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating in the common work, the subordination would be something like the mild leadership of conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class-consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will<\/em> is absolutely necessary for the success of processes organized on the pattern of large-scale machine industry. \u2026Today, however, the same revolution demands \u2013 precisely in the interest of its development and consolidation, precisely in the interest of socialism \u2013 that the people unquestioningly obey the single will<\/em> of the leaders of labour.\u201d18<\/sup>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, Lenin\u2019s \u2018state-capitalist monopoly\u2019 in Russia and other countries, through distortion and subsidized sale of Marx Engels alongside Collected Works of Lenin and all wretched twentieth century \u2018communist\u2019 dictators,  became global official dogma. Doublespeak became the credo of all \u2018communist\u2019 parties of the world. This opened the great opportunity for all apologists of capitalism \u2013 left, right, centre or whatever \u2013 to fall in one column \u2013 some flattering while others condemning \u2013 to hide the truth about Marxian Materialist Conception of History. The mere prefix  \u2018communist\u2019, \u2018socialist\u2019, \u2018workers\u2019 and \u2018peoples\u2019 to any party, governing or opposing, passes with colossal propaganda that everything they utter and make is “Marxist” and when they overturn things that too is “Marxist”. All this Leninist pedigree must make Marx and Engels turn in their graves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy of the USSR, where commodity production and buying and selling of labour power always existed with all its paraphernalia \u2013 money (rouble), price categories including differential and extremely hierarchical wages, rationing, confiscation, taxes, profits partly disguised in the state budgets, so-called black markets, banking and suchlike \u2013 was undeniably capitalist. Its centralized planning under a totalitarian single party dictatorship succumbed to the sway of \u2018Law of value\u2019, neither limiting nor replacing it. Called \u2018communism\u2019 or \u2018socialism\u2019, it was actually capitalism with a terrifying strengthening of the state run by an all powerful bureaucracy disciplined under a \u201csingle-will\u201d, dictatorship of a tyrannically structured top-down hierarchical \u201cconspiratorial party\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Workers need to be led to socialism <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As early as in 1902 Lenin placed his position on record in his elitist and nefarious essay \u2013 What Is To Be Done?<\/em> Brushing aside vehement opposition within the party Lenin declared that workers by themselves were incapable of developing \u201cclass political consciousness\u201d; it must be brought to them \u201conly from without<\/em>, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers\u201d19 <\/sup>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals.\u201d 20<\/sup>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClass political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without<\/em>, that is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers.\u201d <\/sup>(Lenin\u2019s emphasis)21 <\/sup>   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe spontaneous working class movement by itself is able to create (and inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and working class trade unionist politics are precisely working class bourgeois politics\u201d22 <\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wrote that \u201ctalented leaders\u201d were not \u201cborn by hundreds\u201d23<\/sup>. So an \u201corganization of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who make revolutionary activity their profession\u201d24 <\/sup>and directed by \u201cthe \u201cdozen\u201d tried and talented leaders\u201d \u2026 having \u201ca committee of professional revolutionaries<\/em>\u201d25 <\/sup>\u2026 \u201ca dozen wise men\u201d26<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin directed and disciplined his party with this out-and-out anti-socialist and outrageous arrangement since the days of his What Is To Be Done?<\/em> In addition, he never abandoned this framework regarding the party organization. Lenin\u2019s theory and practice of the party was that it would be essentially \u201cconspiratorial\u201d having \u201ca strictly secret\u201d wing even when a party would be allowed to operate legally and openly. This theory ruled over the Bolsheviks and later over all Leninist pedigree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That it was so was further ratified in 1920 by Lenin\u2019s 21 conditions27 <\/sup>required to be fulfilled by any \u201ccommunist\u201d parties seeking affiliation to the Communist International or the Third International. All affiliates must adopt as prefix the same forename \u201cCommunist Party of\u2026\u201d and all matters including the party press \u201cmust be subordinated to the Party leadership\u201d elevated with \u201creliable communists\u201d \u2026 \u201ctested communists\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third condition goes on to say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn almost every country in Europe and America the class struggle is entering the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can place no trust in bourgeois legality. They have the obligation of setting up a parallel organizational apparatus which, at the decisive moment, can assist the Party to do its duty to the revolution. In every country where a state of siege or emergency laws deprive the Communists of the opportunity of carrying on all their work legally, it is absolutely necessary to combine legal and illegal activity.\u201d28<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parties must follow \u201cdemocratic centralism\u201d \u2026 \u201corganized in as centralist a manner as possible\u201d imposing \u201ciron discipline\u201d and \u201ctime to time undertake purges\u201d, held Lenin.29 <\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas, on the contrary, Marx and Engels completely trusted in the intellectual development of the working class which was sure to result from combined action and mutual discussion. In addition, we also learn from them another universal communist principle: \u201cThe Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.\u201d30<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They categorically acknowledged that they had learned socialism\/communism from within <\/em>the class. Methodologically, the Marxian revolutionary understanding goes that in class society class struggle is the motive force whereby \u201cthe proletariat can and must emancipate itself\u201d.31 <\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consistently since the 1840s Marx and Engels had insisted on this principle because it is from itself \u2013 \u201ca class which forms the majority of all members of society\u201d \u2013 that there \u201cemanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communist consciousness.\u201d32 <\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than bringing \u201cclass political consciousness\u201d to the workers, Marx and Engels acquired their political consciousness from workers, from the communist workers they met in Paris in the 1840s and from people such as Proudhon, Robert Owen and Weitling who were or had been manual workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us read Marx and Engels telling how they had learned communism\/socialism from within the sphere of relations involving working class\u2019 struggles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt goes without saying that besides the French and English socialists I have also used German socialist works,\u201d wrote Marx in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844<\/em>.33 <\/sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe French Communists could assist us in the first stages only of our development, and we soon found that we knew more than our teachers; but we shall have to learn a great deal yet from the English Socialists.\u201d34<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, Lenin\u2018s tactics of \u201cprofessional revolutionaries\u201d leading to bring socialism \u201conly from without\u201d via secrecy, conspiracy and insurrection was anything but Marxism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Leninist disregard for workers\u2019 intellectual capacity raised vanguardist contingents under a leader and his coterie to drive the \u201cmasses\u201d towards an uprising \u2013 to grab power and to hold on to it by hook or crook. Nevertheless, the \u201cmasses\u201d could not question why \u2013 they were only to do or die!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, whose famous account of the Bolshevik coup, Ten Days That Shook The World<\/em>, was commended in a foreword by Lenin, quotes Lenin as replying to this kind of criticism in a speech he made to the Congress of Peasants\u2019 Soviets on 27 November, 1917:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years<\/em>…The Socialist political party – this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative\u2026\u201d (Reed\u2019s emphasis and omissions) 35<\/sup> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compare this with a passage from the utopian communist, Weitling: \u201cto want to wait…until all are suitably enlightened would be to abandon the thing altogether!\u201d Not, of course, that it is a question of \u201call\u201d the workers needing to be socialists before there can be socialism. Marx, in rejecting the view that socialism could be established by some enlightened minority, was merely saying that a sufficient majority of workers would have to be socialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Reed also quoted Lenin speaking to the \u201chistoric\u201d October meeting of the Bolshevik leaders on the question of fixing the time of the uprising: \u201cWe must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets, so that we may say to it, \u2018Here is the power! What are you going to do with it?\u2019\u201d36<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On time, \u201chere\u201d the \u201cpower\u201d was, but what to do with it? Only the \u201ctalented leaders\u201d knew. According to Leninism, the \u201cmasses\u201d were to know things not by education, but by manipulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Marx and Engels, as also us, the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. Therefore, the class-conscious workers should organize themselves in an independent party and capture the state politically. Then they will do away with the division of society into antagonistic economic classes through conversion of the state\u2019s coercive features into agents of emancipation and merging its useful administrative functions (e.g., food, health, housing, ecology, etc.) into the democratic structure (local, regional and global) of classless society based on democratically administered universal ownership of productive and distributive resources. Once this happens, the state will become redundant. <\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Worker-peasant alliance<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1924 after Lenin\u2019s death Zinoviev said, \u201cThe question of the role of the peasantry \u2026 is the basic issue of Bolshevism, Leninism\u201d and that \u201cthe union of workers revolution with peasant war\u201d was Lenin\u2019s greatest discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To recognize the Bolshevik position on the peasant question with respect to their theory of revolution we have to analyse first their understanding of the character of the \u2018Russian Revolution\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the outset of the upcoming so-called \u2018Russian revolution\u2019 all Bolshevik leaders held in common that it would be a bourgeois<\/em> revolution. So the Bolsheviks had to deal with the question of the role of the proletariat in that revolution. What would be the tactics of the proletariat? How would the bourgeois revolution be turned into the proletarian revolution? The Menshevik mainstream, as well as the \u2018legal Marxists, envisaged that the proletariat would have to assist the bourgeoisie in the bourgeois revolution until completion of the tasks of the revolution, then as far as its own revolution was concerned they would have to wait until Russia\u2019s capitalist development had prepared  the material basis for it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1905 Lenin published a number of articles in Vperiod<\/em>, the Bolshevik organ, from January to May 1905 to explain his position. A few months later he synthesized his conclusions in Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution<\/em>, published in July 1905. In particular, Lenin\u2019s conclusion was: \u201cMarxists are absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution,\u201d37<\/sup>  but the bourgeoisie would not be \u201cfully consistent\u201d in the democratic revolution because of its fear of the proletariat; the happenings of the bourgeois revolutions of the 19th<\/sup> century, as generally stated by the Social-Democrats, have showed us that \u201cthe bourgeoisie betrays its own self, \u2026 betrays the cause of liberty, \u2026 is incapable of being consistently democratic. \u2026 The very position the bourgeoisie holds as a class in capitalist society inevitably leads to its inconsistency in a democratic revolution.\u201d38<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this point of view Lenin held that the Russian bourgeoisie would \u201cstrike huckster\u2019s bargain with tsarism\u201d39 <\/sup>and act against the \u2018consistent\u2019 bourgeois revolution. <\/sup>For this reason, the proletariat should not \u201ckeep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, [should] not \u2026 be indifferent to it, [should] not \u2026 allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, \u2026 take most energetic part in it, [should] \u2026 fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democratism, for the revolution to be carried to its conclusion.\u201d40<\/sup> Therefore, \u201cthe only force capable of gaining \u2018a decisive victory over tsarism\u2019 is the people<\/em>, i.e., the proletariat and the peasantry, \u2026 \u2018The revolution\u2019s decisive victory over tsarism\u2019 means the establishment of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.<\/em> \u2026 Without a dictatorship it is impossible to break down that resistance [from the landlords, the big bourgeoisie, and tsarism] and repeal counter-revolutionary attempts. But of course it will be a democratic, not a socialist dictatorship.\u201d41<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin summarized his \u201ctwo tactics\u201d as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe proletariat must carry the democratic revolution to completion, allying itself the mass of the peasantry in order to crush the aristocracy\u2019s resistance by force and paralyse the bourgeoisie\u2019s instability. The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, allying itself the mass of semi-proletarian elements of the population, so as to crush the bourgeoisie\u2019s resistance by force and paralyse the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.\u201d42<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenin\u2019s is a theory of dictatorship based on class collaboration. Yet that is one of the main pillars of Leninism. This throws overboard the fundamental Marxian position that all hitherto history since with the dissolution of the primitive communistic societies is the history of class-struggle and the present capitalist society is also a class society based on struggles between two great classes the collective capitalist class and the collective working class wherein the working class is the only revolutionary class today. The peasantry is a petty-capitalist reactionary class. Hence the Leninist theory of a unity between the working class and the peasantry is an oxymoron, a non-starter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engels had already described the fate of Thomas M\u00fcntzer, a 16th<\/sup> century communist who had come to power in the course of a peasant insurrection:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can<\/em> do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the classes is based every time. What he ought<\/em> to do, what his party demands of him, again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds himself in a dilemma. What he can<\/em> do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he ought<\/em> to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in this awkward position is irrevocably lost.\u201d 43<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He could have been writing about Lenin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marxian theory stands on the two-class edifice \u2013 the collective capitalist class versus the collective working class, wherein the respective classes embrace all their various sections. Just as the collective capitalist class includes the industrial, financial, commercial, landed, philanthropic and state capitalist sections, so also the collective working class includes all various industrial, financial, commercial, official, educational, professional, police and judiciary, military and agricultural workers. Therefore, when we talk of working class unity we mean it as a totality. So the Leninist conception of collaboration between wage workers and the poor peasants (\u201csemi-proletarian elements of the population\u201d) is false, hence ineffectual. It is un-Marxist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/sup>  Lenin, Selected Works<\/em>, Vol. 2, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1967, p. 47. Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1917\/tasks\/ch12.htm#v24zz99h-084-GUESS<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2<\/sup>  ibid., p. 342<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1917\/staterev\/ch05.htm#s4<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3 <\/sup><\/sup>Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme<\/em>, Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976, pp. 14-15 Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1875\/gotha\/index.htm<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 <\/sup><\/sup>http:\/\/libcom.org\/library\/critique-of-the-gotha-program-karl-marx<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also see: Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme<\/em>, Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976, p. 17<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5<\/sup>  Lenin, The <\/em>State and Revolution, <\/em>Selected Works, Vol. 2, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1967, p. 344 Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1917\/staterev\/ch05.htm#s4<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 <\/sup><\/sup>Lenin, Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It<\/em>, written September 10-14, 1917, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p.247) Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1917\/ichtci\/11.htm#v25zz99h-360<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7  <\/sup> <\/sup>Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?<\/em>, written October 1, 1917, Selected Works, Vol. 2, pp. 398-9 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1917\/oct\/01.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

8 <\/sup>  Marx & Engels, Collected Works<\/em>, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p.293 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1844\/manuscripts\/third.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9 <\/sup>  Marx, Capital<\/em>, <\/em>Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974, p.316 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1867-c1\/ch13.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 <\/sup>  Marx, Capital<\/em>, Vol. II, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974, p.100 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1885-c2\/ch03.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

11 <\/sup>  ibid., p.248 Also at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1885-c2\/ch13.htm\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

12 <\/sup>  Engels, Anti-D\u00fchring<\/em>, Moscow 1969, pp. 330-31 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1877\/anti-duhring\/ch24.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 <\/sup>  Marx Engels, Selected Correspondence<\/em>, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p. 64 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1852\/letters\/52_03_05.htm<\/u><\/a>  <\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

14 <\/sup>  Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme<\/em>, Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976, p. 28 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1875\/gotha\/ch04.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

15 <\/sup>  Engels, London, on the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Commune, March 18, 1891, Introduction<\/em>, The Civil War In France<\/em>, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1969, p. 189 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1871\/civil-war-france\/postscript.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

16 <\/sup> <\/strong> <\/strong>Engels, Trade Unions<\/em>, written on about May 20, 1881, Collected Works, 24, Moscow, pp. 397-88 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1881\/05\/28.htm#p2<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

17 <\/sup><\/sup>Lenin\u2019s Speech At The First All-Russia Congress Of Workers In Education And Socialist Culture<\/em>, July 31, 1919; Lenin<\/em>, Collected Works, 4th<\/sup> English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Vol. 29, p. 535, Published according to Pravda<\/em> text. Also see: http:\/\/www.marx2mao.net\/Lenin\/SW5C19.htm\/<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 <\/sup>  Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government<\/em>, written April 13-26, 1918, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p.673 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1918\/mar\/x03.htm#sec7<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

19<\/sup>  Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, <\/em>Selected Works, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1967, p.163 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1901\/witbd\/iii.htm<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

20<\/sup> Lenin, What Is To Be Done?<\/em>, Selected Works, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1967, p. 122; Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1901\/witbd\/ii.htm<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

21<\/sup> <\/sup>ibid., p. 163; Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1901\/witbd\/iii.htm<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

22<\/sup> ibid., p. 176; Also see: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1901\/witbd\/iii.htm<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

23 <\/sup>  ibid., p.197<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

24<\/sup>  ibid., p.189<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

25 <\/sup>  ibid., p.197<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

26<\/sup> ibid., p.199  <\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

27<\/sup> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twenty-one_Conditions<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

28<\/sup> http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Twenty-one_Conditions<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

29 <\/sup>  Full text including Lenin<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s foreword:<\/em>
<\/em>http:\/\/www.international-communist-party.org\/BasicTexts\/English\/20CoAdmi.htm<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

30 <\/sup>  Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party<\/em>, Progress Publisher, Moscow 1977, p. 74 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1848\/communist-manifesto\/ch04.htm<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

31 <\/sup>  Marx, The Holy Family<\/em>, Collected Works, Vol. 4, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p.37 Also at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1845\/holy-family\/ch04.htm\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

32 <\/sup>  Marx and Engels, The German Ideology<\/em>, Collected Works, Vol. 5, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1976, p.52<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33 <\/sup>  Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844<\/em>, Collected Works, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p.232 Also at:  http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1844\/epm\/preface.htm<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

34 <\/sup>  Engels, Progress of Social Reforms on the Continent<\/em>, written Oct-Nov, 1843, Collected Works, Vol. 3, Progress, 1975, p.407 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1843\/10\/23.htm<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

35<\/sup>  John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World<\/em>, Chapter XII: The Peasants’ Congress, see: http:\/\/en.wikisource.org\/wiki\/Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World\/Chapter_XII<\/u><\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

36<\/sup> <\/sup>op. cit., Chapter III: On the Eve, see: http:\/\/en.wikisource.org\/wiki\/Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World\/Chapter_III<\/u><\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

37 <\/sup>  Lenin, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,<\/em> Selected Works, Vol. 1, Progress, 1967, p.484 Also at: http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/lenin\/works\/1905\/tactics\/ch06.htm<\/u><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

38 <\/sup>  ibid., p.486-87<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

39 <\/sup>  ibid., p. 482<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

40 <\/sup>  ibid., p.488<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

41 <\/sup>  ibid., pp.491-2<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

42 <\/sup>  ibid., p.530, Lenin\u2019s emphasis  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

43<\/sup> <\/sup>http:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1850\/peasant-war-germany\/ch06.htm#6.1<\/u><\/a> <\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also see: Engels, The Peasant War in Germany<\/em>, written 1850, CW 10, Moscow, p.470 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Binay Sarkar,  World Socialist Party (India) 1. Claim that state capitalism is socialism Lenin arbitrarily created a so-called \u201cscientific distinction between socialism and communism\u201d: In the Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, written April 10, 1917, Lenin proclaimed: \u201cFrom capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social ownership of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3223,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions\/3223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}