The Too fam regime. It means full and unfettered enjoyment of freedom of the press, freedom of association and of demonstration for all and every group of toilers (and not only for a single party), as well as the material means to enjoy these freedoms. Even for the bourgeois classes, Lenin did not in principle rule out the right to enjoy democratic liberties under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but neither was he ready to guarantee this to them. In his opinion, this was a matter of relationship of forces, i.e. of the strength and violence of counter-revolutionary opposition to the victorious working class. As for the leading role of the party inside the Soviet institutions, this was for Lenin strictly a matter of political persuasion, of capacity to win the allegiance of the majority, and not at all a matter of systematic repression of all contending tendencies (Lenin admitted the necessity of such repression only under exceptional circumstances of civil war, when most of these tendencies were involved in open military violence against the revolutionary government).
5. The International The theory of internationalism, the International being the only organisational form for the proletarian vanguard and for the workers states congruent with the needs of world economy and toiling mankind, produced by imperialism. That's why Lenin proclaims the need for a Third nternational the very day he recognise:
he Second International is dead. That' why he remained till his end a passionate defender of the right of self-determination of all nations. That is why he proclaimed the necessity of the independence of the Communist International from the Soviet State: no manoeuvre of that state (e.g. concluding a truce with German imperialism; making an alliance with the Kemalist state in Turkev, etc.) should imply any change of orientation by the Communist International from its line of preparing, favouring and assuring the best possible conditions for victory of proletarian revolutionary struggles everywhere. For the same reason, he opposed any attempt at russification of the non-Russian soviet republics, and considered the attitude of communists in imperialist countries towards national-liberation movements in the countries oppressed by their own bourgeoisie as a key-stone of internationalism.
6. Role of the Party The theory of the political centralisation, through the revolutionary vanguard. party, of all progressive democratic mass demands and mass movements. into a single flow towards a socialist revolution.
-While Lenin developed that concept at a time when he did not yet accept th idea of the Russian revolution growing uninterruptedly over into a socialist revolution, he maintained it and extended it during the founding years of the Communist International, when he based all his thinking upon the strategy towards socialist world revolution.
This concept flows from a dialectical understanding of the stratification of the working class and the toiling masses into layers with different levels of consciousness and with different immediate interests, which have all to be united (inasmuch as they don't stand for counter-revolutionary causes) in order to make a mass revolution possible. It also flows from a deep understanding of the anti-democratic and reactionary nature of imperialism, which not only does countries themselves the very conquests of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the past.
But contrary to opportunists of all kinds, Lenin's concept of uniting the struggle for democratic and the struggle for transitional demands did not mean in any way a dismissal or a subordination of the socialist goal to the wishes or prejudices of temporary "allies"; on the contrary, it was based on the firm belief that only the victorious socialist revolution could bring about a final and definite triumph of these democratic goals.
7. Democratic Centralism The theory of the inner-party regime based upon democratic centralism, which does not only mean majority rule, the najority decisions, but also . practic leed of minorities to apply l democratic rights of discussion inside the party, the right to form tendencies, to submit collective platforms to party congresses, to have them discussed on qual footing with the leadersh roposals before congresses, to full an impartial information of the membership about political differences which crop up in the organisation, etc., etc. This was the way the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International functioned in Lenin's lifetime. It is indicative of the gulf which separates Leninism from the ureaucratic centralism applied today ir the USSR and Eastern Europe that the hesitant attempt of the Czechoslovak CP leadership to return in 1968 to some of these Leninist norms in a new draft statute for the XIth Congress of the Party was seized upon furiously as a sign of "rightist anti-socialist tendencies" inside that party by Brezhnev & Co Already before Lenin's death, many if not all, of these basic tenets of Leninism were beginning to be challenged by the new Stalinist leadership inside the CPSU and the Communist International. Lenin's last struggle was a desperate attempt to stop this perversion of his doctrine. This revisionism was, obviously, not a purely ideological phenomenon. It reflected a deep-going social shift inside Russian post-revolutionary society and inside the On the basis of the growing passivity of the Russian working classresulting from the backwardness of the country and from the temporary retreat of work revolution a privileged bureaucrati layer monopolised the exercise of powe and the administration of the state and the economy. It ruthlessly subordinated the party into an apparatus defending its own particular interests, if necessary against the historic and immediate interests of world revolution and of the Russian working class itself. Stalinism was the only ideological expression of the rise of that parasitic caste. It is the very antithesis of Leninism, the proletarian doctrine of socialist revolution.
Lenin's Heritage The Left Opposition around Trotsky, and later the Fourth International, maintained and enriched the heritage of Leninism in the years of reaction and of receding world revolution. These are nov superseded again by a new epoch of rising world revolution. A growing number of workers, revolutionary students and intellectuals, and poor easants, understand the validity o eninism and participate in the buildin of new revolutionary parties on a world wide basis. The future belongs to Leninism. That's why it belongs to the Rush Intomation.
tradition and discovering there a non-existing turn, it is not a question of searching in of fact, with each new task and at each new to tradition never decided anything. As a matter adopted, provoked struggles. The simple appeal Bolshevism in situations that differed in each case. spirit of initiative, of the methods of independent, critical application, marked by the these facts and turns were the result of the by pre-October Marxism or Bolshevism. All Every one of these decisions, before being or could have been foreseen or predetermined NEP, nor the State Planning Commission, were system of requisitioning food products, nor the creation of a regular peasant army, nor the proletarian revolution. was the first to be pushed upon the road of the politics extremely contradictory phenomena, that Russia, joining in its economy and its belated "democracy". bourgeois society, an expression adapted to a Neither October, nor Brest-Litovsk, nor the remains solely the expression of the needs of pattern, and Menshevik Marxism was and revolutionary struggle but from a mechanical proletariat, flowing not from the course of the By means of it, limits were fixed for the absolute law which was, at bottom, at the basis of the " proposition an effort was made to set up an image of their future. Out of this conditional to a certain extent, the backward countries the than one occasion. illumined theoretically and generalised on more Lenin gave us the finest models and which he self-assured policy of brusque turns of which the method that determines that courageous, Marx said that the advanced countries show, this union of the peculiarities of the epoch and an exceptional historical epoch. It is precisely application of this method in the conditions of decisions prepared in advance. Leninism is the political orientation, and not a mass of Marxism is a method of historical analysis, or "philosophy" of Russian Menshevism. Soviet bureaucracy. revolutionary Marxists against the reactionary Revolution and which is continued today by marked a dividing line in the Russian . In reality, it turned out The New Course precipitated a struggle which the Revolution was moving. The publication of closest comrades about the direction in which previously expressed only to Lenin and his which first revealed the concern he had extract from Trotsky's book The New Course strength in the Soviet party and state. This is an the service of a bureaucratic power growing in transformed into a series of lifeless formulae at when his revolutionary heritage was being Leninism in 1923 when Lenin was dying and Trotsky wrote this passionate defence of and quotations.
to the new orientation.
good and aye.
theoretical slovenliness. be reconciled with ideological superficiality and accidental quotation. Least of all can Leninism substitution of a formal reference or of an in this that tradition consists, and not in the Leninion, on the other hand, seeks to pose and leans toward the line of least resistance. political instinct of an inferior type. It always sometimes even sensational ones. But it is a flair. The latter may yield ephemeral successes, sensation in physical labour. But revolutionary in the social realm, is equivalent to the muscular sense cannot be confused with demagogical sharpened by reflection and experience which Leninism presupposes a revolutionary sense Leninist truth is always concrete! the formula was introduced as a lever. The each of them to the concrete reality in which passage to another, but the real relationship of seen is not the formal relationship of one seem to be contradictory. But what must be hundreds of passages which, formally speaking, As a system or revolutionary action, not be hard to find in Lenin dozens and grasp the reality and to dominate it. It would it is always the tool that makes it possible to the formula never stands higher than the reality: suited for every possible case, because for Lenin bound by precedent, purely formal references free from conservative retrospection, from being sharply: Leninism consists in being courageously enriching tradition. It may even be put more suitable to the situation and, by doing so, of the party to find by oneself a new solution reply, but of profiting from all the experience behind, to the new tasks, to the new conditions, reality the empty husk of a period just left tendency to counterpose the "old traditions", and what is called Old Bolshevism, but is in conservative resistance betrays a natural new turn, a bold about-face, creative initiative, Every time objective conditions demand a nothing more than interpreters appointed for ideological courage into a canon which demands application initiative, critical thinking and Leninism from a method demanding for its life of the party and to the doctrinal training of the youth, it is certainly the transformation of likely to strike a mortal blow to the spiritual needs and tasks. And if there is one thing inclined it is to set formal tradition against new needs emanating from the ranks and the more intrinsic importance, the slower it reacts to more imbued it is with the feeling of its own The more ingrown the party apparatus, the constantly sharpened and applied. It is precisely The weapon of Marxian investigation must be of the material bases of the political process. theoretical breadth, without a critical analysis Leninism cannot be conceived of without Lenin cannot be chopped up into quotations Leninism biographical character. solving this question, but in information...of a question, not in the methods of posing and line should be sought not in the essence of each same formulae, according to which the right revolutionary party by the repetition of the pathetic to try to hypnotise a great official bureaucratism. It is ridiculous and revolutionary tradition and transform it into these traditions, is to scoff at genuine the words and thoughts of the interpreters of theoretical guarantee of the infallibility of all struggle, it takes the bull by the horns. To make out of the tradition of Leninism a supra- formalism, canon, nor bureaucratism. In the but it does not contain so much as a hint of pseudo-grandeur! is hard to juxtapose, even on paper, panic and danger, demagogy easily dissolves into panic. It future, weakens the party's self-confidence. of the hour, it inevitably undermines the next or another simplified solution of the difficulties party because it is deceitful: by presenting one irreconcilable with the spirit of a revolutionary Swept by the wind and gripped by a serious of fighters in and for action. Demagogy is party has its own morality, which is the bond arrogance and bureaucratic cynicism. A mass party. Nothing is so alien to it as functionary- revolutionary, of mass action and the mass the morality, not formal but genuinely be an irremediable mistake. Leninism includes Leninism signifies that "anything goes" would revolutionary action. But to believe that conservatism attempting to bind the will to doctrinalism, from all forms of intellectual formalistic prejudices, from moralising pretext of saving the tradition of the party. justification of yesterday's mistakes on the the passive loss of time, with the haughty behind the screen of hollow agitationalism, with irreconcilable with the flight from reality Leninism is genuine freedom from action. Precisely because of this it is reality, from the standpoint of revolutionary qualitative and quantitative appreciation of ment, in lulling critical thought to sleep. the problems, in creating an illusory appease- its demagogical counterpart consists in evading problems, to overcome the principal obstacles; resolve the fundamental revolutionary Leninism is, first of all, realism, the highest admits of no fiction, no bubble-blowing, no toward the party and the working class. It Leninism is supreme revolutionary honesty of Leninist politics. But at the same time, Victorious war cunning is a constituent element fuge, without deception of the enemy. impossible without cunning, without subter- Leninism is warlike from head to foot. War is Leninism is orthodox, obdurate, irreducible,
ECONOMISM & SOCIAL DEMOCRACY Published in Stuttgart in March 1902, What is • occlooment of Lenin's ideas on the wat TRADE UNION CONSCIOUSNESS & CEVULTUNARY CONSCIO ISNEC It would produce essentially defensive politics.
wever; politics which were capable of being bourgeoisie. In Britain we Party was such a realisation by the rking class that they had to intervene at bonnical neid to detend thei lustrial rights. But this type of political interon is a far cry from revolutionary politic • Irom the independent nolities of of the masses, tailing the abipared thei WOrKINE CIRSS MOVE skrus abstraction ment msicad or ocine in its vanguard. hey were in race renouncine socialism and embracing cut needed specte be distracted retormis untonist Dolties. there were of course qualicis Derween inemsa ves and lenin on the guestion of organisation, for an emphasis on the cant and most typical events nationally conomic struggle did not need a strong party. and internationally 1 argued that it was necessary for th mell senate, but to bro in the ther manow is acumucs, to compal 1sarsmn 1n all п ворсса Leum wanice a broad poutica inasmuch as Inis onoreesion attects he most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as • manticsis 1ISCIl In the most varied soneres o ate and accon-vocational, civic, personal tily, religious, scientific, etc. ete. -is it i control. It is, however dent that we shall not be fulfilling our structure of the political exposure of the autocracy in all formist politics, to build an organisation i raising its nose above the grim dail taking power; and its in belping to build this consciousness of the working class and changes Pm unc vanguard sectors. indeed one of the revolutionary organisation that the tasks of the methods by which the bureaucratic decay in mcmirentsia uc. A structure nas its own lorid the Soviet Union was accomplished was not by which is why it is lane lo talk of the betraya the restriction of membership of the or socialism Dy the Labour Party. for it wasn" Communist Party but by a floodin constructed with the aim of taking power arty with new recruits by Stalin, which altere the nature of the party THE COLLENEYE ORGANISAR The closing sections of What is to be Done?
against a background where there were many In ate nepaper on. Often for them bit sary conclusions There are a great number pened to a party inesecuon is interestine I as a combat party, an organisation and its press. stan and Japanese tant not to transfer this debate communist Tarues to name two more recen the context in which it xamples. The bourgeoisie will adopt whatever orm nouns, nowever. th neans necessary to defend its dictatorship over dvocates of local newspape the proletariat. "Western democracy" far from argued that what the working class needed being the essence of its rule is just a form. The locality because this is what wind be of details of what was happening in their evolutionary party must be prepared te counter the worst that the capitalists can offe and must be organised as a combat party to шістсо то шет. ід доотовсп accordec wel totally involved in the ongoing economic witn unc economists perspective or being democracy to reveal naked bourgeois repressive counter any throwine aside or the vail of context of, of real political trust within the democni mmon poitical purpose san ideas ot democrac Papan are twe or tae proictar riet democracy, not parliamentary democrac otal agreement affecting every sphere of it xistence. It is true therefore that Lenini organisational forms are not democratic in the itsell, a moral value. Proletarian democracy is simply the best method for the can liberate itself by its own spontaneous rEs in a primeval force thrust 302150 ime. The first parts of What is to be Do ontain a part answer to this objection. Th apon the working class as undifferentiated. Bureaucracy is of course an ever-present danger, m unc same way as ccleat Dy ine lorces of reachon is a danger. Inal cannot be an excuse not to struggie, nowever. or to nce the bert. weapons in the struggle and one oicthoce ie the Leninise torm ol oreanisation. it would be nute wrong, too, to paint a picture of that form of organisation leading inevitably to bureaucratic THE ENGLISH PROLETARIAT In fact the situation uch more could be achieved by a текотнолагу ила wowd be revommonary Left to mune toe of spontaneous upsurges of Jeenng an organisation must de built strong enough to know how to retreat as well as how to advance, ana strone enourn to counter airiluston the revolutionary Left, especially the studen Left, fear this organisation, which would in faci he bourgeoisie by equating organisation ivit ureaucracy, which if it were a true equatio Dave Kendall
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conter dary evape with would be sinn relective ory neer. the debate took place
su the other objection to Leninist forms of (rean Eiberate iself by its own spontineios.
med. Theers of i be te admire teche ally heory that sociatism could be achieved by e