The Foundations of Leninism

Contents

1. Introduction 5 min 7

   Stalin defines his subject: not Lenin’s philosophy but what Lenin added to Marxism. Leninism is neither a Russian application of Marxism nor a mere revival of the revolutionary Marxism of the 1840s, but “the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution”: the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution and of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its combative character comes from its origin in revolution and in the fight against the opportunism of the Second International.

2. 1 Historical Roots of Leninism 15 min 12

   Leninism arose in the age of imperialism, which sharpens three contradictions: labour against capital, imperialist power against imperialist power, and the colonies against the metropolises. Tsarist Russia concentrated all three, as an oppressive empire, a reserve of men and money for western capital and an ally in the partition of the East, and had a revolutionary proletariat allied with the peasantry. Its revolution therefore had to become anti-imperialist and proletarian, and Russia, like Germany in 1848, became the birthplace of the new doctrine.

3. 2 Method 18 min 15

   The method of Leninism was formed against the Second International, whose “orthodox” leaders had made peace with opportunism in the peaceful pre-war years. It demands that theory be tested in mass struggle, parties judged by deeds rather than resolutions, party work turned towards revolution, and mistakes openly criticised. Stalin applies it to three “dogmas”: that the proletariat must be a majority to take power, that it needs ready trained specialists, and that the political general strike is inadmissible, and to the betrayal of the Basle slogan “War against War”.

4. 3 Theory 41 min 29

   Theory matters above all for a vanguard party; the “theory of spontaneity”, of the Russian Economists and of the Second International’s faith in the forces of production, leaves the party trailing behind events. The theory of the proletarian revolution starts from the world imperialist system, which will break at its weakest link, as in Russia in 1917. The bourgeois-democratic revolution grows into the proletarian one, as Lenin argued from 1905, against Trotsky’s “permanent revolution”. In the revised second edition the victory of the revolution, and the building of a socialist society, are possible in one country, but the final victory of socialism needs revolution in several.

5. 4 The Dictatorship of the Proletariat 32 min 28

   Stalin presents the dictatorship of the proletariat as the core of Leninism. It is the instrument of the revolution: a long epoch of struggle against a bourgeoisie that remains stronger after its overthrow, through international capital, its skills and the small producers. It is the rule of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, “unrestricted by law, based upon force”, a democracy for the majority, born only by smashing the old state machine, which imperialism has made necessary even in Britain and America. Its form is the Soviet power, the successor of the Paris Commune.

6. 5 The Peasant Problem 32 min 16

   The peasant question is subsidiary to the dictatorship of the proletariat but vital to it. In Russia, unlike the West, the bourgeois revolution detached the peasants from the liberals: the four Dumas, the war and the Kerensky coalition taught them to follow the workers, first against tsarism, then for peace and land in October 1917. After the civil war, under the New Economic Policy, the peasants can be drawn into building socialism through co-operatives with state support, as Engels and Lenin foresaw.

7. 6 The National Question 25 min 18

   Leninism, Stalin argues, has widened the national question from the oppressed nations of Europe to the colonial peoples, made self-determination mean the right to secede, and tied national liberation to the proletarian revolution. Communists support national movements that weaken imperialism, whatever their leaders, and not those that strengthen it. The world is divided into oppressors and oppressed; the workers of oppressor nations must champion the right of secession, those of oppressed nations voluntary union, as the road to a free union of peoples such as the USSR.

8. 7 Strategy and Tactics 41 min 29

   Stalin defines strategy and tactics as the science of leading the proletarian struggle, borrowing the distinction from military science. He divides the Russian revolution into phases (1903–17, February to October 1917, and after October), each with its own aim, main forces, reserves and line of attack. He sets out rules for using direct and indirect reserves, for timing the decisive blow and for retreating in good order, with Brest-Litovsk as the model. Tactics, he argues, means finding the decisive link in the chain, such as Iskra in 1900 or commerce under NEP. He closes by contrasting the reformist and the revolutionary use of reforms.

9. 8 The Party 38 min 23

   Stalin argues that the parties of the Second International, built for parliamentary routine, could not lead a revolution, and that a new kind of party was needed. He gives it six features: it is the vanguard of the working class; its organised detachment; the highest form of class organisation, leading the unions and other bodies; the instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat; a unity of will that forbids fractions, as the Tenth Congress resolved in 1921; and a party that grows stronger by purging itself of opportunists.

10. 9 Style in Work 6 min 7

    A short closing section on the “Leninist style in work”. Stalin says it combines two things: revolutionary zeal, inspired by the Russian spirit, which breaks with routine and tradition, and businesslike practicality, inspired by the American spirit, which carries a task through to completion. Each alone degenerates: zeal into revolutionary phrase-making and faith in paper decrees, which Lenin called “communist vanity”, and practicality into narrow, unprincipled commercialism. Only their union makes the finished type of Leninist worker.