The Foundations of Leninism
7. Strategy and Tactics
Section summary
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.
This topic will be considered under six heads: a. strategy and tactics as the science of the leadership of the proletarian class struggle; b. strategy and the phases of the revolution; c. tactics and the ebb and flow of the movement; d. strategical leadership; e. tactical leadership; f. reformism and revolutionism.
a. Strategy and Tactics as the Science of the Leadership of the Proletarian Class Struggle
The period during which the Second International was dominant was, mainly, one when the proletarian forces were being marshalled and instructed in a comparatively tranquil time. The class struggle was being carried on, for the most part, within the walls of parliament. Great clashes between the contending classes, the preparation of the proletariat for revolutionary campaigns, methods of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat—were not topics of discussion. The task of leadership was limited to the utilisation of all the available constitutional and lawful methods for marshalling and training the proletarian army, within the confines of a system where the proletariat was (and was presumably destined to remain) nothing more than the electoral foundation of a parliamentary opposition. Obviously, during this period, and while such a conception of the mission of the proletariat was dominant, there could be no question of systematising proletarian strategy or elaborating proletarian tactics; there could be nothing more than detached thoughts about these matters, nothing more than isolated fragments of strategy and tactics.
The fatal error of the Second International was, not that for a time it concentrated its energies upon the development of the parliamentary form of the class struggle, but that it overestimated the importance of parliamentarism, and regarded parliamentarism as a practically exclusive and all-sufficient method—with the result that, when the period of open revolutionary conflicts began, and when the question of extra-parliamentary forms of struggle became urgent, the parties affiliated to the Second International jibbed, refused the leap, would not face the new tasks.
Not until the next phase, the phase of direct action, of proletarian revolution, when the overthrow of the bourgeoisie had become a question of practical politics, did the problem of finding reserves for the proletarian army (strategy) become actual, and the problem of the organisation of that army whether on the parliamentary or on the extraparliamentary field (tactics) clearly demand a solution. Not until this phase had begun, could proletarian strategy be systematised and proletarian tactics be elaborated.
It was now that Lenin disinterred Marx’s and Engels’ masterly ideas on strategy and tactics, ideas which the opportunists of the Second International had buried out of sight. Lenin was not content with a mere reiteration of his predecessors’ words. He developed what they had said, added fresh thoughts of his own, and unified the whole into a system of rules and precepts for the conduct of the proletarian class war. Thus Lenin’s booklets, What is to be done?, Two Tactics, Imperialism, The State and Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and Kautsky the Renegade, and Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, are invaluable contributions to the Marxist revolutionary arsenal. Leninist strategy and tactics are the science of the leadership of the revolutionary proletarian struggle.
b. Strategy and the Phases of the Revolution
Strategy is the determination of the direction of the main proletarian onslaught in this or that phase of the revolution; the elaboration of the best plan for the distribution of the revolutionary forces (the main reserves and the secondary reserves), and the endeavour to carry out this plan during the whole period of this or that phase of the revolution.
The Russian revolution passed through its first phase from 1903 to the beginning of March 1917 (new style); its second phase between March 1917 and the beginning of November 1917; to enter upon its third phase with the October (November) revolution of that year. Each of these three phases had its appropriate strategy.
Chief line of attack: isolation of the bourgeois liberals (monarchists), who were trying to secure the support of the peasantry and to arrest the progress of the revolution by coming to terms with tsarism.
Plan for the distribution of the revolutionary forces: an alliance between the workers and the peasants.
The proletariat must push the democratic revolution through to an end, inducing the mass of the peasantry to join forces with the workers, in order to break the power of the autocracy and to overcome the vacillations of the bourgeoisie. (Works, Russian edition, vol. vi., p. 371.)
Aim: the overthrow of imperialism in Russia and the withdrawal from participation in the imperialist war.
Chief line of attack: isolation of the petty-bourgeois democrats (the mensheviks and the essers), who were trying to win over the labouring masses of the peasants and to stop the revolution by coming to terms with imperialism.
Plan for the distribution of the revolutionary forces: an alliance between the proletariat and the poorest peasants.
The proletariat must push the socialist revolution through to an end, inducing the mass of the semi-proletarian elements to join forces with the proletariat, in order to break the power of the bourgeoisie and to overcome the vacillations of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. (Works, Russian edition, vol. vi.)
Aim: the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, where it could be used as a fulcrum for the overthrow of imperialism in all countries. This revolution transcends the limits of one country, and begins the epoch of the world revolution.
Essential force of the revolution: the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country, and the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in all countries.
Chief reserves: the semi-proletarian and petty-bourgeois masses in the highly developed countries, the nationalist (liberationist) movements in colonial and dependent lands.
Chief line of attack: isolation of the petty-bourgeois democracy; isolation of the parties affiliated to the Second International, whose policy it is to come to terms with imperialism.
Plan for the distribution of the revolutionary forces: an alliance between the proletarian revolution and the nationalist (liberationist) movements in colonial and dependent lands.
Strategy is concerned with the essential forces of the revolution and with its reserves. It changes as the revolution moves on from one phase to the next, but remains unchanged in its principles throughout any one phase.
c. Tactics and the Ebb and Flow of the Movement
Tactic is the determination of the line to be taken by the proletariat during a comparatively short period of the ebb or flow of the movement, of advance or retreat of the revolution; the maintenance of this line by the substitution of new forms of struggle and organisation for those that have become out of date, or by the discovery of new watchwords, or by a combination of new methods with old, etc. Whereas strategy is concerned with such wide purposes as the winning of the war against tsarism or the bourgeoisie, tactic has a narrower aim. Tactic is concerned, not with the war as a whole, but with the fighting of this or that campaign, with the gaining of this or that victory which may be essential during a particular period of the general revolutionary advance or withdrawal. Tactics are thus parts of strategy, and subordinate thereto.
Tactics vary according as the movement is flowing or ebbing. During the first phase of the Russian revolution, for instance, between 1903 and the revolution of February (March) 1917, there was no change in general strategical plan, though there were several changes in tactics.
From 1903 to 1905, a period of general advance, the Party tactic took the form of an offensive. There were local strikes, directed towards political ends; political demonstrations; a political general strike; boycott of the duma; risings; revolutionary war-cries—such were the changing forms of struggle, which demanded correspondingly different forms of organisation. Factory and workshop committees, committees of revolutionary peasants, strike committees, soviets of workers’ deputies, a workers’ party carrying on more or less open agitation—such were the forms of organisation during this period.
From 1907 to 1912, the Party tactic had to be one of withdrawal, for the revolutionary movement was in a declining phase, a phase of ebb. The forms of organisation, too, had to be appropriately modified: participation in the duma, instead of boycott of the duma; parliamentary action, instead of direct action; local and partial strikes for purely industrial ends, instead of the general strike for political ends; absolute inaction, even, at times. Of course during this period the Party had to work underground; revolutionary mass organisations had to be replaced by educational and cultural societies, cooperatives, friendly societies, and other “legal and constitutional” bodies.
In like manner during the second phase of the revolution, and yet again during the third phase, there were frequent changes in tactics, whilst—throughout each phase—there was no change in strategy.
Tactics are concerned with the methods of proletarian struggle and the forms of proletarian organisation, and with the modifications and combinations of these. That is why, in a given phase of the revolution, tactics can change repeatedly, according -as the revolutionary tide is ebbing or flowing, according as the revolutionary movement is advancing or receding.
d. Strategical Leadership
4. The conquests and achievements of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat may temporarily renounce one of these conquests or achievements, in order to buy off a powerful adversary or secure a respite.
1. Antagonisms and conflicts between non-proletarian classes of one’s own country, which the proletariat can turn to account in order to weaken an adversary or strengthen its own reserves.
2. Antagonisms, conflicts, and wars (imperialist war, for instance) between capitalist States hostile to the proletarian State, disputes which the proletariat can turn to account for its own purposes—maybe an offensive, maybe manoeuvres to cover an enforced retreat.
The importance of the direct reserves is self-evident. The importance of the indirect reserves may be less obvious, though they are sometimes of very great moment to the cause of the revolution. Incontestable, for example, is the great importance of the quarrel which took place, during and after the first revolution, between the petty-bourgeois democrats (the essers) and the monarchist bourgeois liberals (the cadets). Unquestionably, this dispute helped to free the peasants from bourgeois influences. Even more obvious is the enormous importance of the war to the death among the chief groups of imperialists at the time of the October revolution. Their quarrels made it impossible for them to concentrate their forces against the young Soviet power, which was thus enabled to organise its strength, consolidate its position, and prepare to crush Kolchak and Denikin. To-day, when the antagonisms between the imperialist groups are becoming intensified to a degree which will make a new war inevitable, these indirect reserves grow ever more important to the proletariat.
The function of strategy consists in the right application and utilisation of the various reserves in such a way as to ensure that, during a particular phase of the revolution, there shall be an effective advance towards the goal of the revolution in that phase.
1. The main forces of the revolution must, at the decisive moment, be concentrated for an attack on the enemy’s most vulnerable spot, at a moment when conditions are ripe for revolution, when a general offensive can go ahead with full steam, when armed insurrection is imminent, and when the calling of all the reserves into the fighting line is an indispensable preliminary to success. Consider, for example, the strategy from April to October (old style) 1917. Unquestionably, throughout this period the enemy’s most vulnerable point was the war. The matter was fundamental, and it was one which made it possible for the Party to gather the whole population round the proletarian vanguard. At this time, therefore, the Party strategy was, having schooled the vanguard at street-corner meetings and in manifestations and demonstrations, to bring the reserves into action through the instrumentality of the Soviets at the rear and the soldiers’ committees on the imperialist fighting front. The course of the revolution showed that this strategy was sound.
Lenin, paraphrasing the well-known utterances of Marx and Engels concerning insurrection, writes as follows about this strategical utilisation of the forces of the revolution:
Never play with insurrection; but, having begun one, make up your mind to go through with it to the end. At the right place, and when the time is ripe, assemble forces greatly outnumbering those of the enemy—for otherwise the latter, better prepared and better organised, will annihilate the insurgents. Once the rising has begun, it is essential to act with the utmost resoluteness, and, without fail and unconditionally, to assume the offensive. “A defensive attitude is fatal to an armed rising.” We must try to take the enemy by surprise, to seize the moment when his forces are dispersed. We must endeavour to gain some success, however small, day by day (hour by hour, even, if we are operating in a town), so that at all costs we may maintain a superior “morale”. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xiv., part II., p. 270.)
2. The moment for the decisive blow, for raising the standard of revolt, must be carefully chosen. This must be when matters have reached a climax, when the vanguard is ready to fight to the bitter end, when the reserves will not hesitate to rally to the support of the vanguard, and when disorder is paramount in the ranks of the enemy. In this connexion, Lenin writes:
We may consider that the time is ripe for the decisive struggle: when all the class forces arrayed against us are in a state of confusion, are sufficiently embroiled one with another, have been sufficiently weakened in combats for which their strength is inadequate; when all the vacillating, unsteady, unstable intermediate elements (the petty bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeois democracy, in contradistinction to the bourgeoisie) have exposed themselves enough before the people, have made a sufficient parade of their utter bankruptcy; when there has arisen and spread widely among the proletariat a strong feeling in favour of decisive and unhesitatingly bold revolutionary action against the bourgeoisie. Then the time is ripe for revolution. Then, if we have kept good account of the before-mentioned conditions, and have chosen our moment well, our victory is assured. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii.)
A failure to study the conditions carefully may lead to either of two serious blunders. The Party may lag behind the movement; or it may run on far in advance of the movement, thus risking a setback. As an example of the injudicious choice of the moment may be mentioned the desire of some of the comrades to begin a rising in August 1917 by breaking up the Democratic Conference—at a time when the soviets were still in a vacillating mood, when the soldiers at the front had not yet made up their minds, and before the reserve forces were ready and willing to support the vanguard.
3. Once a line of action has been adopted, it must be followed unerringly to the goal, regardless of hindrances and complications. This is necessary to ensure that the vanguard shall not lose sight of the essential aim of the struggle, and that the masses shall not stray into devious paths, but shall march straight forward towards the goal and consolidate their forces in support of the vanguard. Unless this condition is fulfilled, there will be serious danger that the movement may get (as sailors say of a ship) off its course. As an example I may mention the mistake made immediately after the Democratic Conference, when our Party decided to participate in the Constituent Assembly. The Party apparently forgot for the moment that the Constituent Assembly embodied an attempt by the bourgeoisie to switch the country off the road of the soviets and on to the road of bourgeois parliamentarism. It forgot that participation in the Constituent Assembly could not fail to confuse the issues, to mislead the workers and peasants who were carrying on a revolutionary campaign under the watchword “All power to the Soviets’. This mistake was rectified when the bolsheviks decided to withdraw from the Constituent Assembly.
4. The reserves must be handled in such a way as to safeguard an orderly retreat should the enemy be very powerful, should a withdrawal be inevitable, should it be obviously undesirable to accept the enemy’s offer of battle, should retreat be the only way whereby (in the circumstances) the vanguard can escape destruction and keep the reserves at its disposal. In this connexion, Lenin writes:
Revolutionary parties must go on learning. They have learned how to attack. Now it is time for them to realise that this knowledge must be supplemented by acquiring a knowledge of how best to retreat. We have got to understand (and a revolutionary class learns this by bitter experience) that victory can only be won by those who have learned the proper method both of advance and of retreat. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 121.)
The object of such strategy is to gain time, to scatter the forces of the enemy while consolidating our own for a future advance.
The peace of Brest-Litovsk is a model instance of such strategy. This peace enabled the Party to gain time, to take advantage of the dissensions in the imperialist camp, to disintegrate the enemy forces, to retain the support of the peasants, and to gather strength for an attack on Kolchak and Denikin. In the days of Brest-Litovsk, Lenin wrote:
By concluding a separate peace, we free ourselves as far as is possible at the present moment from both the contending imperialist groups, turning their mutual hostilities to our own account, taking advantage of the state of warfare between them which prevents their joining forces against us, thus freeing ourselves for a time so that we can further and consolidate the socialist revolution. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xv., pp. 68-69.)
Even the dullest have now come to see that the peace of Brest- Litovsk was a concession which strengthened us while it disintegrated the forces of international imperialism. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xviii., part I., p. 355.)
e. Tactical Leadership
Tactical leadership is a part of strategical leadership, subordinated to the tasks and needs of the latter. Its aim is to ensure the control of all the forms of proletarian struggle and organisation, and their right utilisation in such a way that in the given situation the best possible results shall be obtained for the promotion of the strategical victory.
The main conditions requisite for the satisfactory utilisation of all the forms of proletarian organisation and struggle are as follows:
1. We must bring to the front those forms of struggle and organisation which are best suited to the condition of the movement at the time, to its ebb or its flow as the case may be; those which are best fitted to mobilise the masses and to distribute them conveniently along the revolutionary front.
It does not suffice that the vanguard should realise the impossibility of maintaining the old order and the need for its overthrow. The masses, likewise, the millionfold masses, must come to understand this need, and must show themselves ready and willing to rally to the support of the vanguard. But such a thoughtful insight can only be acquired by the masses in the school of personal experience. Our task is to see that the masses shall be provided with opportunities for the acquirement of such an understanding, that they shall be brought to realise the inevitability of the overthrow of the old order, that we shall put forward methods of struggle and forms of organisation which shall permit the masses to learn from experience the truth and correctness of our revolutionary watchwords.
The vanguard would have become severed from the working class, and the latter would have lost touch with the masses, had not the bolsheviks decided to take part in the duma, to carry on the agitation within its walls, to concentrate their forces on parliamentary action in order to show the masses the utter futility of the duma, the falseness of the cadets’ promises, the impossibility of a compromise with tsardom, and the need for an alliance between the peasantry and the working class. Had the masses lacked this experience during the period when the duma functioned, it would have been impossible to unmask the cadets, and to secure the leadership in the hands of the proletariat.
The tactics of the otzovists (“abstentionists”), who demanded the withdrawal of the social-democratic fraction from the duma, thereby repudiating parliamentary action, gave rise to the danger of detaching the vanguard from its countless reserves. .
Again, the vanguard would have alienated itself from the working class, and the latter would have forfeited its influence on the peasants and the soldiers, if the Party had followed the lead of the left-wing communists who advocated a rising in April 1917, before the mensheviks and the social revolutionaries had discredited themselves in the eyes of the workers by showing themselves to be partisans of the war and of imperialism, before the masses had learned to their sorrow how lying were the utterances of menshevik and social revolutionary alike concerning peace, land, and liberty. Had the masses been deprived of the experience of the Kerensky regime, the mensheviks and the essers would not have become isolated from the masses, and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship would have been impossible. The only correct tactic in the circumstances was to lay bare the errors of the petty-bourgeois parties and to carry on an open struggle within the soviets.
The tactics of the left-wing communists threatened to deprive the Party of its position as leader of the proletarian revolution, and to make it a mere handful of futile conspirators having no foothold in reality.
A vanguard alone will not lead to victory. To hurl the vanguard into the fray before the masses are ready to support it, or, at least, are willing to remain neutral, would not only be the height of folly but a crime. Agitation and propaganda do not suffice to bring the masses to a suitable frame of mind. They need also to be schooled by political experience. This is the law which lies at the root of all far-reaching revolutions, a law which has been confirmed in a striking manner both in Russia and in Germany. The Russian masses, uneducated, often illiterate, and the German masses, whose education and culture are at such an incomparably higher level, had each in turn to learn by bitter experience all the powerlessness, the listlessness, the helplessness, the servility of the governments carried on by the leaders of the Second International —henchmen of the bourgeoisie. The masses had to learn by experience that either of two dictatorships was inevitable: the dictatorship of the ultra-reactionaries (such as Korniloff in Russia and Kapp and Co. in Germany), or the dictatorship of the proletariat as a definite step on the road to communism. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 173.)
2. We must find just that one particular link in the chain of events, the possession of which at a given moment will render us masters of the whole chain, and will place us in a position to prepare for a strategical victory.
From among all the tasks confronting the Party we have to choose the one which is of the most immediate importance, the one whose accomplishment constitutes the nodal point of our endeavours, the one whose execution will lead to the carrying out of all the other tasks.
Let us consider this statement in the light of two examples, the first taken from the history of the more remote past (the period when we were building up the Party), and the second culled from the history of very recent times (the period of the New Economic Policy).
During the period when we were upbuilding the Party; when there were innumerable circles, clubs, and organisations having no bonds one with the other; when the Party was split from top to bottom by the circle system of organisation, and by the fact that every comrade did what was right in his own eyes; when confused thinking was the order of the day—during this period, the most important link to grasp, the most important item in the chain of many links and many tasks, was to launch a clandestine newspaper which would circulate throughout the whole of Russia. Why was this such an urgent need? Because a solid kernel of Party organisation could not be created in any other way. Only by issuing such a paper could the innumerable circles and other organisations be united to form a compact whole, could the way be prepared for theoretical and tactical unity; and thus only could the foundations be laid whereon an effective Party could be built up.
In the period of transition from war to economic reconstruction, when industry was stagnant on account of the general disorganisation, when agriculture was suffering from the dearth of industrial commodities, and when the welding together of the State industries with the peasant economy was an essential condition for the successful upbuilding of socialism—in this period the most important link in the chain of events, the most important task, is the development of commerce. Why? Because, under the conditions created by Nep, the only thing which can form an intimate bond between industry and agriculture is commerce; because every commodity that does not find a market is, under the system of Nep, a weapon threatening industry with extinction; because industry cannot grow unless the products of industry find a market; because it is only when we have secured a strong foothold in the domain of commerce, when we have made ourselves masters in the realm of commerce, when we have got a permanent hold on this link of the chain, that we shall be able to create the bond between industry and agriculture, be able to carry out other tasks successfully, and be able to lay the foundations of a socialist economic order.
To be a revolutionist, to be a socialist or communist sympathiser, is not enough. It behoves us to find, at any given moment, that particular link in the chain to which we can cling in order to keep the whole chain together, and subsequently to pass on to the next link. . . . For the nonce, the particular link is the stimulation of commerce on the home market, and its effective control and guidance by the State. Commerce is a “link” in the chain of historical events, in the transitional forms of our socialist construction; and we must cling to this link for dear life. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xviii., part I., p. 412.)
f. Reformism and Revolutionism
In what way do revolutionary tactics differ from reformist tactics? There are some who imagine that Leninism is against all reform, compromise, and agreements of any kind with the enemy. This is utterly wrongheaded. The bolsheviks know just as well as any one else that “the smallest contributions will be thankfully received”! They realise that, in certain circumstances, both reforms in general and compromises and agreements in particular are necessary and useful. Here we have Lenin’s testimony on the subject:
To wage war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, more prolonged, more complicated, than the most bloodthirsty of wars between States, while renouncing beforehand the use of manoeuvring, of playing off (though for a time only) the interests of one foe against the other, of entering upon agreements and effecting compromises (even though these may be of an unstable and temporary character)—would not such renunciation be the height of folly? We might as well, when climbing a dangerous and hitherto unexplored mountain, refuse in advance to make the ascent in zigzags, or to turn back for a while, to give up the chosen direction in order to test another which may prove to be easier to negotiate. (Works, Russian edition, vol, xvii., p. 158.)
What we are concerned with are not the reforms, compromises, and agreements, qua reforms, compromises, and agreements, but with the use they can be put to and the advantages to be gained.
Reform is the first and the last letter of the reformist’s alphabet. He looks upon revolutionary work as a matter of no importance. If a reformist speaks of the social revolution, it is for him only a rhetorical flourish, used to throw dust in people’s eyes. This is why, under a bourgeois regime, reformist tactics achieve reforms which serve merely to bolster up that regime and to scatter the revolutionary forces.
For the revolutionist, however, the revolution is everything, and reform a means to an end, a by-product of the revolution. For this reason, reform brought about by means of a revolutionary tactic carried on under a bourgeois government inevitably tends to weaken that government and to reinvigorate the forces of revolution, it serves as a base for the further development of the revolutionary movement.
A revolutionist may sponsor a reform because he sees in it a means for linking up constitutional action with unconstitutional action, because he feels he can make use of it as a screen behind which he can strengthen his clandestine work, whose aim is to educate and prepare the masses for the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie.
This is what we mean by the revolutionary use of reforms and of agreements under the imperialistic regime.
A reformist, on the other hand, stands for reform, rejects every unconstitutional action which might spread enlightenment among the masses and prepare them for revolution, and basks in the sunshine of the reforms he has succeeded in putting through.
There you have the reformist tactic, and such is the inevitable significance of reformism under imperialism.
But under the dictatorship of the proletariat, after the overthrow of imperialism, matters assume a different aspect. In certain cases and under certain conditions, the proletarian power may be compelled for a time to forsake the revolutionary path of completely changing the extant social order, and to enter the path of gradual transformation. In his essay on The Significance of Gold, Lenin calls this “the path of reforms”, the path of “circular movements”. Reforms are granted, concessions are made to non-proletarian classes, whereby these classes are weakened. While pursuing this road, the revolutionists gain a breathing space during which they can assemble their forces and prepare for a new attack. No one will deny that, in a certain sense, this is a reformist tactic. But we need to remember that such reforms have one peculiarity which other reforms do not possess: they emanate from a proletarian State. They serve to strengthen that State, to give the proletariat a breathing space, and they are useful weapons for the disintegration of the non-proletarian classes.
If such a policy is compatible with proletarian rule, it is only because the advance of the revolution in the preceding period has been so great as to allow of sufficient room for retreat when a withdrawal becomes necessary. Then the offensive gives way to a tactic of retreat, of flanking movements, and the like.
Thus we see that, whilst under the dominion of the bourgeoisie reforms are no more than by-products of the revolution, under the dictatorship of the proletariat they arise out of the revolutionary achievements of the proletariat. Lenin writes in this connexion:
The relation of reform to revolution can be correctly and precisely determined by Marxist theory alone, though Marx himself could only contemplate this relation from one point of view, namely from the point of view of his own period, before the proletariat had achieved a more or less solid and stable victory even in one single country. In such circumstances, the foundation for a correct relationship between reform and revolution was the formula: Reforms are by-products of the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat. . . . After the victory of the proletariat, even if that victory has taken place in one country alone, a new element enters into the relationship of reform to revolution. As far as principle is concerned, nothing has been altered. But a change has come over the form, a change which Marx could not possibly foresee. And yet the change can be understood only in the light of Marxist philosophy and Marxist politics. . . . After the victory, reforms (though still no more than by-products in the international arena) become, in the land where the workers have been victorious, a necessary and legitimate breathing space when, despite the most intrepid endeavour, the revolutionary forces are obviously not strong enough to pass on from this or that phase of development to a higher phase. Victory gives such a “reserve of strength’ that, even when a retreat becomes unavoidable, the revolutionary forces can hold out both materially and morally. (Works, vol. xviii., part I., pp. 414-415.)