The Twenty-one Conditions, officially the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International, refer to the conditions given by Vladimir Lenin to the adhesion of the socialists to the Third International (Comintern) created in 1919 after the 1917 October Revolution. The conditions were formally adopted by the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920. The conditions were:

1 All propaganda and agitation must bear a really communist character and correspond to the programme and decisions of the Communist International. All the party’s press organs must be run by reliable communists who have proved their devotion to the cause of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat must not be treated simply as a current formula learnt off by heart. Propaganda for it must be carried out in such a way that its necessity is comprehensible to every simple worker, every woman worker, every soldier and peasant from the facts of their daily lives, which must be observed systematically by our press and used day by day.

The periodical and other press and all the party’s publishing institutions must be subordinated to the party leadership, regardless of whether, at any given moment, the party as a whole is legal or illegal. The publishing houses must not be allowed to abuse their independence and pursue policies that do not entirely correspond to the policies of the party.

In the columns of the press, at public meetings, in the trades unions, in the co-operatives – wherever the members of the Communist International can gain admittance – it is necessary to brand not only the bourgeoisie but also its helpers, the reformists of every shade, systematically and pitilessly.

2 Every organisation that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International must regularly and

methodically remove reformists and centrists from every responsible post in the labour movement (party organisations, editorial boards, trades unions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives, local government) and replace them with tested communists, without worrying unduly about the fact that, particularly at first, ordinary workers from the masses will be replacing ‘experienced’ opportunists.

3 In 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 organisational 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.

4 The duty of propagating communist ideas includes the special obligation of forceful and systematic propaganda in the army. Where this agitation is interrupted by emergency laws it must be continued illegally. Refusal to carry out such work would be tantamount to a betrayal of revolutionary duty and would be incompatible with membership of the Communist International.

5 Systematic and methodical agitation is necessary in the countryside. The working class will not be able to win if it does not have the backing of the rural proletariat and at least a part of the poorest peasants, and if it does not secure the neutrality of at least a part of the rest of the rural population through its policies. Communist work in the countryside is taking on enormous importance at the moment. It must be carried out principally with the help of revolutionary communist workers of the town and country who have connections with the countryside. To refuse to carry this work out, or to entrust it to unreliable, semi-reformist hands, is tantamount to renouncing the proletarian revolution.

6 Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation to unmask not only open social-patriotism but also the insincerity and hypocrisy of social-pacificism, to show the workers systematically that, without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, no international court of arbitration, no agreement on the limitation of armaments, no ‘democratic’ reorganisation of the League of Nations will be able to prevent new imperialist wars.

7 The parties that wish to belong to the Communist International have the obligation of recognising the necessity of a complete break with reformism and ‘centrist’ politics and of spreading this break among the widest possible circles of their party members. Consistent communist politics are impossible without this.

The Communist International unconditionally and categorically demands the carrying out of this break in the shortest possible time. The Communist International cannot tolerate a situation where notorious opportunists, as represented by Turati, Modigliani, Kautsky, Hilferding, Hillquit, Longuet, MacDonald, etc., have the right to pass as members of the Communist International. This could only lead to the Communist International becoming something very similar to the wreck of the Second International.

8 A particularly marked and clear attitude on the question of the colonies and oppressed nations is necessary on the part of the communist parties of those countries whose bourgeoisies are in possession of colonies and oppress other nations. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation of exposing the dodges of its ‘own’ imperialists in the colonies, of supporting every liberation movement in the colonies not only in words but in deeds, of demanding that their imperialist compatriots should be thrown out of the colonies, of cultivating in the hearts of the workers in their own country a truly fraternal relationship to the working population in the colonies and to the oppressed nations, and of carrying out systematic propaganda among their own country’s troops against any oppression of colonial peoples.

9 Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must systematically and persistently develop communist activities within the trades unions, workers’ and works councils, the consumer co-operatives and other mass workers’ organisations. Within these organisations it is necessary to organise communist cells which are to win the trades unions etc. for the cause of communism by incessant and persistent work. In their daily work the cells have the obligation to expose everywhere the treachery of the social patriots and the vacillations of the ‘centrists’. The communist cells must be completely subordinated to the party as a whole.

10 Every party belonging to the Communist International has the obligation to wage a stubborn struggle against the Amsterdam ‘International’ of yellow trade union organisations. It must expound as forcefully as possible among trades unionists the idea of the necessity of the break with the yellow Amsterdam International. It must support the International Association of Red Trades Unions affiliated to the Communist International, at present in the process of formation, with every means at its disposal.

11 Parties that wish to belong to the Communist International have the obligation to subject the personal composition of their parliamentary factions to review, to remove all unreliable elements from them and to subordinate these factions to the party leadership, not only in words but also in deeds, by calling on every individual communist member of parliament to subordinate the whole of his activity to the interests of really revolutionary propaganda and agitation.

12 The parties belonging to the Communist International must be built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. In the present epoch of acute civil war the communist party will only be able to fulfil its duty if it is organised in as centralist a manner as possible, if iron discipline reigns within it and if the party centre, sustained by the confidence of the party membership, is endowed with the fullest rights and authority and the most far-reaching powers.

13 The communist parties of those countries in which the communists can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their party organisations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it.

14 Every party that. wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation to give unconditional support to every soviet republic in its struggle against the forces of counter-revolution. The communist parties must carry out clear propaganda to prevent the transport of war material to the enemies of the soviet republics. They must also carry out legal or illegal propaganda, etc., with every means at their disposal among troops sent to stifle workers’ republics.

15 Parties that have still retained their old social democratic programmes have the obligation of changing those programmes as quickly as possible and working out a new communist programme corresponding to the particular conditions in the country and in accordance with the decisions of the Communist International.

As a rule the programme of every party belonging to the Communist International must be ratified by a regular Congress of the Communist International or by the Executive Committee. Should the Executive Committee of the Communist International reject a party’s programme, the party in question has the right of appeal to the Congress of the Communist International.

16 All decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International and decisions of its Executive Committee are binding on all parties belonging to the Communist International. The Communist International, acting under conditions of the most acute civil war, must be built in a far more centralist manner than was the case with the Second International. In the process the Communist International and its Executive Committee must, of course, in the whole of its activity, take into account the differing conditions under which the individual parties have to fight and work, and only take generally binding decisions in cases where such decisions are possible.

17 In this connection all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official ‘social-democratic’ or ‘socialist’ parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.

18 All the leading press organs of the parties in every country have the duty of printing all the important official documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist International.

19 All parties that belong to the Communist International or have submitted an application for membership have the duty of calling a special congress as soon as possible, and in no case later than four months after the Second Congress of the Communist International, in order to check all these conditions. In this connection all party centres must see that the decisions of the Second Congress are known to all their local organisations.

20 Those parties that now wish to enter the Communist International but have not yet radically altered their previous tactics must, before they join the Communist International, see to it that no less than two thirds of the central committee and of all their most important central institutions consist of comrades who even before the Second Congress of the Communist International spoke out unambiguously in public in favour of the entry of the party into the Communist International. Exceptions may be permitted with the agreement of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Executive Committee of the Communist International also has the right to make exceptions in relation to the representatives of the centrist tendency mentioned in paragraph 7.

21 Those party members who fundamentally reject the conditions and Theses laid down by the Communist International are to be expelled from the party.[1]

SOURCE: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Conditions

By James Thompson

Alienation is the process whereby people become foreign to their own labor.

Workers sell their labor to the business owners in return for wages which they use to survive. As a result, a portion of the product of their labor becomes the property of the owner. The product of the worker’s labor becomes alien to them.

The employer takes control of the product of the worker’s labor and frequently uses part of it against the employee. The boss may use part of the profit they make from the product of the labor of the workers to support politicians who work to reduce the worker’s rights, wages and benefits. The owner may use part of the profit to hire consultants who tell them how to reduce the number of workers and/or cut their benefits. The owner may use part of the profit to support religious leaders who tell the workers to be obedient to their masters so that they will go to paradise when they die. These are but some of the ways the owners use a part of the worker’s labor against them to further the interests of the owners and fight the interests of the workers.

The bosses strive to alienate workers from the value that they produce through their labor. This makes it easier for the capitalists to appropriate (i.e. steal) a portion of what the workers produce. Alienation confuses workers and makes it less likely that they will fight for their rights and for the wealth that they produce.

By James Thompson

The goal of Marxists is to elevate the working class to the status of the ruling class. To do this, Marxists use the scientific method to better understand social, political, cultural and economic conditions and to facilitate the process of change to bring about a better world. In classical Marxist theory, science is referred to as materialism.

Marxists point out that it is important to recognize that there is an opposing point of view. They call this view idealism. This refers to a philosophical system which relies on non-scientific, i.e. religious, mythological, prejudicial or imaginary explanations of phenomena. In other words, idealist explanations are not observable, measurable or provable.

Materialism is a fundamental philosophical concept in the Marxist world view. There has been some confusion in the use of the term due to an alternative version of its meaning. Materialism in its alternative meaning is thought to refer to “The theory or doctrine that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life.” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition). This is not what is meant by the term materialism in the Marxist approach.

Maurice Cornforth in his book Materialism and the Dialectical Method outlines the basic teachings of materialism:
1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion and matter.
2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
3. Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are knowable, and that while much in the material world may not be known there is no unknowable sphere of reality which lies outside the material world.
The Marxist philosophy is characterized by its absolutely consistent materialism all along the line, by its making no concessions whatever at any point to idealism.

Materialism is irrevocably opposed to idealism. Cornforth points out that there are three main assertions of idealism.
1. Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual.
2. Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
3. Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, “above”, or “beyond”, or “behind” what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience and science.
The basic teachings of materialism stand in opposition to these three assertions of idealism.

Cornforth further notes that Frederick Engels offers a definition of materialism and idealism and the difference between them in his book on Ludwig Feuerbach.

“The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being….The answers which the philosophers have given to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and therefore in the last instance assumed world creation in some form or another…comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.”

We can see that idealist conceptions rely on spiritual explanations which are fantastic, not measurable and are unrealistic. An idealist explanation of the cause of a thunderstorm might be that God was angry at the people because they were not obeying their masters. Diseases are explained by the idealist paradigm by a similar ruse, e.g. that diseases are a way God can punish bad people who demand higher wages and better working conditions.

Materialist explanations of disease, thunderstorms and all phenomena view them as being due to complex forces which are measurable and understandable through scientific investigation.

Cornforth presents another interesting example.

“Why are there rich and poor? This is a question which many people ask, especially poor people.
The most straightforward idealist answer to this question is to say simply—it is because God made them so. It is the will of God that some should be rich and others poor.
But other less straightforward idealist explanations are more in vogue. For example: it is because some men are careful and farsighted, and these husband their resources and grow rich, while others are thriftless and stupid, and these remain poor. Those who favour this type of explanation say that it is all due to eternal “human nature”. The nature of man and of society is such that the distinction of rich and poor necessarily arises…
The materialist, on the other hand, seeks the reason in the material, economic conditions of social life. If society is divided into rich and poor, it is because the production of the material means of life is so ordered that some have possession of the land and other means of production while the rest have to work for them. However hard they may work and however much they may scrape and save, the non-possessors will remain poor, while the possessors grow rich on the fruits of their labour…”

The difference in the materialist and idealist explanations of disease, thunderstorms and class differences have important theoretical but also practical implications.

A materialist conception of thunderstorms helps us to take precautions against them. Science has developed weather forecasting systems so that people can be warned of impending storms. Buildings and houses can be constructed in such a way that they can withstand storms. However, if our explanation of thunderstorms is idealistic, all we can do is pray or perform other rituals. Similarly with disease, if the conception is materialist, then we can take preventive measure through lifestyle change or engage in treatment if the disease is active. Idealists are again stuck with appeals to God, the Church or other supernatural entities.

If we accept an idealist explanation of the reasons there are rich and poor, all we can do is to accept the existing state of affairs. The materialist approach to society offers a way to work towards changing society.

Cornforth points out:

“…every real social advance—every increase in the productive forces, every advance of science—generates materialism and is helped along by materialist ideas. And the whole history of human thought has been the history of the fight of materialism against idealism, of the overcoming of idealist illusions and fantasies.

Materialism teaches us to have confidence in ourselves, in the working class—in people. It teaches us that there are no mysteries beyond our understanding, that we need not accept that which is as being the will of God, that we should contemptuously reject the “authoritative” teachings of those who set up to be our masters, and that we can ourselves understand nature and society so as to be able to change them.”

By James Thompson

There have been many attempts to define fascism in an effort to understand it. Some maintain that fascism is the capitalists’ last option. Others ask, “What is fascism but the death throes of capitalism?”

Fascism has also been described as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” According to Georgi Dmitrov in a collection of his reports in 1935 and 1936 Against Fascism and War, fascism is “the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.”

He points out that German fascism, i.e. Nazism or National Socialism, has been the most reactionary form of fascism. He explains, “It has the effrontery to call itself National Socialism, though it has nothing in common with socialism. German fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is fiendish chauvinism. It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practiced upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations.”

Fascism has manifested itself in many other nations, including most notably, Italy, where Mussolini declared that fascism should be more appropriately called “corporatism” since it represents the merger of the state and corporations. It also appeared in Spain under Franco and other countries. It is important to remember that fascism can be thought of as a logical extension of capitalism. It is one of the forms of rule that can take place under capitalism. It is not an economic system in and of itself. Fascism is a form of government intended to protect the interests of the capitalists through violence and oppression.

The capitalist press has been very effective in blurring the distinction between fascism and communism. Many people in the U.S.A. equate and confuse the terms. The main difference is that fascism is a form of government which safeguards and promotes the interests of the capitalists, whereas communism safeguards and promotes the interests of working people. Fascism is anti-democratic and only allows the political will of the capitalists to be expressed, whereas communism is pro-democratic and only allows the political will of the working people to be expressed.

There has been discussion among leftists in the U.S.A. as to whether the Bush administration was a fascist government. Many maintain that the policies of Bush and his cronies were fascist in nature. Others argue that the policies were different from those seen in fascist countries between the two World Wars. Norman Markowitz in his article “On Guard Against Fascism” published in Political Affairs (May, 2004) states “The domestic policy of fascism was to destroy the independent labor movement, all socialist and communist parties and all democratic movements of the people. The foreign policy of fascism was to completely militarize the society and organize the people to fight imperialist wars and accept and glorify such wars on nationalist and racist grounds…As both ideology and policy, fascism was the rabid response of a decaying capitalism threatened by the workers’ movement at home and anti-colonial movements abroad. The forms that fascism takes can change and be updated, but these are its essential characteristics.”

Gerald Horne, in his article “Threat Needs Study” in Political Affairs (July, 2004), calls for more study of the fascist movement in this country. He points out that there are organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center which track the activities of the extreme right. He also notes that the Center for Responsive Politics tracks political donations. He suggests that donations from certain sectors of finance capital could be tracked to political candidates and organizations.

Horne points out that many scholars maintain that fascism has historically developed as a reaction to the development of strong progressive movements which support the interests of working people. He goes on to note that some academics don’t think a fascist movement is likely to develop in the U.S.A. because there is no strong progressive movement currently. Whether there is a viable progressive movement in the U.S.A. is debatable, especially considering the mass movements which have been so conspicuous in 2006. As the right wing has mounted its assault on working people, the positive achievements of the twentieth century in civil rights, education, social security and health care become more apparent. One can conceptualize the recent actions of the right wing as a reaction to the gains of the progressive movement.

From a dialectical materialist point of view, we can see that the development of capitalist, fascist, socialist and communist movements are developments in the struggle between the owners of the means of production and the workers. As Marx pointed out, “All human history hitherto is the history of the class struggle.” The interests of fascism and communism are just as opposed and irreconcilable as the interests of working people and capitalists. As capitalism weakens, its options narrow and it is more likely that it will desperately grasp for fascist methods to sustain itself. Much as a wounded animal is more likely to bite, capitalism in its final stages is more likely to use direct violence against working people. However, just as the animal ensures its own destruction through violence, so it will go for capitalism.

It is noteworthy that there are similarities between the tactics employed by Bush and fascist movements in the past. Don Sloan, in his article “The ‘F’ Word” in Political Affairs (May, 2004) does a good job of comparing fascist tactics and those of the Bush administration. Sloan warns “It can’t happen here? It can happen here? It is happening here.”

It is easy to use the label “fascism or fascist” when trying to discredit our opponents. We, the people of conscience on the left, should be careful however when we apply labels. Applying labels tends to de-humanize people and is a tactic used in military training. Soldiers are taught to think of their “enemies” as subhuman thus making it easier to kill them. We must remember that a number of people apply labels to us. Do we really want to respond to mudslinging by mudslinging ourselves? People on the left use “fascist” far too easily these days to label people promoting policies they don’t like. It would be more useful and productive to attack the policies we do not like and explain that the reason we do not like them is that they are harmful to working people. Throwing around labels and failing to use a class analysis is counterproductive at best. Such tactics may actually hurt the credibility of progressive movements who engage in such behavior.

We do not like the “fascist like” tactics employed by our government, but it is important to remember that unlike Nazi Germany, we still have trade unions, opposition political parties such as the CPUSA, and a progressive press to include the People’s World and others. Writers such as Michael Parenti and publishing companies such as International Publishers are still publishing articles and books. We have not had book burnings and university professors are not clubbed and imprisoned. No Communist in the U.S.A. has been put in a concentration camp by the Bush or Obama administrations.

Nevertheless, it will be important for people on the left to keep identifying clearly those tactics and developments that are not in the interest of the working class and mount united struggles against each and every one of them. This is already happening in the case of the War in Iraq, immigration policy, and the struggle to save social security. These struggles will move our country forward and will help build a strong progressive movement that can bring about positive social change. We cannot forget and must not abandon the gains made in the last century. Indeed, it is time to start making new gains for this century.

Bibliography

Georgi Dmitrov, Against War and Fascism, (International Publishers, New York, 1986).

Gerald Horne, “Threat Needs Study,” Political Affairs, (July, 2004).

Norman Markowitz, “On Guard Against Fascism,” Political Affairs, (May, 2004)

Don Sloan, “The ‘F’ Word,” Political Affairs, (May, 2004).

2. Peace, War and Internationalism

Given the nature of weaponry today, the struggle for peace is one of the most important, one of the struggles through which tactics brings to life a strategic policy. In fact, given the nuclear war threat it even becomes an objective condition for there to be people to pursue strategy and tactics. This section begins with the attitude of Marx, Engels and Lenin toward peace and the requirements to put an end to war forever. They then define the nature and sources of war. Lenin discusses the inevitability of war among imperialist powers to redivide the world. Quotations are then presented defining different types of just and unjust wars, including the attitude toward World War I, peace and peaceful coexistence of socialist Russia with the capitalist powers. This is followed by a discussion of the impermissability of the export of revolution. Then there are quotations about the importance and forms of internationalism, international solidarity. The concluding quotes are from Engels discussing the significance of new weaponry. “Socialism is the embodiment of a society whose international role will be peace, because its national ruler will be everywhere the same – labor!”

Marx, Civil War in France, 1870-71, MESW, p.266; MECW, Vol.22, p.7

“…our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which by eliminating the divisions of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war.”

Lenin, War & Revolution, lecture, May 14, 1917, CW, Vol.24, pp.398- 99

“…A war would above all retard our movement all over Europe, completely disrupt it in many countries, stir up chauvinism and xenophobia and leave us with the certain prospect, amongst many other uncertain ones, of having to begin all over again after the war, albeit on a basis far more favorable even than today.”

Engels, Letter to August Bebel, London, Sept. 13, 1886, MECW, Vol..47, p.487

“An end to wars, peace among the nations, the cessation of pillaging and violence – such is our ideal…”

Lenin, The Question of Peace, July-Aug. 1915, CW, Vol.21, p.293

“In general, war ran counter to the aims of the Communist Party. But war that was preached today was a sacred war; it was a civil war, a war of the working class against its exploiters.”

Lenin, Speech at Public Meeting in Simonovsky Sub-District, June 28, 1918, CW, Vol.27, p.492

“Disarmament is the ideal of socialism.”

Lenin, The”Disarmament” Slogan, Oct. 1916, CW, Vol.23, p.95

“…the union of the working classes of the different countries must ultimately make international wars impossible.”

Marx, Speech on the Attitude of the IWA to the Congress of the League of Peace & Freedom, at the General Council of the International Workingmen’ Association (IWA), Aug. 17, 1867, MECW, Vol.20, p.426

“…the alliance of the working classes of all countries will ultimately kill war.”

Marx, The Civil War in France, July 1870, MESW IP 1977, p.266; MECW, Vol.22, p.7

“I maintain disarmament and with it the guarantee of peace, is feasible…”

Engels, Can Europe Disarm?, March 1893, MECW, Vol.27, p.372

“[Speaking of the working people] Their whole disposition and movement is essentially humanitarian.”

Engels, The Festival of Nations in London, end of 1845, MECW, Vol.6, p.6

“The government considers it the greatest crime against humanity to continue this war over how to divide among the strong and rich nations the weak nationalities they have conquered… “By a just or democratic peace, for which the overwhelming majority of the workingclass and other working people of all the belligerent countries, exhausted, tormented and racked by the war, are craving…the government means an immediate peace without annexations (i.e., without the seizure of foreign lands, without the forcible incorporation of foreign nations) and without indemnities.”(p.249)

Lenin, Report on Peace: Decree on Peace, Nov.8, 1917, CW, Vol.26, p.250

“Our experience has left us with the firm conviction that only exceptional attention to the interests of various nations can remove grounds for conflicts, can remove mutual distrust, can remove the fear of any intrigues and create that confidence, especially on the part of workers and peasants speaking different languages, without which there absolutely cannot be peaceful relations between people or anything like a successful development of everything that is of value in present-day civilization.”

Lenin, Interview Given Michael Farbman, “Observer & Manchester Guardian” Correspondent, Oct.27, 1922, CW, Vol.33, p.386

“War is a continuation of policy by other means. All wars are inseparable from the political system that engenders them. The policy which a given state, a given class within that state, pursued for a long time before the war is inevitably continued by that same class during the war, the form of action alone being changed.”

Lenin, War & Revolution, lecture, May 14, 1917, CW, Vol.24, p.400

“With reference to wars, the main thesis of dialectics…is that ‘war is simply the continuation of politics by other…means.’ Such is the formula of Clausewitz…and it was always the standpoint of Marx and Engels, who regarded any war as the continuation of the politics of the powers concerned…and the various classes within these countries – in a defined period.”

Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International, May-june 1915, CW, Vol.21, pp.219-20

“‘World domination’ is, to put it briefly, the substance of imperialist policy, of which imperialist war is the continuation.”

Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism & Imperialist Economism, Aug.-Oct. 1916, CW, Vol.23, p.35

“…the class contradictions dividing the nations continue to exist in wartime and manifest themselves in conditions of war.

Lenin, The Position & Tasks of the Socialist International, Nov.1, 1914, CW, Vol.21, p.40

“It is proven in the pamphlet that the war of 1914-18 was imperialist (that is, an annexationist, predatory, war of plunder) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies and spheres of influence of finance capital, etc….

“And this summing up proves that imperialist wars are absolutely inevitable under such an economic system, as long as private property in the means of production exists.”

Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1916, Preface to French and German editions, July 6, 1920, LLL Ed, p.10, CW, Vol.22, p.190

“Capitalism has concentrated the earth’s wealth in the hands of a few states and divided the world up to the last bit…Any further enrichment could take place only at the expense of others as the enrichment of one state at the expense of another. The issue could only be settled by force – and accordingly war between the world marauders became inevitable.”

Lenin, Speech at Polytechnical Museum, Aug.23, 1918, CW, Vol.28, p.80

“…two trends exist; one, which makes the alliance of all the imperialists inevitable; the other, which places the imperialists in opposition to each other – two trends, neither of which has any firm foundations.”

Lenin, Report on Foreign Policy to All-Russian Central Executive Committee & Moscow Soviet, May 14, 1918, CW, Vol.27, p.369

“There are just and unjust wars, progressive and reactionary wars, wars waged by advanced classes and wars waged by backward classes, wars waged for the purpose of perpetuating class oppression and wars waged for the purpose of eliminating oppression…”

Lenin, First All-Russia Congress on Adult Education, May 1919, CW, Vol.29, p..343

“Socialists always side with the oppressed and, consequently, cannot be opposed to wars whose purpose is democratic or socialist struggle against oppression.”

Lenin, Open Letter to Boris Souvarine, Dec. 1916, CW, Vol.23, p.196

[To assess a given war it is necessary to determine] “the class character of the war: what caused that war, what classes are waging it, and what historical and historico-economic conditions gave rise to it.”

Lenin,, War & Revolution, lecture, May 14, 1917, CW, Vol.24, p.398

“…take the question of the little wars they waged before the big war – ‘little’ because few Europeans died in those wars, whereas hundreds of thousands of people belonging to the nations they were subjugating died in them, nations which from their point of view could not be regarded as nations at all (you couldn’t very well call those Asians and Africans nations!); the wars waged against these nations were wars against unarmed people who were simply shot down, machine-gunned…

“The present war is a continuation of the policy of conquest, of the shooting down of whole nationalities, of unbelievable atrocities…”

Lenin, War & Revolution, lecture, May 14, 1917, CW, Vol.24, p.406

“Civil war is the sharpest form of the class struggle, it is the point in the class struggle when clashes and battles, economic and political, repeating themselves, growing, broadening, becoming acute, turn into an armed struggle of one class against another.”

Lenin, The Russian Revolution & Civil War, Sept.29, 1917, CW, Vol.26, p.29

“The socialist revolution will not be solely or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletariat in each country against their bourgeoisie – no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist- oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries against international imperialism.”

Lenin, Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East, Nov.22, 1919, CW, Vol.30, p.159

“This ‘epoch’ by no means precludes national wars on the part of, say, small (annexed or nationally-oppressed) countries against the imperialist powers…”

Lenin, The Junius Pamphlet, July 1916,CW, Vol.22, p.311

[The victory of socialism in one or several countries] “is bound to create not only friction but a direct attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie of other countries to crush the socialist state’s victorious proletariat. In such cases a war on our part would be a legitimate and just war. It would be a war for socialism…”

Lenin, The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution, Sept. 1916, CW, Vol.23, p.79

“We are not at all against ‘defense of the fatherland’ in general, not against defensive wars in general…We are against defense of the fatherland and a defensive position in the imperialist war of 1914-16 and in other imperialist wars, typical of the imperialist epoch. But in the imperialist epoch there may be also ‘just’, ‘defensive’, revolutionary wars namely (1)national (2) civil (3) socialist and suchlike.”

Lenin, Letter to G.Y. Zinoviev, Aug. 1916, CW, Vol.35, p.229

“…so revolutionary wars are legitimate and just – i.e., wars waged against the capitalists in defense of the oppressed classes, wars against the oppressors in defense of the nations oppressed by the imperialists of a handful of countries, wars in defense of the socialist revolution against foreign invaders.”

Lenin, The Thesis on the Agrarian Question Advanced by the CP of France, Dec.11,1921, CW, Vol.33, p.132

“The existence of a Soviet Republic alongside of capitalist countries – is so intolerable to the capitalists that they will seize any opportunity to resume the war. The peoples are weary of the imperialist war and threaten to make their indignation felt if war continues, but the possibility of the capitalists being able to resume it in a few years is not precluded.”

Lenin, Report to Eighth All-Russia Conference of the RCP (B), Dec.5, 1919, CW, Vol.30, p.191

“We are in the position of having won conditions enabling us to exist side by side with capitalist powers, who are now compelled to enter into trade relations with us. In the course of this struggle we have won the right to an independent existence….Today, too, we do not underestimate the danger and do not deny the possibility of future military intervention by the capitalist countries.”

“Today we can speak not only of a breathing space, but of a real chance of a new and lengthy period of development.” (p.413)

Lenin, Our Foreign & Domestic Position & the Tasks of the Party, Speech to Moscow Gubernia Conference of RCP (B), Nov.21, 1920, CW,, Vol.31, p.412

“…the victorious proletariat can force no blessings of any kind upon any foreign nation without undermining its own victory by so doing. Which of course by no means excludes defensive wars of various kinds.

“Engels, Letter to Karl Kautsky, Sept.12, 1882, MECW, Vol.46, pp.322-23

“We opposed this playing at revolution most decisively. To have carried out an invasion of Germany at the height of the unrest that was taking place there and forcibly imposed on it a revolution imported from the outside would have amounted to tripping up the revolution in Germany.”

Engels, On the History of the Communist League, Oct.8, 1885, MESW, IP 1977, p.448; MECW, Vol.26, p.324

“It is clear that this opinion would lead to a denial of the expediency of the Brest negotiations and to a rejection of peace, ‘even’ if accompanied by the return of Poland, Latvia and Courland. The incorrectness of this view (which was rejected, for example, by a majority of the Petrograd opponents of peace) is as clear as day. A socialist republic surrounded by imperialist powers could not, from this point of view, conclude any economic treaties, and could not exist at all, without flying to the moon.

“Perhaps the authors believe that the interests of the world revolution require that it should be given a push, and that such a push can be given only by war, never by peace, which might give the people the impression that imperialism was being ‘legitimized’? Such a ‘theory’ would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to ‘pushing’ revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions. Such a theory would be tantamount to the view that armed uprising is a form of struggle which is obligatory always and under all conditions. Actually, however, the interests of the world revolution demand that Soviet power, having overthrown the bourgeoisie in our country, should help that revolution, but that it should choose a form of help which is commensurate with its own strength. To help the socialist revolution on an international scale by accepting the possibility of defeat of the revolution in one’s own country is a view that does not follow even from the ‘pushing’ theory.”

Lenin, Strange and Monstrous, March 1, 1918, CW, Vol.27, p.71-72

“It is not the Great Power status of Russia that we are defending – of that nothing is left but Russia proper – nor is it national interests, for we assert that the interests of socialism, of world socialism are higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state.”

Lenin, Report on Foreign Policy to All-Russia Central Executive Committee & Moscow Soviet, May 14, 1918, CW, Vol.27, p.278

“This might have been advanced as proof of the collapse of communism only if we had promised, with the forces of Russia alone, to transform the whole world, or had dreamed of doing so. However, we have never harbored such crazy ideas and have always said that our revolution will be victorious when it is supported by the workers of all lands.”

Lenin, Our Foreign & Domestic Position & the Tasks of the Party, from speech, Nov.21, 1920, CW, Vol.31, p.412

“Of course, there are people who believe that revolution can break out in a foreign country to order, by agreement. These people are either mad or they are provocateurs.”

Lenin, Reply to Discussion of Report on Current Situation, Fourth Conference of Trade Unions & Factory Committees of Moscow, June 28, 1918, CW, Vol.27, p.380

“Past experience has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries and incite them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts.”

Marx, Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen’s Association, Oct. 1864, MECW, Vol.20, p.12

“Capital is an international force. To vanquish it, an international workers’ alliance, an international workers’ brotherhood, is needed. We are opposed to national enmity and discord, to national exclusiveness. We are internationalists.”

Lenin, Letter to the Workers & Peasants of Ukraine Appropo of the Victories over Denikin, Dec. 28, 1919, CW, Vol.30, p.293

“There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is – working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this and only this, line in every country without exception.”

Lenin, Tasks of the Proletariat in our Revolution: Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party, April 10, 1917, CW, Vol.24, p.75

“The Bolsheviks’ tactics…were the only internationalist tactics, because they did the utmost possible in one country for the development, support and awakening of the revolution in all countries.”

Lenin, The Proletarian Revolution & the Renegade Kautsky, Oct.-Nov. 1918, CW, Vol.28, p.292

“…complete victory over capitalism cannot be won unless the proletariat and, following it, the mass of working people in all countries and nations throughout the world, voluntarily strive for alliance and unity.”

Lenin, Draft Thesis on National & Colonial Questions, for Second Congress of Communist International, June 1920, CW, Vol.31, p.151

“…This revolutionary movement of the peoples of the East can now develop effectively, can reach a successful issue, only by direct association with the revolutionary struggle of our Soviet Republic against international imperialism.”

Lenin, Address to Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organizations of the Peoples of the East. Nov..22, 1919, CW, Vol.30, p.151

“We are now exercising our main influence on the international revolution through our economic policy…The struggle in this field has now become global. Once we solve this problem, we shall have certainly and finally won on an international scale. That is why for us questions of economic development become of absolutely exceptional importance. On this front, we must achieve victory by a steady rise and progress which must be gradual and necessarily slow.

Lenin, Speech Closing 10th All-Russia Conference of RCP (B), May 28, 1921, CW, Vol.32, p.437

“The recruitment of the whole of the population able to bear arms into the armies that henceforth could be counted only in millions, and the introduction of fire-arms, projectiles and explosives of hitherto unprecedented yield, completely transformed all warfare. This revolution, on the one hand, put an abrupt end to the Bonapartist war period and ensured peaceful industrial development by making any war other than a world war of unprecedented cruelty and absolutely incalculable outcome an impossibility. On the other hand, it caused military expenditure to rise in geometrical progression and thereby forced up taxes to exorbitant levels and drove the poorer classes of people into the arms of socialism.”

Engels, Introduction to K. Marx’s “The Class Struggle in France”, 1895, MECW, Vol.27, p.514; MESW, IP 1977, p.658

“Of course, any little thing may precipitate a conflict, but I don’t think the rulers of these countries are anxious for war. The precision and range of the quick-firing arms, and the introduction of smokeless powder, imply such a revolution in warfare that nobody can predict what will be the proper tactics for a battle fought under these novel conditions. It will be a leap in the dark. And the armies confronting each other in future will be so immense as to make all previous wars mere child’s play in comparison with the next war.”

Engels, Interview of Engels by the “Daily Chronicle” Correspondent, end of June, 1893, MECW, Vol.27, p.549

by Prabhat Patnaik

Original URL: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/patnaik221010.html

John Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.

In a famous essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren”, written in 1930, Keynes had argued: “Assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not, if we look into the future, the permanent problem of the human race” (emphasis in the original).

He had gone on to ask: “Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling because, if instead of looking into the future, we look into the past, we find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has been hitherto the most pressing problem of the human race. . . . If the economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional purpose.” He had then proceeded to examine how mankind could fruitfully use its time in such a world.

True, after Keynes had written there was the Second World War, but thereafter mankind has had six and a half decades without any “important war” of the sort that could interrupt what he had called the “era of progress and invention”. And the rate of population growth has also not accelerated to a point that can be considered to have invalidated Keynes’ premise. And yet if we take mankind as a whole, it is as far from solving the economic problem as it ever was. True, there has been massive accumulation of capital, and with it an enormous increase in the mass of goods available to mankind; and yet, for the vast majority of mankind, the “struggle for subsistence” that Keynes had referred to has continued to remain as acute as ever, perhaps in some ways even more acute than ever before.

To say that this is only because not enough time has passed, that over a slightly longer time period Keynes’ vision will indeed turn out to be true, is facile. The fact that the bulk of mankind continues to face an acute struggle for subsistence is not a matter of degree; it is not as if the acuteness of this struggle for this segment of mankind has been lessening over time, or that the relative size of this segment has been lessening over time. We cannot therefore assert that the passage of more time will lift everybody above this struggle.

Dichotomy Structurally Inbuilt in Capitalism

Likewise, to say that, while enormous increases have taken place in the mass of goods and services available to mankind (the increase in this mass being more in the last hundred years than in the previous two thousand years, as Keynes had pointed out), its distribution has been extremely skewed and hence accounts for the persistence of the struggle for subsistence for the majority of the world’s population is to state a mere tautology. The whole point is that there is something structural to the capitalist system itself, the same system that causes this enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce goods and services, which also ensures that, notwithstanding this enormous increase, the struggle for subsistence must continue to be as acute as before, or even more acute than before, for the bulk of mankind.

Keynes missed this structural aspect of capitalism. His entire argument in fact was based on the mere logic of compound interest, i.e. on the sheer fact that “if capital increases, say, 2 percent per annum, the capital equipment of the world will have increased by a half in twenty years, and seven and a half times in a hundred years”. From this sheer fact it follows that output too would have increased more or less by a similar order of magnitude, and mankind, with so much more of goods at its disposal, would have overcome the struggle for subsistence. The reason Keynes assumed that an increase in the mass of goods would eventually benefit everyone lies not just in his inability to see the antagonistic nature of the capitalist mode of production (and its antagonistic relationship with the surrounding universe of petty producers), but also in his belief that capitalism is a malleable system which can be moulded, in accordance with the dictates of reason, by the interventions of the State as the representative of society. He was a liberal and saw the state as standing above, and acting on behalf of, society as a whole, in accordance with the dictates of reason. The world, he thought, was ruled by ideas; and correct, and benevolent, ideas would clearly translate themselves into reality, so that the increase in mankind’s productive capacity would get naturally transformed into an end of the economic problem. If the antagonism of capitalism was pointed out to Keynes, he would have simply talked about state intervention restraining this antagonism to ensure that the benefit of the increase in productive capacity reached all.

The fact that this has not happened, the fact that the enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce has translated itself not into an end to the struggle for subsistence for the world’s population, but into a plethora of all kinds of goods and services of little benefit to it, from a stockpiling of armaments to an exploration of outer space, and even into a systematic promotion of waste, and lack of utilization, or even destruction, of productive equipment, only underscores the limitations of the liberal world outlook of which Keynes was a votary. The state, instead of being an embodiment of reason, which intervenes in the interests of society as a whole, as liberalism believes, acts to defend the class interests of the hegemonic class, and hence to perpetuate the antagonisms of the capitalist system.

Antagonisms in Three Distinct Ways

These antagonisms perpetuate in three quite distinct ways the struggle for subsistence in which the bulk of mankind is caught. The first centres around the fact that the level of wages in the capitalist system depends upon the relative size of the reserve army of labour. And to the extent that the relative size of the reserve army of labour never shrinks below a certain threshold level, the wage rate remains tied to the subsistence level despite significant increases in labour productivity, as necessarily occur in the “era of progress and innovation”. Work itself therefore becomes a struggle for subsistence and remains so. Secondly, those who constitute the reserve army of labour are themselves destitute and hence condemned to an even more acute struggle for subsistence, to eke out for themselves an even more meager magnitude of goods and services. And thirdly, the encroachment by the capitalist mode upon the surrounding universe of petty production, whereby it displaces petty producers, grabs land from the peasants, uses the tax machinery of the State to appropriate for itself, at the expense of the petty producers, an amount of surplus value over and above what is produced within the capitalist mode itself, in short, the entire mechanism of “primitive accumulation of capital”, ensures that the size of the reserve army always remains above this threshold level. There is a stream of destitute petty producers forever flocking to work within the capitalist mode but unable to find work and hence joining the ranks of the reserve army. The antagonism within the system, and vis-à-vis the surrounding universe of petty production, thus ensures that, notwithstanding the massive increases in mankind’s productive capacity, the struggle of subsistence for the bulk of mankind continues unabated.

The growth rates of world output have been even greater in the post-war period than in Keynes’ time. The growth rates in particular capitalist countries like India have been of an order unimaginable in Keynes’ time, and yet there is no let-up in the struggle for subsistence on the part of the bulk of the population even within these countries. In India, precisely during the period of neo-liberal reforms when output growth rates have been high, there has been an increase in the proportion of the rural population accessing less than 2400 calories per person per day (the figure for 2004 is 87 percent). This is also the period when hundreds of thousands of peasants, unable to carry on even simple reproduction, have committed suicide. The unemployment rate has increased, notwithstanding a massive jump in the rate of capital accumulation; and the real wage rate, even of the workers in the organized sector, has at best stagnated, notwithstanding massive increases in labour productivity. In short our own experience belies the Keynesian optimism about the future of mankind under capitalism.

But Keynes wrote a long time ago. He should have seen the inner working of the system better (after all Marx, who died the year Keynes was born, saw it), but perhaps his upper-class Edwardian upbringing came in the way. But what does one say of people who, having seen the destitution-“high growth” dialectics in the contemporary world, still cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the “economic problem of mankind”? Neo-liberal ideologues of course propound this illusion, either in its simple version, which is the “trickle down” theory, or in the slightly more complex version, where the State is supposed to ensure through its intervention that the benefits of the growing mass of goods and services are made available to all, thereby alleviating poverty and easing the struggle for subsistence.

But this illusion often appears in an altogether unrecognizable form. Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who is well known for his administration of the so-called “shock therapy” in the former Soviet Union that led to a veritable retrogression of the economy and the unleashing of massive suffering on millions of people, has come out with a book where he argues that poverty in large parts of the world is associated with adverse geographical factors, such as drought-proneness, desertification, infertile soil, and such like. He wants global efforts to help these economies which are the victims of such niggardliness on the part of nature. The fact that enormous poverty exists in areas where nature is not niggardly, but on the contrary bounteous; the fact that the very bounteousness of nature has formed the basis of exploitation of the producers on a massive scale, so that they are engaged in an acute struggle for existence precisely in the midst of plenitude; and hence the fact that the bulk of the world’s population continues to struggle for subsistence not because of nature’s niggardliness but because of the incubus of an exploitative social order, are all obscured by such analysis. Keynes’ faith in the miracle of compound interest would be justified in a socialist order, but not in a capitalist one.

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Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian economist, who has achieved international acclaim with his incisive analyses of various aspects of economics and politics. He is a professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Patnaik is currently Vice-Chairman of the Planning Board of the Indian state of Kerala. This article was first published in People’s Democracy (5 July 2009); it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.

4. Class and Social Forces for Progress

This section and its subsections deal with the objective position in society and therefore the potential role of, various class and social forces in the struggle for progress and socialism. It begins with the working class, the most important force for Marxists and continues with the nationally oppressed, among whom in Russia the Jewish people played a special role and in the United States the African American people are of special significance. The causes of oppression of the working class, the nationally oppressed, women and youth are discussed, as well as what is required for radical improvement and solution of the oppression.

The Working Class & the Class Struggle

This subsection begins with the laying out of the objective position of the working class in production, the resulting class struggle and leading role of the working class in the struggle for progress and socialism through quotations from “The Communist Manifesto.” In a succeeding quotation from Lenin, the inevitability of this role of the working class is argued. There is additional material on the role of the working class and class struggle and material conditions of existence in the prior section on the Political Economy of Capitalism.

Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848 (Excerpts)

“Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. “All previous historical movements were movements of minorities or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lower stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

(IP ed, p.20; MESW, p.45; MECW, p.495)

“The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

IP ed, p.21; MESW, p.46; MECW, p.496)

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”

IP ed, p.44; MESW, p.63; MECW, P.519) Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848, IP, p.19; MESW, IP 1977, p.44, MECW, Vol.6

“Even the most favorable situation for the working class, no matter how it improves the material conditions of the worker, does not eliminate the contradictions between his interests and those of the bourgeois, the capitalist.”

Marx, Wage Labor & Capital, April 8, 1949, MECW, Vol.9, p.220

“The organization of the workers and their constantly growing resistance will possibly check the increase of misery to a certain extent. However, what certainly does increase is the insecurity of existence.”

Engels, A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891, June 1891, MECW, Vol.27, p.223

“The fundamental criterion by which classes are distinguished is the place they occupy in social production and, consequently, the relation in which they stand to the means of production.”

Lenin, Vulgar Socialism & Narodism As Resurrected by the Socialist Revolutionaries, Nov.1, 1902, CW, Vol.6, p.264-265

“Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.”

Lenin, A Great Beginning, July 1913, CW, Vol. 29, p.421

“The overthrow of bourgeois rule can be accomplished only by the proletariat, the particular class whose economic conditions of existence prepare it for this task and provide it with the possibility and the power to perform it. While the bourgeoisie break up and disintegrate the peasantry and all the petty-bourgeois groups, they weld together, unite and organize the proletariat. Only the proletariat – by virtue of the economic role it plays in large-scale production – is capable of being the leader of all the working and exploited people, whom the bourgeoisie exploit, oppress and crush, often not less but more than they do the proletarians, but who are incapable of waging an independent struggle for their emancipation”

Lenin, The State & Revolution, Aug.-Sept.1917, CW,Vol.25, pp.403-04

Trade Unions

This is a subpart of The Working Class in which Engels and Lenin discuss the role, importance of and limitations of trade unions. “Nothing is said [in the Gotha Programme], about the organization of the working class as a class, by means of trade unions. This is a very important point, because these, as a matter of fact are the real class organizations of the proletariat, in which the latter wages its day-to-day struggle against capital; in which it schools itself.”

Engels, Letter to August Bebel, 1875, MESC, IP 1977, p.336; MECW, Vol.45, p.63

“And precisely because the unions direct themselves against the vital nerve of the present social order, however one-sidedly, in however a narrow way, are they so dangerous to this social order. The working class cannot attack the bourgeoisie and with it, the whole existing order of society, at any sorer point than this.”

Engels, Conditions of Working Class in England, 1844. 1892 edited, MECW, Vol.4, p.507

“The trade union struggle is one of the constant forms of the whole workers’ movement, one always needed under capitalism and essential at all times.”

Lenin, Letter to S.I. Gusev, 1905, CW, Vol.34, p.355

“Let every worker who understands the need to unite for the struggle against the employers and the government join the trade unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be impossible of achievement, if they did not unite all who have attained at least this elementary degree of understanding, if they were not very broad organizations.”

Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, 1902, CW Vol.5, p.454

“…under capitalism even the trade union organizations… are incapable of embracing the entire, or almost the entire working class.”

Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, 1904, CW, Vol.7, p.260

“(1)The Social Democratic Party has always regarded the economic struggle as a component of the proletarian class struggle. “(2) The experience of all capitalist countries shows that the most advisable form of organization of the working class for the economic struggle is that of broad trade unions… “(3) That the party must exert every effort to educate the workers who belong to trade unions in the spirit of a broad understanding of the class struggle and the socialist aims of the proletariat;”

Lenin, Resolution on the Trade Unions, 1906, CW, Vol.10, p.160

“The trade unions were a tremendous step forward for the working class in the early days of capitalist development, in as much as they marked a transition from the workers’ disunity and helplessness to the rudiments of class organization…the development of the proletariat did not, and could not, proceed anywhere in the world otherwise than through the trade unions, through reciprocal action between them and the party of the working class.”

Lenin, Left-Wing Communism – An Infantile Disorder, 1920, CW, Vol. 31, p.50

National Oppression

This subsection begins with quotations illustrating the attitude of Marx and Engels toward national oppression from “The Communist Manifesto” on. Also shown is their view that the working class of the oppressor nation needed to oppose such oppression if it was to emancipate itself. Then quotations from major works of Lenin on national oppression deal with it within the boundaries of a single state, Russia, and similar states, in terms of its sources, role, solution, and relation to working class emancipation. This includes the famous “right of nations to self-determination.” Stalin’s well-known definition of a nation is included, followed by the definition of a nation by a Soviet expert on the subject, Pyotr Fedoseyev in 1977 for comparison purposes, including with Lenin’s view on the subject.

“1. In the national struggles of the proletariat of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

IP Ed, p.22; MESW, p.46; MECW, p.497)

“In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.

(IP Ed, p.28; MESW, p.51; MECW, p.503)

“In Poland they (the Communists) support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.

(IP Ed, p.43; MESW, p.62; MECW, p.518)

“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each case, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.”

(IP Ed, p.44; MESW, p.63; MECW, p.519)
Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto, 1848, IP Ed, MESW, MECW, Vol.6

“The English bourgeoisie has not only exploited Irish poverty to keep down the working class in England by forced immigration of poor Irishmen, but it has also divided the proletariat into two hostile camps…This antagonism among the proletarians [English and Irish] of England is artificially nourished and kept up by the bourgeoisie. It knows that this scission is the true secret of maintaining its power.”

Marx, The General Council of the First International to the Federal Council of Romance Switzerland, Jan. 1870, MECW, Vol.21, p.88

“..to hasten the social revolution in England is the most important object of the International Working Men’s Association. The sole means of hastening it is to make Ireland independent. “Hence the task of the ‘International’ is everywhere to put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground and everywhere to side openly with Ireland. The special task of the Central Council in London is to awaken a consciousness in the English workers that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is no question of abstract justice or human sympathy but the first condition of their own social emancipation…

“It is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite their organization. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And of this that class is well aware.”

Marx, Letter to Siegfried Meyer & Karl Vogt, London, April 9, 1870, MESC, p.290; MECW, Vol.43, p.475

“A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.”

Stalin, J.V., Marxism & the National Question, Jan. 1913, IP Ed, p.12

“The nation is a lasting historical community of people constituting a form of social development based on the community of economic life in combination with the community of language, territory, culture, consciousness and psychology.”

Fedoseyev, Pyotr, Leninism & the National Question, Prog 1977, p.27

“Working class democracy contraposes…the demand for the unconditional unity and complete amalgamation of workers of all nationalities in all working class organizations – trade union, co- operative, consumers’, educational and all others – in contradistinction to any kind of bourgeois nationalism…

“Developing capitalism knows two historical tendencies in the national question. The first is the awakening of national life and national movements, the struggle against all national oppression, and the creation of national states. The second is the development and growing frequency of international intercourse in every form, the break-down of national barriers, the creation of the international unity of capital, of economic life in general, of politics, science, etc.

“Both tendencies are a universal law of capitalism. The former predominates in the beginning of its development, the latter characterizes a mature capitalism that is moving towards its transformation into socialist society. The Marxists’ national programme takes both tendencies into account, and advocates, firstly the equality of nations and languages and the impermissibility of all privileges in this respect (and also the right of nations to self-determination, with which we shall deal separately later); secondly, the principle of internationalism and uncompromising struggle against contamination of the proletariat with bourgeois nationalism, even of the most refined kind.”

Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question, Oct.-Dec. 1913, IP Ed, p. 15, CW, Vol.20, p.22

“The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the forefront, and does so in categorical fashion. With the proletariat, however, these demands are subordinated to the interests of the class struggle.” (p.60)

“Marx had no doubt as to the subordinate position of the national question as compared with the ‘labor question.’ But his theory is as far from ignoring national movements as heaven is from earth.”

Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination, Feb.-March 1914, IP Ed, p.86, CW, Vol.20, p.410
Lenin, The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up, July 1916 (Excerpts)

“It is impossible to abolish national (or any other political) oppression under capitalism, since this requires the abolition of classes, i.e., the introduction of socialism. But while being based on economics, socialism cannot be reduced to economics alone. A foundation – socialist production – is essential for the abolition of national oppression, but this foundation must also carry a democratically organized state, a democratic army, etc. By transforming capitalism into socialism the proletariat creates the possibility of abolishing national oppression; the possibility becomes reality ‘only’ – ‘only’! – with establishment of full democracy in all spheres, including the delineation of state frontiers in accordance with the ‘sympathies’ of the population,including complete freedom to secede. And this, in turn, will serve as a basis for developing the practical elimination of even the slightest national friction and the least national mistrust, for an accelerated drawing together and fusion of nations that will be completed when the state withers away.”

(IP, p.130; CW, p.325)

“In order that we may have the strength to accomplish the socialist revolution and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the workers must unite more closely and this close union is promoted by the struggle for self-determination, i.e., the struggle against annexations.”

(IP, p.141; CW, p.336)

“The several demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but only a small part of the general- democratic (now: general-socialist) world movement. In individual concrete cases, the part may contradict the whole; if so, it must be rejected. It is possible that the republican movement in one country may be merely an instrument of the clerical or financial- monarchist intrigues of other countries; if so, we must not support this particular, concrete movement, but it would be ridiculous to delete the demand for a republic from the programme of international Social-Democracy on these grounds.”

(IP, p.146; CW, p.341)

“A reformist change is one which leaves intact the foundations of the power of the ruling class and is merely a concession leaving its power unimpaired. A revolutionary change undermines the foundations of power.” “…(the essence of reformism lies in mitigating an evil and not in destroying it)…” “But as everyone knows, in practice a reform is often merely a step towards revolution. It is autonomy that enables a nation forcibly retained within the boundaries of a given state to crystallize into a nation, to gather, assess and organize its forces, and to select the most opportune moment for a declaration …” (of secession)

(IP, p.149; CW, p.344)

“The way to the common goal – complete equality, the closest association and the eventual amalgamation of all nations – obviously runs along different routes in each concrete case…” (for great oppressor nations and small oppressed nations)

(IP, p.151; CW, p.346,)
Lenin, The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up, July 1916 IP Ed, CW, Vol.22

“So one army lines up in one place and says, ‘We are for socialism,’ and another, somewhere else and says, ‘We are for imperialism’, and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a ‘putsch.’ Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.”

(p.160 IP, p.355-56 CW)
Lenin, The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up IP Ed July 1916, CW, Vol.22

“The interests of the working class demand that the workers of all nationalities in Russia should have common proletarian organizations: political, trade union, co-operative, education institutions, and so forth. Only the merging of the workers of the various nationalities into such common organizations will make it possible for the proletariat to wage a successful struggle against international Capital and bourgeois nationalism.”

Lenin, Resolution on the National Question, 7th April All-Russia Conference, published May 16, 1917, CW, Vol.24, p.302-303
Lenin, The Question of Nationalities Or “Autonomization”, Dec. 31,1922, Letter to 12th Congress, CPSU, part of the “last testament”

“A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a big nation and that of a small nation. “In respect of the second kind of nationalism we, nationals of a big nation, have nearly always been guilty, in historic practice, of an infinite number of cases of violence; furthermore, we commit violence and insult an infinite number of times without noticing it…

“That is why internationalism on the part of oppressors or ‘great’ nations, as they are called (though they are great only in their violence, only great as bullies), must consist not only in the observance of the formal equality of nations but even in an inequality of the oppressor nation, the great nation, that must make up for the inequality which obtains in actual practice. Anybody who does not understand this has not grasped the real proletarian attitude to the national question, he is still essentially petty bourgeois in his point of view and is, therefore, sure to descend to the bourgeois point of view.

“What is important for the proletarian? For the proletarian it is not only important,it is absolutely essential that he should be assured that the non-Russian place the greatest possible trust in the proletarian class struggle. What is needed to ensure this? Not merely formal equality. In one way or another, by one’s attitude or by concessions [special measures], it is necessary to compensate the non-Russians for the lack of trust, for the suspicion and the insults to which the government of the ‘dominant’ nation subjected them in the past…

“The Georgian (referring to Stalin and Orgonikidze) who is neglectful of this aspect of the question, or who carelessly flings about accusations of ‘nationalist-socialism’ (whereas he himself is a real and true ‘nationalist-socialist’, and even a vulgar Great- Russian bully), violates, in substance, the interests of proletarian class solidarity, for nothing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; ‘offended’ nationals are not sensitive to anything so much as to the feeling of equality and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest – to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades. That is why, in this case, the fundamental interest of proletarian solidarity, and consequently of the proletarian class struggle, requires that we never adopt a formal attitude to the national question, but always take into account the specific attitude of the proletarian of the oppressed (or small) nation towards the oppressor (or great) nation.”

Lenin, The Question of Nationalities Or “Autonomization”, Dec. 31, 1922, Letter to 12th Congress, CPSU, part of the “last testament” IP Ed, p.168-69, CW, Vol.36, p.608-09