At this point in our series, it would serve us well to zoom in on the process by which practice becomes theory, and vice versa. Stalin said that “theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect.” This is a good summation, but what does that really mean?

So far in our series on theory, we’ve looked at the historical emergence of Marxism. But by the time Marx finished writing Capital, capitalism was still developing and changing. The fundamental characteristics of the capitalist mode of production haven’t changed. Commodity production and exploitation of workers’ surplus value by the capitalists remain the driving force of the capitalist system. And it remains a system plagued by regular cycles of crises of overproduction, pushing poor and working-class people further down while the rich get richer and richer. But by the beginning of the 20th century the internal motion of capitalism’s contradictions led to its advancement to a higher stage: monopoly capitalism, also known as imperialism.

Continuing the Fight Back! series on the theoretical concepts of Marxism-Leninism, let’s examine how Marxism emerged, and the struggles that it grew out of.

This is the beginning of a new series on Marxist-Leninist theory. Fight Back! News is publishing this series of short articles in the interest of furthering the critical task of fusing Marxism with the workers’ movement. Marx stressed that the purpose of theory is to understand the world so as to change the world, and this series hopes to help give activists in the people’s struggles a better grasp of these theoretical tools. But let’s begin with an overview: when we say we are Marxist-Leninists, what does that mean? What is Marxism-Leninism, and why is it important?