To mark the 132nd anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, December 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating quotes from some of his writings on the United States and its role in the world.

“Chiang Kai-shek and his supporters, the U.S. reactionaries, are all paper tigers too. Speaking of U.S. imperialism, people seem to feel that it is terrifically strong. Chinese reactionaries are using the ‘strength’ of the United States to frighten the Chinese people. But it will be proved that the U.S. reactionaries, like all the reactionaries in history, do not have much strength. In the United States there are others who are really strong – the American people.”

— Talk with the American correspondent Anna Louise Strong, August 1946

“Apart from those who are deliberately deceiving the people or are utterly naive, no one will believe that a treaty can make U.S. imperialism lay down its butcher’s knife and suddenly become a Buddha, or even behave itself a little better.”

— Statement Opposing Aggression Against Southern Vietnam and Slaughter of Its People by the U.S. – Ngo Dinh Diem clique, August, 1963

“The United States has all along attempted to control the Congo. It used the United Nations forces to carry out every sort of evil deed there. It murdered the Congolese national hero Lumumba, it subverted the lawful Congolese government. It imposed the puppet Tshombe on the Congolese people, and dispatched mercenary troops to suppress the Congolese national liberation movement. And now, it is carrying out direct armed intervention in the Congo in collusion with Belgium and Britain. In so doing, the purpose of U.S. imperialism is not only to control the Congo, but also to enmesh the whole of Africa, particularly the newly independent African countries, in the toils of U.S. neo-colonialism once again. U.S. aggression has encountered heroic resistance from the Congolese people and aroused the indignation of the people of Africa and of the whole world.”

— Declaration of Support of the People of the Congo, December 1964

“The speedy development of the struggle of the American Negroes is a manifestation of sharpening class struggle and sharpening national struggle within the United States; it has been causing increasing anxiety among U.S. ruling circles. The Kennedy Administration is insidiously using dual tactics. On the one hand, it continues to connive at and take part in discrimination against Negroes and their persecution, and it even sends troops to suppress them. On the other hand, in the attempt to numb the fighting will of the Negro people and deceive the masses of the country, the Kennedy Administration is parading as an advocate of ‘the defense of human rights’ and ‘the protection of the civil rights of Negroes,’ calling upon the Negro people to exercise ‘restraint’ and proposing the ‘civil rights legislation’ to Congress. But more and more Negroes are seeing through these tactics of the Kennedy Administration. The fascist atrocities of the U.S. imperialists against the Negro people have exposed the true nature of so-called American democracy and freedom and revealed the inner link between the reactionary policies pursued by the U.S. Government at home and its policies of aggression abroad.”

— Statement Supporting the American Negroes in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism, August 8, 1963

“The Afro-American struggle is not only a struggle waged by the exploited and oppressed Black people for freedom and emancipation, it is also a new clarion call to all the exploited and oppressed people of the United States to fight against the barbarous rule of the monopoly capitalist class. It is a tremendous aid and inspiration to the struggle of the people throughout the world against U.S. imperialism and to the struggle of the Vietnamese people against U.S. imperialism. On behalf of the Chinese people, I hereby express resolute support for the just struggle of the Black people in the United States.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“The Black masses and the masses of white working people in the United States have common interests and common objectives to struggle for. Therefore, the Afro-American struggle is winning sympathy and support from increasing numbers of white working people and progressives in the United States. The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge with the American workers’ movement, and this will eventually end the criminal rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class.”

— Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Support of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression, April 16, 1968

“A new upsurge in the struggle against U.S. imperialism is now emerging throughout the world. Ever since the Second World War, U.S. imperialism and its followers have been continuously launching wars of aggression and the people in various countries have been continuously waging revolutionary wars to defeat the aggressors. The danger of a new world war still exists, and the people of all countries must get prepared. But revolution is the main trend in the world today.

“Unable to win in Vietnam and Laos, the U.S. aggressors treacherously engineered the reactionary coup d’etat by the Lon Nol Sirik Matak clique, brazenly dispatched their troops to invade Cambodia and resumed the bombing of North Vietnam, and this has aroused the furious resistance of the three Indo Chinese peoples. I warmly support the fighting spirit of Samdech Norodom Sihanouk, Head of State of Cambodia, in opposing U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. I warmly support the Joint Declaration of the Summit Conference of the Indo Chinese Peoples. I warmly support the establishment of the Royal Government of National Union under the Leadership of the National United Front of Kampuchea. Strengthening their unity, supporting each other and persevering in a protracted people’s war, the three Indo-Chinese peoples will certainly overcome all difficulties and win complete victory.

“While massacring the people in other countries, U.S. imperialism is slaughtering the white and black people in its own country. Nixon’s fascist atrocities have kindled the raging flames of the revolutionary mass movement in the United States. The Chinese people firmly support the revolutionary struggle of the American people. I am convinced that the American people who are fighting valiantly will ultimately win victory and that the fascist rule in the United States will inevitably be defeated.”

— People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Running Dogs, May 23, 1970

#RevolutionaryTheory #Mao #Socialism #MarxismLeninism

The following paper by Mick Kelly, the Political Secretary of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), was presented at the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) International Theoretical Conference on Fascism in the 21st Century in the Imperialist Heartlands. Sydney Loving of the Central Committee of FRSO also participated in the conference, which took place November 28-29, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Comrades and friends,

Let me start by thanking the National Democratic Front of the Philippines for organizing this most important event. In providing a venue for revolutionaries to address the big theoretical issues facing our respective movements, the NDFP is making a real contribution to our collective efforts to shatter the chains of monopoly capitalism.

The question of fascism is an important one, and it can impact one’s strategy, tactics, and a host of organizational measures; in fact, the fascism question can be one of life and death. There is also a wealth of important texts that address the issue, and of special importance are those of works of R. Palme Dutt and Georgi Dimitrov – both of which received wide circulation by the Communist International.

Comrades might be interested to know that the issue of fascism is a mass question among large numbers of progressive people in the U.S., given the wave of attacks unleashed by the reactionary Trump administration, Over the past 9 months, millions of people, in big cities and small towns, have taken to the streets. The extremely sharp struggles against mass deportations – including the uprising in Los Angeles and high level of struggle in Chicago and Portland, Oregon – make up one of the main issues shaping domestic politics.

We see the overall conditions as extremely favorable for building communist organization. As FRSO has been able to play an important role in these fights, we continue to be in a period of extraordinary growth.

What fascism is

For some, “Fascism” as an invective – a sort of swear word, the worst thing that you can call someone or some action of government – as opposed to a political category with a scientific definition. This is a long-standing tendency on the part of the petty bourgeois left, and certainly there is no one here who does that. Others, like the Trotskyites [1], see fascism as the product of a mass movement of the petty bourgeoisie. That is not correct either.

We are in agreement with the definition adopted by 13th plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International which states fascism is, “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”

At the 7th Congress of the Communist International, Dimitrov pointed out, “The accession to power of fascism is not a ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie – bourgeois democracy – for another form, open terrorist dictatorship.” [2]

This is an important point. While it is true there is not a qualitative difference between fascism and bourgeois democracy, in the sense that they are both ways that the monopoly capitalist wield state political power, there is a qualitative difference in so far as one is very different than the other when it comes to democratic rights of working and oppressed people.

Fascism and capitalist democracy are different forms of political rule. The fact that there is real difference between the two means that revolutionaries will employ different tasks, objectives, and organizational measures depending on the form of bourgeois rule. Communist organizing in a period of open terror is for all practical purposes illegal.

Fascist governments wage aggressive wars characterized by extremes of national chauvinism. In fact, bourgeois democratic governments have always done the same and often resort to the use of open terror to maintain control of their colonies or neo-colonies. In fact, the use of open terror in the neo-colonial or colonial settings is a feature that is common to fascist and bourgeois democratic governments.

In his important work The State and Revolution, Lenin points out, “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.”

Why would the ruling class give up this “best possible political shell”? Stalin responds that it is because they have to:

In this connection the victory of fascism in Germany must be regarded not only as a symptom of the weakness of the working class and a result of the by the betrayals of the working class by Social-Democracy, which paved the way for fascism; it must also be regarded as a sign of weakness of the bourgeois, a sign that the bourgeois is no longer able to rule by the old methods of parliamentary and bourgeois democracy, and, as a consequence, is compelled in its home policy to resort to terrorist methods of rule — as a sign it is no longer to find a way out of the present situation on the basis of a peaceful foreign policy, and, as a consequence, is compelled to resort to a policy of war. [3]

Finally let me quote from R. Palme Dutt, “Fascism is not inevitable. Fascism is not a necessary stage of capitalist development through which all countries must pass. The social revolution can forestall Fascism, as it has done in Russia. But if the social revolution is delayed, then the menace of fascism becomes urgent.” [4]

So, there are several themes that should be circled back to. First, fascism employs open terrorism. Sure, there can be courts and parliaments, but open terrorism is what the fascist state is organized around and for. Secondly, fascism is a tool of the financial oligarchy – particularly its most reactionary and chauvinist sectors. And finally, there is the issue of extreme national chauvinism and fascism’s war-like nature.

To what degree is there a fascist danger in the U.S.?

In the entire epoch of monopoly capitalism, fascism is a latent tendency and therefore a possibility, given that the necessary conditions are present. In a context where the decline of U.S. imperialism is accelerating, where polarization is sharpening in the political superstructure, it is necessary to have a materialist evaluation of the objective conditions. That includes a realistic assessment of an immediate fascist danger.

When identifying what fascism is, in our view the most essential feature is the use of open terror by the ruling class, meaning the legal possibilities to organize for socialism are slim to nonexistent. That is not currently the situation in the United States, and communists in the U.S. need to utilize every avenue and opportunity to build the people’s struggle while developing revolutionary organization.

It is a fact that there are fascist groups and there are people in government who are pro-fascist. These elements are present in the military too. Their attacks should be met head on. The events of January 6, 2021, when Trump attempted to block the peaceful transfer of power and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, speaks volumes about the lengths reactionaries will go to – as well as some of the limitations that necessity places on them.

The U.S. has always repressive place. Even as it went to war on German fascism and was an important part of the world anti-fascist coalition, 120,000 Japanese Americans were put in concentration camps.

Whatever assessment one has about a fascist danger, repression and resistance to repression need to be taken seriously. This means opposing reactionary laws and measures that restrict our democratic rights. It also means pushing back hard against legal attacks we face. Over the past 15 years our organization has faced a fair amount of repression, [5] and we have developed some capacity to deal with it. The most recent example was the defense of an immigrant rights activist and comrade who was charged with conspiracy to further civil disorder in the aftermath of the anti-ICE rebellion in Los Angles. We build a broad, national defense campaign and charges were dropped.

All quantity includes quality – and there is a whole political landscape between capitalist democracy and open terror (fascism) that could be very different from what we have experienced over the past 50 years.

Fascism is a tool of the most reactional monopoly capitalists to prevent revolution. In the U.S. today, we are not in a revolutionary situation. An effective strategy against fascism would necessitate building the broadest possible united front to stop it, like for example the Popular Front employed by U.S. communists from the mid-1930s on. If there is an immediate danger of capitalist democracy being replaced by open terror, we can and will adjust our strategy and organizational functioning accordingly.

Comrades: communists have a rich history of resisting repression and defeating fascism. It was Soviet soldiers who planted the flag bearing a hammer and sickle on the ruins of the “thousand-year Reich.” Our comrades of the Philippines have repeatedly demonstrated it is possible to grow and thrive in the context of U.S.-sponsored terror. The road might be a hard one, but our future is bright.

Let me close with a quote from the outstanding revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist Mao Zedong:

I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown, and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.

Long live proletarian internationalism! Long live the unity of the world’s peoples! Victory is certain, together we will win!

Notes

[1] Trosky states in Fascism: What it is and how to fight it, “The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a “self-made” man arising from this movement.”

[2] Dimitrov, The Fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the fight for uniy of the working class against fascism, 7th Congress of the Communist International, page 127

[3] J. Stalin, Report to the 17th Party Congress, CW vol. 13, page 300

[4] R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution

[5] In 2010 more than 70 FBI agents carried out coordinate raids against antiwar and international solidarity activist – including the homes of a number of FRSO members.

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Statement #Fascism #NDFP #Philippines #Lenin #Stalin #Mao #MarxismLeninism

In his extraordinary work, The Foundations of Leninism, J.V. Stalin, the principal leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin, explained, “Theory is the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect.” In other words, theory is based on the summation of practical experience. General lessons are drawn from that experience, and then applied, tested and enriched through application in practice to our particular conditions. The 1938 work The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) – Short Course stands out as an invaluable wellspring of theory because it provides a summation of the experiences of the Bolshevik Revolution from a Marxist-Leninist perspective. It is a summation that we can and must learn from to apply to the revolutionary tasks at hand here and now.

Indeed, such was the value of the Short Course that during the Yan’an Rectification Movement, Mao Zedong wrote, “... in studying Marxism-Leninism, we should use the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course as the principal material. It is the best synthesis and summing-up of the world communist movement of the past hundred years, a model of the integration of theory and practice, and so far the only comprehensive model in the whole world. When we see how Lenin and Stalin integrated the universal truth of Marxism with the concrete practice of the Soviet revolution and thereby developed Marxism, we shall know how we should work in China.”

Stalin’s role in writing the Short Course

The authorship of the Short Course has long been a topic of discussion. Some have asserted that it was written by Stalin. Others have said it was written by a committee. The fact is that it was written by a committee of party historians under the political and theoretical guidance of Stalin. 

The book Stalin’s Master Narrative, edited by David Brandenberger and Mikhail Zelenov, shows exactly what Stalin’s contributions to the book were. He revised or rewrote significant portions of the book, and cut major sections as well. For example, he cut sections that praised his individual contributions too highly, as well as sections that overestimated or overstated the scope and strength of the counterrevolutionary Trotskyite conspiracy. Meanwhile, the section on Dialectical and Historical Materialism is entirely Stalin’s work. 

Liberals, Trotskyites, and anti-communist academics often look at Stalin’s direct involvement in the authorship of the Short Course and use that to dismiss the book as self-promotion. The revisionist Khrushchev even listed Stalin’s authorship of the Short Course among Stalin’s “crimes” in order to denigrate Stalin and bury this important text. Modern scholarship has revealed the “crimes” of Stalin in the so-called “Secret Speech” to be fabrications by Khrushchev, and this is no different. Khrushchev blames Stalin for self-aggrandizing in the book, but we now know that Stalin had no patience for such lavish personal praise, and we can see that he cut such praise heavily from the book. 

In any case, Marxists ought to understand that Stalin’s leading role in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet State placed him in a unique position to give an accurate, Marxist-Leninist summation of events, in the interests of developing communist theory and practice. The purpose of the book, contrary to what the revisionists and other anti-communists claim, was to educate the Party from top to bottom in Marxist-Leninist theory from a decidedly practical point of view. Indeed, if there is one current that runs steadily throughout the book, it is the unity of theory practice. 

The unity of theory and practice in the Short Course

We can see then that one of the remarkable things that the Short Course does is to unite the practice that it is summing up with the theory that guided it at the time. In this way, it looks at the major works of Lenin and Stalin and contextualizes them, explains why they were written, and breaks down their main points in relation to the struggles that they sought to inform. 

As the book traces the history of the Bolsheviks from 1883 with the formation of the Emancipation of Labor group, through the development of the Soviet Constitution adopted in December of 1936, it strives to draw out both theoretical and practical lessons that can be taken up by revolutionaries, and to show the dialectical unity between theory and practice. It is a work of historical materialism, after all. So in it we see how the important ideological, political and organizational questions arose from the material reality of the time and place in which they were born.

The Short Course takes the time to explain practically all of Lenin’s major works and how they contributed to the revolution. It explains how many of Lenin’s writings formed the foundation for the Bolshevik party. Thus, it explains how Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? formed the ideological foundation for the Marxist-Leninist party. It explains how Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back similarly formed the organizational foundation. And it explains how Lenin’s Materialism and Emperio-Criticism formed the philosophical foundation. In this way, the Short Course is an essential textbook on Leninist theory.

We can draw innumerable practical lessons from the book as well. For example, we can see how the Bolsheviks, despite being relatively small, were able, as early as 1905, to organize and mobilize the masses of the workers and peasants of the Russian Empire in order to have an influence that far exceeded their own numbers. It not only explains, but demonstrates, the necessity of armed struggle to smash the bourgeois dictatorship and institute the dictatorship of the proletariat: working class state power with the goal of building socialism and advancing towards communism. And it shows in practice how the Bolsheviks went about building socialism in the Soviet Union, for the first time in history. 

In its conclusion, the Short Course sums up its lessons. It emphasizes the central role of the revolutionary proletarian party itself: “The history of the Party teaches us, first of all, that the victory of the proletarian revolution, the victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is impossible without a revolutionary party of the proletariat, a party free from opportunism, irreconcilable towards compromisers and capitulators, and revolutionary in its attitude towards the bourgeoisie and its state power.”

Second, it emphasizes the pivotal role of theory, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party of the working class cannot perform the role of leader of its class, cannot perform the role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, unless it has mastered the advanced theory of the working-class movement, the Marxist-Leninist theory.”

Third, it emphasizes the necessity of the hegemony of the working class party among the class, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the petty-bourgeois parties which are active within the ranks of the working class and which push the backward sections of the working class into the arms of the bourgeoisie, thus splitting the unity of the working class, are smashed, the victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible.”

Fourth, it emphasizes ideological struggle against opportunism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that unless the Party of the working class wages an uncompromising struggle against the opportunists within its own ranks, unless it smashes the capitulators in its own midst, it cannot preserve unity and discipline within its ranks, it cannot perform its role of organizer and leader of the proletarian revolution, nor its role as the builder of the new, Socialist society.”

Fifth, it emphasizes criticism and self-criticism, “The history of the Party further teaches us that a party cannot perform its role as leader of the working class if, carried away by success, it begins to grow conceited, ceases to observe the defects in its work, and fears to acknowledge its mistakes and frankly and honestly to correct them in good time.”

And finally, it emphasizes the mass line, “the history of the Party teaches us that unless it has wide connections with the masses, unless it constantly strengthens these connections, unless it knows how to hearken to the voice of the masses and understand their urgent needs, unless it is prepared not only to teach the masses, but to learn from the masses, a party of the working class cannot be a real mass party capable of leading the working class millions and all the labouring people.”

The Short Course today

The lessons of the history of the Bolshevik party are as vital today as ever. Not only is this book a textbook of Marxism-Leninism, but, as Mao said, the Short Course is also “a model of the integration of theory and practice.” We can see many of our own problems reflected in it, and by studying how the Bolsheviks addressed those problems, we can better understand how to move forward. The Short Course addresses party building, organization, the national question, imperialism, war and peace, strategy and tactics, and so much more, all in an accessible and understandable way. 

Often, when we read the writings of Lenin, we may feel detached from the broader context in which they were written. This book can serve to bridge the gap between those texts and their context, helping us to better understand their meaning and purpose. In that way, we can better understand how to apply the general theoretical lessons of those important texts to our own particular conditions. 

The problems that faced the Bolsheviks are not unique, and many of them still plague revolutionaries all over the world, including in the United States. Indeed, while our conditions may not be the same, the theory of Marxism-Leninism is essential for understanding and advancing our own revolution. We are still in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Our enemy is the capitalist class. Our goal is socialism, and ultimately, communism. And our way forward is the path first charted by Lenin, Stalin, and the Bolsheviks. 

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #USSR #Stalin #MarxismLeninism

The revolutionary struggle that brought about the first socialist state in the former Russian Empire in 1917 had its first major upheavals years earlier. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) had split into two factions, the Bolsheviks (meaning majority, led by V.I. Lenin) and Mensheviks (meaning minority, led by Julius Martov) in 1903. The RSDLP remained as one party formally, but the two factions, practically, had separate centers, presses, and programs. As The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) – Short Course puts it, “on the eve of the first Russian revolution, when the Russo-Japanese war had already begun, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks acted as two separate political groups.”

The Russo-Japanese war broke out in 1904, and the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks each took a different stance toward the war. “The Mensheviks, including Trotsky, were sinking to a position of defending the ‘fatherland’ of the tsar, the landlords and the capitalists,” says the Short Course. “The Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, on the other hand, held that the defeat of the tsarist government in this predatory war would be useful, as it would weaken tsardom and strengthen the revolution.”

By 1905 the struggle came to a head. The Short Course sums it up like this: 

“The workers' recourse to mass political strikes and demonstrations, the growth of the peasant movement, the armed clashes between the people and the police and troops, and, finally, the revolt in the Black Sea Fleet, all went to show that conditions were ripening for an armed uprising of the people. This stirred the liberal bourgeoisie into action. Fearing the revolution, and at the same time frightening the tsar with the spectre of revolution, it sought to come to terms with the tsar against the revolution; it demanded slight reforms ‘for the people’ so as to ‘pacify’ the people, to split the forces of the revolution and thus avert the ‘horrors of revolution.’ ‘Better part with some of our land than part with our heads,’ said the liberal landlords. The liberal bourgeoisie was preparing to share power with the tsar.’

In this time of great upheaval, the RSDLP lacked unity over tactics on how to move forward. The Bolsheviks called the Third Congress in order to assess the situation and formulate tactics that the whole party would be bound to carry out. But the Mensheviks boycotted the Third Congress and called their own “conference” in order to formulate their own tactical line apart from the Bolsheviks. 

The Third Party Congress correctly assessed that the liberal bourgeoisie didn’t want complete victory for the revolution but would instead seek compromise with the tsar on the basis of forming a constitutional monarchy. Therefore, it called for the proletariat to lead the bourgeois-democratic revolution, allied closely with the peasantry, since those were the class forces fundamentally interested in complete victory. The Menshevik conference, on the other hand, insisted that the democratic revolution be led by the liberal bourgeoisie, and that revolutionary socialists should make every effort to avoid frightening the liberal bourgeoisie and thereby undermining the revolution. The Bolsheviks advocated the revolutionary overthrow of tsarism, and the continuation of the revolution from its bourgeois-democratic stage to its socialist stage, while the Mensheviks instead advocated a policy of compromise and reform. 

Lenin’s arguments

Lenin’s book, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution appeared two months after the Third Congress, in July 1905. It explained and developed the Bolshevik tactical line as it exposed and criticized the Menshevik tactical line. 

There are three main points in Lenin’s book that must be emphasized. 

First, Lenin argued that the proletariat must be the leader and guiding force of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Thus, in Two Tactics Lenin writes, 

“Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to be indifferent to it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, for carrying the revolution to its conclusion. We cannot jump out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can vastly extend these boundaries, and within these boundaries we can and must fight for the interests of the proletariat, for its immediate needs and for the conditions that will make it possible to prepare its forces for the future complete victory.”

For this reason, Lenin writes, “The outcome of the revolution depends on whether the working class will play the part of a subsidiary to the bourgeoisie, a subsidiary that is powerful in the force of its onslaught against the autocracy but impotent politically, or whether it will play the part of leader of the people’s revolution.” To do this, Lenin held that it was necessary for the proletariat to ally itself with the peasantry, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to isolate the liberal bourgeoisie and force it out of leadership of the revolution. 

Second, Lenin argued that the means for overthrowing tsarism and achieving a democratic republic was through revolutionary armed struggle. 

In Two Tactics Lenin writes, “In order to be able to exercise this pressure from below, the proletariat must be armed—for in a revolutionary situation matters develop with exceptional rapidity to the stage of open civil war – and must be led by the Social-Democratic Party. The object of its armed pressure is that of ‘defending, consolidating and extending the gains of the revolution,’ i.e., those gains which from the standpoint of the interests of the proletariat must consist in the fulfilment of the whole of our minimum program.”

Against the Mensheviks, who advocated for reform during a revolutionary situation, Lenin wrote, “under the circumstances … amendments are moved by means of street demonstrations, interpolations are introduced by means of offensive action by armed citizens, opposition to the government is effected by forcibly overthrowing the government.” 

Third, Lenin argued that the revolution should have two stages, and that the revolution must not come to a halt with the victory of the bourgeois-democratic stage. Instead, it must strive immediately to pass into the socialist stage.

Therefore, Lenin writes in Two Tactics, “The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyze the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.”

The Short Course points out, “This was a new theory which held that the Socialist revolution would be accomplished not by the proletariat in isolation as against the whole bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat as the leading class which would have as allies the semi-proletarian elements of the population, the ‘toiling and exploited millions.’” It goes on to explain, “According to this theory the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution, the proletariat being in alliance with the peasantry, would grow into the hegemony of the proletariat in the Socialist revolution, the proletariat now being in alliance with the other laboring and exploited masses, while the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry would prepare the ground for the Socialist dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the necessity of revolutionary armed struggle, and the importance of carrying the revolution forward from the democratic to the socialist stage: these are the most important lessons to draw from Lenin’s Two Tactics. 

Two Tactics today

After 1905, the democratic revolution in Russia entered a period of retreat, and wouldn’t be completed until February of 1917, after which the Bolsheviks did indeed push the revolution forward to the victorious October socialist revolution. 

Regarding Lenin’s book, Two Tactics, the Short Course says, “Its invaluable significance consists in that it enriched Marxism with a new theory of revolution and laid the foundation for the revolutionary tactics of the Bolshevik Party with the help of which in 1917 the proletariat of our country achieved the victory over capitalism.”

It is important that revolutionaries study this cornerstone of Marxist-Leninist theory today. Indeed, it explains in clear terms how revolutionaries should relate to the movements for democracy and the other class forces involved in those movements. It lays out the basic principles at the core of Leninist tactics. The lessons of Two Tactics apply to our own struggle in the U.S., where different class forces are united in struggle against monopoly capitalism. At the core of this united front is the strategic alliance of the multinational working class on the one hand and the movements of the oppressed nations and nationalities for liberation on the other hand. Lenin’s Two Tactics explains clearly the importance of the leadership of the proletariat and its need for allies. And while we must push forward and develop the struggle to defend and expand democracy in a revolutionary way, we must advance to the overthrow of the capitalist system and struggle for socialism.

#RevolutionaryTheory #Socialism #MarxismLeninism #MLTheory #RedTheory

50 years ago, on April 30, the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon were broken by a tank—a tank driven by a fighter for a unified and independent Vietnam. The flag of the U.S.-backed puppet regime came down, and the flag of the National Liberation Front replaced it.

Saigon, the capital of French colonialism, and then American imperialism, was no more. Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City—named for the communist leader who stood at the forefront of Vietnam’s fight for national liberation.

On July 17, 1966, Ho Chi Minh stated, “The war may last five years, ten years, 20 years, or even longer. Ha Noi, Hai Phong, and some cities and factories may be devastated. But the Vietnamese people will never be afraid! Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom. When victory comes, our people will rebuild our country, stronger and more beautiful than ever before.”

So, it came to be, after long decades of heroic struggle, the many had defeated the few. A small country defeated a big one, and Vietnam at last was liberated. A few weeks earlier, on April 18, the Cambodian puppet regime of Lon Nol was sent packing; in the capital city of Phnom Penh, streets were named after the students killed at an anti-war protest at Kent State. Laos would get free as well and embark on the socialist road.

A crucial factor in these victories was forward-looking leaders who made use of the science of Marxism-Leninism. When talking about how he became a communist, Ho Chi Minh said, “There is a legend, in our country as well as in China, on the miraculous ‘Book of the Wise.’ When facing great difficulties, one opens it and finds a way out. Leninism is not only a miraculous ‘book of the wise,’ a compass for us Vietnamese revolutionaries and people: it is also the radiant sun illuminating our path to final victory, to socialism and communism.”

The struggle to liberate Vietnam was a titanic battle that shook the world. Both the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics proved important aid that helped make the victory possible.

Here in the United States, the movement against the war on Vietnam would have a profound impact. It brought many millions into the streets. By the war’s end, the anti-war movement was a movement in solidarity with Vietnam, and the predominant flag at U.S. demonstrations was the flag of the National Liberation Front. The struggle in Vietnam also contributed to the emergence of a new communist movement in the country, which in turn would lead to the founding of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

The victory in Vietnam proves that those who have a just cause and history on their side will win. Since the early 1970s, U.S. imperialism has been a state of decline, and that decline is picking up speed today.

We continue to draw inspiration from past victories and are certain that there will be many more—from Palestine to the Philippines—and yes, right here in the U.S. To quote the outstanding revolutionary Mao Zedong, “While the road ahead is tortuous, the future is bright.”

#FRSO #Statement #RevolutionaryTheory #International #Vietnam #MarxismLeninism #HoChiMinh #AntiWarMovement

In 1951 the principal leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, published Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR. While it is a rather small book, its importance in the Marxist-Leninist understanding of socialism is quite large, and it deserves to be studied carefully. The book itself is a product of the discussions and debates in preparation of the excellent textbook, Political Economy, published by the Economics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. Preparation of this textbook under Stalin’s guidance began as early as the late 1930s and was nearing completion in 1941 before it was delayed by the outbreak of World War II. As a result, it wasn’t finally published until 1954, shortly after Stalin’s death. 

Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR came out of this process, specifically from a 1951 conference concerning the Political Economy textbook. The Foreword to the First Edition of the Political Economy textbook makes note of this conference. It says, “Of very great importance for the work on this textbook was the economic discussion organized in November 1951 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the course of this discussion, in which hundreds of Soviet economists took an active part, the draft for a textbook of political economy submitted by the authors was subjected to a thorough critical examination.”

Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR is a summation of his views from this conference. It was printed in the party journal, Bolshevik, just prior to the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It presented Stalin’s thoughts on the issues raised by the conference and answered questions. It deals with a number of important questions or problems dealing with the laws governing political economy, particularly as it relates to socialist construction in light of the experiences of the Soviet Union up to that point. 

Stalin’s arguments

From the very beginning, Stalin drives home that when we are talking about socialist construction, we are talking about a law-governed process. He writes, “Marxism regards laws of science – whether they be laws of natural science or laws of political economy – as the reflection of objective processes which take place independently of the will of man. Man may discover these laws, get to know them, study them, reckon with them in his activities and utilize them in the interests of society, but he cannot change or abolish them.” In other words, we can’t just do whatever we want. We are bound by the laws of social and historical development. It is important to keep this point in mind.

Stalin addresses several dogmatic misconceptions regarding socialism. First, he discusses the question of commodity production under socialism. Stalin writes, 

“Certain comrades affirm that the Party acted wrongly in preserving commodity production after it had assumed power and nationalized the means of production in our country. They consider that the Party should have banished commodity production there and then. In this connection they cite Engels, who says: ‘With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer.’ These comrades are profoundly mistaken.”

Stalin is addressing a common dogmatic mistake. He points out that “Engels has in mind countries where capitalism and the concentration of production have advanced far enough both in industry and in agriculture to permit the expropriation of all the means of production in the country and their conversion into public property.” Stalin notes that the Bolshevik Revolution took place under different conditions and thus has to face the question differently. “And so, what is to be done if not all, but only part of the means of production have been socialized, yet the conditions are favourable for the assumption of power by the proletariat – should the proletariat assume power and should commodity production be abolished immediately thereafter?” These are the different conditions in which the USSR found itself. 

Stalin makes a very important point regarding commodity production under socialism: 

“It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private owner-ship of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wage workers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labor power as a commodity. Without this there is no such thing as capitalist production.”

Stalin notes that there are two different production sectors in the USSR, “state, or publicly-owned production, and collective-farm production, which cannot be said to be publicly owned.” He notes that the collective farms are not ready to move beyond commodity relations. “At present the collective farms will not recognize any other economic relation with the town except the commodity relation – exchange through purchase and sale,” Stalin writes. “Because of this, commodity production and trade are as much a necessity with us today as they were, say, thirty years ago, when Lenin spoke of the necessity of developing trade to the utmost.” Thus Stalin explains that this is a “special kind of commodity production” which is a “commodity production without capitalists … concerned mainly with the goods of associated socialist producers.” 

Stalin further points out that some other conceptions, drawn from the Marxist analysis of capitalism, also cannot be artificially applied to the conditions of socialism. “Talk of labor power being a commodity, and of ‘hiring’ of workers sounds rather absurd now, under our system: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself and sells its labor power to itself,” Stalin explains. He goes on to say, “It is just as strange to speak now of ‘necessary’ and ‘surplus’ labor: as though, under our conditions, the labor contributed by the workers to society for the extension of production, the promotion of education and public health, the organization of defence, etc., is not just as necessary to the working class, now in power, as the labor expended to supply the personal needs of the worker and his family.” 

Related to this is the question of the Law of Value, and whether it continues to exist under socialism. The Marxist conception of the Law of Value under capitalism can be summed up like this: The value of any commodity is equal to the socially necessary labor time required to produce that commodity. In capitalist society the Law of Value causes the price of commodities to gravitate towards their value. In this way it regulates the distribution of labor-power and the means of production within the society and motivates technical progress. Stalin notes, “Value, like the law of value, is a historical category connected with the existence of commodity production.” Nevertheless, “the law of value can be a regulator of production only under capitalism, with private ownership of the means of production, and competition, anarchy of production, and crises of overproduction.” The function of the law of value under socialism is thus restricted primarily to the circulation and exchange of commodities, namely consumer goods. 

Stalin also discusses the necessity of abolishing the contradictions between town and country, and between mental and manual labor. This means, primarily, further developing the productive forces, raising agriculture to the level of industry, and raising manual labor to the level of technical work through cultural and scientific education. These are essential tasks of the period of socialist construction. 

Stalin goes on to further address questions regarding the world market and the deepening crisis of capitalism, and the continuing inevitability of inter-imperialist wars after the peace of the second World War. 

Stalin also goes on to explain the difference between the basic laws of capitalism and socialism. He says the basic law of capitalism can be put like this: “the securing of the maximum capitalist profit through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the majority of the population of the given country, through the enslavement and systematic robbery of the peoples of other countries, especially backward countries, and, lastly, through wars and militarization of the national economy, which are utilized for the obtaining of the highest profits.” In contrast, Stalin says that the basic law of socialism is “the securing of the maximum satisfaction of the constantly rising material and cultural requirements of the whole of society through the continuous expansion and perfection of socialist production on the basis of higher techniques.”

The rest of the book goes into more particular aspects of the discussion around the Soviet Political Economy textbook. This is also worth careful attention, especially where Stalin answers particular questions and misconceptions, but unfortunately it's beyond our scope to get into all of that in this short review. 

Relevance of Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR for today

Stalin’s book sums up the lessons of socialist construction in the world’s first socialist state up to that point based on the principles of Marxist-Leninist science. For that reason alone, it is invaluable. Marx and Engels, the founders of modern scientific socialism, were rightfully hesitant to try to predict what socialist society would look like, though they were able to draw upon the experience of the Paris Commune of 1871, and from the basic laws of historical materialism, some fundamental points that have held true. This is most apparent in Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program. But until the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, it wasn’t possible to concretely sum up the sustained experience of socialism in practice. Stalin’s book does just that, drawing on 34 years of socialist construction.

These lessons are important for Marxists to grasp. It is essential for those who aspire to a socialist future to understand what socialism is, and Stalin’s work lays the foundation for just such an understanding. From here, we can also look at the experiences of socialism in practice over the past 74 years since Stalin’s book was written and draw further lessons. Notably, many countries have built socialism in conditions different from those of the Soviet Union, and we can draw positive and negative lessons from their experiences. For example, we see that after the rise of Khrushchev, revisionism took hold in the USSR. The revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism were “revised” to accommodate a lengthy process of “economic reforms” that accelerated ideological degeneration and finally to capitalist restoration in 1991. The people’s democracies of Eastern Europe fell earlier, in 1989. But some socialist countries were able to survive and thrive. Today, the People’s Republic of China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and Democratic Korea still follow the socialist road, and have built socialism based on their own particular conditions. We have a lot to learn from studying their experiences as well. 

China in particular stands out. Looking at People’s China today is like looking into the future. By creatively applying Marxist-Leninist principles to Chinese conditions, the Communist Party of China has modernized their country, wiped out extreme poverty, and set out well on the way towards building prosperous and harmonious socialist society.

As General Secretary Xi Jinping said at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China, “To uphold and develop Marxism, we must integrate it with China's specific realities. Taking Marxism as our guide means applying its worldview and methodology to solving problems in China.” Xi also says in this same report that “We have identified the principal contradiction facing Chinese society as that between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life, and we have made it clear that closing this gap should be the focus of all our initiatives.” This is perfectly in line with Stalin’s basic law of socialism discussed above, applied to the contemporary Chinese situation. 

The United States is an advanced imperialist country, the most powerful monopoly capitalist power in world history. While the U.S. is, of course, very different from Tsarist Russia or pre-revolutionary China, with its own history and problems, it too is governed by the laws of capitalist development, and likewise, the process of building socialism in this country will also proceed according to objective laws. Understanding the experiences of the socialist countries helps us to understand those laws and learn from those rich experiences. 

Revolutionaries today would do well to study Stalin’s Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR as well as the 1954 Political Economy textbook to which it contributed.

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Naturally, we trace the origin of Marxism-Leninism to the theories of Karl Marx. The science of revolution bears his name, after all, together with Lenin’s. But of course we should understand that Marx wasn’t born a Marxist. This brings us to the question, which of Marx’s theories can we say are representative of Marxism? In other words, when did Marx become a Marxist, and why? By answering this, we not only proof ourselves against the dogmatist error or thinking Marxism is “whatever Marx wrote,” but we also come to a clearer understanding of what distinguishes Marxism as such.

First, let’s agree that by the time of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, we are presented with the basic ideas of Marxism. This point is not controversial. So, let’s take a look at what Marx was writing and doing before that and see if we can discern when Marxism emerged within Marx’s work. Marx’s writings in the first volume of the Marx/Engels Collected Works begin as early as 1835 when Marx was 17 years old, but nobody thinks those earliest writings are representative of Marx’s scientific socialism. 

The question arises in earnest in his early philosophical works from 1843 and 1844, from The Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right to The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts. These were written before Marx began his lifelong friendship and collaboration with Friedrich Engels.

The Manuscripts bear little resemblance to the later Marx. They don’t concern themselves with class struggle, revolution, or exploitation. Absent are the categories of historical materialism, such as mode of production, productive forces, ideology, and so on. Instead, the 1844 Manuscripts base their critique of capitalism on the concept of “alienation.” This is an idea drawn from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Feuerebach’s The Essence of Christianity. Hegel argues that God alienates himself in man, and Feuerbach argues that man alienates himself in God. Marx then argues that the worker is alienated in capitalism – from what the workers produce, from the act of production, from nature, and from themselves and others. The work is full of idealist philosophical jargon like “species-being” and “life-essence.” Nevertheless, the solution, Marx says, is communism. But it is an idealized and abstract communism. As Marx puts it in the 1844 Manuscripts, 

“Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement, and therefore as the true appropriation of the human essence through and for man; it is the complete restoration of man to himself as a social, i.e., human, being, a restoration which has become conscious and which takes place within the entire wealth of previous periods of development. This communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature, and between man and man, the true resolution of the conflict between existence and being, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species. It is the solution of the riddle of history and knows itself to be the solution.”

This is very abstract! There’s no real program, no way to get there, beyond the call for the reclamation of the human essence. Marx has not yet made the leap from “interpreting the world” to changing it. 

Meanwhile, Engels, also prior to his collaboration with Marx, wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England, which was published in 1845. This book, examining in meticulous detail the facts of working class life at the heart of the industrial revolution, is entirely concrete, and it had a tremendous impact on Marx, who read it later in 1844 prior to its publication. After reading Engels’s book, Marx abandoned his The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts altogether.

Shortly after that, Marx and Engels began their partnership in Paris to work on the book The Holy Family. In 1845 Karl Marx was expelled from France and moved to Brussels, Belgium.

While in Brussels, he produced, together with Engels, one of the most important works in the history of the international communist movement, The German Ideology, written from 1845 to 1846. This was followed not long after by Marx’s book The Poverty of Philosophy. These texts, The Holy Family, The German Ideology, and The Poverty of Philosophy, play an important role for Marx and Engels, in that their goal is to challenge the Young Hegelians, the so-called “True Socialists,” and Proudhon and his followers. This served to clear the way, ideologically, for Marxism to take its place in the workers’ movement. By 1846 Marx and Engels formed the Communist Correspondence Committee, with the goal of organizing a proletarian socialist party. The Committee was a precursor of the Communist League, for which the Manifesto was written on the eve of the Revolutions of 1848.

In all of this work prior to 1848 The German Ideology stands out. Interestingly, it was never published during Marx’s lifetime. And yet, today, it is widely recognized as the principal text in which Marx and Engels developed historical materialism. It wasn’t published until 1932 by the Marx-Engels-Lenin institute in the Soviet Union. Understanding the role The German Ideology played in the development of Marx’s thought is crucial. We can see a number of important differences between Marx’s thought prior to his partnership with Engels and after. 

Prior to 1845, Marx was himself a Young Hegelian. The Young Hegelians were a group of left-leaning philosophers strongly influenced by G.W.F. Hegel and his student, Ludwig Feuerbach. The ideas of the Young Hegelians were still thoroughly liberal and idealist. After reading The Condition of the Working Class in England and beginning his work with Engels, Marx’s entire outlook shifted profoundly to emphasize class struggle at its very core. Almost immediately, his focus in 1845 became the critique of idealist and metaphysical philosophical trends in the socialist movement – trends to which Marx himself was previously sympathetic. 

In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write that the Young Hegelians are “sheep, who take themselves and are taken for wolves,” and “their bleating merely imitates in a philosophic form the conceptions of the German middle class.” 

“Since the Young Hegelians consider conceptions, thoughts, ideas, in fact all the products of consciousness, to which they attribute an independent existence, as the real chains of men,” write Marx and Engels “… it is evident that the Young Hegelians have to fight only against these illusions of consciousness.” How does Marx, who until only recently considered himself a Young Hegelian, break from this? He writes that “It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.” So, in The German Ideology, Marx and Engels do exactly that. They then set out to outline their materialist conception of history, how ideas arise from real material processes, and how class struggle functions as the motor of social change. 

Thus Marx broke firmly with the Young Hegelians and established the theory of historical materialism. Furthermore, he came to see historical change as a law-governed process that could be understood scientifically. The French Marxist-Leninist philosopher, Louis Althusser, beginning in the early 1960s, makes the point that The German Ideology represents the key work of what he refers to as Marx’s “epistemological break.” 

As Althusser puts it in For Marx, “There is an unequivocal ‘epistemological break’ in Marx’s work which does in fact occur at the point where Marx himself locates it, in the book, unpublished in his lifetime, which is a critique of his erstwhile philosophical (ideological) conscience: The German Ideology.” Althusser goes on to say that “This ‘epistemological break’ divides Marx’s thought into two long essential periods: the ‘ideological’ period before, and the scientific period after, the break in 1845.” In other words, this is the point where Marx’s epistemology matures.

Epistemology in philosophy refers to how we know what we know. In this way, it was a conscious and intentional break from bourgeois ideology, which had until then permeated Marx’s thinking. As Althusser later puts it in his 1974 book, Essays in Self-Criticism, “Theoretically, he wrote these manuscripts on the basis of petty-bourgeois philosophical positions, making the impossible political gamble of introducing Hegel into Feuerbach, so as to be able to speak of labor in alienation, and of History in Man.” 

On the other side of this break, we have the development of dialectical and historical materialism, the critique of political economy, and the elaboration of scientific socialism. Even after the break, “long years of positive study and elaboration were necessary before Marx could produce, fashion and establish a conceptual terminology and systematics that were adequate to his revolutionary theoretical project,” Althusser explains. In other words, after the break from bourgeois ideology, Marxism didn’t immediately burst upon the scene complete but was elaborated and developed over a period of time. 

To think of this break as a purely theoretical exercise, producing immediate theoretical results, would itself be idealism. The break was driven by the practical demands of the growing revolutionary movement. As Engels says in his book Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, “the Revolution of 1848 thrust the whole of philosophy aside as unceremoniously as Feuerbach had thrust aside Hegel. And in the process, Feuerbach himself was also pushed into the background.” By philosophy here, Engels means idealist philosophy. In any case, the most important takeaway here is that Marx’s works prior 1845 are working within the framework of bourgeois ideology, not Marxism. 

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 were translated into English for the first time in 1959 and immediately caused quite a stir among the revisionists as well as among academic “Marxists” in the West. The timing here is significant. These two groups, the revisionists and their academic fellow-travelers, were interested in rebranding socialism as a kind of “humanism” in the wake of Khrushchev’s “destalinization.”

At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956, Khrushchev set out to “revise” Marxism, stripping away its revolutionary essence and its fundamentally proletarian class character. With the notable exception of Albania and China, most parties followed along. This revisionist rebranding of socialism as humanism would later find expression in the 1989 counter-revolutions in Eastern Europe. There, as history has shown, the slogan “socialism with a human face” truly meant bourgeois liberalization and the embrace of individualism. It is to Althusser’s credit that he immediately saw this trend for what it was and struggled against it. In this context, there is a very clear reason that these revisionists and academics were so taken with the work of the early Marx: it isn’t Marxist. 

As Marxist-Leninists today, this helps us clarify a few essential points. First, Marxism isn’t just whatever Marx said. That’s dogmatism. And that kind of dogmatism can also be put into the service of Marxism’s enemies. On the contrary, Marxism is the proletarian revolutionary science of social change, founded on a fundamental break from bourgeois ideology, idealism, and metaphysical thinking of all sorts. Marx’s ideas developed and changed over the course of his career. The important thing is to master Marxism-Leninism as a science. 

Second, Marxism's purpose is not simply to understand the world, but to change it. Theory and practice are inextricably linked. Revolutionary practice depends on Marxism to be successful, and Marxism, as a science, is enriched and developed through practice. It was through building the socialist movement, organizing the Communist Correspondence Committee and the Communist League, and then through participating in the upheavals of the 1848 revolutions, that Marxism grew out of abstraction to an engagement with the real world in concrete terms. As revolutionaries today, always faced with the modern challenges of dogmatism, revisionism, and all kinds of bourgeois academic ideas masquerading as some kind of Marxism, these lessons are as important as ever. 

J. Sykes is the author of the book “The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism”. The book can be purchased by visiting tinyurl.com/revsciMLbook

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