Vladimir Lenin was the great leader of the Bolshevik Revolution that overthrew tsarism and capitalism in Russia and built a new socialist society, for the first time in history. His book The State and Revolution is one of his greatest contributions to Marxist theory and is a cornerstone of Leninism.

The State and Revolution was written in 1917, during a period of heightened repression against the Bolsheviks by the Provisional Government led by the Mensheviks and the rightist Social-Revolutionaries. It was written when many of the party leaders were underground or in jail. Lenin himself had first been hidden from the police by Stalin and then escaped the country in disguise. This period, known as the “July days” is summed up well in the 1943 book, Vladimir I. Lenin: A Political Biography, prepared by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute. “When he went into hiding in Finland he gave the manuscript of his book The State and Revolution to the comrade who was escorting him with instruction to pass it on to Stalin in the event of his being arrested.” Furthermore, Lenin “wrote to party leaders that in the event of his being killed by the agents of the Provisional Government they were to take all measures to publish his notebooks on Marxism and the State.” Following this turn, the Bolshevik’s sixth congress, led by Stalin while Lenin was in exile, decided that the way forward for the socialist revolution was through armed insurrection.

Clearly Lenin considered the work to be of great importance to the revolution. This is because the book outlines the views of Marx and Engels on the state and further develops them. He explains the importance of proletarian dictatorship, how it must come about, and what its primary tasks are.

The main goal of The State and Revolution is to inoculate the revolutionary movement against opportunist currents (namely the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries) who would distort Marxism to their own ends and lead the revolution astray. Lenin had to explain why the revolution not only couldn’t stop short with the bourgeois February Revolution that overthrew the tsar, but must advance to its second, socialist stage, to break up the bourgeois state and establish a new, proletarian state. In other words, Lenin understood that the question of how to advance depends on a correct theoretical understanding of the state and its role.

Marxism and the state

Lenin sums up the Marxist understanding of the state like this, “The state is a product and a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises where, when and insofar as class antagonism objectively cannot be reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.”

Drawing from Engels’s book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, Lenin explains that the state is an instrument of class power. “What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command.” Indeed, because class antagonism exists, the state becomes an instrument by which the dominant class preserves its interests by use of force, or the threat of force, and as long as class antagonism exists, the state will exist as a result of that antagonism. Capitalism is built upon maintaining these class antagonisms, which are inherent in the relations of production at the core of the capitalist system. Without such class antagonism, the capitalist class cannot continue to reap its obscene profits at the expense and impoverishment of the working class. Thus the state represents the way in which these antagonisms are held at bay, so that society can function in the way that benefits the ruling class.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If the working class takes power, because it has no material interest in exploitation and oppression, it can and must eliminate class antagonism. This causes the state to lose its purpose, resulting in its “withering away.”

Thus, society is able to progress from capitalism (the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) through socialism (the dictatorship of the proletariat), to communism (a society without class antagonism and therefore without a state). Lenin sums this up, saying, “The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The abolition of the proletarian state, i.e., of the state in general, is impossible except through the process of ‘withering away’.”

Revolution

Marx and Engels gave particular attention to the summing up the revolutionary upheavals of their time, and Lenin draws upon their analysis of the 1848 revolutions in Europe and the 1871 Paris Commune. In fact, it is in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonapart, Lenin notes, that “Marxism takes a tremendous step forward compared with The Communist Manifesto.” Lenin explains that in the Manifesto, Marxism treats the question of the state abstractly, but following the experience of 1848, the summation presented by Marx becomes concrete, “and the conclusion is extremely precise, definite, practical and palpable: all previous revolutions perfected the state machine, whereas it must be broken, smashed.”

Lenin emphasizes that this is “the chief and fundamental point in the Marxist theory of the state.”

What does this mean? Lenin explains that “the centralized state power that is peculiar to bourgeois society came into being in the period of the fall of absolutism. Two institutions most characteristic of this state machine are the bureaucracy and the standing army. In their works, Marx and Engels repeatedly show that the bourgeoisie are connected with these institutions by thousands of threads.”

To understand this question of the “thousand threads” it is essential to understand how the state arises. Every mode of production has a superstructure that arises from the economic base, reproducing and reinforcing it. The state is part of the superstructure. As such, it isn’t just dreamed into existence, but arises as the result of definite material processes. So, in the course of development of bourgeois society, the state arose in service to the ruling class, in order to protect and promote its class interest. Throughout that process, all of the various mechanisms of the state were deeply entwined with the needs and interests of the capitalist class, to the extent that one could say that capitalism is the fabric of the bourgeois state. Put another way, capitalism is embedded in the bourgeois state’s DNA.

After the February Revolution in Russia, when the Provisional Government took power, Lenin says, “The official posts which formerly were given by preference to the Black Hundreds have now become the spoils of the Cadets, Mensheviks, and Social-Revolutionaries.” Rather than smash the state, they simply took over its bureaucracy, its police, and its military. In this way, they too entwined themselves in the “thousand threads” of the existing state machinery.

The Provisional Government sought a lengthy period of capitalist development in Russia, which could only intensify class antagonisms between the bourgeois and petty bourgeois ruling parties on the one hand, and the working masses on the other. This, concretely, led the Provisional Government “to intensify repressive measures against the revolutionary proletariat, to strengthen the apparatus of coercion, i.e., the state machine.” Lenin therefore concludes, “This course of events compels the revolution ‘to concentrate all its forces of destruction’ against the state power, and to set itself the aim, not of improving the state machine, but of smashing and destroying it.”

The socialist transition period

Importantly, Lenin asks what should replace the smashed machinery of the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is a democracy for the ruling class, for the rich minority, and a dictatorship over the toiling and oppressed majority. But the proletarian state that replaces it must be something altogether different. The task is to abolish class antagonism, but until that task is complete, class antagonism and class struggle remain. “In reality, this period inevitably is a period of an unprecedently violent class struggle in unprecedentedly acute forms,” Lenin writes, “and, consequently, during this period the state must inevitably be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the propertyless in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie).”

Summing up the Paris Commune of 1871, which Marx called the first instance of proletarian dictatorship, Lenin writes, “It is still necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and crush their resistance. This was particularly necessary for the Commune; and one of the reasons for its defeat was that it did not do this with sufficient determination.”

Lenin emphasizes that Marxism is scientific. It takes things as they are, rather than dreaming up a new society of thin air.

“We are not utopians, we do not ‘dream’ of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and ‘foremen and accountants.”

Against all such fantasies, Lenin asserts that we cannot be rid of the state all at once, the day after the revolution. Instead, he says, we must “smash the old bureaucratic machine at once and … begin immediately to construct a new one that will make possible the gradual abolition of all bureaucracy.”

The main theoretical source Lenin draws upon here is Marx’s important text, The Critique of the Gotha Program, especially as it concerns the transition period between capitalism and classless society, which Marx calls the “higher-stage” of socialism, or communism.

In order to overcome class antagonism, socialism must, in a systematic way, overcome all of the problems carried over from capitalism which serve to recreate and reproduce capitalist class relations. This means getting rid of what Marx calls “bourgeois right,” meaning the legal rights of property ownership and the social and political power that the capitalist derives from owning capital. Lenin sums up Marx’s view in Critique of the Gotha Program as follows:

“In the first phase of communist society (usually called Socialism) ‘bourgeois right’ is not abolished in its entirety, but only in part, only in proportion to the economic revolution so far attained, i.e., only in respect of the means of production. ‘Bourgeois right’ recognizes them as the private property of individuals. Socialism converts them into common property. To that extent—and to that extent alone— ‘bourgeois right’ disappears.

“However, it continues to exist as far as its other part is concerned; it continues to exist in the capacity of regulator (determining factor) in the distribution of products and the allotment of labor among the members of society. The socialist principle: ‘He who does not work, neither shall he eat,’ is already realized; the other socialist principle: ‘An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor,’ is also already realized. But this is not yet Communism, and it does not yet abolish ‘bourgeois right,’ which gives to unequal individuals, in return for unequal (really unequal) amounts of labor, equal amounts of products.

“This is a ‘defect,’ says Marx, but it is unavoidable in the first phase of Communism [Socialism]; for if we are not to indulge in utopianism, we must not think that having overthrown capitalism people will at once learn to work for society without any standard of right; and indeed the abolition of capitalism does not immediately create the economic premises for such a change.

“And there is no other standard than that of ‘bourgeois right.’ To this extent, therefore, there still remains the need for a state, which, while safeguarding the public ownership of the means of production, would safeguard equality in labor and equality in the distribution of products.”

So, we have to understand that the goal of socialism is communism, and the role of the socialist state is to usher in the transition to a classless society, whereby the state will wither away. If socialism means distribution based on work, and communism is distribution based on need, then to get there, people must first learn to work for society without the bourgeois right of equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental inequalities that reproduce bourgeois right must be uprooted. These are inequalities based on things like physical strength, endurance, and fitness, education, skill, family connections, inequalities of agricultural land, contradictions between town and country, between mental and manual labor, inequalities relating to the gendered division of labor, and persisting inequalities resulting from national oppression, among others. The class struggle continues under the dictatorship of the proletariat, particularly in the superstructure. Further, the material basis, in terms of advanced productive forces and division of labor, required for distribution based on need rather than work, must be in place.

The State and Revolution today

Lenin finishes his book with a look at the various opportunist trends in Marxism that were, in various ways, distorting the revolutionary understanding of the State.

Lenin writes,

“It is often said and written that the main point in Marx's theory is the class struggle. But this is wrong. And this wrong notion very often results in an opportunist distortion of Marxism and its falsification in a spirit acceptable to the bourgeoisie….Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The capitalists always hide their class interest behind an ideology that pretends to be universal. They speak of democracy and freedom in the abstract, as if they are something that exist for everyone. But Lenin always emphasizes that whenever the capitalist ideologues attempt to hide behind such abstractions, we must ask, “but for whom, for which class?” Marxism seeks to expose these class interests, and the question of democracy in the transition period is no different. Thus, Lenin writes of socialist democracy, defining it as “democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e., exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people.”

Today, we see the repressive side of bourgeois democracy laid bare. The Zionist genocide in Gaza is bankrolled by the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, led by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. As the resistance to these horrific crimes grows, in Palestine and here at home, everything is being exposed for what it really is. We are currently seeing a prairie fire of resistance sweeping the campuses of U.S. colleges and universities, where brave and heroic students are setting up encampments, occupying their schools, and demanding divestment from Israel and an end to the genocide. They are being met with tremendous state repression and mass arrests, and yet, in the face of all of this, the movement only continues to grow stronger, larger, and more militant.

In this context, it should be clear to anyone paying attention that the state's job, from the politicians to the courts, the police and the National Guard, is to protect the interests of the monopoly capitalists, who would use Israel as its proxy and as a foothold for its hegemony in the Middle East. The “thousand threads” connecting the universities themselves to imperialism are likewise laid bare for all to see.

All the same, there are many who don’t understand this main point. For example, the social democrats insist that socialism can be brought about through electoral means, and that a reformed capitalism, along the lines of the Nordic countries, is sufficient to build socialism. Even some who call themselves Marxist-Leninists advocate for a peaceful transition to socialism while arguing that the socialist state ought to be built upon the most foundational elements of the bourgeois state, such as the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Certainly, it is true that the masses have always waged a struggle for democratic demands, to increase democracy. But this has been a struggle against the machinery of the bourgeois democratic state, which is fundamentally designed to uphold and reproduce the power of the capitalists. This is a point driven home in the book We the Elites: Why the U.S. Constitution Serves the Few, by Robert Ovetz, which argues convincingly that the Constitution “was intentionally designed…to impede political democracy and prevent economic democracy.” It is an essential part of the “thousand threads” that connect the state to the class that it serves.

On the other hand, anarchists try to convince people that the state can be abolished all at once, and that the day after the revolution we can simply put all of the baggage left over from capitalist society behind us and live in classless and stateless heaven on earth. But Lenin explains why that is a recipe for defeat, and that if we don’t replace the state power of the capitalists with the revolutionary state power of the working class, then the door is left open for the capitalist class to restore their power.

To avoid all these pitfalls, we need to understand clearly what the state is, what its class nature is, and how to overcome it. Revolutionaries today should study Lenin’s State and Revolution, and, as the great leader of the Chinese revolution, Mao Zedong, once said, “cast away illusions and prepare for struggle.”

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

Read more articles in the Red Reviews series

#RevolutionaryTheory #RedReviews #MarxismLeninism #Lenin #Theory

One of the main pillars of Trotskyism is the denial of the possibility of building socialism in a single country. This is an outgrowth of Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory, which argued that the revolution in Russia depended on the immediate success of revolution in western Europe to avoid defeat. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union did indeed build socialism in one country, so we should look at the disagreements between Marxism-Leninism and Trotskyism on this point and try to understand where they come from.

Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory was, from the beginning, opposed to the idea that socialism could be built in a backwards, peasant country like Russia.

As Stalin writes in The Foundations of Leninism, “Lenin fought the adherents of ‘permanent’ revolution, not over the question of uninterruptedness, for Lenin himself maintained the point of view of uninterrupted revolution, but because they under-estimated the role of the peasantry, which is an enormous reserve of the proletariat.”

Lenin, as we have seen, understood far better, and more concretely than Trotsky, how to bring the revolution from its bourgeois-democratic stage into its proletarian-socialist stage. For Lenin, the key was to build the alliance between the workers and the peasantry that would form the backbone of both stages of the revolution. For Trotsky, this was a doomed project; he believed because that relationship was fundamentally antagonistic, and that the success of the revolution relied upon its immediate spread to western Europe. Thus, Trotsky said, in 1906, “Without direct State support from the European proletariat, the working class of Russia cannot maintain itself in power and transform its temporary rule into a durable Socialist dictatorship. This we cannot doubt for an instant.”

Trotsky wanted socialism to sweep through Europe all at once, as though all of the countries in the capitalist world were equally ripe for revolution. Lenin’s view, on the other hand, was based on his understanding that capitalism developed unevenly. Indeed, it is essential to understand that Lenin’s analysis is based on the understanding that the present stage of capitalism is its monopoly capitalist stage – imperialism.

In an article in the Swiss Social-Democrat called “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe,” Lenin argued, “The times when the cause of democracy and socialism was associated only with Europe alone have gone forever.” Instead, Lenin argues, “A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism – about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one … because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others.” Lenin then explains that “Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of Socialism is possible first in a few or even in one single capitalist country taken separately.”

Trotsky rejects the Leninist theory of uneven development. In his article, “The Program for Peace,” from 1917, arguing against Lenin in favor of the slogan for a “United States of Europe”, Trotsky says,

“The only more or less concrete historical consideration put forward against the slogan of the United States of Europe was formulated in the Swiss Social-Democrat in the sentence which follows: ‘Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism.’ From this the Social-Democrat drew the conclusion that the victory of Socialism was possible in a single country, and that, therefore, there was no point in making the creation of a United States of Europe the condition for the dictatorship of the proletariat in each separate country. That capitalist development in different countries is uneven is an absolutely incontrovertible fact. But this very unevenness is itself extremely uneven. The capitalist level of England, Austria, Germany or France is not identical. But in comparison with Africa or Asia all these countries represent capitalist ‘Europe’, which has grown ripe for the social revolution.”

Trotsky dismisses the Leninist theory of uneven development by saying that Europe is comparatively on the same plane of development if you compare it to the colonies. With this rhetorical flourish, Trotsky dismisses the contradictions between the imperialist states themselves, and the contradictions between those states in relation to their colonies. Again, Trotsky sees only workers and capitalists, incapable of concrete, materialist analysis of the complex contradictions at work in each country. And so, Trotsky says, all of Europe is ripe for revolution, presumably because all of Europe is capitalist, concrete conditions be damned!

Based on these idealist abstractions Trotsky continues his argument:

“That no single country should ‘wait’ for others in its own struggle is an elementary idea which it is useful and necessary to repeat, in order to avoid the substitution of the idea of expectant international inaction for the idea of simultaneous international action. Without waiting for others, we begin and continue our struggle on our national soil quite sure that our initiative will give an impetus to the struggle in other countries; but if that should not happen, then it would be hopeless, in the light of the experience of history and in the light of theoretical considerations, to think, for example, that a revolutionary Russia could hold its own in the face of conservative Europe or that a Socialist Germany could remain isolated in the capitalist world.”

Trotsky here combines ultra-revolutionary phrase-mongering with pessimism. It is his usual refrain: revolution must sweep through all of Europe or we are doomed.

Later, in 1922, Trotsky still persists in his rejection of the possibility of building socialism in one country. He writes, “The assertion, repeated several times in ‘A Program of Peace,’ that the proletarian revolution cannot be carried through to a victorious conclusion within the boundaries of one country may appear to some readers to be refuted by almost five years’ experience of our Soviet Republic. But such a conclusion would be groundless.”

Here, even as late as 1922, Trotsky insisted, “genuine advance in the construction of Socialist economy in Russia will become possible only after the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe.” Trotsky simply rejects facts in order to avoid having been proved wrong. The only way out for Trotsky, if he is to remain right, is to say that what is being built in Russia isn’t really socialism.

In 1923, Lenin, in the article “On Cooperation,” argued that the victory of socialism in Russia was indeed possible. Lenin wrote,

“…state power over all large-scale means of production, state power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc. – is not this all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society from the co-operatives, from the co-operatives alone, which we formerly looked down upon as huckstering and which from a certain aspect we have the right to look down upon as such now, under NEP? Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building.”

In other words, Lenin understood clearly that the material basis for building socialism existed in Russia, and that the most important thing was correctly resolving the internal contradictions of the revolution itself, especially the correct handling of the contradiction between the workers and peasants. And as history has shown, correctly handling these internal contradictions formed the basis for dealing with the external contradictions between the Soviet Union and the imperialist countries. It gave them the material foundation needed to resist imperialist intervention when the Soviet people turned back the German Nazi invasion.

The Trotskyite theory was proven false in practice by the Bolshevik party, as socialist construction and agricultural collectivization cemented the bond between the proletariat and the toiling masses of the peasantry. Despite all of Trotsky’s protests to the contrary, the Bolsheviks did indeed build socialism in their country, which shown as a beacon to the working and oppressed people of the entire world.

#UnitedStates #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory #AgainstTrotskyism

The disagreement between Trotsky’s “absurdly Left” (according to Lenin) theory of “Permanent Revolution” and the Leninist theory of revolution in two stages boils down to the question of how to deal with the question of the peasantry.

Trotsky argued for a socialist revolution that would be antagonistic to the tsar, the imperialist bourgeoisie and the broad mass of the peasantry, and that therefore depended on support from socialist revolutions in Western Europe, without which it would be crushed by counter-revolution.

Lenin, on the other hand, advocated a revolution in two stages. The first stage would be a bourgeois-democratic revolution against tsarism and feudal autocracy. The second stage would be a proletarian-socialist revolution against the imperialist bourgeoisie. Both of these, according to Lenin, would be led by the working class in alliance with the peasantry.

Indeed, Lenin called for the “revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,” and warned against confusing the particularities of “the democratic revolution with the socialist revolution.”

It is worth looking at the Leninist theory of revolution in two stages, as it proved itself in practice in the course of the Russian revolution of 1917.

The first stage, the bourgeois-democratic revolution, lasted from 1903 to February 1917. At this stage, the aim was to overthrow the tsar and the landlords. The Bolsheviks led the proletariat, in a strategic alliance with the peasantry. Lenin and the Bolsheviks understood that the liberal bourgeoisie (the Cadets) would compromise with monarchism and tsarism, and they struggled to isolate them from the peasantry. This period revealed in practice that the Cadets had no interest in the demands of the peasantry for land and liberty, that the tsar supported the landlords, and the Cadets supported the tsar. Thus, the peasantry could rely on no one but the proletariat.

Because the working class was able to lead the peasantry in the struggle against tsarism, the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia had the effect of weakening the bourgeoisie overall, paving the way for the proletarian socialist revolution, culminating in the Great October Revolution of 1917. The second stage of the revolution lasted through the eight short months between the February and October revolutions. In this period the proletariat consolidated its alliance with the peasantry. The new Provisional Government, dominated by the imperialist bourgeoisie together with the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries, refused to pull out of the imperialist war or to confiscate and redistribute the landlords’ land. Under Bolshevik leadership, the proletariat again demonstrated in practice that it was the only reliable ally to the poor peasants. Thus, it was possible to advance, under the Bolsheviks’ slogan of “Land, Bread and Peace,” from the bourgeois democratic revolution to the proletarian socialist revolution.

Trotsky believed that the socialist revolution would inevitably put the proletariat into conflict with the masses of the peasantry as a whole. For Trotsky, the revolution was not a protracted struggle, proceeding carefully, step by step. It was a sweeping, global event. Lenin, however, built a plan for revolution in the countryside based on a concrete analysis of the real, material conditions that presented themselves to the proletarian dictatorship. Lenin argued that the majority of the peasantry could be drawn into the process of socialist construction through the development of agricultural co-operatives. By introducing collectivization in the countryside gradually, instead of through coercion and “tightening the screws” as Trotsky would have it, this antagonism between the working class and the broad peasant masses was avoided. As a result, the broad masses of poor peasants participated enthusiastically in the class struggle in the countryside and struggled sharply together with the working class against the resistance of the rich peasants (kulaks).

This gets us to the main problem at the root of Trotsky’s many errors: Trotskyism again and again demands a “pure proletarian revolution,” a “revolution without the peasantry.” This sort of narrow “workerism” leads the Trotskyites to wrong positions in relation to national liberation struggles and how to organize a united front. Instead of uniting with other classes in common cause against the monopoly capitalists, they treat the would-be allies of the proletariat as enemies.

Instead of uniting with democratic demands, they propose the nebulous concept of “transitional demands.” This Trotskyite organizational method is tied to their “all at once” concept of pure proletarian revolution. We should consider the Trotskyite notion of “transitional demands” in light of the Marxist-Leninist method of the Mass Line. Trotsky was an agitator and an orator, not an organizer, and this is reflected in how the Trotskyites approach the masses. Instead of uniting with the advanced masses around their felt needs, developing higher and higher levels of understanding, organization and struggle, shoulder to shoulder with the masses, the Trotskyites reduce the immediate demands of the masses to mere agitational slogans for socialism, shouted from the sidelines, with no concern for how to get from here to there.

We will see the Trotskyite opposition to revolution in two stages arise again when we look at the revolution in China. We’ll look more closely at this in a later article dealing with China in detail, but for now, let’s touch on it briefly. The main point here is that Trotsky and his followers failed to understand that the Chinese revolution’s first stage must involve an agrarian struggle against feudalism as an essential part of a national liberation struggle against imperialism. Thus, Trotsky opposed the formation of a national united front composed of the proletariat together with the peasants, petty-bourgeoisie, and the anti-imperialist national bourgeoisie. This was in direct opposition to the approach taken by Mao Zedong, which was proved correct in practice.

Again and again, the Trotskyites put forward a pure proletarian, all or nothing, approach to revolution. They shout their ultra-left slogans from the sidelines of the struggles of the workers and oppressed, and oppose the strategic allies of the working class. For the Trotskyites, it is always all or nothing, which, of course, amounts to nothing.

#UnitedStates #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory #AgainstTrotskyism

To mark the 129th anniversary of the birth of Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong on December 26, Fight Back News Service is circulating his famous 1937 article “Combat Liberalism.” Combat Liberalism

By Mao Zedong

We stand for active ideological struggle because it is the weapon for ensuring unity within the Party and the revolutionary organizations in the interest of our fight. Every Communist and revolutionary should take up this weapon.

But liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.

Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.

To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.

To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.

To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.

Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.

To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.

To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.

To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.

To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.

To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along—“So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell.” This is a ninth type.

To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.

To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.

We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types.

They are all manifestations of liberalism.

Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.

Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.

People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well—they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work.

Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution.

We must use Marxism, which is positive in spirit, to overcome liberalism, which is negative. A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless struggle against all incorrect ideas and actions, so as to consolidate the collective life of the Party and strengthen the ties between the Party and the masses; he should be more concerned about the Party and the masses than about any private person, and more concerned about others than about himself. Only thus can he be considered a communist.

All loyal, honest, active and upright Communists must unite to oppose the liberal tendencies shown by certain people among us, and set them on the right path. This is one of the tasks on our ideological front.

#UnitedStates #MaoZedong #Socialism #MarxismLeninism #Theory

Up to now we have studied dialectical materialism and given a general overview of its application to history, historical materialism. Now let’s look more closely at some of the core concepts that make up Marxism’s materialist conception of history, starting with the forces of production.

Any social system, whether we are talking about capitalism, socialism, feudalism, or what have you, has a particular mode of production upon which it is based. What do we mean by a mode of production? Simply put, it is a way of producing. A mode of production is the historically constituted way in which production is carried out.

The mode of production is a complex structure made up of two contradictory aspects: the forces of production, and the relations of production. Here let's look closely at the forces of production, what they consist of and the role they play in this contradiction.

Fundamentally, the forces of production consist of the agents of production on the one hand, and the means of production on the other. The means of production consist of the instruments of production, that is, the tools, factories, and so on, along with the objects of production, that is, the raw material and natural resources that are transformed through the labor process into goods. The agents of production are the workers themselves, who work to transform the objects of production (raw materials, etc.) through their use of the instruments of production (tools, equipment, etc.). The main thing is the people. Without their labor the hammers don’t hammer, the machines don’t run, and the fruits and vegetables spoil in the fields.

Each mode of production has productive forces that are unique to that historical mode, and that have come to exist historically, as the result of what came before it. The productive forces don’t appear out of thin air but are built upon the productive forces that preceded them. This means that we can’t jump around, just as we couldn’t have simply decided to develop steel without first having learned to smelt iron.

Why is the development of the productive forces important? Basically, the productive forces coincide with the productive capacity of society. Thus, the development of the productive forces represents the growth of society’s productive power. In other words, their advancement means an increase in the ability of society to eliminate scarcity. As the productive forces advance, so too does the social division of labor, meaning less labor on the part of individuals can produce more overall. This division of labor brings with it certain relations of production. The relations of production are the concrete relations that people enter into in the activity of production, and in class society these are property relations. They are relationships of ownership and power.

The contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production is at the heart of any given mode of production. Typically, the forces of production play the principal, determining role. However, the productive forces can advance only so far under particular relations of production, and since those in power will not willingly alter the relations of production, the system as a whole is driven into crisis. At this point the relations of production play the determining role and must be revolutionized to alleviate the crisis and allow the forces of production to continue to advance. This is what we see take place whenever there is an era of social revolution that brings us from one mode of production to the next.

Marx and Engels explain the determining role of the forces of production in their book, The German Ideology.

“It is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world and by employing real means, … slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and … in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. ‘Liberation’ is an historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions…”

This is certainly true, but it is essential that this not be understood in a metaphysical way. Many have been led astray by believing that socialism could only ever follow after the forces of production were fully developed by capitalism. This vulgar historicism formed the philosophical basis of the opportunism that came to dominate the Second International and led them to deny the progressive character of anti-colonial struggles and to insist that socialism had to arise in the developed capitalist countries first. For them, Marxism had lost its scientific character and had become a dogma. This also formed the basis of Trotskyism’s claim that socialism couldn’t possibly be consolidated in the Soviet Union, but that it depended on the revolutions in Western Europe for its success. Looking back at this cornerstone of Trotskyism today, it seems laughable.

The fact is, this vulgar, Eurocentric interpretation of Marxism entirely misses the point. For Marx and Engels, the object of their study was capitalism and its genesis in Western Europe. But that doesn’t mean that every society should proceed everywhere in the same linear way, through the same set of metaphysically distinct, predetermined stages. Such a view runs contrary to materialist dialectics and the necessity for the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. In the real world different modes of production exist unevenly, side by side, and, in fact, influence each other in complex ways. Capitalism, though it began in Europe, quickly became a system of exploitation whose talons reached all over the globe. Capitalism forces itself onto the underdeveloped world through the export of capital by imperialism, and the use of the weapons of war.

Lenin’s analysis of the rise of imperialism made one point crystal clear: it has the effect of locking the productive forces of the oppressed nations into a state of underdevelopment, dependency and stagnation. Therefore, Lenin analyzed that imperialism created a situation where the “weak links” in the imperialist chain, that is, the underdeveloped nations, were ripe for revolutions. These nations were “weak links” precisely because these revolutions would undermine the strength of the monopoly capitalists who relied on the super-exploitation of the oppressed nations as a life-support system for capitalism in its state of chronic crisis and decay. Indeed, these were pressure points where the dialectical identity of imperialism as an all-encompassing global system could be ruptured. Then, having broken the fetters of imperialist underdevelopment, newly formed socialist countries in the developing world could, through socialist construction, work to methodically advance their newly liberated productive forces. By doing this they created the conditions necessary to revolutionize the relations of production step by step. This is precisely the process we’ve seen take place in countries like Cuba, China, and many others, where Marxist-Leninists have led and consolidated victorious socialist revolutions.

This is essentially the historical role of the forces of production. The development of the productive forces drives forward the advancement of the social division of labor and forms the basis of the development from one mode of production to the next. In our next article we’ll look at the other aspect of the mode of production. We will examine the relations of production, and the ways in which they can hasten or hinder the development of the productive forces.

#UnitedStates #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory

The cornerstone of historical materialism is class struggle as the motor driving historical change. So, what is the role of labor in historical development?

In Dialectics of Nature, Engels argues that what truly distinguishes humanity from other animals is that we seek to change our environment, rather than merely use it as it is given to us. In other words, what distinguishes humanity is our construction of tools, the instruments of production which we use to affect the world. But we don’t get to arbitrarily choose these instruments. We inherit them from the society that we are born into, and gradually build upon and improve them. The early production of tools represents the beginning of labor, and the further development and improvement of the tools and the technique of their use allows for the further development of human society.

At first the instruments of production were very simple and consisted of things like hunting and fishing implements. According to Engels, this led to the mastery of fire and the early domestication of animals:

“Agriculture was added to hunting and cattle raising; then came spinning, weaving, metalworking, pottery and navigation. Along with trade and industry, art and science finally appeared. Tribes developed into nations and states. Law and politics arose, and with them that fantastic reflection of human things in the human mind – religion.”

Engels argues that the dominant conception of history privileges the workings of the mind rather than the work of laboring hands because of the division that arose between mental and manual labor: “The mind that planned the labor was able, at a very early stage in the development of society (for example, already in the primitive family), to have the labor that had been planned carried out by other hands than its own.”

Thus, social progress was deceptively ascribed to the function of the ideas of great thinkers instead of to our material activity in production. It wasn’t until Marx and Engels developed their materialist conception of history that this misconception of historical development was corrected. It isn’t the ideas of great thinkers that play the primary role in changing the material world, but the material world and our activity in it that shapes our ideas.

This division between mental and manual labor is important, and the various divisions of labor generally are a cornerstone of how labor functions in history. We’ll talk more about this division of labor later, but for now let’s emphasize that we are talking about the separation and specialization of tasks in production. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write, “How far the productive forces of a nation are developed is shown most manifestly by the degree to which the division of labor has been carried.” In other words, the more advanced the productive forces, the more complex the division of labor.

Early forms of human society had relatively simple productive forces. Because the productive forces were not very advanced, they did not require an advanced division of labor. As the productive forces were developed further and they became more and more complex, so too did the division of labor become more complex. But this division of labor is also the source of the development of classes. As Marx and Engels put it, “The various stages of development in the division of labor are just so many different forms of ownership, i.e. the existing stage in the division of labor determines also the relations of individuals to one another with reference to the material, instrument, and product of labor.” The division of labor leads at a certain point to the means of production – that is the instruments and objects of labor, i.e., the tools and natural resources – being separated from those who do the work, as the ownership of the means of production are concentrated in the hands of only a few members of society.

With capitalism the division of labor is extremely complex, and the contradiction between social production and private accumulation at the heart of it leads to ever deepening crises of overproduction, and ever sharpening class antagonism between the capitalists and the workers. The only way forward is proletarian revolution.

This brings us to a crucial point: the decisive role of the masses in history. Mao Zedong put it succinctly when he said, “the people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.” Within the forces of production themselves, as the agents of production who wield the instruments of production, the masses play the decisive role. And likewise, when the relations of production become decisive over the productive forces, that is, when they become fetters on their further advancement and a revolutionary situation is at hand, then too the conscious activity of the masses plays a decisive role. Che Guevara said this another way: “The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.” Therefore, Marxist-Leninists must understand that the most important aspect of their work is organizational, ideological and educational work, utilizing the mass line among working and oppressed people, for the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism.

Whenever the relations of production hinder the development of the productive forces an economic crisis results. The economic crisis itself isn’t enough to change society. The exploited classes must fight to revolutionize the relations of production, that is, the class relations of society.

When a capitalist crisis intensifies, the economic crisis will become a political crisis when the working class realizes that it cannot live in the old way and the ruling class realizes it can no longer rule in the old way. But in order to take advantage of this revolutionary moment, working and oppressed people must develop their class consciousness and organization. This means building a new Marxist-Leninist communist party, capable of leading unions and mass organizations, and developing the united front against monopoly capitalism with the strategic alliance of the multinational working class and oppressed nationalities at its core. Only this way can we seize the time.

This is the essence of the role of labor in human history. We work to fulfill our material needs, creating and developing tools to help us change the world around us. As our tools, and the techniques with which we wield them, become more advanced, so too must our division of labor advance to match. Class struggle follows from this basic materialist fact. The symbol of communism is the hammer the sickle because these are the tools of the workers and the peasants, the tools that built the old society, the weapons that will dismantle it, and the tools that will build the new society. This is the historic mission of the working class: to overthrow capitalism, and by building socialism, to end all exploitation.

#UnitedStates #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory

Now that we have talked about the Marxist theory of knowledge and examined the meaning and function of dialectical materialism, let’s look at how that is applied to studying the historical development of society. Marx called this “the materialist conception of history,” or historical materialism. It is historical materialism that demonstrates the link between dialectical materialism and political economy. Here we have dialectical materialism applied to history.

Before we get into all of the details of historical materialism, let’s take an introductory look at some of the key concepts. This way we can understand how they fit together. After this we can look more closely at them each piece by piece.

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels famously proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” This is the main point of historical materialism, but there is a lot to unpack in that statement, and we should spend some time understanding how Marx and Engels arrived at that conclusion and what it means for revolutionaries.

Engels summed it up like this in his speech at the grave of Karl Marx in 1883:

“Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.”

As we’ve said before, Marxism is monistic rather than dualistic, meaning it doesn’t separate matter and thought, but recognizes thought as arising from and dependent upon matter. Our material being determines our consciousness. Before we can think, we must eat. Basically, Marxism understands that human society has always been organized around its tools in the production of its material needs. Each historical period is characterized materially by its forces of production and relations of production. Together these make up the material and economic base of society, the mode of production.

Forces of production include everything we use to fulfill human needs. This includes everything from tools, to factories, alongside land, raw materials, logistical infrastructure, warehouses, offices, retail facilities, restaurants, and so on. The tools and factories make up the instruments of production. The raw materials and resources make up the objects of production. The means of production consist of the instruments and objects of production together. The forces of production also include the living labor of the workers, the agents of production. In early human society, these productive forces were limited mainly to things like stone arrowheads and spear tips for hunting. Now they include highly complex technologies and methods.

Relations of production are the definite social relations that people enter into in order to organize the production of their needs. Production is a social process, based on some degree of a division of labor, and, following the end of primitive communal societies and the rise of the ancient slave societies, division of ownership, or class division. In class society, the means of production and the agents of production are separated, such that a minority of people own the means of production while a much larger majority of people work as the agents of production.

For now, let’s just emphasize that in the contradiction between the forces and relations of production, the forces of production tend to be the principal, or determining aspect. It is the forces of production, that is, the instruments of production together with living labor, acting upon nature, that plays the leading role. However, at times the relations of production may be the principal aspect, hastening or slowing the development of the productive forces.

Corresponding to this economic and material base of society there is also a superstructure of society, made up of a set of repressive and ideological apparatuses whose function is the reproduction of the mode of production. This includes legal systems, the courts and the police, but it also includes cultural institutions, schools, the media, religion and the broad political and philosophical ideas that characterize society. For now, let’s just emphasize that in the contradiction between the base and superstructure, the base is typically the principal aspect. The superstructure arises from the material base, though the superstructure also acts upon the base and reinforces it.

Each historical mode of production is defined by the level of the development of its productive forces and the corresponding relations of production. As the productive forces develop to higher levels, eventually the relations of production that at first encouraged and accelerated their development begin to hold them back, and those relations of production must be changed in order for the productive forces to be able to develop further.

Marx sums this up most succinctly in his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy:

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.”

As society’s productive forces developed, so too did the relations of production develop from primitive communalism to the ancient slave societies, and on to feudalism, then capitalism, and from capitalism to socialism. These are the relations of production Marx and Engels identified from their analysis of how they had developed in Europe and how they would continue to develop based on their laws of motion that they drew from that analysis. Each change from one mode of production to the next meant the advancement of the productive forces and the revolutionizing of the relations of production. These changes also created great shifts in the legal, political and ideological superstructure to reinforce the base, demanding changes in legal structures, education, family relations and so on.

Historical materialism exposes the great lie of bourgeois ideology, that capitalism is eternal. It shows us that, on the contrary, it wasn’t always like this, that things have come to be this way as a result of a historical process, and that we can and must change things fundamentally and for the better. Historical materialism is a vast subject, and it will take us some time to do it justice. This article can only serve as a brief introduction to the elements of historical materialism. In our forthcoming articles we will go more deeply into each of these.

#UnitedStates #Marxism #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory #dialecticalMaterialism

In our study of the three laws of dialectics presented by Engels, we’ve examined the law of contradiction and the law of the transformation of quantity into quality. Finally, Engels says that the third law of dialectics is the “law of the negation of the negation.”

We have seen that Mao Zedong has argued that the law of contradiction is the primary law of dialectics. In our last article we looked at how the transformation of quantity into quality was, in fact, an instance of the law of contradiction. Here, we will examine Mao’s argument against the negation of the negation as a dialectical law.

First, what does the negation of the negation mean, and why have Marxists thought of it as a worthwhile way to explain dialectical progress? The concept comes from the most advanced philosophy of the time in which Marx and Engels were working: Hegel’s dialectical idealism. It describes a process in a sequence of steps, starting with an affirmation, followed by a negation that arises as a result of that affirmation, and then followed by a negation of that negation. Hegel was talking about ideas, and so talked about this in terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Engels makes use of this Hegelian language in referring to the negation of the negation as a dialectical law, but this has the potential to create some confusion among Marxists that we would benefit from sorting out.

Materialist dialectics is concerned with material reality, not just ideas. So to illustrate this sequence, let’s consider capitalism as our first affirmation. Marx says the bourgeoisie creates its own gravediggers. In other words, bourgeois society creates its own negation, the proletariat, a class born out of capitalism itself. Capitalism itself gives rise to the necessity of socialist revolution. The proletariat, through socialist revolution, therefore negates the bourgeoisie, capitalist relations, and so on, step by step. But in doing so, the proletariat also eliminates the conditions for its own existence as a class. This is what Lenin describes in The State and Revolution as socialism’s “withering away,” which allows for a stateless and classless society – communism – to come forth. This is the second negation, the negation of the negation, by this way of looking at it.

Taken step by step we see that first we have the original affirmation, the thesis. This is capitalism in our illustration. This is followed by an antithesis, which arises from and negates the original thesis. This is the first negation: socialism. Finally we have the synthesis, which negates the antithesis that had negated the original thesis: communism. Thus the final synthesis is the negation of the negation. Essentially, in this progression of thesis – antithesis – synthesis, the final synthesis serves to negate the antithesis that itself negated the original thesis, while also preserving elements of both in a new unity or identity.

In this process, the “law of the negation of the negation” is what accounts for the “spiral development” that makes progress, rather than mere repetition, possible. This synthesis carries forward something from both the original affirmation and the first negation, synthesizing them, that is uniting them, into something qualitatively new. This new unity becomes a new thesis, or a new affirmation, and the sequence begins again, but at a higher level than before.

This conception of the dialectic accounts for progress by describing how this step-by-step process leads from one thing to the next, based on resolving the contradictions that arise from the process. Of course this isn’t entirely incorrect, but it is inaccurate. This inaccuracy can lead to some confusion as to what is really taking place, dialectically. The “law of the negation of the negation” is helpful to a point, but we have to go further. Revolutionary science can’t rest with simple explanations.

The thinking behind the “law of the negation of the negation” confuses the issue in two interrelated ways. First, it gives us too linear an understanding of dialectics, which doesn’t account for the complex processes where multiple contradictions are at work at the same time, which we’ve described in our articles on contradiction. And second, by starting and ending with identity, it enshrines identity, or unity, as primary over contradiction, or struggle.

To truly put the dialectic on a materialist basis also means, as Mao says in his “Talk on Questions of Philosophy,” to understand that “every link in the chain of events is both affirmation and negation.” In other words, thesis, antithesis and synthesis aren’t separated from each other in a metaphysical way. Affirmation and negation are present at every moment of any given process.

In his essay “On Contradiction,” Mao made a great contribution to the Marxist-Leninist philosophy of dialectical materialism by clearly explaining that the materialist dialectic cannot be understood as a simple, linear sequence, but as a complex structural matrix of many unevenly developed contradictions all at work simultaneously. It is important to note that if we ignore the complexity of contradiction in favor of a simple, linear sequence, we risk taking a mechanical approach to solving problems by failing to recognize the significance of secondary contradictions in the situation. People who claim that everything that isn’t pure class struggle is a distraction are guilty of this error.

Furthermore, the “law of the negation of the negation” preserves a Hegelian metaphysical framework. The Hegelian dialectic begins and ends with identity, mediated by struggle. This first identity is the “thesis” of Hegel’s triad, the original affirmation, and the Hegelian “synthesis” (the negation of the negation) is a new identity, with struggle (“antithesis”) acting merely as a bridge between them. This is an important point: in the Hegelian sequence contradiction exists primarily between identities rather than within them. Here identity is absolute and struggle is relative. In reality, on the contrary, contradiction is present within and essential to every moment of the process. Bourgeois society contains a multitude of contradictions (affirmations and negations), as does socialism, and so will communism. Struggle is inherent in every part of the process. Every identity is teeming with contradictions. If we don’t grasp this point we will think that external contradictions should be the focus of our attention, rather than internal contradictions that tend to drive things forward.

The law of contradiction, as Marxism-Leninism understands it, means that the main thing in dialectics is division, rather than identity. To sum this up, the Chinese revolutionaries put forward the slogan “one divides into two,” against the Hegelian “two fuse into one,” emphasizing the primary place of contradiction. Struggle isn’t just a bridge between the old identity and the new. No, in fact, identity without contradiction cannot exist: everything divides into two.

This may seem like an overly philosophical point, but it is important for revolutionaries to grasp to avoid errors based in metaphysical thinking. The “law of the negation of the negation” would have it that dialectics is a continuous movement towards unity, or synthesis. Mao Zedong argues, on the contrary, that “the life of dialectics is the continuous movement towards opposites.” The Hegelian sequence leaves us with a dialectic that sees unity as absolute, and contradiction as relative, temporary, and conditional. On the contrary, affirmation and negation exist within every moment of every process. Contradictions exist within the very essence of things, not just between them, and it is those internal contradictions that are the primary motivators of change.

Qualitative change doesn’t result from a drive towards synthesis, but from the transformation of the principal and secondary aspects of a contradiction into their opposites. It isn’t by uniting two contradictory things that we make historical progress, but by dividing them. We don’t make socialist revolution by uniting with the bourgeoisie. It is true that socialism carries forward elements of capitalist relations of production in the transition to communism, but the main thing isn’t to preserve those elements, but to destroy and uproot them piece by piece. Qualitative change results from the quantitative accumulation of force which changes the balance of power.

In privileging identity over struggle, the “law of the negation of the negation” can also put Marxists at risk of a kind of fatalism, where Communism exists as the “final cause” at the End of History, drawing everything towards it as the final identity where everything is ultimately resolved. Communism isn’t a final identity without any contradictions. Contradictions will exist within communism as well. Change and progress will continue. History will never end.

Again, the “law of the negation of the negation” is useful to a point, but if we don’t take it farther we are left open to metaphysical errors. It gives us too linear a description of the dialectical process, and it separates affirmation and negation in a metaphysical way that privileges identity. As Marxism-Leninism has advanced it has advanced the philosophy of dialectical materialism beyond the metaphysical, linear framework of Hegelianism. Mao accomplished this by theorizing the concepts of the principal contradiction, principal and secondary aspects of contradictions, and the uneven development of contradictions within a process. Mao’s writings on dialectical materialism give us a powerful weapon to analyze the forces at work in the complex processes we face.

Next in our series we’ll look at how these processes shape history. In the following articles we’ll look at the categories and concepts of the materialist conception of history, that is, historical materialism, and what they offer Marxist-Leninists as theoretical tools for changing the world.

#UnitedStates #MaoZedong #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory

In our last article we looked at some of the core concepts of dialectical materialism. We broke down the meaning of contradiction, and we looked at how contradictions develop unevenly in complex processes, into principal and secondary contradictions. We also looked at how any given contradiction has its own principal and secondary aspects, with the principal aspect playing the dominant role. Now let's look more closely at identity in contradiction and the role of antagonism in resolving contradictions of different types.

In “On Contradiction” Mao Zedong writes, “In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another.”

In one sense, identity means that the two aspects of a given contradiction are also conditions for each other's existence. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without the proletariat, and vice versa. The class of exploiters depends entirely on the existence of a class of exploited from whom they draw their wealth and over whom they wield their power. Without the class of exploiters, the exploited too would not exist as a class. In this contradiction, the capitalist class plays the dominant role. They control the means of production along with the superstructure of the state and its repressive and ideological apparatuses.

However, the two aspects of this contradiction can exchange places. As Mao puts it, “by means of revolution the proletariat, at one time the ruled, is transformed into the ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is transformed into the ruled and changes its position to that originally occupied by its opposite.” From this qualitatively new position, the proletariat can wield state power in the socialist transition to eliminate exploitation, thereby eliminating the conditions for the existence of both itself and the bourgeoisie as classes.

One way to think about this is to say that identity is what holds things together. In other words, identity represents the real, concrete relationships that bind these opposing forces to each other. In the case of the working class and capitalists, these are the real, concrete relations of production. The capitalists own the means of production, and workers have to sell their labor to the capitalists to survive. Nevertheless, Lenin makes an important point here. “The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute.” This is crucial for revolutionaries to grasp. Struggle and change are both constant and necessary.

So, to sum up, identity is the concrete relationship between contradictory aspects. On the one hand, it means that the two aspects of a contradiction are interdependent. On the other hand, it means that they can exchange places between which aspect is principal and which is secondary.

But what role does antagonism play in the identity and struggle of opposites? Mao says that “antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of the struggle of opposites.” In his essay “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” Mao divides contradictions into two categories: those between the masses of the people and the enemy, and those among the people themselves. Contradictions between the people and the enemy are antagonistic. Contradictions among the people are non-antagonistic. For example, under capitalist society, the contradiction between the capitalists and the working class is an antagonistic contradiction. The capitalists derive their wealth through the exploitation of the workers. They get rich from the surplus value produced by workers, that is, the difference between the value added by living labor and the amount the capitalists pay the workers for that labor power. Over the long run, the more wealth the capitalists accumulate, the less the workers are able to take home in pay, and vice versa. This means the material interests of these two classes are directly and irreconcilably opposed to one another. One benefits only at the expense of the other.

But there also exist contradictions among the masses of the people themselves. These contradictions are not antagonistic, not irreconcilably opposed to one another. Non-antagonistic contradictions are resolved through a process of unity-criticism-unity. This is a peaceful and democratic method of resolving non-antagonistic contradictions that means “starting from the desire for unity, resolving contradictions through criticism or struggle, and arriving at a new unity on a new basis.” This is the way communists should seek to resolve contradictions among themselves and among the broad masses of the people.

This brings to a close our preliminary discussion of the primary law of dialectics, the law of contradiction, which Engels called the law of the interpenetration of opposites. It is one of our most powerful and important theoretical tools and deserves serious and ongoing study, well beyond the limitations of these short articles. From here we understand how contradiction operates well enough to proceed, and so in our next article we will look more closely at how contradiction operates in the transformation of quantity into quality.

See our full series of articles on Marxist-Leninist theory here.

#Minneapolis #MaoZedong #Marxism #Theory #MLTheory

Friedrich Engels lists three laws of dialectics, but, as we shall see, the most important is the law of contradiction, which he calls the law of the interpenetration of opposites. Before we discuss the other two (the transformation of quantity into quality, and the negation of the negation), let’s look closely at contradiction.

Many of the great theorists of Marxism-Leninism wrote about dialectics in general and contradiction in particular. Mao Zedong extrapolated from the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, along with the direct experience of the Chinese revolution, a systematic theory of materialist dialectics, particularly in his essay “On Contradiction.” He was the first to explain dialectics in terms of the uneven development of contradictions, of principal and secondary contradictions, and, within that, of principal and secondary aspects of those contradictions.

What, then, is a contradiction? When we talk about a contradiction, we are talking about two opposing forces within any given concrete process. Contradiction is universal. The interaction of opposing forces takes place within all phenomena. Lenin said, “The splitting in two of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts is the essence of dialectics.” Marx’s great work, Capital, is an analysis of the particular contradictions at work, from top to bottom, within bourgeois society. Through looking at those contradictions Marx was able to demonstrate the laws of motion that govern capitalist society.

Capitalism is a complex process. Thus, in capitalism, there are many contradictions at work at the same time. There is the contradiction between the ruling class of exploiters (the bourgeoisie) and the class of exploited (the working class, or proletariat). But capitalism also brings with it monopolies, imperialism, national oppression, and so on. There are numerous classes and social groups with their own interests and struggles. Even among the various strata of a particular class there are different contradictions. But if we look closely at all of these contradictions, we find that capitalism is at the root of all of them.

In his analysis of capitalism, Marx found that the basis of the class struggle within the capitalist mode of production is the contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of accumulation.

Millions of people work in a complex division of labor to produce the wealth of society, while that wealth is accumulated in the hands of a small minority of people who own the means of production. In other words, production is social, but profit is private. This contradiction is the basis of the class struggle and the driving force behind the cycles of capitalist crisis. Mao says this contradiction is fundamental and points out that even as capitalism developed into its current stage, imperialism, this fundamental contradiction at the core of capitalism itself remained. As long as capitalism continues to exist, this fundamental contradiction continues to sharpen. The eventual resolution of this contradiction through proletarian revolution will mark the end of capitalism and the beginning of a new process, that of socialist construction.

While the fundamental contradiction between social production and private accumulation is basic to what capitalism is, there are still many other contradictions at work in such a complex process, and these contradictions can play lesser or greater roles at different times and under different conditions. The principal, or determining, contradiction within that can also change, given the dynamics of the situation. Mao argues that “in capitalist society the two forces in contradiction, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, form the principal contradiction.” However, Mao argues that in national liberation wars against imperialism, the principal contradiction is different, as the class conflicts within that nation take a back seat to the struggle for liberation. We can expand or reduce the scope of our analysis, to look at contradictions operating on a global scale, down to the contradictions operating on a very small, local scale.

Currently, we live in the era of imperialism. Imperialism, led by the United States, strives to dominate the world, politically, militarily and economically, and the principal contradiction on a global scale is the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations. To say that other contradictions are secondary isn’t to diminish their importance, but rather to say that these contradictions are influenced and determined by the principal contradiction. We can’t deal with principal or secondary contradictions if we don't know which is which. For this reason Mao stresses that “Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved.”

Likewise, contradictions develop unevenly. In any given contradiction, one side of that contradiction is the principal, or dominant, aspect. The principal aspect of the contradiction is what plays the leading role within that contradiction, and the nature of a thing is determined by the aspect which plays this leading role. But the principal and secondary aspects also can exchange places. For example, in capitalist society the bourgeoisie and the proletariat exist side by side, but the bourgeoisie plays the leading role. In socialist society the proletariat will take over the leading role to dismantle capitalist productive relations and build socialism. So we see then that when the principal and secondary aspects of a contradiction exchange place it causes a qualitative change in the situation.

This understanding of how contradictions operate in complex processes gives us a deeper understanding of the laws of motion that govern that process. For this reason, dialectical materialism is a powerful tool for revolutionaries to break down a complex process and determine where and how to act.

It is on the basis of this dialectical analysis of the terrain of struggle in the United States that we talk about a united front against monopoly capitalism, under the leadership of the working class and its party, with the strategic alliance of the multinational working class and the movements of oppressed nationalities as its core. This is a strategy for revolution, based on the concrete analysis of our concrete conditions, which takes into account the complex matrix of principal and secondary contradictions, both within the imperialist United States and on a global scale.

This method of analysis also functions on a tactical level, in particular, on the ground struggles. We can use dialectical materialism to find the principal and secondary contradictions at work in a given struggle, such as in a union contract negotiation or in struggles against police brutality, and use that analysis to look at the interests of the different forces at work, how they interact, and where to aim our blows.

In our next article we will proceed to look more deeply at the identity and struggle of the aspects of a contradiction, and then at the question of the role played by antagonism in a contradiction. This will further help us to understand how to apply this method, especially when it comes to questions of different ways of handling contradictions between the masses and the enemy and contradictions among the masses of the people themselves.

See our full series of articles on Marxist-Leninist theory here.

#UnitedStates #MaoZedong #MarxismLeninism #Theory #MLTheory

When we talk about the philosophy that forms the basis of Marxism-Leninism, we say that that philosophy is dialectical materialism. At this point in our series on the theoretical concepts of Marxism-Leninism, we are going to focus on the materialism of dialectical materialism and try to come to a clear understanding of what that means. And to do that, we’re going to also look at materialism’s philosophical opposite: idealism.

Ultimately, materialism and idealism are two opposing ways of approaching every question that we might take up. Many might consider this too abstract a point for revolutionaries to wish to pay attention to, or they may mistake this for some sort of moral judgment about people. The common understanding of these terms would lend itself to such a view. The everyday view is that an idealist is a person concerned with high-minded ideals whereas a materialist is someone concerned with accumulating or possessing material things. Philosophically this isn’t what the terms mean at all, as we shall see. We need to dispel this view and understand what these terms mean philosophically. They actually connect in a very important way with what we’ve previously talked about in our articles on how we know and how we learn (epistemology).

The battle between idealism and materialism in fact divides the history of human thought into two camps. A materialist is someone who says being is primary over thinking. An idealist says the opposite: that thinking is primary over being. In other words, a materialist thinks that being determines thinking, while an idealist thinks the opposite, that thinking determines being. Similarly, idealism is dualistic, separating ideas from matter as two fundamental metaphysical substances. Materialism is monistic, uniting ideas and matter as two components of one social reality. This is the main distinction, though it is still very abstract. We might simplify it by saying that a materialist starts with things the way they are, while an idealist starts with the way they want things to be. But that doesn’t give us the whole picture. Let’s take each one by one, starting with idealism.

Beginning with ancient religious thinking, and even before that, faced with a complex and turbulent existence, human beings tried to understand why things happened as they did. When there was a storm, the failure of crops, a military victory, or a great tragedy, people wanted to understand why these things happened. With no scientific understanding of nature, often the recourse was to say, “it is as the gods will it,” or perhaps it was “fate” or “karma” that caused things to happen as they did. People tried to understand what it was that made up the world around them.

Early idealist philosophers weren’t satisfied with religious explanations and so speculated that reality didn’t exist apart from the mind, and that the ideas that made up reality had their own existence apart from the material world, and that it is these ideas that shape what reality is. This tradition in philosophy leads from the ancient Greeks like Socrates and Plato to modern philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Berkley. The world was created from ideas, in some way or another. Idealism reigned supreme in the ancient slave societies and under feudal social relations, when the temples and the church were the main ideological levers of the ruling class. The king ruled because it was God’s will. One suffered because it was one’s fate. If you were born into a lower caste it was karma and you were being punished for the misdeeds of your past lives. This kind of thinking served the needs of the slave societies and feudal lords well.

But even among the ancients, early attempts at materialism were made. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophy separately developed philosophies of atomism. They posited that there were basic atoms that made up the world. Some said that basic elements like earth, air, water or fire, or some combination of these elements, made up the world. Modern materialists like Hobbes, Diderot and Feuerbach brought materialism into the modern, scientific age. To materialists, ideas arose from nature, as human thought arises from our material existence.

Nevertheless, materialism didn’t really take hold as a dominant position in ideology until the Enlightenment, with the rise of the bourgeoisie. This is why the French Revolution at the end of the 1700s was so emphatic about secularism. The overthrow of feudalism also required the overthrow of the ideological domination of the church. Not only was the political power to be moved out of the hands of the feudal lords into the hands of the rising bourgeoisie, but the ideology of th