Leninism

Last updated

Vladimir Lenin, whose policies and politics allowed the Bolshevik vanguard party to realise the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 Vladimir Lenin.jpg
Vladimir Lenin, whose policies and politics allowed the Bolshevik vanguard party to realise the October Revolution in Russia in 1917

Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. Lenin's ideological contributions to the Marxist ideology relate to his theories on the party, imperialism, the state, and revolution. [1] The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness (education and organisation) and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism. [2]

Contents

Leninist revolutionary leadership is based upon The Communist Manifesto (1848), identifying the communist party as "the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to instituting socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to realise the socio-economic transition by all means. [3]

In the aftermath of the October Revolution in 1917, Leninism was the dominant version of Marxism in Russia. In establishing the socialist mode of production in Soviet Russia – with the 1917 Decree on Land, war communism (1918–1921) and the New Economic Policy (1921–1928) – the revolutionary régime suppressed most political opposition, including Marxists who opposed Lenin's actions, the anarchists and the Mensheviks, factions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. [4] The Russian Civil War (1917–1922), which included the fight against the White Army, Entente intervention, left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks and widespread peasant rebellions was an external and internal war which transformed Bolshevik Russia into the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the core and largest republic that founded the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). [5]

As revolutionary praxis, Leninism originally was neither a proper philosophy nor a discrete political theory. Leninism comprises politico-economic developments of orthodox Marxism and Lenin's interpretations of Marxism, which function as a pragmatic synthesis for practical application to the actual conditions (political, social, economic) of the post-emancipation agrarian society of Imperial Russia in the early 20th century. [2] As a political-science term, Lenin's theory of proletarian revolution entered common usage at the fifth congress of the Communist International (1924), when Grigory Zinoviev applied the term Leninism to denote "vanguard-party revolution." [2] Leninism was accepted as part of Russian Communist Party (b)'s vocabulary and doctrine around 1922, and in January 1923, despite objections from Lenin, it entered the public vocabulary. [6]

Historical background

In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), in which they called for the political unification of the European working classes in order to achieve communist revolution; and proposed that because the socio-economic organisation of communism was of a higher form than that of capitalism, a workers' revolution first would occur in the industrialised countries. In Germany, Marxist social democracy was the political perspective of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, inspiring Russian Marxists, such as Lenin. [7]

In the early 20th century, the socio-economic backwardness of Imperial Russia (1721–1917) — characterized by combined and uneven economic development — facilitated rapid and intensive industrialisation, which produced a united, working-class proletariat in a predominantly agrarian society. Moreover, because industrialisation was financed chiefly with foreign capital, Imperial Russia did not possess a revolutionary bourgeoisie with political and economic influence upon the workers and the peasants, as had been the case in the French Revolution (1789–1799) in the 18th century. Although Russia's political economy was agrarian and semi-feudal, the task of democratic revolution fell to the urban, industrial working class as the only social class capable of effecting land reform and democratisation, in view that the Russian bourgeoisie would suppress any revolution.

In the April Theses (1917), the political strategy of the October Revolution (7–8 November 1917), Lenin proposed that the Russian revolution was not an isolated national event but a fundamentally international event—the first socialist revolution in the world. Lenin's practical application of Marxism and proletarian revolution to the social, political, and economic conditions of agrarian Russia motivated and impelled the "revolutionary nationalism of the poor" to depose the absolute monarchy of the three-hundred-year dynasty of the House of Romanov (1613–1917), as tsars of Russia. [8]

Imperialism

In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), Lenin's economic analyses indicated that capitalism would transform into a global financial system, by which industrialised countries exported financial capital to their colonies and so realise the exploitation of the labour of the natives and the exploitation of the natural resources of their countries. Such superexploitation allows wealthy countries to maintain a domestic labour aristocracy with a slightly higher standard of living than most workers, ensuring peaceful labour–capital relations in the capitalist homeland. Therefore, a proletarian revolution of workers and peasants could not occur in capitalist countries whilst the imperialist global-finance system remained in place. The first proletarian revolution would have to occur in an underdeveloped country, such as Imperial Russia, the politically weakest country in the capitalist global-finance system in the early 20th century. [9] In the United States of Europe Slogan (1915), Lenin wrote:

Workers of the world, unite!—Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence the victory of socialism is possible, first in several, or even in one capitalist country taken separately. The victorious proletariat of that country, having expropriated the capitalists and organised its own socialist production, would stand up against the rest of the world, the capitalist world.

Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 232 [10]
First edition Russian cover of Lenin's 1917 book Imperialism, the Newest Stage of Capitalism Lenin V. I. Imperializm, kak vysshaia stadiia kapitalizma (1917).jpg
First edition Russian cover of Lenin's 1917 book Imperialism, the Newest Stage of Capitalism

In "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), Lenin wrote:

The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skillful and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general. Those who have not proved in practice, over a fairly considerable period of time and in fairly varied political situations, their ability to apply this truth in practice have not yet learned to help the revolutionary class in its struggle to emancipate all toiling humanity from the exploiters. And this applies equally to the period before and after the proletariat has won political power.

Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 23 [11]

Leninist praxis

Vanguard party

In Chapter II, "Proletarians and Communists", of The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels present the communist party as the political vanguard solely qualified to lead the proletariat in revolution:

The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

The revolutionary purpose of the Leninist vanguard party is to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat with the working class's support. The communist party would lead the popular deposition of the Tsarist government and then transfer government power to the working class; that change of the ruling class—from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat—makes establishing socialism possible. [12] In What Is To Be Done? (1902), Lenin said that a revolutionary vanguard party, recruited from the working class, should lead the political campaign because only in that way would the proletariat successfully realise their revolution; unlike the economic campaign of trade-union-struggle advocated by other socialist political parties and the anarcho-syndicalists. Like Marx, Lenin distinguished between the aspects of a revolution, the "economic campaign" (labour strikes for increased wages and work concessions) that featured diffused plural leadership; and the "political campaign" (socialist changes to society), which required the decisive, revolutionary leadership of the Bolshevik vanguard party.

Democratic centralism

Based upon the First International (IWA, International Workingmen's Association, 1864–1876), Lenin organised the Bolsheviks as a democratically centralised vanguard party; wherein free political speech was recognised as legitimate until policy consensus; afterwards, every member of the party was expected to abide by the agreed policy. Democratic debate was Bolshevik practice, even after Lenin banned factions among the Party in 1921. Despite being a guiding political influence, Lenin did not exercise absolute power and continually debated to have his points of view accepted as a course of revolutionary action. In Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action (1905), Lenin said:

Of course, the application of this principle in practice will sometimes give rise to disputes and misunderstandings; but only on the basis of this principle can all disputes and all misunderstandings be settled honourably for the Party. ... The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organisations implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party. [13]

Proletarian revolution

Before the October Revolution, despite supporting moderate political reform—including Bolsheviks elected to the Duma when opportune—Lenin said that capitalism could only be overthrown with proletarian revolution, not with gradual reforms—from within (Fabianism) and from without (social democracy)—which would fail because the bourgeoisie's control of the means of production determined the nature of political power in Russia. [14] As epitomised in the slogan "For a Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry", a proletarian revolution in underdeveloped Russia required a united proletariat (peasants and industrial workers) to assume government power in the cities successfully. Moreover, owing to the middle-class aspirations of much of the peasantry, Leon Trotsky said that the proletarian leadership of the revolution would ensure truly socialist and democratic socio-economic change.

Dictatorship of the proletariat

1970 French edition of Lenin's 1917 book The State and Revolution L'etat et la revolution.jpg
1970 French edition of Lenin's 1917 book The State and Revolution

In Bolshevik Russia, government by direct democracy was realised and effected by the soviets (elected councils of workers), which Lenin said was the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat" postulated in orthodox Marxism. [15] The soviets comprised representative committees from the factories and the trade unions but excluded the capitalist social class to establish a proletarian government by and for the working class and the peasants. Concerning the political disenfranchisement of the capitalist social class in Bolshevik Russia, Lenin said that "depriving the exploiters of the franchise is a purely Russian question, and not a question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in general. ... In which countries ...democracy for the exploiters will be, in one or another form, restricted ...is a question of the specific national features of this or that capitalism." [3] In chapter five of The State and Revolution (1917), Lenin describes the dictatorship of the proletariat as:

the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors. ... An immense expansion of democracy, which, for the first time, becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich ... and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the change which democracy undergoes during the 'transition' from capitalism to communism. [16]

Concerning the disenfranchisement from democracy of the capitalist social class, Lenin said: "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—this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism." [17] The dictatorship of the proletariat was effected with soviet constitutionalism, a form of government opposite to the dictatorship of capital (privately owned means of production) practised in bourgeois democracies. Under soviet constitutionalism, the Leninist vanguard party would be one of many political parties competing for election to government power. [2] [15] [18] Nevertheless, because of the Russian Civil War (1917–1924) and the anti-Bolshevik terrorism of opposing political parties aiding the White Armies' counter-revolution, the Bolshevik government banned all other political parties, which left the Leninist vanguard party as the only political party in Russia. Lenin said that such political suppression was not philosophically inherent to the dictatorship of the proletariat. [19] [18] [20]

Economics

The Bolshevik government nationalised industry and established a foreign-trade monopoly to allow the productive coordination of the national economy and so prevent Russian national industries from competing against each other. To feed the populaces of town and country, Lenin instituted war communism (1918–1921) as a necessary condition—adequate supplies of food and weapons—for fighting the Russian Civil War. [18] In March 1921, the New Economic Policy (NEP, 1921–1929) allowed limited local capitalism (private commerce and internal free trade) and replaced grain requisitions with an agricultural tax managed by state banks. The NEP was meant to resolve food-shortage riots by the peasantry and allowed limited private enterprise; the profit motive encouraged farmers to produce the crops required to feed town and country; and to economically re-establish the urban working class, who had lost many workers to fight the counter-revolutionary Civil War. [21] [22] The NEP nationalisation of the economy then would facilitate the industrialisation of Russia, politically strengthen the working class, and raise the standards of living for all Russians. Lenin said that the appearance of new socialist states was necessary for strengthening Russia's economy in establishing Russian socialism. Lenin's socio-economic perspective was supported by the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Italian insurrection and general strikes of 1920, and worker wage-riots in the UK, France, and the US.

National self-determination

In recognising and accepting nationalism among oppressed peoples, Lenin advocated their national right to self-determination and so opposed Russian chauvinism because such ethnocentrism was a cultural obstacle to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in every territory of the deposed Russian Empire (1721–1917). [23] [24] In The Right of Nations to Self-determination (1914), Lenin said:

We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation. :... The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support. At the same time, we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness. ... Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot. [25]

The socialist internationalism of Marxism and Bolshevism is based upon class struggle and a people's transcending nationalism, ethnocentrism, and religion—the intellectual obstacles to progressive class consciousness—which are the cultural status quo that the capitalist ruling class manipulates in order to divide the working classes and the peasant classes politically. To overcome that barrier to establishing socialism, Lenin said that acknowledging nationalism, as a people's right of self-determination and right of secession, naturally would allow socialist states to transcend the political limitations of nationalism to form a federation. [19] In The Question of Nationalities, or 'Autonomisation' (1923), Lenin said:

[N]othing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything, so much as to the feeling of equality, and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest – to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades. [26]

Socialist culture

The role of the Leninist vanguard party was to politically educate the workers and peasants to dispel the societal false consciousness of religion and nationalism that constitute the cultural status quo taught by the bourgeoisie to the proletariat to facilitate their economic exploitation of peasants and workers. Influenced by Lenin, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party stated that the development of the socialist workers' culture should not be "hamstrung from above" and opposed the Proletkult (1917–1925) organisational control of the national culture. [27]

Leninism after 1924

Stalinism and Marxism–Leninism

In post-Revolutionary Russia, the Stalinist application of Marxism–Leninism (socialism in one country), and Trotskyism (permanent world revolution) were the principal philosophies of communism that claimed legitimate ideological descent from Leninism; thus, within the Communist Party, each ideological faction denied the political legitimacy of the opposing faction. [28] Until shortly before his death, Lenin countered Stalin's disproportionate political influence in the Communist Party and the bureaucracy of the Soviet government, partly because of abuses he had committed against the populace of Georgia and partly because the autocratic Stalin had accumulated administrative power disproportionate to his office of General Secretary of the Communist Party. [19] [29]

The counter-action against Stalin aligned with Lenin's advocacy of the right of self-determination for the national and ethnic groups of the deposed Tsarist Empire. [29] Lenin warned the Party that Stalin had "unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution" and formed a faction with Leon Trotsky to remove Stalin as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. [20] [30]

To that end followed proposals reducing the administrative powers of party posts to reduce bureaucratic influence upon the policies of the Communist Party. Lenin advised Trotsky to emphasise Stalin's recent bureaucratic alignment in such matters (e.g. undermining the anti-bureaucratic workers' and peasants' Inspection) and argued to depose Stalin as General Secretary. Despite advice to refuse "any rotten compromise", he did not heed Lenin's advice and General Secretary Stalin retained power over the Communist Party and the bureaucracy of the Soviet government. [20]

Trotskyism

Leon Trotsky was exiled from Russia after losing to Stalin in the factional politics of the Bolsheviks Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R15068, Leo Dawidowitsch Trotzki.jpg
Leon Trotsky was exiled from Russia after losing to Stalin in the factional politics of the Bolsheviks

In 1922, Lenin allied with Leon Trotsky against the party's growing bureaucratisation and the influence of Joseph Stalin. [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] Lenin himself never mentioned the concept of "Trotskyism" after Trotsky became a member of the Bolshevik party but the term was employed by Stalin and the troika to present Trotsky's views as factional and anathematical to Leninist thought. [36]

After Lenin's death (21 January 1924), Trotsky ideologically battled the influence of Stalin, who formed ruling blocs within the Russian Communist Party (with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, then with Nikolai Bukharin and then by himself) and so determined soviet government policy from 1924 onwards. The ruling blocs continually denied Stalin's opponents the right to organise as an opposition faction within the party—thus, the reinstatement of democratic centralism and free speech within the Communist Party were key arguments of Trotsky's Left Opposition and the later Joint Opposition. [20] [37]

In instituting government policy, Stalin promoted the doctrine of socialism in one country (adopted 1925), [38] wherein the Soviet Union would establish socialism upon Russia's economic foundations (and support socialist revolutions elsewhere). [39] In a 1936 interview with journalist Roy W. Howard, Stalin articulated his rejection of world revolution and stated that “We never had such plans and intentions” and that “The export of revolution is nonsense”. [40] [41] [42]

Conversely, Trotsky held that socialism in one country would economically constrain the industrial development of the Soviet Union and thus required assistance from the new socialist countries in the developed world—which was essential for maintaining soviet democracy—in 1924, much undermined by the Russian Civil War of White Army counter-revolution. Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution proposed that socialist revolutions in underdeveloped countries would further dismantle feudal régimes and establish socialist democracies that would not pass through a capitalist stage of development and government. Hence, revolutionary workers should ally politically with peasant political organisations, not capitalist political parties. In contrast, Stalin and his allies proposed that alliances with capitalist political parties were essential to realising a revolution where communists were too few. [38] Said Stalinist practice failed, especially in the Northern Expedition portion of the Chinese Revolution (1926–1928), which resulted in the right-wing Kuomintang's massacre of the Chinese Communist Party. Despite the failure, Stalin's policy of mixed-ideology political alliances nonetheless became Comintern's policy.

Until exiled from Russia in 1929, Trotsky developed and led the Left Opposition (and the later Joint Opposition) with members of the Workers' Opposition, the Decembrists and (later) the Zinovievists. [20] Trotskyism predominated the politics of the Left Opposition, which demanded the restoration of soviet democracy, the expansion of democratic centralism in the Communist Party, national industrialisation, international permanent revolution and socialist internationalism. According to historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, the scholarly consensus was that Stalin appropriated the position of the Left Opposition on such matters as industrialisation and collectivisation. [43]

The Trotskyist demands countered Stalin's political dominance of the Communist Party, which was officially characterised by the "cult of Lenin", the rejection of permanent revolution, and advocated the doctrine of socialism in one country. The Stalinist economic policy vacillated between appeasing the capitalist interests of the kulak in the countryside and destroying them as a social class. Initially, the Stalinists also rejected the national industrialisation of Russia but then pursued it in full, sometimes brutally. In both cases, the Left Opposition denounced the regressive nature of Stalin's policy towards the wealthy kulak social class and the brutality of forced industrialisation. Trotsky described Stalinist vacillation as a symptom of the undemocratic nature of a ruling bureaucracy. [44]

During the 1920s and the 1930s, Stalin fought and defeated the political influence of Trotsky and the Trotskyists in Russia using slander, antisemitism, censorship, expulsions, exile (internal and external), and imprisonment. The anti-Trotsky campaign culminated in the executions (official and unofficial) of the Moscow Trials (1936–1938), which were part of the Great Purge of Old Bolsheviks who had led the Revolution. [20] [45]

Legacy

Debated influence on Stalinism

Some historians such as Richard Pipes consider Stalinism as the natural consequence of Leninism, that Stalin "faithfully implemented Lenin's domestic and foreign policy programs". [46] Robert Service notes that "institutionally and ideologically Lenin laid the foundations for a Stalin ... but the passage from Leninism to the worse terrors of Stalinism was not smooth and inevitable." [47] Historian and Stalin biographer Edvard Radzinsky believes that Stalin was a genuine follower of Lenin, exactly as he claimed himself. [48] Proponents of continuity cite a variety of contributory factors, in that it was Lenin, rather than Stalin, whose civil war measures introduced the Red Terror with its hostage-taking and internment camps; that it was Lenin who developed the infamous Article 58 and who established the autocratic system within the Russian Communist Party. [49] Proponents also note that Lenin put a ban on factions within the party and introduced the one-party state in 1921, a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death and cite Felix Dzerzhinsky, who exclaimed during the Bolshevik struggle against opponents in the Russian Civil War: "We stand for organized terror—this should be frankly stated." [50]

Some scholars have had a differing view and attributed the establishment of the one-party system in the Soviet Union to the wartime conditions imposed on Lenin’s government [51] and others have highlighted the initial attempts to form a coalition government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. [52] According to historian Marcel Liebman, Lenin’s wartime measures such as banning opposition parties was prompted by the fact that several political parties either took up arms against the new Soviet government, or participated in sabotage, collaborated with the deposed Tsarists, or made assassination attempts against Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders. [53] Liebman also argued that the banning of parties under Lenin did not have the same repressive character as later bans enforced under the Stalinist regime. [54] Several scholars have highlighted the socially progressive nature of Lenin's policies such as universal education, universal healthcare and equal rights for women. [55] [56] [57] Conversely, Stalin's regime reversed Lenin's policies on social matters such as sexual equality, legal restrictions on marriage, rights of sexual minorities and protective legislation. [58] Historian Robert Vincent Daniels also viewed the Stalinist period as a counter-revolution in Soviet cultural life which revived patriotic propaganda, the Tsarist programme of Russification and traditional, military ranks which had been criticized by Lenin as expressions of "Great Russian chauvinism". [59] Daniels also regarded Stalinism to represent an abrupt break with the Leninist period in terms of economic policies in which a deliberated, scientific system of economic planning that featured former Menshevik economists at Gosplan had been replaced with a hasty version of planning with unrealistic targets, bureaucratic waste, bottlenecks and shortages. [60]

Russian peasants holding banners of Lenin (left), Marx (centre) and Trotsky (right) in early Soviet Russia. Lenin and Trotsky.jpg
Russian peasants holding banners of Lenin (left), Marx (centre) and Trotsky (right) in early Soviet Russia.

Revisionist historians and some post-Cold War and otherwise dissident Soviet historians, including Roy Medvedev, argue that "one could list the various measures carried out by Stalin that were actually a continuation of anti-democratic trends and measures implemented under Lenin", but that "in so many ways, Stalin acted, not in line with Lenin's clear instructions, but in defiance of them." [61] In doing so, some historians have tried to distance Stalinism from Leninism to undermine the totalitarian view that the negative facets of Stalin were inherent in communism from the start. [62] Critics include anti-Stalinist communists such as Leon Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Russian Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as its General Secretary. Lenin's Testament, the document which contained this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. Various historians have cited Lenin’s proposal to appoint Trotsky as a Vice-Chairman of the Soviet Union as evidence that he intended Trotsky to be his successor as head of government. [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] In his biography of Trotsky, Polish-British historian Isaac Deutscher says that, on being faced with the evidence, "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism." [68] According to Stalin’s secretary, Boris Bazhanov, Stalin was jubilant over Lenin’s death while “publicly putting on the mask of grief”. [69] French historian Pierre Broue disputed the historical assessments of the early Soviet Union by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov in which he argued had falsely equated Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism to present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position of counter-communism. [70] Other revisionist historians such as Orlando Figes whilst critical of the Soviet era acknowledge that Lenin had actively sought to counter the growing influence of Stalin through a number of actions such as his alliance with Trotsky in 1922-23, opposition to Stalin on foreign trade, the Georgian affair and proposed party reforms which included the democratisation of the Central Committee and recruitment of 50-100 ordinary workers into the lower organs of the party. [71]

O kulcie jednostki i jego nastepstwach, Warsaw, March 1956, first edition of the Secret Speech, published for the inner use in the PUWP. First edition of Krushchev's "Secret Speech".jpg
O kulcie jednostki i jego następstwach, Warsaw, March 1956, first edition of the Secret Speech, published for the inner use in the PUWP.

Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor, argued that Stalin’s regime differed profusely from the leadership of Lenin in his "Secret Speech", delivered in 1956. He was critical of the cult of the individual which was constructed around Stalin whereas Lenin stressed “the role of the people as the creator of history”. [72] He also emphasized that Lenin favored a collective leadership which relied on personal persuasion and recommended the removal of Stalin from the position of General Secretary. Khrushchev contrasted this with the “despotism” of Stalin which require absolute submission to his position and he also highlighted that many of the people who were later annihilated as “enemies of the party", "had worked with Lenin during his life”. [73] He also contrasted the “severe methods” used by Lenin in the “most necessary cases” as a “struggle for survival” during the Civil War with the extreme methods and mass repressions used by Stalin even when the Revolution was “already victorious”. [74] In his memoirs, Khrushchev argued that Stalin's widespread purges of the "most advanced nucleus of people" among the Old Bolsheviks and leading figures in the military and scientific fields had "undoubtedly" weakened the nation. [75]

Some Marxist theoreticians have disputed the view that the Stalinist dictatorship was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions as most of the original central committee members from 1917 were later eliminated by Stalin. [76] George Novack stressed the initial efforts by the Bolsheviks to form a government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and bring other parties such as the Mensheviks into political legality. [77] Tony Cliff argued the Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary coalition government dissolved the democratically elected Russian Constituent Assembly due to a number of reasons. They cited the outdated voter-rolls which did not acknowledge the split among the Socialist Revolutionary party and the assemblies conflict with the Russian Congress of the Soviets as an alternative democratic structure. [78]

A similar analysis is present in more recent works such as those of Graeme Gill, who argues that "[Stalinism was] not a natural flow-on of earlier developments; [it formed a] sharp break resulting from conscious decisions by leading political actors." However, Gill notes that "difficulties with the use of the term reflect problems with the concept of Stalinism itself. The major difficulty is a lack of agreement about what should constitute Stalinism." [79] Revisionist historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick have criticized the focus on the upper levels of society and the use of Cold War concepts such as totalitarianism, obscuring the system's reality. [80]

Russian historian Vadim Rogovin stated that "Under Lenin, the freedom to express a real variety of opinions existed in the party, and in carrying out political decisions, consideration was given to the positions of not only the majority, but a minority in the party". He compared this practice with subsequent leadership blocs which violated party tradition, ignored proposals of opponents and expelled the Opposition from the party on falsified charges which culminated with the Moscow Trials of 1936-1938. According to Rogovin, 80-90% of the members of the Central Committee elected at the Sixth through to the Seventeenth Congresses were physically annihilated. [81]

Left-wing criticism

As a form of Marxism, revolutionary Leninism was criticised as an undemocratic interpretation of socialism. In The Nationalities Question in the Russian Revolution (1918), Rosa Luxemburg criticised the Bolsheviks for the suppression of the All Russian Constituent Assembly (January 1918); the partitioning of the feudal estates to the peasant communes; and the right of self-determination of every national people of the Russias. That the strategic (geopolitical) mistakes of the Bolsheviks would create significant dangers for the Russian Revolution, such as the bureaucratisation that would arise to administrate the large country that was Bolshevik Russia. [82] In defence of the expedient revolutionary practice, in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920), Lenin dismissed the political and ideological complaints of the anti-Bolshevik critics, who claimed ideologically correct stances that were to the political left of Lenin. In Marxist philosophy, left communism is a range of left-wing political perspectives among communists. Left communism criticizes the Bolshevik Party's ideology as the revolutionary vanguard. Ideologically, left communists present their perspectives and approaches as authentic Marxism and thus more oriented to the proletariat than the Leninism of the Communist International at their first (1919) and second (1920) congresses. Proponents of left communism include Amadeo Bordiga, Herman Gorter, Paul Mattick, Sylvia Pankhurst, Antonie Pannekoek and Otto Rühle. [83]

Historically, the Dutch-German communist left has been most critical of Lenin and Leninism, [84] [85] [86] yet the Italian communist left remained Leninist. Bordiga said: "All this work of demolishing opportunism and 'deviationism' (Lenin: What Is To Be Done? ) is today the basis of party activity. The party follows revolutionary tradition and experiences in this work during these periods of revolutionary reflux and the proliferation of opportunist theories, which had as their violent and inflexible opponents Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the Italian Left." [87] In The Lenin Legend (1935), Paul Mattick said that the council communist tradition, begun by the Dutch-German leftists, also is critical of Leninism. [88] Contemporary left-communist organisations, such as the Internationalist Communist Tendency and the International Communist Current, view Lenin as an essential and influential theorist but remain critical of Leninism as political praxis for the proletarian revolution. [89] [90] [91]

Nonetheless, the Bordigism of the International Communist Party abides Bordiga's strict Leninism. Ideologically aligned with the Dutch-German left, among the ideologists of contemporary communisation, the theorist Gilles Dauvé criticised Leninism as a "by-product of Kautskyism". [92] In The Soviet Union Versus Socialism (1986), Noam Chomsky said that Stalinism was the logical development of Leninism and not an ideological deviation from Lenin's policies, which resulted in collectivisation enforced with a police state. [93] [94] In light of the tenets of socialism, Leninism was a right-wing deviation from Marxism. [95]

The vanguard-party revolution of Leninism became the ideological basis of the communist parties in the socialist political spectrum. In the People's Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party organised itself with Maoism (the Thought of Mao Zedong), socialism with Chinese characteristics. [96] In Singapore, the People's Action Party (PAP) featured internal democracy and initiated single-party dominance in the government and politics of Singapore. [97] In the event, the practical application of Maoism to the socio-economic conditions of Third World countries produced revolutionary vanguard parties, such as the Communist Party of Peru – Red Fatherland. [98]

See also

Related Research Articles

Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most socialist governments throughout the 20th century. Developed in Russia by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War, as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.

A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term "communist party" was popularized by the title of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As a vanguard party, the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Vladimir Lenin developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the socialist movement in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction and the Menshevik faction. To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism which allowed the centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries. Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trotskyism</span> Variety of Marxism developed by Leon Trotsky

Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Marx, Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg.

Bolshevism is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Leninist and later Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, focused on overthrowing the existing capitalist state system, seizing power and establishing the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

In Marxist theory, a new democratic society will arise through the organised actions of an international working class, enfranchising the entire population and freeing up humans to act without being bound by the labour market. There would be little, if any, need for a state, the goal of which was to enforce the alienation of labor. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels stated in The Communist Manifesto and later works that "the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy" and universal suffrage, being "one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat". As Marx wrote in his Critique of the Gotha Program, "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat". He allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures, but suggested that in other countries in which workers can not "attain their goal by peaceful means" the "lever of our revolution must be force", stating that the working people had the right to revolt if they were denied political expression. In response to the question "What will be the course of this revolution?" in Principles of Communism, Friedrich Engels wrote:

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.

Communism is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union</span> Soviet Union Communist Russian party government

Before the perestroika Soviet era reforms of Gorbachev that promoted Eurocommunism, the majority of its history it went the formal ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was Marxism–Leninism, a form of socialism consisting of a centralised command economy with a vanguardist one-party state that aimed to realize the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Soviet Union's ideological commitment to achieving communism included the national communist development of socialism in one country and peaceful coexistence with capitalist countries while engaging in anti-imperialism to defend the international proletariat, combat the predominant prevailing global system of capitalism and promote the goals of Russian Communism. The state ideology of the Soviet Union—and thus Marxism–Leninism—derived and developed from the theories, policies and political praxis of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.

Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolution is a necessary precondition for transitioning from a capitalist to a socialist mode of production. Revolution is not necessarily defined as a violent insurrection; it is defined as a seizure of political power by mass movements of the working class so that the state is directly controlled or abolished by the working class as opposed to the capitalist class and its interests.

People's democracy is a theoretical concept within Marxism–Leninism and a form of government which developed after World War II and allows in theory for a multi-class and multi-party democracy on the pathway to socialism. People's democracy was established in a number of European and Asian countries as a result of the people's democratic revolutions of the 1940s.

In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the post-revolutionary state seizes the means of production, compels the implementation of direct elections on behalf of and within the confines of the ruling proletarian state party, and institutes elected delegates into representative workers' councils that nationalise ownership of the means of production from private to collective ownership. During this phase, the administrative organizational structure of the party is to be largely determined by the need for it to govern firmly and wield state power to prevent counterrevolution and to facilitate the transition to a lasting communist society.

Vanguardism, in the context of Leninist revolutionary struggle, relates to a strategy whereby the most class-conscious and politically "advanced" sections of the proletariat or working class, described as the revolutionary vanguard, form organizations to advance the objectives of communism. They take actions to draw larger sections of the working class toward revolutionary politics and to serve as manifestations of proletarian political power opposed to the bourgeoisie. This theory serves as the underpinning of the leading role of the Communist party, usually enshrined in the constitution, after the seizure of power in the state by Communists.

Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin encouraged the theory of the possibility of constructing socialism in the Soviet Union. The theory was eventually adopted as Soviet state policy.

Orthodox Marxism is the body of Marxist thought which emerged after the death of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the late 19th century, expressed in its primary form by Karl Kautsky. Kautsky's views of Marxism dominated the European Marxist movement for two decades, and orthodox Marxism was the official philosophy of the majority of the socialist movement as represented in the Second International until the First World War in 1914, whose outbreak caused Kautsky's influence to wane and brought to prominence the orthodoxy of Vladimir Lenin. Orthodox Marxism aimed to simplify, codify and systematize Marxist method and theory by clarifying perceived ambiguities and contradictions in classical Marxism. It overlaps significantly with Instrumental Marxism.

A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country, sometimes referred to as a workers' state or workers' republic, is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. The term communist state is often used synonymously in the West, specifically when referring to one-party socialist states governed by Marxist–Leninist communist parties, despite these countries being officially socialist states in the process of building socialism and progressing toward a communist society. These countries never describe themselves as communist nor as having implemented a communist society. Additionally, a number of countries that are multi-party capitalist states make references to socialism in their constitutions, in most cases alluding to the building of a socialist society, naming socialism, claiming to be a socialist state, or including the term people's republic or socialist republic in their country's full name, although this does not necessarily reflect the structure and development paths of these countries' political and economic systems. Currently, these countries include Algeria, Bangladesh, Guyana, India, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all proletarian revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that capitalism is a world-system and therefore the working classes of all nations must act in concert if they are to replace it with communism.

Permanent revolution is the strategy of a revolutionary class pursuing its own interests independently and without compromise or alliance with opposing sections of society. As a term within Marxist theory, it was first coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels as early as 1850, but since then it has been used to refer to different concepts by different theorists, most notably Leon Trotsky.

<i>Terrorism and Communism</i> Book by Leon Trotsky

Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky is a book by Soviet Communist Party leader Leon Trotsky. First published in German in August 1920, the short book was written against a criticism of the Russian Revolution by prominent Marxist Karl Kautsky, who expressed his views on the errors of the Bolsheviks in two successive articles, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, published in 1918 in Vienna, Austria, followed by Terrorism and Communism, published in 1919.

<i>Foundations of Leninism</i> 1924 publication written by Joseph Stalin

Foundations of Leninism was a 1924 collection made by Joseph Stalin that consisted of nine lectures he delivered at Sverdlov University that year. It was published by the Soviet newspaper, Pravda.

References

  1. Rockmore, Tom; Levine, Norman (19 December 2018). The Palgrave Handbook of Leninist Political Philosophy. Springer. pp. 313–531. ISBN   978-1-137-51650-3.
  2. 1 2 3 4 The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (Third ed.). 1999. pp. 476–477.
  3. 1 2 "Leninism". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 7 (15th ed.). p. 265.
  4. The Columbia Encyclopedia (Fifth ed.). 1994. p. 1558.
  5. Kohn, George Childs, ed. (2007). Dictionary of Wars (Third ed.). p. 459.
  6. Yurchak, Alexei (September 2017). "The canon and the mushroom Lenin, sacredness, and Soviet collapse". HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory. 7 (2): 165–198. doi:10.14318/hau7.2.021. S2CID   149135486. Archived from the original on 14 February 2021. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
  7. Lih, Lars (2005). Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN   978-90-04-13120-0.
  8. Gregor, A. James (2000). The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. p. 133. ISBN   0-300-07827-7.
  9. Tomasic, D. (December 1953). "The Impact of Russian Culture on Soviet Communism". The Western Political Quarterly. Western Political Science Association. 6 (4): 808–809. doi:10.2307/443211. JSTOR   443211.
  10. Lenin, V. I., United States of Europe Slogan, Collected Works, vol. 18, p. 232.
  11. Lenin, Vladimir (1920). "No Compromises?". Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder. Soviet Union: Progress Publishers. Archived from the original on 29 February 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2013.
  12. Townson, D. (1994). The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern History: 1789–1945. London. pp. 462–464.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. Lenin, V. I. (1965) [1905]. "Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 10. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 442–443. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  14. Lenin, V. I. (1965) [1917]. "The State and Revolution". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 25. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 381–492. Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 30 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  15. 1 2 Deutscher, Isaac (1954). The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921. Oxford University Press.
  16. Hill, Christopher (1993). Lenin and the Russian Revolution. London: Penguin Books. pp. 85–86.
  17. Collected Works, vol. 25, pp. 461–462, Marx Engels Lenin on Scientific Socialism. Moscow: Novosti Press Ajency Publishing House. 1974. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
  18. 1 2 3 Carr, Edward Hallett (1979). The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917–1929.
  19. 1 2 3 Lewin, Moshe (1969). Lenin's Last Struggle.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Deutscher, Isaac (1959). Trotsky: The Prophet Unarmed (1921-1929) . Oxford University Press.
  21. Cook, Chris, ed. (1983). Dictionary of Historical Terms. New York: Peter Bedrick Books. p. 205.
  22. Lenin, V. I. (1965) [17 October 1921]. "The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments. Report to the Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Departments". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 33 (2nd English ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 60–79. Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  23. Lenin, V. I. (1972) [1914]. "The Right of Nations to Self-Determination". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 20. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 393–454. Archived from the original on 13 June 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  24. Harding, Neil, ed. (1984). The State in Socialist Society (2nd ed.). Oxford: St. Antony's College. p. 189.
  25. Lenin, V. I. (1972) [1914]. "The Right of Nations to Self-determination, Chapter 4: 4. "Practicality" in The National Question". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 20. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 393–454. Archived from the original on 13 June 2021. Retrieved 30 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  26. Lenin, V. I. (1923). "The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation'". In "'Last Testament' Letters to the Congress", from Lenin Collected Works, Volume 36, pp. 593–611. Archived 3 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 30 November 2011.
  27. Central Committee, "On Proletcult Organisations", Pravda No. 270, 1 December 1920.
  28. Chambers Dictionary of World History (2000) p. 837.
  29. 1 2 Carr, Edward Hallett (1979). The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917–1929.
  30. Lenin, V. I. (1965) [1923–1924]. "'Last Testament' Letters to the Congress". Lenin's Collected Works. Vol. 36. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 593–611. Archived from the original on 4 December 2011. Retrieved 30 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  31. Mccauley, Martin (4 February 2014). The Soviet Union 1917-1991. Routledge. p. 59. ISBN   978-1-317-90179-2.
  32. Deutscher, Isaac (2003). The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921-1929. Verso. p. 63. ISBN   978-1-85984-446-5.
  33. Kort, Michael G. (18 May 2015). The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath. M.E. Sharpe. p. 166. ISBN   978-0-7656-2845-9.
  34. Volkogonov, Dmitriĭ Antonovich (1996). Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. HarperCollins. p. 242. ISBN   978-0-00-255272-1.
  35. V.L.Lenin. "To L. D. Trotsky", 13 December 1922.
  36. Rogovin, Vadim Zakharovich (2021). Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Mehring Books. p. 281. ISBN   978-1-893638-97-6.
  37. Trotsky, Leon (1927). "Platform of the Joint Opposition". Archived from the original on 3 December 2011. Retrieved 28 November 2011 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  38. 1 2 "When the Soviet Union Entered World Politics". UC Press E-Books Collection. Archived from the original on 14 February 2020. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  39. "Socialism in One Country versus Permanent Revolution". Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 27 August 2015. Archived from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  40. Vyshinsky, Andrey Yanuaryevich (1950). Speeches Delivered at the Fifth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, September-October, 1950. Information Bulletin of the Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. p. 76.
  41. Volkogonov, Dmitriĭ Antonovich (1998). Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders who Built the Soviet Regime. Simon and Schuster. p. 125. ISBN   978-0-684-83420-7.
  42. Kotkin, Stephen (2017). Stalin. Vol II, Waiting for Hitler, 1928-1941. London : Allen Lane. p. 125. ISBN   978-0-7139-9945-7.
  43. Fitzpatrick, Sheila (22 April 2010). "The Old Man". London Review of Books. 32 (08). ISSN   0260-9592.
  44. Trotsky, L. D. (1938). The Revolution Betrayed .
  45. Rogovin, Vadim Z. (2009). Stalin's Terror of 1937–1938: Political Genocide in the USSR. Translated by Choate, Frederick S.
  46. Pipes, Richard. Three Whys of the Russian Revolution. pp. 83–84.
  47. "Lenin: Individual and Politics in the October Revolution". Modern History Review . 2 (1): 16–19. 1990.
  48. Radzinsky, Edvard (1997). Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives. Anchor Books. ISBN   0-385-47954-9.
  49. Pipes, Richard (2001). Communism: A History . Random House Publishing. pp.  73–74. ISBN   978-0-8129-6864-4.
  50. Leggett, George (1986). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press.
  51. Rogovin, Vadim Zakharovich (2021). Was There an Alternative? Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Mehring Books. pp. 13–14. ISBN   978-1-893638-97-6.
  52. Carr, Edward Hallett (1977). The Bolshevik revolution 1917 - 1923. Vol. 1 (Reprinted ed.). Penguin books. pp. 111–112. ISBN   978-0-14-020749-1.
  53. Liebman, Marcel (1985). Leninism Under Lenin. Merlin Press. pp. 1–348. ISBN   978-0-85036-261-9.
  54. Liebman, Marcel (1985). Leninism Under Lenin. Merlin Press. pp. 1–348. ISBN   978-0-85036-261-9.
  55. Adams, Katherine H.; Keene, Michael L. (10 January 2014). After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists. McFarland. p. 109. ISBN   978-0-7864-5647-5.
  56. Ugri͡umov, Aleksandr Leontʹevich (1976). Lenin's Plan for Building Socialism in the USSR, 1917–1925. Novosti Press Agency Publishing House. p. 48.
  57. Service, Robert (24 June 1985). Lenin: A Political Life: Volume 1: The Strengths of Contradiction. Springer. p. 98. ISBN   978-1-349-05591-3.
  58. Meade, Teresa A.; Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. (15 April 2008). A Companion to Gender History. John Wiley & Sons. p. 197. ISBN   978-0-470-69282-0.
  59. Daniels, Robert V. (November 2002). The End of the Communist Revolution. Routledge. pp. 90–94. ISBN   978-1-134-92607-7.
  60. Daniels, Robert V. (November 2002). The End of the Communist Revolution. Routledge. pp. 90–92. ISBN   978-1-134-92607-7.
  61. Medvedev, Roy (1981). Leninism and Western Socialism. Verso Books.
  62. Lewin, Moshe (2005). Lenin's Last Testament. University of Michigan Press.
  63. Danilov, Victor; Porter, Cathy (1990). "We Are Starting to Learn about Trotsky". History Workshop (29): 136–146. ISSN   0309-2984. JSTOR   4288968.
  64. Daniels, Robert V. (1 October 2008). The Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia. Yale University Press. p. 438. ISBN   978-0-300-13493-3.
  65. Watson, Derek (27 July 2016). Molotov and Soviet Government: Sovnarkom, 1930-41. Springer. p. 25. ISBN   978-1-349-24848-3.
  66. Deutscher, Isaac (1965). The prophet unarmed: Trotsky, 1921-1929. New York, Vintage Books. p. 135. ISBN   978-0-394-70747-1.
  67. Dziewanowski, M. K. (2003). Russia in the twentieth century. Upper Saddle River, N.J. : Prentice Hall. p. 162. ISBN   978-0-13-097852-3.
  68. Deutscher, Isaac (1959). Trotsky: The Prophet Unarmed (1921–1929) . Oxford University Press. pp.  464–465.
  69. Kuromiya, Hiroaki (16 August 2013). Stalin. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN   978-1-317-86780-7.
  70. Broue., Pierre (1992). Trotsky: a biographer's problems. In The Trotsky reappraisal. Brotherstone, Terence; Dukes, Paul,(eds). Edinburgh University Press. pp. 19, 20. ISBN   978-0-7486-0317-6.
  71. Figes, Orlando (1997). A people's tragedy : a history of the Russian Revolution. New York, NY : Viking. pp. 796–801. ISBN   978-0-670-85916-0.
  72. Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich (1956). The Crimes Of The Stalin Era, Special Report To The 20th Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union. pp. 1–65.
  73. Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich (1956). The Crimes Of The Stalin Era, Special Report To The 20th Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union. pp. 1–65.
  74. Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich (1956). The Crimes Of The Stalin Era, Special Report To The 20th Congress Of The Communist Party Of The Soviet Union. pp. 1–65.
  75. Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich; Khrushchev, Serge_ (2004). Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev. Penn State Press. p. 156. ISBN   978-0-271-02861-3.
  76. Grant, Alex (1 November 2017). "Top 10 lies about the Bolshevik Revolution". In Defence of Marxism.
  77. Novack, George (1971). Democracy and Revolution. Pathfinder. pp. 307–347. ISBN   978-0-87348-192-2.
  78. Cliff, Tony. "Revolution Besieged. The Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly)". www.marxists.org.
  79. Gill, Graeme J. (1998). Stalinism. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 1. ISBN   978-0-312-17764-5. Archived from the original on 16 June 2013. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  80. Geyer, Michael; Fitzpatrick, Sheila (2009). Geyer, Michael; Fitzpatrick, Sheila (eds.). Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511802652. ISBN   978-0-521-72397-8. Archived from the original on 6 February 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  81. Rogovin, Vadim Z (2021). Was There an Alternative? 1923-1927: Trotskyism: a Look Back Through the Years. Mehring Books. pp. 494–495. ISBN   978-1-893638-96-9.
  82. "The Nationalities Question in the Russian Revolution (Rosa Luxemburg, 1918)". Libcom.org. 11 July 2006. Archived from the original on 19 October 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  83. Ojeili, Chamsy (2001). "The 'Advance Without Authority': Post-modernism, Libertarian Socialism and Intellectuals". Democracy & Nature . 7 (3): 391–413. doi:10.1080/10855660120092294.
  84. "Herman Gorter, Open Letter to Comrade Lenin, 1920". Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
  85. Pannekoek, Anton (1938). "Lenin As Philosopher". Archived from the original on 26 October 2017 via Marxists Internet Archive..
  86. Rühle, Otto (1939). "The Struggle Against Fascism: Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism". Living Marxism . Vol. 4, no. 8. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  87. Bordiga, Amadeo (1951). "Fundamental Theses of the Party". Archived from the original on 2 December 2017 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  88. Mattick, Paul (1935). "The Lenin Legend". International Council Correspondence . Vol. 2, no. 1. Archived from the original on 26 October 2017 via Marxists Internet Archive.
  89. "The Significance of the Russian Revolution for Today". 6 October 2017. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
  90. "Lenin's Legacy". 21 January 2015. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
  91. "Have we become 'Leninists'? – part 1". Archived from the original on 2 December 2017.
  92. Dauvé, Gilles (1977). "The Renegade Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 January 2017.
  93. Miner, Steven Merritt (11 May 2003). "The Other Killing Machine". The New York Times . Archived from the original on 27 November 2018. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  94. Chomsky, Noam (Spring–Summer 1986). "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism". Our Generation. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
  95. Chomsky on Lenin, Trotsky, Socialism & the Soviet Union on YouTube.
  96. Yongnian, Zheng (2009). The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor. p. 61.
  97. Wilson, Peter (2002). Economic growth and development in Singapore. p. 30.
  98. Roberts, Kenneth M. (1988). Deepening Democracy?: The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru. pp. 288–289.

Further reading

Selected works by Vladimir Lenin

Histories

Other authors

Works by Vladimir Lenin

Other thematic links