http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?

cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

Marxism, Leninism - Poles Apart

Binay Sarkar
Chapter eleven

More Leninist Distortions

1. Claim that state capitalism is socialism

Lenin arbitrarily created a so-called “scientific distinction between socialism and

communism”:

In the Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, written April 10, 1917, Lenin
proclaimed:

“From capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social
ownership of the means of production and the distribution of products according
to the amount of work performed by each individual. Our party looks further
ahead: socialism must inevitably evolve gradually into communism, upon the
banner of which is inscribed the motto, “From each according to his ability, to
each according to his needs”.1

Again, in the State and Revolution, written in September 1917:

“But the scientific distinction between socialism and communism is clear. What is
usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of
communist society.”2

Marx did distinguish, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), between “the
first phase of communist society” and “a higher phase of communist society”.
However, he used the terms “socialism” and “communism” alternatively and
synonymously to describe the post-revolutionary society based on common
ownership, so he could also have written about these phases of “socialist society”. In
both phases the production relations of society were certainly to be communist (or
socialist) with not even an iota of the relations of production of capitalism there:

“Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of

production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the
labour embodied on the products appear here as the value of these products, …
since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labour no longer exists in an
indirect fashion but directly as a component part of the total labour.”3
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

Therefore, in communism (or socialism, the same), phase aside, you do not have the
economy with money. In the first phase Marx did suggest a ‘labour voucher’ (not
wage or salary) system –after some six necessary deductions from the “proceeds of
labour”. At the same time, however, he argued that it was a “defect”. And that it
would be overcome in “a higher phase of communist society”, as Marx had envisaged
in his Critique of the Gotha Programme:

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the
individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between
mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means
of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with
the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative
wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois
right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”4

At that time (1875) productive abundance was lacking, hence Marx’s distinction. But
we cannot endorse any “labour voucher” scheme as such, since it conforms to a form
of economic rationing with exchange, alienation and in effect voucher circulation,
which has no function in a non-exchange economy as sought by socialists. The
liberation of abundance has been waiting now since the beginning of the twentieth
century, so any such scheme would not be necessary anyway. Abundance does not
have a measure of measures. Its only measure is satisfaction of needs.

Whereas Lenin proposed: “the distribution of products according to the amount of

work”. He didn’t consider “the abolition of the wages system” as Marx and Engels.
For him the wages system was to continue in his ‘socialism’ (actually state capitalism)
with indexation of the wage rates “according to the amount of work” performed by
respective workers. This was no different from capitalist indexation of wage
structures, the only difference being that Lenin hunted for all-round nationalisation
proposing that “all citizens are transformed here into hired employees of the state”, 5 –
whereby actually the top state functionaries would become the new employer class –
the de facto owners of the nation’s means of production and articles for distribution
entirely and collectively.

However, Lenin made a trick that changed “needs” with “work”. It was not a tenet of
Marx. Given the wages system, workers do not receive for what they produce, but
only for what they require for producing and reproducing their ability to work. They
receive less than what they produce – leaving a surplus at the disposal of their
employer.

For Marx and Engels socialism and communism were synonymous. Therefore, when
Marx distinguished between “the first phase of communist society” and “a higher
phase of communist society” he meant the same production relation – communist or,
alternatively, socialist.
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

What we need to clinch here is that in view of the enormous development of the
productive forces whereby these have evidently outgrown the production relation, the
two phase programme for changeover from capitalism to communism or socialism
(the same thing) has become obsolete. Full communism awaits recognition by the
society.

In this way all that is on and in the Earth would be turned into the common heritage of
the whole humanity exercising democratic control over production for use and
distribution according to self defined needs. Since, according to Marx, as also to us, it
is the time for communism when “all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more
abundantly”.

Lenin spoke of achieving ‘socialism’ just by replacing control by “the Junker

capitalist state” of the sort of state capitalism that existed in war-time Germany by
“workers’ control” (actually Bolshevik control and ultimately his own control). In
Lenin’s own phraseology:

“Everybody talks about imperialism. But imperialism is merely monopoly

capitalism... And what is the state? It is an organization of the ruling class – in
Germany, for instance, of the Junkers and capitalists. And therefore what the
German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Lensch, and others) call “war-time socialism”
is in fact war-time state-monopoly capitalism, or, to put it more simply and
clearly, war-time penal servitude for workers and war-time protection for capitalist
profits. Now try to substitute for the Junker capitalist state, for the landowner-
capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a
revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the
fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really
revolutionary-democratic state, state-monopoly capitalism inevitably and
unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism… it is a
step towards socialism. For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-
capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist
monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that
extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.”6

Therefore, according to Lenin “state-capitalist monopoly” is just another name of

‘socialism’ On this count Marx and Engels would have emphatically opposed Lenin
because for them socialism negates capitalism irrespective of capitalism’s form.
Moreover, as we have just seen, for them the terms socialism and communism meant
one and the same thing – the post-revolutionary democratically run society.

Further, according to Lenin:

“Without big banks socialism would be impossible… we take ready-made from

capitalism: A single State Bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every
rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

socialist apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide

accounting, of the production and distribution of goods, this will, so to speak,
something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society… The important thing
will not be even the confiscation of the capitalists’ property, but country-wide, all-
embracing worker’s control over the capitalists and their possible supporters.
Instead of confiscation, we could easily impose a fair tax… Compulsory
syndication, i.e., compulsory amalgamation in associations under state control –
this is what capitalism has prepared the way for, this is what has been carried out
in Germany by the Junkers’ state, this is what can be easily carried out in Russia
by the Soviets, by the proletarian dictatorship, and this is what will provide us
with a state apparatus that will be universal, up-to-date, and non-bureaucratic.”7

In determining and differentiating the class nature of the same capitalist economic
structure based on the class origins of the persons in charge of it and their motives,
instead of by the relations of production, Lenin alienated himself from the materialist
historical framework.

That Lenin was an idealist can be seen when you work out answers to the following
questions: Could capitalism i.e. capital/wage labour relationship, whatever its form,
ever be “made to serve the interests of the whole people” – both the exploiters and the
exploited? Did Marx and Engels, as well as other genuine socialists, not warn the
working class repeatedly about the state ownership of capital to be merely another
form of capitalist private property, which has nothing to do with socialism? Moreover,
could banks exist in socialism where exchange and money would have ceased to
exist?

Lenin’s claim “socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve

the interests of the whole people” is absurd, since nobody can get capitalism “to serve
the interests of the whole people”. Capitalism works objectively to serve the interests
of the capitalist class against the interests of working class. Socialism is the negation
of capitalism. However, Lenin lacked the courage to present his absurdities without
Marx’s name, lest people would catch him in the act of an anti-Marxist.

Marx and Engels made it clear that state ownership did not negate capitalism but was
a form of capitalism.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx recognized “industrial

capital is the accomplished objective form of private property”.8 In Capital, he
pointed out that the relation of appropriation of surplus labour as surplus value relates
workers with the capitalist, “whether he be an isolated, or as in joint stock companies,
a collective capitalist”.9 Further, “that the social capital is equal to the sum of the
individual capitals (including the joint-stock capital or the state capital, so far as
governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc., perform the
function of industrial capitalists) and that the aggregate movement of social capital is
equal to the algebraic sum of the movements of the individual capitals”.10 Again,
“capitalist enterprise … being essentially private even if the associated capitalist takes
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

the place of the individual capitalist”11

Lenin’s “state-capitalist monopoly” was just what Marx and Engels called: a
collective capitalist … social capital … state capital … the associated capitalist … the
national capitalist, notably in Engels’ argument that:

“The transformation, either into joint-stock companies [and trusts], or into state
ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces.
… The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalistic machine,
the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital.
The more it proceeds to the taking over of the productive forces, the more does it
actually become the national capitalist, the more citizen does it exploit. The
workers remain wageworkers – proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done
away with.”12

The point of fact is that, although state ownership of the productive forces formally
appears to be a relation of property whereby production has been socialized, it
conceals another relation of property, which remains essentially private, in
appropriation via exchange on the market. Thus, under state ownership capital
functions as another “accomplished objective form of private property”, the capitalist
private property of the top state functionaries.

Capitalist private property was the first negation of the pre-capitalist self-earned and
self-owned private property. Communism or socialism will be the negation of the
negation, abolishing capitalist private property in all its forms, such as rent, interest,
wage or salary, profit, tax with budget and philanthropy. Instead, we will have “a
society based upon communal ownership”, “the co-operative society based on
common ownership of the means of production” or Universal Ownership as we call
here now.

2. One-party dictatorship

On 5 March 1852, Marx wrote to Joseph Weydemeyer in New York:

“As of myself, no credit is due to me for discovering either the existence of

classes on modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me,
bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class
struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I
did that was new to demonstrate: 1) that the existence of classes is merely linked
to particular historical phase in the development of production, 2) that class
struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this
dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and
to a classless society.”13

Again in 1875, he wrote:

http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

“Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary
transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political
transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat.”14

Marx had learnt the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” from the French
revolutionaries he met when he lived in Paris in the mid-1840s. But differently, while
the French revolutionaries envisaged it as a minority dictatorship supposedly on
behalf of the working class (or proletariat), Marx inserted a democratic content in it
and sketched it as exclusive exercise of political power by the working class on its
own behalf. This Marx did because – he envisaged a “political transitional period”
between the end of the capitalist political rule and the establishment of socialism (or
communism, the same thing) when the majority class – the working class would
exercise political power within a democratic context. In addition, according to him
this democracy including freedom of speech and universal suffrage would cover the
whole people including even the former capitalists.

Engels referred to the Paris Commune as an example of the “dictatorship of the

proletariat” and although it cannot really be seen as the beginning of a transition to
socialism, it was an elected council with competing parties. As Engels wrote:

"In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one
class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the
monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious
struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like
the Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible until
such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the
entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap.
"Of late, the Social-Democratic philistine has once more been filled with
wholesome terror at the words: Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Well and good,
gentle men, do you want to know what this dictatorship looks like? Look at the
Paris Commune. That was the dictatorship of the Proletariat."15

Earlier, in 1881, Engels had upheld the Paris Commune Principle – election of
delegates via universal suffrage revocable at short notice – as “…a new prospect …
The new weapon … scarcely ever unsheathed … For the full representation of labour
in Parliament, as well as for the preparation of the abolition of the wages system,
organization will become necessary not of separate trades, but of the working class as
a body. And the sooner this is done the better.”16

Lenin held a different view. “Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we
stand for and we shall not shift from that position …,”17 declared he in 1919.

Since Lenin’s objective was to establish a dictatorship in Russia under the pseudonym
‘Marxist’, he introduced the doublespeak about ‘socialism’ as the ‘state capitalist
monopoly’ – the transitional stage between capitalism and communism under of the
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

one single Bolshevik party with all people as “hired employees of the state” who
would “unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour”:

“Given ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating

in the common work, the subordination would be something like the mild
leadership of conductor of an orchestra. It may assume the sharp forms of a
dictatorship if ideal discipline and class-consciousness are lacking. But be that as
it may, unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the
success of processes organized on the pattern of large-scale machine industry. …
Today, however, the same revolution demands – precisely in the interest of its
development and consolidation, precisely in the interest of socialism – that the
people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour.”18

Over time, Lenin’s ‘state-capitalist monopoly’ in Russia and other countries, through
distortion and subsidized sale of Marx Engels alongside Collected Works of Lenin and
all wretched twentieth century ‘communist’ dictators, became global official dogma.
Doublespeak became the credo of all ‘communist’ parties of the world. This opened
the great opportunity for all apologists of capitalism – left, right, centre or whatever –
to fall in one column – some flattering while others condemning – to hide the truth
about Marxian Materialist Conception of History. The mere prefix ‘communist’,
‘socialist’, ‘workers’ and ‘peoples’ to any party, governing or opposing, passes with
colossal propaganda that everything they utter and make is "Marxist" and when they
overturn things that too is "Marxist". All this Leninist pedigree must make Marx and
Engels turn in their graves.

The economy of the USSR, where commodity production and buying and selling of
labour power always existed with all its paraphernalia – money (rouble), price
categories including differential and extremely hierarchical wages, rationing,
confiscation, taxes, profits partly disguised in the state budgets, so-called black
markets, banking and suchlike – was undeniably capitalist. Its centralized planning
under a totalitarian single party dictatorship succumbed to the sway of ‘Law of value’,
neither limiting nor replacing it. Called ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’, it was actually
capitalism with a terrifying strengthening of the state run by an all powerful
bureaucracy disciplined under a “single-will”, dictatorship of a tyrannically structured
top-down hierarchical “conspiratorial party”.

3. Workers need to be led to socialism

As early as in 1902 Lenin placed his position on record in his elitist and nefarious
essay – What Is To Be Done? Brushing aside vehement opposition within the party
Lenin declared that workers by themselves were incapable of developing “class
political consciousness”; it must be brought to them “only from without, from outside
the sphere of relations between workers and employers”19 :

“The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own
efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers and strive to compel the
government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism,
however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were
elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, by
intellectuals.” 20

“Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without,
that is, only from outside of the economic struggle, from outside of the sphere of
relations between workers and employers.” (Lenin’s emphasis)21

“The spontaneous working class movement by itself is able to create (and

inevitably creates) only trade unionism, and working class trade unionist politics
are precisely working class bourgeois politics”22

He wrote that “talented leaders” were not “born by hundreds”23. So an “organization

of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who make revolutionary
activity their profession”24 and directed by “the “dozen” tried and talented leaders” …
having “a committee of professional revolutionaries”25 … “a dozen wise men”26

Lenin directed and disciplined his party with this out-and-out anti-socialist and
outrageous arrangement since the days of his What Is To Be Done? In addition, he
never abandoned this framework regarding the party organization. Lenin’s theory and
practice of the party was that it would be essentially “conspiratorial” having “a strictly
secret” wing even when a party would be allowed to operate legally and openly. This
theory ruled over the Bolsheviks and later over all Leninist pedigree.

That it was so was further ratified in 1920 by Lenin’s 21 conditions27 required to be

fulfilled by any “communist” parties seeking affiliation to the Communist
International or the Third International. All affiliates must adopt as prefix the same
forename “Communist Party of…” and all matters including the party press “must be
subordinated to the Party leadership” elevated with “reliable communists” … “tested
communists”.

The third condition goes on to say:

“In almost every country in Europe and America the class struggle is entering the
phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can place no trust in
bourgeois legality. They have the obligation of setting up a parallel organizational
apparatus which, at the decisive moment, can assist the Party to do its duty to the
revolution. In every country where a state of siege or emergency laws deprive the
Communists of the opportunity of carrying on all their work legally, it is
absolutely necessary to combine legal and illegal activity.”28

The parties must follow “democratic centralism” … “organized in as centralist a

manner as possible” imposing “iron discipline” and “time to time undertake purges”,
held Lenin.29
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

Whereas, on the contrary, Marx and Engels completely trusted in the intellectual
development of the working class which was sure to result from combined action and
mutual discussion. In addition, we also learn from them another universal communist
principle: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.”30

They categorically acknowledged that they had learned socialism/communism from

within the class. Methodologically, the Marxian revolutionary understanding goes that
in class society class struggle is the motive force whereby “the proletariat can and
must emancipate itself”.31

Consistently since the 1840s Marx and Engels had insisted on this principle because it
is from itself – “a class which forms the majority of all members of society” – that
there “emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the
communist consciousness.”32

Rather than bringing “class political consciousness” to the workers, Marx and Engels
acquired their political consciousness from workers, from the communist workers
they met in Paris in the 1840s and from people such as Proudhon, Robert Owen and
Weitling who were or had been manual workers.

Let us read Marx and Engels telling how they had learned communism/socialism from
within the sphere of relations involving working class’ struggles:

“It goes without saying that besides the French and English socialists I have also
used German socialist works,” wrote Marx in his Economic and Philosophic
Manuscripts of 1844.33

“The French Communists could assist us in the first stages only of our
development, and we soon found that we knew more than our teachers; but we
shall have to learn a great deal yet from the English Socialists.”34

Thus, Lenin‘s tactics of “professional revolutionaries” leading to bring socialism

“only from without” via secrecy, conspiracy and insurrection was anything but
Marxism.

The Leninist disregard for workers’ intellectual capacity raised vanguardist

contingents under a leader and his coterie to drive the “masses” towards an uprising –
to grab power and to hold on to it by hook or crook. Nevertheless, the “masses” could
not question why – they were only to do or die!

John Reed, a sympathetic American journalist, whose famous account of the

Bolshevik coup, Ten Days That Shook The World, was commended in a foreword by
Lenin, quotes Lenin as replying to this kind of criticism in a speech he made to the
Congress of Peasants’ Soviets on 27 November, 1917:
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

“If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the
people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred
years...The Socialist political party - this is the vanguard of the working class; it
must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but
it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary
initiative…” (Reed’s emphasis and omissions) 35

Compare this with a passage from the utopian communist, Weitling: “to want to
wait...until all are suitably enlightened would be to abandon the thing altogether!”
Not, of course, that it is a question of “all” the workers needing to be socialists before
there can be socialism. Marx, in rejecting the view that socialism could be established
by some enlightened minority, was merely saying that a sufficient majority of workers
would have to be socialists.

John Reed also quoted Lenin speaking to the “historic” October meeting of the
Bolshevik leaders on the question of fixing the time of the uprising: “We must act on
the 7th, the day the Congress meets, so that we may say to it, ‘Here is the power!
What are you going to do with it?’”36

On time, “here” the “power” was, but what to do with it? Only the “talented leaders”
knew. According to Leninism, the “masses” were to know things not by education, but
by manipulation.

According to Marx and Engels, as also us, the emancipation of the working class must
be the work of the working class itself. Therefore, the class-conscious workers should
organize themselves in an independent party and capture the state politically. Then
they will do away with the division of society into antagonistic economic classes
through conversion of the state’s coercive features into agents of emancipation and
merging its useful administrative functions (e.g., food, health, housing, ecology, etc.)
into the democratic structure (local, regional and global) of classless society based on
democratically administered universal ownership of productive and distributive
resources. Once this happens, the state will become redundant.

4. Worker-peasant alliance

In 1924 after Lenin’s death Zinoviev said, “The question of the role of the peasantry
… is the basic issue of Bolshevism, Leninism” and that “the union of workers
revolution with peasant war” was Lenin’s greatest discovery.

To recognize the Bolshevik position on the peasant question with respect to their
theory of revolution we have to analyse first their understanding of the character of
the ‘Russian Revolution’.

At the outset of the upcoming so-called ‘Russian revolution’ all Bolshevik leaders
held in common that it would be a bourgeois revolution. So the Bolsheviks had to
deal with the question of the role of the proletariat in that revolution. What would be
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

the tactics of the proletariat? How would the bourgeois revolution be turned into the
proletarian revolution? The Menshevik mainstream, as well as the ‘legal Marxists,
envisaged that the proletariat would have to assist the bourgeoisie in the bourgeois
revolution until completion of the tasks of the revolution, then as far as its own
revolution was concerned they would have to wait until Russia’s capitalist
development had prepared the material basis for it.

In 1905 Lenin published a number of articles in Vperiod, the Bolshevik organ, from
January to May 1905 to explain his position. A few months later he synthesized his
conclusions in Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,
published in July 1905. In particular, Lenin’s conclusion was: “Marxists are
absolutely convinced of the bourgeois character of the Russian revolution,”37 but the
bourgeoisie would not be “fully consistent” in the democratic revolution because of
its fear of the proletariat; the happenings of the bourgeois revolutions of the 19th
century, as generally stated by the Social-Democrats, have showed us that “the
bourgeoisie betrays its own self, … betrays the cause of liberty, … is incapable of
being consistently democratic. … The very position the bourgeoisie holds as a class in
capitalist society inevitably leads to its inconsistency in a democratic revolution.”38

From this point of view Lenin held that the Russian bourgeoisie would “strike
huckster’s bargain with tsarism”39 and act against the ‘consistent’ bourgeois
revolution. For this reason, the proletariat should not “keep aloof from the bourgeois
revolution, [should] not … be indifferent to it, [should] not … allow the leadership of
the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, … take most
energetic part in it, [should] … fight most resolutely for consistent proletarian
democratism, for the revolution to be carried to its conclusion.”40 Therefore, “the only
force capable of gaining ‘a decisive victory over tsarism’ is the people, i.e., the
proletariat and the peasantry, … ‘The revolution’s decisive victory over tsarism’
means the establishment of the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry. … Without a dictatorship it is impossible to break down
that resistance [from the landlords, the big bourgeoisie, and tsarism] and repeal
counter-revolutionary attempts. But of course it will be a democratic, not a socialist
dictatorship.”41

Lenin summarized his “two tactics” as follows:

“The proletariat must carry the democratic revolution to completion, allying itself
the mass of the peasantry in order to crush the aristocracy’s resistance by force
and paralyse the bourgeoisie’s instability. The proletariat must accomplish the
socialist revolution, allying itself the mass of semi-proletarian elements of the
population, so as to crush the bourgeoisie’s resistance by force and paralyse the
instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie.”42

Lenin’s is a theory of dictatorship based on class collaboration. Yet that is one of the
main pillars of Leninism. This throws overboard the fundamental Marxian position
that all hitherto history since with the dissolution of the primitive communistic
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

societies is the history of class-struggle and the present capitalist society is also a class
society based on struggles between two great classes the collective capitalist class and
the collective working class wherein the working class is the only revolutionary class
today. The peasantry is a petty-capitalist reactionary class. Hence the Leninist theory
of a unity between the working class and the peasantry is an oxymoron, a non-starter.

Engels had already described the fate of Thomas Müntzer, a 16th century communist
who had come to power in the course of a peasant insurrection:

“The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to
take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the
domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures
which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but
upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon
the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of
production and means of communication upon which the clash of interests of the
classes is based every time. What he ought to do, what his party demands of him,
again depends not upon him, or upon the degree of development of the class
struggle and its conditions. He is bound to his doctrines and the demands hitherto
propounded which do not emanate from the interrelations of the social classes at a
given moment, or from the more or less accidental level of relations of production
and means of communication, but from his more or less penetrating insight into
the general result of the social and political movement. Thus he necessarily finds
himself in a dilemma. What he can do is in contrast to all his actions as hitherto
practised, to all his principles and to the present interests of his party; what he
ought to do cannot be achieved. In a word, he is compelled to represent not his
party or his class, but the class for whom conditions are ripe for domination. In the
interests of the movement itself, he is compelled to defend the interests of an alien
class, and to feed his own class with phrases and promises, with the assertion that
the interests of that alien class are their own interests. Whoever puts himself in
this awkward position is irrevocably lost.” 43

He could have been writing about Lenin.

Marxian theory stands on the two-class edifice – the collective capitalist class versus
the collective working class, wherein the respective classes embrace all their various
sections. Just as the collective capitalist class includes the industrial, financial,
commercial, landed, philanthropic and state capitalist sections, so also the collective
working class includes all various industrial, financial, commercial, official,
educational, professional, police and judiciary, military and agricultural workers.
Therefore, when we talk of working class unity we mean it as a totality. So the
Leninist conception of collaboration between wage workers and the poor peasants
(“semi-proletarian elements of the population”) is false, hence ineffectual. It is un-
Marxist.

Notes:
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

1 Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1967, p. 47. Also see:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/tasks/ch12.htm#v24zz99h-084-
GUESS

2 ibid., p. 342
Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s4

3 Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976,
pp. 14-15 Also see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/
index.htm

4 http://libcom.org/library/critique-of-the-gotha-program-karl-marx
Also see: Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Foreign Language Press,
Peking 1976, p. 17

5 Lenin, The State and Revolution, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Progress Publishers,
Moscow 1967, p. 344 Also see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/
1917/staterev/ch05.htm#s4

6 Lenin, Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, written September 10-14,
1917, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p.247) Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/
lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm#v25zz99h-360

7 Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, written October 1, 1917, Selected
Works, Vol. 2, pp. 398-9 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/
1917/oct/01.htm

8 Marx & Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975,
p.293 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/
third.htm

9 Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974, p.316 Also at: http://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htm

10 Marx, Capital, Vol. II, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1974, p.100 Also at: http://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch03.htm

11 ibid., p.248 Also at:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch13.htm

12 Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow 1969, pp. 330-31 Also at: http://

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm

13 Marx Engels, Selected Correspondence, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p. 64

Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/letters/52_03_05.htm
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

14 Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Foreign Language Press, Peking 1976,
p. 28 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch04.htm

15 Engels, London, on the twentieth anniversary of the Paris Commune, March 18,
1891, Introduction, The Civil War In France, Selected Works, Vol. 2, Moscow,
1969, p. 189 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-
france/postscript.htm

16 Engels, Trade Unions, written on about May 20, 1881, Collected Works, 24,
Moscow, pp. 397-88 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/
1881/05/28.htm#p2

17 Lenin’s Speech At The First All-Russia Congress Of Workers In Education And

Socialist Culture, July 31, 1919; Lenin, Collected Works, 4th English Edition,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Vol. 29, p. 535, Published according to
Pravda text. Also see: http://www.marx2mao.net/Lenin/SW5C19.htm/

18 Lenin, The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government, written April 13-26, 1918,
Selected Works, Vol. 2, p.673 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
works/1918/mar/x03.htm#sec7

19 Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers,

Moscow 1967, p.163 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/
witbd/iii.htm

20 Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, Selected Works, Vol. I, Progress Publishers, Moscow

1967, p. 122; Also see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/
ii.htm

21 ibid., p. 163; Also see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

iii.htm

22 ibid., p. 176; Also see: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

iii.htm

23 ibid., p.197

24 ibid., p.189

25 ibid., p.197

26 ibid., p.199

27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-one_Conditions
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

28 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-one_Conditions

29 Full text including Lenin’s foreword:

http://www.international-communist-party.org/BasicTexts/English/20CoAdmi.htm

30 Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Progress Publisher, Moscow
1977, p. 74 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/
communist-manifesto/ch04.htm

31 Marx, The Holy Family, Collected Works, Vol. 4, Progress Publishers, Moscow
1975, p.37 Also at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm

32 Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, Collected Works, Vol. 5, Progress
Publishers, Moscow 1976, p.52

33 Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Collected Works, Vol. 3,

Progress Publishers, Moscow 1975, p.232 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/
archive/marx/works/1844/epm/preface.htm

34 Engels, Progress of Social Reforms on the Continent, written Oct-Nov, 1843,

Collected Works, Vol. 3, Progress, 1975, p.407 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/
archive/marx/works/1843/10/23.htm

35 John Reed, Ten Days That Shook The World, Chapter XII: The Peasants' Congress,
see: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World/
Chapter_XII
36 op. cit., Chapter III: On the Eve, see: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/
Ten_Days_That_Shook_the_World/Chapter_III
37 Lenin, Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Selected
Works, Vol. 1, Progress, 1967, p.484 Also at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/
lenin/works/1905/tactics/ch06.htm

38 ibid., p.486-87

39 ibid., p. 482

40 ibid., p.488

41 ibid., pp.491-2

42 ibid., p.530, Lenin’s emphasis

43 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/peasant-war-germany/
ch06.htm#6.1
http://www.worldsocialistpartyindia.org/sc.php?cat=marxism-leninism-poles-apart

Also see: Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, written 1850, CW 10, Moscow,
p.470