Revision 340946572 of "Leninism" on enwiki

[[Image:Lenin_1920.jpg|200px|thumb|<small>'''Revolutionary political scientist:'''</small> [[Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]], 1920.]]
'''Leninism''' is the theory and practice of the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]], led by a revolutionary vanguard party. Theoretically, Leninism comprises the [[Political science|political]] and socialist economic theories of [[Vladimir Lenin]], developed from [[Marxism]], and his interpretations of [[Marxist theory]] within the agrarian [[Russian Empire]] of that time.  Leninism reversed Marx’s order of economics over politics, allowing for a political revolution led by a vanguard party of [[revolutionary|professional revolutionaries]].<ref>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/ess_leninscritique.html</ref> After the October Revolution, in 1917, Leninism was the [[ideology|ideological]] basis of [[Soviet democracy|Soviet socialism]], specifically its [[Russia|Russian]] realisation in the [[Soviet Union]]. 

   Oh my dear Tony it seems that I have had a Rantcilly attack of treason again and have gotten my poster of Comrade Stalin all sticky!
  --- Your beloved Roland



As a political-science term ''Leninism'' entered common usage in 1922, only after infirmity ended Lenin’s participation in  governing the USSR. Two years later, in July 1924, at the fifth congress of the [[Comintern|Communist International]] (Comintern), [[Grigory Zinoviev]] popularized ''Leninism'' as a Marxist ideological term denoting “revolutionary”.

After the [[Soviet Union|Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] was established in 1922, its governing philosophy, Leninism, became the predominant branch of [[Marxism]]. In Russia, the theoretical descendants of Leninism are [[Stalinism]] and [[Trotskyism]]; at his death in 1924, Lenin’s [[Russian Revolution (1917)|revolutionary]] comrades, [[Joseph Stalin|Josef Stalin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]], were the leaders of the strongest ideological factions that emerged to assume command of the Communist Party in the USSR. 

[[ideology|Ideologically]], the [[Stalinism|Stalinists]] and the [[Trotskyism|Trotskyists]] (like their namesakes), deny the [[philosophy|philosophic]] and political legitimacy of the other, because each claims to be the true Leninist theory.

==Overview==
{{Communism sidebar}}
The ''[[Communist Manifesto]]'' (1848) established that a communist [[revolution]] would occur only under specific conditions — including the pre-condition of an economically-exhausted industrialized nation. Because [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]] did not possess most of the requisite pre-revolutionary conditions (i.e. [[nationalism]], [[irredentism]], [[class warfare]]), Lenin adapted Marx’s urban revolution to Russia’s agricultural conditions, sparking the “revolutionary nationalism of the poor”.<ref>''Faces of Janus'' p. 133.</ref> 

The pamphlet ''[[What is to be Done? (pamphlet)|What is to be Done?]]'' (1902), proposed that the (urban) [[proletariat]] can successfully achieve revolutionary consciousness only under the leadership of a [[vanguard party]] of [[professional revolutionaries]] — who can achieve aims only with internal [[democratic centralism]] in the party; tactical and ideological policy decisions are agreed via democracy, and every member must support and promote the agreed party policy.

To wit, [[capitalism]] can be overthrown only with [[revolution]] — because attempts to ''reform'' capitalism from within ([[Fabianism]]) and from without ([[democratic socialism]]) will fail because of its inherent contradictions. The purpose of a Leninist revolutionary [[vanguard party]] is the forceful [[deposition (politics)|deposition]] of the incumbent government; assume power (as agent of the proletariat) and establish a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] government. Moreover, as the government, the vanguard party must [[education|educate]] the proletariat — to dispel the societal [[false consciousness]] of [[religion]] and [[nationalism]] that are culturally instilled by the [[bourgeoisie]] in facilitating [[exploitation]]. The dictatorship of the proletariat is governed with a de-centralized [[direct democracy]] practised via [[soviet (council)|soviets]] (councils) where the workers exercise political power (cf. [[soviet democracy]]); the fifth chapter of ''State & Revolution'', describes it:

<blockquote>
“. . . the dictatorship of the proletariat — i.e. 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.” <ref>Hill, Christopher ''Lenin and the Russian Revolution'' (1971) Penguin Books:Londonp. 86.</ref>
</blockquote>

The Bolshevik government was hostile to nationalism, especially to [[Russian nationalism]], the “Great Russian chauvinism”, as an obstacle to establishing the proletarian dictatorship.<ref>Harding, Neil (ed.) ''The State in Socialist Society'', second edition (1984) St. Antony's College: Oxford, p. 189.</ref> The revolutionary elements of Leninism — the disciplined vanguard party, a dictatorial state, and class war — are the influences of the [[anarchism|anarchist]] [[Sergey Nechayev]] and the nineteenth century [[Narodnik]] (“People”) movement (of whom Alexandr Ulyanov, Lenin’s elder brother, was a member), thus “the morals of the Bolshevik party owed as much to [[Sergey Nechayev|Nechayev]] as they did to Marx”;<ref> Figes, O. ''A People's Tragedy'' (1997) Pimlico, p. 133</ref> hence his [[social class]] qualifications of the [[kulak]]s and the [[bourgeoisie]] as “parasites”, “insects”, “leeches”, “bloodsuckers”, <ref>Solzhenitsyn, A. ''The Gulag Archipelago'' (1974) Collins p.24.</ref> and the [[GULAG]] penal labour camp system <ref> Volgovonov, D, ''Lenin, A New Biography'' The Free Press, p. 243.</ref>  — ideologic considerations present in Leninism, but not in [[Marxism]].

Composed for [[revolution|revolutionary]] [[Praxis (process)|praxis]], ''Leninism'' is neither rigorously proper [[political philosophy|philosophy]] nor discrete [[political science|political theory]]; it required the Hungarian intellectual [[George Lukacs|György Lukács]] (1885–1971) to logically develop Lenin’s ideas, notably in the anthology ''[[History and Class Consciousness]]'' (1923) which established a more philosophically rigorous basis for Leninism, than did [[Lenin]], himself — thus illustrating Lenin’s prescient 1915 revolutionary dictum: “One cannot be a revolutionary Social–Democrat without participating, according to one’s powers, in developing this theory [Marxism], and adapting it to changed conditions.” <ref>Hill, Christopher '' Lenin and the Russian Revolution'' (1971) Penguin Books:London p. 35.</ref> 

In 1924, Lukács published the monograph ''[[Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought]]'' (1924), and in 1925, a critical review of ''[[The ABC of Communism]]'' (1920), [[Nikolai Bukharin]]’s popular communist catechism explaining [[historical materialism]] to the semi-literate peoples of the (old) Tsarist Empire. The critique discusses [[Reification (Marxism)|reification]] (Ger. ''Verdinglichung'', ''Versachlichung'' “[[objectification]]”), the philosophic [[concept]] wherein the commodified nature of a capitalist society, renders social relations into things; action and condition which then preclude the proletariat’s developing the [[society|social]] and [[intellectual]] perceptions required for the spontaneous emergence of [[class consciousness]]. In the event, in such a political context arises the need for the revolutionary leadership of the Leninist [[vanguard party]] — the [[subjective]] aspect of the re-invigorated [[Marxist]] [[dialectics]].

==Imperialism==
In Lenin’s developing Marxism for Russian application, ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'' (1916) explains a development which Marx predicted: capitalism’s becoming a global system wherein advanced capitalist industrial nations export [[financial capital]] to [[Colonialism|colonial]] countries to exploit their resources and labour. This [[superprofit|superexploitation]] of poorer countries allows the capitalist countries to maintain some homeland workers politically content with a slightly-higher standard of living, and so ensure peaceful labour-capital relations, (cf. [[labor aristocracy]], [[globalization]]). Hence, a [[proletarian revolution]] could not occur in the developed capitalist countries while the imperialist global system was intact; thus an under-developed country would feature the first proletarian revolution, and [[Imperial Russia]] was the weakest country in the capitalist global system. <ref name=tomasic%26gt%3B Tomasic, D. "The Impact of Russian Culture on Soviet Communism" (1953, ''The Western Political Quarterly'', vol. 6, no. 4 December, pp. 808-9.</ref> In the early twentieth century, Russia’s economy was primarily [[agriculture|agrarian]], effected with [[peasant]] and animal labour; under-developed when compared to industrialized [[Western Europe]] and [[North America]].

''[[Workers of the world, unite!]]'': in 1915, he wrote, “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.” <ref> Lenin, V. I. ‘United States of Europe Slogan’, ''Collected Works'', Vol. 18, p. 232.</ref>

On 14 May 1918, after the Bolshevik Revolution, in a speech to a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, Lenin declared:  ”I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever, and even call themselves ‘Socialists’, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect, that by speaking in this way, they are deserting the revolution, and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.” <ref> Lenin, V. I. ''Collected Works'', Vol. 23, p. 9.</ref>

==Successors==
At Lenin’s death, [[Joseph Stalin|Josef Stalin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] fought for the leadership of the Communist Party, the USSR, and Communist world politics. In 1924, Stalin proposed the thesis of ''[[Socialism in One Country]]'' — that the USSR should domestically build socialism, while supporting revolutionary governments world-wide. Trotsky countered that socialism in one country was impossible, and that the USSR should have supported revolution in developed countries. Stalin and cohort labelled that counter-argument as ''[[Trotskyism]]'', to connote that ''Socialism in One Country'' was the theoretic continuation of Leninism. Later, Stalinist proponents called it [[Marxism-Leninism]], and opponents called it [[Stalinism]]; in the event, Stalin’s theory was adopted and became state policy, and Leon Trotsky was expelled from the USSR.

In the [[People's Republic of China]], the [[Communist Party of China]] is organised as a Leninist revolutionary [[vanguard party]], based upon [[Maoism]] ([[Mao Zedong Thought]]), the Chinese Communist development of [[Marxism-Leninism]], and the theoretical basis of many [[third world]] revolutionary movements.

Contemporary Leninists see [[globalization]] as the continuation of [[imperialism]], wherein developed-country capitalists exploit the [[working class]] of under-developed ''and'' developed countries with low wages, long workdays, and intensive working conditions.

== See also ==
* [[Marxism-Leninism]]
* [[He who does not work neither shall he eat]]
* [[An equal amount of products for an equal amount of labor]]
* [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union|Lenin's national policy]]
* [[New Economic Policy]]
* [[Democratic centralism]]
* [[Anti-Leninism]]
* [[Marxism]]
* [[The Communist Manifesto]]

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[Marcel Liebman]]. Leninism Under Lenin. [http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/ The Merlin Press]. 1980. ISBN 0-85036-261-X
* [[Roy Medvedev]]. Leninism and Western Socialism. [http://www.versobooks.com/ Verso Books]. 1981. ISBN 0-86091-739-8
* Neil Harding. Leninism. Duke University Press. 1996. ISBN 0-8223-1867-9
* [[Joseph Stalin]]. Foundations of Leninism. University Press of the Pacific. 2001. ISBN 0-89875-212-4
* [[CLR James]]. Notes on Dialectics: Hegel, Marx, Lenin. [http://www.plutobooks.com/ Pluto Press]. 2005. ISBN 0-7453-2491-6
* [[Edmund Wilson]]. [[To the Finland Station]]: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History. Phoenix Press. 2004. ISBN 0-7538-1800-0
* ''Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils'' (texts by [[Herman Gorter|Gorter]], [[Antonie Pannekoek|Pannekoek]], [[Sylvia Pankhurst|Pankhurst]] and [[Otto Rühle|Rühle]]), Red and Black Publishers, St Petersburg, Florida, 2007.  ISBN 978-0-9791813-6-8
* [[Paul Le Blanc]]. Lenin and the Revolutionary Party. Humanities Press International, Inc. 1990. ISBN 0-391-03604-1.
* [[A. James Gregor]]. The Faces of Janus. Yale University Press. 2000. ISBN 0-300-10602-5.

==External links==
Works by Vladimir Lenin:
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ What is to be Done?]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/index.htm Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s1 The State and Revolution]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/index.htm The Lenin Archive at Marxists.org]
* [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/FCCI19.html First Conference of the Communist International]

Other links:
* [http://members.optushome.com.au/spainter/Liebman.html Marcel Liebman on Lenin and democracy]
* [http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/other/intellectuals-state.html An excerpt on Leninism and State Capitalism from the work of Noam Chomsky]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1904/questions-rsd/index.htm Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy] by [[Rosa Luxemburg]]
* [http://www.oocities.com/~johngray/lenphl13.htm LENIN'S PHILOSOPHY] by [[Karl Korsch]]
* [http://www.leninism.org/ Cyber Leninism]
* [http://leninist.biz/en/HTML Leninist Ebooks]
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1938/lenin/index.htm Lenin as a Philosopher] by [[Anton Pannekoek]]
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1935/lenin-legend.htm The Lenin Legend] by [[Paul Mattick]]
*[http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10072009.html Dead Labor: Marx and Lenin Reconsidered] by [[Paul Craig Roberts]]

[[Category:Marxism]]
[[Category:Modernism]]
[[Category:Theories of history]]
[[Category:Vladimir Lenin]]
[[Category:Political philosophy by politician]]

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