Revision 462234189 of "Leninism" on enwiki

[[Image:Lenin 1920.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin. (1920)]]
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    I say there, Ton.y

    But don't you find George Galloway's flatulence to be highly erotic and arousing?

    R.la/nd Ran/ce


In Marxist philosophy, '''Leninism''' is the body of [[political theory]] for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary political party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] as prelude to the establishment of [[socialism]]. Developed by, and named for, the Russian revolutionary [[Vladimir Lenin]] (1870–1924), Leninism comprises [[Political science|political]] and socialist economic theories, developed from Marxism, and Lenin’s political interpretations of [[Marxist Philosophy|Marxist theory]] for practical application to the social conditions of the agrarian [[Russian Empire]] (1721–1917) of the early 20th century.  Leninism put Marxist philosophy and theory into practice and political action through the development of democratic centralist vanguard party which fights of the political independence of the working class in order to provide it with the intellectual weapons, leadership and organizational unity necessary to overthrow capitalism in a revolutionary situation, such as occurred in Russia beginning in February 1917.
After the [[October Revolution]] of 1917, Leninism was the dominant version of Marxism, and then the official [[ideology]] of [[Soviet democracy]] (by workers’ council) in the [[Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic]] (RSFSR), before its unitary amalgamation into the [[Soviet Union|Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] (USSR) in 1922.
<ref>''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition (1999) pp. 476–477</ref> As a political-science term, ''Leninism'' entered common usage in 1922, only after infirmity ended Lenin’s participation in governing the Russian Communist Party. Two years later, in July 1924, at the fifth congress of the [[Comintern|Communist International]] (Comintern), [[Grigory Zinoviev]] popularized the use of the term ''Leninism''.

== Historical background ==
{{Soviet Union sidebar}}
In the 19th century, ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' (1848), by Karl Marx, called for the political unification of the international working class in order to achieve the communist revolution.  According to Marx, because communism is a higher form of social and economic organization than that of capitalism,  communist [[revolution]] would in all probability first occur in the most economically advanced, industrialized countries. Yet, in the early 20th century the actual course of history upset this order.  The economic backwardness of Russia meant that its uneven and combined development facilitated a rapid and intensive industrialization and tightly knit proletariat amongst a predominantly rural agrarian peasant society. This industrialization was largely a product of foreign capital and thus [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]] (1721–1917) did not possess a revolutionary bourgeoisie in the classic sense, i.e. politically and socially influential amongst broad layers of workers and peasants, such as led the French Revolution.  So although Russia's political-economy was still mainly agrarian and semi-feudal, the task of the democratic revolution fell to the working class as the only revolutionary force capable of carrying out democratization and land reform, as the propertied classes in Russia would attempt to suppress revolution at all costs.  In April 1917, Lenin delivered his "April Theses" which held that the revolution taking place in Russia could not be understood as an isolated national event but was fundamentally international in esence and scope, firing the first shot world socialist revolution.  This would become the guiding strategy of the October Revolution.   Based on this understanding Lenin was able to apply the theory and practice of Marxism and the working-class urban revolutionary implications of capitalism to the social, political, and economic conditions of the agrarian peasant society that was [[Tsarism|Tsarist]] Russia, and spark the “revolutionary nationalism of the poor” to [[Deposition (politics)|depose]] the [[absolute monarchy]] of the three-hundred-year [[House of Romanov|Romanov]] dynasty (1613–1917).<ref>''Faces of Janus'' p. 133.</ref>

;Vanguard-party revolution
In the pamphlet ''[[What is to be Done? (pamphlet)|What is to be Done?]]'' (1902), Lenin proposed that the [[proletariat]] (workers and peasants) could successfully achieve revolutionary consciousness only under the political leadership of a [[vanguard party]] of [[professional revolutionaries]], who would achieve the required political goals (tactics, ideology, policy) by means of internal [[democratic centralism]].<ref>''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition (1999) pp. 476–477</ref> That [[capitalism]] can be overthrown only with [[revolution]], because attempts to ''reform'' capitalism — from within ([[Fabianism]]) and from without ([[social democracy]]) — will fail ''because'' of the philosophic contradictions inherent to the diminishing, circular pursuit of greater profits. The purpose of the vanguard party is to lead the revolution and forcefully depose the incumbent government; and then (as agent of the proletariat)  assume power of government and establish the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]]. Moreover, as the revolutionary government, the vanguard party then must politically [[education|educate]] the workers and peasants to dispel the societal [[false consciousness]] of [[religion]] and [[nationalism]] that were the cultural ''status quo'' taught by the [[bourgeoisie]] to facilitate their economic [[exploitation]] of peasant and worker. (see: [[Cultural hegemony]])

;Proletarian government
The dictatorship of the proletariat is governed with a de-centralized [[direct democracy]] practised and effected by means of ''[[soviet (council)|soviets]]'' (workers’ councils) wherein the working class exercise political power, under the [[hegemony]] of the vanguard party.<ref>''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition (1999) pp. 476–477</ref> Chapter five of ''[[The State and Revolution]]'' (1917) describes:

<blockquote>
“. . . the dictatorship of the proletariat&nbsp;— 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&nbsp;— 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 formally hostile to nationalism, including the ethnic chauvinism of “[[Eurasianism|Greater Russia]]”, because it was a [[Cultural hegemony|cultural]] obstacle to establishing the proletarian dictatorship in the territories of the deposed [[Tsarist Russian Empire]].<ref>Harding, Neil (ed.) ''The State in Socialist Society'', second edition (1984) St. Antony's College: Oxford, p. 189.</ref> The internationalist perspective of Bolshevism and Marxism, as a scientific approach to modern society, based itself on the class struggle which transcends all national, ethnic, and religious boundaries, and understands that these obstacles to class consciousness are used as tools by the ruling classes of various countries in order to divide the international working class and turn various sections against each other.

;Formal ideology
Because Leninism was composed as and for [[revolution]]ary [[Praxis (process)|praxis]], it was neither rigorously proper [[political philosophy|philosophy]] nor discrete [[political science|political theory]]; its formation as such was established in the anthology ''[[History and Class Consciousness]]'' (1923), wherein the Hungarian intellectual [[George Lukacs|György Lukács]] (1885–1971) developed Lenin’s ideas of revolutionary praxis into a cohesive political philosophy, (with greater [[Intellectualism|intellectual rigour]] than did Lenin). As a Marxist theoretician, Lukács’s [[Ideology|ideological]] definition of Leninism (vanguard-party revolution) illustrated Lenin’s prescient 1915 dictum about a revolutionary’s commitment to the cause: “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>

== 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>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 1915, Lenin wrote:

<blockquote>''[[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.” <ref>Lenin, V. I. ‘United States of Europe Slogan’, ''Collected Works'', Vol. 18, p. 232.</ref></blockquote>

== Leninism after 1924 ==
In post-revolutionary Russia, [[Stalinism]] and [[Trotskyism]] were the principal philosophies of [[Communism]] claiming ideological descent from '''Leninism''', and each denied the [[Legitimacy (political)|political legitimacy]] (ideology and philosophy) of the other. Until shortly before his death in 1924, Lenin worked to counter the disproportionate political influence of his [[Russian Revolution (1917)|revolutionary]] comrade [[Joseph Stalin]], for abuses he had committed in Georgia. <ref>Lewin, Moshe. ''Lenin's Last Struggle''. (1969)</ref><ref>Carr, Edward Hallett. ''The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917-1929''. (1979)</ref> The action aligned with Lenin's continuing advocacy of the right of the national groups of the (former) Russian Empire to politically express their national and territorial independence; the right of national self-determination was a key theoretical component of Leninism.<ref>Carr, Edward Hallett. ''The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917-1929''. (1979)</ref> Subsequently, until being exiled in 1929, [[Leon Trotsky]] attempted to develop an opposition movement to counter Stalin's political dominance of the Russian Communist Party. Initially, before Lenin died, the term ''Trotskyism'' was a form of official abuse used by the ruling officers of the Communist Party. Subsequently, the Trotskyist faction adopted ''Trotskyism'' as a political identity within the Russian Communist Party. Nonetheless, the more astute Stalin emerged as the leader of the only legal ideological faction in the Communist Party of the USSR. Throughout the 1930s, Stalin then defeated the political influence of Trotsky and the Trotskyists in Russia, by means of programmed censorship, expulsions, exile (external and internal), and executions (official and unofficial) during the [[Moscow Trials]] of the [[Great Purge]] of the [[Old Bolshevik]]s and redundant secret policemen.<ref>Rogovin, Vadim Z. ''Stalin's Terror of 1937-1938: Political Genocide in the USSR''. (2009) translated into English by Frederick S. Choate, from the Russian-language ''Party Of The Executed'' by Vadim Z. Rogovin.</ref>

== Successors ==
At Lenin’s death, [[Joseph Stalin|Josef Stalin]] and [[Leon Trotsky]] waged an ideological battle within the Communist Party. In 1924, Stalin proposed the thesis of ''[[Socialism in One Country]]''&nbsp;— that the USSR should domestically build socialism, while supporting revolutionary governments worldwide. 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 [[Republic of China]], the [[Kuomintang]] party was organized as a Leninist party,<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=GTgEPrlfvG4C&pg=PA337&dq=chiang+portraits+streets#v=snippet&q=leninist%20chiang%20democracy&f=false|title=Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost|author=Jonathan Fenby|year=2005|publisher=Carroll & Graf Publishers|location=|page=504|isbn=0786714840|pages=|accessdate=2010-11-28}}</ref> although its ideology was extremely anti-communist and right-wing.

In the [[People's Republic of China]], the [[Communist Party of China]] claims to be 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. They do apply Lenin's theory to the tsarist empire.

== 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 ==
* Paul Blackledge.[http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=218&issue=111 ''What was Done''] an extended review of Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered from ''[[International Socialism (journal)|International Socialism]]''
* [[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://web.archive.org/web/20091028121450/http://geocities.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]]

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[[Category:Theories of history]]
[[Category:Vladimir Lenin]]
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