Violence and LiberationPoli 110DA 07

The theory of the class struggle

V.I. Lenin• Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov• 1870-1924• Lawyer, theorist, revolutionary leader• Split from Russian Social Democratic

Labor Party– Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks

• Professional revolutionaries, alliance of workers w/peasants vs. alliance w/liberal bourgeosie

• Vanguard• Leap over bourgeois to socialist

revolution– “Marxist-Leninism”

Revolutionary timeline• 1905 revolution

– Some liberalizing reforms, mass repression• 1917

– Costs of war– February Revolution

• Sporadic, chaotic• Tsar Nicholas II abdicates• Provisional Government (liberal) in tension w/Soviets (workers councils),

“dual power”– October Revolution

• Bolsheviks seize power in coordinated uprising• Soviet membership originally open to election, but purged when election of

anarchists, others show Bolsheviks have little national support• Imperial family killed

• 1917-1923: Russian civil war– Reds vs. Whites (vs. Greens vs. Blacks)

An entirely oversimplified summary of Marxist theory

• All history is the history of class conflict– Control of the means of production– Aristocrats, bourgeois, proletarians

• Dialectical materialism• Teleological concept of history• Ultimately, the interests of the proletariat are

the interests of all history • Scientific truth-claims

• “freedom of criticism”– Scientific character of marxist theory questioned

• “Denied was the antithesis in principle between liberalism and socialism, denied was the theory of the class struggle, on the alleged grounds that it could not be applied to a strictly democratic society governed according to the will of the majority” (2)

• If the class struggle can be contained, then Marx is fundamentally wrong– If class conflict can be resolved, revolution is

unnecessary• “If Social-Democracy, in essence, is merely a

party of reform and must be bold enough to admit this openly, then not only has a socialist the right to join a bourgeois cabinet, but he must always strive to do so.” (2)– Democracy

• “the new ‘critical’ trend is nothing more nor less than a new variety of opportunism... ‘freedom of criticism is means freedom for an opportunist trend in Social-Democracy, freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic party of reform, freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into socialism.” (3)– Freedom is not doing whatever you like. Freedom

is to think and act in accordance with truth.

• “’Freedom’ is a grand word, but under the banner of freedom for industry the most predatory wars were waged, under the banner of freedom for labour, the working people were robbed.” (3)– False freedoms

• “The modern use of the term ‘freedom of criticism’ contains the same inherent falsehood. Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of new views for the old.” (3)

• Lenin sees the Critics and Economists as being threats to the Social-Democratic movement’s hopes for fundamental social & political change.– Criticism undermines theory, diminishing

possibility of revolution– Economism perverts theory, actively working

against revolution

Critics

• The critical trend deprived socialists of “the opportunity to reveal to the working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie” even when allied w/bourgeois parties for tactical reasons. (8)– These tactical alliances are fine so long as Marxist

theory is preserved (7)

• The critics do this “by vulgarizing Marxism, by advocating the theory of the blunting of social contradictions, by declaring the idea of the social revolution and of the dictatorship of the proletariat to be absurd, by reducing the working-class movement and the class struggle to narrow trade-unionism and to a ‘realistic’ struggle for petty, gradual reforms.” (8)

• “This was synonymous with bourgeois democracy’s denial of socialism’s right to independence and, consequently, of its right to existence; in practice it meant a striving to convert the nascent working-class movement into an appendage of the liberals.” (8)– Actively counter-revolutionary

• Economists say, “That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is possible is that which is going on at the given moment.” (28)– Opportunism– Counter-revolutionary

• Economists are like trade-unionists: • “formulated the immediate demands of the

proletariat and indicated the means by which they can be achieved”

• “submit to the government concrete demands promising certain palpable results” (50-51)

• Concentrate solely on economic & factory conditions, not on revolutionary politics

• Both critics and economists hostile to Marxist theory (9-10)

• But the struggle is waged not just on the political & economic, but also in theory (13)– Theory should have equal priority– Cites Engels as authority

• “If you must unite, Marx wrote to the party leaders, then enter into agreements to satisfy the practical aims of the movement, but do not allow any bargaining over principles, do not make theoretical ‘concessions’. This was Marx’s idea, and yet there are people among us who seek—in his name—to belittle the significance of theory!” (12)

• “The role of the vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory.” (13)