The Foundations of Leninism¶
Metadata¶
- Author: [[J. V. Stalin]]
- ASIN: B0BF4NHM4N
- Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BF4NHM4N
- Kindle link
Highlights¶
It must not be forgotten that between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other, there lies a whole period of undivided domination of the opportunism of the Second International, and the ruthless struggle against this opportunism could not but constitute one of the most important tasks of Leninism. — location: 59 ^ref-47289
Could Western imperialism resign itself to the loss of such a powerful support in the East and of such a rich reservoir of manpower and resources as old, tsarist, bourgeois Russia was without exerting all its strengths to wage a life-and-death struggle against the revolution in Russia, with the object of defending and preserving tsarsim? Of course not. — location: 116 ^ref-43192
The opportunists adapted themselves to the bourgeois because of their adaptive, petty-bourgeois nature; the “orthodox,” in their turn, adapted themselves to the opportunists in order to “preserve unity” with them, in the interests of “peace within the party.” Thus, the link between the policy of the bourgeois and the policy of the “orthodox” was closed, and, as a result, opportunism reigned supreme. — location: 174 ^ref-1695
Second dogma: the proletariat cannot retain power if it lacks an adequate number of trained cultural and administrative cadres capable of organizing the administration of the country; these cadres must first be trained under capitalist conditions, and only then can power be taken. — location: 225 ^ref-46806
why not turn it this way: first take power, create favourable conditions for the development of the proletariat, and then proceed with seven-league strides to raise the cultural level of the labouring masses and train numerous cadres of leaders and administrators from among the workers? — location: 227 ^ref-54876
how utterly false and utterly rotten are the political practices of these parties, which use pompous revolutionary slogans and resolutions to cloak their anti-revolutionary deeds. — location: 253 ^ref-1383
Is it not clear that revolutionary slogans and resolutions are not worth a far thing unless backed by deeds? — location: 258 ^ref-29250
“The attitude of a political party towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it in practice fulfils its obligation towards its class and the toiling masses. Frankly admitting a mistake, ascertaining the reasons for it, analyzing the circumstances which gave rise to it, and thoroughly discussing the means of correcting it-that is the earmark of a serious party; that is the way it should perform its duties, that is the way it should educate and train the class, and then the masses” (see Vol. XXV, p. 200). — location: 273 ^ref-45576
it would be wrong to suppose that Lenin’s method is merely the restoration of the method of Marx. As a matter of fact, Lenin’s method is not only the restoration of, but also the concretization and further development of the critical and revolutionary method of Marx, of his materialist dialectics. — location: 288 ^ref-41894
none other than Lenin undertook the very serious task of generalizing, on the basis of materialist philosophy, the most important achievements of science from the time of Engels down to his time, as well as of subjecting to comprehensive criticism the anti-materialistic trends among Marxists. — location: 331 ^ref-13005
Now the matter must be approached from the point of view of the economic state of all or the majority of countries, from the point of view of the state of world economy; for individual countries and individual national economies have ceased to be self-sufficient units, have become links in a single chain called world economy; — location: 406 ^ref-34416
Now we must speak of the existence of objective conditions for the revolution in the entire system of world imperialist economy as an integral whole; — location: 412 ^ref-26876
the existence within this system of some countries that are not sufficiently developed industrially cannot serve as an insuperable obstacle to the revolution, if the system as a whole or, more correctly, because the system as a whole is already ripe for revolution. — location: 413 ^ref-797
Now we must speak of the world proletarian revolution; for the separate national fronts of capital have become links in a single chain called the world front of imperialism, which must be opposed by a common front of the revolutionary movement in all countries. — location: 418 ^ref-33803
Formerly the proletarian revolution was regarded exclusively as the result of the internal development of a given country. Now, this point of view is no longer adequate. Now the proletarian revolution must be regarded primarily as the result of the development of the contradictions within the world system of imperialism, as the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front in one country or another. — location: 420 ^ref-1864
The front of capital will be pierced where the chain of imperialism is weakest, for the proletarian revolution is the result of the breaking of the chain of the world imperialist front at its weakest link; and it may turn out that the country which has started the revolution, which has made a breach in the front of capital, is less developed in a capitalist sense than other, more developed, countries, which have, however, remained within the framework of capitalism. — location: 427 ^ref-12645
Where will the chain break in the near future? Again, where it is weakest. It is not precluded that the chain may break, say, in India. Why? Because that country has a young, militant, revolutionary proletariat, which has such an ally as the national liberation movement-an undoubtedly powerful and undoubtedly important ally. Because there the revolution is confronted by such a well-known foe as foreign imperialism, which has no moral credit and is deservedly hated by all the oppressed and exploited masses in India. — location: 436 ^ref-29245
by the exploitation of the first of the countries to be vanquished in the imperialist war combined with the exploitation of the whole of the East. — location: 445 ^ref-2861
Briefly: the chain of the imperialist front must, as a rule, break where the links are weaker and, at all events, not necessarily where capitalism is more developed, where there is such and such a percentage of proletarians and such and such a percentage of peasants, and so on. — location: 448 ^ref-19369
making imperative the coalition of all revolutionary forces, from the proletarian movement of the West, to the national liberation movement of the East; — location: 462 ^ref-10522
it scarcely needs proof that the bourgeois-democratic revolution, in a more or less developed country, must under such circumstances verge upon the proletarian revolution, that the former must pass into the latter. — location: 464 ^ref-36767
The proletariat must accomplish the socialist revolution, by allying to itself the mass of the semi-proletarian elements of the population in order to crush by force the resistance of the bourgeoisie and to paralyze the instability of the peasantry and the petty bourgeoisie. — location: 470 ^ref-58971
Then, with the poor peasants, with the semi-proletarians, with all the exploited, against capitalism, including the rural rich, the kulaks, the profiteers, and to that extent the revolution becomes a socialist one. — location: 502 ^ref-2786
Lenin fought the adherents of “permanent” revolution, not over the question of uninterruptedness, for Lenin himself maintained the point of view of uninterrupted revolution, but because they underestimated the role of the peasantry, which is an enormous reserve of the proletariat, because they failed to understand the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat. — location: 518 ^ref-34676
Only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want the old way, and when the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way, only then can revolution triumph. — location: 563 ^ref-34035
revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters). — location: 564 ^ref-46903
a majority of the workers (or at least a majority of the class conscious, thinking, politically active workers) should fully understand that revolution is necessary and be ready to sacrifice their lives for it; secondly, that the ruling classes should be passing through a governmental crisis, which draws even the most backward masses into politics ... weakens the government and makes it possible for the revolutionaries to overthrow it rapidly” — location: 566 ^ref-59724
Here is what Lenin, paraphrasing the well-known theses of Marx and Engels on insurrection, says about this condition of the strategic utilization of the forces of the revolution: — location: 1312 ^ref-50320
The object of this strategy is to gain time to disrupt the enemy, and to accumulate forces in order to later assume the offensive. — location: 1356 ^ref-52153
“Now even the biggest fool,” said Lenin three years after the Brest Peace, can see “that the ‘Brest Peace’ was a concession that strengthened us and broke up the forces of international imperialism” — location: 1363 ^ref-17071
The point is that the masses, the million should understand this inevitability and display their readiness to support the vanguard. But the masses can understand this only from their own experience. The task is to enable the vast masses to realize from their own experience the inevitability of the overthrow of the old regime, to promote such methods of struggle and forms of organisations as will make it easier from the masses to realize from experience the correctness of the revolutionary slogans. — location: 1376 ^ref-32691
the tactics of “patiently explaining” the mistakes of the petty-bourgeois parties and of open struggle in the Soviets were the only correct tactics. — location: 1392 ^ref-27120
The danger of the tactics of the “Left” Communists was that they threatened to transform the Party from the leader of the proletarian revolution into a handful of futile conspirators with no ground to stand on. — location: 1393 ^ref-49312
in order that actually the whole class, that actually the broad masses of the working people and those oppressed by capital may take up such a position, propaganda and agitation alone are not enough. For this the masses must have their own political experience. Such is the fundamental law of all great revolutions, — location: 1398 ^ref-38234
Not only the uncultured, often illiterate masses of Russia, but the highly cultured, entirely literate masses of Germany had to realize through their own painful experience the absolute impotence and spinelessness, the absolute helplessness and servility to the bourgeoisie, the utter vileness, of the government of the knights of the Second International, the absolute inevitability of a dictatorship of the extreme reactionaries (Kornilov in Russia, Kapp and Co. in Germany) as the only alternatives to a dictatorship of the proletariat, in order to turn resolutely towards communism” — location: 1400 ^ref-54705