Marxism the science of yesterday, today and tomorrow
By Subodh Mitra
Marxism developed out of ideological struggle against the metaphysical and idealizes philosophy of the exploiting classes. As it overthrew the moribund philosophy of class society and established itself as the new science of the working class in the capitalist countries, the enemies of Marxism found a new weapon; to attack from within, to penetrate the working class movement and undermine it by ideological infiltration. The first international (1864-1872) was established to direct and coordinate the working class movement and bring about proletarian consciousness throughout the world. Marx had to fight the economism of Bernstein and left anarchic line of Bakunin and expose them.
The second international founded by Engels, fell again into the hands of Kautsky, who attempted to revise Marxism with the idea that through election and united front, the working class could change the balance of forces and achieve power by the peaceful parliamentary path. This line of Kautsky designated as social chauvinism, was spread systematically among various communist parties of Europe, and revisionism as a counter revolutionary force became institutionalized form that time onwards. Lenin pointed out the danger to world revolution of this revisionist line and castigated the deliberate distortion of Marxism by the opportunists of second International, saying “This is nothing but the purest and most vulgar opportunism, repudiating revolution in deed while accepting it in words.”
Forty six years after Paris Commune Lenin was able, by consistently fighting revisionism, to guide the Russian revolution to triumph under the leadership of a strong Bolshevik party. The significance of this is clear for all revolutionaries; in order to achieve victory we must continuously purge our ranks from revisionism, that is bourgeois ideology in disguise, and struggle to apply a correct Marxist Leninist line.
The third international, founded by Lenin, emerged from the successes of Russian revolution in the fight against revisionism. The aim of the third international was to help the revolution in various countries and the anti imperialist, anti feudal struggle in the colonies. But from time to time, opportunism, revisionism and sectarianism manifested themselves in deferent forms. The main characteristics of these trends are 1: to oppose Marxism, 2: to distort the lessons of Marxism, 3: to quote “special circumstances” or “unique situation” in order to refute the basic principles of Marxism and 4: to prevent the formation of a genuine working class party based on Marxist Leninist principle. There for revisionist negate the dictatorship of the proletariat and by emphasizing the so called peaceful transition to socialism; turn the party into a petty bourgeois liberal party. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao had all to wage and unrelenting struggle against these manifestations.
From the time of manifesto of the communist party Marx and Engels was published in 1948 to this day the struggle between revolutionary Marxism and opportunism, in both the political and the ideological fields, has enter around one problem: is the revolution necessary for the transformation of society to a socialist basis or not, do the conditions exist to carry out the revolution or not, can it be carried out in the peaceful way or is revolutionary violence indispensable?
The aims of these theories have always been to disorientate the proletariat ideologically, to hinder the revolution, perpetuate class exploitation and to destroy Marxism- Leninism, the triumphant science of the revolution of socialism.
All these enemies of Marxism-Leninism out dated and create various theories-allegedly adapted to the new historical conditions, to the changes that capitalism and imperialism have undergone, and evolution of human society in quarrel.
These Bernstein proclaimed Marx out dated, and Kautsky, deliberately misinterpreting the transition of capitalism to imperialism, negated the revolution their example and methods have been followed by all the modern revisionists and neo revisionists.
Under the false pretext that they are implementing and developing Marxism-Leninism in a creative manner adapting it to the new condition existing in the world today, all these anti Marxists are trying to negate the scientific ideology of the working class and to replace it with bourgeois opportunism.
Karl Marx and F.Engles discovered the laws of social development, of revolutionary transformations and the transition of society from lower to a higher social order. He made a scientific analysis of private ownership of the means of production, the capitalist mode of distribution and the surplus value which the capitalist seizer. They created the scientific theory on classes and the class struggle of the proletariat to overthrow the bourgeois, to destroy the capitalist system, to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and build socialism.
Various reactionary theoreticians all over the world have striven in every way to denigrate Marxist theory, to throw mud at it, to distort it and combat it. But this theory, which is a true, science, has succeeded in dominating progressive human thinking and has, became a powerful weapon in the hands of the proletariat and the people in the fight against their enemies.
By applying the Marxist theory and developing it further, Lenin gave the proletariat and its vanguard, the Marxist-Leninist party, a scientific theory on the conditions of imperialism and proletarian revolution. Lenin developed Marxism not only in theory but also in practice. Applying the doctrine of Karl Marx he led the Bolshevik revolution and carried it through victory. Lenin’s work was further developed by Stalin and Mao.
In “What is to be done” “The state and Revolution”, “Two tactics of social Democracy”, “One step forward two steps back”, Lenin asserted the necessity for the violent overthrow of exploiting classes and the smashing of the existing state machinery in order to create and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat . It is clear from his writings what is the significance of philosophy, politics and organization, and how they are inter related. After Lenin, Stalin had to fight on both the national and international fronts against all kinds of conspiracies and manifestations of bourgeois revisionist ideologists such as RYKOV, TROTSKY, ZINOVIEV, KAMENEV, BUKHARIN, TOMSKY, etc. and to this end in his writings, “Foundations of Leninism”, “Problems of Leninism” and “History of CPSU(B)” he has clarified Marxism-Leninism. Similarly Com. Mao was able to fight the deviation of Chen-Tu-Hisin, Wang Ming and Lili-san in order to apply the correct Marxist – Leninist line to the Chinese revolution and thereby ensure victory.
After the death of Stalin, the revisionist conspirators who have been lurking in disguise in Russia reared their heads again and gradually emerged under the leadership of KHURUSCHEV. The 20th congress of 1956 presented, in Khrushchev’s secret speech, the revisionist plan to destroy the achievement of the world’s first socialist revolution. It would have not possible for them to subvert Marxism-Leninism without insulting and debasing Stalin and this was in fact the main content of 20th congress of CPSU (B).
It declared (1) that the principal contradiction of the world today was between the socialist and imperialist blocks, (2) that, in these circumstances, war is not inevitable and peaceful co-existence is possible between the two forces and that (3) it is possible under these circumstances for a peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism to take place.
Marxism-Leninism knows that the principal contradiction determines other contradiction, and the method of resolving the principal contradiction is determined by the nature of the principal contradiction. For example, in a class society the principal contradiction is between the exploiters and exploited, and the nature of the contradiction is antagonistic, hence the violent overthrow of the one by another is the method of resolving the contradiction .All other contradictions will play supplementary role in resolving the principal contradiction. If it is said that principal contradiction is between imperialist block and socialist block and the nature is non antagonistic the method will be peaceful. Hence these traitors preach peaceful co-existence between the oppressors and the oppressed and fetch all communists not to taking arms but to adopt peaceful means, that is parliament and election in order to achieve a “peaceful transition to socialism, with this, they have negated the entire concept of class struggle and the nature of the state and revolutionary experience of the working class. They have also declared that the communist party is the party of the whole people, and the socialist state is the state of the whole people, which again denies the role of the party as the advance section of the working class, the highest form of class organization of the proletariat, and the dictatorship of the proletariat as the ruling class of socialist state.
But the Marxist Leninist parties, under the leadership of Mao-tse-tung opposed this opportunist attempt to revise Marxism and correctly analyzed the world situation and concluded that the principal contradiction in the world today is between imperialism and the oppressed nations of the world, a contradiction which is antagonist in nature. Hence the method of resolving this contradiction wouldn’t be anything but armed struggle, and with the victory of colonial countries and termination of imperialism, the secondary contradiction would also be shaped and resolved through the process of struggle. This two line’s struggle on the international level has inevitably come to occupy a vital significance in all the communist parties of the world.
In India, the two line’s struggle has been inexistence from the very inception of the communist party. The nature of inner party struggle was to determined the form and the contain of the Indian revolution. This question is very important because on the correctness of the line will decide the successes or retardation of the Indian revolution. The revolutionaries in the inner party have firmly supported the line of capturing power by armed struggle while the revisionist, by decrying the fundamental principle of class struggle and replacing it with class collaboration have repeatedly betrayed the revolutionary struggle of the heroic people of India from the time of Telengana onwards. The revolutionary ranks were not able to oust the central revisionist leadership and, after Second World War and the advancing victory of Chinese revolution the inner party struggle became acute. The revolutionary ranks were in fact applying the theory of new democratic revolution, rousing the peasant masses for revolution under the leadership of the working class, forming the peoples’ army, forging the united front, establishing rural base areas and, through protracted peoples’ armed struggle, liberating the villages and preparing to encircle the cities in order to liberate the whole country. With this line in Telengana, they liberated 3000 villages and started spreading armed struggle through different areas of the country.
At this time the imperialist, unnerved by the gathering storm of revolution, weakened by war, expose din the various colonies and supplemented in status by the new colossus of American imperialism were faced by a severe crisis. All the major imperialist powers of the pre-world war era were compelled to come to terms with these new developments, and out of this situation evolved the new tactic of neocolonialism. The essence of this policy was the ‘transfer’ of political power to the comprador and feudal elements of the colonial countries and the retention of actual economic and political control in their own hands, by which they aimed to hood wink the people and continue their exploitation indefinitely. In India, the Communist Party leadership, dominated by revisionism, instead of exposing and fighting this deception supported the lackeys of imperialism and hailed the so called ‘Independence’ as being the successful conclusion of the national liberation struggle. The revolutionary ranks that were leading and supporting the struggle in Telangana and elsewhere denounced this opportunism and adopted the slogan, “This independence is a lie”. Their objective analysis was that India is a semi- feudal, semi- colonial country and imperialism, for its own interests, reformed Indian feudalism into semi-feudalism and destroyed the possibilities of the bourgeois democratic revolution by obstructing the growth of the productive forces. After the Russian revolution, when working class seized power and established the dictatorship of the proletariat , the colonial bourgeoisie, born and nurtured under the aegis of imperialism, abandoned the task of the bourgeois democratic revolution and, recognizing the threat to its existence from the conscious working class, went over the camp of imperialism.
The third International, headed by Lenin and Stalin, had formulated the colonial thesis, which categorically stated the form and content of the revolution in the colonial countries. Since imperialism, in the furtherance of its own interests, had preserved feudal relation in a modified form in the colonial countries, the content and form of the revolution would be a people’s democratic revolution, i.e., national liberation struggle against imperialism and democratic struggle against feudalism, under the leadership of the proletariat. In the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the task of the bourgeois democratic revolution is incomplete and the bourgeoisie is no longer capable of leading the democratic revolution. Hence, the working class has to fulfill the task of the democratic revolution, and this struggle against feudalism is closely inter-linked with the anti-imperialist struggle because feudalism is the social base of imperialism.
In spite of continuous attempts to vilify, to distort and to revise Marxism by the enemies of social progress Marxism continuous develop as the only science of social change. Marxism was relevant yesterday, is relevant today and continued to be relevant tomorrow. This is the science of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
