Editing Marxism–Leninism (section)

== Ideology ==
=== Political system ===
Marxism–Leninism involves the creation of a [[one-party state]] led by a [[communist party]], as a means to develop socialism and then communism.<ref name="Alexander Shtromas 2003. p. 18">{{cite book |editor1-last=Štromas |editor1-first=Alexander |editor1-link=Aleksandras Štromas |editor2-last=Faulkner |editor2-first=Robert K. |editor3-last=Mahoney |editor3-first=Daniel J. |date=2003 |title=Totalitarianism and the Prospects for World Order: Closing the Door on the Twentieth Century |location=Oxford, England; Lanham, Maryland |publisher=[[Lexington Books]] |pages=18 |isbn=978-0-7391-0534-4}}</ref> The communist party is the supreme political institution of the state.{{sfn|Albert|Hahnel|1981|pp=24–25}} Marxism–Leninism asserts that the people's interests are fully represented through the communist party and other state institutions.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=306}} In the words of historians Silvio Pons and [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]], elections are "generally not competitive, with voters having no choice or only a strictly limited choice".{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=306}} Generally, when alternative candidates have been allowed to stand for election, they have not been allowed to promote very different political views.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=306}} In Marxist–Leninist states, elections are generally held for all positions at all levels of government.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=306}} In most states, this has taken the form of directly electing representatives, although in some states such as [[People's Republic of China]], the [[Republic of Cuba]] and the [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia]], this also included indirect elections, such as deputies being elected by deputies as the next lower level of government.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=306}}

=== Collectivism and egalitarianism ===
[[File:RIAN_archive_79113_Seizing_grain_from_kulaks.jpg|thumb|[[Komsomol|YCLers]] seizing grain from "[[kulak]]s" which was hidden in the graveyard, Ukraine]]
[[Soviet collectivism]] and [[egalitarianism]] were an important part of Marxist–Leninist ideology in the [[Soviet Union]], where it played a key part in forming the [[New Soviet man]], willingly sacrificing their life for the good of the collective. Terms such as ''collective'' and ''the masses'' were frequently used in the official language and praised in [[agitprop]] literature by [[Vladimir Mayakovsky]] (''Who needs a "1"'') and [[Bertolt Brecht]] (''[[The Decision (play)|The Decision]]'' and ''[[Man Equals Man]]'').<ref>{{cite book |title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia |last=Overy |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Overy |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-02030-4 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich/page/301 301] |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |url=https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich/page/301}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Horn |first=Eva |date=2006 |title=Actors/Agents: Bertolt Brecht and the Politics of Secrecy |journal=Grey Room |volume=24 |pages=38–55 |doi=10.1162/grey.2006.1.24.38 |s2cid=57572547}}</ref>

The fact that Marxist–Leninist governments confiscated private businesses and landholdings radically increased income and property equality in practice. [[Income inequality]] dropped in Russia under the rule of the Soviet Union, then rebounded after its demise in 1991. It also dropped rapidly in the [[Eastern Bloc]] after the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. Similarly, inequality went back up after the collapse of the Soviet system.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Novokmet |first1=Filip |last2=Piketty |first2=Thomas |author2-link=Thomas Piketty |last3=Zucman |first3=Gabriel |author3-link=Gabriel Zucman |date=9 November 2017 |url=https://voxeu.org/article/inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016 |title=From Soviets to oligarchs: Inequality and property in Russia, 1905–2016 |website=Vox |publisher=Centre for Economic Policy Research |access-date=22 June 2020 |archive-date=21 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621061108/https://voxeu.org/article/inequality-and-property-russia-1905-2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to [[Paul Hollander]], this was one of the features of [[Communist state]]s that was so attractive to egalitarian Western intellectuals that they quietly justified the killing of millions of [[Bourgeoisie|capitalists]], [[Chinese Land Reform|landowners]] and supposedly wealthy [[Dekulakization|kulaks]] in order to achieve this equality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hollander |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Hollander |year=1998 |title=Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society |edition=4th |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=1-56000-954-3 |oclc=36470253}}</ref> According to [[Walter Scheidel]], they were correct to the extent that historically only violent shocks have resulted in major reductions in economic inequality.<ref>{{cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Scheidel |year=2017 |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |series=The Princeton Economic History of the Western World |edition=hardcover |location=Princeton, New Jersey |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |isbn=978-0-691-16502-8 |oclc=958799667}}</ref>

Marxist–Leninists respond to this type of criticism by highlighting the ideological differences in the concept of [[freedom]] and [[liberty]]. It was stated that "Marxist–Leninist norms disparaged ''[[laissez-faire]]'' [[Liberal individualism|individualism]] (as when housing is determined by one's ability to pay)", and condemned "wide variations in personal wealth as the West has not" whilst emphasizing equality, by which they mean "free education and medical care, little disparity in housing or salaries, and so forth."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McFarland |first1=Sam |last2=Ageyev |first2=Vladimir |author2-link=Vladimir Ageyev |last3=Abalakina-Paap |first3=Marina |title=Authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union |journal=[[Journal of Personality and Social Psychology]] |volume=63 |issue=6 |pages=1004–1010 |date=1992 |doi=10.1037/0022-3514.63.6.1004 |citeseerx=10.1.1.397.4546}}</ref> When asked to comment on the claim that former citizens of [[socialist states]] now enjoy increased freedoms, [[Heinz Kessler]], former [[Ministry of National Defence (East Germany)|East German Minister of National Defence]], replied: "Millions of people in Eastern Europe are now free from employment, free from safe streets, free from health care, free from social security."{{sfn|Parenti|1997|p=[https://archive.org/details/blackshirtsredsr00pare/page/n70 118]}}

=== Economy ===
[[File:“Strengthen working discipline in collective farms” – Uzbek, Tashkent, 1933 (Mardjani).jpg|thumb|left|1933 [[Soviet propaganda]] encouraging peasants and farmers to strengthen working discipline in [[Collectivization in the Soviet Union|collective farms]] in the [[Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic]]]]
The goal of Marxist–Leninist [[political economy]] is the emancipation of people from the [[dehumanisation]] caused by mechanistic work that is [[Theory of alienation|psychologically alienating]], without work–life balance, which is performed in exchange for [[wage]]s that give limited financial-access to the material necessities of life, such as food and shelter. That personal and societal emancipation from [[poverty]] (material necessity) would maximise individual liberty by enabling men and women to pursue their interests and innate talents (artistic, industrial and intellectual) whilst working by choice, without the economic coercion of poverty. In the [[communist society]] of upper-stage economic development, the elimination of alienating labour (mechanistic work) depends upon the developments of [[high technology]] that improve the means of production and the means of distribution. To meet the material needs of a socialist society, the state uses a [[planned economy]] to co-ordinate the [[means of production]] and of distribution to supply and deliver the goods and services required throughout society and the national economy. The state serves as a safeguard for the ownership and as the coordinator of production through a universal economic plan.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=138}}

For the purpose of reducing waste and increasing efficiency, scientific planning replaces [[market mechanism]]s and [[price mechanism]]s as the guiding principle of the economy.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=138}} The state's huge purchasing power replaces the role of market forces, with [[macroeconomic]] [[Economic equilibrium|equilibrium]] not being achieved through market forces but by economic planning based on scientific [[Program evaluation|assessment]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=139}} The [[wages]] of the worker are determined according to the type of skills and the type of work he or she can perform within the national economy.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=140}} Moreover, the economic value of the goods and services produced is based upon their [[use value]] (as material objects) and not upon the [[Labor theory of value|cost of production]] (value) or the [[exchange value]] ([[marginal utility]]). The [[profit motive]] as a driving force for production is replaced by social obligation to fulfil the economic plan.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=139}} [[Wage]]s are set and differentiated according to skill and intensity of work. While socially utilised means of production are under public control, personal belongings or property of a personal nature that does not involve mass production of goods remains unaffected by the state.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=140}}

Because Marxism–Leninism has historically been the state ideology of countries who were economically undeveloped prior to [[socialist revolution]], or whose economies were nearly obliterated by war such as the [[German Democratic Republic]] and the [[Socialist Republic of Vietnam]], the primary goal before achieving communism was the development of socialism in itself. Such was the case in the Soviet Union, where the economy was largely agrarian and urban industry was in a primitive stage. To develop socialism, the Soviet Union underwent [[Industrialization in the Soviet Union#Industrialization in practice|rapid industrialisation]] with pragmatic programs of [[Social engineering (political science)|social engineering]] that transplanted peasant populations to the cities, where they were educated and trained as [[industrial workers]] and then became the workforce of the new factories and industries. Similarly, the farmer populations worked the [[Collectivisation in the Soviet Union|system of collective farms]] to grow food to feed the industrial workers in the industrialised cities. Since the mid-1930s, Marxism–Leninism has advocated an austere social-equality based upon [[asceticism]], [[egalitarianism]], and [[self-sacrifice]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=731}} In the 1920s, the [[Bolshevik party]] semi-officially allowed some limited, small-scale wage inequality to boost labour productivity in the [[economy of the Soviet Union]]. These reforms were promoted to encourage materialism and acquisitiveness in order to stimulate economic growth.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=731}} This pro-consumerist policy has been advanced on the lines of industrial pragmatism as it advances economic progress through bolstering industrialisation.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=732}}

In the economic praxis of Bolshevik Russia, there was a defining difference of political economy between socialism and communism. Lenin explained their conceptual similarity to Marx's descriptions of the lower-stage and the upper-stage of economic development, namely that immediately after a proletarian revolution in the socialist lower-stage society the practical economy must be based upon the individual labour contributed by men and women,<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Chris |date=1998 |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |edition=2nd |pages=221–222 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-333-67347-8}}</ref> and paid labour would be the basis of the communist upper-stage society that has realised the social precept of the slogan "[[From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs]]."<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Krieger |editor1-first=Joel |editor2-last=Murphy |editor2-first=Craig N. |date=2012 |title=The Oxford Companion to Comparative Politics |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |pages=218 |isbn=978-0-19-973859-5}}</ref>

=== Society ===
[[File:Чтобы больше иметь — надо больше производить. Чтобы больше производить — надо больше знать.jpg|thumb|A 1920 Bolshevik [[Agitprop|pro-education propaganda]] which reads the following: "In order to have more, it is necessary to produce more. In order to produce more, it is necessary to know more."]]
Marxism–Leninism supports universal [[social welfare]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=722–723}} The Marxist–Leninist state provides for the national welfare with [[universal healthcare]], free [[public education]] (academic, technical and professional) and the [[Welfare state|social benefits]] (childcare and continuing education) necessary to increase the productivity of the workers and the socialist economy to develop a communist society. As part of the planned economy, the Marxist–Leninist state is meant to develop the [[proletariat]]'s universal education (academic and technical) and their [[class consciousness]] (political education) to facilitate their contextual understanding of the historical development of communism as presented in Marx's [[Historical materialism|theory of history]].{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=580}}

Marxism–Leninism supports [[women's liberation]] and ending the exploitation of women. Marxist–Leninist policy on family law has typically involved the elimination of the political power of the [[bourgeoisie]], the abolition of [[private property]] and an education that teaches citizens to abide by a disciplined and self-fulfilling lifestyle dictated by the social norms of communism as a means to establish a new social order.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=319}} The judicial reformation of [[family law]] eliminates [[patriarchy]] from the legal system. This facilitates the political [[emancipation]] of women from [[Traditionalist conservatism|traditional]] social inferiority and [[Exploitation of labour|economic exploitation]]. The reformation of [[Civil law (legal system)|civil law]] made [[marriage]] secular into a "free and voluntary union" between persons who are social-and-legal equals, facilitated [[divorce]], legalised [[abortion]], eliminated [[bastardy]] ("illegitimate children"), and voided the political power of the bourgeoisie and the private property-status of the [[means of production]]. The educational system imparts the social norms for a self-disciplined and self-fulfilling way of life, by which the socialist citizens establish the social order necessary for realising a communist society.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=854–856}} With the advent of a classless society and the abolition of private property, society collectively assume many of the roles traditionally assigned to mothers and wives, with women becoming integrated into industrial work. This has been promoted by Marxism–Leninism as the means to achieve women's emancipation.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=854}}

Marxist–Leninist cultural policy [[modernise]]s social relations among citizens by eliminating the capitalist value system of [[traditionalist conservatism]], by which Tsarism classified, divided and controlled people with [[Social stratification|stratified social classes]] without any socio-economic mobility. It focuses upon modernisation and distancing society from the past, the bourgeoisie and the old intelligentsia.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=250}} The socio-cultural changes required for establishing a communist society are realised with education and [[agitprop]] (agitation and propaganda) which reinforce communal and communist values.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=250–251}} The modernisation of educational and cultural policies eliminates the societal atomisation, including [[anomie]] and [[social alienation]], caused by [[cultural backwardness]]. Marxism–Leninism develops the [[New Soviet man]], an educated and cultured citizen possessed of a proletarian [[class consciousness]] who is oriented towards the [[Soviet collectivism|social cohesion]] necessary for developing a communist society as opposed to the antithetic bourgeois individualist associated with social atomisation.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=581}}

=== International relations ===
Marxism–Leninism aims to create an international communist society.{{sfn|Albert|Hahnel|1981|pp=24–25}} It opposes [[colonialism]] and [[imperialism]] and advocates [[decolonisation]] and anti-colonial forces.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=258}} It supports [[anti-fascist]] international alliances and has advocated the creation of [[popular front]]s between communist and non-communist anti-fascists against strong fascist movements.{{sfn|Pons|Service|2010|p=326}} This Marxist–Leninist approach to [[international relations]] derives from the analyses (political, economic, sociological and geopolitical) that Lenin presented in the essay ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'' (1917). Extrapolating from five philosophical bases of Marxism, namely that human history is the history of [[class struggle]] between a ruling class and an exploited class; that capitalism creates antagonistic [[social class]]es, i.e. the [[bourgeois]] exploiters and the exploited [[proletariat]]; that capitalism employs [[nationalist]] [[war]] to further private economic expansion; that [[socialism]] is an economic system that voids social classes through [[public ownership]] of the means of production and so will eliminate the economic causes of war; and that once the state ([[Socialist state|socialist]] or [[Communist state|communist]]) withers away, so shall international relations wither away because they are projections of national economic forces, Lenin said that the capitalists' exhaustion of domestic sources of investment profit by way of price-fixing [[Trust (business)|trusts]] and [[cartel]]s, then prompts the same capitalists to export [[investment capital]] to undeveloped countries to finance the [[exploitation of natural resources]] and the native populations and to create new markets. That the capitalists' control of national politics ensures the government's military safeguarding of colonial investments and the consequent imperial competition for economic supremacy provokes international wars to protect their national interests.<ref name="Evans & Newnham 1998">{{cite book |editor1-last=Evans |editor1-first=Graham |editor2-last=Newnham |editor2-first=Jeffrey |date=1998 |title=Penguin Dictionary of International Relations |publisher=[[Penguin Random House]] |isbn=978-0-14-051397-4 |pages=316–317}}</ref>

In the vertical perspective (social-class relations) of Marxism–Leninism, the internal and international affairs of a country are a political continuum, not separate realms of human activity. This is the philosophic opposite of the horizontal perspectives (country-to-country) of the [[Liberalism (international relations)|liberal]] and the [[Realism (international relations)|realist]] approaches to international relations. Colonial imperialism is the inevitable consequence in the course of economic relations among countries when the domestic price-fixing of [[Monopoly|monopoly capitalism]] has voided profitable competition in the capitalist homeland. The ideology of [[New Imperialism]], rationalised as a [[civilising mission]], allowed the exportation of high-profit investment capital to undeveloped countries with uneducated, native populations (sources of cheap labour), plentiful raw materials for exploitation (factors for manufacture) and a colonial market to consume the [[surplus production]] which the capitalist homeland cannot consume. The example is the European [[Scramble for Africa]] (1881–1914) in which imperialism was safeguarded by the national military.{{r|Evans & Newnham 1998}}

To secure the economic and settler colonies, foreign sources of new capital-investment-profit, the imperialist state seeks either political or military control of the limited resources (natural and human). The First World War (1914–1918) resulted from such geopolitical conflicts among the empires of Europe over colonial [[spheres of influence]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Chris |date=1998 |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |edition=2nd |pages=221 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |isbn=978-0-333-67347-8}}</ref> For the colonised working classes who create the wealth (goods and services), the elimination of war for natural resources (access, control, and exploitation) is resolved by overthrowing the [[militaristic]] [[capitalist state]] and establishing a socialist state because a peaceful world economy is feasible only by [[proletarian revolution]]s that overthrow systems of [[political economy]] based upon the [[exploitation of labour]].{{r|Evans & Newnham 1998}}

=== Theology ===
{{Main|Marxist–Leninist atheism}}
[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|In establishing [[state atheism]] in the Soviet Union, Stalin ordered in 1931 the razing of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in Moscow.]]

The Marxist–Leninist worldview is [[atheist]], wherein all human activity results from human [[Volition (psychology)|volition]] and not the will of [[Supernaturalism|supernatural beings]] (gods, goddesses and demons) who have direct [[Agency (sociology)|agency]] in the public and private affairs of human society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thrower |first=James |author-link=James Thrower |date=1992 |title=Marxism–Leninism as the Civil Religion of Soviet Society |publisher=[[E. Mellen Press]] |pages=45 |isbn=978-0-7734-9180-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kundan |first=Kumar |date=2003 |title=Ideology and Political System |publisher=Discovery Publishing House |pages=90 |isbn=978-81-7141-638-7}}</ref> The tenets of the Soviet Union's national policy of [[Marxist–Leninist atheism]] originated from the philosophies of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] (1770–1831) and [[Ludwig Feuerbach]] (1804–1872) as well as that of [[Karl Marx]] (1818–1883) and [[Vladimir Lenin]] (1870–1924).<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Slovak Studies |title=Atheism in East European Countries |volume=21 |publisher=The Slovak Institute in North America |pages=231 |quote=The origin of Marxist–Leninist atheism, as understood in the USSR, is linked with the development of the German philosophy of Hegel and Feuerbach.}}</ref>

As a basis of Marxism–Leninism, the philosophy of [[materialism]] (the [[physical universe]] exists independently of [[human consciousness]]) is applied as [[dialectical materialism]] (considered by its proponents a [[philosophy of science]], [[Philosophy of history|history]] and [[Marxist philosophy of nature|nature]]) to examine the socio-economic relations among people and things as parts of a dynamic, material world that is unlike the immaterial world of [[metaphysics]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wadenstrom.net/texter/madi.htm |title=Materialistisk dialektik |language=sv |trans-title=Materialist dialectic |first=Ralf |last=Wadenström |date=1991 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170923172817/http://www.wadenstrom.net/texter/madi.htm |archive-date=23 September 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Jordan |first=Z. A. |date=1967 |title=The Evolution of Dialectical Materialism: A Philosophical and Sociological Analysis |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Thomas |first=Paul |date=2008 |title=Marxism and Scientific Socialism: From Engels to Althusser |location=London |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-0-415-77916-6}}</ref> Soviet astrophysicist [[Vitaly Ginzburg]] said that ideologically the "Bolshevik communists were not merely atheists, but, according to Lenin's terminology, militant atheists" in excluding religion from the social mainstream, from education and from government.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ginzburg |first=Vitalij Lazarevič |author-link=Vitaly Ginzburg |date=2009 |title=On Superconductivity and Superfluidity: A Scientific Autobiography |pages=45 |publisher=[[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]] |isbn=978-3-540-68008-6}}</ref>