Editing Leninism (section)

== Leninist praxis ==

=== Vanguard party ===
{{main|Vanguardism}}
In Chapter II, "Proletarians and Communists", of ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'' (1848), Marx and Engels present the communist party as the political vanguard solely qualified to lead the proletariat in revolution:

{{blockquote|The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement. The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.|title=|source=}}

The revolutionary purpose of the Leninist [[vanguard party]] is to establish the [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] with the [[working class]]'s support. The communist party would lead the popular deposition of the [[Tsarism|Tsarist]] government and then transfer government power to the working class; that change of the ruling class—from the [[bourgeoisie]] to the [[proletariat]]—makes establishing [[socialism]] possible.<ref>{{cite book |last=Townson |first=D. |title=The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern History: 1789–1945 |location=London |date=1994 |pages=462–464}}</ref> In ''[[What Is To Be Done?]]'' (1902), Lenin said that a revolutionary vanguard party, recruited from the working class, should lead the political campaign because only in that way would the proletariat successfully realise their revolution; unlike the economic campaign of trade-union-struggle advocated by other socialist political parties and the [[Anarcho-syndicalism|anarcho-syndicalists]]. Like Marx, Lenin distinguished between the aspects of a revolution, the "economic campaign" ([[labour strike]]s for increased wages and work concessions) that featured diffused plural leadership; and the "political campaign" (socialist changes to society), which required the decisive, revolutionary leadership of the Bolshevik vanguard party.

==== Democratic centralism ====
{{main|Democratic centralism}}
Based upon the [[First International]] (IWA, International Workingmen's Association, 1864–1876), Lenin organised the Bolsheviks as a [[Democratic centralism|democratically centralised]] vanguard party; wherein free political speech was recognised as legitimate until policy consensus; afterwards, every member of the party was expected to abide by the agreed policy. Democratic debate was Bolshevik practice, even after Lenin banned factions among the Party in 1921. Despite being a guiding political influence, Lenin did not exercise absolute power and continually debated to have his points of view accepted as a course of revolutionary action. In ''Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action'' (1905), Lenin said:

{{blockquote|Of course, the application of this principle in practice will sometimes give rise to disputes and misunderstandings; but only on the basis of this principle can all disputes and all misunderstandings be settled honourably for the Party. ... The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organisations implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does not disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes difficult the unity of an action decided on by the Party.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=1905 |chapter=Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action |title=Lenin's Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1965 |location=Moscow |volume=10 |pages=442–443 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/20c.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124192311/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/may/20c.htm |archive-date=24 January 2021 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref>}}

==== Proletarian revolution ====
Before the [[October Revolution]], despite supporting moderate political reform—including [[Bolsheviks]] elected to the [[Duma]] when opportune—Lenin said that [[capitalism]] could only be overthrown with [[proletarian revolution]], not with gradual reforms—from within ([[Fabianism]]) and from without ([[social democracy]])—which would fail because the bourgeoisie's control of the [[means of production]] determined the nature of political power in Russia.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=1917 |chapter=[[The State and Revolution]] |title=Lenin's Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1965 |location=Moscow |volume=25 |pages=381–492 |url=http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203042734/http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm |archive-date=3 December 2011 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref> As epitomised in the slogan "For a Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry", a proletarian revolution in underdeveloped Russia required a united proletariat (peasants and industrial workers) to assume government power in the cities successfully. Moreover, owing to the [[Middle class|middle-class]] aspirations of much of the peasantry, [[Leon Trotsky]] said that the proletarian leadership of the revolution would ensure truly socialist and democratic socio-economic change.

=== Dictatorship of the proletariat ===
{{main|Dictatorship of the proletariat#Vladimir Lenin|l1=Dictatorship of the proletariat}}
[[File:L'état et la révolution.jpg|thumb|1970 French edition of Lenin's 1917 book ''[[The State and Revolution]]'']]
In [[Bolshevik Russia]], government by [[direct democracy]] was realised and effected by the [[Soviet (council)|soviets]] (elected councils of workers), which Lenin said was the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat" postulated in [[orthodox Marxism]].<ref name="Isaac Deutscher 19542">{{cite book |first=Isaac |last=Deutscher |author-link=Isaac Deutscher |date=1954 |title=The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]}}</ref> <!-- The soviets had their power vastly reduced after the Bolsheviks took power. While the Bolsheviks centralised authority in their one-party state system, the soviets effectively had little say. -->The soviets comprised representative committees from the factories and the trade unions but excluded the capitalist social class to establish a proletarian government by and for the working class and the peasants. Concerning the political disenfranchisement of the capitalist social class in Bolshevik Russia, Lenin said that "depriving the exploiters of the franchise is a purely Russian question, and not a question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, in general.&nbsp;... In which countries&nbsp;...democracy for the exploiters will be, in one or another form, restricted&nbsp;...is a question of the specific national features of this or that capitalism."<ref name="Leninism, p. 265"/> In chapter five of ''[[The State and Revolution]]'' (1917), Lenin describes the dictatorship of the proletariat as:

{{blockquote|the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors.&nbsp;... 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&nbsp;... and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the change which democracy undergoes during the 'transition' from capitalism to communism.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hill |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hill (historian) |url=https://archive.org/details/leninrussianrevolution |title=Lenin and the Russian Revolution |date=1993 |publisher=[[Penguin Books]] |location=London |pages=85–86}}</ref>|title=|source=}}

Concerning the disenfranchisement from democracy of the capitalist social class, Lenin said: "Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, of the [[Exploitation of labour|exploiters]] and oppressors of the people—this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism."<ref>''Collected Works'', vol. 25, pp. 461–462, {{cite book |title=Marx Engels Lenin on Scientific Socialism |publisher=Novosti Press Ajency Publishing House |place=Moscow |year=1974 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmeHGAAACAAJ |access-date=18 March 2016 |archive-date=31 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200131161137/https://books.google.com/books?id=KmeHGAAACAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> The dictatorship of the proletariat was effected with soviet [[constitutionalism]], a form of government opposite to the dictatorship of capital (privately owned means of production) practised in bourgeois democracies. Under soviet constitutionalism, the Leninist vanguard party would be one of many political parties competing for election to government power.<ref name="Modern Thought Third Edition 1999 pp. 476" /><ref name="Isaac Deutscher 19542" /><ref name="Carr, Edward Hallett 1929">{{cite book |last=Carr |first=Edward Hallett |author-link=E. H. Carr |title=The Russian Revolution From Lenin to Stalin: 1917–1929 |date=1979}}</ref> Nevertheless, because of the [[Russian Civil War]] (1917–1924) and the anti-Bolshevik terrorism of opposing political parties aiding the [[White Army|White Armies']] counter-revolution, the Bolshevik government banned all other political parties, which left the Leninist vanguard party as the only political party in Russia. Lenin said that such political suppression was not philosophically inherent to the dictatorship of the proletariat.<ref name="Moshe 1969">{{cite book |last=Lewin |first=Moshe |author-link=Moshe Lewin |date=1969 |title=Lenin's Last Struggle}}</ref><ref name="Carr, Edward Hallett 1929"/><ref name="Deutscher 1959" />

=== Economics ===
{{Soviet Union sidebar|Ideology}}
The Bolshevik government nationalised industry and established a foreign-trade monopoly to allow the productive coordination of the national economy and so prevent Russian national industries from competing against each other. To feed the populaces of town and country, Lenin instituted [[war communism]] (1918–1921) as a necessary condition—adequate supplies of food and weapons—for fighting the [[Russian Civil War]].<ref name="Carr, Edward Hallett 1929"/> In March 1921, the [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP, 1921–1929) allowed limited local capitalism (private commerce and internal free trade) and replaced grain requisitions with an agricultural tax managed by state banks. The NEP was meant to resolve food-shortage riots by the peasantry and allowed limited private enterprise; the [[profit motive]] encouraged farmers to produce the crops required to feed town and country; and to economically re-establish the urban working class, who had lost many workers to fight the [[counter-revolution]]ary Civil War.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Chris |date=1983 |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |location=New York |publisher=Peter Bedrick Books |pages=205}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=17 October 1921 |chapter=The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments. Report to the Second All-Russia Congress of Political Education Departments |title=Lenin's Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1965 |edition=2nd English |location=Moscow |volume=33 |pages=60–79 |url=http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203082619/http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/oct/17.htm |archive-date=3 December 2011 |access-date=2 December 2011}}</ref> The NEP nationalisation of the economy then would facilitate the industrialisation of Russia, politically strengthen the working class, and raise the standards of living for all Russians. Lenin said that the appearance of new socialist states was necessary for strengthening Russia's economy in establishing Russian socialism. Lenin's socio-economic perspective was supported by the [[German Revolution of 1918–1919]], [[Biennio Rosso|the Italian insurrection]] and general strikes of 1920, and worker wage-riots in the UK, France, and the US.

=== National self-determination ===
In recognising and accepting [[nationalism]] among oppressed peoples, Lenin advocated their national right to [[self-determination]] and so opposed Russian chauvinism because such [[ethnocentrism]] was a cultural obstacle to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in every territory of the deposed Russian Empire (1721–1917).<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=1914 |chapter=The Right of Nations to Self-Determination |title=Lenin's Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1972 |location=Moscow |volume=20 |pages=393–454 |url=http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613045734/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm |archive-date=13 June 2021 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Harding |editor-first=Neil |date=1984 |title=The State in Socialist Society |edition=2nd |location=Oxford |publisher=[[St. Antony's College]] |pages=189}}</ref> In ''[[The Right of Nations to Self-Determination|The Right of Nations to Self-determination]]'' (1914), Lenin said:

{{blockquote|We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the part of the oppressed nation.&nbsp;:... The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally support. At the same time, we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness.&nbsp;... Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V. I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |orig-date=1914 |chapter=The Right of Nations to Self-determination, Chapter 4: 4. "Practicality" in The National Question |title=Lenin's Collected Works |publisher=[[Progress Publishers]] |date=1972 |location=Moscow |volume=20 |pages=393–454 |url=http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210613045734/https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/index.htm |archive-date=13 June 2021 |access-date=30 November 2011}}</ref>|title=|source=}}

The [[socialist internationalism]] of Marxism and Bolshevism is based upon [[class struggle]] and a people's transcending nationalism, [[ethnocentrism]], and religion—the [[Intellectualism|intellectual]] obstacles to progressive [[class consciousness]]—which are the [[Cultural hegemony|cultural ''status quo'']] that the capitalist ruling class manipulates in order to divide the working classes and the peasant classes politically. To overcome that barrier to establishing socialism, Lenin said that acknowledging nationalism, as a people's right of self-determination and right of secession, naturally would allow socialist states to transcend the political limitations of nationalism to form a [[federation]].<ref name="Moshe 1969"/> In ''The Question of Nationalities, or 'Autonomisation''' (1923), Lenin said:

{{blockquote|[N]othing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything, so much as to the feeling of equality, and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest – to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades.<ref>Lenin, V. I. (1923). [http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm "The Question of Nationalities or 'Autonomisation{{'"}}]. In {{"'}}Last Testament' Letters to the Congress", from Lenin ''Collected Works,'' Volume 36, pp. 593–611. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203055614/http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm |date=3 December 2011}}. Retrieved 30 November 2011.</ref>|title=|source=}}

=== Socialist culture ===
The role of the Leninist vanguard party was to politically educate the workers and peasants to dispel the societal [[false consciousness]] of religion and nationalism that constitute the [[Cultural hegemony|cultural ''status quo'']] taught by the [[bourgeoisie]] to the proletariat to facilitate their economic [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] of peasants and workers. Influenced by Lenin, the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party]] stated that the development of the socialist workers' culture should not be "hamstrung from above" and opposed the ''[[Proletkult]]'' (1917–1925) organisational control of the national culture.<ref>Central Committee, "On Proletcult Organisations", ''Pravda'' No. 270, 1 December 1920.</ref>