Marxism and Leninism

1. Lenin’s political though differs from that of Marx in substantial ways. In his work What Is To Be Done? recognizes that the proletariat is unlikely to make a revolution.
1. The proletariat can not attain Lenin calls "revolutionary consciousness" but only "trade union consciousness."
1. Like Marx, Lenin holds that the proletariat’s immediate end is material well being, not the end alienation let alone alienation.
2. Unlike Marx, Lenin recognizes that the proletariat’s aims can be attained without a revolutionary transformation of capitalism.
1. Through labor union organizing.
2. And through government activity spurred by political organization of proletariat.
2. Moreover—although Lenin does not mention this—at the time of the Russian revolution, the proletariat still a minority in Russia.
2. Lenin proposes that the Communist party must be the vanguard of the proletariat.
1. The party must take political power and then rule over the entire society, including the proletariat.
2. The aim of the party is to create communism. At some point along the way, the proletariat will recognize its true role as the class destined to create a communist revolution.
3. At that time, a democratic form of government can come into being.
4. Thus, upon taking power, Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks rejected any democratic limits on them.
1. They dissolved the constituent assembly, which was more or less democratically elected and which supposed to draw up a new constitution.
1. The Russian Communist Party (know as the Bolsheviks) were only a minority party in the a constituent assembly.
2. The largest party was the Social Revolutionaries, a radical party of peasants.
3. As we saw above, Marx opposed to this kind of politics.
1. And many European Marxists, such as Rosa Luxemburg, criticized the anti-democratic character of Leninist rule, as well as the denial of civil rights and liberties under Bolshevism.
4. Marx’s responsibility for Russian Communism—at that of the other communist parties that called themselves Marxist-Leninist—is, I think, limited.
1. Leninism has a very different view of
1. How communism can and should come about.
2. How a communist regime should be governed.
2. Yet aspects of Marx’s thought have been used to justify the rule of Marxist-Leninist political parties.
1. In particular, Marx’s claim that he knows, with scientific certainty, that Capitalism is oppressive, that communism is inevitable, and that Communism will be a more or less ideal an ideal polity and society, is used by Leninists to justify their rule.
1. That is, given that Marx promises such a wonderful end, Leninists have thought themselves justified in using the most tyrannical, repressive, and inhumane means to reach this end.
2. And, in the process, the end they sought was betrayed.
2. For, communist rule came to be the rule of, and in the interest, of the elite members of the communist party.
3. And, Marx can perhaps also be blamed for not recognizing the temptations of power and thus the dangers of centralizing power in even a democratic government. (I return to this theme What is Dead in Marx.)