ARTICLE 4
Unlearned Lessons of Dialectics: From Whom and How to Learn to Think
Dialectically
Abstract
This article is dedicated to the lessons of dialectics from Vladimir I. Lenin — an
outstanding national thinker to whom the ability of clear dialectical thinking was
generously gifted by nature. Any work that came from Lenin's pen is imbued
with the spirit of dialectics.
Any Lenin's thought is a chain or series of conceptual forms maximally filled with
objective content. Any of his theoretical work is a model of masterfully balanced
sliding of thought as if on the "razor's edge", the opposite sides-facets of which
symbolize the confrontation of two non-identical opposing sides-components of
reality.
The aim of this article is to draw the attention primarily of the young reader
precisely to these qualities of Vladimir I. Lenin's theoretical works.
In the course of familiarizing oneself with Lenin's theoretical heritage, the
circumstance that the research approach he used remains unclaimed to this day,
and Lenin's lessons of dialectics, accordingly, remain unlearned, catches the eye.
Since at the foundation of any certain form of reality (object, process,
phenomenon) lie two highly abstract and non-identical, yet at the same time
objective and interrelated constituent sides-components "content" and "form",
the content-form relations (conversions, transformations) come to the fore and
become the subject of close attention of dialectics.
Considering Lenin's theoretical works through the prism of content-form relations
and identifying on this basis the general regularities of the construction and
presentation of material makes it possible to speak about the possibility of
creating a single universal methodology for conducting effective research at any
level and in any field of reality.
Introduction
As an epigraph to this article, we would like to take words by Vladimir I. Lenin
from his work "On the Road", written in 1909: "...this stage must be outgrown;
the new circumstances of the moment require new forms of struggle..." [8, p.
540].
The cited quote, in our view, vividly expresses not only the character of a
remarkable living and flexible personality but also the essence of the entire life
and revolutionary activity of V.I. Lenin: keenly and relentlessly tracking the
situation, accurately grasping its changes, and being constantly ready to respond
to these changes with the most adequate actions — new forms of struggle.
In this article, we will examine and analyze the greatness and scale of Lenin's
figure from the standpoint of his innate ability: to be a dialectician. Discarding
all fictional, doubtful and secondary elements that were thrust into the
foreground during the "murky" 1990s — years of merciless reprisals against
Soviet power and the USSR — we will focus mainly on this aspect of Lenin's
activities and personality in our research.
A dialectical mindset is that indispensable trait of Lenin's individuality which, in
our opinion, has not yet received due coverage in fiction and journalism. All
other attributes of genius are already derivatives of such outstanding features of
his nature: adherence to a scientific approach in studying any issues; striving for
objective and impartial presentation of conclusions and results obtained through
observations and studies, etc. It was precisely Lenin's natural "immersion" in the
mysterious medium of dialectics that provoked fierce hostility and rejection
towards him from his enemies and opponents who, lacking this natural gift,
could boast of nothing more than inventing plots "out of their heads" and
presenting scholastic twists, assumptions, fables and fairy tales.
Another reason for pathological hatred and animosity toward Lenin's personality
lies in the inability of his opponents to achieve a penetrating, Lenin-like insight
into the essence and order of things; and this unattainable depth of
understanding actual relations remains the main irritant for his opponents even
now.
What is the strength of Lenin, if even his most die-hard detractors and
adversaries nevertheless recognize his influence and authority on a global scale?
First of all, in our view, it lies in his philosophical significance and specifically in
mastery of dialectics: when foresight is the result of a talent of an individual to
see the development of reality through the prism of interaction between directly
opposing sides of this (reality). He was what many ordinary and extraordinary
philosophizing individuals secretly desire and dream of becoming, realizing
however that they fall short, do not measure up, and cannot become anyone
similar — because some extremely important constituent elements are missing
in the multi-layered structure of their own "I".
It is difficult to find a modern public leader who stands at least level with (on the
same step) Lenin — an encyclopedic scholar and philosopher of profound depth,
a brilliant polemicist, consistent and fearless revolutionary, prominent politician
and outstanding statesman.
Possession of the invaluable gift of a born dialectician allowed Lenin to handle
events and circumstances with exquisite precision, balancing on the crest of the
wave.
The accuracy and precision with which historical figures of a dialectical "leaven"
walk along the "razor's edge", balancing between Scylla and Charybdis in
interpreting the questions under study, evokes admiration and envy in the best
sense of the word. Through them (and via them), dialectics charts its way most
effectively and optimally. It is precisely through them and their voices that
dialectically developing nature speaks to us.
It is regrettable, of course, that the beauty and perfection of thought, say, of
Marx or Engels can be appreciated by most of us only thanks to the efforts of
translators. Undoubtedly, those translators of the time were highly qualified
specialists and quite exceptional people, but as someone aptly noted, reading
classics in translation is like taking a shower while wearing a coat. And so much
the better that the beauty, clarity and precision of Lenin's thought can, thank
god, be known and evaluated without the interference of intermediary
translators.
All people (especially outstanding ones) are to one degree or another
spontaneous dialecticians. And it does not matter what craft (of mental or
physical labor) they possess. Dialectics, ingrained in the flesh and blood of every
person, occasionally orients him/her towards certain paradoxical (it seems, from
the point of view of common sense) solutions, thanks to which he/she achieves
remarkable results and therefore becomes famous among the general public. We
refer here, for example, to memoirs and recollections of celebrated personalities:
Marshal Zhukov, pilots Pokryshkin and Kozhedub, aircraft engine designer
Mikulin, director Eisenstein, cardiac surgeon Amosov, weightlifter Vlasov and
many others whose innate art of paradoxical dialectical thinking helped them
"squeeze through" literally through the eye of a needle and win unpredictable
victories, make discoveries, achieve unexpected and unforeseen success in
seemingly unfavorable situations according to everyday consciousness. But Lenin
was by no means a spontaneous latent dialectician, whom there are countless
numbers of on planet Earth; rather, like Hegel, Marx and Engels, he undoubtedly
felt and realized himself as a dialectician and acted accordingly to the dialectical
nature of the world and the set of tools provided by this nature: not inventing
tools out of one's head, but discovering them using one's head [16, p. 148].
Accordingly, any conclusion drawn by Lenin is not arbitrariness or fabrication,
but a sober judgment based on careful study and meticulous analysis of the
established situation with identification of all the "actors and performers".
As mentioned above, through thinkers such as Marx, Hegel, Engels, Lenin,
nature itself (the surrounding world, developing reality) talks to us in the
language of pure dialectics. And our Vladimir Ilyich looks in this row of
dialecticians even "cooler" than the aforementioned Germans, especially in
matters of practical implementation and embodiment of theoretical
developments.
Not only "Philosophical Notebooks" (compiled from quotes and notes made in
margins of books read) or “Materialism and Empiriocriticism” serve as evidence
of the author's deep understanding of the dialectical foundations of building and
harmony of the surrounding world, but any of his other works regardless of
content, and even solely on formal grounds, confirm his belonging to the ranks
of true conductors and tribunes of dialectics.
Why does Lenin's figure attract such close and lasting attention? Because he is
one of the greatest dialecticians of all times and peoples — a direct successor
and multiplier of the dialectical legacy of Hegel, Marx, Engels.
Lenin is so great and significant in terms of the practical application of the
mastery of dialectical thinking that none of the scientists and philosophers of all
stripes who lived after him and live today can currently be placed alongside him
in this respect. Brilliants of such size and cut appear once in hundreds of years.
Completely distancing ourselves from the heap of lies and absurdities expressed
about this outstanding thinker during the so-called "time of trouble" at the end of
the last century (let this remain entirely on the conscience of talkative
simpletons), we will assess the scale of Lenin's personality from the perspective
of the spirit and atmosphere of his theoretical works freely available: please, feel
free to read, verify, adopt or refute what we have presented — depending on
your comprehension and preparation.
With the expectation that this article may provide some support in mastering the
art of dialectical thinking (which is especially important for students of both
humanities and technical universities), we will demonstrate and reveal, using
Lenin's works as examples, the beauty and harmony of the dialectical method in
opposition to mechanistic, metaphysical, eclectic and scholastic ways of thinking.
Ultimately, what is important to know when studying various forms of reality:
object, process, phenomenon, etc.? It is essential to identify and track the logic,
historicism, trend, patterns, direction (i.e., the contentful side) of the
development of these forms of manifestation and existence of reality, for which it
turns out to be absolutely necessary to observe how transformation
(transmutation, conversion) of one form of reality into another takes place, and
furthermore, on this basis, try to forecast such transformations (transformations,
conversions), anticipating not only the change of existing forms but also the
emergence of new forms. This constitutes the subject matter of dialectics.
Ultimately, it comes down to studying the surrounding world (nature, man,
society) from the position of content-form transformations, transmutations,
conversions [2, 3, 7, 18].
Every serious researcher, embarking on research work, proceeds from the
premise that reality (the surrounding world, nature) is always at least dual-sided
(i.e., double-faceted). Any real specific object, process or phenomenon in its
most general abstract form represents a relation of two principles (sides,
constituents, components, "opponents" etc.): {content/form}. Consequently,
any concrete form of reality (implying: object, process, phenomenon) is
determined by the correlation of these noted sides-constituents-components
within each of their specific relations. The development of forms of reality itself
represents changes in the correlations of these constituent-components within
their relations. In this connection it becomes obvious that forms of reality
defined by the aforementioned ratios can be either more or less Contentful (due
to different shares of content and formal components in their relations). The
overall trend of development and change of forms of reality — as human
observations throughout human history show — is such that during their (forms')
development there occurs a shift in the ratio of components (in their relations)
towards the numerator of the relation (if we consider such a relation as a
mathematical fraction), i.e., toward the Contentful component of the relation
(meaning the fundamental orientation toward the general movementdevelopment of forms of reality in the direction of increasing
their Contentfulness, and ultimately achieving ultimate highest Contentfulness)
[5, 7]. This setting-orientation indicating the direction of variability of all forms is
called the universal principle of self-development (self-organization) of reality,
formulated as follows: the development of the content of forms of reality takes
place in the direction of exhaustive expression of developing content by the very
same developing content of these forms [3, 5, 7, 18].
Applied to the surrounding world, this formulation means roughly the following:
everything that exists and develops has the direction of its development and
existence expressed (i.e., encompassed, absorbed, assimilated, comprehended,
etc.) by itself existing and developing. As a visual example in this case, the
image of a "self-winding" three-dimensional spiral seems most appropriate [2,
7]. And such an orientation or tendency of change-movement-development
belongs to all developing forms of reality without exception.
For greater illustrativeness of what was just said, note that with regard to such a
level (area) of developing reality as, say, man and society, this universal
principle drives forward not only positive (from the standpoint of human
consciousness) morally ethical and humanitarian aspirations of man but also
negative ones (again, in terms of human consciousness) — his thoughts,
motives, secret impulses and "sinful" inclinations — such as arrogance and
condescension, feelings of exclusivity and superiority over one's neighbour, envy
and vanity, etc., etc., Everyone intends and strains to present himself and
appear as the most significant, competent, respectable, successful, etc., in short
— the most contentful, which is also determined and conditioned by the same
universal objective striving of any forms for possession of the
highest contentfulness. After all, how sweet and tempting it is to participate in
some kind of political hangout and be considered in this world an influential
person — a disposer of human destinies!
Thus, in light of the dialectical concept of development presented here,
objective reality represents motion and succession of its forms in the direction
of possessing the highest contentfulness (i.e., maximally achievable content),
and all processes of development and cognition of reality should be studied and
viewed through the prism of content-form transitions, transformations,
transmutations of unitary (i.e., strictly defined) directionality.
A specifically directed variability of the abstract relation {content/form} is
conditioned, on the one hand, by the unity and, on the other hand, non-identity
(non-sameness) of its components, due to which both components are in a state
of interaction and inexhaustible movement towards convergence with each other
and acquisition of equilibrium (balance) or mutual expressibility by each other
(which means: becoming maximally contentful for form and defining its perfect
form for content). The presence in one integral relation of two components with
different types of activity generates a whirlwind, vortex, circulation, "selfwinding" spiral, i.e., a specific type of change (movement, development) of both
components of this relation and the relation as a whole.
The famous saying of Heraclitus about everything flowing and changing still left
open the question of where exactly everything flows and changes — clear ideas
were lacking until now. Only today does the opportunity arise to answer this
question more or less sensibly; today we can meaningfully define the vector of
this universal movement: everywhere and always there is total multi-level
movement towards reaching the highest level of contentfulness; everything
is pervaded by the striving and covered by movement towards possession of the
highest contentfulness. This universal movement vector determines causality,
meanings and goals: life, development, evolution, history, etc., i.e., the
existence of anything whatsoever, in whatever forms.
The algorithm of development — common and universal for all levels-forms of
reality, from photon to the most elaborate conceptual schemes and constructions
in individual minds: new content will always strive to acquire a new form, while
forms seek to be filled, enriched with new content. Hence — a vortex-like motion
of everything. By this conception, only the typical, standard character of the
course and transformation of things at all levels is pointed out: the universal
generalized relation {content/form} is embodied on each specific level in its own
concrete form and consistently "proceeds" through levels towards replacing
relations with increasingly more contentful ones.
The movement or striving to achieve the highest contentfulness (as a single
goal for all changing forms of reality) conditions the fiercest rivalry and
competition between such moving and developing forms of reality. The inevitable
competition and rivalry arising from this movement (movement toward a
common finish line) manifests itself as confrontation, opposition and
interaction of real objects, processes and phenomena at different stages, in
different areas and at different levels of their existence-movement-development.
In geopolitics, this can be expressed by the confrontation and opposition of
components in such relations, say, as {West/East}, {metropolis/colony},
{global/national};
in
politics
and
economics
—
in
relations
{internationalism/nationalism}, {proletariat/bourgeoisie}, {wage labor/capital},
{liberalism/conservatism}; at the biological object level — in relations
{male/female}, {man/woman}, {masculine principle/feminine principle}, {right
side of the body [of living organisms]/left side of the body [of living
organisms]}; in physics — by relations {time/space}, {energy/mass},
{wave/corpora},
{negative
charge/positive
charge},
{motion/rest},
{acceleration/gravity}, etc., etc.
Being an entirely abstract construct, the relation {content/form} is
fundamentally not manifestable in its most general form or image, but it
nevertheless constitutes the core or very essence of any and every real concrete
form (object, process, phenomenon, etc.).
The noted duality of constituents-components of real forms-relations with a very
strict and definite directionality of content-form transformations during the
interaction of these constituents-components explains the moment-to-moment
uniqueness of the emerging world (Universe, nature, life, etc.) as a whole, as
well as the unique and unprecedented diversity of existing and nascent
forms as individual elements of this world.
The abstract relation {content/form} with quite unequivocal directionality of
change-movement-development of its components or constituents, just like the
entire relation as a whole, is something that exists originally, everywhere,
objectively and independently of any particular concreteness; it is what pervades
all existing and emerging concrete forms-levels-relations of surrounding reality
due to its omnipresence. It is precisely the content-form transformations
described above (i.e., changes of components and their relations in a strictly
defined direction — towards achieving the highest contentfulness) that underlie
the development of forms of reality, which are themselves only a concrete
embodiment and incarnation of the model presented above (i.e., the abstract
relation {content/form}). And it is exactly this initial model, owing to its
foundational and universality, that is most acceptable and effective for deep
study, research and penetration into the essence of the surrounding world
(developing reality) at the current stage of its development.
This investigative approach demonstrates its effectiveness through examples of
successful studies of issues that until recently were considered highly
problematic and "tricky" [5, 6].
Why do content-form relations suddenly come to the fore, become the core and
subject of examination and study of dialectics? Because the very fact and the
corresponding irrefutable assertion that there does not exist a single real object,
process or phenomenon devoid of content and/or formal sides-constituents
inevitably leads to the conclusion that content and form are those two
"principles" (two main key components, constituents, "opponents", etc.) which,
interacting (opposing and simultaneously complementing each other) within the
unified integral relation {content/form}, create ("generate") and reproduce socalled objective reality, i.e., the entire surrounding world (including ourselves)
with all the diversity and uniqueness of its forms.
According to the textbook definition, dialectics is "the teaching about the most
general lawful connections and becoming, development of being and cognition,
and the method of creatively cognizing thinking based on this teaching... The
fundamental principles of dialectics, constituting its backbone, are universal
connection, becoming and development, which are conceptualized using the
entire historically established system of categories and laws" [15, p. 154].
The priority of the categories {content/form} over all others is obvious and
confirmed by the circumstance that in the foundation of all other categories and
concepts (just as of the actual objects, processes, phenomena of the physicalobjective level of reality denoted by these categories and concepts), one can
easily discover ubiquitous content-form beginnings-constituents-components.
It goes without saying and is undeniable that no one will ever be able to
encompass (i.e., comprehend) the entire volume of connections and the total
sum of changes occurring in all elements of the surrounding world (starting from
photons, including the abyss of atoms, molecules, living cells, etc., and ending
again with bizarre ideas and fantasies in the heads of individual human
individuals), but grasping and covering the trend or patterns of such changes
with human thought (from the standpoint of human thought or consciousness
itself) still turns out to be possible.
Here is what Lenin writes on this matter in his book “Materialism and
Empiriocriticism”, referring to just a relatively small segment of reality — the
global economy: "Each separate producer in the world economy is aware that he
introduces a certain change in production technique, each owner is aware that
he exchanges some products for others, but these producers and owners do not
realize that they thereby alter social being. No 70 Marxs could have covered
the sum of all these changes in all their ramifications in capitalist world
economy. At best, the laws of these changes have been discovered, the main
and basic objective logic of these changes and their historical development has
been shown... From the fact that you live and manage your affairs, give birth to
children and produce goods, exchange them, an objectively necessary chain of
events emerges, a chain of development independent of your public
consciousness, never fully comprehended by it. The highest task of
humanity is to grasp this objective logic of economic evolution
(evolution of social being) in general and basic terms in order to adapt
one's public consciousness to it as clearly, distinctly and critically as
possible..." [11, pp. 317–318].
Thus, the "objectively necessary chain of events" (including an objectively
necessary change in forms of economic management) determines or sets the
direction of change-movement-development-improvement of forms of human
public consciousness, generating a so-called algorithm for changing its
(human consciousness) forms. The abstract forms of human consciousness
(thought) arising or newly appearing in this connection grow out of more
concrete forms by transforming their content to a new level of reality while
preserving continuity and compatibility of contents of both — i.e., abstract
and
concrete
—
forms,
which
ultimately
testifies
to
the contentfulness (objective contentfulness or truthfulness) of the entire
chain or set of interconnected forms (from concrete to abstract ones) [5].
From the "objective logic of evolution of social being", there follow: both
"...the highest task of humanity — to grasp this objective logic of economic
evolution (evolution of social being) in general and basic terms..." (according
to Lenin, see above); and, in a broader sense, the task to define and cognize
the direction of development of reality and, accordingly, the goals and
meanings of life and development of mankind as a contentful movement (and
succession) of cognitive forms of reality towards possession of the
highest contentfulness. Solving this last problem implies providing human
thought with increasingly exhaustive and all-embracing methods of
prospective, predictive, prognostic, anticipatory cognition. Efforts should be
concentrated precisely in this direction — on cognition of patterns of change
and emergence of forms of reality, on cognition of patterns of its (i.e.,
reality's) content-form transformations. It is here that the ideological
justification of the essence (and existence) of man lies; it is by this that the
perspective of life and development of all mankind as a whole is determined.
And who, if not us — direct heirs and successors of the legendary
bearers of priority ideas of the Great October — should continue to
embody this revolutionary ideology into practice, into life !!!
With the destruction and loss of the USSR, Russia lost the prospects of its
further development previously outlined. Lenin and his comrades, being
deeply enlightened and educated people, clearly understood what the
formulation of goals and perspectives of movement-development meant for
an individual person and for a nation as a whole. Without formulating a goal
and prospect of development perceived and approved by the people, no
initiatives, initiative, enthusiasm can exist on a "mass scale". To unite and
organize the masses, public goals, directions and prospects of country
(state, society) development must be formulated according to which a
strategy for achieving these goals and prospects is developed. Moreover,
defining a perspective should not boil down to an immediate reaction to
external and internal so-called challenges and irritants but must be drawn up
taking into account long-term forecasts and strategic plans. Why did Lenin
and his like-minded associates understand this? Because the quality of
those country's leaders was immeasurable compared to today's; they were
people of a high level of consciousness and, respectively, personalities of
quite another scale.
Under the rule of today's voracious and insatiable "locusts", such "trivialities"
are not mentioned. Furthermore, current "rulers", waving off public demands
for ideology, do not even understand what is expected from them. Thus,
patriotism has somehow migrated into the realm of ideology and is presented
to citizens of the country as an ideological prospect, although any reasonably
educated person should realize that patriotism is not an ideology but a
feeling instilled (or not instilled) in a person with mother's milk (and
possibly already present in embryo at the genetic level), but requiring, as a
rule, further cultivation and education. An idea, however, is something
different from a feeling; it is a product of a completely different level. An idea
is, speaking figuratively, the light at the end of the tunnel for every
enlightened mind. A developed person cannot imagine himself without an
idea and ideology. Feelings, sensations, needs, interests, "values" (in the
meaning of this word used by the "Western" world) — these are all products
of more "down-to-earth", though also more fundamental levels-components
of the human "I", whereas an idea is a product of the highest of reliably
known today levels of the latter — the level of human consciousness
(thinking).
An idea is based on feelings, continues them, but by no means reduces to
them or is exhausted by them. An idea ignites a person from within and
guides him through life like a guiding star; but not everyone, only one
prepared, ripened enough to perceive this idea. Hence: you may not be a
bearer of an idea, but you must be a patriot! — without any ideology,
simply by right and by the feeling of one's belongingness and relatedness to
a great people.
Undoubtedly, of course, once an idea arises, it begins to influence the feeling
in turn, developing and enriching it, from which spirituality of the human
personality emerges, having the most direct connection with patriotism. But
primordially in this tandem is still the feeling.
If patriotism is mainly cultivated, then ideology, being a category of
worldview, is formed on the basis of knowledge, i.e., through educational
means. For example, the socialist idea, based on developed feelings of
justice and patriotism, is already the beginning of a renewed ideology. Yesyes, renewed (emphasized specially for the current "rulers" and their ilk),
built with consideration of previous blunders and lack of information, natural
for the previous epoch. And there is no need to frighten the people or hope
that everything will end again in levelling and stagnation: a ship reaches its
destination not only and not so much because it was correctly oriented at the
start of the journey, but mainly because its course is periodically corrected,
clarified, changed according to circumstances. Improvement of wage systems
and procedures of accounting and control, as well as turnover and renewal of
personnel at all managerial levels from top to bottom — just as with the
classics, but clearer, meticulous, thorougher, more energetic than before —
will eventually produce the expected positive effect. Back then, there was no
time for details; all attention was focused on creating foundations. And now
it's not easier, but with a solid foundation underfoot, it is still simpler to
timely determine the directions of relevant and vitally necessary changes.
Besides, today's civil society is different — older, more responsible,
demanding, exacting...
The people are not against the socialist idea per se, but against its ossified forms
and against party functionaries of the past and present (including those sitting in
parliamentary factions and supposedly opposing power), who parasitize on this
idea in its deadened, dogmatic form, who have not changed since the hour when
they betrayed this idea, burying Soviet power with its institutions (although the
organs and structures of Soviet power needed to be improved and modified, as
Lenin himself always pointed out — in each of his articles one can see how
flexible, optimistic and "creative" he was in his aspiration toward updating and
perfecting the forms of the revolutionary movement).
The question or idea of building a renewed socialism meets the demand of
society for a new ideology. At the same time, the course toward building a
socialist society and a socialist way of life is no longer an end in itself, but merely
one
of
the
main
conditions
and
means
of
ensuring
further contentful development of man and mankind as a whole.
However, it would be more correct in this case to speak not about the
enthronement of some kind of renewed socialism, but about the manifestation
and formation of another stage of the socialist movement or about the
embodiment of the developing socialist idea through yet another of its forms.
The absence of an ideological perspective "vacuums" human consciousness. At
the same time, reliance on the old tried-and-tested religious idea is fruitless,
since the latter slowly but surely fades away. Having played, without any
exaggeration or doubt, a progressive role in its time, but unable to satisfactorily
answer the increasingly acute and problematic worldview questions of young
inquisitive minds, archaic god-centered doctrine will lose its relevance and
naturally, without any violence over it, recede into the background, giving way to
new worldview concepts (similarly, say, as horse-drawn carriages are still
encountered on our roads, but the bulk of transportation is carried out by
modern modes of transport). This trend is visible to the naked eye. Therefore,
today's "rulers" should not beat around the bush. It's a pity for the youth: at the
state level, "popovshchina" is being pushed through instead of focusing on
literacy and education. With a balanced and effectively functioning system of
upbringing and education, there will be no loss of spirituality accompanying
the alleged decline of religion. Where does this categorical nonsense come from
— that morality, ethics, humanism are allegedly always conditioned by a
religious idea? The aforementioned categories and notions (from which the
spiritual and moral bonds and guidelines of many human communities are
"woven") arose and took root in human life as the transformation and
improvement of forms-levels of human consciousness proceeded during man's
development; one might think that Prince Svyatoslav, being a pagan, followed
the moral instructions of god Yahweh (Jehovah, YHWH, etc., depending on
reading) when he uttered his immortal: "Idu na vy" ["I go upon you"] or
"Mertvye sramu ne imut" ["The dead know no shame"], — all this came from the
deep nature of man, from his contentful constituent, acquired through
historically changing forms of human consciousness in the multi-layered, multilevel structure of man: both in the form of "spirit", and in the form of "soul", and
in its later complex form — the human personality.
To obsequiously cross oneself, relying on the supreme deity, requires little
intelligence. It is certainly easier than taking full responsibility for the destinies of
the country and mankind solely on the strength of one's own abilities and
possibilities. For an individual preferring to dwell on platforms of religious
concepts, the issue of responsibility is predetermined: fate and prospect will
ultimately be decided for him by god with his prophets. There seems to be no
dilemma worth a cracked egg: choose whomever you like — believe and rely on
the omnipresent "uncle" or don't believe and rely on yourself. Nevertheless,
finding oneself suddenly, even in shallow water, none of the believers stops
struggling and fighting the wave, although, following their own logic, they could
fully depend on the almighty supreme saviour... Any "ruler" should first learn,
besides parish school, proper teaching of natural science (natural-scientific
disciplines) in a Soviet university and not skip classes. Such a proven profile of
the educational process undoubtedly contributed to acquiring a correct worldview
orientation adequate to the level of cognition of developing reality achieved by
human civilization. It is sometimes awkward to observe and listen to grown-up
"underdevelopeds" with several (by their own words) "completed prestigious
higher educations" discussing with a thoughtful air on some political-economic
show or forum about "good and all good" in the guise of Christ or universal "evil
and all bad" in the image of the devil. The advice in this case can only be: study
Lenin's lessons of dialectics, miserable C students!
However, for a more or less adequate understanding of the substance of multilevel reality, initially one should firmly grasp only one thing: EVERYTHING
THAT exerts any influence on our level of reality (i.e., the level of human
consciousness) and tries to correct (interfere with) our lives, claiming the status
of Absolute, ITSELF occupies a subordinate position and is represented by
equally imperfect and non-absolute form, likewise dependent on influences
(impact) of forms of all other levels of reality. Absolute is impossible in
principle! — and development of reality, never ceasing for a moment, continues
as the movement of the contentful component beyond the limits of its forms
ceaselessly and infinitely. As Absolute, human consciousness takes simple
aggregate of forms of various kinds (including those accessible only to
subjective imagination) levels of reality.
Orienting on a model of reality's development based on representations
of content-form transformations proceeding in the known direction, one clearly
and unequivocally understands that man with his consciousness is not exhausted
by subject-sensory-thought formation (i.e., three-dimensional physical-material
level-form of existence in time and space of his flesh), but "extends" beyond the
obvious boundaries of his bodily confines. The very process of development, the
very developing multi-level reality (as motion and succession of forms of this
reality) is even more inexhaustible and unlimited by the reached level-form of
man
and
mankind.
However,
in
what
transformed
form
the
subsequent contentful movement continues with transition to the next (next
after man) level of reality remains to be researched and studied. Still, even
today we can say quite definitely regarding this matter that the form of clothing
of the contentful principle on that next level of reality's movement differs in
increased informative or energy (i.e., contentful) "capacity" and "capability"
compared with preceding forms-levels, and therefore it is even more abstract
than the preceding forms-levels.
[When moving to the next level of contentfulness of forms (to the next level of
development of reality), importance for any individual, as a certain correlation of
components in the relation {content/form}, will have only what — with what
intellectual-spiritual
(contentful)
developments
the
transformational contentful constituent (principle) of this individual transforms
onto that level. Since that next level is "abstracted" (abstract, abstracted) to a
significantly greater degree than the preceding ones, it goes without saying that
neither yachts nor mansions with Mercedes cars can be dragged along there.
What matters will be the accumulated during the "earthly" cycle spiritualintellectual potential and experience of dealing with abstraction, whereas yachts
and Mercedes cars — as well as all other material tools — are merely auxiliary
auxiliary means expanding the framework of formal framing of the
developing contentful constituent for further disclosure (development) and
multiplication of this very potential. Hence, it is important to properly dispose of
these means during the period of "earthly" life. This explanation is addressed
primarily to those who want to see further than the tip of their nose. Ultimately,
the ability to identify, generate and use ideally abstract forms of a new level,
maximally filled with objective content, i.e., true forms (see article "Universal
Criterion of Truth" in this collection)].
Ego-centric and poly-centric models (pictures) of the world (including: theo-,
socio-, anthropo-centric models) are receding into the past. They are being
replaced by a concept of a single universal internal principle of selfdevelopment: all forms-structures of reality change and develop under the
management (i.e., under the auspices) of a universal "mechanism", algorithm,
inner principle immanent to all form-structures of reality regardless of their level,
stage (place and time) of development. This is a model (concept) of contentform transformations in the direction of achieving the highest contentfulness by
any and every developing form of reality. To understand and anticipate the
change and development of real forms, to look as far ahead as possible "around
the corner", "beyond the horizon" — this is the main task that will stand before
man and which man will be forced to solve quite consciously (thoughtfully) both
in the near and distant future for the sake of preserving himself as a species and
surviving in competitive struggle with other forms-levels of reality. Without
awareness of this circumstance, man will not be able to fully confront so-called
challenges from nature (the surrounding world).
Humanity is painfully parting with the aforementioned models, theories and
pictures of the past; hence there is a new energetic surge of religious, ethnic,
national, racial, civilizational and other similar conflicts and wars. A worldview
crisis of faiths, ideologies, all kinds of "values", priorities and exclusivities (the
notions of exclusivity and absolute form lose their former significance and
informational value, receding into the background and making room for concepts
of equal uniqueness and irreplaceability of forms) gives way to another
worldview model [2, 3, 5, 7, 18]. Previous orthodox preferences require
clarification, supplementation and replacement by new more contentful models
and forms.
However, the task of finding balance and correct correlation between interacting
constituents in the relation {content/form} at present and identifying the trend
of change of this balance — for the future — remains as relevant as ever. In
accordance with the universal principle of self-development (see above), multilevel change, movement, development of forms takes place (in contrast to the
principle and mechanism of "functioning" of various centeric models) by "piling
up" (i.e., developing) their content, "making from oneself". With the emergence
and establishment of a new concept of the development of the surrounding
world (replacing losing meaning and strength God-centered theories), inevitable
earlier wars and rivalry of religious ideologies will recede into the past.
What was the contentfulness of that supposedly over-ideologized Soviet era?
What inspired, motivated the Soviet person to move forward?
The romance of everyday life was built on the dictate of the heart, energy of
impulse, fascination with breaking through to the new and unknown; proceeding
from the need of the soul, man was ready to discover what had not been
discovered, comprehend what had not been comprehended, conquer nature,
space, taiga, virgin lands, peaceful atom, etc., etc. It was about unleashing and
liberating man's inner forces and creative energy in the process of constructive
labor for the sake of achieving common goals and ideals (including well-being,
but by no means in its hypertrophied phase clothed in the guise of the golden
calf with prosaic accumulations). By refusing the elevated approach to setting,
formulating and achieving socially demanded ambitious goals, we "throw out the
baby with the bathwater".
From the very first days of Bolshevik Soviet power, the issues of actualizing
(awakening) the energy of impulse, enthusiasm and initiative of the masses
arose in full force. The solution of both highly complex and simple everyday
problems implied and required not only routine strain of physical effort but also
activation of cognitive aspirations of man, inciting him to satisfy his innate
human curiosity. One should primarily learn contentful thinking from Lenin. Lenin
fully realized that human efforts ultimately aim to forecast, anticipate, predict
with increasing accuracy the perspective of development of real events, build
sound plans and correctly set priorities in their implementation, which meant —
learning to look further and more successfully "beyond the corner", "beyond the
horizon" (i.e., looking into the future).
Two paths are known and possible for increasing, accumulating and multiplying
the own contentfulness (volume or fullness of content of one's own form):
1. Appropriation of someone else's content ("foreign" volumes, accumulations
of content belonging to other forms); as a particular case of this variant —
simple destruction (destruction, liquidation, neutralization) of an "adversarial"
form that impedes or hinders the movement-development and enrichment of
content of one's own form.
2. Cooperation (symbiosis) with other forms and joint accumulation, increase of
content of each of the interacting and cooperating forms.
Needless to say, combinations of these two variants are significant.
Applied to the development of human communities, the essence of one and the
other path boils down to the following.
The first path is the path of war, violence, coercion, applied, for example (at the
level of states and peoples), by metropolises toward their colonies (subjugation
by metropolises of the will, appropriation of natural resources and fruits of labour
of colonial peoples and nations). To date, humanity has mastered and refined
precisely this path.
The second path, the socialist path of development with indispensable attributes
of cooperation among people and achievement of goals jointly, is still in
embryonic state; it was exactly this method of socialist construction and creation
of a new type of public order on a mass scale that V.I. Lenin advocated.
It is well-known (and confirmed beyond doubt by processes taking place during
the not-so-distant times of the breakup of the USSR) that initial capital
accumulation proceeds, as a rule, by violent and fraudulent means — by
appropriation and seizure.
We have all witnessed how the redistribution of public and state property,
capitals and assets took place in post-perestroika Russia and other republics of
the USSR that suddenly became "independent". This was a path of deceit,
swindling, gangster feuds, mockery of privatization coupons and pledge auctions.
The methods of executing this grand-scale fraud were, without any
exaggeration, predatory, and they relate entirely to the first path (variant) of
increasing contentfulness (i.e., enrichment) of the most active individual
reformers (young and not so young).
Undoubtedly, reverse expropriation of property and assets acquired in such a
manner also implies, to some extent, responsive violence at the initial stage of
building socialism. The retaliatory move is inevitably connected with
redistribution of once criminally appropriated or wrongly amassed "bourgeois"
property and financial assets, but this procedure is carried out in the interests of
the overwhelming majority of working population (citizens of the country) and
for the sake of restoring historical justice.
As regards the legality of expropriation of property and capitals during times of
socialist revolutions, the procedure is performed, as already mentioned, in the
interests of the vast majority and is single-time (within a limited-short
timeframe); and whoever thinks that such procedures can be dispensed with at
periodic revolutionary iterations is deeply mistaken or simply ill-informed
regarding the inevitability of substantial transformation of current
foundations into the configuration of future public and governmental structure.
This stage is necessary, in particular, for redistributing initial capital in the
interests of the majority of the population in order to create normal starting
conditions (positions) for ordinary workers and to restore a justified balance with
the positions of aggressively pushy and shameless (for the most part) minority
that once usurped assets not belonging to them.
Yes, development proceeds, and history is written "by tacks", zigzags — every
time returning to itself at a new level by segments of spiral turns that never fully
line up and are never perfectly finished. Such is the external appearance and
character of the dialectical mode of development of anything whatsoever.
Somewhere again forced measures of expropriation will be needed, because
otherwise it just won't work: nobody ever voluntarily surrenders what was
gained in the sweat of others' brows and appropriated in the sweat of
one's own brow. One must be quite naive and unschooled in practical life not
to understand this.
In contrast to the first path, implementing the second option for increasing
the contentfulness of real forms of public order means immersion into
socialism, toward which man is increasingly pushed by emerging
circumstances regardless of his consciousness; and we will have to revive
and continue this path whether we like it or not because
further contentful development of mankind outside of this path is
unprofitable, suboptimal, inefficient, "dead-end" and therefore unlikely. And
deeper study of socialist theory will be required. And again, one will have to
acknowledge the fairness and scientific nature of Marx's approach applied in
working out social and economic theories (otherwise, gentlemen courtiersapologists of today's socio-economic foundations, you will simply lose your
target "fan" audiences and, as a consequence, your piece of bread; then
there will come time to laugh good-naturedly at those who arrogantly
mocked the orthodoxy of Marxism and indulged in primitivism of scientific
communism — well, sirs, he laughs best who laughs last).
Following Lenin's methods and research tools, we can state today that thanks
to applying the dialectical approach or method of cognition, much of what is
called world order becomes clearer than before. At the same time, the stillrelevant task does not diminish but rather stands out even more clearly: to
keep learning how to see the future picture more accurately (i.e., learn to
look ahead "around the corner" with ever greater efficiency) so as to
understand ourselves and surrounding reality better.
Solving this problem is identical to solving the eternal issue of finding
meaning in life for every individual person, which (solution), in its first
approximation, takes on the following form: everything existing moves in a
single direction towards expressing objective truth in its most contentful,
ultimate
form
— i.e.,
a
form
endowed
with
the
highest
(objective) contentfulness or the form of so-called "absolute" truth. This path
undoubtedly belongs not only to any separate individual but also to whole
peoples and states. Knowing this, we must and should lead this movement
(process) since we are currently the best informed about it and understand it
best. Following the course towards achieving the highest contentfulness by
forms of developing reality (including humanity) is also a movement towards
effective resolution of the perennially troubling human question regarding the
possibility of cognizing and cognition of objective truth.
What is life, motion, development, progress, etc., in general terms is already
understood: it is a process of contentful filling of forms while striving for
them (at all levels without exception) to possess the highest
(objective) contentfulness. It is a process of "unleashing" the inner content of
reality and presenting it outwardly in the most contentful form possible at
any given moment, approaching each time the form of exhaustive expression
of objective truth. With small acts of subjective human movements (whether
achievements in painting, literature, music, sports, science, etc.) humankind
approaches closer to the fullest expression of the objective content of
developing reality (expression of objective truth) with each such
elementary act. Every sound, every note produced by a skilled musician or
composer seeks to bring to light and reveal to the world objective truth —
i.e., the most contentful form of representation of reality at that particular
moment (from the viewpoint of the maestro). The same applies to poetic
word or brushstroke on an artist's canvas, let alone the contentful theories
and concepts of a scientist. From the most contentful subjective
opinions and views on the world, objective truth is formed [5].
But understanding and awareness of the general trend of real processes by
no means exhausts the solution of all current issues: the crucial and essential
question for man remains open forever — the question of anticipating,
foreseeing, preempting, predicting with maximum accuracy and certainty
changes (variability) of existing forms of reality and emergence (appearance)
of new ones, and taking into account this circumstance — the question of
planning subsequent human activity. Well, and since man by his very
nature and place in the chain of development is a highly active linkcomponent (in other words — subject of activity), he inevitably interferes
with the development of reality and embodies thereby his own vision,
understanding and "plans", impacting the surrounding world and changing it
in the direction required by him (strictly in accordance with the
aforementioned universal principle of self-development).
Despite our ability to define the meaning of life and existence both for man
and his entire environment today (see above), the matter still lies in learning
to anticipate the change of existing forms of reality and the appearance of
new ones, in order to predict events and developments as precisely as
possible, to learn to peer deeper into the future — and not just to satisfy
immediate curiosity, but mainly to survey and outline distant prospects.
Development is the succession of forms of reality aimed at creating and
establishing forms filled with higher objective content. All ongoing processes
in the surrounding world are "targeted" at enhancing the contentfulness of
existing forms representing changing reality. In this lies the essence of the
orientation of transformation of nature in the universal cosmic dimension.
The search for, acquisition, comprehension of truth, i.e., discovering the
most contentful forms of representation or acquiring developing objective
content, permeates all of nature — from living thinking beings (with their
specific subforms in the guise of ideal abstract constructs of thought) to an
inanimate stone-boulder, and any molecule, atom, electron, photon
(quantum) within this stone or beyond it. And no empty speculations on this
score, embodying former "highbrow" (sophistical, demagogic, speculative,
scholastic, etc.) philosophy, are probably needed anymore, since they turn
out to be low-contentful and therefore fruitless. Philosophy gradually changes
its status and role, turning from a habitual tool of passively descriptive and
explanatory type into an instrument of actively prognostic, predictive and
transformative character. Its speculative nature, conditioned by centuries-old
intrigues or games of idle human mind, finally turns itself into an
uninteresting useless "thingie", a whimsically intricate relic of the past.
Dialectics comes forward as the core and embodiment of a new, deeper
philosophy, as the art of generating and bringing to life correct forecasts and
planned transformations conceived by man. And here our updated philosophy
meets its inevitable merger and fusion with science, as was excessively
discussed throughout the 20th century.
Summarizing the above in two words, we have every reason to draw the
following conclusion: to learn to understand and know how to see the
perspective of development of reality, i.e., the perspective
(orientation) of change of its (reality's) existing forms and
emergence (appearance) of new ones, and on this basis plan
subsequent human activity — this is the main task facing the man of the
future, worthy of investing any resources for its gradual step-by-step
resolution.
The socialist idea is closest, most responsive to the very spirit of the Russian
person, whose essence since time immemorial has been considered an
inexhaustible craving (aspiration) for justice. Truly popular can only be the
power that professes exactly this idea; when a working person can feel with
every cell of his that this is his native people's power — then he will defend it,
and cherish it, and nurture it, and improve the institutions of power, and invest
with enthusiasm his strength and energy into "arranging" life. But if we have
given the land, its subsoil, national wealth and means of production into the
hands of "scoundrels", allowed them to fence themselves off from the people
with high fences and armed security regarding all this primordially people's
property — then where can unity for the sake of a common goal come from —
no matter how you "blur" the eyes of your fellow citizens with pharisaic slogans
about the supposedly "national property".
The craving for justice inherent in every Russian person and, as a derivative of
this property of the soul, the aspiration to save one's neighbor are conditioned
by his natural inclination to search for and find balance (equilibrium) both inside
and on the outer contour of society in opposition to encroachments (aggression)
on freedom and dignity both at the level of an individual person and at the level
of human communities.
The social orientation of the state or public structure in this case should be
determined by the officially proclaimed policy of the state, not by charity,
assistance, petty handouts, voluntary donations or patronage timidly pushed
through from time to time and on the sly. Of course, a state of this type must be
built on principles other than the existing ones.
It is necessary to return to the working person the feeling of involvement in a
great cause, a great people, a great country with its innumerable natural
resources and national wealth; return the feeling of involvement in a great
common goal, most effectively approached by joint efforts using socialized
means of production. When there is such a feeling, which in turn revives and
nourishes feelings of human pride and dignity, — then a person is ready to give
himself entirely to the common cause, which inevitably becomes the personal
cause of everyone. We must return to our people the lost sense of selfworth inherent in the Soviet man.
Does the first tentative approach to mastering the socialist idea mean the
complete collapse of Marxism, Leninism, theories of socialism and scientific
communism, etc., as primitive and short-sighted politicians, political scientists,
philosophers, economists believe? Of course not! Humanity will return to such
fundamental currents and theories more than once, approaching them in a
spiral-cyclical way (or by successive approximations) — in full accordance with
the nature and character of the content-form (dialectical) movementdevelopment of reality — to an increasingly exhaustive version of their
implementation. And something here suggests that the point of view of the wise
classics of Marxism is not devoid of grounds and will, in the end, prevail in the
structure of searching for the optimal path of mankind's development, since it
most fully corresponds to the inner content of man, his mood, oriented towards
preserving human identity, culture, traditions, dignity (accordingly to genetic
predisposition, genetic matrix, genetic code and the so-called call of ancestors
and blood). According to the formulation of the principle of self-development,
everything existing and developing periodically returns "to its own circle", but in
other, more contentful and enriched forms.
Dialectics is the art of finding balance of interacting sides, which (art) Lenin
possessed impeccably and perfectly. For Lenin — it is always a result-oriented
search for the optimal correlation between the most essential sides-constituentscomponents of development (in their relation): in the range, for example, from
de-kulakization and surplus-appropriation to the introduction of a food tax and
NEP, or from asserting total collective ownership of the means of production to
establishing and recognizing as relevant a mode of production with elements of
private property, etc. In this regard, first of all, his ability to find and highlight
the most essential sides-constituents of reality, being in direct interaction and
relation to each other (i.e., in live confrontation and opposition) precisely at this
particular segment of their development, and already on this basis — to
demonstrate the ability to forecast the trend of change in the correlation of
identified sides, and along with this — to anticipate the further course and
perspective of development of the entire relation as a whole. And it looks
absolutely fantastic to be able to identify sources of renewal (inflow, increase,
receipt) of Contentful energy in pairs of interacting components and further — to
anticipate and track the bias of content-form transformations (transmutations) of
these components and their relations as a whole.
It is on considering issues similar to those touched upon above that we will
focus, studying and analyzing the works of V.I. Lenin from the standpoint of their
being imbued with the spirit of dialectics.
Any article or work of Lenin is a dynamic creation, structured according to a
universal scheme corresponding to the dialectical nature of the development of
reality itself (i.e., according to the scheme of tracking the change-movement of
interacting forms towards achieving their highest contentfulness): the variability
of the correlation of two interacting sides-components in their relation is
investigated with subsequent forecasting of the development of the result of this
interaction towards (into the area) of predominant increase in
the contentfulness of the active component and the relation as a whole.
Compositionally and structurally it looks something like this.
o
o
o
o
Description and analysis of the current situation, i.e., description of the
set and alignment of interacting forces-factors-constituents-components
(regardless of whether it concerns the reorganization of the Rabkrin, the
situation at the front, the organization of socialist competition, etc., etc.).
Identification of directly interacting forces-factors-constituentscomponents and their "combination" into the main relation (at this step, the
separation of the essential from the non-essential is actually performed).
Identification and highlighting of the active (leading) and passive
(driven) components within the established relation.
Assessment of the established correlation of the mentioned components
in the relation composed of them and determination of the vector (orientation) of
probable change-movement-development of both individual components and the
integral relation.
o
Forecasting of event development: on the basis of the assessment
made, the change of existing forms and the emergence (appearance) of new
forms of reality is anticipated (predicted).
Thus, every time after analyzing the established state of affairs and alignment of
forces, Lenin determines, firstly, with specific further steps towards achieving
immediate goals and, secondly, with an assessment of the strategic perspective
of the development of the situation as a whole.
That is why each such article turns out to be not just a beautiful dialectical twist
(decorative icon), but a guide to action; each of his articles contains a
description of a way out of the current situation and a transition (possibly with a
leap) to a new turn-level of development of interacting elements, and in each
article without exception the author offers his original and effective solution to
the problem under consideration.
All of Lenin's forecasts are made on the basis of correctly composed relations
from interacting sides-components of reality and also based on anticipating the
trend or orientation of subsequent contentful filling of these relations. At the
same time, the more accurately the sides-components directly opposing,
confronting and interacting with each other are identified, the more correct and
reliable the predictions of further development of events and situations turn out
to be.
Of course, conditions, circumstances and forms interacting in the present differ
from those of the past, but the principle (algorithm, "mechanism") determining
the development of reality is invariant over time; that is why the proposed
scheme or methodology of effective research into the surrounding world
resembles the one presented above.
Below we will analyze all this using examples of well-known theoretical works by
V.I. Lenin relating to three different periods of his life: pre-revolutionary,
immediate pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary.
[We should only additionally note that square brackets scattered throughout the
text contain references to literary sources (as is usually done), as well as notes,
explanations and comments (including comments on comments) by the author
of this article].
§ 1. Works of the pre-revolutionary period
We will examine the dialectical background of Lenin's works from the prerevolutionary period (which began a dozen and a half years before the Great
October Socialist Revolution) using such Leninist works as “What Is to Be
Done?”, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”, “The Beginning of the Revolution
in Russia”, “Marxism and Revisionism” and “On the Road”, united by a single
internal logic and canvas of corresponding historical events.
1. In his book “What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement” [8,
pp. 80–236], published in March 1902, Lenin presented an overview of the initial
stage of the revolutionary movement in Russia. The book was written during the
acute struggle for the creation of a revolutionary Marxist party of the Russian
working class and played an outstanding role in the formation of the party.
In this work, Lenin identifies three stages and accordingly — three periods in the
development of the revolutionary movement in Russia.
He describes the first stage of 1884–1894 as the embryonic development of
social democracy carried out separately from the labor movement.
Regarding the second stage of 1894–1898: "social-democracy appears on earth
as a public movement, as an upsurge of popular masses, as a political party" [8,
p. 227]. Alongside and instead of "going into the people", there began a flow of
intelligentsia toward workers (as the most active force-component of the future
revolutionary movement) and widespread fascination among workers with
strikes. However, this same strike struggle for the sake of increasing its own
efficiency forced them to learn, read illegal literature, as well as diligently engage
with issues of legal populism without forgetting at the same time about Marxist
theory and the task of overthrowing autocracy. "The establishment of the party
in the spring of 1898 was the most vivid and at the same time last act of the
Social Democrats of this stripe" [8, p. 228].
The third stage finally replaces the second one starting in 1898. It is a period of
confusion, vacillation, disintegration. The leaders of the movement were afraid to
move forward (to political struggle), yielding to the strength of the spontaneous
upsurge of the popular masses. The slogan "class struggle" did not push towards
ever broader, more energetic activity but served as a means of appeasement:
after all, everyone knows that "economic struggle is inextricably linked with
political". The idea of the party did not serve as a call to create a combat
organization of revolutionaries but justified some kind of "revolutionary
bureaucracy", childish playing with "democratic" forms. And here, in this
connection, the author, like a true scholar drawing conclusions only based on
facts (without fabrications or fantasies), having difficulty saying when the third
stage will end and the fourth begin, nevertheless expresses firm confidence that
the fourth stage will lead to strengthening militant Marxism; that the rear-guard
of conciliators and deserters will be replaced by the actual vanguard of the most
revolutionary class (proletariat), which will manage to overcome uncertainty,
hesitation and lack of confidence in their own forces. And then (in terms of
calling for such a change and summarizing what has been said), it becomes
possible to give a concise and exhaustive answer to the question "what is to be
done?" — liquidate the third stage (period of confusion, vacillations, hesitations
and lack of confidence in one's own forces) [8, p. 229].
[Thus, Lenin outlined here the objectively occurring successive replacement of
stages (forms) of substantive revolutionary movement expressed qualitatively
and quantitatively through changes in the correlation between the contentful and
formal components in the known relation {proletariat/bourgeoisie}. The
correlation of components (within the specified relation) changes with the growth
in share and importance of the active revolutionary component (proletariat) due
to increased contentfulness conditioned by the influence of the following
accompanying factors: emergence of social democracy => becoming established
of social democracy => unification of social democratic formations on the basis
of the idea of creating a Marxist proletarian party => establishment of the
Bolshevik Party of the Russian working class as its most revolutionary vanguard.
This entire chain of transforming factors directly affected the numerator of the
aforementioned relation (i.e., the "proletariat" component), raising
its contentfulness within the whole relation.
In other words, Vladimir Ilyich, with impartiality of a scientist, stated that for the
period from 1884 to 1898 and further (later) there took place and continues
objective
movement
(transformation,
transmutation)
of
the contentful component of the mentioned relation towards increasing
its contentfulness while simultaneously upsetting equilibrium in the relation
{proletariat/bourgeoisie} in favor of strengthening and predominance of
influence of more contentful active proletarian forms of movement over more
conservative bourgeois ones. An innate ability and predisposition for dialectical
thinking allowed Vladimir Ilyich to break down step-by-step the phase-wise and
periodic nature of the revolutionary struggle, identify the active and passive
forces-components of the revolutionary movement in Russia of that time, trace
their genesis and determine measures to activate and strengthen
the contentful proletarian component (which meant overcoming uncertainty,
hesitation and lack of confidence inherent in socialist-democratic circles and
organizations "nourishing" the contentfulness of the "proletariat" component).
There is also a source of replenishment of the contentfulness of the "proletariat"
component, which at that time consisted of the educational standard of the
bourgeois intelligentsia].
2. The continuation of the struggle for cleansing the revolutionary movement
and its vanguard (the Marxist party) from its wavering members (random
elements) is described very vividly by Lenin in the book “One Step Forward,
Two Steps Back (Crisis in Our Party)” [8, pp. 237–421]. The book resulted
from Lenin's thorough study and analysis of numerous protocols of meetings and
resolutions of the II Congress of the RSDLP and was released in May 1904. In
this work, Vladimir Ilyich shows how something big, main and essential
eventually emerges and takes shape from small things (seemingly insignificant
matters, squabbles, disputes, discussions and quarrels serving as signs of fierce
clash of opinions and different points of view). The art of a great dialectician
manifested itself in this case in recognizing this essential thing — the role and
significance of organizational issues in the process of forming the core of the
revolutionary movement (i.e., the Bolshevik Party), as well as timely
demarcation from conciliators and wavering elements regarding principal
questions, attracting to one's side by polemic and persuasion the majority of
potential sympathizers. As a result of this struggle, the idea emerged of
establishing and organizing a monolithic nucleus of the labor movement — the
Bolshevik Party — in opposition to amateurishness and circle-mindedness
characteristic of the social-democratic movement. Without consolidation around
a single center, without subordination to decisions of this center (that is, without
iron discipline), the future conquests of the Great October would have simply
been unthinkable and impossible. Precisely from the standpoint of the dialectical
approach (from beginning to end), Lenin conducts his painstaking analysis of the
accompanying events of this struggle. For the proletariat (and any public
association alike) there is no other weapon in the struggle for power
except organization (organized effort) — writes Lenin. The proletariat can
become an invincible force only because the ideological unity of its theoretical
principles (first of all, Marxist theory) is secured by material unity of organization
uniting millions of workers into a single army (of the working class). Before this
army, the decrepit power of international capital will not stand. This army will
draw closer and tighter ranks despite any zigzags and steps backward [8, p.
413].
In the course of detailed study of the background of this issue, Lenin draws
attention to the fact that every development indeed proceeds along a dialectical
path of resolving emerging contradictions: minority becomes majority, majority
becomes minority, each side moves from defense to attack and from attack to
defense; the original point of ideological struggle is "negated", but then begins
"negation of negation" and the struggling sides return to the original point of
purely ideological struggle, but now this "thesis" is enriched by all the results of
the "antithesis" and turns into a higher "synthesis"; when an isolated random
error has grown into a quasi-system of conciliatory views on the organizational
issue, and the erroneousness of such an approach becomes increasingly
apparent. "In short, not only oats grow according to Hegel, but Russian socialdemocrats fight among themselves too according to Hegel," concludes Vladimir
Ilyich [8, p. 410].
[It is extremely important to note that the dialectical character of formulating
various conclusions and findings through "piling up" and layering of minor
questions and discussion results upon each other or through "returning to
oneself at a new level" is recorded by the author as self-evident.
Of course, for us living today, concepts and terms like "proletariat",
"bourgeoisie", "classes", "class struggle", etc., seem antiquated and exotic. At
the same time, forgetting the terminology of the past does not mean liberation
from the elements of developing reality denoted by it. After all, the class
structure of society still persists, whatever anyone says: on the one hand —
hired labor, on the other — financial-industrial capital (generally speaking,
"oligarchy"). And only the most shameless liar risks claiming that everything in
such a public arrangement is "even". That is why the meaning of the phrase
"class struggle" nowadays differs little from the content of this terminology in the
examined pre-revolutionary times, and the concept of "class struggle" is unlikely
to disappear until the notion of "classes" fades away. Therefore, even today it
remains important (and perhaps even more so) to be able to find interacting
components (competing, conflicting, confronting sides) and correctly compose
relevant content-form relations (of the type {content/form}) in order to properly
define directions of variability both of the components themselves and of their
relations as a whole (i.e., of social systems and structures), distinguish and
separate the essential from the secondary (less significant) and thereby predict
changes in existing forms and the appearance of new ones. All this, undoubtedly,
may assist in devising the most effective forms of class struggle, etc. Applying to
today's situation, the terms in the relation {proletariat/bourgeoisie} can be
replaced by terms: {hired labor/capital}, {class of non-propertied/class of
owners of means of production}, etc., without loss of meaning. Our current
capitalists and bourgeois are "blown-up", random, staged characters whose state
and public property on the means of production fell into their private hands as a
result of unprecedented manipulations and machinations, fraud and raiding
(people's memories are still fresh enough about how the initial capital was
acquired and accumulated during the uncontrolled descent of the collapsing
country into the quagmire of wild capitalism) — and therefore they receive no
respect, reverence or trust from the people or representatives of hired labor.
It is enough to look more closely to see the same standard scheme serving
as the framework for the overwhelming majority of public (socio-economic)
formations: hired labor on one side and capital on the other. The "court"
philosophers, economists and political scientists (just like in Lenin's prerevolutionary times, servicing similar power structures and institutions,
feeding from their hands, and imposing an opinion about the accomplished
reconciliation of possessing and non-possessing counterparts) invented (no
doubt, out of thin air) some kind of "middle class"; although any schoolchild
knows that there existed before and still exist today two main classes
differing by their relation to ownership of means of production, with a
bourgeois stratum of small commodity producers cushioning this entire
"construction" between them. The reader probably understands that at the
current stage of social development, the arsenal of tools for production and
reproduction has significantly expanded and, besides traditional ones, now
includes land, dams, roads, overpasses, vehicles, communication facilities,
computers, printing and information dissemination media, instruments for
managing financial flows, various robotic complexes, systems with artificial
intelligence, etc., etc. Apologists of homogeneity and uniformity of modern
social arrangements could be advised to pay attention to how the current
coronacrisis instantly stripped off the lacquered drapery and glittering tinsel
from the appearance of the vast majority of representatives of the so-called
"middle class" (for example, in the USA), leaving behind only debt credit
obligations and nothing resembling substantial property (in the form of
means of production, capitals, financial assets, fixed and working capital,
etc.).
In any conflict, war or internal catastrophe manifested externally, its inner
core ultimately turns out to be a dispute and confrontation of Contentful and
formal constituents. And what these constituents are clothed in (what forms
they take) — this becomes the subject of skillful analysis and recognition;
here one must be able to correctly formulate (compose) a relation from
interacting components: whether it is {hired labor/capital}, or {class of
dispossessed/class
of
owners
of
means
of
production},
or
{liberals/conservatives}, or {productive forces/production relations}, or
{public character of production/private-capitalist mode of appropriation}, or
{transnational (global)/national economy} and so on.
Carrying out further analysis of variability, say, of the last relation listed
above, one cannot fail to notice that at today's stage of development the
component "national" represents a fairly stable side of the relation
{transnational/global/national}; hence the noticeable and strong resistance
(opposition) of this component relative to its opposite — the component
"transnational". However, subsequently the correlation of components in this
relation
will
inevitably
change
due
to
increased
efficiency
(i.e., contentfulness) of the numerator component, and trans-national will
prevail over nationally-state just as the public (socialized) will find itself in a
better position compared with private (privatized) in the relation
{public/private}, which will correspond to the law-governed increase
in contentfulness (efficiency) of these form-relations. Cost reduction, market
expansion and other optimization characteristic of transnational (and in
perspective — socialized) economy to a greater extent than national-state
economy will lead to growth in contentfulness both of the numerator
component of the considered relation and of the whole relation. In such
connection, it is fascinatingly interesting to follow the intricate flow of Lenin's
thought flowing from less contentful preceding conceptual construction into a
more contentful and capacious conceptual formation, and to see that the
spirit and manner of thinking of the great dialectician is akin to the process
of contentful layering, similar to rolling up a "snowball", and remains
essentially unchanged from article to article. Compositionally, this looks
exactly like this: description of the initial situation and existing state of
affairs; statement of alignment of forces; identification of objective
prerequisites and trend towards changing the correlation of forces and the
overall situation; prognostic description of prospective or succeeding new
form-relation (or system of forms) and ways of its emergence].
3. The article "The Beginning of the Revolution in Russia" [8, pp. 422–
424] was written by Lenin in January 1905 — almost immediately after the
events of Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg. Judging by the fact that the
spring was slowly compressing ("the tsarist government deliberately gave
relatively unhindered development to strike movements and the beginnings
of broad demonstrations"), it was not difficult to assume that the
government acted with the intention of driving things toward the use of
military force [8, p. 422]. As a result: thousands killed and wounded. The
Rubicon has been crossed: the compressed-to-the-limit spring had to release
its accumulated energy — the proletariat rose up and began to arm itself.
And immediately the entire palette of revolutionary appeals, slogans and
actions changes. The rebellious Petrograd workers put forward demands for
immediate convocation of a constituent assembly based on universal, direct,
equal and secret suffrage, as well as for the immediate overthrow of the
government; at the same time, "arming the people becomes one of the
nearest tasks of the revolutionary moment." Events develop with astonishing
speed: "the revolutionary education of the proletariat advanced in one day
more than it could have done in months and years of gray, humdrum,
downtrodden life". Immediate arming of workers and all citizens generally (it
was recognized and pointed out that revolutionaries of bourgeois democracy
could be used for the overthrow of Tsarism), "preparation and organization of
revolutionary forces for the destruction of governmental authorities and
institutions — this is the practical basis upon which all and any
revolutionaries can and should combine for a common blow" [8, p. 424].
[It should be noted here that there are no Councils of Workers', Soldiers' or
Peasants' Deputies yet on the forefront of the growing struggle. The situation
develops exclusively within the framework of the relation composed
("formed") of directly interacting components {proletariat/autocracy}: on the
one side — the working class under the wing of the Social-Democratic Party;
on the other side — autocracy with its coercive institutions].
And no matter how the present uprising ends in St. Petersburg itself, it will
inevitably and necessarily become the first step toward a much broader,
more conscious, better-prepared uprising. The government may manage to
postpone the hour of reckoning, but postponement will only make the next
step of the revolutionary onslaught even grander [8, p. 423].
[This example clearly demonstrates how V.I. Lenin masterfully formulated
and "calibrated" the previously reproduced dialectical scheme: precise
identification and definition of interacting constituents-components in their
relation {organizing proletariat/institutions of autocratic power}; identifying
the active component in this relation; determining the direction of variability
(movement, development) of the active component and the whole relation;
forecasting the emergence, accordingly, of new contentful forms as a result
of this change-movement.
Human thought always tends towards representing (expressing) its most
perfect form of maximum content volume. Structurally-compositionally, the
same scheme looks like this: description of the established situation in
conditions of disequilibrium; identification of causes and backgrounds
contributing to disruption of situational equilibrium; description of the
process of situation development while moving it towards a more
equilibrated, more balanced state; description of the new state of affairs and
newly emerging situation replacing the existing one due to inevitable ongoing
changes].
4. The article "Marxism and Revisionism" [8, pp. 36–43] was written in
March-April 1908. Describing the initial starting position, Lenin draws attention to
the alignment of forces (i.e., lists interacting components) in the course of the
struggle unfolding in the theoretical sphere. In this sphere, newly emerged
natural-historical theories in the mid-19th century, touching old theological
prejudices, caused and continue to cause the fiercest opposition and struggle [8,
p. 36]. Bourgeois scientific thought and philosophy do not want to hear anything
about Marxism, declaring it refuted and destroyed [how wonderfully "fresh" and
recognizable is such an attitude toward Marxism even today!]. The increasing
role of Marxism and consolidation of its ideas among the working class inevitably
provokes sharpening bourgeois attacks against Marxism, which after each
"destruction" by official science becomes stronger, tougher and livelier. Having
defeated and outplayed many hostile external currents over the past fifty years,
today Marxism faces opposing currents requiring its correction within Marxism
itself. Pre-Marxian socialism remains strong in Russia and sometimes revives.
Generally speaking, pre-Marxian socialism has been broken, but it continues
fighting not on its own independent ground but on common Marxist ground — as
revisionism [trying to legalize and prove viability of a mixture of "a bulldog with
a rhinoceros"]. Essentially, however, all this petty-bourgeois revision of Marxism
(revision of small shopkeepers) always boils down to negation or diminution of
the factor of class struggle and channeling class struggle into the stream of
"class cooperation" [8, pp. 38–39].
What accounts for the inevitability of periodic revival of revisionism and its roots
under capitalism? It lies in the fact that in any capitalist country there are always
broad layers of petty bourgeoisie, small proprietors alongside the proletariat.
Capitalism was born and constantly reborn (regenerated) from small production
[8, p. 42]! A whole series of "middle strata" [by analogy with some "middle
class", using modern language] is inevitably created again and again by
capitalism due to its inner necessity (services of individual craftsmen, homebased work, small workshops serving large industry, etc.). When they go
bankrupt, these small producers are inevitably thrown back into the ranks of the
proletariat, "diluting" their views and beliefs with petty-bourgeois worldview,
their ideology (which, apparently, requires constant work on retraining and reeducation). This is completely natural and will be so for a long time while
antagonistic classes exist. And ideological struggle of revolutionary Marxism with
revisionism is merely the prelude to great revolutionary battles of the proletariat
until complete victory of its cause despite all vacillations and weaknesses of the
petit bourgeoisie [8, p. 43].
Bypassing superficial phenomena (effects), Lenin constantly brings to light the
most essential, profound sides-components consisting in actual relations of
interaction and confrontation. Thus, contrary to the widespread opinion among
revisionists, he states that growing parliamentarism and education of the
proletariat do not weaken crises and eliminate revolutions but, on the contrary,
contribute to intensifying civil war during these crises and revolutions [8, p. 41].
They (parliamentarism and education) help enlighten and organize ever larger
masses of population correspondingly to the increase ("piling up") of substantive
(informational) accumulations. This constitutes the internal dialectics of
parliamentarism and bourgeois democratism, subordinate following of which
expresses itself in even more acute than before resolution of disputes and
contradictions through mass violence.
[Lenin is a master at identifying dialectically confronting components (i.e., the
most interconnected and substantially conflicting sides, speaking in everyday
terms) in all episodes of development of reality that he analyzes. In this case,
according to the established circumstances, he identifies the main actively
interacting components of development (of the revolutionary movement):
Bolsheviks on one side, Mensheviks on the other. Ideological grounds or
background guiding the interacting parties are: revolutionary Marxism on the
one hand, and revisionism on the other. Material carriers of these sides turn out
to be the revolutionary proletariat on one side and wavering petty-bourgeois
middling elements on the other. At later times, the latter would give way to
bourgeois intelligentsia (unsteady, eternally vacillating and conciliatory). Then
Lenin identifies the active contentful component, anticipates the direction of its
change-movement, and further forecasts the orientation and priority of
subsequent movement-development of the entire system composed of the
considered components together with other changing factors of political reality].
5. The transient nature and finiteness of prosperity of any form (whether among
forms of economic management or among forms of revolutionary movement) is
evidenced by the periodic renewal of crises (industrial, economic, financial,
political, social, etc.).
The reason for writing the January 1909 article "On the Road" [8, pp. 537–544]
was the organizational and ideo-political crisis in the Social-Democratic Party of
Russia. The background of the crisis lay in the urgent need to cleanse the
"workers' party of wavering, intellectual and petty-bourgeois elements who had
joined the labor movement mainly hoping for the imminent triumph of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution and who could not hold out during the reaction"
[8, p. 538]. The instability of these "elements" affected both theory, tactics and
organizational policy of the party. Conscious workers took charge of running
party organizations and leading them. The situation required convening the AllRussian Conference of the RSDLP, where answers were actually formulated
regarding what path the working-class party should choose in the difficult
current period.
The content of this answer consisted of the following decisions and developments
of the conference: "Marxist analysis of the current relationship between classes
and new policies of Tsarism"; indication of the immediate goal of struggle set by
the Social-Democratic Party; "assessment of lessons learned from the revolution
concerning the correctness of revolutionary-social democratic tactics; clarification
of causes of the party's crisis and pointing to the role of the proletarian element
of the party in combating it; resolving the issue of the ratio of illegal and legal
organization"; recognition of the need to use the Duma tribune and development
of precise guiding instructions for the social-democratic faction in connection with
direct criticism of its errors [8, p. 538].
Autocracy [instead of the term "autocracy", one can use today's equivalents
(terms closest and similar in meaning are): authoritarianism, autocracy, tyranny,
despotism] still acts as the main enemy of the proletariat and all democracy, but
it would be a mistake to think that it remains unchanged, does not change or
mimic. Today "autocracy attempts to take upon itself the solution of objectively
necessary tasks of the bourgeois revolution — creation of popular representation
truly governing affairs of bourgeois society, and cleaning up medieval, tangled
and obsolete agrarian relations in the village; but precisely the practical result of
these new steps of autocracy turns out so far equal to zero, and this only makes
even clearer the necessity of other forces and means for solving the historical
task" [8, pp. 539–540].
New conditions of the moment require new forms of struggle: using the Duma
tribune appears an unconditional necessity; long-term work on education and
organization of masses of the proletariat is moved to the forefront; combining
illegal and legal organization presents special challenges to the party;
popularization and explanation of the experience of the revolution discredited by
liberals and liquidator intellectuals are needed both theoretically and practically.
But the tactical line of the party, which must manage to account for new
conditions in methods and tools of struggle, remains unchanged. The correctness
of revolutionary-social democratic tactics has been confirmed by the experience
of mass struggle of 1905–1907. The defeat of the revolution at the end of this
first campaign revealed not incorrectness of goals, not utopian nature of
objectives, not erroneousness of means and approaches, but insufficient
preparedness of forces, insufficient depth and breadth of the revolutionary crisis.
Let liberals and bewildered intelligentsia fall into despair after the first massive
battle for freedom. Conscious proletariat will respond to them that great tasks of
revolutions were solved only when advanced classes repeated their onslaught
more than once and achieved victory, having been taught by the experience of
defeats. Defeated armies learn well. Revolutionary classes of Russia have been
defeated in the first campaign, but the revolutionary situation persists. [Lenin's
inexhaustible optimism calling to learn also from defeats evokes nothing but
admiration!!!]. In new forms and another way, the revolutionary crisis looms
again, matures again [it is known that any crisis always precedes and ends with
replacement of forms representing developing contents of reality]. Long-term
preparation of broad masses — preparation taking into account higher and more
concrete goals — should be carried out, and the more successfully it is done, the
surer the victory in the new struggle will be. And the same proletariat will now
be able to patiently and steadfastly carry out the work of educating and
preparing new cadres of a mightier revolutionary force.
[It concerns periodic evaluation of the correlation of interacting components in
their relation and constant tracking of the trend of shifting this correlation
towards increasing and predominance of the more contentful component, for
which the contentfulness of the active component (i.e., the revolutionary spirit of
the proletariat) must be "replenished" through popularization and elucidation of
the experience of mass struggle and revolution].
Since the general link diluting and weakening Marxist ideology of the proletariat
continues to be the small commodity producer (petty bourgeoisie), drifting
between two clearly defined classes of capitalists and proletariat, then under
such circumstances the task of the day is: "Strengthening of the illegal party
organization, creating party cells in all areas of activity, creating above all purely
party, albeit few-membered workers' committees in every industrial enterprise,
concentration of leading functions in the hands of leaders of the socialdemocratic movement from among the workers themselves" [8, p. 543].
Each cell and each party worker committee must become a support point for
agitational, propaganda and practically organizational work among the
masses, i.e., necessarily go where the mass goes and try at every step to push
its consciousness toward socialism, winning for itself leadership in all proletarian
legal organizations by virtue of its energy and ideological influence (rather than
titles and ranks).
[According to the testimony of N.V. Volsky (a contemporary of Vladimir
Ilyich, with the real surname N.V. Valentinov), who never was, by his own
admission, either a Bolshevik or a pronounced Menshevik [1], Lenin was a
supporter of the agitational work with all strata of the population, but the
emphasis proposed to be made nevertheless on the work with the proletariat
of Russia.]
In any case legally or semi-legally, openly or covertly, the working class will find
points of consolidation everywhere — conscious party social democrats will
always move ahead and consolidate among themselves to impact the masses in
the party spirit.
A party of the vanguard class (proletariat), which manages to organize its avantgarde and direct its forces so as to exert social-democratic influence on every
manifestation of life of the proletariat — this party will win no matter what [8, p.
544].
[By analogy with the previous article, V.I. Lenin bases his analysis of current
events again on the existence and interaction of two main classes: the ruling
class of owners of means of production and the subordinate class of nonpropertied, dependent hired laborers free from ownership of means of
production. Between these two classes drifts a layer of declassified pettybourgeois elements, periodically replenishing either class (much more often —
the class of non-propertied hired laborers). The cause of the ideological-political
crisis in the Russian Social-Democratic Party was exactly the uncertainty of
position of representatives of this stratum within the social-democratic milieu. All
other conclusions and fabrications stem from evil, belong to the realm of fictions
generated by apologists serving the ruling class among university professors,
professional philosophers, political scientists and propagandists of all stripes.
Neither Marx nor Lenin were discoverers of classes or originators of ideas about
class struggle as the driving force of social development — bourgeois historians
and economists had "exploited" these discoveries long before Marxism emerged.
But both used primarily these concepts and representations to analyze ongoing
historical processes, their patterns and trends.
Then came times when the aforementioned concepts (denoting the main
subjects of social activity and the process of its implementation) were buried
under splinters and chips flying from the axe that carried out major public
transformations. Thus, the most important components of development and
their sacramental relations were put away in a drawer for a long time and
thoroughly forgotten.
Nowadays it is quite common to hold an opinion — usually expressed by the
same "court" politicians, economists and philosophers close to power
structures, as well as their media outlets justifying the fairness and eternity
of existing foundations, i.e., apologists of current social arrangements — that
class theory has hopelessly become obsolete and that now property
ownership itself (especially on means of production) plays no role;
supposedly, what matters today are opportunities to control financial flows.
No, gentlemen, you are wrong. In order to manage financial flows, play
multi-step financial combinations, rule over the whole world, etc., you still
have to eat, drink, live somewhere, "manage households, give birth to
children, produce products, exchange them..." (see the above-quoted Lenin
passage from the book “Materialism and Empiriocriticism”), which does not
allow ignoring property relations and everything connected with them. And if
you want to rise higher, soar above earthly life with its material physical side
— this will not happen either. To realize such a "wish", one would have to
completely detach oneself from the objectively-material level of one's bodilyintellectual organization, from the basis of your precious "I", which is
absolutely impossible without loss or deprivation of this unique "I". The level
of ideal subjective forms enters only narrowly (although being the
most contentful of reliably known ones today) into the overall set of levels
constituting your "I", whereas the bulk of every human "I" consists of rather
"down-to-earth" object-matter layers of reality. And you cannot get rid of the
heavy shackles of these "coarse" layers while remaining among those living
on earth. This is precisely what Marx called, recalling his words, the curse on
spirit — to be burdened by matter. And however much anyone might wish,
having achieved desired material prosperity, to dissociate themselves from
all coarse physicality and ascend to the realm of the ideal and unearthly —
property relations and especially those regarding means of production will
continue to remain key, whoever says otherwise and however they try to
camouflage this fact. Therefore, staying on real ground and being part of the
object-matter level of reality forming and filling you up, you will inevitably
have to keep fighting for your flesh and for your place under the sun. You will
also inevitably have to think about your offspring, and in connection with this
— about inheritance for your descendants, i.e., about that very mundane
property which, god forbid, may end up in alien hands. Your own flesh will
not let you soar above the struggle and beyond this entire world like an elf or
angel; but once you shed it (if such should ever occur), you will
simultaneously lose yourself (your "I") together with all your "fantasies" and
"desires" — well, then what will your desires concern?
The direct path for you, gentlemen, lies toward socialism — there alone will
you find deliverance from unbearable fetters of property and endless
thoughts about accumulation and transfer of material inheritance into the
right hands, and finally begin caring about intellectual and spiritual legacy;
there you will acquire more or less genuine freedom from dreary thoughts
about how to master financial assets, ride financial flows — and who knows
what else you cling to with iron grip. Welcome to socialism, gentlemen!
It must be said that denial of classes and class struggle is an inexhaustible
element of idle reasoning exercises, periodically reviving and again taking
possession of unsophisticated minds after each successive "defeat" and
public expulsion. It seems, however, that the hour has come when public
attention is drawn again to relations of key constituents of developing reality,
as well as to their role and significance during replacement of forms of social
progress. The mere absence at present of visible signs of class struggle
speaks only of disorganization or insufficient organization of representatives
of hired labor and lack of outstanding and incorruptible leaders of
revolutionary movement at this stage of social development.]
In relation {proletariat/autocracy (tsarism)} a fairly noticeable shift occurred
towards predominance of the fastest-developing contentful component —
proletariat with its Marxist party, becoming richer in content due to growth in
educational standard of party and proletarian ranks, while the second
component — autocracy — mimics, tries to mask itself as bourgeoisie and
merge with it. It should be noted that in his analysis Lenin never considers
the main interacting components or figures separately, detached from each
other — always only together, in interaction, in relation. Proletariat is
nonessential without bourgeoisie or capitalists, just as the latter are
nonessential without proletariat. Capital is nonessential without hired labor,
and vice versa. Only the interaction of these two constituents of reality, their
collision, their conflict, internecine struggle contributes to emergence of new
developmental forms and movement toward a new socio-economic
formation, i.e., to new forms of acquiring social orders.
[Periodically arising public conflicts have as their foundation accumulating
unsolvable-for-the-time-being content-form contradictions:
between
outdated management system, bureaucratized power, "bourgeoisified" ruling
class with its institutions and forms of governance on the one hand, and, on
the other hand, competence and preparedness of society with its substantive
public opinions and representations surpassing this "ossifying" system.
Evidence of this includes numerous examples of modern states with their
internal conflicts: frames, forms, methods of primitive management do not
meet the needs, demands, requirements of a complexifying, perfecting,
developing and rapidly increasing-in-contentfulness socium.]
A crisis in the revolutionary movement (according to Lenin) is a harbinger of
another stage of construction and formation of a new relation of directly
interacting constituents-components and at the same time a precursor of a
new search for a way "on the road" and purification from the old form (its
attributes) restraining the movement of the contentful constituent; it is a
sign of outgrowing the existing form by its developed content and an
indicator of necessity to master a new promising form sufficiently developed
already in terms of content. At the same time, the correlation of
constituents-components in the newly emerging and changing relation is
analyzed, where the numerator is enriched by decisions and conclusions of
conferences and congresses of the Bolshevik Party, while the denominator is
fed by resolutions of the Constituent Assembly of the State Duma (i.e.,
circulars of the "mimicking" form of state government).
[Production, management, economic, ideological-political, etc., crises are
indicators of a disrupted balance or equilibrium between interacting components
in their various form-relations. The leading contentful constituent moving
forward (or preparing to move forward and lead) "requires" search for and
discovery of its corresponding formal component that balances (for some period
of time) the combined relation of these constituents. The stagnant phase in
which this new disequilibrium relation finds itself (in our case: {educated
proletariat/mimicking autocracy}) is overcome by searching for and finding a
more active form of movement of the contentful component, which, when
another way out "on the road" is found, is ensured through accelerated increase
in contentfulness of the numerator of the mentioned new relation; i.e., through
(in Lenin's words): indication of the immediate goal of struggle; assessment of
correctness of social-democratic tactics; clarification of causes of the party crisis
and pointing to the role of the proletarian element of the party in combating it;
resolution of the issue regarding the ratio of illegal and legal organization;
recognition of the need to use the Duma tribune and development of precise
guiding instructions for the social-democratic faction.]
And, as Lenin summarizes, this stage must be outgrown and the crisis overcome
by discovering and applying new forms of struggle [8, p. 540].
In other words, a new exit "on the road" is sought through increasing
the contentfulness of forms of the Social-Democratic movement.
§ 2. Works of the immediate pre-revolutionary period
The second period, which we have named as immediate pre-revolutionary
(on the eve of the revolution), is represented by a number of works by
Vladimir I. Lenin, dictated by rapidly changing events (especially on the eve
of the October coup).
1. In the book "On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" [8, pp.
569-621], written in May 1914, Lenin analyzes in detail the specifics of
applying the Marxist position on the secession of nations depending on
different historically established conditions for the formation of one or
another nation.
Due to its closest connection with the present, we will dwell on this work in
more detail.
Preliminarily, it should be said that the "right of nations to selfdetermination", regarding the legitimacy and expediency of whose
proclamation and protection heated debates do not cease even in our days, is
not a figment of V.I. Lenin's imagination or an invention of the Bolsheviks,
but the result of discussions and decisions of the International congresses,
and in particular the "London International Congress (of socialist workers'
parties and trade unions) of 1896". The defense of this right and its inclusion
in the program of the Social-Democratic Party of Russia was justified by
Lenin by referring to the corresponding stage of the national liberation
movement experienced by Russia. By analogy with the support by Marxists
under similar historical conditions of the said right in Western Europe, Lenin,
focusing on similar liberation processes in Eastern Europe and Asia (including
Russia), but occurring with some delay (at least by half a century), concludes
on the necessity of advancing the same demand at the stage of revolutionary
transformations in Russia as well.
To convey the logic of Lenin's thought, let us provide a chain of characteristic
quotes from this work.
"An unconditional requirement of Marxist theory in the analysis of any social
question whatsoever is to place it within definite historical limits, and then, if
the question concerns one country (for example, a national program for a
given country), to take into account the concrete specifics distinguishing this
country from others within the limits of one and the same historical epoch"
[8, p. 574].
"The comparison of the political and economic development of different
countries, as well as their Marxist programs, is of enormous significance from
the standpoint of Marxism, for both the general capitalist nature of modern
states and the general law of their development are indisputable. But such a
comparison must be made skillfully. The ABC condition here is to clarify
the question of whether the historical epochs of development of the
compared countries are comparable" [8, p. 578].
"In Western, continental Europe, the era of bourgeois-democratic revolutions
covers a rather definite time span, approximately from 1789 to 1871. It was
precisely this era that was the era of national movements and the creation of
national states. Upon the completion of this era, Western Europe turned into
an established system of bourgeois states, as a general rule, at the same
time nationally unified states. Therefore, to now seek the right to selfdetermination in the programs of West European socialists means not to
understand the ABC of Marxism.
In Eastern Europe and Asia, the era of bourgeois-democratic revolutions only
began in 1905. ...And in this chain of events only a blind man can fail to see
the awakening of a whole series of bourgeois-democratic national
movements, aspirations for the creation of nationally independent and
nationally unified states. It is precisely because and only because
Russia, together with neighboring countries, is experiencing this era
that we need a point on the right of nations to self-determination in
our program" [8, pp. 578-579].
"Thus, it is the historical concrete specifics of the national question in
Russia that give us a special urgency to the recognition of the right
of nations to self-determination in the epoch we are experiencing" [8,
p. 581].
"The bourgeoisie, which naturally acts as the hegemon (leader) of any
national movement at its beginning, calls the support of all national
aspirations a practical matter. But the policy of the proletariat in the national
question (as in other questions) only supports the bourgeoisie in a certain
direction, but never coincides with its policy. ...Every bourgeoisie wants in
national matters either privileges for its nation or exclusive benefits for it;
this is called 'practical'. The proletariat is against any privileges, against
any exclusivity" [8, p. 582].
"The bourgeoisie always places its national demands in the foreground. It
puts them unconditionally. For the proletariat, they are subordinated to the
interests of the class struggle. Theoretically, one cannot guarantee in
advance whether the secession of a given nation or its equal status with
another nation will complete the bourgeois-democratic revolution; for the
proletariat, it is important in both cases to ensure the development of its
class; for the bourgeoisie, it is important to hinder this development,
postponing its tasks before the tasks of 'their' nation. Therefore, the
proletariat limits itself to a negative, so to speak, demand for the recognition
of the right to self-determination, guaranteeing nothing to any nation,
undertaking to give nothing regarding another nation.
Let this be not 'practical', but in fact this most reliably guarantees the most
democratic of possible solutions; the proletariat needs only these guarantees,
and the bourgeoisie of each nation needs guarantees of its benefits without
relation to the position (to possible minuses) of other nations.
The bourgeoisie is most interested in the 'feasibility' of a given demand —
hence the eternal policy of deals with the bourgeoisie of other
nations to the detriment of the proletariat.
Let this be not 'practical' for opportunists, but this is the only guarantee in
fact, a guarantee of maximum national equality and peace in spite of both
the feudal lords and the nationalist bourgeoisie.
The entire task of the proletarians in the national question is
'impractical' from the standpoint of the nationalist bourgeoisie of
each nation, for the proletarians demand abstract equality, the
principled absence of the slightest privileges, being hostile to any
nationalism.
...The proletariat is against such practicality: recognizing equality and equal
right to a national state, it values and places above all the union of
proletarians of all nations, evaluating any national demand, any national
secession from the angle of the class struggle of workers. The slogan of
practicality is in fact merely the slogan of uncritical adoption of bourgeois
aspirations.
They tell us: by supporting the right to secession, you support bourgeois
nationalism of oppressed nations. ...We answer: no, it is precisely the
bourgeoisie that is interested in a 'practical' solution here, while for the
workers it is important to fundamentally distinguish two tendencies. Since
the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation is fighting the oppressing one, we
are always and in any case and more resolutely than all, for we are the
boldest and most consistent enemies of oppression. Since the bourgeoisie of
the oppressed nation stands for its bourgeois nationalism, we are against.
The struggle against the privileges and violence of the oppressing
nation and no connivance at the striving for privileges on the part of
the oppressed nation.
If we do not advance and conduct in our agitation the slogan of the right to
secession, we will play into the hands not only of the bourgeoisie, but also of
the feudal lords and the absolutism of the oppressing nation. ...In every
bourgeois nationalism of an oppressed nation there is a general-democratic
content against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally
support, strictly separating the striving for one's own national exclusiveness,
fighting against the striving of the Polish bourgeois to oppress the Jew, etc.,
etc. [That is, here, undoubtedly, one must see the boundary markers beyond
which the striving for national identity degenerates into inveterate
nationalism and then into bestial Nazism, and suppress such a content-form
transformation].
This is "impractical" from the point of view of the bourgeois and the
philistine. This is the only practical and principled and truly helping
democracy, freedom, and the proletarian union policy in the national
question: recognition of the right of nations to secession for all; evaluation of
each specific question of secession from the standpoint eliminating any
inequality, any privileges, any exclusivity.
Let us take the position of the oppressing nation. Can a people that
oppresses other peoples be free? No. The interests of freedom of the
Great Russian population require a struggle against such oppression.
A long history, a centuries-old history of suppressing the movements
of oppressed nations, systematic propaganda of such suppression by
the "higher" classes have created enormous obstacles to the cause of
freedom of the Great Russian people itself in its prejudices, etc.
...The Great Russian proletariat cannot achieve its goals, cannot clear
its path to freedom, without systematically fighting these prejudices.
[And the matter here, perhaps, is not only in prejudices or the moralhumanistic side of the issue, but also in the trivial discomfort of the everyday
life of the oppressing nation, being in constant tension, suspicion,
apprehensions and expectation of blows in the back from the oppressed,
suppressed, humiliated nation.
The Great Russian, privileged in relation to a non-Russian, is just as unfree,
uneasy, unbalanced, unself-sufficient as a non-Russian — due to the social
tension created by the counter-resistance and opposition from the oppressed
nation. This contentfulness ought to be known to today's "resolvers" of the
national question].
...We, the proletarians, declare ourselves in advance to be opponents of
Great Russian privileges and in this direction conduct all our propaganda and
agitation... against all state-national privileges... such a task is our main
(current) task in the national question, for only in this way do we defend the
interests of democracy and the equal union of all proletarians of all nations.
Let this propaganda be impractical from the point of view of the
Great Russian oppressors and from the point of view of the
bourgeoisie of oppressed nations. ...In fact, it is this propaganda, and
only it, that ensures a truly democratic and truly socialist education
of the masses. Only such propaganda guarantees both the greatest
chances of national peace in Russia if it remains a motley national
state, and the most peaceful (and harmless for the proletarian class
struggle) division into different national states, if the question of
such a division arises" [8, pp. 582-586].
"To accuse the supporters of the freedom of self-determination, i.e. the
freedom of secession, of encouraging separatism is the same stupidity and
the same hypocrisy as to accuse the supporters of the freedom of divorce of
encouraging the destruction of family ties. Just as in bourgeois society the
defenders of privileges and venality, on which the bourgeois marriage is
built, oppose the freedom of divorce, so in the capitalist state the denial of
the freedom of self-determination, i.e. the secession of nations, means only
the defense of the privileges of the dominant nation and police methods of
administration to the detriment of democratic ones" [8, p. 593].
"The real class significance of the liberal hostility to the principle of political
self-determination of nations is one and only one: national-liberalism, the
defense of state privileges of the Great Russian bourgeoisie. [It is not difficult
to see that the position of some leaders of the "liberal" parties of modern
Russia is an absolute carbon copy of these Lenin's words].
...The interests of the working class and its struggle against capitalism
require full solidarity and the closest unity of workers of all nations, require
resistance to the nationalist policy of the bourgeoisie of whatever nationality.
Therefore, a deviation from the tasks of proletarian policy and the
subordination of workers to bourgeois policy would be both if the SocialDemocrats were to deny the right to self-determination, i.e. the right to
secession of oppressed nations, and if the Social-Democrats were to support
all national demands of the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations. To a hired
worker it is all the same whether his predominant exploiter will be the Great
Russian bourgeoisie preferably over a non-Russian one, or the Polish
preferably over a Jewish one, etc. A hired worker who has realized the
interests of his class is indifferent both to the state privileges of the
Great Russian capitalists and to the promises of the Polish or
Ukrainian capitalists that paradise on earth will be established when
they possess state privileges.
...In any case, the hired worker will remain an object of exploitation, and a
successful struggle against it requires the independence of the proletariat
from nationalism, the complete, so to speak, neutrality of the proletarians in
the struggle of the bourgeoisie of different nations for supremacy. The
slightest support by the proletariat of any nation for the privileges of "its"
national bourgeoisie will inevitably cause distrust of the proletariat of another
nation, will weaken the international class solidarity of workers, will divide
them to the delight of the bourgeoisie. And the denial of the right to selfdetermination, or to secession, inevitably means in practice support for the
privileges of the dominant nation" [8, pp. 594-595].
"In the question of the self-determination of nations, as in any other
question, we are interested first of all in the self-determination of the
proletariat within nations" [8, p. 597].
[Nowadays, such an approach remains topical, counting on the unification of
all wage workers (regardless of nations and nationality) in the struggle and
opposition to the associated oligarchy.
In the application to the present day, everywhere in the text of Lenin's work,
by the proletariat one should understand the wage workers and
representatives of wage labor, and by the bourgeoisie of the oppressing and
oppressed nation — the foreign and local oligarchy. After making such a
replacement, everything falls into place; as can be seen, the relations of
wage workers and the oligarchy, as well as the consequences of these
relations, are written by the author of the book with the utmost clarity long
before the October Revolution. We are obviously being punished today
for Unlearned lessons of dialectics, as negligent students, although
we have already passed all this once.
To please their personal interests (i.e., in pursuit of profit), the bourgeoisie
(oligarchy) of any nation easily steps over national and patriotic principles,
which fully justifies the label "comprador" (venal) bourgeoisie hung on it.
This, first of all, must be known and kept in mind by every people trying to
find the roots of national troubles. Only a consciously organized opposition
to the market (i.e., spontaneously) "molded" oligarchy can change the
position (and status) of the working people for the better. Today's
bourgeoisie, like the bourgeoisie of the past, are also not interested in social
development (i.e., in improving methods of management and planning,
economic and political reforms, raising the standard of living of the
population), since all this contributes to the growth of consciousness,
education and, accordingly, organization of wage workers. Therefore, no
one is in a hurry, and will not be, to transfer or invest their foreign savings
and capital (allegedly earned "by their own sweat and blood") into the
country's economy, to abandon offshore assets.
What allows us to confidently use in this connection the terms "oligarchs",
"oligarchy"? It is enough to look more closely at the structure of property,
income and acquisitions of any major official or deputy (not losing sight of
relatives and trusted persons with assets rewritten to them) to see there
both the owners of the means of production, and shareholders of the most
profitable industrial enterprises and banks, and owners of large property,
owners of bank accounts and financial assets, and, moreover, undoubtedly,
those residing in power. And then how do such managers differ from
oligarchs or, at worst, from "near-oligarchs"? By formal features and
definition — not at all, and among themselves they differ only in the size of
appropriations and the degree of influence on the political and economic
decisions made regarding the fate of the country or region; in the final
analysis, all the so-called oligarchs differ from each other only in the size of
the damage inflicted on the country. In general, all capitalist states are built
on an oligarchic type (scheme): first money is made (and capital is
accumulated), then power is desired in the name of new opportunities and
new money, and the combination of both again multiplies power and money.
For a person with an unprepared, immature, undeveloped consciousness —
this is a dead end, a closed vicious circle, a trap. A corrupt capitalist country
is always an oligarchic state. On the other hand, the management
configuration that has developed in the country today is quite accurately
determined by the term "plutocracy". On the third hand, this is, of course,
also an "autocracy", represented by the "face" of the current "ruler". Before
us is such a volatile mixture of plutocratic, oligarchic and autocratic elements
of statehood. In this infrastructure, where there is everything and a lot of it,
there is only one small link missing — the rule of the people; the working
people simply do not "fit" with the modern government and
therefore are not represented in the government].
There are assurances that "the recognition of the right to secession increases the
danger of the state's disintegration. ... From the point of view of democracy in
general, it is quite the opposite: the recognition of the right to secession reduces
the danger of the "disintegration of the state"" [8, p. 592].
Further, the question is examined using the example of the Ukrainian
nationality: "Is it not clear that the more freedom the Ukrainian nationality has in
one or another country, the stronger the connection of this nationality with the
given country will be? It seems that one cannot argue against this ABC truth if
one does not decisively break with all the premises of democratism. And can
there be greater freedom of a nationality as such than the freedom of secession,
the freedom of forming an independent national state?" [8, p. 592].
[At first glance, it may seem incorrect that the dialectical position, according to
which the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination does not
increase the danger of the state's disintegration, but on the contrary, cements
the country and strengthens the ties between nationalities — since in relation to,
say, the above-mentioned Ukrainian nationality, this dialectical position was not
fulfilled and is not being fulfilled. However, in this particular case, the following
circumstances should be taken into account. Unlike the conditions and events
corresponding to the temporary stage analyzed in the book by Lenin we are
considering, for some time now (already in our times), under the patronage of
the local "comprador" oligarchy, on the territory once called the Ukrainian SSR, a
shoot of rabid nationalism and fierce hatred of everything Russian, cultivated in
the deep past and pulled out from the dilapidated sewer outlets, has bloomed in
full bloom. From this perspective, the revived phenomenon already falls under
the definition not of a traditional national liberation movement (acquiring
freedom and the right of a nation to self-determination), but of aggressive
Nazism based on blood feud and innate hatred (the roots of which must be
sought in the origin of the once artificially bred and carefully selected "marginal"
nationalism), the formation of which has little in common with a national
liberation movement. Extremely interesting in this regard is the fact that from a
whole range of levels-forms within the composition of their multi-level totality
(uniting in itself diverse methods of interethnic interaction), the lowest, most
primitive level receives an impetus for priority development (under the
"management" of the same universal principle of Self-development) in the image
of some fanged horned creature with a tail and fur that has not yet fallen off,
crawled out of a dark deep cave to teach the whole civilized world its
understanding of life and interethnic communication. Like a weed stifling
cultivated plants at the root, this primitive "misunderstanding" is capable for
some time of diverting to itself and "grinding" the contentful volumes worked out
later, but already tested, or, simply put, absorbing (destroying) the civilized
forms of higher levels. Such are the curiosities and "inscrutable" paths of the
dialectical development of diverse forms-levels of reality].
As for the attitude to the national question, for example, of Marx: "Marx makes
no absolute of national movements, knowing that the complete liberation of all
nationalities can only be given by the victory of the working class. To take into
account in advance all possible correlations between the bourgeois liberation
movements of oppressed nations and the proletarian liberation movement
among the oppressing nation (this is precisely the problem that makes the
national question so difficult in modern Russia) is an impossible thing" [8, p.
608].
[In other words, one must support the oppressed nation in its struggle and direct
this struggle towards facilitating the proletarian movement, since the analysis of
all variants of correlations (line-up of forces) between the forces of national
liberation and proletarian movements (in their relation) is impossible even with
the involvement of the intellectual power of 70 Marxs (to use Lenin's words, who
always meant the constant presence of some objective uncertainty in the
development of certain forms-relations and the impossibility of knowing or
anticipating the development of these forms with one hundred percent
certainty). As we can see, the ability to think dialectically allowed the classics of
Marxism, and in particular V.I. Lenin, to focus attention by no means on
obtaining exhaustive knowledge about the outcome of the interaction of the
studied components, but only on understanding the tendency of variability of
their relations, in order to already on this basis forecast the further development
of their forms].
"The protocols of the congress of 1903 [II Congress of the RSDLP], which
adopted the program [of the party] of Russian Marxists, have become the
greatest rarity, and the vast majority of modern figures of the workers'
movement are not familiar with the motives of individual points of the program.
...Let us note first of all that, however scanty the Russian Social-Democratic
literature concerning the "right of nations to self-determination" may be, it is
nevertheless absolutely clear from it that this right was always understood in the
sense of the right to secession.
...The reader sees that at the II Congress of the party, which adopted the
program, there were not two opinions on the question that self-determination
means "only" the right to secession" [8, pp. 610-611, 613].
"...The right to secession presupposes the solution of the question
precisely not by the central parliament, but only by the parliament
(sejm, referendum, etc.) of the seceding region" [8, p. 617].
"Great Russian nationalism, like any nationalism, goes through various phases
[i.e., this question, like any other, Lenin considers through the prism of historical
development: from having a hard autocratic reactionary color to appearing in the
color of bourgeois liberalism], depending on the predominance [i.e., on the bias
and shift towards a more substantial, more contentful component in their
relation — in this case in the relation {bourgeois national-liberalism/autocratic
monarchic national-reactionism}] of one or another class in a bourgeois country.
Before 1905, we knew almost only national-reactionaries. After the revolution of
1905, national-liberals were born among us. And further, the birth of Great
Russian national-democrats is inevitable" [8, p. 619].
"From the point of view of the theory of Marxism in general, the question of the
right to self-determination presents no difficulties. There can seriously be no talk
either of challenging the London decision of 1896, or of the fact that by selfdetermination is meant only the right to secession, or of the fact that the
formation of independent national states is a tendency of all bourgeoisdemocratic upheavals.
The difficulty is created to a certain extent by the fact that in Russia the
proletariat of oppressed nations and the proletariat of the oppressing nation are
fighting and must fight side by side. To defend the unity of the class struggle of
the proletariat for socialism, to repel all bourgeois and Black-Hundred influences
of nationalism — this is the task. Among the oppressed nations, the separation
of the proletariat into an independent party sometimes leads to such a fierce
struggle with the nationalism of a given nation that the perspective is distorted
and the nationalism of the oppressing nation is forgotten" [8, pp. 617-618].
"The slower the democratic transformation of Russia goes, the more persistent,
rough, and fierce will be the national persecution and squabbling of the
bourgeoisie of different nations. ...Full equality of nations; the right of nations to
self-determination; the merging of workers of all nations — this national
program teaches workers Marxism, teaches the experience of the whole world
and the experience of Russia" [8, p. 620].
[Analyzing the above, one can be convinced that the slogan in defense of the
right of nations to self-determination is always relevant — since it is an indicator
of the recognition of the equality of all small and large nations in a multinational
state (which, undoubtedly, should serve as the main condition for the cohesion
of nations in union states); in case of legalizing this right, it is easier for the
oppressed classes to defeat any oppressor, uniting on the basis of equality of all
nations.
True equality of nations is conditioned and ensured only by the recognition of the
right of nations to self-determination (political self-determination, i.e. possible
and permissible secession). This principle of self-determination is relevant for
Russia (as it was relevant for the USSR) also because its peoples, like the
peoples of the USSR, united and entered unions, as a rule, with their territories
— i.e., not being newcomers or immigrants, which cannot be said, for example,
about the USA and a number of other states.
But all this was accepted with delight and looked exactly like that until the right
of nations to self-determination enshrined in the constitution suddenly served as
a reason for merciless accusations of destroying a great country. It goes without
saying that the main claims were made against the founder of the first socialist
state in the world, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who allegedly "laid" a delayed-action
"mine" under the Soviet Union.
Advancing such accusations, no one even remotely thinks about the objective
possibility of an unfavorable (from the point of view of human plans and
hopes) course and outcome of content-form transformations, which always
take place in the process of reality development. No one thinks about the
inevitability of content-form transformations, conversions, transfigurations to
which any developing form is subjected in the process of "making itself out of
itself". In this case, it was only required to be a very well-informed and
competent leader to always remember the objectivity of the tendency of
natural transfiguration of forms into their opposite, i.e. about the immanent
dialectical property (character) of developing reality, described by the
formulation of the universal principle of self-development (see above).
Nevertheless, the real state of affairs is such that by virtue of this very
dialectical nature of the surrounding world, everything (without exception)
sooner or later has a habit of returning "to its own circle", but not in its
former form, but in other — "modified" — forms. In case of misunderstanding
such a layout or in case of inept and imprudent handling of the mentioned
modified forms — the impacts, and even blows of these weighted returning
forms may fall not where the lower back is (it would be fine if it were so,
which is still tolerable), but where the neck is higher.
Having detected such a trend manifesting in connection with the
development of one or another form of reality, one can and should learn (if
necessary) to influence this trend, preventing or anticipating the emergence
of undesirable (from the point of view of human consciousness)
consequences, which, naturally, no one in those times fulfilled not only was
not, but was not even supposed to be fulfilled — after all, the last
outstanding dialectician in the chain of responsible persons turned out to be
Lenin, and all his other followers and continuators, from the point of view of
dialectical training, are neither here nor there (ne prishey kobyle khvost).
However, to blame, in all troubles and failures, the one who understands
such issues best — this is in our days (as, indeed, always) a downright sign
of good manners. Having an idea of the inevitable transformation or
transfiguration of changing forms into their opposites (i.e., about returning
"to one's own circle"), in order to keep these forms within the framework of
their former status, it is necessary in various ways to increase
their contentfulness (in this case — literacy, education, awareness, etc.).
Perhaps, one cannot even think of a more vivid example in confirmation of
the urgent need to master the art of dialectical thinking, dialectical
research approach and practical activity!
In the USSR, at the stage of swaying and the so-called "perestroika", the
party nomenclature (the forerunner of the emerging bourgeoisie) of precisely
"aliens", i.e. national formations (republics), finally went out of the control of
the central authority, which determined the collapse of the great Union.
Starting from the Khrushchev times, and especially during the Gorbachev
perestroika time, obvious and covert decomposition, de-ideologization and
transfiguration of both central (union) and local (republican), in modern
slang, "elites" (or rather, pseudo-elites — party nomenclature, top and
middle managers, heads of large enterprises, etc.) was in full swing, which
were swiftly becoming "philistinized" and "bourgeoisified", turning into their
own ideologically contentless (but filled with bourgeois-mercantilist content)
opposite in full accordance with the dialectical character of reality
development. As is proper in such "non-transparent" cases (i.e., in times of
turmoil), the contentful cause of what is happening is pushed to the
background and its place is "draped" with the Formal component of the real
process. In the established relation {nomenclature power in the localities /
formal arrangement of local power based on the right of nations to political
secession}, due to the sharp spontaneous-uncontrolled expansion of the
powers and capabilities of the nomenclature local power (i.e., the "swelling"
of the contentful component or the "numerator" of the above-mentioned
relation), the "denominator" of the relation also begins to change — towards
isolation or separation from the center and the dominance of the
nomenclature local pseudo-elite (power structures).
The correctness and validity of the idea of the right of nations to selfdetermination even at that moment is beyond any doubt provided that strict
control is ensured over other particulars and details. The motives and actions
of the nomenclature of "aliens" (using the terminology of Lenin's articles),
which, having found itself without "supervision and care", played its
mercantilist card to the victorious end, which could have been decisively
suppressed on quite legal grounds, should have been put under control.
Illegal actions of the decaying nomenclature at the level of republican
authorities should have been stopped, relying on the "Constitution (Basic
Law) of the USSR" and on the then still functional central and republican
structures of law enforcement agencies: KGB, MVD, MO (Chekists, police,
army), continuing to keep ideology and personnel policy under control. And,
as we now know for sure, due to the lack of such control and
countermeasures, the internal decomposition of the pseudo-elite ends, in the
end, with its transformation into an oligarchy of central and local significance
(scale); and, of course, not without external foreign influence and complicity.
Unprincipled and unscrupulous nouveau riche nomenclature figures in
conjunction with inveterate bandits and criminals became the new masters of
life.
Yes, the decisions (and actions) of the local pseudo-elites formally fell under
the patronage of the constitutional right of nations to self-determination, but
these decisions were not legal from the point of view of confirmation by the
officially identified will of the majority of citizens of the national republics.
The legality of actions was replaced by "under-the-table" activity and the
pushiness of local nomenclature structures and individuals. Thus, not the
notorious right of nations to self-determination became the cause of the
destruction of the USSR, but the dominance that had developed by that time
of the satiated, transfigured de-ideologized "comprador" (venal) top and the
lack of control over its behavior.
Thus (it is emphasized specifically for the current "rulers" and their ilk), Ilyich
did not "lay" any "mines" in the arrangement of the multinational Soviet
state — all decisions of the Bolsheviks were conditioned by the specific
context of the epoch experienced and there is nothing to blame him for the
alleged lack of foresight; in our opinion, the current "armchair" opponents
and experts should read his works more attentively and thoughtfully and not
rush to proclaim their own mental superiority. The very raising of the
question of the alleged "laid mine" testifies to an insufficiently high level of
intelligence and education of the persons raising this issue, since the
question regarding the "exhaustion" or discovered over time "nonoperability" of this decision should not be asked of Lenin, who, we repeat,
knew how to skillfully draw conclusions and make decisions in accordance
with the circumstances of a certain time stage, but with those persons who,
due to the rigidity of their thinking, could not subsequently flexibly react to
changing conditions. The role and significance of the human factor (and
personnel policy), ladies and gentlemen, no one has yet canceled. Again,
without possessing a dialectical mindset, it is oh so difficult to search for and
find correct solutions to the most complex questions — which pushes (forces)
ordinary incompetent persons (including superficial researchers) to
shamelessly attribute all mistakes and miscalculations to extraordinary,
but, unfortunately, humble and silent predecessors.
It is quite probable that in our days a variant of establishing a union association
could be more productive, in which any national formation (republic, state,
autonomy) would enter the composition of a new federal arrangement on the
rights of a territorial district with the same "right to self-determination", but not
on a national, but on a territorial basis and with the obligation to establish a
single citizenship for the entire population as an indicator of belonging to the
common state structure (well, naturally, and with all other attributes of a single
state: a single currency, common goals, a single defense doctrine and law
enforcement agencies, etc.). But this is still a question requiring the involvement
of dialectical minds for its effective solution, who would be able to track the
peripeteia of the changing situation and accordingly adjust the decisions made
throughout the entire period of the relevance of this issue. God forbid the current
"rulers" should imagine themselves to be qualified "resolvers" of national
problems, and on this wave get involved in defusing the "mines" allegedly "laid"
by Lenin. Without taking into account the numerous nuances of the national
question, these "resolvers", not being skilled dialecticians for a single time, will
make a mess and out of ignorance or lack of foresight will finally bury a big
country under this firewood.
In any case, a simple solution to the national question by means of the so-called
"melting pot", from which serious racial problems, still not even close to being
resolved, suddenly crawled out (as the American near-election crisis of 2020
shows), is also impossible, which should be taken into account by all primitive
figures and flat "resolvers" when they assume to close the sore topic once and
for all in this way.
Meanwhile, this issue remains extremely topical at least because the sovereignty
(and, consequently, the identity) of a small nation (for example, the people of
Belarus in modern conditions) can be ensured and preserved on the principles of
the right of a nation to self-determination only if it exists (functions) in symbiosis
with a large (predominant in population) nation (within or under the wing of a
united Russia or an updated, modernized USSR, for example), which guarantees
this sovereignty and undertakes to protect the small nation from attacks and
claims from aggressive capitalist neighbors; otherwise, as the practice of today
shows, the aspiration (as a temptation) of a small (unself-sufficient) state to
pursue its own independent policy (adherence to the so-called political multivector approach) will sooner or later turn this state into an appendage of more
powerful capitalist states with inevitable leveling (nullification) of its national
identity. In fact, the analysis of Lenin's vision of the development options of this
topic leads precisely to such a conclusion.]
2. The manifesto "War and Russian Social-Democracy" [8, pp. 622-628],
published in November 1914, was the first official document of the RSDLP, which
outlined the position of the Bolshevik party regarding the beginning of the world
imperialist war.
"The European war, which for decades had been prepared by the governments
and bourgeois parties of all countries, broke out. ... Seizure of lands and
subjugation of foreign nations, ruin of a competing nation, plunder of its wealth,
diversion of the attention of the working masses from the internal political crises
of Russia, Germany, England and other countries, disunity and nationalist duping
of workers and the extermination of their vanguard for the purpose of weakening
the revolutionary movement of the proletariat — such is the only real content,
significance and meaning of the modern war" [8, p. 622].
[At the beginning of the article, Lenin analyzes the current situation and the
alignment of forces, showing that at the head of one of the warring groups
stands the German bourgeoisie, assuring the working class that it is waging a
war for the defense of the homeland, freedom and culture, for the liberation of
the peoples oppressed by tsarism and the destruction of reactionary tsarism, but
in fact being a faithful ally of tsarism and the enemy of the revolutionary
movement of workers and peasants in Russia and supporting the tsarist
monarchy against the revolution in Russia. At the head of the other group of
warring nations stands the English and French bourgeoisie, duping the working
class and the working masses, claiming that it is waging a war for the homeland,
freedom and culture against militarism and despotism of Germany, but in fact
striving to seize German colonies and ruin a competing nation, distinguished by
faster economic development. Contentful enrichment (accumulation of the
content of one's own form) at the expense of others, at the expense of
competitors — this is the meaning of this war (division, redistribution and seizure
of markets, destruction of competitors). In other words, the attitudes of lower
(i.e., more primitive) levels-forms towards multiplying their contentfulness by
taking away and consuming "alien" content overcome or take precedence over
the socialist attitudes or goals of more developed levels, professing the
accumulation and increase of their contentfulness through joint creative labor,
conducting research of developing reality by common forces, cognition and
forecasting by joint efforts of the emergence of new forms of reality at all levels,
as well as directions of prospective human activity].
"Both groups of belligerent countries do not yield to each other in robberies,
atrocities and endless cruelties of war, but in order to dupe the proletariat and
divert its attention from the only truly liberating war, namely the civil war
against the bourgeoisie of both "their" country and "foreign" countries, for this
high purpose the bourgeoisie of each country with false phrases about patriotism
tries to exalt the significance of "its" national war and assure that it seeks to
defeat the enemy not for robbery and land seizure, but for the "liberation" of all
other peoples, except its own.
...But the more diligently the governments and the bourgeoisie of all countries
try to disunite the workers and set them against each other... — the more
urgent is the duty of the conscious proletariat to defend its class cohesion, its
internationalism, its socialist convictions against the rampage of chauvinism of
the "patriotic" bourgeois clique of all countries. To refuse this task would mean
on the part of the conscious workers to refuse all their liberating and democratic,
not to mention socialist, aspirations.
With the deepest bitterness, it has to be stated that the socialist parties of the
main European countries did not fulfill this task of theirs, and the behavior of the
leaders of these parties — especially the German one — borders on direct
betrayal of the cause of socialism. At the moment of the greatest world-historical
importance, the majority of the leaders of the current, second (1889–1914)
Socialist International are trying to replace socialism with nationalism. Due to
their behavior, the workers' parties of these countries did not oppose themselves
to the criminal behavior of the governments, but called the working class to
merge their position with the position of the imperialist governments. The
leaders of the International committed treason in relation to socialism, voting for
war credits, repeating the chauvinistic ("patriotic") slogans of the bourgeoisie of
"their" countries, justifying and defending the war, entering the bourgeois
ministries of the warring countries, etc., etc. The most influential socialist leaders
and the most influential organs of the socialist press of modern Europe stand on
a chauvinistic-bourgeois and liberal [by the way, nothing has fundamentally
changed since then], by no means on a socialist point of view. The responsibility
for this disgrace of socialism falls primarily on the German Social-Democrats,
who were the strongest and most influential party of the Second International"
[8, pp. 623-624].
"The collapse of the Second International is the collapse of opportunism
[apostasy and conciliation], which was cultivated on the soil of the features of
the past (the so-called "peaceful") historical epoch and gained actual domination
in the International in recent years. The opportunists had long been preparing
this collapse, denying the socialist revolution and replacing it with bourgeois
reformism; denying the class struggle with its necessary transformation at
certain moments into a civil war and preaching class cooperation...
...It is impossible to fulfill the tasks of socialism at the present time, it is
impossible to realize the real international cohesion of workers without a decisive
break with opportunism and explaining to the masses the inevitability of its
fiasco.
[In other words, the war and the inability of the European social-democrats to
resist the bourgeoisie, their conciliation with the slogans of the bourgeoisie
testify to the collapse of the Second International, which Lenin proposes not to
hush up, but on the contrary, to recognize and emphasize. Without demarcation
from such a position of the bourgeoisie, it is impossible to fulfill the tasks of
socialism — it is absolutely impossible to realize the international cohesion of
workers without a break with the apostates and conciliators].
The task of the social-democrats of each country must be in the first place the
struggle against the chauvinism of the given country.
...In the current position, it is impossible to determine, from the point of view of
the international proletariat, the defeat of which of the two groups of belligerent
nations would be the least evil for socialism. But for us, Russian socialdemocrats, there can be no doubt that from the point of view of the working
class and the working masses of all the peoples of Russia, the least evil would be
the defeat of the tsarist monarchy, the most reactionary and barbaric
government, oppressing the greatest number of nations and the greatest mass
of the population of Europe and Asia.
The immediate political slogan of the social-democrats of Europe should be the
formation of a republican United States of Europe, and in contrast to the
bourgeoisie... the social-democrats will explain all the falsity and senselessness
of this slogan without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, Austrian and
Russian monarchies.
In Russia, the tasks of the social-democrats, due to the greatest backwardness
of this country, which has not yet completed its bourgeois revolution, should still
be the three main conditions of a consistent democratic transformation: a
democratic republic (with full equality and self-determination of all nations),
confiscation of landlords' lands and an 8-hour working day. But in all advanced
countries, the war puts the slogan of socialist revolution on the agenda. ...The
use by the bourgeoisie of the laws of wartime for completely silencing the
proletariat sets before it the unconditional task of creating illegal forms of
agitation and organization. ...The Proletarian International has not perished and
will not perish. The working masses will create a new International through all
obstacles. The current triumph of opportunism is not long-lasting. The more
victims of the war there are, the clearer it will be for the working masses of the
betrayal of the workers' cause by the opportunists and the necessity to turn
weapons against the governments and the bourgeoisie of each country" [8, pp.
626-627].
Summing up all the "pros" and "cons" in the current international situation,
i.e., analyzing the probable direction of change in the ratio of the active
(contentful) and passive (formal) components in the relation composed of
them, and in this regard basing on the necessity of replacing the relation
{people (instigated by the bourgeoisie) of one country / people (instigated by
the bourgeoisie) of another country} with a more contentful and therefore
more correct relation {proletariat of the belligerent countries / bourgeoisie of
the belligerent countries}, composed of objectively internally conflicting
components, Lenin comes to the conclusion that: "The transformation of the
modern imperialist war into a civil war is the only correct proletarian slogan,
indicated by the experience of the Commune... and following from all the
conditions of the imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois
countries. However great the difficulties of such a transformation may seem
at one or another moment, socialists will never abandon systematic,
persistent, steady preparatory work in this direction, once the war has
become a fact. Only on this path will the proletariat be able to break out of
its dependence on the chauvinist bourgeoisie and in one form or another
more or less quickly take decisive steps along the path to the real freedom of
peoples and along the path to socialism" [8, p. 628].
3. The small article "On the National Pride of the Great Russians" [8, pp.
629-632] with a serious subtext of ambiguous views was written in
December 1914.
From the content of the article, first of all, it must be understood that the
conscious unification of small peoples and nationalities is possible only on the
basis of the legalized right of nations to self-determination or a guaranteed
opportunity for their free secession. And this content echoes the
ideological content of the work "On the Right of Nations to SelfDetermination".
Lenin begins his analysis by describing the state of affairs that had developed
at that moment, when many correct words "are said, interpreted, shouted...
about nationality, about the fatherland... the greatness of the principle of
national independence". Meanwhile, he continues, "... before us is a very
wide and very deep ideological current, the roots of which are very firmly
connected with the interests of the ruling landlords and capitalists of the
great-power nations. Tens and hundreds of millions are spent annually
on the propaganda of ideas beneficial to these classes..." [8, p. 629].
And it would be improper for us, Lenin writes, as representatives of a greatpower nation, to forget about the enormous significance of the national
question, especially at a moment when the tsarist monarchy has put millions
of Great Russians and non-Russians under arms to "solve" a whole range of
national questions exclusively in accordance with its own interests (the
interests of the united nobility, serf-landlords, capitalists), while the same
tsarist executioners (noblemen and capitalists) subject our beautiful
homeland to oppression, violence, and mockery. Today, in Lenin's words, we
are full of a sense of national pride, for the Great Russian nation, overcoming
its slave past, has also created a revolutionary class, has also proven that it
is capable of giving humanity great examples of the struggle for freedom and
for socialism, and not only great pogroms, rows of gallows, dungeons and
great servility before priests, tsars, landlords and capitalists. And we are
proud because after 1905 the Great Russian muzhik began to become a
democrat and began to overthrow the priest and the landlord. It is precisely
because we want a free and independent, sovereign, democratic, republican,
proud Great Russia at all costs, building its relations with neighbors on the
human principle of equality, and not on the humiliating great nation feudal
principle of privileges, that we say: one cannot defend the fatherland
otherwise than by fighting with all revolutionary means against the
monarchy, landlords and capitalists of one's fatherland, i.e. the worst
enemies of our homeland; Great Russians cannot defend the fatherland
otherwise than by wishing defeat in any war to tsarism (as the least evil for
the overwhelming majority of the population of Great Russia), for tsarism not
only oppresses this majority of the population economically and politically,
but also demoralizes, humiliates, devalues, prostitutes it, accustoming it to
oppressing foreign peoples, accustoming it to cover up its shame with
hypocritical, allegedly patriotic phrases. In this connection, from the point
of view of the interests of precisely the Great Russian proletariat, it is
necessary to conduct a long-term education of the population in the sense of
the most resolute, consistent, bold, revolutionary defense of full equality and
the right to self-determination of all nations oppressed by the Great
Russians. "The interest (not understood in a slavish way) of the national
pride of the Great Russians coincides with the socialist interest of the Great
Russian (and all other) proletarians" [8, p. 632].
[As already noted earlier, instead of the terms "tsarism", "bourgeoisie",
"capitalists", etc., one can safely use terms close in their current meaning:
"autocracy", "oligarchy", "plutocracy", "ruling pseudo-elite", "comprador
liberal top", etc.
This article by V.I. Lenin is such a dynamic creation as all the others: from
the initial, less contentful, through change — to a prospective,
more contentful result and product. Like any other work by Lenin, this article
can be structurally and compositionally laid out in the following template.
Initial point (thesis): the position or view of the ruling class (autocracy,
tsarism, the emerging and strengthening Great Russian capitalism) on the
essence of Russian patriotism; i.e., by stating the skin-deep interests of this
class, supported by the propaganda of hypocritical kvass patriotism, one
component of the relation is established. Next point in development
(antithesis): the essence and definition of Russian patriotism from the point
of view of the revolutionary proletariat and its interests. In this way, the
other component of the relation is determined. Then, from the found
components, a more contentful component is identified (by detecting and
verifying the falsity, insincerity and untruth of one component, and vice
versa — the authenticity, truthfulness and greater objectivity of the other)
and on this basis the correct relation of the found components (synthesis) is
built, possessing the property and ability of self-development, — with
simultaneous forecasting of the development prospect of the whole relation
as a whole. As a result of comparing two opposite positions and views on
Russian patriotism belonging to two different interacting components
(classes) in the relation {proletariat/tsarism (autocracy)}, the Bolsheviks
give preference to the position of the proletariat and, developing, increasing
the contentfulness of this position (by explanations, agitation and
propaganda), achieve its predominance in the integral unified relation, which,
in the end, in the future and leads to the curtailment of hostilities and the
end of the bloody imperialist war.
Knowing in advance that in any conflict, in any interaction there are always
at
least
two
sides,
two
components
(namely:
the contentful and Formal components of development) of one relation, by
the nature and intensity of whose interaction the rate and completeness of
the increase in the contentfulness of the entire relation are determined, — it
is very important to correctly identify and determine these interacting sidescomponents in order to compose a relation from them; a correctly composed
relation of two directly interacting sides (two most essential components)
gives
the
most
energetic,
effective
and
optimal
increase
in contentfulness and development of both the components separately and
the relation as a whole.
Let us give more examples of correctly composed relations. In the relation
{wage labor/capital}, the components are inseparable, insignificant without
each other, and therefore this relation is not contrived, not sucked out of the
finger, but natural and natural. The same applies to such (derivative of this
relation
and
accompanying
this
relation)
relations
as
{proletariat/bourgeoisie}, {Soviets/Provisional Bourgeois Government}, etc.
Correctly composed relations are easily amenable to research and analysis
(for example, for the purpose of forecasting the prospects of their change
and development)].
[However, the pre-war situation developing in our time seems somewhat
different than on the eve of the First World War: it is beneficial for both
international and national (to preserve their status quo) capital that Russia
should give up its positions, while today's have-nots (wage workers) are
inherent in patriotism — as something that is present in them from birth, and
not bought or appropriated. Therefore, the slogan or call "for the
Motherland!" is sincere and modern as never before precisely for the
common people (in the hope of the coming socialist social transformations).
The "comprador" top thinks quite differently, there is no trace of patriotism
there — on the contrary, the latter is oppressed and despised by all forces
and means.
The litmus test of Russian patriotism today is the attitude towards Crimea
and Donbass. The entire "patriotism" of oligarchs and plutocrats consists in
justifying the circumstance that financial-industrial (oligarchic and state-
monopolistic) structures do not "bring" either business or banks to Donbass
and partially to Crimea (ignoring the problems of people living in the
specified territories) allegedly so as not to harm the whole country. In fact,
here one can see simple fears for their personal "hides", which may be
spoiled by the notorious Western sanctions. Furthermore, the supply of all
types of fuel (and other energy resources), spare parts and components to
the armed forces of a hostile state killing people on the territory of Donbass
— is also evidence of the same "patriotism" of the same structures. If one
digs deep enough, one can find a lot of amazing, shameful and criminal
things in the actions and behavior of today's "domestic" bourgeoisie.
The problem of Novorossiya can be resolved in the shortest possible time
provided that the issue of neutralizing the ruling "comprador" top of the
Russian plutocratic state is resolved. Even the "Washington regional
committee" does not play such a significant role here. In fact, everything
boils down to eradicating sabotage and overcoming resistance within the
country (treason — that is what it was called in hoary antiquity).]
[The policy of the current "ruler" towards Donbass is an ostrich head in the
sand, a policy of betrayal and apostasy towards the Russian people living
there. Only a cowardly, well-fed, ruling, venal bourgeois top can endure and
bear the dictate and mockery of the overseas "hegemon" (unremittingly
supervising all decisions on Donbass). A timid "governor" who lacks the will
and ability to cope with his "comprador" entourage — this is the reason for
the lack of positive effect and the required outcome in solving the problem of
Donbass (and Novorossiya as a whole). The key to solving this problem is in
Moscow. But an indecisive and venal "ruler" is unlikely to cope with this task;
a leader with stronger convictions and righteousness is needed. How many
bloody conflicts could have been "nipped in the bud" if one did not follow the
wake of the requests and goals of the financial-industrial oligarchate, to
whom their own business projects and profits are much closer and more
important than the interests of an entire country with its people.
People whom he reassured expect protection and help from the current
"ruler", and he time and again cowardly tucks his tail in fear of losing his
well-being and the favor (support) of his companions — god forbid the
Western masters "cut off the oxygen" for him and his entourage as well. Feel
the difference: an incorruptible, resolute and fearless revolutionary Lenin on
the one hand, and venal, dependent in everything on the overseas
"hegemon" (and therefore — timid and indecisive) current "rulers" on the
other. On the eve of a quite probable "hot" war, Russia can only be saved by
a "purge" of the ranks (according to Lenin) and the neutralization of the "fifth
column" (according to Stalin). Unity, firmness and support of the people in
this matter are unshakable.
The perfect weapon created thanks to the contentful resource of the people
— this should be the main argument of the modern "governor" in response to
the unprecedented onslaught and pressure from the "hegemon". Instead of
organizing a well-thought-out series of "jabs" (inflicting damage on the
overseas "hegemon" in a volume sufficient to demoralize the public
consciousness of the "democratizers") and thus showing who is the master in
the house by demonstrating the advantages of their latest military equipment
and military skill, our "rulers" are incessantly bowing and scraping and
bowing. One wonders, who and why then need expensive military "toys", if
there is no skill and understanding of how to use them for the benefit of the
people? They are needed, first of all, to stop the dictatorship of the aggressor
for years to come by inflicting on him a sufficiently disorganizing property
and moral damage.
They are playing a dishonest game (a game without any rules) against us,
and the "rulers", instead of worthily responding with the excellent means at
their disposal, shamefully justify themselves and wipe themselves off every
time after mocking spits from the completely impudent "hegemon".
The people have vested the current "ruler" with power and high powers so
that he, on behalf of the people, would not allow the honor and dignity of the
people to be trampled. If there is no strength to parry the attacks of the
collective West — one should step aside and not cling to power, as Lenin did
not cling to it, although he had much more reasons to be vested with this
power. Moreover, one should step aside and take with him his diplomatic
team of chronic whiners and moaners who do not know how to confront the
insolent riff-raff and therefore constantly justify their worthlessness and
inefficiency.
What the hell is all this military might needed for in the full disposal of the
current "governor" (even if it is situationally transferred, for now), if he does
not have the will to implement his own policy, does not know how to use this
trump card for the benefit of the country and the people, if he stumbles and
cowardly retreats at the first shout and askance look from the Western
"master"? The timid and indecisive bungler should give way to a stronger,
more resourceful, more purposeful, more courageous leader...
The understanding and justification of the admissibility and necessity of a
Russian force response in this particular case is facilitated by referring to the
well-known views of Clausewitz regarding the means of conducting state
policy. It is enough to keep in mind that politics (as an instrument of
pressure and imposition by various methods of worldview, position, point of
view, way of life, etc., etc. of one group of people on another group of
people) implies a very extensive set of means and techniques of influencing
a partner, competitor, adversary or enemy, among which there may be
methods of an encouraging, stimulating, preventive, economic, intimidating,
forceful and any other nature. Every political player is free to choose at his
discretion the most suitable means of influence from the entire arsenal of
available means contrary to the detrimental opinion on the matter that one
can and should play only by the rules established by individual players (or a
player) claiming exclusivity and absolute dominance. In the times of
unprecedented trampling of all international rights and rules that have come,
it is worth, perhaps, finally starting to play by one's own rules (?) or to
reconcile and finally allow oneself to be buried alive? Moreover, any
exclusivity is alien (foreign) to our international education in the spirit of
"man is a friend, comrade and brother to man", and therefore claims to
exclusivity and absolutism in this context should be curbed immediately.
Contrary to and in opposition to the hypocritical foreign policy of not simple
containment and economic pressure, but real strangulation and
destruction of Russia — it has long been time for Russia to move on to
retaliatory sobering "jabs" (i.e., to counteract by those means that it has in
its arsenal and that are most appropriate and effective in the given
circumstances).
"Well, what else should we expect? We keep begging. We get it on one
cheek, and immediately offer the other. And so on to infinity. This will not
end with anything good. In the end, if we survive, it is by accident. at the
last moment and at a very high cost. As, indeed, we always do... " [14].
Enough to express toothless and spineless diplomatic concern about the
insolent antics of the Anglo-Saxon conglomerate and its minions. It is
necessary to wean them from arbitrarily hindering the development of
anyone by methods of economic, political and any other blockade (i.e.,
through the so-called sanctions). We are talking about the sacred right of
every people, every nation to free economic and political development
(in this regard, it is appropriate to recall the classical Marxist position, known
for its dialectics and indisputable justice, according to which only the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of all). Not
everyone understands today, unfortunately, that this right still has to be
fought for, fought — and fought with all available means. And the fulfillment
of this noble mission on an international scale can quite well be taken upon
by Russia (possibly with its allies). Our people will understand the necessity
and expediency of such preemptive steps and will support them most
resolutely. If you do not want to walk as an "outcast" and eventually end up
in some kind of "reservation" — you will have to destroy the established
"sanction" system once and for all, using the force you have or at least
creating a threat of inevitable use of force. And to restore the lost status quo,
one must be ready to forcibly bring the "democratizer" out of the state of
material and moral comfort that seems to him eternal and cloudless. This
must be taken seriously. No one else will do this hard work for us. But. it
seems that the current fattening government is quite satisfied with the
established order of things.
And again we ask ourselves the same rhetorical question: what are all these
expensive military means needed for, if not for ensuring the political and
economic freedom, independence and sovereignty of the people, who created
these security means for exactly this same purpose?
After proclaiming such a doctrine and simultaneously carrying out several
series of demonstrative preventive "jabs", for many years these genderless
state
formations
(resembling
today
the
fancied-up
strutting
"misunderstandings") will not dare to look askance at Russia or raise their
voice; at least until they come to their senses and in an urgent reverse order
"re-shoe" themselves into the traditional, due to dialectical nature, two-sex
(bipolar) execution. And that rooster cry with which they will be hoarse at the
moment of receiving a deserved thrashing will once again demonstrate to
other peoples the fallacy and inconsistency of all these "democratic mentors",
as well as the sham character of any rashly proclaimed hegemony and
exclusivity.
Paradoxical as it may sound, this is precisely the most effective way
to prevent a global war today.]
4. The article "On the Slogan of the United States of Europe" [8, pp.
633-636] was written in August 1915. It deals with the incorrectness
(untimeliness) of this slogan in the economic aspect. If in the political aspect
this slogan, put in connection with the revolutionary overthrow of the three
most reactionary monarchies of Europe (German, Austrian and Russian), is
completely invulnerable, there remains the most important question about
the economic content and significance of this slogan. "From the point of view
of the economic conditions of imperialism, i.e. the export of capital and the
division of the world by "advanced" and "civilized" colonial powers, the United
States of Europe under capitalism is either impossible or reactionary", since
"it amounts to an agreement on the division of colonies" [8, pp. 634635].
Capital has become international and monopolistic; the world is divided
among a handful of "great powers" succeeding in great robbery and
oppression of nations. In the era of the highest development of capitalism, a
handful of great powers have organized the robbery of about a billion of the
Earth's population. [Isn't this relevant today, and even to a greater extent?
You read Lenin's article more than a century old, and it seems as if it is
written about our time!]. A different organization (i.e. voluntary renunciation
of colonies, spheres of influence, export of capital) is impossible under
capitalism, as are a different basis and a different principle of division, except
for force. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production and the
anarchy of production. To preach a "fair" division of income on such a basis is
the dull-wittedness of a philistine. A billionaire cannot share income with
anyone else otherwise than in proportion "according to capital". Hence — it
cannot be divided otherwise than "by force" [i.e. by force methods]. And
force changes with the course of economic development, and to check the
actual force of a developing capitalist state, there is and can be no other
means except war. Under capitalism [due to the anarchy and spontaneity of
market production], uniform growth of economic development of individual
farms and individual states is impossible, and therefore under capitalism
there are no other means of restoring from time to time the disturbed
equilibrium and eliminating disproportions than crises in industry and
wars in politics. War is not in contradiction with the foundations of private
property, but is a consequence of the direct and inevitable development of
these foundations (i.e. the need for periodic revision and redistribution of the
accumulations of private property).
Thus, based on what has been said on the modern economic basis, i.e. under
capitalism, the United States of Europe would mean the organization of
reaction to delay the faster development of America. The times when the
cause of democracy and the cause of socialism were connected only with
Europe have passed irrevocably. Under such conditions, the slogan "United
States of the World" would be more correct and relevant, however, it could
give rise to an incorrect interpretation of the question in the impossibility of
the victory of socialism in one country [8, p. 636].
The unevenness of economic and political development is an absolute law of
capitalism. It follows from this that the victory of socialism is possible initially
in a few or even in one single capitalist country. The political form of society
in which the proletariat wins, overthrowing the bourgeoisie, will be a
democratic republic, increasingly centralizing the forces of the proletariat of a
given nation or given nations in the struggle against states that have not yet
transitioned to socialism. On the basis of the foregoing, Lenin comes to the
conclusion (makes a diagnosis) about the impossibility of destroying
classes without the dictatorship of the oppressed class and the
impossibility of the free unification of nations in socialism without a more or
less long, persistent struggle of socialist republics with backward states. By
virtue of these considerations, a conclusion is made about the incorrectness
of the slogan of the United States of Europe at this particular historical
moment [8, p. 636], since it will be expressed in the postponement of the
beginning of the socialist revolution.
[Contentful essence of the socialist revolution, as noted in the article, is
realized and presented not in the form of a one-time act, but in a whole
series (epoch) of forms of political revolutions and counter-revolutions,
violent political and economic upheavals, aggravated class struggle, civil
wars, etc.
With regard to social transformations in Russia, the ultimately accomplished
socialist revolution with an aim at building a classless society is just an initial
stage or the first stage of the implementation of the socialist movement,
which in the future will only expand, deepen and accelerate. At the same
time, intermittency, stops, sharp turns, jerks, declines, rises (i.e. sections of
visible regression and backward movement: crises, wars, coups, revolutions,
counter-revolutions, etc.) are quite natural for this kind of movement and
only confirm the spiral-cyclical nature of social development (as well as
universal development as a whole).
It is the striving to achieve the highest contentfulness by the forms-carriers
of social progress that will serve as the main factor causing periodic
reference to the theoretical and practical developments generalizing the
results and experience of all previous stages of the mentioned revolutionary
movement.
Here Lenin informs the reader that Switzerland, for example (and some
similar "successful" and "prosperous" dwarf state formations), is the result of
an agreement of international capital on the arrangement of completely
neutral quiet "coves" and "harbors" for the reliable storage of funds,
organization of recreation and tourism of the fat cats. It was also conceived
by the mighty of this world as a place where the owners of large capital could
catch their breath and rest from "righteous" labors next to their savings and
accumulations. Thus, the defiantly colorful and openly transparent seemingly
shell of some state structure turns out to be just a screen, shielding from the
eyes of outsiders the inconspicuous true essence and purpose of such a
structure, once erected by the efforts of a small handful of interested
persons. Class solidarity, guarding the interests of the masters of life, will
never allow the transition to transparency of relations of production,
accumulation and consumption under capitalism. However, everything
related to the contentful resource of one or another form and the sources of
its accumulations will always be under lock and key and seals].
5. The article "The Military Program of the Proletarian Revolution" [8,
pp. 751-761] was written in German in September 1916, and was printed
only a year later. Then it was intended for Swiss, Swedish and Norwegian left
Social-Democrats. The publication was preceded by the following foreword:
"Nowadays, when Lenin is one of those figures of the Russian revolution who
are most often spoken about, the following article of this old iron
revolutionary, outlining a significant part of his political program, is of
particular interest" [8, p. 834]. In the Russian language in Russia, this work
was first published only in 1929.
Structurally and compositionally, the article is built according to the same very
typical stencil: analysis of the current situation (state of affairs); identification of
the interacting sides in their relation, both old and new (transformed and
developed); determination of the active, leading, leading component in these
relations, especially in the new one; forecasting the direction of variability of
both the components-constituents themselves in this new relation and the
relation as a whole.
The appearance of this article was caused by the circumstance that along with
the justified and fair opposition to the false slogan of the social-chauvinists about
the "defense of the fatherland" in the ongoing imperialist war, voices began to be
heard in favor of replacing the old point of the Social-Democratic program
"arming of the people" (formation of a "militia") with the new point
"disarmament".
"The main argument is that the demand for disarmament is the most consistent
expression of the struggle against all militarism and against any war." But in this
argument lies the main fallacy of the supporters of disarmament: socialists,
without ceasing to be socialists, cannot be against any war, and in particular a
revolutionary war, a national liberation war, a civil war (as well as the so-called
"defensive" wars of the victorious proletariat against the bourgeoisie of other
countries) [8, pp. 751-752]. And from a scientific point of view, it would be
completely incorrect and unrevolutionary to bypass or obscure the most
important and most difficult thing: the necessity of suppressing the resistance of
the bourgeoisie during the transition to socialism. And in wars of this kind, to
recognize "defense of the fatherland" means to consider these wars "just" and
corresponding to the interests of the proletariat, since a reverse invasion of the
bourgeoisie cannot be excluded in any war and, accordingly, resistance to such
an invasion must be organized.
[Establishing a new relation with new components in this new relation in place of
the relation {Entente (Great Britain, France, Russia) / Triple Alliance (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, Italy)} (since new forces that entered into a new confrontation
and war were awakened: {proletarian plus national revolution / bourgeois plus
national-chauvinistic war}) requires finding a new correlation of these new
components in the indicated relation, i.e. finding a new balance of the new forces
that have entered the arena.
Thus, analyzing the predatory conflict through the prism of the previously
incorrectly composed relation {people (instigated by the bourgeoisie) of one
country / people (instigated by the bourgeoisie) of another country} and
showing the hypocrisy and duplicity of the slogans of such falsely understood
patriotism, Lenin moves on to a more correctly composed and substantiated
relation from such components {proletariat of the conflicting countries /
bourgeoisie of the conflicting countries} and already, proceeding from this new
relation, one has to look for the correlation of its components, the direction of
variability of this correlation and the direction of change (new forms) of the
relation itself].
Theoretically, Lenin says, it would be completely erroneous to forget that any
war is only a continuation of politics by other means: the current imperialist war
is a continuation of the imperialist policy of two groups of great powers, and this
policy is generated and fed by the totality of relations of the imperialist epoch.
But the same epoch must necessarily generate and feed the policy of struggle
against national oppression, and the struggle of the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie, and therefore — the possibility and inevitability of revolutionary
national uprisings and wars, on the one hand, and wars and uprisings of the
proletariat against the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, as well as the unification
of both types of revolutionary wars [8, p. 754]
To this, Lenin adds the following consideration: one cannot forget that we
live in a class society and there is and can be no other way out of it than
through the class struggle. In any class society (based on slavery, serfdom,
wage labor), the oppressing class is armed (the military and the militia are taken
into account — otherwise, in the absence of means of suppression, social
inequality or imbalance could not be maintained for an indefinitely long
time). The arming of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat is one of the most
basic facts of capitalist society. And to proclaim the slogan of disarmament for
the proletariat against this background is tantamount to abandoning the point of
view of the class struggle. On the contrary, the arming of the proletariat is the
only possible tactic of the revolutionary class, a tactic dictated by the entire
objective development of capitalist militarism, prescribed by this development.
And therefore our slogan should be the arming of the proletariat [i.e. increasing
the contentfulness of the form (the proletarian class) at a certain — force — sublevel of this form] in order to defeat and disarm the bourgeoisie. Saying that
"capitalist society was and always is horror without end", Lenin masterfully notes
the trend of piling up contentful accumulations conditioned by military actions,
leading to "an end with horror" (a terrible end). And at the same time, contrary
to established beliefs, behind this "terrible end" he sees the emergence and
emergence of a new form and, accordingly, a new perspective, consisting in the
fact that "before everyone's eyes, by the forces of the bourgeoisie itself, the only
legitimate and revolutionary war is being prepared, namely: civil war against the
imperialist bourgeoisie" [8, p. 755] with a new contentful turn in the course of
the upcoming contentful transformations and transformations.
"Now militarization penetrates all public life" [8, p. 756]: today the imperialist
bourgeoisie militarizes the entire male population, including youth, and in the
plans for tomorrow — the militarization of women as well. Regarding this, one
can say: so much the better, the sooner and closer to the armed uprising against
capitalism. Mastering military science is necessary for the proletariat not in order
to shoot at their brothers, workers of other countries, as is done in the current
war, but in order to fight against the bourgeoisie of their own country, to put an
end to exploitation, poverty and wars not by kind wishes and hopes, by
statements of condemnation and concern, but by victory over the bourgeoisie
and disarming it, which is achieved only by waging war against war, i.e. by civil
confrontation and civil war.
The main disadvantage of the demand for disarmament lies precisely in the fact
that all concrete questions of the revolution are left unattended (ignored). The
"disarmament" of the proletariat (people), Lenin insists, professed by conciliators
with the bourgeoisie of all stripes (opportunists, following Lenin's terminology), is
precisely an escape from the vile reality, and not a struggle against it [the
fundamental transformation of the established reality is possible only by decisive
actions with weapons in hand]. The struggle against imperialism, not connected
with the struggle against opportunism, is an empty phrase and a deception. The
main danger emanating from all varieties of opportunism [i.e. conciliation and
apostasy] is that they hush up (or talk out) the question of the connection of the
ongoing war with the revolution and thus come out with a new absurd slogan:
revolution without weapons [8, pp. 757-758].
Furthermore, the bourgeoisie of all great imperialist powers has become so
reactionary [i.e. striving to avoid crisis and restore the lost balance in affairs]
and so imbued with the striving for world domination [i.e. to achieve
their contentful superiority] that any war on the part of the bourgeoisie of these
countries can only be reactionary. The proletariat should be not only against any
such war, but should wish for the defeat of "its" government in such wars and
use it for a revolutionary armed uprising, if an uprising with the aim of
preventing the war fails [8, pp. 758-759].
With the conciliators (fighters for the disarmament of the people) one cannot
fight by means of programs alone, but only by means of relentless observation
to ensure that they are actually implemented. The largest fatal mistake of the
bankrupt Second International was that the word did not correspond to the
deed, that a habit of hypocrisy and shameless revolutionary phrase was
cultivated. Disarmament as a social idea is generated, obviously, by the special
"peaceful" living conditions of individual small states, which have stood aside
from the bloody world road of wars for quite a long time and hope to remain so.
The petty-bourgeois desire to stay away from the great battles of world history,
to use their relatively monopolistic position for passivity — this is the objective
social environment that can provide the idea of disarmament with a certain
success and a certain spread in some small states. Of course, this aspiration is
reactionary and rests on illusions, for imperialism one way or another drags
small states into the whirlpool of the world economy and world politics. [This
"wonderful" side or feature of the arrangement of "well-fed" lazy, arrogantly
haughty communities and societies must always be taken into account: their
impudently-pushy essence can be overcome by active persistent impact on them
until the moment of their scattering to their shelters; brave and "pushy" at first,
they are not able to withstand a long siege and continuous onslaught, leading to
their physiological discomfort or threatening complete physical destruction].
Switzerland, for example, its imperialist situation prescribes two lines of the
workers' movement: 1) the opportunists in alliance with the bourgeoisie strive to
turn Switzerland into a republican-democratic monopolistic union to profit from
the tourists of the imperialist bourgeoisie and so that this "peaceful" monopolistic
position (a quiet "harbor") is as profitable as possible [here lie the roots of the
success, prosperity and well-being of neutral dwarf states like Switzerland and
the like. The quiet "backwaters" of Switzerland and similar small lands, where
one can sit out and hide one's savings in days of great crises and upheavals,
were prepared by the rich for themselves in advance — that is why these "areas"
received such a lush bloom in inviolability]; 2) the real Social-Democrats of
Switzerland seek to use the relative freedom and "international" position of
Switzerland to help the close alliance of revolutionary elements of the workers'
parties of Europe to win.
[Both lines are conditioned by the special position and the historically established
status quo of a small country].
Proceeding from these two pronounced tendencies, it becomes clear, Lenin sums
up, that objectively "disarmament" is a specifically national program of small
states, and by no means an international program of revolutionary international
Social-Democracy [8, pp. 759-761].
And then the hottest pre-revolutionary times came. One would think that the
rhetoric and style of Lenin's articles should have become chaotic and less
ordered; however, no — all the same sustained and balanced tone, the same
unhurried, patient deep analysis, the unhurried course of the presentation of
thought, which lead to the most correct remarkable conclusions, based by no
means on unfounded calls and slogans, but on the ability to see the general
objective behind individual specific facts, i.e. to guess and expose the regular
in the process of building a dialectically verified scheme of analysis.
6. Small in volume, but extremely rich in Content and permeated through and
through with the spirit of dialectics, the article "On Dual Power" [9, pp. 16-18]
was written in April 1917. The fundamental question of any revolution, Lenin
writes at the beginning of the article, is the question of power in the state. But
the remarkable peculiarity of the current revolution is that it has created dual
power, which no one thought of or could think of before. Therefore, the old
"formulas" of Bolshevism must be supplemented and corrected. Dual power
consists in the fact that next to the Provisional Government of the bourgeoisie,
another government has emerged: the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers'
Deputies. Thus, there is a relation composed or formed of two sidescomponents: {"growing" government of the people in the face of the Soviets of
Workers' and Soldiers' (i.e. peasants dressed in soldiers' uniforms) Deputies /
government of the bourgeoisie}. The peculiarity of the people's power consists in
the fact that it: firstly, represents a revolutionary dictatorship, since its source is
not the law, but the direct initiative of the masses from below, i.e.
revolutionary
"seizure"
[the
source
of
power
is
some
internal contentful (energetic) constituent of reality, determining the deep
striving of the people (or a group of people); power itself is the external form of
acquiring this contentful constituent]; secondly, it carries out the replacement of
the police and the army by the armed people; thirdly, it places officials and the
bureaucracy under the control of the armed people with the possibility of
replacing personnel at the first demand of the people and paying labor no higher
than the usual wage of a good worker [this extremely important and remarkable
move (technique) of the nascent power was invented by no means by Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, but was only successfully and justifiably implemented by the
Bolshevik government after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
This was an act approved by the people, in confirmation of the establishment of
a more just distribution of the worked-out product. By the way, both the
"Soviets" and our proud word "comrade" and many other similar fashionable
terms and concepts of that time are also not inventions of Lenin and company,
but verbal constructions corresponding to the achievements of the advanced
enlightened thought of that time, skillfully used by the Bolsheviks in organizing
the public arrangement of a new type]. Thus, a state is formed according to the
type of the Paris Commune of 1871.
At the same time, this is only an embryonic power, for it still yields positions to
the bourgeoisie. The reason is the insufficient consciousness and organization of
the proletarians and peasants. The uncertainty of the new power is revealed by
the simple question it poses: should the Provisional Government be overthrown
immediately? Lenin answers this question as follows: 1) the government must
be overthrown — for it is oligarchic, bourgeois, and not nationwide, it can give
neither peace, nor bread, nor freedom; 2) however, it cannot be overthrown
now, for it is held together by a formal and actual agreement with the Soviets of
Workers' Deputies; 3) it cannot be overthrown in the usual way at all, for it relies
on the support of the bourgeoisie by the Council of Workers' Deputies, which is
the only possible revolutionary government, directly expressing the
consciousness and will of the majority of workers and peasants (and above,
better than this type of government, as the Soviets of workers, farm laborers,
peasant, soldier deputies, humanity has not developed and we still do not know).
Hence, "to become power, conscious workers must win the majority over to their
side: as long as there is no violence against the masses, there is no
other way to power" [9, p. 18].
The bourgeoisie is for the sole power of the bourgeoisie, while the conscious
workers are for the sole power of the Soviets of workers, farm laborers, peasant
and soldier deputies, for sole power prepared by the clarification of proletarian
consciousness and its liberation from the influence of the bourgeoisie, and not by
adventures [i.e. the current relation from the indicated components (see above)
must now be enriched with content, saturated with contentfulness by feeding its
upper component, the "numerator", with Content, in order to strengthen it as
the leading component by clarifying and enriching the proletarian
consciousness].
Thus, as we see, again guided by the dialectical method, Lenin precisely and
unambiguously determines both the relation of the main componentsconstituents of development at this particular stage of the revolutionary
movement, and the actual class correlation of forces-components within the
relation composed by him, which determines (we are talking about the
correlation) the tasks for the near-term development of the revolutionary
situation and the direction of the subsequent movement or change of this
relation as a whole.
[This article is a classic example of skillful, filigree mastery of dialectics and its
effective application].
7. In the article "Three Crises" [9, pp. 124-127], written by Lenin in July 1917,
various forms of the course of the revolution are considered (primarily from class
positions). Three objective political crises that determined the nature of the
course of the revolutionary process of that period served as the basis for lies and
slander [i.e. numerous "fakes", as they would say in our time] about the artificial
organization of these crises by the hands of the Bolsheviks. Objectively common
to all three crises is the "overflowing" discontent of the people with the
bourgeoisie and its government, which allows us to see behind all this the
incessant class struggle. Individually in these crises — these are different forms
of conducting (manifestation) of the mentioned class struggle. In all three cases
— this is a demonstration, but: in the first case — stormy-spontaneous,
unorganized, leading to shooting at the demonstrators by the Black Hundreds; in
the second case — appointed by the Bolsheviks, canceled and postponed to a
new date, a general more powerful demonstration with the predominance of
Bolshevik slogans; in the third case — a spontaneous rise of counter-revolution
contrary to the efforts of the Bolsheviks.
An instructive conclusion from the events under consideration, as Lenin notes, is
"that all three crises show us a certain. new in the history of our revolution, form
of a demonstration of a more complex type, with a wave-like movement [from
extreme to extreme], a rapid rise and a steep fall, with an aggravation of the
revolution and counter-revolution, with the "washing out", for a more or less
long time, of the middle elements" [9, pp. 125-126].
Lenin masterfully notes that in such periods of acute political crises, the
contradictions between the main "players" of the revolutionary action are
aggravated [in this case between the components of the very main relation
{proletariat/bourgeoisie}], while some intermediate "middle elements"
accompanying every turmoil are pushed aside: "But the point is that this is not
an ordinary demonstration, it is much more than a demonstration and less than
a revolution. This is an explosion of revolution and counter-revolution together,
this is a sharp, sometimes almost sudden "washing out" of the middle elements
in connection with the stormy manifestation of proletarian and bourgeois
[elements]" [9, p. 126].
The objective clash of two opposing sides, two classes — the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie — corresponds to the political struggle of their parties — the
Bolsheviks and the Cadets. At the same time, the "middle elements" accuse the
Cadets that they facilitate the work of the Bolsheviks, and the Bolsheviks that
they facilitate the work of the Cadets. Now, Lenin says, if instead of political
names we substitute class ones, then we get the dreams of the petty bourgeoisie
about the "disappearance" of the class struggle between the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie. And then follows an objective and dialectically verified conclusion
that no Bolsheviks in the world could have "caused" not only three, but even one
"popular movement", if the deepest economic and political reasons did not
set the proletariat in motion, that no Cadets and monarchists together can
cause any movement "from the right", if equally deep reasons did not create
the counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie as a class [9, pp.
126-127].
This is an indicator of the petty bourgeoisie's misunderstanding of the
mechanism or essence of the class struggle of the proletariat against the
bourgeoisie. Since the vast majority of the country's population is pettybourgeois in their life situation and even more so in their ideas, and in the
confrontation with large capital (in the face of banks and syndicates in the first
place) the urban proletariat is not yet capable of immediately winning over the
majority of the semi-proletarians and other strata of the population, such an
objectively formed situation [corresponding to the objectively formed at the
current moment correlation of force-components in the main class relation
{proletariat/bourgeoisie}] will be expressed in the inevitability of crises similar to
the three crises under consideration in their three forms.
[Economic and political crises (the confrontation of two deeply non-equilibrium
components of the known relation {proletariat/bourgeoisie}) set in motion both
the revolutionary proletariat (with its form of government or power — the
Soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies) on the one hand, and the
counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie (with its form of government — the Provisional
Government) on the other. At the same time, the "middle elements" (petty
bourgeoisie) with their parties (the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks)
lash both of them for "rocking" the common boat. Behind the forms of the
erupting crises, Lenin clearly sees their essence — the interaction, struggle,
conflict of two components of development, two main sides of the relation
{proletariat/bourgeoisie}. The middle elements or petty bourgeoisie (including
the intelligentsia) are always an oscillating stratum, which, depending on the
circumstances, can play the role of both a revolutionary-active and a counterrevolutionary element. And such oscillations from one pole to the other are
inevitable, which leads to both a change in the established correlation between
the sides and a change in the relation itself as a whole.
That is why, in the final analysis, for the implementation of a full-fledged
uprising, the proletariat today lacks a "critical mass" and therefore the topical
(for now) task is to win over the oscillating semi-proletarian mass to its
proletarian side, including the poorest peasantry and the petty-bourgeois
stratum of the country's population. In this case, we are talking about the need
to increase the contentfulness of the "upper" component (the "numerator" of the
given relation, i.e. the consciousness and organization of the proletariat) in the
actually formed relation of components {proletariat/bourgeoisie} by all possible
means, including explanatory work, agitation, and propaganda.]
8. Lenin's attitude to his probable arrest in the hot July days of 1917 will be
shown by the example of the publications of two of his small articles "Where is
the Power and Where is the Counter-Revolution" [9, pp. 119-123] and "On
the Question of the Appearance in Court of the Bolshevik Leaders" [9,
pp. 128-129].
In the first article, the false statement of a certain former member of the State
Duma about the readiness of Lenin and the Bolshevik party to conclude a
separate peace with Germany is analyzed, despite the fact that Lenin, on the
contrary, has always and unconditionally rejected a separate peace with
Germany in the most resolute and irrevocable manner [9, p. 121]. This same
source reported that the Bolshevik leaders received money from German agents.
At the same time, everyone perfectly understood that if this information were
true, the General Staff would by no means allow its premature leakage to the
yellow press and would not hesitate for a minute to arrest the Bolshevik top.
In fact, as it turned out later, taking advantage of dual power (or rather, the
powerlessness of that period), this information for the purpose of discrediting the
Bolsheviks was spread by the so-called behind-the-scenes counter-revolution —
the Cadets, well-known circles of the General Staff and the Black Hundred press.
"The counter-revolution takes advantage of the powerlessness, uniting the
Cadets with the well-known commanding tops of the army and with the Black
Hundred press" [9, p. 123].
The second article on the question of the appearance of the Bolshevik leaders in
court brings on this account, as one would expect, two opinions: to appear and
not to appear. At first, Lenin very seriously considered the possibility of his
presence in court, since such a step would allow using the court as a tribune to
clarify the essence of the Bolsheviks' position and additional agitation, to which
Ilyich always approached very scrupulously. Moreover, Lenin was by no means a
man of a timid disposition to be frightened by threats from the Provisional
Government. However, after a comprehensive collective discussion of this
option, the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) unanimously adopted a resolution in
which it spoke out against the appearance of Lenin and a number of other
comrades in court, foreseeing a possible massacre of the Bolshevik leadership
[or, as they would say today, the neutralization of the entire party asset].
"If we assume that in Russia there is and a correct government is possible, a
correct court, the convening of the Constituent Assembly is probable, then one
can come to a conclusion in favor of appearance" [9, p. 128]. However, due to
the absence of power [the established dual power as an equivalent to
powerlessness], there was neither a correct court, nor a correct government, nor
a Constituent Assembly in Russia at that time. The court is supposedly fair, the
court will figure it out, the court will be public, the people will understand — "a
reasoning naive to childishness". It is not a court, but a persecution of
internationalists, that is what Kerensky and Co. needed. Therefore, "let the
internationalists work illegally as much as they can, but let them not make the
stupidity of voluntary appearance!" [9, p. 129].
[How honestly, responsibly and devotedly Lenin treated his cause, involving the
implementation of the socialist idea in life, how convinced he was of the
rightness of this idea, can be judged by the memoirs of his contemporaries, even
from among those who were not Bolsheviks and never shared their views. The
Menshevik F. Dan, for example, once remarked with irritation: "...There is no
longer such a person who would be busy with the revolution 24 hours a day,
who would have no other thoughts except the thought of the revolution, and
who even sees only the revolution in his dreams. Just try to cope with such a
one" [13, p. 6].
Can Lenin's devotion to the common cause, his lack of greed and purposefulness
be compared with the qualities of today's "rulers" or the so-called Duma
communists and all other "zealots for the people" — with their camouflaged
financial assets, unaffordable real estate and "treacherously" tinted bank
accounts (including foreign ones). It's laughable, really. Can the current "rulers"
and their ilk compare with Lenin's pleiad of state leaders, who descended into
the grave in the same frock coats in which they came into the revolutionary
political movement, and then into power?
Every "ruler" has, by and large, only two options for "exit" from power structures
when the earth is shaking underfoot and power is slipping from his hands. The
first option: to inconspicuously "merge", saving one's "hide" (in modern
language), changing into a woman's dress or (which is tantamount to the same
thing) timely pulling a retirement pajamas on oneself; the second option: again,
saving one's precious hide, to apply force against the rebels.
Because his own "priceless" life and excessive ambitions are at stake, the
modern "ruler" readily and without hesitation is ready to deploy against his own
people artillery, tanks, MLRS and aircraft, perfectly realizing that all this is a
weapon of group destruction. And how should one treat such a nonentity after
that?
And against such a background, someone has the tongue to make claims to
Lenin, who was not smeared and not noticed in anything similar (i.e., never
clung to power and did not allow anything of the kind and close, which cannot be
said about many other characters — once former and now residing in power). In
this regard, Lenin was always guided by the principle formulated in one of his
reports: "A revolution is worth something only if it knows how to defend itself...".
It was about defense and the struggle against counter-revolution, which in every
way and by all methods, including terror, sought to prevent the formation of a
new social order (new socio-economic formation) and the creative
transformation of the country: "The revolution was an awakening to a new life of
millions. In February and March, these millions did not know what they were
going to continue the slaughter into which they were driven by the tsars and
Kerenskys and the purpose of which was exposed only in December by the
Bolshevik government. This turning point has come; it changes the strength of
the revolution. If these masses have now created a new discipline in the Red
Army, not the discipline of the stick and the landlord's, but the discipline of the
Soviets of workers' and peasants' deputies; if they are now going to the greatest
self-sacrifice; if among them a new cohesion has developed, it is because for the
first time in the consciousness and experience of tens of millions a new, socialist
discipline is being born and has been born, the Red Army has been born. It was
born only when these tens of millions of people saw from their own experience
that they themselves had overthrown the landlords and capitalists, that a new
life was being built, that they themselves had begun to build it and that they
would build this life if a foreign invasion did not interfere" [12, pp. 122-123].
For the current "rulers", for example, special cycles of television programs are
organized so that they explain their most "humane" and "sweet-tempered"
impulses, talk about their grandiose plans, diligently winding flour products of
well-known names onto the ear shells of undiscriminating or confused listeners.
And as a result or in the dry residue, there will still be the same two options for
"exit" from "power": either quietly "merge" in women's underwear or retirement
pajamas, so that no one can "catch" the poor fellow for the miscalculations made
in foreign and domestic policy, or drown everything in human blood for the sake
of one's own salvation. And there should be no illusions about this. Wretches of
all stripes who have got into power use all possible means to stay afloat or get
out dry.
Meanwhile, every such "ruler" should see at the end of his term of office not a
comfortable armchair with a woolen blanket, but a block with an axe; only then
can one hope that he will check every step he takes and make every decision in
the name of and for the benefit of the people, who have temporarily delegated
their power powers to him].
To our great regret, many modern "rulers" (including Russian ones) still, as
in the past, build up for themselves, cherish and nurture oligarchicplutocratic states: a) according to their perverted ideas of the ideal (in the
sense of perfect) world order; b) as a natural product and indicator of their
lack of education and bad taste. Moreover, to develop or "further educate"
such a dwarf ruler due to his clinical limitations, as a rule, is not possible. All,
outwardly looking like good intentions of such a worthless ruler, turn out, in
the final analysis, to be just a cover for the manifestation of private property
instincts, petty deeds and self-serving interests of the oligarchic-plutocratic
environment, which serves for the caricature ruler as a kind of "airbag".
It is amusing to watch how an ordinary figure, after the insignificant
sycophantic entourage "blows" into his ears about his non-ordinariness and
exclusiveness, suddenly begins to claim the role of a large-scale theorist and
teacher of the nation, practically not understanding the "sublime matters",
looking down with disdain and hostility at the past of the country, leveling
and calling into question what was created by truly great predecessors
(during the years of Soviet power and under the leadership of the Bolsheviks
hated by him). It is surprising how a "ruler" with an inadequate assessment
of the phenomenal past of his people can throw dust in the eyes of his fellow
citizens for so long.
In contrast to today's "leaders" and "rulers", the Bolsheviks (Lenin's closest
comrades) evoke sympathy not only due to their education, erudition, lively
mind, sober views of the world, but also thanks to iron will ("one could make
nails from these people — there would be no stronger nails in the world"),
romanticism (albeit naive to some extent), unwavering faith in the future, in
man, in his creative potential.
The Bolsheviks from the pleiad of Lenin's closest comrades selflessly, at the
cost of their freedom, health, and in many cases their lives, — managed to
break through a gap in such a thickness of millennial human ignorance,
deception and violence against ordinary people that it is simply impossible to
reassess their contribution to the formation of a new worldview (world
outlook and world order) and, therefore, one can admire them endlessly.
As for Lenin (as a politician and statesman), the decisions made by him and
the actions performed by him must always and first of all be considered in
the context of those tasks and problems that in those times, without
exaggeration, simply "took by the throat". To understand the logic of
decisions and behavior of great politicians, one must consider this behavior
and decisions in accordance with the events and circumstances, conditions
and realities that, like a certain spatial environment or atmosphere, fill those
or other times.
By the way, modern political wretches, as already noted above ("true
democrats" — by their own standards), for the sake of preserving their
power or at the slightest threat to this power of theirs (as a rule, even in
insignificant in historicism circumstances) easily use the power appropriated
by them for the isolation or elimination of dissenters and freethinkers.
One must possess the true "greatness" and "enormity" of Lenin's nature to
leave after himself such scanty autobiographical information from personal
life, preferences, hobbies, etc. — unlike our current "rulers" striving to
immortalize (with the help of court "chroniclers") and capture on film or "in
digits" (in the form of a cinematic epic of insignificant episodes) every step of
their feigned path under the pharisaic slogan "all life is service to the
people"].
9. "Undoubtedly, the most important question of any revolution," V.I. Lenin
begins his article "One of the Fundamental Questions of the Revolution"
[9, pp. 208-214], dated September 1917. — is the question of state power;
everything is determined by the class in whose hands the power is: one
cannot bypass or postpone the question of power, for this is the fundamental
question determining everything in the development of the revolution, in its
foreign and internal policy. However, the revolution has lost half a year due
to the hesitation of the parties of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the
Mensheviks, who are the avant-garde of the petty bourgeoisie with its
economic instability in the struggle between labor and capital. If in these
great half-years the petty-bourgeois democracy has learned anything, then it
is necessary to immediately create a stable unhesitating power; if not, then
the revolution has perished, and only the victorious uprising of the proletariat
can save it" [9, p. 208].
Only the power of the Soviets can be stable, deliberately relying on the
majority of the people, no matter how the lackeys of the bourgeoisie lie. Only
Soviet power could be stable and could ensure the broad development of the
revolution and the peaceful struggle of parties within the Soviets. Until such
power is created, indecision, hesitation, endless "crises of power", a comedy
of ministerial reshuffles are inevitable. But the slogan "All Power to the
Soviets" is often understood completely incorrectly in the sense of "a ministry
from the parties of the Soviet majority". In the indicated sense — this is just
a change in the composition of ministers while preserving the entire old
apparatus of government power, incapable of carrying out serious reforms.
In fact, "All Power to the Soviets" means a radical reworking of the entire old
state bureaucratic apparatus that hinders everything democratic, the
elimination of this apparatus and its replacement by a new, people's
apparatus of the Soviets, i.e. the organized and armed majority of the
people, workers, soldiers, peasants, providing the initiative and
independence to the majority of the people not only in the election of
deputies, but also in governing the state, in carrying out reforms and
transformations [9, pp. 209-210].
The entire history of bourgeois-parliamentary and bourgeois-constitutional
countries, Lenin reminds, shows that a change of ministers means very little,
for the real work of management is in the hands of a gigantic army of
officials, which is thoroughly imbued with an anti-democratic spirit, is
connected by millions of threads with the bourgeoisie and is dependent on it.
This army is connected by relations of rank worship, known privileges of
"state" service, and the upper ranks of this army through the mediation of
shares and banks are completely enslaved by financial capital, representing
its agents, conductors of its interests and influence. [Isn't it somehow
"peculiarly fresh" sounding today!]. To carry out reforms to limit the right of
capital and the right of "sacred private property", such a state apparatus is
absolutely incapable [9, p. 210]. It was so and it will be so as long as the
bourgeois system holds and the old, bourgeois, bureaucratic, state apparatus
remains inviolable. The Soviets of workers', soldiers', peasants' deputies are
valuable precisely in that they represent a new, immeasurably higher,
incomparably more democratic type of state apparatus [9, p. 211]. Here
Lenin calls for not being afraid of the initiative and independence of the
masses, who are capable of revolutionary transformations and replacing the
old state apparatus.
Experience has shown that there is no middle ground: either all power to the
Soviets both in the center and on the local level, or the landlords and
capitalists hinder everything and restore their power. The situation in Russia
is such that the unprecedented hardships and misfortunes of war, the
formidable danger of collapse and hunger themselves suggested a way out
and put forward as urgent reforms and transformations: the bread monopoly,
control over production and distribution, limiting the issue of paper money,
the correct exchange of bread for goods, etc. The only class that can show
the courage and decisiveness that is lacking today is the proletariat; at the
same time, the establishment of a firm course for reforms is impossible
without the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
And, finally, the brilliant Lenin's conclusion: "Only the dictatorship of the
proletarians and the poorest peasants is able to break the resistance of the
capitalists, show truly majestic courage and decisiveness of power, ensure
for itself enthusiastic, selfless, truly heroic support of the masses both in the
army and in the peasantry" [9, p. 214]. The only thing that could make
further development gradual, peaceful and calm is the transfer of power to
the Soviets, which would mean the transfer of management of the country
and the economy to the workers and peasants, whom no one would dare to
resist and who would quickly learn from experience to correctly distribute
land, products, bread.
[So, again we return to the initial, revealed in the course of Lenin's analysis
of the situation relation of component-classes {proletariat/bourgeoisie}, by
the interaction of components in which some of their correlation is realized,
demonstrating the supremacy, priority or prevalence of one component in
relation to another (which determines the power of one class over another).
The relation {proletariat/bourgeoisie}, filled with new content, in the form of
the transformed, transformed relation {Councils of workers', peasants' and
soldiers' deputies / bourgeois Provisional Government} shows the ability of
development (displacement) of this relation towards the "upper" component
(the "numerator"), which corresponds to the strengthening of its activity,
initiative and readiness for revolutionary transformations, to the perception
and mastery of new forms of management, productive forces, social
production, etc., etc., and which, in turn, determines the acceleration of
the contentful development of the entire relation as a whole. The emergence
of a new correlation of class forces to a new level of contentfulness (in the
form of a new relation) — this is what the Socialist-Revolutionary and
Menshevik leaders are afraid of. Again, the disruption of reforms by the
bourgeoisie is the result of inactivity or lack of sufficient control over the
situation on the part of the revolutionary component. The full development of
the indicated relation as a whole is predicted by the transfer of power to the
Soviets due to the readiness of the revolutionary popular masses for this.
In the same way, in modern conditions, without tough measures and a
revolutionary approach to solving the most urgent state tasks, one cannot do
without, no matter how hard one tries and no matter how one "blurs" the
eyes of one's fellow citizens. If the current "ruler" hopes that everything will
resolve itself, he is deeply mistaken in this regard — women have not yet
learned to give birth to such oligarchs, magnates, majors and other
"appropriators" who would voluntarily renounce what was earned in the
sweat of someone else's face and in favor of their own face appropriated. It
is a pity, nevertheless, that the current "governor" is not a resolute
revolutionary.
The reverse side of any revolution, and then counter-revolution, is (along
with class wars and squabbles) the settlement of personal, family, shop,
corporate and other scores; at the same time, the following semantic chain is
approximately realized: revenge => retribution => compensation =>
restoration of equilibrium (balance), i.e. justice... (the very etymology of
words builds them into a similar semantic chain, corresponding to the
direction of the course of processes of dialectical development). This is the
external manifestation of the dialectical nature of developing reality in the
field of human relations. At the "higher" levels — this is a contest of
competing concepts and ideologies; at more "down-to-earth" levels — this is
a physical (force) struggle, conditioned by the desire (thirst) for the
restoration of trampled justice, violated property (household) equilibrium.
The mentioned chain can be clothed in a more attractive form, i.e. somehow
ennoble, put on the clothes of legal laws, but it will never be possible to
eradicate or abolish this chain, since in its depth, in essence — this is the
same engine of contentful renewal, progress, development.]
10. The letter "The Bolsheviks Must Take Power" [9, pp. 325-327],
addressed to the Central, Petrograd and Moscow Committees of the
RSDLP(b), was written in September 1917. Here Lenin emphasizes that,
having received a majority in both metropolitan Soviets of Workers' and
Soldiers' Deputies, the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their
own hands. Having an active majority of the people (sufficient to break the
enemy's resistance), proposing a democratic peace, giving the land to the
peasants immediately, restoring the democratic freedoms trampled by the
Kerensky government, the Bolsheviks will form such a government that no
one will overthrow. One must not be deceived by the figures of elections to
city dumas: only elections to the Soviets show the true, truthful correlation
of forces (i.e. of components in the established relation-form {Soviets of
Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies / bourgeois Provisional Government}) at the
present moment. The people are tired of the hesitation of the Mensheviks
and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and only the victory of the Bolsheviks in both
capitals will draw the peasants after the Bolsheviks. Thus, the agenda should
include questions about the armed uprising in Petrograd and Moscow, the
conquest of power and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. In this
regard, Lenin very aptly quotes Engels' words about the uprising:
"Insurrection is an art" [17, p. 100].
"Having taken power at once in Moscow and Petrograd... we will win
unconditionally and undoubtedly," Lenin concludes [9, p. 327].
[The establishment and "fixity" of a new correlation between the components
in the notorious relation-form {Soviets / Provisional Government} (i.e. the
statement of the fact of the majority of the people on the side of the Soviets)
gives grounds for the conclusion about the relevance and legitimacy of a
non-violent transition and transfer of all state power into the hands of the
Soviets. A correctly performed assessment of the achieved correlation
between the mentioned components in their established relation allows one
to confidently forecast the course of the uprising and count on its most
peaceful and bloodless outcome].
11. Another letter of Lenin to the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) (known
as an article under the title "Marxism and Insurrection" [9, pp. 328-332]
and written approximately on the same days as the previous letter) was a
reaction to the accusations of the Bolsheviks' adherence to the ideas of
"Blanquism". These accusations arose on the basis of the Bolsheviks' attitude
to the uprising as to an art (absolutizing allegedly the role of the subjective
beginning, which is characteristic of Blanquism, based, as is known, on the
theory of conspiracies and terror).
Meanwhile, it was Marxism, according to Lenin, that called the uprising an
art, explaining that the uprising must be treated as an art: to win the first
success and from success to go to success, without ceasing the offensive
against the enemy, taking advantage of his confusion and indecision, etc.
Fighting the accusations of Blanquism, Lenin determines the three main
signs-conditions of success [i.e. of achieving the highest contentfulness by
the forms-relations participating in the revolutionary process] of the uprising:
firstly, reliance on the advanced class; secondly, reliance on the
revolutionary upsurge of the people; thirdly, reliance on such a turning point
in the history of the growing revolution when the greatest activity of the
people is accompanied by the strongest fluctuations in the ranks of the
enemies and indecisive "friends" of the revolution. "It is by these three
conditions of posing the question of the uprising that Marxism differs from
Blanquism," Lenin concludes [9, p. 328].
To prove the urgent necessity of the uprising from the point of view of the
objective agenda, and not subjective conjectures, Vladimir Ilyich traces the
change of objective conditions, the situation in the period of time from July
to September of the same 1917, trying to identify the trend or direction of
such changes. In July, in his firm conviction, the above-mentioned
indispensable conditions for the success of the uprising were not yet
observed, while by September the general picture had changed radically and
now "all objective prerequisites for a successful uprising are evident" [9, p.
330]. Victory in the uprising, in Lenin's opinion, will disrupt Kerensky's game
with the surrender of Petrograd and the conclusion of a separate peace with
Germany against the revolution and will ensure the conclusion of a more
complete, open, fair peace in favor of the revolution. Only the Bolshevik
party, having won in the uprising, can save Petrograd from surrender to the
Germans and save the whole of Russia from the separate division by the
imperialists of both warring coalitions. The Bolsheviks must draw up a short
declaration, insisting on the necessity of immediate actions for the sake of
saving the revolution, the necessity of a complete break with the bourgeoisie,
the complete removal of the current government, the complete break with
the Anglo-French imperialists preparing a separate division of Russia, the
necessity of an immediate transfer of all power into the hands of the
revolutionary democracy led by the revolutionary proletariat. The short and
sharp declaration must contain two most important points: 1) the people are
tired of the hesitation and indecision of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks and therefore breaks with these parties finally, for they have
betrayed the revolution; 2) a break with the allied imperialists and a proposal
for peace without annexations lead either to an immediate truce or to the
transition of the revolutionary proletariat to defense and waging a truly fair
revolutionary war under its leadership. Having published the declaration, the
Bolsheviks must put their entire faction forward to the factories and barracks
— that is its place, there is the nerve of life, there is the source of salvation
of the revolution. Posing the question in this way, the Bolsheviks will be able
to correctly appoint the moment of the beginning of the uprising, having
previously organized the headquarters of the rebel detachments, mobilized
the armed workers for a desperate last decisive battle, occupied the
telegraph, telephone and connected all factories, all regiments, all points of
armed struggle with the headquarters, etc. [9, pp. 331-332].
[Thus, the transfer of accents and the shift of the correlation of components
in the known relations towards more contentful, active and active
components and thereby bringing these relations to the form {Soviets (under
the aegis of the Bolsheviks) / Provisional Government (in alliance with the
bourgeoisie and foreign financial capital)} changes the entire tactics of the
Bolsheviks in the conditions of the growing revolutionary movement. In other
words, speaking in everyday language, the first revolution of the proletariat,
the peasantry and the bourgeoisie in alliance with the Anglo-French financial
capital against tsarism before our eyes is growing into a revolution of the
proletariat and the poorest peasantry against the bourgeoisie with its ally the
Anglo-French financial capital and the Kerensky government].
As has already been shown earlier, a similar schematically-described above
plot construction can be seen in almost all of Lenin's theoretical works. Thus,
we have some grounds for building and formulating a methodology (or even
a whole methodology) for researching the perspective of the movementdevelopment-change of the forms-relations of interacting components in
different areas and at different levels of reality.
12. The article "On Compromises" [9, pp. 158-163] was printed on
September 19, 1917 in connection with the opened opportunity for the
Bolsheviks to conclude a voluntary compromise with a number of other
parties.
"A compromise," Lenin writes, "is called in politics the concession of some
demands, the renunciation of part of one's demands by virtue of an
agreement with another party" [9, p. 158]. The usual idea of the Bolsheviks
was that the Bolsheviks do not agree with anyone and never on any
compromises. Such an idea is flattering, for even enemies are forced to
recognize the party of the revolutionary proletariat's fidelity to the principles
of socialism and revolution. However, to tell the truth, such an idea does not
correspond to the truth. The task of a truly revolutionary party consists not
in not succumbing to compromises, but in being able, through all
compromises, to maintain fidelity to its principles, fidelity to its class, its
cause of preparing the revolution and the corresponding education of the
masses.
The Bolshevik party, like any other, strives for political domination for itself
in the name of achieving its goal; the immediate goal for the Bolsheviks is
the establishment of the dictatorship of the revolutionary proletariat. And
yet, in the current conditions of the original turn of the Russian revolution,
the Bolsheviks (as a party) can offer a voluntary compromise, however, not
to the bourgeoisie (i.e. the main class enemy), but to the SocialistRevolutionaries and Mensheviks (the dominant petty-bourgeois democratic
parties). Now within a very short period of time it is possible to return to the
slogan "All Power to the Soviets"; at the same time, the government
responsible to the Soviets will consist of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and
Mensheviks. Such a combined variant could ensure with a gigantic probability
the peaceful movement forward of the entire Russian revolution and
extremely high chances of the worldwide movement towards peace and the
victory of socialism. "Only in the name of this peaceful development of
the revolution — an opportunity, extremely rare in history and extremely
valuable, an opportunity, exceptionally rare, only in its name the Bolsheviks,
supporters of the world revolution, supporters of revolutionary methods, can
and must, in my opinion, go for such a compromise" [9, p. 159].
[And again Lenin, as a true dialectician, discovers a certain new (capable of
functioning effectively) relation of components {Soviets / government of
Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks}, the correlation of which at that
given particular moment would contribute to giving an additional impetus to
the prospective revolutionary movement].
But such an outcome was possible at the moment Lenin was preparing this
article. However, literally a couple of days later, the situation began to
change rapidly and the events that occurred showed that the proposal for a
compromise was already late; the few days during which peaceful
development would still have been possible had passed. It became obvious
that due to the inaction of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the favorable "days
when the road of peaceful development became possible by chance, have
already passed" [9, p. 163].
13. The article "An Outsider's Tips" [9, pp. 391-393] was written on the
eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The current situation makes it
clear that in the conditions of the greatest sympathy and support for the
revolutionary-proletarian (Bolshevik) power on the part of all workers and
exploited people in the world in general, and in the warring countries in
particular, and among the Russian peasantry in particular — all Bolsheviks
should be quite clear: the transfer of power to the Soviets now means in
practice an armed uprising. To renounce the armed uprising is tantamount to
renouncing the main slogan of Bolshevism — "All Power to the Soviets". And
here Vladimir Ilyich again insists on the well-known Marxist thesis: "Armed
uprising, like war, is an art" [9, p. 391]. Marxism formulates the following
main rules of this art: 1) having started the uprising, one must firmly go to
the end; 2) in the decisive place and at the decisive moment, it is necessary
to gather a large superiority of forces; 3) defense is the death of an armed
uprising — one must necessarily go over to the offensive; 4) one must try to
take the enemy by surprise; 5) to achieve small successes daily and move
from success to success, maintaining at all costs the "moral superiority".
In the adaptation of these general rules to the specific situation, Lenin
highlights the following points: 1) the organization of a sudden and rapid
offensive on Petrograd both from within and from outside with the aim of
creating a gigantic superiority of forces, paralyzing the response actions of
the Junkers, and thereby achieving the bloodlessness ("low-bloodedness") of
the uprising; 2) by the three main revolutionary forces (the fleet, workers
and military units) the main objects must be taken under control and held at
any cost: telephone, telegraph, bridges, railway stations; 3) the formation of
small detachments from the most resolute and steadfast comrades, ready to
provide operational support in the most important directions.
[Here we see that without any reservations or delays, Lenin finally bets on
the new correlation of components and the superiority of the "Soviets"
component (i.e. the predominance of the "numerator" over the
"denominator") that had developed by that time in the relation {Soviets /
Provisional Government} and on this basis plans the success and the
acquisition of a new quality by the indicated relation in its transformation into
a more contentful and prospective form.]
According to the circumstances that had developed then, Lenin believed that
"the success of the Russian and world revolution depends on two or three
days of struggle" [9, p. 393].
§ 3. Works of the post-revolutionary period
The Great October Socialist Revolution has been accomplished. The
Bolsheviks took power, but it did not become calmer or simpler. The agenda
includes new topical questions: how to hold power, how to suppress the
resistance of the counter-revolution, how to move on to building a peaceful
life, how to awaken the creative initiative of the masses, etc.
1. In the article "Speech on the Nationalization of Banks at the Meeting
of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on December 27,
1917. Protocol Record" [9, pp. 462-464], published on December 29,
1917, it is about the opposition of the new power of the Soviets by the old
bourgeois bureaucratic apparatus. The old apparatus with all its might tries
to present the banking issue as extremely fragile, complex and confusing, in
order to maximally slow down the process of transferring affairs into the
hands of representatives of the new power and to hinder all socialist
undertakings. Regarding all decisions of the Council, they ["apparatchiks"]
declare that they agree, but only in principle. The entire system of bourgeois
intelligentsia, in Lenin's opinion, is distinguished by "its constant agreement
in principle and disagreement in practice", which ruins the whole cause [9,
p. 462].
From the very first days, the new power faces opposition, when its decisive
steps are approved in theory and nothing but sabotage is met in practice. No
one (except utopian socialists) had previously claimed that it is possible to
win without resistance and without establishing the dictatorship of the
proletariat; and this fundamental point was not disputed by anyone. But
when the word "dictatorship" is translated into Russian and its equivalent
"iron hand" is reached, then all the former zeal disappears somewhere and
lamentations begin about the fragility and confusion of the issue [all the
pressure is suddenly leveled and nullified by referring to the complexity and
confusion of issues]. However, here one must see that this iron hand,
destroying, also creates.
After all, at first there was talk of an agreement with the banks ("who wants
to work — you are welcome"), they were issued loans for financing
enterprises, but they started sabotage of an unprecedented size, and practice
led the Bolsheviks to exercise control by other measures. Now the words
"dictatorship of the proletariat" are spoken by the Bolsheviks very seriously,
and this dictatorship will be implemented.
2. And then, on the hot heels, “A draft decree ["road map", as they would
say today] on the implementation of the nationalization of banks and
the necessary measures in connection with this” was created and
submitted by Lenin for discussion by the bureau of the Supreme Council of
the National Economy [9, pp. 465-467], which determined the direction of
movement and transformations of the banking sector for the near future and
many years to come. Delay with the approval of the decree was already
tantamount to the disruption of the entire economy due to the powerful
opposition and sabotage on the part of the banks.
In the preamble to the mentioned Draft Decree [9, p. 465], it is said about
the critical food situation and the threat of famine generated by the
speculation and sabotage of capitalists and officials, which leads to the need
to take extraordinary revolutionary measures to combat this evil. So that all
citizens of the state and, first of all, the working classes under the leadership
of their Soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies could
immediately, "stopping at nothing and acting in the most revolutionary way,
take up such a struggle and the establishment of the correct economic life of
the country, the following rules are established", which are further set out in
the body of the Draft Decree [below are the rules that, in our opinion, are of
the greatest interest to us today from the point of view of their continued
effectiveness to this day.]
o
o
o
All joint-stock enterprises are declared the property of the state.
All shareholders "belonging to the rich classes" are obliged to continue
managing the affairs of enterprises, providing weekly reports on their activities
to the local Soviets.
Government loans (external and internal) are annulled, but the interests
of small owners of bonds (as well as shares) belonging to the working classes of
the population are fully secured.
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Universal labor conscription is introduced, when all citizens of both
sexes, from 16 to 55 years old, are obliged to perform work assigned by the
local Soviets.
For correct accounting and distribution of food and other essential
products, all citizens of the state are obliged to join some consumer society and
perform the work that will be imposed on them by the Soviets.
Unions of railway workers and employees are obliged to urgently
develop and immediately begin to implement emergency measures to provide
transport, especially for the delivery of food, fuel and other essential items. The
duty of waging a merciless struggle against speculators is also imposed on them.
"Persons of the rich classes" are obliged to keep all their money sums in
the State Bank, its branches and savings banks, receiving for consumer needs
the sums established by the local Soviets; sums for production and trade needs
can be obtained only with written certificates from worker control institutions;
"those guilty of deceiving the state and the people will be subject to confiscation
of all property".
"The same punishment, as well as imprisonment or sending to the front
and to forced labor, is subject to all disobedient to this law, saboteurs and
striking officials, as well as speculators. The local Soviets... are obliged to
urgently develop the most revolutionary measures of struggle against these real
enemies of the people."
Trade unions and other organizations of workers in conjunction with the
local Soviets organize flying groups of controllers from the most reliable and
recommended by party organizations persons to monitor the implementation of
this law, to check the quantity and quality of work and to bring to revolutionary
courts those guilty of violating or circumventing the law.
"Workers and employees of nationalized enterprises are obliged to strain
all forces and take emergency measures to improve the organization of work,
strengthen discipline, increase labor productivity. The bodies of worker control
must provide weekly reports on what has been achieved in this regard. For
shortcomings and omissions, the guilty are answerable before the revolutionary
court" [9, p. 467].
[And again the contradictory question requires a solution — finding the correct
correlation of components-constituents in the relation {dictatorship of the
proletariat / soft government apparatus of indecisive bourgeois intelligentsia}.
The "iron hand" or the dictatorship of the proletariat is precisely that rigorous
accounting and control over production and distribution, which must be strictly
exercised not only in wartime conditions, but throughout the entire period of
socialist construction, until the principles of morality, ethics, honest attitude to
work enter the blood and flesh of every person — both at the level of conscious
perception and at the level of the subconscious. The tricks of bourgeois games
described in the article were revealed by the Bolsheviks in the first months of the
functioning of Soviet power, which is why decisions were made to act in
response quite harshly and immediately, so that the previous sacrifices and
efforts would not be in vain.]
3. In the article "How to Organize Competition?" [9, pp. 468-476], written in
January 1918, the conditions for awakening genuine competition to life, as well
as the initiative of the masses, are considered.
Already at the dawn of the emergence of capitalist relations, the competition of
small commodity producers could on a somewhat wide scale educate enterprise,
energy, the boldness of initiative; in fact, today capitalism has replaced small
independent production with the largest factory production, joint-stock
enterprises, syndicates and other monopolies. Competition in this layout means,
on the contrary, the suppression of the enterprise of the mass of the population,
the replacement of competition with financial fraud and servility to the "tops" of
the social ladder [9, p. 468]. [How amazingly accurately and fairly this "sounds"
in relation to the rampage of the wildest capitalism in modern Russia and in the
post-Soviet space!].
To develop abilities, to reveal human talents (which the people have in
abundance) on a mass scale is possible only with a properly organized socialist
method of production. The most urgent task today, when the socialist
government is in power, is to organize competition.
[It is striking how from the very first days of Soviet power, in the conditions of
an economic chaos, collapse, and famine that have not yet been overcome,
Lenin thinks in categories of the most peaceful and calm time, in categories of
education and formation of new production relations between workers,
awakening the initiative of people on a "mass scale"!].
"A broad, truly mass creation of the opportunity to show enterprise, competition,
a bold initiative is only now. ...For the first time after centuries of work for
others, forced work for exploiters, the opportunity to work for oneself arises, and
moreover work based on all the achievements of the latest technology and
culture" [9, p. 469].
It is quite clear that the greatest change in history of mankind from forced labor
to labor for oneself cannot occur without conflicts, without overcoming the
resistance of exploiters, without displacing the capitalists, which will take time.
In addition to the "military" measures of suppressing the resistance of the "rich
classes", the proletariat and the poorest peasantry will also need huge
organizational efforts. Thus, the organizational task is intertwined with the task
of ruthless military suppression of yesterday's slave owners (capitalists and their
lackeys — the gentlemen of the bourgeois intelligentsia).
Naturally, none of the past "masters of life" wants to voluntarily part with their
former command and "bread" privileged posts, considering themselves "Godchosen" patrons and managers over the people. "But the matter of the exploiters
and their intellectual lackeys is a hopeless matter." Their resistance, workers and
peasants will eventually break decisively and ruthlessly.
Intellectuals accustomed to serving capitalists and the capitalist state believe
that they cannot be done without. "Their impudent calculation will not be
justified: educated people are already standing out, going over to the side of the
people, to the side of the workers, helping to break the resistance of the
servants of capital. And there are many organizational talents in the peasantry
and the working class, and these talents are just beginning to realize
themselves, to wake up, to reach for living, creative, great work, to take up the
construction of a socialist society independently" [9, p. 470].
Perhaps the most important task today, Lenin says, is to develop as widely as
possible the independent initiative of workers in the matter of creative
organizational work. It is necessary to break the vile and absurd prejudice that
only the so-called "higher classes" and only the rich can manage the
organizational construction of society. Organizational work is "within the power
of an ordinary worker and peasant who has literacy, knowledge of people,
practical experience. ...There is still an inexhaustible spring and a richest spring
of such talents in the working class and in the peasantry." Workers and peasants
are still timid, they have not yet got used to the fact that they are now the ruling
class. But the strength and vitality of the October Revolution of 1917 lies in the
fact that it leads the working people to the path of independent creation of a new
life.
[For the note of the current "rulers" and their ilk: Lenin in a matter of years
found ways from scratch to motivate the illiterate, bast-shod population of the
bloodless country, and the current "ruler" with his "valiant" arrogant entourage
has been struggling for several terms (both in a row and intermittently) to solve
the same task, but in vain.
The conservative "comprador" entourage of the current "ruler" will not allow him
(the ruler) to make a single decision encroaching on the self-serving interest of
this entourage. So all this pompous camarilla will sit and wait for mythical
Western investments like manna from heaven, shifting the blame for their failure
on the notorious Western sanctions. Fortunately, their own fortunes are reliably
placed in foreign lands with the hope that such ugliness will continue forever.
For the information of today's "rulers": Lenin, in the five or six years granted
to him after the revolution, managed (in the conditions of discord and
devastation, having tried many options) to find ways to awaken both
enthusiasm and the initiative of millions, and to attract foreign specialists,
and to train and prepare his own... Human potential (physical strength,
intellectual and spiritual energy of the people) — this is the source of all
investments, technologies and innovations, and therefore the main
component of the country's economic success; however, the inept
"comprador" entourage of the supreme "ruler" will skillfully, on the verge of
sabotage, extinguish this potential and write off all failures to the lack of
overseas investments and the omnipotence of overseas sanctions.
By the way, has the main "ruler" tried to pull "overseas investments" out of
the purse of his entourage?
Regarding the liberal-minded (in relation to the aggressive collective West)
circles in Russia, it is somehow already old-fashioned, unpleasant, and not
desirable to speak. Since the words of F.M. Dostoevsky, it has been known
that "our Russian liberal is first and foremost a lackey and only looks for how
to clean someone's boots" [4, p. 133]. Meanwhile, eternal kneeling before
the West is conditioned by the universality and generality of the very
principle of self-development.
The aspiration of all forms to the highest contentfulness has an unsightly
reverse side in the imposition (as a sample or standard) of its allegedly
most perfect and exclusive form — its understanding of the world, its
ideology (with the accompanying "uprooting" of dissent and everything
"wrong"), its worldview, world outlook, world perception, its way of life —
and all this is presented as an indisputable absolute truth. The Anglo-Saxon
world has since time immemorial professed an aggressive way of interacting
with other peoples or representatives (carriers) of a different principle, as,
for example, the peace-loving and more balanced Eastern Slavic peoples,
who always act as a pacifying counterweight to restrain and neutralize such
excessive activity (aggressiveness) of the Anglo-Saxons and their ilk.
Anglo-Saxon communities and their accomplices (in aggregate — the
collective West) feel themselves at the same time champions and bearers of
good, enlightenment, civilization, morality, ethics, etc.; they are always
charged with the ideology of the expansion of everything, in their
assessment, "good" against everything "bad" or "good" (according to their
understanding) against "evil". Our liberals are led by this bait or false bait;
persons with liberal views are very one-sided and superficial in their
perceptions and beliefs, since they take the brilliant external packaging for
the most part as the deep hidden essence of things.
In addition, the aggression inherent in the Anglo-Saxon "mentors" and Co. is
further enhanced due to a number of "misses" pursuing them, i.e. due to
receiving periodic spankings and thrashings from the Eastern Slavs in
response to their excessive zeal in carrying out incessant attempts at forcible
"enlightenment" and "ennoblement" of the latter; therefore, they always
have an unquenchable vulnerability due to their unchanged status of the
"eternally beaten" in open clashes. It must be said straight out that these
"highly civilized" peoples have never been able to correctly assess
their contentful resource, i.e. to measure their capabilities against the
potential of the Eastern Slavs, which is why they suffered defeats from them
time and again.
The collective West led by the US bets (unconsciously, of course) on the
perfection of the form (i.e. mainly on the formal principle), while ignoring the
development of the contentful side-constituent. This is the secret of their
certain technological advantage (quality of household items, equipment,
services, etc.), achieved by focusing on the Form (sometimes more or
less contentful only
from
the
perspective
of
short-term
success
and contentless from the point of view of strategy and deep, long-term
perspective of the development of mankind). It is still necessary to
thoroughly "dissect" the dry calculating intellect of the Anglo-Saxon world —
this formal constituent, this formal principle of the universal human world —
in order to understand the danger of such a one-sided approach on the scale
of the development of all mankind. In their prevailing mechanicity and
technological inclinations (i.e. a bias towards the technological side, often
devoid of moral underpinnings and moral attitudes) lie all the explanations of
their modern actions and behavior. None other than they have become today
the first managers and manipulators of public consciousness on an
unprecedentedly massive, global scale, through the Internet, and in
particular through social networks and platforms. In all their policy (foreign,
internal, technical, technological, social, etc. — especially against the
background of the not so long ago once again proclaimed by Obama their
imaginary and illusory exclusivity) there is something school-boyishly wellcalculated rational and at the same time humanly extremely primitive and
limited (the analogy with cold-blooded "reptiloids" trying to impose their way
of life and behavior on warm-blooded earthlings suggests itself).
Here it is also appropriate, in our opinion, to touch upon the question of the
imposition on the whole world by the collective West of its allegedly most
progressive and most democratic "values" and preferences. First of all, it is
necessary in this regard to point out the entrenched confusion in the
interpretations of the terms "values" and "interests". This confusion is due to
the incompetence of the "interpreters" in terms of the correct correlation of
these concepts with two different, non-identical spheres of acquiring reality
(in the composition of the multi-level form of man): the sphere (level) of the
"sensual" and the sphere (level) of the "ideal". It must be said that such
issues have long and deeply been analyzed by famous philosophers of the
past, but the solutions to these issues have been quite successfully and
thoroughly forgotten by our contemporaries. If we talk about "values" in the
meaning and sense invested in this concept by the Western world, then we
are talking mainly about primitive interests limited to the sensual sphere of
man. In this section, all the efforts and aspirations of the Western philistine
are aimed mainly at the implementation of quite "down-to-earth" and simple
human needs (in food, housing, source of income, in procreation, rest, as
well as in the satisfaction of various physiological desires, pleasures,
fantasies, requests for boundless rights and freedoms, etc.). The concept of
"values" from the point of view, for example, of a Russian person is by no
means limited to the sensual sphere, but goes ("protrudes") beyond its limits
into the realm of the ideal; and in this sense it is already identified with
spiritual categories (which for their more accurate identification and binding
require different, more Contentful terminology): with principles, with
convictions, with ideals, with worldview, etc., etc., — i.e. with formsattributes of a higher level of acquiring reality, called human consciousness.
In this sense and in this hypostasis — this is no longer an orientation towards
low-level "values" of the Western world, but a conscious adherence to
more Contentful views: principles of human morality, ethics, spirituality,
humanism, etc. In the main and the big, the modern West (unlike, say,
Europe of the Enlightenment) is devoid of aspiration to proclaim and follow
(including in everyday life) high spiritual principles and convictions — it
simply got stuck on "down-to-earth" needs and low-grade interests,
refusing further movement towards ideals developing a person. It is
precisely for this reason that all the teachings and instructions of the Western
world regarding the unquestioning acceptance and "implementation in life"
by other peoples of the line of Western, so to speak, "values" look at least
ridiculous and laughable.]
At the same time, implementing socialist undertakings, the Soviets of
workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies, consumer societies, supply
unions, factory committees and worker control bodies must understand that
the main economic task at this stage is accounting and control. The old
habit of a forced person is still strong — as if to "grab" at least a piece from
the bourgeoisie, without burdening oneself with extra work and obligations.
Such an approach of "newcomers" to the factory environment: "Grab a
bigger piece and run away", — is transferred to the factory that has passed
into the ownership of the people. The advanced conscious workers have
already started fighting against such personnel, who will undoubtedly be
supported by honest, thinking peasants. Universal, universal, universal
accounting and control over the distribution of products and the amount of
labor — this is the essence of the socialist transformation; the accounting
and control necessary for the transition to socialism can only be mass.
Proceeding from this, Lenin turns to the new working owners of land, banks,
factories and plants: "Take up the accounting and control of production and
distribution yourselves, — this is the only way to the victory of socialism, the
pledge of its victory, the pledge of victory over all exploitation, over all need
and poverty". In Russia, Lenin says, there is enough bread, iron, forest,
wool, cotton and flax for everyone, if a nationwide businesslike, practical
control over distribution is established, if the enemies of the people (the rich
and their "hangers-on" — bourgeois intellectuals) are defeated not only in
politics, but also in the everyday economic life of a society in which "a
handful robbed the people and mocked the people" [9, p. 472]. [An
extremely topical appeal also applicable to the current situation in Russia!].
"The rich and crooks, these are two sides of the same coin, these are the two
main categories of parasites fostered by capitalism, these are the main
enemies of socialism, these enemies must be placed under the special
supervision of the entire population, they must be dealt with, at the slightest
violation by them of the rules and laws of socialist society, mercilessly. Any
weakness, any hesitation, any sentimentality in this regard would be the
greatest crime against socialism" [9, p. 473].
[If only Lenin with his dialectical mind were here, even for an hour !!!
Our great Motherland has again been turned into a country of lackeys and
masters, where a handful of plutocrats does at an unconscious level
everything that comes to mind, satisfying primarily their primitive
momentary whims and fancies, dictated only by the desire to increase their
own savings, thereby determining and setting in advance, for years, the
configuration of our (or rather, their) future and without our participation in
this. Before, such a thing could not even be dreamed of or seen in a
nightmare. Lenin's lessons of dialectics have turned out to be, at
best, Unlearned lessons of dialectics.]
The way to neutralize these parasites is a nationwide, organized by millions
of workers and peasants, voluntary and energetic accounting and control
over the amount of labor, production and distribution of products. And in
order to organize this accounting and control, which is quite accessible and
feasible for every honest, sensible and efficient worker and peasant, it is
necessary to call their own organizational talents to life, it is necessary to
establish on an all-state scale a competition in terms of organizational
successes, it is necessary that workers and peasants clearly understand the
difference between the necessary advice of an educated person and the
necessary control of a simple worker and peasant over the sloppiness, so
common among educated people.
Sloppiness, carelessness, untidiness, "the tendency to take on everything in
the world and bring nothing to an end is one of the properties of "educated
people", stemming not at all from their bad nature, much less from malice,
but from all the habits of life, from the setting of their work, from overwork",
from the abnormal correlation of the mental and physical components of
labor in the cycles of their activity, etc., etc.
[And here we see a surprisingly insightful and precise statement of the
connection between the actual mistakes, shortcomings and misses made
during the revolution and those "sad, but inevitable" at that moment abovementioned "properties of intellectuals", as well as the lack of sufficient
control from the workers over the organizational work of intellectuals. Most
of all, hesitation and indecision, which are so characteristic of the
intelligentsia and which the intelligentsia is guilty of, are unacceptable to
Lenin.
Any hesitation after the adoption of a collective decision was tantamount to
betrayal and defeat for Lenin. Ilyich is always tuned and charged for victory.
The same applies to compromises (namely in relation to his ideological
opponents), to which the bourgeois intelligentsia is most inclined, being weak
in spirit (i.e. not having fundamental ideological convictions). Lenin also
includes here the desire to sit on two chairs; nowadays — this is the
notorious political "multi-vector". Indecision and hesitation, in the end, often
turn into extra unnecessary victims; these are those absurd mistakes that
could have been avoided by adhering to a firm position. The enemy is like an
uncomfortable hard, but "firm ground", and the wavering and indecisive
"fellow traveler" is akin to a swamp: try to know when it will "absorb" and
"digest" you, i.e. simply betray.
In modern Russia, the role of the petty-bourgeois wavering conciliators with
those in power is played by "pocket" parties and groups like modern
centrists, communists, liberals of all names, etc., with a vague position —
declassed elements, dangling somewhere "between here and between
there"; the place of the actual spokesman for the opinions of the working
class of wage workers remains vacant as before. In general, regarding the
betrayal and apostasy of the intelligentsia, when the cause of a whole life is
threatened, anyone would speak even more harshly and emotionally than
Vladimir Ilyich does.
As in the times of V.I. Lenin, modern political and economic literature is full
of all kinds of absurdities: and some "middle class" was invented, and
ownership of the means of production no longer has any significance, and a
two-party system is strictly obligatory for progress, etc. If you come to think
of it, any person always has an internal content-form (i.e. at least twocomponent, two-sided, dual) contradiction, which serves as the engine of all
progress and development even more fiercely than the contest, competition
or conflict of two or several parties; in one person, opposing components can
be observed and coexist, giving such an impulse of activity that no parties
are needed at all.
As they say in Russia: "In Russia there is still one party — it is just called
differently." However, something similar is observed in other countries. For
example, in the USA, liberals and conservatives (Democrats and Republicans)
have long been fighting for power only for the sake of protecting and
increasing the property and income of the propertied class. In addition, one
must always be prepared for the fact that over time the "bourgeoisification"
of the most advanced and progressive parties at first occurs due to the
degeneration of the top and part of the members of these parties into their
opposites — such is the dialectical nature of reality: one just needs to recall
this more often and shake up (clean out, as Lenin said) the party ranks.
As in the times of Lenin's pre-revolutionary political activity, today, to curb
the threat of stratification and radicalization of society, the bourgeoisie
sometimes try to integrate the topmost layers of the left and anarchists into
their system, recruit them into their ranks (having bought them off with an
insignificant increase in the wealth tax or small concessions and benefits in
the social sphere, etc.).
What kind of opposition is it in parliament if it consists of the power-fed
representatives of the same "bourgeoisified" class as the official propertied
ruling class? Where does the dividing line pass between the official power
and the systemic alleged opposition, among the leading members of which
the owners and co-owners (shareholders) of "factories, newspapers,
steamships" with assets placed outside the borders of our Motherland
suddenly find themselves by chance?]
"Intellectuals give the most excellent advice and guiding instructions all the
time, but they turn out to be ridiculously, absurdly, disgracefully "armless",
unable to put these advice and instructions into practice, to exercise practical
control over the fact that the word turns into action. This is where it is
impossible to do without the help and without the guiding role of practical
organizers from the "people", from the workers and working peasants" [9, p.
474]. In this regard, competitions of practical organizers from workers and
peasants with each other should be organized, to fight against any
"stamping" and attempts to establish uniformity from above, to which
intellectuals are so prone.
And then follows an "absolutely dialectically" built semantic, in some ways
final construction on the topic of the detailed conversation conducted in the
article, giving an idea of the presence of an objective natural direct
connection
between
the contentful and formal components
of
this
construction, which serves as the brightest confirmation of its dialectics, and,
consequently, its truthfulness: "With democratic and socialist
centralism, stamping or establishing uniformity from above has
nothing in common. Unity in the main, in the root, in the essential is
not violated, but is ensured by diversity in details, in local features,
in approaches to the matter, in ways of exercising control, in ways of
destroying and neutralizing parasites (the rich and crooks, slops and
hysterics from the intelligentsia, etc., etc.)".
[Ah, if Ilyich were with us throughout the entire period of socialist
construction, what unforgivably gross mistakes we could have avoided in
order not to betray the most fruitful idea and not to deviate from this path!
Dialectics is the skill or art of balancing on the razor's edge, to walk on the
sharpest blade without cutting and without falling to either side. At the same
time, this is not eclecticism and by no means the ability to sit on two chairs
at once (not adherence to the so-called multi-vector).]
The Soviets of working people's deputies must follow the path of combining,
on the one hand, the initiative, independence, freedom of movement, energy
from below and, on the other hand, voluntary, alien to templates, centralism.
It is necessary that any and every commune (factory, village, consumer
society, supply committee) should come out, competing with another
commune, as a practical organizer of accounting and control over labor and
distribution of products. The communes themselves must develop and test in
practice thousands of forms and methods of practical accounting and control
over the rich and crooks. "Diversity here is a guarantee of vitality, a
guarantee of success in achieving a common single goal. ... The more
diverse, the better, the richer the general experience will be, the more
reliable and faster, the easier the practice will develop — for only practice
can develop — the best methods and means of struggle" [9, p. 475]. The
competition of communes, communities, consumer-production societies and
partnerships, Soviets of workers', peasants' and soldiers' deputies should
develop on the issues of eliminating hunger, unemployment, eradicating the
rich idlers, scoundrels from the lackeys of the bourgeoisie, saboteurs (calling
themselves intellectuals), on the issues of increasing labor productivity,
building new good houses for the poor, housing the poor in the houses of the
rich, supplying a bottle of milk to every child from poor families. It is in the
course of this work that organizational talents, which are abundant in the
people, should be practically singled out and promoted to the top, to the
bodies of all-state administration. "They need to be helped to unfold. They
and they alone, with the support of the masses, will be able to save Russia
and save the cause of socialism" [9, p. 476].
[And again, new optimal (best) relations with new components are being
sought and found: {emancipated creative labor / socialized socialist
enterprise}, {organizational talent of the working people / accounting and
control over production and distribution}, {knowledge and experience of an
educated employee (intelligentsia) / control and efforts of a simple worker
regarding the eradication of sloppiness and irresponsibility of an educated
employee (intelligentsia)}, {initiative and initiative of workers on the ground
/ voluntary democratic socialist centralism}, — the correlations of which at
this particular moment (in contrast to the previously established relations
with known components {wage labor / capital}, {proletariat/bourgeoisie},
{competing diversity/monopoly}, {enterprise / established bureaucratic
order}) can give an additional impetus to the further revolutionary
movement. Thus, the task of reaching new correlations of components in
such more general relations as {theory/practice}, {mental labor / physical
labor}, etc. is implicitly solved.]
4. The article "The Main Task of Our Days" [9, pp. 569-573] was printed in
March 1918. As an epigraph, the article was preceded by words from N.A.
Nekrasov's poem "Who Lives Well in Russia": "You are both poor, you are
both abundant, you are both mighty, you are both powerless — Mother
Russia!". The article is written at the moment of the great turn from war to
peace; from the war between predators, sending millions of exploited
workers to the slaughter in order to establish a new order of dividing the
looted booty, — to the war of the oppressed against the oppressors, for
liberation from the yoke of capital and for a future society of sufficiency and
durable peace.
Russia had to experience especially acutely the sharpest turns of history,
turning from imperialism to the communist revolution. In a few days, one of
the oldest, most powerful, barbaric and brutal monarchies was destroyed; in
a few months, a number of stages of conciliation with the bourgeoisie, of
outliving petty-bourgeois illusions were passed, for which other countries
spent decades; in a few weeks the bourgeoisie was overthrown and its open
resistance in the civil conflict was overcome. Bolshevism made a triumphant
procession from end to end of the vast country, and the lowest of the layers
of the working masses oppressed by tsarism and the bourgeoisie were
raised, introduced to independent life and endowed with freedom. The Soviet
republic was established — a new type of state, immeasurably higher and
more democratic than the best of the bourgeois-parliamentary republics. The
dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the poorest peasantry, was
established, and the implementation of the conceived system of socialist
transformations began. Faith in one's own strength was awakened and the
fire of enthusiasm was lit in millions and millions of workers of all countries
[pride for everything done shines through in every Lenin's word.]
"And in a few days the imperialist predator who attacked the unarmed ...
threw us to the ground. The predator presses and chokes and tears Russia to
pieces with the greater frenzy, the more menacingly the specter of the
workers' revolution rises in his own country [we are talking about Germany].
We were forced to sign the "Tilsit" peace" [9, p. 570].
But one must have the courage to look straight into the face of the bitter
truth and "measure entirely, to the bottom, the whole abyss of defeat,
dismemberment, enslavement and humiliation into which we have now been
pushed. The clearer we understand this, the more solid, tempered, steel our
will to liberation will become... our unbending determination to achieve at all
costs that Russia ceases to be poor and powerless, so that it becomes in the
full sense of the word mighty and abundant." And this will certainly happen,
for there is still enough space and natural wealth, "there is material both in
natural wealth, and in the reserve of human strength, and in the excellent
scope that the great revolution gave to folk creativity, — to create a truly
mighty and abundant Russia."
And Russia will become so if it throws away all despondency and all
phraseology and, gritting its teeth, gathers all its strength. All that is needed
now is to move forward along the path of the socialist revolution, not losing
heart from defeats, to work on strengthening self-discipline, organization and
order, on improving the system of universal accounting and control over
production and distribution of products: "this is the path to creating military
power and socialist power" [9, p. 571].
In the event of a heavy defeat (the consequence of which was the signing of
the Treaty of Tilsit), Lenin says, it is unworthy either to swagger or to fall
into despair, as well as to agree with accusations of betraying one's ideals
and one's friends. The commander who leads the remnants of the defeated
army into the depths of the country does not commit treason in relation to
those units which he is unable to help, but fulfills his duty, saving what can
still be saved, "ceding space to gain time", using any respite to gather
strength. The war shook Russia, and it, undoubtedly, is moving "from the
Treaty of Tilsit to a national upsurge, to a great patriotic war... to an
international socialist revolution", and not to a bourgeois state. "We have
been defenders since October 25, 1917. We are for the "defense of the
fatherland", but that patriotic war to which we are going is a war for the
socialist fatherland, for socialism as a fatherland, for the Soviet Republic..."
Instead of the slogan, Lenin continues, of bourgeois patriotism "Hatred for
the German, beat the German", the Bolsheviks will say: "Learn from the
German! Remain faithful to the fraternal union with the German workers...
History moves in zigzags and roundabout ways. It turned out so that
it is the German who now embodies, along with bestial imperialism,
the beginning of discipline, organization, harmonious cooperation on
the basis of machine industry, the strictest accounting and control.
And this is exactly what we lack. This is exactly what we need to
learn. This is exactly what our great revolution lacks in order to come
from a victorious beginning... to a victorious end. This is exactly what
is required of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic in order to cease
to be poor and powerless, in order to irrevocably become mighty and
abundant" [9, pp. 572-573].
[The very unexpected turn "about the German", very consonant with some
progressive opinions in our days too! Taking this circumstance into account,
a new relation of components with a perspective of increasing
the contentful component (due to the growth of the economy) and an
increase in contentfulness of the entire relation as a whole is emerging on
the horizon].
o
o
o
o
5. "Theses of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) in connection with
the situation on the Eastern Front" [10, pp. 145-147] of April 11, 1919
played a huge role in the mobilization of the proletarian masses in the
struggle against Kolchak.
Kolchak's victories on the Eastern Front force both party organizations and
trade unions to implement the following measures in the shortest possible
time to involve broader layers of the working class in the active participation
in the defense of the country.
Comprehensive support for the announced mobilization. The
mobilized must see the active participation of trade unions and feel the
support of their working class. From each party and trade union organization,
the Central Committee demands a weekly, albeit the shortest, report on what
has been done to help the mobilization and the mobilized.
In the frontline areas, it is necessary to carry out the universal
arming of all members of trade unions. "Trade unions must everywhere with
their own forces and means carry out a verification registration of their
members for sending all those not absolutely necessary at home, to fight for
the Volga and the Urals" [10, p. 146].
The most serious attention should be paid to strengthening agitation
among the mobilized, mobilized and Red Army men: not to limit oneself to
lectures and rallies, but to ensure that every member of the trade union
personally participates in agitation events and in personal conversations.
"Replace all male employees with women. Conduct a new reregistration for this, both party and trade union. Introduce special cards for
all members of trade unions and all employees with a note on personal
participation in the matter of helping the Red Army" [10, p. 146].
o
o
o
Immediately establish assistance bureaus or support committees
with published addresses and notification of them to the population in the
widest possible way. Every mobilized person must know that in such a
bureau or committee he will find help, advice, support to facilitate
communication with military institutions, etc. A special task of such bureaus
will be to assist in the matter of supplying the Red Army with weapons,
clothing, factory stocks of various property. "For this task, one must take it
with all one's might", immediate assistance must be provided to military
institutions by the population itself [10, p. 147].
Through trade unions, the wide involvement of peasant youth from
non-agricultural provinces in the ranks of the Red Army should be organized.
"In relation to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the
party line in the current situation is as follows: to prison those who help
Kolchak consciously or unconsciously. We will not tolerate in our republic
working people who do not help us in deed in the struggle against Kolchak"
[10, p. 147].
In conclusion, Lenin calls to take up this work in a revolutionary, nontemplate way. Kolchak can be defeated quickly and finally, for the victories of
the Bolsheviks in the south and the improving international situation
contribute to this. "It is necessary to strain all forces, to unfold revolutionary
energy, and Kolchak will be quickly defeated. The Volga, the Urals, Siberia
can and must be defended and won back" [10, p. 147].
[And again, we see how, on the basis of an accurate analysis of the alignment of
forces and the situation that has arisen (without any panic and cries like
"everything is lost" and "every man for himself"), clear instructions are born and
a complex of the most urgent measures is formed, aimed at correcting the
situation for the better. We see from the Content of the given points how
seriously Lenin assesses this threat, how he seeks ways and approaches to
activating the creative energy of people capable of eliminating the threat. We
also see how much weight the trade union movement had at that time: the
trade union acts on an equal footing with party and management organizations.]
6. The article "An Example of the Petrograd Workers" [10, pp. 213-215]
appeared in October 1919 in parallel with the resolution of the plenum of the
Central Committee of the RCP(b) to carry out the mobilization of communists
and send the best representatives of the party and the working class to the
Southern Front in connection with the difficult situation that had developed
there.
The workers of Petrograd, at the call of the party, began an intensified
mobilization and sending of the best workers to fight against Denikin, who was
actively helped with money and weapons by French and English capital. At the
same time, foreign propaganda was working to intimidate the population and the
personnel of the revolutionary troops.
Never before has the enemy been so close to Moscow, Lenin writes. "But to repel
this danger, in addition to the former forces of the troops, we are moving new
detachments of advanced workers capable of creating a turning point in the
mood in the retreating units" [10, p. 214].
The disorganization of the army ranks was largely caused by a large number of
deserters. In this regard, the support of the army by a new influx of proletarian
forces is of paramount importance. "Unstable elements will be strengthened, the
mood will be raised, a turning point will be achieved. The proletariat, as has
constantly happened in our revolution, will support and direct the wavering
strata of the working population" [10, p. 214].
For a long time, the Petrograd proletariat has borne more burdens than the
workers of other industrial centers; on its shoulders are the struggle against
hunger, and against military danger, and the pulling out of the best workers to
Soviet positions throughout Russia. But there is not the slightest despondency or
decline of strength among the Petrograd workers — they perfectly fulfill the task
of the vanguard detachment, sending help and support where it is most needed.
"When such fresh forces go to strengthen the faltering parts of our army, then
the working masses, soldiers from the peasants, receive new leaders from
among their own people, from among the more developed, more conscious,
more spiritually firm workers" [10, p. 214]. This is the source of the superiority
of the peasant army over the enemy, which replenishes and supports its ranks
only with "landlords' sons". It is known that such "support" ruined Kolchak, it will
ruin Denikin too. Lenin calls on other workers, following the example of the
Petrograd workers, to intensify their activities in the troops, to show more
initiative and boldness in the desire not to yield to the Petrogradites — and then
victory will be for the workers, the bourgeois counter-revolution will be finished
off. After Petrograd, Moscow has already started moving, after Moscow the rest
must start moving.
[From the content of the article it is clearly visible how important the moral state
(state of spirit) of the fighting soldiers of the Red Army is for Lenin. It is visible
how truly significant the high consciousness of the advanced workers and
members of the Bolshevik party was in those days! Again, it is visible how strong
and unshakable Lenin's faith in victory and a favorable outcome of the armed
struggle is, — his inexhaustible optimism in the most difficult moments of a
mortal struggle causes deep respect.]
7. The article "From the Destruction of the Centuries-old Order to the
Creation of a New One" [10, pp. 282-284], written in April 1920, is devoted to
the issues set out in the one-day newspaper "Communist Subbotnik" of April 11,
1920. The main topic of the newspaper is the question of communist labor. This
most important issue of the construction of socialism could be raised only after
the proletariat had conquered political power, only after the expropriation of
landlords and capitalists, only after the decisive victories of the proletariat that
had conquered state power over the exploiters who had organized desperate
resistance, counter-revolutionary uprisings and civil war. It seemed that such a
time had already come in early 1918, but a new, stronger wave of counterrevolutionary uprisings broke out so quickly that the Soviet power then had no
opportunity to deal with the issues of peaceful construction. Now, after
overcoming incredible difficulties and "unheard-of victories of the Red Army over
the hordes of international capitalist reaction" there are chances that peace will
be more lasting and stable.
Some experience in the construction of socialism already exists, therefore the
question of communist labor can and must be raised point-blank. However, it
would be more correct to say: not about communist, but about socialist labor,
for we are talking not about the highest, but about the lowest stage of the
development of the new social order growing out of capitalism. Communist labor
is unpaid, voluntary labor, outside the norm, out of the habit of working for the
common good and out of a conscious (turned into a habit) attitude to the
necessity of labor as a need of a healthy organism. However, "it is clear to
everyone that it is still very, very far to the wide, truly mass application of such
labor for us, i.e. for our society, our social order" [10, p. 283].
But the fact that this question has already been raised by the advanced
proletariat and the state power is a step forward. To come to the big, one must
start with the small. "Subbotniks, labor armies, labor conscription — this is the
practical implementation in various forms of socialist and communist labor" [10,
p. 283].
Mistakes and errors in such a difficult matter are inevitable. "To build a new labor
discipline, to build new forms of social connection between people, to build new
forms and techniques of attracting people to labor, this is the work of many
years and decades. This is the most grateful and noble work" [10, p. 283].
Now, after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the suppression of its
resistance, there is already soil on which such work has become possible; the
proletariat will take up this work with all its energy and will fulfill it.
[Again, the inexhaustible optimism of V.I. Lenin is admirable. The thesis about
labor out of habit as a need of a healthy organism is closely connected with the
thesis about the contentful filling of the forms of the labor process to the level of
the identification of these forms in the final analysis with the very process of
cognition itself and with the striving through such forms of the cognitive
process to look around the corner, beyond the horizon, into the future as
effectively and productively as possible.]
Conclusion
It should be said that the above-mentioned articles of Lenin were not selected
specially or with any particular bias — any of his works of the indicated periods is
built according to the stencil we have disassembled, according to the type of
thinking that was formed in V.I. Ulyanov from a young age.
As can be seen, every article or work of Lenin, regardless of the range of issues
considered in it, is a model of the effective application of the dialectical approach,
extremely in demand and necessary when conducting research of objects,
processes, phenomena in any area of reality, in all spheres of human activity in
order to obtain the most correct and contentful results of such research.
In each work, the scheme of productive ("triadic" or three-stage) development of
the idea (thesis — antithesis — synthesis) is easily guessed, as well as
adherence (in the analysis) to the well-known cliché of observing the unity of the
historical and the logical.
What first of all attracts attention in the course of getting acquainted with
the content of the theoretical works of V.I. Lenin? The same or similar algorithm
for presenting material concerning the issues under study, which is due to the
very universal nature of development or the very dialectical nature of any object,
process, phenomenon under study. And Lenin inexorably follows this algorithm,
revealing the dialectical essence of the problems under study ("piling up" events,
emerging situations, achieved results, etc.).
Let us reproduce this algorithm once again.
1. Composing correct relations of directly interacting side-components in the
forms (objects, processes, phenomena) under study.
At this initial stage of research, one must be able to identify and show the
directly interacting (i.e. the most essential at the moment) opposing, competing,
opposing sides-components in the forms-relations under study.
2. Determination and prioritization in the found relations, i.e. identification of the
active and passive sides-components in the composed relations.
At this stage of research among the directly interacting components in their
relations (as a rule, in pairs of such components) one must again be able to
identify, guess, understand and highlight, on the one hand, the
most contentful (active, leading) and, on the other hand, more formal (passive,
conservative) components. Thus, such relations are brought to the generalized
universal form {content/form}.
3. Determination of the probable direction of change (transformation),
movement, development of the constituent sides-components (i.e. probable
change in the correlation or balance of components) within and inside the
relations formed from them, and consequently, the direction of variability of the
relations themselves as a whole (taking into account the influences and impact
of surrounding forms on these relations).
A correctly composed relation of two correctly identified directly interacting
components allows to determine and designate the bias or direction of their
subsequent change, movement, development of their relation; this bias or
direction of movement-development of the relation is conditioned by the
correlation (approximate) of components within the relation, i.e. the degree of
predominance of one (contentful) component over the other (formal)
component.
4. Forecasting (anticipation) of the development of the relations under study, i.e.
determination of the prospects for the modification of the forms under study
(objects, processes, phenomena), as well as the prospects for the emergence of
new forms.
At this stage, both operational and strategic forecasts of the development of the
forms-relations under study are made, which corresponds to forecasting the
variability of existing forms and anticipating the emergence of new forms of
reality.
When moving to the next stage of research or the next form of reality under
study, paragraphs 1-4 are repeated in the same volume.
As can be seen from the presented scheme (algorithm) of conducting research,
the identification of two (or more) directly interacting, opposing components in
their relation turns out to be an extremely important point, since it is
this Content-form structure (system) that will indicate the direction of its change
and obtaining in the future an even more contentful structure or a new relation
(system) composed of even more contentful components. It is important that
these are not "pulled by the ears" components, not mechanically (or eclectically)
combined opposites, but naturally growing one from the other opposing
constituent sides, interconnected so much that one can firmly talk about their
insignificance without each other.
A correctly composed relation of two directly interacting components is
something (a system) resembling the behavior of a liquid (or other similar
continuous medium) in communicating vessels. Here, for example, are such
relations
(or
systems)
as:
{time/space},
{motion/rest},
{active
principle/passive principle}, {energy/mass}, {field/matter}, {north pole of a
magnet/south pole of a magnet}, {subjective /objective}, etc., etc., — they are
examples of correctly composed relations of directly interacting sidescomponents of reality.
The correct choice of a pair of interacting components and the formation of a
correct relation from them is tantamount to an artfully formulated question; then
the very correct formulation of the question contains at least half of the answer
to this question, which is a prerequisite for the successful solution of the task at
hand.
Well, and examples of incorrectly composed relations can be given much more —
all unfairly conducted research and obtained false results sufficiently testify to
the initially incorrect relations identified [inappropriately chosen and designated
so-called false grounds lead any research to a dead end]. Therefore, it is
extremely important to identify the most essential sides of the problems under
study, which are in direct interaction and direct relation to each other.
At each stage of the development of reality, at each specific spatio-temporal
segment of it, one must be able to correctly identify and identify (i.e. recognize)
the directly interacting components that are in contradiction or conflict with each
other, conditioned (we are talking about contradiction or conflict) by the search
for a new form for the developing contentful component.
From the listed steps of the above scheme (algorithm), a methodology (and
even more — a whole methodology) for the effective research of any issue, any
problem, both in everyday life and in the field of science (so to speak, a
universal research template) is formed.
Of course, in that former form Lenin's works (and they were written on topical
issues in connection with some specific events and circumstances) today to some
extent lose their formal significance, but "pushing" the author into the
background for this reason is as reckless and foolish as, for example, giggling at
the fact that Alexander the Great fought all his life on horseback, and not in a
tank or an airplane. After all, in terms of contentful filling and presentation of
views, his works are, without any exaggeration, masterpieces (for those
obsessed with the idea of knowing the essence of dialectics). One just needs to
look more pedantically into the composition of any of his articles to see the
beauty of the logical-dialectical schemes, constructions and forms. The future
requires a person to be more and more versed in the issues of dialectics.
As can be seen, in our research and conclusions we do not particularly touch
upon the temporal context, focusing mainly on Lenin's logic — all the pearls of
the research approach shine without a deep attachment to the nuances of that
great historical era. The historical background in each particular case gives the
development process only peculiar shades and features, leaving its core (i.e.
tendencies and patterns) typical and universal. In this perspective, any article by
Lenin, any of his works is a reader on dialectics, a manual on mastering the art
of dialectical thinking (to some extent invariant with respect to specific historical
frameworks), i.e. on mastering what belongs to the future. No one has been able
to understand and feel the "soul" of dialectics so deeply for a long time, to the
greatest regret.
And how much optimism and faith (namely due to the dialectical nature of the
character) in a favorable, positive outcome of the matter is laid in each of his
articles! After all, at times the entire revolutionary movement hung on such a
thin hair that it was time to fall into despair and run anywhere, fearing the
reaction. He did not flinch once, and there are no traces of retreat or repentance
found to this day by either "impartial" historians or rabid enemies. Only forward
— to the victorious heights of scientific thinking.
It would seem that Russia has a full set of conditions and resources (both human
and natural) to be the most self-sufficient and harmoniously developing state on
the planet. And the understanding of the direction, trend, perspective of the
movement-development of the people and the country (where and why are we
going?) has been lost since the times of the last most integral dialectician, which
was V.I. Lenin. The idea (in the most general form — ideology, and not just
ideology, but the most advanced ideology, which Lenin was guided by) as the
most perfect derivative of human consciousness and is the guiding star, which is
the most content-capacious of all reliably known to us forms of our (human)
level of development of reality, — why the most contentful flows of the level of
human consciousness strive to possess this form (to clothe themselves in this
form). So what, it would seem, is simpler — take and learn dialectics from Lenin
(master, so to speak, the dialectical style of thinking and advanced ideas, which
are an inevitable product of this kind of thinking) instead of subjecting him to
ostracism. But no: to grow up to the perception of his ideas, it turns out, is much
more difficult than to revile, showing off one's not so perfect brains and very
limited abilities.
Marxism is supposedly too orthodox, and Lenin's ideas have led to a dead
end and have lost all relevance — these are the arguments of today's
academic community (primarily among economists, politicians, historians,
political scientists, etc.). Enlightened people, however, say that one should
learn to follow not the letter of Marxism, not the letter of Lenin's
manuscripts, but their spirit. The spirit (contentful principle) of dialectics is
eternal: it only passes from form to form, i.e. it simply changes the form of
its acquiring. And to learn to grasp, to perceive this spirit — this is the
purpose and main goal of the life and activity of every educated person.
The approach described here is intended to direct a person not just to the
knowledge of some world that has existed since time immemorial, but
predisposes to a meaningful study of everything that "is being done", that "is
being reproduced" and "is being recreated" right here and now — in real-time
mode both in our near and far environment.
Another appeal to Lenin's words that even 70 Marxs will not be able to cover
the "sum of all these changes in all their branches" and cope with solving
such a task, contributes to the realization of the circumstance that any, albeit
the most adequate at the moment, solution models the behavior of a very
limited, "trimmed", "frozen" system, while reality is constantly changing and
slips out from under any rigid and comprehensive control. That is why one
must learn to perceive and grasp not the volumes of all kinds of changes of
real forms, but the trend of these changes, which is ultimately the key and
condition for the successful cognition of developing reality and the
comprehension of objective truth.
With an eye to what has been said, it becomes obvious how one should
relate to the question of the cognizability of the world. Since the world, the
Universe are incessantly and unceasingly "being made", "being recreated by
piling up" (according to the formulation of the principle of self-development),
and do not represent a kind of suitcase with books, then the cognition of the
being made, every moment reproduced world — this is all the more an
infinite and infinitely fascinating contentful process. How can one talk about
some kind of comprehensive, complete and final knowledge of the world if
the world is incessantly "unfolding" with more and more contentful forms? In
this section, it is more reasonable to talk about the cognizability and
cognition of the world as about the improvement of capabilities for
anticipating such an "unfolding" of forms, capabilities for guessing the
emergence of new ones and the trend of changing existing forms, i.e. for
forecasting future events and their consequences, speaking in the usual
everyday language. Effective forecasting of the development of the forms of
reality — this is the perspective of the contentful development of mankind. In
times when, due to the infinitely routine everyday cyclicity, a person sees no
meaning in life and in his existence, an opportunity opens up to look at all
this with completely different eyes. Every person is not just capable, but is
obliged to become a researcher. In each of us, a subconscious striving is
dormant to manage to look around the corner, beyond the horizon (satisfying
one's innate curiosity), to anticipate the onset of events, to forecast and
anticipate the emergence and development of new forms. It is only
necessary to activate this dormant natural striving and give it a new impulse,
i.e. consciously bring it to a new level.
There is not a single argument refuting or at least questioning the validity
(universality and generality) of the dialectical concept of the development of
reality — undoubtedly, it must be mastered and learn to correctly and
effectively apply it.
In conclusion, I would like to appeal to the youth again: read Lenin, guys,
enjoy the beauty of thought, clarity and consistency of the presentation of
the material, as well as the magnificent Russian language. This is our largest
national thinker, a born dialectician, who will give odds to any modern
philosophizing professional. His works contain developments that will be of
interest to society and the state for decades to come. This is not the priests'
scholastic tricks, sucked out of the finger and postulating the
Absolute Form —
with
whatever
spirituality,
"spirituality",
perfect
organization and Absolute Content (in words) this Form is identified with.
Through the mouth of Vladimir Ilyich, life itself speaks to us. In his
reflections you will find answers for yourself or at least prerequisites for
finding answers to the main worldview questions, you will feel out the right
path to understanding the patterns of the development of reality (both of
nature and of human communities).
One should not think that everything has already been passed, laid out and
summed up. Everything is just beginning — with each new turn of the
development of reality, the struggle for the highest contentfulness acquires
new and more diverse forms: "And again the battle continues, and the heart
is anxious in the chest, and Lenin is so young, and a NEW October is
ahead...".
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[Elektronnyi
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//
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Translation in English: Advanced AI models have translated the book from
Russian into English. However, final copy-editing of the English text by a native
speaker is still advisable and welcome.
ARTICLE 4
Unlearned Lessons of Dialectics: From Whom and How to Learn to Think
Dialectically
Abstract
This article is dedicated to the lessons of dialectics from Vladimir I. Lenin — an
outstanding national thinker to whom the ability of clear dialectical thinking was
generously gifted by nature. Any work that came from Lenin's pen is imbued
with the spirit of dialectics.
Any Lenin's thought is a chain or series of conceptual forms maximally filled with
objective content. Any of his theoretical work is a model of masterfully balanced
sliding of thought as if on the "razor's edge", the opposite sides-facets of which
symbolize the confrontation of two non-identical opposing sides-components of
reality.
The aim of this article is to draw the attention primarily of the young reader
precisely to these qualities of Vladimir I. Lenin's theoretical works.
In the course of familiarizing oneself with Lenin's theoretical heritage, the
circumstance that the research approach he used remains unclaimed to this day,
and Lenin's lessons of dialectics, accordingly, remain unlearned, catches the eye.
Since at the foundation of any certain form of reality (object, process,
phenomenon) lie two highly abstract and non-identical, yet at the same time
objective and interrelated constituent sides-components "content" and "form",
the content-form relations (conversions, transformations) come to the fore and
become the subject of close attention of dialectics.
Considering Lenin's theoretical works through the prism of content-form relations
and identifying on this basis the general regularities of the construction and
presentation of material makes it possible to speak about the possibility of
creating a single universal methodology for conducting effective research at any
level and in any field of reality.
Introduction
As an epigraph to this article, we would like to take words by Vladimir I. Lenin
from his work "On the Road", written in 1909: "...this stage must be outgrown;
the new circumstances of the moment require new forms of struggle..." [8, p.
540].
The cited quote, in our view, vividly expresses not only the character of a
remarkable living and flexible personality but also the essence of the entire life
and revolutionary activity of V.I. Lenin: keenly and relentlessly tracking the
situation, accurately grasping its changes, and being constantly ready to respond
to these changes with the most adequate actions — new forms of struggle.
In this article, we will examine and analyze the greatness and scale of Lenin's
figure from the standpoint of his innate ability: to be a dialectician. Discarding
all fictional, doubtful and secondary elements that were thrust into the
foreground during the "murky" 1990s — years of merciless reprisals against
Soviet power and the USSR — we will focus mainly on this aspect of Lenin's
activities and personality in our research.
A dialectical mindset is that indispensable trait of Lenin's individuality which, in
our opinion, has not yet received due coverage in fiction and journalism. All
other attributes of genius are already derivatives of such outstanding features of
his nature: adherence to a scientific approach in studying any issues; striving for
objective and impartial presentation of conclusions and results obtained through
observations and studies, etc. It was precisely Lenin's natural "immersion" in the
mysterious medium of dialectics that provoked fierce hostility and rejection
towards him from his enemies and opponents who, lacking this natural gift,
could boast of nothing more than inventing plots "out of their heads" and
presenting scholastic twists, assumptions, fables and fairy tales.
Another reason for pathological hatred and animosity toward Lenin's personality
lies in the inability of his opponents to achieve a penetrating, Lenin-like insight
into the essence and order of things; and this unattainable depth of
understanding actual relations remains the main irritant for his opponents even
now.
What is the strength of Lenin, if even his most die-hard detractors and
adversaries nevertheless recognize his influence and authority on a global scale?
First of all, in our view, it lies in his philosophical significance and specifically in
mastery of dialectics: when foresight is the result of a talent of an individual to
see the development of reality through the prism of interaction between directly
opposing sides of this (reality). He was what many ordinary and extraordinary
philosophizing individuals secretly desire and dream of becoming, realizing
however that they fall short, do not measure up, and cannot become anyone
similar — because some extremely important constituent elements are missing
in the multi-layered structure of their own "I".
It is difficult to find a modern public leader who stands at least level with (on the
same step) Lenin — an encyclopedic scholar and philosopher of profound depth,
a brilliant polemicist, consistent and fearless revolutionary, prominent politician
and outstanding statesman.
Possession of the invaluable gift of a born dialectician allowed Lenin to handle
events and circumstances with exquisite precision, balancing on the crest of the
wave.
The accuracy and precision with which historical figures of a dialectical "leaven"
walk along the "razor's edge", balancing between Scylla and Charybdis in
interpreting the questions under study, evokes admiration and envy in the best
sense of the word. Through them (and via them), dialectics charts its way most
effectively and optimally. It is precisely through them and their voices that
dialectically developing nature speaks to us.
It is regrettable, of course, that the beauty and perfection of thought, say, of
Marx or Engels can be appreciated by most of us only thanks to the efforts of
translators. Undoubtedly, those translators of the time were highly qualified
specialists and quite exceptional people, but as someone aptly noted, reading
classics in translation is like taking a shower while wearing a coat. And so much
the better that the beauty, clarity and precision of Lenin's thought can, thank
god, be known and evaluated without the interference of intermediary
translators.
All people (especially outstanding ones) are to one degree or another
spontaneous dialecticians. And it does not matter what craft (of mental or
physical labor) they possess. Dialectics, ingrained in the flesh and blood of every
person, occasionally orients him/her towards certain paradoxical (it seems, from
the point of view of common sense) solutions, thanks to which he/she achieves
remarkable results and therefore becomes famous among the general public. We
refer here, for example, to memoirs and recollections of celebrated personalities:
Marshal Zhukov, pilots Pokryshkin and Kozhedub, aircraft engine designer