Marxism - a philosophical, political and economic doctrine and movement founded by Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century. There are various interpretations of Marx's teachings, associated with various political parties and movements in social thought and political practice. Political Marxism is one of the variants of socialism along with left anarchism, Christian socialism and a part of democratic socialism / social democracy that does not accept Marxism.

general characteristics

Traditionally, it is believed that the following provisions are of great importance in Marx's theory: the doctrine of surplus value, the materialist understanding of history (historical materialism) and the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

It is often customary to separate:

Marxism as a philosophical doctrine (dialectical and historical materialism);
Marxism as a doctrine that influenced scientific concepts in economics, sociology, political science and other sciences;
Marxism as a political trend that asserts the inevitability of the class struggle and social revolution, as well as the leading role of the proletariat in the revolution, which will lead to the destruction of commodity production and private property, which form the basis of capitalist society and the establishment, on the basis of public ownership of the means of production, of a communist society aimed at a comprehensive development of each member of society;

History of Marxism

In the 1840s, the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie came to the fore in the most developed countries of Europe (the uprisings of the Lyons weavers in 1831 and 1834, the rise of the British Chartist movement in the mid-30s - early 50s, the uprising of the weavers in Silesia in 1844).

During this period, German thinkers K. Marx and F. Engels in the spring of 1847 joined the secret propaganda society "Union of Communists", organized by German emigrants, whom Marx met in London. On behalf of the society, they drew up the famous "Manifesto of the Communist Party", published on February 21, 1848. In it, they proclaimed the inevitability of the death of capitalism at the hands of the proletariat and led a short program for the transition from the capitalist social formation to the communist one:
The proletariat uses its political domination in order to wrest from the bourgeoisie step by step all capital, to centralize all the instruments of production in the hands of the state, that is, the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase the sum of productive forces as quickly as possible.

This can, of course, happen at first only with the help of despotic interference in property rights and in bourgeois production relations, that is, with the help of measures that seem economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outgrow themselves and are inevitable as a means for a revolution. throughout the production process.

The program itself contains 10 points:
These activities will, of course, differ from country to country.

However, in the most advanced countries, the following measures can be applied almost universally:

1. Expropriation of land property and the circulation of land rent to cover public expenditures.
2. High progressive tax.
3. Cancellation of the right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital and with an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of all transport in the hands of the state.
7. Increase in the number of state factories, tools of production, clearing for arable land and improvement of land according to the general plan.
8. Equal obligation to work for all, the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combining agriculture with industry, promoting the gradual elimination of the distinction between town and country.
10. Public and free education of all children. Elimination of the factory labor of children in its modern form. Combining education with material production, etc.

Karl Marx, however, harshly criticized the utopian "crude and ill-considered communism" of those who simply extended the principle of private ownership to everyone ("common private property"). Rough communism, according to Marx, is a product of "worldwide envy."

In 1864, the Marxist First International was created. The Marxists founded Social Democratic parties, in which both a radical, revolutionary direction and a moderate, reformist one stood out. The ideologist of the latter was the German social democrat E. Bernstein. In the Second International, created in 1889, a revolutionary point of view prevailed in the International until the early 1900s. At the congresses, decisions were made about the impossibility of an alliance with the bourgeoisie, the inadmissibility of joining bourgeois governments, protests against militarism and war, etc. Later, however, reformists began to play a more significant role in the International, which prompted accusations from the radicals of opportunism.

In the 1890s, the so-called "legal Marxism" existed in Russia, propagandized in legal publications: "New Word", "Life" (1897-1901), "Beginning". Representatives: Pyotr Struve, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, Nikolai Berdyaev, who denounced populism and advocated democratic freedoms, evolutionary reform of society; subsequently, many switched from Marxism to liberalism, becoming the nucleus of the Cadet party.

In the first half of the 20th century, the communist parties emerged from the most radical wing of the social democracy. The Social Democrats traditionally advocated the expansion of democracy and political freedoms, and the Communists, who first came to power in Russia in 1917 (Bolsheviks), and then in a number of other countries, were opponents of democracy and political freedoms (despite the fact that formally declared their support) and supporters of state intervention in all spheres of society.

Therefore, already in 1918, Luxemburgism arose, opposing, on the one hand, the pro-bourgeois policy of the revisionist Social Democracy, and on the other, Bolshevism. Its founder was the German radical social democrat Rosa Luxemburg.

On March 4, 1919, on the initiative of the RCP (b) and personally its leader V. Lenin, the Communist International was created to develop and spread the ideas of revolutionary international socialism in opposition to the reformist socialism of the Second International.

The views of a number of communist theorists who recognized the progressive significance of the October Revolution in Russia, but criticized its development, and some even rejected the socialist nature of Bolshevism, seeing in it state capitalism, began to be called left communism. The left opposition in the RCP (b) and VKP (b) in the 1920s advocated inner-party democracy, against the "Nepman, kulak and bureaucrat." The "Left Opposition" in the USSR ceased to exist as a result of repressions, but the ideology of its leader Leonid Trotsky, who was expelled from the country (Trotskyism), became quite popular abroad.

The communist ideology in the form in which it became dominant in the USSR in the 1920s was called "Marxism-Leninism". Later, the so-called "Western Marxism" arose. D. Lukach, Karl Korsch, Antonio Gramsci are considered to be its founders.

The exposure of Stalinism at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the Soviet course towards economic development under the policy of "Peaceful Coexistence" displeased the leader of the Chinese communists, Mao Zedong. He was supported by the leader of the Albanian Labor Party, Enver Hoxha. The policy of the Soviet leader N.S. Khrushchev was called revisionist. Following the Soviet-Chinese conflict, many communist parties in Europe and Latin America split into groups oriented towards the USSR, and so on. "Anti-revisionist" groups targeting China and Albania. In the 1960s and 1970s, Maoism enjoyed considerable popularity among the left-wing intelligentsia in the West. The leader of the DPRK Kim Il Sung, maneuvering between the USSR and China, in 1955 proclaimed the ideology of "Juche", which is presented as a harmonious transformation of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism on the basis of ancient Korean philosophical thought.

The largest social democratic parties in Europe abandoned their commitment to Marxism (the SPD in 1959 with the adoption of the Godesberg program, the PSRP in 1979 with the election of F. Gonzalez as the party leader).

The policy and theoretical substantiation of the activities of a number of communist parties in Western Europe, which in the 1970s and 1980s criticized the leadership of the CPSU in the world communist movement, the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the lack of political freedoms in countries that adopted the Soviet model of socialism, was called "Eurocommunism."

Evolution of Marx's Views and Prior Influences

There are two periods in the work of Marx:
Early Marx - in the center of his attention is the problem of alienation and ways to overcome it in the process of revolutionary practice. A society free from alienation, Marx calls communism.

Late Marx - his focus is on the disclosure of economic mechanisms ("basis") of world history, over which the spiritual life of society (ideology) is built. A person is perceived as a product of production activity and as a set of social relations.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin pointed to three sources of Marxist doctrine: English political economy, German classical philosophy, and French utopian socialism. Marx, proceeding from these sources, nevertheless subjected them to critical comprehension and revision. The result of which was Marxism as a new stage in the development of social thought.

Marx and Hegel

Marx opposes the "bullying" of Hegel's philosophy, widespread in contemporary Germany, and declares himself to be his disciple. Criticizing Hegel, Marx raises the question of the materialist reworking of his idealist dialectic.

Marxist philosophy

In his early works, Marx, on the one hand, condemns philosophy for its speculative consciousness, but on the other hand, he insistently emphasizes the need to translate philosophy into reality. Thus, Marx's 11th thesis about L. Feuerbach is widely known: "Philosophers have only explained the world in different ways, but the point is to change it."

Later, this position degenerates into a sharp criticism of metaphysical philosophy in "German Ideology".

Dialectical materialism

It should be noted that neither Marx nor Engels called their doctrine dialectical materialism. They used the terms "modern" or "new" materialism to distinguish their views from the mechanistic materialism of the French enlighteners. The term dialectical materialism was introduced by the Russian Marxist Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov (1856-1918) and consolidated by Lenin as the official name for the philosophical component of the Soviet system of Marxism-Leninism.

The expression "dialectical materialism" is often used synonymously with Marxist philosophy. However, it is not found in Marx and Engels, who spoke of "materialist dialectics." The expression "dialectical materialism" was introduced into scientific circulation by I. Dietzgen in his work "Excursions of a socialist into the field of the theory of knowledge."

The central concept of the philosophy of Marxism as a doctrine of the dialectical process is the concept of the universality of development. In "Antiduering" Engels expresses the idea that dialectics examines the laws of thinking, in "Dialectics of Nature" it is emphasized that "dialectical laws are the real laws of the development of nature."

Marxist philosophy of history

The philosophy of Marxism finds a person in a state of alienation and focuses on his liberation. However, a person is interpreted not as an independent individual, but as a “set of social relations,” therefore the philosophy of Marxism is, first of all, the philosophy of society considered in its historical development.

Marx considers "material production" ("basis") to be the driving force of history. His associate Engels claims that it was “labor that created man”. The most important fact of anthropogenesis was the transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one. Production leaves a certain imprint on society, as a result of which a number of formations or production methods successively replacing each other are distinguished.

All known formations contain contradictions in the form of antagonism, since, depending on the relationship to the means of production, members of society are divided into classes: slave owners and slaves, feudal lords and peasants, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In the course of the class struggle, the most powerful class creates the state, as well as various forms of ideology (including religion, law and art) so that this class can dominate other classes in society. The change of formations is determined by the level of development of the productive forces, which gradually "outgrow" the production relations, come into conflict with them, which leads to revolutions (social and political).

The communist revolution, according to the representatives of Marxism, must finally free man from alienation and lead society to a classless communist formation.

Economic doctrine of Marx

The main work of Marx in the economic sphere is Capital. The object of criticism of Marx is the mercantilist, classical and vulgar schools. The main value and scientific novelty of Marx's work is in the comprehensive study of the specific commodity labor force. As a result of the analysis, Marx identified and separately investigated surplus value as an independent economic phenomenon. This made it possible to scientifically explain the source and nature of the return on capital, as well as various forms of economic exploitation.

Marxist sociology

Karl Marx did not use the term "sociology" in his works, which was associated at that time with the name of Auguste Comte. However, in modern scientific practice, it is generally accepted that the work of Marx had a significant impact on the development of sociology. Marx's views are largely different from many other recognized classics of sociology, so it is customary to single out his ideas in a separate direction. First of all, it should be said about the materialistic understanding of history: at the heart of all social changes are not ideas and other spiritual values, but purely economic interests of the main social groups of society. Thus, as a result of the conflict of classes over economic resources, revolutions occur, denoting a change in socio-economic formations. In other words, all changes in society and the movement of history occur as a result of the resolution of social conflicts that arise between the ruling and other classes of society. It is on the conflict, according to Marx, that the social structure is built. Thus, it can be argued that Marx rejected the idea of \u200b\u200bsocial consensus, according to which the unity of society is based on social solidarity, and argued that society is initially unstable and only thanks to this internal contradiction lives and develops.

Communism

Communism, according to Marx, is a necessary stage in the natural development of society. The degree of development of the productive forces determines the stage to which social relations can develop. As the productive forces develop, society receives more and more resources, can "allow" itself and its individual members more and more freedom, and thus move to a higher level of social relations.

Marx understood communism as the highest stage of human development in the aspect of class relations. Mankind dialectically develops in a spiral, and it must come to where it began: to the absence of private ownership of the means of production, as in primitive society, but at a new level, due to a high degree of development of productive forces.

Marxism as an official ideology

In a number of states, during various historical periods, various political parties and movements were in power, calling themselves Marxist, or under the influence of Marxism. Marxism in these countries was often declared the official state ideology or was de facto so.

By no means all politicians who used and are using Marxism to justify their actions really understood it and were its consistent and convinced supporters. Quite often, Marxism was used as an ideological cover for designs and actions that were far from the ideas and goals of Marxism.

A number of modern researchers are of the opinion that in the USSR and some other countries the party nomenclature used Marxist ideas in their dogmatized and vulgar presentation.

Marxist and post-Marxist schools and trends

The theory and ideology of Marx gave birth to many followers both in the scientific field and in politics.

Russian Marxism XIX - early. XX century

Plekhanov G.V.
Lenin V.I.
A. A. Bogdanov
Trotsky L. D.
Yu.O. Martov
Dan F.I.
Chkheidze N.S.
Askelrod P. B.

Russian Marxism of the XX century.

Vygotsky L.S.
Lifshits M.A.
Ilyenkov E.V.

Russian Marxism of the XXI century.

Buzgalin A.V.
Kolganov A.I.

Russian post-Marxism in the late XX - early XXI century.

Kagarlitsky B. Yu.
A. N. Tarasov
Western Marxism XIX - early XX century
Karl Kautsky
Rosa Luxemburg
Ruehle, Otto

Western Marxism and neo-Marxism of the XX century.

Gyorgy Lukacs - problems of alienation, commodity fetishism.
Louis Althusser - Structuralist Marxism.
Ernst Bloch - a philosophy of hope, Marxism as a religion - as an openness to the future.
Jean Baudrillard - from the political economy of money to the political economy of a sign and a symbol.
Karl Mannheim - developing the concept of ideology.
Wilhelm Reich - Freud-Marxism, the development of the idea of \u200b\u200bthe "Sexual Revolution".
Frankfurt School.
Jean Paul Sartre - Marxism-existentialism, the problems of alienation, freedom.
Antonio Gramsci - civil society, intelligentsia, culture.
Ernest Mandel - studying the anatomy of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and under capitalism; the study of the prospects of its withering away during the transition of society to a qualitatively new stage of development.
Burtell Allman is alienation.
Perry Anderson is a British-American historian and theorist of the New Left movement.
Ruebel, Maximilian - Marxist historian and theorist of libertarian communism.
Korkut Boratav is a Marxist economist who studied the problems of resource allocation and international exploitation.

Western post-Marxism in the late XX - early XXI century.

Istvan Meszaros - criticism of capitalism, the problem of alienation.
Ernesto Laclau
Chantal Mouffe

Criticism of Marxism

According to a number of historians and economists, attempts to build a "just society" on the basis of classical Marxism are not only unviable and utopian, but have led to the unnecessary death of millions of people around the world.

The point of view about the inconsistency of Marxism as a science of the development of society also takes place in modern economic education:
The course offered to the students who chose it will show reasonably why this theory, over two centuries of existence, has revealed its complete inconsistency. History developed in a completely different way from the one presented in the Marxist theory of formations, especially in that part of it, which in his time was most diligently occupied by Marx himself.

Leninism - philosophical, political and socio-economic doctrine created by V. I. Lenin in the development of Marxism. The specificity of the dialectical unity of theory and practice in Leninism lies in the fact that it is both a doctrine (a logically interconnected system of categories, a set of inferences reflecting objectively existing relations and connections between phenomena of objective reality) and a doctrine, that is, a goal-setting statement of practical steps towards implementing policies based on relevant theory.

In its doctrinal part, Leninism corresponds to Bolshevism (which was initiated in 1903 by V.I.Lenin himself), and these two concepts are not opposed until 1922, that is, while Lenin was actively acting as the leader of the Bolshevik party, and his labors continued to develop. by definition, both Bolshevism and Leninism.

The emergence and use of the term

Until 1917, inter-party polemics between the two largest factions of the Russian Social Democrats were conducted mainly in terms of "Bolshevism" versus "Menshevism", embodied by Lenin and Trotsky, respectively. The appearance of the latter in the ranks of the Bolsheviks (elected to the Central Committee in the summer of 1917) and the subsequent internal party conflicts gave rise to the active life of the term "Trotskyism." However, since V. I. Lenin as the leader of various platforms and oppositions opposed Trotsky not personally, but jointly with other leaders of the Bolshevik party, the "mirror" concept of Leninism was not used in party documents; Trotskyism was opposed not to Leninism, but to Bolshevism.

The concept of "Leninism" was actively used after V. I. Lenin's retirement due to illness (1922). From that moment on, the leaders of the RCP (b) often use it in their public speeches at various levels, up to congresses and congresses. So, for example, at the XII Congress of the RCP (b) (April 17-25, 1923) N.I.Bukharin says:
The essence of Leninism on the national question in our country lies primarily in the struggle against the main chauvinism that we have, against Great Russian chauvinism.

After Lenin's death (January 1924), one of the first leaders of the international communist movement who tried to give a scientific formula for Leninism was the Hungarian Marxist philosopher Gyorgy Lukacs. In the brochure “Lenin. A research essay on the interconnection of his ideas ”(Vienna, February 1924) Lukács already raises the question“ of Leninism as a new phase in the development of materialist dialectics ”. Outlining the evolution of Marxism and recalling "vulgar Marxism", Lukacs in the same work mirrors the last definition (as applied to the Hungarian communists) in the term "vulgar Leninism". Complementing the picture of the evolution of Marxism with the facts of its revision, Lukács formulates the lemma:
Lenin was the only one who took this step along the path of concretizing Marxism, which henceforth acquired a completely practical character. That is why he is the only theoretician to this day who has been promoted by the liberation struggle of the proletariat, on the same world-historical scale as Marx.

Which then forms the basis for subsequent definitions of Leninism. At about the same time, JV Stalin wrote a "summary exposition of the foundations of Leninism," and in March 1924 it was published in the form of a brochure On the Foundations of Leninism. Later, G.E. Zinoviev, as chairman of the ECCI, voiced his understanding of Leninism from the international tribune of the Comintern, at its Fifth Congress (June-July 1924). In the Theses on the Bolshevization of the Parties of the Comintern, written by him and adopted at the Fifth (Expanded) Plenum of the ECCI (April 1925), Zinoviev also mentions the “principles of Leninism,” using the latter’s connection with Bolshevism: “Bolshevization is the ability to apply the general principles of Leninism to a given concrete situation in this or that country ". The personification of the name of the doctrine, the use in its name of the name of one or another founder (Smithianism, Cartesianism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, etc.) sometimes leads to collisions between supporters of the doctrine after the death of its eponym. Each side unfolds its own system of arguments in defense of the "truth" of its vision of what this teaching should be. At the 14th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), these contradictions reached such an acuteness that Lenin's widow, N.K. Krupskaya, took the floor and said: “I think that shouts that this or that is true Leninism are inappropriate,” after which from memory she referred to the words of Lenin:
There have been cases in history that the teachings of great revolutionaries were distorted after their death. Harmless icons were made of them, but, presenting honor to their name, they dulled the revolutionary edge of their teaching
after which she urged "not to cover one or another of our views with the nickname of Leninism." Retrospective searches for the truth in these controversial issues require a deep understanding of the historical material, and presuppose a thorough analysis of the social forces behind currents and individuals, either adopting the self-designation of Leninists (Marxists, Bolsheviks, etc.), or those who are called Leninists or are considered as such. from the side.

Leninism and Marxism

A common definition in the literature
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution
implies that: 1) the theoretical roots of Leninism lie in Marxism; 2) that it originated in an era when the sharply accelerated development of capitalism was accompanied by tremendous social upheavals, up to the revolutionary overthrow of the previous system; 3) that Leninism at the same time is not a repetition of Marxism, but a new doctrine based on it, taking into account the changes that have occurred after the death of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The fact that a successful socialist revolution took place far from the most developed industrial power (as the classics of Marxism believed) is undoubtedly significant, but it does not exhaust the question of the relationship between Marxism and Leninism, especially since it refers only to the practical, doctrinal part of both teachings.

In the philosophical, theoretical part, both doctrines are identical due to the commonality of their basis - dialectical materialism. Working in the mainstream of Marxism, V. I. Lenin not only used the theses previously formulated by Marx, but also supplemented the teaching of Marxism with his philosophical works: "Materialism and Empirio-criticism", "On the Meaning of Militant Materialism." In particular, Lenin developed an interpretation of dialectical and historical materialism and gave criticism of the philosophy of empirio-criticism (Machism), neo-Kantianism, and pragmatism. He also distinguished dialectical materialism from a number of doctrines that developed outside of Marxism: from sensationalism, naive realism, relativism, and also from vulgar materialism.

In the field of understanding social phenomena, Lenin restored the unity of natural-scientific materialism with historical materialism and the unity between the dialectical understanding of nature and the dialectical understanding of social development, that is, history. Insisting on the unity of dialectical-materialist understanding, Lenin showed that dialectical materialism is a methodology for the study of both natural and social phenomena, concretizing for the latter as historical materialism, requiring dialecticians to follow the development of natural sciences.

Basic Provisions

Imperialism is the highest and last stage of capitalism.
Revolutions will occur first of all in the "weak links", that is, in undeveloped countries.
For the victory of the revolution, an alliance of workers and peasants must be formed, with the former taking the leading role.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is carried out under the leadership of the party of the revolutionary vanguard.

Trotskyism - a theory that represents the development of Marxism based on the views set forth by Leon Trotsky and other leaders of the Left Opposition in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the leaders of the International Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Also used as a self-name: Bolshevik-Leninists, Orthodox Marxists, revolutionary Marxists. Currently, there are several Trotskyist concepts that differ, in particular, in their approaches to assessing the role and activities of the bureaucracy in the USSR. The major theorists of revolutionary Marxism after Trotsky's death were Ernest Mandel, Ted Grant and Tony Cliff.

General concept

James Patrick Cannon, in his 1942 book A History of American Trotskyism, noted that "Trotskyism is not a new movement or a new doctrine, but only a restoration, a rebirth of genuine Marxism, which was developed and implemented by the Russian Revolution and the early days of the Communist International." In such an assessment, they are not alone among the Marxist movements of the 20th century: their opponents, the Stalinists and Maoists, who believe that their leaders creatively developed Marxism-Leninism, characterize their direction in a similar way - this term, however, is not used by the Trotskyists. At the same time, Trotskyism clarifies and develops some of the provisions of Marxist theory.

The key points of the Trotskyist theory are:
supporting the theory of permanent revolution as opposed to the theory of two stages;
emphasis on the need for a world socialist revolution as opposed to the theory of socialism in one country;
criticism of the lack of internal party democracy and Soviet leadership after 1923;
analysis of the nature of the political regime in the Soviet Union and support for the political revolution in it;
support for the socialist revolution in the developed capitalist countries through the massive actions of the working class;
use of the principles of transition requirements.

The theory of permanent revolution

General concept

In 1905, Trotsky formulates a theory that later became known as the theory of permanent revolution. This theory can be called one of the main distinguishing features of Trotskyism from other currents leading their political genealogy from Marxism. One of the most important elements of the theory of "permanent revolution" is the theory of combined development. Until 1905, Marxists considered the possibility of carrying out a socialist revolution only in the developed capitalist countries. According to Trotsky, in relatively developed countries such as Russia — which had just begun the process of industrialization and development of the proletariat — it was possible to bring about a socialist revolution due to the historical inability of the bourgeoisie to fulfill bourgeois democratic demands.

At the same time, Trotsky noted in all his works, the proletariat will not be able to carry out a socialist revolution without the support of a multimillion peasantry. Having established its power, dictatorship, the proletariat will have to proceed to bringing the agrarian reforms to the end. "In other words," writes Trotsky, "the dictatorship of the proletariat will become an instrument for solving the problems of the historically belated bourgeois revolution." In the future, according to Trotsky, the proletariat "will be forced to make ever deeper intrusions into private property relations in general, that is, to go over to the path of socialist measures." However, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia does not mean that Russia is capable of the transition to socialism. Trotsky, following Lenin, insists: "Whether the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia will lead to socialism or not - at what pace and through what stages - it depends on the future fate of European and world capitalism."

Bourgeois democratic revolution

The revolutions in England in the 17th century and in France in 1789 overthrew feudalism, establishing the basic attributes for the development of capitalism. However, Trotsky argues that these revolutions cannot be repeated in Russia. In his work "Results and Prospects", written in 1906, in which Trotsky sets out in detail the theory of permanent revolution, he says: "History does not repeat itself. No matter how much the Russian revolution is compared with the Great French, the first will not turn into a repetition of the second ”. During the Great French Revolution of 1789, France experienced, as the Marxists put it, a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" - that is, a regime was created in which the bourgeoisie overthrew feudalism. Then the bourgeoisie moved in the direction of creating a regime of "democratic" parliamentary institutions.

However, Trotsky argues that a country like Russia does not have an "enlightened, active" revolutionary bourgeoisie that could play the same role, and that the working class is a very small minority. Indeed, even by the time of the European revolutions of 1848, Trotsky argued, “the bourgeoisie was no longer able to play such a role. She did not want and did not dare to take responsibility for the revolutionary liquidation of the social system that stood in the way of her domination. "

The weakness of capitalism

The theory of permanent revolution believes that in many countries, in which, as is often said, their bourgeois-democratic revolutions have not yet taken place, the capitalist class opposes the creation of any revolutionary situation, primarily because it fears that the working class will rise to fighting for their own revolutionary aspirations against their exploitation by capitalists. In Russia, the working class, although it represents a small minority in a multimillion peasant society, was organized in many factories belonging to the capitalist class. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, the capitalist class took reactionary elements - the feudal landowners and the tsarist state power - as allies to protect the ownership of their property in the form of factories, banks, etc., from expropriation by the revolutionary working class.

According to the theory of permanent revolution, thus, in economically backward countries, the capitalist class is weak and incapable of carrying out revolutionary transformations. He is associated with and supported by the feudal landowners in many ways. Trotsky further argues that since most industries in Russia arose under the direct influence of government measures, and sometimes even through government subsidies, the capitalist class was also associated with the ruling elite. Moreover, the capitalist class was heavily dependent on European capital.

Role of the working class

Trotsky argued that only the proletariat was capable of carrying out the tasks set by the bourgeois revolution. In 1905, the working class in Russia, concentrated in huge factories in relative isolation from peasant life, saw the result of its labor as an enormous collective effort. "The proletariat immediately found itself concentrated in huge masses, and between it and absolutism stood a small capitalist bourgeoisie, cut off from the 'people', half foreign, without historical traditions, inspired by one greed for profit."

The Putilov factory, for example, had 12,000 workers in 1900 and, according to Trotsky, 36,000 in July 1917. The theory of permanent revolution holds that the peasantry as a whole cannot take on such a task because it is scattered in small farms throughout the country, and also because it is heterogeneously grouped and includes both rich peasants who hire rural workers and seek to to become landowners and poor peasants who seek to obtain more land. Trotsky asserts: "All historical experience ... shows that the peasantry is completely incapable of an independent political role."

As only a small minority of Russian society, the proletariat can lead the revolution to the emancipation of the peasantry and thereby "enlist the support of the peasantry" as part of the revolution on whose support it will rely. However, the working class, in the name of its own interests and improving its own conditions, will strive to implement such revolutionary transformations that will perform not only the functions of a bourgeois revolution, but will also lead to the establishment of a workers' state. At the same time, Trotsky writes: “The proletariat will be forced to introduce the class struggle into the countryside and thus violate the community of interests that the entire peasantry undoubtedly has, but within relatively narrow limits. The proletariat will have to look for support in the very next moments of its domination in opposing the rural poor to the rural rich, the agricultural proletariat to the agricultural bourgeoisie. "

World revolution

According to classical Marxism, the revolution in peasant countries such as Russia paves the way for the development of capitalism in the long run, as the liberated peasants become owners of small farms, producers and traders, which leads to an increase in the commodity market, and which, in turn, forms a new capitalist class. Only developed capitalist economies are capable of preparing the foundation for socialism. Trotsky agrees that the new socialist state and economy in a country like Russia will not be able to withstand the pressure of the hostile capitalist world, as well as the internal pressure of its own backward economy. The revolution, as Trotsky argued, must spread to the capitalist countries, and subsequently to the whole world.

The theory of a deformed workers state

General concept

Leon Trotsky believed that the regime of the proletarian dictatorship that was established in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917 laid the socialist basis of the state by nationalizing the means of production. However, during about 1923-1929, the Soviet bureaucracy, according to Trotsky, carried out a coup, expropriating power from the ruling class - the proletariat. Trotsky and his supporters, however, did not stop considering the USSR a workers 'state - in their opinion, the Soviet Union was a bureaucratically deformed or degenerated workers' state.

Leon Trotsky views the Soviet bureaucracy as a specific caste, but not a new class. In his opinion, the bureaucracy has no signs of a ruling class: “The attempt to present the Soviet bureaucracy as a class of 'state capitalists' obviously does not stand up to criticism. The bureaucracy has neither stocks nor bonds. It is recruited, replenished, renewed in the order of the administrative hierarchy, regardless of any special property relations inherent in it. An individual official cannot inherit his rights to exploit the state apparatus. The bureaucracy enjoys privileges through abuse. " That is why, according to Trotsky, the bureaucracy is striving to eliminate the gains of the October Revolution and the restoration of capitalism - it needs to legally secure its rights to property.

The "Transitional Program", which became the main program document of the Fourth International in 1938, said the following: "The Soviet Union emerged from the October revolution as a workers' state.
The nationalization of the means of production, a necessary condition for socialist development, opened up the possibility of a rapid growth of the productive forces. Meanwhile, the apparatus of the workers' state has undergone a complete degeneration, having turned from an instrument of the working class into an instrument of bureaucratic violence against the working class and, more and more, into an instrument of sabotaging the economy. The bureaucratization of the backward and isolated workers' state and the transformation of the bureaucracy into an all-powerful privileged caste is the most convincing - not theoretical, but practical - refutation of socialism in a single country. "

As one of the reasons for the emergence of this caste, Trotsky, in his book "Revolution Betrayed", calls the allocation of "privileged groups most needed for defense, for industry, for technology and science" in difficult conditions of the late 1910s - early 1920s - undeveloped industry, civil war, pressure from capitalist states, lack of any help from the West. At the same time, he notes that "the enormous economic successes of the last period led not to mitigation, but on the contrary to the exacerbation of inequality, and at the same time to the further growth of bureaucracy, which has now turned from a" perversion "into a management system". Among the reasons for the coming to power in the party and the Soviet Union of the bureaucracy, Trotsky also sees the death of many conscious communists during the Civil War, the lack of self-government skills among the masses, and others.

The proletariat and the political revolution in the USSR

Leon Trotsky, using an analogy with Thermidor during the Great French Revolution, believed that the regime established in the Soviet Union was Bonapartist in nature. That is, the ruling class - the proletariat - was removed from power by the bureaucracy. Although this bureaucracy has its own privileges and ultimately strives for the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, as long as it supports the nationalized means of production, the monopoly of foreign trade and other gains of the October Revolution, it expresses the interests of the ruling class, albeit removed from power, the proletariat.

According to Trotsky, in order to regain power and control over the socialized means of production, the proletariat must carry out a political revolution, preserving the economic basis of the Soviet state. Otherwise, the victory and strengthening of the power of the bureaucracy, which is increasingly expanding its own privileges and increasing social inequality, will lead to the restoration of capitalism. “The Soviet regime contains… horrific contradictions. But it continues to be the regime of a degenerated workers' state. This is the social diagnosis. The political forecast has an alternative character: either the bureaucracy, which is increasingly becoming an organ of the world bourgeoisie in the workers' state, will overturn new forms of property and throw the country back to capitalism, or the working class will crush the bureaucracy and open the way to socialism, "the Transition Program said.

History of the Trotskyist movement

Trotskyism in the USSR

The Left Opposition is a conditional faction within the RCP (b) and the VKP (b) (1923-1927). The most famous figures in it were Leon Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky, Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, Karl Radek, Ivan Smirnov, Lev Sosnovsky, then also - Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nadezhda Krupskaya.

The left opposition began to form during the internal party struggle during Lenin's illness and especially after his death in January 1924. The line of struggle was between Trotsky and his supporters, including those who signed in October 1923 under the "Statement of 46", on the one hand, and the triumvirate of Zinoviev, Stalin and Kamenev and their supporters, on the other. The signatures of many well-known supporters of Trotsky - Christian Rakovsky, Karl Radek, Nikolai Krestinsky, Adolf Ioffe and others - are not on this document, while both in the drafting of the document and in the opposition as a whole, the former "decists" played an important role. in particular, Vladimir Smirnov and Timofey Sapronov, who later formed an independent group.
Beginning in mid-1923, the Soviet economy was in deep crisis associated with a sharp increase in the prices of manufactured goods, while the rise in food prices remained marginal. This led to numerous strikes across the country. On October 8, 1923, Trotsky wrote a letter to the members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b), in which he spoke of the need to introduce a planned economy and the beginning of industrialization. Trotsky points to the usurpation of the Politburo of the RCP (b) of the right to resolve economic issues, which is directly related to the lack of internal party democracy. This, in his opinion, led to the adoption of rash decisions that laid the foundations of the economic crisis.

On October 15, 1923, 46 Soviet and party workers, old members of the RCP (b), signed an appeal to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), which went down in history as the "Statement of 46". This letter actually began the history of the Left Opposition within the Communist Party. The statement spoke about the establishment of a factional dictatorship in the party, about the suppression of any dissent under the plausible pretext of preserving the unity of the party and that arrogant usurpers cannot, as the crisis proved, "make ends meet in the economic field." The October plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the RCP (b), however, condemned this action.

Nevertheless, under pressure from the "party lower classes", where, independently of the high-ranking oppositionists, opposition groups had long been formed ("Working Group of the RCP," the group of "Rabochaya Pravda", etc.), the ruling faction was forced to open a discussion about internal party democracy (her article was opened by Zinovyeva "New Tasks of the Party", November 7). The newspaper Pravda, of which Bukharin was then editor, published articles by both supporters of the majority of the Central Committee and representatives of the opposition. On December 5, 1923, at the general meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee and the Presidium of the Central Control Commission of the party, a resolution "On Party Building" was adopted, repeating many of the provisions of the "Statement of 46" and Trotsky's October letter. "The resolution pointed to the need to establish a regime of workers' democracy, which meant the freedom of open discussion by all party members of the most important issues of party life, as well as the election of officials and colleges from top to bottom."

Trotsky, who took the most direct part in the elaboration of the resolution, and with great difficulty defended a number of its most important provisions, believed that for the ruling faction this resolution was just a bone thrown at the dissatisfied "lower ranks" at the time of the crisis, and was not intended for implementation. In December 1923, he published in Pravda a series of articles titled The New Deal, in which he tried to explain to his opponents that internal party democracy is not a bone, but a necessary condition for maintaining the proletarian character of the party, the connection of the party "top" with the party "lower classes. »And avoid costly mistakes in both the political and economic spheres.

At the same time, at party meetings, there was a vote - "for the Central Committee" (as the ruling faction called itself) or "for the opposition" (although it included members of the Central Committee). The results of this vote are unknown to historians: Pravda published scattered messages from the localities, but the final results of the vote were not summed up, and this suggests that the results were not quite what the ruling faction wanted. It is known, in any case, that in Moscow the opposition received more than 30 percent of the vote.

The 13th Party Conference convened in January 1924 condemned the views of Trotsky, Preobrazhensky, Pyatakov, Radek and other members of the opposition. They were accused of factionalism and violation of the resolution of the X Congress of the RCP (b) "On Party Unity", as well as of a "Social Democratic" (that is, Menshevik) deviation. The struggle against the Trotskyists (as the supporters of the Left Opposition were then called) was continued at the XIII Party Congress held in May 1924.

"Literary Discussion": October - December 1924

The October-December 1924 discussion between Trotsky and his opponents is also known as the Literary Discussion. In the fall of 1924, Trotsky published the article "The Lessons of October", which came out as a preface to the third volume of his collected works. In the article, Trotsky described the history of differences within the Bolshevik Party in the pre-October 1917 period. In response to it, Pravda published an article by Bukharin "How Not to Write the History of October (Concerning the Publication of Comrade Trotsky's Book" 1917 ")", followed by similar articles by Zinoviev, Kamenev, Sokolnikov and others.

At the end of January 1925, a plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the RCP (b) was held, which summed up the results of the "Literary Discussion". The article was recognized as a distortion of the history of Bolshevism and the October Revolution, and its author was accused of trying to replace Leninism with Trotskyism.

"New opposition": 1925-1926

At the end of April 1925, the XIV Party Conference was held in Moscow. One of the significant events of the conference was the report of the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR Rykov "On cooperation". The report was remarkable for the fact that it transferred to the countryside the relations of the New Economic Policy, which had previously existed in the city in the form of private production and trade. The measures of the new economic policy in the countryside included the reduction of the agricultural tax on the peasantry, the permission to use hired labor and the lease of land.

Then a split occurs in the ruling triumvirate - Zinoviev and Kamenev go over to opposition to Stalin and Bukharin, who is gaining more and more strength, laying the foundation for the "New Opposition". The leaders and its active participants were also Grigory Sokolnikov, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Grigory Evdokimov, Pyotr Zalutsky and others.

The views of the "New Opposition" were expressed in the so-called. "Platform of the Four", which criticized, first of all, the economic turn in the countryside, the internal party regime, as well as the theory of building socialism in one single country. At the XIV Party Congress, the "New Opposition" was defeated. Zinoviev was then removed from the posts of chairman of the executive committee of the Leningrad Soviet and the executive committee of the Comintern, and Kamenev - from the post of chairman of the executive committee of the Moscow Soviet.

United opposition: 1926-1927

In 1926, supporters of Trotsky and the "New Opposition" unite, as well as some former members of the "Workers' Opposition" and the group of democratic centralism. 13 members of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission signed a "Statement" in which they once again pointed to the bureaucratization of the party apparatus as the main cause of the crisis that gripped the party. The united opposition was defeated by Stalin in July-October 1926, and its leaders - Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev - were expelled from the Politburo. In October 1927, the last members of the opposition were expelled from the Central Committee, and Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev were expelled from the party in November 1927. In December 1927, the 15th Party Congress declared the views of the Left Opposition and Trotsky to be incompatible with membership in the CPSU (b), after which 75 active members of the united opposition, as well as members of the Sapronov and Vladimir Smirnov group, were expelled from the party. The resolution of the Congress "On the Opposition" instructed the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission "to take all measures of ideological influence on the rank-and-file members of the Trotskyist opposition in order to convince them while simultaneously cleansing the party of all obviously incorrigible elements of the Trotskyist opposition."

The last public appearance of the opposition was participation in demonstrations on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution on November 7, 1927 in Moscow and Leningrad. Members of the Left Opposition came out with their own slogans: "Let's fulfill Lenin's will!", "Let's turn the fire to the right - against the Nepman, the kulak and the bureaucrat!", "For genuine workers' democracy!", "Against opportunism, against a split - for the unity of the Leninist party!" , "For the Leninist Central Committee!", But were dispersed by the OGPU and the Red Army.

Left opposition after 1927

After being expelled from the party, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters already at the 15th Congress admitted their mistakes and were reinstated in the party. However, at that time, Zinoviev and Kamenev no longer possessed any influence within the party. In turn, Trotsky and his supporters, as well as the supporters of Vladimir Smirnov and Timofey Sapronov who separated from them, did not abandon their views, and at the beginning of 1928, thousands of oppositionists were exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. Many of them, who did not stop fighting, soon found themselves in political isolators. In February 1929, Trotsky was expelled from the country.

Since July 1929, the Bulletin of the Opposition (Bolshevik-Leninists) was published in Paris. The Bulletin published materials analyzing the situation in the Bolshevik Party, the reasons for the defeat of the Left Opposition, an assessment of the events taking place in the Soviet Union was given. In 1930, supporters of Trotsky, expelled from the communist parties, formed the International Left Opposition (MLO), acting as external opposition to the Stalinist leadership of the Comintern. In 1933, the MLO became known as the International Communist League, which became the predecessor of the Fourth International, established in Paris in 1938.

In the USSR, the further fate of the Left Opposition is ambiguous. Some, such as Pyatakov, Radek, Antonov-Ovseenko, abandoned further struggle, considering it hopeless (which did not prevent Stalin from shooting them). Others, including Vladimir Smirnov, Timofey Sapronov and their supporters and thousands of Trotsky's supporters, who never repented, moved from exile to political isolation wards, in 1935-1936 they were sent to the Kolyma or Vorkuta camps and were shot there without trial. Finally, others, believing that it is impossible to fight the regime in any way effectively in exile and prisons, committed an act of repentance in 1929-1930 and were reinstated in the party - in 1931-1932 they were part of Ivan Smirnov's underground organization. Among them were Yevgeny Preobrazhensky, Ivar Smilga, Sergei Mrachkovsky, Vagharshak Ter-Vaganyan and many other well-known opposition figures. Arrested early in 1933, all members of this organization were also shot in 1936-1937.

Trotskyism abroad

In the early 1930s, Trotsky and his supporters believed that Stalinist influence in the Third International should decline. They created the International Left Opposition (MLO) in 1930, in order to unite all anti-Stalinist groups within the Third International. The Stalinists who dominated the Comintern did not tolerate opposition for long - the Trotskyists and everyone who was suspected of sympathizing with Trotskyism were expelled. Nevertheless, until 1933 and the change in the situation in Germany, Trotsky's supporters continued to view themselves as a faction of the Comintern, even though they were virtually excluded from it.

In 1933, the MLO changes its name to the International Communist League, which becomes the predecessor of the Fourth International, established in Paris in 1938. The establishment of the Fourth International was justified as the creation of a new mass revolutionary party to lead the proletarian revolution. This idea arose from a revolutionary wave that would grow with the outbreak of the coming world war. The founding congress, held in September 1938 at the house of Alfred Rosmer near Paris, was attended by 30 delegates from all the largest countries in Europe, North America, and despite the long distances and costs, several delegates from Asia and Latin America arrived. Among the resolutions passed at the Congress was the "Transitional Program".

The Fourth International received a severe blow during the Second World War. Trotsky was killed, many European sections were destroyed during the German period, and some sections in Asia during the Japanese occupation. The surviving sections in European and Asian countries were cut off from each other and from international leadership. Despite all the difficulties, various groups tried to seek connections with each other, and some maintained contacts in the early period of the war through the sailors of the US Navy, which called in Marseille.

In February 1944, a European conference of the Fourth International took place, which elected a European Secretariat. Michel Pablo, who became the organizational secretary of the European Bureau, and other members of the Bureau established contacts between Trotskyist organizations. The Second World Congress of the International, convened in April 1948, was mainly marked by rapprochement and networking with Trotskyist groups around the world, including such important organizations as the Revolutionary Labor Party in Bolivia and the Social Equality Party (LSSP, Lanka Sama Samaja Party ) in Ceylon. At the same time, the Trotskyist groups in Vietnam, which enjoyed quite serious influence, were destroyed by the supporters of Ho Chi Minh.

In 1951-1953, a split occurred in the Fourth International. The reason for the split was the tactics of entrusting the mass communist and social democratic parties adopted at the third world congress in 1951. Organizationally, the split was formalized in 1953 by the creation of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), in opposition to the official leadership of the international - the International Secretariat. Over time, supporters of both tendencies noted a decrease in political differences between them. In particular, this concerned general support for the Cuban revolution. The Sixth Congress of the Fourth International criticized the Public Equality Party, a section of the Fourth International in Sri Lanka, for supporting the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (PSLP), which they considered bourgeois nationalist. The criticism from the PSA was the same.
In 1962, the ICFI and the ICFI formed the Commission for the Organization of the Unification Congress. In June 1963, a unification congress was held in Rome, the seventh in a row, which was attended by delegates from most of all Trotskyist organizations. At the congress, the new leadership of the International was elected, among whom were Ernest Mandel (Belgian section), Pierre Frank (French), Livio Maitan (Italian) and Joseph Hansen (American).

At present the Trotskyist movement is represented in the world by several political internationals. The largest of them are:
The reunited Fourth International - has the largest sections in France (operates in the New Anti-Capitalist Party), Sweden (Socialist Party), Italy (Critical Left Association), Denmark (operates in the Red-Green coalition), Portugal (operates in the Left Bloc) , Sri Lanka (New Party for Social Equality), the Philippines (Revolutionary Workers' Party of Mindanao) and Brazil (active in the Socialism and Freedom Party). He is one of the initiators of the European Anti-Capitalist Left association. The leaders of the Fourth International are Alain Krivin, Olivier Besanesnot, Eric Toussaint, Alan Thornett, Francisco Lowa and others. According to the results of the European elections in 2009, the representative of the Danish section of the International, Seren Sendergaard, who ran for the Popular Movement against the EU, became a member of the European Parliament.

The International Socialist Trend (IST) is an international association that adheres to Tony Cliff's views on the nature of the Soviet Union. It has the largest sections in Great Britain (Socialist Labor Party), Greece (Socialist Labor Party) and Ireland (Socialist Labor Party). The leading theorists and leaders of the international are currently Alex Kallinikos, Chris Harman and others. MST is one of the initiators of the European Anti-Capitalist Left.

The Committee for the Workers' International (CWI) - has the largest sections in Great Britain (Socialist Party), Ireland (Socialist Party) and Germany (Socialist Alternative organization). For many years, Ted Grant was the leading theorists of the CWI (until his expulsion in 1991). One of the leading leaders of the CWI today is Peter Taaf. Following the European elections in 2009, the leader of the Irish Socialist Party Joe Higgins was elected to the European Parliament. KRI is a member of the European Anti-Capitalist Left.

International Marxist Tendency (IMT) - has a large section in Pakistan (operates in the Pakistan People's Party). In all countries where the MMT sections operate, they adhere to the tactics of entrusting the mass left and progressive parties. The leading theorist of the International was Ted Grant. Alan Woods is currently the leader of MMT.

Trotskyist movement in post-Soviet Russia

The Trotskyist movement began to revive in the USSR at the end of the 1980s. However, it took on an organizational form only in 1990. On August 18-19, 1990, an international theoretical conference was held in Moscow dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. In addition to the Soviet ones, representatives of the Trotskyist organizations of Great Britain, Hungary and Yugoslavia also took an active part in the work of this conference. This conference established the Organizing Committee for the Soviet section of the Fourth International, led by Alexei Gusev. In 1991, the Organizing Committee was transformed into the Socialist Workers' Union (SRS), which became a section of the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International.

As a result of the Moscow conference in St. Petersburg, the organization "Revolutionary proletarian cells" was established, which established ties with the French organization "Workers' Struggle". At the end of 1990, the Committee for Workers 'Democracy and International Socialism was created in Moscow, which became the Russian section of the Committee for Workers' International (CWI). In addition, a group of supporters of the International Communist League (Fourth International) operated in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1990-1991.

In the future, other organizations appeared, some suffered splits, some ceased to exist. To date, the following Trotskyist organizations operate in Russia:
Vperyod Socialist Movement, Russian Section of the Fourth International;
Organization "Socialist Resistance";
Revolutionary Labor Party;
The Marxist group "Workers Action";
Russian Section of the Committee for a Workers' International;
Russian Section of the International Marxist Tendency;
International Workers' Party, Russian section of the International League of Workers - the Fourth International.

On the use of the term "Trotskyism"

The emergence of the term

The term "Trotskyism" was first used by the liberal historian and leader of the Cadet party Pavel Milyukov. In the collection “How the elections to the 2nd State Duma were held” published in 1907, Miliukov, analyzing the events of October - November 1905, wrote: “When free political meetings first appeared in Russia after October 17, their mood was definitely left. A speech even by such a party as the Constitutional Democratic Party, which was then experiencing the first months of its existence and preparing for a parliamentary struggle, was absolutely impossible in the last months of 1905. Those who now reproach the party for not protesting at the same time by organizing rallies against the “revolutionary illusions” of Trotskyism and against the recurrence of “Blanquism” simply do not understand or do not remember the mood of the democratic public gathered at the rallies at that time. "

The use of the term in the internal party struggle in the USSR

Later, the term "Trotskyism" was used in the course of the so-called "literary discussion" in the fall of 1924. Then Leon Trotsky published the article "The Lessons of October", which came out as a preface to the third volume of his collected works. In the article, Trotsky described the history of differences within the Bolshevik Party in the pre-October 1917 period. In response to it, Pravda published an editorial, written by Nikolai Bukharin, "How it is not necessary to write the history of October (on the publication of Comrade Trotsky's book" 1917 ")". For the first time since 1917, this article uses the term "Trotskyism". Later this term, as a description of the specific views of Leon Trotsky, as hostile to the views of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, was used in the articles of Lev Kamenev ("Leninism or Trotskyism?"), Grigory Zinoviev ("Bolshevism or Trotskyism?") And Joseph Stalin (" Trotskyism or Leninism? ”), Published in November 1924. It was in this context that the concept of "Trotskyism" was used in official Soviet historiography and official Soviet Marxism until the end of the 1980s.

Use of the term in modern Russian political language

The term "Trotskyism" in relation to the ideology of some members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, both left-wing and left-liberal, and radical-nationalist orientation, was one of the first to use the member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yuri Belov. On June 21, 2007, at the 17th plenum of the Central Control and Auditing Commission of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, a resolution was adopted "On the danger of neo-Trotskyist manifestations in the Communist Party." The editor of the official website of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Anatoly Baranov, the 1st secretary of the Western district committee of the Moscow city branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Pavel Basanets and member of the Central Committee of the RF SCM Pyotr Miloserdov were convicted. The resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation states that neo-Trotskyism is a continuation of Trotskyism, and the work of Joseph Stalin "Trotskyism and Leninism" is cited as proof of this. Among the signs of neo-Trotskyism, the resolution states: “the absence of real partisanship and unwillingness to bind oneself to the norms of the Party Program and Charter; a tendency towards left-wing revolutionary phrases while stubbornly striving for an alliance with extreme right-wing forces; ignoring the fundamental interests and rights of the Russian people; the desire to create distrust in the leaders of the party and get rid of the staunch communists. "

Some notable Trotskyists

Tariq Ali (born 1943)
Olivier Besansnot (born 1974)
Daniel Bensaid (1946-2010)
Alexander Voronsky (1884-1937)
Alan Woods (born 1944)
Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso (born 1922)
Ted Grant (1913-2006)
Cyril James (1901-1989)
Isaac Deutscher (1907-1967)
Raya Dunaevskaya (1910-1987)
Chen Duxiu (1879-1942)
Max Eastman (1883-1969)
Alex Callinikos (born 1950)
Tony Cliff (1917-2000)
Alain Krivin (born 1941)
James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974)
Ernest Mandel (1923-1995)
Andres Nin (1892-1937)
Michelle Pablo (1911-1996)
Christian Rakovsky (1873-1941)
Diego Rivera (1886-1957)
Victor Serge (1890-1947)
Peter Taaf (born 1942)
Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)
Ta Thu Thau (1906-1945)
Pierre Franck (1905-1984)
Joe Higgins (born 1949)
Max Shachtman (1904-1972)
Laurent Schwartz (1915-2002)

Stalinism - the system of government and the totality of the state political system and ideology, named after I.V. Stalin. There are also modern Stalinists, sometimes called neo-Stalinists.

Stalinism is a political system and ideology that arose as a result of the degeneration of the workers' state, born of the October Revolution of 1917. Stalinism was formed on behalf of Joseph Stalin, who, being the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), ideologically and organizationally led the process of degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state. Stalinism, unlike Trotskyism, its main enemy, completely rejects the idea of \u200b\u200bthe World Communist Revolution and is focused on building socialism and then communism in a single country. The main features of Stalinism are collectivization, industrialization, a high level of economy.

According to some reports, the term was first used by L. Kaganovich to denote a form that received theoretical development under I.V. Stalin, on whose behalf it was formed. In the USSR, it began to be officially used with the beginning of the glasnost policy.

In a broader sense, it is used in relation to countries whose political system largely resembled the political system of the USSR during Stalin's time (for example, the regimes of Mao Zedong in the PRC, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in the DPRK, Ho Chi Minh and Le Duan in Vietnam, Enver Hoxha in Albania, etc.), as well as to political parties idealizing such a political system. Among the supporters of some areas of Marxism, for example, Trotskyism, the term "Stalinism" is used to designate the ideology and political system that existed in the USSR and other socialist countries both during the life and stay of power of I. V. Stalin, and in the subsequent period before the collapse USSR and the restoration of capitalism. At the same time, Stalinism is viewed as an ideology and policy that distorts Marxism.

Stalinist regime

According to the conclusions of historians, the Stalinist dictatorship was an extremely centralized regime, which relied primarily on powerful party and state structures and the formation of pragmatic strategies. An analysis of the Politburo's decisions shows that their main goal was to maximize the difference between output and consumption, which required massive coercion. The emergence of a surplus in the economy entailed a struggle between various administrative and regional interests for influence on the process of preparing and implementing political decisions. The competition of these interests partially mitigated the destructive consequences of hypercentralization.

Stalin was not just a symbol of the regime, but a leader who made fundamental decisions and was the initiator of all government measures of any significance. Each member of the Politburo had to confirm his agreement with the decisions made by Stalin, while Stalin shifted the responsibility for their implementation to those accountable to him. Of those adopted in 1930-1941. decisions, less than 4,000 were public, more than 28,000 secret, of which 5,000 were so secret that only a narrow circle of them knew about them.

Stalinism and Leninism

The majority of right-wingers and some left-wing critics regard Stalinism as a logical continuation of Lenin's policy. However, among left-wing critics, including Marxists (especially among those who lived in socialist countries), including neo-Marxists, "revisionists", Trotskyists, etc., the "discontinuity theory" is very popular, according to which Stalinism was a perversion Lenin's policy, which was more flexible and took into account the interests of wider social circles. Some defended this theory, in fact, adhering to an anti-Marxist point of view, in socialist countries no ideology other than communist had a legal status and, therefore, it was possible to criticize Stalinism only by proving its inconsistency with communism. Subsequently, many of those who declared their adherence to this theory turned to open criticism of Marxism and socialism.

Apology of Stalinism

Defenders of Stalin's policy argue that one of Stalin's achievements is his role in the victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, as well as the objective economic successes of the USSR.
Armen Asriyan. STALINISM,
I. I. Nikitchuk. Stalin and the Soviet atomic project. Children's Nuclear Academy,
Alexander Sergeev MYSTICAL STALINISM. "Tomorrow". No. 44 (309), November 2, 1999
Igor Pykhalov. “Having studied archival documents, such a researcher is surprised to see that the scale of repression, which we“ know ”thanks to the media, is not just at odds with reality, but is overestimated tenfold. After that, he is faced with a painful dilemma: professional ethics demands to publish the data found, on the other hand - how not to be known as a defender of Stalin. "

Criticism of Stalinism

The most famous critic of Stalinism was Leon Trotsky.
Leon Trotsky, "What is the USSR, and where is it going",
Leon Trotsky, "The German Revolution and the Stalinist Bureaucracy",
Otto Ruehle. "The fight against fascism begins with the fight against Bolshevism."
G.P. Maksimov. “POLITICS OF THE RUSSIAN BUREAUKRACY (review). FOREIGN POLICY".
MAXIMOFF, GREGORY PETROVICH The Guillotine at Work - Volume 1: The Leninist Counter-Revolution
Cienfuegos Press, 1979, First Thus. (ISBN 0904564231) Printed Boards. 338pp In particular, he is accused of the fact that the purges (in particular the elimination of the highest command personnel of the Red Army) undermined the USSR's defenses before the Great Patriotic War.
G.P. Maksimov. Digest of articles.

Fyodor Burlatsky, Stalin and Stalinism: the past that does not go away. Independent, 17.02.2006.
A. Mertsalov and L. Mertsalova. Stalinism and the price of victory. "Stalinism and War". M., Terra, 1998., pp. 370-394.
Petr Grigorievich Grigorenko. Hiding the historical truth is a crime against the people! (Letter to the editorial board of the journal "Questions of the history of the KPSS"), Publishing house and book business "Zarya", 1973, London, Ontario, Canada.
V.E. Manevich. Stalinism and Political Economy. Repressed science, L .: Nauka, 1991, pp. 181-198.

Assessment of Stalinism in Europe

Pope John Paul II also compared two totalitarian systems of the 20th century: the Stalinist USSR and Nazi Germany: “Some believe that Stalin was a better leader than Hitler. Morally, they were both terrible. "

In July 2009, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly passed a resolution in which it equated the crimes of Stalinism in the USSR with those of the Nazi regime in Germany.

The resolution, titled "Reunification of Divided Europe", emphasizes that both totalitarian regimes have caused serious damage to Europe, both regimes witnessed manifestations of genocide and crimes against humanity.
One of the requirements of the OSCE resolution was to end the glorification of the Soviet era and disclose access to a number of classified documents.

Positive features of Stalinism

The positive features of Stalinism are determined by:
The transition of Russia from an agrarian-industrial system to an industrial one.
Increasing the potential of the army.
Increasing the level of protection of the country from external invaders.
The presence of nuclear weapons in the Soviet army.
The conquest of the country's economic independence.

Maoism or mao Zedong's ideas, mao zedong ideas (pinyin Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng) is a trend in the communist movement that arose within the framework of Marxism-Leninism and is associated with the name of Mao Zedong. It was considered the official ideology of the Chinese Communist Party until 1976, but under Hua Guofeng and even more during Deng Xiaoping's reforms (since 1978), the party's ideological attitudes have changed markedly.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Maoism enjoyed considerable popularity among the left-wing intelligentsia in the West. Following the Soviet-Chinese conflict, many communist parties in Europe and Latin America split into groups oriented towards the USSR, and so on. "Anti-revisionist" groups focused on China and Albania (in turn, the "anti-revisionists" experienced several splits after the death of Lin Biao and then Mao Zedong, the arrest of Jiang Qing and the publication of criticism of Mao by the Albanian leader Enver Hoxha). Maoism lost its popularity in the West after numerous facts of atrocities and crimes during the Cultural Revolution became public.

Currently, the Maoist movements are very active in many countries of Asia and Latin America. In the Philippines and India, Maoist guerrillas are fighting the government.

The Chinese communists themselves (and some of the Maoist groups in the West) prefer to use the term not "Maoism", but "the ideas of Mao Zedong" or "Mao Tse Tung-idei", they call themselves "Marxist-Leninists", claiming that Mao did not create his own doctrine, but only developed the teachings of Marx and Lenin.

Distinctive features

Criticism of the party bureaucracy ("fire on headquarters") and the stake on self-organized groups of revolutionary youth (hungweipings and zaofani).

Awareness of guerrilla warfare as the main revolutionary practice in semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries.
Emphasis on the idea of \u200b\u200ba cultural revolution against the "new bourgeoisie" emerging within the ruling communist party itself.

Titoism - communist ideology named after the leader of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito. This term denotes a specific ideology that arose in the SFRY as a result of disagreements between Tito and Stalin. The split was expressed in the rejection of the Resolution of the Information Bureau by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1948. Initially, the term was used in a negative way by Tito's political opponents, primarily by pro-Moscow communists.

Main features

Titoism is based on the following principle: in each state, the means of achieving communism should be determined by the state itself (that is, Yugoslavia), and not by external forces (they meant the Soviet Union). Based on this principle, the foreign policy of Yugoslavia made the country a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and did not allow it to enter the CMEA.

Leninism or Stalinism?
In modern communist newspapers, Leninism and Stalinism are surprisingly reconciled, although in reality there is a chasm between them.
Lenin advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat - that is, for the general arming of the masses and for the destruction of the professional army and police.
Under Stalin, the people were severely disarmed, while the military and militia represented a professional caste of armed people who stood above society.
Lenin advocated the right of nations to self-determination up to secession.
Stalin by force of arms suppressed the national liberation movements in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Western Ukraine and the Baltic states, waged a war of conquest against Finland, and sent troops to Iran in 1941.
Lenin called the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating the Soviet Union "fundamentally wrong and untimely" (see Lenin, Complete Works, vol. 45, article "On the question of autonomization"), because this Union was kept on a bayonet and was, in essence, an empire ...
Stalin hid this article from the people, moreover, he lied that the creation of the Soviet Union was a Leninist-Stalinist idea (see "A short course in the history of the CPSU (b)). This is how the current" communists "continue to lie, who, instead of advocate for freedom of the peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia from Russian occupation, call for a return back to the Soviet colonial empire.
Lenin advocated a world without annexations (forcible seizure of foreign lands) and indemnities (monetary extortion from the defeated people).
As a result of the Second World War, Stalin made both annexations (Eastern Europe, Tuva) and indemnities (from the German, Austrian, Romanian and Finnish peoples).
Lenin said that both imperialist blocs were responsible for the world war, no matter who attacked first and on whose territory the war was going on.
Stalin, on the other hand, placed all responsibility for the Second World War on Germany, Italy and Japan and removed all responsibility from the United States, Great Britain, USSR and France.
Lenin felt sorry for the blood of the working people, having concluded the Brest-Litovsk Peace, Stalin drove the people to Berlin.
Lenin advocated the disintegration of the peasant community, for the freedom of the peasants to leave the community as the main condition for the rapid development of the economy, while Stalin returned serfdom in the countryside, forcibly driving the peasants into collective farms and forbidding the peasants to leave the collective farms.
Lenin, following Marx, said that the transition from serfdom to socialism lies through the development of capitalism, and proposed developing capitalism in Russia under the leadership of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Stalin, on the other hand, lied that Russia allegedly switched to socialism, bypassing capitalism, although all the signs of capitalism were there - commodity-money relations, and the contradiction between town and country, and the contradiction between mental and physical labor. Although, in terms of the level of economy, Soviet Russia still lagged behind the most developed capitalist countries in many respects, while socialism is a higher economic formation than capitalism.
Stalin's lies were later picked up by the Khrushchevites, who lied that we have socialism in our country. This lie is used today by bourgeois scribblers to ascribe the shortcomings of the Soviet system, in essence the capitalist system, to the shortcomings of socialism. Although in reality - socialism is not in the past, it is in the future.
Life exposes false theories. So, she also exposed the Stalinist theory of socialism in the USSR: if we had socialism, it would not have grown into capitalism as a result of its economic development, because socialism is a higher stage compared to capitalism.
Lenin opposed God-building and God-seeking, while Stalin immediately after Lenin's death began to make him a god, and at the same time out of himself too, flirting with the religious prejudices of the people, instead of exposing them.
The modern "communists" are also flirting with religious prejudices, publishing half-page portraits of Stalin in their newspapers and laudatory articles about "a wise and great leader."
"Lenin must be read, not read," said Krupskaya. The same can be said about Stalin. Modern communists who praise Stalin have forgotten what he wrote. Indeed, although he betrayed the ideas of Leninism, but, on the other hand, Stalin was a talented popularizer of Marxism-Leninism, who expounded Bolshevik ideas for the masses in simple, accessible language. Many communists today have forgotten, for example, that Stalin recognized the Afghan emir's struggle for independence from British imperialism as a revolutionary struggle, despite the emir's monarchist views and the absence of a revolutionary-democratic program (see "On the Foundations of Leninism"). They have forgotten, and with wild malice they hiss at the Islamic revolution in the North Caucasus and Central Asia, directed against Russian imperialism.
A few words about the Stalinist repressions. Bourgeois propaganda shouts a lot about them in order to divert attention from what brutal repressions the ruling fascist regime is producing today - much more cruel than under Stalin. But, on the other hand, it is wrong to justify the Stalinist repressions, because they served not the cause of the proletariat, but the cause of strengthening young Soviet imperialism before World War II.
When criticizing Stalinism, one cannot fail to briefly mention Trotskyism. Trotsky, on the one hand, criticized Stalin for great-power chauvinism, but he did not criticize consistently, not from a Marxist-Leninist standpoint. In World War I, when Lenin advocated the defeat of his government, Trotsky advocated the slogan "neither victories nor defeats" - that is, not to enslave the new peoples, but not to give freedom to those who are already under the yoke of Russian tsarism. Lenin exposed Trotsky and argued that such a line was beneficial to the tsar, the landowners and capitalists.
Trotsky continued along the same wrong line. In 1941, when World War II began (after Trotsky's death), the Trotskyists, on the one hand admitting that Stalin's regime was a bureaucratic, policeman, at the same time advocated the defense of the USSR (see Opposition Bulletin), for the defense this mode. Trotsky and his followers, calling themselves Leninists, never once remembered that Lenin was against the creation of the Soviet Union.
Thus, Trotskyism and Stalinism, for all the mutual squabbling between Stalin and Trotsky, are the same fruit. Both Trotskyism and Stalinism are a vulgarization of Leninism.
november 2002

When you look today at the Marxists who smartly expound slogans about the class struggle and the inevitable collapse of imperialism (for example, K. Semin) and the audience that has hung their ears, you are involuntarily amazed at the complete absence of any rudiments of logical thinking. Of course, much of what they say is holy truth. Of course, our people are for justice, but did Marx invent it? And before Marx in Russia, they unmistakably determined what was fair and what was not, even in the most seedy village. The goals of Marxism - the building of a communist society, in which each according to his needs, and from each according to his ability, are also quite sympathetic. Only now people have different needs, and resources are limited, i.e. Some kind of correction of the slogan is clearly needed, otherwise one can dream up something like that ... And of course, the creative development of the individual cannot be but welcomed, as well as the erasure of the difference between town and country, mental and physical labor, etc. It should be noted that in the west they went further and almost erased the difference between a woman and a man. Well, very little remained ... As for creative development, there is nothing for us to look to the West, we have our own Gogol Center, which will not concede in anything, and will surpass in corruption. But on the whole, the ideas of communism, given a reasonable restriction of consumption and some creative aspirations of individual citizens, cannot but support. The only question is in measure. And this is not an easy question and Marx understood this, as well as the fact that after the world victory of the proletariat there will be a period when the product will have to be distributed not according to need, but according to work, i.e. socialism. Therefore, we will not criticize the ideals of a bright communist future, but turn to the theoretical legacy in that part of it, which relates to the construction of socialism. And the legacy, I must say, is small. It is stated in the work "Critique of the Gotha Program", literally in a few paragraphs. So, under socialism, the right of producers to consume is proportional to the labor they deliver. How is this right exercised? Marx writes that the worker:

... receives from society a receipt that such and such a quantity of labor has been delivered to them (minus his labor for the benefit of public funds), and according to this receipt, he receives from the public stocks such a quantity of consumer goods for which the same amount of labor has been expended. The same amount of labor that he gave to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Well, as much as he gave, he received so much, everything is fair. To each according to his work - the principle of socialism, as in the USSR in school and taught. But what is the problem - how to measure labor? The devil, as you know, is in the details, but Marx didn't bother too much - in the hours! However, any production must be managed and maintained by someone. Labor productivity for different people of working specialties is not the same, I'm not talking about scientists, writers, artists and other clowns. And the list is easy to go on. But the most interesting thing is who will issue the receipts? Who will control the correctness of the receipt? Apparently, the classic knew nothing about corruption. So how do you solve this issue in practice?

Here we must remember that the entire economy of Marxism is based on the doctrine of surplus value, which is also calculated on the basis of the so-called necessary and surplus time. Therefore, Marx simply could not advise anything else to the victorious proletariat. However, one must understand that the necessary and surplus time, as well as the necessary and surplus product, cannot be calculated, and because of this they exist only within the framework of a theory that can never be embodied in practice. However, after the revolution, the enthusiastic Bolsheviks tried to organize a direct exchange of goods, but they spat and even during Lenin's lifetime declared NEP, i.e. ordinary capitalism, but under its own political leadership. The main thing to understand is that Marxism does not provide any recipes for organizing the economy. None of the word at all, unless you consider good intentions as such. Many authors, for example V.Yu. Katasonov, believe that Marx wrote his works not at all for this, because otherwise it was impossible not to think about the practical side of the matter. Be that as it may, the Bolsheviks had to spin themselves. Of course, later the paid propagandists told us that everything was done in strict accordance with the best and only true teaching. However, this is absolutely not the case. Did not Trotsky suggest creating labor armies and abolishing the family as a bourgeois relic? In full accordance with the teachings, by the way. However, Stalin prevailed.

The task before him was solved for the first time in the history of mankind, if someone does not understand. There is no doubt about the good faith of Lenin's intentions in building a just economic order, but he was forced to retreat and declare the NEP, which was nothing more than the restoration of capitalism. And it was necessary to move to a completely new economic structure. And Stalin, even before he started industrialization, first designed, and then implemented a new credit and financial system, which he continuously improved. The credit and financial system is what collects the country's economy into a single whole, defining the rules for all economic entities without exception. Any economic policy is implemented through the credit and financial system. And in this Stalinist system there was no NOTHING, which could be taken from the "only correct teaching." By yourself, all by yourself. For those who would like to object, I ask you to give quotes from the classics, links to the source and indicate how they were used in practice. But I repeat - Marx-Engels has no monopoly on the ideals of a just economic order and the development of the creative potential of the individual! This does not mean that all of their works have no meaning and useful content; on the contrary, some of their works are underestimated or not understood until now. As an example I will cite the brilliant work of Engels "Company drill training". However, back to economics.

So, Stalin launched a new credit and financial system. But let's understand the position in which he fell. First, the civil war was fought exclusively on Marxist agitation. Secondly, the entire party is stubborn Marxists, with the exception of a small Bolshevik stratum. AV Pyzhikov writes about this stratum in detail in his book The Roots of Stalinist Bolshevism. It shows in detail that the ideological basis of Bolshevism has its origins in the masses, who have preserved the centuries-old experience of organizing the peasant economy and production artels. That is, Stalin had no choice but to do his own thing under the cover of Marxist phraseology. And he did it.

… I think that it is necessary to discard some other concepts taken from Marx's Capital, artificially glued to our socialist relations. I mean, among other things, such concepts as "necessary" and "surplus" labor, "necessary" and "surplus" product, "necessary" and "surplus" time.

What remains of Marxism after removing the doctrine of surplus value from it? I think everyone should be clear. Nevertheless, today's Trotskyists are trying to use Stalin for their nefarious goals, clinging to his authority and masking their vile nature.

Stalin today is the most popular personality in Russia, but it is time for the people to learn to separate the lambs from the goats.

A new stage in the development of Marxist philosophy is associated with the name of VI Lenin. Lenin gave dialectical materialism a new form, corresponding to the new historical and scientific experience of mankind. Filled and enriched philosophical categories.

Lenin was the most consistent revolutionary Marxist, dialectical materialist, the enemy of doctrinaire and dogmatism. Lenin saw the soul of Marxism in revolutionary dialectics.

Lenin was the founder of the revolutionary party, the organizer and leader of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the leader of the world's first socialist state.

Lenin's ideas indicated concrete ways of a practical revolutionary transformation of social relations, ways of building a communist society. Leninism as an international doctrine became in the 20th century the banner of the struggle for the political, economic and spiritual liberation of peoples. Under the banner of Leninism, socialist revolutions triumphed in a number of countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Lenin's ideas had a tremendous impact on the spiritual life of mankind, on the prospects for the development of science, on the formation of a scientific worldview.

Lenin's ideas in the development and enrichment of Marxism-Leninism, philosophical science, were the theoretical basis for the practical activities of the CPSU and the Soviet state. VI Lenin had to revise a number of outdated theoretical positions that no longer corresponded to the new conditions of the working class.

Among the discoveries and scientific predictions is the conclusion that imperialism is the last stage of capitalism. The revolution of 1905-1907 was the prologue of the Great October Revolution, which Lenin foresaw, on the preparation of which he worked, believing in the final victory of socialism and communism.

The second revolution is in science, natural science and physics. It has acquired scope and breadth. And this was foreseen by Lenin, predicting that both the atom and the electron are inexhaustible, both the macrocosm and the microcosm are endless. Lenin linked the further prospects for the development of physics and natural science as a whole with the transition of natural scientists from spontaneous materialism to the modern, highest form of materialism - dialectical materialism.

Stalinism.

Stalin ruled the country from the mid-20s to 1953. 20th century. He was a companion of Lenin, an ideological follower of Marxism-Leninism. But, being, in fact, the sole ruler, he perverted this philosophy, departed from its norms and established his own.

Stalinism existed as an integral, extremely cruel authoritarian ideology, covering all spheres of the spiritual life of society. It was the ideology that officially existed and dominated the party and country for several decades.

Stalin was not a communist in the Marxist sense, his ideal was "rough" socialism of the barracks type, which is characterized by asceticism and equalization in satisfying human needs, despotism and arbitrariness of a narrow circle of "revolutionary" leaders, bureaucratization of the entire system, social relations, attitude towards man as to a blind instrument of fulfilling the will of higher authorities, the cult of personality and the authoritarian power of the "leader".

The condition for the emergence of Stalinism was the one-party system, which ensured a monopoly on power in the country and the constant restriction of internal party activities to the point of nullifying it.

The new party functionaries, like Stalin himself, reacted with hostility to the representatives of the Leninist guard, to the party intelligentsia in general, condemning and rejecting the democratic forms of internal party relations and solutions to vital problems familiar to Bolshevik-Leninists.

A characteristic feature of Stalinism as an ideology is, in contrast to Marxism-Leninism, its absolute irreconcilability to any deviations from the officially expressed and approved point of view.

The system of censorship created by Stalin suppressed any original thought in the field of the theory of social science (and not only).

Another feature of Stalinism is its outward simplicity, elementarity, adaptation to the perception of a theoretically undeveloped consciousness. The presentation of ideas short, clear and clear - relieved the consciousness of the need to wander in the jungle of dialectical contradictions. The elementary nature of the content of propaganda inevitably led to scholasticism and dogmatism, which contradicted the essence of Marxist-Leninist science.

Stalin quoted and commented on the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, using their statements to confirm his theoretical "innovations."

As a result, under Stalin, Marxism-Leninism acquired a different content and meaning. Not being a deep thinker, Stalin assumed the position of the main theoretician of the party, who rose to the level of Lenin. This was the highest expression of the Stalin personality cult.

One of the main postulates of Stalinism is the recognition of the continuous preservation and exacerbation of the class struggle in the field of ideology as socialism strengthens and develops. Constant ideological tension was maintained. The conscious goal of Stalin in the implementation of ideological and political campaigns is the destruction of the intelligentsia, which has its own independent views and judgments.

The overriding task was to create ideological terror, fear and formal like-mindedness.

The whip of repression influenced the consciousness of people, led them towards barracks socialism, which was chosen as an adequate form of the new system.

Stalinism managed to take possession of the consciousness of millions of people, became their worldview, not only in the USSR, but also in China (the personality cult of the “great helmsman” - Mao).

March 2017 has come, which means that on March 16, the centenary of the February (according to the old calendar) revolution ended, and in the fall we will celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution. At the same time, the society does not have an unambiguous understanding of how to relate to these dates. What was it - a tragedy, an achievement, an inevitability, a leap forward, a step back? Has the USSR become the embodiment of the Marxist idea of \u200b\u200ba just society?

In vain does the world bourgeoisie see the collapse of the idea of \u200b\u200bsocialism and the teachings of Marx in the collapse of the USSR and the countries of the "socialist" camp. This is not the collapse of Marxism, but of Stalinism - a petty-bourgeois, opportunist trend, among the working class, which ruled after the death of the last Marxist, Lenin. Stalinism has its roots not in Marxism, but in Proudhonism. The essential, main difference between Stalinism and Marxism is in the understanding of the principle of socialist distribution. It seems that the question of distribution is of secondary importance to the question of power. This is correct, but after the proletariat takes political power into its own hands, the question of distribution comes to the fore.

1. The issue of distribution under socialism is so important that Marx singled out ownership of the means of production and socialist distribution as two main features of socialism: “Finally, let us imagine, for a change, an alliance of free people working with common means of production and systematically spending their individual labor forces as one social labor force. .. The entire product of the labor of the union of free people is a social product. Some of this product serves again as means of production. It remains public. But the other part is consumed as a means of subsistence by the members of the union. Therefore, it must be distributed among them. The method of this distribution will change according to the character of the social organism itself and the stage of the historical development of the producers. Just to draw a parallel with commodity production, we assume that each producer's share of the means of subsistence is determined by his labor time. Under this condition, working time would play a dual role. Its socially planned distribution establishes a proper relationship between different work functions and different needs. On the other hand, labor time serves at the same time as a measure of the individual participation of producers in total labor, and, consequently, in the individually consumed part of the total product. Social relations of people to their labor and the products of their labor remain here transparently clear both in production and in distribution. " (K. Marx, F. Engels, Vol. 23, pp. 88-89)

The question of distribution under socialism is so important for understanding the process of the transition from capitalism to socialism that Marx and Engels dedicated a number of works to explaining this issue and criticizing the petty-bourgeois views of Proudhon, Rotbertus, Dühring, Lassalle: The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx and Rotbertus, "Anti-Duhring", etc.

Stalinism is not Marxism, it has its premises in the utopias of Proudhon and Rothbertus

Anyone who did not understand the principle of socialist distribution, he did not understand anything in Marxism, because he did not understand why the proletariat takes state power into its own hands, he did not understand either capitalism, let alone socialism, he did not understand the basic methodological approach to studying society as a natural historical process that is carried out independently of the will of people.

According to the above passage, the individual working time of each worker is directly equated to the consumed part of the social product. For Stalinism, piecework wages are considered a socialist form of distribution, in which individual labor time is first equated with a certain amount of product, expressed in money form, or, in the time-based system, with a directly defined amount of money, that is, the labor of the producer indirectly, through a certain amount of money equated to a social product.

In order to understand the essential difference between these distribution methods, it is necessary to turn to the law of value. What is it?

Society must produce all goods in a certain proportion to meet its needs. The total working time should be appropriately distributed among the various branches of production. In a society of scattered producers, this function of distributing social labor time is fulfilled by the law of value. Its essence is that the individual working time of the producer can prove its socially necessary character only through exchange, only through the act of selling the product.

If a commodity is produced in excess of social needs, it will not be sold, the producer goes bankrupt, his workers find themselves on the street and find work in those industries, the demand for goods of which exceeds their supply, which means that higher profits provide a rapid accumulation of capital to attract additional labor. resources in this area of \u200b\u200bproduction. Thus, through constant crises of sales (overproduction), through constant price fluctuations, the law of value provides this mechanism for the redistribution of social productive forces.

Anyone who did not understand the principle of socialist distribution, he did not understand anything in Marxism

So, labor time, expressed in the value of goods, provides the proportions of social production, but provides it through price fluctuations, through crises of overproduction, that is, they provide it in a brutal, inhuman way, through unemployment, through the destruction of a part of the productive forces of society, through the poverty and suffering of millions. Moreover, the larger the production, the higher its efficiency, which means that it accumulates capital faster and, by lowering the selling price of its goods, ruins the mass of small producers. That is, the law of value in conjunction with the law of concentration of production leads to the ruin and impoverishment of the majority, accumulating in the hands of a few the bulk of social wealth. And this contradiction between the poor and the rich is resolved in a revolution, as a result of which the expropriators are expropriated, and labor time discards its commodity form and becomes directly social.

This is the essence of the transition from capitalism to socialism: labor time discards its commodity form and becomes directly a measure of distribution and an object of planning, which means that social production becomes a subject for conscious regulation, but this happens through a revolution, through the elimination of private property.

Stalinism, on the other hand, preserves mediated distribution, its commodity form, eliminating market regulation, competition, that is, those brutal mechanisms that can only cope with the interests of millions to produce without taking into account social needs. In this case, the economic interests of millions of producers turn out to be stronger than any centralized planning. The disproportionality of production becomes the law of society. Moreover, the economy is developing such phenomena, patterns that inevitably lead to its collapse.

It is for such a preservation of commodity production with the elimination of competition that Marx and Engels criticized the utopian socialism of Proudhon and Rothbertus, Bray, Gray and Dühring: “who in the society of commodity producers who exchange their goods wants to establish a definition of value by labor time, forbidding competition to carry out this definition of value by pressure on prices, that is, the only way it can be achieved at all, - only proves that, at least in this area, he has assimilated to himself the usual disregard of economic laws for utopians ”. (K. Marx, F. Engels, Works, vol. 21, p. 189)

So, we can state that as a result of the retreat of Stalinism from Marxism, the transition to socialist distribution did not take place, we had in the USSR, under state ownership, a commodity form of distribution according to the product of labor. But if there was no socialism, then what kind of social formation took shape in the USSR? The answer to this question is provided by the Marxist understanding of state ownership of the means of production. And here we come to the second major distortion of Marxism by Stalinism.

Stalinism is socialism ... petty bourgeois

2. Here it is necessary to consider the widespread prejudice that, since communism has not come anywhere, then the conditions for it are not yet ripe. This question is resolved when considering the objective and subjective conditions of the existence of communism.

The first objective condition for the existence of a communist society is socialized production. At a time when the productive forces of society were still poorly developed, and the conditions of existence could only be obtained by joint labor, for many centuries, from the moment of its separation from the animal world, humanity existed under the conditions of primitive communism, when everyone works according to his possibilities, and distribution takes place according to your needs.

The growth of productive forces led to the fact that at first the collective labor of one part of society began to provide a sufficient product to support themselves and the other part of society, which, by virtue of this, turned into slave owners who performed the function of organizing labor - management and other social functions - there was a division into working people and exploiting classes. A further increase in labor productivity caused the following division of producers - the formation of peasants working on their own plots of land and artisans, which was the transition to feudalism. During these periods, the communist organization of labor became impossible, since, on the one hand, steel producers were isolated from each other, and, on the other hand, a class of exploiters appeared, interested in maintaining their easy working conditions for management, especially since they have military power was also in his hands, which made it possible to accumulate considerable wealth.

Capitalism destroys all the old modes of production and again creates an objective condition for communism - socialized labor in the form of cooperatives, manufactories, and factories. In addition, he creates such a class as the proletariat, which is capable of destroying any exploiting classes and building communism. For this, only one subjective condition is necessary - the proletariat's awareness of how this communist society should be organized and what are the laws governing the transition to it.

One should not think that the communist organization of society is something unattainable, it is the most natural organization for society, and it has coexisted at all times along with exploitative forms of organization. The communist organization exists in Jewish kibbutzim, and in people's enterprises, and in isolated religious communities, moreover, the economic life of each individual family is organized according to communism, when everyone works according to his ability, bringing his earnings into the house, and distribution in the family occurs according to needs.

The example of the October Revolution in Russia clearly shows that a very small degree of development of capitalism within the framework of feudalism is enough for the proletariat, and not the bourgeoisie, to conquer political power in the country and, having destroyed both the feudal and capitalist exploiting classes, retained it for a number of years necessary for transition to the socialization of labor in practice. Only the lack of understanding of how the distribution of goods without goods should be organized prevented the transition to communism, its first stage - socialism, when the peasants - scattered producers recognized the need for socialization.

Don't think that the communist organization of society is something unattainable

3. For Stalinism, state property is the strongest bulwark, a fortress that the critics of Stalinism have not yet managed to overcome. State property for the Stalinists is synonymous with public and socialist property. They are not even embarrassed by such historical facts that in the era of slavery and in the era of feudalism and in the era of early capitalism, there were states in which the state form of ownership of the means of production was the only form of ownership, for example, the ancient Greek Sparta, the island of Java. But, despite the domination of state ownership in these states, no one calls them socialist.

The point here is as follows. Ownership of the means of production can be viewed in two respects, in relation to who it belongs to and in relation to whoever works for it. In the first case, property is an object of legal relations and is studied by jurisprudence. As an object of law, property can exist in three forms: private property, collective property and state property, depending on the type of the subject of law.

In the second case, property is an object of production relations, it is studied by political economy, and today there are five of its forms: communal property, slave property, feudal property, capitalist property, and the coming communist property. It is in this respect that Marx examines and applies the concept of property, where he speaks about the mode of production, about the social formation: “Whatever the social forms of production, workers and means of production always remain its factors. But, being in a state of separation from each other, both are his factors only in the possibility. In order to produce at all, they must connect. The special character and method in which this combination is carried out distinguishes different economic epochs of the social system ”(K. Marx, F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 24, p. 43-44). This relationship between the producer and the means of production is expressed by the concept of ownership. "Property means .... the attitude of the working subject to the conditions of his production or reproduction ...." (K. Marx, F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 46, h. 1, p. 485)

So, Stalinism replaces the political and economic concept of property with a legal one, declaring state property to be socialist, and the USSR, on this basis, a socialist country. Marxism, however, requires that in order to determine the nature of state ownership, the relationship of the producer to the means of production should be considered. Were the producers in our country the owners of the means of production or were they not? Were they masters or hired slaves?

It is possible to distinguish free labor from wage labor only in relation to the worker's relation to the means of production and the products of his labor. And the attitude here is unambiguous, if the worker does not dispose of his own means of production and its products, then he is a wage worker. If the worker disposes of the means of production and the created product, then he is free, and the means of production are a socialist form of property.

The disposal of the collective means of production is ensured by the electivity and replaceability of the organizer of collective labor. The disposal of the product of collective labor must be carried out collectively. But piecework wages combine the function of management with the function of distribution, the distribution of wages - the product of collective labor, passes into the hands of the administration, economically enslaving the worker to the official. Following this, electivity turns into a democratic fig leaf on the economic power of an official. Losing the right to dispose of the factors of production, workers, owners, turn into hired labor. This is exactly how the enslavement of workers in the USSR took place, their transformation into hired labor.

Were they masters or hired slaves?

Piece wages in the USSR were introduced in 1918 as a temporary measure for the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat, when the economy was not yet ready for the transition to socialism, when the ally of the proletariat in the revolution, the peasantry, which constituted the majority of the population of Russia, remained the owner of their means of production and neither what kind of collective production did not even think about - until 1927, only 5% of peasant farms were united by collective forms of management. Piecework wages gave rise to bureaucracy, which in those days was fought by political, administrative methods.

By 1927, the inexorable laws of commodity production had ruined almost a third of peasant farms, despite the support of the state. The peasantry was forced to look for a way out in collective forms of management, that is, they were ready to go over to socialism. But at this time, a transition was made not to the socialist form of distribution and socialism, but to state capitalism, piecework wages were retained, but the election of leaders was abolished in 1929 - labor turned into hired labor, high salaries were introduced for executives, the people's militia organization the army, which existed since 1925, was replaced by a standing army.

So, Stalinism is not Marxism, it has its theoretical premises in the utopias of Proudhon, Rotbertus, etc. Stalinism diverges from Marxism in the understanding of socialist distribution and property. As a result of this deviation from Marxism, Stalin built in the USSR not scientific socialism, but petty-bourgeois socialism, which in fact turned out to be state capitalism. This "socialism" is state capitalism, because labor has retained its wage character, which means that the means of production have retained the character of capital.

And it doesn't matter that state capitalism appeared as a result of the proletarian October Revolution of 1917, or rather, it could only appear as a result of such a revolution that would eliminate private ownership of the means of production, but, despite the absence of private property, this is capitalism, because the relationship between the means production and labor, as the ratio of capital and wage labor (see the above quote) have survived. But this form of economic structure does not allow society to consciously manage social production. The inexorable operation of the laws of commodity production does not lend itself to conscious regulation; on the contrary, in the absence of competition, they act with even greater destructive force, which brought such a colossus to the brink of destruction as the USSR.

But the decades of state capitalism in the USSR did not pass without leaving a trace for the economy of our country, its state-monopoly character was preserved in our natural monopolies, in the merging of oligarchs and monopolists with state power. Now we have state capitalism, not covered by the deception of socialist chatter, and this state capitalism is, according to Lenin, the threshold of socialism: “ ... State-monopoly capitalism is the complete material preparation of socialism, it is the threshold of it, there is that rung of the historical ladder, between which (the rung) and the rung called socialism, there are no intermediate stages ”(LSL, vol. 34, p. 193) ...

A socialist revolution is just around the corner.

Vladimir Nevsky

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