Revolutionary “History” of the People’s Republic of China
October 1917
pre-revolutionary Russia in the background
By Daniel
Paquet dpaquet1871@gmail.com
English
speaking blog: Communist News www.dpaquet1871.blogspot.com
“The
essence of the problem of ‘the destiny of capitalism in Russia’ is often
presented as though prime importance attaches to the question: how
fast? (i.e. how fast is capitalism developing?). Actually, however, far greater importance
attaches to the question: how exactly? And to the question: where from? (i.e. what was
the nature of the pre-capitalist economic system in Russia?).”[1]
“In
considering the development of capitalism, perhaps the greatest importance
attaches to the extent to which wage-labour is employed. Capitalism is that stage in the development
of commodity production I in which labour-power, too, becomes a commodity. The main tendency of capitalism is for the
entire labour force in the national economy to be applied to production only
after it has been sold, and purchased by employers. How this tendency has manifested itself in post-Reform
Russia (1861) we have attempted to examine
in detail above, and now we must sum up on this point. (…) The sellers of
labour-power are provided by the country’s working population engaged in the
production of material values.”[2]
“But as all
these inevitable contradictions of capitalism increase and develop, the number
and the solidarity of the proletarians, their discontent and indignation also
grow, the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class becomes
sharper, and the urge to throw off the intolerable yoke of capitalism mounts. The emancipation of the workers must be the
act of the working class itself. All the
other classes of present-day society stand for the preservation of the
foundations of the existing economic system.
The real emancipation of the working class requires a social revolution
– which is being prepared by the entire development of capitalism – i.e., the
abolition of private ownership of the means of production, their conversion
into public property, and the replacement of capitalist production of
commodities by the socialist organization of the production of articles by
society as a whole, with the object of ensuring full well-being and free,
all-round development for all its members. (…)
In this
sense the dictatorship of the proletariat is an essential political condition
of the social revolution. (...) But the development of international exchange
and of production for the world market has established such close ties among
all nations of the civilized world that the present-day working-class movement
had to become… an international movement. (…)
The immediate aims of Russian Social-Democracy are, however,
considerably modified by the fact that in our country numerous remnants of the
pre-capitalist, self-owning social system, retard the development of the productive forces in
the highest degree, render impossible the complete and all-round development of
the proletariat’s class struggle, and lower the working population’s standard
of living; they are responsible for the Asiatically barbarous way in which the
many-million-strong peasantry is dying out, and keep the entire people in a
state of ignorance and subjection, denying them all rights.”[3]
“The
specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is
passing from the first stage of the revolution (in February 1917, - Ed.) –
which, owing to the insufficient class consciousness and organization of the
proletariat, placed power in the hands
of the bourgeoisie – to its second stage
(the Great October 1917 Socialist
Revolution, - Ed.), which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and
the poorest sections of the peasants. This is characterized… by the absence of
violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning trust in the
government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism. (…)
The masses
must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary
government, and therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present
a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their
tactics, an explanation especially
adapted to the practical needs of the masses (…):
‘Not a
parliamentary republic – to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets
of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step
- but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’ and
Peasants’ Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.”[4]
By the way,
“the old utopian socialists imagined that socialism could be built by men of a
new type that first they would train good, pure and splendidly educated people,
and these would build socialism. We
always laughed at this and said that this was playing with puppets, that it was
socialism as an amusement for young ladies, but not serious politics. We want to build socialism with the aid of those
men and women, who grew up under capitalism, were depraved and corrupted by
capitalism, but steeled for the struggle by capitalism. There are proletarians who have been so
hardened that they can stand a thousand times more hardship than any army. There are tens of millions of oppressed
peasants, ignorant, and scattered, but capable of uniting around the proletariat
in the struggle, if the proletariat adopts skilful tactics. (…) We want to start building socialism at once
out of the material that capitalism left
us yesterday to be used today, at this very moment, and not with people reared
in hothouses, assuming that we were to
take this fairy-tale seriously. (…) We must take the entire culture that
capitalism left behind and build socialism with it. We must take all its science, technology,
knowledge and art. Without these we
shall be unable to build communist society. (…) It is difficult to make the
bourgeois experts serve us by the weight of our masses, but it is possible, and
if we do it, we shall triumph.”[5]
In order to
achieve an all-round development, the proletariat must win the war against the
bourgeoisie and educate him: “Without a
revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.”[6]
“… it will
be the duty of the leaders to gain an ever clearer insight into all theoretical
questions, to free themselves more and more from the influence of traditional
phrases inherited from the old world outlook, and constantly to keep in mind
that Socialism, since it has become a science, demands that it be pursued as a
science, i.e., that it be studied. The
task will be to spread with increased zeal among the masse of the
workers the ever more clarified understanding that acquired, to knit together
ever more firmly the organization both of the party and of the trade unions.”[7]
“The
political struggle of Social Democracy (today known as the Communist party, -
Ed.) is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the
workers against the employers and the
government. Similarly (and indeed
for that reason), the organization of a revolutionary Social-Democratic party
must inevitably be of a different kind than he organizations of the workers
designed for this struggle. A workers’
organization must in the first place be a trade organization; secondly, it must
be as broad as possible; and thirdly, it must be as little clandestine as
possible (here, and further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in
mind). On the other hand, the
organizations of revolutionaries must consist first, foremost and mainly of
people who make revolutionary activity their profession (that is why I speak of
organizations of revolutionaries, meaning
the revolutionary Social-Democrats). In
view of his common feature of the members of such an organization, all distinctions as between workers and
intellectuals, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be utterly obliterated. Such an organization must of necessity be not
too extensive and as secret as possible.”[8]
“In
capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions,
we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the
narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains,
in reality, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only
for the rich. Freedom in capitalist
society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics:
freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist
exploitation the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that ‘they cannot be bothered with
democracy,’ ‘they cannot be bothered
with politics’ ; in the ordinary peaceful course of events the majority of the
population is debarred from participation in public and political life. (…)
Democracy
for an insignificant minority democracy for the rich – that is the democracy of
capitalist society. If we look more
closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we shall wee everywhere, in
the ’petty’ – supposedly petty - details of the suffrage (residential
qualification, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative
institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings
are not for ‘beggars’!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily
press, etc. etc. – we shall see restriction after restriction upon
democracy. These restrictions,
exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor, seem slight, especially in the
eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close
contacts with the oppressed classes in their mass life. (…) Marx grasped this essence of capitalist
democracy splendidly, when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are
allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in
parliament!”[9]
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[1] Lenin, V.I.
Development of capitalism in Russia,
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1956, page 410
[2] Ibidem, Development of capitalism in Russia,
page 637
[3] Lenin, V.
I., On the organizational Principles of a
Proletarian Party, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1972,
pages 88-90
[4] Lenin,
V.I., The Tasks of the Proletariat in the
Present Revolution (a.k.a. The April Theses), Progress Publishers, Moscow,
1964, vol. 24, pages 19-26
[5] Marx,
Engels and Lenin, On Historical
Materialism, A Collection, Progress Publishers, Moscow,1972, pages 619-620
[6] Lenin, V.
I., What is to be done, Foreign
Languages Press, Peking, 1973, page 21
[7] Ibidem, What is to be done, page 24
[8] Ibidem, What is to be done, pages 102-103
[9] Lenin,
V.I., The State and Revolution, Foreign Languages Press,
Peking, 1970,- Reprinted by Red Star Publishers, U.S.A., 2014, www.RedStarPublishers.org , page74
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