Marx-Engels | Lenin | Stalin | Home Page
FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION 1903-1953
II. THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN THE STRUGGLE FOR THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
6. The whole course of historic events from the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. up to the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution strikingly confirmed that the Communist Party was the only leading revolutionary force in the country. The history of the three revolutions in Russia showed that within a short space of time (1903-1917) our Party performed a gigantic political task which, for wealth of experience, depth of elaboration of Marxist theory and the creative application of it in the course of the revolution, has no equal in world history; it revealed the great strength and viability of the strategy and tactics of the Communist Party, the might and invincibility of Marxist-Leninist theory.
The political group of Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, that was formed at the Second Congress, while formally remaining in the one party, the R.S.D.L.P., up to 1912, pursued a consistent revolutionary line answering to the fundamental interests of the proletariat, the peasantry, and of all the peoples of Russia. The Bolsheviks waged an uncompromising, principled struggle against all the varieties of opportunism in the Russian and in the inter national working-class movement.
7. The great service Lenin rendered was that in the period of the first Russian bourgeois-democratic revolution he brilliantly substantiated the Party's Bolshevik tactics, the tactics of the working class; he worked out the political (tactical) principles of the Communist Party. He developed the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution and showed that, in the historical situation that had arisen by that time, an alliance between the working class and the peasantry, in which the proletariat must retain the leading role, was an essential condition for the victory of the revolution. Lenin gave the Russian Marxists a clear prospect of the bourgeois-democratic revolution growing into the socialist revolution . He enriched Marxism with a new theory of proletarian revolution and laid the foundation for the revolutionary tactics of the Communist Party with the aid of which in October 1917 the proletariat, in alliance with the poor peasants, overthrew the rule of the bourgeoisie in our country and established genuine people's rule-the rule of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies, Soviet rule.
The struggle between the two lines in the R..S.D.L.P.-between the revolutionary, Bolshevik line, and the opportunist, Menshevik line-which developed on ideological and organizational questions in the period of the formation of the Party, became particularly acute in the period of the first Russian revolution (1905-1907), when questions of tactics came to the forefront. The Bolsheviks steered a course towards the expansion and the victory of the people's revolution, towards the liberation of the working people from the yoke of tsarism and landlord ism, towards the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. The Mensheviks, on the contrary, championing the hegemony of the liberal bourgeoisie in the revolution, steered a course to wards the winding up of the revolution. They sank into the bog of compromise and became agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement.
8. The growing difficulties which arose after the de feat of the first Russian revolution did not daunt the Bolsheviks. In the dark period of the Stolypin reaction, under the conditions of rampant tsarist repression and Black Hundred terrorism, the Bolshevik Party cemented its ranks and skillfully utilized legal and illegal possibilities to strengthen its ties with the masses. While the Bolsheviks were steering a course towards the preparation of a new revolution, the Mensheviks, on the contrary, retreated more and more from the revolution, steered a course towards the liquidation of the illegal revolutionary party of the proletariat; they became open Liquidators. A certain section of the Bolsheviks deserted from Marxist principles and tried lo push the Party on to a path that would have converted it into a sectarian organization isolated from the masses; in particular, they demanded the recall of the workers' deputies from the State Duma. Lenin exposed that section of the Party, the "Otzovists," as they were called then, as "Liquidators inside-out."
Under the severe conditions of reaction, only the Bolsheviks , the Leninists, remained true to Marxism, true lo the principles enunciated in the Party programme, and repulsed all the attacks of the enemies who tried to disarm the Russian proletariat, to wreck its Part y, to undermin e and discredit the theoretical principles of revolutionary Marxism. The great service Lenin rendered was that in that difficult period for the Party he upheld and developed the theoretical principles of the Party-dialectical and historical materialism which is the theoretical foundation of communism. The ideological steeling in Marxism-Leninism, the correct understanding of the prospects of the revolution helped the main core of the Party rallied around Lenin to save the Party and to preserve its main cadres .
9. In 1912, in Prague, the Sixth All-Russian Party Conference was held. That conference expelled the Mensheviks-Liquidators from the R.S.D.L.P . and thereby laid the foundation for the final organization of the Bolsheviks in an independent party. The purging of the proletarian party of the opportunists, of the Mensheviks-Liquidators, was of decisive importance for the further development of the Party, for the consolidation of the unity of its ranks, and for the successful conquest of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The tireless struggle waged by Lenin and by the Bolsheviks united around the Leninist leading core for the creation of the Party of a new type was crowned with complete victory.
10. The new mighty revolutionary upsurge which subsequently began (1912-1914) clearly showed that the workers were preparing for a new revolution, that they were being led to new battles by the Communist Party, tried and steeled in the class struggle.
An important part in strengthening the Party's ranks and in expanding the Party's ties with the masses, in the education of the new generation of revolutionary workers, in the struggle against the Liquidators, Trotskyites, "Otzovists" and other opportunists, was played by the Party's legal claily newspaper Pravda founded in the spring of 1912, on the initiative of the St. Petersburg workers.
11. In the stern period of the imperialist war (1914-1918) the Bolshevik Party proved to be equal to the tasks of the revolutionary proletarian party, faithful to the cause of socialism and of proletarian internationalism. The parties of the Second International betrayed the cause of socialism and slipped into the position of social-chauvinism. '
Unswervingly guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory on the questions of war, peace and revolution, the Bolsheviks waged a consistent struggle to transform the imperia list war into a civil war, to overthrow the rule of the imperialists in Russia, to support the fight against the imperialist war in all countries.
An outstanding contribution to the treasury of creative Marxism was V. I. Lenin's classical work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. For the first time in Marxist literature Lenin, in that work, made a comprehensive and deep analysis of imperialism, of its major contradictions and laws, and showed that imperialism is the highest and at the same time the last stage in the development of capitalism, that "imperialism is the eve of the social revolution of the proletariat."
Lenin scientifically proved that capitalism, which up to the end of the nineteenth century had been on the up grade, had in the epoch of imperialism become moribund capitalism, causing untold misfortune and suffering to mankind. Lenin fearlessly exposed the incurable ulcers of present-day monopoly capitalism, which became most glaringly revealed already in the period of the First World War. Whereas in the period of the Second Congress of the R,S.D.L.P. Lenin, in the Party's programme, formulated a stern indictment of Russian capitalism, in the period of the First World War he, with great scientific precision and revolutionary passion, formulated an indictment of world imperialism which was pushing mankind into the abyss of new bloody wars and economic catastrophes.
In his celebrated work The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, written on the eve of October 1917, Lenin warned:"The war has created such an immense crisis, has so strained the material and moral forces of the people, has dealt such blows at the entire modern social organization , that humanity finds itself faced by an alternative: either it perishes, or it entrusts its fate to the most revolutionary class for the swiftest and most radical transition to a higher mode of production."
The historic service Lenin rendered was that in analyzing imperialism, basing himself on the law he revealed of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism, he made a great scientific discovery: he formulated and substantiated the brilliant conclusion that the chain of the world front of imperialism can he broken at its weakest link, the conclusion that the victory of social ism is possible first in a few capitalist countries, or even in one separate capitalist country. That was a new and complete theory of the socialist revolution. It enriched and advanced Marxism, opened a revolutionary prospect for the proletarians in separate countries, developed their initiative in their onslaught on their national bourgeoisie and strengthened their faith in the victory of the proletarian revolution.
The workers of Russia, headed by the Communist Party, were the first in the world to take advantage of the weakening of world capitalism in the course of the world war of 1914-1918, they overthrew tsarism and ensured, at first, the victory of the bourgeois-democratic revolution; the second Russian revolution was victorious. Breaking down the resistance of the compromising par ties-the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries the Bolsheviks steered a course towards the transition from the bourgeois-democratic revolution .to the socialist revolution 12. In the period from February to October 1917 the Communist Party in our country fulfilled the extremely difficult task of winning the majority in the working class and in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies which were ,created in the course of the revolution, the task of winning to the side of the socialist revolution millions of working people, of strengthening the alliance between the working class and the toiling peasantry for the purpose of achieving victory, of overthrowing the rule of the imperialists.
In his celebrated April Theses Lenin made a new discovery which enriched Marxist theory-he arrived at the conclusion that the best political form of the dictatorship of the proletariat was not the parliamentary democratic republic, as had formerly been the opinion among Marxists, but a republic of Soviets. That brilliant discovery was of enormous importance for ensuring the victory of the socialist revolution in October 1917, for the triumph of Soviet rule in our country.
In the course of the struggle to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie and to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country, the Communist Party was the only party that guided the masses of the working people, frustrating all the attempts of the despicable capitulators-the Trotskyites, Zinovievites and other scabs of the revolution-to turn the Party from the Leninist path. The fate of capitalism in Russia was decided by the fact that the Party united in a single, powerful revolutionary stream the general democratic struggle for peace, the democratic peasant movement for the liquidation of landlordism and the transfer of the landlords' land to the peasants, the national-liberation movement of the peoples of our country, and the socialist movement of the proletariat for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. As for the compromising, petty-bourgeois parties, al] of them (Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and Anarchists) ex posed themselves in the course of the revolution as anti popular parties which were striving to preserve and strengthen the capitalist system.
The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution marked the triumph of the Leninist theory of proletarian revolution. By overthrowing the rule of the capitalists and the landlords, by overthrowing the rule of the imperialists in Russia and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, our Party carried out the programme that was adopted at the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
By bringing about the victorious socialist revolution, the Communist Party saved our country from national disaster, liberated her from the position of a semi-colonial country dependent upon world imperialism, and led the Soviet people on to the broad road of socialist changes unprecedented in the history of mankind.
To organize the victory of a revolution. like the Great October Socialist Revolution it was necessary to have a party .armed with the most advanced revolutionary theory, possessing immense courage and heroism, a party ready to make any sacrifice in the interests of the people and our country, a party possessing the closest ties with the broad masses of the working people. The mighty Communist Party created and reared by the great Lenin was precisely such a party.