On Socialist Ideology and Culture

On Socialist Ideology and Culture [E]nl PROGRESS Publishers l ..' W6rk§rs of All Countries, Unite! Lenin On Socialist Ideology and Culture ~!Ii] . PROGRESS Publishers · Moscow CONTENS PUBLISHERS' NOTE The translations arc taken from the Enrliah edition of v. · I. Lenin's Collected Works prepared by Pro gress Publishers, Moscow. Corrections have been made in accordance with the Fifth Russian Edition of the Coll1d1d Workl. The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism 7 Our Programme 14 From What Is to Be Done? 20 Party Organisation and Party Literature 26 The Socialist Party and Non-Party Revolutionism 33 Socialism and Religion 42 Marxism and Revisionism 48 Concerning Vekhi 58 L. N. Tolstoy . 68 Certain Features of the Historical Development of r,iarxism 74 Leo Tolstoy and His Epoch • . BO On the National Pride of the Great Russians 85 Imperialism and the Split in Socialism . 90 Letter to the Presidium of the Conference of Proletarian Cul- First printing 1962 tural and Educational Organisations . 107 Second printing 1975 Third printing 1978 Speech at the Second All-Russia Congress of Internationalist Fourth printing 1982 Teachers, January 18, 1919 . 108 Fifth printing 1985 A Great Beginning. Heroism of the Workers in the Rear. "Com- munist Subbotniks" 112 Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics The Tasks of the Youth Leagues. Speech Delivered at the Third All-Russia Congress of the Russian Young Communist Lea- 0101020000-021 JI (Ol) _ 6e3 061J1Bn. gue, October 2, 1920 138 014 85 On Proletarian Culture . 157 5 Speech Delivered at an All-Russia Conference of Political Edu THE THREE SOURCES cation Workers of Gubernia and Uyezd Education Depart- AND THREE COMPONENT PARTS ments, November 3, 1920 . 160 OF MARXISM On the Significance of Militant Materialism 171 Pages from a Diary . ._ : . 182 On Co-operation . 188 Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanou's Notes) 196 Notes 201 Name Index ....•...•••... 213 Throughout the civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind qf "pernicious sect". And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no "impartial" social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage slave society is as foolishly naive as to expect impartiality from manufacturers on the question of whether workers' wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital. But this is not all. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling "sectarianism" in Marxism, in the sense of its ·being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as ·the direct and im mediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and so cialism. 7 The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. in its fullest. deepest and most comprehensive form, the It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any provides us with a reflection of eternally developing form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois op matter. The latest discoveries of natural science-radium, pression. If is the legitimate successor to the best that man electrons, the transmutation of elements-have been a produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by remarkable confirmation of Marx's dialectical material German philosophy, English political economy and French ism despite the teachings of the bourgeois philosophers socialism. with their "new" reversions to old and decadent idealism. It is these three sources of Marxism, which are also its Marx deepened and developed philosophical material component parts, that we shall outline in brief. ism to the full, and extended the cognition of nature to include the cognition of human society. His· historical I materialism was a great achievement in scientific think ing. The chaos and arbitrariness that had previously The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout reigned in views on history and politics were replaced by the modern history of Europe, and especially at the end a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, of the eighteenth· century in France, where a resolute which shows how, in consequence of the growth of pro struggle was conducted against every kind of medieval ductive forces, out of one system of social life another rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materi· and higher system develops-how capitalism, for instance, alism has proved to be the only philosophy that is con grows out of feudalism. · sistent.. true to all the teachings of natural science and Just as man's knowledge reflects nature (i.e., develop· hostile to superstition, cant and so forth. The enemies of ing matter), which exists independently of him, so man's democracy have. therefore. always exerted all their efforts social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines to "refute", undermine and defame materialism, and have philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which the economic system of society. Political institutions are always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for or support of religion. example, that the various political forms of the modern Marx and Engels defended philosophical materialism European states serve to strengthen the domination of in the most determined manner and repeatedly explained the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. how profoundly erroneous is every deviation from this Marx's philosophy is a consummate philosophical ma basis. Their views are most clearly and fully expounded terialism which has provided mankind, and especially in the works of Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and Anti the working class, with powerful instruments of knowl Dii.hring,1 which, like the Communist Manifesto, are edge. handbooks for every class-conscious worker. But Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century material II ism: he developed philosophy to a higher level. He en riched it with the achievements of German classical phi· Having recognised that the economic system is the losophy, especially of Hegel's system. which in its turn foundation on which the political superstructure is erect had led to the materilllism of Feuerbach. The main achieve ed, Marx devoted his greatest attention to the study of ment was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development this economic system. Marx's principal work, Capital, is 8 g devoted to a study of the economic system of modern, forms in agriculture, but the decline itself is an indispu i.e., capitalist, society. table fact. Classical political economy, before Marx, evolved in By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to England, the most developed of the capitalist countries. an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation Adam Smith and David Ricardo, by their investigations of a monopoly position for the associations of big capi of tlie economic system, laid the foundations of the la talists. Production itself becomes more and more social bour theory of value. Marx continued their work; he pro hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become vided a proof of the theory and developed it consistently. bound together in a regular economic organism-but the He showed that the value of every commodity is deter product of this collective labour is appropriated· by a mined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the spent on its production. furious chase after markets and the insecurity of exist · Where the bourgeois economists saw. a relation between ence 9f the mass of the population are intensified. things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx By increasing the dependence of the workers on capi revealed a relation between people. The exchange of taL the capitalist system creates the great power of united commodities expresses the connection between individual labour. producers through the market. Money signifies that the Marx traced the development of capitalism from em- - connection is becoming- closer and closer, inseparably bryonic commodity economy, from simple exchange, to uniting the entire economic life of the individual produc its highest forms, to large~scale production. ers into one whole. Capital signifies a further develop And the experience of all capitalist countries, old and ment of this connection: man's labour-power becomes a new, year by year demonstrates clearly the truth of this commodity. The wa9e-worker sells his labour-power to Marxian doctrine to increasing numbers of workers. the owner of land, factories and instruments of labour. Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this The worker spends one part of the dav coverinq the cost triumph is only the prelude to ~he triumph of labour over of maintaining himself and his family (wages), while capital. the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of III profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class. The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of When feudalism was overthrown, and "free" capitalist Marx's economic theory. society appeared in the world, it at once became apparent Capital. created by the labour of the worker, crushes that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and the worker, ruining small proprietors and creatinq an exploitation of the working people.

Load more