ON DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLE DEMOCRATIC TASKS OF SOCIALISTS LENIN Selected writings from Lenin & Stalin researched and compiled for various articles on the subject. E. A 1 Contents Introduction P4 The Years of Organizing – Pre 1903 The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats 1897 P25 A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats 1899 P53 Draft of a Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra and Zarya 1900 P70 The urgent Tasks of our Movement 1900 P83 A Talk with Defenders of Economism 1901 P97 The Working class as Vanguard for Democracy 1902 P108 Political Agitation and “The Class Point of View” 190 P128 The years of preparation of the revolution (1903-05) Reply to Criticism of our draft Programme 1903 P136 The Autocracy and the Proletariat 1904 P156 Petty-Bourgeois and Proletarian Socialism 1905 P211 From Narodism to Marxism 1905 P166 Will the Sweep of the Democratic Revolution be Diminished if the Bourgeoisie Recoils from it? 1905 P175 The Vulgar Bourgeois Representation of Dictatorship and Marx’s View of It 1905 P199 2 The years of revolution (1905–07) The Democratic Tasks of the Revolutionary Proletariat P222 Stalin, Anarchism or Socialism? Dialectic Materialism P231 The years of reaction (1907–10) The First Important Step 1907 P244 The Agrarian Question & the Forces of the Revolution P249 Speech on the Attitude Towards Bourgeois Parties 1907 P254 Report of the Commission Formed to Draft a Resolution on the State Duma 1907 P270 Revolution and Counter-Revolution 1907 P275 Lessons of the Commune 1908 P286 Those Who Would Liquidate Us 1911 P291 The First Imperialist World War (1914–17) The Socialist Revolution& the Struggle for Democracy P296 The Peace Programme 1916 P299 The Nascent Trend of Imperialist Economism 1916 P309 Reply to P. Kievsky (Y. Pyatakov) 1916 P321 To: N. I. Bukharin, 1916 P329 The second revolution in Russia (February to October 1917) Letter on Tactics 1917 P335 Extract from; No Compromises? 1920 P351 3 Introduction "Can a class-conscious worker forget the democratic struggle for the sake of the socialist struggle, or forget the latter for the sake of the former? No, a class- conscious worker calls himself a Social-Democrat for the reason that he understands the relation between the two struggles. He knows that there is no other road to socialism save the road through democracy, through political liberty. " (P211) One of the most striking examples of the kinship between the right and left opportunism -reinforcing each other-, shows itself on the question of " democratic struggle ", "democratic tasks" of Marxist Leninists. In colonial, semi colonial or dependent countries in general, and in countries where capitalism developed due to unequal laws of economy such as in Turkey particular, the understanding of democratic struggle, either consciously or unconsciously, presents itself in two forms; one is the Right deviation which takes democratic struggle as the base and spread the illusion that the Republic as the ultimate goal, the other is the left deviation which ignores the concrete facts, conditions and situation and rejects the democratic struggle exclusively under the pretext that it is " bourgeois tailgating " and spreads the illusion that the socialist revolution is on the agenda. As Lenin explains; To the Marxist the problem is simply to avoid either of two extremes: on the one hand, not to fall into the error of those who say that, from the standpoint of the proletariat, we are in no way concerned with any immediate and temporary non-proletarian tasks, and on the other, not to allow the proletariat’s co- operation in the attainment of the immediate, 4 democratic tasks to dim its class-consciousness and its class distinctiveness.” (P136) For Marxist Leninists democratic and socialist tasks and struggle for both are dialectically connected, not isolated from each other. One cannot be achieved independently from the other. Lenin clearly explains the meaning of both and their dialectical interconnection; "The object of the practical activities of the Social- Democrats is, as is well known, to lead the class struggle of the proletariat and to organise that struggle in both its manifestations: socialist (the fight against the capitalist class aimed at destroying the class system and organizing socialist society), and democratic (the fight against absolutism aimed at winning political liberty and democratizing the political and social system ). We said as is well known. And indeed, from the very moment they appeared as a separate social-revolutionary trend, the Russian Social-Democrats have always quite definitely indicated this object of their activities, have always emphasized the dual manifestation and content of the class struggle of the proletariat and have always insisted on the inseparable connection between their socialist and democratic tasks—a connection clearly expressed in the name they have adopted. Simultaneously with the dissemination of scientific socialism, Russian Social-Democrats set themselves the task of propagating democratic ideas among the working class masses; they strive to spread an understanding of absolutism in all its manifestations, of its class content, of the necessity to overthrow it, of the impossibility of waging a successful struggle for the workers’ cause without achieving political liberty and 5 the democratization of Russia’s political and social system. .. every resolute and consistent democratic demand of the proletariat always and everywhere in the world causes the bourgeoisie to recoil.. " (P175) This connection is especially much more important in countries where feudalism and semi-feudalism reigns. In regard to these types countries, "the principal task of the proletariat at present " says Lenin "is to win the broadest freedom and bring about the most complete destruction of landlord (feudal) landed proprietorship. Only by doing this, only by completely smashing the old, semi-feudal society through democratic action, can the proletariat rise to full stature as an independent class, lay full emphasis on its specific (i.e., socialist) tasks, as distinct from the democratic tasks common to “all the oppressed”, and secure for itself the most favourable conditions for an unrestricted, sweeping, and intensified struggle for socialism. If the bourgeois-democratic liberation movement stops half-way, if it is not carried through, the proletariat will have to spend a great deal more of its forces on general democratic (i.e., bourgeois- democratic) tasks than on its own class, proletarian, i.e., socialist, tasks. " (P249) Lenin speaking of undeveloped countries states; "The undeveloped countries are a different matter. They embrace the whole of Eastern Europe and all the colonies and semi-colonies .... In those areas, as a rule, there still exist oppressed and capitalistically undeveloped nations. Objectively, these nations still have general national tasks to accomplish, namely, democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression. 6 While the proletariat of the advanced countries is overthrowing the bourgeoisie and repelling its attempts at counter-revolution, the undeveloped and oppressed nations do not just wait, do not cease to exist, do not disappear. ... The social revolution can come only in the form of an epoch in which are combined civil war by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries and a whole series of democratic and revolutionary movements, including the national liberation movement, in the undeveloped, backward and oppressed nations." Lenin, A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism, “Monism and Dualism” Related to the democratic revolution, emphasizing the importance of democratic struggle in these types of countries, Lenin states; "the more incomplete and irresolute this revolution, the longer and the more heavily will general democratic tasks, and not socialist, not purely class, proletarian tasks, weigh upon the proletariat. The more complete the victory of the peasantry, the sooner will the proletariat stand out as a distinct class, and the more clearly will it put forward its purely socialist tasks and aims. " (P254) Stalin summarizes the essence of democratic struggle in these types of countries; "" Today we are demanding a democratic republic. Can we say that a democratic republic is good in all respects, or bad in all respects? No, we cannot! Why? Because a democratic republic is good only in one respect: when it destroys the feudal system; but it is bad in another respect: when it strengthens the bourgeois system. Hence, we say: in so far as the 7 democratic republic destroys the feudal system it is good -- and we fight for it; but in so far as it strengthens the bourgeois system it is bad -- and we fight against it. "" (P231) Marxist Leninist does not forget the democratic struggle for the sake of the socialist struggle or forget the socialist struggle for the sake of democratic struggle. However, always subordinates the democratic struggle to the struggle for socialism. As Lenin points out in " Marxism and Proudhonism on the national Question; "In contrast to the petty-bourgeois democrats, Marx regarded every democratic demand without exception not as an absolute, but as an historical expression of the struggle of the masses of the people, led by the bourgeoisie, against feudalism. There is not one of these demands which could not serve and has not served, under certain circumstances, as an instrument in the hands of the bourgeoisie for deceiving the workers. ..In practice, the proletariat can retain its independence