User:Saul Wenger/notes

General notes and references for articles.

Stalinism

Relevant quotations

Georgi Dimitrov

"The social-democrat lackeys often call us “Stalinists” and they think that in this way they insult the communists. But we are proud of this honorary appellation as we are proud of the appellation “Leninists”. There is no greater honor for a revolutionary than being a true Leninist, a true Stalinist, a devoted disciple of Lenin and Stalin until the end. And there is no greater happiness for the communists than fighting under the guidance of Stalin for the triumph of the international proletariat's just cause. Not everybody can be a Stalinist. The honorary appellation “Leninist–Stalinist” has to be won through Bolshevik struggle, persistence and unlimited devotion to the cause of the working class.”

— Georgi Dimitrov, Stalin and the international proletariat, 1939

Imperialism

Russian imperialism

According to statistics provided by the World Inequality Database, out of 60 billion euros, the government of the Russian Federation spent 8 billion on workers in enterprises in foreign countries. These enterprises are largely owned by Russian bourgeoisie and less developed economies, constituting an exportation of capital.

The state

Vladimir Lenin

"[...] this period [the transition from capitalism to communism] inevitably is a period of an unprecedently violent class struggle in unprecedentedly acute forms, and, consequently, during this period the state must inevitably be a state that is democratic in a new way (for the proletariat and the propertyless in general) and dictatorial in a new way (against the bourgeoisie)."

— Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution, 1917

Refuting revisionism

"Dengism"

Vladimir Lenin

"The old parties are products of an epoch whose task was to develop capitalism as speedily as possible. The struggle between the parties was over the question how best to expedite and facilitate this development. The new party is a product of the present epoch, which raises the issue of the very existence of capitalism. In the U.S.A., the freest and most advanced country, this issue is coming to the fore more clearly and broadly than anywhere else. The entire programme and entire agitation of Roosevelt and the Progressives turn on how to save capitalism by means of bourgeois reforms. The bourgeois reformism which in old Europe manifests itself in the chatter of liberal professors has all at once come forward in the free American republic as a party four million strong. This is American style. We shall save capitalism by reforms, says that party. We shall grant the most progressive factory legislation. We shall establish state control over all the trusts (in the U.S.A. that means over all industries!). We shall establish state control over them to eliminate poverty and enable everybody to earn a “decent” wage. We shall establish “social and industrial justice”. We revere all reforms—the only “reform” we don’t want is expropriation of the capitalists! The national wealth of the U.S.A. is now reckoned to be 120 billion (thousand million) dollars, i.e., about 240 billion rubles. Approximately one-third of it, or about 80 billion rubles, belongs to two trusts, those of Rockefeller and Morgan, or is subordinated to these trusts! Not more than. 40,000 families making up these two trusts are the masters of 80 million wage slaves. Obviously, so long as these modern slave-owners are there, all “reforms” will be nothing but a deception. Roosevelt has been deliberately hired by the astute multimillionaires to preach this deception. The “state control” they promise will become—if the capitalists keep their capital—a means of combating and crushing strikes. But the American proletarian has already awakened and has taken up his post. He greets Roosevelt’s success with cheerful irony, as if to say: You lured four million people with your promises of reform, dear impostor Roosevelt. Very well! Tomorrow those four million will see that your promises were a fraud, and don’t forget that they are following you only because they feel that it is impossible to go on living in the old way." —Vladimir Lenin, The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections

An excellent quote in refuting arguments in favor of supposed Chinese "socialism." In what way? Revisionist defenders of the People's Republic of China and other instances of "market socialism" entirely omit (or fabricate) the class character of that country while instead redirecting attention to dispersed, alleged increases in living conditions and economic growth as "proof" of "socialism." However, Lenin astutely indicates that limited degrees of "state control" and poverty elimination do not constitute socialism nor even a progressive arrangement. These "reforms" are of a particular class character, in this instance a bourgeois one, and are only made to preserve the capitalist system.

Having supposedly raised "800,000,000" individuals out of "extreme poverty" matters little on the question of socialism. What matters is that the ultimate act of the expropriation of the exploiters will never happen. "Dengists" and other revisionists, therefore, only seek a society where the national flag is red and where the ruling party calls itself "communist." However, they do not want by any means a true abolition of the capitalist system.

Socialism is not mere poverty reduction, it is not symbolism without substance, it is not economic growth. Socialism is the revolutionary transformation of society from one mode of production to another. Do not be fooled by these revisionists who seek to regress us back to social democratic notions on what constitutes socialism.

Maoism

Mao's class collaboration

"Places in the organs of political power should be allocated as follows: one-third to the proletariat and the poor peasantry; one third to the petty-bourgeoisie, and the remaining one-third to the middle bourgeoisie and the enlightened gentry."

— Mao Zedong

Even during its "socialist" period, the People's Republic of China was only "one-third" a proletarian dictatorship, and "two-thirds" a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie! Compare this revisionist's words to those of Vladimir Lenin:

"The overthrow of bourgeois rule can be accomplished only by the proletariat, the particular class whose economic conditions of existence prepare it for this task and provide it with the possibility and the power to perform it. While the bourgeoisie break up and disintegrate the peasantry and all the petty-bourgeois groups, they weld together, unite and organize the proletariat. Only the proletariat — by virtue of the economic role it plays in large-scale production — is capable of being the leader of all the working and exploited people, whom the bourgeoisie exploit, oppress and crush, often not less but more than they do the proletarians, but who are incapable of waging an independent struggle for their emancipation.

The theory of class struggle, applied by Marx to the question of the state and the socialist revolution, leads as a matter of course to the recognition of the political rule of the proletariat, of its dictatorship, i.e., of undivided power directly backed by the armed force of the people. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie can be achieved only by the proletariat becoming the ruling class, capable of crushing the inevitable and desperate resistance of the bourgeoisie, and of organizing all the working and exploited people for the new economic system.

The proletariat needs state power, a centralized organization of force, an organization of violence, both to crush the resistance of the exploiters and to lead the enormous mass of the population — the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and semi-proletarians — in the work of organizing a socialist economy."

— The State and Revolution, 1917

Further information may be found in Jim Washington's work Socialism Cannot be Built in Alliance with the Bourgeoisie.

Socialism

On its "failure"

"The great leaders of the proletariat, Marx and Lenin, pointed out and stressed that the revolution is not a triumphant march in a straight line. It will have victories but also setbacks; it advances in zigzags and mounts step by step. The history of the development of human society shows that the replacement of one social system by another, higher system, is not done within one day, but covers a whole historical epoch. In many instances and in many countries the bourgeois revolutions, which replaced the feudal system of exploitation with the capitalist system of exploitation, were unable to escape the counter-revolution, either. An example of this is France, where the bourgeois revolution, although it was the most profound and radical revolution of the time, was unable to establish and consolidate the capitalist order immediately. After the initial victory of 1789, the bourgeoisie and the working masses had to rise again in revolution to overthrow the feudal monarchy of the Bourbons and the feudal system in general and finally restore the bourgeois order." —Enver Hoxha, Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism

Resources

On socialist Albania

• The History of the Socialist Construction of Albania

On philosophy

• A Textbook of Marxist Philosophy