Vol. 7, Issue : 11
November 2015
WHAT LENINISM MEANS TO US
We are approaching nearly hundred years
of the Great Russian October Revolution. It is a
revolution unequalled by any other event in the
history. Its impact on the humanity and its social
thinking has not diminished despite the collapse
of the Soviet Union. The importance of the Russian
Revolution is that it is the greatest revolution of
the working people, which lasted more than seven
decades and which carried out basic
transformations towards socialism. It began in an
era of national liberation movements in the colonies
and semi-colonies and gave impetus to them. The
communists all over the world need to study the
experiences of the Russian Revolution to draw
necessary conclusions to advance the communist
movement.
Comrade Lenin was the leader of the
Bolshevik party, the working class, organizer of
the October socialist revolution, builder of the first
socialist state in the world and of the new socialist
society. In the teachings of comrade Lenin the
toiling people all over the world have a powerful
weapon in their struggle for freedom,
independence, liberation and social revolution and
in their struggle to build a new classless society.
In his book “What the ‘Friends of the People’
are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats” ,
Lenin thoroughly exposed the true character of
Narodniks, showing that they were ‘false friends
of people’. He showed that it was Marxists who
were the real friends of people. For the first time
Lenin advanced the idea of a revolutionary alliance
of the workers and peasants as the principal
means of overthrowing Tsardom, the landlords
and the bourgeoisie and outlined the main tasks
of the Russian Marxists.
In “What is to be Done?” Lenin outlined a
concrete organizational plan for the structure of
a Marxist party of the working class. He
completely demolished the theory of
“economism”, exposed the ideology of
opportunism and the practice of lagging behind
the events. He stressed the importance of theory,
of political consciousness and of party as the 2
guiding force of the working class movement.
In his famous work, “One Step Forward, Two
Steps back”, Lenin “for the first time in the history
of Marxism elaborated the doctrine of party as
the leading organization of the proletariat, as the
principal weapon of the proletariat, without which
the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat
cannot be won” (Stalin). Lenin successfully upheld
the party principle against the circle principle and
laid the organizational foundations of the Bolshevik
party. He made clear the importance of
organization and discipline.
The fundamental tactical principle of his
historic book, “Two Tactics of Social Democracy
in the Democratic Revolution” is the idea of the
hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois
democratic revolution. The proletariat being in
alliance with the peasantry would grow into the
hegemony of the proletariat in the socialist
revolution. This book already contains the
Organ of the Central Committee of CPI(ML)