The Marxists (1962) C Wright Mills - Dell Publishers
The Marxists (1962) C Wright Mills - Dell Publishers
The Marxists (1962) C Wright Mills - Dell Publishers
FROM MAX WEBER: Essays in Sociology (1946)— Ed. and Tr. with H. Gerth
The Marxists C. Wright Mills
A LAUREL EDITION
239
Jrt . *
Printed in U.S.A.
contypts
2. A CELEBRATION OF MARX
. . . in which the ideological message and the intellectual power of
marxism is indicated: Karl Marx’s place in intellectual history and his
relevance to present-day social reflection are stated. 30
4. INVENTORY OF IDEAS
. . . in which the leading ideas of Marx are systematically stated; his
model of society, theory of history, as well as specific conceptions and
expectations, are set forth without criticism. 81
5. RULES FOR CRITICS
. . . i n which some correct and some irrelevant grounds of criticism
are sorted out, and the terms of criticism to be used in this book are
stated. 96
6. CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS
. . . in which the major theories of Marx are examined critically and in
light of relevant trends of contemporary societies; errors, ambiguities,
and inadequacies of the intellectual structure are suggested. 105
7. ROADS TO SOCIALISM
. . . in which the major phases of marxism are each briefly characterized,
politically and intellectually: the classic thinkers, the social demo
crats, the bolshevik pivot, the stalinist consolidation, critics of Stalin
ism, soviet marxism and the new revisionists, marxism outside the bloc
— and the over-all lines of marxist development are briefly summed
up. 132
INDEX 475
1 . Ideals and Ideologies
This book is “a primer,” a primer on marxisms, written
mainly for those who do not really know these philoso
phies, and who do not pretend to know them. It is also
written (hopefully, I suppose) for those who are already
familiar with marxism but who believe that marxism as a
whole has been “gobbled up by the communists” and
accordingly is not for them; for those who hold to the
notion that after all it is “merely ideology,” and that,
nowadays especially, ideology is at an end— or ought to
be. It is also for those who are bored with politics and po
litical philosophy, who have withdrawn to or never emerged
from a strictly private life. If this book does no more than
push such people a bit closer to the experience of being full
citizens, it will have fulfilled its central purpose.
2
Political philosophies are intellectual and moral crea
tions; they contain high ideals, easy slogans, dubious facts,
crude propaganda, sophisticated theories. Their adherents
select some facts and ignore others, urge the acceptance
of ideals, the inevitability of events, argue with this theory
and debunk that one. Since in all political philosophies
such a miscellany of elements is usually very much jum
bled up, our first task is to sort them out. To do so, each
of the following four points of view may be useful:
First of all, a political philosophy is itself a social re
ality: it is an ideology in terms of which certain institu
tions and practices are justified and others attacked; it
provides the phrases in which demands are raised, criti
cisms made, exhortations delivered, proclamations formu
lated and, at times, policies determined.
Second, it is an ethic, an articulation of ideals which on
various levels of generality and sophistication is used in
judging men, events and movements, and as goals and
guidelines for aspirations and policies.
Third, a political philosophy designates agencies of ac
tion, of the means of reform, revolution, or conservation.
It contains strategies and programs that embody both ends
and means. It designates, in short, the historical levers by
which ideals are to be won or maintained after they have
een won.
Ideals and Ideologies 13
Fourth, it contains theories of man, society and his
tory, or at least assumptions about how society is made up
and how it works; about what is held to be its most im
portant elements and how these elements are typically re
lated; its major points of conflict and how these conflicts
are resolved. It suggests the methods of study appropriate
to its theories. From these theories and with these methods,
expectations are derived.
A political philosophy tells us how to find out where we
stand and where we may be going; it gives us some answers
to these questions; it prepares us for the possible futures.
To examine any political philosophy, then, we must ex
amine it as an ideology, a statement of ideals, a designa
tion of agency or agencies, and as a set of social theories.
In this chapter, I shall pay attention mainly to ideologies
and ideals; the points I shall try to make are these:
As ideology, liberalism and marxism have both been
made vulgar and banal; each supplies cliches for the de
fense of a great-power state and for the abuse of the other
bloc and all its works.
As statements of ideals, both carry the secular humanism
of Western civilization. These ideals are the only ideals
available that are at once part of a comprehensive politi
cal philosophy and proclaimed by both the leaders and
the led of the most powerful nation-states of the world.
But all this is folklore. From both sides. All this is only
one aspect— the ideological— of liberalism and of marxism.
To be sure, even the folklore of each side contains glimpses
if truth and definitions of reality; but the point is that
Ideals and Ideologies 23
back of each, there are sets of ideas that must be taken
seriously if we are to understand even the uses of the
folklores— not to mention the condition and the possible
fate o f the world today. Back of each of these ideologies
there is much of the world’s heritage of political ideas and
m oral ideals.
Marx took the view, and practiced it, that history is the
shank of all well-conducted studies of man and society. In
his working model of nineteenth century capitalism, in
which he designates the characteristics of each institutional
and psychological feature, he states the historical function
that he thinks each fulfills. He uses this model not merely
as “an anatomy of civil society” but in an active historical
way to indicate the changing relations of the elements and
forces of which the model is composed. His work thus con
tains a model, not only of a total social structure, but also
of that structure in historical motion.
He is not concerned with the knife-edge present nor with
the static model as such. He is concerned with trends hav
ing the span of a historically specific epoch, that of the “in
dustrial capitalism” of his time. He projects trends he be
lieves to be “secular,” and so decisive, according to his
model of social structure and his theory of history. Thus he
presents an image of the probable future. This principle of
historical specificity is, first, a rule for social inquiry and re
flection; it is, second, a method for criticizing polemically
other theories and conceptions; and, third, it is a theory of
the nature of social life and of history.
1. As a rule of inquiry, it directs us to formulate regu
larities and trends we find in terms of a specific epoch, and
it cautions us not to generalize beyond the confines of
this epoch. We do not study “the general conditions of all
social life”; we study “the specific historical form assumed
38 The Marxists
by them in present day bourgeois society,” 4 From this
principle it follows that we may not project quantitative
changes of the present into a future epoch, nor retrospec
tively interpret past epochs in the terms of the present one.
We must think “epochally.” Each epoch is a new type of
society; it creates new types of men and women, and neither
the society nor the men can be understood in terms of the
old epoch. All we can do is study the present epoch in an
attempt to discern within it those tendencies leading into
the next epoch.
2. As a method for criticizing conceptions, the principle
of historical specificity leads us to see that conceptions and
categories are not eternal, but are relative to the epoch
which they concern. They are historically specific: Thus,
“property” is one thing in a society of small entrepreneurs;
it is another thing in a society dominated by big corpora
tions. Similarly, “freedom,” ‘‘rent,” “work,” “population,”
“family,” “culture,” carry different meanings according to
the epoch with reference to which they are used. Perhaps
the fundamental charge against “bourgeois thinkers” m ade
by Marx is the unhistorical character of their very cate
gories of thought.
3. As a theory of the nature of society and of history,
the principle of historical specificity holds that the history
of mankind may be, indeed must be, divided into epochs,
each defined by the structural form it assumes. All we can
mean by “laws” are the structural mechanics of change
characteristic of one epoch or another. Within an epoch
there are evolutionary changes; between one epoch and an
other, revolution. In world history, human society thus
evolves from one revolution to another, each revolution
marking off a new epoch. And each epoch must be exam
ined as an independent historical formation, in term s of
categories suitable to it.
■
46. The dynamic of historical change is the conflict be
tween the forces of production and the relations of produc
tion.
In earlier phases of capitalism, the relations of production
facilitate the development of the forces of production. One
cannot find a more handsome celebration of the work of
capitalists in industrialization than in the pages of Marx’s
Capital. But in due course the capitalist organization of in
dustry— the relations of production—come to fetter the
forces of production; they come into objective contradic
tion with them. “Contradiction” I take to mean a problem
that is inherent in and cannot be solved without modify
ing, or “moving beyond,” the basic structure of the society
in which it occurs. For Marx, “the basic structure” means
the capitalist economy.
Continuous technological development and its full use
for production conflicts with the interest of the property
owners. The capitalists prohibit the utilization of new in
ventions, buying them up to avoid the loss of their invest-
m£nt ln existing facilities. They are interested in increased
productivity and in technical progress only as profits can
thereby be maintained or increased. Thus capital itself is
“the real historical barrier of capital production.”
N.
Inventory of Ideas 87
Moreover, in work the laborer gives over to the owner the
control of his activity: “It is not his work, but work for
someone else . . . in work he does not belong to himself but
to another person.” At work, men are homeless; only dur
ing leisure do they feel at home.
Finally, work results in the creation of private property;
the product of the work belongs to another. The worker
empties himself into this product; the more he works the
greater his product, but it is not his. Private property, ac
cordingly, causes him to be alienated. Thus the alienation of
labor and the system of private property are reciprocal.
Alienation, working together with economic exploitation,
leads to increasing misery—and so in due course, to the
formation of the proletariat as a class-for-itself.
16. Although men make their own history, given the cir
cumstances of the economic foundation, the way they make
it and the direction it takes are determined. The course of
history is structurally limited to the point of being inevi
table.
I have noted that in Marx’s historical model of society
the agency of change is intrinsically connected with social
ist ideals. His major propositions and expectations have to
do with the development of its historic agency, and with the
Inventory of Ideas 91
revolutionary results of that development. Two general
questions of interpretation arise when we confront this
central view: (a) In general, does Marx believe in histori
cal inevitability? (b) In connection with the mechanics of
the central thrust, does he hold that the economic factor
is the determining factor in capital society? These questions
have been much argued over, as well they might be; for
later marxists, notably Lenin, they have been of leading po
litical urgency. Major party strategy has been debated in
terms of different answers to them.
My answer to both questions is Yes. Classic marxism
contains only one general theory of how men make history.
Only in such terms as it provides do all the specific con
ceptions and theories of Marx make sense. That theory of
history-making, very briefly, is as follows:
. . each person follows his own consciously desired end,
and it is precisely the resultant of these many wills operat
ing in different directions and of their manifold effects upon
the outer world that constitute history . . . the many individ
ual wills active in history for the most part produce re
sults quite other than those they intended—often quite the
opposite: their motives [of individuals] therefore in rela
tion to the total result are likewise only of secondary
significance. On the other hand, the further question arises:
what driving forces in turn stand behind these motives?
W hat are the historical causes which translate themselves
into these motives in the brains of these actors?” 2
In the historical development of marxism, as we shall
later see, there is always the tension between history as in
evitable and history as made by the wills of men. It will not
do, I think, to lessen that tension by “re-interpreting” or
“explaining” what Marx plainly wrote on the theme. Politi
cians who must justify decisions by reference to founding
doctrine may need to do that. We do not. It is better to try
to keep the record straight, and to designate departures
from classic marxism as departures.
Aside from the documentary evidence, I believe that
Marx is a determinist for the following reasons:
(a) The question of the historical agency is clearly bound
up with the problem of historical inevitability and with the
ideal of socialism. However ambiguous assorted quotations
may make the point seem, classic marxism does differ from
utopian socialism and from liberalism precisely on this
2. F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach (New York, 1935), pp. 58-59.
92 The Marxists
point. It may be that in arguing against utopian socialism
and against liberalism Marx stresses the idea of inevitabil
ity. Be that as it may, I am less concerned with why he held
this view than with the fact that he did.
(b) Marx’s refusal to preach ideals and his reluctance
to discuss the society of the future makes no sense other
wise. Because he did believe in the historical inevitability,
as he saw it, he can treat socialism not as an ideal, a pro
gram, a choice of means, or as a matter of or for political
decision. He can treat it as a matter for scientific investi
gation.
(c) He did not try to persuade men of any new moral
goals, because he believed that the proletariat would inevi
tably come to them. “In the last analysis,” social existence
determines consciousness. Historical developments will im
plant these goals into the consciousness of men, and men
will then act upon them. The individual has little choice. If
his consciousness is not altogether determined, his choice is
severely limited and pressed upon him by virtue of his
class position and all the influences and limitations to
which this leads.
(d) Historically, the idea of Progress has been fully in
corporated into the very ethos of marxism. Marx re-seats
this idea—in the development of the proletariat. This be
comes the gauge for moral judgments of progress and
retrogression. Generally in his temper and in his theories
of the master trends of capitalism in decline Marx is quite
optimistic.®
17. The social structure, as noted in proposition number
7, is determined by its economic foundations; accordingly,
the course of its history is determined by changes in these
economic foundations.
I have held this point until the end, because it is a point
of great controversy. There is a tendency among some
marxists to attempt to “defend” Marx’s economic determin
ism by qualifying it. They do this in the manner of Engels’
later remarks (made in letters) about the interplay of vari
ous factors, or by opposing to it a vague sociological plu
ralism, by which everything interacts with everything and
1
To judge from its practitioners and from its critics there
seem to be at least three intellectual types: Vulgar Marx
ism, Sophisticated Marxism, and Plain Marxism.
Vulgar Marxists (as we have seen) seize upon certain
ideological features of Marx’s political philosophy and
identify these parts as the whole. This is true of adherents
as well as of critics. We need here say no more about this
type.
Sophisticated Marxists are much more complicated. They
are mainly concerned with marxism as a model of society
and with the theories developed with the aid of this model.
Empirical exceptions to theories are relegated to subsidiary
importance; new theories are made up to account for these
exceptions in such a way as to avoid revision of the gen
eral model. These theories are then read back into the
texts of Marx. It is always possible to save a theory by at
taching to it supplementary hypotheses; if the theory is as
sumed to be true, then of course one can find explanations
for deviant facts— so that they do not “really” contradict
the theory. Some of this, no doubt, is quite all right: it is
merely an elaboration and refinement of the theory. But
there comes a time when the supplementary hypotheses
become so bulky, the deviant facts so overwhelming, that
the whole theory or even the model becomes clumsy. At
that point marxism becomes “sophisticated” in a useless
and obscurantist sense.
Rules for Critics 97
For example: (1) It is true, admits the sophisticated
marxist, that wageworkers in advanced capitalist societies
are not revolutionary; they are not even as yet a class
conscious proletariat. (2) But, he argues, that is because
of the intensive capitalist propaganda, the misleaders of
labor who dominate the trade unions, the “labor aristoc
racy” that is bought off by the imperialist powers, the
traitors who run the social democratic labor parties.
The admissions of fact (statement 1) seem to disprove
the basic theory, the proletarianization of the workers, but
are they supplementary explanations (2) contained within
the theory, or do they constitute new theories? The expla
nations suggest the decisive, and possibly autonomous role
of the cultural apparatus as part of the superstructure in the
formation and persistence of political ideologies; the prob
lem of the mediation between base and superstructure; the
role of political and social organization in the life of an eco
nomic class; the durability of monopoly capitalism as an
economic system and its political stability as a type of so
ciety; the effects upon Marx’s expectations of occupational
and income differentiation among the wageworkers with a
consequent need for more refined categories of class itself.
At the least these are extreme modifications of the basic
theory.
The style of the most sophisticated marxists leads them
to treat Marx’s predictions, not as empirical statements
about what is going to happen, but in close terms to his
model, always with the qualification “other things being
equal.” For example, they see in Volume I of Capital,
where the theory of increasing misery is set forth, an ab
stracted model into which Marx later introduces more em
pirical elements. So they conclude that Marx is not really
mistaken about increasing misery. This is confused and
confusing strategy. It is generally correct if it is used only
to judge or to praise Marx as a historical figure, and a
careful thinker. It is incorrect and misleading if it is used
to assert or to imply the relevance of Marx’s work on any
specific point of reference in present-day society.
Sophisticated marxists generally are commited to cur
rent marxist practice on political as well as on intellectual
grounds. Consequently, they tend to incorporate into
“marxism” the whole tradition of sociology, before and
after Marx. Some know very little but Marx; they have
not availed themselves of the sociological tradition as a
98 The Marxists
whole within which the big conversation with Marx is one
very important feature, but only one. For them, there is
no “social science” of much worth; there is only marxist
social science. Thus, they tend to stretch and to bend
marxist ideas to fit new facts, and to confuse Marx’s gen
eral model with specific theories. Even when Marx’s termi
nology is obviously ambiguous and plainly inadequate they
are often reluctant to abandon it. At its best, this style of
thinking is tedious and hampers analysis unnecessarily. At
its worst, it becomes a substitute for reflection and inquiry,
a sophisticated sloganeering.
2
A fundamental difference among scholars in their atti
tude toward “marxism” lies in whether or not they see the
100 The Marxists
practices and proclamations of stalinism as continuous
with the doctrines of Marx or as distinct from them, a be
trayal in moral and political terms, and a set of errors in
intellectual terms. The word around which the differences
very often revolve is “socialism” itself. Is the Soviet Union
today socialist or is it not? More generally, what is social
ism and what is not?
In examining definitions of socialism two of the sug
gested criteria for considering political philosophies may
be helpful. If we refer to a complex set of ideals into which
are jammed all sorts of values— moral, political, human—
and all sorts of imagined social and economic arrange
ments, we can readily condemn partial realizations, or
partial attempts at realization, as misleading or even as
downright anti-socialist distortion. Many critics who define
socialism by reference only to ideals, see the USSR as any
thing but socialist.
At the opposite extreme are critics who use the criterion
of institutional agencies. Before the Revolution this agency
meant the working class, after it the abolition of private
property in the means of production and the establishment
of central economic planning. In these terms the Soviet
Union is socialist. Both attitudes are correct, given the
terms of their definitions.
But what is the proper distinction? Can one really be
a marxist and yet approve the USSR? Can one really be a
marxist and not approve? To attempt a final definition is
to engage in a controversy of concern only to those with
a vested interest either in justifying or in condemning the
USSR. In most such controversies the disputants are at
tempting to steal whatever prestige and authority the word
“socialism” or the word “Marx” may have, and to monopo
lize it for their own views. Many of them have been in
personal need of the ideological support of orthodoxy; this
assurance has also been needed for urgent political rea
sons. From the standpoint of many other political philoso
phies, “marxism” has a curious intellectual history, because
it has been so mixed up with practice and hence so heavily
ideological.
The most fruitful approach is to attempt answers to such
questions as: (1) Was the course of events in the Soviet
Union “inevitable” because of the acceptance of the ideas
of Marx by its changing power elite as well as by consid
erable other sections of the Soviet population? (2) Is its
Rules for Critics 101
present character inevitably going to continue in the fore
seeable future? (3) Does the course of affairs in the USSR
prove that attempts in other countries to follow Marx’s
ideas will end in the same way?
My answer to each of these is: No. My reasons will, I
hope, become clear later on in this book. I know I am dis
appointing many kinds of marxists who would ask rather:
Which of the various interpretations of Marx that have
been developed since Marx died is closest to his original
intention? Was Stalin the (or even a) legitimate heir of
Marx? Was Lenin? Were the social democrats? The answer
of course is: No one was, at least not altogether.
But judging from what he did write, considered as a
whole, I think these interpretations are “deviations” from
Marx. Leninism in particular, though in several ways
“based on Marx,” differs profoundly from others of his
theories and from the range of political action expected and
from the policy most clearly derivable from him. Certainly
the same is true of stalinism. And of social democracy.
And of trotskyism. It is quite impossible, I think, to infer
from Marx’s work what views or practices he would have
favored at various times between 1883 when he died, and
today.
It is possible to contrast what Marx wrote with the prac
tice of those who have acted politically in his name, and
with the results of their practice. These Lessons from the
Practice of Others inform us that the classic statement
has been modified by practitioners, no matter how insist
ent, and boring, their protestations of “orthodoxy” may be.
Only those who are possessed by the fantasy— and the
political urgencies—of immutable certainties, can believe
that Marx, or Marx and Lenin, could have anticipated by
their wisdom the present-day theoretical needs of China,
the USA, Russia, Cuba, Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Aus
tralia— as these countries exist and struggle today. So far
as intellectual history is concerned, the notion of eternal
orthodoxy is absurd— although at times— as under stalin
ism— there really is no intellectual history, only a codifi
cation of inherited ideas and their official interpretation
for expedient internal and international use.
4
112 The Marxists
of Marx’s mind, especially of the young Marx, but as part
of marxist thinking it now lacks the solidity of its old ac
companiment, material exploitation. New mechanisms of
“exploitation” have to be added. The increased time for lei
sure is dominated and even expropriated by the machinery
of amusement, for example. The chance really to expe
rience, to reason and, in due course, the very capacity to
reason are often expropriated.
To read back into Marx these kinds of ideas, in the de
tail in which we know them, is going too far. They are not
there. Although Marx knew the subtleties of psychic ex
ploitation, he did not know many that we know. The
mechanisms, the scope, the locale, and the effects of mod
ern alienation do not necessarily contradict anything he
wrote but he did not describe them. Moreover, these psy
chic exploitations are not, we suspect, rooted in capitalism
alone and as such. They are also coming about in non
capitalist and post-capitalist societies. They are not neces
sarily rooted either in the private ownership or in the
state ownership of the means of production; they may be
rooted in the facts of mass industrialization itself.
However that may be, the marxist conception of alien
ation, brilliant and illuminating as it is, remains, like class
consciousness, a quite rationalist conception. In these con
ceptions are mixed moral judgments; indeed, into his con
ception of “alienation,” Marx has jammed his highest and
most noble image of man—and his fiercest indignation
about the crippling of man by capitalism. And he has the
strong tendency to impute, in an optative way, these judg
ments to the psychological realities of the work men do
and the life men lead. Often these are not the realities men
experience. The question of the attitude of men toward the
work they do, in capitalist and in non-capitalist societies,
is very much an empirical question, and one to which we
do not have adequate answers. At any rate, to say the
least, the condition in which Marx left the conception of
alienation is quite incomplete, and brilliantly ambiguous.
Second, "the negation of the negation": one thing grows out of an
other and then does battle with it. In turn, the newly grown produces in
itself "the seeds of its own destruction.” Marx’s texts are full of meta
phors from the reproductive cycle and the hospital delivery-room. Things
are pregnant; there are false alarms; wombs and midwives abound. And
finally, there is bloody birth. Thus the proletariat, bom from the womb
of capitalism, in turn makes capitalist society "pregnant with revolution."
But there is no clear-cut method for recognizing "negation"; one should
not mistake metaphors of style for a method of thinking, much less for
"a general scientific law of nature." The substantive content is merely
this: that things (sometimes) grow out of others and (sometimes) in due
course displace them.
Third, the "law" that marxists consider the most important: "the in
terpenetration of opposites," which I take to mean that there are objec
tive contradictions and resolutions in the world. This is clearly to con
fuse logic with metaphysics: one can say that the statements men make
are often contradictory. One cannot say that trees or rocks, or, for that
matter, classes "contradict” one another. Men can believe that positive
and negative charges of electricity contradict each other, but this clearly
is to anthropomorphize electricity. •
The simple truth about the "laws of dialectics," as discerned in Marx,
is that they are ways of talking about matters after these matters have
been explained in ordinary ways of discourse and proof. Marx himself
never explained anything by the “laws of dialectics," although he did not
avoid, on occasion, the dialectical vocabulary of obscurantism. "Dialectics"
was, after all, the vocabulary of the Hegelian-trained man, and Marx did
put this vocabulary to good substantive use: in terms of dialectics he re
jected the absurdity of eighteenth-century views of "natural harmony” ;
achieved a sense of the fluidity and many-sided nature of history-making;
saw the "universal interconnection” of all its forces; consistently main
tained an awareness of perennial change, of genuine conflict, of the am
biguous potentialities of every historical situation.
We may also understand that if not for Marx, for many marxists, mere
reference to “dialectical” serves to let one out of the determinist trap.
But for self-appointed "insiders" it is all too often an intellectually cheap
way to mysterious insights, a substitute for the hard work of learning.
Perhaps their insistence upon this language is due mainly to their having
become disciples before having read much else. For us, the "dialectical
method” is either a mess of platitudes, a way of doubletalk, a preten
tious obscurantism—or all three. The essential error of “ the dialectician"
is the know-it-all confusion of logic with metaphysics; if the rules of
dialectics were "the most general laws of motion” all physical scientists
would use them every day. On the other hand, if dialectics is the "sci
ence of thinking," then we are dealing with the subject-matter of psy
chology, and not with logic or method at all. As a guide to thinking,
"dialectics” can be more burdensome than helpful, for if everything is
connected, dialectically, with everything else, then you must know
"everything” in order to know anything, and causal sequences become
difficult to trace.
Critical Observations 131
this, fragmentary but nonetheless decisive, has been sug
gested in the present chapter.
But there is one further question. “Marxism” certainly
does not end with Marx. It begins with him. Later think
ers and actors have used, revised, elaborated his ideas, and
set forth quite new doctrines, theories and strategies. In
one way or another, these are indeed “based upon Marx,”
although they can be identified with classic marxism only
by those who feel they must distort intellectual and politi
cal history for their unmarxist need for certainty through
orthodoxy. That is not the question. The question is: Are
any of these later theories adequate as political orientation
and useful for social inquiry today? Let us examine the most
important and influential of these.
7 . Roads to Socialism
The intellectual history of marxism is characterized by
tortuous and savage controversies. To many outsiders they
often appear sectarian as well. But for the thinkers and
politicians engaged in them, these controversies have been
and are truly agonizing and of the most vital intellectual
importance. The intellectual work of Marx and of post-
Marx marxists, is no calm debate in scholarly circles; it oc
curs in close connection with decision and event. It consists
of a continuous series of doctrinal battles fought with close
attention to personal need and political defeat, moral aspira
tion and again defeat. And it is connected with historic
questions of supreme human importance. Each revision,
elaboration, rebuttal, deviation is geared to political and
economic developments first within one nation, then an
other, and now within the world as a whole.
Each of the several major phases into which the devel
opment of marxism may conveniently be divided is at once
a political stage and an intellectual pivot. As we quickly
pass them in preliminary review in the present chapter we
must pay attention to the immediate political context of
each phase, and to the agencies of historical change that
each emphasizes.
/
144 The Marxists
For stalinists, one goal—heavy industrialization and
rapid modernization—was not only necessary but neces
sary immediately. Stalin was able— and this is the substance
of stalinism—to organize all social activities toward these
ends. A cultural and intellectual organization was created
for the purpose of adapting art, literature, the social and
economic sciences, toward the emergency goal. And con
trariwise, all those who did not accept this as necessary,
or who opposed it, were at the least severely condemned,
and at the most murdered. The result was the production
of a literature and art, which more and more began to
identify the ideal with the person who proclaimed it. Unity
was the password. Work was the order. Therefore, no pos
sible disagreements could be allowed, artistically or intel
lectually or politically. That would divert needed energy.
The theme of unity soon provided the basis for merging
separate institutions and organizations into the image of
this one man, Stalin the Tyrant. The more unity was ob
tained, the more severe was the punishment for disunity,
and soon for suspected disunity. There resulted the purges,
the executions, the forced labor, the doubletalk; thus the
total identification of one individual with a gigantic process
he had helped to begin and still led, a process which
came to form, as it were, its own institutions and its own
ideologies. The cost in human life and in brain power wasi
enormous, but stalinism worked: it was the means of I
rapidly industrializing a backward country, isolated anew
threatened by enemies and potential enemies, outside and|
within.
A
166 The Marxists
it would be an error to attempt to draw from either of
these hypotheses any fixed conclusions as to the role played
by revolution in social development.
If in spite of these facts such conclusions are still in
sisted upon, then we can reply to them with a very popular
and familiar illustration, which demonstrates in an unmis
takable manner that nature does make sudden leaps: I
refer to the act of birth. The act of birth is a leap. At one
stroke a fetus, which had hitherto constituted a portion
of the organism of the mother, sharing in her circulation,
receiving nourishment from her, without breathing, be
comes an independent human being, with its own circula
tory system, that breathes and cries, takes its own nourish
ment and utilizes its digestive tra c t
The analogy between birth and revolution, however,
does not rest alone upon the suddenness of the act. If we
look closer we shall find that this sudden transformation at
birth is confined wholly to functions. The organs develop
slowly, and must reach a certain stage of development be
fore that leap is possible, which suddenly gives them their
new functions. If the leap takes place before this stage of
development is attained, the result is not the beginning of
new functions for the organs, but the cessation of all func
tions— the death of the new creature. On the other hand,
the slow development of organs in the body of the mother
can only proceed to a certain point, they cannot begin
their new functions without the revolutionary act of birth.
This becomes inevitable when the development of the or
gans has attained a certain height.
We find the same thing in society. Here also the revolu
tions are the result of slow, gradual development (evolu
tion). Here also it is the social organs that develop slowly.
That which may be changed suddenly, at a leap, revolu
tionarily, is their functions. The railroad has been slowly
developed. On the other hand the railroad can suddenly
be transformed from its function as the instrument to the
enrichment of a number of capitalists, into a socialist en
terprise having as its function the serving of the common
good. And as at the birth of the child, all the functions are
simultaneously revolutionized—circulation, breathing, di
gestion— so all the functions of the railroad must be simul
taneously revolutionized at one stroke, for they are all most
closely bound together. They cannot be gradually and suc
cessively socialized, one after the other, as if, for example,
The Social Democrats 167
we would transform today the functions of the engineer
and fireman, a few years later the ticket agents, and still
later the accountants and bookkeepers, and so on. This fact
is perfectly clear with a railroad, but the successive social
ization of the different functions of a railroad is no less
absurd than that of the ministry of a centralized state.
Such a ministry constitutes a single organism whose or
gans must co-operate. The functions of one of these or
gans cannot be modified without equally modifying all the
others. The idea of the gradual conquest of the various
departments of a ministry by the Socialists is not less
absurd than would be an attempt to divide the act of birth
into a number of consecutive monthly acts, in each of
which one organ only would be transformed from the
condition of a fetus to an independent child, and mean
while leaving the child itself attached to the navel cord
until it had learned to walk and talk.
Since neither a railroad nor a ministry can be changed
gradually, but only at a single stroke, embracing all the
organs simultaneously, from capitalist to socialist func
tions, from an organ of the capitalist to an organ of the
laboring class, and this transformation is possible only
to such social organs as retain a certain degree of develop
ment, it may be remarked here that with the maternal
organism it is possible to scientifically determine the mo
ment when the degree of maturity is attained, which is not
true of society.
On the other hand, birth does not mark the conclusion
of the development of the human organism, but rather the
beginning of a new epoch in development. The child comes
now into new relations in which new organs are created,
and those that previously existed are developed further in
other directions; teeth grow in the mouth, the eyes learn
to see; the hands to grasp, the feet to walk, the mouth to
speak, etc. In the same way a social revolution is not the
conclusion of social development, but the beginning of a
new form of development. A socialist revolution can at a
single stroke transfer a factory from capitalist to social
property. But it is only gradually, through a course of slow
evolution, that one may transform a factory from a place
of monotonous, repulsive, forced labor into an attractive
spot for the joyful activity of happy human beings. A so
cialist revolution can at a single stroke transform the
great bonanza farms into social property. In that portion
168 The Marxists
of agriculture where petty industry still rules, the organs
of social and socialist production must be first created, and
that can come only as a result of slow development.
It is thus apparent that the analogy between birth and
revolution is rather far-reaching. But this naturally proves
nothing more than that one has no right to appeal to
nature for proof that a social revolution is something un
necessary, unreasonable, and unnatural. We have also, as
we have already said, no right to apply conclusions drawn
from nature directly to social processes. We can go no
further upon the ground of such analogies than to con
clude: that as each animal creature must at one time go
through a catastrophe in order to reach a higher stage of
development (the act of birth or of the breaking of a
shell), so society can only be raised to a higher stage of
development through a catastrophe.. . .
Among the great nations of modem times England is
the one which most resembles the Middle Ages, not eco
nomically, but in its political form. Militarism and bu
reaucracy are there the least developed. It still possesses an
aristocracy that not only reigns but governs. Correspond
ing to this, England is the great modem nation in which
the efforts of the oppressed classes are mainly confined to
the removal of particular abuses instead of being directed
against the whole social system. It is also the State in which
the practice of protection against revolution through
compromise is farthest developed.
If the universal armament of the people did not encour
age great social revolutions, it did make it much easier for
armed conflict between the classes to arise at the slightest
opportunity. There is no lack of violent uprisings and civil
wars in antiquity and the Middle Ages. The ferocity with
which these were fought was often so great as to lead to
the expulsion, expropriation and oftentimes to the extermi
nation of the conquered. Those who consider violence as a
sign of social revolution will find plenty of such revolu
tions in earlier ages. But those who conceive social revo
lution as the conquest of political power by a previously
subservient class and the transformation of the juridical
and political superstructure of society, particularly in the
property relations, will find no social revolution there.
Social development proceeded piecemeal, step by step, not
through single great catastrophes but in countless little
broken-up apparently disconnected, often interrupted, ever
The Social Democrats 169
renewing, mostly unconscious movements. The great social
transformation of the times we are considering, the disap
pearance of slavery in Europe, came about so imperceptibly
that the contemporaries of this movement took no notice of
it, and one is today compelled to reconstruct it through
hypotheses.
* * *
N ik o l a i Imperialism:
l e n in :
A Special Stage of Capitalism *
\
The Bolshevik Pivot 229
be, is a capitalist state, a machine used by the capitalists
to keep the working class and the poor peasants in sub
jection; while universal suffrage, a Constituent Assembly,
parliament are merely a form, a sort of promissory note,
which does not alter matters in any essential way.
The forms of domination of the state may vary: capital
manifests its power in one way where one form exists, and
in another way where another form exists—but essentially
the power is in the hands of capital, whether there are vot
ing qualifications or not, or whether the republic is a demo
cratic one or not—in fact the more democratic it is the
cruder and more cynical is the rule of capitalism. One of
the most democratic republics in the world is the United
States of America, yet nowhere (and those who were
there after 1905 probably know it) is the power of capital,
the power of a handful of billionaires over the whole of
society, so crude and so openly corrupt as in America. Once
capital exists, it dominates the whole of society, and no
democratic republic, no form of franchise can alter the
essence of the matter.
The democratic republic and universal suffrage were a
great progressive advance on feudalism: they have en
abled the proletariat to achieve its present unity and soli
darity, to form those firm and disciplined ranks which are
waging a systematic struggle against capital. There was
nothing even approximately resembling this among the
peasant serfs, not to speak of the slaves. The slaves as we
know revolted, rioted, started civil wars, but they could
never create a class-conscious majority and parties to lead
the struggle, they could not clearly realize what they were
aiming for, and even in the most revolutionary moments
of history they were always pawns in the hands of the
ruling classes. The bourgeois republic, parliament, uni
versal suffrage all represent great progress from the stand
point of the world development of society. Mankind moved
toward capitalism, and it was capitalism alone which,
thanks to urban culture, enabled the oppressed class of
proletarians to learn to know itself and to create the world
working class movement, the millions of workers who are
organized all over the world in parties—the Socialist par
ties which are consciously leading the struggle of the
masses. Without parliamentarianism, without elections, this
development of the working class would have been impos
sible. That is why all these things have acquired such
230 The Marxists
great importance in the eyes of the broad masses of peo
ple. That is why a radical change seems to be so difficult.
It is not only the conscious hypocrites, scientists and
priests that uphold and defend the bourgeois lie that the
state is free and that it is its duty to defend the interests
of all, but also a large number of people who sincerely ad
here to the old prejudices and who cannot understand the
transition from the old capitalist society to Socialism. It is
not only people who are directly dependent on the bour
geoisie, not only those who are oppressed by the yoke of
capital or who have been bribed by capital (there are a
large number of all sorts of scientists, artists, priests, etc.,
in the service of capital), but even people who are simply
under the sway of the prejudice of bourgeois liberty that
have taken up arms against Bolshevism all over the world
because of the fact that when it was founded the Soviet
Republic rejected these bourgeois lies and openly declared:
you say that your state is free, whereas in reality, as long
as there is private property, your state, even if it is a dem
ocratic republic, is nothing but a machine used by the capi
talists to suppress the workers, and the freer the state,
the more clearly is this expressed. Examples of this are
Switzerland in Europe and the United States in the Ameri
cas. Nowhere does capital rule so cynically and ruthlessly,
and nowhere is this so apparent, as in these countries, al
though they are democratic republics, no matter how finely
they are painted and notwithstanding all the talk about
labor democracy and the equality of all citizens. The fact
is that in Switzerland and America capital dominates, and
every attempt of the workers to achieve the slightest real
improvement in their condition is immediately met by civil
war. There are fewer soldiers, a smaller standing army in
these countries—Switzerland has a militia and every Swiss
has a gun at home, while in America there was no standing
army until quite recently— and so when there is a strike the
bourgeoisie arms, hires soldiery and suppresses the strike;
and nowhere is the suppression of the working class move
ment accompanied by such ruthless severity as in Switzer
land and in America, and nowhere does the influence of
capital in parliament manifest itself as powerfully as in
these countries. The power of capital is everything, the
stock exchange is everything, while parliament and elec
tions are marionettes, puppets. .. . But the eyes of the
workers are being opened more and more, and the idea of
The Bolshevik Pivot 231
Soviet government is spreading wider and wider, especially
after the bloody carnage through which we have just
passed. The necessity for a merciless war on the capitalists
is becoming clearer and clearer to the working class.
Whatever forms a republic may assume, even the most
democratic republic, if it is a bourgeois republic, if it re
tains private property in land, mills and factories, and if
private capital keeps the whole of society in wage slavery,
that is, if it does not carry out what is proclaimed in the
program of our Party and in the Soviet Constitution, then
this state is a machine for the suppression of certain peo
ple by others. And we shall place this machine in the hands
of the class that is to overthrow the power of capital. We
shall reject all the old prejudices about the state meaning
universal equality. That is a fraud: as long as there is ex
ploitation there cannot be equality. The landlord cannot
be the equal of the worker, the hungry man the equal of
the full man. The proletariat casts aside the machine
which was called the state and before which people bowed
in superstitious awe, believing the old tales that it means
popular rule— the proletariat casts aside the machine and
declares that it is a bourgeois lie. We have deprived the
capitalists of this machine and have taken it over. With
this machine, or bludgeon, we shall destroy all exploita
tion. And when the possibility of exploitation no longer
exists anywhere in the world, when there are no longer
owners of land and owners of factories, and when there is
no longer a situation in which some gorge while others
starve— only when the possibility of this no longer exists
shall we consign this machine to the scrap heap. Then
there will be no state and no exploitation. Such is the view
of our Communist Party.
NIKOLAI LEN IN !
Workers* Councils and the People*s Militia9
d
254 The Marxists
possible, to make concessions with one hand, and to with
draw them with the other.
Under certain conditions, if circumstances are most
favorable to it, the new government, relying on the organ
izing abilities of the entire Russian bourgeoisie and the
bourgeois intelligentsia, may temporarily avert the final
crash. But even under such conditions it cannot escape the
crash altogether, for it is impossible to escape the claws of
that terrible monster, begotten by world-capitalism—the
imperialist war and famine—without abandoning the whole
basis of bourgeois relations, without resorting to revolu
tionary measures, without appealing to the greatest his
torical heroism of the Russian and the world proletariat.
Hence the conclusion: We shall not be able to over
throw the new government with one stroke, or, should we
be able to do so (in revolutionary times the limits of the
possible are increased a thousandfold), we could not re
tain power, unless we met the splendid organization of the
entire Russian bourgeoisie and the entire bourgeois intel
ligentsia with an organization of the proletariat just as splen
did, leading the vast mass of the city and country poor,
the semi-proletarians and the petty proprietors.
It matters little whether the “second revolution” has al
ready broken out in Petrograd (I have stated that it would
be absurd to attempt to estimate from abroad the actual
tempo of its growth), whether it has been postponed for a
time, or whether it has begun in isolated localities in Rus
sia (there are some indications that this is the case)— in
any case the slogan of the hour right now, on the eve of the
revolution, during the revolution, and on the day after
the revolution, must be—proletarian organization.
Comrade-workers! Yesterday you displayed wonders of
proletarian heroism when you overthrew the tsarist mon
archy. Sooner or later (perhaps even now, while I am
writing these lines) you will inevitably be called upon
again to display wonders of similar heroism in overthrow
ing the power of the landowners and the capitalists who are
waging the imperialist war. But you will not be able to win
a permanent victory in this forthcoming “true” revolution,
unless you display wonders of proletarian organization!
The slogan of the hour is organization. But organiza
tion in itself does not mean much, because, on the one
hand, organization is always necessary, and, hence, the
mere insistence on “the organization of the masses” does
The Bolshevik Pivot 255
not yet clarify anything, and because, on the other hand, he
who contents himself with organization only is merely
echoing the views of the liberals; for the liberals, to
strengthen their rule, desire nothing better than to have
the workers refuse to go beyond the usual “legal” forms
of organization (from the point of view of “normal”
bourgeois society), i. e., to have them merely become mem
bers of their party, their trade union, their co-operative so
ciety, etc., etc.
The workers, guided by their class instinct, have realized
that in revolutionary times they need an entirely different
organization, of a type above the ordinary. They have
taken the right attitude suggested by the experience of our
revolution of 1905 and by the Paris Commune of 1871:
they have created a Soviet of Workers' Deputies, they have
set out to develop it, widen and strengthen it, by attracting
to it representatives of the soldiers and no doubt of the
hired agricultural workers, as well as (in one form or an
other) of the entire poor section of the peasantry.
To create similar organizations in all the localities of
Russia without exception, for all the trades and layers of
the proletarian and semi-proletarian population without
exception, i.e., for all the toilers and the exploited (to
use an expression that is less exact from the point of view
of economics but more popular), is our most important
and most urgent task. I will note right here that to the
peasant masses our party (whose specific role in the pro
letarian organizations of the new type I shall have occasion
to discuss in one of the forthcoming letters) must recom
mend with special emphasis the organization of Soviets of
hired workers and petty agriculturists, such as do not sell
their grain, those Soviets to have no connection with the
prosperous peasants— otherwise it will be impossible to
pursue a true proletarian policy, in a general sense,* nor
will it be possible correctly to approach the most important
practical question involving the life and death of millions of
people, i. e., the question of an equitable assessment of food
deliveries, of increasing its production, etc.
The question, then, is: What is to be the work of the
• There will now develop in the village a struggle for the petty, and
partly the middle, peasantry. The landowners, basing themselves on the
weli-to-do peasants, will lead them to submission to the bourgeoisie. We,
basing ourselves on the hired agricultural workers and poor peasants,
must lead them to the closest possible alliance with the proletariat of
the cities.
A
256 The Marxists
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies? We repeat what we once said
in No. 47 of the Geneva Social-Democrat (October 13,
1915): “They must be regarded as organs of insurrection,
as organs of revolutionary power.”
This theoretical formula, derived from the experience of
the Commune of 1871 and of the Russian Revolution of
1905, must be elucidated and concretely developed on the
basis of the practical experience gained at this very stage
of this very revolution in Russia.
We need revolutionary power, we need (for a certain
period of transition) the state. Therein we differ from the
Anarchists. The difference between revolutionary Marxists
and Anarchists lies not only in the fact that the former
stand for huge, centralized, communist production, while
the latter are for decentralized, small-scale production. No,
the difference as to government authority and the state
consists in this, that we stand for the revolutionary utiliza
tion of revolutionary forms of the state in our struggle for
Socialism, while the Anarchists are against it.
We need the state. But we need none of those types of
state varying from a constitutional monarchy to the most
democratic republic which the bourgeoisie has established
everywhere. And herein lies the difference between us and
the opportunists and Kautskians of the old, decaying Social
ist parties who have distorted or forgotten the lessons of
the Paris Commune and the analysis of these lessons by
Marx and Engels.
We need the state, but not the kind needed by the bour
geoisie, with organs of power in the form of police, army,
bureaucracy, distinct from and opposed to the people. All
bourgeois revolutions have merely perfected this govern
ment apparatus, have merely transferred it from one party
to another.
The proletariat, however, if it wants to preserve the gains
of the present revolution and to proceed further to win
peace, bread, and freedom, must “destroy ” to use Marx’s
word, this “ready-made” state machinery, and must replace
it by another one, merging the police, the army, and the
bureaucracy with the universally arm ed people. Advancing
along the road indicated by the experience of the Paris
Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of 1905, the
proletariat must organize and arm all the poorest and most
exploited sections of the population, so that they themselves
may take into their own hands all the organs of state
The Bolshevik Pivot 257
power, that they themselves may constitute these organs.
The workers of Russia have already, with the very first
stage of the first revolution, March, 1917, entered on this
course. The whole problem now is to understand clearly
the nature of this new course and courageously, firmly, and
persistently, to continue on it.
The Anglo-French and the Russian capitalists wanted
“only” to displace, or merely to “scare,” Nicholas II,
leaving the old machinery of the state—the police, the
army, the bureaucracy—intact.
The workers have gone further; they have smashed it.
And now not only the Anglo-French, but even the German
capitalists howl with rage and horror when they see Russian
soldiers shooting their officers, some of whom were even
supporters of Guchkov and Miliukov, as Admiral Nepenin,
for example.
I have said that the workers have smashed the old state
machinery. To be more precise. They have begun to smash
it.
Let us take a concrete example.
The police of Petrograd and many other places have
been partly killed off, and partly removed. The Guchkov-
Miliukov government will not be able to restore the mon
archy, or even to retain power, unless it re-establishes the
police as an organization of armed men separated from and
opposed to the people and under the command of the bour
geoisie. This is as clear as the clearest day.
On the other hand, the new government must reckon with
the revolutionary masses, must humor them with half-con
cessions and promises, trying to gain time. Hence it agrees
to half-measures: it institutes a “people’s militia” with
elected officers (this sounds terribly imposing, terribly
democratic, revolutionary, and beautiful!). B u t. . . b u t. . .
first of all, it places the militia under the control of the
local zemstvo and city organs of self-government, i. e., un
der the control of landowners and capitalists elected under
the laws of Nicholas the Bloody and Stolypin the Hang
man!! Secondly, though it calls it the “people’s” militia to
throw dust into the eyes of the “people,” it does not, as a
matter of fact call the people for universal service in this
militia, nor does it compel the bosses and the capitalists to
pay their employees the usual wage for the hours and the
days they devote to public service, i. e., to the militia.
There is where the main trick is. That is how the land
258 The Marxists
owner and capitalist government of the Guchkovs and
Miliukovs achieves its aim of keeping the “people’s militia”
on paper, while in reality it is quietly and step by step or
ganizing a bourgeois militia hostile to the people, first of
“8,000 students and professors” (as the foreign press de
scribes the present militia in Petrograd)—which is obviously
a mere toy!—then, gradually, of the old and the new po
lice.
Do not permit the re-establishment of the police! Do not
let go the local government organs! Create a really universal
militia, led by the proletariat! This is the task of the day,
this is the slogan of the present hour, equally in accord
with the correctly understood requirements of the further
development of the class struggle, the further course of the
revolution, and with the democratic instinct of every
worker, every peasant, every toiler, every one who is ex
ploited, who cannot but hate the police, the constables, the
command of landowners and capitalists over armed men
who wield power over the people.
What kind of police do they need, these Guchkovs and
Miliukovs, these landowners and capitalists? The same kind
that existed during the tsarist monarchy. Following very
brief revolutionary periods, all the bourgeois and bour
geois-democratic republics of the world organized or re
established precisely that kind of police—a special organi
zation of armed men, separated from and opposed to the
people, and in one way or another subordinated to the
bourgeoisie.
What kind of militia do we need, we, the proletariat, all
the toilers? A real people’s militia, i. e., first of all, one that
consists of the entire population, of all the adult citizens of
both sexes; secondly, one that combines the functions of a
people’s army with those of the police, and with the func
tions of the main and fundamental organ of the state sys
tem and the state administration.
To give more concreteness to these propositions, let us try
a schematic example. Needless to say, the idea of laying out
any “plan” for a proletarian militia would be absurd: when
the workers, and all the people as a real mass, take up this
task in a practical way, they will work it out and secure
it a hundred times better than any theoretician can propose.
I am not offering a plan— all I want is to illustrate my
thought.
Petrograd has a population of about two million, more
The Bolshevik Pivot 259
than half of which is between the ages of 15 and 65. Let
us take a half—one million. Let us deduct one-fourth to
allow for the sick or other instances where people cannot
be engaged in public service for a valid reason. There still
remain 750,000 persons, who, working in the militia one
day out of every fifteen (continuing to receive payment
from their employers for this time), would make up an
army of 50,000 people.
This is the type of “state” that we need!
This is the kind of militia that would be, in deed, and
not only in name, a “people’s militia.”
This is the road we must follow if we wish to make im
possible the re-establishment of a special police, or a spe
cial army, separated from the people.
Such a militia would, in ninety-five cases out of a hun
dred, be composed of workers and peasants, and would
express the real intelligence and the will, the strength and
the authority of the overwhelming majority of the people.
Such a militia would actually arm and give military train
ing to the people at large, thus making sure, in a manner
not employed by Guchkov, nor Miliukov, against all at
tempts to re-establish reaction, against all efforts of the
tsarist agents. Such a militia would be the executive organ
of the “Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” it
would enjoy the full respect and confidence of the popula
tion, because it would, itself, be an organization of the en
tire population. Such a militia would change democracy
from a pretty signboard, hiding the enslavement and decep
tion of the people by the capitalists, into a real means for
educating the masses so that they might be able to take part
in all the affairs of the state. Such a militia would draw the
youngsters into political life, training them not only by
word, but by deed and work. Such a militia would develop
those functions which belong, to use learned terms, to the
welfare police, sanitary supervision, etc., by drawing into
such activities all the adult women without exception. With
out drawing the women into social service, into the militia,
into political life, without tearing the women away from
the stupefying domestic and kitchen atmosphere it is im
possible to secure real freedom, it is impossible to build
a democracy, let alone Socialism.
Such a militia would be a proletarian militia, because the
industrial and the city workers would just as naturally and
inevitably assume in it the leadership of the masses of the
260 The Marxists
poor, as naturally and inevitably as they took the leading
position in all the revolutionary struggles of the people in
the years 1905-1907, and in 1917.
Such a militia would guarantee absolute order and a
comradely discipline practiced with enthusiasm. At the
same time, it would afford a means of struggling in a real
democratic manner against the crisis through which all the
warring nations are now passing; it would make possible the
regular and prompt assessment of food and other supply
levies, the establishment of “universal labor duty” which
the French now call “civil mobilization” and the Germans
—“obligatory civil service,” and without which, as has been
demonstrated, it is impossible to heal the wounds that were
and are being inflicted by this predatory and horrible war.
Has the proletariat of Russia shed its blood only to re
ceive luxurious promises of mere political democratic re
forms? Will it not demand and make sure that every toiler
should see and feel a certain improvement in his life right
now? That every family should have sufficient bread? That
every child should have a bottle of good milk, and that no
adult in a rich family should dare take extra milk until all
the children are supplied? That the palaces and luxurious
homes left by the Tsar and the aristocracy should not stand
idle but should provide shelter to the homeless and the
destitute? What other organization except a universal peo
ple’s militia with women participating on a par with the
men can effect these measures?
Such measures do not yet constitute Socialism. They deal
with distribution of consumption, not with the reorganiza
tion of industry. They do not yet constitute the “dictator
ship of the proletariat,” but merely a “revolutionary-demo
cratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the poorest peas
antry.” Theoretical classification doesn’t matter now. It
would indeed be a grave error if we tried now to fit the
complex, urgent, rapidly unfolding practical tasks of the
revolution into the Procrustean bed of a narrowly con
ceived “theory,” instead of regarding theory first of all and
above all as a guide to action.
Will the mass of Russian workers have sufficient class
consciousness, self-discipline and heroism to show “won
ders of proletarian organization” after they have displayed
wonders of courage, initiative and self-sacrifice in direct
revolutionary struggle? This we do not know, and to make
The Bolshevik Pivot 261
conjectures about it would be idle, for such questions are
answered only by life itself.
What we do know definitely and what we must as a
party explain to the masses is that we have on hand a his
toric motive power of tremendous force that causes an un
heard-of crisis, hunger and countless miseries. This motive
is the war which the capitalists of both warring camps are
waging for predatory purposes. This “motive power” has
brought a number of the richest, freest, and most enlight
ened nations to the brink of an abyss. It forces nations to
strain all their strength to the breaking point, it places
them in an insufferable position, it makes imperative the
putting into effect not of “theories” (that is out of the
question, and Marx had repeatedly warned Socialists against
this illusion), but of most extreme yet practical measures,
because without these extreme measures there is death, im
mediate and indubitable death for millions of people
through hunger.
That revolutionary enthusiasm on the part of the most
advanced class can accomplish much when objective con
ditions demand extreme measures from the entire people,
need not be argued. This aspect of the case is clearly seen
and felt by everyone in Russia.
It is important to understand that in revolutionary times
the objective situation changes as rapidly and as suddenly
as life itself. We should be able to adjust our tactics and our
immediate objectives to the peculiarities of every given
situation. Up to March, 1917, our task was to conduct a
bold revolutionary-internationalist propaganda, to awaken
and call the masses to struggle. In the March days there
was required the courage of heroic struggle to crush tsarism
—the most immediate foe. We are now going through a tran
sition from the first stage of the revolution to the second,
from a “grapple” with tsarism to a “grapple” with the im
perialism of Guchkov-Miliukov, of the capitalists and the
landowners. Our immediate problem is organization, not in
the sense of effecting ordinary organization by ordinary
methods, but in the sense of drawing large masses of the op
pressed classes in unheard-of numbers into the organization,
and of embodying in this organization military, state, and
national economic problems.
The proletariat has approched this unique task and will
approach it in a variety of ways. In some localities of Rus
262 The Marxists
sia the March revolution has given the proletariat almost
full power— in others, the proletariat will begin to build up
and strengthen the proletarian militia perhaps by “usurpa
tion”; in still others, it will, probably, work for immediate
elections, on the basis of universal suffrage, to the city
councils and zemstvos, in order to turn them into revolu
tionary centers, etc., until the growth of proletarian organi
zation, the rapprochement of soldiers and workers, the
stirring within the peasantry, the disillusionment of very
many about the competence of the militarist-imperialist
government of Guchkov and Miliukov shall have brought
nearer the hour when that government will give place to
the “government” of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.
Nor must we forget that right near Petrograd there is
one of the most advanced, actually republican, countries
—Finland—a country which from 1905 up to 1917,
shielded by the revolutionary struggles in Russia, has de
veloped a democracy by comparatively peaceful means,
and has won the majority of its population over to Social
ism. The Russian proletariat will insure the freedom of the
Finnish republic, even to the point of separation (there is
hardly a Social-Democrat who would hesitate on this score
now, when the Cadet Rodichev is so shamefully haggling in
Helsingfors over bits of privileges for the Great Russians),
and thus gain the full confidence and comradely aid of the
Finnish workers for the all-Russian proletarian cause. In
a difficult and great cause errors are unavoidable, nor shall
we avoid them; the Finnish workers are better organizers,
they will help us in this and, in their own way, bring nearer
the establishment of a Socialist republic.
Revolutionary victories in Russia itself—quiet organiza
tional successes in Finland shielded by the above victories
—the Russian workers taking up revolutionary-organiza
tional tasks on a new scale—conquest of power by the pro
letariat and the poorest strata of the population—encour
aging and developing the Socialist revolution in the West—
this is the path that will lead us to peace and Socialism.
National Liberation Movements
N ik o l a i l e n i n :
and the Socialist Revolution 10
If we add to this the fact that not only the defeated coun
tries and colonies are being exploited by the victorious
countries, but that some of the victorious countries have
fallen into the orbit of financial exploitation by the more
powerful of the victorious powers, America and England;
that the contradictions among all these countries form a
very important factor in the decay of world capitalism; that,
in addition to these contradictions very profound contra
dictions exist and are developing within each one of these
countries; that all these contradictions are growing in pro
fundity and acuteness because of the existence, alongside
these countries, of the republic of Soviets—if all this is
taken into consideration, then the picture of the peculiar
nature of the international situation becomes more or less
complete.
Most probably, the world revolution will develop along
the line of a series of new countries dropping out of the
system of the imperialist countries as a result of revolu
tion, while the proletarians of these countries will be sup
ported by the proletariat of the imperialist states. We see
that the first country to break away, the first country to
win is already supported by the workers and toiling masses
of other countries. Without this support it could not main
tain itself. Beyond a doubt, this support will grow and be
come stronger and stronger. But it is likewise beyond a
doubt that the very development of the world revolution,
the very process of the breaking away of a number of new
countries from imperialism will be more rapid and more
thorough, the more thoroughly socialism fortifies itself in
the first victorious country, the faster this country is trans
formed into the basis for the further unfolding of the world
revolution, into the lever for the further disintegration of
imperialism.
If the postulate that the final victory of socialism in the
first country to emancipate itself is impossible without the
combined efforts of the proletarians of several countries is
true, then it is equally true that the more effective the assist
ance rendered by the first socialist country to the workers
and toiling masses of all other countries, the more rapid
and thorough will be the development of the world revo
lution.
300 The Marxists
By what should this assistance be expressed?
It should be expressed, first, by the victorious country
achieving the “utmost possible in one country for the de
velopment, support and stirring up of the revolution in all
countries”
Second, it should be expressed in that the “victorious
proletariat” of one country, “having expropriated the
capitalists and organized its own socialist production, would
rise . . . against the rest of the capitalist world, attract to it
self the oppressed classes of other countries, raise revolts
among them against the capitalists, and in the event of
necessity, come out even with armed force against the
exploiting classes and their states.”
The characteristic feature of the assistance given by the
victorious country is that it not only hastens the victory
of the proletarians of other countries, but likewise guaran
tees, by facilitating this victory, the final victory of social
ism in the first victorious country.
The most probable thing is that, side by side with the
centers of imperialism in separate capitalist countries and
the systems of these countries throughout the world, cen
ters of socialism will be created, in the course of the world
revolution, in separate Soviet countries and systems of these
centers throughout the world, and the struggle between
these two systems will constitute the history of the devel
opment of the revolution: “For”—says Lenin— “the free
federation of nations in socialism is impossible without a
more or less prolonged and stubborn struggle by the social
ist republics against the backward states.”
The world significance of the October Revolution lies
not only in its constituting a great start made by one coun
try in the work of breaking through the system of imperial
ism and the creation of the first land of socialism in the
ocean of imperialist countries, but likewise in its constituting
the first stage in the world revolution and a mighty basis
for its further development.
Therefore, those who, forgetting the international char
acter of the October Revolution, declare the victory of
socialism in one country to be purely national, and only
a national phenomenon, are wrong. And those too, who, al
though bearing in mind the international character of the
October Revolution, are inclined to regard this revolution
as something passive, merely destined to accept help from
without, are equally wrong. As a matter of fact not only
The Stalinist Consolidation 301
does the October Revolution need support from the revolu
tionary movement of other countries, but revolution in
those countries needs the support of the October Revolu
tion in order to accelerate and advance the cause of over
throwing world imperialism.
f r a n z b o r k e n a u : Communism as an
International Movement. 4
Stalin’s Proposal:
1. The Political Bureau Commission for Foreign Af
fairs (“Sextet”) is to concern itself in the future, in ad
dition to foreign affairs, also with matters of internal
construction and domestic policy.
2. The Sextet is to add to its roster the Chairman of
the State Commission of Economic Planning of the
USSR, Comrade Voznesensky, and is to be known as a
Septet.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee, J. Stalin.
e d i t o r ’s n o t e
Shortly after the issuance of this document of established
marxism, as I suppose it may be called, the Yugoslavs re
408 The Marxists
sponded with a very sharp reaction.6 In their view, the ap
peal was not “one of the important Marxist-Leninist docu
ments”; it was not significant as a “guide to action” for
communist parties, either in or outside the Bloc. The Yugo
slavs are quite naturally interested in it, first, from the
point of view of its treatment of the Yugoslav way to so
cialism, which the statement fiercely denounced; secondly,
and more generally, “from the point of view of the method
in which the current problems affecting the activity of all
the parties and movements which struggle for socialism are
considered.”
Mr. Vlahovic’s pamphlet, of some 80 pages, concludes
that “The effect of positive positions and conclusions in
the Declaration on a number of questions is reduced by
attacks against socialist Yugoslavia.. . . Obviously, these at
tacks encourage those forces in communist parties to whom
the campaign against socialist Yugoslavia has become a
component part of their internal political life in order to
divert attention of the working people from their own prob
lems. This is proved by the so-to-speak everyday attacks
against our country in the press and over the radio in
China and Albania, because the Moscow Declaration has
legalized their present campaign against us.”
While all this is indicative of the ideological battle be
tween Yugoslavia and the Bloc, from our own point of
view it is more important as it underlines two other points.
First, “marxism” or “marxian-leninism” is not by any
means “contained” within the soviet bloc. Second, even
within that Bloc, as the very fact and the length of the
Moscow meeting would seem to indicate, there are sharp
differences of doctrine and of policy. We should not ig
nore the often savage and important differences of opinion,
affecting actions directly which flourish within the Bloc,
outside the Bloc and between the Bloc and the marxist
outsiders.
Such, then, are the premises upon which our political and
economic system is developing. It is a system which
makes actually possible the direct participation of every
citizen in management, promotes the contest of views,
stimulates individual initiative, and fosters the free devel
opment of the forces of Socialism. Whilst accomplishing
this, it is capable, as a unified system of socialist democracy,
of defending itself against attacks from anti-socialist po
sitions. It is precisely this fact which explains why it is also
the form best fitted for carrying out the process of the
gradual withering away of the different forms of political
monopoly.
Herein, indeed, lies the essential difference between classi
cal bourgeois and direct socialist democracy. The first is
Marxism Outside the Bloc 439
a state form. The second, in essence, is a form of the with
ering away of the state. . . .
J
440 The Marxists
lieves many of them to have been guilty. This is indeed a
formidable indictment, from which it is impossible to es
cape by attributing all the evil that has been done to dis
credited individuals, such as Stalin or Beria; for it is evi
dent that the entire Communist leadership has been in
volved, and that many essential features of Communist rule
remain unchanged even now that it has become fashionable
to denounce Stalin, as well as Trotsky, and to admit that
serious “mistakes” have been made.
It is a plain fact of history that Communists, wherever
they have held power, have been ruthless in suppressing
opposition and in maintaining one-party dictatorial rule;
that they have been callous about the infliction of suffering
on anyone they have regarded as a political enemy or po
tential counter-revolutionary; that they have engaged in
wholesale misrepresentation and often in plain lying about
their opponents and have kept from their peoples the means
of correcting their false statements by preventing them from
acquiring true information; and that they have without
scruple betrayed non-Communist Socialists who have at
tempted to work with them in the cause of working-class
unity but have not been prepared to accept complete sub
jection to Communist Party control. It is no less a matter of
history that after the First World War the Comintern, in
pursuance of its campaign for world revolution, deliber
ately split the working-class movement in every country
to which it could extend its influence, and thus opened the
door wide to the various forms of Fascism that destroyed
the movement in many countries—notably in Italy, Ger
many, and the Balkan States.
Nevertheless, though the indictment is heavy and un
answerable, it is not enough; for it ignores a number of
vital facts. The first of these is that the Communists, what
ever their vices, did carry through the Revolution in Rus
sia and maintain it against all the efforts of world capi
talism to encircle and destroy it, and that the Revolution
in Russia did overthrow landlordism and capitalism and
socialize the means of production, thus insuring that the
vast increase in productive power which was achieved after
the desperate struggles of the early years should accrue in
the long run to the benefit of the workers and peasants and
should lift Russia from primitive barbarism to a leading
position among the world’s peoples.
The second fact is that the Russian Revolution, though
Marxism Outside the Bloc 441
it did not usher in the world revolution for which the Bol
sheviks hoped, did largely help to set on foot the great
movements for emancipation among the peoples of Asia
and Africa which are rapidly transforming the world into a
much more equal community and are helping to destroy
imperialism and racial discrimination and to attack at its
roots the exploitation of the underdeveloped countries by
the more advanced.
The third fact is that, despite all the abuses of dictator
ship in the Communist countries, it is unquestionable that
the life of workers and peasants in Soviet Russia is im
mensely preferable to what they endured under Tsarism
and that their status and opportunities for culture and good
living—politics apart—have been immensely advanced.
In the light of these facts, deeply though I disapprove
and hate many aspects of Communist rule and philosophy,
I cannot regard Communism simply as an enemy to be
fought. It is unrealistic to imagine that revolution could
have been successfully carried through in Russia or in other
parts of Eastern Europe and Asia by the methods of a
“liberal” democracy of which no tradition, and for which
no basis, existed in these societies, or that on the morrow
of the Revolution they could have settled down under lib
eral-democratic regimes of the western type. Such regimes
imply the existence of a readiness to accept the accom
plished fact, and to accommodate oneself to it, that sim
ply did not exist in Russia or China or in the other coun
tries which have been conquered by Communism. To say
that Russia or China ought not to have “gone Communist”
is, in effect, to say that the Russian and Chinese revolu
tions ought not to have occurred at all; and, far from being
willing to say this, I regard these two revolutions as the
greatest achievements of the modern world. I do not mean
that all the bad things that have been done in these coun
tries since the revolutions have to be accepted as inevitable
concomitants of the revolution.. . . But I am not pre
pared to denounce the revolutions because of the abuses
that took place under them; to do so would be sheer treason
to the cause of world Socialism.. . .
I have also, as a Socialist, to define my attitude both to
present Communist trends in the Soviet Union— and in
China as far as I understand them—and in Yugoslavia,
and to the Communist parties of the countries not under
Communist control— above all, France and Italy. As for
442 The Marxists
the Soviet Union, I have naturally followed with deep at
tention the proceedings of the recent Communist Congress
and the denunciations of the “personality cult”— and of
Stalin as its exponent—and have observed that these at
tacks in no way involve any going back on the general
principle of one-party dictatorship or any tolerance of op
position to the Party’s policy. They only substitute collec
tive for personal leadership; and it remains to be seen
whether they imply any effective democratization of the
Party itself, such as would allow policy to be determined
from below, by rank-and-file opinion, rather than imposed
by the collective leadership on the main body of the Party.
I am not disposed to regard what has occurred as carrying
with it any fundamental modification of Communist phi
losophy, though I hope it will because I am hopeful that
the leaders will not be able to stop the process of destalini-
zation just where they would wish it to stop. I am hopeful
that they will find themselves carried by stages much fur
ther along the road of liberalization, as in effect the Yugo
slavs have been since their break with the Cominform; and
I believe it to be of the first importance that non-Commu
nist Socialists should stand ready to welcome every sign
of such liberalization and should not reject even relatively
small advances out of hand.
As for Yugoslavia, where the one-party system remains
but has been made compatible with a good deal of free
discussion and with a considerable decentralization of
power, I believe the time has come for non-Communist
Socialists of the left to do their utmost to enter into friendly
relations with the Yugoslav Communists and to endeavor
to build a Socialist International broad enough to include
them as well as the Socialists of the West and the Asian
Socialists who are suspicious of the Socialist International
in its present form. The Yugoslavs have been making
most interesting and important advances in the direction of
workers’ control in industry and of democratic institutions
of local government; and Western Socialists should be
ready to learn from them as well as to criticize.
As for the Communist parties in the West, and especially
in Italy and France, where they control the major part of
the trade unions and are powerful electoral forces, it seems
utterly clear that, in these countries, Socialism cannot
possibly be achieved, or any substantial advance toward it
made, without their collaboration; and it is accordingly
Marxism Outside the Bloc 443
imperative, not indeed to constitute with them an imme
diate United Front—for which the conditions are not yet
ripe— but not to rule out the possibility of accommoda
tion, and to seize on every chance of improving Socialist-
Communist relations without sacrificing essential demo
cratic principles. In Italy, a special problem presents itself
because of the existence of a powerful Socialist Party—
the Nenni Party—that works with the Communists in op
position to the much smaller Saragat Party that alone is
recognized by the Socialist International. My sympathies
are much more with the Nenni than with the Saragat So
cialists; and in my view left-wing Socialists in other coun
tries should be ready to co-operate and confer freely with
the Nenni Party, which can be of great use in breaking
down the barriers in the way of united international So
cialist action.
In Great Britain, where the Communist Party is negli
gible as a political force, there is no case for an United
Front—the more so because the Party is peculiarly sec
tarian and doctrinaire. But there is a case for recognizing
the plain fact that the Communists are a quite consider
able force in a number of trade unions and will continue to
be a disruptive and trouble-making force as long as the
attempt is made to ostracize them. I am not unaware of
the mischief that a small, highly disciplined, unscrupulous
minority out to make trouble can do to an organization
consisting quite largely of rather apathetic adherents. Nev
ertheless, I am against the adoption of rules excluding
Communists from trade union office, and still more against
the tendency of some trade union leaders to brand every
left-wing trade unionist as a Communist or “fellow trav
eler.” I believe that the way to build a strong, democratic
movement is to decentralize power and responsibility and
to combat Communism, not by exclusions, but by increas
ing the numbers who can take an active part in trade union
affairs and by carrying out a really big campaign of trade
union education in economic and political matters.
For my own part, I reject the Communist philosophy,
as inappropriate to the conditions of countries which pos
sess, in any high degree, liberal traditions of free speech,
free association, and freedom to change their institutions
by peaceful means. I hate the ruthlessness, the cruelty, and
the centralized authoritarianism which are basic charac
teristics of Communist practice; and I do not intend to
444 The Marxists
mince my words in attacking them. But I also believe in
the need for working-class unity as a necessary condition
of the advance to Socialism; and I understand why, espe
cially in countries subject to the extremes of reactionary
class rule, so many Socialists, in reaction against the fu
tility of impotent reformism, have rallied to the Communist
cause. I want my fellow-Socialists to understand this too;
for, unless they do, they will waste their energies in fight
ing against their fellow-workers instead of using them to
further the victory of Socialism on a world-wide scale.
G
German Ideology, The: “Theses on Feuerbach, Karl
Marx, 70-71. See also 26 fnt., 84.
Guevara, Ernesto “Che,” “Notes for the Study of the
Ideology of the Cuban Revolution,” 454-467.
H
Hilferding, Rudolf, “State Capitalism or Totalitarian State
Economy,” 334-339.
H istory o f Socialism, G. D. H. Cole, 133 fnt.
H istory o f the Russian R evolution, The, Leon Trotsky,
“The Law of Uneven and Combined Development in
Index 477
Russian History,” 264-268; “The Art of Insurrection,”
269-275.
K
Kardelj, Edvard, ‘T he Practice of Socialist Democracy in
Yugoslavia,” 416-439. See also 153-154.
Kautsky, Karl (1854-1938), 135, 137, 138.
Social Revolution, The, 159-177.
Khrushchev, Nikita (b. 1894), 151-152, 470, 471-474.
Speech before the 20th Congress, February 25, 1956,
364-373. See also 152.
M
Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Fried
rich Engels, 46-67.
Mao Tse-tung (b. 1893), 152, 154, 470.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the
People, 388-402. See also 152.
Marx, Karl (1818-1883), 10-12, 14, 15, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27;
30-40; 41; 81-95; 105-131; 133, 134 fnt., 151. See also
96-104; 468-470, 473-474.
Capital, 43-45, 67-70. See also 26 fnt., 39 fnt., 83, 84,
97.
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 41
43.
Critique of the Gotha Program, 89. See also 26 fnt.
The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,
26 fnt.
The German Ideology, 70-71. See also 26 fnt., 84.
Manifesto of the Communist Party, 46-67.
“Theses on Feuerbach,” from The German Ideology, 70
71.
Marxism and Linguistics, Joseph Stalin, 301-302.
O
“October Revolution and Tactics, The,” Joseph Stalin, from
Leninism, 298-301.
“On Co-operation,” Nikolai Lenin, from Selected Works,
246-253.
On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the Peo
ple, Mao Tse-tung, 388-402.
P
Permanent Revolution, The, Leon Trotsky, 275-279; 280
284.
Polish Road, The: Excerpts from Minutes, Polish United
Workers’ Party, 409-415. See also 155.
“Polish United Workers’ Party, Minutes of the,” from The
Polish Road, 409-415. See also 155.
Index 479
Preface to the Class Struggle in France, Friedrich Engels,
136.
T
“Theses on Feuerbach,” Karl Marx, from The German
Ideology, 70-71.
Togliatti, Palmiro (b. 1893), 152.
“Answers to Nine Questions about Stalinism, June 16,
1956,” 373-388.
Trotsky, Leon (1877-1940), 99, 135, 139-142, 143, 146,
147-149; 470.
‘T he Art of Insurrection,” from The History of the Rus
sian Revolution, 269-275. . ,
“The L a £ of Unefor^ and/-Combined jieVplop'knelil in
Russian History,’ from The History of the Russian
Revolution, 264-268.
480 The Marxists
Literature and Revolution, 285-289. '
The Permanent Revolution, 275-279; 280-284.
The Revolution Betrayed, 309-333:
20th Congress, February 25, 1956, Speech Before, Nikita
Khrushchev, 364-373. See also 152.
W '
b 7 24 A A 30 *