100 Years of the Great October Socialist Revolution
As part of the publications celebrating 100 years of the glorious and Great Socialist Revolution of October, we proceed with the presentation of the second and final part of extracts from the book On the Foundations of Leninism, the work of the great Stalin, which presents us with the systematization of theses of the great Lenin forged in the fire of proletarian revolution and the struggle for power in Russia.
We briefly present the magisterial Leninist formulations on the dictatorship of the proletariat and the party of a new type in the process of conquering, maintaining and advancing proletarian power towards the luminous communism. Theses on which Chairman Mao Tsetung in the great Chinese Revolution would develop the third, new and higher stage of Marxism: Maoism.
Together with the extracts of On the Fundamentals of Leninism, the following are prominent considerations on the remarkable development of Marxism as a science to this day with the all-powerful Gonzalo thought.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
The question of proletarian dictatorship is, above all, the question of the essential content of the proletarian revolution. The proletarian revolution, its movement, its amplitude, its conquests only take shape through the dictatorship of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the instrument of the proletarian revolution, its organ, its most important point of support, created in the first place to crush the resistance of the overthrown exploiters and consolidate the achievements of the revolution, and secondly, to carry out the proletarian revolution, to bring the revolution to the full victory of socialism. Overcoming the bourgeoisie and overthrowing its power is something the revolution could do without the dictatorship of the proletariat. But to crush the resistance of the bourgeoisie, to sustain victory and to continue advancing until the definitive triumph of socialism, the revolution could no longer do so if it did not create a special organ, the dictatorship of the proletariat, its fundamental support.
“The fundamental question of every revolution is the question of power” (Lenin). Does this mean that everything is reduced to the seizing of Power, to the conquest of Power? No. The seizing of Power is only the beginning of the work. The bourgeoisie, overthrown in one country, has for many years been, for many reasons, stronger than the proletariat which overthrew it. Therefore, it is all about conserving Power, consolidating it, making it invincible. What does it take to achieve this goal? It is necessary to fulfill at least three main tasks, which present themselves to the dictatorship of the proletariat, “one day after victory”:
a) to overcome the resistance of the landlords and the capitalists overthrown and expropriated by the revolution, to crush all kinds of attempts to restore the power of capital;
b) to organize the construction so that all the workers group around the proletariat and to develop this work in order to prepare the liquidation, the suppression of the classes;
c) arm the revolution, organize the army of the revolution to fight against external enemies, to fight against imperialism.
“The transition from capitalism to communism represents an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch has terminated, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hopeis converted into attempts at restoration. ” (Lenin, collected works, vol. XXIII, pg 355)
There is no need to demonstrate that accomplishing these tasks in the short term, that accomplishing all this in a few years, is absolutely impossible. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transition from capitalism to communism, not as a short period of “ultra-revolutionary” acts and decrees, but as an entire historical epoch, full of civil wars and external conflicts, organizational and economic development, of advances and setbacks, of victories and defeats.
“But from this capitalist democracy–that is inevitably narrow and stealthily pushes aside the poor, and is therefore hypocritical and false through and through–forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly, towards “greater and greater democracy”, as the liberal professors and petty-bourgeois opportunists would have us believe. No, forward development, i.e., development towards communism, proceeds through the dictatorship of the proletariat, and cannot do otherwise, for the resistance of the capitalist exploiters cannot be broken by anyone else or in any other way.
And the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the organization of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of suppressing the oppressors, cannot result merely in an expansion of democracy. Simultaneously with an immense expansion of democracy, which for the first time becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the money-bags, the dictatorship of the proletariat imposes a series of restrictions on the freedom of the oppressors, the exploiters, the capitalists. We must suppress them in order to free humanity from wage slavery, their resistance must be crushed by force; it is clear that there is no freedom and no democracy where there is suppression and where there is violence.” (Lenin, The State and Revolution)
“the dictatorship of the proletariat is a stubborn struggle – bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative – against the forces and traditions of the old society”(Lenin, Collected works, vol XXV, pg 173 and 190)
THE SOVIET POWER
The victory of the dictatorship of the proletariat means the crushing of the bourgeoisie, the demolition of the bourgeois state machine, the substitution of bourgeois democracy for proletarian democracy. This is clear. But through what organizations can this gigantic work be carried out? There is no doubt that the old forms of organization of the proletariat, arising on the basis of bourgeois parliamentarism, are not sufficient. What, then, are the new forms of organization of the proletariat capable of playing the role of gravediggers of the bourgeois state machine, capable not only of demolishing this machine, and of replacing bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy, of proletarian state power?
SOVIETES ARE NEW ORGANIZATION
The essence of Soviet power consists in the fact that these most all-embracing and most revolutionary mass organisations of precisely those classes that were oppressed by the capitalist and landlords are now the “permanent and sole basis of the whole power of the state, of the whole state apparatus”; that “precisely those masses which even in the most democratic bourgeois republics,” while being equal in law, “have in fact been prevented by thousands of tricks and devices from taking part in political life and from enjoying democratic rights and liberties, are now drawn unfailingly into constant and, moreover, decisive participation in the democratic administration of the state”. (Lenin, Collected Works, vol XXIV, pg 13)
Hence, Soviet power is a new form of state organization, which is distinguished in principle from the old bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary form, is a new type of state, adapted not to the ends of exploitation and oppression of the working masses, but to the complete liberation of all oppression and exploitation, for the purposes of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the fact that only the Soviet form of State, making the mass organizations of the workers and the exploited participate in a continuous and unconditional way of the state government, is in a position to prepare for the extinction of the State, which is one of the essential elements of the future stateless society, the communist society.
“The Republic of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies is not only the form of a higher type of democratic institution…but is the onlyform capable of ensuring the most painless transition to socialism” (Lenin, Collected Works, vol XXII, pg 131).
DICTATORSHIP OF THE REVOLUTIONARY CLASSES
It was precisely on the basis of the Leninist theses of the dictatorship of the proletariat, applied in the form of the Soviet power led by the Bolshevik Party, that Chairman Mao Tsetung later developed the Marxist theory of the State. The New Democracy, an extraordinary advance that established the theory of revolution for countries dominated by imperialism as a new bourgeois-democratic revolution that can only be led by the proletariat. Thus established New Democracy as a joint dictatorship of the revolutionary classes based on the Workers ‘and Peasants’ Alliance, led by the proletariat through the Communist Party, which in China was consolidated in the course of its democratic revolution. In short, a democratic revolution within the new era of the World Proletarian Revolution in which we have developed.
It is essential to emphasize, within this development of state theory, the key difference between a state system as a class dictatorship or classes that exercise power, which is the main, and system of government (political system) understood as an organization for the exercise of Power.
On this issue it is also important to emphasize the relationship between the Front and State that Chairman Mao established, stating that the Revolutionary Single Front is a form of joint dictatorship when, with the People’s War, it destroys the living forces of reaction and establishes a new Power. With the Autumn Harvest Uprising and the continuation of the guerrilla war establishing the revolutionary support base in the Chingkang Mountains, the new Power emerged, the embryo of the New State. Similarly, when the main contradiction came to that of the anti-Japanese war, anti-Japanese revolutionary bases of support emerged. In both cases the revolutionary single front took the form of Front / New State under construction. This issue deserves to be especially studied by those who face democratic revolutions.
It was Chairman Mao Tsetung who for the first time developed a complete theory on the Single Front and established its laws. A front based on the worker-peasant alliance as guarantee of the hegemony of the proletariat in the revolution; a single front under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party for the revolution.
DICTATORSHIP OF PROLETARIAT IN GPRC
In the period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) – the highest cornerstone of the world proletarian revolution and the deepest and most broad stage in the development of the socialist revolution and the continuation of the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat in China – millions of masses took in their hands the state affairs, the political, military, cultural and production problems, and overthrew the false revolutionaries embedded in the Party, the People’s Liberation Army and the State, giving rise to the Revolutionary Committees Three-in-One, such as the New Power of the proletariat. They were formed by supporters of President Mao’s revolutionary line, and therefore of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, elected in the revolutionary assemblies, in the proportion of a part of representatives of the Communist Party, a part of representatives of the People’s Liberation Army and a part of representatives of the revolutionary masses (workers, peasants, intellectuals and students).
PARTY OF A NEW TYPE
The new period is that of open class conflicts, the period of the revolutionary actions of the proletariat, the period of proletarian revolution, the period of immediate preparation of forces for the overthrow of imperialism, and the seizure of power by the proletariat. This period places new tasks before the proletariat: the reorganization of all the work of the Party on a new basis on a revolutionary basis, the education of the workers in the spirit of the revolutionary struggle for power, the preparation and mobilization of reserves, an alliance with the proletarians of the neighboring countries, the creation of solid bonds with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent countries, etc. etc. To think that these new tasks can be solved with the forces of the old Social-Democratic parties, educated in the peaceful conditions of parliamentarism, means hopelessly condemning themselves to despair, to a certain defeat. To remain under the direction of the old parties, when one has tasks of this extent on the shoulders, means to be entirely disarmed.
Hence the necessity of a new party, of a combative party, of a revolutionary party, bold enough to lead the proletarians to the struggle for power, experienced enough to be guided in the complicated conditions of a revolutionary situation, and quite agile to avoid all kinds of obstacles on the way to revolution.
Without such a party one can not even think of overthrowing imperialism, of conquering the dictatorship of the proletariat.
This new party is the Party of Leninism.
VANGUARD DETACHMENT
The Party must, above all, be the vanguard detachment of the working class. The Party must incorporate into its ranks all the best elements of the working class, assimilate their experience, their revolutionary spirit, their infinite dedication to the cause of the proletariat. But to be effectively the vanguard detachment, the Party must arm itself with a revolutionary theory, must know the laws of the movement, must know the laws of revolution.
The Party is the General Staff of the struggle of the proletariat. But the Party can not be just a vanguard detachment. It must be at the same time a detachment, a part of the working class, part closely linked to it with all the fibers of its existence.
ORGANIZED DETACHMENT
The Party is the organized detachment of the working class.
The concept of party, as an organized whole, was established in the well-known formulation given by Lenin in the first article of our Party’s statutes, in which the Party is considered as the sum of its organizations, and its members, as members of one of the organizations.
But the Party is not only the sum of its organizations. The Party is at the same time the unique system of these organizations, their formal union in a single whole, in which there are superior and inferior governing bodies, in which there is a submission of the minority to the majority, in which there are practical decisions, obligatory for all members of the Party. Without this condition, the Party is not in a position to be a single organized whole, capable of ensuring an organized and systematic leadership of the struggle of the working class.
AGAINST FACTIONALISM
The Party is a unity of will that excludes all factionalism, all division of power in the Party.
Hence Lenin’s clarification on the “danger of factionalism from the standpoint of party unity and of achieving unity of will of the proletarian vanguard as a basic condition for the success of the dictatorship of the proletariat”, clarifications set out in the special resolution of X Congress of our Party, “On the unity of the Party.”
The Party strengthens itself by purging itself of the opportunists.
Source of factionalism in the Party are its opportunist elements. The proletariat is not a closed class within itself. It is continually flowing proletarianized by the development of capitalism, peasant, petty-bourgeois and intellectual. At the same time a process of decomposition of the upper layers of the proletariat is developing, composed mainly of union officials and of parliamentarians that the bourgeoisie corrupts, using the colonial super profits. The Party strengthens itself by purging itself of the opportunist elements.
MILITARIZED PARTY
Lenin’s masterful development of the party of new type, as an organized vanguard detachment, authentic Communist Party, General Staff of the struggle of the proletariat for power, was the basis for Chairman Mao Tsetung to develop it as a party linked to the armed struggle, in the center and leading the other two instruments of the revolution, the United Front and the People’s Guerrilla Army.
Thus, President Mao develops the Party’s conception, whose purpose is to conquer Power for the proletariat and to defend it, by which it is intrinsically connected with the people’s war it conceived. Both to start the people’s war and to develop and sustain it; a party supported by the masses, that is to say, by the people’s war itself that is mass warfare led by the communist party or by the united front that being the class front is based on the majority masses; a party whose engine of its evolution is the contradiction embodied in its core as a two-line struggle between the proletarian line and the bourgeois line and other non-proletarian ones in essence, and above all a struggle against all the opportunist “left” and right deviations, taking revisionism as the main danger.
And it was summing up Mao tsetung thought as the third, new and higher stage of Marxism, Maoism, that President Gonzalo deepened and developed the conception of the revolutionary party of the proletariat as a militarized Communist Party, whose construction and forging, from the beginning, is done through of the two-line struggle, and that the Three Fundamental Instruments of the Revolution – the Party, the New Type Army and the Revolutionary United Front – construct themselves in a concentric way, affirming the people’s war as the military theory of the proletariat of universal validity. The Gonzalo Thought, which has been leading the People’s War in Peru for 37 years, says that to raise the new wave of world revolution, it is up to the proletarian revolutionaries of each country to constitute / reconstitute militarized communist parties to unleash people’s wars, placing Maoism as their guide.