The Battle Against Revisionism
What is Revisionism?
Revisionism is the ideology of the bourgeoisie within the working class. It is an ideology which claims to update the teachings of Marx and Lenin. In reality its aim is to mislead and divert the proletariat from its revolutionary path. Revisionism omits, obliterates or distorts the revolutionary soul of Marxism, usually disguised as a struggle against dogmatism.
THE STATE
First, we consider the question of the STATE. The revisionists of Lenin’s time held that in a democratic society, “ruled by the will of the majority,” that the role of the state was that of a re conciliator of class conflicts within society. This position was in fact that of the bourgeoisie, who in attempting to deceive the working class also posed the state as an above class re conciliator of social conflict. The modern revisionists of at least were I live in Greece Pasok also hold this position and it lies at the very basis of its “anti-monopoly coalition” schemes which they see as the basis for bringing socialism about peacefully but lets stop here about this matter.
So What is the Marxist theory of the state? First of all, what is the state? The state is an instrument of oppression by which a definite class exercises its dictatorship over society. It is composed of the armed forces of the state including the armies, police forces, prisons and courts. Lenin states:
The state is the product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms. The state arises when and where and to the extent that class antagonisms objectively cannot be reconciled, and conversely, the existence of the state proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.
It is precisely on this most important and fundamental point that the distortion of Marxism, proceeding along two main lines begins.
On the one hand, the bourgeois and particularly the petty-bourgeois ideologists, ’correct’ Marx in such a way as to make it appear that the state is an organ for the reconciliation of classes. According to Marx, the state could neither rise nor maintain itself if it were possible to reconcile classes...According to Marx the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another...
On the other hand, the Kautskyite distortion of Marxism is far more subtle. ’Theoretically’ it is not denied that the state is an organ of class rule, or that class antagonisms are irreconcilable. But what is lost sight of or glossed over is this: if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and increasingly alienating itself from it, then it is obvious that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this ‘alienation’.
The modern revisionists distort the role of the state and in the Soviet Union they speak of a “State of the whole people”. This concept is totally alien to Marxism and is, in fact, a bourgeois concept. If the state is an organ for class rule, an organ by which one class oppresses another, then how can it possibly be a “state of the whole people”? This concept is used by the modern revisionists who are in state power in the Soviet Union and echoed by the revisionist CPUSA. This is their theoretical justification for their attack upon and subsequent destruction of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR.
Engels in condemning a variant of this concept which the anarchists of his day were putting forward stated:
As the state is only a transitional phenomenon which must be made use of in the struggle, in the revolution, in order forcibly to crush our antagonists, it is an absurdity to speak of a peoples’ ''Free state'' because there is no free State. As long as the proletariat still needs the state, it needs it, not in the interests of freedom, but for the purpose of crushing its antagonists; as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom, then the state as such, ceases to exist.
And so comrades, on all three counts, the revisionists strike out. They see the state as a reconciler of class conflicts; they claim that socialism can be brought about peacefully without armed struggle within the structure of a bourgeois dictatorship and they negate the necessity for the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the state apparatus necessary for defending the revolution once the proletariat has seized power.
(LENIN’S THEORY OF IMPERIALISM)
But the modern revisionists don’t stop here. Not only do they refute Marx, they also refute Lenin’s contributions to the treasury of Marxism. “Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.” Comrades, the position of ATM is that we are still in the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution and we hold that the science that must lead the international proletarian revolution is Marxism-Leninism.
It is not within the limits of this presentation to expand on every aspect of Lenin’s theory of imperialism. We wish to zero in on just one – that of proletarian revolution. The three fundamental thesis and conclusions are the following as laid out by Comrade Stalin:
1) The domination of finance capital in the advanced capitalist countries, the export of capital to sources of raw materials as a foundation of imperialism, the domination of a financial oligarchy – all of these revealing the parasitic nature of imperialism.
2) The increase in the export of capital to the colonies and dependent countries, (as opposed to the export of commodities), the expansion of “spheres of influence” and colonial possessions until they cover the whole globe, the transformation of capitalism into a world system of financial enslavement and colonial oppression of the vast majority of the population of the world by a handful of “advanced” capitalist countries – all this has converted the separate national economics and national territories into links in a single chain called world economy and on the other hand split the population of the globe into two camps; a handful of “advanced” capitalist countries which exploit and oppress vast colonies and dependencies, and the huge majority consisting of colonial and dependent countries which are compelled to wage a struggle for liberation from the imperialist yoke.
3) The monopolistic possession of “spheres of influence” and colonies; the uneven development of capitalist countries, leading to a frenzied struggle for the redivision of the world between the countries which have already seized territories and those claiming their “share;” imperialist wars as the only means restoring the disturbed “equilibrium” – all this leads to the intensification of the struggle on the third front, the inter-capitalist front, which weakens imperialism and facilitates the union of the first two fronts against imperialism. The front of the revolutionary proletariat and the front of colonial emancipation.
From these three theses come the following three conclusions:
1) The intensification of the revolutionary crises within the capitalist countries and the growth of the elements of an explosion on the internal, proletarian front in the advanced capitalist countries.
2) The intensification of the revolutionary crisis in the colonial countries and the growth of the elements of revolt against imperialism on the colonial front.
3) That under imperialism wars cannot be averted, and that a coalition between the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries and the colonial revolution against the world from imperialism is inevitable.
Is Lenin’s theory correct and valid today? We say that it is. Has the world situation caused any basic changes in this presentation? We must say NO! Only two changes have occurred since Lenin’s death: A world socialist camp came into existence after WW II but it no longer exists, and secondly, the principle contradiction in the world today is between the imperialist and social imperialist countries on the one hand and the oppressed nations of the world on the other. Another of the main contradictions in the world is between the imperialist and social-imperialist countries on the one hand and the socialist countries on the other. While these are important changes they have not caused any fundamental changes in the presentation of the question, – we are still in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, and Leninism is still applicable.
Part 1 end
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