92nd Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution: Lenin and Stalin as Mass Leaders

To mark the 92nd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution on November 7th 2009, I am posting the following article by William Z. Foster from 1939, “Lenin and Stalin as Mass Leaders“:

The legacy of October lives on!

The great revolution of October, 1917, which abolished Russian capitalism and landlordism and set up the Soviet government, resulted in the establishment of socialism throughout one-sixth of the earth, and is now surging forward to the building of communism, constitutes the deepest-going, farthest-reaching, and most fundamental mass movement in all human history. The two chief figures in the Communist Party heading this epic struggle—Lenin and Stalin—have continuously displayed, in its course, unequalled qualities as political leaders of the working class and of the toiling people generally.

CPGB-ML: Study of Mao Zedong’s “On Contradiction”

The following is from the website of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist):

Theory: Mao’s ‘On contradiction’
A masterly exposition of how to use dialectics to change the world by the leader of the Chinese revolution.

Mao wrote the article ‘On contradiction’ in 1937 to explain the dialectical method of analysis. He did this to counter the development of dogmatic approaches to study and practice that had developed within the Chinese Communist Party.

He also sought to explain international events, particularly the struggle between Marxist-Leninist leadership and the right and, later, left opportunism within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Revolution in the Philippines and Marxist-Leninist Study

I have put together a comprensive study guide, broken up by subject, and shorter list of ten essential classics of Marxism-Leninism, all with the intention of making Marxist theory accessible, comprehensible, and practical, so that it may be used as weapon in the class struggle. In the same vein, here is an excerpt from Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought as Guide to the Philippine Revolution by Armando Liwanag, Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (1993) that also sheds some light on questions of Marxist study.

In 1959, a few young men and women, independent of the old merger party of the Communist and Socialist Parties, started forming study circles to read and study the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong that could be gotten from secret collections. They initially did so amidst the open and legal studies about the problems of national independence and democracy. The Marxist-Leninist works that they read included the Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Wages, Prices and Profit, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Two Tactics of Social Democracy, State and Revolution, The Foundations of Leninism, the Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society and Talks at the Yenan Forum on Art and Literature.

The most avid students of Marxism-Leninism read and studied Das Kapital, The Dialectics of Nature, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, History of the CPSU (Bolsheviks), Short Course; the first edition of the Soviet-published Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and the Selected Works of Mao Zedong. The volumes of the selected works of the great communists began to reach the Philippines in 1962. To get hold of Marxist reading materials in the period of 1959-62 was by itself an achievement in view of the anticommunist hysteria and repressive measures since the end of World War II.

The objective of the beginners in the study of Marxism-Leninism was to seek solutions to what they perceived as the fundamental problems of the Filipino people, use Marxism-Leninism to shed light on the history and concrete circumstances of the Filipino people and find ways to resume the Philippine revolution and carry it out until victory. In the study of Marxism-Leninism, with special reference to the Philippine revolution, they sought to grasp the three components of Marxism, which are materialist philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism as laid down by Marx and Engels, developed by Lenin and Stalin and further developed by Mao Zedong.

The beginners in the study of proletarian revolutionary theory were exceedingly receptive to Mao’s teachings because of their proven correctness and success in so vast a country neighboring the Philippines and their recognized applicability to the Philippines. The most read works of Mao Zedong were On Contradiction, On Practice, the Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society, The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan, On Protracted People’s War and On New Democracy.

The fruits of this study, theoretically, is to be found in the analysis that the CPP developed. See the CPP History page and the CPP Documents page at philippinerevolution.net.

Celebrate the 90th Anniversary of China’s May 4th Movement

Today marks the 90th Anniversary of China’s May Fourth Movement, the movement of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolutionary students and youth out of which the Communist Party of China was born. In honor of this day, I am posting here two article by Mao Zedong from May 4th, 1939, “The May 4th Movement” and “The Orientation of the Youth Movement“, commemorating the twentieth anniversary of May 4th.

THE MAY 4TH MOVEMENT

[Comrade Mao Tse-tung wrote this article for newspapers in Yenan to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the May 4th Movement.]

——————————————————————————–

The May 4th Movement twenty years ago marked a new stage in China’s bourgeois-democratic revolution against imperialism and feudalism. The cultural reform movement which grew out of the May 4th Movement was only one of the manifestations of this revolution. With the growth and development of new social forces in that period, a powerful camp made its appearance in the bourgeois-democratic revolution, a camp consisting of the working class, the student masses and the new national bourgeoisie. Around the time of the May 4th Movement, hundreds of thousands of students courageously took their place in the van. In these respects the May 4th Movement went a step beyond the Revolution of 1911.

Celebrate the Birthday of Comrade Lenin

To commemorate the 139th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Lenin, founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet Union, and the 3rd International (the Comintern), I’m posting this speech by Comrade Stalin, from January 28, 1924:

Russian Communist supporters carry a portrait of party founder Vladimir Lenin at his mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow on April 22, 2009, while paying their respect on the 139th anniversary of his birth. | NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP/Getty Images

Lenin: A Speech Delivered at a Memorial Meeting of the Kremlin Military School

Comrades, I am told that you have arranged a Lenin memorial meeting here this evening and that I have been invited as one of the speakers. I do not think there is any need for me to deliver a set speech on Lenin’s activities. It would be better, I think, to confine myself to a few facts to bring out certain of Lenin’s characteristics as a man and a leader. There may, perhaps, be no inherent connection between these facts, but that is not of vital importance as far as gaining a general idea of Lenin is concerned. At any rate, I am unable on this occasion to do more than what I have just promised.

Norman Bethune: “Wounds”

The following article, “Wounds”, is by the Canadian communist and medical doctor, Norman Bethune, who died in China serving the revolution. It is a scathing critique of imperialist war.

The kerosene lamp overhead makes a steady buzzing sound like an incandescent hive of bees. Mud walls. Mud floor. Mud bed. White paper windows. Smell of blood and chloroform. Cold. Three o’clock in the morning, December 1, North China, near Lin Chu, with the 8th Route Army. Men with wounds. Wounds like little dried pools, caked with blackbrown earth; wounds with torn edges frilled with black gangrene; neat wounds, concealing beneath the abscess in their depths, burrowing into and around the great firm muscles like a dammed-back river, running around and between the muscles like a hot stream; wounds, expanding outward, decaying orchids or crushed carnations, terrible flowers of flesh; wounds from which the dark blood is spewed out in clots, mixed with the ominous gas bubbles, floating on the fresh flood of the still-continuing secondary haemorrhage.

Two Articles by Mao Zedong on the African American National Question

The following two articles by Mao Zedong deal with the African American national liberation struggle and how it relates to the class struggle and the international revolutionary struggle against U.S. imperialism. I am posting them here, on December 26, 2008, to honor the 115th anniversary of the birth of Chairman Mao Zedong.

Mao Zedong’s Five Essays on Philosophy: Reading Notes

This is a collection of a series of reading notes as I work my way through Mao’s book, Five Essays on Philosophy. Some of this will expand upon material I’ve touched on in my article, Some Points on Stalin (and Mao). As I work through the book, I’ll add to this as time goes on. I’m doing this for two reasons: (1.) To help popularize and aid in the study of Marxism-Leninism in general and in the thought of Mao Zedong in particular, and (2.) to help sharpen my own thinking and raise my own theoretical level and understanding. I should add, finally, that in this and all of the other reading notes, this reflects a work in progress in my own study, and therefore, comments and Marxist criticism on the notes are encouraged.

Five Essays on Philosophy

1. On Practice (my notes)
2. On Contradiction (my notes)
3. On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (my notes forthcoming)
4. Speech at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work (my notes forthcoming)
5. Where do Correct Ideas Come From? (my notes forthcoming)

Celebrate the Great October Socialist Revolution

According to the Julian Calender, which was in use in Russia at the time, the Great October Socialist Revolution took place on October 25, 1917 (November 7th according to the Gregorian Calender in use today). To mark this monumental anniversary, I am posting here complete the seventh chapter of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course, from the Marxists Internet Archive. The best way to commemorate the October Socialist Revolution is to learn its lessons and apply them in making revolution.

Che Guevara: Create Two, Three, Many Vietnams

Today, October 9th, is the anniversary of the assassination of the Cuban revolutionary, Che Guevara. In honor of Che, I would like to post this, his most famous speech, the ‘Message to the Tricontinental‘ (1967).

How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world with their share of deaths and their immense tragedies, their everyday heroism and their repeated blows against imperialism, impelled to disperse its forces under the sudden attack and the increasing hatred of all peoples of the world!

Che Guevara and Mao Zedong

Message to the Tricontinental

“Now is the time of the furnaces, and only light should be seen.”
Jose Marti

Twenty-one years have already elapsed since the end of the last world conflagration; numerous publications, in every possible language, celebrate this event, symbolized by the defeat of Japan. There is a climate of apparent optimism in many areas of the different camps into which the world is divided.

Twenty-one years without a world war, in these times of maximum confrontations, of violent clashes and sudden changes, appears to be a very high figure. However, without analyzing the practical results of this peace (poverty, degradation, increasingly larger exploitation of enormous sectors of humanity) for which all of us have stated that we are willing to fight, we would do well to inquire if this peace is real.

Harry Haywood on the Question of White Privilege

Harry Haywood

Harry Haywood was a major African American communist leader and theorist who wrote extensively about the national question in the United States. His writings deal primarily with African American national liberation, but also deal with the question of how poor and working class whites relate to the the national oppression of African Americans in terms of privilege and exploitation. The question of white privilege is complex and needs careful study. Harry Haywood very well understood the importance of building the strategic alliance between the multinational working class in the struggle for socialism and the movement of the oppressed nationalities, including African Americans, for full equality and national liberation. National oppression is of course harsh and violent for the oppressed nationalities and there are real privileges that exist for masses of white people. However, Harry Haywood makes the argument that poor white workers do not significantly benefit from the oppression of people of color, racism is used to divide the working class for the benefit of the ruling, monopoly capitalist class. Furthermore, Haywood explains concretely how national oppression and racism functions to the detriment of all workers. For more on this please see also Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s Statement on National Oppression, National Liberation, and Socialist Revolution and The Third International and the Struggle for a Correct Line on the African American National Question. What follows are excerpts from Harry Haywood’s “Shadow of the Plantation”, a chapter of his major work on the African American national question, Negro Liberation. These excerpts were originally posted here: Harry Haywood on the “Staggering Price of White Supremacy”.

The Struggle for Chicano Liberation

Detail of a mural by David Alfaro Siqueiros

The following article is from the League of Revolutionary Struggle (Marxist-Leninist)’s Forward: Journal of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought – No. 2, August 1979 – “The Struggle for Chicano Liberation”. This number of Forward is divided into four main sections: 1. Resolution on the Chicano national question; 2. History of the Chicano people; 3. Program for Chicano liberation; 4. Chicano art, theater, and struggles in photos. The LRS was a mostly oppressed nationality organization in the New Communist Movement, and was a predecessor group of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. They wrote extensively about the Chicano and African American national questions, in particular. I’m posting here the first part of the LRS’s The Struggle for Chicano Liberation, which is appearing on the internet for the first time. Other documents from the LRS are available in Left Spot’s LRS archive. Conditions change but the Chicano national question is nonetheless at the forefront of the people’s struggle, especially considering its connection to the larger immigrants rights movement. I hope people find this contribution useful to better understanding these issues.