On Marxist study: What are our basic principles?

Due to a recent discussion about “dogmatism” and revisionism regarding a polemic from Mike Ely of the Kasama Project against the Marxist-Leninist Study Guide here on this site, it seems valuable to look closely at what principles we should consider fundamental to Marxism-Leninism. To that end, here is a set of quotes from the 1991 document “Reaffirm our Basic Principles and Carry the Revolution Forward” by the Communist Party of the Philippines concerning methods of study. This document guided the “Second Great Rectification Movement” launched by the CPP in 1992. This document is here followed by an excerpt from the 1999 Declaration of the International Communist Seminar defining basic Marxist-Leninist principles.

J. V. Stalin on Leninist Anti-Imperialism

This selection from Joseph Stalin’s lectures on The Foundations of Leninism is worth thinking about when evaluating such questions as whether or not proletarian revolutionaries should support anti-imperialist governments or liberation struggles, such as the Iranian government or the Afghan national resistance, which are not led by the proletariat or oriented towards socialism:

Celebrate the 140th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin

In honor of the 140th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, April 22, 2010, The Marxist-Leninist is posting the following article, “Lenin as the organiser and leader of the Russian Communist Party“ by his outstanding student, Joseph Stalin:

Lenin as the organiser and leader of the Russian Communist Party
April 23, 1920

There are two groups of Marxists. Both work under the flag of Marxism and consider themselves “genuinely” Marxist. Nevertheless, they are by no means identical. More, a veritable gulf divides them, for their methods of work are diametrically opposed to each other.

Presentation by Harpal Brar to the Stalin Society on the Comintern and the Chinese Revolution

Here is a  video of a talk by Harpal Brar, Chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) to the Stalin Society on the line of Joseph Stalin and the Communist International regarding the Chinese Revolution. See also Comrade Brar’s article Stalin and the Chinese Revolution.

See the rest

CP of Greece (KKE) on the operation of distorting the history of the Second World War in education

The following is the intervention of the Communist Party of Greece in the 4th European Communist Meeting on Education:

Historical research is a particularly useful tool for the contemporary struggle for socialism as it can contribute to the revival of the communist ideology under the conditions of the victory of counterrevolution and enable the communists to draw valuable conclusions for the full fledged development of the class struggle. For that reason, the bourgeoisie takes care for itself intensifying the ideological attack and the mechanisms for the assimilation of the people’s consciousness, unfolding an intense and elaborated effort for the “revision” of history. In this effort bourgeoisie is supported by opportunism that launches a great assault on historiography so as to adapt the facts of the past to its intentions and needs for the management of the system.

Langston Hughes: Goodmorning Stalingrad!

The following poem honoring the battle of Stalingrad, where the Soviet Union turned back the tide of Fascism during World War II, is by the great revolutionary African American poet, Langston Hughes:

Goodmorning, Stalingrad!
Lots of folks who don’t like you
Had give you up for dead.
But you ain’t dead!

Goodmorning, Stalingrad!
Where I live down in Dixie
Thinkgs is bad –
But they’re not so bad
I still can’t say,
Goodmorning Stalingrad!
And I’m not so dumb
I still don’t know
That as long as your red star
Lights the sky,
We won’t die.

Goodmorning Stalingrad!
You’re half a world away or more
But when your guns roar,
They roar for me –
And for everybody
who want to be free.

Eyewitness accounts: The Moscow Trial was Fair

"Mankind can free itself from suffering only by the road pointed out by Stalin and with his help." Mao Zedong studying the writings of J. V. Stalin in the Yenan base area during the Chinese Revolution

The following was sent by a comrade as a contribution to The Marxist-Leninist‘s ongoing ‘pro-Stalin ideological offensive’, which kicked off with the article commemorating Joseph Stalin’s 130th birth-anniversary, “Long Live the Universal Contributions of Comrade Joseph Stalin“:

The Moscow Trial was Fair

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By D. N. PRITT, K.C., M.P.

I STUDIED the legal procedure in criminal cases in Soviet Russia somewhat carefully in 1932, and concluded (as published at the time in “Twelve Studies in Soviet Russia”) that the procedure gave the ordinal accused a very fair trial. Having learnt from my legal friends in Moscow on my return this summer that the principal changes realised or shortly impending were all in the direction of giving greater independence to the Bar and the judges and greater facilities to the accused, I was particularly interested to be able to attend the trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev and others which took place on August 1923.

RSU Presentation on Imperialism and National Liberation

The following video presentation on the Marxist-Leninist theory of imperialism (monopoly capitalism) is from the UVU Revolutionary Students Union.

Lenin gives five basic features of imperialism:

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism)

There are also four fundamental contradictions of imperialism. Stalin, in The Foundations of Leninism, went on to enumerate three of them: (1) the contradiction between labor and capital; (2) the contradiction among the various financial groups and imperialist Powers in their struggle for sources of raw materials; and (3) the contradiction between the handful of ruling, “civilised” nations and the hundreds of millions of the colonial and dependent peoples of the world. There is a fourth in the contemporary world as Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists have pointed out: (4) the contradiction between imperialism and the socialist countries. Of these four contradictions, the principal contradiction in the current period is that between the oppressed nations and imperialism. These four contradictions can only be resolved by social revolution.

These videos do well to explain Lenin’s theory in a lively and contemporary way. See also their excellent presentations on the PFLP and on ‘Stalinism’.

Video: Stalin’s Magical World

This is the short film, ”New Moscow“, circa 1937, which highlights “Stalinist Architecture.” Here it is set to a different kind of tune, “Magical World” by the 1960s and 70s psychedelic soul band, Rotary Connection:

Harry Haywood: Trotsky’s Day in Court

The following examination of Trotskyism by the great African American Marxist-Leninist, Harry Haywood, is from “Trotsky’s Day in Court”, Chapter 6 of Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (1978), which takes place while Harry Haywood is studying in Moscow at the KUTVA, The University of the Toilers of the East. For a more thorough Marxist-Leninist examination of Trotskyism, read M.J. Olgin’s outstanding 1935 book, Trotskyism: Counter-Revolution in Disguise, which is perhaps the best treatment of the subject:

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Trotsky’s Day in Court

Apart from our academic courses, we received our first tutelage in Leninism and the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the heat of the inner-party struggle then raging between Trotsky and the majority of the Central Committee led by Stalin. We KUTVA students were not simply bystanders, but were active participants in the struggle. Most students – and all of our group from the U.S. – were ardent supporters of Stalin and the Central Committee majority. 

It had not always been thus. Otto told me that in 1924, a year before he arrived, a majority of the students in the school had been supporters of Trotsky. Trotsky was making a play for the Party youth, in opposition to the older Bolshevik stalwarts. With his usual demagogy, he claimed that the old leadership was betraying the revolution and had embarked on a course of “Thermidorian reaction.” (1) In this situation, he said, the students and youth were “the Party’s truest barometer.” (2)

But by the time the Black American students arrived, the temporary attraction to Trotsky had been reversed. The issues involved in the struggle with Trotsky were discussed in the school. They involved the destiny of socialism in the Soviet Union. Which way were the Soviet people to go? What was to be the direction of their economic development? Was it possible to build a socialist economic system?  These questions were not only theoretical ones, but were issues of life and death. The economic life of the country would not stand still and wait while they were being debated.