International Encyclopedia of Social Policy by Fitzpatrick Tony;Kwon Huck-Ju;Manning Nick;Midgley James;Pascall Gillian;

Author:Fitzpatrick, Tony;Kwon, Huck-Ju;Manning, Nick;Midgley, James;Pascall, Gillian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Marxism-Leninism

Lenin (1870–1924) made some significant contributions to the interpretation and application of Marxism to Soviet Russia and elsewhere. His version of Marxism came to known as ‘Marxism-Leninism’. In some respects he reinforced classical Marxism, but in others he seemed to make departures.

First, Marx had indicated that capitalist society's progress would be hindered because of limits to the size of the national market. By imperialistic means it would strive to enlarge the boundaries of the market through exploitation of weak and underdeveloped countries. Lenin reiterated and elaborated the Marxian theory of imperialism in his book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). He provided theoretical foundations and elaborated on why imperialism would only lengthen the life of capitalism for a short period of time.

Second, some Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg believed that capitalist exploitation and economic crises would create a revolutionary consciousness in the working class and the socialist revolution would spread internationally. In contrast to her, Lenin insisted that economic struggles would only create a desire for better wages and working conditions. A socialist state cannot be established without revolutionary activity carried out by an ideologically coherent and centrally directed party of the working class. This led him to establish the Bolshevik party (later called the Communist Party) and overthrow the tsarist government in October 1917.

Third, Lenin also laid the foundations of national self-determination for socialism, that is, it was not deemed necessary for the socialist movement to be established internationally. Even though Russia was a relatively underdeveloped country, dominated by a peasant economy, he believed that the First World War had created conditions for socialist revolution; the uprising of the working class led by a well disciplined and well focused party would be the signal for socialist revolutions all over Europe. After Lenin's death, his successor Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) emphasized that, for a proletarian revolution to succeed, it was necessary for the Communist Party to assume absolute power and to apply repression and terror, and ruthless force to crush all opposition. This was not to be found in Lenin's communist agenda.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.