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11/04/2012 cgpiadmin

The Agrarian Question (1906)

Author: Stalin
Date: March 1906
Location: Russia
Link: www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AQ06.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

The old order is breaking up, the countryside is in upheaval. The peasantry, who only yesterday were crushed and downtrodden, are today rising to their feet and straightening their backs. The peasant movement, which only yesterday was helpless, is today sweeping like a turbulent flood against the old order: get out of the way — or I'll sweep you away! "The peasants want the landlords' land," "The peasants want to abolish the remnants of serfdom" — such are the voices now heard in the rebellious villages and hamlets of Russia.

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

The Historical Meaning of the Inner Party Struggle in Russia (1911)

Author: Lenin
Date: 1911
Location: Russia
Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/HMPS10.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

The subject indicated by the above title is dealt with in articles by Trotsky and Martov in Nos. 50 and 51 of Neue Zeit. Martov expounds Menshevik views. Trotsky follows in the wake of the Mensheviks, taking cover behind particularly sonorous phrases. Martov sums up the "Russian experience" by saying: "Blanquist and anarchist lack of culture triumphed over Marxist culture" (read: Bolshevism over Menshevism). "Russian Social-Democracy spoke too zealously in Russian ", in contrast to the "general European " methods of tactics. Trotsky's "philosophy of history" is the same. The cause of the struggle is the "adaptation of the Marxist intelligentsia to the class movement of the proletariat". "Sectarianism, intellectualist individualism, ideological fetishism" are placed in the forefront. "The struggle for influence over the politically immature proletariat " — that is the essence of the matter….

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

A Reply to Social-Democrat (1905)

Author: Stalin
Date: August 1905
Location: Russia
Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/RSD05.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Modern social life is built on capitalist lines. There exist two large classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and between them a life-and-death struggle is going on. The conditions of life of the bourgeoisie compel it to strengthen the capitalist system. But the conditions of life of the proletariat compel it to undermine the capitalist system, to destroy it. Corresponding to these two classes, two kinds of consciousness are worked out:

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

Briefly About the Disagreements in the Party (1905)

Author: Stalin
Date: May 1905
Location: Russia
Link: www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/ADP05.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Our "Mensheviks" are really too tiresome! I am referring to the Tiflis "Mensheviks." They heard that there are disagreements in the Party and so they began harping: whether you like it or not we shall talk about disagreements, always and everywhere; whether you like it or not we shall abuse the "Bolsheviks" right and left! And so they are hurling abuse for all they are worth, as if they are possessed. At all the crossroads, among them selves and among strangers, in short, wherever they happen to be, they howl one thing: beware of the "majority," they are strangers, infidels! Not content with the "habitual" field, they have carried the "case" into the legally published literature, thereby proving to the world once again . . . how tiresome they are.

What has the "majority" done? Why is our "minority" so "wrathful"?

Let us turn to history….

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

What Is To Be Done (1902)

Author: Lenin
Date: 1902
Location: Russia
Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/WD02.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Burning Questions of Our Movement

" . . . Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality; the greatest proof of the weakness of a party is diffuseness and the blurring of clearly defined boundries; a party becomes strong by purging itself. . . ."

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

Where to Begin (1901)

Author: Lenin
Date: May 1901
Location: Russia
Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/WTB01.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

In recent years the question of "what is to be done" has confronted Russian Social-Democrats with particular insistence. It is not a question of what path we must choose (as was the case in the late eighties and early nineties), but of what practical steps we must take upon the known path and how they shall be taken. It is a question of a system and plan of practical work. And it must be admitted that we have not yet solved this question of the character and the methods of struggle, fundamental for a party of practical activity, that it still gives rise to serious differences of opinion which reveal a deplorable ideological instability and vacillation. On the one hand, the "Economist" trend, far from being dead, is endeavouring to clip and narrow the work of political organisation and agitation. On the other, unprincipled eclecticism is again rearing its head, aping every new "trend", and is incapable of distinguishing immediate demands from the main tasks and permanent needs of the movement as a whole. This trend…

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

The Discussion on Self Determination Summed Up (1916)

Author: Lenin
Date: October 1916
Location: Russia
Link: www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/SD16.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

We have affirmed that it would be a betrayal of socialism to refuse to implement the self-determination of nations under socialism. We are told in reply that "the right of self-determination is not applicable to a socialist society". The difference is a radical one. Where does it stem from?

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self Determination (1916)

Author: Lenin
Date: April 1916
Location: Russia
Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/SRSD16.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism. In the foremost countries capital has outgrown the bounds of national states, has replaced competition by monopoly and has created all the objective conditions for the achievement of socialism. In Western Europe and in the United States, therefore, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of capitalist governments and the expropriation of the bourgeoisie is on the order of the day. Imperialism forces the masses into this struggle by sharpening class contradictions on a tremendous scale, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically — trusts, high cost of living — and politically — the growth of militarism, more frequent wars, more powerful reaction, the intensification and expansion of national oppression and colonial plunder….

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)

Author: Lenin
Date: 1914
Location: Russia
Link: www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/RNSD14.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

A precise formulation of this question, which no Marxist can avoid, would at once destroy nine-tenths of Rosa Luxemburg's arguments. This is not the first time that national movements have arisen in Russia, nor are they peculiar to that country alone. Throughout the world, the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements. For the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is…

10/04/2012 cgpiadmin

Marxism and the National Question (1913)

Author: Stalin
Date: 1913
Location: Vienna
Link: www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/MNQ12.html
PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

The period of counter-revolution in Russia brought not only "thunder and lightning" in its train, but also disillusionment in the movement and lack of faith in common forces. As long as people believed in "a bright future," they fought side by side irrespective of nationality — common questions first and foremost! But when doubt crept into people's hearts, they began to depart, each to his own national tent — let every man count only upon himself! The "national question" first and foremost! …