Author: cgpiadmin

• 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…

• 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?

• 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….

• 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…

• 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! …

• Author: Lenin
• Date: 1919
• Location: Russia
• Link: www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/EPDP19.html
• PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Theoretically, there can be no doubt that between capitalism and communism there lies a definite transitional period which must combine the features and properties of both these forms of social economy. This transition period has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism — or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble.

• Author: Marx
• Date: 1875
• Location: Germany
• Link: http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/CGP75.html
• PDF: see attachment at the bottom of this page.

Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme is one of the most important contributions to the development of the theory of scientific communism and an example of uncompromising struggle against opportunism. It was written in April and early May of 1875 and sent to the leadership of the Eisenachers (Wilhelm Bracke) on May 5, 1875. The work contains a critical examination of the draft programme of the united German Social-Democratic Party and was prepared for the Gotha Unity Congress.