V. I. Lenin

Source: ru:PSS/v39; en:CW/CW30;es:MT
Translated: machine translation (DeepSeek) from the Russian; AI-translated.

Written in September–October 1919.

First published in 1925 in the Lenin Miscellany III

Printed from the manuscript

For elaboration in a pamphlet the question falls into 4 main divisions:

A)) The dictatorship of the proletariat as new forms of the class struggle of the proletariat (in other words: a new stage of it, with new tasks).

B)) The dictatorship of the proletariat as the destruction of bourgeois and the creation of proletarian democracy.

C)) The dictatorship of the proletariat and the features of imperialism (or the imperialist stage of capitalism).

D)) The dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power.

Plan of elaboration according to these 4 divisions:

I (A) The dictatorship of the proletariat as new forms of the class struggle of the proletariat

1. The main source of the failure of the “socialists” to understand the dictatorship of the proletariat is their failure to carry the idea of the class struggle to its conclusion (cf. Marx 1852){97}.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the continuation of the class struggle of the proletariat in new forms. That is the crux, and they do not understand it.

The proletariat, as a special class, alone continues its class struggle.

2. The state is only = an instrument of the proletariat in its class struggle. A special cudgel, rien de plus![14]

Old prejudices about the state (cf. “The State and Revolution”[15]). New forms of the state = subject of division B; here only an approach to it.

3. The forms of the class struggle of the proletariat, under its dictatorship, cannot be the old ones. Five new (principal) tasks and respective[16] new forms:

4. ((1)). Suppression of the resistance of the exploiters. The opportunists and “socialists” completely forget about this as a task (and content) of the epoch.

5. ((2)) (γγ) Civil war.

Revolution in general and civil war (1649. 1793.)

98 Lenin apparently has in mind Kautsky’s pamphlet “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat”.

99 Lenin refers to K. Marx’s letter to L. Kugelmann of December 13, 1870 (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1953, p. 253).

100 See “The Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.). March 1919. Minutes”, M., 1959, p. 393; V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 5th ed., Vol. 38, p. 113.

6. ((3)) “Neutralisation” of the petty bourgeoisie, especially the peasantry.

101 See K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 4, p. 434.

102 Lenin refers to F. Engels’ letter to A. Bebel of March 18–28, 1875 (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 19, p. 2).

* “The Agrarian Question”. Ed.

** Worsened under the guise of correction; literally: banalised (see Works, 5th ed., Vol. 6, p. 67). Ed.

7. ((4)). “Utilisation” of the bourgeoisie.

“Specialists”. Not only suppression of resistance, not only “neutralisation”, but taking them into service, compelling them to serve the proletariat.

Cf. Programme of the R.C.P. “Military specialists”{98}.

8. ((5)). Education of a new discipline.

(α) The dictatorship of the proletariat and the trade unions.

(β) Bonuses and piece-work wages.

(γ) Purge of the party and its role.

(δ) “Communist subbotniks”.

II (B) The dictatorship of the proletariat as the destruction of bourgeois and the creation of proletarian democracy

104 Lenin refers to F. Engels’ letter to A. Bebel of March 18–28, 1875 (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 19, p. 5).

Dictatorship as the negation of democracy. For whom?

The abstract (petty-bourgeois) democratic point of view and Marxism (class struggle).

Definition. Violence. (Engels)

10. “Freedom”. = Of the commodity owner.

Real freedom for the wage-workers; – for the peasants.

Freedom for the exploiters.

Freedom for whom?

“ from whom? from what?

“ in what?

105 See K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 20, pp. 108–109.

Equality of the exploited with the exploiter.

“ of the hungry with the sated.

“ of the worker with the peasant.

Equality of whom with whom? in what?

12. Decision by majority.

Its conditions: actual equality (culture)

actual freedom

cf. press, meetings, etc.

All are equal, not counting money, capital, land…

14. Reality of the bourgeois-democratic republic.

Engels on the connection of the government with the stock exchange and with capital{99}.

15. The imperialist war of 1914–1918 as the “last word” of bourgeois democracy.

The “peace” of 1918–1919.

Foreign policy.

Army and navy.

16. Bureaucracy. Courts. Militarism.

Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, concealed by parliamentary forms.

* In relation to. Ed.

19. Reality of democratism under proletarian democracy.

Achievements of democratism: congresses, meetings, press, religion, women, oppressed nations.

20. Historical turning point from bourgeois to proletarian democracy.

“Outgrowing”, “creeping in” or destruction of the former, birth of the latter? = Revolution or without revolution? Conquest of political power by a new class, overthrow of the bourgeoisie or deal, agreement of classes?

III (C) The dictatorship of the proletariat and the features of imperialism

21. Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism.

Summary of my book.

Definition.

22. Colonies and dependent countries.

Uprising of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie of its own country + uprising of peoples in the colonies and dependent countries.

Revolutionary-proletarian and national wars (cf. Programme of the R.C.P.).

23. Seizure of land by the “League of Nations”.

A “single” oppressor. Concentration of the struggle.

Variety of stages.

24. Bourgeois upper stratum of the proletariat.

1852–1892 Engels and Marx[17].

108 Lenin refers to Marx’s speech at the Congress of the First International in The Hague in September 1872. Engels reported on this speech of Marx in letters to Sorge of September 21 and October 5, 1872 (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Vol. XXVI, 1935, pp. 288 and 292).

109 “Arbeiter-Zeitung” (“Workers’ Gazette”) – a daily newspaper, the central organ of the Austrian Social-Democracy; founded by V. Adler in 1889 in Vienna. During the years of the world imperialist war it took a social-chauvinist position. Lenin called it the newspaper of the “Viennese traitors to socialism” (Works, 5th ed., Vol. 38, p. 394). In 1934 the newspaper was closed; it resumed publication in 1945 as the central organ of the Socialist Party of Austria.

* “Forward” (“The Leftward Movement of the English Workers”)… “a known force”. Ed.

** Summa summarum – the general total. Ed.

25. 2nd International. Dictatorship of the revolutionary elements of the class.

One country and the whole world.

IV (D) The dictatorship of the proletariat and Soviet power

26. Origin of the Soviets.

1905 and 1917.

27. Features of Russia.

Kautsky: “The Slavs and Revolution”.

29. Ignorance and stupidity of the leaders of the 2nd International. Nil[18] about the Soviets.

Kautsky in the pamphlet August 1918.

Soviets for struggle, but not for state power!!

30. The proletarian masses otherwise: class instinct!

110 Paragraph 23 of the Constitution of the R.S.F.S.R., which was adopted on July 10, 1918 by the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets, reads:

“Guided by the interests of the working class as a whole, the R.S.F.S.R. deprives individuals and individual groups of rights which they use to the detriment of the interests of the socialist revolution.” This provision remained in force until the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R., which adopted in 1936 the new Constitution of the U.S.S.R., according to which all citizens received equal rights to elect and be elected to the Soviets.

First page of V. I. Lenin’s manuscript “Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. – October 30, 1919 (Reduced)