My notes on reading. A brilliant book in my opinion as it packs many of Lenin's works. the page numbers correspond to the pdf rather than the page numbers in the actual book (meaning you can type "57" into the pdf page and it'll take you to that page)
57 Throughout the civilised world the teachings of Marx evoke the utmost hostility and hatred of all bourgeois science (both official and liberal), which regards Marxism as a kind of “pernicious sect”. And no other attitude is to be expected, for there can be no “impartial” social science in a society based on class struggle. In one way or another, all official and liberal science defends wage slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. To expect science to be impartial in a wage slave society is as foolishly naive as to expect impartiali ty from manufacturers on the question of whether work ers’ wages ought not to be increased by decreasing the profits of capital.
58 The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois 54 oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.
58 The philosophy of Marxism is materialism.
58 The enemies of all their efforts to “refute”, undermine and defame materialism, and have advocated various forms of philosophical idealism, which always, in one way or another, amounts to the defence or support of religion.
59 But Marx did not stop at eighteenth-century material ism: he developed philosophy to a higher level. He en riched it with the achievements of German classical phi losophy, especially of Hegel’s system, which in its turn had led to the materialism of Feuerbach. The main achieve ment was dialectics, i.e., the doctrine of development in its fullest, deepest and most comprehensive form, the doctrine of the relativity of the human knowledge that provides us with a reflection of eternally developing mat ter. The
59 Just as man’s knowledge reflects nature (i.e., developing matter), which exists independently of him, so man’s social knowledge (i.e., his various views and doctrines— philosophical, religious, political and so forth) reflects the economic system of society.
59 Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation.
60 He determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent on its production.
60 Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people.
60 connection: man’s labour-power a commodity. The wage-worker sells his labour-power to the owner of land, factories and instruments of labour. The worker spends one part of the day covering the cost of maintain ing himself and his family (wages), while the other part of the day he works without remuneration, creating for the capitalist surplus-value, the source of profit, the source of the wealth of the capitalist class.
61 Early socialism, however, was utopian socialism. It criticised capitalist society, it condemned and damned it, it dreamed of its destruction, it had vi sions of a better order and endeavoured to convince the rich of the immorality of exploitation.
61 But utopian socialism could not indicate the real solu tion. It could not explain the real nature of wage-slavery under capitalism, it could not reveal the laws of capitalist development, or show what social force is capable of be coming the creator of a new society. Meanwhile, the stormy revolutions
62 Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won except against desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country evolved on a more or less free and democratic basis except by a life-and-death struggle between the various classes of capitalist society.
63 Needless to say, this applies to bourgeois science and philosophy, officially taught by official professors in order to befuddle the rising generation of the propertied clas ses and to “coach” it against internal and foreign enemies. This science will not even hear of Marxism, declaring that it has been refuted and annihilated.
65 Pre-Marxist socialism has been defeated. It is continu ing the struggle, no longer on its own independent ground, but on the general ground of Marxism, as revisionism. Let us, then, examine the ideological content of revisionism.
66 Passing to political economy, it must be noted first of all that in this sphere the “amendments” of the revisionists were much more comprehensive and circumstantial; at tempts were made to influence the public by “new data on economic development”. It was said that concentration and the ousting of small-scale production by large-scale production do not occur in agriculture at all, while they proceed very slowly in commerce and industry. It was said that crises had now become rarer and weaker, and that cartels and trusts would probably enable capital to elimi nate them altogether. It was said that the “theory of col lapse” to which capitalism is heading was unsound, owing to the tendency of class antagonisms to become milder and less acute. It was said, finally, that it would not be amiss to correct Marx’s theory of value, too, in accordance with Bbhm-Bawerk.
67 tion maintained itself against capitalist manufacture. Every advance in science and technology inevitably and relentlessly undermines the foundations of small-scale pro duction in capitalist society;
68 The forms, the sequence, the picture of particular crises changed, but crises remained an inevitable component of the capitalist system. While uniting production, the cartels and trusts at the same time, and in a way that was obvious to all, aggravated the anarchy of production, the insecurity of existence of the proletariat and the oppression of capital, thereby intensifying class antagonisms to an unprecedent ed degree. That capitalism is heading for a break-down— in the sense both of individual political and economic crises and of the complete collapse of the entire capitalist system—has been made particularly clear, and on a par ticularly large scale, precisely by the new giant trusts.
69 Economic distinctions are not mitigated but aggravated and intensified under the free dom of “democratic” capitalism. Parliamentarism does not eliminate, but lays bare the innate character even of the most democratic bourgeois republics as organs of class oppression.
70 “The movement is every thing, the ultimate aim is nothing”—this catch-phrase of Bernstein’s expresses the substance of revisionism better than many long disquisitions.
72 For it would be a profound mis take to think that the “complete” proletarianisation of the majority of the population is essential for bringing about such a revolution.
74 We said, “nearly half a century”. And, indeed, as far back as 1843, when Marx was only becoming Marx, i.e., the founder of socialism as a science, the founder of mod ern materialism, which is immeasurably richer in content and incomparably more consistent than all preceding forms of materialism—even at that time Marx pointed out with amazing clarity the basic trends in philosophy.
77 They therefore reproached Feuerbach for not pursuing materialism to the end, for renouncing materialism because of the errors of individual material ists, for combating religion in order to renovate it or in vent a new religion, for being unable in sociology to rid himself of idealist phraseology and become a materialist.
81 Our doctrine—said Engels, referring to himself and his famous friend—is not a dogma, but a guide to action.
77 Our doctrine—said Engels, referring to himself and his famous friend—is not a dogma, but a guide to action. This classical statement stresses with remarkable force and expressiveness that aspect of Marxism which is very often lost sight of. And by losing sight of it, we turn Marxism into something one-sided, distorted and lifeless; we deprive it of its life blood; we undermine its basic the oretical foundations—dialectics, the doctrine of historical development, all-embracing and full of contradictions; we undermine its connection with the definite practical tasks of the epoch, which may change with every new turn of history.
81 It is precisely because Marxism is not a lifeless dog ma, not a completed, ready-made, immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action, that it was bound to reflect the astonishingly abrupt change in the conditions of so 77 cial life. That
85 The dialectics of history were such that the theoretical victory of Marxism compelled its enemies to disguise them selves as Marxists. Liberalism, rotten within, tried to re vive itself in the form of socialist opportunism.
86 The Russian revolution was followed by Turkey, Persia and China. It is in this era of storms and their “repercussions” in Eu rope that we are now living. No matter what the fate of the great Chinese republic, against which various “civil ised” hyenas are now whetting their teeth, no power on earth can restore the old serfdom in Asia or wipe out the heroic democracy of the masses in the Asiatic and semi Asiatic countries.
86 Certain people who were inattentive to the conditions for preparing and developing the mass struggle were driven to despair and to anarchism by the lengthy delays in the decisive struggle against capitalism in Europe. We can now see how short-sighted and faint-hearted this anarchist despair is.
86The “peaceful” period of 1872-1904 has passed, never to return. The high cost of living and the tyranny of the trusts are leading to an unprecedented sharpening of the economic struggle, which has set into movement even the British workers who have been most corrupted by liberalism.
87 Imperialism is the highest stage in the development of capitalism.
87 In the foremost countries capital has out bounds of national states, has replaced com petition by monopoly and has created all the objective conditions for the achievement of socialism.
87 In Western Europe and in the United States, therefore, the revolut ionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of capitalist governments and the expropriation of the bour geoisie is on the order of the day. Imperialism forces the masses into this struggle by sharpening class contradic tions on a tremendous scale, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically—trusts, high cost of liv ing—and politically—the growth of militarism, more fre quent wars, more powerful reaction, the intensification and expansion of national oppression and colonial plun der.
87 Victorious socialism must necessarily establish a full democracy and, consequently, not only introduce full equality of nations but also realise the right of the op pressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free political separation.
88 Socialist parties which did not show by all their activity, both now, during the revolution, and after its victory, that they would liberate the enslaved na tions and build up relations with them on the basis of a free union—and free union is a false phrase without the right to secede—these parties would be betraying socialism.
88 The socialist revolution is not a single act, it is not one battle on one front, but a whole epoch of acute class con flicts, a long series of battles on all fronts, i.e., on all ques tions of economics and politics, battles that can only end in the expropriation of the bourgeoisie.
89 finance capital, in its drive to expand, can “freely” buy or bribe the freest democratic or republican government and the elective officials of any, even an “independent”, country. tal in general
91 The aim of socialism is not only to end the division of mankind into tiny states and the isolation of nations in any form, it is not only to bring the nations closer to gether but to integrate them. And it is precisely in order to achieve this aim that we must, on the one hand, ex plain to the masses the reactionary nature of Renner and Otto Bauer’s idea of so-called “cultural and national au tonomy”99 and, on the other, demand the liberation of oppressed nations in a clearly and precisely formulated political programme that takes special account of the hy pocrisy and cowardice of socialists in the oppressor na tions, and not in general nebulous phrases, not in empty declamations and not by way of “relegating” the ques tion until socialism has been achieved. In the same way as mankind can arrive at the abolition of classes only through a transition period of the dictatorship of the op pressed class, it can arrive at the inevitable integration of nations only through a transition period of the com plete emancipation of all oppressed nations, i.e., their free dom to secede.
92 The proletariat must demand freedom of politi cal separation for the colonies and nations oppressed by “their own” nation. Otherwise, the internationalism of the proletariat would be nothing but empty words; neither confidence nor class solidarity would be possible between the workers of the oppressed and the oppressor nations; the hypocrisy of the reformists and Kautskyites, who de fend self-determination but remain silent about the na tions oppressed by “their own” nation and kept in “their own” state by force, would remain unexposed.
94 Marxism requires of us a strictly exact and objectively verifiable analysis of the relations of classes and of the concrete features peculiar to each historical situation.
95 But at this point we hear a clamour of protest from people who readily call themselves “old Bolsheviks”. Didn’t we always maintain, they say, that the bourgeoisdemocratic revolution is completed only by the “revolu tionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry”?
96 To ignore or overlook this fact would mean taking after those “old Bolsheviks” who more than once already have played so regrettable a role in the history of our Party by reiterating formulas senselessly learned by rote instead of studying the specific features of the new and living rea lity.
98 A Marxist must not abandon the ground of careful anal ysis of class relations.
98 A Marxist must not abandon the ground of careful anal ysis of class relations. The bourgeoisie is in power. But is not the mass of the peasants also a bourgeoisie, only of a different social stratum, of a different character? Whence does it follow that this stratum cannot come to power, thus “completing” the bourgeois-democratic revolution? Why should this be impossible? This is how the old Bolsheviks often argue. My reply is that it is quite possible. But, in assessing a given situation, a Marxist must proceed not from what is possible, but from what is real.
104 the future development of future communism. On the basis of what facts, then, can the question of the future development of future communism be dealt with? On the basis of the fact that it has its origin in capi talism, that it develops historically from capitalism, that it is the result of the action of a social force to which capitalism gave birth. There is no trace of an attempt on Marx’s part to make up a utopia, to indulge in idle guess work about what cannot be known.
105 Marx continued: “Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”1®
105 Previously the question was put as follows: to achieve its emancipation, the proletariat must overthrow the bour geoisie, win political power and establish its revolutionary dictatorship. Now the question is put somewhat differently: the tran sition from capitalist society—which is developing towards communism—to communist society is impossible without a “political transition period”, and the state in this period can only be the revolutionary dictatorship of the prole tariat.
107 the rich—that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democ racy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”—supposedly petty —details of the suffrage (residential qualification, exclu sion of women, etc.), in the technique of the represen tative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the
107 —we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of ten, if not ninety-nine out of a hundred, bour geois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participa tion in democracy.
108 Engels expressed this splendidly in his letter to Bebel when he said, as the reader will remember, that “the pro letariat needs the state, not in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist”.
109 curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority. Communism alone is capable of providing really complete democracy, and the more complete it is, the sooner it will become unnecessary and wither away of its own accord.
111 “What we have to deal with here [in analysing the programme of the workers’ party] is a commu nist society, not as it has developed on its own foun dations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, eco nomically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it comes.”112
112 In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, Marx goes into detail to disprove Lassalle’s idea that under social ism the worker will receive the “undiminished” or “full product of his labour”. Marx shows that from the whole of the social labour of society there must be deducted a 107 reserve fund, a fund for the expansion of production, a fund for the replacement of the “wear and tear” of ma chinery, and so on. Then, from the means of consumption must be deducted a fund for administrative expenses, for schools, hospitals, old people’s homes, and so on. Instead of Lassalle’s hazy, obscure, general phrase (“the full product of his labour to the worker”), Marx makes a sober estimate of exactly how socialist society will have to manage its affairs. Marx proceeds to make a concrete analysis of the conditions of life of a society in which there will be no capitalism, and says:
112 “With an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, the right instead of being equal would have to be unequal.”113
112 The first phase of communism, therefore, cannot yet provide justice and equality: differences, and unjust dif ferences, in wealth will still persist, but the exploitation of man by man will have become impossible because it will be impossible to seize the means of production—the fac tories, machines, land, etc.—and make them private prop erty. In smashing Lassalle’s petty-bourgeois, vague phrases about “equality” and “justice” in general, Marx shows the course of development of communist society, which is compelled to abolish at first only the “injustice” of the means of production seized by individuals, and which is unable at once to eliminate the other injustice, which consists in the distribution of consumer goods “ac cording to the amount of labour performed” (and not ac cording to needs).
113 “But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged, after prolonged birth pangs, from capitalist society. Law can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.”114
115This expropriation will make it possible for the produc tive forces to develop to a tremendous extent. And when we see how incredibly capitalism is already retarding this development, when we see how much progress could be achieved on the basis of the level of technique already attained, we are entitled to say with the fullest confidence that the expropriation of the capitalists will inevitably result in an enormous development of the productive forces of human society. But how rapidly this develop ment will proceed, how soon it will reach the point of breaking away from the division of labour, of doing away with the antithesis between mental and physical labour, of transforming labour into “life’s prime want”—we do not and cannot know. That is why we are
116 The state will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, i.e., when people have become so accustomed to observing the fundamental rules of social intercourse and when their labour has become so productive that they will voluntarily work ac cording to their ability.
117 Until the “higher” phase of communism arrives, the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption; but this control must start with the expropriation of the capitalists, with the establishment 8—750
118termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society. Insofar as the means of production become com mon property, the word “communism” is also applicable here, providing we do not forget that this is not complete communism. The great significance of Marx’s explana tions is that here, too, he consistently applies materialist dialectics, the theory of development, and regards com munism as something which develops out of capitalism. Instead of scholastically invented, “concocted” definitions and fruitless disputes over words (What is socialism? What is communism?), Marx gives an analysis of what might be called the stages of the economic maturity of communism. In its first phase,
123 As a current of political thought and as a political party, Bolshevism has existed since 1903.118
123 Only the his its existence can satisfactorily explain why it has been able to build up and maintain, under most difficult conditions, the iron discipline needed for the victory of the proletariat.
123Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the cor rectness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct. Without these conditions, discipline in a revolutionary
126 brought up in capitalist society can, at best, accomplish the task of destroying the foundations of the old, the capitalist way of life, which was built on exploitation. At best it will be able to accomplish the tasks of creating a social system that will help the proletariat and the working classes retain power and lay a firm foun dation, which can be built on only by a generation that is starting to work under the new conditions, in a situation in which relations based on the exploitation of man by man no longer exist. And so, in dealing
128 Naturally, the first thought that enters one’s mind is that learning communism means assimilating the sum of knowledge that is contained in communist manuals, pamphlets and books. But such a definition of the study of communism would be too crude and inadequate. If the study of communism consisted solely in assimilating what is contained in communist books and pamphlets, we might all too easily obtain communist text-jugglers or braggarts, and this would very often do us harm, because such peo ple, after learning by rote what is set forth in communist books and pamphlets, would prove incapable of combin ing the various branches of knowledge, and would be unable to act in the way communism really demands.
129 Since they were thoroughly imbued with the class spirit, the old schools naturally gave knowledge only to the children of the bourgeoisie. Every word was falsified in the interests of the bourgeoisie. In these schools the younger generation of workers and peasants were not so much educated as drilled in the interests of that bourgeoisie. They were trained in such a way as to be useful servants of the bour geoisie, able to create profits for it without disturbing its peace and leisure. That is why, while rejecting the old type of schools, we have made it our task to take from only what we require for genuine communist education.
131 We must not borrow the system of encumbering young people’s minds with an immense amount of knowledge, nine-tenths of which was useless and one-tenth distorted. This, however, does not mean that we can restrict ourselves to communist conclu sions and learn only communist slogans. You will not create communism that way. You can become a Com munist only when you enrich your mind with a know ledge of all the treasures created by mankind.
131 If a Communist took it into his head to boast about his communism because of the cut-and-dried conclusions he had acquired, without putting in a great deal of serious and hard work and without understanding facts he should examine critically, he would be a deplorable Communist indeed. Such superficiality would be decid edly fatal. If I know that I know little, I shall strive to learn more; but if a man says that he is a Communist and that he need not know anything thoroughly, he become anything like a Communist.
132 harbouring an absolutely justified and necessary hatred for the old schools, and appreciating the readiness to destroy them, we must realise that we must replace the old system of instruction, the old cramming and the old drill, with an ability to acquire the sum total of human knowledge, and to acquire it in such a way that communism shall not be something to be learned by rote, but something that you yourselves have thought over, something that will embody conclusions inevitable from the standpoint of present-day education.
136 What is required is that the proletariat re-educate a section of the peasantry; it must win over the working peasants in order to crush the resistance of those peasants who are rich and are profiting from the poverty and want of the rest.Hence the task of the proletarian struggle is not quite completed after we have overthrown the tsar and driven out the landowners and capitalists; to accomplish that is the task of the system we call the dictatorship of the proletariat.
137 To prevent the restoration of the rule of the capitalists and the bour geoisie, we must not allow profiteering; we must not allow individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest; the working people must unite with the proletariat and form a communist society. This is the principal feature of the fundamental task of the League and the organisation of the communist youth.
137 The old society was based on the principle: rob or be robbed; work for others or make others work for you; be a slave-owner or a slave. Naturally, people brought up in such a society assimilate with their mother’s milk, one might say, the psychology, the habit, the concept which says: you are either a slave-owner or a slave, or else, a small owner, a petty employee, a petty official, or an in tellectual—in short, a man who is concerned only with himself, and does not care a rap for anybody else.
138 If I work this plot of land, I do not care a rap for any body else; if others starve, all the better, I shall get the more for my grain. If I have a job as a doctor, engineer, teacher, or clerk, I do not care a rap for anybody else. If 134 I toady to and please the powers that be, I may be able to keep my job, and even get on in life and become a bourgeois. A Communist cannot harbour such a psycholo gy and such sentiments. When the workers and peasants proved that they were able, by their own efforts, to defend themselves and create a new society—that was the begin ning of the new and communist education, education in the struggle against the exploiters, education in alliance with the proletariat against the self-seekers and petty proprietors, against the psychology and habits which say: I seek my own profit and don’t care a rap for any thing else. That is the reply to the question of how the young and rising generation should learn communism.
138 It can learn communism only by linking up every step in its studies, training and education with the continuous struggle the proletarians and the working people are wag ing against the old society of exploiters. When people tell us about morality, we say: to a Communist all morality lies in this united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in an eternal morality, and we expose the falseness of all the fables about morality. Morality serves the purpose of helping human society rise to a higher level and rid itself exploitation of labour.
139 You are well aware that, as long as Russia remains the only workers’ republic and the old, bourgeois system exists in the rest of the world, we shall be weaker than they are, and be constantly threatened with a new attack; and that only if we learn to be solidly united shall we win in the further struggle and—having gained strength—become really invincible.
142 The members of the League should use every spare hour to improve the vegetable gardens, or to organise the education of young people at some factory, and so on. We want to transform Russia from a poverty-stricken and wretched country into one that is wealthy.
143 We must organise all labour, no matter how toilsome or messy it may be, in such a way that every worker and peasant will be able to say: I am part of the great army of free labour, and shall be able to build up my life without the landowners and capital ists, able to help establish a communist system.
145 One of the biggest and most dangerous mistakes Communists (as generally by revolutionaries who have successfully accomplished the beginning of a great revolution) is the idea that a revolution can be made by revolutionaries alone. On the contrary, to be successful, all serious revolutionary work requires that the idea that revolutionaries are capable of playing the part only of the vanguard of the truly virile and advanced class must be understood and translated into action. A vanguard performs its task as vanguard only when it is able to avoid being isolated from the mass of the people it leads and is able really to lead the whole mass forward. Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity there can be no question of any suc cessful communist construction.
146 in effect the professors of philosophy in modern society are in the majority of cases nothing but “graduated flun keys of clericalism”.
152 But only he who never does anything never makes mistakes.
154 This, of course, does not prevent the Mensheviks, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, a part of the anarchists and all the corresponding parties in the West from shouting about democracy and how it is being violated by the Bol sheviks.
155 Not a few of them, very likely, are in receipt of government money and are employed by our government to educate our youth, although they are no more fitted for this than notorious perverts are fitted for the post of superintendents of edu cational establishments for the young.
164 Lenin characterised Millerandism as renegade revisionism and pointed out that social-reformists who participated in bourgeois governments provided a mask for capitalists’ manoeuvres and gave these governments a useful weapon for deceiving the masses, p.
165 The Independent Labour Party of Britain—a reformist organisa tion founded in 1893, when a new wave of strikes took place and a growing movement for the independence of the working class from the bourgeois parties came into being. The I.L.P. united the “new trade unions”, a number of the old trade unions, and also intellectuals and representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, who were under the influence of the Fabians. The party was led by Keir Hardie. It advocated struggle for the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, introduction of an eight-hour working day, prohibition of child labour, introduc tion of social insurance and unemployment relief. From the outset it pursued a bourgeois reformist policy and concentrated on par liamentary struggle and parliamentary deals with the Liberals. Lenin wrote that the I.L.P. was “actually an opportunist party that has always been dependent on the bourgeoisie” and that it was “ ‘independent’ only of socialism, but very dependent on liberalism” (Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 494, and Vol. 18, p. 360).
168 This anti-Bolshevik slogan was first advanced by Parvus in 1905 and provided one of the basic principles of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. This theory of revolution ignoring the par ticipation of the peasants was opposed to Lenin’s theory of bour geois-democratic revolution developing into the socialist revolution as the proletariat comes to assume the leadership of the national movement.
169 Lassalleans—supporters of the German petty-bourgeois socialist Ferdinand Lassalle, members of the General Association of Ger man Workers founded in 1863. The first Chairman of the Asso ciation was Lassalle, who formulated its programme and basic tactics. The Association’s main political objective was the strug gle for universal suffrage. Lassalle believed it possible to utilise the Prussian state to solve social problems through the setting up of production associations with its aid. Marx wrote that Lassalle advocated “Royal-Prussian state socialism”. Engels frequently and sharply criticised the theory, tactics and organisational principles of Lassalleanism as an opportunist trend in the German working-class movement.
