On the Revolutionary Theory and Practice of Leninism - Part 2: The Historical Roots of Leninism

Why did Leninism arise in backward Russia rather than in one of the advanced capitalist countries, such as Germany, as most Marxists expected? Leninism took shape during the period in which capitalism was transformed into monopoly capitalism, when a new form of imperialism had emerged on the world scene, a form of imperialism based on the hegemony of finance capital. This was a period in which all of the contradictions of capitalism had reached an extreme point and the revolution of the working class had become a practical necessity. Lenin analyzed that there were three major contradictions inherent in the new stage of capitalism and that the resolution of these contradictions would shape the future of human society.

The first of these contradictions was the contradiction between labour and capital. The new stage of capitalism marked the domination of the entire world by the trusts and cartels, the big banks and the financial elites of the industrialized countries. The control of this financial oligarchy over all aspects of life, and especially over the various governments and state machinery, meant that the traditional methods of working class struggle - the trade unions, cooperatives and socialist parliamentary parties - were rendered totally inadequate. In this situation, the working class had two choices: submit to the dictate of the monopoly capitalists and sink lower and lower into poverty; or opt for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system. During the past century, these options have not changed in any fundamental way, although imperialism has become much more adept at diverting the class struggle of the working class into channels which do not threaten the imperialist system.

The second contradiction was the contradiction among the various financial groups and the imperialist powers in their struggle for territories, sources of raw materials and investment markets. Imperialism is marked by the export of capital to the sources of raw materials, the struggle for the undivided control of those markets and the struggle to redivide the world amongst the imperialist powers. This situation does not remain static; new financial groups and countries are constantly emerging to challenge the control of the old financial groups and countries, to demand their share of the spoils of exploitation. This contradiction leads inevitably to imperialist wars, wars for the conquest and annexation of foreign territories and, if the conditions are right, to inter-imperialist wars between the imperialist powers themselves. At the same time, this contradiction weakens the imperialists and makes them vulnerable to revolution.

The third contradiction was the contradiction between the handful of ruling, imperialist countries - the Big Powers - and the billions of people in the colonies and dependent countries. Imperialism represents the most blatant and inhuman oppression of the peoples of these dependent countries, as the monopoly capitalists seek to squeeze superprofits out of their sweat and blood. However, in order to accomplish such exploitation and oppression, the imperialists were forced to construct railways, factories, communication systems and industrial and commercial centres. In other words, they were forced to develop capitalism in those countries and create a modern working class and intelligentsia, which in turn led to the emergence of national liberation movements in many of those countries.

Within this international situation, by the turn of the 20^th century all of these contradictions were coming to a head in Russia to a far greater extent than in any other country. Tsarist Russia was the home of every kind of oppression - capitalist, colonial and militarist - in its most barbaric form. The omnipotence of capitalism was combined with tsarist despotism. While Russia was not imperialist in the same sense as Britain, France, Germany, the United States and other Big Powers, Lenin described tsarism as a form of "military-feudal imperialism". It oppressed and exploited scores of nations within its own borders and, in alliance with the Western imperialists, waged wars of aggression against Turkey, Persia and China.

In addition, Russia represented a major reserve for Western imperialism. Not only was it a major importer of foreign capital, but it could also supply the Western imperialists, especially Britain and France, with millions of soldiers to protect their empires and safeguard their enormous profits .

The interests of Russian tsarism thus became completely interwoven with the interests of Western imperialism. So, any blow against Russian tsarism was also a blow against the entire imperialist system. Furthermore, Russian capitalism was merely an extension of Western monopoly capitalism. Therefore, a revolution aimed at overthrowing Russian tsarism was also necessarily an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist revolution. The participation of the oppressed national minorities within the Russian Empire also turned the Russian Revolution into a national liberation struggle. In other words, the Russian Revolution could not remain within the narrow bounds of a national struggle; it necessarily had an international character.

Of course, there were many other factors, as well. The Russian working class was a young and profoundly revolutionary class. The Russian peasantry was eager to rise up and smash the remnants of feudalism. In addition, the horrors of the First World War made it very difficult for the imperialists to mobilize their own people to support their interventionist war against Soviet Russia.

Therefore, all of the objective and subjective conditions existed in Russia, as nowhere else in the world, for a new kind of revolutionary struggle to break out, a revolutionary struggle which was at once against the remnants feudalism, against capitalism and against imperialism - a genuinely proletarian revolution. Such an enormous task demanded a revolutionary leadership capable of solving the new problems posed by the new conditions, and that revolutionary leadership emerged in the form of Leninism and the Bolshevik Party. If such conditions had existed in some other country, rather than Russia, then the equivalent of Leninism would have emerged in that country. However, historical conditions dictated not only that Leninism should emerge on Russian soil, but that, in solving the problems of the Russian Revolution, it must simultaneously solve the main problems of the international revolution of the working class.