12.07.2015 Views

Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

Polemic on General Line of International ... - From Marx to Mao

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

the case with the proletarian revoluti<strong>on</strong>, which is a revoluti<strong>on</strong><strong>to</strong> abolish all exploiting classes and systems.Regarding the fact that violent revoluti<strong>on</strong> is a universallaw <strong>of</strong> proletarian revoluti<strong>on</strong>, Lenin repeatedly pointed outthat “between capitalism and socialism there lies a l<strong>on</strong>g period<strong>of</strong> ‘birth pains’ — that violence is always the midwife <strong>of</strong> theold society”, 1 that the bourgeois state “cannot be supersededby the proletarian state (the dicta<strong>to</strong>rship <strong>of</strong> the proletariat)through the process <strong>of</strong> ‘withering away,’ but, as a generalrule, <strong>on</strong>ly through a violent revoluti<strong>on</strong>”, 2 and that “the necessity<strong>of</strong> systematically imbuing the masses with this and preciselythis view <strong>of</strong> violent revoluti<strong>on</strong> lies at the root <strong>of</strong> allthe teachings <strong>of</strong> <strong>Marx</strong> and Engels”. 3Stalin, <strong>to</strong>o, said that a violent revoluti<strong>on</strong> <strong>of</strong> the proletariat,the dicta<strong>to</strong>rship <strong>of</strong> the proletariat, is “an inevitable and indispensablec<strong>on</strong>diti<strong>on</strong> for the advance <strong>to</strong>wards socialism” inall countries ruled by capital. 4Can a radical transformati<strong>on</strong> <strong>of</strong> the bourgeois order beachieved without violent revoluti<strong>on</strong>, without the dicta<strong>to</strong>rship<strong>of</strong> the proletariat? Stalin answered:Obviously not. To think that such a revoluti<strong>on</strong> can becarried out peacefully, within the framework <strong>of</strong> bourgeoisdemocracy, which is adapted <strong>to</strong> the rule <strong>of</strong> the bourgeoisie,means that <strong>on</strong>e has either g<strong>on</strong>e out <strong>of</strong> <strong>on</strong>e’s mind and lostnormal human understanding, or has grossly and openlyrepudiated the proletarian revoluti<strong>on</strong>. 51V. I. Lenin, “Those Who Are Terrified by the Collapse <strong>of</strong> the Oldand Those Who Fight for the New”, Collected Works, Russ. ed., Moscow,1949, Vol. XXVI, p. 362.2V. I. Lenin, “The State and Revoluti<strong>on</strong>”, Selected Works, Eng. ed.,FLPH, Moscow, 1952, Vol. II, Part 1, p. 219.3Ibid., p. 220.4J. V. Stalin, “Reply <strong>to</strong> the Discussi<strong>on</strong> <strong>on</strong> the Report <strong>on</strong> ‘The Social-Democratic Deviati<strong>on</strong> in Our Party’”, Works, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow,1954, Vol. VIII, p. 323.5J. V. Stalin, “C<strong>on</strong>cerning Questi<strong>on</strong>s <strong>of</strong> Leninism”, Works, Eng. ed,FLPH, Moscow, 1954, Vol. VIII, p. 25.368

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!