From Marx to Mao Tse-tung - BANNEDTHOUGHT.NET

contradictions-[s1'il/sgn the big bourgeoisie and thepetty bourgeoisie, urban and rural, and between capitalismand-the colonial peoples. These conditions leadto the second stage, marked by the transformation offree competition into monopoly, the export of capital,and the exploitation of the colonies as sources ofcheap laboui and raw materials. This stage is markedby intensification of all the major contradictionsibetweenthe proletariat and, the bourgeoisie, betweenimperialism and the colonial peoples, and betweenrivil imperialist powers; and these contrad-ictions leadto impeiialist wars, until in one country after anotherthe proletariat seizes power with the suPport of the*r.ri, of the peasantry and establishes itself as theruling class. This is the proletarian revolution.Th; principal bourgeois revolutions of modernEurope ire thi English (16+g), Che French (1789), 'theGerman (IB4B), and the Russian (,9o5, I9r7)' In1649 and 1769 the bourgeoisie seized power from thefeudalists, ibut subsequently came to terms with them'In lB4B and r9o5 it did not seize power but receivedcertain concessions. In February rgrT it did seizepower but was overthrown nine months later by theproletariat.The hesitancy of the bourgeoisie in carryingthrough these revolutions arises from its dual character.II we examine them in turn, we find that eachof them, as compared with the preceding, is markedby deeper contridiotions, which lead gradually to-atransformation in the character of the revolution' In1649 the proletariat played onfV a- very- small part'In'i789 ii was active but still dependent on thepetft blureeoisie. In rB4B it was so active that theilorigeoisie" took fright and capitulated to the feudalisis,leaving the revolution uncompleted' The samething happeried in r9o5, -only by this time theprolEtariai was so strong that a few years later itsucceeded in forcing the bourgeois revolution throughto its completion by carrying it forward into theproletarian revolution.At the ,beginning of r9o5, arguing against thosepetty-bourgeois socialists who disdained the idea ofparticipating in a bourgeois revolution, Lenin wrote :To the proletarian the struggle for political libertyand a democratic republic in a bourgeoissociety is only one of the necessary stages in thestruggle for the social revolution that will overthrowthe bourgeois system. Strictly differentiatingbetween stages that are essentially different,soberly examining the conditions under which theymanifest ,themselves, does not at all mean indefinitelypostponing one's ultimate aim or slowingdown one's progress in advance. On the contrary,it is for the purpose of accelerating the advanceand achieving the ultimate aim as quickly andsecurely as possible that it is necessary to understandthe relation of classes in modern society. (LCW 8.24,cf. 9.5o.)z. T he Russian ReuolutionBy the end of the nineteenth century the bourgeoisrevolutions of Western Europe had for the most partbeen completed. Feudalism had ibeen abolished andcapitalism was entering on the stage of imperialism.Russia, however, was still semi-feudal.The growth of industrial capitalism in Russia maybe dated from the Peasant Reform of 186r. This wasa concession won by the new manufacturing bourgeoisiefrom the Tsarist autocracy, the regime of thefeudal landowners. Its effect was to abolish serfdomin such a way that the land,owners retained many oftheir feudal privileges, rvhich they used to intensify23