Victor Alexeyevich Vaziulin
The development of Lenin’s theory of the socio-economic formation was carried out in new historical conditions on the basis of the foundations laid by K. Marx and F. Engels.
As an element of the theoretical heritage of K. Marx and F. Engels, the theory of socio-economic formation had its own, relatively independent logic of development. However, the nature, direction and choice of ways of further development, which were hidden in the internal logic of the views of K. Marx and F. Engels, were decisively determined by the needs of the new historical period. The novelty and greatness of Lenin’s contribution to the theory of socio-economic formation cannot be properly understood if we do not establish both its difference and connection with the views of K. Marx and F. Engels.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century came the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe, and after them―the countries of the East with hundreds of millions of people, are drawn into the global revolutionary liberation movement. The centre of the world revolutionary movement shifted to Russia; the Great October Socialist Revolution launched a new era of global development―an era the main content of which is the transition from capitalism to socialism on a global scale.
Under these conditions, the close unity of Marxist theory and revolutionary practice became paramount.
Lenin was faced with the task of understanding and developing Marxism in new historical conditions, when the capitalist socio-economic formation reached its stage of decay and death. It was necessary to study the laws of the imperialist era, the social system of Russia and other countries involved in the global revolutionary process. There was a need for a more specific study of the “mechanism” of social revolution and the construction of socialism, the unity and multiplicity of ways and forms of transition to socialism in different countries.
To express the above in a methodological perspective, we can say that K. Marx and F. Engels, in accordance with the fundamental need of their era, focused mainly on the study of mature capitalism as historically emerged and historically transient. Lenin, in turn, generalising the wealth of new concrete factual material, the practice of the world revolutionary struggle against capitalism in new historical conditions, the practice of the transition from capitalism to socialism, developed the doctrine of the transition from pre-capitalist formations to capitalism, from the lowest stages of capitalism to the highest, on the stage of the dying (capitalist) socio-economic formation, on the “mechanism” of the transition from the capitalist to the higher, communist formation[2], on the stages of the emergence and formation of a new, communist formation, on the unity and multiplicity of ways and forms of transition to the communist formation.
In the course of this work and in the struggle against the enemies of Marxism, Lenin also generalised the work of K. Marx and F. Engels.
V.I. Lenin, responding to the needs of the new historical period, concentrated his efforts on the study of “overripe”, dying capitalism, on the transition from one formation to another and on the stages of emergence and formation of both the capitalist and the new, communist formation.
Lenin’s revolutionary practical and theoretical activity began in Russia, but from the very beginning it had international significance, as Russia was a link in the capitalist system. The theoretical study of the specificities of the revolutionary movement in this or that country from the standpoint of creative Marxism, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, is always at the same time the development of Marxism as a whole, because the particular and the universal do not exist in isolation from each other, but in inner connection, inner unity. The Russian conditions were particular conditions, but at the same time from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century Russia became the centre of the world revolutionary workers’ movement, and in this sense the particular conditions of the revolution in Russia became directly universal conditions of the global revolutionary development.
The 1890s in Russia were marked by the rise of the labour movement. Marxist ideas began to spread to the working class. However, the Russian liberation movement was dominated by Narodnikism[3]. The Narodniks of the 1890s reflected the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. The predominance of Narodnikism in the Russian liberation movement was a serious ideological obstacle to the successful development of the revolutionary struggle of the working class.
The method of the Narodniks of the 1890s, which was in line with their social class position, was characteristic of the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie. The ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie started from the conviction that it was possible to arbitrarily preserve the (in their opinion) good sides of society and eliminate the bad. The will and desire of certain individuals were considered decisive in history. The existence of objective laws in the development of society was denied. All petty-bourgeois ideologists, since they expressed the reactionary side of the duplicity of the petty-bourgeoisie, adhered to the subjective-idealist method in sociology.
In his struggle with them, Lenin developed the doctrine of social and economic formations on a number of fundamentally important questions.
Speaking of this, we should not lose sight of the fact that Lenin relied on the theoretical heritage of K. Marx and F. Engels. In the struggle against Narodnikism, while criticising the subjective-idealist method in sociology, the denial of objective laws necessary for the historical process, Lenin defended the Marxist understanding of the development of society as a natural-historical process. He gives, for the first time in Marxism, a detailed definition of what constitutes a socio-economic formation.
Before the idea of the natural-historical process of the development of socio-economic formations was put forward and substantiated, sociology was, strictly speaking, at a pre-scientific level. Sociologists could not understand the complex network of social phenomena, could not uncover their law-governed connections, their ideas about society were chaotic, largely arbitrary. Lenin wrote: “So long as they confined themselves to ideological social relations (i.e., such as, before taking shape, pass through man’s consciousness) they could not observe recurrence and regularity in the social phenomena of the various countries, and their science was at best only a description of these phenomena, a collection of raw material.”[4]
He also noted, “sociologists undertook the direct investigation and study of political and legal forms, stumbled on the fact that these forms emerge from certain of mankind’s ideas in the period in question―and there they stopped”.[5] The situation was presented as one in which human beings, acting as conscious beings, pursue their goals and build their social relations consciously. However, numerous observations testify to the fact that people adapt unconsciously to the existing totality of social relations and that their actions often lead to unexpected results.
The idea of the natural-historical development of social and economic formations, according to Lenin, made it possible to elevate sociology to the rank of a science. Marxist sociology raised the question of “the origin of man’s social ideas”[6] from material social relations. “The analysis of material social relations (i.e., of those that take shape without passing through man’s consciousness: when exchanging products men enter into production relations without even realising that there is a social relation of production here)―the analysis of material social relations at once made it possible to observe recurrence and regularity and to generalise the systems of the various countries in the single fundamental concept: social formation.”[7]
If previously there had been no rigorous scientific criterion for distinguishing between important and unimportant, essential and non-essential social phenomena, “Materialism provided an absolutely objective criterion by singling out “production relations” as the structure of society, and by making it possible to apply to these relations that general scientific criterion of recurrence whose applicability to sociology the subjectivists denied.”[8] The relations of production were understood as fundamental, determining all other social relations, all other areas of social life.
Thus, Lenin includes in the concept of “socio-economic formation” the reflection of the repetitive elements, what is common in the social orders of different countries. And it is not only a question of the similarity of the social systems of different countries, but of the general, which is revealed by the study of the most essential. By this we do not mean external repetition, but what is essentially common to the social systems of different countries. The essentially common exists only in internal unity with the particular and the singular, but at the same time the essentially common (the general, the universal), the particular and the individual are not reduced to each other, they exist and can be recognised in their internal unity with each other and in their distinction from each other. The identification of the essentially common in social phenomena, in the social systems of different countries, had a great methodological significance, because it allowed us to move from the external consideration of history to a truly scientific study of society―to the study of the essence, from the description―to the explanation of social life. It was only on the basis of the assignment of the essentially general (universal) that a truly scientific study of the particular, the individual in the social systems of different countries, in the social life, became possible. “It was this generalisation alone that made it possible to proceed from the description of social phenomena (and their evaluation from the standpoint of an ideal) to their strictly scientific analysis, which isolates, let us say by way of example, that which distinguishes one capitalist country from another and investigates that which is common to all of them.”[9]
V.I. Lenin stresses that the identification of such a common feature in the social systems of different countries was made possible thanks to the application of materialism to the understanding of society.
The concept of socio-economic formation includes not only the reflection of the common relations of production between different countries. The basic idea of Marx about the natural-historical process of development of socio-economic formations, writes V.I. Lenin, assumes not only “the reduction of social relations to production relations and of the latter to the level of the productive forces”.[10] Consequently, the concept of “socio-economic formation” includes “the reflection of the appropriate level of productive forces”.
V.I. Lenin refers to a certain system of relations of production only as the skeleton, or the content of the socio-economic formation.[11]
Lenin notes: “The whole point, however, is that Marx did not content himself with this skeleton, that he did not confine himself to “economic theory” in the ordinary sense of the term, that, while explaining the structure and development of the given formation of society exclusively through production relations, he nevertheless everywhere and incessantly scrutinised the superstructure corresponding to these production relations and clothed the skeleton in flesh and blood. The reason “The Capital” has enjoyed such tremendous success is that this book by a “German economist” showed the whole capitalist social formation to the reader as a living thing―with its everyday aspects, with the actual social manifestation of the class antagonism inherent in production relations, with the bourgeois political superstructure that protects the rule of the capitalist class, with the bourgeois ideas of liberty, equality and so forth, with the bourgeois family relationships.”[12]
Consequently, Lenin’s concept of the “socio-economic formation” includes all other social relations which correspond to a certain totality, a system of relations of production which grow on the basis of this system and are explained exclusively by these relations of production.
However, this does not exhaust Lenin’s characterisation of the concept of the “socio-economic formation”. The concept of the “socio-economic formation” is established not only in the materialist understanding of society, but also in the process of the dialectical-materialist understanding of social life. From the position of the dialectical-materialist method, the socio-economic formation appears as a special, developing social organism. “What Marx and Engels called the dialectical method―as against the metaphysical―is nothing else than the scientific method in sociology, which consists in regarding society as a living organism in a state of constant development (and not as something mechanically concatenated and therefore permitting all sorts of arbitrary combinations of separate social elements), an organism the study of which requires an objective analysis of the production relations that constitute the given social formation and an investigation of its laws of functioning and development.”[13]
Understanding the social and economic formation as a specific, historically defined social organism means that all its necessary sides, elements, etc. are internally connected, interacting. And the decisive role in the totality of these interrelations is played―it inevitably follows from all the above―by the interaction of a historically defined system of relations of production and productive forces that have reached a certain level.
Each socio-economic formation, as a particular, historically defined social organisation, has its own particular (historical) laws. The main task of studying the socio-economic formation from the point of view of the dialectical method is to study the law of the development of this social organism, its transition to another social formation. “Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intentions, but, rather, on the contrary, determining the will, consciousness and intentions of men.”[14]
At first sight, it may seem that the idea of the natural-historical process of the development of socio-economic formations contradicts the existence of the conscious activity of human beings, their activity as conscious social beings. The Narodniks and many other opponents of Marxism tried to use this view against Marxism. Lenin, in the struggle against the enemies of Marxism, who presented Marxism as a doctrine that denies the role of the individual in history, concretised and developed the Marxist understanding of the correlation between the natural-historical development of socio-economic formations and the role of the individual in history.
V.I. Lenin stresses that Marx systematically and in detail studied only one socio-economic formation―the capitalist one. The idea of the natural-historical development of socio-economic formations before the creation of “Capital” was a scientific hypothesis, and the creation of “Capital” meant its transformation into a scientific theory.
However, the value of Marx’s method of explaining social organisms is by no means limited to capitalism alone. Verified by a systematic and detailed study of one socio-economic formation, capitalism, it becomes a scientific method for the study of other socio-economic formations. “If the application of materialism to the analysis and explanation of one social formation yielded such brilliant results, it is quite natural that materialism in history already ceases to be a mere hypothesis and becomes a scientifically tested theory; it is quite natural that the necessity for such a method extends to other social formations, even though they have not been subjected to special factual investigation and detailed analysis […] so materialism in history has never claimed to explain everything, but merely to indicate the “only scientific,” to use Marx’s expression (Capital), method of explaining history.”[15]
Thus, according to Lenin, the idea of the natural-historical development of socio-economic formations should not replace the objective study of non-capitalist formations and the further objective study of the capitalist formation, but should serve this objective study as a method.
The analysis of the development of capitalism in Russia was both an analysis of the specificities of the development of Russian capitalism and a contribution to the Marxist political economy of capitalism in general. It was also a further development of the theory of the socio-economic formation.
V.I. Lenin mainly studies the post-reform development of Russia[16], the era of transition from feudalism to capitalism, when capitalism begins to prevail in Russia. For the first time in Marxism, Lenin analyses in detail the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the law-governed transition from one stage of capitalism to another.
The analysis of the structure of the socio-economic system of Russia allowed Lenin to clarify the balance of class forces, the conditions of the working-class struggle, to identify the possibilities, the necessity and the ways of creating a party of a new type, to outline the strategy and tactics, the conditions and prospects of a victorious proletarian revolution. Lenin’s structural study of the socio-economic system of Russia serves as the theoretical basis for the strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle of the working class in the bourgeois-democratic and in the socialist revolution.
This study gave Lenin the opportunity to develop for the first time a precise, clear and correct programme for the party of the working class. Unlike G.V. Plekhanov, who sought to impose the general theory of the political economy of capitalism on the Russian reality, Lenin took into account the specificity of the Russian socio-economic system, the refraction of the general theory of Marxism through the specificity of the Russian situation.
V.I. Lenin did not consider the specificity of the socio-economic system of Russia as something that is absolutely unique, as something that exists only in Russia and cannot exist in any other country.
Lenin used the Marxist method, he studied the specificity of Russia from the point of view of the laws of social development, from the point of view of the universal (relations of production, class struggle). And such research, by its very nature, has a universal significance, a significance that goes far beyond the mere insight into the particular scientific object.
From the very beginning, Lenin’s revolutionary activity had an international dimension and was essentially internationalist, although the immediate focus was on the tasks arising from the conditions in Russia. The First World War changed the priorities. If earlier V.I. Lenin had above all pointed out the need to take into account the specificities of the development of capitalism in Russia, then in his speech of 29 April (12 May) 1917 in defence of the revolution at the present moment, he begins with the following words: “In the resolution on the current situation it would be wrong to speak only of Russian conditions. The war has bound us together so inseparably that it would be a great mistake on our part to ignore the sum total of international relations.”[17]
The First World War was the result, the manifestation, the form of escalation of the contradictions of the capitalist system as a whole. It was in this period that Lenin pioneered the study of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, as the eve of the socialist revolution, as the prospect of the victory of the socialist revolution in several countries or even in a single country.
In his studies on imperialism, V.I. Lenin continued the Marxist study of the development of capitalism. Lenin’s study of imperialism can be correctly understood only as a continuation of the studies of K. Marx and F. Engels in new historical conditions.
V.I. Lenin was the first in the history of Marxism to analyse the stage of decay and death of the capitalist socio-economic formation. The previously identified stages were stages of its progressive development, while imperialism is a stage of the regressive development of the capitalist socio-economic formation. The identification of imperialism as a specific stage of the development of capitalism brought to the fore a broader, more generalised classification of the stages. The regressive stage, the stage of death and decay of the capitalist formation is different from the progressive stage of the capitalist formation. In turn, the progressive development of the capitalist formation has a number of stages.
К. Marx and F. Engels studied the progressive development of capitalist formation in a dialectical way: progress is made in unity with regression. In this way, the productive forces used by capitalism have had destructive tendencies since the emergence of capitalism. However, in a general sense, progress prevails here. The maturity of the capitalist formation means the beginning of the transition from the predominance of progressive development to the predominance of regressive development.
V.I. Lenin also analyses the regressive development of the (capitalist) formation in a dialectical way, in the unity of opposite tendencies of development: regression occurs in unity with progress, but at the stage of decay and death regression prevails.
Dying capitalism is different from forming capitalism not only in the further development of the social character of the productive forces, but above all in the transformation of certain fundamental characteristics of capitalism as a whole, into their opposite. “Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly.”[18] “…although commodity production still “reigns” and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined…”[19]
It is precisely because some of the basic characteristics of capitalism as a whole turn into their opposite that Lenin writes about imperialism, defining it as a stage of capitalism, as a specific socio-economic structure in comparison with capitalism in general. This is why Lenin calls imperialism a stage of transition to socialism: “…imperialism is moribund capitalism, capitalism in transition to socialism: monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism.”[20]
V.I. Lenin reveals not only the economic specificities of imperialism, but also its political specificities, showing that “…the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition…”[21]
V.I. Lenin enriched the understanding of the “mechanism” of the revolutionary transformation of the capitalist socio-economic formation into a communist one, the understanding of the laws governing this transition and their conscious use by revolutionary forces. Lenin studies not only the state, the politics of this period, but also the relations of production, the relationship between politics and the economy, the ideology of the clashing social forces.
For the first time in the history of Marxism, the whole process of the revolutionary transition from the capitalist socio-economic formation to the communist one was so concretely analysed from the point of view of the practical and conscious implementation of this transition.
V.I. Lenin formulates the laws of transition from capitalism to socialism more concretely than K. Marx and F. Engels, he clarifies the Marxist study of socialism.
V.I. Lenin develops the Marxist doctrine of the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, the stage of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin wrote: “In Russia, the dictatorship of the proletariat must inevitably differ in certain particulars from what it would be in the advanced countries, owing to the very great backwardness and petty-bourgeois character of our country. But the basic forces—and the basic forms of social economy— are the same in Russia as in any capitalist country, so that the peculiarities can apply only to what is of lesser importance.
The basic forms of social economy are capitalism, petty commodity production, and communism. The basic forces are the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie (the peasantry in particular) and the proletariat.
The economic system of Russia in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat represents the struggle of labour, united on communist principles on the scale of a vast state and making its first steps—the struggle against petty commodity production and against the capitalism which still persists and against that which is newly arising on the basis of petty commodity production.”[22]
In his lecture on “The State”, Lenin considers the theory of socio-economic formation in its most general form. Here he characterises the historical development of society and the state, the division of the development of society into formations, and, in connection with the purpose of the lecture, defines the significance (including the methodological significance) of this approach: “This fundamental fact—the transition of society from primitive forms of slavery to serfdom and finally to capitalism—you must always bear in mind, for only by remembering this fundamental fact, only by examining all political doctrines placed in this fundamental scheme, will you be able properly to appraise these doctrines and understand what they refer to; for each of these great periods in the history of mankind, slave-owning, feudal and capitalist, embraces scores and hundreds of centuries and presents such a mass of political forms, such a variety of political doctrines, opinions and revolutions, that this extreme diversity and immense variety (especially in connection with the political, philosophical and other doctrines of bourgeois scholars and politicians) can be understood only by firmly holding, as to a guiding thread, to this division of society into classes, this change in the forms of class rule, and from this standpoint examining all social questions—economic, political, spiritual, religious, etc.”[23]
The actual solution of the methodological problems of the theory of socio-economic formations is impossible without the process of further development of this doctrine. Moreover, the further development of the theory of formations requires the study of the facts provided by modern concrete sciences in unity with the study of the laws governing the emergence and development of the theory of formations in the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Lenin’s ideas have become a solid foundation for the further development of the theory of socio-economic formations.
The importance of the contributions of the CPSU and other fraternal parties to this theory is determined by the tasks of the practical struggle for the transition to socialism and communism, because the contemporary era, which began with the Great October Socialist Revolution, is “the era of revolutionary renewal of the world, the era of transition to socialism and communism”.[24]
The CPSU and other fraternal parties, on the basis of Lenin’s ideas, have specified their views on the content of the modern era, developed Marxist-Leninist views on the stage of death, the decay of the old society – distinguished and studied new stages of the general crisis of capitalism, developed further questions on the transition to socialism, on overcoming capitalism, on building the foundations of socialism, on the general laws and national characteristics of the transition to socialism; they have created the concept of a developed socialist society.[25]
The XXVI Congress of the CPSU outlined the scientifically substantiated prospects for the development of mature socialism in the economic, socio-political and intellectual spheres of society. The position formulated in the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU that “the formation of a classless social structure will take place mainly and primarily within the historical framework of mature socialism”[26] is of great importance.
Thus, the development of the theory of socio-economic formations by the CPSU and other fraternal parties is carried out in several main directions: the study of the process of death, the decay of capitalism, the transition of developing countries to socialism, the overcoming of capitalism, the study of the stages of development of socialism, the emergence of communist formation, the general and the particular in the process of transition to socialism and communism.
Notes
[1] This article is the second chapter of “Part A: The Formation of the Theory of Socio-Economic Formation in Historical Materialism”, of the collective volume: “The Theory of Socio-Economic Formation” [Теория общественно-экономической формации] “Nauka” publishers, Moscow, 1983. Translation (from Greek) Spyros D. Patelis. The Russian original was also considered for the translation.
[2] As we can see from hisworks, especially from “The Logic of History. Issues of Theory and Methodology” (1st Russian edition Moscow 1988, Greek edition translated by D. Patelis, 2013), V.A. Vaziulin did not adopt the view, widespread in the USSRat the time, that communism was simply one more socio-economic formation, the fifth in a series. He believed that communism was not a mere negation of capitalism as a formation, and therefore could not be considered as just another formation alongside the others. From then on, he approached communism as the “authentically human history” as opposed to the “pre-history” (according to Marx) of pre-class and class society, as the actual development of society on its own basis, as the mature, unified humanity that represents a dialectical development/sublation of the entire course of history up to and including capitalism: of the preconditions, the primary emergence and formation of humanity. Thus, he defined communism as a radically different type of development, a different type of civilisation. In our opinion, the adoption of the term “communist formation” here is connected: 1. with the fact that this chapter focuses on the analysis of the socio-economic formation in historical materialism and not specifically on communism; 2. it is primarily focused on the work of V.I. Lenin, where the study of the revolutionary process, due to the revolutionary tasks of the time, is mainly focused on the transition from capitalism to socialism-communism, on the negation of capitalism through revolution and socialism; and 3. it is connected with the expediency (possibly with the intervention of the editors of the volume) of aligning this chapter with the main stream view of the other authors, but―most importantly―with the official ideological position of the time, according to which socialism itself, namely “advanced socialism” was also a distinct formation, alongside communism. – Translator’s note.
[3] Narodnikism (Russian “народничество”, from the word narod “народ”, meaning people) was a certain ideology and movement of the intellectuals “raznotshichi” (intellectuals who did not belong to the established class of aristocracy) that prevailed during the bourgeois-democratic stage of the liberation movement in Russia and objectively expressed the anti-feudal interests of the peasantry. Its programme was a combination of radical bourgeois-democratic demands with some ideas of utopian socialism, directed simultaneously against the vestiges of serfdom and against the bourgeois development of the country. Two tendencies coexisted in Narodnikism: revolutionary and liberal, which bourgeois development of the country. Two tendencies coexisted in Narodnikism: revolutionary and liberal, which agreed on the basic theoretical principles but disagreed on the methods of their practical application in social struggle. Central to the Narodniks’ view of society was the idea of the necessity and feasibility of developing Russia by bypassing capitalism, the idea of transition to socialism by using and transforming the collectivist traditions (collectivism) of pre-capitalist institutions, especially the peasant community. It was a heterogeneous movement with various references to different philosophical currents, which coalesced around the slogan “Land and Freedom”, by which they meant a matrix of radical bourgeois-democratic transformations, the idea of forming a centralised political organisation, a party, and the aspiration to transform the political revolution into a “social”, i.e. socialist, one. Despite the convergence with Marxism and the adoption by some Narodniks of some Marxist positions in support of their own ideas, from the 1890s this current moved mainly as a reaction to Marxism and the Russian workers’ movement, in direct confrontation with Marxism. It developed into a predominantly petty-bourgeois current, ideologically and politically unstable, with eclectic references and tendencies: from bourgeois-liberal reformist to anarchist, promoting subjectivism and individual terrorism. V.I. Lenin and other revolutionary Marxists systematically criticised this trend, exposing its petty-bourgeois inconsistency, the utopian character of its concepts, etc., while at the same time highlighting the contradiction between the utopian shell of petty-bourgeois socialism of Narodnikism and its democratic anti-feudal “core”. Similar types of ideologies and currents can be observed in versions of populism, “Third Worldism”, etc. in countries with late development of capitalism, such as China, India, countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. – Translator’s note.
[4] V. I. Lenin, What the “Friends of the People” Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats, 1894
[5] As above
[6] As above
[7] As above
[8] As above
[9] As above
[10] As above
[11] As above
[12] As above
[13] As above
[14] As above
[15] As above
[16] This refers to the agrarian reform in the Russian Empire (3 March – 19 February in the Julian calendar – of 1861, with a declaration signed by Tsar Alexander II) concerning the abolition of serfdom. It was a belated and non-radical reform imposed from above, which initiated a certain abolition of feudalism and the development of capitalist relations on the basis of a compromise between the interests of the rising bourgeoisie and those of the feudal aristocracy, the landowners. The reform did not solve the problem of land ownership, while it created new contradictions by providing for small plots and forcing the peasants to rent land or become land workers. In addition, the tsarist state paid the landlords in advance for the land transferred to the peasants, and the latter were obliged to repay this compensation as a debt to the treasury for 49 years. Capitalist development in Russia, late, incomplete and distorted by the remnants of feudalism and tsarist autocracy, was full of such antitheses. Intertwined with the fundamental contradiction of capitalism and the global antitheses of monopoly capitalism, the imperialist wars (the Russo-Japanese War and the First Imperialist World War) contributed in their intensity to the outbreak of revolutionary situations in Russia in 1905 and 1917. The agrarian question was radically resolved by the Great October Socialist Revolution. – Translator’s note.
[17] V.I. Lenin, The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) 29 April (12 May) 1917
[18] V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, 1917
[19] As above
[20] V.I. Lenin, Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, 1916
[21] V.I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism 1917
[22] V.I. Lenin Economics and Politics in The Era of The Dictatorship of The Proletariat, 1919
[23] V.I. Lenin, The State: A Lecture Delivered at the Sverdlov University, July 11, 1919
[24] Brezhnev L.I., On Lenin’s path: Speeches and articles. Moscow, 1978, vol. 6, p. 577. [References to texts of the General Secretary of the CPSU and other official texts were an indispensable condition for the publication of any theoretical text of ideological importance, especially by central publishing houses such as “Nauka”.
[25] In this text, the term “developed socialism” is mentioned, which was introduced and disseminated in the official ideology of the CPSU and the USSR. V.A. Vaziulin strongly disagreed with this on theoretical and methodological grounds. – Translator’s note.
[26] Materials of the 26th Congress of the CPSU. Moscow, 1981, p. 53.
