The fundamental teachings of Lenin remain valid and are extremely relevant today!

April 22 marks the 143rd birth anniversary of V. I. Lenin, the great revolutionary leader and teacher of the proletariat. Lenin led the Bolshevik Party in organising the working class and toiling masses of Russia to overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish and consolidate the rule of workers and peasants, for the first time in human history.

April 22 marks the 143rd birth anniversary of V. I. Lenin, the great revolutionary leader and teacher of the proletariat. Lenin led the Bolshevik Party in organising the working class and toiling masses of Russia to overthrow the bourgeoisie, establish and consolidate the rule of workers and peasants, for the first time in human history.

In his important theoretical work, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, Lenin showed that capitalism had entered its last stage, that of imperialism, or moribund capitalism. Developments around the world as well as in India reaffirm Lenin’s analysis of the present epoch as the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution. They reaffirm that imperialism will continue to make every effort to extend its domination to all parts of the world, including unleashing bloody wars of destruction, and will continue to drag mankind into one crisis after another, unless the working class leads all the exploited and oppressed masses to overthrow this exploitative system and usher in socialism.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had established, through the scientific analysis of the development of human society, that it is the mission of the working class to be the grave digger of capitalism and to usher in the new era of socialism and communism in which there will be no exploitation of man by man.  Lenin defended, applied and developed the theory of Marxism in the conditions of his time when capitalism had reached the stage of imperialism.

Lenin showed that with capitalism entering the stage of imperialism, all the conditions were ripe for the outbreak of the proletarian revolution. He discovered the law of uneven economic and political development and concluded that the inter-imperialist contradictions, together with the contradictions between exploiters and exploited, and between dominating imperialist states and dominated nations and peoples, makes it possible for revolution to succeed in one country initially. This was contrary to the earlier belief that the proletarian revolution was likely to break out in those countries where capitalism was most advanced. Lenin predicted that revolution will break out in that country where the global chain of imperialism is the weakest, even though that country may not be advanced in the capitalist sense, because imperialism is a global system of enslavement and plunder. Lenin drew the conclusion that imperialism was the eve of the proletarian revolution.

The victory of the October revolution in Russia in 1917 heralded a new epoch in world history. For the first time, the political power of the exploiting class was eliminated and replaced, not by that of another exploiting class, but by the power of the working class. Generations of communists and revolutionaries all over the world have since then been inspired and guided by the theory and practice of Leninism in their struggle against exploitation.

Lenin elaborated Marx’s thesis that for the proletarian revolution to lead to socialism, it is essential to establish the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the principal instrument for the working class to lead society on the path of socialism and communism. The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union proved the correctness of this thesis. The successful construction of socialism in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin’s leadership was carried out while successfully leading the fight against the combined attempts of the major imperialist powers and overthrown reactionaries to crush the revolution through armed intervention as well as through subversion. The opposite developments in countries where the dictatorship of the proletariat was not established, e.g. China, also prove the correctness of Lenin’s thesis.

Leninism was defined by J.V.Stalin as the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, and the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular.

Lenin waged a stern ideological struggle against those who wanted the party to be a loose association of like-minded members. He pointed out that in order for the party to achieve the monolithic unity needed for the working class to defeat the bourgeoisie, it was not enough for party members to agree with the party program and pay regular dues; they would also have to work under the discipline of a party organisation. He established democratic centralism – collective decision making and individual responsibility – as the organisational principle of the communist party, which enables maximum individual initiative to be released while always preserving and strengthening the monolithic unity of the party.

The stern struggle waged by Lenin to uphold and defend the fundamental principles of Marxism against the distortions and falsifications spread by various forces, is clearly brought out in his profound writings of that period. In his work “The State and Revolution”, Lenin upheld the fundamental theses of Marx and Engels that it is necessary for the proletariat to smash the bourgeois state apparatus and replace it with an entirely new state apparatus that would be in the service of the working class. In his work “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”, he exposed the attempts to create illusions in the working class movement about bourgeois democracy and brilliantly contrasted bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Socialism advanced as long as the Bolshevik Party led the class struggle against imperialism and its agents within the Soviet Union.  A process of degeneration began when the Soviet Party started preaching in the fifties that there was no longer any need for the class struggle.  It is the betrayal of Leninism by the Soviet Party under Khrushchev and those who followed him that was responsible for the restoration of capitalism and the ultimate disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Today, the struggles of the working class and other oppressed sections against their own capitalist bourgeoisie and the imperialist system is growing in different parts of the world. Imperialism and the bourgeoisie find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into crisis.

The Anglo-American imperialists have been launching one devastating war after another, brutally attacking the freedom and sovereignty of nations and peoples, so as to preserve and strengthen their dominant positions, and weaken their rivals. Through lying propaganda in the international media, they brand those who dare to stand up against them as terrorists and as rogue states, to justify unleashing brute force against them.

Opposition to imperialist war and plunder is also growing on the world scale. The contradictions between the exploiters and exploited in capitalist countries, between imperialism and the oppressed peoples and nations, as well as inter-imperialist contradictions are all sharpening. All this only revalidates the fundamental teachings and conclusions of Leninism. The task of the communist parties in all countries is to prepare the working class to carry out the second round of proletarian revolution, which is bound to break out at the weakest link in the imperialist chain. 

Communist Ghadar Party has waged a consistent struggle to defend the fundamental conclusions of Leninism against all attempts to distort them and turn them into something harmless to the bourgeoisie. We have waged and continue to wage struggle against the ‘parliamentary road to socialism’.  We uncompromisingly oppose the notion that proletarian revolution is not possible or not necessary at this time.  Such notions are spread to justify compromising and conciliating with imperialism and the bourgeoisie.  Our Party wages a stern struggle against the notion that some ‘middle class revolution’ is on the agenda and not the proletarian revolution. 

The fundamental conclusions of Leninism are being distorted by those who talk about “international finance capital” as one united global force, thereby under-playing the contradictions among different imperialist powers for global hegemony.  This is a line of thinking that leads to over-estimating the strength of the enemy and under-estimating the prospects for revolution.

This is still the epoch of imperialism and the proletarian revolution, within which the tide of revolution has been temporarily in ebb since the disintegration of the Soviet Union.  The teachings of Comrade Lenin are extremely relevant today. CGPI is committed to defend the fundamental principles and conclusions of Marxism-Leninism, and to develop the theory of liberation of the Indian people consistent with these principles and conclusions. The immediate task before us is to prepare the working class to take power in its hands, in alliance with the toiling peasantry and other oppressed sections.  This is the essential condition for ending the parasitic rule of the bourgeoisie and ensuring a bright future for our people.

Long Live Comrade Lenin! Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

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