V.I. Lenin: Marxism and Insurrection (extract)

Having recognised the absolute necessity for an insurrection of the workers of Petrograd and Moscow in order to save the revolution and to save Russia from a "separate" partition by the imperialists of both groups, we must first adapt our political tactics at the Conference to the conditions of the growing insurrection; secondly, we must show that it is not only in words that we accept Marx's idea that insurrection must be treated as an art.

At the Conference we must immediately cement the Bolshevik group, without striving after numbers, and without fearing to leave the waverers in the waverers' camp. They are more useful to the cause of the revolution there than in the camp of the resolute and devoted fighters.

We must draw up a brief declaration from the Bolsheviks, emphasising in no uncertain manner the irrelevance of long speeches and of "speeches" in general, the necessity for immediate action to save the revolution, the absolute necessity for a complete break with the bourgeoisie, for the removal of the present government, in its entirety, for a complete rupture with the Anglo-French imperialists, who are preparing a "separate" partition of Russia, and for the immediate transfer of all power to revolutionary democrats, headed by the revolutionary proletariat.

Our declaration must give the briefest and most trenchant formulation of this conclusion in connection with the programme proposals of peace for the peoples, land for the peasants, confiscation of scandalous profits, and a check on the scandalous sabotage of production by the capitalists.

The briefer and more trenchant the declaration, the better. Only two other highly important points must be clearly indicated in it, namely, that the people are worn out by the vacillations, that they are fed up with the irresolution of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks; and that we are definitely breaking with these parties because they have betrayed the revolution.

And another thing. By immediately proposing a peace without annexations, by immediately breaking with the Allied imperialists and with all imperialists, either we shall at once obtain an armistice, or the entire revolutionary proletariat will rally to the defence of the country, and a really just, really revolutionary war will then be waged by revolutionary democrats under the leadership of the proletariat.

Having read this declaration, and having appealed for decisions and not talk, for action and not resolution-writing, we must dispatch our entire group to the factories and the barracks. Their place is there, the pulse of life is there, there's the source of salvation for our revolution, and there is he motive force of the Democratic Conference.

There, in ardent and impassioned speeches, we must explain our programme and put the alternative: either the Conference adopts it in its entirety, or else insurrection. There is no middle course. Delay is impossible. The revolution is lying.

By putting the question in this way, by concentrating our entire group in the factories and barracks, we shall be able to determine the right moment to start the insurrection.

In order to treat insurrection in a Marxist way, i.e., as an art, we must at the same time, without losing a single moment, organise a headquarters of the insurgent detachments, distribute our forces, move the reliable regiments to the most important points, surround the Alexandriusky Theatre, occupy the Peter and Paul Fortress,1' arrest the General Staff and the government, and move against the officer cadets and the Savage Division12 those detachments which would rather die than allow the enemy to approach the strategic points of the city. We must mobilise the armed workers and call them to fight the last desperate fight, occupy the telegraph and the telephone exchange at once, move our insurrection headquarters to the central telephone exchange and connect it by telephone with all the factories, all the regiments, all the points of armed fighting, etc.

Of course, this is all by way of example, only to illustrate the fact that at the present moment it is impossible to remain loyal to Marxism, to remain loyal to the revolution unless insurrection is treated as an art.

V.I. Lenin, September 1917

Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaaz: On the emergency Pakistan

ON THE EMERGENCY IN PAKISTAN

Pakistan Mazdoor Mahaaz

President Pervaiz Musharraf has imposed a state of emergency in the country, suspending certain provisions of the Constitution, under the Provisional Constitution Order.

Prior to this, the president announced the withdrawal of all corruption charges pending in the National Accountability Bureau and courts against politicians.

During the entire process, the contradictions between the exploiting classes have been brutally exposed. These classes, besides exploiting the masses, also fight among themselves. This is similar to the disputes between imperialist powers that fight to keep the countries under their control, and thus lead them also into wars.

It is to be noted that the different groups who are fighting amongst themselves to exploit the masses, are now being directed by American imperialism, not to fight but to compromise on power sharing and continue to remain under American influence.

On the other hand, the working people of Pakistan have been continuously exploited in the last 60 years. The imposition of emergency or Martial Law, or even the so-called democratic dispensation would not make any difference to them, and they will remain under exploitation.

As in the past, when the country now goes to poll for the next election, the same exploiting classes with new faces would be elected to the parliament without bringing any change in the system.

Would anyone in the new elected parliament ever voice concern on any issue of the masses?

Would anyone talk about the demolition of feudalism in the country?

Would the working class get their rights under the provisions of the International Labour Organisation ?

And would the parliament levy taxation on the income of feudal lords?

No, no such thing would happen.

This rotten feudal system would continue as it is, and the exploiting, reactionary constitution would remain intact and new planning to exploit the masses would be made in the new parliament.

This would go on till such time that a correct political line, free of opportunism is not adopted, and the working people and peasantry, are not organised to wage a revolutionary struggle, to demolish the reactionary parliament from within and outside, and a new parliament is elected with the votes of the working people, only then, the problems of the exploited masses would be redressed.

Till such time, the exploiting classes would remain fighting amongst themselves, with the masses toiling under them.

24th November 2007

On the Events in Nandigram

* This article, translated in Greek, published in Anasintaxi issue 263

The 14 known dead, the wounded, the raped and the unknown number missing in Nandigram, the victims gunned down by the joint police and the CPI M cadre ‘action’ on the 14th of March, visibly signify the pain of the marginalised sharecropper suffering from capital and state terror. Singur and Nandigram share their grief with the people of Kashipur and Kalinganagar in Orissa, the farmers who have committed suicide in their tens of thousands, the victims of Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, the dispossessed of the SEZs being instituted across the country, regardless of the political persuasions of the state governments. In these we see the resistance of the tribal and the peasant to the policies of an imperialist-sponsored neo-liberal global economic order, which is being prompted by the IMF and the World Bank and is being supported by the ruling amalgam of the big bourgeoisie and landlords and their political parties. Something like a united front has been established from the RSS to the CPI M which avers that ‘there is no alternative’ to the path of neo-liberal globalisation. Under the shiny packaging lies the reality that the poor peasant and the tribal are being divested of their means of production by non-economic coercion so that Indian and foreign capital can flourish. It is the process which Marx termed the primitive accumulation of capital. The Indian state itself facilitates this process by purchasing land for Indian and foreign capital at rates far below the market value and so subsidising the rich at the expense of the poor peasant and the tribal. This much is common across the state boundaries of India in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh.

West Bengal, in Singur and Nandigram, is witnessing a crisis resulting from a peculiar path of development. The Indian communist movement from its genesis, as elsewhere, advanced the proposition that the transfer of the land to the tiller creates an internal market which can facilitate the industrialisation of the country on the basis of a democratic path of development in the interests of the working people. The domination of reformism from the nineteen-fifties ended this project. It was the peasantry of Naxalbari and the communist revolutionaries in the nineteen-sixties who once again posed the question of agrarian revolution in India. In reaction to this the reformist democratic left front in West Bengal carried out a land reform in the nineteen-seventies which ameliorated the position of the sharecroppers while retaining intact the landlord structures. This was the basis of the three decade longevity of the political rule of the reformist left in West Bengal. The modification of the sharecropping system, although it led to a regeneration of Bengal agricultural production, never led to the abolition of landlordism as such nor the transfer of land to the tiller, no more than it developed a system of cooperatives of the sharecroppers which would have been consistent with the reform of the capitalist system in agriculture. Similarly, no perspectives were elaborated for the industrial development of the state based on the internal generation of financial resources through public institutions. The overall failure to evolve a democratic path of economic development, despite the marked productive advances in the agrarian sector, in the decades of the chief ministership of Jyoti Basu in West Bengal could only lead to the cul-de-sac of economic stagnation. Under the current chief ministership of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya the left front administration has sought to break out of this stasis and opted for a fully-fledged neo-liberal programme of economic development in cooperation with big Indian and foreign capital through the establishment of Special Economic Zones. A large section of the working people in agriculture who are already bereft of sustainable economic livelihood face a future where they will be stripped of their land in return for paltry compensation while those sharecroppers who do not have legal titles will have to be satisfied with no compensation at all. Many of the people of Nandigram face a future of pauperisation which compels them, whether or not they have given their support to the CPI M in the past, to defend their livelihood from the intrusion of the Indonesian Salim group and its projected SEZ.

The pressure of US imperialism is mounting on the political class to further push forward the neo-liberal globalisation agenda in India and to effect a deeper alignment of the country with the requirements of US foreign policy around the world. The two major parties of the big bourgeoisie and landlordism, the Congress and the BJP in the main concur with the economic and political policies of the US; sections of the CPI and the CPI M still retain significant reservations on this score. It must be considered positive that the current peoples’ struggles in Singur and Nandigram have compelled the central government to rethink and prettify their policies on SEZs in the country and led to a belated, half-hearted and partial re-evaluation of their role by the parties of the left front government in West Bengal. The need of the hour is to unite all the democratic forces who are opposing the effects of the current neo-liberal programmes in order to halt and reverse them and to substitute in their stead a programme of pro-people industrial development founded on adequate compensation for the potentially displaced and the consent of the working people: for this strong, steady and sustained pressure will have to be brought on the left front government of West Bengal. This is the immediate task of the genuine left and democratic forces in the country.

Revolutionary Democracy
25th March 2007

Notes:

SEZ: Special Economic Zones, where normal laws of the country do not apply, right to form unions etc.

IMF: International Monetary Fund.

RSS: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, National Volunteers' Organisation, a Hindu fascist organisation which guides the BJP.

BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party, the Indian People's Party. A Hindu Fascist Party which indulges in pogroms of Muslims. Some 3,000 Muslims were massacred by them in 2002 in the state of Gujarat.

Muscovites rally for October Revolution anniversary

About 50,000 Muscovites, mostly young people and pensioners, gathered Sunday in the center of the capital city to mark the 87th anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917 leading to the founding of the former Soviet Union. (Itar-Tass Photo)

APTUF Slams Martial Law in Pakistan

All Pakistan Trade Union Federation
November 7th, 2007

Let us claim the world over for immediate cancellation of the state of emergency in Pakistan

On November 3rd, 2007, a state of emergency has been imposed to Pakistan. In the days that followed, arrests have been multiplied. Demonstrations have been banned, and constitutional rights suspended.

All Pakistan Trade Union Federation supports the demand of trade unions and democratic organisations in Pakistan that the State of emergency be immediately cancelled, all prisoners released and the right of expression and association guaranteed.

The All Pakistan Trade Union Federation send its support and solidarity especially to democratic
organisations/ activists/ lawyers/journalists/peasants and all trade unions in Pakistan. We call to send declarations from all over the world asking for the immediate cancellation of the State of
emergency and the restoration of all elementary democratic rights.

We invite you to send these demands to the Pakistani authorities and to communicate to us your initiatives, in order to be able to inform Pakistani trade unions which are engaged in a fight for the defence of democratic rights and the right to organise.

Send telegrams and declarations to:
- the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, General Musharaff President House- Islamabad, Pakistan.
- the embassies of Pakistan in your own country

90th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution

> Download the text in 8 languages (FR, ES, EN, PT, IT, EL, RU, DE) here

Declaration of the International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations

"We want to transform the world. We want to put an end to world imperialist world war, in which hundreds of millions of people are involved [...] and it will not be possible to an end to this war though a true democratic peace without the most significant of all the revolutions of mankind, namely the proletarian revolution." (V. I. Lenin, April 1917).

The Great Revolution of October has risen up the enthusiasm and the hope of the proletarians and the people all over the world and at the same time, it has provoked the tremendous hate of the capitalist classes, of the reaction, against the Bolshevik Party and its leaders. It was a revolution never seen before in mankind’s' history, a revolution "which has deeply shaken the world".
In Russia, the revolution gave birth not only to a State and to a government of new type: it created a true civilization, a superior way of life (the socialisation and collectivisation), an organisation based in equality and freedom for the people and which provoked a swarming of cultural and scientific life which astonished the whole world.

The USSR has been, for tens of years, a decisive factor in human history: it managed to consolidate an iron unity among the people which has permitted to overcome with success the severe trails it has been confronted, namely, the civil war, the imperialist intervention, the collectivisation and industrialisation, the war of extermination and the invasion of the Nazis, stimulated by the western so called democratic states, the astonishing reconstruction after the war, etc.

Among the multiple lessons and experiences that we can draw from the Revolution of October, from the action of the first socialist State in history, we want to underline the practise of proletarian international solidarity, synthesized in the famous and accurate slogan of the Communist Manifesto "proletarians of all countries, unite!»

It's an active proletarian solidarity, which does not limit itself to words, as do the social democrats and others. The soviet power has put it in practice, in a clear and radical way, transforming the empire of tzar in a Union of Republics, based on the voluntary adhesion of the people and their numerous nationalities.
In return, the USSR could rely on the international solidarity in its struggle against the imperialist coalition, allied with Kerensky, who in the first months of the revolution, hoped to asphyxiate it and who launched a cruel civil ar. The sailors of the Black Sea, under the leadership of the Communist Marty, have refused to attack the USSR: they are an example of solidarity, which, linked to the adjective proletarian must be the norm in the relationships between brother parties, based on equality, taking in account their unequal political and organisational development.


International solidarity does not express itself only in specific manifestations, more or less of great significance, as, for example, the International Brigades which fought against Nazi-fascism in Spain: it also takes organisational forms. It’s the way Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin and all the great revolutionaries have conceived it. From the Great October Revolution, Lenin and the Bolsheviks have organized the IIIth International which has fixed as task, among others, the founding of Bolshevik parties; we call them today Marxist Leninist, in all the countries. It’s a task for today too. The International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations (ICMLPO) is an expression of this necessity, without been yet a new International. Proletarian solidarity which has been vigorously defended by Lenin, Stalin, Dimitrov, etc. is the international solidarity between the proletarians of the whole world: as the Bolsheviks did, it must be one of the principles and one of the components of the true Marxist Leninist parties.

In the same way, following the example of the great leaders of the construction of socialism in USSR, we affirm that the revolutionary violence is indispensable to overthrow bourgeoisie and the other capitalist forces which are acting against the proletariat and the people of the world. The revolutionary violence, at a certain stage of the class struggle, is completely part of it. Revolutionary violence, whose highest expression is proletarian dictatorship, "the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed in dominating class, in order to suppress the oppressors" is one of the most attacked principles, slandered by social-democrats, revisionists and opportunists of all hues. Khrushchev, in the infamous XXth congress, has launched a series of attacks and slanders against Stalin, against the revolutionary violence and the proletarian dictatorship. Stalin, the great follower of Lenin, developed an implacable struggle in order to apply this principle, a struggle which remains engraved in the spirit of all the Communists. We defend the work of Stalin and say, as Lenin said:

"Only can be considered as Marxist, those who go to the end in the recognition of class struggle, who recognize the necessity of proletarian dictatorship. In this relays the most fundamental difference between a Marxist and a petit (or great) vulgar bourgeois."

It’s amid the great achievements of the soviet power, amid the difficulties and the problems that the betrayal of Khrushchev and his followers, has emerged. It undermined the roots of the socialist State and provoked the enthusiasm of the bourgeoisie and the reaction all over the world. It must be stressed that the modern revisionists, under different forms and covers, belong to the same opportunist and anti Marxist Leninist bloc. The reaction has announced the end of the communist ideas, the end of the decisive role of the proletariat and the working class, and, finally, the uselessness of the communist parties.

We, as parties and organisations belonging to the ICMLPO, we affirm strongly that the communist party is the indispensable motor which brings the consciousness, which organises and leads the proletariat, the main force in its revolutionary struggle, in alliance with the poor peasantry, where it still exists, and with the popular strata. The development of imperialism, the great steps made by technology, the discoveries of all types, have not liquidated the class struggle and they cannot do it. All the successes of the epic of October, under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, remain completely actual: class struggle remains the motor of History and the communist party gives the main impulse that, as Marx said:
"Men can liberate themselves only through their own action and not because of the caprice of a Maecenas or because of the mere will of a brigt dictator"

The thesis on the weak link, in other words, the point where the fundamental contradictions are at the highest stage, especially the contradiction between proletariat and bourgeoisie, remains totally actual. We must take it in account, for the tactical international struggle of the communists. Nevertheless, the imperialist chain will break in one or several weak links, and will end with the destruction of capitalism and the instauration of socialism, only if the struggle is directed by a true communist party, as the October revolution has proved it in 1917. Indeed, Russia was a weak link of the capitalist system but it was not the only one. It’s only the communist party, with its firm leadership, that gained the leadership of the toiling masses, the peasants and the soldiers, who made this link burst apart, have assaulted the Winter Palace and who have taken the power for the Soviets. Its one of the greatest lesson and experience of this heroic epoch which will remain engraved in the annals of the revolution and which are still guiding and stimulating us.

We can say, without any doubt, that without a Marxist Leninist party, forged in the struggles and with a strong ideology, capable of firmness and audacity in the questions of organisation, with experienced leaders, able to foresee and accelerate the events in certain circumstances, without such a party, the masses can win temporal successes, partial victories, but they will never achieve the revolution, because "only a party guided by a vanguard theory can accomplish the mission of a vanguard combatant".

In commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, leaded by Lenin, Stalin and other great Bolshevik leaders, the International Conference of Marxist Leninist Parties and Organisations wants to stress on the actuality and the validity of Marxism Leninism, for the working class and the people of the world, in front of the pseudo Marxist theories, as anarchism, social-democratism, eurocommunism, Trotskyism, and all kind of utopias, that try to penetrate the working class and the progressive sectors. Several theories put forward by the bourgeoisie and its army of "critical" intellectuals are no more than old recycled theories, under new covers, which always end in helping the reaction. Here you have the new philosophers which discover nothing new, theorists that are theorizing, minimizing and ignoring his strength of action, of the practice. Their analyses do not aim at drawing conclusions; they are theories that explain pre established conclusions. They claim that Marxism is outdated, that Leninism is opposing Marxism, etc. They produce theories that "go ahead from Marxism". For us, Marxism, enriched by the immense contribution, full of genius, of Lenin (the Marxism Leninism) is not only accurate, but we are convinced that the development of proletarian and revolutionary forces, are depending from its right application, that Marxism will root itself deeply in the masses, that the impulse for the vital struggle for tumbling and eradicate capitalism, for engaging the process of construction of socialism, are depending on the correct application of Marxism. We remind the famous words:

"Marxism Leninism is the science related to the laws of nature and of society, to the revolution of the oppressed masses (...) it’s the ideology of the working class and of its communist party".

It’s a vivid science, in motion: it is not and will never be a prayer book, a dogma, for the communists, but a guide for action and for dialectical analysis. As Lenin underlined "without a revolutionary theory, there cannot be any revolutionary movement".

We also remind these other words of Lenin:

"The Russian proletariat had the honor to begin, but we must not forget that its movement and its revolution are only a part of the revolutionary worldwide proletarian movement".

Hail the Great October Revolution!
Hail Marxism Leninism!
Hail International solidarity!

International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO)
October 2007