Original taken from iskra0000 in Briefly about Lenin’s ideas that are still relevant today
Some points are controversial, but interesting anyway:
Everyone who undertakes to judge Lenin today is united by an absolute misunderstanding of the meaning of his teachings, the reasons for his popularity among the people and the motives behind the creation of the USSR. Simply put, none of them have really read Lenin and are not going to read Lenin (although now, given the situation in the world economy, is the right time). Especially for them - on an everyday, primitive level - I will outline the logic of the Bolsheviks in 1916.
1. The development of capitalism inevitably leads to crises. Crises are always resolved through war.
2. With each subsequent crisis, imperialist wars will become more and more destructive.
3. In imperialist wars, the class structure of societies is exposed in the most brutal way: the poor and powerless die first, the rich sit in the rear and do not die.
4. Russia, as a backward capitalist state, has no chance of winning world war. Being a semi-colonial power, Russia is dependent on external creditors, and therefore constantly saves its allies with the lives of its soldiers. western front. Even in the event of an Entente victory over Germany, Russia will inevitably become the next “patient of Europe” (see Crimean War). Russia's technological lag behind England, the USA, France, and Japan (see. Russo-Japanese War) is such that it leaves practically no chance for the state to survive. The speed with which the Entente accepted Nicholas’s abdication and then rushed to destroy the royal inheritance completely confirms these assumptions.
5. In order to prevent another world war (in which one day everyone will die - both Russians and non-Russians), it is necessary to create another, alternative world economic system (USSR).
6. In order to protect this world economic system from the inevitable aggression of capitalism, its creators must make a qualitative leap in science, technology, education, and medicine. Every citizen of the new state must feel involved in it and be motivated to protect it. The tsarist government was unable to create such motivation among the people in the First World War (see “The German will not reach the Urals”)
7. To build a new world economic system within the borders of the RSFSR would be absurd. She wouldn't have survived. An ideology was needed that would unite all the inhabitants Russian Empire nationality. This ideology could not be Russian nationalism, Orthodoxy, or imperialism as such. To drive Turkestan, the Caucasus, Siberia under the imperial roof, neither by force nor by persuasion, Far East, Ukraine, etc. was no longer possible (Denikin, who was attacked by N. Jordan’s Georgians near Adler, will not let him lie). The unifying ideology of “Russians-Uzbeks-Latvians” could only be justice. The state framework is only the Union of Equal Peoples. Union, not Empire.
8. The new world economic system will inevitably be strangled and strangled in a blockade (there is no peaceful coexistence of two systems) if it does not take offensive actions. Hence the mondialist thesis about permanent revolution. Attention, Orthodox Stalinists: this thesis was never rejected even by Stalin. Stalin only said that first we need to build a state and only then get involved in some kind of revolution. Actually, it was on the basis of these differences that Trotsky earned his ice ax. The rejection of the idea of fighting capitalism on foreign territory (in World War II the allies did not open a second front until the abolition of the Comintern) ultimately led to the fact that the USSR had to fight on its own territory. “The coexistence of two systems” turned out to be a scam for suckers.
9. The destruction of the USSR did not cancel any of the listed problems. Capitalism is entering into a crisis unprecedented in history, from which it habitually seeks a way out through war.
...
Now - since the conditions of the equation have remained practically unchanged (well, perhaps they have become a little more complicated) - I would like to hear what alternative programs the Leninophobe gentlemen have for getting out of the current situation.
Author: Konstantin Semin
One of the greatest politicians, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), approached revolutionary views from a Marxist position, defeated Russian anarchism and terror tactics. Lenin was a political leader who played a major role in establishing communist power in Russia.
In 1900 he left for Western Europe and did not return to Russia for 17 years. After the split of the Russian Social Democratic Party, Lenin becomes the leader of the Bolsheviks. In March 1917, the tsar abdicated the throne. Lenin returns to Russia. In October 1917, the RSDLP (b) came to power. Lenin ruled the state for five years, but during this time he practically remade the entire country. Lenin, for the first time in the world, began to build a communist state, putting into practice the ideas of Karl Marx. His works had a huge influence on the development of philosophical thought: “What to do?” (1902), “Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism” (1916), “The childhood disease of leftism in communism” (1920).
The state was seen by Lenin as the embodiment of class antagonism, which had split society since the advent of private property. The essence of all states is the dictatorship of the ruling class. The power of the ruling class, no matter what it is called, is always based on violence. Dictatorship of the proletariat - power based on force and nothing
In a society based on legal norms arising from human reason, truth and justice, designed to serve as a measure and guide for positive legislation, man remains free.
The form of the state depends on its content. Different states of society require different political systems - each nation in its history is not limited to any one political form. The basic law that determines the structure of political power is that the less unity in society, the more concentrated political power should be. The concentration of supreme power in one person and the exclusion of society from real participation in political affairs is a sign of society’s inability to self-govern.
Paying great attention to the characteristics of various forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, mixed form - constitutional monarchy), Chicherin considers their content and orientation depending on the historical conditions and the state of the people's spirit (consciousness). When analyzing these forms, Chicherin gives preference to a constitutional monarchy. It was in it, in his opinion, that the ideas of freedom and the ideal of human community were most fully reflected.
If he does not have a divine idea, the more influence he should have on people. The scope of individual rights must correspond to the height of internal dignity. From a moral point of view, the entire society is an objective realization containing a reasonable moral principle of the individual. The hierarchy of moral principles is organized in the church, descending along another, lower level social system. The path of descent of the moral principle is the path of sacred tradition, regardless of specific social and spiritual forms. The alliance between church and state in Solovyov is based on the recognition by the church of the highest authority that belongs to it. The state must provide the church with full power to unite worldly interests with the higher will. Church power is not coercive, and state power cannot intrude into the sphere of religion. The basis of any social system comes down to two types: divine sovereignty and popular sovereignty. The divine is more important than the popular; only the presence of the highest moral truth justifies power. The number of people making claims to power does not in itself represent any moral right, just as the mass does not represent any internal right.
not limited (neither by law nor by the state). The sign is a complete disconnection from the law.
Lenin creates a doctrine of objective and subjective factors of revolution. Subjective - the party, the maturity of the masses. Lenin creates a doctrine of a new type of party. Councils - instead of parliamentary talking shops. The system of separation of powers (the combination of legislative and executive powers in councils) is denied. .
The party concentrated all the powers of the state in its hands. Lenin was forced to resort to the creation of revolutionary tribunals, non-economic courts. Since 1921, Lenin has been revising a number of utopian dogmas of Marxism and creating new model socialism. The main features include: 1) rehabilitation of the law of value and commodity-money relations; 2) the principle of payment according to the quantity and quality of work; 3) the transition from universal control to a solid but flexible state apparatus. Two main tasks: 1) how to overcome the spontaneity of the revived market and subordinate it to a plan; 2) how to defeat the bureaucracy of the state apparatus, the role of which is increasing with the NEP.
None of the tasks were completed.
Since May 1922, Lenin was seriously ill. January 21, 1924 died.
Power arises from the psychological pressure of a strong, gifted personality on the inert passive masses. The basis of any community life is a psychological motive - the willingness to obey.
Kovalevsky approached legislative activity from a scientific point of view. Thus, he repeatedly explained the rights of legislative institutions and the conditions of their activities. Kovalevsky advised treating sick social orders not hastily, not in troubled times, but in eras of relative calm, prudently and thoroughly. He was also embarrassed by the slowness of the legislation.
In speeches about the relationship between church and state, about freedom of conscience, about the reduction of holidays and non-public days, Kovalevsky was always an exponent of broad universal views.
In Kovalevsky’s books they found an assessment and tasks of criminal justice: on probation, conditional release, on the abolition of administrative guarantees for official crimes and on jury trials. Insisting on the abolition of administrative guarantees for officials, often leading to their complete impunity, he came out with a passionate defense of the jury trial, based on the centuries-old experience of England. He argued that this is a vital court, which has an ennobling influence on people's morality, serving as a conductor of people's legal consciousness.
2. Philosophical views of V. I. Lenin
The founder of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924), is considered the greatest representative of Marxism after Marx and Engels. Forced to leave aside his contribution to Marxist political economy and the doctrine of socialism (analysis of the development of capitalism in Russia, the theory of imperialism, the plan for the construction of socialism, etc.), we will focus on Lenin’s philosophical position as the author of two philosophical works and a number of ideas of a philosophical nature , running through many of his works.
First of all, we note that Lenin did not immediately develop the idea of the unity of the three parts of Marxism, including the philosophical part. In the first period of his activity (1893–1899), when, following Plekhanov, he began to criticize the populists, and then the “legal Marxists” (in particular, Struve), he was inclined to think about the withering away of philosophy, believing that “its material is disintegrating between various branches of positive science." Accordingly, he considered historical materialism as a concrete science - sociology, and defined dialectics as scientific method in sociology.
True, this did not prevent the fact that in his first major works- “What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” (1894) and “The economic content of populism and its criticism in the book of Mr. Struve” (1895) - there were ideas that can be defined as philosophical. Thus, criticizing the leader of the populists N.K. Mikhailovsky, Lenin emphasized that in determining the paths of development of Russia one must proceed not from what is desired, not from the ideal put forward by individuals, but from objective processes and trends inherent in society as an integral organism.
A significant change in Lenin’s attitude to philosophy apparently occurred when discussions around the revisionism of E. Bernstein began among Western social democrats and a division began between the revolutionary and future reformist wings of the social democratic movement. Already in these disputes philosophical issues were raised (remember that Bernstein proposed to abandon dialectics in Marxism). But these questions became especially acute when a number of Marxists, who believed that Marxism did not have its own philosophy, began to complement it in the field of the theory of knowledge, some with neo-Kantianism, others with empirio-criticism (which especially spread in Russia).
Lenin, like Plekhanov, did not agree with either one or the other, believing that it was impossible to combine the materialist teaching of Marxism with the idealist theory of knowledge. Marxism should and, in fact, has its own philosophy, including the theory of knowledge. Thus, Lenin had to not only recognize philosophy as such, but also deal with philosophical and epistemological issues, which resulted in his philosophical work “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” (1909).
"Materialism and empirio-criticism"
Criticizing empirio-criticism in the person of its founders E. Mach and R. Avenarius, as well as their Russian followers A. A. Bogdanov, V. A. Bazarov, P. S. Yushkevich, N. Valentinov and others, Lenin characterizes his theory of knowledge as subjective -idealistic and contrasts it with the materialist, or more precisely, the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge of Marxism. Dialectical materialism, he believes, like any materialism, considers cognition as a process of man’s reflection of objective reality, while the subjective idealism of supporters of empirio-criticism and Machism, just like Berkeley’s subjective idealism, does not recognize cognition as a reflection of objective reality and considers it as a process entirely flowing inside consciousness. As a result, Lenin emphasizes, empirio-criticism falls into solipsism (only I exist) and comes into conflict with natural science, which speaks of the existence of the world independent of man.
At first glance, the opposition is completely symmetrical: on the one hand, materialism, which asserts the primacy of the relations of reality and the secondary nature of consciousness and cognition as its reflection; on the other hand, idealism, which asserts the primacy of consciousness and represents external reality as an intrapsychic structure consisting of elements of consciousness (a thing is a complex of sensations).
However, upon closer examination it turns out that this symmetry is far from complete. The fact is that supporters of empirio-criticism and Machism are building a rather complex philosophical theory with the aim of showing how things happen inside consciousness. cognitive process- how direct data are mediated, since there is a transition from sensations and ideas to concepts and theories, etc. But Lenin in some cases simply ignores the corresponding reasoning of empirio-critics, and in others he ridicules them as “scholasticism”, “nonsense”, “twists” ", covering up philosophical inconsistency, etc.
Lenin's reluctance to deal with many philosophical and epistemological subtleties and, moreover, his contemptuous attitude towards them caused a response from many philosophers who accused Lenin of primitivism. Meanwhile, Lenin’s approach to the theory of knowledge is in line with what Engels spoke about. If, according to Engels, it makes no sense to continue to build natural philosophy and the philosophy of history as speculative systems that fill “empty spaces” with fictitious connections, then, according to Lenin, this also applies to the theory of knowledge. The question of how exactly with the help of the senses a person perceives various aspects of reality and how, through a long process historical development From these perceptions abstract concepts are developed, which are solved through concrete scientific research, Lenin believed. And “the only philosophical question” is “the question of whether an objective reality independent of humanity corresponds to these perceptions and these concepts of humanity.”
If we proceed from this question, Lenin believed, then it follows that various philosophical “schools” arguing among themselves over certain epistemological details cannot prove anything to each other and only obscure with these disputes the main philosophical division into idealism and materialism.
The situation is more serious when Mach, Avenarius and their followers try to refute materialism, citing the latest revolutionary achievements in physics - the discovery of radioactivity, the electron, the fact of the variability of its mass, and others. The mechanistic picture of the world with its unchanging atoms, unchanging mass and other absolutes is indeed collapsing. But does this mean that matter disappears and the materialism based on it collapses? No way, says Lenin. Here it is also necessary to distinguish between philosophical and non-philosophical questions. The question of the specific properties of matter is resolved by specific sciences, and primarily by physics. And “the only “property” of matter, the recognition of which is associated with philosophical materialism, is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside of our consciousness.”
But this, according to Lenin, is no longer that old “metaphysical” materialism, which, along with the recognition of matter as objective reality, absolute some of its mechanical properties. This is a new, dialectical materialism that rejects any absolutes, any limits of our knowledge and recognizes our knowledge as endlessly developing and, therefore, relative. It is precisely this new, dialectical materialism that is adequate to the new science, Lenin declares. To this we must add that if empirio-criticism, which also insists on the relativity of our knowledge, rejected the presence of any objective truth in it, then, according to dialectical materialism, something objectively true (independent of man and humanity) accumulates in our relative knowledge, everything getting closer to full knowledge of reality, that is, to absolute truth, although never achieving it completely.
Not limiting himself to the epistemological opposition of materialism and idealism, Lenin sought to provide a socio-ideological basis for it. He outlines the concept of partisan philosophy, according to which, through the connection of materialism with science, and idealism with religion, various social and class interests are ultimately expressed. “The newest philosophy is as partisan as it was two thousand years ago,” writes Lenin. The contending parties are materialism and idealism. Such a “party” approach is Lenin’s main criterion for assessing philosophical concepts.
"Philosophical notebooks"
To development philosophical issues Lenin also addressed this in his handwritten notes, known as “Philosophical Notebooks” (written in 1914–1916 and published in 1929–1930).
They record the process of materialist processing of Hegelian dialectics (as Lenin understood it) and only some of its preliminary results (fragments “16 elements of dialectics”, “On the question of dialectics”).
Lenin not only “turns” Hegel (the dialectic of concepts reflects the dialectic of reality), but also divides his system into separate “pieces” and “elements” that demonstrate the dialectical way of thinking from one side to the other. As a result, an idea of dialectics is created that is not at all easy to reduce to some general formulation.
Dialectics is, on the one hand, the movement of knowledge “in breadth”, in which relationships and mutual transitions between separate and even opposing concepts are discovered. On the other hand, this is a movement “in depth” - from the phenomenon to the essence and from the essence of the first order to the essence of the second order, etc. In this case, the phenomenon and the essence turn out to be interconnected (the essence appears, and the phenomenon is essential), and the negation of the previous stage of the subsequent one is accomplished with retention of the positive. This is also a return at a new level to the old (negation of negation), a combination of analysis and synthesis, “the bifurcation of the whole and the knowledge of its contradictory parts,” etc.
Lenin attaches special importance to the last aspect, believing that the discovery of contradictory tendencies in all phenomena and processes is the “core of dialectics” and “the condition for knowing all processes of the world in their “self-movement”, in their spontaneous development, in their living life.”
Lenin believes (like Hegel) that dialectics can be found in any, even the simplest sentence (for example, Ivan is a man, Zhuchka is a dog, that is, the individual is the general, and the opposites are identical). But this is only the very beginning of the dialectic. In general, it shows all its strength when studying complex, changing, developing objects. It removes those simplifications and restrictions that were inevitable in the first approach, and allows us to grasp these objects in all their complexity, inconsistency, and variability. From this point of view, dialectics acts as a theory of development, and development as a complex process of the emergence and resolution of contradictions, going through leaps, breaks of gradualness, the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new. The source of development and self-propulsion is the unity and struggle of opposites.
The dialectical approach developed in the Philosophical Notebooks prompts Lenin to re-evaluate idealism. The reasoning of idealists, including Kantians, Machists and others, should not be rejected out of hand, writes Lenin, but corrected (as Hegel corrected Kant), deepening, generalizing, expanding them, since idealism is not nonsense, but a one-sided, exaggerated development one of the aspects of knowledge, transformed into the Absolute.
In fact, dialectics, according to Lenin, is a certain culture of thinking that warns thought against one-sidedness, simplistic schematization, dogmatic ossification and orients it towards the search for the complex, contradictory, changeable, hiding behind apparent simplicity and immobility.
Political philosophy of V. I. Lenin
Lenin was first and foremost a revolutionary politician who devoted his life to the struggle for the implementation socialist revolution in Russia. At the same time, he constantly polemicized, convinced, and tried to prove the correctness of his political line. Let's see what general principles he proceeded from and what his political philosophy was.
Firstly, this is a philosophy oriented towards a radical restructuring of society, towards the elimination of all oppression and social inequality. Lenin was convinced of the need for a radical revolution and categorically rejected reformism as a concept of small, gradual improvements within the existing system. He sought to stimulate the actual struggle of wage workers, bringing it into the mainstream of the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism.
Secondly, this is the philosophy of revolution as a means of radical reconstruction. “Great questions in the life of nations can only be resolved by force,” Lenin wrote in 1905. No matter what form the revolution takes, in any case it is necessary to force the former ruling class to give up power - it will not do this voluntarily. Studying and summarizing the experience of revolutions that took place in history, Lenin developed a whole doctrine about revolution, about the revolutionary situation, about the dictatorship of the proletariat as a means of protecting and developing revolutionary gains. Just like Marx and Engels, Lenin views revolution as a consequence primarily of objective processes, emphasizing that it is not done to order or at the request of revolutionaries. But at the same time, Lenin introduces many new aspects into Marxist theory. The socialist revolution, Lenin argued, did not necessarily have to occur in the most developed capitalist countries, as Marx and Engels believed. In conditions of uneven capitalist development, the chain of imperialist states can break through at the “weakest link,” weak due to the interweaving of various contradictions in it. Lenin saw Russia as such a weak link in 1917.
Thirdly, this is a political philosophy in which politics is understood primarily as the actions of large masses of people. “...When there is no open political action of the masses,” Lenin wrote, “no putches can replace it or artificially cause it.” At the same time, the more profound the transformation of society, the greater the participation of the masses. Therefore, where other politicians talked at the level of elites and parties, Lenin speaks of the masses, classes, and social groupings. Lenin carefully studied the life of various segments of the population, considering it important to identify the changes that took place in various classes and groupings, their movement to the left or right, changes in moods, the balance of class forces, etc. From here conclusions of a strategic and tactical nature were drawn - about class alliances, about slogans of the day, about possible practical actions.
Fourthly, it is a philosophy in which big role was attributed to the subjective factor. Criticizing in the work “What to do?” (1902) theory of the “spontaneity” of the so-called “economists”, Lenin argued that socialist consciousness does not arise by itself from the economic situation of the proletariat - it is developed by theorists on a much broader basis and must be introduced into the working class from the outside. Lenin developed and implemented the theory of the party as the advanced, leading part of the class; showed the role of subjective moments in the revolution, which do not arise by themselves from the objective revolutionary situation. All these provisions gave rise to some talking about his important contribution to Marxist theory, and to others accusing him of voluntarism.
Finally, fifthly, this is a political philosophy that is aimed at fundamental change(sometimes they say - the liquidation) of politics itself, which from time immemorial has been built on the division of people into managers and governed. These provisions (in development of the idea of Marx and Engels about the withering away of the state as an organ of political class domination) were expressed by Lenin in his work “State and Revolution” (1917). The withering away of the state must be preceded by its radical democratization - the introduction of election and rotation of not only deputies, but also officials paid at the level of workers, the increasingly widespread involvement of representatives of the people in public administration, so that ultimately everyone governs in turn and the management function ceases to be a privilege .
As you know, in practice everything turned out at first not quite like that, and then not at all like that. Whether the reason for this was the utopian nature of this project or the unfavorability of the specific conditions for its implementation, but in any case, the development of our country went in the exact opposite direction.
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Lenin V.I. (1870-1924) - founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet state, recognized leader of the world communist movement. V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin) left a theoretical legacy - Marxism-Leninism, the importance of which is difficult to overestimate. The complete works of Lenin total 55 volumes. Many of his works formulate deeply scientific theories and also express a clear position on current political events.
In Soviet historiography, Leninism has been studied quite deeply; two periods are distinguished: Lenin’s development of Marxist political thought before and after October 1917.
In the first period, the main political and legal themes of Lenin’s works were: justification of the tactics and strategy of a new type of party, the theory of outgrowth bourgeois revolution into socialist, the doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the theory of the state.
Lenin's works "What to do?" and "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" show the importance of the party as highest form class organization of the proletariat (compared to trade unions or other organizations). In his doctrine of the party, Lenin proves that only an organized proletariat is capable of achieving its goals. However, only a party guided by an advanced theory, using both legal and illegal methods of struggle, can fulfill the role of an advanced fighter.
The theory of the development of a bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution is formulated in the book “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution.”
Under the conditions of the Russian revolution, the bourgeoisie will seek partial concessions from the monarchy: political (constitution) and economic. Under these conditions, the bourgeoisie will try to make the peasantry the main social force. Therefore, it is necessary to prevent the peasantry from being deceived. Instead of the Cadet theory of “two camps” - the monarchist and supporters of the constitution - Lenin proceeded from the presence of three camps in the revolution: government, liberal and democratic. The revolutionary proletariat, whose ally will be the peasantry, must be at the head of the democratic camp. Such an alliance must lead to the victory of the revolution.
The next stage of the permanent revolution in Lenin's teachings was the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Lenin characterized the dictatorship of the proletariat as “power based on force and not on law.” In the work “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” the dictatorship of the proletariat is characterized as democratic, since it consists of broad democratic transformations. At the same time, Lenin also substantiated the revolutionary, repressive nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat in relation to landowners and capitalists, since the resistance of the former exploiters is inevitable. The victory of the revolutionary dictatorship is identified with the destruction of the foundations of bourgeois society.
The national-state question in Lenin's teaching is considered as part of the problem of the world liberation movement and in close connection with the doctrine of revolution. In the Leninist concept, a nation is formed during the development of capitalist relations. Ethnicity, which existed in pre-bourgeois eras, becomes a new historical category in the period of capitalism. A nation, in addition to a common language, cultural traditions and unity of territory, is also characterized by economic unity. Thus, the nation is considered as a category - a consequence of socio-economic development. With the emergence of nations, in conditions of ethically heterogeneous states, class and national liberation struggles are inseparable. Consequently, two trends appear in the national question: the desire to create sovereign states and the desire to establish strong economic ties between states.
The doctrine of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the tasks of social democracy in revolutions was developed in the 1917 works “April Theses” and “Marxism and the State”. The main provisions of these works were summarized in the theoretical work “State and Revolution”. In this work (PSS. T. 33) Lenin proceeded from the Marxist interpretation that state there is a main institute political system class society, which manages society and protects its economic and social structure. In a class society, according to Lenin's teaching, the state serves to suppress its social opponents, state power is in the hands of the economically dominant class.
Lenin developed this Marxist definition of the state; he identified the basic ideas of the state as a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions, as an organ of class domination. Without revolution, it is impossible to destroy the exploitative essence of the state; therefore, the doctrine of the state is closely interconnected with revolutionary doctrine. As a result, the victory of the revolution justified the period of dictatorship of the proletariat, designed to destroy the old state apparatus, suppress the resistance of the landowners and bourgeoisie, and establish the power of the workers and peasants. The transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat to communism, according to Lenin’s teaching, “cannot fail to produce an enormous abundance and diversity of political forms” while preserving the inevitable essence - the dictatorship of the proletariat. Next, Lenin justifies the task of the proletariat to create its own state apparatus. However, employees of the socialist state apparatus, according to Lenin, should not turn into officials and bureaucrats. To do this, he considered it necessary to approve the principle of election, rotation of civil servants, the prohibition of any social privileges for employees, and the strengthening of legislative proletarian power.
Lenin called communism the logical conclusion of the state: “We have the right to speak only about the inevitable withering away of the state, emphasizing the duration of this process, its independence from the speed of development of the higher phase of communism and leaving completely open the question of the timing or specific forms of withering away, because there is no material for resolving such issues ". As can be seen, Lenin left the process of transition from the dictatorship of the proletariat to communism open for further theoretical justification.
In the period after October 1917, Lenin, as the leader of the Soviet state, faced the practical tasks of implementing the political program of the Bolsheviks. Therefore, the doctrine of state and law acquired not only a theoretical character. At this time, Lenin paid attention to the development of the doctrine of nation-state building, the relationship between the dictatorship of the proletariat and revolutionary legality already in the conditions of the Soviet state,
In the lecture “On the State,” in the essays “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky,” “The Infantile Disease of “Leftism” in Communism,” and a number of other works, the bourgeois (even democratic) state is contrasted with the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this regard, Lenin defined the proletarian dictatorship as a kind of school in which the proletariat masters the skills of governing the state and teaches this to all workers. Consequently, Lenin called the union of the proletariat with the peasantry the “highest principle” of the dictatorship of the proletariat. During the Civil War, Lenin justified dictatorship as terror against the resisting exploiting classes. He wrote that dictatorship does not mean the end of the class struggle, but only its continuation at a new historical stage.
Lenin called the Republic of Soviets the best form of dictatorship of the proletariat. Soviet power occupies one of the central places in Lenin's teachings of this time. The Soviets of the "school of communism" in Lenin's works are shown to be much more democratic bodies of power than the bourgeois Constituent Assembly. A new form of democracy - socialist Soviets - is contrasted by Lenin with the old bourgeois democracy. The socialist character of Soviet power is explained by the system of this power in the center and locally. Thus, higher-level Councils concentrate in their hands the highest legislative power and control over the implementation of laws, and local Councils are more effective bodies with greater capabilities than bourgeois self-government bodies. In addition, the Soviets "by systematically attracting all more citizens to direct government" serve as a real lever in the fight against localism, bureaucracy and bourgeois remnants.
The creation of the Soviet state implied the implementation of internal and external functions. The first Decrees of the Soviet government, developed by Lenin, already formulated the guidelines for the domestic and foreign policy of the state of workers and peasants. After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin, as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, was directly faced with the need to carry out economic, political and other functions aimed at organizing a new socialist society. Lenin considered the main (interrelated) tasks at this time to be the organization of the suppression of the bourgeoisie, as well as “accounting and control” during the socialization of production. The close relationship between economics and politics was also evident when Lenin justified “war communism” and NEP.
Lenin formulated foreign policy functions as the principle of peaceful coexistence. Unlike the “left” communists with their theory of permanent world revolution, in the Decree on Peace and in the works of the post-October period he refrained from the theory of world revolution. On the contrary, Lenin became a supporter of the theory of building socialism in Russia alone. The slogan "Workers of all countries, unite!" Lenin, of course, did not reject it. He remained a supporter revolutionary transformation peace and the victory of communism throughout the planet, but believed that the causes of the revolution lie in the plane of internal political development, and not in the export of revolution from the outside.
In the “Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” Lenin formulated the concept of nation-state building, a federal structure of Russia with the voluntary entry of national autonomies into the RSFSR. At the same time, Lenin emphasized that autonomy and federation would not at all infringe on the principle of democratic centralism, but, on the contrary, would make it possible to eliminate national discord in the future state.
Lenin's concept government system developed during the formation of the USSR. At this time, projects were proposed for the creation of a federation with subsequent evolution towards a unitary state. Lenin did not agree with this concept; he proposed the idea of creating a union state, which was the basis of the USSR. The new concept of dual state sovereignty assumed that sovereignty belonged to both the union state and the union republics. The Constitution of the USSR of 1924 (Article 3) enshrined the Leninist concept, reflected in subsequent Constitutions of the Soviet Union.
The relationship between the dictatorship of the proletariat and revolutionary legitimacy is based on the theory of violence. Lenin said with revelation that power won and maintained by the violence of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie is “power not bound by any laws.” The word “none” here must be understood as bourgeois laws, which were completely rejected. It is naive to believe that Lenin, being a theoretical scientist and lawyer by training, rejected legal laws and professed legal nihilism. Lenin's concept was that the dictatorship of the proletariat rejected the old social relations formulated in bourgeois laws. However, as new ones form public relations the proletarian state enshrines the latter in obligatory for all legal acts. Simultaneously with the establishment of new laws, Lenin promoted emergency measures in the form of a policy of “red terror”.
It is fair to note that the “darkness of lawlessness” and the legal chaos of the revolutionary years turned out to be more dangerous than the Bolshevik leader expected, so he demanded that the process of forming a new, Soviet law be accelerated. This is clearly visible in Lenin’s position during the development and adoption of the Constitution of 1918 and in general in the legislative work of the leader of the Soviet state. For example, Lenin justified the need for a transition from the policy of “war communism” to the “new economic policy” as corresponding to the essence of social relations in specific historical realities. NEP, proclaimed by Lenin “seriously and for a long time,” demanded the codification of Soviet legislation. Consequently, Lenin emphasized the importance of adopting the first Soviet codes (civil, labor, criminal) and laws on the judicial system. At the same time, he highlighted the main positive aspects of the formation of Soviet law: the protection of the gains of the proletariat and the establishment of strict revolutionary order in various spheres of public life.
It must be recalled that Lenin always proceeded from the interpretation rights as the will of the ruling class elevated to law, the content of which is determined by class material conditions and interests, formalized in the form of a system of norms and rules established or sanctioned by state power. Based on the Marxist-Leninist definition of law under the dictatorship of the proletariat, it was necessary to apply revolutionary legal consciousness to legal relations, and not old bourgeois concepts. In accordance with the new theoretical position, Lenin's latest works provide an idea of the foundations of Soviet industrial law.
In civil law, Lenin substantiated the denial of private law and the recognition of only public law, the rejection of private property, the permission of only public property, and strict state regulation of the capitalist elements of the economy.
Labor law, which was first identified as an independent branch, was based on the fact that October Revolution destroyed the system of exploitation and workers were given the opportunity to work both for themselves and for society. What was true in relation to the proletariat was viewed differently in relation to the former exploiter. According to the new, revolutionary principle: “He who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat!” Repressive measures were sanctioned under “war communism” in relation to the bourgeoisie, landowners and those evading social labor.
Family law, which also became an independent branch, was based on the communist doctrine of the withering away of legal relations as the social need for them is lost and the importance of economic-consumer relations decreases. Instead, moral, aesthetic and psychological relationships, which, according to this teaching, are improved with the harmonious development of the individual and as they approach communism. According to this theoretical justification, the family as an important type social community, built on marital union and family ties, had to undergo significant evolution. Revolutionary changes in the family were already evident in the first measures of the Soviet government to separate church and state, in the search for new types and forms of family.
In criminal law, Lenin justified the strengthening of the repressive, totalitarian essence of the proletarian state in relation to not only class enemies, but also former allies in the revolutionary struggle - the Social Democrats. The latter were also counted among the political enemies of the Soviet government, against them Lenin called for increased repression, “right up to capital punishment.”
The concept of the historical development of society and the state, formulated by Lenin, was based on the Marxist doctrine of socio-economic formations.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) published many works of various genres on issues of politics, power, and state. It is not practical to list them all. But one cannot help but mention such of them as “What to do?” (1902), “Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism” (1916), “State and revolution. The doctrine of Marxism about the state and the tasks of the proletariat in the revolution” (1917), “The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky” (1918), “The childhood disease of “leftism” in communism” (1920).
Consideration of Lenin's complex of views on the state and power must begin with the question of the class nature of the state. It is this question that is devoted to the very first paragraph of the first chapter of “State and Revolution” - by general recognition, the main work that contains a theoretical and systemic presentation of the relevant Leninist ideas.
Pure classism is an innate, integral and all-determining, according to Lenin, feature of such a social institution as the state. It is inherent in him for several reasons. The first of them is the embodiment in the state of class antagonism, which has split society since the establishment of private property and social groups with conflicting economic interests. Lenin calls the most important and fundamental point the thesis according to which “the state is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions.” The second half of this thesis (“a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions”) in highest degree is characteristic of the Leninist understanding of the state as an other being (in special institutional forms) of a class-antagonistic society.
The second reason why the state is by its nature a class institution is the staffing of the state apparatus (and above all the upper echelons of state power) by persons from among the ruling class. At the same time, Lenin notes that the entire state apparatus is by no means filled entirely by people from this class. The composition of the administration of the Russian autocracy serves him as an example of the fact that the bureaucracy (especially the bureaucracy involved in the performance of executive functions) can also be recruited from other social strata.
The third reason that makes the state, according to Lenin, an organization through and through class (or rather, an organization of the ruling class) is the implementation by the state machine of a policy that is pleasing and beneficial mainly to the ruling class, corresponding to its fundamental economic, political and ideological interests. Lenin very rarely notes that the activities of the state satisfy many of the needs of society as a whole, are also aimed at solving national problems, etc. Such restraint is not due to the absence of such activity itself. It’s just that Lenin actually recognizes it as insignificant, tertiary, and not typical for the state.
In addition to classes and inter-class relations, for Lenin there are no other factors that determine the nature of the state. His acute hostility is caused by discussions about the dependence of the essential properties of the state on the processes of social division of labor, the complication of mechanisms social interaction, from the development of management structures and procedures themselves, etc. It is clear why all these arguments are alien to Lenin. There is no moment of absolutization of the class principle in them; it is not given universal significance in them.
They somehow blur the image of the state as a political organization of the class of owners of the main means of production, used to ensure and protect their common class interests. And without such an image, the Marxist idea of the state is impossible as a political organization representing the interests of the mentioned class of owners of “violence to suppress any class,” i.e., as an instrument of the dictatorship of the economically dominant class.
Lenin sees the specific content of the “dictatorship of class” phenomenon as follows. Firstly, the dictatorship of a certain class is its power, i.e. the domination it exercises over all others social groups, indisputable submission to his will and interests of behavior and actions of all members of society. Secondly, such a dictatorship involves relying on the power of the ruling class directly on violence, used in the most various forms. Lenin especially singles out the moment of violence as one of the necessary components of dictatorship. Thirdly, an indispensable feature of the dictatorship of a class is its complete “emancipation”, complete unconstrained by any laws. Here are his words: “Dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws.” “ Scientific concept“dictatorship means nothing more than power that is unrestricted by anything, not constrained by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, and directly based on violence.” Lenin thereby, on behalf of Marxism, gives indulgence to past, modern and future states to be anti-legal and even illegal social institutions.
It is significant that Lenin remained generally indifferent to the question of freedom, taken in all its aspects and realized only through the institutions of democracy and law, throughout his entire revolutionary activity. He was generally an anti-liberal. He despised liberalism and rejected it. All this probably reflected the weakness of Russian democratic traditions; the instrumentalist, service-class approach to democracy made itself felt; Probably, the understanding of democracy was also influenced by the Rousseauian-Jacobin way - as the supremacy, sovereignty of the people, and not as a political and legal space necessary for the implementation of the rights and freedoms of the individual, of each individual.
Analyzing the problem of “state and revolution,” Lenin wrote: “The transfer of state power from the hands of one class to the hands of another is the first, main, fundamental sign of revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical-political meaning of this concept.” In relation to the socialist revolution, the question first arises of how the proletariat should treat the bourgeois state - the personification of the power of the old ruling classes. There are, abstractly speaking, two possibilities here. Lenin sees them. One is that the proletariat takes possession of a ready-made state machine and then uses it to solve its own problems. And secondly, the proletariat overthrows and destroys the bourgeois statehood and in its place creates its own, fundamentally new type states. Following K. Marx, Lenin, without the slightest hesitation, chooses the second option: “... all previous revolutions have improved the state machine, but it must be smashed, broken. This conclusion is the main thing, the fundamental one in the teaching of Marxism about the state.”
Lenin thinks about the action of destroying bourgeois statehood very specifically. First of all, as the demolition of bureaucratic and military institutions of state power, the liquidation of the repressive apparatus, as the replacement of former officials in key positions of government with representatives of the working class loyal to the idea of the revolution. But the matter does not stop there. The destruction of the old, pre-existing state should, according to Lenin, also consist in the rejection of the territorial principle of the formation of representative institutions, the principle of separation of powers, the equality of all citizens without exception (regardless of class affiliation) before the law and many other principles of a democratic structure states.
The proletariat does not establish its own state to establish freedom in society. He needs it to violently suppress his opponents. Lenin is delighted with Engels’ idea of the incompatibility of any kind of statehood with freedom: “When it becomes possible to talk about freedom, then the state, as such, ceases to exist.” Lenin outlines the circle of opponents of the proletariat, primarily those who are subject to violent suppression and removal from freedom, in a deliberately vague manner. Not only manufacturers and merchants, landowners and kulaks, tsarist officials, bourgeois intelligentsia, but also those who served them in one way or another are listed as opponents of the proletariat. Moreover, the opponents of the proletariat also include hooligans, swindlers, speculators, red tape workers, bureaucrats, quitters, and all people subject to bourgeois influence (be they even hereditary proletarians by origin).
Of course, Lenin understands that the dictatorship of the proletariat needs its own state, a centralized organization of violence, not only for the sake of pursuing a policy of terror against all individuals and groups disliked by the new government. This power needs its own state to solve one more task: “guiding the enormous mass of the population, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the semi-proletarians in the matter of “establishing” the socialist economy.” Carrying out such a task is more in the hands of the state, which portrays itself as democratic. That is why Lenin tries to convince that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the political field, breaking with bourgeois democracy, provides “maximum democracy for workers and peasants”). This maximum is achieved by energetically removing the exploiters, all opponents of the proletariat, from participation in political life.
The state form of dictatorship of the proletariat, the involvement of workers in political life there should be, according to Lenin, a Republic of Soviets. The construction of a model of such a republic was considered one of the discoveries made by Lenin in political theory. In Lenin's image, the Soviet Republic combines the features of a state and public organization; it combines elements of representative and direct democracy. Councils are institutions that simultaneously legislate and execute laws, and themselves control the implementation of their laws. This type of republic is built and functions on the basis of democratic centralism, which means (at least should mean) the election of all government bodies from bottom to top, their accountability and control, the rotation of deputies, etc.
Political, legal, constitutional and legal aspects of the structure of the Soviet system are of relatively little interest to Lenin. The main thing for him is to what extent the Soviets are actually able to be instruments of the dictatorship of the proletariat or, which is the same thing, to be under the unquestioning leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Without this, the Soviets, in Lenin's eyes, have no value. The slogan “Soviets - without communists!” seems to him counter-revolutionary, mortally dangerous for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only this Leninist attitude is enough to strongly doubt the Soviets as a power capable and intending to give “an unprecedented development and expansion of democracy in the world precisely for the gigantic majority of the population, for the exploited and working people.”
Lenin defines the role of the communist party in the general mechanism of proletarian state power as follows: “The dictatorship is carried out by the proletariat organized in the Soviets, led by the Bolshevik Communist Party.” In turn, the party itself is led by the Central Committee. Even narrower collegiums are formed within it (Politburo, Organizing Bureau). It is they, these “oligarchs,” who rule the Central Committee. And here’s the main thing: “Not a single important political or organizational issue can be solved by any government agency in our republic without the guidelines of the Party Central Committee.” To reproaches that he and his party comrades established the dictatorship of one (Bolshevik) party, Lenin replies: “Yes, the dictatorship of one party. We stand on it and cannot leave this soil.”
In the Leninist concept of the place and function of the Bolshevik party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat (as well as in the Leninist practice of implementing this concept), the party and state institutions outwardly retain their specific features. But at the personnel level, with their personal composition (primarily management, command), these structures are intertwined and fused. The Bolsheviks, as party functionaries, endure management decisions, and as senior officials of the state apparatus, they implement them. In fact, the Bolsheviks (“the directly ruling vanguard of the proletariat”), who established dominance over the country in an illegitimate way, concentrated in their hands the prerogatives of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Even a “one-party state” does not work, because - seriously - there is no statehood itself as a sovereign organization of public power. There are decorative, state-like formations that easily become scapegoats for all sorts of failures and at the same time support the myth of the infallibility and all-conquering power of the Bolshevik Party. Usurping the powers of the state, it does not tolerate any control of society over itself and does not bear any real responsibility to it. In light of this, what are the phrases about the greatness and dignity of “proletarian,” “Soviet,” “new” democracy, “socialist legality,” etc. worth?
The seemingly attempted attempts to move along a path leading ultimately to the withering away of statehood did not, however, lead at all to the de-statization of society and the formation of a system of communist, public self-government. This resulted in complete anemia of state institutions proper, the formation in society of such non-state structures (the Communist Party) that created the organization of totalitarian power and themselves became its true centers. Such power is always uncontrolled and unpunished. It is not restrained by generally accepted orders and standards of civilized state life with its democratic legal institutions.
Lenin's views on power and politics, state and law, especially on the “technology” of exercising political domination, etc., his activities as the head of the Communist Party and the Soviet government had a major, decisive impact on the development of the theory and practice of Bolshevism. They also had a wide international resonance. In the 20th century they were in one way or another inspired by many ultra-radical political movements of different kinds.
