Marxism–Leninism
Communist ideology developed by Joseph Stalin / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Marxism–Leninism is a communist ideology that became the largest faction of the communist movement in the world in the years following the October Revolution. It was the predominant ideology of most communist governments throughout the 20th century.[1] Developed in Russia by the Bolsheviks, it was the state ideology of the Soviet Union,[2] Soviet satellite states in the Eastern Bloc, and various countries in the Non-Aligned Movement and Third World during the Cold War,[3] as well as the Communist International after Bolshevization.[4]
Today, Marxism–Leninism is the ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (all one-party socialist republics),[5] as well as many other communist parties. The state ideology of North Korea is derived from Marxism–Leninism[6] (although its evolution is disputed). Marxist–Leninist states are commonly referred to as "communist states" by Western academics.[7][8]
Marxist–Leninists reject anarchism, left communism, democratic socialism, reformist socialism, and social democracy. They oppose fascism and liberal democracy, and are anti-imperialists.
Marxism–Leninism was developed from Bolshevism by Joseph Stalin in the 1920s based on his understanding and synthesis of orthodox Marxism and Leninism.[9][10][11] Marxism–Leninism holds that a two-stage communist revolution is needed to replace capitalism. A vanguard party, organized through democratic centralism, would seize power on behalf of the proletariat and establish a one-party socialist state, called the dictatorship of the proletariat. The state would control the means of production, suppress opposition, counter-revolution, and the bourgeoisie, and promote Soviet collectivism, to pave the way for an eventual communist society that would be classless and stateless.[12]
After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Marxism–Leninism became a distinct movement in the Soviet Union when Stalin and his supporters gained control of the party. It rejected the common notion among Western Marxists of world revolution as a prerequisite for building socialism, in favour of the concept of socialism in one country. According to its supporters, the gradual transition from capitalism to socialism was signified by the introduction of the first five-year plan and the 1936 Soviet Constitution.[13] By the late 1920s, Stalin established ideological orthodoxy in the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the Soviet Union, and the Communist International to establish universal Marxist–Leninist praxis.[14][15] The formulation of the Soviet version of dialectical and historical materialism in the 1930s by Stalin and his associates, such as in Stalin's text Dialectical and Historical Materialism, became the official Soviet interpretation of Marxism,[16] and was taken as example by Marxist–Leninists in other countries; according to the Great Russian Encyclopedia, this text became the foundation of the philosophy of Marxism–Leninism.[17] In 1938, Stalin's official textbook History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) popularised Marxism–Leninism.[18]
The internationalism of Marxism–Leninism was expressed in supporting revolutions in other countries, initially through the Communist International and then through the concept of socialist-leaning countries after de-Stalinisation. The establishment of other communist states after World War II resulted in Sovietisation, and these states tended to follow the Soviet Marxist–Leninist model of five-year plans and rapid industrialisation, political centralisation, and repression. During the Cold War, Marxism–Leninist countries like the Soviet Union and its allies were one of the major forces in international relations.[19] With the death of Stalin and the ensuing de-Stalinisation, Marxism–Leninism underwent several revisions and adaptations such as Guevarism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, Hoxhaism, Maoism, socialism with Chinese characteristics, and Titoism. More recently Nepalese communist parties have adopted People's Multiparty Democracy. This also caused several splits between Marxist–Leninist states, resulting in the Tito–Stalin split, the Sino-Soviet split, and the Sino-Albanian split. The socio-economic nature of Marxist–Leninist states, especially that of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, has been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of bureaucratic collectivism, state capitalism, state socialism, or a totally unique mode of production.[20] The Eastern Bloc, including Marxist–Leninist states in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Third World socialist regimes, have been variously described as "bureaucratic-authoritarian systems",[21] and China's socio-economic structure has been referred to as "nationalistic state capitalism".[22]
Criticism of Marxism–Leninism largely overlaps with criticism of communist party rule and mainly focuses on the actions and policies of Marxist–Leninist leaders, most notably Stalin and Mao Zedong. Marxist–Leninist states have been marked by a high degree of centralised control by the state and Communist party, political repression, state atheism, collectivisation and use of labour camps, as well as free universal education and healthcare, low unemployment and lower prices for certain goods. Historians such as Silvio Pons and Robert Service stated that the repression and totalitarianism came from Marxist–Leninist ideology.[23][24][25][26] Historians such as Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick have offered other explanations and criticise the focus on the upper levels of society and use of concepts such as totalitarianism which have obscured the reality of the system.[27] While the emergence of the Soviet Union as the world's first nominally communist state led to communism's widespread association with Marxism–Leninism and the Soviet model,[19][28][29] several academics say that Marxism–Leninism in practice was a form of state capitalism.[30][31]
Communist states
In the establishment of the Soviet Union in the former Russian Empire, Bolshevism was the ideological basis. As the only legal vanguard party, it decided almost all policies, which the communist party represented as correct.[32] Because Leninism was the revolutionary means to achieving socialism in the praxis of government, the relationship between ideology and decision-making inclined to pragmatism and most policy decisions were taken in light of the continual and permanent development of Marxism–Leninism, with ideological adaptation to material conditions.[33] The Bolshevik Party lost in the 1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election, obtaining 23.3% of the vote, to the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which obtained 37.6%.[34] On 6 January 1918, the Draft Decree on the Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was issued by the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets, a committee dominated by Vladimir Lenin, who had previously supported multi-party free elections. After the Bolshevik defeat, Lenin started referring to the assembly as a "deceptive form of bourgeois-democratic parliamentarism".[35] This was criticised as being the development of vanguardism as a form of hierarchical party–elite that controlled society.[36][37]
Within five years of the death of Lenin, Joseph Stalin completed his rise to power and was the leader of the Soviet Union who theorised and applied the socialist theories of Lenin and Karl Marx as political expediencies used to realise his plans for the Soviet Union and for world socialism.[38] Concerning Questions of Leninism (1926) represented Marxism–Leninism as a separate communist ideology and featured a global hierarchy of communist parties and revolutionary vanguard parties in each country of the world.[39][15] With that, Stalin's application of Marxism–Leninism to the situation of the Soviet Union became Stalinism, the official state ideology until his death in 1953.[40] In Marxist political discourse, Stalinism, denoting and connoting the theory and praxis of Stalin, has two usages, namely praise of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists who believe Stalin successfully developed Lenin's legacy, and criticism of Stalin by Marxist–Leninists and other Marxists who repudiate Stalin's political purges, social-class repressions and bureaucratic terrorism.[14]
As the Left Opposition to Stalin within the Soviet party and government, Leon Trotsky and Trotskyists argued that Marxist–Leninist ideology contradicted Marxism and Leninism in theory, therefore Stalin's ideology was not useful for the implementation of socialism in Russia. Moreover, Trotskyists within the party identified their anti-Stalinist communist ideology as Bolshevik–Leninism and supported the permanent revolution to differentiate themselves from Stalin's justification and implementation of socialism in one country.[41]
After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism–Leninism and ideological leader of world communism.[42] In that vein, Mao Zedong Thought, Mao Zedong's updating and adaptation of Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. The claim that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions evolved into the idea that he had updated it in a fundamental way applying to the world as a whole. Consequently, Mao Zedong Thought became the official state ideology of the People's Republic of China as well as the ideological basis of communist parties around the world which sympathised with China.[43] In the late 1970s, the Peruvian communist party Shining Path developed and synthesised Mao Zedong Thought into Marxism–Leninism–Maoism, a contemporary variety of Marxism–Leninism that is a supposed higher level of Marxism–Leninism that can be applied universally.[43]
Following the Sino-Albanian split of the 1970s, a small portion of Marxist–Leninists began to downplay or repudiate the role of Mao in the Marxist–Leninist international movement in favour of the Albanian Labour Party and stricter adherence to Stalin. The Sino-Albanian split was caused by Albania's rejection of China's Realpolitik of Sino–American rapprochement, specifically the 1972 Mao–Nixon meeting which the anti-revisionist Albanian Labour Party perceived as an ideological betrayal of Mao's own Three Worlds Theory that excluded such political rapprochement with the West. To the Albanian Marxist–Leninists, the Chinese dealings with the United States indicated Mao's lessened, practical commitments to ideological orthodoxy and proletarian internationalism. In response to Mao's apparently unorthodox deviations, Enver Hoxha, head of the Albanian Labour Party, theorised anti-revisionist Marxism–Leninism, referred to as Hoxhaism, which retained orthodox Marxism–Leninism when compared to the ideology of the post-Stalin Soviet Union.[44]
In North Korea, Marxism–Leninism was superseded by Juche in the 1970s. This was made official in 1992 and 2009, when constitutional references to Marxism–Leninism were dropped and replaced with Juche.[45] In 2009, the constitution was quietly amended so that not only did it remove all Marxist–Leninist references present in the first draft but also dropped all references to communism.[46] Juche has been described by Michael Seth as a version of Korean ultranationalism,[47] which eventually developed after losing its original Marxist–Leninist elements.[48] According to North Korea: A Country Study by Robert L. Worden, Marxism–Leninism was abandoned immediately after the start of de-Stalinisation in the Soviet Union and has been totally replaced by Juche since at least 1974.[49] Daniel Schwekendiek wrote that what made North Korean Marxism–Leninism distinct from that of China and the Soviet Union was that it incorporated national feelings and macro-historical elements in the socialist ideology, opting for its "own style of socialism".[50] The major Korean elements are the emphasis on traditional Confucianism and the memory of the traumatic experience of Korea under Japanese rule as well as a focus on autobiographical features of Kim Il Sung as a guerrilla hero.[50]
In the other four existing Marxist–Leninist socialist states, namely China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam, the ruling parties hold Marxism–Leninism as their official ideology, although they give it different interpretations in terms of practical policy. Marxism–Leninism is also the ideology of anti-revisionist, Hoxhaist, Maoist, and neo-Stalinist communist parties worldwide. The anti-revisionists criticise some rule of the communist states by claiming that they were state capitalist countries ruled by revisionists.[51][52] Although the periods and countries vary among different ideologies and parties, they generally accept that the Soviet Union was socialist during Stalin's time, Maoists believe that China became state capitalist after Mao's death, and Hoxhaists believe that China was always state capitalist, and uphold the Albania as the only socialist state after the Soviet Union under Stalin.[44]
Definition, theory, and terminology
Communist ideologies and ideas have acquired a new meaning since the Russian Revolution,[53] as they became equivalent to the ideas of Marxism–Leninism,[29] namely the interpretation of Marxism by Vladimir Lenin and his successors.[5][53] Endorsing the final objective, namely the creation of a community-owning means of production and providing each of its participants with consumption "according to their needs", Marxism–Leninism puts forward the recognition of the class struggle as a dominating principle of a social change and development.[53] In addition, workers (the proletariat) were to carry out the mission of reconstruction of the society.[53] Conducting a socialist revolution led by what its proponents termed the "vanguard of the proletariat", defined as the communist party organised hierarchically through democratic centralism, was hailed to be a historical necessity by Marxist–Leninists.[54][53] Moreover, the introduction of the proletarian dictatorship was advocated and classes deemed hostile were to be repressed.[53] In the 1920s, it was first defined and formulated by Joseph Stalin based on his understanding of orthodox Marxism and Leninism.[9]
In 1934, Karl Radek suggested the formulation Marxism–Leninism–Stalinism in an article in Pravda to stress the importance of Stalin's leadership to the Marxist–Leninist ideology. Radek's suggestion failed to catch on, as Stalin as well as CPSU's ideologists preferred to continue the usage of Marxism–Leninism.[55] Marxism–Leninism–Maoism became the name for the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and of other Communist parties, which broke off from national Communist parties, after the Sino–Soviet split, especially when the split was finalised by 1963. The Italian Communist Party was mainly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, who gave a more democratic implication than Lenin's for why workers remained passive.[56] A key difference between Maoism and other forms of Marxism–Leninism is that peasants should be the bulwark of the revolutionary energy, which is led by the working class.[57] Three common Maoist values are revolutionary populism, pragmatism, and dialectics.[58]
According to Rachel Walker, "Marxism–Leninism" is an empty term that depends on the approach and basis of ruling Communist parties, and is dynamic and open to redefinition, being both fixed and not fixed in meaning.[59] As a term, "Marxism–Leninism" is misleading because Marx and Lenin never sanctioned or supported the creation of an -ism after them, and is reveling because, being popularized after Lenin's death by Stalin, it contained three clear doctrinal and institutionalized principles that became a model for later Soviet-type regimes; its global influence, having at its height covered at least one-third of the world's population, has made Marxist–Leninist a convenient label for the Communist bloc as a dynamic ideological order.[60][61]
Historiography
Historiography of Marxist–Leninist states is polarised. According to John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, historiography is characterised by a split between traditionalists and revisionists.[62] "Traditionalists", who characterise themselves as objective reporters of an alleged totalitarian nature of communism and Marxist–Leninist states, are criticised by their opponents as being anti-communist, even fascist, in their eagerness on continuing to focus on the issues of the Cold War. Alternative characterisations for traditionalists include "anti-communist", "conservative", "Draperite" (after Theodore Draper), "orthodox", and "right-wing"; Norman Markowitz, a prominent "revisionist", referred to them as "reactionaries", "right-wing romantics", "romantics", and "triumphalist" who belong to the "HUAC school of CPUSA scholarship".[63] According to Haynes and Klehr, "revisionists" are more numerous and dominate academic institutions and learned journals. A suggested alternative formulation is "new historians of American communism", but that has not caught on because these historians describe themselves as unbiased and scholarly and contrast their work to the work of anti-communist traditionalists whom they would term biased and unscholarly.[64] Academic Sovietology after World War II and during the Cold War was dominated by the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union,[65] stressing the absolute nature of Stalin's power.[66] The "revisionist school" beginning in the 1960s focused on relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level.[67] Matt Lenoe described the "revisionist school" as representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces."[68] These "revisionist school" historians challenged the "totalitarian model", as outlined by political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich, which stated that the Soviet Union and other Marxist–Leninist states were totalitarian systems, with the personality cult, and almost unlimited powers of the "great leader", such as Stalin.[67][69] It was considered to be outdated by the 1980s and for the post-Stalinist era.[70]
Some academics, such as Stéphane Courtois (The Black Book of Communism), Steven Rosefielde (Red Holocaust), and Rudolph Rummel (Death by Government), wrote of mass, excess deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes. These authors defined the political repression by communists as a "Communist democide", "Communist genocide", "Red Holocaust", or followed the "victims of Communism" narrative. Some of them compared Communism to Nazism and described deaths under Marxist–Leninist regimes (civil wars, deportations, famines, repressions, and wars) as being a direct consequence of Marxism–Leninism. Some of these works, in particular The Black Book of Communism and its 93 or 100 millions figure, are cited by political groups and Members of the European Parliament.[71][72][73] Without denying the tragedy of the events, other scholars criticise the interpretation that sees communism as the main culprit as presenting a biased or exaggerated anti-communist narrative. Several academics propose a more nuanced analysis of Marxist–Leninist rule, stating that anti-communist narratives have exaggerated the extent of political repression and censorship in Marxist–Leninist states and drawn comparisons with what they see as atrocities that were perpetrated by capitalist countries, particularly during the Cold War. These academics include Mark Aarons,[74] Noam Chomsky,[75] Jodi Dean,[76] Kristen Ghodsee,[71][77] Seumas Milne,[78][79] and Michael Parenti.[80] Ghodsee, Nathan J. Robinson,[81] and Scott Sehon wrote about the merits of taking an anti anti-communist position that does not deny the atrocities but make a distinction between anti-authoritarian communist and other socialist currents, both of which have been victims of repression.[77][82]