Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 16:47:38 GMT
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: hariette-AT-easynet.co.uk (hariette spierings)
Subject: MARXISM AND REVISIONISM - by V.I. LENIN - apropos the list!


>FROM MARXISM AND REVISIONISM BY V.I. LENIN:

"There is a well known saying that if geometrical axioms affected human
interests attempts would certainly be made to refute them. .........


"No wonder, therefore, that the Marxian doctrine, WHICH DIRECTLY SERVES TO
ENLIGHTEN AND ORGANISE THE ADVANCED CLASS IN MODERN SOCIETY, indicates the
tasks facing this class and demonstrates the inevitable replacement (by
virtue of economic development) of the present system by a new order - no
wonder that this doctrine has had to fight for EVERY STEP FORWARD in the
course of its life".

"Needles to say, this applies to bourgeois science and philosophy,
officially taught by official professors in order to befiddle the rising
generation of the properied classes and to "coach" it against internal and
foreign enemies.  This science will not even hear of Marxism, DECLARING THAT
IT HAS BEEN REFUTED AND ANNIHILATED.  Marx is attacked with equal zest by
young scholars who are MAKING A CAREER by refuting socialism, and by
decrepit elders who are preserving the traditions of all kinds of outworn
"systems".  The progress of Marxisms, the fact that its ideas are spreading
and taking firm hold among the working class, inevitably INCREASES the
frequency and intensity of these bourgeois attacks on Marxism, which becomes
stronger, more hardened and more vigorous every time it is "annihilated" by
official science".

"Pre-Marxist socialism has been defeated. IT IS CONTINUING THE STRUGGLE, no
longer on its own independent ground, but on the general ground of Marxism,
as revisionism. Let us examine the ideological content of revisionism".

"In the sphere of Philosofy revisionism followed in the wake of bourgeois
professorial "science"

The professors earned their official salaries by adjusting BOTH their
idealist and their "critical" systems to the dominant medieval philosophy
(i.e. to theology) - and the revisionist drew close to them, trying to make
religion a "private affair", not IN RELATION TO THE MODERN STATE, but in
RELATION TO THE PARTY OF THE ADVANCED CLASS".

"...."The movement is everything the ultimate aim is nothing" - this catch
phrase of Bernstein's expresses the substance of revisionism better than
many long disquisitions".

"The inevitability of revisionism is determined by its class roots in modern
society"  

"In reality, the "division" within the present international socialist
movement is now proceeding along the SAME lines in ALL the various countries
of the world."

"What we now frequently experience only in the domain of ideology, namely
disputes over theoretical amendments to Marx; what now crops up in practice
only over individual partial issues of the labour movement, as tactical
differences with the revsionists and splits on this basis - is bound TO BE
EXPERIENCED by the working class on an incomparable LARGER SCALE when the
proletarian revolution WILL SHARPEN ALL disputed issues, WILL FOCUS ALL
DIFFERENCES on points which are of the most imediate importance in
DETERMINING THE CONDUCT OF THE MASSES, and will make it NECESSARY, in the
heat of the fight TO DISTINGUIS ENEMIES FROM FRIENDS, and to cast out BAD
ALLIES in order to deal decisive blows at the enemy".

"The ideological struggle waged by REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM against revisionism
at the end of the nineteenth century IS BUT THE PRELUDE TO THE GREAT
REVOLUTIONARY BATTLES OF THE PROLETARIAT, which is marching forward to the
COMPLETE VICTORY of its cause despite all the waverings and weaknesses of
the petty bourgeoisie".


(V. I. Lenin, Collected Workd, Vol 45 pp 29-39) (No later than April 3 1908)  
 




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