Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 11:50:13 +0100 (MET)
Subject: Re: M-G: MARXISM AND REVISIONISM - by V.I. LENIN - apropos the list!


Jay wrote the below, on 13.03.

Hear, hear!

Only one small complaint: Shooting poor flies with big cannon.
Better leave those unimportant people alone perhaps. OK, I did occupy
myself a little, only some days ago, with that Jerry L. And thanks
again for your warning concerning him. In general, I think we should
be more concerned with current events. The Congo - I recently
wrote some more about that. Albania - still no analysis there
on my part. Etc.

Rolf M.



>====================================================================>
>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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