Sitaram Yechury On Lenin’s 150th Birth Anniversary
Sitaram Yechury
We are observing Lenin’s 150th birthday in rather unusual and very very difficult circumstances. Normally the party would have conducted a countrywide campaign, an ideological campaign, agitations and struggles like we did observing the centenary of the October revolution and the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx. But under these circumstances, that is not possible. The pandemic that all of us are fighting today demands very severe restrictions, a physical distancing, combined with social solidarity.
Unfortunately, this social solidarity is being ruptured on communal lines which only weakens our strength to fight the pandemic. All these must be completely eschewed and the government should have to take strict action to ensure that people’s unity is maintained.
The world had faced such pandemic in the past as well. Human civilisation has been through many such pandemics and successfully fought, eventually, science triumphed, we brought out vaccinations and prevented many deaths subsequently because of this in diseases like leprosy, smallpox, cholera, malaria or various other pandemics like the plague. There is a very interesting poem written by Bertolt Brecht, during the infancy of the Russian Revolution, where he speaks of a small hamlet, which produced experts in carpet weaving. It says how the people of Kuyan-Bulak (the name of the province) honoured Lenin. They’ve collected money to build a gypsum bust, but a Red Army officer comes there and says that instead with this money they can buy petroleum and pour it over the swamp that is breeding mosquitoes causing the malaria pandemic and save themselves from the disease. And that is how this village honoured Lenin.
This is what Brecht had to say that the people there helped themselves by honouring Lenin, honoured him by helping themselves and thus had understood him well:
So they benefited themselves, in paying homage to Lenin and
Paid homage to him, in that they benefited themselves and had
Therefore understood him well
That is Lenin. He was Marxist, but as all Marxists are, he was above all, a supreme humanist.
The pandemic may not distinguish between one human being and another, but the capitalist exploitation and the caste society does. It distinguishes between those who have the capacity to fight this pandemic and those who don’t. That is why the danger today is those who are deprived of livelihood, because of this lockdown, deprived of shelter. They are the ones who are likely to suffer more than most and this is what all of have to prevent. That is why the CPI (M) had asked the government to immediately make cash transfers and free food for all the needy so that the non-pandemic deaths do not emerge to be more than those who lost their lives because of the pandemic. This is where the question of fighting this exploitative class-divided society comes into sharp focus. Unless this is fought and this exploitative society is overthrown, complete human liberation and the flowering of the human essence is not possible. That is where the contribution and role of Lenin are most seminal.
It has been a normal practice that when we discuss in the study classes, about Lenin and his contributions, we start discussing his major works. Whether it’s The State and Revolution, What Is To Be Done, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, each one of these is absolutely essential to understand and grasp so that the revolutionary movements in today’s conditions can be taken forward. But I do not prefer here to go into the details of these works but try to understand holistically, why Lenin embarked on these sorts of works. Why is it that he took up this task at a crucial moment of time when the revolutionary movement in explicit terms required clarity. On the need for that clarity, came most of his major works. This comes because Lenin, of all the Marxists that have been there earlier and during his time was the one who fully grasped the essence of what Marxism is about, and internalised it to the extent that this internalisation provided him with the ability and the capacity to write and intervene theoretically, practically and in terms of organising the people almost every aspect of human endeavour. From philosophy, science, to the day to day tactics of the revolutionary movements from understanding the differentiation of classes, of identifying who can be the allies in the proletarian revolution on each one of these, and most importantly in identifying the contradictions and in those contradictions, what is going to the forefront and how to utilise that contradiction in order to advance the revolutionary movement. From this was born his very important contribution: Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Lenin’s importance as he is the first Marxist or communist to have shown the practicality of establishing what Marx had said in his famous quotation: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” And yes, he changed and showed the world that it’s possible to have an exploitation free society, built consolidated socialism in his short span of life. But his contributions have left behind an eternal resilience of the epic endeavour of human beings in the task of building an exploitation free society and the might of the soviet union that eventually emerged after defeating Hitler and his fractions in the second World War was there for the whole world to see. Lenin was able to make this and his unique, holistic contribution to the treasure house of Marxism begins with his own understanding of what Marxism is all about. He says in one of his writings, who the friends of the people are, the reason why millions of people are attracted to Marxism is that this is the only philosophy that combines two aspects: it’s at the same time revolutionary and supremely scientific. This combination does not happen because the founders of Marxism; Marx and Engels combined both these qualities in their own life, but this is intrinsic and inseparable to Marxism. It is this combination of revolutionary and being supremely scientific that gives Marxism the quality which Lenin internalised. Like I said earlier, that ability to involve in every aspect including science, even the physical science, into all areas of social activity of human beings and the integrity of tactics, this is something that we have to understand.
The other aspect, which I think explains this holistic nature of Lenin’s contribution, was his complete understanding of what and how Marxism has to be developed, and he constantly said that the most essential thing in Marxism, the living soul of Marxism is the concrete analysis of concrete conditions. It has the ability to understand the changes in concrete conditions. On that basis, the ability to arrive at a correct, scientific analysis, combining both these qualities of the revolutionary potential and the emancipatory vision of Marxism and being supremely scientific. This aspect of a concrete analysis of concrete conditions clears the way from the muddy waters of subjectivism and subjective conclusions very often many of us fall prey to. It’s on the basis of the combination of both these aspects, Marxism being supremely scientific and at the same time being revolutionarily potential, at the concrete analysis of concrete conditions that Lenin proceeded on his epic struggle to emancipate the people of Russia, and on that basis for the emancipation of the global exploited sections under the leadership of proletarians. Each one of these works is the products of these aspects. Of all the tactics he employed at every point of time, at every crucial turn of the revolutionary movement and how he eventually succeeded in overcoming the difficulties that these concrete conditions were posing, this is something that needs to be properly studied.
While on Lenin’s contributions there are many works that need to be undertaken, a fundamental text which should be properly studied is Stalin’s Foundations on Leninism. On the tactics that he employed, comrade M. Basavapunnaiah on the occasion of the centenary of Lenin’s birth had written an article in the ‘People’s Democracy’ then, that was later reproduced in 2015, where he called Lenin as the master tactician of the working class in his struggle for political power and its consolidation. This is something that I’ll return to, subsequently but all these aspects are connected as I said earlier with internalising the holistic and studying about Marxism and creative science all about. The fundamentals of dialects on studying the contradictions that are present at this point of time and how they should be utilised for the advance of the revolutionary movement. Lenin enriched in that sense some aspects of the analysis of capitalism that Marx and Engels have arrived at. Marx, in fact, tells you what are the laws of capitalist production and capitalist development is the increasing tendency of centralisation and concentration of capital. Marx himself in his lifetime, towards the end, and Engels’s later after Marx’s volume III of capital noted the growth of monopoly of capitalism, the emergence of finance capital as a very important form these are noted. But the manner in which this monopoly and this centralisation and concentration of capital emerged at the beginning of the 20th century was noticed by Lenin. When he talks when he notices that a new stage is being reached by capitalism. That was the stage of imperialism. With imperialism came a new set of contradictions. The financial capital of each country competing with the financial capital of the other imperial setters in order to occupy the world for their exploitation and their capital accumulation and hence profit maximization which is the motive force of capitalism. Inter imperialist contradictions developed which Lenin saw as the opportunity to utilize these for the revolutionary advance. This inter-imperialist contradictions noting actually at the time of the first world war, Lenin gave the slogan of converting this imperialist war or the war between imperialist powers into a civil war of the liberation of the Russian people. It is through such an understanding that he was able to, as he called that imperialism has enchained the whole world, and the possibilities to break the chain at its weakest link. The weakest link at that point of time, in human history and in the development of capitalism, was Russia. That is where the blow was struck. It is on the basis of such a scientific understanding, analysis, a concrete analysis of concrete conditions that Lenin came to the correct conditions. But the correct condition is required to be practically implemented. That needed most of all the organisation of the working class, the proletariat, the vanguard of the proletariat, that is the communist party. Its strength links with the people and its capacity to create conditions are internalised by the people who themselves have started giving the slogans. That is when the revolutionary movements emerged into strength, and he did that through his major works and revamping the entire party. Creating the party has been capable of strengthening capacities to bring people together into struggles, intensifying these struggles and mounting the class essentials against the rule of capital.
Therefore in the contemporary world, the important factor to understand is that understanding the concrete conditions of today and the concrete analysis on that basis is the importance of strengthening the subjective factor, ie, strengthening the capacity of the communist party, vanguarding the proletariat and its links with the people, which is crucial in the challenges that we face in the current world scenario and in India today. One thing that is clear in both Marx and Engels as well as Lenin, whatever be the intensity of the crisis, capitalism does not ever collapse automatically. Capitalism has to be overthrown, and this can only be done through the organisation of exploited people under the leadership of the working class. It is here the tactics employed by Lenin are important lessons for us.
How to unify the exploited sections? The worker-peasant allies, which meant first to study scientifically, the class differentiation among the peasantry, which he did for Russia, and on that basis identifying the potential allies and building up the worker-peasant allies based on that, as the foundation for the advance of the revolutionary movement. These all are aspects which are very important for us at the moment, to grasp, imbibe, internalise and utilise in meeting the challenges that we face today.
Under globalisation, after the demise of the Soviet Union particularly, when a situation emerged where the correlation of class forces voted in favour of imperialism viz. socialism, at that point of time we find the aggression of the capital to maximise the profits, under the neoliberal order of globalisation. This neoliberal order permitted the phase of capital to maximise its profits and this was also done on the basis of the emergence of the international finance capital, which became the leader of the rule of capital globally, which was leading the neoliberal order, in order to price open the economies and markets in all different parts of the world for its exploitation. This emergence of International finance capital and under its leadership neoliberal globalisation was taking place. Does it mean that Lenin’s was wrong or his analysis of imperialistic contradictions, with one imperialist competing with the other for division and re-division of the world, was wrong?
No.
Lenin in his time, on the basis of the concrete conditions then, noted this and then on that basis employed the correct tactics in order to utilise that in contradiction of that time in order to advance. In today’s world, these conditions have changed. It is up to us to make this concrete analysis. But Lenin had noted even at that stage, that over a period of time it’s finance capital that’ll emerge as the dominant mode of capital, subsuming all other forms of capital. That is precisely what we are seeing under neoliberal capitalisation. In this situation when the world is under this global order, the most important part is to resist these in our individual countries. The process of resisting will naturally pit us with the domestic ruling classes who are today not merely collaborators but partners of the neoliberal order. In this process, the intensification of exploitation will manifest in the amazing levels in which inequality has grown to the world and in India. Today shows that the degree of exploitation intensifies in itself and its conditions. where a new crisis emerges for capitalism itself, this neoliberal order itself was pregnant with the possibility of a new rupture, that is likely to happen which happens essentially. Because as profits or intensification of exploitation takes place this lesser and lesser amount of money, of purchasing par in the hands of the majority of the global population.
Capitalism can never survive if what it produced is not sold. To sell the products, people need the capacity to buy. If that is constantly being rebuilt, then a new form of a crisis emerges, which cannot be sustained but all sorts of artificial bubbles created by the financial capital, and all these bubbles cannot keep expanding like balloons to infinity. They will burst and it did burst in 2008. The impact of that crisis continues to intensify on the eve of this pandemic. The world was actually moving towards a possible global recession. In India, the economy was not merely slowing down, but we have already entered into a recession and this slowing down was causing immense misery to the vast majority of our people in our country. The unbridled policies of neoliberalism and the accompanying policies of primitive accumulation of capitalism.
For a Marxist, primitive is not a historical category; it is an analytical category. Depending on the correlation of political forces globally and domestically, capitalism employs all methods to maximise profits. When it sees it has got an advantage after the demise of soviet union and socialism in various parts of the world, it sees the possibility to go back to the accumulation through coercion. Not through accumulation through capitalist production, accumulation of coercion which is a primitive form of capitalism. Accumulation accompanied by high levels of corruption is precisely what is happening both in the world and in India today. The levels of crony capitalism found in India and all over the world, this crisis is giving a political expression of a political rightward shift. This shift is essential for capitalism and the ruling classes, why? Because as exploitation intensifies, as people’s lives become more and more miserable, it starts growing. If this growth causes discontent among the people as a revolutionary expression, that can pose a danger in the rule of capital itself in order to retract that revolutionary potential that this intensified exploitation has. It is necessary to diverse this content into different channels. What emerges through the growth of xenophobia, racism, like what is happening in the US, through speeches instilling hatred, Trump won the elections. It is happening all over the world; Brazil, Turkey and through RSS-BJP-Narendra Modi here in India. This rightward shift, an opposition of which is attracted to the revolutionary movements, and has the potential to advance because of this intensified exploitation and to divert people’s attention into different emotional appeals.
For us in India we have another dimension of communal polarisation here, that has always been the objective of the RSS – to convert the secular democratic republic of India into according to their agenda, as what we call in party programme to a fascistic, to a Hindu Rashtra. That is based on deepening communal polarisation and unfortunately, even in the phase of this pandemic you find deep efforts to sharpening and deepening this communal polarisation taking place so that they can achieve their objective. Here both the aspects of rightward shift and converting the character of the Indian republic into their fascistic project of a Hindu Rashtra combines. It is here that the importance of honouring Lenin comes in. In these circumstances in every country, the task of every communist is to strengthen the subjective factor as the wings of the vanguard of the proletarians, i.e. the communist party. With the people, identify the possible potential allies and on that basis build that allies that can take on this sort of a rightward shift in the politics as well as the communal fascistic danger that the RSS and its ideology has, and seeks to achieve in today’s condition. This is where to learn from Lenin as a master tactician as comrade Basappanaiah had described him becomes very very important. It is this that we must understand here that the three principles of how Stalin describes, the tactics, how he mastered these tactics, what Stalin tells as:
- Clearly understanding the national peculiarities and characteristics in each country.
- Utilising the smallest possibilities of mass allies for the proletariat. Even if temporary, vacillating or wavering the unreliable.
- Propaganda and action alone are not enough for political education, as political experiences of the masses are also crucial
Stalin sums up this tactical approach of Lenin saying that concrete analysis of concrete conditions, verification, checking up correctness through practice, alertness of minds to every twist and turns and propaganda agitations are not alone sufficient, the practical experience of the masses is most important. It is on the basis of employing such revolutionary tactics, that today in every country the communists will have to pay homage to Lenin. Means actually to strengthen ourselves in today’s situation, to meet the right-wing offensive of the political shift, of the rule of capital globally, to stop or prevent this intensification of exploitation for the continuous maximisation of profits, to organise the exploited, all sections of exploited under the leadership of the working class, and to identify those sections through which build the allies between the working class and the peasantry, which is the crux or the access of taking the revolutionary movement forward. This would be the best and the only way in which we as communists can pay homage to Lenin. It’s not really a homage, but a re-dedication to redouble a resolve. To strengthen the subjective factor in these conditions that is the party and its alliance with the people, its ability to rouse the people into action, and to make people realise through their own experiences, wait for a revolutionary transformation. Yes, the big challenges, of the rule of capital, of neoliberal exploitation, challenges in India which are combined with this communal polarisation and the jingoistic appeal on that basis, and the entire question of dividing the exploited sections in the name of religion.
Communalism, while we seek to unite the exploited sections, in order to advance the revolutionary movement. Communalism and the right-wing political offensive tends to disrupt this unity of the exploited sections. That is what we have to fight against. Come, let us all together rededicate ourselves, to carry and strengthen the revolutionary process forward. That would be the only proper homage to Lenin. That homage like the weavers of Kuyan-Bulak paid to Lenin that they helped themselves by honouring Lenin, by doing that they understood that he was a leader of the world proletariat. His national and colonial thesis was the one to unite the struggle for socialism, the consolidation of socialism in the soviet union, with the national liberation struggles against colonialism in all other countries in the world. That’s why the communist parties sprang up. Ho Chi Minh has claimed he saw his eyes open when he read this thesis of Lenin’s. On that basis back from France as a Student of Vietnam organised people and succeeded successfully in the Vietnamese revolution. Mao Se Tung and the Chinese Communist Party, assuming the leadership of the national liberation movement in China, like in Korea and Cuba, this was the world proletarian revolution. For which Lenin makes very seminal contributions. He had set up the University of the Toilers of the East where many revolutionaries from all over the world, went there for both training to increase their capacities and to enrich their own potential, returned back to their countries including many from India as well to set up the work among the union peasantry, work for the unity of the working class and the peasantry, the worker-peasant alliance, and all this was various aspects of Lenin’s contribution to the world revolution. Lenin was a leader of the world proletarian revolution, remains a leader, his work continues to be the inspiration and in today’s conditions, all of us will have to rededicate ourselves to re-double our resolve, to carry the revolutionary movement forward.
Lal Salam to Lenin and to all of us, and success in our struggles!
This is the full transcript of Sitaram Yechury’s online speech, titled ‘Contributions and Relevance of Lenin in Contemporary World’, delivered on Vladimir Lenin’s 150th birth anniversary on 22 April, 2020. The transcript was prepared by Sharika Sobha, PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad. The video recording can be accessed here.
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