Relationship Between Economy and Politics

Marxism on the economy is the foundation, political reaction on the economy.

Marx and Engels established the historical materialism view that the economic basis determines the political superstructure and the interaction between politics and economy. Engels pointed out that the economic situation is the foundation, but it has an impact on the process of the historical struggle, and in many cases, it is the superstructure that determines the form of the struggle, which shows the interaction of all factors. In the process of fighting against subjectivism in sociology, Lenin defended Marx and Engels’ historical materialism view on political and economic relations, and emphasized the connection between politics and class, economic relations and class interests. Any political superstructure “in the final analysis is determined by the relations of production in the society”, and combined with the actual situation of Russia at that time, it made specific application and development. In view of the fact that the Russian economic school vulgarized the principle that economic interests play a decisive role, is infatuated with economic struggle, denies the political struggle of the working class, and advocates that workers only fight for increasing wages and improving working conditions, Lenin pointed out that economic struggle can only strive for the favorable conditions for workers to sell labor force, if there is no political struggle, the Social-Democratic Labor Party will regress to anarchism or trade unionism. Lenin argued that according to the fact that economic interests play a decisive role, we should never make a conclusion that economic struggle is of primary significance, because on the whole, the most important and decisive interests of all classes can only be met through fundamental political transformation, the basic economic interests of the proletariat can only be satisfied through the political revolution in which the proletarian dictatorship replaces the bourgeois dictatorship. When the proletariat has no freedom or its political rights are suppressed, political struggle must be put in the first place. Lenin stressed that the proletarian revolutionary party should be good at guiding, educating, uniting and improving the working masses, so that the economic struggle and political struggle can be closely combined into a unified and socialist class struggle of the working masses; only in this way can economic struggle really improve the life of the working people and consolidate their class organization.

In the debate on the trade union issue, in view of Trotsky’s absolute separation of politics and economy, and Bukharin’s use of eclecticism to steal the dialectical relationship between politics and economy, Lenin further comprehensively expounded the dialectical relationship between politics and economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat. He reveals that in the concept of bourgeois world outlook, politics seems to be divorced from economy. Lenin stressed that “politics is the concentrated expression of economy” and “politics can not but occupy the first place compared with economy. To be not sure of this is to forget the basic common sense of Marxism.” “If a class does not look at the problem politically correctly, it will not be able to maintain its rule and thus it will not be able to complete its production tasks.” He clearly pointed out that politics is the struggle among different classes, and politics is the relationship between the proletariat and the world bourgeoisie in order to fight for liberation.

Lenin also pointed out that politics should be a matter of the people and of the proletariat. The purpose of political culture and political education is to cultivate real communists and build a country without capitalists, exploiters and landlords. Lenin’s incisive analysis of the relationship between politics and economy, politics and class struggle enriched and developed the theory of proletarian revolution, dictatorship and socialist construction, which is still of great practical significance.