Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism

An article written by Lenin, in which he summarized the characteristics of the historical development of Marxism. It was first published in Zvezda No. 2, December 23, 1910. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 20 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

After the defeat of the 1905-1907 revolution in Russia, the tsarist dictatorship, with Pyotr Stolypin as the Prime Minister, reacted furiously against the revolutionary people. The organization of the Russian Social-Democratic Party at all levels and the revolutionary groups led by the party were severely damaged. The defeat of the revolution caused political destabilization and even betrayal among some of the revolutionary ranks, creating a serious internal crisis in the Marxist movement. Faced with the critical situation of the failed revolution, Lenin seriously summed up the lessons of the revolution. In order to overcome the political and organizational crisis in the party, defend Marxism, and propagate Marxism to the masses of party members and workers, Lenin wrote this article.

First of all, Lenin emphasized that Marxism is not a dead dogma, not an immutable doctrine, but a living guide to action, and therefore necessarily reflects the extraordinarily dramatic changes in the conditions of social life. “And by losing sight of it, we turn Marxism into something one-sided, distorted and lifeless; we deprive it of its lifeblood; we undermine its basic theoretical foundations—dialectics, the doctrine of historical development, all-embracing and full of contradictions; we undermine its connection with the definite practical tasks of the epoch, which may change with every new turn of history.” Lenin pointed out that as the concrete political situation and the tasks of direct action changed, the different aspects of Marxism could not but be brought to the forefront separately.

Secondly, he divided Russia’s social development into two different historical periods. The six years from 1905 to 1910 were divided into two three-year periods. The first three years were from 1905 to the summer of 1907, and the second three years ended about the summer of 1910. The first three years saw rapid changes in the basic features of the Russian state system, and the progress of these changes was very uneven. The social and economic basis of these changes in the “superstructure” was the action of all classes of Russian society in the most diverse fields (revolutionary activity inside and outside the Duma, the press, unions, meetings, and so forth), action so open and impressive and on a mass scale such as is rarely to be observed in history. The latter three years did not witness any more significant changes in the state system. There were hardly any open and diversified actions by the classes in the majority of the “arenas” in which these actions had developed in the preceding period.

Thirdly, Lenin summarized the similarities and differences between these two periods in Russia: The similarity between the two periods is that Russia underwent capitalist evolution in both of them. The contradiction between this economic evolution and the existence of a number of feudal and medieval institutions still remained and was not stifled, but rather aggravated, by the fact that certain institutions assumed a partially bourgeois character. The difference between these two periods is that the evolution of Russia in the former period had a capitalist character and the content of these changes was bourgeois. But there were various kinds of bourgeoisie: the middle and big bourgeoisie, the rural petty bourgeoisie. Their theoretical claims were divided into two different tendencies. The middle and big bourgeoisie, which professes a more or less moderate liberalism, was, owing to its very class position, afraid of abrupt changes and strove for the retention of large remnants of the old institutions both in the agrarian system and in the political “superstructure”. The rural petty bourgeoisie, interwoven as it is with the peasants who live “solely by the labor of their hands”, was bound to strive for bourgeois reforms of a different kind, reforms that would leave far less room for medieval survivals. In the latter three years, it was not the collision between two methods of reforming the old order that appeared on the surface, but a loss of faith in reforms of any kind, a spirit of “meekness” and “repentance”, an enthusiasm for anti-social doctrines, a vogue of mysticism, and so on.

Finally, Lenin pointed out that Marxism has different characteristics in different historical periods. In the first three years, the revolutionary period, those questions which are usually called tactical questions were brought to the forefront of Marxism with necessity. It was precisely because this class had reached maturity that it could not remain indifferent to the clash of the two different tendencies in Russia’s bourgeois development, and the ideologists of this class could not avoid providing theoretical formulations corresponding (directly or indirectly, in direct or reverse reflection) to these different tendencies. Lenin pointed out that in the first period, it was the attainment of immediate reforms in every sphere of the country’s life that was on the order of the day. In the second period it was the critical study of experience, its assimilation by wider sections, its penetration, so to speak, into the subsoil, into the backward ranks of the various classes.

Lenin pointed out that the proletarian party should formulate its party strategy in the light of the revolutionary situation and the consciousness of the masses, and not just memorize some individual slogans. The urgent task at present is to unite all Marxists to jointly defend the theoretical foundations and basic principles of Marxism and to wage a thorough struggle against those theories and actions that misinterpret Marxism, revise it, talk about it in vain, and dismantle it blatantly.