The following is a speech given by Shri Provash Ghosh (General Secretary, Socialist Unity Centre of India (communist)), on the occasion of 102nd death anniversary of Great Lenin-the architect of the first proletarian revolution and socialist state on 21 January 2026, Kolkata. The speech, delivered in Bengali initially was edited thereafter by Shri Provash Ghosh before publication. The First instalment of that speech is reproduced below in English. Responsibility of translation error or inadequate expression, if any, lies with the Editorial team of Proletarian Era.
Dear comrades and friends,
Today we have assembled here to pay homage to Great Lenin and recollect his invaluable revolutionary teachings.
As a student of leaders of world communist movement like Great Stalin, Mao Zedong and Shibdas Ghosh, based on whatever I could learn from them, I will say a few words about great Lenin. If one wants to understand Lenin, one must understand the essence of a historic observation of his. I am telling that in my own words.
Throughout history, those who strove for the liberation of humanity have been subjected to oppression, repression, torture and persecution by the exploiting classes. Some of them were even killed. The exploiting classes spread canards against them and distorted their views. But after the demise of those great leaders, when people were highly inspired by their life and teachings these very exploiters cunningly praised them, glorified them with a view to deceiving, confusing and distracting the masses. Lenin said that the same thing happened with great Marx also. During his lifetime, the bourgeoisie expelled Marx driving him away from one country to another country, and carried out malicious propaganda against him. But after Marx’s death, when the influence of Marxism began to spread increasingly among the working class, the bourgeois thinkers began to praise him. At the same time, they distorted Marx’s thoughts. Pseudo-Marxists also twisted Marx’s teachings and tried to strip Marxism of its essence. Lenin said that the essence, the inner kernel of Marxism has to be revived and re-established. Lenin not only wholly dedicated himself to perform that task, he further developed Marxism to fit with the times by correct as well as concrete application of Marxian science in the concrete obtaining situation, thereby developed and enriched Marxism with several new contributions in the theoretical field.
That is why his worthy successor, and great leader Stalin rightly said: “Leninism is Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular”(Concerning questions of Leninism). Armed with the weapon of Marxism-Leninism, the workers and oppressed people established exploitation-free socialist societies in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, and a powerful communist movement surged forth round the globe.
Lenin Saved Marxism from Distortion
I am not entering into the details of Lenin’s life today. But I shall dwell on some of the theoretical developments that he contributed to the treasure house of Marxism. It was Marx who was first to bring to the fore what is the philosophical understanding of dialectical materialism by fighting Hegel’s dialectical idealism, agnosticism and Kant’s Feuerbach’s humanism. He showed that the idea of ‘utopian socialism’ propounded by Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier was flawed, whereas the concept of scientific socialism based on dialectical materialism was the correct one. Pointing out the limitations of Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s classical political economy, he proved that the capitalists earn profit only by depriving the worker of his legitimate due. The worker produces commodity by expending labour. But he is not paid wage equal to the value he so creates. The unpaid labour or the ‘surplus value’ i.e. the new value created by workers in excess of their own labour-cost is expropriated by the capitalist as profit. So, profit is ‘expropriation of surplus value’.
The worker, by giving his labour to produce commodities, creates surplus value; a small part of it he receives as wages, and the rest the capitalist appropriates as profit. Thus, great Marx and his comrade-in-arms great Engels had unravelled the ruthless character of capitalist exploitation. Marx also said that because of this exploitation, capitalism would inevitably be stricken with severe insolvable crisis. He also predicted that the working class would overthrow capitalism and establish a society free from exploitation. They also discovered the law of social development. Based on that, Marxism appeared in the history of development of mankind as the weapon to conduct struggle for establishing exploitation-free classless society.
After the demise of Marx, the influence of the Second International formed under the leadership of Engles spread extensively round the world. But at one point of time, Lenin found that the Second International was distorting Marxism. Lenin’s struggle all along was to spearhead intense ideological battle against such distortion and place before the world the correct understanding of Marxism. Had not Lenin conducted this struggle in right earnest, Soviet Revolution would not have achieved success. Soviet socialism would not have been established. We would not be able to have a glimpse of exploitation-free socialist society as an alternative to oppressive capitalism. And if Lenin had not done that, we would not have got great Stalin, Mao Zedong and Shibdas Ghosh as his worthy successors. They all understood Marxism being imbued with the teachings of Lenin and accordingly conducted proletarian revolutionary movement.
Lenin’s Initiation to Revolutionary Movement
As Kshudiram in our country had embraced martyrdom in course of his attempt to kill an oppressive British official, so was the aim of Sasha, Lenin’s elder brother to assassinate repressive ruler Czar. They had a group known as Narodniks. It was like the various revolutionary organizations which grew during the days of our freedom movement. In accordance with the plan of the Narodnik group, Lenin’s elder brother tried to kill the Russian emperor Second Czar. But he was unsuccessful, held in captivity by the Czar regime and hanged. Lenin then was in his teens. But this martyrdom of Sasha created a deep imprint on his mind. He could realize that this path of individual assassination would not beget the desired emancipation. Then what is the correct way? That was to be searched out. In course of that searching, he got some books of Marx and Engels. When he was a student of Kazan university, he was just 17 year old. At that time, he was arrested for taking part in an anti-Czar demonstration. He was detained in a small village for quite some time. During detention, he meticulously studied the books of Marx and Engels which he could manage to collect. Then he came to a town called Samara. There he formed first a Marxist study group. At that time, such small study groups had been started in many parts of Russia. Lenin could realize that if such study groups remained isolated, the desired goal would not be achieved. Those are to be integrated. When he was 25, he united all these study groups and created “League of struggle for emancipation of the working class” in ST. Petersburg, the then capital of Russia. Later he said that this organization was an embryo of a proletarian revolutionary party. This was how he was initiated into revolutionary movement. In other words, this was how he took initiative in developing a revolutionary organization. Thereafter, he moved out of the country and published a paper titled Iskra to propagate Marxism amongst the various isolated groups engaged in cultivation of Marxism. Because such was not possible in the strict Czarist regime. His struggle then was to reach out to the masses and acquaint them with the ideology of Marxism. Such initiatives in his early life were the stepping stones towards his progress as a revolutionary leader in the later period.
Lenin Showed the Features of Capitalism in Agriculture
Narodniks were of the opinion that since the workers were few in numbers in the then underdeveloped country like Russia, it would the peasants who would organize anti-Czar revolution. Lenin refuted such a flawed understanding by conducting ideological struggle against them. There was another group known as ‘the economists’. They argued that the workers would not join politics but should focus primarily on improving their immediate economic conditions—such as higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions—through strikes and union activities. It would be the middle class who would be in politics. Lenin had fight them also theoretically. When he was conducting revolutionary movement in St Petersburg, he guided the workers’ strike ideologically and politically. At that time, he was once again arrested and jailed for a long time. Then he was sent into exile to Siberia for three years. During his exile in the villages, he came across the miserable life condition of the peasants. He mixed with them intimately and involved them in political discussions. In the same way, he mixed with the workers in St Petersburg, tried to understand their problems and bent of mind, and propagated revolutionary thoughts among them. His fundamental contribution to the treasure house of Marxism was the book “Development of Capitalism in Russia” which he authored during his exile in Siberia. In this book , he showed how capitalism was penetrating not only in industry but also in Russian agriculture. In this book, he also showed the features which indicate penetration of capitalism in agriculture.
In feudalism, land was neither sold nor purchased. The very feature of land having assumed the character of a purchasable commodity denoted penetration of capitalism. He pointed out that earlier it was a self-sufficient rural economy meaning that the agricultural produce of a particular village was consumed there only. Similarly, agricultural produce has become a commodity of the national market. Also, a section of the people are working as labourers in agriculture. They are not serfs but agricultural workers who give their labour in exchange for wage.
The features of capitalism in agriculture are:
- Establishment of individual ownership on land and concentration of land more and more in the hands of a few super-rich
- Transformation of poor peasants into landless labourers because of loss of arable land they hitherto possessed and
- Agricultural produce as well as land are becoming commodities of the capitalist national market
No one could show this before Lenin. Later, he also showed that in developed capitalist economies like Germany, France and America, too, remnants of feudalism were still in existence.
His ideological struggle against the Narodniks, the Economists, the publication of Iskra for spreading Marxism in Russia, and the theory of development of capitalism in Russia all these prove how deep was his understanding of Marxist philosophy at that age.
Criteria for Becoming Party Member
Plekhanov was first to translate works of Marx and Engels in Russia and propagate Marxism in Russia. Lenin during the early days considered him as his teacher. At the initiative of Plekhanov, the Russian Social-democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was formed, and its First Congress was held. Lenin could not attend the same as he was in exile in Siberia. The Second Congress of RSDLP was organized in London in 1903. There was a difference of opinion at this Congress between Lenin and others over the question of who should become party members. Based on this difference, the RSDLP was divided into two groups, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Lenin held only those who would abide by the principles of the Party, pay membership fee, abide by its discipline and undertake daily party activities by joining any organization of the Party. The Mensheviks agreed with the first two conditions but not the others. They said these conditions were not necessary. Lenin argued that no genuine disciplined revolutionary party of the proletariat can develop without those conditions. On this question, RSDLP was divided. Bolshevik meant majority and the Menshevik, minority. At that time Lenin outlined the condition of becoming a party member and continued his struggle for acceptance of that by others. RSDLP was like a platform in which both the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks were present. Those who were followers of Lenin were called Bolsheviks whom he reared and steered as Marxist revolutionaries. On the other hand, the Mensheviks were compromising petty-bourgeois forces.
Lenin Identified the Imperialist Character of Capitalism
When the First World War had broken out, a serious difference of opinion arose between Lenin and other leaders of the Second International on what should be the role played by a working class party. On the eve of that World War, Lenin was first to present before the world, based on Marxist methodology of analysis, what was imperialism and at what stage of capitalism did it evolve. He pointed out that capitalism has two stages. The first stage was, the days of advent of capitalism by overthrowing feudalism and monarchy. At that stage, capitalism was progressive and conducive to social progress. At that stage, we find the widespread prevalence of small capital. There was free competition among them. Based on that, multi party democracy had been established. But at a particular phase of development of capitalism, a few capitalists beat the others in competition and turned into monopoly capitalists. Monopoly capitalism is the second stage of capitalism. For example, the Tata group which acquired monopoly character in India owned steel plants, industrial production units, coal mines and many such other industries. This is monopoly. Small capital being unable to cope with the competition has now turned marginal. Somehow it is holding on to its existence. Some of the small capitals are perishing. Some are trying to raise their heads in different forms. Thus, small capital is devastated by the attack of monopoly capital.
There is another feature observed at the monopoly stage. Earlier banks used to collect deposits from the people, gave that money to the capitalists on loan and paid interest to the depositors out of earning from those loans. The banking capital and industrial capital were separate. But at the stage of monopoly, there was coalescence of banking capital and monopoly capital to give rise to a financial oligarchy. Concentration of capital had taken place. Alongside was created finance capital. This is the second feature of monopoly. The third stage was export of capital, as against export of commodities, to foreign lands for exploitation of raw material and cheap labour in the destination countries. Fourth stage was of controlling the world market among the monopolists of different countries by way of creating international trusts and cartels. Fifth characteristic was of dividing the global market by the imperialist countries among them.
What will be the Role of Working Class during Imperialist War
While pointing out these characteristics of imperialism, Lenin showed that war today is nothing but a war of capturing market by the imperialist powers, a battle for seizing increased market share for loot and plunder. It was decided in the Congress of the Second International held in Basel city of Switzerland that if the imperialist countries are locked in war, the working class of the respective warring countries would fight against the rulers of the respective countries. The working class of one country would not take up guns against their brethren of another country. Workers of both the countries are wage slaves to respective imperialist rulers. They would not kill each other. This was known as Basel Manifesto. Decision of the Copenhagen (Denmark) summit of the Second International was also the same. While the imperialists were busy in waging war against each other for division and redivision of their domains of loot and plunder, the working class of each country would seize the opportunity to develop revolutionary movement against the imperialists-capitalists of their own respective countries, launch civil wars and accomplish revolution. Such was the decision.
But when the First World War had commenced, most of the leaders of the Second International opined that no, the workers of each country would stand by the bourgeois rulers of their respective countries and protect their own countries. In other words, they would take position in support of the ruling imperialists of their respective countries. Lenin strongly opposed this and said that they were violating the decisions of the previous conferences. This could not be allowed. But the supporters of Lenin were reduced to minority. So, Lenin called the leaders of the Second International traitors. He held that the leaders of the Second International had deviated from Marxism and had been treacherous towards the cause of the proletariats and proletarian internationalism. From the very outbreak of the war, Lenin began to muster forces for the creation of a new International, the Third International. In 1915 the first conference of internationalists was held in Zimmerwald in Switzerland. Even though many of Lenin’s demands were not accepted, Lenin called this conference the “first step” in the development of an international movement against the war.
What was the cause behind such a degeneration of the leaders of the Second International? The imperialists were then plundering the colonies and semi-colonies to the hilt. Out of that plundered wealth, they were giving away a portion to the working class of their respective countries as increased wage, and so purchasing the vulnerable working class and also their leaders by bribing them and thereby dampening their resentment and protest. Lenin said that the leaders of the Second International were representatives of such working class leaders who had been purchased with bribes against revolution. This was how Lenin had to fight to uphold the revolutionary line both in and outside the country.
Formation of the Soviets
Prior to all these, in 1905, a popular uprising against the Czarist government began under the leadership of the proletariat with the aim of achieving a democratic republic. That uprising was propelled by a protest movement by the working class. Gapon, a Christian priest, played a treacherous role. He misdirected the workers with the assurance that the Czar was noble and if the workers appealed to him, he would accede to all their demands. Gapon said he would take the workers to him. The workers fell into this trap and proceeded towards the Czar’s palace in a rally. But the soldiers of the Czar opened indiscriminate fire, raining bullets on them. Several thousand people fell to the Czar’s bullet. That particular day, 9 January 1905, is known in history as ‘Bloody Sunday’. It created a wave of protests in Russia. There was an upsurge of strikes, with strikes after strikes organized in countless places. The workers constituted struggle committees in various factories. These committees were known as Soviets. Such Soviets spread across the entire country. Some Soviets were formed even among the armed forces. But the Bolsheviks then did not have enough organizational strength to provide leadership to these soviets. This revolution continued throughout 1905-06. It spread to many provinces. The Czar ruthlessly suppressed the uprising with the help of military. Lenin said that necessary lessons were to be drawn from this failed revolution, which he called a dress rehearsal of ensuing proletarian revolution. In course of this upheaval, the Russian workers and people received training for accomplishing revolution in the coming days. On the other hand, the oppression and repression of the Czarist regime assumed a most ruthless character. Being terrified and out of frustration, many within the RSDLP disassociated themselves from the mass struggles. Regarding this, there is famous observation of Lenin. He said that when there is a tide of revolution, many come forward and join the struggle for earning name, fame and building political career. But the real test arises when the revolutionary movement faces a serious crisis, at that time it becomes clear who is a genuine revolutionary and who is a fake. Thus, he left a valuable teachings for all of us. When the party is progressing and enjoying a position of prestige and influence, many flock around it. But when the party falls into a crisis situation, and is faced with danger, those who hold the fort are the genuine revolutionaries. That is the test of the revolutionaries.
In Reply to some Philosophical Muddles
When Russia was passing through a state of despondency, a new attack against Marxism ensued. Bazarov, Bogdanov, Mach, Avenarius and some others began to propagate empirio-criticism and positivism. They held that what human beings experience through the sense organs is alone real or reality, effectively questioning or denying the existence of an objective reality independent of human perception. Refuting them, Lenin showed that the “material world exits independent of human consciousness”. Sensation is not the origin of knowledge but the medium between the human consciousness and the external world, produced by the action of matter in motion upon our sense organs. Origin of knowledge is the material world. As an example, he said that Alizarin was inherently embedded in coal tar before we discovered it through our sense organs. In his celebrated work, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, he rebutted many other wrong philosophical propositions and established the correctness of Marxism. In the sphere of science, he fought another erroneous thought following the scientific discoveries concerning the mass and velocity of the electron. The mass of the electron was stated to be electrical rather than mechanical. So, some philosophical idealists spread the idea that at a certain stage “mass” or “matter” disappeared. Lenin showed that “matter is disappearing means that the limit within which we have hitherto known matter is vanishing and that our knowledge is penetrating deeper, properties of matter are likewise disappearing which formerly seemed absolute, immutable and primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) and which are now revealed to be relative and characteristic only of certain states of matter. For the sole property of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind” (Materialism and Empirio criticism).
Later, Scientific Discoveries Confirmed Lenin’s Understanding
Earlier Lenin had considered Plekhanov as his leader. He used to say that “Plekhanov is the father of Marxism in Russia. For, Plekhanov had introduced the works and teachings of Marxism in Russia”. In the international sphere, Lenin also considered Kautsky as his teacher. Yet in the interest of safeguarding the inner-kernel of Marxism and proletarian revolutionary movement, he had the courage and revolutionary audacity to firmly conduct ideological struggle against those even whom he had looked upon as teachers. And in the process, he presented humanity with the correct understanding of Marxism. What a great revolutionary this achievement proved him to be ! At that time only, Lenin said that in the name of reforming Marxism, they were distorting it. From then onwards, the word revisionism featured in the lexicon.
(To be continued)
