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"Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it!" - Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
This blog piece includes the first few pages of the 1953 edition of Maurice Cornforth's Materialism and the Dialectical Method, written while he was a Marxist-Leninist. I have also woven in quotes by Howard Selsam, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin, William Z. Foster and Gus Hall, former leaders of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA).
Cornforth's Materialism and the Dialectical Method is part of a three volume series on Dialectical Materialism (which includes the books Historical Materialism and the Theory of Knowledge) and is based on his 1950 lectures for the Communist Party of Great Britain. These works were long-appreciated by the socialist movement around the world.
This post is warmly dedicated to our friends in the Labor movement & Occupy Minneapolis:
"Every philosophy expresses a class outlook. But in contrast to the exploiting classes, which have always sought to uphold and justify their class position by various disguises and falsifications, the working class, from its very class position and aims, is concerned to know and understand things just as they are, without disguise or falsification.
"The party of the working class needs a philosophy which expresses a revolutionary class outlook. The alternative is to embrace ideas hostile to the working class and to socialism.
"This determines the materialist character of our philosophy." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
(V.I. Lenin: ’the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true! It is complete and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world conception which is irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction or defense of bourgeois oppression’)
Party Philosophy and Class Philosophy
"A revolutionary working-class party needs a revolutionary working class philosophy, " Maurice Cornforth begins, "and that philosophy is dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism has been defined by Stalin as: ’The world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist Party.’ (Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism)
"This definition must appear a strange one, both to many politicians and to many philosophers. But we will not begin to understand dialectical materialism unless we can grasp the thought which lies behind this definition. Let us ask, first of all, what conception of philosophy lies behind the idea expressed in this definition of party or--since a party is always the political representative of a class--class philosophy.
"By philosophy is usually meant our most general account of the nature of the world and of mankind’s place and destiny in it--our world outlook." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
In other words, philosophy is "the whole body of thought concerning the kind of world we live in, the kind of beings we are, and our relation to the world." (Howard Selsam, editor, Handbook of Philosophy, 1949, International Publishers)
Cornforth continues: "that being understood, it is evident that everybody has some kind of philosophy, even though he has never learned to discuss it. Everybody is influenced by philosophical views, even though he has not thought them out for himself and cannot formulate them.
"Some people, for example, think that this world is nothing but ’a vale of tears’ and that our life in it is the preparation for a better life in another and better world. They accordingly believe that we should suffer whatever befalls us with fortitude, not struggling against it, but trying to do whatever good we can do to our fellow creatures. This is one kind of philosophy, one kind of world outlook. Other people think that the world is a place to grow rich in, and that each should look out for himself. This is another kind of philosophy.
"But granted that our philosophy is our world outlook, the task arises of working out this world outlook systematically and in detail, turning it into a well-formulated and coherent theory, turning vaguely held popular beliefs and attitudes into more or less systematic doctrines. This is what the philosophers do.
"By the time the philosophers have worked out their theories, they have often produced something very complicated, very abstract and very hard to understand. But even though only a comparatively few people may read and digest the actual productions of philosophers, these productions may and do have a very wide influence. For the fact that philosophers have systematized certain beliefs reinforces those beliefs, and helps to impose them upon wide masses of ordinary people. Hence, everyone is influenced in one way or another by philosophers, even though they have never read the works of those philosophers.
"And if this is the case, then we cannot regard the systems of the philosophers as being wholly original, as being wholly the products of the brain-work of the individual philosophers. Of course, the formulations of views, the peculiar ways in which they are worked out and written down, is the work of the particular philosopher. But the views themselves, in their most general aspect, have a social basis in ideas which reflect the social activities and social relations of the time, and which, therefore, do not spring ready-made out of the heads of philosophers.
"From this we may proceed a step further.
"When society is divided into classes--and society always has been divided into classes ever since the dissolution of the primitive communes, that is to say, throughout the entire historical period to which the history of philosophy belongs--then the various views which are current in society always express the outlook of various classes. We may conclude, therefore, that the various systems of the philosophers also always express a class outlook. They are, in fact, nothing but the systematic working out and theoretical formulation of a class outlook, or, if you prefer, of the ideology of definite classes.
"Philosophy is and always has been class philosophy. Philosophers may pretend it is not, but that does not alter the fact.
"For people do not and cannot think in isolation from society, and therefore from the class interests and class struggles which pervade society, any more than they can live and act in such isolation. A philosophy is a world outlook, an attempt to understand the world, mankind and man’s place in the world. Such an outlook cannot be anything but the outlook of a class, and the philosophers function as the thinking representatives of a class.
"How can it be otherwise? Philosophies are not imported from some other planet, but are produced here on earth, by people involved, whether they like it or not, in existing class relations and class struggles. Therefore, whatever philosophers say about themselves, there is no philosophy which does not embody a class outlook, or which is impartial, as opposed to partisan, in relation to class struggles. Search as we may, we shall not find any impartial, non-partisan, non-class philosophy.
"Bearing this in mind, then, we shall find that the philosophies of the past have all, in one way or another, expressed the outlook of the so-called ’educated’ classes, that is to say, of the exploiting classes. In general, it is the leaders of society who express and propagate their ideas in the form of systematic philosophies. And up to the appearance of the modern working class, which is the peculiar product of capitalism, these leaders have always been the exploiting classes. It is their outlook which has dominated philosophy, just as they have dominated society." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, great Communist pioneers, exposed the fact that "the class which is the ruling material force in society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." For "the class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that, thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it." (Marx and Engels, German Ideology)
Thus Marx and Engels declared in the Communist Manifesto: "the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."
"We can only conclude from this that the working class, if today it intends to take over leadership of society, needs to express its own class outlook in philosophical form, and to oppose this philosophy to the philosophies which express the outlook and defend the interests of the exploiters." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
(Gus Hall: ’Marxism-Leninism is the philosophy and world outlook of the working class because it is a philosophy of social progress.’)
Marxism is a revolution in philosophy. V.I. Lenin, the outstanding head of Russia’s proletarian revolution, hit the nail on the head: "the Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true! It is complete and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world conception which is irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction or defense of bourgeois oppression." (Lenin, Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, 1913)
Maurice Cornforth cites Lenin and draws some lessons: "’the services rendered by Marx and Engels to the working class may be expressed in a few words thus: they taught the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself, and they substituted science for dreams, ’ wrote Lenin.
"The great world-wide historical service of Marx and Engels lies in the fact that they proved by scientific analysis the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its transition to communism, under which there will be no more exploitation of man by man...that they indicated to the proletarians of all countries their role, their task, their mission: to be the first to rise in the revolutionary fight against capital and to rally around themselves in this struggle all the toilers and exploited.’ (Lenin, Speech at the Unveiling of a Monument to Marx and Engels, 1918)
"Teaching the working class ’to know itself and be conscious of itself, ’ and to rally around itself ’all the toilers and exploited, ’ Marx and Engels founded and established the revolutionary theory of working-class struggle, which illumines the road by which the working class can throw off capitalist exploitation, can take the leadership of all the masses of the people, and so free the whole of society once and for all of all oppression and exploitation of man by man.
"Marx and Engels taught that without its own party, the working class certainly could not win victory over capitalism, could not lead the whole of society forward to the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. The working class must have its own party, independent of all bourgeois parties. Further developing the Marxist teachings about the party, Lenin showed that the party must act as the vanguard of its class, the most conscious section of its class, and that it is the instrument for winning and wielding political power." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
From capitalism to socialism, the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party must be the vanguard of the working class. "By educating the workers’ party, " V.I. Lenin said, "Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to socialism, of directing and organizing the new order, of being the teacher, the guide, the leader of all toilers and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie.’ (Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917)
After the victory of socialism, as the great Communist William Z. Foster pointed out, "the leader and organizer of the proletarian dictatorship is the Communist Party." (William Z. Foster, Toward Soviet America, 1932)
"To fulfill such a role, " Maurice Cornforth concludes, "the party must evidently have knowledge, understanding and vision; in other words, it must be equipped with revolutionary theory, on which its policies are based and by which its activities are guided.
"This theory is the theory of Marxism-Leninism. And it is not just an economic theory, nor yet exclusively a political theory, but a world outlook--a philosophy. Economic and political views are not and never can be independent of a general world outlook. Specific economic and political views express the world outlook of those who hold such views, and conversely, philosophical views find expression in views on economics and politics.
"Recognizing all this, the revolutionary party of the working class cannot but formulate, and having formulated, hold fast to, develop and treasure its party philosophy. In this philosophy--dialectical materialism--are embodied the general ideas by means of which the party understands the world which it is seeking to change and in terms of which it defines its aims and works out how to fight for them.
"In this philosophy are embodied the general ideas by means of which the party seeks to enlighten and organize the whole class, and to influence, guide and win over all the masses of working people, showing the conclusions which must be drawn from each stage of the struggle, helping people to learn from their own experience how to go forward towards socialism.
"And so we see why it is that in our times a philosophy has arisen which expresses the revolutionary world outlook of the working class, and that this philosophy--dialectical materialism--is defined as ’the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist Party.’
"Experience itself has taught the party the need for philosophy. For experience shows that if we do not have our own revolutionary socialist philosophy, then inevitably we borrow our ideas from hostile, anti-socialist sources. If we do not adopt today the outlook of the working class and of the struggle for socialism, then we adopt--or slip into, without meaning to do so--that of the capitalists and of the struggle against socialism.
"This is why the working class party--if it is to be the genuine revolutionary leadership of its class, and is not to mislead its class by the importation of hostile capitalist ideas, and of policies corresponding to such ideas--must be concerned to formulate, defend and propagate its own revolutionary philosophy." (Maurice Cornforth, Materialism and the Dialectical Method, 1953)
Gus Hall, a Communist founder of the United Steelworkers, was right: "Marxism-Leninism is the philosophy and world outlook of the working class because it is a philosophy of social progress!" The future belongs to the scientific, Marxist-Leninist world outlook! (Gus Hall, Karl Marx: Beacon for Our Times, 1983)
Read Howard Selsam & Harry Martel's stellar book Reader in Marxist Philosophy. This text with excerpts from Marx, Engels and Lenin is available from International Publishers.
Dig these sections from Marx, Engels, Lenin For a Better World: Excerpts from the Classics : Historical Materialism & Dialectical Materialism.
GHAC has circulated International Publishers' edition of Marx & Engels’ Communist Manifesto to workers.
Gus Hall, stellar past Marxist-Leninist warrior with the Communist Party of the United States, author of Working Class USA: The Power and the Movement & a founder of the United Steelworkers union, frequently hailed one of the Manifesto's crucial lessons: "of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class." (Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848, Int'l Publishers)
(Gus Hall raised high the Communist Manifesto!)
Karl Marx & Frederick Engels: 'Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of its future.'
William Z. Foster of the CPUSA once wrote that: "the Communist Manifesto was the first revolutionary program of the world’s workers. It laid down the solid foundations of proletarian thought and action for the workers thenceforth on their road to socialism. It showed them how to protect themselves under capitalism, how to abolish the capitalist system, and how to build the structure of the new socialist society. Marx, Engels, V.I. Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and others were to write many books on Marxism in the ensuing decades, and their writings served to elaborate and to buttress the basic propositions of the Manifesto. Today, (more than 160) years after the great document was written, the Communist Manifesto stands as firm as a rock, a clear guide for the international working class, justified by generations of revolutionary experience, and altogether impervious to the attacks of capitalist enemies." (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955, International Publishers)
Lenin, the great successor of Marx & Engels, summed up the significance of the Communist Manifesto:
"With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat--the creator of a new, communist society." (Lenin, Karl Marx, 1914)
And Lenin could add, with every justification: "This little booklet is worth whole volumes." (Lenin, Frederick Engels, 1895)
Read Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' epic classic online at this link:
Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Order the Manifesto in print from International Publishers.
Gus Hall, Marxist-Leninist fighter extraordinaire, hailed the Soviet Union's lead role in the war against "Hitler fascism, the most brutal and bloodiest capitalist dictatorship!" This post is dedicated to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation КПРФ.
May 9 is Victory Day День Победы, a holiday marking the USSR's heroism in smashing imperialist Hitler Germany in WWII!
Henry Winston, stellar late CPUSA chair, put it squarely: "the Soviet Union played the decisive role in saving the world from the racist, genocidal consequences of anti-Sovietism and anti-Communism." William Z. Foster wrote that "had Hitler been able to demolish the Red Army that would have been the end of democracy for an indefinite period. The US, though not falling an immediate victim, could not have long withstood the tremendous power Hitler would then have had at his disposal." (Winston, Race, Class and Black Liberation, 1977, International Publishers; Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States, 1952, I.P.)
"The Soviet people won their historic victory in the Great Patriotic War because of the socialist social and state system." (B. Ponomarev, Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1970, Progress Publishers, Moscow)
The Communist Party, the party of Lenin, was "the great organizer and inspirer of the national resistance". It "set an example in both battle and labor and greatly strengthened morale. The Party transformed the country into a vast military camp. Hundreds of thousands of Communists went to the front, and their selfless valor and devotion to their socialist homeland, their implacable hatred for the fascist invaders, served as an inspiring example for millions of Soviet soldiers." (Liberation, Progress Publishers, 1974)
(William Z. Foster: "the epic offensive of the Soviet people and their Red Army against the Nazi hordes was guided daily by Generalissimo Stalin")
Stalin roused the Red Army and the guerrilla detachments: "May you be inspired by the victorious banner of Lenin!" (1941)
The American Marxist-Leninist William Z. Foster chronicles the past: "When Hitler’s armies swept across the Soviet border in June 1941, the bourgeois military experts of the West were unanimous in prophesying that it would only be a few weeks until Hitler would crush the USSR completely. In fact, Hitler’s ’blitz’ did carry him fast and far, to the very gates of Leningrad by September, a city he was never to capture. On October 3, the vainglorious Hitler blared out to the world that the Soviet Union was crushed and would never rise again.
"But he counted his chickens before they were hatched. Hitler vastly underestimated the fighting power of the Soviet people, their Red Army and socialist system. The Wehrmacht had been made to pay a terrible price in its drive across Russia. It was battered again in its fruitless attempt to take either Moscow or Leningrad.
"And in January 1943, the fascist’s back was broken at Stalingrad, the most decisive battle in the history of the world. Then began, for the Nazis, their terrible 1, 500 mile retreat, with the Red Army slashing them to pieces all the way, while the United States and Britain kept their enormous armies idling in Britain." Foster declared: "The Communists were wonderful people while they were saving the world from the criminal follies of the capitalist system." The Allies launched the western front "after the European war was basically decided and Hitler licked." (Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955, International Publishers)
"The Red Army carried out Stalin’s order: the flag of victory was hoisted over Berlin!" (Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Joseph Stalin, 1949)
"The memory of the undying exploits of the peoples of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War will live through the ages." (Ponomarev, Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1970, Progress Publishers)
This is the superb anthem Victory Day День Победы.
Enjoy this stunning video with a beautiful song by Joseph Kobzon Иосиф Кобзон:
Bow to Those Great Years
The КПРФ hails A. Harchikov's spectacular Victory.
A legendary piece performed by Eduard Khil Эдуард Хиль:
We'll Stand and Pay the Price!
"The forest of uplifted arms demanding work becomes ever thicker, while the arms themselves become ever thinner."--Karl Marx, "Wage-Labor and Capital"
The United States is in a jobs crisis. The AFL-CIO Now blog reports (Dec. 2010) that the unemployment rate is near ten percent. 15.1 million proletarians are 'officially' jobless and 27 million more seek work. Black and Latino working class people are hit the hardest. Capitalism, as Karl Marx pointed out long ago, spreads mass pauperization. The army of the unemployed grows. Economic insecurity and poverty, Gus Hall boldly said, is part of the bourgeois pattern "exposed and laid out by Marx, Engels and Lenin."
"The capitalist class," the Communist economist Victor Perlo noted, "has always needed a reserve army of unemployed." V.I. Lenin was right on the mark: "An industrial reserve army of labor is an indispensable attribute of the capitalist economy." Unemployment is a weapon against labor to drive down wages. In times of economic crisis, capitalists lay off workers and impose speed up on workers with jobs. The Soviet Union abolished unemployment. "Not only was there no joblessness in the U.S.S.R.," Hall wrote, "but there was full employment without racism or discriminatory practices."
The working class needs to stand up, speak out and fight back! We require class struggle picketlines, protests and mass people's lobbies that demand Jobs or Income NOW! We must battle for a federal law against layoffs. For a public works program which can provide jobs. Money should be spent to create jobs and rebuild America, not wage imperialist war and occupation. End racism in hiring. Unemployment insurance and food stamps also need to be extended--with no exclusion of workers on strike.
(V.I. Lenin: 'Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.')
Gus Hall, the Marxist-Leninist former leader of the Communist Party of the United States, put it squarely: "It's time to demand that People Come Before Profits!"
In order to turn the economy around and prevent layoffs, the working class must fight to nationalize basic industries--let the proletariat call the shots. Tax the rich. We need to raise our voices for the passage of Employee Free Choice Act, a law which would make it easier to form and join a union in order to bargain for better wages, benefits and conditions. Slash the work week with no cut in pay. Put Labor up front!
Only socialism will finally end unemployment forever. The day approaches when American workers will turn to socialism and completely eliminate joblessness. Socialism will be, William Z. Foster of the Communist Party of the USA of yesteryear eloquently declared, the "climax" of "the everyday struggles of the workers." And Foster is right that "the time will come when the victorious toilers will build a monument to Lenin in New York." But in order to win this society without exploitation, Marxist theory must, as V.I. Lenin taught in What Is To Be Done?, be brought to the working class. We need a vanguard Marxist-Leninist Party and a proletarian revolution!
Lenin put it squarely: "there can be no 'impartial' social science in a society based on class struggle."
J.V. Stalin, a Marxist political figure of the Lenin type, saved the Revolution. Objective conditions in his era were complex. The Soviet Union was a "besieged fortress" facing a hostile capitalist encirclement. Economically backward, it's "advance towards socialism was attended by a sharpening of the class struggle in the country and within the Party." 1941 brought the Nazi "war of plunder and aggrandizement against the USSR." Stalin made grave errors but Marx would have proclaimed that the CPSU and the Soviet people in his epoch "stormed heaven!" J.V. Stalin industrialized the Land of Lenin and built socialism: "the first phase of Communist society." He guided the Great Patriotic War "which ended in the utter defeat of Hitler Germany." The world famous Marxist led the battle against "trends hostile to Leninism within the Party" and popularized ML theory. The memory of Stalin, proletarian fighter extraordinaire, will live through the ages. (Quoted: Lenin, Letter to American Workers, 1918; Stalin and the Central Committee of the CPSU, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1939, International Publishers; Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, Joseph Stalin, 1949, International Publishers; Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875; MELI, ibid; Malinin, Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, 1974, Progress Publishers)
Nikita Khrushchev’s vicious denunciation of J.V. Stalin at a "secret" session of the 20th Congress of the CPSU was a shock to the world’s Communist and Workers’ Parties. It influenced their view for decades. Khrushchev’s "exaggerated, one-sided and incomplete" distortions "wrote Stalin out of Soviet history and discussion of his role more or less stopped." Friends of the socialist homeland "gave up the effort of an overall assessment" in "a critical but balanced way." The "enemies of the USSR readily filled this vacuum with shelves of books portraying Stalin as a monster or madman." (Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union, International Publishers, 2004)
Don Currie spoke out eloquently: "The anti-Soviet historical revisionists of our day really don’t care a nit about Stalin or his alleged victims. What they care about is the re-writing of the historical record." (Currie,'Open Letter to Heather Mallick on the Distortions of the Role of Stalin in the Defeat of Hitler Germany', Focus On Socialism)
(Workers raise high the banner of Stalin at a protest led by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation КПРФ)
Yesterday’s genuine Marxist-Leninist movement, partisan towards the USSR, had dual lines. B. Ponomarev’s Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, authored in Moscow’s Brezhnev era, was more rounded than Khrushchev’s ravings: "the CPSU sees two aspects in Stalin’s work: a positive one, which the Party values and a negative side, which it criticizes and denounces.
"During the years Stalin was General Secretary of the CC (he was elected to this post in 1922), the Soviet people, led by the Communist Party and its Central Committee, carried out a task that was colossal for its importance and the difficulties it involved: they built the world’s first socialist society and turned an economically backward country into a leading industrial power.
"During the Great Patriotic War, under the leadership of the Party, the Soviet masses accomplished an immortal feat: they defeated Nazi Germany and her allies, upheld the superb gains of socialism and saved mankind from the threat of enslavement by fascism. After the war, led by the Party, they quickly restored the country’s economy and started the building of communism.
"Along with other leaders of the Party and government, Stalin, as a prominent organizer and theoretician, worked to carry through socialist reforms in the USSR, headed the battle against enemies of Leninism (Trotskyites, Right opportunists and bourgeois nationalists), exposed the intrigues of the capitalist encirclement and did much to enhance the Soviet Union’s defense capability. Moreover, he promoted the world communist and entire liberation movement. All this earned him considerable prestige and popularity.
"But with time all the achievements of the Soviet people, led by the Party, began to be ascribed to him. The personality cult gradually took shape. Stalin overestimated his own contribution to the successes of the party and the whole populace, believed he was infallible and began to abuse the power placed in his hands.
"This was furthered by some negative features of his character. Stalin began to depart from the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of Party life. He committed particularly grave errors in the last years of his life. There were unjustified limitations on democracy, flagrant violations of socialist legality and unfounded repressions."
But Stalin’s errors "neither changed nor could change the nature of socialist society, the genuinely people’s nature of the Soviet system, and they could not shake or weaken the theoretical, political and organizational foundations of the CPSU’s activity. The policy pursued by the Party expressed the basic interests of the Soviet citizens, always enjoyed their support and ensured the successful building of socialism and communism in the USSR." (B. Ponomarev, Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1970, Progress Publishers, Moscow)
(Henry Winston: 'Communists refuse to lend monopoly our assistance in its anti-Soviet perversions of history!')
Here’s the past Marxist stalwart and author of History of the Communist Party of the United States, William Z. Foster, assessing Stalin before the CPSU's 20th Congress:
"On March 5, 1953, in his 74th year, Joseph V. Stalin died as the result of a stroke suffered during his sleep a few days before. This ended over half a century of revolutionary struggle on the part of one of the greatest fighters ever produced by the world’s working class. His death was a tremendous loss to the Soviet people and to the international movement for peace and freedom.
"Stalin was a major theoretician. Perhaps his greatest theoretical work was on the national question, on which he was the world’s leading expert. His epic ideological battle with the Trotsky-Zinoviev-Bukharin wreckers also constitutes a Marxist classic. And just on the eve of his death he gave a last example of his profound capacity as an economist by working out the basic economic laws of capitalism and socialism, in his last work, ’Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.’
"Stalin was a magnificent organizer. His building of the Communist Party, the Soviets, and other immense mass organizations of the Soviet people was a real masterwork. His leadership of the party in the mobilization of the people for the driving through of the successive five-year plans, with their building of industry and collectivization of farming, was organizational work beyond compare.
"Stalin, too, was a militant fighting leader of the masses. His whole life was one relentless battle against the enemies of socialism, both within and outside the party. He was a tower of strength as a military commander in the civil war of 1918-1920, and in leading the Soviet people to victory over the Hitler barbarians in 1941-1945, he displayed a peerless fighting spirit and outstanding military genius. During the Cold War, the arrogant capitalist imperialists also came to dread the indomitable spirit and brilliant diplomacy of Stalin. He was indeed a man of steel, as his name signified.
"At Stalin’s funeral, Malenkov said of this brilliant and courageous leader: ’Comrade Stalin, the great thinker of our epoch, creatively developed the teaching of Marxism-Leninism in the new historical conditions. The name of Stalin rightly stands alongside the names of the greatest men in human history--Marx, Engels, Lenin.’" (William Z. Foster, History of the Three Internationals, 1955, International Publishers)
Peruse the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute’s biography: Stalin.
Read J.V Stalin's Foundations of Leninism.
The book History of the CPSU (B) is an excellent source.
A. Harchikov's song Stalin - Our Flag! is stellar.
Enjoy You Tubes by Communist Party of the Russian Federation (КПРФ) cadre Vladlena1917.
Gus Hall Action Club dedicates this blog post to African-American steel worker, Communist fighter and proletarian hero Frank Lumpkin (1916-March 1, 2010). We call on the working class to read his story in 'Always Bring a Crowd!' by Beatrice Lumpkin.
The Gus Hall Action Club appreciates the submission from the Myspace group Gus Hall Discussion Forum to the 29th National pre-Convention period of the Communist Party USA. GHDF, declaring that V.I. Lenin's What Is To Be Done? is the quintessential text on the Party, aimed for a concise, fraternal and ideological piece to inspire study of Marxism-Leninism and CP history.
For a Marxist-Leninist Vanguard Party!
The Gus Hall Discussion Forum, a Myspace group bringing the Communist plus to the online arena, extends revolutionary fraternal greetings on the occasion of your 29th National Convention of the Communist Party USA.
Our country requires a Communist Party which is the vanguard of the proletariat: the advanced, class conscious section with the capacity to lead the fight to overthrow bourgeois exploitation and construct socialism. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, theoretically substantiated the Marxist party’s vanguard role.
(Lenin: ’We see in the independent, uncompromisingly Marxist party of the revolutionary proletariat the sole pledge of socialism’s victory and the road to victory that is most free from vacillations’)
The pages of Otto Kuusinen’s Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism explain that:
"Of all the organizations created by the working class, only a political party can give proper expression to the proletariat’s basic interests and lead it to victory. With the aid of trade unions, mutual aid societies and other similar organizations, workers will never be able to put an end to capitalism and build a socialist society.
"For this the working class needs an organization of a higher type that does not confine itself to the struggle for the satisfaction of the current needs of working people but aims at bringing the proletariat to power in order to effect a revolutionary transformation of society. Such is a Communist Party." (Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism)
The Marxist-Leninist party is the organizer and leader of the workers’ class struggle. The advanced, conscious and organized detachment of the working class, it is the vanguard of the proletariat because it wields the weapon of Marxist-Leninist theory and applies it to the world.
The highest type of proletarian class organization, the Party gives leadership to the working class’ battles and combines all of its' forms into an assault on capitalism. Without the commanding vanguard role of a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, socialism cannot be won.
As V.I. Lenin once eloquently put it:
"We see in the independent, uncompromisingly Marxist party of the revolutionary proletariat the sole pledge of socialism’s victory and the road to victory that is most free from vacillations." (A Militant Agreement for the Uprising)
"By educating a workers’ party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming power and of leading the whole people to socialism, directing and organizing the new order, being the teacher, guide and leader of all the toilers and exploited in the task of building up their social life without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie." (State and Revolution)
In the United States, Gus Hall remarked, "the Communist Party is a working class party of Marxism-Leninism. It is the main fountainhead for the introduction and development of this science in our land." ("The Party of Marxism-Leninism", Political Affairs, Sept-Oct. 1969)
Proletarian fighters must read, study and circulate the classic Marxist books.
The Gus Hall Discussion Forum wishes your 29th National Convention success in the battle to forge "a mass vanguard Communist Party in the heartland of world capitalism." (William Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the United States)
GHDF: http://groups.myspace.com/GusHall
