Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party, as the political prelude to the establishment of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to provide the working classes with the political consciousness (education and organisation) and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in the Russian Empire (1721–1917).
Leninist revolutionary leadership is based upon The Communist Manifesto (1848) identifying the communist party as "the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country; that section which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to instituting socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to realize the socio-economic transition by all means.
In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) in which they called for the political unification of the European working classes in order to achieve communist revolution; and proposed that, because the socio-economic organization of Communism was of a higher form than that of capitalism, a workers' revolution first would occur in the industrialised countries. In Germany, Marxist social democracy was the political perspective of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, inspiring Russian Marxists, such as Lenin.In the early 20th century, the socio-economic backwardness of Imperial Russia (1721–1917) — combined and uneven economic development – facilitated rapid and intensive industrialisation, which produced a united, working-class proletariat in a predominantly agrarian society. Moreover, because the industrialisation was financed mostly with foreign capital, Imperial Russia did not possess a revolutionary bourgeoisie with political and economic influence upon the workers and the peasants, as had been the case in the French Revolution (1789–1799), in the 18th century. Although Russia's political economy was agrarian and semi-feudal, the task of democratic revolution fell to the urban, industrial working class as the only social class capable of effecting land reform and democratization, in view that the Russian bourgeoisie would suppress any revolution.
In the April Theses (1917), the political strategy of the October Revolution (7–8 November 1917), Lenin proposed that the Russian revolution was not an isolated national event, but a fundamentally international event – the first socialist revolution in the world. Lenin's practical application of Marxism and proletarian revolution to the social, political, and economic conditions of agrarian Russia motivated and impelled the "revolutionary nationalism of the poor" to depose the absolute monarchy of the three-hundred-year dynasty of the House of Romanov (1613–1917), as tsars of Russia.
In the aftermath of the October Revolution (1917), Leninism was the dominant version of Marxism in Russia and the basis of Soviet Democracy, the rule of directly elected soviets. In establishing the socialist mode of production in Bolshevik Russia—with the Decree on Land (1917), war communism (1918–1921), and the New Economic Policy (1921–1928)—the revolutionary régime suppressed most political opposition, including Marxists who opposed Lenin's actions, the anarchists and the Mensheviks, factions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. The Russian Civil War (1917–1922), which included the seventeen-army Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (1917–1925), and left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks (1918–1924) were the external and internal wars which transformed Bolshevik Russia into the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the core republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
As revolutionary praxis, Leninism originally was neither a proper philosophy nor a discrete political theory. Leninism comprises politico-economic developments of orthodox Marxism and Lenin's interpretations of Marxism, which function as a pragmatic synthesis for practical application to the actual conditions (political, social, economic) of the post-emancipation agrarian society of Imperial Russia in the early 20th century. As a political-science term, Lenin's theory of proletarian revolution entered common usage at the fifth congress of the Communist International (1924), when Grigory Zinoviev applied the term Leninism to denote "vanguard-party revolution." The term Leninism was accepted as part of CPSU's vocabulary and doctrine around 1922, and in January 1923, despite objections from Lenin, it entered the public vocabulary.
Communism: The principle of state capitalism during the period of transition to communism: “The authorities pretend they are paying wages, workers pretend they are working.” Alternatively, "So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work." ~ Russian political joke [persisted to the '80s].
Socialist economics has been associated with different schools of economic thought. Marxian economics provided a foundation for socialism based on analysis of capitalism while neoclassical economics and evolutionary economics provided comprehensive models of socialism. During the 20th century, proposals and models for both socialist planned and market economies were based heavily on neoclassical economics or a synthesis of neoclassical economics with Marxian or institutional economics.
As a term, socialist economics may also be applied to the analysis of former and existing economic systems that were implemented in socialist states such as in the works of Hungarian economist János Kornai. 19th-century American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who connected the classical economics of Adam Smith and the Ricardian socialists as well as that of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Karl Marx and Josiah Warren to socialism, held that there were two schools of socialist thought, namely anarchist socialism and state socialism, maintaining that what they had in common was the labor theory of value. Socialists disagree about the degree to which social control or regulation of the economy is necessary; how far society should intervene and whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change are issues of disagreement.
The Comintern held seven World Congresses in Moscow between 1919 and 1935. During that period, it also conducted thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, dissolved the Comintern in 1943 to avoid antagonizing his allies in the later years of World War II, the United States and the United Kingdom. It was succeeded by the Cominform in 1947.
During its existence, the Comintern provided financial and ideological support to communist parties in around the world, and helped them to organise campaigns for proletarian revolution. It also served as a forum for debate and discussion among communist leaders and intellectuals.
However, the outbreak of World War II and the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany saw the Comintern’s influence began to wane. When Germany invaded the USSR two years later, Stalin begin actively seeking to improve relations with capitalist powers in order to focus on the war effort against the Axis forces.
In this context, the decision was made to dissolve the Comintern in May 1943 as a gesture of goodwill towards the Western Allies, particularly Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. He also sought to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s commitment to cooperation in the fight against fascism. While the dissolution of the Comintern was a prudent move in the context of the Second World War, communist parties across the world continued to maintain close relations with each other and established the Cominform in 1947.
