Proletarian Internationalism and the World Revolution

A message by V.I. Dyachenko from the Sixth Forum of Marxists on the topic “Lenin and the Revolution,” held on June 24, 2017 in Moscow under the guidance of A.A. Kovalev.

Translator’s Introduction

This article, originally written in Russian and titled “Marxism On The Need For A Global Communist Revolution” is extremely important in two ways: it presents both the revisionism of Stalin[ists] vis-à-vis proletarian internationalism, as well as the contemporary debates and rebuttals of this opportunistic position that occupied the minds of many leading Bolsheviks mostly between 1924 and 1927. Not only does this study cite rare and almost unknown (to the non-Russian world) works of famous revolutionaries such as Grigory Zinoviev and Nikolai Bukharin — extracts of which appear in English for the very first time here, but it also places these works in their historical context by juxtaposing it to the ongoing discussions, congresses and events in the Soviet Union.

It has to be remarked, that the original author of this article holds some opinions that I don’t share, e.g. Stagism, closely resembling that of Zinoviev’s permeates the text. The Organization which published this material, “Communism21” is a collective which emphasizes the need for Classical Marxism to make a return in socialist circles, heavily leaning on the early works of Marx and Engels.

Thus, I want to distance the work from the publisher: I am simply putting this out for educational purposes and consider it very useful to understand the whole dispute, even if I am not in a complete agreement with all of its propositions and declarations.

This work also deals with apparent contradictions within Lenin (on the topic of “Socialism in One Country”) and his writings, but it’s insufficient to draw a conclusion. A wholly new article will be necessary to discuss and analyze Lenin’s stances on the topic in greater depth. See footnote six for more information.

Please note, that neither the introduction and suggested reading, nor the footnotes and formatting belong to the original author of the article. They were added by The Acheron In Motion with the translation for context and clarity. The links to the digital versions of the cited material are given in the footnotes, but it must be noted that some of the works cited below are only available in German, Russian or Italian for now.

Suggested Reading (from all parties in the debate): “Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League” by Karl Marx, “The Principles of Communism” by Frederick Engels, “The German Ideology” by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The Junius Pamphlet” and “Lessons from the Three Dumas” by Rosa Luxemburg, “Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) March 6–8, 1918, Political Report Of The Central Committee” and “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” by Vladimir Lenin, “Resolution adopted at the Seventh International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart” sponsored by Rosa Luxemburg and Vladimir Lenin, “The Third International After Lenin” by Leon Trotsky, “Marx’s Teaching and its Historical Importance” by Nikolai Bukharin, “On the Final Victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” by Joseph Stalin and “Zinoviev’s critique of Stalin’s theory of Socialism in One Country, December, 1925 — December, 1926” by William Korey.

Dear comrades, I would like to remind you that this idea [of a global communist revolution] belongs not to Trotsky, as many believe, but to the young Marx and Engels. It appears in their second collaboration — the 1846 “German Ideology.” There, the authors develop a dialectical materialist approach to history, assuming the communist direction of its development through simultaneous communist revolutions in the dominant capitalist countries. They determined the prerequisites for the transition to a new order through global communist revolution. I will repeat them [here].

They believed, that the first precondition was the development of the capitalistic productive forces to a degree that would not only exclude the spread of poverty, but would also open way for the further development of said productive forces in the course of the communist transformations.

The second premise of the world revolution was the universalization of the capitalist world’s productive forces as well as of communication between people. Individuals limited by locality, according to their predictions, should be replaced by world-historical, empirically universal individuals. “Without this,” they conclude,

“(1) communism could only exist as a local event; (2) the forces of intercourse themselves could not have developed as universal, hence intolerable powers: they would have remained home-bred conditions surrounded by superstition; and (3) each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism. Empirically, communism is only possible as the act of the dominant peoples “all at once” and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive forces and the world intercourse bound up with communism.” [1]

This position is also substantiated in “The Principles of Communism” drawn up by Engels in 1847 for the “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” To the question: “Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?” — Engels answered bluntly:

“No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has coordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries — that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.” [2]

Marx and Engels considered the third prerequisite of the world communist revolution to be the necessity of forming the proletariat in a world-historical, internationalist sense.

They note, that:

“The proletariat can thus only exist world-historically, just as communism, its activity, can only have a “world-historical” existence. World-historical existence of individuals means existence of individuals which is directly linked up with world history.” [3]

According to Marx and Engels, the world revolution on its path to communism would first have to break the world capitalist system, eliminate the world capitalist market (which dictates market conditions to all countries) and destroy the conditions that give rise to the private character of appropriation. This would remove the threat of suppression of communist development. Secondly, such a revolution should form, in modern terms, a communist matrix based on developed countries. Marx and Engels believed that in the course of revolutionary transformations, the transfer of the latest technologies from these states to the entire planet should be carried out. They wrote:

“In history up to the present it is certainly an empirical fact that separate individuals have, with the broadening of their activity into world-historical activity, become more and more enslaved under a power alien to them (a pressure which they have conceived of as a dirty trick on the part of the so-called universal spirit, etc.), a power which has become more and more enormous and, in the last instance, turns out to be the world market. But it is just as empirically established that, by the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution (of which more below) and the abolition of private property which is identical with it, this power, which so baffles the German theoreticians, will be dissolved; and that then the liberation of each single individual will be accomplished in the measure in which history becomes transformed into world history. From the above it is clear that the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections. Only then will the separate individuals be liberated from the various national and local barriers, be brought into practical connection with the material and intellectual production of the whole world and be put in a position to acquire the capacity to enjoy this all-sided production of the whole earth (the creations of man). All-round dependence, this natural form of the world-historical cooperation of individuals, will be transformed by this communist revolution into the control and conscious mastery of these powers, which, born of the action of men on one another, have till now overawed and governed men as powers completely alien to them.” [4]

In order to prepare for the world revolution, Marx and Engels created the First International in 1864 [International Workingmen’s Association], which disintegrated in 1874 as a result of an internal struggle between supporters of various leftist views. Our compatriot, the anarchist M. A. Bakunin, especially distinguished himself in the collapse of this international organization, who considered the member of the Russian peasant commune a rebel who could transition to socialism, bypassing capitalism. Then, after the death of Marx, with the direct participation of Engels in 1889, the Second International was created, but this time without the anarchists. However, as we know, after Engels’ death, it [the Second International] took opportunistic positions and abandoned the revolutionary aspect of Marxism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was directed against the despotic interference in property relations in order to eliminate private property and private appropriation.

The aforementioned fundamental propositions of Marxist theory about the necessity and prerequisites of the world Communist revolution for the transition to a new formation were — in Stalin’s times, labeled Trotskyism, since Trotsky defended these positions of Marxism. Marx and Engels thus turned out to be Trotskyists. [5]

Marxist theses were ostracized and Lenin’s idea of ​​the possibility of building socialism in isolated and backward peasant Russia [6] which Stalin extended to communism, was introduced into public consciousness. Thus, in essence, the populist idea of socialism of the communal peasantry in Russia and the possibility of building socialism, bypassing developed capitalism, was essentially realized, criticized by Lenin earlier.

In defending their position, Stalin and his supporters referred to various famous works by Lenin. Thus, in his 1915 article “On the slogan of the United States of Europe,” Lenin, rightly considering such a slogan reactionary under the conditions of capitalism, came to the conclusion that the absolute law of capitalism is “[u]neven economic and political development.” He notes:

“Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organizing their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world — the capitalist world — attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.” [7]

In 1916, Lenin continued to develop this idea in his article “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution.” He has already stated that:

“Thirdly, the victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all wars in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois.” [8]

However, it should be clarified, that first of all, the classics [Marx and Engels] in their works did not claim that the revolution should win in all countries in the world at once, as Lenin wrote. They meant only the dominant countries.

Secondly, the fact of uneven development of countries was noted by Marx and Engels. In Leon Trotsky’s appendix, “Socialism in One Country” to the 1937 book “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and Where is it Going?” the author specifies that the prospect of an “isolated socialist state” belongs to the long-dead and forgotten German Social-Democrat Georg Vollmar, who developed it in 1878, but for Germany instead of Russia — with a reference to the “law” of uneven development, borrowed from the classics, but passed off as his discovery.

The idea of the possibility of a victorious socialist revolution in the weak link of imperialism is also found in Lenin’s 1916 work, “Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism,” as well as in “The April Theses” of 1917. Lenin also defended it in 1923, for example, in his “Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov’s Notes).”

All these Leninist statements give the supporters of the Stalinist position a reason to consider Lenin the founder of the idea of the possibility of building socialism in one country, as Stalin repeatedly stated in his speeches and writings.

Lenin’s supporters, who are in opposition to Stalin, categorically deny this assertion from the Stalinist apologists. They believe that Lenin was faithful to the Marxist positions about the impossibility of building socialism in one country to the very day of his death. At the same time, they refer to the works of Lenin, where he is in line with the said Marxist positions. In autumn of 1915, he wrote:

“The task confronting the proletariat of Russia is the consummation of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia in order to kindle the socialist revolution in Europe.” [9]

Before leaving for Russia in early April 1917, Lenin wrote a “Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers.” He notes:

“Russia is a peasant country, one of the most backward of European countries. Socialism cannot triumph there directly and immediately. But the peasant character of the country, the vast reserve of land in the hands of the nobility, may, to judge from the experience of 1905, give tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia and may make our revolution the prologue to the world socialist revolution, a step toward it.” [10]

In his brief speech at the opening of the April 1917 conference, concluding the “Report on the present situation,” which is mainly devoted to the necessary steps of the revolution, he emphasizes:

“The complete success of these steps is only possible by world revolution…” [11]

In the 1918 Political Report of the Central Committee to the VII Congress of the R.C.P.(B.), Lenin spoke of the danger of imperialist encirclement:

“In this sphere a conflict is inevitable. This is the greatest difficulty of the Russian revolution, its greatest historical problem — the need to solve international problems, the need to evoke a world revolution, to effect the transition from our strictly national revolution to the world revolution.” [12]

And a little further:

“Regarded from the world-historical point of view, there would doubtlessly be no hope of the ultimate victory of our revolution if it were to remain alone, if there were no revolutionary movements in other countries. When the Bolshevik Party tackled the job alone, it did so in the firm conviction that the revolution was maturing in all countries and that in the end — but not at the very beginning — no matter what difficulties we experienced, no matter what defeats were in store for us, the world socialist revolution would come — because it is coming; would mature — because it is maturing and will reach full maturity. I repeat, our salvation from all these difficulties is an all Europe revolution.” [13]

This condition was also reflected in the R.C.P.(B.) program adopted in the spring of 1919. Lenin explained to Podbelsky that:

“[…] because the revolution referred to in our programme is the world social revolution.” [14]

In his dying work, “Better Fewer, But Better,” he writes:

“Thus, at the present time we are confronted with the question- shall we be able to hold on with our small and very small peasant production, and in our present state of ruin, until the West-European capitalist countries consummate their development towards socialism?” [15]

In order to prepare for the world revolution, Lenin spearheaded the creation of the Third International on March 4, 1919, which was dissolved by Stalin in 1943.

It seems that such a contradictory Leninist position caused confusion in the understanding of Marxist Communist theory, as well as a split in the R.C.P(B.) and in the Communist movement as a whole. Moreover, the global left movement did not have a clear idea of socialism. This concept denoted both the ultimate goal of the revolution and the movement towards this goal. As you know, this term was abandoned by Marx and Engels when they wrote the “Manifesto of the Communist party” in 1847, where they used “communism.” Lenin, in contrast to Marx, in his 1917 book the “State and Revolution,” identified the lowest phase of communism with it. [16]

After Lenin’s death, the question of the possibility of building socialism (as the first phase of communism) in one country arose again in the USSR in 1925. On this occasion, in “History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” edited by Stalin, we read that the party asked the question: in what direction to move?

“Should we and could we build a Socialist economic system; or were we fated but to manure the soil for another economic system, the capitalist economic system? Was it possible at all to build a Socialist economic system in the U.S.S.R., and, if so, could it be built in spite of the delay of the revolution in the capitalist countries, in spite of the stabilization of capitalism? Was it at all possible to build a Socialist economic system by way of the New Economic Policy, which, while it was strengthening and augmenting the forces of Socialism in the country in every way, nevertheless still promoted a certain growth of capitalism? How was a Socialist economic system to be constructed, from which end should its construction begin? […]

Yes, replied the Party, a Socialist economic system could be and should be built in our country, for we had everything needed for the building of a Socialist economic system, for the building of a complete Socialist society” [17]

After Lenin, the main theorists of the victory of socialism in the USSR were Stalin and Bukharin. Theoretically, they divided the victory of socialism into a complete and final victory. At the same time, in their opinion, complete victory could be achieved without the victory of socialist revolutions in other capitalist countries, in the absence of a full guarantee against the restoration of capitalism, and the final victory could only be achieved if such guarantees existed. Thus, Stalin concluded, the USSR was vitally interested in the victory of proletarian revolutions in capitalist countries. The Central Committee of the party demanded that these guidelines be discussed at the XIV party conference in order to ratify them as party law. They were opposed by Trotsky and his supporters, who denied the possibility of the victory of socialism in the USSR without a revolution in European countries.

Zinoviev and Kamenev also considered it impossible to build socialism in the USSR “because of its technical and economic backwardness.” They went into opposition to Stalin.

Among the oppositionists, Bukharin remained on the side of Stalin with his theory of peaceful growth of the kulak into socialism, which was supported by Stalin himself until the agricultural crisis of 1927 (See, for example, the Great encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius).

The XIV party conference in April 1925 condemned the position of Zinoviev and Kamenev. It approved Stalin’s instructions by adopting a corresponding resolution.

In December 1925, the XIV party Congress was held. The Congress approved the resolution on the possibility of building socialism as the first phase of communism in the USSR, adopted at the XIV party conference.

The Congress rejected the opposition’s claims that Soviet industry was not socialist, that the middle peasant [kulaks] couldn’t be an ally of the working class in building socialism.

Zinoviev and Kamenev criticized the thesis about the possibility of the complete victory of socialism in the USSR. They considered this thesis an expression of “national narrow-mindedness.” A discussion unfolded at the Congress, which continued even after the Congress ended.

Nevertheless, the main decision of the Congress was written:

“In the field of economic construction, the Congress proceeds from the premise that our country, the country of the dictatorship of the proletariat, has “everything necessary for building a complete socialist society” (Lenin). The Congress considers that the struggle for the victory of socialist construction in the USSR is the main task of our party.”

Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters opposed the main decision of the Congress. They did not believe that the country had everything necessary to build complete socialism, the first phase of communism.

Under their influence, at a meeting of the Leningrad provincial Committee of the Komsomol, a resolution was adopted refusing to submit to the decision of the Congress. The leadership of this Komsomol organization was soon defeated (see “History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” pages 275–278).

In 1926, Stalin devoted a chapter to the possibility of building socialism in the USSR in his pamphlet “Concerning Questions of Leninism” and Bukharin wrote an extensive article “On the Nature of our Revolution and the Possibility of Successful Socialist Construction in the USSR.” [18]

In the pamphlet “Concerning Questions of Leninism,” Stalin, first of all, criticized the definition of Leninism given by Zinoviev. In the article “In memory of Lenin,” Zinoviev wrote:

“Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialist wars and world revolution, which immediately began in a country where peasantry predominates.”

Stalin attacked Zinoviev for introducing the backwardness of Russia and its peasant character into the definition of Leninism, allegedly for transforming Leninism “from an international proletarian doctrine into a product of specifically Russian conditions.” [19] He wrote that if ready-made forms of capitalist organization are created for the capitalist mode of production and exchange in feudal society, then the capitalist mode of production and exchange does not create socialist forms of organization. Therefore, in a backward peasant country, it is possible to carry out socialist transformations. [20]

The XV party conference and the enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International under Stalin’s leadership “branded” the supporters of the Trotskyist-Zinoviev bloc in November 1926. At the conference, Trotsky asked:

“Why is the theoretical recognition of the establishment of socialism in one country demanded? What gave rise to this standpoint? Why was this question never brought forward by anyone before 1925? (A voice: “It was!”) That is not the case, it was never brought forward. Even Comrade Stalin wrote in 1924 that the efforts of an agrarian country were insufficient for the establishment of socialism. I am today still firm in my belief that the victory of socialism in our country is only possible in conjunction with the victorious revolution of the European proletariat. This does not mean that we are not working toward the socialist state of society, or that we should not continue this work with all possible energy. Just as the German worker is preparing to seize power, we are preparing the socialism of the future, and every success which we can record facilitates the struggle of the German proletariat, just as its struggle facilitates our socialist progress. This is the sole true international view to be taken of our work for the realization of the socialist state of society.” [21]

He ridiculed Bukharin for his assertion that the dispute:

“is about whether we can build socialism and build it if we are distracted from international affairs, that is, the dispute is about the nature of our revolution.” [22]

Trotsky explained that while building socialism, it is impossible to distract oneself from world imperialism and from the world market with which one has to exchange goods.

He replied to Bukharin as follows:

“The success of socialist construction depends on the pace of our economic development, which is currently most directly and acutely determined by the import of raw materials and equipment. Of course, you can “distract” from the lack of foreign currency and order a large amount of cotton and cars, but this can only be done once, this “distraction” cannot be repeated a second time (laughter). All of our construction is internationally conditioned.” [23]

However, the question of the criteria for building a complete socialism remained unanswered: what should complete socialism be like?

In this regard, Bukharin argued that:

“our socialism in its growth, until it reaches full bloom, will to a certain extent have its own special features. I would say, if I may put it so, that it will be a backward socialism for a long time in its development. […] But it will still be socialism.” [24]

He suggested building socialism “at a snail’s pace.”

In response, Trotsky explained that every success in economic development of the U.S.S.R. is a step along a long bridge connecting capitalism to socialism. By demonstrating the possibilities of socialism in developing the economy and improving the standards of living, it contributes to the dawn of revolution in Europe. Therefore:

“We will never build socialism at a snail’s pace, because the world market is increasingly controlling us.” [25]

At the seventh enlarged Plenum of the ECCI [Executive Committee of the Comintern], Trotsky rightly argued that victorious socialism presupposes, first of all, a higher level of development of the productive forces than in the advanced capitalist countries. It is impossible for the USSR to achieve this goal alone, since the Soviet economy cannot develop in any other way than in the closest relationship with the development of the world market, and the world economy:

“in the last instance […] it [the world economy] controls each of its parts, even if this part is under the proletarian dictatorship and is building a socialist economy.” [26]

Trotsky saw the true meaning of the thesis that it was possible to build socialism in one country according to the desire of the Soviet party and state bureaucracy to protect its dominant position in the country and in the international Communist movement. To this end, in his opinion, it was intended to:

“in advance, call everything that happens and will happen inside the Union socialism, regardless of what will happen outside it.” [27]

As you know, contrary to Marxist teachings, it was officially declared in 1936 that the USSR had achieved a complete victory of socialism in the country.

In his March 10 (1939) report to the 18th Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.), “Report on the Work of the Central Committee to the Eighteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.)” Stalin already spoke of the possibility of building not only socialism in the USSR, but also complete communism, even surrounded by imperialist States. [28] However, the construction of communism ended with the rejection of the communist direction of development, the collapse of the CPSU, the destruction of the USSR and the establishment of capitalism in our country during the initial period of capital accumulation.

Thus, socio-historical practice and the tragic fate of the USSR confirmed the truth of the Marxist propositions about the need to move to a new formation of the world communist revolution with its prerequisites. Engels’ conclusion was also confirmed in his 1895 Introduction to Marx’s work “The Class Struggles in France from 1848 to 1850” that the capitalist base in the 19th century implied “great expansive capacity.”

But if the tendencies identified by the founders of Marxist theory to form prerequisites for a world revolution were observed only in the dominant European countries during their lifetime, now they have acquired a planetary scale.

As the further development of human history has shown, the capitalist system did not lose its ability to expand throughout the twentieth century, despite the formation of the so-called socialist camp, whose economic foundation was based on semi-capitalist relations. After the breakup and collapse of the USSR, as well as the countries that were called socialist, the capitalist mode of production covered the entire globe. Now there are no significant non-capitalist environments left on the planet. Therefore, it seems that it is only now possible to talk about the loss of capitalism’s ability to expand. It is in a systemic, developing planetary crisis, which manifests itself in constant local wars for resources and markets. The “fact of the existence of a “dispossessed” mass among all peoples” is becoming more and more obvious. In the pursuit of maximizing profits through cheaper labor, global capital is transferring low- and medium-sized technologies to developing countries, leaving behind armies of unemployed people. At the same time, we are now clearly seeing the formation of world-historical, empirically universal individuals, as proletarians from developing countries go to more developed countries in search for a better life. There they settle down and socialize. There are also frequent cases of their assimilation. The tendency to universalize the productive forces on a planetary scale is therefore objective.

It must be assumed that all the objective prerequisites for the world communist revolution — about which the founders of the communist theory wrote — have now taken shape. The point is the subjective factor — the creation of an international communist organization on the theoretical basis of classical Marxism and the formation of the proletariat into a class in the world-historical, international sense, which we observe partly in the world communist and anti-globalization movement.

Translator’s Footnotes

[1] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The German Ideology,” Chapter I, Section 5 — Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of Communism

[2] Frederick Engels, “The Principles of Communism,” Thesis 19

[3] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The German Ideology,” Chapter I, Section 5 — Development of the Productive Forces as a Material Premise of Communism

[3] Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “The German Ideology,” Chapter I, Private Property and Communism

[5] Keep in mind, that Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution has nothing to do with Marx’s Revolutionary Permanence. Socialist Internationalism is not specific to Trotskyism, but as Stalin is seen as a figure who betrayed the said Internationalism, “Bolshevik-Leninists” insist on their undying and specific dedication to the global revolution.

[6] The two most often-cited works of Lenin with regards to his alleged support for the notion of “Socialism in One Country” are “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” and “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution,” both of which are discussed here. It must be noted, that the Italian Left has commentary on Lenin’s “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” in the 10th chapter of “Economic and Social Structure of Russia” to clarify the opportunistic distortions that this work is usually attached to. Unfortunately it is only available in Italian at the moment.

[7] Vladimir Lenin, “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe”

[8] Vladimir Lenin, “The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution,” Chapter I

[9] Vladimir Lenin, “Several Theses (Proposed by the Editors)”

[10] Vladimir Lenin, “Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers’

[11] Vladimir Lenin, “The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)”

[12] Vladimir Lenin, “Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) March 6–8, 1918, Political Report Of The Central Committee,” Section I

[13] Ibid

[14] Vladimir Lenin, “Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) March 6–8, 1918, Political Report Of The Central Committee,” Section IV

[15] Vladimir Lenin, “Better Fewer, But Better”

[16] “What is usually called socialism was termed by Marx the “first”, or lower, phase of communist society.” [Vladimir Lenin, “The State and Revolution”]

It must be noted that Marx and Engels didn’t abandon using “socialism” altogether. Engels’ “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” was published (1880) much after the Communist Manifesto (1848). What the author possibly tries to convey, is that “socialism” was slowly replaced by “communism” to denote the movement, the goal and the belief.

[17] “History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1939),” pages 272–273

[18] Bolshevik, №19–20, 1926. Also cited in Trotky’s “The Third International After Lenin,” Chapter I, Part 2, Section 5

[19] Joseph Stalin, “Concerning Questions of Leninism,” Chapter I

[20] See the Russian edition of I.V. Stalin Collected Works, Vol. 8, Pages 14, 16, 17, 21 [from the original article]

[21] Leon Trotsky, “An Answer to Stalinist Critics,” Section III (November 1926). The portion of the speech given by Trotsky quoted in the original article has been expanded for context.

[22] The Selected Works of N.I. Bukharin, the 1988 Russian Edition, Page 308

[23] XV conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), stenographic report. M. L. 1927. Pp. 530–533 [from the original article]

[24] The Selected Works of N.I. Bukharin, the 1988 Russian Edition, Page 243

[25] XV conference of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), stenographic report. M. L. 1927. Pp. 530–533 [from the original article]

[26] The Paths of the World Revolution. Seventh Extended Plenum of the ECCI. November 22-December 16, 1926. Stenographic report M. L. 1927, vol. 2. p. 102

[27] The Communist opposition in the USSR, Russian Edition (1990), Vol. 2, P. 145 [from the original article]

[28] In this mind-boggling report, Stalin declared:

But development cannot stop there. We are going ahead, towards Communism. Will our state remain in the period of Communism also? Yes, it will, unless the capitalist encirclement is liquidated, and unless the danger of foreign military attack has disappeared. Naturally, of course, the forms of our state will again change in conformity with the change in the situation at home and abroad. No, it will not remain and will atrophy if the capitalist encirclement is liquidated and a Socialist encirclement takes its place.

This meant that Stalin allowed for the existence of the State in the higher phase of Communism “unless the capitalist encirclement is liquidated.