Let's define a few things.

  1. Paul Pott
    Let's get definitions of these terms from our group members:

    Socialism

    Communism

    Dictatorship of the Proletariat

    Revisionism
  2. Ismail
    Ismail
    For a basic rundown of Marxist-Leninist theory, including socialism and communism, see: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/CourseInt-CL.htm

    Alternatively, there is the 1952 pamphlet The USSR: 100 Questions Answered:
    99. - What is the dictatorship of the proletariat?

    T
    he dictatorship of the proletariat is the State power of the working class that is established in a country after the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie. It continues throughout the period of the transition of society from capitalism to communism. During this transition period the working class, which is at the helm of State power, performs the following tasks:

    1. It suppresses the overthrown exploiting classes in their attempts to re-establish their power, and it organises the country's defence so as to protect it from sudden attacks on the part of capitalist states.
    2. It establishes and consolidates the friendly alliance with the working peasantry and other masses exploited under capitalism, drawing these masses into the work of building socialist society, exercising State guidance of these masses, enlisting them to take an active part in administering the country and educating them in the spirit of socialism.
    3. It organises the planned development of the national economy, completely eliminates the exploiting classes and the capitalist elements in the national economy, works to carry through the complete victory of socialism in every sphere of life, and effects the transition to the classless communist society (see answer No. 100).

    The dictatorship of the proletariat continues to exist in communist society as long as, side by side with it, capitalist countries continue to exist. The dictatorship of the proletariat (State power) will disappear when the capitalist encirclement is completely replaced by a socialist encirclement.

    The State form of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not uniform. In the Soviet Union it takes the form of Soviet power (the power of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies). After the Second World War, States of proletarian dictatorship arose in Central and South-Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Czechoslovakia). In these countries the dictatorship of the proletariat takes the form of governments of people's democracy. In both the Soviet Union and the people's democracies, the leading role in the State belongs to the working class, as the foremost class in society. The highest principle of dictatorship of the proletariat is the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, with the working class in the leading role. The leading and directing force in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the vanguard of the working class: the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R., and the communist and Marxist workers' parties in the people's democracies.

    The leading role of the communist and Marxist workers' parties has, by the will of the people, been given legislative embodiment and secured to them in the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and the Constitutions of the people's democracies.

    100. - What is communism?

    The Soviet people have built up socialism and are now in the period of gradual transition to communism. What is communism, and in what way does it differ from socialism?

    The teaching of the founders of scientific communism, Marx and Engels, a teaching developed comprehensively by V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin, propounds that socialism and communism are the two phases, two stages of development, of one and the same social system: communist society.

    Socialism is the first (lower) stage; and communism is the second (higher) stage of communist society. While socialism and communism have much in common, there is, nevertheless, a difference between them. The following features are common to both socialism and communism:

    Under both socialism and communism the economic foundation of society is the public ownership of the instruments and means of production and an integrated socialist system of economy. There are no contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production; there is complete conformity between them. Neither under socialism nor communism is there social oppression. There are no exploiting classes, no exploitation of many by man, and no national oppression. Under both socialism and communism the national economy is developed according to plan, and there are neither economic crises, nor unemployment and poverty among the masses. Under both socialism and communism everyone is equally bound to work according to his ability.

    What then, is the difference between communism and socialism?

    Socialist society affords full play for the development of the productive forces. The level reached by socialist production makes it possible for society to give effect to the principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work." This means that the products are distributed in accordance with the quantity and quality of the work performed. In communist society, however, the productive forces will reach an incomparably higher level of development than under socialism. The national economy will develop on the foundation of a higher technique, the production processes will be mechanised and automatised in an all-round way, and people will extensively utilise every source of energy.

    The higher level of technique and productivity of labour will ensure an abundance of all consumer goods and all material and cultural wealth. This abundance of products will make it possible to meet fully the needs of all members of communist society. Social life under communism, therefore, will be guided by the principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." Ignoramuses and enemies of communism assert that under communism there will be a levelling of the tastes and needs of all people. This is slandering communism, for tastes and needs of people are not and cannot be the same or alike in quality or quantity, either under socialism or communism. Under communism there will be an all-round and full satisfaction of every demand of civilised people.

    Under socialism there are still the working classes—the workers and peasants—and the intelligentsia, among whom there remains a difference. Under communism there will be no class differences, and the entire people will become working folk of a united, classless communist society. Under socialism there still exists a distinction between town and country. Under communism there will be no essential distinction between town and country, that is, between industry and agriculture. Under socialism there still exists an essential distinction between mental and manual labour, because the cultural and technical standards of the workers and peasants are not yet high enough. Under communism this distinction will disappear, for the cultural and technical standard of all working people will reach the standard of engineers and technicians.

    Under socialism there still exist the survivals of capitalism in the minds of some members of society (indifference towards work, a tendency to take all you can get from society while giving as little as you can get away with, etc.). Under communism all survivals of capitalism will disappear. Under communism work is no longer merely a means of livelihood, but man's primary need in life.
    As for the definition of revisionism, the Soviet revisionists themselves wrote a fine summary in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (neglecting, obviously, to mention themselves):
    Revisionism the antiscientific revision of the tenets of Marxism-Leninism. An opportunist trend within the revolutionary working-class movement that, under the pretext of creatively assimilating new phenomena, revises the basic tenets of Marxist theory, which have been confirmed in practice.

    A distinction is made between revisionism from the right, which substitutes bourgeois reformist views for the tenets of Marxism, and revisionism “from the left,” which introduces anarchist, Blanquist, or voluntarist views. Revisionism emerged as a result of petit bourgeois and bourgeois influence on the revolutionary working-class movement. In its class nature, it is one of the forms of ideology of the petite bourgeoisie, worker aristocracy, and other middle strata. Revisionism reflects the social position of these groups, which are ambivalent by nature, identifying at one moment with the working class and at another with the bourgeoisie. Its social function is to transmit bourgeois influences into the revolutionary workers’ movement. The methodological basis of revisionism is an eclectic mixture of subjectivism, dogmatism, and mechanistic materialism. Revisionist methodology is also schematic and one-sided.

    Revisionism arose in the late 1870’s in the German Social Democratic Party, which had accepted Marxism. In 1879, K. Höchberg, E. Bernstein, and K. Schramm proposed a revision of the basic tenets of revolutionary theory. Marx and Engels, in a special letter, known as the circular letter, addressed to A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht, W. Bracke, and other Social Democrats, gave a definitive rebuttal to this first foray of the revisionists. Revisionism became a political tendency only after the death of Marx and Engels, in the late 1890’s, when Bernstein came out with his full-fledged program for the revision of Marxism, thereby giving his name to the trend. The early 20th century saw the spread of revisionism in the Social Democratic movements of Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and other countries. Among its exponents were K. Kautsky, O. Bauer, E. Vandervelde, P. Scheidemann, K. Legien, S. Prokopovich, L. Martov, and L. Trotsky.

    In the late 19th century and the early 20th the revisionists proposed a reexamination of all the fundamental elements of Marx’ doctrine. In philosophy the revisionists refused to acknowledge the scientific nature of dialectical materialism and sought to combine scientific socialism with the views of Kant, Berkeley, and Mach. In economic theory they cited recent data on economic development as proof that the replacement of small-scale production by large-scale production had slowed down and that in agriculture the process was not occurring at all. They also asserted that trusts and cartels enabled capitalism to avoid crises and that it was unrealistic to expect the collapse of capitalism since there was a marked tendency toward the easing of its contradictions.

    In the political sphere the revisionists regarded as absolutes certain new phenomena in social life, thereby revising the Marxist doctrine of the class struggle and its aims—the overthrow of bourgeois rule, the establishment of workers’ power and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the building of socialism and communism. They declared that political freedom, democracy, and universal suffrage obviated the need for class struggle. The task of the working-class movement, according to the revisionists, was to struggle for partial reforms in the capitalist system. “‘The movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing’—this catch-phrase of Bernstein’s,” wrote Lenin, “expresses the substance of revisionism better than many long disquisitions” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 17, p. 24).

    In the early 20th century, along with right-wing revisionism, revisionism from the left appeared and spread in the Latin countries as “revolutionary syndicalism.” Lenin noted that left-wing revisionism was “also adapting itself to Marxism, ‘amending’ it” (ibid., p. 25).

    A profound and scientific critique of revisionism was given by Lenin. Thorough and reliable critiques are also found in the works of G. V. Plekhanov, R. Luxemburg, K. Liebknecht, F. Mehring, and C. Zetkin.

    After the collapse of the Second International in 1914 as a result of the growth of opportunism, the working-class movement was split into a social-reformist right wing and a revolutionary left wing, which subsequently developed into the international communist movement. After the Great October Socialist Revolution in 1917, both right-wing revisionism (the right deviation in some communist parties) and left-wing revisionism (“left-wing communism”) appeared in the international communist movement in the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. A concerted effort was made within the communist movement to revise Marxism-Leninism in the 1950’s. Making unscrupulous use of the new postwar phenomena and processes that had not yet been given a scientific Marxist explanation, as well as of certain difficulties in the development of the communist movement, right-wing revisionism spread widely in the late 1950’s. Among those who tried to deflect the revolutionary workers’ movement onto the road of social reformism were H. Lefebvre and P. Hervé in France, J. Gates and A. Bittelman in the USA, A. Giolitti in Italy, M. Djilas in Yugoslavia, R. Zimand and L. Kotakowski in Poland, and E. Bloch in the German Democratic Republic. Especially dangerous was the revisionist group around I. Nagy and G. Losonczy, which paved the way for the Counterrevolutionary Revolt of 1956 in Hungary.

    The Declaration of the 1957 Conference of Representatives of the Communist and Workers’ Parties of the Socialist Countries stated that “modern revisionism seeks to discredit the great doctrine of Marxism-Leninism by declaring that it is ‘outdated’ and has lost its relevance for social development. Today the revisionists seek to destroy the revolutionary spirit of Marxism and to undermine the faith of the working class and of all working people in socialism. They oppose the historical necessity of a proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the transition from capitalism to socialism, deny the directing role of the Marxist-Leninist party, reject the principles of proletarian internationalism,, call for the abandonment of the basic Leninist principles of party building, primarily democratic centralism, and seek to transform the Communist Party from a revolutionary combat organization into some sort of discussion club” (Programmnye dokumenty bor’by za mir, demokratiiu i sotsializm, Moscow, 1961, p. 15). The international communist movement condemned right-wing revisionism as the chief danger, made a thoroughgoing critique of it, and gradually cleansed its ranks of any active supporters of revisionism.

    During the 1960’s and early 1970’s revisionism from the left appeared in the communist movement. Maoism—a petit bourgeois, chauvinistic, anti-Soviet doctrine—has made extensive use of left-wing revisionist ideology. On the theoretical plane, Maoism has revised all the basic elements of Marxism-Leninism. It represents an unprincipled, eclectic combination of a number of vulgarized Marxist concepts, Trotskyism, and nationalism. Among those who held right-wing revisionist views in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were O. Šik and I. Sviták in Czechoslovakia, R. Garaudy in France, and E. Fischer and F. Marek in Austria.

    On the methodological level, contemporary right-wing revisionism opposes Marxist-Leninist doctrine on all points. It rejects the necessity of revolution and asserts that capitalism should be reformed, claiming that the modern scientific and technological revolution is totally reshaping the structure of society and “erasing” class antagonisms. This transformation supposedly is leading to the humanistic rebirth of capitalism, the integration of the working class into the capitalist system, and the working class’ loss of its revolutionary traditions, as well as its former leading role, which now passes to the intellectuals. The right-wing revisionists claim that “stagnation” has affected the gains of socialism, and they demand the “humanization” of socialism, the establishment of “socialism with a human face.” Such slogans are reflected in the calls for a relaxation of government control of the economy and for allowing the “free play of political forces” and the “rotation of parties in power”—essentially a return to bourgeois democracy. Right-wing revisionism argues for a multiplicity of fundamentally different “socialist models” and for Marxist pluralism.

    The international revolutionary working-class and communist movement is conducting a determined struggle against revisionism of both the right and left because revisionism seeks to disarm the working class ideologically and to instill among workers reformist or anarchist views.
  3. Paul Pott
    What about "dogmatism" considering that a crusade against dogmatism is also the starting point for most new forms of revisionism? While we're at it, what about "creativity" too, as in creatively applying MLism to the conditions?

    What would be an example of a correct, creative stance on, say, the decline of human labor in manufacturing due to technology and its implications on organization and the party's work, as well as a revisionist example?
  4. Ismail
    Ismail
    The Soviet revisionists also provided a good overview of dogmatism:
    Dogmatism a method of thinking by which certain propositions are turned into rigid conclusions that are applied without regard for the concrete conditions of life. Dogmatism interprets all truths as absolutes. Unlike dogmatism, dialectics includes in the concept of truth not only the aspect of absoluteness but also that of relativity, and it demands the enrichment and development of all truths and a concrete approach to their practical application. Marxism demands that its adherents endeavor to ’’prevent science from becoming a dogma, in the bad sense of the term, from becoming something dead, frozen, and ossified” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 18, p. 138)....

    Workers’ movement. In the workers’ movement, dogmatism is characterized by the alienation of theory from life and from the concrete historical setting in all its complexity, diversity, and continuous changeability, by disregard for those tendencies or features of the workers’ movement that are specific characteristics of a given period and given conditions of activity for the working class in various countries.

    Dogmatism is inherent in both right-wing opportunism and so-called leftist opportunism, which merges in practice with political adventurism. To a great degree, the revisionism of the leaders of the Second International was connected with a dogmatic understanding of Marxism. The opportunists of the Second International turned into lifeless dogma the proposition expressed by Engels in 1847 and subsequently supported by Marx, that the victory of the socialist revolution depends on its triumphing simultaneously in all the most developed capitalist countries of the world. Lenin, demonstrating the acute aggravation of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism in the age of imperialism, proved that the socialist revolution could triumph initially in several or even in one isolated capitalist country.

    Dogmatism was also inherent in the opportunistic views of the Mensheviks. Clinging to various propositions of Marxism that did not correspond to new conditions and that required elaboration, the Mensheviks waged a struggle against Marxism as a whole and above all, against its creative development, Leninism. Referring to the experience of the 19th-century bourgeois revolutions in Western European countries, in which the bourgeoisie had acted as the leading force, the Mensheviks rejected the idea of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution of the age of imperialism and denied the necessity of an alliance of the working class and peasantry.

    Within the RCP (Bolshevik) “left-wing communists” maintained dogmatic positions. Juggling phrases about revolutionary war, they opposed all compromises with the international bourgeoisie. “By revolutionary phrase-making,” Lenin wrote at that time, “we mean the repetition of revolutionary slogans irrespective of objective circumstances at a given turn in events, in the given state of affairs obtaining at the time” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 35, p. 343).

    Sectarianism is one of the outgrowths of dogmatism. In the period of the revolutionary upsurge that began under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, sectarian-dogmatic errors were made by figures in the Communist parties of Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and several other countries. These party figures had not yet learned to apply Marxism creatively to specific conditions in their countries, and they were unable to combine the international and the national in the policies of their parties. They mechanically copied previous revolutionary experience, failed to understand the necessity of patiently preparing and bringing the masses to revolution, underestimated work in trade unions and parliaments, and were opponents of necessary compromises and flexibility in tactics. Maintaining ultraleftist positions, they defended the line calling for the immediate overthrow of capitalism, without taking into account the real arrangement of class forces in their countries.

    In the work “Left-wing Communism,” an Infantile Disorder (1920) and in speeches at the Second Congress of the Comintern (1920), Lenin presented a comprehensive analysis and profound critique of the sectarian-dogmatic errors in the activity of a number of Communist parties, thus initiating an active struggle against “leftism” in the Communist movements. The danger of sectarian tactics, which were repudiated by the Comintern, became increasingly apparent during the ebb in the revolutionary wave between late 1920 and 1921. During that period, leftist elements tried to bind Communist parties to the “theory of the offensive,” which was clearly adventuristic. Strongly condemning this theory, Lenin and the Comintern turned the attention of Communist parties to the transition from the tactics of an immediate assault against bourgeois power to the gathering of revolutionary forces and the use of all means of leading the masses to revolution. In the struggle against “left opportunist” views, the Comintern developed the principles of correct strategy and tactics. However, at subsequent stages in the Communist movement, during the period when the goals of the antifascist struggle were the most important, new sectarian-dogmatic errors appeared.

    The Seventh Congress of the Comintern (1935) was an important landmark in the struggle of the Communist parties against dogmatism and sectarianism. It laid down a clear line of struggle for a unified workers’ front and a broad popular front against fascism and war. The implementation and subsequent creative development of this line brought notable victories for the antifascist forces during World War II (1939-45). The highest achievements of the policy of rallying all democratic forces under the leadership of the working class were the popular democratic revolutions in the 1940’s in a number of European and Asian countries...

    Marxist-Leninists struggle against all manifestations of dogmatism. However, they distinguish the dogmatic errors of certain participants in the revolutionary movement, which result from political inexperience and immaturity or inability to determine the tactical line with regard to changes in political circumstances, from the dogmatism of enemies of Marxism-Leninism, who attempt to use various Marxist-Leninist propositions, which they have falsified for purposes that have nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. Enormous harm is inflicted on the international workers’ and national liberation movements by the divisive anti-Soviet line of the Maoist leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, which covers its great-power nationalist goals with pseudo-Marxist, “leftist” phraseology. In order to achieve their goals, the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party resort to the oversimplification and distortion of the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism in a leftist-dogmatic, nationalistic spirit.
    Creativity is obviously opposite to dogmatism, and means taking into account the objective material conditions and modifying tactics according.

    The next part of your post is more of a question than a definition.
  5. Brutus
    Brutus
    Increased levels of automation would be a good thing because it creates the necessary pre-conditions for the abundance and elimination of scarcity. I'm not sure whether there could be a revisionist view on the matter, unless you had the same line of thinking as pol pot...
  6. Paul Pott
    I was hoping this thread could be the start of a sort of ML glossary of terms, so that when a term is mentioned in the forums or someone wants to learn about something specific, it can be looked up. It would be great to have entries made by our group members, but since that's probably not going to happen for most things quotes from other sources will work. Most importantly, it would be free of the influence of other tendencies.

    We could still define: Socialism in One Country, Vanguard Party, Popular Front

    Everyone should add something.
  7. Sea
    Sea
    Revisionism is, essentially, the "revising" of our politics to suit the bourgeoisie. The revisionist claims to be washing clean scientific socialism of outdated, unneeded or impractical conclusions, while always claiming to keep the methods that resulted in those conclusions in order to enable them to put on a facade of Marxism.

    Unfortunately, the only "dogmatisms" that the revisionists discover, time and time again, are the need for revolution, the need for a party, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat, the need for combining legal and illegal action, etc. To strip Marxism-Leninism of these things is a very suspicious sort of revision indeed!
  8. Rural Comrade
    Rural Comrade
    This may not need defining but what is the structural make up of a people's democracy?
  9. Ismail
    Ismail
    This may not need defining but what is the structural make up of a people's democracy?
    http://www.unz.org/Pub/LabourMonthly-1950mar-00124