Lenin: Left-Wing Communism

By 1920 it was clear that the Russian Revolution had succeeded in making the most successful socialist revolution the world had ever seen. And Lenin, always the great tactician, took the time to draw its strategic and tactical conclusions. On the whole, he confirmed the tactics that he had proposed almost 20 years earlier in What Is To Be Done.

Always thinking dialectically in terms of the conflict between opposing forces and directions, Lenin called his work, "Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder". As he would point out, revolutionaries must always keep a broad view and never fall into the trap of dogmatism or rigid thinking. Revolutionaries should be communists, but neither "left-wing" communists, nor "right-wing" communists.

Despite the success of the revolution, Lenin was modest in his claims about Russia, assuming that there would soon be revolutions in other European countries. As he says in the first chapter: "We now possess quite considerable international experience, which shows very definitely that certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance that is not local, or peculiarly national, or Russian alone, but international ... It would, of course, be grossly erroneous to exaggerate this truth and to extend it beyond certain fundamental features of our revolution ... after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, a sharp change will probably come about: Russia will cease to be the model and will once again become a backward country."

In the second chapter Lenin describes the conditions that made possible the victory of the Russian Revolution:"

"First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism.

"Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and - if you wish - merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people - primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people.

"Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct.

"Without these conditions, discipline in a revolutionary party really capable of being the party of the advanced class, whose mission it is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform the whole of society, cannot be achieved. Without these conditions, all attempts to establish discipline inevitably fall flat and end up in phrasemongering and clowning. On the other hand, these conditions cannot emerge at once. They are created only by prolonged effort and hard-won experience.

"Bolshevism, which had arisen on [a] granite foundation of theory, went through fifteen years of practical history (1903-17) unequalled anywhere in the world in its wealth of experience. During those fifteen years, no other country knew anything even approximating to that revolutionary experience, that rapid and varied succession of different forms of the movement—legal and illegal, peaceful and stormy, underground and open, local circles and mass movements, and parliamentary and terrorist forms. In no other country has there been concentrated, in so brief a period, such a wealth of forms, shades, and methods of struggle of all classes of modern society..."

In his conclusion, Lenin emphasizes that it is not enough to have leadership by the proletariat (i.e. working class), but the decisive phase of the revolution involves all social classes and must engage "millions and tens of millions" of people: "(1) all the class forces hostile to us have become sufficiently entangled, are sufficiently at loggerheads with each other, have sufficiently weakened themselves in a struggle which is beyond their strength; (2) all the vacillating and unstable, intermediate elements—the petty bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois democrats, as distinct from the bourgeoisie —have sufficiently exposed themselves in the eyes of the people, have sufficiently disgraced themselves through their practical bankruptcy, and (3) among the proletariat, a mass sentiment favouring the most determined, bold and dedicated revolutionary action against the bourgeoisie has emerged and begun to grow vigorously. Then revolution is indeed ripe."

Lenin concludes that: "History as a whole, and the history of revolutions in particular, is always richer in content, more varied, more multiform, more lively and ingenious than is imagined by even the best parties, the most class-conscious vanguards of the most advanced classes ... Two very important practical conclusions follow from this: first, that in order to accomplish its task the revolutionary class must be able to master all forms or aspects of social activity without exception (completing after the capture of political power — sometimes at great risk and with very great danger—what it did not complete before the capture of power); second, that the revolutionary class must be prepared for the most rapid and brusque replacement of one form by another."

Almost a century later, Lenin's analysis remains essential for the strategy and tactics of revolutionary organization and leadership.

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