I am a Marxist-Leninist and mass activist. I believe Stalin needs to be included in the Marxist-Leninist canon. Hitler would never have been defeated without Stalin's leadership of the Soviet Union. We might live under fascism without Stalin's role in WWII. Think about THIS the next time you "uphold Marxism but not Stalinism"....................... ...... .......................... ............................................................
................................................
...........................................................
...V.I. Lenin points out that Communists have a role in the working class & mass movements: "We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic (Marxist) consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without...". A Communist's task is to FUSE the mass & worker's movement with MARXISM. It's NOT enough to be ONLY a good organizer or an "average Joe"....Lenin asserted that Communists (the conscious elements) had a role in the working class & mass movements. He noted the organizing & directing role of Socialist consciousness. He demanded that Communists elevate the minds of the workers to the level of Socialist consciousness & never descend to the level of just being an "average progressive"; or someone who panders to the backward. V.I. Lenin felt that Communists should always try to impart a Socialist consciousness, because the mass movement won't just suddenly, one day, become Socialist by itself. Lenin warned those Communists, who were not "tribunes of the people" but average trade-union secretaries, that workers would have harsh words with them. The opportunists pride themselves on being active organizers of movements, but happily secret (and bad!)Communists. V.I. Lenin said they would be confronted by the workers, who would mock them by saying:
"The 'ACTIVITY' you want to stimulate among us workers, by advancing concrete demands that promise palpable results, we are already displaying and in our everyday, limited trade-union work we put forward these concrete demands, very often without any assistance whatever from the intellectuals. But SUCH activity is not enough for us; we are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of 'economic' politics alone; we want to know everything that others know, we want to learn the details of ALL aspects of political life and to take part ACTIVELY in every single political event. In order that we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less of what we already know and tell us more about what we do not YET know and what we can never learn from our factory and 'economic' experience, namely, political knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge, and it is YOUR DUTY to bring it to US in a hundred-- & a thousand-- fold greater measure than you have done up to now; and you MUST bring it to us, not ONLY in the form of discussions, pamphlets, & articles...but precisely in the form of vivid EXPOSURES of what our government & our governing CLASSES are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life. Devote MORE zeal to carrying out this duty & talk LESS about 'raising the activity of the working masses'. We are far MORE active than you THINK, & we are quite able to support, by open street fighting, even demands that do not promise any 'palpable results' whatever. It is NOT for you to (simply) 'raise' our activity, because ACTIVITY IS PRECISELY THE THING YOU, YOURSELVES LACK. Bow less in subservience to spontaneity, & think MORE about raising YOUR own activity, gentlemen!"
(Lenin: "What Is To Be Done?").....................................................
.............................
............................................................
.............................
............................................................
.............................
A Comrade who's generously shared a lot of time &
has taught me more about Communism than anyone, read this out loud to me & I was so inspired by it,
I wanted to share it with everyone who reads this!"...Marx did not consider that the victory of the working-class revolution would at once end all class struggle. On the contrary, it merely marks a turning point in which the working-class, for the first time, has the State apparatus on ITS SIDE, instead of against it.
Lenin told the Congress of Soviets in January, 1918, of an incident which illustrates this point:
He was in a train, & there was a conversation going on which he could not understand. Then one of the men turned to him & said: 'Do you know the curious thing this old woman said? She said: "Now there is no need to fear the man with the gun. I was in the woods one day & I met a man with a gun, & instead of TAKING the firewood I had collected FROM me, he HELPED ME to collect some more."' The apparatus of force was no longer turned against the worker, but helped the worker; it would be turned only against those who tried to hold back the workers."
Josef Stalin video collection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dsKoP1cRnk
