What are the components of Marxism. V.I.Lenin

105 years ago, on April 19, 1913, an article by V.I. Lenin's Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism.

The work was written in connection with the 30th anniversary of the death of Marx. It contains a concise analysis of the historical roots, essence and structure of Marxism and was intended for party activists, propagandists of Marxism among the workers.

In the introductory part of the work, Lenin, refuting the attempts of bourgeois scholars to present Marxism as a kind of "sect", standing "... aside from the high road of the development of world civilization", shows that Marx's teaching "... arose as a direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism ... It is the legitimate successor to the best that humanity created in the 19th century in the face of German philosophy, English political economy, French socialism".

German classical philosophy, English political economy, and French utopian socialism are the three sources of Marxism that Lenin considers together with its component parts.


The 1st section of the article is devoted to philosophy. Outlining the foundations of Marxist philosophy, Lenin focuses on its materialistic character, noting that it synthesized the best achievements of French materialism in the 18th century. and philosophy of L. Feuerbach. The main acquisition of the German classical philosophy- “... dialectics, i.e. the doctrine of development in its most complete, deep and free form from one-sidedness, the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge, which gives us a reflection of the ever-developing matter ”- was also creatively assimilated by Marxism, in the system of which it became a methodology scientific knowledge and revolutionary change in the world. Materialism acquired a complete character, having been extended by Marxism to public sphere. Lenin considers Marx's discovery of the materialist basis of social life the greatest achievement of scientific thought.

The second section is devoted to the economic teachings of Marx. Lenin evaluates the teachings of the English bourgeois economists A. Smith and D. Ricardo, who laid the foundation for the labor theory of value. However, considering the laws of the capitalist economy as eternal, Smith and Ricardo could not reveal the essence of surplus value, they did not see the relationship between people behind the relations of things. Lenin described the doctrine of surplus value as the cornerstone of Marx's economic theory, on the basis of which he gave a comprehensive scientific analysis of the capitalist formation. In the article, Lenin formulates the main contradiction of capitalism: “Production itself is becoming more and more social, hundreds of thousands and millions of workers are bound into a systematic economic organism, and the product of common labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists.”

In the 3rd section, Lenin examines the socialist teachings of Marx. Speaking about the fact that in the pre-Marxian period the utopian socialists gave the most serious criticism of capitalism, Lenin notes the weakness of utopian socialism, which could not understand "... the essence of wage slavery under capitalism ..., discover the laws of its development ...", find those forces that are capable of creating new society. Lenin draws attention to the fact that only economic theory Marx and his teaching on the class struggle scientifically substantiated the inevitability of the death of capitalism, indicated the force that should become its gravedigger - the proletarian class, "...by its social position ..." constituting a force "...capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new."

“The teaching of Marx,” writes Lenin, “is omnipotent because it is true. It is full and harmonious, giving people an integral worldview, irreconcilable with any superstition, with any reaction, with any defense of bourgeois oppression. Lenin characterizes Marxism as the pinnacle of world civilization, the legitimate successor to the best that humanity created in the 19th century in the form of German philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism.

"The Truth About the Soviet Era"

Three sources and three components of Marxism

Throughout the civilized world, Marx's teaching evokes the greatest enmity and hatred of all bourgeois (both official and liberal) science, which sees in Marxism something like a "harmful sect". One cannot expect a different attitude, for there can be no "impartial" social science in a society built on the class struggle. One way or another, but all government and liberal science defends wage slavery, and Marxism has declared a merciless war on this slavery. To expect impartial science in a society of wage-slavery is as foolishly naïve as to expect the impartiality of the factory owners as to whether the wages of the workers should be increased by decreasing the profit of capital.

But this is not enough. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with complete clarity that in Marxism there is nothing resembling "sectarianism" in the sense of some kind of closed, ossified doctrine that arose away from the main road of the development of world civilization. On the contrary, the whole genius of Marx lies precisely in the fact that he gave answers to questions that the progressive thought of mankind has already posed. His teaching arose as a direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.

Marx's teaching is omnipotent because it is true. It is full and harmonious, giving people an integral worldview, irreconcilable with any superstition, with any reaction, with any defense of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that humanity created in the 19th century, English political economy, French socialism.

On these three sources and at the same time constituent parts Marxism, we will briefly stop.

I

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. Throughout recent history Europe, and especially in late XVIII century, in France, where a decisive battle was fought against all sorts of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism turned out to be the only consistent philosophy, true to all the teachings of the natural sciences, hostile to superstition, hypocrisy, etc. The enemies of democracy therefore tried with all their might " refute, undermine, slander materialism and defended various forms of philosophical idealism, which always comes down, one way or another, to the defense or support of religion.

Marx and Engels most resolutely defended philosophical materialism and repeatedly explained the profound fallacy of any deviation from this foundation. Their views are expressed most clearly and in detail in the writings of Engels: "Ludwig Feuerbach" and "Refutation of Dühring", which - like the "Communist Manifesto" - are the reference book of every conscious worker.

But Marx did not stop at the materialism of the 18th century, but moved philosophy forward. He enriched it with the acquisitions of German classical philosophy, especially the Hegelian system, which in turn led to Feuerbach's materialism. The main of these acquisitions is dialectics, that is, the doctrine of development in its most complete, deep and free from one-sided form, the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge, which gives us a reflection of the ever-developing matter. The newest discoveries of natural science - radium, electrons, transformation of elements - wonderfully confirmed Marx's dialectical materialism, contrary to the teachings of bourgeois philosophers with their "new" returns to the old and rotten idealism.

Deepening and developing philosophical materialism, Marx brought it to the end, extended his knowledge of nature to the knowledge human society. The greatest achievement of scientific thought was historical materialism Marx. Chaos and arbitrariness, which have hitherto reigned in views of history and politics, have been replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, showing how, from one mode of social life, it develops, as a result of the growth of productive forces, another, higher, - from serfdom, for example, capitalism grows.

Just as the knowledge of man reflects the existing nature independently of him, i.e., developing matter, so the social knowledge of man (i.e., different views and teachings, philosophical, religious, political, etc.) reflects the economic structure of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, how different political forms modern European states serve to strengthen the rule of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.

The philosophy of Marx is complete philosophical materialism, which has given mankind great tools of knowledge, and the working class in particular.

II

Recognizing that the economic system is the basis on which the political superstructure rises, Marx devoted most of his attention to the study of this economic system. The main work of Marx - "Capital" is devoted to the study of the economic system of modern, i.e. capitalist, society.

Classical political economy before Marx took shape in England, the most developed capitalist country. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, exploring the economic system, laid the foundation for the labor theory of value. Marx continued their work. He rigorously substantiated and consistently developed this theory. He showed that the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time going into the production of the commodity.

Where bourgeois economists saw the relationship of things (the exchange of commodity for commodity), there Marx revealed the relationship between people. The exchange of commodities expresses the connection between individual producers through the medium of the market. Money means that this connection is becoming ever closer, inseparably uniting the entire economic life of individual producers into one whole. Capital means the further development of this connection: the labor power of man becomes a commodity. The wage worker sells his labor power to the owner of the land, factories, and tools of labor. The worker uses one part of the working day to cover the expenses of maintaining himself and his family (wages), and the other part of the day the worker works for nothing, creating surplus value for the capitalist, a source of profit, a source of wealth for the capitalist class.

The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx's economic theory.

The capital created by the labor of the worker crushes the worker, ruining the small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately visible, but in agriculture we see the same phenomenon: the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is increasing, the use of machinery is growing, peasant farming is falling into the noose of money capital, falling and ruining itself under the yoke of backward technology. In agriculture there are other forms of decline in small-scale production, but its very decline is an indisputable fact.

By beating small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of the biggest capitalists. Production itself is becoming more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers are bound into a systematic economic organism—and the product of common labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. The anarchy of production, crises, the frantic pursuit of the market, the insecurity of existence for the mass of the population are growing.

By increasing the dependence of workers on capital, the capitalist system creates a great power of united labor.

From the first beginnings of a commodity economy, from simple exchange, Marx traced the development of capitalism to its highest forms, to large-scale production.

And the experience of all capitalist countries, both old and new, clearly demonstrates to an increasing number of workers every year the correctness of this teaching of Marx.

Capitalism has won throughout the world, but this victory is only the threshold of the victory of labor over capital.

III

When serfdom was overthrown and a "free" capitalist society appeared in the light of day, it immediately became clear that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation of the working people. Various socialist doctrines immediately began to emerge as a reflection of this oppression and a protest against it. But the original socialism was a utopian socialism. He criticized capitalist society, condemned it, cursed it, dreamed of destroying it, fantasized about a better system, convinced the rich of the immorality of exploitation.

But utopian socialism could not point to a real way out. He could neither explain the essence of wage slavery under capitalism, nor discover the laws of its development, nor find the social force capable of becoming the creator of a new society.

Meanwhile, the turbulent revolutions that accompanied the fall of feudalism and serfdom everywhere in Europe, and especially in France, more and more clearly revealed how the basis of all development and its driving force, class struggle.

Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won without desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country has taken shape on a more or less free, democratic basis, without a life-and-death struggle between different classes of capitalist society.

The genius of Marx lies in the fact that he was the first to draw from here and to draw consistently the conclusion that world history teaches. This conclusion is the doctrine of the class struggle.

People have always been and always will be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises. The supporters of reform and improvement will always be fooled by the defenders of the old, until they realize that every old institution, no matter how wild and rotten it may seem, is held together by the forces of this or that ruling class. And in order to break the resistance of these classes, there is only one means: to find in the society around us, to enlighten and organize for the struggle such forces that can - and, according to their social position, must - constitute a force capable of sweeping away the old and creating a new one.

Only the philosophical materialism of Marx showed the proletariat a way out of the spiritual slavery in which all the oppressed classes have vegetated until now. Only the economic theory of Marx explained the real position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.

All over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa, independent organizations of the proletariat are multiplying. He is enlightened and educated by waging his own class struggle, rids himself of the prejudices of bourgeois society, unites more and more closely and learns to measure the measure of his successes, tempers his strength and grows irresistibly.

Footnotes:

The article "Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism" was written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx and was published in the journal Enlightenment No. 3, 1913.

"Prosveshchenie" - a monthly Bolshevik theoretical legal journal; published in St. Petersburg from December 1911 to June 1914. The circulation of the magazine reached 5 thousand copies.

The magazine was created on the initiative to replace the Bolshevik magazine Mysl, which was closed by the tsarist government and published in Moscow. Participated in the magazine, -Elizarova,. Lenin attracted to the leadership of the fiction department of the Enlightenment. Lenin from Paris, and then from Krakow and Poronin, directed the Enlightenment, edited articles, and corresponded regularly with members of the editorial board. The journal published Lenin's works "Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism", "Critical Notes on the National Question", "On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination", etc.

The magazine exposed the opportunists - liquidators, otzovists, Trotskyists, as well as bourgeois nationalists, covered the struggle of the working class in the conditions of a new revolutionary upsurge, propagated Bolshevik slogans in the election campaign for the Fourth State Duma; he opposed revisionism and centrism in the parties of the Second International. The journal played a big role in the Marxist international education of the progressive workers of Russia.

On the eve of the First World War, the journal Enlightenment was closed by the tsarist government. In the autumn of 1917, the publication of the magazine was resumed, but only one issue (double) was published, Lenin’s works “Will the Bolsheviks Hold state power? and "Toward a Revision of the Party Program".

See F. Engels "Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of classical German philosophy" (K. Marx and F. Engels. Selected works in two volumes, vol. II, 1955, pp. 339-382); F. Engels "Anti-Dühring", 1957; K. Marx and F. Engels "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (Works, 2nd ed., vol. 4, pp. 419-459).

Chapter 5 Fundamentals of Object-Oriented

programming

5.1. Three sources and three components of OOP.

The acronym OOP stands for Object Oriented Programming. Let us consider the three sources and three components of Marxism

Ma-Leninism, oh sorry (where did this take me?!), of course, OOP!

The three sources are objects, abstraction and classification.

The main idea of ​​OOP is to combine the data with which you work

melts the program and procedures that process this data into a single whole

- an object. Such an organization of the program made it possible to bring the surrounding objects, entities and concepts as close as possible to the natural perception of a person. After all, a person perceives the world around him, objects and phenomena.

leniya in the totality of properties, their constituent elements and their behavior.

When solving a problem from any subject area, a programmer

divides individual objects based on the characteristics of the task. This process is called

is determined by object decomposition . Objects are made up of data that describes

properties of these objects and procedures that process this data. For example-

measures, when creating, say, a database of students of a certain university,

you can select the object "Student". The data (properties) for this object can be the student's first and last name, course, group, grades, etc. At the same time, it is possible to define some procedures for processing these data, for example,

example of the procedure for calculating the average grade for the semester (this procedure can be

but later used to determine the amount of the scholarship), the procedure

ru transfer from course to course, the procedure for expulsion (unfortunately) from the university

theta, etc.

Chapter 5 Fundamentals of Object-Oriented Programming

____________________________________________________________________

When considering objects, the level of abstraction (or level of detail) with which we consider an object is very important. In our case, we are

Shenno is not interested in such characteristics of the object as height, eye color, shoe size, etc. We abstract from these properties and single out only those properties

which allow us to solve the problem.

At the same time, it is important to understand that a particular "instance" of a student, on-

an example named Ivanov is a representative of a whole class of students.

This classification can be continued and developed as they say "in different directions." In general, a student, a student of a group, a student of some university. Therefore, we can introduce into consideration the object "Group",

ect "University". Finally, the student is without any doubt a human being!! Otsyu-

Yes, we can talk about such an object as "Man".

The three building blocks are encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism.

Combining data and the functions and procedures that process it as separate objects is called encapsulation. The main difficulty of OOP is

key in the art is to highlight objects using abstraction and class

specification, which would describe the problem being solved as accurately as possible and,

moreover, would allow their reuse. Internal organization"

object can be quite complex, but it is "hidden from prying eyes". To communicate with the "outside world", only small amounts of data are used,

than the amount and type of this data is strictly controlled. This is essentially

increases the reliability of the program.

Inheritance is one of the most important properties of OOP. Creating new objects by using existing ones gives the programmer a number of advantages:

No need to re-develop the code. All code for existing objects

goods can automatically be used for new objects;

The chance of errors is drastically reduced. If the code for already existing objects has already been debugged and tested, then any errors that occur should be looked for in the codes that have been added for new objects and, vice versa, if

Firsov A.

Marx's teaching is omnipotent because it is true.
V.I.Lenin

Who now offhand remembers what are the three sources, the three constituent parts of Marxism? Remembered? And, after all, before knew by heart.

Now that the 190th anniversary of Marx is approaching, it makes sense to recall the basic postulates of Marxism and how Marxism has been used in practice.

Let's start with the sources and components of Marxism. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself called these:

German Philosophy,
- English political economy,
- French socialism.

The logic of Marxism in relation to the development of mankind (in the arguments of Marx and Engels) can be reduced to three postulates:

1) The material existence of any person ultimately determines his consciousness.

2) The growth of human capabilities (labor productivity) occurs exponentially, and the growth of human needs in arithmetic.

3) Under capitalism, an ever greater part of the surplus value produced is appropriated by capital, which inevitably leads to an ever greater stratification of society and the growth of class struggle.

The first postulate, as it were, proceeded from Hegel's dialectic.
The second postulate, as it were, stemmed from the historical materialism of Marx.
The third postulate, as it were, stemmed from the theory of surplus value.

Marx's conclusion was quite simple:

From the third postulate (the inevitability and growth of the class struggle), it was concluded that sooner or later an economic crisis and revolution would occur.
It also led to the conclusion that, in the final analysis, the means of production would sooner or later pass to the workers and peasants.

After that, in accordance with the second postulate, the growth of labor productivity will sooner or later lead to the fact that human capabilities will outstrip human needs (social wealth will flow in an endless stream, communism will come).

Under these conditions, the first postulate will begin to work. Everyone will receive material benefits according to their needs. And all people will automatically become happy. The era of universal happiness will come.

Here is what the Communist Manifesto says about the intensification of the class struggle:

“For several decades now the history of industry and commerce has been nothing but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern production relations, against those property relations which are the condition for the existence of the bourgeoisie and its domination. Suffice it to point to trade crises, which, returning periodically, more and more menacingly call into question the existence of the entire bourgeois society ... The growing competition of the bourgeois among themselves and the trade crises it causes lead to the fact that the wages of workers are becoming more and more unstable "

From the three postulates it was concluded that:

The inevitability of revolution
- the inevitability of communism, and
- the inevitability of universal happiness.

Leninism took from Marxism fragmentary reasoning and basic conclusions. Lenin and his entourage, relying not so much on the postulates and logic of Marxism, but on its conclusions (communism is the inevitable future of all mankind, achievable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat), built the tactical steps necessary to gain power by a party that could position itself as best expressing the interests of the proletariat.

Faithful Leninist-Stalinists built the dictatorship of the proletariat as it was imagined. Then everything stopped, because the theory refused to work. Labor productivity grew, but communism did not come and was not even visible. An impasse has arisen.

To get out of the impasse, we must return to the original postulates.

The above postulates of the theory of Marx and Engels are not correct. Everything is exactly the opposite:

1) The class struggle in modern society may not escalate. The existing interclass contradictions are not 100% antagonistic.

2) Labor productivity never outstrips human needs, but, on the contrary, follows human needs.

3) A person who has all material needs satisfied does not necessarily become 100% happy.

Accordingly, the conclusions that Marx made in his time turned out to be incorrect.

Life has shown that everything is exactly the opposite with the conclusions of Marx:

A revolution is not necessary for the further development of society,

Human eternal and universal happiness is a utopia,

Communism, as a society of completely satisfied needs, is impossible, since human needs develop at the same rate as human capabilities. Or, more often, human desires outstrip human capabilities.

The practice of introducing communism has shown that being does not completely determine consciousness. That it is human nature not to want to work and to want as much as possible. Accordingly, there are at least two points that no being can change:

- It is impossible to make all people always want to work.

You cannot make all people always be content with less than they can get.

Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were wrong, they made a huge contribution to the development of the social sciences.

Karl Marx believed that the best way to make a revolution is in one of the backward capitalist countries, for example, in Russia. Attempts to apply Marxism in some of the most backward countries in the world (Russia, Kampuchea, etc.) led to a sharp reduction in the population of these countries. But this is not the fault of the author of Capital, but of his student, who had his own mistakes - both disagreement with logic, and setting tactical rather than strategic tasks at the forefront.


Throughout the civilized world, Marx's teaching evokes the greatest hostility and hatred of all bourgeois (both state-owned and liberal) science, which sees in Marxism something like a "harmful sect". One cannot expect a different attitude, for there can be no "impartial" social science in a society built on the class struggle. One way or another, but all government and liberal science defends wage slavery, and Marxism has declared a merciless war on this slavery. To expect impartial science in a society of wage-slavery is as foolishly naïve as to expect the impartiality of the factory owners as to whether the wages of the workers should be increased by diminishing the profit of capital.

But this is not enough. The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with complete clarity that in Marxism there is nothing resembling "sectarianism" in the sense of some kind of closed, ossified doctrine that arose away from the main road of the development of world civilization. On the contrary, the whole genius of Marx lies precisely in the fact that he gave answers to questions that the progressive thought of mankind has already posed. His teaching arose as a direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.

Marx's teaching is omnipotent because it is true. It is full and harmonious, giving people an integral worldview, irreconcilable with any superstition, any reaction, any defense of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that humanity created in the 19th century in the form of German philosophy, English political economy, French socialism.

On these three sources and, at the same time, the component parts of Marxism, we will briefly dwell.

The philosophy of Marxism is materialism. During the entire modern history of Europe, and especially at the end of the 18th century, in France, where a decisive battle was fought against all sorts of medieval rubbish, against serfdom in institutions and ideas, materialism turned out to be the only consistent philosophy, true to all the teachings of the natural sciences, hostile to superstitions, bigotry. etc. The enemies of democracy therefore tried with all their might to "refute", undermine, slander materialism and defended various forms of philosophical idealism, which always comes down, in one way or another, to the defense or support of religion.

Marx and Engels most resolutely defended philosophical materialism and repeatedly explained the profound fallacy of any deviation from this foundation. Their views are expressed most clearly and in detail in the writings of Engels: "Ludwig Feuerbach" and "Refutation of Dühring", which - like the "Communist Manifesto" - are the reference book of every conscious worker.

But Marx did not stop at the materialism of the 18th century, but moved philosophy forward. He enriched it with the acquisitions of German classical philosophy, especially the Hegelian system, which in turn led to Feuerbach's materialism. The main of these acquisitions is dialectics, that is, the doctrine of development in its most complete, deep and free from one-sided form, the doctrine of the relativity of human knowledge, which gives us a reflection of the ever-developing matter. The latest discoveries of natural science - radium, electrons, the transformation of elements - remarkably confirmed dialectical materialism Marx, contrary to the teachings of bourgeois philosophers with their "new" returns to the old and rotten idealism.

Deepening and developing philosophical materialism, Marx brought it to the end, extended his knowledge of nature to the knowledge of human society. The greatest achievement of scientific thought was the historical materialism of Marx. Chaos and arbitrariness, which have hitherto reigned in views of history and politics, have been replaced by a strikingly integral and harmonious scientific theory, showing how, from one mode of social life, it develops, as a result of the growth of productive forces, another, higher, - from serfdom, for example, capitalism grows.

Just as the knowledge of man reflects the existing nature independently of him, i.e., developing matter, so the social knowledge of man (i.e., different views and teachings, philosophical, religious, political, etc.) reflects the economic structure of society. Political institutions are a superstructure on the economic foundation. We see, for example, how the different political forms of modern European states serve to strengthen the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.

The philosophy of Marx is complete philosophical materialism, which has given mankind great tools of knowledge, and the working class in particular.

Recognizing that the economic system is the basis on which the political superstructure rises, Marx devoted most of his attention to the study of this economic system. The main work of Marx - "Capital" is devoted to the study of the economic system of modern, that is, capitalist, society.

Classical political economy before Marx took shape in England, the most developed capitalist country. Adam Smith and David Ricardo, exploring the economic system, laid the foundation for the labor theory of value. Marx continued their work. He rigorously substantiated and consistently developed this theory. He showed that the value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time spent on the production of the commodity.

Where bourgeois economists saw the relationship of things (the exchange of commodity for commodity), there Marx revealed the relationship between people. The exchange of commodities expresses the connection between individual producers through the medium of the market. Money means that this connection is becoming ever closer, inextricably linking the entire economic life of individual producers into one whole. Capital means the further development of this connection: the labor power of man becomes a commodity. The wage worker sells his labor power to the owner of the land, factories, and tools. The worker uses one part of the working day to cover the expenses of maintaining himself and his family (wages), and the other part of the day the worker works for nothing, creating surplus value for the capitalist, a source of profit, a source of wealth for the capitalist class.

The doctrine of surplus value is the cornerstone of Marx's economic theory.

The capital created by the labor of the worker crushes the worker, ruining the small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately visible, but in agriculture we see the same phenomenon: the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is increasing, the use of machinery is growing, peasant farming is falling into the noose of money capital, falling and ruining itself under the yoke of backward technology. In agriculture, there are other forms of decline in small-scale production, but its decline itself is an indisputable fact.

By beating small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in the productivity of labor and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of the biggest capitalists. Production itself is becoming more and more social—hundreds of thousands and millions of workers are bound into a systematic economic organism—and the product of common labor is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. The anarchy of production is growing, crises, the frenzied pursuit of the market, the insecurity of existence for the mass of the population.

By increasing the dependence of workers on capital, the capitalist system creates a great power of united labor.

From the first beginnings of a commodity economy, from simple exchange, Marx traced the development of capitalism to its highest forms, to large-scale production.

And the experience of all capitalist countries, both old and new, clearly demonstrates to an increasing number of workers every year the correctness of this teaching of Marx.

Capitalism has won throughout the world, but this victory is only the threshold of the victory of labor over capital.

When serfdom was overthrown and a "free" capitalist society appeared in the light of day, it immediately became clear that this freedom meant a new system of oppression and exploitation of the working people. Various socialist doctrines immediately began to emerge as a reflection of this oppression and a protest against it. But the original socialism was a utopian socialism. He criticized capitalist society, condemned it, cursed it, dreamed of destroying it, fantasized about a better system, convinced the rich of the immorality of exploitation.

But utopian socialism could not point to a real way out. He could neither explain the essence of wage slavery under capitalism, nor discover the laws of its development, nor find the social force capable of becoming the creator of a new society.

Meanwhile, the turbulent revolutions that accompanied the fall of feudalism and serfdom everywhere in Europe, and especially in France, more and more clearly revealed the struggle of classes as the basis of all development and its driving force.

Not a single victory of political freedom over the feudal class was won without desperate resistance. Not a single capitalist country has taken shape on a more or less free, democratic basis, without a life-and-death struggle between different classes of capitalist society.

The genius of Marx lies in the fact that he was the first to draw from here and to draw consistently the conclusion that world history teaches. This conclusion is the doctrine of the class struggle.

People have always been and always will be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises. The supporters of reform and improvement will always be fooled by the defenders of the old, until they realize that every old institution, no matter how wild and rotten it may seem, is held together by the forces of this or that ruling class. And in order to break the resistance of these classes, there is only one means: to find in the society around us, to enlighten and organize for the struggle such forces that can - and, according to their social position, must - constitute a force capable of sweeping away the old and creating a new one.

Only the philosophical materialism of Marx showed the proletariat a way out of the spiritual slavery in which all the oppressed classes have vegetated until now. Only the economic theory of Marx explained the real position of the proletariat in the general system of capitalism.

All over the world, from America to Japan and from Sweden to South Africa, independent organizations of the proletariat are multiplying. He is enlightened and educated by waging his own class struggle, gets rid of the prejudices of bourgeois society, unites more and more closely and learns to measure the measure of his successes, tempers his strength and grows irresistibly.

Signature: V.I.

Published according to the text of the Enlightenment magazine

Dating Psychology