By José Miguel Gándara C. La Marx Spain
Some people may have thought that we have forgotten the anniversary of Vladimir Lenin’s death, an event that occurred exactly 100 years ago, on January 21, 1924, to be more exact.
But no, how could we have forgotten an anniversary of such importance, especially when it comes to one of the most extraordinary and relevant people of all time.
On the other hand, at La Marx we are very aware that Lenin carried, like any other man, his imperfections, his contradictions and the same human condition as other human beings. However, we must value his great intellectual capacity and his political vision, of unmatched depth with regard to the great problems that afflict the popular classes of the entire planet.
“The exploiting classes need political domination to maintain exploitation, that is, in the selfish interest of an insignificant minority against the immense majority of the people.
“Vladimir Lenin
It is not necessary to say the true class meaning of such amendments to Marx: it is quite evident. We will only point out that Plekhanov was the only Marxist in international social democracy who criticized from the point of view of consistent dialectical materialism those incredible nonsense accumulated by the revisionists.
We must draw attention to another characteristic of Lenin’s politics and personality that we consider to be of utmost importance when it comes to ensuring that both left-wing militants and the entire population in general understand the significance of that other atrocious revisionism. called “Stalinism.” This characteristic or political quality to which we refer is none other than “internationalism”, understanding this as a socialist revolution spread throughout the world and never limited to a single country, which would be the same as confining it in a space that is easily defeated by the powers and capitalist agents willing to do anything as long as it does not prosper and in this way, they lose all their privileges.
In this internationalist search, Lenin and several other Marxists spread throughout the world dared to start the Third International in 1919, also known as the Communist International.
We always operate on the premise of an international revolution.
Beyond the entire vital-revolutionary process and the rise to power of Vladimir Lenin, which would be very long to relate, the anniversary that we celebrated last January 21 is the exact day on which Lenin’s death took place, yes, after a long convalescence and fight against death that at least, as far as we know, would have begun on August 30, 1918, the day on which an unknown woman named Fanni Kaplán made an attempt on the life of the Bolshevik leader.
Needless to say, despite having survived the attack at the time, Lenin was afflicted from that moment by numerous health problems that could very well derive from the consequences caused by such an assassination attempt.
The bourgeoisie strives to transform the State in a bourgeois, reformist, non-revolutionary way, preserving as much as possible the monarchy, the property of the landowners, etc.
The proletariat must carry out the bourgeois democratic revolution, without allowing itself to be bound by the reformism of the bourgeoisie.
We, the popular classes of the entire world, believe that in the near future there will inevitably be the advent of a political, social, economic, ecological, philosophical and pedagogical revolution, which will establish a deeply humanist socialism, since This will be our only chance of survival as a species.
Lenin and his party companions only opened the path that it will be up to us to lead to its final materialization. It is very clear that neither the capitalist right nor the reformist social democracy will ever look out for the people, nor for their most disadvantaged strata, therefore, we owe them nothing.
All the tsars and tsarinas of this world will be knocked down from their pedestals and a great cry of freedom will resound throughout the planet. No more masters, no more hierarchies….
A new man, a new life emancipated from all our slavery.
Could there be anything more beautiful?
The American journalist John Reed was a direct witness of those ten days that shook the world. He had the privilege of seeing with his own eyes how only ten days were enough for an exploited, wounded and burdened people of secular servitude to take power and put an end to the Ancien Regime and tsarist absolutism.
“Ten days that shook the world” unintentionally became the political testament of Vladimir Lenin, a man who, despite his short life and the enormous difficulties he encountered, knew how to send a message to future generations, to all of us, that the human spirit is capable of achieving anything it sets its mind to, that we can dispel the darkness of absolutism and the exploitation of man by man by combining rage with will and audacity.
Political-social achievements of Leninism
One of the first achievements to take into account is the total abolition of the noble titles that existed in Tsarist Russia, everyone becoming full citizens of the Soviet Socialist Republic.
All nations and cultures that made up extensive Russia were granted the right to become independent, recognizing the right to full equality to all those peoples who wished to be part of the new socialist State.
As far as civil rights are concerned, socialist Russia was the first country in the world to legislate and implement the right to abortion. In addition, it was legislated so that Soviet women could divorce and that the father of their children would recognize them before the law and proceed to facilitate their support.
Likewise, under Lenin’s government, the first daycare centers were created for the children of workers who required it and women began to receive the same salary as men for equal work.
And well, comrades, when asking ourselves what we have done of importance this year, we must say that we have done the following: from workers’ control, these first steps of the working class, from the management of all the country’s resources, we have reached the threshold of creation of the workers’ administration of the industry; From the struggle of all the peasants for the land, from the struggle of the peasants against the landowners, from the struggle of a national, democratic and bourgeois character, we have come to the point that in the countryside the proletarian and semi-proletarian elements stand out, those who The more they work, the exploited, and they begin to build a new life; The most oppressed part of the countryside has begun the fight to the end against the bourgeoisie, including its own rural bourgeoisie, the kulaks.
Vladimir Lenin
Finally, these achievements, with their corresponding strategies, were based on theoretical bases, among which we must necessarily highlight those known as the April Thesis. This document was presented by Lenin himself upon his arrival in Petrograd, on April 4, 1917, in a speech that he had the opportunity to deliver at the Tauride Palace in the city bathed by the Baltic. In the April Theses, the non-cooperation with the provisional Government, of a bourgeois nature, and the refusal to continue participating in the Great World War
was made very clear , considering it a bourgeois war and that, under the guise of different nationalisms, it only sought the strengthening and fulfillment of the interests of the bourgeoisies of the different countries in competition.
The only thing I could do to make my work easier – Lenin himself would say – and also make it easier for bona fide oppositors, was to prepare a written thesis. Before giving them to Comrade Tsereteli , he read them very slowly, first at the meeting of Bolsheviks. and later in that of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
In our attitude towards the war, which on Russia’s part remains indisputably an imperialist, predatory war, also under the new government of Luov and Co., by virtue of the capitalist character of this government, the slightest confession to “defencism” is intolerable. revolutionary”.
The conscious proletariat can only give its assent to a revolutionary war, which truly justifies revolutionary defencism.
Brief excerpt from the April Theses
One hundred years have passed since the death of Vladimir Lenin, but his ideas, the content of his dreams, his iron will, his desire to fight to the end of his strength until all traces of social classes disappear, are still more relevant than ever. It is necessary to recover the figure of Lenin not as an initiating mystagogue in the mysteries of communism, but as a real figure, of flesh and blood, as a companion, a tovarich within reach of every human being who recognizes himself as a utopian. full.
Lenin was possible, the revolution became a reality, the Marxist praxis worked, giving the possibility that millions of people would experience an unprecedented revolutionary paroxysm in that immense country. The conclusions that we can and are obliged to draw are that the life and work of Vladimir Lenin constituted, by themselves, an ideological, intellectual, philosophical and anthropological body of cyclopean dimensions. Lenin was not able to see in his lifetime the complete development of the revolution devised together with his most faithful comrades, but that is no justification for stopping dreaming of his utopia, no classes, no masters, never again be prevented from Only being human has the possibility of achieving a dignified, full and integral life.
