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Leninism is a political philosophy associated with Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), leader of the 1917 Bolshevik (Communist) Revolution in Russia. Lenin considered himself a Marxist, and much of Leninism is grounded in Karl Marx’s observations about politics, economics, and society. Compared with classical Marxism, Leninism gives a greater emphasis to the role of revolutionary “toilers” (both workers and peasants) than the working class per se, to underdeveloped or semicolonial countries than to advanced capitalist countries, and to the leading role of a vanguard party over the spontaneous activity of the working class.

One of Lenin’s major innovations to Marxist thought was his belief, expressed in What Is to Be Done? (1902), that the workers, by themselves, would not produce a socialist revolution. Instead, the best that workers could do is develop a “trade union consciousness” that would seek merely to reform, not overthrow, capitalism. Hence Lenin argued for the creation of a party of professional revolutionaries that were committed to Marxist ideas and the raising of class consciousness among workers. In so doing, he built upon a tradition in nineteenth century Russia of revolutionary activity within small party cells. Moreover, the party would be subject to the principles of democratic centralism, meaning that members would participate in the formation of policy and election of leaders, but after a policy has been decided, all party members would be commanded to loyally carry it out. In Lenin’s view, only such a well-disciplined, committed organization could succeed in fulfilling Marx’s vision of a socialist society. Armed with such an idea, he forced a split in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1903, which eventually led to the creation of the Bolshevik Party.

Leninism was also mindful of the international nature of capitalism. In his work Imperialism, the Highest Form of Capitalism (1916), Lenin argued that capitalism inevitably gives rise to imperialism, as capitalists in more developed states search for more markets and opportunities for profits. Capitalism thus becomes a global phenomenon. The uneven development of the world economy—split between a developed core and a less-developed periphery—created, in Lenin’s view, grounds for conflict among imperial powers and favorable conditions for socialist revolution in less-developed countries, where the nascent proletariat outnumber the native bourgeoisie. Arguing that Russia was the “weak link” in international capitalism, he agitated for socialist revolution there, believing, unlike Marx, that it would not occur first in the developed capitalist world because capitalists there can take advantage of their excess profits from imperialist ventures to placate the demands of their own working class. The fact that socialism can be brought to less-developed states necessitated a role for the peasantry in creating socialism, and Lenin encouraged an alliance of workers and revolutionary peasants, although in practice state and party officials were the dominant and privileged force within the Bolshevik Party and later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Lenin committed the Bolshevik Party and, later, the early Soviet state to establishing a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” under which the party would represent the true interests of the working class. In practice, this meant a single-party state and the ruthless suppression of other political movements and social organizations. In his lifetime Lenin also imposed a ban on factions within the party. Leninism thus became associated with the rule of the Bolsheviks (communists) in the Soviet Union, and, during and after the Russian Civil War (1917–1923), it was associated with the use of force against its political opponents in order to pursue its ideological objectives.

By virtue of Soviet influence on communist movements elsewhere, Leninism became both an ideological prism for understanding political and social relations and a mode for advancing the revolutionary cause. Lenin’s inclusion of the peasantry as a revolutionary force would influence (among others) Chinese, Latin American, and Vietnamese communist movements, and the idea of a one-party state would remain political orthodoxy until the waning days of the Soviet Union.

Critics of Lenin, such as Rosa Luxemburg, objected to his stress on centralization and control at the expense of working-class spontaneity, and later opponents of Stalin, such as Leon Trotsky and his followers, would claim to be the true practitioners of Leninism or Marxist-Leninism. In the West, Lenin’s ideas on the nature of capitalism and his ability as a party organizer were admired by some on the left, but most social democrats rejected Leninism, seeing it as both based too much on violence and as an application of Marxism to a country with little or no democratic traditions and low levels of capitalist development.

Bibliography:

Bescanon, Alain. The Intellectual Origins of Leninism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1981.
Meyer, Alfred G. Leninism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Pipes, Richard. Communism: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2001.
Tucker, Robert, ed. The Lenin Anthology. New York: Norton, 1975.
Volkogonov, Dmitrii. Lenin: A New Biography. New York: Free Press, 1994.

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