In short: what is Marxism-Leninism?

Marxism-Leninism is the scientific world-view of the working class and its revolutionary party as well as of many other progressive movements of the modern epoch. It is the unified, self-contained system of scientific views and theories created by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and its development in its spirit by Josef Vissarjonovich Stalin and the communist parties. Marxism-Leninism is the source and theoretical basis for the practical activity of the communist and workers' parties.

Marxism-Leninism - a scientific worldview

Above all, the world-changing power of Marxism-Leninism is that it scientifically substantiates socialism and communism, that it is the theory of the proletarian class struggle and the revolution as well as the socialist and communist structure. The unity of theory and practice is expressed in him in the fact that the basis of his development is the struggle of the revolutionary workers party, the common experience of the communist and working-class movement, and that he himself is the material achievement, the material reality in the world socialist system as the greatest achievement our time became.

An advanced theory of change in society

Karl Marx began with his faithful friend Friedrich Engels in the 1840s to develop the revolutionary doctrine that got its name. In order to be successful in leading the class struggle against the bourgeoisie, the young proletariat needed a scientific theory which revealed the laws of social development, determined the aims, means, and methods of its liberation, and clarified its world-historical mission as the creator of communism. Marx and Engels dialectically removed all the positive insights of earlier social theories and responded to the questions posed by the reality and advanced thinking of humanity.

What are the components of Marxism-Leninism?

The fundamental components of Marxism-Leninism, dialectical and historical materialism-the philosophical foundation-Marxist political economy and scientific communism form an inseparable unity. Class character, open partisanship and scientificity are both characteristics of the individual components as well as expressions of the essence of the total theory of Marxism-Leninism.

VI Lenin further developed Marxism

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin developed the doctrine of Marx and Engels on all sides and creatively. The result was Marxism-Leninism. Due to the profound scientific and revolutionary-practical significance of the findings of VI Lenin, his doctrine, Leninism, is called Marxism of the modern epoch. Lenin determined the main content of this epoch and developed the only scientific theory of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism. Based on the findings of Marx and Engels, he established the role of the proletariat and the party of a new type in the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the general legitimacy of the socialist revolution and socialist construction under the conditions of the epoch.

Dealing with errors and deviations

An inexorable struggle led Lenin and Stalin against all idealistic distortions and revisionist distortions of Marxism, they arguably defended its crucial foundations, materialism and dialectics, and further developed them with the other components of Marx's doctrine. Thus Lenin, inter alia, established the theory of imperialism and the foundations of the political economy of socialism, the theory of the transition from bourgeois-democratic to socialist revolution, and worked the doctrine of the party of the new type, of the class struggle in the period of the socialist revolution and of the Alliance policy of the working class. He also developed the Marxist theory of the state and established the plan for the construction of socialist society.

The clear path leads to a proletarian revolution

Lenin also devoted himself to the socialist youth policy and saw in youth a significant force for the revolutionary transformation of society. The Great Socialist October Revolution in Russia under the leadership of the Communist Party ushered in a new historical epoch: the epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. The theory of Marxism-Leninism has become a practical reality in real socialism, thus proving its veracity.

Why did socialism suffer a temporary defeat?

After the assassination of Stalin, a period of revisionism and the decline of socialism began, which ended in 1990 with the destruction of the socialist world system. After that, again, a restoration of the capitalist social order took place. The Soviet Union was split and the GDR annexed by West German imperialism. The other socialist countries also experienced a restoration of capitalism. Which even led to fascism, as in Ukraine, a former socialist country. This, however, by no means proves a superiority of capitalism, as the reactionary forces would like to see. On the contrary: the anarchy of the economy, the political chaos and the increasing aggressiveness of US imperialism and NATO once again prove how right Stalin was when he warned:
(Source: JW Stalin, VII. Expanded Plenum of the ECCI., In: Werke, vol.

How does it go from here?

The bourgeois social theories have all been shipwrecked. An example of such a pseudoscientific nonsense are the liberalistic theories of Ludwig von Misesto which bourgeois ideologists still refer today. On the other hand, Marxism-Leninism is constantly evolving and, even today, is the basis for a renewed construction of socialism. At the congresses of the communist parties, the theory of the developed socialist society and the economic strategy were scientifically worked out, the realization of which opened a life of peace, prosperity and happiness. Yet again today it is essential to deal with revisionist and anti-progressive views, as represented for example by the German party Die Linke, the Russian KPRF or the Greek Syriza, because such theories lead to a dead end and prevent the transition to socialism. The tremendous successes of the social progress of socialism on Earth to its temporary defeat are testimonies of the energy of the masses released by Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism is and remains a young science; he is not a dogma, but a guide to action.

Source: the present text was using a section from the youth lexicon philosophy of the GDR, VEB Bibliographic Institute, Leipzig, 1987, p.121ff. created for this purpose and slightly modified, NG