Chen Xingliang: The Historical Contributions of Lenin's Ideological Doctrine on the Formation of a New Type of Bolshevik Party
As is widely known, understanding ideology is a crucial key to unlocking the logic of modern politics and social revolution. The political revolution of the bourgeoisie is the most extensive deduction of modern political logic; it targets the worldviews and value systems of humanity, attempting to reform human concepts in order to achieve the subjugation of the individual. The proletariat, in addition to completing its own political revolution, must also complete a social revolution to realize the free and well-rounded development of the individual, thereby achieving ultimate human liberation. This path—the transition from political revolution to social revolution in pursuit of human liberation—cannot be separated from the leadership of a proletarian party. The Bolsheviks emerged at the right historical moment; as a proletarian party, they undertook for the first time in human history the great mission of advancing the transition from a proletarian political revolution to a socialist social revolution. The reason this new type of party, the Bolsheviks, could shoulder this historical mission was that throughout his revolutionary career, Lenin consistently adhered to the guidance of Marxism. He firmly grasped the theme of the transformation of the times and, through arduous theoretical exploration, established a scientific socialist ideology and provided it with a creative interpretation. In doing so, he enriched and developed Marxist ideological theory, making it meet the requirements of the era’s development and integrating it into the practical activities of the Bolshevik revolution.
I. Premises of the Ideological Characteristics of the Bolshevik New-Type Party: Lenin’s Creative Interpretation of Scientific Ideological Doctrine
At the critical turning point from the 19th to the 20th century, the transition from free-market capitalism to monopoly capitalism triggered internal contradictions within the capitalist system. Against this backdrop, the development of Russian capitalism faced a difficult situation; the Russian Tsar was extremely dissatisfied with the status quo, emerging capitalists were full of grievances, and workers' strikes were breaking out one after another. Consequently, organizations initiating workers' movements began to appear and develop rapidly in Russia's industrial centers. Simultaneously, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) fell into crisis due to internal and external pressures. Within this complex social reality, "Marx's doctrine of ideology was attacked by various social trends during its dissemination." Given the increasingly complex situation in Russia, Lenin had to set about resolving the multifaceted dilemmas caused by the interweaving of chaotic ideas, disordered workers' movements, and a frantic, leaderless populace. A temporal transformation of Marxist ideological theory had become urgent. Regarding Lenin himself, he was "a leader rich in revolutionary spirit and a leader who guided the revolution," who at the beginning of the 20th century "brilliantly foresaw and depicted the era of the great approaching revolution in human life, not only by intuition or through strategy, but also theoretically." The reason for this was twofold: on the one hand, Lenin was able to grasp the theme of the times based on the needs of changing practice and the development of theory in actual struggle; on the other hand, through a scientific analysis of the intellectual, political, and combative environment in which he lived, he recognized the extreme importance of integrating ideological logical analysis when interpreting the Sinicization [1]—or rather, the "Russian-ization"—of Marxism.
1. The needs of actual political struggle drove Lenin to express proletarian interests in a theoretical manner
"The conformity of theory to reality is the sole criterion of theory." The form in which a theory appears depends on the theoretical interpreter's selection, application, and development of that theory when facing the problems of the age; only a theory that meets the needs of the times is a theory that can advance with the times and achieve the theoretical arming of the masses. During this period, Marxism continued to spread amidst polemics with other non-Marxist doctrines, gradually gaining dominance in the theoretical debates regarding the situation of Russia's development. Although the Russian social-democratic movement was still in its childhood and adolescence, Russian capitalism had already developed to some extent, the number of the working class had increased sharply, and the strike movement was continuously expanding. The direction in which the mass workers' movement would head became the focus of Lenin’s reflection. At that time, the judgments of the entire Russian intellectual community regarding the situation in Russia were uneven and chaotic, especially concerning how to coordinate individual actions with mass participation in actual political struggle. Therefore, Lenin proposed theories regarding how "all history is made up of the actions of individuals, who are undoubtedly active figures," and how to attract the masses to participate in activities aimed at realizing the socialist system, reflecting on these points in a practical manner.
At the time, the complex reality and the chaos in theoretical circles posed severe challenges to upholding and developing Marxism under new conditions. This was manifested mainly in two aspects: first, it greatly affected the proletariat’s scientific understanding of the theory of class struggle; second, it seriously hindered a correct understanding of the historical materialist outlook, which serves as the theoretical pillar of proletarian ideology. Both of these ultimately pointed toward challenges against the materialist method. In Lenin's view, only a scientific understanding of class struggle theory could clarify the historical mission of the proletariat; only by defending the materialist method could the emerging crisis be addressed. To this end, on the basis of explaining and developing the Marxist methodology for understanding the world, he proposed a distinction between two types of social relations: first, material social relations, and second, ideological social relations. Distinguishing between these two types of social relations helps in recognizing the independence of ideology and its close connection with material social relations.
Based on his grasp of the characteristics of capitalism at the time, Lenin believed that, on the one hand, big capital caused social disasters for laborers, such as oppression, bullying, and physical and mental devastation; on the other hand, laborers had to proceed from the struggle for economic interests and the guarantee of survival to overcome the combined influences of economic oppression, political rule, ideological poisoning, and cultural erosion. It was precisely these social disasters that "enlightened the workers' minds, turning vague and blurred discontent into conscious resistance, and scattered, meaningless minor riots into an organized class struggle for the liberation of all laborers—a struggle that draws strength from the very conditions of this big capitalism's existence and therefore has absolute hope for reliable success." However, in practical life and political struggle, the importance of "comparing the population engaged in the production of material wealth with the 'ideological strata'" was ignored, failing to see that Marxism "is the ideology of the laboring class."
In such a social environment, Lenin recognized the importance of Marxism as the ideology of the laboring class. Based on his deep concern for Russia’s fate and his anxiety over the future of the proletarian movement, and relying on his own revolutionary practice, Lenin decided to realize the demands for social action through theoretical struggle. Therefore, by skillfully employing the materialist method, Lenin conducted a detailed analysis and exposition of Russian capitalist development, reaching the conclusion that "current capitalist development in Russia is slow." On this basis, by recognizing and analyzing the structure and changes of Russian social reality, he provided the essential theoretical support for the dissemination of proletarian revolutionary theory. These were the necessary conditions for "the basis and understanding upon which it was possible for Lenin to make an accurate and brilliant judgment of every situation, shift, and change in the balance of social forces in Russia."
2. Cultivating proletarian consciousness and realizing the unity of the critical and revolutionary nature of the principle of proletarian Party spirit
The workers' movement itself cannot generate revolutionary socialist consciousness; rather, socialist consciousness must be obtained from educated, advanced intellectuals. This view was shared by Lenin, Kautsky, Victor Adler, and many Social Democratic leaders who emphasized their distinction from syndicalists on this point. When the bourgeoisie strengthens the ruling function of state power and exploits the working class for the sake of its interests, the working class must achieve internal unity under the leadership of a proletarian-type party. This "helps to root out all prejudices and myths, enabling socialists to gather under the banner of Marxism, with the remaining groups forming a democratic party."
The most important thing for socialist intellectuals is to seek answers to problems within Russian history and reality. On the one hand, the "direction of the theoretical work of socialist intellectuals should be the concrete study of all forms of economic antagonism in Russia, the study of their connections and consistent development; wherever this antagonism is concealed by political history, legal characteristics, or traditional prejudices, it should be revealed. Theoretical work should provide a complete description of our reality as a system of certain relations of production, point out the necessity of laborers being exploited and dispossessed under this system, and point out the way out of this system as indicated by economic development." On the other hand, socialist intellectuals must achieve two "grasps." First, "advanced representatives of the working class must grasp the ideas of scientific socialism," and second, they must "grasp the idea of the historical mission of the Russian worker." Only on the basis of these two "grasps" can the Russian proletarian revolution be realized.
Building on the above, it is also necessary for the vanguard’s advanced fighters—the socialist intellectuals—to carry out the necessary "instillation" (灌输) [2] of the working class to truly "unite the workers into a political force." The root of this issue lies in realizing the unity of the critical and revolutionary nature of the principle of proletarian Party spirit (党性原则). The working class was born during the period of large-scale capitalist machine industry; its daily life, working environment, and the concomitant bourgeois concepts affect the working class at all times through various cultural carriers and media. This indicates that the cultural education of workers is a product of bourgeois political-ideological rule. To overcome this difficulty, the working class needs to achieve ideological unity and organizational unity. The realization of these "two unities" cannot be separated from a clear distinction between the two camps of materialism and idealism. Only in this way can the unity of the critical and revolutionary nature of the principle of proletarian Party spirit be achieved. For true socialist intellectuals, they must adhere to the only scientific method of social science—the materialist method.
While adhering to the materialist method, Lenin emphasized the importance of realizing the unity of the critical and revolutionary nature of the principle of proletarian Party spirit. If the workers' movement lacks political direction, it will "succumb to the leadership of the bourgeoisie in the democratic revolution and put the workers at risk of losing their autonomy organizationally and ideologically." In fact, the actual situation of the workers is that the spontaneity of the workers' movement is deeply dominated by bourgeois ideology. First, the bourgeoisie possesses a massive ideological advantage—its ideology has been tempered over centuries, is more ancient and universal, and its daily penetration is omnipresent, bolstered by its control over cultural and educational power. Second, "because the spontaneous workers' movement is trade-unionism—that is, a purely unionist movement—and trade-unionism precisely means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie." This is because the worker masses have not created an "independent ideology of their own in the course of their movement; therefore, the question can only be: either bourgeois ideology or socialist ideology. There is no middle ground here (for humanity has never created any 'third' ideology, and in a society torn by class contradictions, there can never be a non-class or supra-class ideology). Therefore, any belittling of or departure from socialist ideology means the strengthening of bourgeois ideology." Thus, "we must resolutely struggle against all bourgeois ideologies, no matter what fashionable or magnificent cloak they wear."
3. Establishing a scientific ideology and positioning the theoretical coordinates for the construction and development of socialist ideology
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Tsar launched foreign wars and suppressed domestic workers' strikes, triggering a series of political, social, and economic events. Lenin was also subjected to persecution and lived a life of displacement. In this arduous environment, he continued to engage in the cause of proletarian revolutionary liberation and strove to eliminate the adverse effects caused to the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) by the failure of the 1905 Russian Revolution. These negative influences were prominently manifested in the emergence of pessimistic moods and passive revolutionary thoughts within the Party. Among them, many gradually deviated from the Marxist faith, and there even appeared the negative phenomenon of denying the philosophical foundations of Marxism, represented notably by the intellectual group associated with Studies in the Philosophy of Marxism. This group entirely advocated the views of empiriocriticism in philosophy. In response, Lenin determined to "express his opinion in his own way, no matter what." His ability to express his own opinion derived primarily from his "profound mastery of dialectics, so that in both theory and practice he was extremely adept at overcoming the method of treating problems abstractly—a method which can never see the particular and the characteristic within the general and the total, just as pragmatism cannot see the general from the particular." "This extraordinary dialectical nature and flexibility were the fundamental characteristics of Lenin's historical activities." Specifically targeting Alexander Bogdanov's [3] "empirio-monism"—which isolated and pushed to the extreme the doctrine that productive forces hold primacy over ideology—Lenin provided a thorough rational argument against the assertion of "ideological separation," namely that "the opposition between normative ideology and cognitive ideology is increasingly intensifying, dividing different classes into two societies."
Within the horizon of Lenin’s revolutionary practice, philosophical problems projected into real society were always regarded as political problems, and politics is always closely related to ideology. Out of the needs of political reality, Lenin, while refuting the epistemology of the empiriocriticist intellectual group, proposed that "every ideology is historically conditioned, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology) there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature." Lenin’s formulation of this proposition was the inevitable result of his theoretical method of consciously "narrating Marxism completely, precisely, and fully" during his early theoretical exploration and revolutionary practice. Furthermore, it reflected Lenin’s consistent adherence to the inner logic that "Marx considered the whole value of his theory to lie in the fact that it is 'in its essence critical and revolutionary.'" This also fully proves the authentic core of the truth that Marxism is a "scientific ideology."
II. The Characteristics of the New-Type Party Ideology of the Bolsheviks
After Lenin proposed and defined scientific ideology from the integrated perspective of scientific methodology and workers' liberation, the question of who would undertake the historical mission of developing this doctrine became a brand-new subject. In fact, it could only be the proletarian party that consciously shouldered this historical mission. This is because "the party of the proletariat is a free alliance, instituted to struggle against the 'thoughts' (read: ideology) of the bourgeoisie, to defend and realize a definite worldview, namely, the Marxist worldview."
The characteristic of the new-type party ideology of the Bolsheviks is that, while adhering to the Marxist worldview and methodology, it accurately grasps the characteristics of the times. It uses the promotion of the unity of proletarian organization and proletarian thought as a catalyst to realize the unity of the form and content of the proletarian revolution. Subsequently, it reaches the highest organizational form of the practice of the scientific socialist movement—that is, the establishment of a socialist state system and the defense of the cause of workers' liberation through the socialist system. Meanwhile, under the socialist system, it upholds the leadership of the proletarian party over socialist ideology, using it to command the direction of social trends and culture.
We find that in the process of promoting the proletarian workers' movement, Lenin, based on the needs of the real revolutionary movement, profoundly understood the Marxist principle that "theory is a developing theory, not a dogma that must be learned by heart and mechanically repeated." This is why he was able to correctly distinguish between capitalist ideology and socialist ideology. Therefore, in the process of deepening the theoretical characteristics of the Bolsheviks as a new-type party ideology, he consistently maintained that "Marx's whole worldview is not a doctrine, but a method. It provides not ready-made dogmas, but a starting point for further research and the method for use in such research." It was precisely "because Lenin possessed the extraordinary gift of combining revolutionary theory and practice, which made this faction appear particularly important," that he was able to follow the logical requirement that "to make a science of socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis." This provides us with an entry point for understanding the characteristics of the Bolshevik new-type party ideology.
First, the reason for highlighting the characteristics of the Bolshevik new-type party ideology stems from Lenin’s emphasis—under the dual logic of revolutionary realism and the real workers' movement—on the judgment that Marxism is the ideology of the laboring class. We usually understand the Bolsheviks as a new-type proletarian revolutionary party based on their features: namely, maintaining purity and revolutionary character in thought, emphasizing centralism in organization, and firm yet flexible tactical principles. Among these three, the issue of ideology is particularly important. We know that groups existing as individuals or classes are easily influenced by their external environment. "The environment is changed by men and the educator must himself be educated." [4] The educator and the educated embody a social relation, which is the sum total of human social practice. The realization of social interaction is inseparable from human civilization. After human civilization entered class society, due to the irreconcilable conflict of interests, the state appeared as an apparatus of force. In this human environment, the ruling class of the state, out of the need to maintain its rule, must maximize the function of the superstructure corresponding to the economic base. In this regard, Engels said: "The state presents itself to us as the first ideological power over man."
Engels emphasized that ideology plays an important function in historical development and real politics. In his view, the French Revolution swept away the last remnants of feudalism, cleared the last vestiges of medieval ideology covering the bourgeoisie, and established the middle-class ideology of capitalist society—political liberalism. This includes two points: first, that politics, by its characteristics, is the art of reaching a non-coercive coordination between antagonistic interests; and second, that democratic procedures are the only effective method to reach such coordination. After political liberalism became the ideological source for the legitimization of bourgeois rule, they opposed any behavior that threatened the rule of the capitalist state, especially carrying out cruel suppression of the proletarian protests dissatisfied with politics. In addition to violent means, they also hoped to erode, soften, and capture the proletariat through democratic forms such as party politics, universal suffrage, and parliament. At this time, the proletariat itself lacked the guidance of scientific theory, and there remained many insurmountable problems in organization and strategy, resulting in the failure of its class strength to achieve effective aggregation. Marx discovered the fact that the proletariat was buried in capital and imprisoned in the naked relationship between money and power. To break through this predicament, a social revolution more thorough than the French Revolution was needed to help workers escape poverty, resist exploitation, and further realize the free and comprehensive development of man and the liberation of humanity.
Although Marx provided a brand-new ideology for the working class, in a backward country like Russia, many difficulties still needed to be overcome. This was prominently manifested in the gap that remained to be stitched between tradition and modernity, between educated Marxist theorists and the proletariat and serfs whose ideological and moral levels lagged behind. This gap had to be stitched and compensated for by the Bolsheviks as the "vanguard" of the proletariat; only in this way could the combination of Marxist theory and reality be realized. However, the development of capitalist party politics had a greatly adverse effect on workers' unity. It goes without saying that the bourgeoisie achieved rule over the ruled classes precisely through continuous cross-control of politics and public opinion. This does not mean that the internal contradictions of the bourgeoisie were eliminated; capitalist partisan struggles still caused divisions within the bourgeoisie. Thus, the working class, as the product of large-scale machine industry, was often used by the bourgeoisie as a tool in the struggle for power. In Marx's view, power struggles within the bourgeoisie were commonplace; once proletarian demands exceeded the limit of tolerance under bourgeois rule, the bourgeoisie would inevitably strike back and suppress the proletariat. The core of proletarian political demands is the struggle for economic interests and the conditions for survival and development, while the bourgeois state is a "bourgeois republic of capital." This type of republic is mainly characterized by the fact that "upon the different forms of property, upon the social conditions of existence, as a superstructure, there arises a whole world of different and characteristically formed feelings, illusions, modes of thought and views of life. The entire class creates and forms them out of its material foundations and out of the corresponding social relations. The single individual, who derives them through tradition and education, may imagine that they form the real motives and the starting point of his activity." Living under the rule of the Tsarist government, Lenin felt deeply the same as Marx’s discourse on this issue. To escape bourgeois political rule, Lenin had to emphasize the leading position of the proletarian party vanguard in the ideology of the laboring class. This is because "within Marxism, it has its own special history. Since the debates within the Russian Social Democratic Party at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, it has played a core role in (1) party theory, (2) hegemony theory, and (3) alliance policy." It is precisely for this reason that Lenin emphasized more than once that Marxism is the ideology of the laboring class. Therefore, the Bolsheviks should not for a moment abandon the soulful status of Marxism as their scientific ideology.
Second, the Bolsheviks shouldered the historical mission of being the producers of the characteristics of the new-type party ideology. Marx once said: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please." At that time, Russia was in the environment of the autocratic rule of the Tsarist government. The secret police system both collaborated and clashed with the powerful bourgeois ideological apparatus. Under their combined action, oppression did not decrease; in particular, the entire political, economic, cultural, social, moral, and educational living environment of the proletariat was in a state of low-level decay and ruin. This was the survival situation of the producers of the Bolshevik new-type party ideology. For the proletariat to realize its own historical mission, it could not escape the restrictions of history and reality, but had to undertake the heavy responsibility of realizing scientific socialism through the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement—namely, through the Bolsheviks as the vanguard.
The reason the Bolsheviks were able to stand out from the many political parties that emerged at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries was precisely due to Lenin's organizational transformation of the RSDLP and the "Marxist-ization" of its guiding ideology. Under the profound changes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of political parties and organizations were sired in Russia. According to party classifications, they mainly included three types: socialist (revolutionary) parties, liberal parties, and traditional conservative parties. Within the socialist (revolutionary) parties, there was a distinction between Social Democrats and Neo-Populists. The Social Democrats mainly included several factions: the RSDLP (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks), the Narodno-Socialist Party, the Bund ("General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia"), the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party, the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, the Estonian Social Democratic Union, and the Armenian Social Democratic "Hunchak" (Bell) Party, among others. The Neo-Populists mainly included Anarchists, the Socialist Revolutionary Party, the Belarusian Socialist Assembly, the National Neo-Populist Party, the Armenian Dashnaktsutyun (an Armenian bourgeois nationalist party), and the Polish Socialist Party. Between 1905 and 1907, the membership of several major parties was as follows: RSDLP 170,000; Socialist Revolutionaries 65,000; Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) 50,000; Octobrists (the "Union of October 17," a party of large landowners and industrial/commercial bourgeoisie from 1905–1914) 50,000–60,000; and Monarchists 100,000.
Although there were divisions within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, it maintained the pursuits established at its founding regarding revolutionary goals, and its political and social influence cannot be ignored. More importantly, having undergone long-term theoretical propaganda, they were able to penetrate deep into the workers' movement, experience the misfortunes of working-class life firsthand, and organize timely strike movements to struggle for improvements in living and working conditions, thereby bringing about labor legislation to protect workers' rights. However, because the Tsarist government discriminated against workers, it established factory inspection organs at the same time it enacted labor legislation in order to closely monitor the working class. This intensified the contradiction between the Tsarist government and the working class, leading to successive waves of workers' strikes in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, which "reached a climax during the 1905 Revolution. Strikes occurred in almost every industry and locale throughout the country, and trade unions and Soviets [5] also spread everywhere. In December 1905, the government announced the legalization of workers' strikes, and in March 1906, the legalization of trade unions, hoping that by legalizing strikes and unions and allowing workers to elect representatives to the new State Duma [6], the workers' movement would be steered toward a more peaceful path." The emergence of this situation brought immense challenges to the Bolsheviks. Furthermore, an even more important issue was that "many activists among the workers and many 'conscious' workers often complained that ordinary working-class people spent most of their lives in a stupor, passive and pessimistic, seeking stimulation from pulp fiction, music halls, and (on the eve of the war) low-taste cinemas, mired in a state of aimless confusion as they whittled away their years."
It should be said that under the dual effects of the reality of workers' lives and the future vision of the revolution, Lenin had to repeatedly restate the historical mission of the Bolsheviks as the producers of the ideological character of a new type of political party. To realize this historical mission, it was necessary—under the leadership of the Bolsheviks, the party of the working class—to arm the masses with Marxist theory, establish a revolutionary atmosphere and culture suited to the proletariat, and ultimately achieve the goal of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat through revolutionary means. To realize these objectives, the Bolsheviks had to consciously take up the historical mission of being ideological producers; only in this way could the Bolsheviks lead the working class in fulfilling its mission as the subject of ideological production and inheritance.
III. The Impact of the Ideological Characteristics of the Bolshevik New-Type Party on the Fate of the Soviet Union
After the victory of the October Revolution, the situation in Russia was complex and volatile. Facing numerous difficulties, the Bolsheviks headed by Lenin responded actively and sought solutions. Particularly on the point that "the fundamental question of revolution is the question of political power," Lenin was uncompromising. On one hand, he actively countered threats from reactionary forces; on the other, he coordinated various revolutionary forces involved in the October Revolution, such as the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries [7], while simultaneously engaging in confrontations over the issue of political power with the Mensheviks, the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the Constitutional Democratic Party [8]. Ultimately, the Bolsheviks emerged victorious. However, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who had taken joint action with the Bolsheviks on the October Uprising and the constitutional issue, developed rifts with the Bolsheviks over issues such as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk [9], peasant policy, and grain policy. This went so far that the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries attempted to seize power by assassinating the German ambassador and arresting Dzerzhinsky [10] and other Bolsheviks. At the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets held from July 4 to 10, 1918, members of this faction attending the congress were arrested, and the faction split and dissolved; some merged into the Bolsheviks, while others left the party. The emergence of this political situation greatly influenced the process of political power construction in Russia after the October Revolution. In March of that same year, the Seventh Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) passed a resolution to change the party's name to the "Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)" and revised the Party Program. At the Eighth Congress of the RCP(B) in March 1919, the revisions made to the Program at the Seventh Congress were adopted. The Program affirmed the historical contribution of the proletarian socialist revolution and declared the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It affirmed the importance of relying on the Soviet state organization and proposed that "to ensure the success of future socialist construction, the continued struggle against bureaucratism is an absolute and urgent necessity."
In Lenin's view, the aforementioned circumstances were merely one of many situations that arose after the October Revolution. An even more significant situation was that the problem of the broad masses' identification with the Bolsheviks after they took power was increasingly being placed on the agenda. Lenin believed the reason for this was that the cultural level of the residents was not high enough, as the masses had long been kept in ignorance and mists by capitalism. During the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it was necessary to carry out the widest possible propaganda of communist ideas. This required the RCP(B) to be able to lead ideological work suited to this task, and required the establishment of a proletarian culture—that is, "Proletarian Culture" as a high-level theoretical synthesis of Lenin's ideological doctrine. The development of proletarian culture to nurture "new socialist persons" was placed on the agenda. These new socialist persons were to possess proletarian qualities: "tenacity, persistence, determination, the ability to test and correct repeatedly, and the refusal to stop until the goal is reached." These proletarian qualities were to be the essential content of "training and educating our own new people," for only thus could the victory of the proletarian revolution be guaranteed. Meanwhile, "we must use the entire state apparatus so that schools, social education, and practical training can all serve the proletarians, the workers, and the laboring peasants under the leadership of Communists." More importantly, the significance of "basing our agitation and propaganda work on analysis and explanation" was highlighted. This fully demonstrated that "from the first day they took power, the Bolsheviks attached great importance to and relied upon the powerful functions of ideology."
First, taking the cultivation of the younger generation of communists as the successors for building a communist society as its mission, the party achieved the cohesion of socialist ideology. This cohesion was centrally reflected in the "communist morality" advocated by Lenin: "The entire purpose of training, educating, and instructing the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist morality." Because "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle," before the proletarian revolution was realized, "the Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class." However, the bourgeoisie will not abandon ideological infiltration, which dictates that proletarian morality is naturally deeply affected by bourgeois ideology. This shows that no morality exists above human society. For us, we must rely on communist morality to consolidate our forces to realize the class struggle, for "to a Communist, all morality lies in this united, solid discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in eternal morality, and we expose the deceit of all fables about morality. Morality serves the purpose of helping human society rise to a higher level and rid itself of the exploitation of labor."
Second, "developing a genuine proletarian culture" and consolidating the status of "proletarian ideology," while taking the "Cultural Revolution" [11] as an opportunity to build the culture of a socialist state. Lenin recognized the importance of developing a genuine proletarian culture. On one hand, after the success of the October Revolution in establishing Soviet power, the personnel carrying out general education and propaganda mostly came from the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. These strata still carried the remnants and vestiges of the old bourgeois and Tsarist eras; in their ideological understanding, they still could not meet the requirements of the proletarian social revolution, and they lacked a correct understanding of what proletarian culture actually was. On the other hand, after the RCP(B) seized power, it did not define proletarian culture; instead, the nihilistic views of the "Proletkult" [12] appeared. This sect belonged to a Far-Left cultural trend. First, it flaunted a sectarian "class culture" for the proletariat, advocating for separation from or rejection of Party leadership and practicing separatism. Second, it denied the cultural heritage of past eras and the bourgeoisie. Third, it excluded and attacked writers and artists of non-proletarian origin, implementing a sectarian cultural policy. Fourth, the sect excessively worshipped modern machine production and tended toward the vulgarization and simplification of Marxism, which exerted an extremely negative influence on the development of Soviet socialist cultural undertakings. This situation caught Lenin's great attention; for this reason, Lenin specifically drafted a resolution for the First All-Russian Congress of Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organizations. Lenin believed that the entire educational enterprise of the Soviets "must be imbued with the spirit of the proletarian class struggle," and that the "vanguard Communist Party and all proletarian organizations" must actively participate, affirming the importance of the Marxist worldview for the revolutionary proletariat.
Third, Lenin clarified the leading force for developing proletarian culture and positioned the cultural connotation of Marxism as the proletarian ideology. This lay in the fact that it cannot be severed from history; it must respect cultural historical inheritance rather than "inventing a special culture of its own" as the "Proletkult" attempted. Lenin pointed out: "Marxism has won its world-historic significance as the ideology of the revolutionary proletariat because, far from rejecting the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois epoch, it has, on the contrary, assimilated and refashioned everything of value in the more than two thousand years of the development of human thought and culture. Only further work on this basis and in this direction, inspired by the practical experience of the proletarian dictatorship... can be regarded as the development of a genuine proletarian culture." This shows that proletarian culture should develop under the guidance of the practical experience of the proletarian dictatorship. Because proletarian culture itself includes the critical inheritance of excellent culture—the inheritance and development of the outstanding cultural heritage of humanity’s past—integrated with contemporary conditions, especially the priority recognition of the revolutionary culture formed in the revolutionary struggle, it endows the proletariat itself with revolutionism. It is precisely because of its own thoroughness that the proletariat will not compromise with any reactionary or backward forces. This resolute and thorough struggle must inevitably be reflected in culture—that is, through the ruthless critique of any dross in the old culture. After the proletariat achieves ruling status, it must necessarily fulfill its mission of cultural renewal. Therefore, the development of proletarian culture is realized through the concrete implementation of socialist cultural construction. To realize these cultural tasks of social revolution, the primary issue is the creation of proletarian culture and the question of what the tasks of proletarian culture are. Secondly, the issue of proletarian cultural construction—namely, the question of which social forces socialist cultural construction can rely on for its realization. To address these problems, Lenin proposed the idea of a "Cultural Revolution," through which cultural work would: first, realize the transformation of the state apparatus inherited from the old era; and second, "conduct cultural work among the peasantry." In Lenin's view, a cultural revolution plays a crucial role in raising the consciousness of the people: "Once this cultural revolution is achieved, our country will become a completely socialist country." At the same time, "in cultural matters, haste and sweeping measures are most harmful," for "in matters of culture, only that which has entered into culture, into everyday life, and has become a habit can be considered an achievement." Under the influence of the idea of the Cultural Revolution, the revolutionism of Marxist ideology became the spiritual and intellectual pillar for consolidating and leading the Soviet people of this period to actively devote themselves to socialist construction.
In summary, it is not difficult to find that it was precisely Lenin who, in the process of promoting proletarian cultural construction, maintained a principled yet militant spirit, fully exerting the educational and guiding role of proletarian ideology for the people, as well as its leading role in the development of the state and society. It is evident that Lenin was both clear-cut in his banners without losing his principles, and persistent in revolutionary critique while seeking truth from facts in his differentiated treatment of realistic problems. These are the "living principles" embodied in the application of Lenin's ideological doctrine to his era, and they also constitute an essential part of his doctrine. They exerted a profound influence on the continued development and growth of the Bolsheviks, and even influenced the fate of the Soviet Union. From then on, the fate of the Soviet Union became increasingly intertwined with the complex relationship of the RCP(B)’s strong dependence on ideology and the proper exertion of ideological functions. Under the combined effect of these two, the trajectory of the Soviet Union’s fate was driven forward to a certain extent.
IV. Concluding Remarks
During the era in which Lenin lived, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union conducted many enlightening explorations and experiments. These efforts promoted the idea that "Bolshevism created a true model for revolutionaries" and that "through long-term and continuous struggle, the Bolsheviks created their own political environment as well as their own moral environment." This facilitated the formation of a public opinion independent of the bourgeoisie and established a social discourse favorable to the Bolsheviks. These efforts injected the contemporary nourishment of revolutionary practice into proletarian ideology while simultaneously presenting new challenges for the proletarian historical mission.
In the New Era, faced with various threats to our country’s ideological security posed by numerous social trends of thought, we must consistently adhere to the guidance of Marxism and continue to advance the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. First, we must maintain the security of the socialist ideological position based on an accurate determination of our historical coordinates [13]. Second, we must strengthen our cultural confidence amid cultural diversity to solidify the cornerstone of socialist cultural hegemony [14]. Finally, Chinese Communists should remain firm in their ideals and convictions, never forget their original aspiration, and consciously shoulder the historical mission of realizing the new great social revolution of reform and opening up on the basis of advancing theoretical innovation in ideological revolution. Our aim must be to consciously undertake the historical mission of building a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership.
(The author is a lecturer at the School of Marxism, Ningbo University) Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Marxism Studies (Mǎkèsīzhǔyì Yánjiū), No. 6, 2021