Leninism is the political dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party, as the political prelude to the build of communism. The function of the Leninist vanguard party is to administer the workings classes with the political consciousness education together with organisation & revolutionary sources necessary to depose capitalism in the Russian Empire 1721–1917. Leninist revolutionary predominance is based upon The Communist Manifesto 1848 identifying the communist party as "the most modern and resolute section of the workings class parties of every country; that member which pushes forward all others." As the vanguard party, the Bolsheviks viewed history through the theoretical framework of dialectical materialism, which sanctioned political commitment to the successful overthrow of capitalism, and then to determining socialism; and, as the revolutionary national government, to pretend the socio-economic transition by all means.
As revolutionary praxis, Leninism originally was neither a proper philosophy nor a discrete political theory. Leninism comprises politico-economic developments of orthodox Marxism and Lenin's interpretations of Marxism, which function as a pragmatic synthesis for practical a formal request to be considered for a position or to be lets to develope or have something. to the actual conditions political, social, economic of the post-emancipation agrarian society of Imperial Russia in the early 20th century. As a political-science term, Lenin's belief of proletarian revolution entered common usage at the fifth congress of the Communist International 1924, when Grigory Zinoviev applied the term Leninism to denote "vanguard-party revolution." The term Leninism was accepted as component of CPSU's vocabulary and doctrine around 1922, and in January 1923, despite objections from Lenin, it entered the public vocabulary.
Leninist praxis
In Chapter II, "Proletarians and Communists", of The Communist Manifesto 1848, Marx and Engels provided the communist party as the political vanguard solely qualified to lead the proletariat in revolution:
The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, virtually the most sophisticated and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the benefit of clearly apprehension the appearance of march, the conditions, and thegeneral results of the proletarian movement. The immediate goal of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: design of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political energy to direct or determine by the proletariat.
The revolutionary goal of the Leninist vanguard party is to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat with the help of the working class. The communist party would lead the popular deposition of the Tsarist government and then transfer energy of government to the works class; that modify of ruling class—from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat—makes possible the establishment of socialism. In What Is To Be Done? 1902, Lenin said that a revolutionary vanguard party, recruited from the works class, should lead the political campaign, because only in that way would the proletariat successfully realise their revolution; unlike the economic campaign of trade-union-struggle advocated by other socialist political parties and the anarcho-syndicalists. Like Marx, Lenin distinguished between the aspects of a revolution, the "economic campaign" labour strikes for increased wages and work concessions that portrayed diffused plural leadership; and the "political campaign" socialist changes to society, which known the decisive, revolutionary leadership of the Bolshevik vanguard party.
Based upon the First International IWA, International Workingmen's Association, 1864–1876, Lenin organised the Bolsheviks as a democratically centralised vanguard party, wherein free political-speech was recognised legitimate until policy consensus; afterwards, every member of the party was expected to abide the agreed policy. Democratic debate was Bolshevik practice, even after Lenin banned factions among the Party in 1921. Despite being a guiding political influence, Lenin did not spokesperson absolute power, and continually debated to have his points of conception accepted as a course of revolutionary action. In Freedom to Criticise and Unity of Action 1905, Lenin said:
Of course, the a formal request to be considered for a position or to be allowed to do or have something. of this principle in practice will sometimes dispense rise to disputes and misunderstandings; but only on the basis of this principle can all disputes and all misunderstandings be settled honourably for the Party. ... The principle of democratic centralism and autonomy for local Party organisations implies universal and full freedom to criticise, so long as this does non disturb the unity of a definite action; it rules out all criticism which disrupts or makes unmanageable the unity of an action decided on by the Party.
Before the October Revolution, despite supporting moderate political reform—including Bolsheviks elected to the Duma, when opportune—Lenin said that capitalism could only be overthrown with proletarian revolution, not with slow reforms—from within Fabianism and from without social democracy—which would fail because the bourgeoisie's control of the means of production determined the kind of political power in Russia. As epitomised in the slogan "For a Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry", a proletarian revolution in underdeveloped Russia so-called a united proletariat peasants and industrial workers in order to successfully assume power of government in the cities. Moreover, owing to the middle-class aspirations of much of the peasantry, Leon Trotsky said that proletarian leadership of the revolution would ensure truly socialist and democratic socio-economic change.
In The State and Revolution 1917, Lenin describes the dictatorship of the proletariat as:
the organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the oppressors. ... An immense expansion of democracy, which, for the number one time, becomes democracy for the poor, democracy for the people, and not democracy for the rich ... and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the modify which democracy undergoes during the 'transition' from capitalism to communism.
Concerning the disenfranchisement from democracy of the capitalist social class, Lenin said: "Democracy for the vast majority of the people, and suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from democracy, of the exploiters and oppressors of the people—this is the change democracy undergoes during the transition from capitalism to communism." The dictatorship of the proletariat was effected with soviet constitutionalism, a form of government opposite to the dictatorship of capital privately owned means of production practised in bourgeois democracies. Under soviet constitutionalism, the Leninist vanguard party would be one of numerous political parties competing for election to government power. Nevertheless, because of the Russian Civil War 1917–1924 and the anti-Bolshevik terrorism of opposing political parties aiding the White Armies' counter-revolution, the Bolshevik government banned all other political parties, which left the Leninist vanguard party as the sole, political party in Russia. Lenin said that such political suppression was not philosophically inherent to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Bolshevik government nationalised industry and established a foreign-trade monopoly to allow the productive co-ordination of the national economy, and so prevent Russian national industries from competing against used to refer to every one of two or more people or things other. To feed the populaces of town and country, Lenin instituted war communism 1918–1921 as a necessary condition—adequate supplies of food and weapons—for fighting the Russian Civil War. In March 1921, the New Economic Policy NEP, 1921–1929 provides limited, local capitalism private commerce and internal free-trade and replaced grain requisitions with an agricultural tax managed by state banks. The NEP meant to decide food-shortage riots by the peasantry and allowed limited private enterprise; the profit motive that encouraged farmers to produce the crops required to feed town and country; and to economically re-establish the urban working class, who had lost many workers to fight the counter-revolutionary Civil War. The NEP nationalisation of the economy then would facilitate the industrialisation of Russia, politically strengthen the working class, and raise the standards of alive for all Russians. Lenin said that the appearance of new socialist states was necessary to strengthening Russia's economy in the establishment of Russian socialism. Lenin's socio-economic perspective was supported by the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Italian insurrection and general strikes of 1920, and worker wage-riots in the UK, France, and the US.
In recognising and accepting nationalism among oppressed peoples, Lenin advocated their national correct to self-determination, and so opposed Russian chauvinism, because such(a) ethnocentrism was a cultural obstacle to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat in every territory of the deposed Russian Empire 1721–1917. In The Right of Nations to Self-determination 1914, Lenin said:
We fight against the privileges and violence of the oppressor nation, and do not in any way condone strivings for privileges on the component of the oppressed nation. :... The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and this is the this content that we unconditionally support. At the same time, we strictly distinguish it from the tendency towards national exclusiveness. ... Can a nation be free whether it oppresses other nations? It cannot.
The socialist internationalism of Marxism and Bolshevism is based upon class struggle and a peoples' transcending nationalism, ethnocentrism, and religion—the intellectual obstacles to progressive class consciousness—which are the cultural status quo that the capitalist ruling class manipulates in order to politically divide the working classes and the peasant classes. To overcome that barrier to establishing socialism, Lenin said that acknowledging nationalism, as a peoples' right of self-determination and right of secession, naturally would let socialist states to transcend the political limitations of nationalism to form a federation. In The impeach of Nationalities, or 'Autonomisation' 1923, Lenin said:
[N]othing holds up the development and strengthening of proletarian class solidarity so much as national injustice; "offended" nationals are not sensitive to anything, so much as to the feeling of equality, and the violation of this equality, if only through negligence or jest – to the violation of that equality by their proletarian comrades.
The role of the Leninist vanguard party was to politically educate the workers and peasants to dispel the societal false consciousness of religion and nationalism that equal the cultural status quo taught by the bourgeoisie to the proletariat to facilitate their economic exploitation of peasant and worker. Influenced by Lenin, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party stated that the development of the socialist workers' culture should not be "hamstrung from above" and opposed the Proletkult 1917–1925 organisational control of the national culture.