leninism

• Vietnam's Pol-Mil
• The Philippine pol-mil
• Terrorism and terror as tactics
• When terror is admissible
• Pol-Mil versus mass struggle strategy

A number of party formations in the Philippines, such as the PMP (Workers Party of the Philippines), RPM (Revolutionary Workers Party), PMLP (Party of Marxists-Leninists in the Philippines), adopt the politico-military ("pol-mil") strategy as a reaction to the protracted people's war strategy of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It is defined as a combination of political and military struggles, with the military struggle playing a secondary or subordinate role to the political struggle.

by John Percy

CONTENTS

By Peter Boyle

By Doug Lorimer

• 1921 Comintern resolution
• Public debate
• Party discipline
• Ideological heterogeneity
• Lenin's struggle for a Marxist party
• Notes

The disintegration of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union opened an important debate within the Marxist movement about how to evaluate the history of the socialist movement, and especially of the Bolshevik Party, the party that led the world's first successful socialist revolution. One of the central aims of Links has been to provide a forum for such debate.

It is obviously important to carry out this evaluation in a way that does not make the mistake of confusing Stalinism with the theory and practice of the Bolsheviks when Lenin was the foremost leader of that party. Moreover—as was only to be expected—there are different views of what constituted the theory and practice of Bolshevism. Some of these differences have revolved around the role of Grigory Zinoviev.

By Jonathan Strauss

I. The theory of the labour aristocracy

By Murray Smith

The Second International

Split and unity, 1905-06

The party reconstituted in 1912

By Jonathan Strauss

The labour aristocracy in monopoly capitalism

The sources of monopoly superprofits

The bribe and other causes of working-class material differentiation

The bribe as a mass social relationship

Incorporation and integration

Notes

By Jonathan Strauss

Contents

Dimensions of the composition of the labour aristocracy

Skilled workers in the labour aristocracy

The bureaucratisation of the labour apparatus and opportunism

The labour apparatus and the labour bureaucracy

The labour aristocracy and the labour bureaucracy

The labour aristocracy and the `lower strata' of the working class

Opportunism and preparation of the proletariat for revolution

Proletarian tactics under the domination of monopolising capitals

The labour aristocracy as the social base for opportunism

Footnotes

By Armando Hart

Armando Hart is the former minister of culture of Cuba. Our translation largely relies on a CubaNews translation by Ana Portela.

These thoughts are intended as a tribute to all revolutionaries, without exception, who suffered the great historical drama of seeing the socialist ideas of October 1917 frustrated. We write this with admiration and respect for the Russian people, who were the protagonists of the first socialist revolution in history and who defeated fascism decades later under the leadership of Stalin. The same Russian people, 130 years before, defeated the military offensive of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Fundamentally, I have the experience of fifty years of working for socialist ideas in the beautiful trenches of the Fidel and Martí-inspired Cuban Revolution, that is to say, the first revolution of Marxist orientation that triumphed in what has become known as the West.

by Doug Lorimer