choose two questions and answer it by 10 sentences.

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Readings Week 8: The Interwar Period

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)

What is to be done? (1902)

The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to

develop only trade union consciousness, i.e, it may itself realize the necessity for combining in

unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass

necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic,

historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the

propertied classes, the intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern

scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia.

Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social Democracy [Note: By "social democracy"

Lenin means revolutionary political Marxism, not the later concept of "moderate" socialism]

arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labor movement; it arose as a natural

and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist

intelligentsia. At the time of which we are speaking, i.e., the middle of the nineties, this doctrine

not only represented the completely formulated program of the Emancipation of Labor group,

but had already won the adherence of the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.

***

It is only natural that a Social Democrat, who conceives the political struggle as being identical

with the "economic struggle against the employers and the government," should conceive of an

"organization of revolutionaries" as being more or less identical with an "organization of

workers." And this, in fact, is what actually happens; so that when we talk about organization,

we literally talk in different tongues. I recall a conversation I once had with a fairly consistent

Economist, with whom I had not been previously acquainted. We were discussing the

pamphlet Who Will Make the Political Revolution? and we were very soon agreed that the

principal defect in that brochure was that it ignored the question of organization. We were

beginning to think that we were in complete agreement with each other-but as the conversation

proceeded, it became clear that we were talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the

author of the brochure just mentioned of ignoring strike funds, mutual aid societies, etc.; whereas

I had in mind an organization of revolutionaries as an essential factor in "making" the political

revolution. After that became clear, I hardly remember a single question of importance upon

which I was in agreement with that Economist! What was the source of our disagreement? The

fact that on questions of organization and politics the Economists are forever lapsing from Social

Democracy into trade unionism. The political struggle carried on by the Social Democrats is far

more extensive and complex than the economic struggle the workers carry on against the

employers and the government. Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organization of a

revolutionary SocialDemocratic Party must inevitably differ from the organizations of the

workers designed for the latter struggle. A workers' organization must in the first place be a trade

organization; secondly, it must be as wide as possible; and thirdly, it must be as public as

conditions will allow (here, and further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in mind). On

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the other hand, the organizations of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people

whose profession is that of a revolutionary (that is why I speak of organizations

of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social Democrats). In view of this common feature of

the members of such an organization, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, and

certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be obliterated. Such an organization must of

necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible.

***

I assert:

1. that no movement can be durable without a stable organization of leaders to maintain continuity;

2. that the more widely the masses are spontaneously drawn into the struggle and form the basis of the movement and participate in it, the more necessary is it to have such an

organization, and the more stable must it be (for it is much easier for demogogues to

sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses);

3. that the organization must consist chiefly of persons engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession;

4. that in a country with an autocratic government, the more we restrict the membership of this organization to persons who are engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession

and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the

more difficult will it be to catch the organization, and

5. the wider will be the circle of men and women of the working class or of other classes of

society able to join the movement and perform active work in it....

The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will

benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than

the police, will centralize all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate

plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each

educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but

I shall reply to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralization of the more

secret functions in an organization of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the

extent and the quality of the activity of a large number of other organizations intended for wide

membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible, for example, trade

unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and

also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. etc, etc We must have as large a

number as possible of such organizations having the widest possible variety of functions, but it is

absurd and dangerous to confuse those with organizations of revolutionaries, to erase the line of

demarcation between them, to dim still more the masses already incredibly hazy appreciation of

the fact that in order to "serve" the mass movement we must have people who will devote

themselves exclusively to Social Democratic activities, and that such people

must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries. Aye, this

appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most grievous sin we have committed in regard to

organization is that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige o revolutionaries in

Russia. A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has a narrow outlook

who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground that the masses are awakening

spontaneously; who resembles a trade union secretary more than a people's tribune, who is

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unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan, who is incapable of inspiring even his opponents

with respect for himself, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art -the art

of combating the political police-such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur! Let

no active worker take offense at these frank remarks, for as far as insufficient training is

concerned, I apply them first and foremost to myself. I used to work in a circle that set it self

great and all-embracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture

from the realization that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when

we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a well known epigram: "Give us an organization of

revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!"

Alexandra Kollontaï (1872-1952)

Communism and the Family (1920)

Women’s role in production: its effect upon the family

Will the family continue to exist under communism? Will the family remain in the same form?

These questions are troubling many women of the working class and worrying their menfolk as

well. Life is changing before our very eyes; old habits and customs are dying out, and the whole

life of the proletarian family is developing in a way that is new and unfamiliar and, in the eyes of

some, “bizarre”. No wonder that working women are beginning to think these questions over.

Another fact that invites attention is that divorce has been made easier in Soviet Russia. The decree

of the Council of People’s Commissars issued on 18 December 1917 means that divorce is, no

longer a luxury that only the rich can afford; henceforth, a working woman will not have to petition

for months or even for years to secure the right to live separately from a husband who beats her

and makes her life a misery with his drunkenness and uncouth behavior. Divorce by mutual

agreement now takes no more than a week or two to obtain. Women who are unhappy in their

married life welcome this easy divorce. But others, particularly those who are used to looking upon

their husband as “breadwinners”, are frightened. They have not yet understood that a woman must

accustom herself to seek and find support in the collective and in society, and not from the

individual man.

There is no point in not facing up to the truth: the old family in which the man was everything and

the woman nothing, the typical family where the woman had no will of her own, no time of her

own and no money of her own, is changing before our very eyes. But there is no need for alarm. It

is only our ignorance that leads us to think that the things we are used to can never change. Nothing

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could be less true than the saying “as it was, so it shall be”. We have only to read how people lived

in the past to see that everything is subject to change and that no customs, political organizations

or moral principles are fixed and inviolable…

The type of family to which the urban and rural proletariat has grown accustomed is one of these,

legacies of the past. There was a time when the isolated, firmly-knit family, based on a church

wedding, was equally necessary to all its members. If there had been no family, who would have

fed, clothed and brought up the children? Who would have given them advice? … It is the universal

spread of female labor that has contributed most of all to the radical change in family life. Formerly

only the man was considered a breadwinner. But Russian women have for the past fifty or sixty

years (and in other capitalist countries for a somewhat longer period of time) been forced to seek

paid work outside the family and outside the home. The wages of the “breadwinner” being

insufficient for the needs of the family, the woman found herself obliged to look for a wage and to

knock at the factory door. With every year the number of working-class women starting work

outside the home as day laborers, saleswomen, clerks, washerwomen and servants increased.

Statistics show that in 1914, before the outbreak of the First World War, there were about sixty

million women earning their own living in the countries of Europe and America, and during the

war this number increased considerably. Almost half of these women are married. What kind of

family life they must have can easily be imagined. What kind of “family life” can there be if the

wife and mother is out at work for at least eight hours and, counting the travelling, is away from

home for ten hours a day? Her home is neglected; the children grow up without any maternal care,

spending most of the time out on the streets, exposed to all the dangers of this environment. The

woman who is wife, mother and worker has to expend every ounce of energy to fulfil these roles.

She has to work the same hours as her husband in some factory, printing-house or commercial

establishment and then on top of that she has to find the time to attend to her household and look

after her children. Capitalism has placed a crushing burden on woman’s shoulders: it has made her

a wage-worker without having reduced her cares as housekeeper or mother. Woman staggers

beneath the weight of this triple load. She suffers, her face is always wet with tears. Life has never

been easy for woman, but never has her lot been harder and more desperate than that of the millions

of working women under the capitalist yoke in this heyday of factory production.

The family breaks down as more and more women go out to work. How can one talk about family

life when the man and woman work different shifts, and where the wife does not even have the

time to prepare a decent meal for her offspring? How can one talk of parents when the mother and

father are out working all day and cannot find the time to spend even a few minutes with their

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children? It was quite different in the old days. The mother remained at home and occupied herself

with her household duties; her children were at her side, under her watchful eye….

….

The state is responsible for the upbringing of children

…Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away

gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were

frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist

society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education

and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for

very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health

resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books,

warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the

child is passing from the family to the collective…

Working mothers have no need to be alarmed; communist not intending to take children

away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning

to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing! The aims of communist society are

quite different. Communist society sees that the old type of family is breaking up, and that all the

old pillars which supported the family as a social unit are being removed: the domestic economy

is dying, and working-class parents are unable to take care of their children or provide them wit h

sustenance and education. Parents and children suffer equally from this situation. Communist

society has this to say to the working woman and working man: “You are young, you love each

other. Everyone has the right to happiness. Therefore live your life. Do not flee happiness. Do not

fear marriage, even though under capitalism marriage was truly a chain of sorrow. Do not be afraid

of having children. Society needs more workers and rejoices at the birth of every child. You do

not have to worry about the future of your child; your child will know neither hunger nor cold.”

Communist society takes care of every child and guarantees both him and his mother material and

moral support. Society will feed, bring up and educate the child. At the same time, those parents

who desire to participate in the education of their children will by no, means be prevented from

doing so. Communist society will take upon itself all the duties involved in the education of the

child, but the joys of parenthood will not be taken away from those who are capable of appreciating

them. Such are the plans of communist society and they can hardly be interpreted as the forcible

destruction of the family and the forcible separation of child from mother.

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… The woman who takes up the struggle for the liberation of the working class must learn

to understand that there is no more room for the old proprietary attitude which says: “These are

my children, I owe them all my maternal solicitude and affection; those are your children, they are

no concern of mine and I don’t care if they go hungry and cold – I have no time for other children.”

The worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember

that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers.

The workers’ state needs new relations between the sexes, just as the narrow and exclusive

affection of the mother for her own children must expand until it extends to all the children of the

great, proletarian family, the indissoluble marriage based on the servitude of women is replaced

by a free union of two equal members of the workers’ state who are united by love and mutual

respect. In place of the individual and egoistic family, a great universal family of workers will

develop, in which all the workers, men and women, will above all be comrades. This is what

relations between men and women, in the communist society will be like. These new relations will

ensure for humanity all the joys of a love unknown in the commercial society of a love that is free

and based on the true social equality of the partners.

Communist society wants bright healthy children and strong, happy young people, free in

their feelings and affections. In the name of equality, liberty and the comradely love of the new

marriage we call upon the working and peasant men and women, to apply themselves courageously

and with faith to the work of rebuilding human society, in order to render it more perfect, more

just and more capable of ensuring the individual the happiness which he or she deserves. The red

flag of the social revolution which flies above Russia and is now being hoisted aloft in other

countries of the world proclaim the approach of the heaven on earth to which humanity has been

aspiring for centuries.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

What is fascism?

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite

apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the

utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of

the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest

tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to

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meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they

have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death....

...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather

conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at

hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...

...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of

history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the

various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of

production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in

actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of

history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by

the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that

the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny

of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the

preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and

repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies

that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that

numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable,

beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through

the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out

in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of

Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of

Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may

rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the

nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century

of collectivism and hence the century of the State....

The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim.

Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or

groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the

Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and

spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on

the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it

may be called the "ethic" State....

...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the

individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is

essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....

...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential

manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising

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again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and

of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a

people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and

foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt

sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the

regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which

must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of

Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the

nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great

experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in

need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there

are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a

doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith;

and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have

suffered and died for it.