concept1917-present

Marxist-Leninist Ideology

Disciplines:

Summary

The political doctrine developed by Lenin combining Marxist theory with the vanguard party model — holding that a disciplined revolutionary party must lead the proletariat to seize state power.

Core Contribution

Against spontaneism: Lenin argued that the working class, left to itself, develops only 'trade union consciousness' (economic demands). Revolutionary class consciousness must be brought to the proletariat from outside by a vanguard party of professional revolutionaries. Democratic centralism: free debate before decisions; iron discipline after. Imperialism as the highest stage: the export of capital makes colonized countries the proletariat in a global sense. The organizational and doctrinal framework of the Soviet state and global communist parties.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Lenin's organizational innovation — the vanguard party — was as consequential as his theoretical contributions. The party structure he designed enabled the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 and became the organizational model for revolutionary parties worldwide.
The contradiction between Lenin's 1917 State and Revolution (dissolving the state) and his actual post-revolutionary practice (building a powerful one-party state) is one of the most-discussed inconsistencies in Marxist political theory.

Historical Influences

Karl Marx Friedrich Engels

Intellectual Lineage

Marxism Russian Revolutionary Tradition

Allied Works

What Is to Be Done? Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism The State and Revolution

Contemporaries & Peers

Menshevism Social Democracy

Minds Influenced

Soviet State Chinese Revolution Decolonization Movements

Intellectual Posterity

Soviet Communism Maoism Third World Communism Stalinism

Discussing