The scientific analysis of actual development and the actual contradictions contained in it was the only real guide to practical action. It was only the subjectivists who believed that practical action was to be based upon theoretical schemes of how society should develop, rather than how it actually was developing, “then, naturally, practical work becomes possible only when philosophical geniuses discover and indicate these “different paths”; and conversely, once these paths are discovered and indicated theoretical work ends, and the work of those who are to direct the “fatherland” along the “newly-discovered” “different paths” begins. The position is altogether different when the task of the socialists is to be the ideological leaders of the proletariat in its actual struggle against actual and real enemies who stand in the actual path of social and economic development. Under these circumstances, theoretical and practical work merge into one aptly described by the veteran German Social-Democrat, Liebknecht, as: Studieren, Propagandieren, Organisieren (Study, propaganda, organisation) . (p 297-8)
Such an approach of analysing actual developments and material conditions, rather than working with preconceptions about those conditions and development, is the only way to guard against dogmatism and sectarianism, Lenin says.
“The political activity of the Social-Democrats lies in promoting the development and organisation of the working-class movement in Russia, in transforming this movement from its present state of sporadic attempts at protest, “riots” and strikes devoid of a guiding idea, into an organised struggle of the WHOLE Russian working CLASS directed against the bourgeois regime and working for the expropriation of the expropriators and the abolition of the social system based on the oppression of the working people. Underlying these activities is the common conviction of Marxists that the Russian worker is the sole and natural representative of Russia’s entire working and exploited population.” (p 298-9)
The proletariat was such a natural representative because everywhere the development was capitalist. In the factory, this was clear, and the exploitation of the worker was on a large-scale, socialised and concentrated. This made the class antagonism sharper and more visible, which is why class consciousness and socialist ideas develop more rapidly amongst this industrial proletariat. The development in the countryside was still capitalist, but was shrouded in the remnants of feudal production and social relations.
“That is why the factory worker is none other than the foremost representative of the entire exploited population. And in order that he may fulfil his function of representative in an organised, sustained struggle it is by no means necessary to enthuse him with “perspectives”; all that is needed is simply to make him understand his position, to make him understand the political and economic structure of the system that oppresses him, and the necessity and inevitability of class antagonisms under this system. This position of the factory worker in the general system of capitalist relations makes him the sole fighter for the emancipation of the working class, for only the higher stage of development of capitalism, large scale machine industry, creates the material condition and the social forces necessary for this struggle.” (p 299-300)
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