Tyler Rosen
Contributing Editor 

Nolan Prejean
Contributing Editor 

Since the dawn of the New Left, the notion that Marxism-Leninism and Enlightenment liberalism are completely antagonistic ideologies has become prominent among certain sections of the Petit-Bourgeois Left. Marxist-Leninist theory, however, as developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, proves the contrary.

Historical materialism demonstrates that Marxism-Leninism is not the complete negation of liberalism, and is the logical next step of ideas set forth during the Enlightenment Period.

The ultra-left, owing to its petty-bourgeois nature, cannot help themselves but to distort this historical development. Most on the ultra-left side see no difference between liberals and conservatives, even between liberalism and fascism. Certain elements of the ultra-left go to the extreme in claiming that Marxism-Leninism has more in common with conservatism.

Ultra-Left Attacks on Liberalism in Service of the Bourgeoisie

Ultra-leftists claim that, “if you scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds.” While the inability of the liberal center to effectively defeat fascism is well known to Marxist-Leninists; this line of thinking only helps feed into the sectarianism that prevents the defeat of fascism. Originating in the New Left, this phrase is nothing more than a modern adaptation to the underdeveloped concept of “social fascism” from the Third Period of 1928 to 1935. It is no surprise that with this idea, the ultra-left openly rejects the more successful Popular Front policy, which replaced “social fascism” as the official policy and analysis of the Comintern at the Seventh Congress in August 1935.

Continuation from Enlightenment Period

As the development of the capitalist mode of production reached its climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the character of the bourgeoisie became reactionary. Large sections of the bourgeoisie began to abandon their progressive ideals. Ideas like advocacy of universal suffrage, the elimination of want, and the freedom of speech and association were discarded in their maximization of profit. 

As the capitalists, especially the monopolists, dropped “the torch of liberty”, the ascending working class picked it up. The revolutionary working class, with their vanguard communist parties, carry on the task of preserving and expanding Enlightenment theories. Communists have removed the idealist and static aspects of liberal ideology. By removing these archaic aspects, Communists were able to correctly identify the dominant progressive and reactionary forces at a given point in history and accordingly develop correct strategies and tactics to carry on the struggle for liberation. It is therefore important to review the principles of Historical Materialism in order to set the basis for the connection between the Enlightenment liberal tradition and the Marxist-Leninist outlook.

Brief Review of Principles of Historical Materialism

Historical materialism as a science demonstrates that the historical development of humanity occurs in successive stages according to the contradictions of social forces of that epoch. Comrade Stalin explained that: 

“Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and its history.” 

Dialectical and Historical Materialism is the philosophical and scientific method at the heart of Marxist-Leninist ideology that bases itself on four main axioms:

1) Reality is fundamentally material and objective and that consciousness and ideas are the reflection of the material world.

2) The development of matter, both nature and society, develop according to the laws of dialectics. These laws state that this development takes on a gradual, quantitative pace until it reaches a critical point whereby the matter takes on a qualitative transformation via revolution with conscious leadership before taking on further quantitative evolution. 

3) That this development occurs primarily by contradiction between opposing forces within the matter or society.

4) That in society, the primary contradiction that drives its history is the contradiction within its means of production; between the forces of production (i.e. the instruments of production, laborers, raw materials, etc) and the relations of production (i.e. the relations between those who work the forces of production and those who expropriate the products of the labor).

When taken as a whole, the theory of Historical Materialism asserts that society is always in a state of development that is governed by the contradiction between the forces of production and the incompatible relations of production. Furthermore, the development of the forces and the social relations of production are independent of the will of humanity. At a critical point of development where the forces of production develop beyond its corresponding relations, an acute conflict begins. Guided by a class-conscious leadership, society erupts into social revolution where the fetters of the outdated relations of production are either thrown off or reaction succeeds in eroding the means of production. 

Comrade Karl Marx also made a distinction between the objective (i.e. material conditions) and subjective processes (i.e. the consciousness of the laboring class). He explains that as the material conditions of society (social relations and forces of production) develop, the consciousness of the members of society correspondingly develop. At the same time, the conscious reflection of the inhabitants also influences further development of the social being of the masses. Marx stated, 

In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society—the real foundation, on which rise legal and political superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. 

He continues:

With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations the distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must rather be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social forces of production and the relations of production. 

In essence, class conscious elements of the subject class develop ideological and political frameworks that correspond to the development of the modes of production. These ideologies guide the subjected masses in the struggle to dislodge the ruling class from the means of production and their moribund ideological, philosophical, political, etc, superstructure.

What was Enlightenment fighting for?

In Europe and America, where the semi-feudal and colonial superstructure was being outmoded by the capitalist mode of production, the rising bourgeois class developed its liberal ideology in what was called the Enlightenment Period. With feudal relations and colonial subjugation obstructing the development and spreading of capitalism, historical necessity “demanded” ideology that rejected the supposed divine right to rule by kings, that allowed the bourgeois press to criticize the monarchy, and that removed barriers to manufacturing and trade such as Intolerable Acts in the American Colonies.

Beginning in the late Middle Ages, and culminating in the age of bourgeois democratic revolutions; trade guilds (particularly merchant), secret societies, and fraternal orders developed as institutions of the emerging bourgeois superstructure. Similar groups formed in the American colonies with groups like the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Each of these organizations played different but inter-connected roles in the struggle to overthrow monarchy, remove colonial monopolies from trade and production, and guarantee individual liberties.

Trade guilds formed among the petty bourgeoisie and handicraftsmen who struggled to secure contracts under feudal society. The guilds developed as a way for the collective of guild members to secure contracts and in order to develop political control over the cities. Later on, these guilds developed into monopolies like the East India Company. These monopolies created a hostile environment for the emerging industrial bourgeoisie. These monopolies gave preferential treatment to handicrafts which opposed the mass production of the manufactories. Out of the struggle between these sections of the young bourgeoisie, manufacturing capital developed an ideology that favored free trade and equality amongst the bourgeoisie economically and politically.

The emerging bourgeoisie lacked the recognition and privileges that had been afforded to the nobility and the guilds they supported. The rising bourgeoisie brought in the workers, farmers, and others who had been oppressed by the ruling nobility and their allies in both the clergy and the guilds. They threw off the fetters that the ruling class put on the means of production and the superstructure of society. From there, bourgeois governments began to emerge. Conflict rose again as the now emergent bourgeois were beset with splits and conflicts within their ranks and against the working masses. As capitalism built up, the bourgeois became the new oppressors of society and the workers. The advanced workers, building on the prior philosophy and ideas in the Enlightenment, began to develop the ideas of socialism as a solution to the evils of capitalism. Early iterations were idealist, while Karl Marx and Frederick Engels turned it truly scientific and rational. 

(Need to expand on the prior section some and how it leads to the ideology developing).

(Need better transition to the next section). (One is how the bourgeoisie dropped Jeffersonianism and picked up Hamiltonianism).

Bring in the passage of the Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson wrote that was struck out due to being for the banning of slavery and the full citizenship of the African-American people.

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson included the following passage:

He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

This passage was struck from the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson claimed, on objections from the planter-landowners in South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants and bankers who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. At the time, it was struck to preserve the alliance of the bourgeoisie with the workers and others in order to declare independence.

Hamilton represented the desire for a new aristocratic oligarchy to rule and suppress the masses as the fascists and Trump are doing today. The Chambers of Commerce, which sprung up thought ideas of Alexander Hamiliton related to free enterprise and represented the large merchants and gentry, operated as early monopolies in the towns and cities and tended to be more loyalist. They wanted small reform and ability to trade with whomever, but feared revolution as they feared it would go to the masses. They were reluctant supporters of the American Revolution, and many were open collaborators and colluders with the British Empire around the War of 1812. 

The working class picked up the ideals of Jefferson. The farmers, the artisans, the small traders, the “yeomen”, tended to support the Revolution. They picked up the ideals of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Communists Carry On Revolutionary Tradition, Reject the “Back to 1776” Slogan

Former General Secretary Earl Browder correctly outlined that the task of American Marxists is not to idealize the bygone era of 1776 or to recreate the social conditions that existed. His lesson is to learn from our predecessors and apply Marxist-Leninist theory creatively to the existing conditions today. Comrade Browder states:

“We Communists claim the revolutionary traditions of Americanism. We are the only ones who continue those traditions and apply them to the problems of today. We are the Americans and Communism is the Americanism of the twentieth century. That does not mean, of course, that we Communists raise the slogan of “Back to 1776.” Such reactionary stupidity was committed by the LaFollette “third-party” movement in 1924, typical as that movement was of a class-grouping that had lost any historical progressive meaning. That was no more in the spirit of our revolutionary forefathers, than it would have been for the Declaration of Independence to proclaim “Back to the Republic of Rome.” To each day its own tasks; that of 1776 was to free the rising capitalism from the fetters of a dying feudal system, enabling it to expand the productive forces of mankind to a new high level; that of today is to free these tremendous productive forces created by capitalism but now being choked and destroyed because they have grown too big to live longer under capitalist property relations.”

Comrade Browder continues:

“Americanism, in this revolutionary sense, means to stand in the forefront of human progress. It means never to submit to the forces of decay and death. It means constantly to free ourselves of the old, the outworn, the decaying, and to press forward to the young, the vital, the living, the expanding. It means to fight like hell against those who would plow under the crops in our fields, who would close down and scrap our factories, who would keep millions of willing toilers, anxious to create the good things of life, living like beggars upon charity.”

Comrade Browder is clearly stating here that the progressive nature of the American Enlightenment liberals in their fight against the British monarchy is carried on by the working class in its fight against the current economic royalists, the monopoly capitalists.