Analysis of some misconceptions about the scientific nature of Marxism-Leninism

The Communist Party of Vietnam takes Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought as its ideological foundation and guideline for action. Illustrative photo. Source: tinhuykhanhhoa.vn

That is a completely correct point of view. However, there are still wrong opinions that refute this point of view, which, if examined carefully, are due to a lack of understanding of the methods of Marxism-Leninism.

In the "Opening speech of the first theoretical class of the Nguyen Ai Quoc High-Level Party School (now the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) on September 7, 1957, President Ho Chi Minh advised: We must study the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, learn the stance, viewpoints and methods of Marxism-Leninism to apply to summarizing the experiences of our Party, correctly analyzing the characteristics of our country. Only then can we gradually know the development law of the Vietnamese revolution, and determine the specific guidelines, principles and steps of the socialist revolution suitable to the situation of our country.

Don't have to learn by heart every sentence, every word.

When applying, supplement and enrich the theory with new conclusions drawn from our revolutionary practice.[1]

Due to not fully understanding the above advice, there have been some erroneous opinions as follows:

1- Marxism is a product of Western Europe. Marx and Engels lived in Germany, France, and England; they inherited and criticized Western streams of thought (German classical philosophy, English classical bourgeois political economy, French socialism) to build their doctrine. They did not understand the East, Africa, and Latin America, so their doctrine was only suitable for the West, not suitable for other places, including Vietnam, because Vietnam has different economic, political, cultural, social, ideological conditions... from Western Europe.

Marx and Engels made the mistake of taking the part (Western Europe) as the center to examine the whole (the whole world).

It was not that Marx and Engels used a part (Western Europe) to examine the whole (the whole world), but according to the principle of "unity between theory and practice" and "studying a developed body is easier than studying the cells of that body"; so when studying the capitalist mode of production, they chose England as a typical country for the development of this mode of production and had reached a higher level than other countries at that time, to mainly illustrate the presentation of their theory. However, even in England at that time, there was not pure capitalism but there were still remnants of previous modes of production, such as the natural economy of self-sufficiency, small-scale commodity production... Therefore, to find the laws of motion of modern society, that is, capitalist society, Marx applied the method of scientific abstraction, eliminated the above remnants, and put forward the following assumptions:One is,Social production is completely dominated by the capitalist mode of production, all wealth is expressed in the form of commodities, including labor power.Second,When studying industry and services, we only consider the relationship between two subjects, the wage worker and the capitalist; when studying agriculture and capitalist land rent, we only consider the relationship between the three classes that make up the backbone of modern society: the wage worker, the capitalist investing in agriculture, and the landowner. But we do not consider each individual person, but consider them to the extent that they are the embodiment of economic categories, and representatives of certain class relations and interests.

Therefore, when applying theory to practice, each principle of Marxism-Leninism must be placed in a specific historical context. If the context is consistent with the assumptions stated above, it will be applied directly, regardless of whether it is in the West or the East, regardless of whether it is in Africa or Latin America. If the historical context has specific features, those specific features must be taken into account. For example, in an economy that is transitioning from feudalism to capitalism or from small-scale agriculture to socialism, bypassing the capitalist regime, the theory of the capitalist mode of production can only be applied to policy planning for the development of a part (or component) of the private capitalist economy and the state capitalist economy, and cannot be applied to small-scale commodity production or the natural economy.

2- Marx and Engels only studied early capitalism in the context of the first industrial revolution, not yet revealing all its characteristics and development trends, so there are still many comments and predictions that are not suitable for modern capitalism in the context of the fourth industrial revolution.

Of course, Marx and Engels had to rely on the practice of the first industrial revolution to study capitalism, but they also discovered many inevitable development trends of large-scale industry.

In the "Afterword to the second edition of Volume I of Capital", Marx quoted the commentary on the method of the work "Capital" published in the journal "European Messenger" in Petersburg, which Marx considered correct: "For Marx, only this was important: to find the law of the phenomena he studied. Moreover, what was important to him was not only the law governing these phenomena while they were in a certain form and in the mutual relations that he observed at a certain moment. For him, what was more important was the law of change of phenomena, the law of their development, that is, the transformation from one form to another, from one order of mutual relations to another...".

"To do so, it is sufficient that, in proving the necessity of the present order, he also proves the necessity of another order to which the present order must necessarily pass, whether people think about it or not, whether people are conscious of it or not. He regards social movement as a natural historical process."[2]

When analyzing the role of means of labor in the production process, Marx emphasized: "Economic epochs differ not in what they produce, but in how they produce, with what means of labor"[3]. Means of labor are not only a measure of the development of human labor, but also an indicator of the social relations in which labor is carried out. The technical basis of modern industry is revolutionary in nature, thanks to the use of machinery, chemical processes and other methods, modern industry constantly overturns the material bases of production and with them the functions of workers and the social combinations of the labor process.

We cannot expect Marx and Engels to indicate specifically what technology and means of labor will be used in the next stages after the first industrial revolution, but according to the method given above, they predicted very correctly many trends in the development of large-scale industry. For example: As large-scale industry develops, machines will gradually replace simple labor, and the production process will change from being a simple labor process to a scientific process. Direct labor will be reduced quantitatively to a smaller part, and qualitatively transformed into a certain factor, which, although necessary, is secondary to general scientific labor, to the application of natural science to technology. Thus, the creation of real wealth becomes less dependent on labor time and the amount of labor expended, and more dependent on the general level of science and on the progress of technology, or on the application of science to production. The nature of labor also changes, labor is not primarily labor entered into the production process but primarily a type of labor in which man, on the contrary, controls and regulates the production process itself; instead of being the main agent of the production process, the worker stands beside that process.

Knowledge, science and technology become direct productive forces. Invention becomes a special profession, and for this profession the application of science to direct production itself becomes one of the decisive and stimulating factors. Large-scale industry requires polytechnic education and well-rounded people.[4]

Scientific predictions must be tested in practice and should not be taken for granted as principles, although most of the predictions of Marx, Engels and Lenin were correct. They themselves often revised their views as the situation changed. For example, in the "Preface to the German version of the Communist Manifesto published in 1872, Marx and Engels wrote: "In general terms, the general principles set forth in this Manifesto remain absolutely correct. Here and there are a few details that need to be revised. The Manifesto itself clearly explains that the application of these principles must always and everywhere depend on the historical circumstances of the time, and therefore one should not be too attached to the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Chapter II. If this passage were rewritten today, it would have to be written differently in many respects, because large-scale industry has made enormous strides in the past twenty-five years, and the working class has also made parallel progress in organizing itself into political parties"...[5] In short, it is still possible to apply Marx and Engels' research methods on the capitalist mode of production to examine the movement of modern capitalist society.

3- The 19th century had not yet seen the construction of a new society, and there was no practice to form a complete theory of socialism. At most, Marx and Engels made scientific predictions based on the negation of the defects of early capitalism. So, why can we affirm that: Moving towards socialism is an objective necessity?

It is not that Marx and Engels only relied on the basis of negating the defects of early capitalism, but mainly on the achievements of the development of productive forces and the increasingly high socialization of production, which increasingly contradicted the capitalist private ownership relationship, leading to the conclusion that: Capitalist production gives birth to its own negation with the inevitability of a natural process.[6]

The capitalist mode of production promotes the technical revolution, thanks to the use of machinery to increase the productive forces of labor, increase labor productivity and increasingly socialize production, causing private ownership relations to become shackles that hinder the development of productive forces and these shackles will be broken, just as the bourgeoisie broke feudal ownership relations.

Engels commented: "As sharply as Marx emphasized the negative aspects of capitalist production, he also demonstrated clearly that this form of society is necessary to develop the productive forces of society to such a high level that all members of society can develop equally and in a way worthy of man. All previous forms of society were too poor to do this. Only capitalist production creates the wealth and productive forces necessary for this, but at the same time, with its large number of oppressed workers, it also creates a social class that is increasingly faced with the need to seize these wealth and productive forces into its own hands and use them for the benefit of society as a whole, and not for a single monopoly class as is the case today"[7].

Lenin emphasized: "Our doctrine is not a dogma but a guide to action."

"We do not expect that Marx or Marxists understand every concrete aspect of the path to socialism. That would be absurd. We only know the direction of that path and what class forces lead to it; as for what that path is in concrete terms and in practice, the experience of millions of people will show it when they set out to act."[8]

A newly born society inevitably goes through a period of groping, exploration and experimentation, a period in which mistakes are inevitably made and corrected. Lenin asked: "But if one considers the essence of the matter, has there ever been in history a new mode of production that stood firm immediately, without going through many failures, many mistakes and relapses?"[9]

We cannot ask Marx, Engels and Lenin to build for us a complete theory of socialist revolution, but we must remember the advice of President Ho Chi Minh quoted above. We ourselves must learn the stance, viewpoints and methods of Marxism-Leninism to apply to summarizing the experiences of our Party, correctly analyzing the characteristics of our country, to gradually know the laws of development of the Vietnamese revolution, and to determine the specific guidelines, principles and steps of the socialist revolution suitable to the situation of our country.

4- Marxism has many valuable discoveries. If we consider Marxism as a hypothesis for discussion and reference, from which we can draw useful lessons to apply to Vietnam's reality, it is very good. But if we consider Marxism as the pinnacle of science, something that everyone must follow, it is easy to make a mistake.

In the past, in our country, there were "Confucianists" who worshiped Confucianism to the point of placing it on the altar to recite. Today, there are "Marxists" who use Marxist principles as the standard to judge everything as right or wrong, thus easily leading the revolution astray.

The first mistake in the above perception is not understanding the strict systematic nature of Marxist theory. To draw useful things from Marxism to apply to Vietnamese practice, it is necessary to study the principles of Marxism in general, and not to separate each thesis from the theoretical system. For example, Marx applied the method of presentation from abstract to concrete to explain the category of value of goods. Initially, when assuming to consider only the direct production process, Marx stated that "only the amount of necessary social labor or the necessary social labor time to produce a use value determines the magnitude of the value of that use value".[10]

But when placed in the conditions of reproduction, Marx came to a new conclusion: "The value of every commodity... is determined not by the necessary labor time contained in the commodity itself, but by the socially necessary labor time required to reproduce it. This reproduction can be carried out under conditions that are either more favorable or more difficult, unlike the original conditions of production"[11].

When considering competition and the relationship between supply and demand, Marx discovered that competition within each industry will form market value; competition between industries will lead to the equalization of profit rates and the formation of production prices. That is the axis around which market prices revolve. If one does not study fully and systematically, one will have a one-sided understanding of each of the above arguments and will not be able to apply it appropriately in practice.

The second mistake of this perception is not to see that those who firmly grasp Marxism-Leninism do not consider Marxism-Leninism to be the pinnacle of science but agree with Lenin's statement: "We do not consider Marx's theory as something finished and inviolable; on the contrary, we believe that this theory only lays the foundation for the science that socialists need to develop further in every aspect, if they do not want to become backward in life" [12].

Furthermore, Marxism considers practice as the criterion of truth, so even Marx, Engels and Lenin often compared theory with practice to check the principles to see if they were right or wrong, rather than taking principles as the criterion to judge everything.

The document of the 6th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam also drew a lesson: "The criteria for evaluating the correct application of laws through the Party and State's policies and guidelines are production development, smooth circulation, the material and cultural life of the people is gradually stabilized and improved, the new socialist man is increasingly clearly formed, society is increasingly healthy, and the socialist regime is consolidated. Any policies and guidelines that have an adverse impact are manifestations of incorrect application of objective laws and must be revised or abolished"[13].

Thus, we must master the research methods and methods of presenting research results of Marx and Engels to be able to correctly perceive the scientific nature of Marxism./.

[1] Ho Chi Minh Complete Works, volume 8, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi - 2000, pp. 494, 497.

[2] C.Marx and F.Engels, complete works, volume 23, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1993, p.33.

[3] C.Marx and F.Engels, complete works, volume 23, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1993, p.269.

[4] C.Marx and F.Engels, complete works, volume 46 part II, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 2000, from pp. 348-384, note pp. 260, 367, 368-369, 370, 372, 382.

[5] C.Marx and F.Engels, complete works, volume 18, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1995, p.128.

[6] C.Marx and F.Engels, complete works, volume 23, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1993, p.1059.

[7] C.Marx and F.Engels Complete Works, volume 16, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1994, pp. 325-326.

[8] VILenin, complete works, volume 34, Progress Publishing House, Moscow, 1976, pp. 152-153.

[9] VILenin, complete works, volume 39, Progress Publishing House, Moscow, 1977, p. 22.

[10] C.Marx and F.Engels, Complete Works, volume 23, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1993, p.68.

[11] C.Marx and F.Engels, Complete Works, Volume 25 Part I, National Political Publishing House - Truth, Hanoi - 1994, p.213.

[12] VILenin, Complete Works, volume 4, Progress Publishing House, Moscow-1974, p. 232.

[13] Communist Party of Vietnam, Complete Party Documents, volume 47, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi - 2006, pp. 363-364.

Prof. Dr. Do The Tung