Plan for Lectures on Marxism (original) (raw)

V. I. Lenin

Plan for Lectures on Marxism{1}

Written: Written in 1908 or 1909
Published: First published in 1933 in Lenin Miscellany XXV. Printed from the original.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers,1977, Moscow,Volume 41, pages 221-222.1.
Translated: Yuri Sdobnikov
Transcription\Markup: R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) © 2004 Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

M a r x i s m T h e A g r a r i a n Q u e s t i o n
(α) Theory of surplus value (Mehrwert). (α) Commodity production in agriculture.
(β) Economic development. (β) Small-scale vs. large-scale production.
(γ) Class struggle. (γ) Wage labour.
(δ) Philosophical materialism. (δ) Rent.
α 1. Earlier socialists: “unjust”, etc. A symptom of emotion instead of understanding.
2. “Labour principle” (in Russia).
3. Commodity production.
4. Capitalism. Theory of Mehrwert.
(β) 1. Economic development. Industry (1907).
2. Russian handicraftsmen.
3. Agriculture.
4. Railways and trusts,
5. Finance capital.
6. Socialisation of production. Socialised l a b o r_is_r and individual a p p r o p r i a t i o n.
(γ) 1. The proletariat and its cohesion(serf peasant—pauper—proletarian).
2. Separate strikes. “Wrecking” of machines.
3. Trade unions and the movement.
4. Political struggle: | Britain—LiberalsFrance—Radicals (Republicans)Germany—Liberals (1860s) and opportunists.
5. Revolutionary aims of the working class: expropriation of the capitalists.
6. Revolutionary struggle and struggle for reforms.
(δ) Philosophical materialism.
1. Marx’a theory=integrated world outlook.
2. Two main world outlooks and philosophical starting-points: religious obscurantism and materialism.
3. Engels (Ludwig Feuerbach).
4. 1789 France—Hegel and Fenerbach in Germany (before 1848).
5. Dialectical materialism.
6. Russia: Chernyshevsky Narodniks present-day opportunists (Bogdanov).

Notes

{1} The plan was written in 1938 or 1909, but the Institute of Marxism-Leninism has no direct information on these lectures. Those who were there recall that Lenin read some lectures on philosophy in the Bolshevik circle in Paris in early 1909. Mention of industry in 1907 is an indication that the plan was written later than 1907, since the statistical data for that year could not have been available before the beginning of the following one.

The reference to “present-day opportunists (Bogdanov)” in point 6 of the section “Philosophical Materialism” implies that the plan was written not earlier than the second half of March 1908, just when (not later than April 3 [16]) Lenin had sent to the press his article “Marxism and Revisionism”, in which he made is first press attack on Bogdanov for his opportunist, revisionist views in philosophy. Almost all the points of the section “Philosophical Materialism” are reflected in his book “_Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_”; some points of the section “The Agrarian Question” are dealt with in his works on the agrarian question written in 1908. p. 221