Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism

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The Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism is considered to be one of the fundamental works on dialectical materialism and Leninist communism. The book remains important in understanding the philosophy and politics of the Soviet Union, by consolidating the work of important contributions to Marxist theory.

Publication

The First Edition of The Fundamentals, was published in 1961. A Second Edition was published in 1963. The text Draws heavily on the works of Marx and Lenin, with additional references to Engels, Stalin and Khrushchev.

Part One: The Philosophical Foundations of The Marxist-Leninist World Outlook

Part One of Fundamentals covers materialist and idealist philosophy, the use of dialectics within materialist philosophy and its opposition to metaphysics, and develops a theory of knowledge, truth, necessity and human freedom.

The text argues that only a consistently materialist approach to philosophy can be truly scientific, since it requires the recognition of the objective existence of matter, as outside and independent of the human mind.

Part Two: The Materialist Conception of History

Part Two covers Marxist theories of history, or historical materialism, by outlining the role of the mode of production, class, class struggles, the state and the individual in social development.

Part Three: Political Economy of Capitalism

Part Three summarizes Marx's Das Kapital and Lenin's theory of Imperialism.

Part Four: Theory and Tactics of the International Communist Movement

Part Four covers the Marxist–Leninist strategy of the international communist and working-class movement.

Part Five: Socialism and Communism

Part Five summarizes the main features of the socialist mode of production.

See also

• Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Further reading

• Alexander Spirkin. Fundamentals of Philosophy. Translated from the Russian by Sergei Syrovatkin. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990.

  Spirkin's textbook offers a systematic exposition of the foundations of dialectical and historical materialism. The book was awarded a prize at a competition of textbooks for students of higher educational establishments.