The classics of Marxism on the nature of the labor movement in Russia

The article analyzes the assessment of the nature of the labor movement in the industrialized countries and in Russia in the 19th -early 20th centuries by the Marxist theorists. They marked out three stages of the workers' struggle: the struggle of pre-proletariat (apprentices and plebs) of medieval towns, the struggle of manufacturing workers and the social movement of factory workers. On the example of the workers' struggle in Europe and North America in the 19th century they concluded the inevitability of a social revolution in the capitalist society. However, the labor movement in the late 19th - early 20th centuries in Western Europe and the United States, after the turbulent period of class struggles, moved into a more effective legal economic and political struggle. It was observed and theoretically comprehended by the leaders of European social democracy who made conclusions about the prevalence of evolutionism in the labor movement, in contrast to the revolutionary spirit of the previous time. However, the Marxist theorists of Western Europe noted that the struggle of the Russian proletariat did not come out of the early revolutionary phase of the labor movement, in contrast to the struggle of the working class in more developed countries of Europe and North America. This was the reason for disagreement between V.I. Lenin and the reformist leaders of European social democracy in determining the political tasks of the proletariat. V.I. Lenin came from the practical problems of the Russian social-democrats in the analysis of the history of the labor movement in Russia, so he gave a description of the labor movement in Russia only in relation to the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries, without covering its previous stages. On the basis of the same practice of political struggle, V.I. Lenin placed the labor movement in the history of the people's liberation struggle against the tsarist regime as the highest stage of the struggle that his party, the RSDLP, headed. This fight was definitely revolutionary. Progress of the country, according to V.I. Lenin, could only be achieved through a socialist revolution, by overthrowing the existing government. While V.I. Lenin fought for political power, he put the class interests of the proletariat above the national interests of the country, identifying the latter with the interests of the ruling classes. During World War I, V.I. Lenin came across the misunderstanding of leaders of European social democracy who supported their governments in the war, putting national interests above class interests of the proletariat in their countries. Even in the first years after the victory of the October Revolution, Lenin did not lose hope for the world proletarian revolution. The author believes that the working class of modern Russia that lost its political leadership, social and ideological orientations in the crises of the last quarter of the century never said its last word in its history; for this reason, the Marxist analysis of the labor movement has not lost its relevance.

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