Revolution #147, November 16, 2008


Right On Point: Lenin on Revisionism

“To determine its conduct from case to case, to adapt itself to the events of the day and to the chopping and changing of petty politics, to forget the primary interests of the proletariat and the basic features of the whole capitalist system, of all capitalist evolution, to sacrifice these primary interests for the real or assumed advantages of the moment—such is the policy of revisionism. And it patently follows from the very nature of this policy that it may assume an infinite variety of forms, and that every more or less “new” question, every more or less unexpected and unforeseen turn of events, even though it changes the basic line of development only to an insignificant degree and only for the briefest period, will always inevitably give rise to one variety of revisionism or another.”

(Lenin, “Marxism and Revisionism,” Collected Works, Vol. 15. pp. 37-38, cited in Bob Avakian, Mao Tsetung’s Immortal Contributions, Chapter 4, “Philosophy,” pp. 144-45.)

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