Marxist IQ: Lenin and Marxism-Leninism

A century ago, the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Soviet government's Red Army and the counterrevolutionary White Armies supported by Britain, France, and the U.S. ended. Ukraine had been a major battleground. Large numbers of civilians, including an estimated 100,000 people of the Jewish minority, had been killed, primarily through atrocities carried out by the counter-revolutionary "white armies." Areas of southern and western Ukraine were then annexed to the new anti-Soviet Polish government of Field Marshall Joseph Pilsudski. The rest of Ukraine became the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine, a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Today the world's attention is focused on a war in Ukraine where all sides - Russia, Ukraine, and its U.S. NATO backers - proclaim their anti-Communism and continue to attack the Soviet heritage and Vladimir Lenin especially. Let us dedicate this Marxist IQ to Lenin and Marxism-Leninism, which has been and remains the theoretical foundation on which the Communist parties and the larger Communist movement of the world stand.

1. In What Is to Be Done, V. I. Lenin developed the core concept of a vanguard party, which differed from existing Marxist parties in that it

a. called for the establishment of socialism.
b. believed that socialism could be established only in advanced capitalist countries.
c. sought to educate, organize, and coordinate the mass struggles of the working class to lead it to victory in the class war against the capitalist class.
d. sought to establish a broad mass party open to all classes opposed to the existing order.

2. In State and Revolution, Lenin developed a strategy for revolutionary socialism that differed from that of existing Marxist parties in that it

a. contended that socialism could be established by winning an electoral majority.
b. argued that the state had to be smashed completely and replaced with workers' cooperatives for socialism to develop.
c. contended that the capitalist state had to be removed and replaced with a socialist state for socialism to develop.
d. argued that the state was irrelevant and that workers had to organize strikes against capitalists for socialism to develop.

3. In April 1917, Lenin's call for the establishment of a Soviet Socialist government to replace the Provisional government became a major watershed in the history of socialism because it

a. broke with the policy of support for Russia's involvement in the war.
b. contended for the first time that the Soviets could become the instrument of a Socialist government rather than merely a democratic government to protect the revolution.
c. was founded on the principle "All power to the Soviets."
d. was founded on the principle "Bread, land, and peace."

4. After 1917, Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks began referring to their party as "Communist" to distinguish them from the Social Democratic parties. Which of the following differentiated the Social Democrats from the Communists?

a. The Social Democratic parties supported WWI.
b. The Social Democratic parties believed that socialism could be achieved by the accumulation of pro-labor reforms.
c. The Social Democratic parties believed that the socialist movement was limited to the working classes in Europe and North America.
d. All of the above

5. The three components of Leninism, which together have justified Communists' defining themselves as Marxist-Leninists, are which of the following?

a. The theories in What Is to Be Done (vanguard party), State and Revolution (establishment of a revolutionary socialist state), and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (imperialism as the degeneration of capitalism into great wars and revolutions)
b. The theories in What Is to Be Done, State and Revolution, and Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder.
c. The belief that the Soviet Union was a model for all socialist countries and its system had to be copied, its policies supported fully, and all criticisms of its policies banned by Communists
d. The belief that socialism and capitalism were merging, imperialism was disappearing, and socialism would be established by the middle class

6. In response to the present war raging in Ukraine, the CPUSA and most fraternal Communist parties have called for

a. all-out military and political support for Ukraine by NATO bloc countries.
b. revolutions in Ukraine and Russia that would lead to the restoration of the USSR.
c. an immediate cease fire, negotiations to address the issues that produced the conflict, and an end to long-term NATO expansion.
d. trade sanctions and boycotts of Russian exports, especially oil and natural gas.

Answers here.

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