This is about the 1926 book introduction, reprinted as a pamphlet. For the Joseph Stalin Selected Works volume, see Joseph Stalin bibliography
On the Problems of Leninism (, ) was a short book by Joseph Stalin, dated January 1926 and part of the debate among the political leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to define and delineate so-called "Leninism" following the death of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in January 1924. Written after the removal of Leon Trotsky as head of the Red Army, the work is a polemic against Leningrad party boss and president of the Communist International Grigory Zinoviev.
The essay first appeared in 1926 as the introductory lead item in the first edition of Problems of Leninism (, ), an assortment of Stalin's selected works that would evolve as the standard international collection of his writings. It appeared under separate covers early in 1926 and remained constantly in print throughout Stalin's reign as one of the Soviet leader's important theoretical works.
In this work Stalin identifies the Communist Party as the "main guiding force within the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat" and reaffirms the "possibility" of achieving socialist construction in one country alone through the control of state power by the working class and its vanguard party.
Bibliographic history
On the Problems of Leninism (K voprosam leninizma) was an essay by Joseph Stalin signed January 25, 1926.Robert H. McNeal, Stalin's Works: An Annotated Bibliography. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 1967; p. 120. According to a notation in the first edition, it was originally written "to serve as a preface to the collection of I.V. Stalin’s articles, Problems of Leninism," being published by the State Publishing House of Political Literature (Gosizdat).I.V. Stalin, K voprosam leninizma. Leningrad and Moscow: Gosizdat, 1926; p. 2. The essay was also published simultaneously under separate covers by Gozizdat in an edition of 25,000 copies.
The 1926 edition of this Stalin selected works volume first appeared in English in the Great Britain and the United States in 1928 as Leninism, with the translation by British communists Cedar and Eden Paul.Joseph Stalin, Leninism. Eden and Cedar Paul, trans. London: George Allen & Unwin / New York: International Publishers, 1928; pp. 11–76. Identical plates were used with printing done in England, although binding and paper stock varied significantly. This was taken to a second impression in both countries in 1932 without change, with On the Problems of Leninism still appearing as the introductory item.Joseph Stalin, Leninism: Volume One. Eden and Cedar Paul, trans. London: George Allen & Unwin / New York: International Publishers, 1928; pp. 11–76.
After publication of a thick 9th Russian edition of Problems of Leninism, a new translation of On the Problems of Leninism appeared. This two-volume version of the Stalin selected works, still titled as Leninism and listing J. Fineberg as "Editor," contained a substantial amount of additional material, with On the Problems of Leninism appearing chronologically as the ninth item.Joseph Stalin, Leninism. In two volumes. J. Fineberg (ed.) Moscow: Cooperative Publishing House of Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1933. Also published by International Publishers, New York and Martin Lawrence, London.
In the United States, On the Problem of Leninism first appeared under separate covers in 1934 as volume 32 of International Publishers' "Marxist Library" series. Confusingly, this thin hardcover was given the same name as would be used for the Stalin selected works collection after 1940, Problems of Leninism.Joseph Stalin, Problems of Leninism. New York: International Publishers, 1934. The book was issued as an inexpensive paperback with the same translation in 1935.
After 1939 another version of On the Problems of Leninism came into the fold, one making the editorial decision to tendentiously remove the word "Comrade" when used in connection with Grigory Zinoviev and others deemed by the secret police to have been so-called "enemies of the people." Other than these silent ahistorical deletions, these later publications, including the version in the 13 volumes Stalin Works, follow the translation introduced by Fineberg in 1933.
Historical context
Lenin suffered a set of incapacitating strokes in 1923, which led to his death in 1924. This ushered in an acute period of political infighting among the top leadership of the All-Russian Communist Party. Chief candidates as Lenin's successor included Leon Trotsky, head of the Red Army, Grigory Zinoviev, head of the Leningrad party organization and the Communist International, and Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party.Historian Oleg Khlevniuk refers to these top figures as "the three Bolshevik oligarchs" and indicates that they briefly participated in a period of co-equal collective leadership. See: Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator. Nora Seligman Favorov, trans. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015; p. 81. All three of these rushed to demonstrate their ideological proficiency as Marxists to establish bona fides for top leadership.
Of the three main rivals, Stalin's output of analytical articles and pamphlets was the least prolific, and he moved to overcome the deficit early in 1924 with a speech in April to Sverdlov University, the Communist Party's main training school for functionaries.Robert H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler. New York: New York University Press, 1988; p. 90. This speech, entitled "The Foundations of Leninism," was serialized in Pravda in April and May and released as a book under separate covers immediatedly after. This would become one of Stalin's most important works, reprinted and reissued in multiple languages throughout his life, with more than 17 million copies ultimately produced.
After this initial attempt to demonstrate his expertise in "Leninism," Stalin next took aim at Leon Trotsky with a pair of Pravda articles, "Trotskyism or Leninism?" and "The October Revolution and the Tasks of the Russian Communists," both of which enumerated the outsider Trotsky's long history of tactical disagreements with Lenin and the Bolsheviks and attempted to paint and —ism on his rival — so-called "Trotskyism".McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, p. 93. In this effort Stalin made common cause with Leningrad party boss Zinoviev and head of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) Lev Kamenev, a dark-horse contender for power, publishing an anti-Trotsky anthology with them so as to concentrate their fire on their joint rival. In January 1925, Trotsky was forced out as People's Commissar of Defense and removed himself to the south for reasons of health, thereby changing the dynamics of the leadership struggle.McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, p. 96.
Zinoviev attempted to consolidate his position in the fall of 1925, drawing up a "platform of the four" with Kamenev, People's Commissar of Finance Grigory Sokolnikov, and Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya.E.H. Carr, A History of Soviet Russia 6: Socialism in One Country, 1924–1926: Volume 2. London: Macmillan, 1959; p. 108. He followed this up with a manifesto of the leadership group entitled The Philosophy of an Epoch a few days later and a more substantial book, Leninism, shortly thereafter. Although the polemical targets of Leninism were primarily Stalin and his chief factional ally of the period, Pravda editor Nikolai Bukharin, neither were explicitly named in Zinoviev's attack. Nevertheless, the gloves were off between the two factional leaders, with Stalin and Bukharin offering a more market-friendly, pro-peasant spin on the New Economic Policy than Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Sokolnikov.Carr, Socialism in One Country: Vol. 2, p. 109.
"On the Problems of Leninism" marked the next phase in Stalin's attempt to use Marxist doctrine to demonstrate intellectual superiority as a qualifying factor for party leadership, a polemical shot directed primarily at Zinoviev, now his chief rival. Stalin scholar Robert McNeal regards the long essay as "heavy artillery" wielded by Stalin against his foe, appearing not only as the introduction of his one volume selected works, Problems of Leninism, but as a pamphlet and a magazine article, with a section gaining even broader circulation in the pages of the party's official newspaper, Pravda.McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, p. 97.
In a 1988 book, McNeal observed:
"Sensing that he was in a strong position, he did not alter the main line of his argument, aprart from changing the name of the enemy from Trotsky to Zinoviev, with a few mentions of Kamenev as well.... As usual the debate was couched not in terms of Stalin versus his opponent but of that oppositionist against 'Leninism' and 'the party,' which Stalin claimed (with some exaggeration) had endorsed 'socialism in one country'... All of this was backed by an increased volume of direct quotations from Lenin, counterbalancing Zinoviev's efforts to establish mastery in that scholastic occupation."
Working in tandem with Bukharin, Stalin steadily edged into a position of control of the party apparatus, with Zinoviev and Kamenev ultimately joining with Trotsky in the fall of 1926 as a "United Opposition."
Synopsis
On the Problems of Leninism is divided into seven brief sections, each titled and numbered with Roman numerals.
Section I is entitled "Definition of Leninism," in which Stalin reviews and affirms his definition put forward in the 1924 pamphlet, The Foundations of Leninism.Joseph Stalin, Problems of Leninism: Dedicated to the Leningrad Organisation of the CPSU, in Leninism: Volume I. J. Fineberg (ed.) Moscow: Cooperative Publishing House of Foreign Workers in the USSR, 1933; p. 261. Stalin declares "Leninism" to be "Marxism of the era of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution.... [T]he theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular."
This is pointedly contrasted to Grigory Zinoviev's definition of "Leninism" as "Marxism in the epoch of imperialist war and of the world revolution which began directly in a country where the peasanty predominates." Stalin accused his rival of thereby reducing Leninism to a Russian concoction rather than a universalistic international doctrine, playing into the hands of democratic socialist leaders such as Karl Kautsky and Otto Bauer, who likewise believed Bolshevik tactics to be uniquely Russian.Stalin, Problems of Leninism, in Leninism: Vol. I, p. 262.
In Section II, "The Core of Leninism," Stalin returned again to his Foundations of Leninism to reemphasize that "the fundamental thing in Leninism" was "the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, of the conditions under which it can be won, of the conditions in which it can be consodilated." The matter of the peasant nature of Russia is a matter of secondary importance, Stalin indicates.Stalin, Problems of Leninism, in Leninism: Vol. I, p. 263.
This is again contrasted to the position of Zinoviev, Stalin's main rival for power, whom Stalin quotes as saying "the role of the peasantry is the fundamental question of Bolshevism, of Leninism."
Section III, headed "The Question of 'Permanent' Revolution" is addressed, without mentioning his name, to the ideas of another of Stalin's rivals for power, Leon Trotsky, and his co-thinkers. While allowing that Lenin believed in the uninterrupted transition from bourgeois to socialist revolution, the "Russian 'permanentists'" underestimated both the revolutionary capacity of the peasantry and the strength and ability of Russian industrial workers.Stalin, Problems of Leninism, in Leninism: Vol. I, p. 265.