Today, the 140th years of Lenin’s birthday are celebrated. For a Party alike the PCP, this is always an important date to be highlighted. And it could only be so.
For the central role it played in Marxism’s enrichment and brilliant defence; for its engagement in the dialectic between revolutionary theory and practice; for its leading and guiding role during the first victorious revolution in History and as founder of the first workers’ and peasants’ State; for the historical legacy it offered within the definition, organization and strengthening of the proletariat independent Party – a Party of new type – and in the Communist International’s establishment and leadership along with its extension of the communist and revolutionary movement at a world level, and for all this, Lenin was , is and will be present in History, in action, in participation, in the struggle, in the running of the characters and principles of the Portuguese Communist Party.
But if what has been written might justify this celebration’s importance, the times one is living, confer an even more special meaning. The capitalism crisis’ deepening places passionate challenges to the current revolutionaries. Such as Lenin, in his time, one is called to pursue several battles, carry out numerous tasks and, simultaneously and in course, withdraw lessons from passed experiences – as Lenin withdrew from the Paris Commune or the 1905 Russian Revolution –in order to go forward. With Lenin, one must carry out the specific situation’s concrete and rigorous analysis, in order to correctly identify the conditions, purposes, stages, methods, alliances and tactics which, within the framework of resistance to the growing imperialism offensive, allowing to draw the most backward and vulnerable strata before the culture of fear and resignation which imperialism inculcates, and organize them round their class interests , therefore proceeding with the History march of workers’ and peoples’ emancipation and " wash out the old".
This is the worthwhile moment to revisit Lenin. Not to find mechanical answers or models – Lenin was a fierce dogmatism and scholastic opponent – but to understand that many of the major issues Lenin was focused on are, although within different conditions, well alive currently. And therefore, one has Imperialism as capitalism’s superior stage, emphasizing its fundamental contradiction and unpredictable development (1). And there one can see the States functioning as administrators of the dominant class interests, exploiting and oppressing the peoples (2). There are, in a moment of potential changes – of more or less insight, more or less expected – the trends for the appearance of " this or that kind of revisionism" (3). There are the " United States of Europe" assuming, under capitalism, its reactionary character (4). And there one has in live, more than ever, the need of observing theory as an " authenticable guide for action", which only is so " when one constantly enriches through the new struggle experiences, so that it does not become a dogma"(5).
In a few days time, the April Revolution will be celebrated. A celebration which is accounted to be of struggle against the tight attack to the values, the April achievements and the Republic Constitution. But while celebrating April, one encounters Lenin. One faces the richness he always recognized in History and reality. One faces the advances and backwards of that same History and the peculiarities within the struggle development. One faces the central role of masses and the need, through them, to learn, learn, always learn. In the end one finds the love for the people, the revolutionary passion, the so-called burning hearts which make our struggle, the struggle towards Socialism, a beautiful feast.
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(1) "Imperialism, capitalism’s highest stage"- V.I.Lenin (1916)
(2) "The State and the Revolution" –V.I.Lenin (1918)
(3) "Marxism and Revisionism" – V.I.Lenin
(4) "Under the United States of Europe’s Word of Order"- V.I.Lenin (1915)
(5) "What can be done". V.I.Lenin (1902)
