Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

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Notice! Because of its growing size, this file has been split into these separate files: LA.htm — Words and phrases starting with the letters La-Ld. LE.htm — Words and phrases starting with the letters Le-Lh. LI.htm — Words and phrases starting with the letters Li-Ln. LO.htm — Words and phrases starting with the letters Lo-Lt. LU.htm — Words and phrases starting with the letters Lu-Lz. Although this older “L.htm” file still exists (in case there are still links to its contents), all new entries and revisions to old entries are being made to the above files.

See also: ALIENATED LABOR

“... the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation which exploits the entire world this is, of course, justified to some extent.” —Engels, Letter to Marx, Oct. 7, 1858, MECW 40:343, online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/letters/58_10_07.htm.

“This aristocracy of labor, which at that time earned tolerably good wages, boxed itself up in narrow self-interest craft unions, and isolated itself from the mass of the proletariat, while in politics it supported the liberal bourgeoisie.” —Lenin, “Harry Quelch”, Sept. 12, 1913, LCW 19:370, online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/sep/12.htm. [Lenin is speaking of Britain, specifically.]

“But it would be dogmatic and wrong to believe that the labor aristocracy always sides with the bourgeoisie. Historical events have demonstrated that it is not only economic conditions which determine the political behavior of workers. Workers are able to suffer adverse conditions for a very long time, in fact they even get used to them. Dissatisfaction is caused primarily by a worsening of conditions, especially by a rapid worsening. The same also applies to the labor aristocracy. It holds the side of the bourgeoisie so long as its economic privileges are stable, but, if its position sharply deteriorates, it may become an active participant in the revolutionary struggle. This happened in Hungary in 1918-19 before the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat when a sharp inflation plunged down the living standard of the workers. Skilled workers who were receiving the highest rates reacted far more vehemently to the worsening of their position than did badly paid workers. They joined the Communist Party and often played a leading role in the fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Similar developments were observed in the workers’ revolutionary movement in Germany.” —Eugen Varga, Politico-Economic Problems of Capitalism (1968), p. 127.
         [While what Varga says here may be true in exceptional circumstances, there is also the possibility in modern society that an outraged labor aristocracy, which suddenly comes under economic attack because of a severe capitalist crisis, may also turn in its ideological confusion to support a fascist movement (along with a major section of the petty-bourgeoisie). Moreover, even the possibility of a section of the labor aristocracy under attack joining the revolutionary movement depends on there being a serious and active revolutionary movement in the first place, which can only be built up from nothing by focusing primarily on the lower strata of the working class. —S.H.]

LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE
[According to the U.S. government:] The percentage of the total non-insitutionalized working-age population of a country or region that is in the officially defined labor force (see above); that is, the percentage which is either working or else is unemployed but actively looking for work (as admitted by the government).
        The chart at the right shows that a rapidly declining part of the population is even being counted as being in the labor force at all, which explains how the government is able to falsely claim that the unemployment rate is gently falling even as an ever smaller portion of the population has jobs (let alone full-time good jobs). Since that chart was published the labor force participation rate has continued to fall. As of April 2014 it has dropped to 62.8%, the lowest since March 1978.
        See also: EMPLOYMENT/POPULATION RATIO

LABOR POWER
“By labor-power or capacity for labor is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description.” —Marx, Capital, vol. I, ch. 6: (International, p. 167; Penguin, p. 270.) “A commodity which its possessor, the wage-worker, sells to capital.” —Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, (MECW 9:202, as edited in Engels’s 1891 edition.)
        Labor power is therefore the worker’s ability to work, which is what is sold to the capitalist for the wages received. Labor power is not the same as labor itself, however! As everyone is aware, once the capitalists sell the products that the workers produce, and even after paying the workers their wages (which means the market value of their labor power), they still have a large surplus left over from which they take their profits. The fact that the actual labor of the workers generates this additional surplus value beyond the workers’ wages (i.e., beyond the value of their labor power) means that the real implicit value of their actual labor must greatly exceed the value of what they sell to the capitalists, their labor power. And therefore labor power and labor must be carefully distinguished if we are to understand the source of the capitalists’ profits.
        The distinction between labor power and labor is often confusing for those new to Marxist political economy. In addition to Chapter 6 of Volume I of Marx’s Capital, another good place to go to clear up this confusion is to carefully read Engels’s 1891 edition of Marx’s pamphlet, “Wage Labor and Capital” and especially Engels’s introduction where he goes into the difference between labor power and labor quite thoroughly. This edition is available in an inexpensive paperback from International Publishers, and available online at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/index.htm. Engels’s introduction is also available separately in MECW 27:194-201.

LABOR THEORY OF VALUE (LTV)
The fundamental theory in political economy, put forth by Marx, that the economic value of any commodity in a capitalist system of production is proportional to the average socially necessary labor time that it takes to produce that commodity. Thus if the average labor time necessary to produce a certain type of overcoat is 25 times as great as the average labor time it takes to produce a loaf of bread, the coat will have a value 25 times as great as that of the loaf. Marx, however, understands full well that the actual prices of that type of coat and that sort of loaf of bread might vary somewhat from this ratio for a variety of reasons. But the analytical foundation, and most basic explanation for the difference in the prices of the two commodities will still lie in the different quantities of labor time necessary to make each.
        Classical political economy also agreed with this theory (in Ricardo, for example), at least in rough outlines. But modern bourgeois economists reject it because they are loath to admit that the working class, working on the products of nature, produces all value. They try instead to explain value in terms of marginal supply and demand, and so forth. But this leaves the usual fairly uniform differences in value between the coat and the loaf of bread as quite mysterious. Alternately, they attempt to explain the differences in value in terms of differing prices of production, but this begs the question since they cannot supply any independent explanation for why prices of production themselves differ!
        All Marxists, or at least all those who we care to consider as genuine Marxists in the sphere of political economy, agree with the basic labor theory of value as briefly outline above. However, there are some secondary aspects of the precise theory of value as put forward by Marx, about which even Marxists can disagree. Marx, for example, said that only human labor, and only human labor employed in the current production process, can create new (surplus) value. Thus Marx does not seem to allow for the production of surplus value by non-humans under any circumstances whatsoever. (See: ANDROID THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ) Moreover, Marx claimed that if a worker makes a machine and then uses that machine to produce some commodity, only the labor time spent using the machine contributes to the surplus value generated in the final commodity. An alternate view (which I for one hold) is that the machine also allows the worker using it to continually reuse the labor which went into making the machine, and therefore that both the new labor and the re-used older labor will contribute to surplus value being generated in the final commodity. For more on this, see the entry below. —S.H.

LABOR THEORY OF VALUE — Revised Form
This is a modified version of the labor theory of value (LTV) from that put forward by Marx. It agrees with the fundamental proposition that the value of a commodity produced in a capitalist system of production is solely due to the average socially necessary labor time required to produce that commodity. But it disagrees with Marx in that it views machinery as a way of reusing the time spent in past labor (making the machine), and hence as also contributing to surplus value along with the current labor time expended. Here is the argument for making this modification:

“1) There is nothing mysterious nor magical about human labor that can make it alone capable of generating surplus value in a system of capitalist production. (Marx never adequately explained just why only human beings supposedly have this capability, and thus left it all very mysterious. He did say that human labor differs from animal efforts in that it is conscious and purposeful, but he did not explain why that makes any difference in this regard.) There must be a good answer to the question, ‘Why is human labor able to produce surplus value?’ It is incumbent on Marxist political economy to state precisely what the answer to this question is.
         “2) Furthermore, it is not human creativity or intelligence that explains why human labor can generate surplus value. (Some labor that generates surplus value requires very little intelligence and shows virtually no creativity, such as certain types of extremely repetitive assembly line work. And, on the other hand, some machinery already demonstrates considerable intelligence and sometimes even some creativity—though artificial creativity is much rarer so far, and is mostly confined to software, such as certain expert systems.)
         “3) Moreover, there is no single specific human capability which, when exercised, alone is able to generate surplus value. (On the contrary, there is an indefinitely large number of actual things human workers can do which can generate surplus value, and new ones are constantly being developed as production processes change.)
         “4) Moreover, even now a great many of these specific things which humans can do, and which generate surplus value, can also be done by machines. (And in historical terms, machines are being rapidly improved in the abilities to replace human beings in more and more types of work.)
         “5) All the sorts of things that human beings can do which create surplus value come in degrees, from very crude and primitive efforts to the highly skilled and sophisticated. This is why we first see machines replacing the cruder forms of human labor, and then—as the machines are improved—ever more sophisticated forms of human labor of the same type.
         “6) The thing that really explains why human beings are able to generate surplus value is simply that human beings can be ‘used over and over’ in the capitalist production process. (I.e., they are not used up in the production of any commodity, as raw materials are.)
         “7) But if the last principle is true, then anything else that is used in the production process, without being used up in each output commodity (i.e., tools and machinery), should also contribute to surplus value.
         “8) However, machines and tools themselves were created by past human labor, and in fact all commodities that presently exist are in the final analysis the result of the application of direct or indirect human labor in various forms to the natural products of the world around us.
         “9) It is in general impossible to quantitatively compare goods (or commodities) by comparing their use values, since use values are so diverse, tend to be unrelated to each other, and depend on the diverse and ever changing needs and subjective desires of different individuals. (Whether a loaf of bread or a warm coat is of greater use value to a person depends on the situation.)
         “10) But there is an underlying basis, and only one such feasible basis, for quantifying the differences in exchange values for different commodities: the socially necessary labor times incorporated into them. (So far this means just human labor, though if androids are ever constructed, or if sentient aliens were to show up on earth and also become workers, it would then include their labor.) Moreover, the labor considered here must include not only the direct labor, but also the properly apportioned indirect, or past labor contributed both in the form of raw materials and tools & machinery. (The actual exchange values we see, however, may be adjusted from this total socially necessary labor time for various reasons, but the underlying labor time still forms the primary basis for these exchange values.)
         “11) Thus the labor theory of value (LTV) remains essential in political economy. (Systems, like Sraffa’s, that derive output prices directly from input quantities and prices (including labor-power prices) may be technically possible, but are irrelevant here. Political economy needs to explain a lot more than one price in terms of others. For example it needs to explain how exploitation occurs and the deep reasons for capitalist economic crises. (Furthermore, all prices themselves implicitly relate to socially necessary labor times; the fact that a car costs $20,000 is meaningless except within the framework where workers are paid definite amounts for an hour of their labor time.) Sraffaian economics obscures such things. We need to stay true to a profoundly political economics, a political economy that clearly exposes the genuine human relationships at the bottom of things.)
         “12) But Marx’s specific version of the LTV needs to be modified in one major way: It is not only current labor which produces surplus value in a system of capitalist production, but also the continuing use of past labor (embodied in tools and machines). Modifying the LTV in this way allows us to resolve otherwise insurmountable logical and conceptual problems in traditional Marxist political economy. This revised LTV is far more coherent and defensible, but retains the essential aspects of the traditional Marxist explanations for exploitation, the source of capitalist profits, the underlying source of capitalist overproduction crises as arising from the exploitation of labor in the capitalist production process itself, and so forth.” —Scott Harrison, adapted from “Letter to Frank S. about the labor theory of value” (Dec. 8, 2003), online at: http://www.massline.org/PolitEcon/ScottH/Let_LTV.htm

LABOR UNIONS
[To be added...]
        See also below, and: TRADE UNIONISM

LABOR’S SHARE OF PRODUCTION (In the U.S.)
Since labor, applied to the resources of nature, is responsible for the production of all wealth, by rights “labor’s share” of what is produced should be 100%. But not only does the very tiny capitalist class take a very large percentage of what is produced in the U.S. every year, over time they have been taking an ever-greater percentage of it. Considering all the goods and services produced in the country (i.e., Gross Domestic Product), in 1974 the millions of employees of all kinds added together received just 59% of the total. By 2009, that had fallen to just 55%. In other words, the working class, which makes up over 90% of the population, barely receives half of what it produces. And actually the situation is much worse even than that, since these figures are grossly exaggerated. For example, many capitalists, including even the CEO’s of giant corporations, are themselves counted as “employees”! It is likely that the real situation is that the working class, even in this extremely wealthy country, receives considerably less than half of what it produces each year. Moreover, these figures are for gross income. After the government extracts all its many taxes (much of which goes for imperialist wars and other things which benefit the rich rather than the poor), the fraction of the wealth produced by the workers that they actually are allowed to keep is even further reduced! And low as this percentage now is, over time it is getting ever smaller. [The statistics here come from the “Economics Scene” column, by David R. Francis, The Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 21, 2010, p. 23.]
        The chart at the above right (from the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve) shows an index value comparing the share of national income received by labor from year to year (with 2005 being arbitrarily set to 100). As is evident, labor’s share of income is sinking like a rock, and is now at historic lows.

LABRIOLA, Antonio   (1843-1904)
The primary founding thinker in academic Marxism in Italy. In his youth he was a liberal, then a radical. However, he did not become a Marxist until the mid to late 1880s, long after he had already become a professor of moral philosophy (ethics) at the University of Rome in 1874. He was likely the first “professorial Marxist” anywhere.
        Labriola came to Marxism through Hegel, and it is probably fair to say that he never completely abandoned Hegel’s metaphysical conceptions. Labriola’s best-known work is Essays on the Materialist Conception of History (1895-6), which with another work is online at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/labriola/index.htm

LAISSEZ-FAIRE   [Pronounced: lassay fair]
[From the French, meaning “to let people do as they please”.] The bourgeois doctrine which opposes any governmental interference in the economy beyond that necessary to maintain peace and sacred capitalist property rights. This was well-nigh universally accepted by bourgeois economists in the 19^th century, especially after John Stuart Mill popularized it in his Principles of Political Economy in 1848. However, during the imperialist era, and especially during the Great Depression of the 1930s, much of the bourgeoisie and many of its apologists came to appreciate that much government intervention in the economy on behalf of the capitalists was highly desirable, and even necessary for the continuation of capitalism. In particular Keynesian economists argued that the capitalist economy had to be carefully “managed”, and even the more traditional economists of the “neo-classical synthesis” school all recognized that the government at least needed to manage interest rates, the money supply, and so forth. After the stablization of capitalism for a long period after World War II, laissez-faire (in a somewhat less pure form) came back into fashion again, often under the new name (for much the same old ideas), neo-liberalism. It is really only with the financial crash of 2008 and the deepening crisis leading toward the development of a new depression that bourgeois economists are once again starting to question their doctrine of near total faith in the virtues of laissez-faire and the “free market”.

LANDLORD
1. The owner of property (housing, farmland, etc.) which other people rent or are hired to work on.
2. [In China before collectivization in the 1950s:] A rural tyrant who owned substantial amounts of land (for the times) who himself did not labor, but whose income instead depended entirely on hiring or otherwise exploiting peasants through rent and usury.
3. Rural exploiters similar to these Chinese landlords in other times and places.
        See also: CHINA—Class Analysis Before 1949

LAO ZI [also Romanized as Lao Tzu and Lao-Tse]   (6^th century BCE)
Chinese philosopher and sage, the original source of Taoism. Lao Zi (which literally means “the old master”) inspired the semi-religious Taoist book Tao-te-Ching (“The Way of Power”) which was compiled some 300 years after his death, and which teaches self-sufficiency, simplicity and detachment. From the Marxist standpoint, Lao Zi is of interest mostly because of the primitive, but intriguing, dialectics that he put forward, and also his faith in the people. For example, consider this fine statement attributed to him, which sounds very much like the Maoist mass line:

“Go to the people.
         Live with them.
         Learn from them...
         Start with what they know;
         Build with what they have.
         But with the best leaders,
         When the work is done,
         The task accomplished,
         The people will say,
         We have done this ourselves!”

LAW OF VALUE
“We see then that that which determines the magnitude of the value of any article is the amount of labor socially necessary, or the labor-time socially necessary for its production.” —Marx, Capital, vol. I, sect. 1: (International, 1967, p. 39; Penguin, p. 129).
        See also: LABOR THEORY OF VALUE

LAWS — Scientific
See: SCIENTIFIC LAWS

LAZARUS, Sylvain   (1943-  )
A radical bourgeois French sociologist, anthropologist and political theorist, and longtime political and philosophical associate of the “post-Maoist” Continental philosopher Alain Badiou. In his youth he was strongly influenced by the May 1968 uprisings in France and by the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. In late 1969 he (along with Badiou and others) founded the Union des communists de France marxiste-léniniste (UCFML) which was a nominally “Maoist” organization. (I.e., the intellectuals in this small sectarian group were enthusiastic about Mao and the GPCR, insofar as they actually knew much about them.)
        In 1981, using the nom de plume Paul Sandevince, Lazarus published a piece entitled “Notes de travail sur le post-léninisme” [“Working Notes on Post-Leninism”] in which he openly talked about his deep dissatisfaction with many essential principles of Marxism-Leninism, and called for a new type of “post-Leninist” political party. In 1985, after the collapse of the UCFML, Lazarus, Badiou and some of the others formed a new group they called L’Organisation Politique, which did not consider itself to be a revolutionary political party nor to be working toward the creation of one. Its only mass practice was around a few reformist issues (especially promoting the rights of immigrants in France). The OP itself fizzled out, and apparently completely disappeared by 2007 at the latest.
        By the year 2001 Lazarus and Badiou were openly rejecting the need for any proletarian class perspective whatsoever in politics, as well as the need for any revolutionary party of any sort. (See the BADIOU entry for quotes about this.) No doubt Lazarus and his friends once had some youthful revolutionary spirit, but that has long since disappeared. Indeed, it seems quite unlikely that they were ever really genuine Maoist revolutionaries in the first place.

LE CAPITALISME SAUVAGE
See: CAPITALISME SAUVAGE

“The League of Russian Revolutionary Social-Democracy Abroad was founded in October 1901 on Lenin’s initiative, incorporating the Iskra-Zarya organization abroad and the Sotsial-Demokrat organization (which included the Emancipation of Labor group). The objects of the League were to propagate the dieas of revolutionary Social-Democracy and help to build a militant Social-Democratic organization. Actually, the League was the foreign representative of the Iskra organization. It recruited supporters for Iskra among Social-Democrats living abroad, gave the paper material support, organized its delivery to Russia, and punblished popular Marxist literature. The Second Party Congress endorsed the League as the sole Party organization abroad, with the status of a Party committee and the obligation of working under the Central Committee’s direction and control.
         “After the Second Party Congress, the Mensheviks entrenched themselves in the League and used it in their fight against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. At the Second Congress of the League, in October 1903, they adopted new League Rules that ran counter to the Party Rules adopted at the Party Congress. From that time on the League was a bulwark of Menshevism. It continued in existence until 1905.” —Note 15, LCW 7.

“The League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was organized by Lenin in the autumn of 1895; it embraced about twenty Marxist workers’ study circles in St. Petersburg. The work of the League of Struggle was organized in its entirety on principles of centralism and strict discipline. The League was headed by a Central Group consisting of V. I. Lenin, A. A. Vaneyev, P. K. Zaporozhets, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, N. K. Krupskaya, L. Martov (Y. O. Tsederbaum), M. A. Zilvin, V. V. Starkov and others. Direct leadership was in the hands of a group of five headed by Lenin. The organization was divided into district groups. Advanced, class-conscious workers (I. V. Babushkin, V. A. Shelgunov and others) linked these groups with the factories. At the factories there were organizers who gathered information and distributed literature; workers’ study circles were set up at the biggest establishments.
         “The League of Struggle was the first organization in Russia to combine socialism with the working-class movement. The League guided the working-class movement, linking up the economic struggle of the workers with the struggle against tsarism, it published leaflets and pamphlets for the workers. Lenin was the editor of the League’s publications and preparations for the issue of a working-class newspaper, Rabocheye Dyelo, were made under his leadership. The influence of the League of Struggle spread far beyond St. Petersburg. Following its example, workers’ study circles were united into Leagues of Struggle in Moscow, Kiev, Ekaterinoslav and other towns and regions of Russia.
         “In December 1895, the tsarist government dealt the League a heavy blow. During the night of December 8-9 (December 20-21 New Style) a considerable number of League members were arrested, Lenin among them; the first issue of Rabocheye Dyelo that was ready for the press was seized.
         “At the first meeting held after the arrests it was decided to call the organization of St. Petersburg Social-Democrats the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. As an answer to the arrest of Lenin and the other members of the League, those who escaped arrest issued a leaflet on a political theme; it was written by workers.
         “While Lenin was in prison he continued to guide the work of the League, to help with advice; he sent letters and leaflets written in cipher out of prison and wrote the pamphlet ‘Strikes’ (this manuscript has not been discovered), and ‘Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social-Democratic Party’ (LCW 2:93-121).
         “The St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was important, to use Lenin’s definition, because it was the germ of a revolutionary party that took its support from the working class and led the class struggle of the proletariat. In the latter half of 1898 the League fell into the hands of the Economists who planted the ideas of trade-unionism and Bernsteinism on Russian soil through their newspaper Rabochaya Mysl. In 1898, however, the old members of the League who had escaped arrest took part in preparing the way for the First Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. and in drawing up the Manifesto of that Congress, thus continuing the traditions of Lenin’s League of Struggle.” —Note 119, Lenin SW1 (1967).

LEFT vs. “LEFT”
Since the days of the great French Revolution the left has referred to those in politics who want progressive change in the interests of the people, rather than maintaining the status quo or even change backward in a reactionary direction. However, within the revolutionary Marxist milieu, the left refers to genuine revolutionaries and not mere reformers. For Marxists, the “left” or “leftist”, when it is in scare-quotes like that, refers not to the genuine left, but rather to the phony, so-called “left” which is actually opposed to revolution, or else to “ultra-leftists” whose inappropriate slogans and actions will not actually lead the situation forward to revolution.
        Thus what a particular individual means by the left or leftist depends on their own political views (and specifically whether they are a true and rational revolutionary or not).

“Guard against ‘Left’ and Right deviations. Some people say, ‘It is better to be on the “Left” than on the Right,’ a remark repeated by many comrades. In fact, there are many who say to themselves that ‘It is better to be on the Right than on the “Left”’, but they don’t say it aloud. Only those who are honest say so openly. So there are these two opinions. What is ‘Left’? To move far ahead of the times, to outpace current developments, to be rash in action and in matters of principle and policy and to hit out indiscriminately in struggles and controversies—these are ‘Left’ deviations and are no good. To fall behind the times, to fail to keep pace with current developments and to be lacking in militancy—these are Right deviations and are no good either. In our Party there are people who prefer to be on the ‘Left’, and then there are also quite a few who prefer to be on the Right or to take a position right of center. Neither is good. We must wage a struggle on both fronts, combating both ‘Left’ and Right deviations.” —Mao, “Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China: Concluding Speech” (March 31, 1955), SW 5:167.

“LEFT” ECONOMISM
See: ECONOMISM

“LEFT-WING” COMMUNISM
This term designates different groups of erring Communists (or communist-minded people), often semi-anarchists, at different times and places.
        1) The group within the Bolsheviks in 1918 who opposed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed in December 1917 which ended World War I between Germany and Russia. This included Nikolai Bukharin, Karl Radek and G. L. Pyatakov. Leon Trotsky also opposed this Treaty, and is sometimes included within this group of “left-wing” communists, and is sometimes mentioned separately from them. This whole group correctly recognized that the Treaty was a bitter pill, but failed to understand that the survival of the Revolution depended on accepting it. The Seventh Congress of the Party in March 1918 rejected the position of this group.
        2) The trend within the fledgling international Communist movement after the success of the Bolshevik Revolution and the end of World War I, especially in Germany and other European countries. This is the trend Lenin strongly criticized in his pamphlet, “Left-Wing” Communism—An Infantile Disorder (see entry below).
        3) Similar semi-anarchist, ultra-“leftist”, or propaganda-oriented trends and groups which are totally divorced from mass struggle, at other times and places.

“LEFT-WING” COMMUNISM—AN INFANTILE DISORDER
A very important pamphlet written by Lenin in April-May 1920, and directed against some of the young, inexperienced and semi-anarchist communists in Europe and around the world who were attracted to communism because of the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, but who failed to appreciate the need to combine revolutionary ideas with the working-class movement. It was immediately translated into German, English and French. This work was prepared just before the Second Congress of the Communist International, and each delegate to that Congress was given a copy of it.
        This pamphlet is included in volume 31 of Lenin’s Collected Works [4th English language edition], and is available online at several places, including: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/

“LEGAL MARXISM”   [Russia]
The “Legal Marxists” were not just people who published semi-Marxist writings in the legal newspapers and magazines in Tsarist Russia, but rather those (such as Pyotr Struve, Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev) who opposed revolutionary Marxism in their writings in legal publications. They were rightly despised by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

LEIBNIZ, Gottfried Wilhelm   (1646-1716)
[To be added...]
        See also: MONADS, and Philosophical doggerel about Leibniz.

LENIN — On Mass Democracy and the Mass Line
A fact not commonly recognized, even by many Maoists today, is that Lenin had a great appreciation for the wisdom and abilities of the masses, for the importance of mass democracy, for the central role of the masses in making revolution, and even a grasp (perhaps mostly intuitively) of what became known in Maoist China as “the mass line” method of revolutionary leadership.
       [More to be added.]

“[O]n the one hand the character of the Soviets guarantees that all these new reforms will be introduced only when an overwhelming majority of the people has clearly and firmly realized the practical need for them; on the other hand their character guarantees that the reforms will not be sponsored by the police and officials, but will be carried out by way of voluntary participation of the organized and armed masses of the proletariat and peasantry in the management of their own affairs.” —Lenin, “Resolution on the Current Situation”, May 16 (3), 1917, LCW 24:311.
        [These are quite similar to the basic points that Mao made when he said that: “There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them.” —Mao, Quotations, ch. XI; originally from “The United Front in Cultural Work” (Oct. 30, 1944), SW 3:236-7.]

LENINISM
The further development and extension or modification of Marxism which is attributed (either correctly or incorrectly) to V. I. Lenin. The term ‘Marxism-Leninism’ refers to the science of revolutionary Marxism which includes the contributions of Lenin (as well as those of Marx, Engels and others), while the term ‘Leninism’ itself tends to focus more on those elements of Marxism-Leninism which are attributable (properly or not) to Lenin specifically and not primarily to Marx and Engels. Thus those who imagine that Marx was a bourgeois humanist and Lenin was not, will see a larger part of Marxism-Leninism (as it is usually understood) as being due to Lenin, than those who see more agreement between the ideas of Marx and Lenin in the first place. Therefore, what is counted as distinctively ‘Leninist’ depends on the speaker’s notion of what Marxism itself was properly viewed as before Lenin, as well as their notion of how Lenin influenced and/or developed Marxism.
        Leninism as it should be properly understood by revolutionary Marxists includes at least these main overall points:
        1) The application of Marxism to the particular cirmstances and conditions of Russia;
        2) The regeneration of Marxism as a revolutionary theory after its degeneration into bourgeois reformism in the Second International after the death of Marx and Engels;
        3) The further development of Marxism in the changed conditions of the new capitalist-imperialist era, and with the successful October Revolution in Russia. And within this 3^rd point, the following main sub-points:
        a) The recognition that capitalist-imperialism was a whole new stage of capitalism, that it necessarily involved both predatory wars and inter-imperialist wars, and that it represented a further diseased and moribund social system which had become ripe for revolution, including wars of national liberation in imperialist colonies.
        b) A greater emphasis on the role of the revolutionary proletarian party, along with a somewhat different conception of the character of such a party (as a party of professional revolutionaries organized on the basis of democratic centralism);
        c) The actual direction of a proletarian revolution and the implementation of the first major dictatorship of the proletariat, and in the course of that developing many of the essential principles of proletarian rule.
        See also entries below.

“To expound Leninism means to expound the distinctive and new in the works of Lenin that Lenin contributed to the general treasury of Marxism and that is naturally connected with his name.” —Stalin, “The Foundations of Leninism”, lectures delivered at the Sverdlov University, April-May 1924, Works 6:71.

“It is usual to point to the exceptionally militant and exceptionally revolutionary character of Leninism. This is quite correct. But this specific feature of Leninism is due to two causes: firstly, to the fact that Leninism emerged from the proletarian revolution, the imprint of which it cannot but bear; secondly, to the fact that it grew and became strong in clashes with the opportunism of the Second International, the fight against which was and remains an essential preliminary condition for a successful fight against capitalism. It must not be forgotten that between Marx and Engels, on the one hand, and Lenin, on the other, there lies a whole period of undivided domination of the opportunism of the Second International, and the ruthless struggle against this opportunism could not but constitute one of the most important tasks of Leninism.” —Stalin, ibid., Works 6:73-74.

LENINISM — Bourgeois Conception Of
Bourgeois writers often recognize, to some limited degree, some of the elements of Leninism as we revolutionary Marxists understand it. (See entry above.) In particular they often recognize the greatly increased attention Leninism gives to colonial or semi-colonial countries, to the potential role for earlier revolutions that Leninists see there, to the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, and so forth. They sometimes even tie this loosely together with some partial recognition of imperialism (though never as something inherent in modern capitalism!). But the one thing that bourgeois writers most focus on in their discussion of what they call “Leninism”, to the point where everything else is almost totally obscured, is the nature and role of the Leninist party.
        This conception of Leninism starts with some actual elements of Lenin’s ideas about a revolutionary party, though it tends to grossly distort or exaggerate them as follows:
        1) The working class and masses are presumed to be seldom, if ever, spontaneously revolutionary;
        2) The working class is presumed to be only capable of reformist or trade union consciousness on its own;
        3) A revolutionary party is viewed as absolutely essential in all circumstances to bring revolutionary ideas to the workers and masses from the outside, and to lead them in a revolutionary direction;
        4) This party must be composed of carefully and thoroughly trained, full-time professional revolutionaries;
        5) The party must be tightly organized and highly disciplined according to the principles of democratic centralism—which the bourgeois ideologists assume must really be highly authoritarian and totally undemocratic;
        6) This party must be viewed as the vanguard of the proletariat, even when it is first formed by a small number of people, because only through its leadership can the masses make revolution;
        7) This party, will institute what it calls the “dictatorship of the proletariat” when it achieves power, but this will actually be a dictatorship of the party (and ultimately of the top party leadership) over the masses, and must inevitably operate in a “totalitarian”, fascist manner.
        8) And finally, under this bourgeois conception of Leninism, when the party actually is in power in one or more countries, it will be bent on total world conquest.
        Well! That is the bourgeois conception of Leninism! This is obviously a total parody of Lenin’s ideas and of genuine Leninism. Points 1 and 2 are already quite exaggerated; Lenin never claimed that there were no spontaneous revolutionary ideas among the masses! He was well aware of the great Paris Commune, for example, which was created by a spontaneous uprising. Lenin only argued that the dominant forms of spontaneity in bourgeois society are indeed reformist in perspective, and that therefore the most class conscious section of the masses, which constitutes itself into a proletarian party, must of course provide leadership for the whole revolutionary movement.
        Point 3 is distorted in at least two major ways: First, there are times (such as during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China) when the party has lost its way and must itself be corrected and reconstituted by the revolutionary masses. Second, most of the revolutionary ideas which the party brings to the masses do not really come from “the outside”, but instead from among the masses themselves through the use of Marxist summation and the method of the mass line.
        Point 4 is basically true of genuine Leninism; we do seek to build a party whose core, at least, is composed of carefully trained professional revolutionaries. We also insist, however, that this party have very close ties to the masses, that in socialist society (at least) party members also spend substantial time participating in labor, and that the masses keep a close eye upon the party and supervise it, so that it always remains working in their interests! It is also true, as point 5 in the bourgeois conception of Leninism has it, that a Leninist party should be highly organized and highly disciplined. However, a true Leninist party actually takes the democracy aspect of democratic centralism seriously and even insists that democracy must be the principal aspect.
        With regard to point 6: There has indeed been a very wrong tendency in many new or small MLM parties, which are not yet even in much contact with the masses in their country, to falsely view themselves as a “vanguard”. A true vanguard is a party that is actually out front and really leading the masses in struggle, and in the direction of social revolution. This is very different than any self-proclaimed miniscule phony “vanguard”.
        In point 7 the bourgeois ideologues of course conclude that any dictatorship over their class and their supposed inalienable rights, must in fact be a vicious, totalitarian dictatorship over the people as a whole. But what genuine Leninism (and Marxism!) means by the dictatorship of the proletariat is a society in which the working class and broad masses have full and complete democratic rights, far more so than they have under bourgeois democracy for example. No party which exercises dictatorship over the people is a Leninist party, no matter what it calls itself. Yes, revisionism in power does this (as in Soviet Union from at least the mid-1950s on), but we actual Leninists are deadly opponents of these revisionists.
        And finally, with respect to point 8, we Leninists are indeed determined to bring about social revolution everywhere in the world, and create world communism. Of course this is something very different than “world conquest” in the sense the bourgeoisie understands it! Anyway, this is actually nothing new in Leninism; Marx and Engels proclaimed this goal in the Communist Manifesto long before Lenin was even born.
        So the bourgeois conception of “Leninism” is a complete distortion of the real thing. It is an almost complete lie and slander of Lenin, which starts from small distortions and builds toward total nonsense. It is true that Leninism does give more emphasis to the leading role of the party than does Marx or Engels, and does have a somewhat different conception of what such a party must be like. But, first, this is a natural development and extension of the ideas of Marx and Engels, and second, this is only one aspect of Leninism as it should be properly understood.

LEVERAGE   [Capitalist Financial Speculation]
Arranging things so that a given amount of investment will return as much as a considerably larger investment would normally require. This usually involves using borrowed money to amplify a personal investment. If a speculator is investing $10,000 of his own money and $90,000 of borrowed money then his return will be ten times what it would otherwise be (less the cost of borrowing the $90,000). Of course any losses would also be amplified by a factor of ten!
        Thus leverage is usually viewed as a measure of how much debt is used to purchase assets. For instance, a leverage ratio of 7:1 means that for every $7 of assets purchased, $6 came from borrowed money and just $1 came from the investor/speculator’s own money.
        See also: DELEVERAGING

LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude   (1908-2009)
A prominent bourgeois anthropologist and sociologist, often considered in academic circles to be the “father” of modern anthropology. He was influenced by linguistics, geology, Freudian psychoanalysis and possibly to some limited extent by Marxism (as he himself claimed). He introduced the concepts of “structuralism” from linguistics and geology into anthropology and sociology, where it became an intellectual fad for a short period.
        One aspect of “structuralism” in anthropology, as Lévi-Strauss understood it, was that all societies follow certain universal patterns of thought and behavior. This is the sort of principle that obviously has some validity to it, but which can easily be pushed to unreasonable extremes. A progressive aspect of this way of looking at human culture is that it opposed the traditional attitudes towards native peoples as being biologically “primitive” and having “savage” or “primitive” mental capabilities. A less positive aspect of this way of looking at culture is that it tended to lead to the “postmodern” idea that all worldviews are “equally valid”, and that more modern forms of society are not really more advanced than those of primitive societies. While it is true that the people in hunter-gatherer society, for example, are not biologically primitive, their societies definitely are primitive, and their traditional conceptions of the world are also definitely primitive as compared with a modern scientific outlook.
        Lévi-Strauss not only had a great influence within anthropology and sociology, he also influenced the intellectual and academic communities in general, especially in literary theory and Continental philosophy. Unfortunately, this influence proved to be mostly negative.

LEXICAL SEMANTICS
The branch of linguistics concerned with determining the meaning of words, and with developing the appropriate scientific techniques for doing this.
        See also: MEANING OF A WORD

LI
Traditional Chinese measure of distance, equal to about one-half of a kilometer, or about one-third of a mile. Thus the “25,000 li Long March” was about 8,000 miles long!

LI Da   (1890-1966)
One of the earliest and most important Marxist philosophers and disseminators of Marxist theory more generally in China. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of China and played an important role in the Marxist education of Party members, including Mao Zedong. From their already existing Japanese translations, Li Da retranslated many Russian and German works on philosophy and Marxist theory into Chinese. Li’s own most important work was his Elements of Sociology (1st ed., 1935), which is said to have had a great influence on Mao. In the young Soviet Union there were some major struggles in philosophy, and by the 1930s a standard “New Philosophy” became dominant there. Li Da helped popularize that standardized version of Marxist philosophy and theory in China.
        During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Li Da was heavily criticized for having failed to proclaim the absolute and total originality of Mao’s contributions to Marxist philosophy and theory. However, Mao—like everyone else—had to learn a lot of his theoretical views from his predecessors. Mao did make great contributions to Marxism, but he was able to do so in part because of the earlier great ideas he learned from Marx, Engels, Lenin and others.
        An important book about Li Da is: Li Da and Marxist Philosophy in China (1996), by Nick Knight.

In March 1966, Li Da responded to Lin Biao’s theory that Mao Zedong Thought was the pinnacle of Marxist-Leninist theory in characteristically forthright manner. On being informed—possibly rather nervously—by one of his research assistants that this theory originated from Vice Chairman Lin, Li responded:
        “I realize that, and I don’t agree! This notion of a ‘pinnacle’ is unscientific, and does not conform to dialectics. Marxism-Leninism is developmental, and so is Mao Zedong Thought. If you compare them to a pinnacle, then there is no direction in which they can develop from there. How can Marxism-Leninism have a ‘pinnacle’? I can’t agree with violations of dialectics, regardless of who utters it.”
         —From Nick Knight, Li Da and Marxist Philosophy in China (1996), p. 23. [While strictly speaking Li Da was correct here, he might better have recognized that revolutionary theory can very well reach temporary “pinnacles” as of a given time, which later can and should be surpassed. Revolutionary theory, too, advances by periodic leaps which must be recognized and defended. —S.H.]

LI De   [Old style: Li Te]
See: OTTO BRAUN

LI Tso-p’eng   (1916-?)
A General and high ranking political cadre in the People’s Liberation Army of China, who is known both as the author of an influential article summing up one aspect of Mao’s military concepts “Strategy: One Against Ten, Tactics: Ten Against One” (1964), and also later for his conspiratorial involvement in the failed coup attempt by Lin Biao.
        The Strategy and Tactics article appeared in an abridged English translation in Peking Review, 1965, issues #15 & #16, and was also issued as a 43-page pamphlet in English in 1966. Excerpts from it were published in the RIM magazine, A World to Win, #16 in 1991, online at: http://www.bannedthought.net/International/RIM/AWTW/1991-16/strategy_One_Against_Ten_Tactics.htm (The AWTW editors seemed not to be aware of Li’s role in the conspiracy to overthrow and even murder Mao!)
        From 1967 until his downfall immediately following the attempted military coup by Lin Biao, General Li Tso-p’eng was the 1st political commissar of the Navy. He had authority over the naval air base at Shanhaikuan and aided Lin and his family and closest circle in their escape by air from that base. (However, the plane crashed in Mongolia, and all aboard it were killed.) Li himself was soon arrested and then brought to trial for his substantial role in the conspiracy.

“Seeing that his scheme had been exposed and that his last day was coming, Lin Piao hurriedly took his wife and son and a few diehard cohorts to escape to the enemy, betraying the Party and the state. In the early morning of 2:30, September 13, 1971, the Trident jet No. 256 carrying them crashed in the vicinity of Ondor Han in Mongolia. Lin Piao, Yeh Chun, Lin Li-kuo [Lin Biao’s son], and all other renegades and aboard were burned to death. Their death, however, could not expiate all their crimes. After Lin Piao’s unsuccessful betrayal and defection, Huang Yung-sheng, Wu Fa-hsien, Li Tso-p’eng, and Ch’iu Hui-tso destroyed many evidences to cover up their own criminal acts.” —“Document No. 24 of the CCP Central Committee,” a Party document about the whole Lin Biao conspiracy, June 1972. [Emphasis added.]

LIBOR
The London Interbank Offered Rate, usually referred to just as LIBOR, is a benchmark short-term interest rate for loans between banks overseas (especially in Europe) which are made in U.S. dollars. The interest rates for Eurodollar loans made to corporations is then based on (and normally higher than) the LIBOR rate, which means that the LIBOR rate is similar in function to the prime rate within the U.S.

“LIFE OF WU HSUN, The”
See: “THE LIFE OF WU HSUN”

LIGHTING
See: ELECTRICITY and LIGHTING—Availability per Capita

LIN Biao   [Old style: LIN Piao]   (1908-71)
High-ranking military and political leader in revolutionary China who proved to be the worst sort of careerist, and who betrayed the revolution and even attempted to assassinate Mao.
        Lin was born in Wuhan, in Hubei province, and was the son of a factory owner. He was educated at the Wampoa Military Academy where he became radicalized. When he graduated in 1926 he joined up with the Communist Party to fight the Guomindang. He became commander of the Northeast People’s Liberation Army in 1945. In 1959 he was appointed Minister of Defense, and—apparently just for careerist motives—made a very strong show of supporting Mao and opposing the capitalist-roaders during the early years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This led to his appointment as the Vice-Chairman of the Party at the 9th Party Congress in 1969, and Mao’s designated heir. But by 1971, Lin’s health was deteriorating, and there were hints that he might be removed as Mao’s designated successor. Fearing his personal grandiose career hopes were flitting away, and along with his son and a few close supporters, he drew up a plan with the code name “Project 571” to assassinate Mao during a train journey from Shanghai to Beijing, and then seize power in a military coup. This plot was uncovered, and in September 1971 Lin tried to escape by air to the revisionist Soviet Union. However, his plane crashed in Mongolia and he was killed.
        In the years after his death a massive political campaign to criticize Lin Biao together with Confucius took place in China. There are indeed many lessons to be learned about how, especially after the seizure of political power, the revolutionary proletariat must be alert for careerists and unprincipled opportunists. Not only must communists be trained to be “honest and above board” in putting forward their own views, but revolutionary parties must carefully avoid awarding and promoting those who are mere opportunist toadies. “Yes men” are far more dangerous to the revolution than those who at times honestly and openly disagree with the party leadership. In reality, we should be highly suspicious of those who never disagree with us! Either such people are just not thinking on their own, or else they have ulterior motives for always agreeing with us. Either way, they should never be promoted to high office in a revolutionary party or government.
        See also: ANTI-LIN BIAO, ANTI-CONFUCIUS CAMPAIGN

LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY
The school of philosophy popular in the English-speaking world in the 20th century that holds that many or most (or even all) philosophical problems derive from confusion about the use of words, and are thus resolved by careful analysis of the real meaning of words and phrases. Since they take this as a given they studiously avoid all discussion of the major philosophical questions which philosophers have argued about throughout history, and which their method seems to have little of relevance to say about. Wittgenstein’s later philosophy was the main impetus for this school.

LIQUIDATIONISM
1. The dissolution, termination or purposeful destruction of a revolutionary party by those who are no longer revolutionaries, or the advocacy of such action. This has sometimes been advocated by revisionists within socialist or communist parties on the supposed grounds that social revolution is no longer necessary, and therefore that revolutionary parties to lead such a revolution are no longer necessary. Obviously this is an extreme form of right opportunism and betrayal of the revolutionary goal.
2. The termination of the revolutionary struggle by those who have become revisionists (whether or not this also involves formally dissolving the revolutionary party that had been leading such a struggle). In many cases the revolutionary party is not actually dissolved, but instead it is transformed into a reformist or other type of bourgeois party.

“Liquidationism—an opportunist trend that spread among the Menshevik Social-Democrats after the defeat of the 1905-07 Revolution [in Russia].
         “The liquidators demanded the dissolution of the illegal party of the working class. Summoning the workers to give up the struggle against tsarism, they intended calling a non-Party ‘labor congress’ to establish an opportunist ‘broad’ labor party which, abandoning revolutionary slogans, would engage only in the legal activity permitted by the tsarist government. Lenin and other Bolsheviks ceaselessly exposed this betrayal of the revolution by the liquidators. The policy of the liquidators was not supported by the workers. The Prague Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. which took place in January 1912 expelled them from the Party.” —Note 7, LCW 17.

“LIQUIDITY TRAP”
A term originated by Keynes and used by Keynesian-influenced bourgeois economists to describe the situation in an economic crisis where it is impossible to lower interest rates so as to increase the demand for loans (and thus expand economic activity). This can occur either because the prevailing interest rates are already as low as they can go (approaching zero), or else because the increase in the money supply by the central bank does not result in a fall in the prevailing interest rates for some other reason, but instead merely an addition to the idle funds of the banks or holders of the money. (Keynes’ explanation for this second possibility within the context of bourgeois economics is vague at best and neoclassical bourgeois economists deny that it can actually happen. But clearly in a crisis the holders of money often do refuse to lend it or invest it because they fear losing it.) Thus describing a situation as a liquidity trap is simply an obscure way of saying that standard “monetary policy” has become ineffective.
        Clear examples of “liquidity traps” or periods when monetary policy has utterly failed include the First Great Depression (of the 1930s), Japan during the 1990s and since then, and the U.S. economy starting in the autumn of 2008 when the Federal Reserve cut the interest rate it charges banks to essentially zero as the initial financial crisis of the developing Second Great Depression began to take hold.
        Marxist economists avoid the term “liquidity trap” because it reflects confused Keynesian bourgeois notions and does not really clarify the actual situation. It makes far more sense to simply note that the capitalists stop investing and stop loaning money when they are afraid of losing it — i.e., in a major financial crisis associated with an overproduction crisis — and therefore lowering interest rates, even to near zero, soon loses its effectiveness.

“LITTLE RED BOOK”
See: QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG

LIU Shaoqi   [Oldstyle: LIU Shao-ch’i]   (1898-1969)
High ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party who during the period of socialism was the leader of those in the Party taking the capitalist road toward the restoration of capitalism in China. He was overthrown by the Maoist revolutionaries during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
        Liu was born in Hunan Province to a moderately rich, land-owning peasant family. He was educated in Changsha and Shanghai (where he learned Russian). In 1921-22 he went to study in Moscow, and while there joined the newly-formed CCP. He returned to China and became a labor organizer in Shanghai. His orientation was always more toward the cities than the countryside. He was elected to the CCP Politburo in 1934 and became its expert on matters of organization and Party structure. In 1939 he wrote his notorious book on “self-cultivation”, How to Be a Good Communist. In 1943 he became Secretary General of the Party, then Vice-Chairman in 1949. While Mao was still Chairman of the CCP, Liu became Chairman of the People’s Republic of China in 1958 (i.e., head of state).
        Liu advocated and did his best to institute all sorts of “reforms” tending in the direction of restoring capitalism, such as promoting production above political consciousness; financial incentives and bonuses (as opposed to moral incentives); easing of the restrictions on the market economy (rather than tightening them and steadily restricting the “law of value”); promoting rewards for “loyal cadres” and special treatment for the children of high Party officials; and, in general, promotion of a new privileged strata within the Party and State. As the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution developed in the late 1960s Liu led the sly and semi-camouflaged resistence to it. This had the effect of more and more turning the GPCR against him and his minions as its primary target. In 1967 Liu was informally removed from power, and in October 1968 he was formally “expelled from the Party forever, and stripped of all his positions in and outside the CCP.” He died in November 1969 while under house-arrest back in Hunan. In 1980 he was “rehabilitated” by Deng Xiaoping’s gang of revisionists who seized control of the CCP after Mao’s death in 1976.
        A sympathetic bourgeois biographer, Lowell Dittmer, said of him: “Liu’s life may be viewed as an attempt to combine order with revolution and equality with economic efficiency and technocratic values.” But for Liu “order” meant a turn toward bourgeois rule, “equality” meant an end to class struggle, and “efficiency and technocratic values” meant the capitalist marketplace. Liu Shaoqi was not a personal opportunist; he was quite sincere and dedicated in his advocacy of revisionism. He was all the more insidious and dangerous to the cause of communist revolution because of this.

Both of these works leave no room for doubt that Liu was himself a “builder” of the socialist road. Yet his life appears to have become deeply troubled during the Cultural Revolution. A Chinese language wiki-style website provides some information (see http://www.hudong.com/wiki/%E6%9F%B3%E9%9D%92 [English translation needed]). Liu’s wife was killed, and he was put in prison from 1967 to 1969. In 1972, Zhou Enlai personally intervened to order that Liu be cared for; by this time, however, he was already in poor health, and his powerful writing abilities had been disrupted by emotional and physical strain. Liu died on June 13, 1978. Close to the people, an extremely formidable observer and critic of bourgeois individualism and capitalistic tendencies, as well as a champion of collectivism, hard work, self-reliance, initiative, daring, you name it — virtually all of the social values of the Mao era — it stands to reason that he and his work would have been thorns in the side of Mao’s opponents. Much remains to be learned from and about Liu Qing. —JDL/XYJ
        See also “A Writer’s Profile: Taking Roots Among the People,” Peking Review, #38, Sept. 22, 1978, 15-17. Online at: http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1978/PR1978-38.pdf

LOCKE, John   (1632-1704)
English empiricist philosopher. He was a proponent of the idealist notion of “natural rights” in ethics and politics, and was a major influence on those who founded the United States.
        Locke also wrote on political economy, and as Marx said, “championed the new bourgeoisie in every way, taking the side of the industrialists against the working class and against the paupers, the merchants against the old-fashioned usurers, the financial aristocracy against the governments that were in debt, and he even demonstrated in one of his books that the bourgeois way of thinking was the normal one for human beings.” [Marx, quoted in an appendix to TSV, 3:592.]
        See also: Philosophical doggerel about Locke.

LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION
A giant American corporation, and the nation’s largest defense contractor. This is one of the best illustrations of what is known as the Pentagon System, wherein the U.S. government promotes the welfare of supposedly private corporations. Lockheed Martin is at the centre of the grotesquely bloated miltary trough.
        The F-22, a military plane manufactured by the company and that has been in development since the 1980s, has now become so horribly overpriced that not even the world’s premier imperialist power can afford to maintain a fleet of very many of them, and the Obama administration has terminated production, citing the ridiculous cost involved. This was something that the company tried hard to prevent, by spreading the manufacturing of the plane around the country and in many different Congressional districts, and tying employment in these areas with the plane’s procurement by the Air Force, thereby deliberately making itself “too big to fail” (in the lingo of the so-called financial crisis). Some military experts even complain that the aircraft will diminish US power because it is too complex and prone to unforeseen problems, which requires more maintenance time, fewer flight hours for pilots, etc, and will not even be deployed in sufficient numbers to provide very much of a strategic advantage to US imperialism.
        Likewise, Lockheed Martin’s other fighter jet, the F-35, has been harshly criticized as being too compromised due, ironically, to its promise of being a cost cutting aircraft. (The Marine version is capable of vertical/short take-off and landing, but this imposes design constraints on the Air Force and Navy versions, which require ad-hoc modifications to make them competent in their assigned roles. To fix the inevitable problems emanating from a fundamentally unsound design, its costs have also ballooned wildly). This entire fiasco shows quite clearly what Marx said of the bourgeoisie being a “hostile band of brothers”: the capitalist class has overall interests that bring it together, but each capitalist tries to gain a short-term advantage over its rivals, even if this might jeopardize the system as a whole (in this case, the vitality of American military power). —L.C.

LOGIC
Logic is usually defined to be the rules of valid inference or the rules and nature of reasoning. However, if you look at the dominant areas of discussion in books of logic, you will find that they usually only discuss the rules and nature of reasoning insofar as these are related to deduction. Actually deductive logic (or “formal logic”) is only one small part of what should “logically” be called logic. Other important areas of logic in the broad sense that usually receive scant attention include analogic logic (the logic of making analogies), and most important of all, dialectical logic.

LOGICAL POSITIVISM
An extreme form of empiricism that holds that only statements which can be verified empirically have meaning, from which they assume that it follows that all metaphysics, religion, and even ethical principles are “meaningless”, and therefore neither true nor false. (They failed to notice that their very statement of this verifiability principle was also meaningless according to the principle itself!) Logical positivism has been extremely influential in the 20^th century among bourgeois scientists.
        See also: A.J. AYER, Karl POPPER, Charles STEVENSON, VIENNA CIRCLE

LONG CYCLES or LONG WAVES
This refers to hypothesized long-term economic cycles or waves, substantially longer than the length of the standard industrial cycle that Marx described. The most well-known of these theories is Kondratiev Waves, but there is now a more plausible split-cycle theory for the imperialist era.
        See also: ECONOMIC CYCLES

LONG DEPRESSION (1873-1896)
The mostly long-forgotten period of serious economic weakness in the United States and other countries which began with the financial Panic of 1873, had a moderate respite in the 1880s, then reached its nadir in 1893 (in another Panic), and was largely over by around 1896 (though aspects lingered for yet another decade). This entire period was characterized by relative economic stagnation, high unemployment and violent labor struggles, large numbers of farm foreclosures, and considerable political unrest. In 1892 both the housing market and railroad construction faltered, which in turn led to a major slowdown in steel production and other industries. In other words this was a classic overproduction crisis.
        This Long Depression was actually called the “Great Depression” until the new and qualitatively worse Great Depression of the 1930s came along. This led to the renaming of the earlier historical episode in order to avoid confusion. Although the Long Depression had some similarities to the Great Depression of the 1930s, in some respects it was merely the worst of the old-style recessions/depressions of the pre-monopoly era of capitalism. Capitalism had not yet commandeered the State in the same way it has done in the capitalist-imperialist era to help manage the economy and try to resolve crises for it. And although this crisis was serious and prolonged, it was not nearly as severe as that of the 1930s.

LONG MARCH
An epic escape of the revolutionary army led by the Communist Party of China from southeast China to the Yan’an (Yenan) area of northern China in the years 1934-1935. During this 6,000 to 8,000 mile Long March across China the Communists underwent tremendous hardship and were pursued and attacked most of the way by the army and airplanes of the reactionary Chiang Kai-shek regime. Only about 10% of the revolutionary army survived the extremely arduous journey. At a temporary stop along the way Mao was named the top leader of the CCP. The Long March, the selection of Mao as the top leader, and the safe arrival of the much diminished revolutionary forces in Yan’an marked the turning point in the Chinese Revolution.

LONG-TERM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
A rich and powerful super-speculative U.S. hedge fund that collapsed in 1998 and had to be bailed out by a consortium of giant banks under the supervision by, and pressure from, the U.S. Federal Reserve. It is said that if it had not been bailed out, there would likely have been a chain-reaction failure of many big banks and possibly the entire U.S. financial system.
      Long-Term Capital Management was founded in 1993 and was immediately hailed as the most impressive, and most “brilliantly managed”, hedge fund in history. It was led by the rich Wall Street figure, John Meriwether, and included among its other leading partners two winners of the (phony) “Nobel Prize in Economics”, Myron Scholes and Robert C. Merton. These and other bourgeois financial and mathematical geniuses had supposedly discovered some full-proof methods of sophisticated arbitrage that would allow LTCM to extract billions of dollars of profits from the rest of the financial system. It worked for a few years, and had annual profits of more than 40%. But then, when the Asian (and Russian) Financial Crisis of 1997-98 hit, the huge bets made by LTCM on the value of speculative bonds turned out to be wrong guesses. In less than four months in 1998 LTCM lost $4.6 billion. Most of this money was owed to giant U.S. banks. So it took a massive bailout to prevent a general collapse. LTCM was finally closed down for good in early 2000.

LONGUET, Charles   (1839-1903)
A journalist and prominent figure in the French working-class movement and a follower of Proudhon. He was a member of the General Council of the (First) International (1866-67 and 1871-72), Corresponding Secretary for Belgium (1866), and a delegate to several congresses of the International. He was also a member of the Paris Commune, then emigrated to England and later joined the opportunist group known as the Possibilists. He was married to Marx’s oldest daughter, Jenny.

LOOPHOLES
See: TAX LOOPHOLES

“LOST DECADE”   [Japan]
Originally a translation of the Japanese phrase ushinawareta junen for the decade of the 1990s, which was viewed with remorse in Japan as a period of economic failure after the great hopes raised during the 1980s that Japan’s economy would continue expanding rapidly and perhaps even in time surpass that of the United States! The term has since then become rather pathetic and even inappropriate, since the Japanese economy has now been stagnating, and in and out of recessions, for two full decades since the collapse of the property asset bubble around 1990. Japan’s first “lost decade” showed those alert enough to recognize it what the future path of the entire world capitalist economy would be like for a certain period.

LU Xun   [Old style: LU Hsun]   (1881-1936)
A great Chinese writer, probably the greatest of the Twentieth Century, and also a firm and very influential revolutionary. He is widely viewed as the most prominent individual in modern Chinese literature.
        Lu Xun was the pen name of Zhou Shuren [or Chou Shu-jen in the older Wade-Giles transliteration]. He wrote in baihua (the vernacular) as well as in classical Chinese, and seems to have been the very first serious writer to do so. Lu Xun wrote short stories, essays and poetry and was an editor, translator and critic. He also led the important Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai during the 1930s.
        While not himself a member of the Chinese Communist Party, Lu Xun strongly sympathized and cooperated with the Party and supported its revolutionary struggle. Mao Zedong and the CCP always very much appreciated his writing and political work, and after the liberation of China in 1949 the revolutionary government published and strongly promoted his works.
        Lu Xun’s fictional works are now easily available in English, as with the 2009 anthology, The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, which the scholar Jeffrey Wasserstrom said “could be considered the most significant Penguin Classic ever published.” However, perhaps even more interesting for revolutionaries is the Selected Works of Lu Hsun in 4 volumes (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960), and other volumes from China, which include many of his political essays, articles and letters.
        See also: “For Your Reference: Lu Hsun: Brief Biographical Notes”, Peking Review, October 19, 1976, online at: http://www.massline.org/PekingReview/PR1976/PR1976-44-LuHsunBiography.pdf

LUDWIG FEUERBACH AND THE END OF CLASSICAL GERMAN PHILOSOPHY   [Book]
An important philosophical work by Engels, first published in 1886. This work is available online in several places, including: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/index.htm

“In Ludwig Feuerbach (the full title is Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy) Engels shows how the advance was made from Hegelian idealist dialectics to materialist dialectics, and from mechanical to dialectical materialism.
       “Feuerbach was a German philosopher of the mid-19th Century who turned from Hegelian idealism to materialism, and whose work had a big influence on Marx and Engels. This book by Engels, published in 1888, was originally written as a review article on a book on Feuerbach by C. N. Starke.
       “The following are its principal contents.
       “1. Engels explains the basic difference between materialism and idealism. It arises from the question—which is prior, spirit or nature? Idealism says that spirit is prior to nature. Materialism says that nature is prior to spirit. Material being is prior to mind and ideas.
       “Modern idealism has been specially concerned with the question whether we can gain reliable knowledge of material things, of the external world, and concludes that such knowledge is impossible. Engels refutes this view, and shows that practice demonstrates that our ideas can and do constitute a true reflection of external material reality.
       “2. He shows that the materialism of the past was mechanical materialism. Its great limitations were
           (a) that it conceived of the motion of matter as exclusively mechanical motion, and could not grasp other forms of motion of matter, such as chemical or living processes;
           (b) that it could give no account of development and evolution, either in nature or, still less, in history and human society.
       “3. He explains the essence of Hegel’s philosophy and of the advance from Hegel to dialectical materialism. Hegel considered every process of change and development as being a mere reflection of the self-development of the ‘Absolute Idea,’ which ‘does not only exist, where unknown, from eternity, but is also the actual living soul of the whole existing world.’ Marxism threw over such ‘idealist fancies’ and ‘resolved to comprehend the real world, nature and history, just as it presents itself to everyone who approaches it free from preconceived idealist fancies.’
       “Engels shows that dialectical materialism regards the world as a complex of processes, not as a collection of ‘ready-made things.’ Dialectics is ‘the science of the general laws of motion both of the external world and of human thought.’
       “4. He discusses the essential ideas of historical materialism, as the application of dialectical materialism to the sphere of human society. He shows that the driving force of history is the class struggle, and that classes and class struggles are rooted in economic conditions. He goes on to discuss the economic foundations of the development of the state and of law, and then of political and social ideology, of religion, philosophy, etc.
       “In criticising Feuerbach’s ‘philosophy of religion and ethics,’ Engels attacks the approach which deals with abstractions such as ‘humanity,’ instead of with ‘real living men as participants of history.’
       “As appendix are added Marx’s eleven Theses on Feuerbach, notes by Marx in 1845 in which he summarized his own ideas as opposed to mechanical materialism.” —Maurice Cornforth, ed., Readers’ Guide to the Marxist Classics (1952), pp. 25-26.

LUKÁCS, Georg [György] [Family name pronounced roughly: loo-kawch]   (1885-1971)
Lukács was a Hungarian revisionist philosopher and literary critic. His best known work was History and Class Consciousness, published in German in 1923 and in English in 1971. He himself denounced this work after it received strong criticism from many Marxist-Leninists including the leaders of the Comintern. In that book Lukács rejected the Marxist base/superstructure analysis of society, a rejection that has found favor with a number of other academic “Marxists” who focus mostly on literary criticism. Lukács put forward a Hegelianized version of Marxism which also emphasized the topics of reification and alienation, somewhat along the lines of the earliest writings of Marx, and which is sometimes called “Marxist humanism”. He was, however, a strong defender of realism in literature and art.
      Lukács’s books and ideas have mostly been of interest to various groups of Academic revisionists, including the Frankfurt School and the diverse revisionist trends going by the general name of “Western Marxism”.

LUNACHARSKY, Anatoly   (1875-1933)
Russian revolutionary and the first Soviet People’s Commissar of Enlightenment (Minister of Culture and Education), continuing in that position until 1929. He led major campaigns for literacy and cultural education. He was also a prominent art and literary critic and journalist specializing in cultural matters.
      Lunacharsky sided with the Bolsheviks at the time of the split with the Mensheviks in 1903, but in 1908 a faction of the Bolsheviks infatuated with idealist philosophy, and led by Lunacharsky’s brother-in-law Alexander Bogdanov, split away from the Leninist core. Lunacharsky went with them, but rejoined the Bolsheviks in 1917. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the rather dubious Proletkult movement in the early years of the Soviet Union.
      See also: GOD-BUILDING

LYELL, Charles   (1797-1875)
Scottish scientist, whose two textbooks Principles of Geology (1830) and Elements of Geology (1838) established the modern foundation of the science of geology. Lyell was also a major influence on Charles Darwin.

LYING
To make a false statement with the intent to deceive, or to purposely mislead someone into believing a falsehood. Most of the time, and in most circumstances, this is not a good thing, of course. And we revolutionaries should specifically make it a general principle not to lie to either our comrades or to the masses. However, there are times when lying is both necessary and completely moral, as when lying to the enemies of the people prevents the occurrence of some serious harm. Amazingly enough, there have been some idealist philosophers (especially Kant) who have not been able to understand this elementary truth!
        See also: CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

“I would not break my word even to save humanity.” —Johann Gottlieb Fichte, quoted in Raymond Smullyan, The Tao is Silent (1977), p. 126. [Fichte was a disciple of Kant, and this quote is a great example of how fantastically stupid Kantians and others who think in terms of absolute moral maxims can be! —S.H.]

“One ought always to lie when one can do good by it.” —Mark Twain, “On the Decay of the Art of Lying” (1882). [Expressing a much more sensible point of view! —S.H.]

LYSENKO, Trofim Denisovich   (1898-1976)
Soviet agronomist, and later the top government official for the genetic sciences in the Soviet Union. During the agricultural crisis of the early 1930s (due to the mishandling of agricultural collectivization by Stalin), he came to prominence for spreading good crop management techniques among the peasants. He borrowed and promoted the discovery that the phases of plant growth can be accelerated via short doses of low temperatures and moisture controls applied to the seeds and young plants. But he went on to claim, without good scientific evidence, that these benefits also became “acquired characteristics” which were then passed on to future plant generations. In this he was applying the erroneous genetic theories of the early French naturalist Jean Lamarck (1744-1829) and the Russian horticulturalist Ivan Michurin.
        Thereafter Lysenko rapidly rose in the ranks of Soviet agricultural management because he was saying things that the Soviet government wanted to hear—that there were some easy technical ways to drastically improve agricultural production. (See LYSENKOISM entry below.) Lysenko was the director of the Institute of Genetics of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1940 to 1965, where he formally denounced Mendelian genetics. In 1948 Stalin’s backing ended virtually all opposition to Lysenko and his theories. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Lysenko’s power fell, but increased again under Khrushchev until both of them were removed from power in 1965.
        There is a telling little story about Lysenko; it is said that he posed the following question on several occasions to the scientific workers at what was later called the Englehardt Institute of Molecular Biology in the Soviet Union: “What is DNA?” (That was indeed a question he sorely needed the answer to!)

LYSENKOISM
This is a term that has come to mean something like letting political wishful thinking triumph over scientific fact, or even letting politics dominate and determine what scientific truth “actually is”.
        In the Soviet Union under Stalin and Khrushchev, the agronomist Trofim Lysenko (see above) propagated a quack theory of genetics based on the supposed inheritance of acquired characteristics. However, even before the discovery of the central role of DNA in inheritance, the science of biology (and genetics specifically) had determined that (at least normally) there is no such thing as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. The giraffe’s neck is long not because its ancestors stretched theirs during their lifetimes, but because the ancestors with naturally longer necks survived, while those with shorter necks died before they could reproduce. (Counterpoint: Recent research seems to show that there really are some exceptional circumstances where there can be some inheritance of acquired characteristics, as with certain bacteria, but the fact remains that even if this is so it is only in highly atypical situations.) There were prominent geneticists in the Soviet Union who knew this full well, such as Nikolai Vavilov, and who were persecuted and sometimes imprisoned for their Mendelian views by Lysenko and the Soviet government. (Vavilov himself was arrested in 1940 and is said to have died of starvation in a Siberian labor camp around 1943.) Lysenko was welcome to his own opinions about genetics, but the persecution of those who disagreed with him was the crime, which was made much worse by the support of Stalin (and later Khrushchev) and the force of the state.
        It is not entirely clear, however, how much direct damage Lysenko and his theories actually did to Soviet agriculture, though certainly there was some significant damage over the long run due to his disruption of genetic research. There were many other problems in agriculture, some of them probably much more important. For example, the brutal “top-down” method of agricultural collectivization carried out by Stalin in the 1930s led to the death of many peasants, the destruction of much of the livestock and to serious crop shortages. The continuing failure to use the mass line to mobilize the peasants to work in their own collective interests remained a major obstacle to the expansion of agricultural production. And insufficient industrial support was also given to agriculture over a period of decades.
        Unfortunately the Lysenko episode has led to some widespread invalid conclusions, even among some Marxists, such as that any “government interference” in science is unjustified, and that scientists and other experts should be basically unrestricted in their activities. Of course any government will appropriately promote and fund those scientists and those theories which it has confidence in. And any government would be within its rights to restrict certain kinds of experiments or technologies for which there is good reason to believe that there are serious potential dangers for the people. Moreover, a socialist government in particular, will certainly find it necessary to criticize bourgeois ideas that scientists, just as any other segment of society, may still promote.
        However, it is true that socialist society should also allow, especially in the natural sciences, “a hundred flowers to bloom, and a hundred schools of thought to content” (as Mao poetically put it). In looking at the experience of socialism in both the Soviet Union and China it seems clear that overall there was not enough freedom of thought and expression in the sciences, nor was there sufficient allowance (and even encouragement!) of new and minority ideas and views. On the other hand it, it was certainly necessary and correct to strongly criticize views and theories insofar as they had a bourgeois ideological component, and sometimes this was also insufficient! Of course this will generally be much more central and important in the social sciences than in the natural sciences.
        See also: INSTRUMENTALISM

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