Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism

The Fundamentals of Marxism–Leninism is considered to be one of the fundamental works on Dialectical Materialism and Leninist Communism. The Book remains an important in understanding the Philosophy and Politics of the Soviet Union, by consolidating the work of important contributions to marxist theorists.

Publication

The First Edition of The Fundamentals, was published in 1961. a Second Edition was published in 1963. The Text Draws heavily on the Works on Marx and Lenin, with additional References to Engels, Stalin and Khrushchev.

Part One: The Philosophical Foundations of The Marxist-Leninist World Outlook

Part One of Fundamentals covers Materialist and Idealist Philosophy, the use of Dialectics within Materialist Philosophy and its opposition to Metaphysics, and develops a Theory of Knowledge, Truth, Necessity and Human Freedom.

The text argues that only a consistently materialist approach to philosophy can be truly scientific, since it requires the recognition of the objective existence of matter, as outside and independent of the human mind.

Part Two: The Materialist Conception of History

Part Two covers marxist theories of history, or historical materialism, by outlining the role of the mode of production, class, class struggles, the state and the individual in social development.

Part Three: Political Economy of Capitalism

Part Three summaries Marx's Capital and Lenin's theory of Imperialism.

See also

• Dialectical Materialism
• Historical Materialism
• Marxism–Leninism
• Otto Wille Kuusinen
• Philosophy in the Soviet Union

Further reading

• Alexander Spirkin. Fundamentals of Philosophy. Translated from the Russian by Sergei Syrovatkin. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990.

  Spirkin's textbook offers a systematic exposition of the foundations of dialectical and historical materialism. The book was awarded a prize at a competition of textbooks for students of higher educational establishments.

References

http://leninist.biz/en/1963/FML734/index.html