Lenin's Conception of the Communist Party

Alfred G. Meyer (1965) asserted that Lenin's most conspicuous contribution to twentieth century politics was his conception of the Communist Party as a creative history-making force and as the general staff of the world revolution. Though there is little doubt in the minds of several analysts, including Robert Service (1995; 2000), George Brinkley (1998), and Neil Harding (1996), that Lenin was a Marxist who believed that Marx had identified laws of development making it inevitable that a country would move from feudalism to capitalism and from capitalism to socialism, Lenin's own actions and theories departed from Marx in several key areas. The proposed research will explore some of these departures.

In several specific areas, Leninist thought moved away from the ideas proposed from Marx and Engels. For example, Marx attributed consciousness to the proletariat and his followers came to use the term "class consciousness." Lenin, in contrast, did not generally attribute the attainment of consciousness to the working class and his opinion of the proletariat is sai

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