ABSTRACT
The thesis of the bolsheviks’ adaptation of Marx’s heritage to the realities of Russia also rests crucially on their organising a proletarian takeover in a “backward” country. This is considered to be in obvious contradiction to Marx’s views on the necessary preconditions for communism. That system was the product of developed capitalism in a twofold way. Politically, the industrial proletariat had to comprise a majority of the population in order for a democratic republic to start moving towards communism. And only a predominantly industrial country was economically and technologically fit to introduce communism. One cannot have a centrally planned economy in a fragmented agricultural world. And here, then, the case essentially rests. Quod erat demonstrandum – with his proletarian, socialist revolution Lenin adapted Marxism to Russian conditions.
