Marxist IQ: An April thesis for May Day

 
BY:Communist Party USA| April 30, 2025
Marxist IQ: An April thesis for May Day

 

 

1. On his return to St. Petersburg in April 1917, Lenin advanced what history calls his April Theses. This included

a. his call for workers and Bolsheviks to support the provisional government’s continuation of the war.

b. his call for the establishment of a Soviet government that would begin to establish a socialist society.

c. his call for workers to rise up and smash the state.

d. his call for the dismemberment of Czarist Russia and its division into independent republics.

 

2. Lenin’s thesis maintained that World War I was “on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government.” Today, the Trump administration’s imperialist policies can be seen in

a. U.S. economic war against China.

b. the deportation of undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens to concentration camps in El Salvador.

c. the intensification of its attempts to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

d. All of the above

 

3. Lenin’s call for a revolutionary Soviet worker’s state establishing socialism was motivated by his belief that

a. such a state would spark a world revolution.

b. such a state would be supported by the allied powers.

c. Russia was passing from the first stage of the revolution to its second stage, in which power must be placed in the hands of the working class and poor peasants,and that the Soviets formed the basis for the only possible revolutionary government.

d. a Soviet socialist state would be supported by all groups in the Soviets.

 

4. Lenin said the immediate task was not to “introduce” socialism, but only to “bring social production and the distribution of products” under working class control. Similarly, efforts in China today to build socialism in a different context includes

a. restoration of Confucian ideology as a basis for establishing “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

b. development of the productive forces through a “socialist market economy” under the leadership of the Communist Party, involving both public and private capital, with the public sector remaining dominant.

c. establishing a “free enterprise, free market” economy.

d. joining with the United States to divide the world.

 

5. In his work, What is to be Done, Lenin established what would become the model for all Communist parties after the Soviet revolution in order to organize, educate, and coordinate the struggles of the working class. In his April thesis, Lenin called on the party to

a. support Russia in the war against the imperialists in the U.S. and Europe.

b. break up the banks in order to spur more competition in business.

c. convene a party Congress to change its name (to the Communist Party) and to update its attitude towards the state and amend its minimum program.

d. demand the Provisional government in Russia cease to be an imperialist government.

e. All of the above

 

6. Conditions in 1917 Russia led Lenin to conclude the time was ripe for the transition to a government run by workers and peasants and that no support should be given to the Provisional Government. These conditions included “a maximum of legally recognised rights, … absence of violence towards the masses” and the latter’s “unreasoning trust in the government of capitalists.” In today’s U.S., Communists should participate in May Day actions as a venue for

a. denouncing all elected officials; calling for a general strike; demanding the immediate abolition of the police, army, and the Democratic and Republican parties; and re-establishing a new Communist International.

b. distributing free food and clothing and recruiting people to join workers’ councils.

c. fighting NATO and U.S. imperialism by supporting Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

d. helping to build mass, united, labor-led resistance against the Trump agenda, while calling for a ceasefire and self-determination in Gaza and Ukraine, moving money away from the military budget toward people’s needs, taxing the rich, guaranteeing the right to unionize, a pathway to citizenship, expansive voting reforms, free college and childcare, the right to housing, and other anti-monopoly demands.

Answers here.

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    The Communist Party USA is a  revolutionary working-class  political party founded in 1919 in Chicago, IL. The Communist Party stands for the interests of the American working class and the American people. It stands for our interests in both the present and the future. Solidarity with workers of other countries is also part of our work. We work in coalition with the labor movement, the peace movement, the student movement, organizations fighting for equality and social justice, the environmental movement, immigrants rights groups and the health care for all campaign. But to win a better life for working families, we believe that we must go further. We believe that the American people can replace capitalism with a system that puts people before profit — socialism. We are rooted in our country's revolutionary history and its struggles for democracy. We call for "Bill of Rights" socialism, guaranteeing full individual freedoms.

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