PRINCIPLES OF   MARXISM-LENINISM:
A STUDY COURSE
 


SYLLABUS
Class One: The Development of Society.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course1-CL.htm
Class Two: How Capitalism Works: Part One.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course2-CL.htm
Class Three: How Capitalism Works, Part Two.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course3-CL.htm
Class Four: The State and the Road to Socialism.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course4-CL.htm
Class Five: The Party of the Working Class.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course5-CL.htm
Class Six: The National Question.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course6-CL.htm
Class Seven: War.
 http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course7-CL.htm
Class Eight: How Socialism Works.   http://ml-review.ca/aml/CLASSES/Course8-CL.htm


Foreword by Alliance:
History of The Course:
This is a welcome and much needed up-date of a course that was originally written, published, and run in study groups by Comrade Bill Bland of Communist League (UK); since the early 1970's. It has stood the test of time and countless militants have been trained through this course.
It's up-dating by the Communist League, has now been performed under a mandate of the NCMLP of the UK, of which the CL is a constituent member. The aims of the NCMLP are articulated on its web page, and are in essence to assist the principled creation of a single unitary Marxist-Leninist party in Britain. The web address for the NCMLP is both on our web links page, and on the foot of this page.
This study course will be the focus of classes held in the UK by the NCMLP shortly, in 2000. For UK enquiries -please write to NMCLP.


Some Brief Comments On The Course by Alliance:
1) A Minor addition: 2) Notes On References: Completeness, Availability, Sources The Aim of the 'National Committee for the Marxist-Leninist Party': is to build a political party in Britain which can lead the working class to establish its political power and a planned socialist society. The party which can carry out this historic task can only be one based on the political principles discovered and developed above all by Kark Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. In recent years the socialist societies which had been constructed in a considerable part of the world have been replaced by capitalist societies. In consequence, one often reads the claim that 'socialism has failed' or that 'Marxism is dead'. In fact, so strong and popular was the socialist society which had been established in the Soviet Union that it could be liquidated only from within, by revisionists who posed as 'modernisers' of Marxism'-Leninism, but in reality proceeded to distort socialism in such a way that after many years an open counter-revolution could be carried out without major public opposition. The lesson is clear:
EVERY MEMBER OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY WHICH WE BUILD MUST BE SO THOROUGHLY GROUNDED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM-LENINISM THAT ANY LEADING FIGURE WHO MIGHT IN THE FUTURE TRY TO DEVIATE FROM THESE PRINCIPLES WOULD INSTANTLY EXPOSE HIMSELF TO THESE MEMBERS AS A RENEGADE AND TRAITOR.



Suggested Manner In Which To Conduct This Course

This study course rejects the traditional method of 'lecturing', in which the students play the role of passive listeners, in favour of that of controlled discussion, in which every effort is made to make the students play an active, participatory role.

One comrade having been appointed tutor, it is this comrade's function to present to the class a series of carefully prepared questions, which are arranged to proceed logically from one point to the next. By this method, students (even if they choose to remain silent at first) cannot avoid thinking out an answer to each question and comparing it with the answer that emerges from the discussion.
The suggested answers provided in the text are not intended to be model answers, but merely to serve as guide to the kind of answer which the tutor should try to draw from the class.

If a student puts forward an answer to a question which is clearly incorrect, the tutor should not comment, but should ask: 'Does everyone agree?', endeavoring to draw out a criticism of the error and an answer which is closer to the truth -- avoiding any tendency to make a comrade who has given an incorrect answer feel humiliated.
 
If it proves impossible to draw from the class a reasonably correct answer to a question: Then the tutor should, in a comradely way, point out objections to the answer put forward and, from there, make a further attempt to draw out a more correct answer. Even when a correct answer has emerged, the tutor should still ask: 'Does everyone agree?', endeavoring to clear up any doubts that remain. Only when there appears to be general agreement on the answer to a question should the tutor briefly sum up and proceed to the next question.
The questions should be directed, not to individual students, but to the class as a whole. Some students may at first be reluctant to attempt an answer to a question, although the method of controlled discussion assists them to think out an answer, even if they do not express it. The tutor should assist in drawing out such students by asking them during the discussion: 'Do you agree?' No doubt in the course of organising classes around this syllabus, experience will suggest improvements in its content and The 'National Committee for the Marxist-Leninist Party' would be pleased to receive suggestions from students and tutors for improving future editions of the course.



POST-SCRIPT January 2002
Where for reasons of geographical dispersion, these materials are used as the basis of web-seminars, it is suggested that the "answers" to the questions are not distributed with the questions, until such time as the student at least offers an answer herself/himself.

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