Editing Crisis of Marxism (section)

==== Leninism ====
''Main article: [[Leninism]], [[Bolshevism]], [[Marxism-Leninism]]''

In the [[Russian Empire]], [[Vladimir Lenin]] attempted to explain where Karl Marx's prediction had failed and how the Marxist movement could continue to exist. To do so, he wrote ''[[Library:Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism|Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]''. The book explained that Marx's work had failed to account for the rise of [[imperialism]] and the subsequent [[aristocracy of labor]] in the late 19th century. Due to imperialism, the capitalist countries had been able to increase the standard of living by exploiting and extracting the [[natural resources]] of [[Third World]] nations. As a result, the European proletariat was placed at the top of the aristocracy of labor and enjoyed a higher standard of living than the Third World [[peasantry]].<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]</ref> The solution to this issue, outlined in ''[[Library:What Is To Be Done?|What Is To Be Done?]]'', was to create a [[Vanguardism|vanguard party]] that could educate the proletariat and direct them towards revolutionary action.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ What Is To Be Done?]</ref>

Lenin, at the time, was a member of the [[Russian Social Democratic Labor Party]] (RSDLP). The party itself was controlled by orthodox Marxists, leading Lenin to form the [[Bolsheviks]] as a vanguardist faction within the RSDLP.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqbleas1mmo The Russian Revolution - OverSimplified (Part 1)]</ref> In 1914, the outbreak of the [[First World War]] sent the RSDLP sprawling into a crisis. The orthodox Marxist faction, known as the [[Mensheviks]], capitulated to [[Russian nationalism]] and attempted to justify supporting the war effort of the Russian Empire against the [[German Empire]]. Lenin, on the other hand, invoked the principle of [[revolutionary defeatism]] to justify supporting the [[Central Powers]] as a method to weaken the Russian [[feudal class]] and enable revolutionary conditions.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/jul/26.htm The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War]</ref>