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All of them, Stalin maintains, "interact upon one another" to produce the "objective" (or automatic) conditions for revolution. Thus, says Stalin, a revolution is ripe when the following four situations have resulted from the seething of the contradictions: 1) the proletariat doesn't like the old system any more; 2) the upper classes can't keep going under the old way — it just won't work; 3) the wishy-washy elements (the lower middle class and the farmers) desert the dominant class and go over to the proletariat; 4) internationally, the dominant class is isolated to a considerable degree, so that it can't get help from other capitalistic governments, while the proletariat can get help from fellow proletariats in other capitalistic countries and from Soviet Russia.
Such a crisis, according to the old Marxists, would bring on an internal revolutionary situation in each of the countries independently, depending on how advanced was the stage of capitalism. It was Lenin who broke away from Marx's idea of the revolutionary process operating all by itself in each country. Lenin deduced, contrary to Marx, that the series of Communist revolutions might start in a backward country, rather than in an advanced country. Lenin, justifying the un-Marxian revolution in slowpoke Russia, called this a "break" in the world front.
The Weak Link
Since World War I, Stalin (following Lenin) has come to believe that the flowing of the contradictions means, not the classical revolutions, but war first, followed by revolutions. Says Historicus: "In Stalin's thinking, the importance of war as a midwife of revolution can scarcely be exaggerated." War, Stalin says, develops a "weak link" in the imperialist-capitalist chain.
This is a forehint of Stalin's general position on war: to use it (or any other convenient lever) to the full in furthering revolution, not just to wait until, after the war, the classical Marxian conditions of revolution arise.
Here Historicus leaves the subject of automatic or "objective" forces that produce revolution, and turns to the other factor: "subjective" force. A revolution brought about mainly by subjective forces would be one in which people themselves simply had the idea for a revolution, and went ahead with it. (Most Latin American revolutions are 90% subjective.)
Stalin says, in effect, that the automatic blossoming of revolution is fine, but that many a near-revolution will fail if there is not a trained, hardheaded, ruthless organization which can, at just the right moment, topple the edifice. Here is where Stalin, along with Lenin, battles the ultra-leftists in the Marxist movement as well as the weak rightists for relaxing and pinning their hope for revolution on objective factors.
By applying the dialectic to the Communist Party, Stalin justifies the party's steel discipline and its merciless purges. Because the party embodies "scientific" truth, the party must be "monolithic," totalitarian, a centrally controlled army under military discipline. A party comrade who judges a situation "incorrectly" becomes a gun turned against the revolution.