Response to a question on the relevance of Leninism today, during a question and answer session over the internet
on December 12, 2001.

Mansoor Hekmat: Lenin, so far as he deals with a specific country in the context of a specific historic condition and puts forward certain premises, can not necessarily be generalised. However, Lenin, as someone who developed the idea of the communist revolution and the attainability of socialism, linking it to the seizure of political power by a communist party, in this regard he is a guiding figure for our party and has always been relevant to us. Lenin is the one who rescued Marxism from the evolutionist outlooks, and the idea that the world would wait until socialism sprung up, and linked socialism to the human practice and the political efforts of living people. Lenin's contribution was to realise this fact and make an attempt at the political power. If you base your judgment of Lenin, on the approval or disapproval of certain people of WPI's performance, you would empty Lenin of his real content. We have long departed from the notion that refers socialism to a distant future. We have stated that this party, during our time, will try to play such a role, and thus we are obliged to do so. Communism must move towards the seizure of political power in order to offer, a choice to the society and the working class, to emerge with socialism from a revolutionary development. Lenin's method is more than ever indispensable.

[Translated by Javad Aslani, from Farsi. First Published in "Mansoor Hekmat, Selected Works, Farsi edition, page 1708, published by WPI-Hekmatist, 2005]