Marxism-Leninism and Modern Capitalism

[cenv]

So, every other thread at RevLeft seems to be a debate about the merits of the USSR, but my question is addressed to revolutionaries who seek to apply the strategy of Marxism-Leninism to the realities of modern capitalism -- especially in developed countries. Our society, marked by consumerism and unprecedented technological advancement, is a world apart from the unindustrialized and backwards Russia of 1917. In Lenin's time, there was no RevLeft. ;) (Or Internet, or TV, or literacy, or shopping malls, or ...)

So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

[Lyev]

Thanks you for asking this question, I have pondered on this myself; after all the communist manifesto was written some 150 odd years ago.

[robbo203]

So, every other thread at RevLeft seems to be a debate about the merits of the USSR, but my question is addressed to revolutionaries who seek to apply the strategy of Marxism-Leninism to the realities of modern capitalism -- especially in developed countries. Our society, marked by consumerism and unprecedented technological advancement, is a world apart from the unindustrialized and backwards Russia of 1917. In Lenin's time, there was no RevLeft. ;) (Or Internet, or TV, or literacy, or shopping malls, or ...)

So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

By shedding completely the "Leninist" component of the oxymoron "Marxism-Leninism" and recognising it for what it was - a fundamentally wrong approach to establishing a genuine communist society. The proof of the pudding was all in the eating of it.

[Muzk]

Hmm, Marx' theory of proletariat revolution to overthrow the bourgeoise democracy, has never really been used, the only revolution of the proletariat was in 1917, and they were not even in the stage of capitalism, so Lenin actually tried something completely different by skipping a "neccessary" step in history :D
Lenin, Mao's revolutions have actually ended in capitalism :((and in complete desasters)

[robbo203]

Hmm, Marx' theory of proletariat revolution to overthrow the bourgeoise democracy, has never really been used, the only revolution of the proletariat was in 1917, and they were not even in the stage of capitalism, so Lenin actually tried something completely different by skipping a "neccessary" step in history :D
Lenin, Mao's revolutions have actually ended in capitalism :((and in complete desasters)


Indeed. They were essentially capitalist revolutions notwithstanding the predominant role of the proletariat, at least in the Russian Revolution. They could hardly be any other than capitalist revolutions given that the preconditions of communist revolution simply did not exist - mass communist understanding and a relatively developed economic infrastructure. It is not quite true that Lenin argued capitalism could be skipped - he did strenuously maintain that state capitalism would be a step forward for Russia and urged his compatriots to copy the example of state capitalism exemplified by the German war economy

[Искра]

Thanks you for asking this question, I have pondered on this myself; after all the communist manifesto was written some 150 odd years ago.
Communist Manifesto has nothing to do with Leninism. It's just Marx's book concerning communism.
Claiming C.M. as Leninist excludes all other sub-ideologies of communism.

[Rjevan]

Indeed. They were essentially capitalist revolutions notwithstanding the predominant role of the proletariat, at least in the Russian Revolution. They could hardly be any other than capitalist revolutions given that the preconditions of communist revolution simply did not exist - mass communist understanding and a relatively developed economic infrastructure. It is not quite true that Lenin argued capitalism could be skipped - he did strenuously maintain that state capitalism would be a step forward for Russia and urged his compatriots to copy the example of state capitalism exemplified by the German war economy
God, no, not this again!!!
Honestly, I said it before and I stick to it, if you want to wait till "mass communist understanding" is common in the population you can wait till the end of the world! And as before I can't believe that you obviously have to wait till absolutely all preconditions have been fulfilled and your checklist is complete before you can even think of starting a revolution because it must become a capitalist revolution anyway if this is not the case, according to you.
Again, what should the Russian proletariat have done? Went home? And what about "third world" countries? No revolution for them if the industrialised heros don't come and bring the light and the joys of "developed economic infrastructure" to them?

And the "Lenin wanted state capitalism" issue has been dealt with earlier in this thread, as you know: Lenin and state capitalism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-and-state-t118579/index.html)

Since I don't want to spam the thread and restart this debate again, for anybody who is interested, this was the previousl one about the "capitalist revolution" (we start at post 40...): Lenin was an anti-revolutionary? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-anti-revolutionary-t113105/index.html)

[Post-Something]

So, every other thread at RevLeft seems to be a debate about the merits of the USSR, but my question is addressed to revolutionaries who seek to apply the strategy of Marxism-Leninism to the realities of modern capitalism -- especially in developed countries. Our society, marked by consumerism and unprecedented technological advancement, is a world apart from the unindustrialized and backwards Russia of 1917. In Lenin's time, there was no RevLeft. ;) (Or Internet, or TV, or literacy, or shopping malls, or ...)

So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

Nobody on this site knows, at least, to my knowledge. I've asked numerous times and I just get some of the most laughable answers you'll hear. In fact, most communist parties don't actually know. You go to a meeting and it's just a lecture on how bad capitalism is, then you ask them what they're actually going to do, and they respond with stupendously vague answers like: "Well, we are a true internationalist party!", or "We stick rigorously to Marx, unlike everyone else!". The truth is, none of these parties are ever going to manage a serious revolution. Sure, they'll win a couple peoples jobs back, or they'll organise a protest. But these kind of things have become institutionalised and the norm.

If you want an answer to this question, you'll have to do your own research. Check out some people who tried to advance Marxs theories to contemporary society, like Gramsci, or the Frankfurt school. If you get bored of reading about Marx and in what ways his theorys can be applied, read another philosopher or cultural theorist. Then mull over whether the two have anything in common, whether they're theories can be combined, whats already been done in the feild etc. This is how new ideas come about these days, reinterpreting whats already been said.

[robbo203]

God, no, not this again!!!
Honestly, I said it before and I stick to it, if you want to wait till "mass communist understanding" is common in the population you can wait till the end of the world! And as before I can't believe that you obviously have to wait till absolutely all preconditions have been fulfilled and your checklist is complete before you can even think of starting a revolution because it must become a capitalist revolution anyway if this is not the case, according to you.
Again, what should the Russian proletariat have done? Went home?


In effect what you are saying then is one of two things

either

1) communism is possible without mass understanding and support in which case you put yourself squarely against the whole weight of the marxist tradition which emphasises the need for working class self emancipation and mass communist understanding

or

2) communism is not possible without mass understanding and support but we are never going to get this until the "end of the world" in which case you might just as well kiss goodbye to a communist future and make the best of what we have got - i.e. capitalism. In other words you are saying lets just accept capitalism

So which is it huh? A straight answer to a straight question would be much appreciated

You ask what do I think the Russian proletariat should have done. Well, of course, in Russia in 1917 communism was simply not on the cards. There was neither the mass communist understanding nor the developed infrastructure to enable communism to come into being. Does that mean that the workers should have "gone home", put their feet up and forgot about it all. Of course not. If I was a Russian worker at the time, I would be striving to ensure that the best possible outcome for the Russian proletariat in the aftermath of the capitalist Bolshevik revolution which established state capitalism. I would probably be active in the factory committees and soviets without holding any illusion that these institutions were in any sense "socialist" to ensure as far as possible the independence of the working class from the depredations of the Bolshevik capitalist state. Saying what you "should" do does not mean of couse that you will necessarily accomplish it but at least you strive to avoid doing something that would actually harm the interests of the working class - like supporting the Bolsheviks. I would have opposed the Bolsheviks even though they did one very good thing which was to bring Russia out of the war

After the initial flush of enthusiasm for the Bolsheviks in 1917 many Russian workers became seriously disillusioned as the true anti-working class nature of the Bolshevik regime revealed itself. Its a pity they had not realised this earlier. History might have turned out differently



And what about "third world" countries? No revolution for them if the industrialised heros don't come and bring the light and the joys of "developed economic infrastructure" to them?

No this doesnt follow. I said communism was not possible in Russia at the time because apart from the lack of widespread communist consciousness, Russia did not possess the infrastrcuture to sustain a communist society. But here I am talking about the possibility of communism in one country alone. That does not mean that communism (aka socialism) was not then possible in the world as a whole including Russia becuase the world, as a whole, did indeed possess the technological potential to sustain a communist society then as it does now. In this sense it is not necessary for the third world countries to develop their economic infrastructure in order to have communism. This argument would only apply if you thought you could have communism in one country which I dont think is possible in any case.

Realistically then all that we are lacking is mass communist consciousness in both developed and develoiping countries for global communism to be realised; the question of the technological potential to sustain a communist society worldwide has long been settled quite possibly at the beginning of the 20th century and before the Russian Revolution even took place!

[MilitantWorker]

Here we go again.

Question for the Original Poster:

What does "Marxism-Leninism" mean to you?

Does it mean, as Kautsky said first and Lenin later reiterated:


The vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia [K. K.’s italics]: it was in the minds of individual members of this stratum that modern socialism originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more intellectually developed proletarians who, in their turn, introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done. Thus, socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without [von Aussen Hineingetragenes] and not something that arose within it spontaneously [urwüchsig].

If you agree with Kautsky/Lenin above (quoted from What is To be Done?), then comrade I must respectfully say, you are wrong.

What Kautsky (and Lenin) didn't consider was that, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, socialism, Marxism-- these are not concepts or ideas that some rich guy pulled out of his ass. They are direct products of the historical class struggle.

Karl Marx, using his theory of historical materialism, was able to look at history differently than any other historian before, from the perspective of class contradiction. I'm sure you know this, but the point I'm trying to make is that "Modern Socialism" wasn't "originated" by members of the "bourgeois intelligentsia". It came from the class struggle.


So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

To answer your question, we need to do away with this so-called "Leninism".

A global communist revolution (if and when it happens) will be the result of the class struggle and the material conditions that fueled it. That old Che quote, "The revolution is not an apple that falls from the tree when it's ripe. You have to make it fall," is total bullshit. And that is one reason why today all of the countries which had "communist revolutions" in the 20th century are now nothing more than state capitalist monstrosities.

If you wanna do more to bring a global communist revolution, I would start by abandoning any romantic ideas of armed revolutionaries winning a sort of coup d'etat against capitalism.

If you genuinely want to help human-kind get closer to a communist future, then get out there, meet other comrades ("networking, organizing") and when you can, help fellow workers see how they are being exploited everyday and why ("intervention in the class struggle, theoretical clarification").

All in my humble opinion of course.

[Lord Hargreaves]

So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

I think this is a good phrasing of the question, in the sense that any modern application of Marxism has to be post-Leninist - we should abandon Leninism per se, it is I think rather outdated, but by doing so we should not run the risk of falling back into the pre-Leninist delusions that Leninism was an unconsciousable advance on: I speak mainly of Lenins "politicization" of Marxism, as against the economism, determinism, and "humanism" of the ill-fated Second International


How do the material conditions of the 21st Century mean for a new Marxist politics? I think that late capitalism has produced, contrary to what Marx originally predicted, a disslocating of the working class - it did not bring the working class together, and the real-material emergence of the famed subject-object of history has been permanently postponed. I think, therefore, that resistance against capitalism has to work within these disslocating structures in an immanent movement, rather than continuing to fight against in the tide in its futile way. This would mean a move away from socialists working in party politics so as to instead take up a more autonomist direction

[spiltteeth]

Well, I call myself a post-Maoist.
Basically, we need something new.
However, that doesn't mean we throw out ALL the old.
I agree with parts of Leninism and Maoism, but any revolution will be historically determined and involve coming up with new ways to apply Marxism.

So, I suggest you study basic Marxism, the dialectic, and historical materialism; and then realize a theory will always appear very messy when applied to actual reality.

I think both Mao and Lenin figured out how to make things work in the unique circumstances they found themselves in, but their theory was incomplete because they couldn't keep things going.

[Q]

In this context I'd like to give my thoughts on how to proceed from here. As I've written in my blog (http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=553), we indeed need to rethink our methods. The basic tenets of Marxism are very simple and are as follows:

1) socialism is the self-emancipation of the working class, this is accomplished by;
2) an independant class position, not relying on the bosses or their state,
3) an internationalist approach in the here and now, not as an abstract principle of a future "socialist federation of the world", and
4) workers democracy within the movement and as a principle to organise society, this is achieved via
5) a revolutionary party and organisation.

I think we need to rethink point 5 as to mean more then just a party in the sense as we've seen them in the past 90 or so years. It is fundamental to understand that the "revolutionary party" as we know them today (or rather, their echo's from the past as we know them today) stem from the first four congresses of the comintern that introduced party purges, forbade factions and tendencies, etc. All to prepare the party for what was thought to be the imminent revolutionary civil war in Europe.

In the long run this foundation has stifled the development of revolutionary movements and parties that based on this foundation: The Stalinists, the Trotskyists, the Maoists, etc.

Today we live in a very different era compared to that of 1917. No longer do we see major feudal societies and capitalism has become universal with the collapse of Stalinism in the late 1980's. With that collapse and the consequent moving to the right of the social-democratic parties and yellow unions in the West into accepting neoliberal logic and losing their capability to organise the working class, the working class has lost its mass organisations. We're effectively back to the period 1880-1900, perhaps even worse.

So, what is the way forward? I think this has at least three major aspects (see my blogpost for a more indepth desciption):
1. Any political party must act as a political center. Not only in the form of action (organisation), but also in the form of raising political awareness to the masses (education). For this we need a truly open platform of discussion and debate.
2. An alternative culture is another cornerstone as opposed to capitalist culture. For clarity, I'm not referring to any bullshit like "socialist realism" but instead look for culture that activate, mobilise and selfempower the working class as a class in a social sense. This as opposed to the mindkilling and alienating capitalist culture of Fox and Hollywood.
3. Red unions are the final ingredient. Whereas political parties form a political point of reference, red unions form the mass organisation investing in its own interests. The IWW is one such example, but sadly has too much of a distance between themselves and affiliating or sympathising with a political party or parties (there is no reason why there should only be one).

I'm not saying this is the way, but if we can get this right we'll be miles ahead from where we are now.

[cenv]

Here we go again.

Question for the Original Poster:

What does "Marxism-Leninism" mean to you?

Does it mean, as Kautsky said first and Lenin later reiterated:



If you agree with Kautsky/Lenin above (quoted from What is To be Done?), then comrade I must respectfully say, you are wrong.

What Kautsky (and Lenin) didn't consider was that, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, socialism, Marxism-- these are not concepts or ideas that some rich guy pulled out of his ass. They are direct products of the historical class struggle.

Karl Marx, using his theory of historical materialism, was able to look at history differently than any other historian before, from the perspective of class contradiction. I'm sure you know this, but the point I'm trying to make is that "Modern Socialism" wasn't "originated" by members of the "bourgeois intelligentsia". It came from the class struggle.



To answer your question, we need to do away with this so-called "Leninism".

A global communist revolution (if and when it happens) will be the result of the class struggle and the material conditions that fueled it. That old Che quote, "The revolution is not an apple that falls from the tree when it's ripe. You have to make it fall," is total bullshit. And that is one reason why today all of the countries which had "communist revolutions" in the 20th century are now nothing more than state capitalist monstrosities.

If you wanna do more to bring a global communist revolution, I would start by abandoning any romantic ideas of armed revolutionaries winning a sort of coup d'etat against capitalism.

If you genuinely want to help human-kind get closer to a communist future, then get out there, meet other comrades ("networking, organizing") and when you can, help fellow workers see how they are being exploited everyday and why ("intervention in the class struggle, theoretical clarification").

All in my humble opinion of course.
Good points.

Your question (what does M-L mean to me) reminds me that I should clarify where I was coming from with my original post. I'm not a Marxist-Leninist. However, I've noticed that a lot of parties devote a large amount of their time to historical analysis, often basing their revolutionary strategy on that of the Bolsheviks, without considering how material conditions have changed since then. So I wanted to get the perspective of revolutionaries who base their activity and ideology on the experiences of the Bolsheviks (especially anti-revisionists, since they're hardcore orthodox Leninists who uphold the first few decades of the USSR as socialist, but also Trotskyists and any other Leninists) on how they derive their revolutionary analysis and praxis from the successes/failures of the Bolsheviks and the USSR while simultaneously applying their ideas to the material conditions of the 21st century.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Good points.

Your question (what does M-L mean to me) reminds me that I should clarify where I was coming from with my original post. I'm not a Marxist-Leninist. However, I've noticed that a lot of parties devote a large amount of their time to historical analysis, often basing their revolutionary strategy on that of the Bolsheviks, without considering how material conditions have changed since then. So I wanted to get the perspective of revolutionaries who base their activity and ideology on the experiences of the Bolsheviks (especially anti-revisionists, since they're hardcore orthodox Leninists who uphold the first few decades of the USSR as socialist, but also Trotskyists and any other Leninists) on how they derive their revolutionary analysis and praxis from the successes/failures of the Bolsheviks and the USSR while simultaneously applying their ideas to the material conditions of the 21st century.

While I think that these historical debates often degenerate into bickering and can be tedious, I'm not sure if I understand your point.

Can you be more specific? I really am doubtful if there are many radical groups out there that don't talk about history as it applies to how they see things today. Outside of some study-circle on a particular historical text, I don't think groups are out there trying to convince people on some really archaic Bolshevik debate about peasants or writing denunciations of the mostly long-gone political trends that Marx outlines in the section of the Communist Manifesto about other parties of the day.

For anarchists who want to prove that Bolshevism automatically leads to Stalinism, they point to every undemocratic measure taken by the early Bolsheviks. Marxist-Leninist (Stalinist) might present Lenin as supernaturally all-knowing because this backs up their view of top-down revolution or whatnot.

I agree that our theories must always be adjusted as capitalism adjusts itself (understanding credit, imperialism, state-capitalism, and so on) but I think the big picture remains the same (I guess that's why I wanted to know specifically what features of capitalism now have not been addressed) because the main features of capitalism have remained the same.

Grammsci is fantastic by the way, but you will not be able to understand his arguments if you don't also understand the history of the Bolsheviks.

[cenv]

While I think that these historical debates often degenerate into bickering and can be tedious, I'm not sure if I understand your point.

Can you be more specific? I really am doubtful if there are many radical groups out there that don't talk about history as it applies to how they see things today. Outside of some study-circle on a particular historical text, I don't think groups are out there trying to convince people on some really archaic Bolshevik debate about peasants or writing denunciations of the mostly long-gone political trends that Marx outlines in the section of the Communist Manifesto about other parties of the day.

For anarchists who want to prove that Bolshevism automatically leads to Stalinism, they point to every undemocratic measure taken by the early Bolsheviks. Marxist-Leninist (Stalinist) might present Lenin as supernaturally all-knowing because this backs up their view of top-down revolution or whatnot.

I agree that our theories must always be adjusted as capitalism adjusts itself (understanding credit, imperialism, state-capitalism, and so on) but I think the big picture remains the same (I guess that's why I wanted to know specifically what features of capitalism now have not been addressed) because the main features of capitalism have remained the same.

Grammsci is fantastic by the way, but you will not be able to understand his arguments if you don't also understand the history of the Bolsheviks.
Actually, I'm not out to prove that Bolshivism is evil. I understand that some of the actions of the Bolsheviks -- including some of their most controversial policies -- were the logical conclusion of the material conditions they faced. My point is that Marxist-Leninists base their strategy on an ideology developed in response to circumstances radically different than the ones we face to do. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this per se; but a modern application of Marxism-Leninism obviously differs from the Bolsheviks' conception of it, and I'm curious how MLists place their ideology in this historical perspective.

Anti-revisionists, Trotskyists, Maoists, Hoxhaists -- they all define themselves in relation to particular historical tendencies. But there's a world of difference between groups who pidgeonhole themselves into X historical tendency and groups who take a specific interpretation of history and apply it to modern capitalism.

So my initial post wasn't about any outstanding unaddressed features of capitalism -- I agree that the general approach is the same. Instead, I'm curious how revolutionaries in the 21st century take an ideology derived from a particular set of historical circumstances, abstract it, and apply it to contemporary capitalism.

(In this vein, Q's post was really interesting, and I plan to respond after I have more time to contemplate your blog entry.:))

[Lord Hargreaves]

However, I've noticed that a lot of parties devote a large amount of their time to historical analysis, often basing their revolutionary strategy on that of the Bolsheviks, without considering how material conditions have changed since then.

Yeah, with these Bolshevik parties there is obsession with
-- going over the history of the USSR and whether Leninism was a justified response to the material conditions of 1917
-- asking the question of whether Leninism is still relevant for the 21st Century

Of course, the questions are never posed seriously, they are used in the continuing and never-exhausted project of trying to maintain a sense of self-identity in a world of fragmentation and dislocation: the answer is always that Leninism was justified and is still relevant (the answer is presupposed by the question)

As I said in my post above, I think it would be best for these parties to work with and not against dislocation: we need a new type of collective action that is not collectivist imho

[cenv]

As I said in my post above, I think it would be best for these parties to work with and not against dislocation: we need a new type of collective action that is not collectivist imho
Hmm... can you elaborate on what form this action might take?

[Rjevan]

In effect what you are saying then is one of two things

either

1) communism is possible without mass understanding and support in which case you put yourself squarely against the whole weight of the marxist tradition which emphasises the need for working class self emancipation and mass communist understanding

or

2) communism is not possible without mass understanding and support but we are never going to get this until the "end of the world" in which case you might just as well kiss goodbye to a communist future and make the best of what we have got - i.e. capitalism. In other words you are saying lets just accept capitalism

So which is it huh? A straight answer to a straight question would be much appreciated
Seems like you don't remember that we had exactly this discussion before... I remember very well, so I'll post what we had back then:


So yes there really was no "mass understanding and support" for a genuine socialist alternative. That is not to deny that the idea of a moneyless wageless stateless society did have a certain amount of currency among Bolsheviks as popularised by textbooks such Bogdanoff's but that didnt make the Russian proletariat as a whole socialist-minded, did it now? Still less the wider population of Russia. Yes, it did make them socialist-minded, to that extend that they supported the Bolsheviks and their aims. If you mean by socialist-minded that even the last peasant had in-depth knowledge about socialism/communism and an intense awareness for the question of the education of children in a truly socialist society, then, of course not. But if you want to wait till this is the case you will have to wait a very very long time.
...
So you admit that there was support for the Bolsheviks because of their aims and as I outlined before these Bolshevik aims are quite compatible to socialist/communist aims... if people supported the Bolsheviks and their aims they therefore supported socialist/communist aims, so there was support for socialist aims.

And we went on further:


I am saying what anyone who claims to be a marxist at all would understand implicitly that without a sufficiently developed infrastructure to sustain a socialist (communist) society and without the mass understaidng and support for such an alternative globally, socialism is simply not possible. If you deny this then you dont understand the first thing about Marxism. We already had the "support for the Bolsheviks"-thing, but now it even gets better: "support for such an alternative globally"! So, in this context that sounds not like it does in Marx works, it sounds like "If there's not the chance of the world revolution it is totally senseless to start or support a revolution of the working class because it can by no means be a socialist revolution and therefore must end as capitalist one." Ah, right... so just because Nazi Germany or today Bush's USA dislike communism it would be better if we all went home because no matter how much we dislike it, socialism is under these circumstances simply not possible. But bad enough, according to Marx, the world revolution doesn't happen out of the blue, it has to start somewhere first.

Since you asked for a straight answer, I'll sum it up:
I think communism is impossible if you want to wait for what you call "sufficinet" mass understanding (I asked you back then what you think is sufficient, till every worker read "Das Kapital" and can perfectly quote Engels' "Condition of Working Class in England" and start an indepth discussion with you about ?) within the world proletariat since you will never achieve such, thanks to the capitalist controlled media, the bourgeois propaganda and the false promises and hopes of capitalism.
But this doesn't mean that there can be no mass support, as you yourself admit in the quotes above there was mass support for the Bolsheviks because of their socialist/communist aims (I know, according to you they were just opportunists and populists but I still don't get why a communist party is opportunist when they present communist goals...). Same goes for the Spain Republic, I doubt that they were all well versed in communist literature.

Take a look at John Reed's "Ten Days that Shooke the World" and you will see that the proletariat was interested in socialist topics and supported real socialism. They were interested and had the basics and this is a sign to me that there was - I admit- basic mass understanding. But again, I think the two of us have not the same view of what is "sufficient" mass understanding...

[Lord Hargreaves]

Hmm... can you elaborate on what form this action might take?

This would be more of a means to stress the contingent element in political organizing, rather than having a fixed, static, strictly hierarchial structure with no or very little flexibility in its specific goals and conceptions of what revolution would or should be like. This is quite an "anarchical" formulation, but again, it would not be anarchist if this means committing the same errors as I above attribute to the (Leninist) party

I am interested in supporting specific acts by individuals in particular concrete local struggles that bring into question universal structures of domination and exploitation (they do not have to be acts of terrorism where people get hurt, though these cannot be absolutely ruled out). Such acts may provide the conditions where various disparate groups can solidify together for a joint purpose, according to the contingent and unpredictable(?) historical circumstances of that particular incidence

[FSL]

I do not understand the questions, can someone explain them please?:)

In modern capitalism wealth is no longer produced by workers but by stock-holders?

Now that the Internet exists (technological advances were unheard of in any other century of course) must we stil only use leaflets to spread our message? Leaflets and the internet? Only the internet and anyone doing something else is a vicious opportunist?!?!

Please, shed some light on these important issues to know whether marxism-leninism is still relevant!

[robbo203]

Since you asked for a straight answer, I'll sum it up:
I think communism is impossible if you want to wait for what you call "sufficinet" mass understanding (I asked you back then what you think is sufficient, till every worker read "Das Kapital" and can perfectly quote Engels' "Condition of Working Class in England" and start an indepth discussion with you about ?) within the world proletariat since you will never achieve such, thanks to the capitalist controlled media, the bourgeois propaganda and the false promises and hopes of capitalism.
But this doesn't mean that there can be no mass support, as you yourself admit in the quotes above there was mass support for the Bolsheviks because of their socialist/communist aims (I know, according to you they were just opportunists and populists but I still don't get why a communist party is opportunist when they present communist goals...). Same goes for the Spain Republic, I doubt that they were all well versed in communist literature.

Take a look at John Reed's "Ten Days that Shooke the World" and you will see that the proletariat was interested in socialist topics and supported real socialism. They were interested and had the basics and this is a sign to me that there was - I admit- basic mass understanding. But again, I think the two of us have not the same view of what is "sufficient" mass understanding...

By "sufficient" support for communism I mean a clear majority wanting and understanding socialism/communism in the sense of a moneyless wageless, stateless commonwealth. For that you dont need to have read or even heard of Marx or Engels. The case for socialism/communism stands on its own two feet.

There was clearly no more than a small minority in Bolshevik Russia who understood and wanted socialism/communism in that sense (as even Lenin acknowledged). Besides, the goal of the Bolshevik was not communism or socialism in the above sense but state capitalism. Sure, lipservice was paid to the goal just as almost all of the reformist participants in the Second International similarly paid lipservice to goal of "socialism".which eventually disappeared from sight like the cheshire cats grin. But even then you should remember also that Lenin himself radically departed from the traditional meaning of socialism by calling it state capitalism run in the interests of the whole people

[Lyev]

Is revolution in the developed, western world actually feasible, though? It seems more relevant, to me, in parts of South America and Africa. But, then again, isn't there that Marx quote 'the workers of the world have no country!' or something?

[Rjevan]

By "sufficient" support for communism I mean a clear majority wanting and understanding socialism/communism in the sense of a moneyless wageless, stateless commonwealth. For that you dont need to have read or even heard of Marx or Engels. The case for socialism/communism stands on its own two feet.
Then I can't see how these conditions don't fit the October Revolution, as you can see, e.g. in Reed's "10 Days" a clear majority of the proletariat, the army and the peasants (and not "only a few Bolsheviks") definitely wanted and also had knowledge about socialism/communism. They shed their blood not for some "capitalist dictators" like Lenin but for their genuine wish to accomplish socialism, destroy the reactionary enemies and set a signal for the world revolution. And that's just my point, the October Revolution was no coup and definitely no "capitalist revolution" but a definite socialist revolution carried out by the proletariat.

I guess it's about the infrastructure then, once again...


Besides, the goal of the Bolshevik was not communism or socialism in the above sense but state capitalism. Sure, lipservice was paid to the goal just as almost all of the reformist participants in the Second International similarly paid lipservice to goal of "socialism".which eventually disappeared from sight like the cheshire cats grin.
That is what you say, backed up by totally nothing but claims. As much as I am a fan of conspirac theories I ask you once again what is more logical, a communist party, consisting of communists and propagating communist goals or a party of powerhungry wannabe capitalists, masking as communists and therefore propagating communist goals in order to fool the proletariat and finally get to power this way...

I could as well argue that America was secretly communist during Bush's Republican government and just wanted to present a disgusting example of imperialism and capitalism to the world, so that everybody would be in favour of communism. Sounds very far-fetched and quite ridiculous? So does your slandering of the Bolsheviks.


But even then you should remember also that Lenin himself radically departed from the traditional meaning of socialism by calling it state capitalism run in the interests of the whole people
You take a quote by Lenin totally out of its context and interpret it as it fits best into your view, no matter what other people explain and disregarding everything else Lenin every wrote as "opportunist lies". I have linked to the "Lenin wanted state capitalism?"-thread and as you have posted in it you should know how this statement can be explained.

That is my last post regarding this topic in this thread because this is going to go around in circles once again, of course you can answer but I will not do so anymore because this is excactly the debate we have had before in-depth. And I guess everybody has enough imagination to predict what you and I will answer, if he/she takes a look at the old thread.


Is revolution in the developed, western world actually feasible, though? It seems more relevant, to me, in parts of South America and Africa.
If you think this way you have Maoist leanings. If you are interested read up about the "Three Worlds Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Worlds_Theory)".

[robbo203]

Then I can't see how these conditions don't fit the October Revolution, as you can see, e.g. in Reed's "10 Days" a clear majority of the proletariat, the army and the peasants (and not "only a few Bolsheviks") definitely wanted and also had knowledge about socialism/communism. They shed their blood not for some "capitalist dictators" like Lenin but for their genuine wish to accomplish socialism, destroy the reactionary enemies and set a signal for the world revolution. And that's just my point, the October Revolution was no coup and definitely no "capitalist revolution" but a definite socialist revolution carried out by the proletariat.

I guess it's about the infrastructure then, once again...

I haven't read Reed's book though am familiar with some passages from it. If what you say is true then this is the first time I have ever heard anybody suggest that a majority of the Russian proletariat wanted and understood genuine communism -i.e. a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. Perhaps you could substantiate your claim by posting here the relevant paragraph from Reeds book ...

I suspect though that either you have misread what Reed was saying or if not, then what Reed was saying was something quite different to what I had mind i.e. by communist he did not literally mean wanting to see the abolition of the wages system. Everything I have ever read about the Russian revolution points to the fact that the idea of genuine communism was not one that the great majority of Russian workers either knew about or wanted. Lenin himself was quite clear about this. He himself said that the Russian workers were still a long way off from being communist minded in that sense and made the point that if the Bolsheviks had to wait until the workers were so minded they would be waiting for 500 years. That quote I think is to be found in Reeds book

I accept that the Russian proletariat were militant in a mere anti-capitalist sense and were concerned with things like wage levels and factory closures. They were drawn to the Bolsheviks (intitially) because of its slogans like "land peace and bread" (many of the recruits to Bolshevism soon became disillusioned as the true nature of the Bolsheviks - and its state capitalist agenda - became apparent. But militant trade union consciousness does not equate with with revolutionary socialist consciousness and the desire to eliminate the wages system (capitalism). While the idea of genuine socialist alternative was certainly current in Bolshevik circles - Bogdanov's Short history of Economic Science which described socialism as the highest stage of society we can conceive of and in which there is no market, was republished by the Bolsheviks in 1919 - it was very much a minority preoccupation

The Bolshevik revolution was of course not a socialist revolution. How could it be if it did not result in genuine socialism? It was a capitalist revolution albeit carried out by the proletariat.

One final thing - even if your outlandish claim was true that a majority of Russian workers genuinely wanted and understood socialism/communism you need to be aware that the Russian proletariat constitued only a small minority of the population at the time. There was simply no way in which communism could be established even if the Russian workers were largely communist minded since the vast majority of the population as a whole were clearly not - unless you are disputing this as well!




That is what you say, backed up by totally nothing but claims. As much as I am a fan of conspirac theories I ask you once again what is more logical, a communist party, consisting of communists and propagating communist goals or a party of powerhungry wannabe capitalists, masking as communists and therefore propagating communist goals in order to fool the proletariat and finally get to power this way....

Actually I think you are the one who is saying things "backed up by totally nothing but claims". I have substantiated what I have said with direct quotes; you havent. I dont regard the Bolshevik capitalist revolution as a conspiracy to hoodwink workers by claiming to stand for communism. Its a pretty feeble kind of conspiracy, isnt it, if you get people like Lenin actually saying state capitalism would be a step forward for Russia. That Lenin wanted state capitalism for Russia is abundantly clear from the extensive list of quotes posted by DaveB in the "Lenin and state capitalism" thread

[Rjevan]

I haven't read Reed's book though am familiar with some passages from it. If what you say is true then this is the first time I have ever heard anybody suggest that a majority of the Russian proletariat wanted and understood genuine communism -i.e. a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. Perhaps you could substantiate your claim by posting here the relevant paragraph from Reeds book ...

A soldier was speaking—from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division, wherever and whatever that was:
“Comrades,” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and despairing gestures. “The people at the top are always calling upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left unmolested.
“We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve on our Staff? Well we’re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we invite them into our Government.
“The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the Revolution then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to force me.’
“When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it!”
...
A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried, “Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution until they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!”
...
Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. “I speak for the Petrograd proletariat,” he said, harshly. “We are in favour of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, we’re through with you!” Some soldiers joined him. And after that they voted again—insurrection won. . .
...
[An officer]“These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!” The hall rocked with laughter. “Let us for a moment forget the class struggle—” But he got no farther. A voice yelled, “Don’t you wish we would!”
...
At once every one began asking me questions about America: Was it true that people in a free country sold their votes for money? If so, how did they get what they wanted? How about this “Tammany”? Was it true that in a free country a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited it for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even under the Tsar such things could not happen in Russia; true, here there was always graft, but to buy and sell a whole city full of people! And in a free country! Had the people no revolutionary feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people tried to change things by law.
“Of course,” nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke French. “But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How then can the people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do not know your country; but to me it is incredible….”

Not the best quotes but what I found while going through some chapters briefly, the book has about 450 pages...
I definitely recommend you to read it, it is a very impressing document of the Revolution and also very exciting! Reed not only talks to Bolsheviks but also to Mensheviks, Kerensky, Monarchists, Anarchists, soldiers and ordinary people and this way portrays the atmosphere of this time very well, you will also find more than enough people sharing your view and condemning the Bolsheviks as populists, who "should know as Marxist theoreticans that what they do is totally contrary to everything Marx said". Of course Trotsky and others respond to such accusations and Reed is in favour of the Bolsheviks but you definitely can't call the book onesided.

Again, you will find no passage where Reed is engaged in an in-depth discussion with a proletarian about the difficulties of establishing a moneyless society but as I said, I think this is a little bit too much to expect it and the lecture of Reed's book confirmed my view that the October Revolution was a genuine socialist revolution carried out by the Russian proletariat.


The Bolshevik revolution was of course not a socialist revolution. How could it be if it did not result in genuine socialism? It was a capitalist revolution albeit carried out by the proletariat.
Well, this is now where our tendencies come in. I do believe that the USSR under Lenin and Stalin was a socialist workers' state untill the revisionists made an end to this in the late 50s. Since you are no Marxist-Leninist you of course don't see it this way but to claim that the Revolution per se was a capitalist revolution is a new one...


One final thing - even if your outlandish claim was true that a majority of Russian workers genuinely wanted and understood socialism/communism you need to be aware that the Russian proletariat constitued only a small minority of the population at the time. There was simply no way in which communism could be established even if the Russian workers were largely communist minded since the vast majority of the population as a whole were clearly not - unless you are disputing this as well!
As I said before: the proletariat, the soldiers and (I'd like to point out that many soldiers were proletarians, the rest were) the peasants wanted socialism.


Actually I think you are the one who is saying things "backed up by totally nothing but claims". I have substantiated what I have said with direct quotes; you havent. I dont regard the Bolshevik capitalist revolution as a conspiracy to hoodwink workers by claiming to stand for communism. Its a pretty feeble kind of conspiracy, isnt it, if you get people like Lenin actually saying state capitalism would be a step forward for Russia. That Lenin wanted state capitalism for Russia is abundantly clear from the extensive list of quotes posted by DaveB in the "Lenin and state capitalism" thread
Once again I have to remind you of the old thread, you gave quotes there, I gave quotes there, I told you I think your quotes are out of the context and falsely interpreted, you told me you think my comments were out of the context and falsely interpreted and it went on like this, round and round in cricles for many pages...
And for Lenin "promoting" state-capitalism, I'm afraid I have to agree with Yehuda Stern here:

Lenin never said his goal was state capitalism - his goal was a workers state. But Lenin also argued that given Russia's backwardness, even state capitalism would be a significant step forward for it. Also, Lenin knew the difference between socialism and a workers state, and correctly said the latter was "a bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie." It is probably that which he referred to when he talked about state capitalism serving the needs of the people.
And -on a very rare occassion- with Leon Trotsky, saying this (out of LZ's post (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1558505&postcount=12)):

And while so doing he refers – it is hardly believable! – to Lenin. There is only one possible way of explaining this reference: as the eternal inventor who creates a new theory a month, Urbahns has no time to read the books he refers to. Lenin did actually apply the term “state capitalism” but not to the Soviet economy as a whole, only to a certain section off it...

To summarize: under state capitalism, in the strict sense of the word, we must understand the management of industrial and other enterprises by the bourgeois state on its own account, or the “regulating” intervention of the bourgeois state into the workings of private capitalist enterprises. By state capitalism “in quotes,” Lenin meant the control of the proletarian state over private capitalist enterprises and relations. It remains a deep secret what concrete economic content Urbahns himself puts into his understanding of the Soviet “state capitalism.” To put it plainly, his newest theory is entirely built around a badly read quotation.

I see how you and DaveB respond to those quotes but as it is so often the case when people are debating about a topic: you think your interpretation of this quote is right and I think mine is right and I seriously doubt that one of us will be able to convince the other that he is wrong, since exactly the same effort is going on in the "Lenin and state capitalism" thread and I could bet that it will end without results, so let's aviod turning this thread into a copy.

EDIT: Yeah, 500 posts!

[Q]

(In this vein, Q's post was really interesting, and I plan to respond after I have more time to contemplate your blog entry.:))
I'm still eagerly awaiting your views on it :)

[A.R.Amistad]

Marxist-Bolshevist theory is very relevant today, albeit of course more modernised, which many movements have done. I think the most important contribution of Lenin to Marxism was the theory of the Imperialist stage of capitalism (which defines the situation of world capitalism today) and his broadening of what the proletariat means (not just factory workers, but agricultural as well, and even "lower middle class white and red collar workers, etc.). Also,, a close look at Marx's Manifesto is actually pretty broad and encourages applying theory to modern situations. (theory plus praxis) I don't think the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism are outdated, in fact they are extremely relative today. Much of what Lenin wrote was specifically for 1900s Russia (Professional Revolutionary idea, for example) and were not meant to be timeless. Here is a fairly recent article (More recent than Marx's or Lenin's writings) that brings Marxism-Leninism to life in our day and age.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1970/04/leninsher.html

[robbo203]

Quote:
Originally Posted by robbo203 http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1578716#post1578716)
I haven't read Reed's book though am familiar with some passages from it. If what you say is true then this is the first time I have ever heard anybody suggest that a majority of the Russian proletariat wanted and understood genuine communism -i.e. a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. Perhaps you could substantiate your claim by posting here the relevant paragraph from Reeds book ...

_______________________________

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ten Days that Shook the World

A soldier was speaking—from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division, wherever and whatever that was:
“Comrades,” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and despairing gestures. “The people at the top are always calling upon us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left unmolested.
“We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve on our Staff? Well we’re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we invite them into our Government.
“The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the Revolution then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to force me.’
“When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it!”
...
A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried, “Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution until they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until the peoples of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers to rise and fight for the Social Revolution!”
...
Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. “I speak for the Petrograd proletariat,” he said, harshly. “We are in favour of insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you allow the Soviets to be destroyed, we’re through with you!” Some soldiers joined him. And after that they voted again—insurrection won. . .
...
[An officer]“These Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!” The hall rocked with laughter. “Let us for a moment forget the class struggle—” But he got no farther. A voice yelled, “Don’t you wish we would!”
...
At once every one began asking me questions about America: Was it true that people in a free country sold their votes for money? If so, how did they get what they wanted? How about this “Tammany”? Was it true that in a free country a little group of people could control a whole city, and exploited it for their personal benefit? Why did the people stand it? Even under the Tsar such things could not happen in Russia; true, here there was always graft, but to buy and sell a whole city full of people! And in a free country! Had the people no revolutionary feeling? I tried to explain that in my country people tried to change things by law.
“Of course,” nodded a young sergeant, named Baklanov, who spoke French. “But you have a highly developed capitalist class? Then the capitalist class must control the legislatures and the courts. How then can the people change things? I am open to conviction, for I do not know your country; but to me it is incredible….”

___________________


Not the best quotes but what I found while going through some chapters briefly, the book has about 450 pages...
I definitely recommend you to read it, it is a very impressing document of the Revolution and also very exciting! Reed not only talks to Bolsheviks but also to Mensheviks, Kerensky, Monarchists, Anarchists, soldiers and ordinary people and this way portrays the atmosphere of this time very well, you will also find more than enough people sharing your view and condemning the Bolsheviks as populists, who "should know as Marxist theoreticans that what they do is totally contrary to everything Marx said". Of course Trotsky and others respond to such accusations and Reed is in favour of the Bolsheviks but you definitely can't call the book onesided.

Again, you will find no passage where Reed is engaged in an in-depth discussion with a proletarian about the difficulties of establishing a moneyless society but as I said, I think this is a little bit too much to expect it and the lecture of Reed's book confirmed my view that the October Revolution was a genuine socialist revolution carried out by the Russian proletariat.



I 'm sorry but I asked you for hard evidence that a majority of the Russian proletariat wanted and understood genuine communism -i.e. a moneyless wageless stateless commonwealth. The above quotation from Reed's book is completely useless if I might say so and entirely anecdotal. It says absolutely nothing about what drove the Russian proletariat - or, should I say, a significant number of them - to participate in the Revolution that would support the claim that they wanted genuine communism. I suspect Lenin was right to say that the Russian workers en masse were a long way off from being genuinely communist minded as in the above sense. It was more a kind of militant anti-capitalist response but anti-capitalism per se is not the same as a genuine communist outlook.

Also dont forget that even if the Russian workers were by some stretch of the imagination communist-minded - there were obviously some communist minded workers but only a small minoprity in my opinion - the vast majority of the population were not proletarian anyway. The Russian working class was only a small fraction of the population and genuine socialism/communism requires that a majority of the population as a whole wants and understands it

[vivalarevolucion]

I have many arguments with capitalist as i am a socialist who believes that capitalism is just as false as the society we live in.
Out society brainwashes us throught the television through the media day in day out. The media run by right winged people paint the ideal picture of a perfect woman or man in its magazines, this is a way of getting weak minded people sucked into their lies to get money out of them. Our society our goverment the media makes us believe that we are free as human beings to do what we want and to make money by whatever means just as long as it is in a lawfull way, but infact the truth is that we all live in a prison or cage which is invisible, but it is there and it affects us. We are puppets, animals controlled by the people in power who determine what goes down and what happens, and the ammount of times they lie to us is unimaginable.
It is sad to think about how fortunate we all are, how a small percentage of the worlds population owns anything and that the majority of the population are left fighting for the scraps. The way poor countries which are abundent in natural recources are exploited by rich imperialist and capitalist goverments such as the USA. Latin americans are selling large quantities of their natural recources such as coffee for very low prices and they have to pay for petty materials for high prices of the USA. It is not only in latin america its in asia in africa ALL OVER THE WORLD.
I am narrowing it down to each individual, a small percentage of people have material possesions which are of no real importance such as cell phones or computer or televisions, and we have these objects as society says it is one of the neccesities. Someone in a MEDC has to have these objects to survie, and it makes us forget how lucky we are for small things such as food and water which BILLIONS OF PEOPLE have no access to.
One of the main arguments against communism and socialism is that it has never worked or the ocutnrites who are run by a suposialy "communist" are in poverty. Communism and socialism will never thrive as long as the capitalist goverments of western europe and norht america exist, they are afraid that the message of communism will trandesend to other countries which will collapse their capitalist and classist society. They are scared that the people in their country and people around the world will open their eyes and think about how they are getting oppressed by the rich power crazy upper class d i c k s. Once they find out that they can opt for more then will the revolution happen.
The revolution cannot occur without the backing of the people, and as long as the goverment keep up their brainwahsing plans no revolution will happen or ever shall happen.
i would like to end on one note:
"the people in power are only in power because the people are on their knees! RISE UP!"

viva la revolucion!

[RHIZOMES]

A lot of people have this approach to Marxism-Leninism in the 21st Century - just forming a miniscule party (One among several), recruiting a few idealistic youngsters (who will later become sorely disillusioned), writing lots of obscure theoretical programs about how they're correctly upholding the Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist/Hoxhaist/Maoist/Buttholist/etc line and then publish an agitational far-left newspaper 3 workers will read. This has taken the place of actually building any sort of solid political bases or utilizing more relevant means of mass communication to spread Marxist ideas, such as the internet, etc.

[KC]

I think the most important contribution of Lenin to Marxism was the theory of the Imperialist stage of capitalism

But he did not "contribute" that. His renowned pamphlet was simply, as he put it, "a popular outline (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/)".


(which defines the situation of world capitalism today)

Not necessarily. Capitalism has developed immensely since the beginning of the 20th century, and to state that Imperialism "defines the situation of world capitalism today" is simply wrong.


and his broadening of what the proletariat means (not just factory workers, but agricultural as well, and even "lower middle class white and red collar workers, etc.).

Marx did this, as well.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I am going to dare to say the following:

I don't believe Lenin was right.

I would say that I am a Marxist only in the sense that I believe a lot of what he thought was correct, not because I take his word as gospel.

[Q]

I am going to dare to say the following:

I don't believe Lenin was right.

I would say that I am a Marxist only in the sense that I believe a lot of what he thought was correct, not because I take his word as gospel.
Could you elaborate? In what sense do you disagree with Lenin? Where do you agree with Marx?

You're not alone in saying that you disagree with Lenin by the way, but the Theory forum exists to discuss these matters more indepth :)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Fair does, I will try to elaborate as best I can, though theory is not my strong point nor my main interest.

I disagree with the idea of vanguardism. I completely understand its original intentions and why, given the social situation in Russia at the time, Lenin theoreticised such a solution. However, with hindsight, I would say that vanguardism merely created a division between the cadres of the Bolshevik Party, and the masses.
It also removes the impetus for education of the people, as there is no need for them to be ideologicall invigorated if they are not making decisions.

I would rather see more decentralised democracy, workers' unions and works councils replacing the central autocracy and large organisations which wield huge power and influence.

In terms of Marx, I am in agreement with the Communist Manifesto and its general analysis of the world, although I would say that we must be careful not to take this as gospel 150 years on - the world has moved on from when a tiny percentage of people were land and factory owners and the rest were effectively wage slaves; this is not to say that we cannot divide the world into the haves/have notes, just that we should not limit our definition of the working class to what Marx described, otherwise we would be describing a shrinking section of society. Poverty and exploitation take other forms these days - those at the lower end of the wealth gap may not appear to be materially poor, but their wealth related to their endeavours often shows that they are a member of the exploited.

[Tribune]

Here we go again.

Question for the Original Poster:

What does "Marxism-Leninism" mean to you?

Does it mean, as Kautsky said first and Lenin later reiterated:



If you agree with Kautsky/Lenin above (quoted from What is To be Done?), then comrade I must respectfully say, you are wrong.

What Kautsky (and Lenin) didn't consider was that, the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, socialism, Marxism-- these are not concepts or ideas that some rich guy pulled out of his ass. They are direct products of the historical class struggle.

Karl Marx, using his theory of historical materialism, was able to look at history differently than any other historian before, from the perspective of class contradiction. I'm sure you know this, but the point I'm trying to make is that "Modern Socialism" wasn't "originated" by members of the "bourgeois intelligentsia". It came from the class struggle.



To answer your question, we need to do away with this so-called "Leninism".

A global communist revolution (if and when it happens) will be the result of the class struggle and the material conditions that fueled it. That old Che quote, "The revolution is not an apple that falls from the tree when it's ripe. You have to make it fall," is total bullshit. And that is one reason why today all of the countries which had "communist revolutions" in the 20th century are now nothing more than state capitalist monstrosities.

If you wanna do more to bring a global communist revolution, I would start by abandoning any romantic ideas of armed revolutionaries winning a sort of coup d'etat against capitalism.

If you genuinely want to help human-kind get closer to a communist future, then get out there, meet other comrades ("networking, organizing") and when you can, help fellow workers see how they are being exploited everyday and why ("intervention in the class struggle, theoretical clarification").

All in my humble opinion of course.
Capitalist society (the economic exchanges and the political structure of enforcement, the spectacles, the ameliorations, the periods of crisis and consolidation) is not a theoretical program.

Talking won't de-concentrate wealth, and the offices of control and authority.

Words and awareness won't erase the choices the beneficiaries of capitalist ownership and law make.

Talking won't stop bullets, won't make GE change it's practices, won't make the laws disappear from the books, won't make the cops stop shooting people, won't make soldiers stop taking orders, won't budge a guy who has to weigh out starvation, unemployment, imprisonment against relative quiet, football sundays, cold beer and a roof over his head.

[A.R.Amistad]

Not necessarily. Capitalism has developed immensely since the beginning of the 20th century, and to state that Imperialism "defines the situation of world capitalism today" is simply wrong.

I fail to see where I went wrong here.

[KC]

Edit

[revolution inaction]

In terms of Marx, I am in agreement with the Communist Manifesto and its general analysis of the world, although I would say that we must be careful not to take this as gospel 150 years on - the world has moved on from when a tiny percentage of people were land and factory owners and the rest were effectively wage slaves; this is not to say that we cannot divide the world into the haves/have notes, just that we should not limit our definition of the working class to what Marx described, otherwise we would be describing a shrinking section of society. Poverty and exploitation take other forms these days - those at the lower end of the wealth gap may not appear to be materially poor, but their wealth related to their endeavours often shows that they are a member of the exploited.
Ok i haven't read the communist manifesto so maybe i'm missing something here but the proportion of people are wage slave is bigger than ever, far bigger than in marx's day when the peasantry made up a large proportion of the population. So i'm not seeing how this section of the population is shrinking?

[bailey_187]

I fail to see where I went wrong here.

Lenin's writing on Imperialism is more suited to early 20th century Germany IIRC, as lots of it was based on Hilferding's writings on Finance capital.

The basic idea that advanced Capitalist-Imperialist states compete for control of the world resources is correct, however.

Besides, Lenin didn't really have an original theory on Imperialism. He bought together the writings of Hobson, Hilferding, Bukharin and maybe some others.


This is what i learnt at Alex Callinicos's booklaunch, correct me if i am wrong

[Ben Seattle]

cenv -- #1 -- Oct 15:


So my question is: in what ways does a modern application of Marxism-Leninism differ from that of Lenin or Stalin? In what ways do the material conditions of the 21st century necessitate or allow for a different adaptation of Marxist-Leninist thought?

Post-Something -- #8 -- Oct 17:


Nobody on this site knows, at least, to my knowledge. I've asked numerous times and I just get some of the most laughable answers you'll hear. In fact, most communist parties don't actually know. You go to a meeting and it's just a lecture on how bad capitalism is, then you ask them what they're actually going to do, and they respond with stupendously vague answers like: "Well, we are a true internationalist party!", or "We stick rigorously to Marx, unlike everyone else!". The truth is, none of these parties are ever going to manage a serious revolution.

I may be able to help a little with these questions, since I have been focused on what I call the "crisis of theory" and this appears related to what you are asking about. Under working class rule, under a modern conditions, everyone would have the fundamental democratic rights of speech and organization. And there would be a very large number of independent political, economic and cultural organizations. This is one distinction between:

(1) workers rule under modern conditions and
(2) what is often considered the legacy of Lenin and Stalin.

I have created a chart titled "Timeline of Transition to Classless Society" and also written a relatively short essay that is relatively easy to read: "Politics, Economics & the Mass Media when the Working Class Runs the Show".

This chart and essay attempt to clarify the bigger questions--including, the particular material conditions that make possible things like democratic rights for the masses (basically--what it comes down to--is that if the masses are so starving and miserable that they want to kill whoever is in power--then it becomes awkward to allow them to speak and organize).

I am aware that for me to say these things may come across as a little bit presumptuous.

Here is what I suggest: Look at my timeline/chart and read my short essay and see if it makes one or two things more clear. If not--then go ahead and post one or two questions for me here and I will attempt to reply within the next ten days or so. I cannot promise that I will be able to clarify anything--but I can say that a few who have looked at my work felt it cleared some things up.

One thing though--if you post questions. I cannot answer questions about what "Marxism" or "Leninism" or "Socialism" are because these phrases are used in so many different ways by so many different people that they have become nearly meaningless and are essentially useless words as far as communication. On the other hand if you have questions about how society will function under modern conditions when the working class runs it--I believe I can handle that. I am a theoretician and that is what I do.

I am unable to post links because I have not yet met the 25 post quota that the software enforces here--but the relevant links are in my sig below. The chart is at the bottom of the web page where my essay "Conscious Forces Will Bring Us Certain Victory" is posted and there is a direct link below to the essay about workers running the show.

[KC]

Edit

[GatesofLenin]

You know what it means to me? It's a beautiful thing to be able to openly discuss what each one of us understands from reading the different books on communism. Open discussion without getting heated or beat up is the only way to learn and educate ourselves. I've read one book on Lenin so far and love his writings. So far I consider myself a Leninist but I'm not yet ready to debate the topic because I got lots more to read and study before I would ever take on a debate. BTW, who doesn't like that nice hat and goatee of V.I Lenin? :)