Oppurtunity knocks.

[RED VICTORY]

Comrades, i was just reading Lenin's "The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats" and came across this: "One need not be a prophet to foretell the inevitable and fairly sharp crash that is bound to succeed this period of industrial "prosperity".....Russian Social Democrats must see to it that when this crash comes the Russian Proletariat is more class conscious, more united....capable of putting up resistance to the capitalist class".

The Question is have we nationally and internationally failed to capitalize on the current global economic crisis? If so, how can we better prepare for the next crisis? How can we step it up a notch? Personally and also within organizations?

[Stephen Colbert]

We as individuals can try to voice our dissent as loud or as forcefully as we want. The problem is we live in and information age and the information that results is not a creature of the public, but almost always of the establishment.

[Wolf Larson]

When you quote this from Lenin: "The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats" and came across this: "One need not be a prophet to foretell the inevitable and fairly sharp crash that is bound to succeed this period of industrial "prosperity".....Russian Social Democrats must see to it that when this crash comes the Russian Proletariat is more class conscious, more united....capable of putting up resistance to the capitalist class".

It proves my point that the Russian revolution was premature and Lenin jumped the gun. Some posters on here have interpreted Lenin as saying "when capitalism goes global" it will be ready to be swept aside but in reality (Marx said) it will happen when capitalism can no longer expand.





See this thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/make-capitalism-seriously-t137984/index.html

[RED VICTORY]

It proves my point that the Russian revolution was premature and Lenin jumped the gun. Some posters on here have interpreted Lenin as saying "when capitalism goes global" it will be ready to be swept aside but in reality (Marx said) it will happen when capitalism can no longer expand.

I agree with you here,not to detract from the work Lenin did in the field of revolutionary practice, but yes it was premature. For all he gave us in revolutionary theory he did overlook the need for advanced capitalism. I guess in reality though there was no way for him to know that capitalism and technology would advance so much. Thanks for the link comrade.

[el_chavista]

Watch out the epoch the pamphlet was written:

The pamphlet The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats was written by Lenin in exile (Siberia) at the close of 1897, and was first published in 1898 by the Emancipation of Labour group in Geneva. It circulated widely among Russia's advanced workers. According to Police Department data for the years 1898-1905, copies of the pamphlet were discovered during searches and arrests made in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Smolensk, Kazan, Orel, Kiev, Vilno, Feodosia, Irkutsk, Archangel, Sormovo, Kovno and other towns.

[graymouser]

The Question is have we nationally and internationally failed to capitalize on the current global economic crisis? If so, how can we better prepare for the next crisis? How can we step it up a notch? Personally and also within organizations?
The labor movement in the developed countries is at a historical low ebb. What organizing can be done in this context? I mean, you have to be there to meet opportunity, but opportunity for socialists (Marxists at least) comes in the form of expansion of the activity of the workers as a class. We can work to intersect and encourage and help out what militancy there is, but we cannot suck this out of our collective thumbs. Most attempts I've seen to directly work with this, like the "Bail Out the People Movement" led by Workers World or the "Workers Emergency Response Campaign" led by Socialist Organizer in San Francisco, tend to be relatively shallow and without a broad labor base for their activity. What we can do that is productive is to work on getting the ideas out there so that as ferment continues, it goes along lines that we can work with instead of going directly to the Democrats like in 2008.

[graymouser]

I agree with you here,not to detract from the work Lenin did in the field of revolutionary practice, but yes it was premature. For all he gave us in revolutionary theory he did overlook the need for advanced capitalism. I guess in reality though there was no way for him to know that capitalism and technology would advance so much. Thanks for the link comrade.
If the Bolsheviks hadn't taken power in 1917, we would have had a Russian term for fascism instead of an Italian one. They were the only force that was actually willing to fight and win the civil war necessary to defeat the reactionary forces. Was it premature from the standpoint of development in Russia? Yes and no. Russia faced combined and uneven development, meaning that it received very new technical equipment but the overall level of the society was deliberately kept at a lower level. The Russian capitalists didn't even have the stones to overthrow the Tsar by themselves, they definitely wouldn't have had the strength to outcompete German or English capitalism in this period.

[RED VICTORY]

It is true that Lenin faced a difficult choice because the workers movement was under way and gaining speed but many believed that reform was the way to success(refering to those Lenin called the "Economists") instead of worker's revolution. He saw that if these "Bernsteinians" were to win the popular following that the peril of the working class would be prolonged greatly resulting in situation like we have in America and Europe today. A situation where the capitalists make small concessions here and there, while the worker's believe that's as good as it gets. Apathy.