Lenin's "Left wing childishness" is delusional?

[promethean]

Was this work and Left wing communism: An Infantile Disorder anything more than delusional ad hominem attacks by Lenin on the "lefts"?

Some examples of Lenin's ad hominem attacks without any evidence that the "lefts" are declassed intellectuals or petty-bourgeois

In an utterly childish manner, by means of amusing “scientific” explanations, they try to conceal their own bankruptcy, to conceal the facts, the mere review of which would show that it was precisely the declassed, intellectual “cream” of the party, the elite, who opposed the peace with slogans couched in revolutionary petty-bourgeois phrases, that it was precisely the mass of workers and exploited peasants who carried the peace.


Our “Left” Communists, however, who are also fond of calling themselves “proletarian” Communists, because there is very little that is proletarian about them and very much that is petty-bourgeois, are incapable of giving thought to the balance of forces, to calculating it.


Such nonsense cannot be uttered openly, and that is why the “Left” Communists are obliged to take refuge from the derision of every politically conscious proletarian behind high-sounding and empty phrases. They hope the inattentive reader will not notice the real meaning of the phrase “international revolutionary propaganda by deed”. The flaunting of high-sounding phrases is characteristic of the declassed petty-bourgeois intellectuals. The organised proletarian Communists will certainly punish this “habit” with nothing less than derision and expulsion from all responsible posts.


This is incomprehensible only to the declassed and consequently thoroughly petty-bourgeois intelligentsia

I have read Herman Gorter's reply to Lenin (Open Letter to Comrade Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm)) and this article (http://libcom.org/library/lenin-s-infantile-disorder-third-international). Are there any other recent sources that refutes these works of Lenin?

[Die Neue Zeit]

It is an imperfect attempt at re-establishing what was once the Kautskyan Marxist center from the Second International. By "imperfect," I mean a substantial departure from the merger formula between revolutionary socialism and worker movements via a workers-only and rev-soc-oriented mass party (i.e., real parties being real movements and vice versa).

[Niccolò Rossi]

It is an imperfect attempt at re-establishing what was once the Kautskyan Marxist center from the Second International. By "imperfect," I mean a substantial departure from the merger formula between revolutionary socialism and worker movements via a workers-only and rev-soc-oriented mass party (i.e., real parties being real movements and vice versa).

You are mental.

What 'Left-Wing Communism...' represented was the opportunist slide of Lenin and the Third International facing the asphyxiation of the revolution in Russia.

Nic.

[Niccolò Rossi]

@ the OP. It should be noted 'Left-wing Childishness and the Petty-bourgeois mentality' was published in 1918 is a completely different text to 'Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder' published in 1920. The reply by Gorter was to the latter.

Nic.

[Niccolò Rossi]

You could also try everyone's favourite:


«'LEFT-WING' COMMUNISM, AN INFANTILE DISORDER» - CONDEMNATION OF THE RENEGADES TO COME (http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/ren/renegadeae.html)
The most exploited and counterfeited text for over forty years by all opportunist swines, each swine being characterised and defined by the barefaced invocation of it. (http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/ren/renegadeae.html)


Nic.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It should be noted 'Left-wing Childishness and the Petty-bourgeois mentality' was published in 1918 is a completely different text to 'Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder' published in 1920. The reply by Gorter was to the latter.

Nic.

My mistake. I responded about the wrong pamphlet.

[graymouser]

Well, Lenin certainly used a good deal of invective. This was a bitterly fought debate on both sides, if you read Gorter's reply it is no less full of such broadsides. But Lenin's underlying arguments were sound. For instance, his discussion on the trade unions turned not on his assailing of the "left" position but on this point:


To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats, or "workers who have become completely bourgeois" (cf. Engels’s letter to Marx in 1858 about the British workers).

And Lenin was right on this point. In the German revolution, the best communist forces up until 1921 took an abstentionist position on trade unions and therefore failed to link up with the layers inside these unions that could have led a much larger fight in 1919. In Berlin there was a whole layer of shop stewards who could have worked with a revolutionary party, but they never connected. This loss of initiative cost the German workers dearly.

Gorter's argument that you had to fight for industrial unions came in the heat of the revolution. Lenin argued that you have to work where the masses are, and he was correct. Imaginary ideal unions are great, except that they don't have any workers in them. It's a suicidal strategy that failed in 1919 and will keep failing any time you try it.

[Zanthorus]

That's all well and good except for the fact that it wasn't the Communist Left that was creating 'imaginary ideal unions' (The Allgemeine Arbeiter Union Deutschlands was certainly ideal but it was hardly imaginary) but the German working-class. It was not a strategy that some genius Left-Communist came up with one day ("Oh I know, lets all abstain from working in the yellow unions"), it was a reflection of the fact that workers' themselves were organising outside the trade-unions, as they have in practically every upsurge in class struggle since.

[graymouser]

That's all well and good except for the fact that it wasn't the Communist Left that was creating 'imaginary ideal unions' (The Allgemeine Arbeiter Union Deutschlands was certainly ideal but it was hardly imaginary) but the German working-class. It was not a strategy that some genius Left-Communist came up with one day ("Oh I know, lets all abstain from working in the yellow unions"), it was a reflection of the fact that workers' themselves were organising outside the trade-unions, as they have in practically every upsurge in class struggle since.
The workers were flooding into the trade unions in unprecedented millions, and the communist tasks lay in winning them over. The failure to do so - pinpointed by Lenin over the objections of the likes of Gorter - was crucial to the failure of the German revolution, and it was the strategy, even of the best of them like Luxemburg, to try and organize outside of the yellow trade unions. Building small red unions was a fatal strategy, and lost the momentum that could have won the revolution.

[Devrim]

The workers were flooding into the trade unions in unprecedented millions, and the communist tasks lay in winning them over.


Lenin argued that you have to work where the masses are, and he was correct.

I don't quite understand this instance that you have to 'work in the unions because it is where the masses are'. The working class are in the workplace. Yes, they may be members of trade unions, but it is not a place where they are.

I don't say this as somebody who has never been a union member. Indeed I have been a shop steward in different manual unions, and involved in both large scale and small scale industrial action.

As for where the workers are My experience of union meetings has always been that they struggle to get quorum. In the year in my life when I was involved in the most industrial action, eight strikes one for three and a half weeks with 160,000 strikers, we had lively mass meetings full of debate and packed with workers. The one union meeting we had that year, as we had only one every year, didn't achieve a quorum. The quorum was seven people.

Devrim

[S.Artesian]

I think we should distinguish among "being where the workers are," the tactical "appropriateness" of trying to organize red unions, and the viability of existing trade union to function in any way, no matter what the "leadership," as a "combat organization" of the whole class, as the class-for-itself.

My answers are, in order of the questions-- yes, very unlikely, and never happen.

1. Yes,-- kind of a non-issue, an in Lenin's LWC kind of a red herring because everybody is always "where the workers are." There's no substance to that phrase "where the workers are." It's where capitalism is going that counts.

2. Red unions? Man that has to be a special circumstance since the issue is always what organizations can be developed that unify the class, that overcome the "uneven and combined" development of class itself. Obviously such special circumstances can exist. They existed in the US in the 1960s leading to the creation of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the LRBW. But in general, why form a red union when factory committees can serve to unify the workers?

3. trade union as combat organizations? Never happen. For reasons painfully clear to the most casual observer.

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's all well and good except for the fact that it wasn't the Communist Left that was creating 'imaginary ideal unions' (The Allgemeine Arbeiter Union Deutschlands was certainly ideal but it was hardly imaginary) but the German working-class. It was not a strategy that some genius Left-Communist came up with one day ("Oh I know, lets all abstain from working in the yellow unions"), it was a reflection of the fact that workers' themselves were organising outside the trade-unions, as they have in practically every upsurge in class struggle since.

On a contemporary note, one should consider the "red union" All-Workers Militant Front that fronts for the "Third Periodist" Communist Party of Greece. That consists of Greek workers, after all.

[Devrim]

2. Red unions? Man that has to be a special circumstance since the issue is always what organizations can be developed that unify the class, that overcome the "uneven and combined" development of class itself. Obviously such special circumstances can exist. They existed in the US in the 1960s leading to the creation of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the LRBW. But in general, why form a red union when factory committees can serve to unify the workers?

The factory committees in German during the revolutionary period weren't unions. The confusion arises because they were called 'Unionen', but actually it was from 'unitary organisation', not the English 'union', which is 'Gewerkschaft' in German. They were factory organisations.

Devrim

[Devrim]

On a contemporary note, one should consider the "red union" All-Workers Militant Front that fronts for the "Third Periodist" Communist Party of Greece. That consists of Greek workers, after all.

No, we shouldn't. There are no similarities whatsoever, and this is completely off topic trolling yet again.

Devrim

[S.Artesian]

The factory committees in German during the revolutionary period weren't unions. The confusion arises because they were called 'Unionen', but actually it was from 'unitary organisation', not the English 'union', which is 'Gewerkschaft' in German. They were factory organisations.

Devrim

I agree. Factory committees is where we want to go.

[Dimentio]

*Popcorn*

[HEAD ICE]

You could also try everyone's favourite:


«'LEFT-WING' COMMUNISM, AN INFANTILE DISORDER» - CONDEMNATION OF THE RENEGADES TO COME (http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/ren/renegadeae.html)
The most exploited and counterfeited text for over forty years by all opportunist swines, each swine being characterised and defined by the barefaced invocation of it. (http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/comlef/ren/renegadeae.html)


Nic.




I wanted to post this first

[BIG BROTHER]

I don't know about you all, but lets see the Results, were did the Revolution overthrow capitalism and were was it smashed?

So Far Lenin's approach has been proven to be the one that will lead the working class to victory.

[Black Sheep]

Hi, i'm Lenin and this is a typical way my arguments are constructed.

"The X party does not understand Y, so they're wrong"
"The X party denies the necessity of Y, they're wrong"
"The X party , who call themselves revolutionaries..." (δηθεν, in greek)
"These X [insert name-calling] ..."


Hi, i'm a leninist,and this is a typical way my arguments are constructed, additionally to the above.
"The X party/group is [insert name calling/class-based criticism] , because [insert Lenin's critique on X's tendency, based on the russian revolution or the 19th century] .."

[Devrim]

I don't know about you all, but lets see the Results, were did the Revolution overthrow capitalism and were was it smashed?

The discussion concerned communist tactics in Europe and particularly Germany. The KPD adopted Lenin's tactics expelling those who disagreed, which accounted for just over half the membership. It didn't lead to revolution. In fact it led to workers being smashed in the streets.

Devrim

[Dimentio]

Hi, i'm Lenin and this is a typical way my arguments are constructed.

"The X party does not understand Y, so they're wrong"
"The X party denies the necessity of Y, they're wrong"
"The X party , who call themselves revolutionaries..." (δηθεν, in greek)
"These X [insert name-calling] ..."


Hi, i'm a leninist,and this is a typical way my arguments are constructed, additionally to the above.
"The X party/group is [insert name calling/class-based criticism] , because [insert Lenin's critique on X's tendency, based on the russian revolution or the 19th century] .."

www.timecube.org

[S.Artesian]

I don't know about you all, but lets see the Results, were did the Revolution overthrow capitalism and were was it smashed?

So Far Lenin's approach has been proven to be the one that will lead the working class to victory.

No matter how much credit we give, and should give, the Bolsheviks for defending "all power to the soviets" we need to keep in mind that the "Bolsheviks" did not overthrow capitalism, the working class did; and that the Bolsheviks and working class are not identical, nor interchangeable terms.

We should also keep in mind that Lenin and Trotsky led the push for taking power based in large part on their expectation that the revolution in Russia would be followed in short-order by the success of the revolution in the advanced countries.

Didn't happen that way and because it didn't happen, the strength of the Bolshevik model-- which was its close organic connection with the core of the working class in Petrograd and Moscow, became the weakness of substitutionism for the working class.

Doesn't mean that Lenin and Trotsky were wrong in their response to the Mensheviks, SRs, other socialists at the 2nd All Soviet Congress after the MRC took power, or in their dispersal of the Constituent Assembly-- but it does mean their model of and for revolution was not quite as successful as you think-- that the model became the reflection of the isolation and weakness of the working class even in the midst of assumption of power.

If you want to look at results, then you need to look at all the results-- particularly the international results and the role of the 3rd Intl in the failur of revolution.