How come people consider V.Lenin a dictator?

[Kornilios Sunshine]

So when we conservate with my friends and I tell them I support Communism they offend me by swearing and always telling this

"Lenin was a dictator because he didn't allow free elections,free practice of religion and didn't accept critisism of the USSR Goverment."

Are these true?Hope my question is not stupid.

[RedMarxist]

well, and I'm going on someone else's excellent thread here at:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/lenin-debunking-myths-t5623/index.html


...free practice of religionread this: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/dec/03.htm

he allowed opposition publications within the party, one of which called for secret plans for the party. He told nations they have a right to self determination.

"What the vanguard for Lenin was, roughly speaking, was a group of politically conscious and active workers marching in much the same direction."

hence the idea of a vanguard party was not one of a Stalinist dictatorship like your friend thinks. That came later, after Lenin's death

"The October Revolution didn't happen until the Bolsheviks had a majority in the soviets: until the revolutionary course was the will of the majority."

true democracy in action

granted, he did not start that whole Red Terror thing until he got shot twice by a social democrat, one of the bullets of which punctured his lung, causing him to pass out. From then on he banned political parties and other freedoms, combine this with the Russian Civil War, and democracy withered away.

but you have to understand, 14 nations, including the USA, invaded the USSR. This is before the USSR was "evil", back when it was so new people honestly believed communism would become a reality. tell your friend that the real undemocratic evil is the US, for invading a country because it did not want communism to become a reality.

[Forward Union]

Lenin was a dictator. He liquidated workers control of the means of production, and handed over industrial planning to a committee of International Capitalist Advisers from Imperial Germany, Britain and the US. Communists who sought to oppose this were systematically removed from their positions within the party, were arrested, and in many cases were executed by Lenin. By this point, the civil war hadn't even started, and the Russian System had only the faintest resemblance with socialism. Non Bolshevik Communists, such as various Syndicalist organisers and Anarchists, as well as left communists, were subject to ferocious repression, by Lenin and his blood-drenched henchman Trotsky .

I do agree however, that a level of degeneration was inevitable within the Russian SFSR. As soon as there were indications that the Workers might, for the first time in history, overthrow the ruling class and create a workers state, the entire developed world declared war and attempted to invade it. Even Britain suspended parliamentary democracy when under threat of attack from Nazi Germany. This is not altogether surprising.

[Lyev]

I was really surprised actually at how wide-spread this view is, especially amongst academia (well, my history teacher is of this opinion). Perhaps it depends on who you read. The user "ComradeOm" used to make some pretty good posts on the October revolution, Russian history etc., and reading through his stuff on bibliography he identified to schools of historians as regards stances on the former Soviet Union. There's the totalitarian school (who generally hold a negative, anti-bolshevik line); their work probably needs to be contextualised within the social/political context of the cold war. Secondly, there are the revisionists, who tried to take a more non-biased stance as regards "was the revolution really a coup?", "did the bolsheviks have mass support?" etc. And their writings (I think; I am no expert, by any means) came mostly during and after the fall the eastern bloc so they had a wider and more thorough access to the old Soviet archives.

Leading on from this: My personal stance, as I say I am no expert, would be that the in Soviet Union during Lenin's time as head of government (1917-24) conditions were no better or worse than during Tsarist rule, by and large (I am generalising quite substantially here). This is because of the civil war, economic disintegration, post-WWI etc. etc. I don't wanna sound like a Stalinoid with a fetish for the "proletariat's sacrifice in developing the Russian economy", but during his brief period as leader of the USSR (compared to Stalin, especially), there was not enough time, people and resources to develop the productive forces sufficiently, which would give more room for the widening of democracy (although I think "widening of democracy"* did happen). In short, economic conditions would've changed very little from the end of the civil war to Lenin's death in 1924.
*perhaps not the best phrase to use; I am just cautious of using a phrase similar to, or that connotes "political power", as my knowledge is kind of fuzzy on whether the proletariat did actually conquer state power and organise as a class etc. etc. during 1917 and afterwards.

[miltonwasfried...man]

So when we conservate with my friends and I tell them I support Communism they offend me by swearing and always telling this

"Lenin was a dictator because he didn't allow free elections,free practice of religion and didn't accept critisism of the USSR Goverment."

Are these true?Hope my question is not stupid.

Lenin was indeed a dictator. His belief was that in order to transition into communism there must first be "dictatorship of the proletariat". But it is not like the "free elections" in the western world really mean anything. The politicians are essentially under corporate control due to their lobbying, campaign contributions and other finanical gifts. We vote once every 4 or so years and then have absolutely no say. How is that democracy? The only difference really is that we vote in our dictatorship from rather similar parties. Free practise of religion is pretty much limited to christianity, with other religions consistantly persecuted in the "free world". And finally if we question our government you are a "radical leftist" who needs to be locked up and harrassed. All in all, we need to rid ourselves of all masters (socialist or capitalist) in order to achieve true communism.

[La Peur Rouge]

Lenin was indeed a dictator. His belief was that in order to transition into communism there must first be "dictatorship of the proletariat".

I agree with your post but, Lenin aside, I think it should be said that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is really just the rule of the working class over the capitalist classes, it doesn't mean "a dictatorship" like we use the term today.

[RedMarxist]

The Red Flag book talks about, and I can't quote it because I have no idea where this passage is, but it talks about how Lenin had plans to allow for "more democracy" IF and only IF the revolutions in Germany, Hungary, Italy, etc had succeeded.

That was a BIG IF however.

he considered democracy unsustainable in Russia due to the harsh political climate and whatnot. combine that with a civil war and invasion by 14 different countries and democracy died.

just imagine WHAT IF democracy thrived and the German revolution succeeded. Wouldn't that be something.

But I do agree, partially, with Lenin's decision to curtail democratic freedoms he once allowed. Sometimes, and especially in Russia's case, order is more important than freedom.

[Tim Cornelis]

The Red Flag book talks about, and I can't quote it because I have no idea where this passage is, but it talks about how Lenin had plans to allow for "more democracy" IF and only IF the revolutions in Germany, Hungary, Italy, etc had succeeded.

That was a BIG IF however.

he considered democracy unsustainable in Russia due to the harsh political climate and whatnot. combine that with a civil war and invasion by 14 different countries and democracy died.

just imagine WHAT IF democracy thrived and the German revolution succeeded. Wouldn't that be something.

But I do agree, partially, with Lenin's decision to curtail democratic freedoms he once allowed. Sometimes, and especially in Russia's case, order is more important than freedom.

What's your point? Lenin was not a dictator because he considered a dictatorship necessary?

Order and freedom are not mutually exclusive, also: no justice, no peace. If there's no freedom, there's no justice and no peace.

[RedMarxist]

my point is the USSR/Russia was falling apart at this time(the civil war and before). it was surrounded by deeply hostile neighbors, the German Revolution, the Bolshevik's best hope for a world revolution, or at least a continental one, had failed, and then after that they got invaded by 14 different nations.

does this sound like a recipe for democracy? NO! Democracy could not work well under such conditions. A strong leader needed to take charge to stabilize the country or else it would collapse.

even if Lenin had not taken autocratic measures to save the nation, the Whites were doing a good job at dismantling the Soviets, so in effect democracy was doomed in the USSR.

[Tim Cornelis]

my point is the USSR/Russia was falling apart at this time(the civil war and before). it was surrounded by deeply hostile neighbors, the German Revolution, the Bolshevik's best hope for a world revolution, or at least a continental one, had failed, and then after that they got invaded by 14 different nations.

does this sound like a recipe for democracy? NO! Democracy could not work well under such conditions. A strong leader needed to take charge to stabilize the country or else it would collapse.

even if Lenin had not taken autocratic measures to save the nation, the Whites were doing a good job at dismantling the Soviets, so in effect democracy was doomed in the USSR.

Yeah, this is going to sound like a Godwin but it's not.

Germany in the 1930s was falling apart, it suffered a massive depression and could not pay of its obligations (treaty of Versailles), the country was falling apart as civil war loomed and was surrounded by hostile countries (Soviet Union those damn slavs). Does this sounds like a recipe for democracy? No, only a strong führer (/leader) could save the glorious nation. All hail the Great Leader, we cannot save ourselves Oh Great Leader, please think and act for us, on our behalf.

My point is, you can rationalize tyranny all you want. It's never ever ever justified. Not when it's Leninists do it, not when nazis do it.

[RedMarxist]

Um, and the alternative was nation wide collapse and a White Russian victory? I'm sorry but sometimes a strong leader must take charge to save the nation from falling into anarchy.

The Soviets were getting picked apart piece by piece by the Whites, at gunpoint mind you. Everywhere the Whites traveled they left in their wake a trail of dead Jews/Communist Russians and much destruction, all on behalf of the rich Russian Landowners and European powers.
Lenin needed to take action, even before the civil war and invasion by other nations. What would you do if your last best hope for spreading a revolution...failed? Russia was now effectively isolated, diplomatically speaking from the rest of the world, who did not want to see a worker's state be created for the first time, even if it was flawed. Again, and I will repeat this, you cannot build democracy under such conditions. And Lenin no doubt thought he was doing a noble thing, no matter how wrong it was.

Russia was more extreme then Nazi Germany also. Did 14 nations invade Wiemar Germany the minute Adolf Hitler got elected? no.

Your over simplifying the situation.

[ComradePonov]

Lenin was not a dictator. He was, however, forced to introduce war communism. Why was he forced to do this? because of the imperialistic ambitions of outside nations, all of whom had declared war on Russia the moment the tsar was overthrown.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, while Lenin introduced policies which can be rendered "authoritarian", Russia had just dis-engaged from a disastrous World War which had destroyed the country's infrastructure inside and out. The soviets were facing a large threat from all the neighbouring nations. War communism was, in my opinion, necessary.

Even with all this, the people had more freedoms and rights under the brief rule of Lenin than they ever did under the rule of the tsar. This cannot be denied.



Was Lenin a dictator? no

[RedMarxist]

ya so, this should give you same ammo for the next time you see your friends.

using the information above, explain to them how Lenin was not a dictator.

you will do just fine:D

[Binh]

By this point, the civil war hadn't even started...

This is false. The Russian civil war began shortly after the Bolshevik-led Soviet seizure of power in 1917 when Kaledin led Cossack armies on the Don. Check out "Bolsheviks in Power" by Rabinowitch for one of the best histories of the first year of Soviet power.

I don't defend or excuse everything the Bolsheviks did, but let's at least get the facts straight.

Lenin wasn't a dictator. He was constantly challenged by others on the central committee and lost important votes (like the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty). Stalin eliminated most of his colleagues on the central committee in purge after purge after purge. But people argue Lenin led to Stalin and Stalin was a dictator, therefore Lenin must've been one too.

It's easy to say these things if you haven't studied the events closely.

[Jose Gracchus]

Lenin was not a dictator. He was, however, forced to introduce war communism. Why was he forced to do this? because of the imperialistic ambitions of outside nations, all of whom had declared war on Russia the moment the tsar was overthrown.


You sure about that one, chief? :rolleyes:

It never ceases to amaze me the preposterous ex cathedra statements all the "socialists" out there will make about class and revolution and this and that when it is blindingly apparent they've never even scanned the wiki on the Russian Revolution.

In any case, was Lenin a personal dictator in the manner of Stalin or Hitler? Absolutely not. However, the state and society that Lenin presided over by consensus support in the party leadership could fairly be called a dictatorship, that is, a dictatorship of the party (or even by the party leadership alone), by the end of 1918.

[Tim Finnegan]

Lenin was a dictator. He liquidated workers control of the means of production, and handed over industrial planning to a committee of International Capitalist Advisers from Imperial Germany, Britain and the US. Communists who sought to oppose this were systematically removed from their positions within the party, were arrested, and in many cases were executed by Lenin. By this point, the civil war hadn't even started, and the Russian System had only the faintest resemblance with socialism. Non Bolshevik Communists, such as various Syndicalist organisers and Anarchists, as well as left communists, were subject to ferocious repression, by Lenin and his blood-drenched henchman Trotsky.
While I hardly disagree with your historical commentary, isn't there a substantial distinction between Lenin-as-dictator, and Bolshevik Party-as-dictator? The former seems to lend the posthumous cult of personality built around him by Stalin & Co. rather more credibility than is warranted. He was a power and influential figure, certainly, but hardly a Bonaparte in himself, as I would've thought the fact that the party regime continued to operate more or less smoothly (internal power struggles, whatever the Trotskist nashing of teeth on the matter, impacting on the daily life of the worker only so much) between his death and what, by this logic, would be the installing of his successor some years later.

[RedMarxist]

That is where I lean towards-Lenin was not really a dictator, but the party was beginning to become one near the time of his death, intentionally or not. Stalin just finalized the party dictatorship

[ComradePonov]

You sure about that one, chief? :rolleyes:

It never ceases to amaze me the preposterous ex cathedra statements all the "socialists" out there will make about class and revolution and this and that when it is blindingly apparent they've never even scanned the wiki on the Russian Revolution.

In any case, was Lenin a personal dictator in the manner of Stalin or Hitler? Absolutely not. However, the state and society that Lenin presided over by consensus support in the party leadership could fairly be called a dictatorship, that is, a dictatorship of the party (or even by the party leadership alone), by the end of 1918.


Actually... ... The white Russians got their support from America, England, France, and other capitalist countries. They recieved money, food supplies, and Armaments. aiding an anti-government force with supplies and armaments is equal to a declaration of war... regardless if such a declaration was actually publicly delivered.

Are you done with raising tensions by spewing petty insults, troll?

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

because there all a bunch of idiots

[Jose Gracchus]

Industrial planning was undertaken by Western bourgeois advisers? Evidence? What kind of decision-making authority did they have? What kind of privileges? What kind of remunerations?

[Jose Gracchus]

Actually... ... The white Russians got their support from America, England, France, and other capitalist countries. They recieved money, food supplies, and Armaments. aiding an anti-government force with supplies and armaments is equal to a declaration of war... regardless if such a declaration was actually delivered.

Are you done with delivering petty insults?

Wrong. There were no interventions after the February Revolution, where the Tsar was deposed and the Provisional Government came to power. Many Entente powers, like the U.S., officially endorsed Russia's transition to "democracy" (bourgeois republicanism). It was only after the October Revolution of 1917, and the Soviet government's moves to withdraw Russia from the war, did the Entente powers intervene against the revolution.

As I said, its obvious you don't know what happened in Russia in 1917-1918 if you think the interventions were triggered by the fall of Nicholas II from power.

[Tim Finnegan]

Actually... ... The white Russians got their support from America, England, France, and other capitalist countries. They recieved money, food supplies, and Armaments. aiding an anti-government force with supplies and armaments is equal to a declaration of war... regardless if such a declaration was actually publicly delivered.

Are you done with raising tensions by spewing petty insults, troll?
Y'know, you're missing out the instances of actual armed intervention by Western powers, and anyone who can shoot themselves in the foot that casually doesn't leave me with great faith of their grasp of the history in question.

[RedTrackWorker]

He liquidated workers control of the means of production, and handed over industrial planning to a committee of International Capitalist Advisers from Imperial Germany, Britain and the US.

Source?


Communists who sought to oppose this were systematically removed from their positions within the party, were arrested, and in many cases were executed by Lenin. By this point, the civil war hadn't even started

Lenin had communists executed before the civil war for their political views? Source, evidence, etc.?

[Kadir Ateş]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Forward Union http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2179884#post2179884)
He liquidated workers control of the means of production, and handed over industrial planning to a committee of International Capitalist Advisers from Imperial Germany, Britain and the US.
Source?I think he's referring to the NEP. There's a good book by the historian Katherine Siegel entitled Loans and Legitimacy: The Evolution of Soviet-American Relations, 1919-1933, which delves into the involvement of Western investors of the USSR.

[Revolutionary_Change]

I can understand the Bolshevik's pretensions of a dictatorship of necessity up to a point

and that point is the repression of the Ukrainian Anarchists and siege of Krondstadt. These were moves to crush popular legitimately proletarian/peasant movements due to the threat they posed to the Bolshevik monopoly on power. The people demanded a continuation of the revolution that was a threat to Bolshevik hegemony and the Bolsheviks responded with bayonets and cannons.

[Jose Gracchus]

A small aside and fun fact: the fortune of the infamous Koch brothers in the U.S. - the ones behind every far-right libertarian abortion from the last three decades, from the Citizens Against Government Waste to George Mason University to Mercatus Center and the Cato Institute and to the Tea Party - was originally accumulated by the Koch's daddy (a chemical engineer and aspiring bourgeois entrepreneur) who built petrol crackers for refining oil in Russia for Stalin, after he and his invention was locked out of the U.S. market by anti-competitive oil majors' lawsuits. He took the blood money stolen out of the mouths of starving peasant children and built Koch Industries, but not before writing a completely hypocritical self-serving piece of shit polemical book about his impressions of the "totalitarianism" in Stalin's Russia (which apparently was just severe enough to him to crawl up on his soapbox, but just not quite bad enough for him not to take the mustachioed man's hard cash).

[RedTrackWorker]

I think he's referring to the NEP. There's a good book by the historian Katherine Siegel entitled Loans and Legitimacy: The Evolution of Soviet-American Relations, 1919-1933, which delves into the involvement of Western investors of the USSR.

Maybe I'm misreading but he said "By this point, the civil war hadn't even started"--the NEP was after the civil war.

[Jose Gracchus]

Yeah I think Vesenkha was staffed mostly with communists with some spetsy on a relatively short leash, that's why I was skeptical about the original claim, my criticisms of the Bolsheviks 1918-1921 aside.

[Flying Trotsky]

The problem with Lenin is that he, as you can probably already see, doesn't fit well into either the role of the brutal dictator or pure hero. Lenin was human, and like all humans, complicated. He did things which were reprehensible, and things that were courageous.

Think of him like you'd think of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. These men were, like Lenin, revolutionaries who were attempting to enforce ideals that had previously only been theorized about. The inherent equality of man, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on.

Even while Washington and Jefferson were, in this way, pretty heroic, they are by no means the legendary figures every makes them out to be. Washington was slave-owner. Jefferson had a family with a black mistress who he completely disowned (exactly how do you disown a person you supposedly own?).

Lenin wasn't much different from these men.

You see how it is? We either want Lenin to be a villain or a hero, but he really doesn't fit into either category. Lenin was, at the end of the day, human. Maybe there's some consolation to be taken in that.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

As has been said, Lenin liquidated workers' control of the MoP, by weakening the workers' soviets and centralising political and economic power. He was a strict enforcer of Democratic Centralism; banning factionalism was probably, with hindsight, his gravest political mistake, given what it led to.

As to whether he was a dictator is difficult to say. He was certainly the leader of the party but as to whether he wielded a huge amount of power in practice I don't know. He certainly turned the USSR into a Dictatorship of the Party from the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, what followed afterwards was only a continuation of Leninist policy.

[Tim Cornelis]

Um, and the alternative was nation wide collapse and a White Russian victory? I'm sorry but sometimes a strong leader must take charge to save the nation from falling into anarchy.

The Soviets were getting picked apart piece by piece by the Whites, at gunpoint mind you. Everywhere the Whites traveled they left in their wake a trail of dead Jews/Communist Russians and much destruction, all on behalf of the rich Russian Landowners and European powers.
Lenin needed to take action, even before the civil war and invasion by other nations. What would you do if your last best hope for spreading a revolution...failed? Russia was now effectively isolated, diplomatically speaking from the rest of the world, who did not want to see a worker's state be created for the first time, even if it was flawed. Again, and I will repeat this, you cannot build democracy under such conditions. And Lenin no doubt thought he was doing a noble thing, no matter how wrong it was.

Russia was more extreme then Nazi Germany also. Did 14 nations invade Wiemar Germany the minute Adolf Hitler got elected? no.

Your over simplifying the situation.

So what you're saying is that the Whites were disabling the democratic soviets piece by piece therefore it was justified for the Bolsheviks to do disabling the democratic soviets in order to save the Soviet experiment?

The social revolution constitutes seizing power by the workers, if another faction (of reactionaries) would fight this and threaten its success WHY would I do exactly the same as this faction and utterly DESTROY workers' power?!?

It doesn't make sense "OMG, our enemy faction is destroying the social revolution so we're going to destroy it ourselves so at least we will be victorious".

Furthermore, it's a false dilemma. You argue it was either a Vanguard takeover of power or a victory of the Whites. Why couldn't it be a victorious Red Army defending the genuinely democratic soviets? (Rather than destroying them of course).

And if the revolution was failing I would defend the Soviets, not destroy them.

[RedMarxist]

put yourself in Lenin's shoes. What the hell are you supposed to do when the revolution is being chewed apart piecemeal?

The Whites, with foreign support, are demolishing the Soviets and your armies. Your desperate. And you KNOW that you must save the Soviet Experiment at all costs.

you take charge of the situation and do what ever is necessary to defeat the superior enemy. At least your revolution won't be in vain.

its not as simple as: Oh, the Soviets can simply win the war all by themselves with an army.

they were being butchered. how can they win under such conditions. they can't

I will repeat myself. sometimes Order is more important than freedom under extreme, dire circumstances.

[Tim Finnegan]

put yourself in Lenin's shoes. What the hell are you supposed to do when the revolution is being chewed apart piecemeal?

The Whites, with foreign support, are demolishing the Soviets and your armies. Your desperate. And you KNOW that you must save the Soviet Experiment at all costs.

you take charge of the situation and do what ever is necessary to defeat the superior enemy. At least your revolution won't be in vain.

its not as simple as: Oh, the Soviets can simply win the war all by themselves with an army.

they were being butchered. how can they win under such conditions. they can't

I will repeat myself. sometimes Order is more important than freedom under extreme, dire circumstances.
The issue isn't about "order" or "freedom", as if we're arguing over some wartime coalition cabinet in a bourgeois government. It's about class rule against party rule, which is to say: it's about whether or not the revolution is upheld as a revolution of the working class, and not just as a putsch of the Bolshevik Party. Even if you defend the Bolsheviks' actions in this period, you can only do so if you can incorporate this reality into your defence.

[Agent Equality]

because there all a bunch of idiots

I'd have to say anyone who advocates a vanguard party is an idiot, but what do I know? I'M JUST AN IDIOT! :rolleyes:

[RedMarxist]

I advocate the vanguard party simply because it provides, for better or for worse, the best form of organized leadership during and after a revolution. simple as that.

Everyone who says Lenin was a dictator needs to read a book. ;)

[Flying Trotsky]

I advocate the vanguard party simply because it provides, for better or for worse, the best form of organized leadership during and after a revolution. simple as that.

Red Marxist, I believe in the vanguard party too, but surely we can agree that the perpetuation of the vanguard party after the revolution would just lead to the party, not the people, ruling everything...

[Tim Cornelis]

put yourself in Lenin's shoes. What the hell are you supposed to do when the revolution is being chewed apart piecemeal?

The Whites, with foreign support, are demolishing the Soviets and your armies. Your desperate. And you KNOW that you must save the Soviet Experiment at all costs.

you take charge of the situation and do what ever is necessary to defeat the superior enemy. At least your revolution won't be in vain.

its not as simple as: Oh, the Soviets can simply win the war all by themselves with an army.

they were being butchered. how can they win under such conditions. they can't

I will repeat myself. sometimes Order is more important than freedom under extreme, dire circumstances.

Again, a false dilemma.

Put myself in Lenin's shoes?

What did Lenin do? The revolution was being butchered, so Lenin butchered it himself? That's idiotic!

According to you seizing power was necessary to be victorious, but how did it help? Did it increase military power?

The social revolution and defending it are related but not the same. The former requires the workers to take power, the latter means defending this power from reactionaries. Seizing power and concentrating it in the hands of an elite (i.e. a dictatorship) does not help your military abilities whatsoever. My question to you: How did seizing power by the party help the military strength of the Red Army? Because that's basically your argument isn't it?

[Kadir Ateş]

Maybe I'm misreading but he said "By this point, the civil war hadn't even started"--the NEP was after the civil war.

Then I guess he's full of it.

[manic expression]

Those who usually consider Lenin a "dictator" do so only because they oppose everything Lenin stood for: working-class revolution and state power. On the one hand, we have bourgeois opponents who would scream "DICTATOR!" no matter what the reality is, unless of course it's capitalism, in which case it's "democracy". On the other hand, we have anarchists who would oppose any state, full stop. Unless Lenin suddenly announced the liquidation of all working-class state power and essentially let the Whites win the war, he was always going to be condemned by those hardline anarchists. As it happened, the Bolsheviks pushed forth and then defending working-class gains, and thus won the support and trust of the workers. Their consistent election by the Soviets is proof of this.

The Russian Revolution took its course because of isolation, vicious attacks against it, a lack of any viable industry to speak of and other circumstances. To blame the Bolsheviks for this is true lunacy.

[RedMarxist]

what the guy above me said about him not being a dictator. That is basically my argument. So many factors fucked up the USSR, that in order to save it democracy had to, without a doubt, be suspended for the greater good.

and even if it was not suspended by Lenin, how long do you think it could have lasted under such shitty conditions? 1 year? 2? 3? Democracy under A Leninist vanguard party would have a much better chance of succeeding if the revolution happened in America or some advanced country that could adequately defend itself against it's enemies.

[Blake's Baby]

So your argument is, Lenin wasn't a dictator, because, things being as difficult as they were, all Lenin could do was be a dictator.

[Flying Trotsky]

So your argument is, Lenin wasn't a dictator, because, things being as difficult as they were, all Lenin could do was be a dictator.

I don't think that's what anyone is saying. What people seem to be arguing is that Lenin's more "dictatorial" actions (and there's a difference between being harsh and being authoritarian) were a result of extenuating circumstances.

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah, that's what I said.

He was a dictator, but he was doing it 'for the right reasons' or 'because it was hard not to be', and that means he wasn't a dictator.

[Flying Trotsky]

Yeah, that's what I said.

He was a dictator, but he was doing it 'for the right reasons' or 'because it was hard not to be', and that means he wasn't a dictator.

I'm not sure I'm conveying the message I mean to.

What people are saying is this, just because Lenin did some things that were dictatorial and/or harsh does not make him a dictator. There are plenty of good people who've done bad things, but that doesn't make them bad people (but that's an ethics discussion for another time.)

[Blake's Baby]

You're right, this isn't the place for discussions of ethics, so people should trying to excuse Lenin's actions on the basis that he was a nice guy or couldn't see the alternatives.

Did he take dictatorial actions? Yes. Does this mean he was a dictator? Yes.

Look, no ethics involved.

[RedMarxist]

he was not, for the last time, a dictator. You would have done the same thing if you were him.

I will repeat it for a third time: Sometimes order is more important than freedom.

happy now?

[Blake's Baby]

'He can't have been a dictator, you'd have done the same'. What kind of argument is that? If I did the same as him, I'd be a dictator.

If sometimes order is more important than freedom, then sometimes dictatorship is more important than democracy.

What is your problem with the word 'dictator'?

[Tim Finnegan]

I will repeat it for a third time: Sometimes order is more important than freedom.
But when is the party ever more important than the class? You cannot, in good conscience, claim to be communist while maintaining such a position.

[RedMarxist]

again, your missing the point i'm tired of explaining myself over and over again.

What I meant is, Lenin, faced with extreme hostile situations, had little options. If he took the democracy route-which he could have-the future of the revolution would be in jeopardy. No doubt he felt putting the nation under his de facto control, whether or not it was morally wrong or not, was the only option under such dire circumstances.

He was a reluctant dictator. He would not necessarily, if everything-the revolutions in western Europe and whatnot, had turned out right, would become a dictator. He actually said, thus it was a big if, that he would allow for maximum democracy IF the revolutions in Western Europe were successful, but alas they were not. He also said, and to paraphrase, 'Russia is too backwards for true democracy.'

history is not black and white. just because he was dictator does not make him evil or morally a bad person. He was human-flawed so to speak.

[Tim Finnegan]

again, your missing the point i'm tired of explaining myself over and over again.

What I meant is, Lenin, faced with extreme hostile situations, had little options. If he took the democracy route-which he could have-the future of the revolution would be in jeopardy. No doubt he felt putting the nation under his de facto control, whether or not it was morally wrong or not, was the only option under such dire circumstances.

He was a reluctant dictator. He would not necessarily, if everything-the revolutions in western Europe and whatnot, had turned out right, would become a dictator. He actually said, thus it was a big if, that he would allow for maximum democracy IF the revolutions in Western Europe were successful, but alas they were not. He also said, and to paraphrase, 'Russia is too backwards for true democracy.'

history is not black and white. just because he was dictator does not make him evil or morally a bad person. He was human-flawed so to speak.
You're not addressing my point: by rejecting soviet democracy, Lenin rejected proletarian revolution, of which the radical democratic self-organisation of the working class is necessarily the basis. This cliché of the necessary evil of dictatorship could only function if he was preserving the revolution, while in fact this very "preservation" was its total negation. That can't be dismissed by stressing his- alleged- personal reluctance to forward the party-dictatorship; history does not much care if you meant well.

[Flying Trotsky]

You gotta admit, Red Marxist, your argument is falling apart fast. You've claimed he wasn't a dictator, and now you're claiming that he was, but with the added modifier of "reluctant".

Look, I don't believe Lenin was a dictator. A dictator is a person who has gained power without democratic means, and who exercises unquestioned authority over the government and people.

Lenin was the head of a revolution, and I think we can all agree that there's no expression of democracy quite so pure as a revolution. Further, while Lenin would put his heel down from time to time (and you can argue the justifications forever), he did not exercise unquestionable control over the Russian people.

Look, doing a dictatorial thing every once in a while doesn't constitute a dictatorship. It might not be right (in fact, I firmly believe it to be not right), but it still doesn't mean the system of governance is based in it.

Think of it this way- getting drunk every once in a while doesn't make you an alcoholic.

[Tim Finnegan]

I should also add, I don't view Lenin as a dictator in the individual sense, but, rather, as a senior figure in a party dictatorship. He certainly wielded more individual power than was anything approaching proper, or was at the time acknowledged, but he was not the prototypical Stalin that a great many liberals seem to believe.

[BlackMarx]

As a Democratic socialist, I am opposed to Leninism, but even I wouldn't consider him a dictator. That is absurd. Lenin was authoritarian, yes! But not a dictator. He wasn't writing death warrants for people who looked at him the wrong way. Lenin and Georgian Joe are two different people lol....

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Red Marxist: if the revolution was in trouble under democracy, then really that says a lot more about the state of the revolution and those who purported it, than it does about the appeal of democracy.

Socialism, unlike Capitalism, cannot truly exist without democracy.

To think otherwise is to end up with the USSR, which, whilst an improvement on Tsarism, is a long, long way from what we wanted, and a long, long way from what the workers wanted and could have achieved. As early as 1918, the likes of Rosa Luxembourg were explicit about the democratic failures of the Russian Revolution, and she was proved correct.

If your revolution has to resort to dictatorship by the party to survive, then fuck your revolution.