Behind the slander and lies about Lenin

[jdhoch]

The truth is that Lenin dedicated his life to one thing and one thing only--the establishment of a society free from all forms of oppression. And to achieve this, he focused his attention on building an organization of revolutionaries--primarily of workers--capable of achieving that goal.
Lenin's conception of revolutionary organization has been distorted beyond all recognition. In part, these distortions are the work of people who continued to look upon Russia as socialist after Stalin came to power. This required accepting the idea that a Leninist "vanguard" party demanded blind obedience.


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Systemic Capital .com

[Prometeo liberado]

When you say blind obedience I assume you mean democratic centralism. Unity is often mistaken as blind obedience and its demo cent. that breeds the face of unity. It was Lenin that wrote What is to be Done. In it he describes the very unity of the vanguard that you speak of. If anything Lenin's words have not been twisted or lied about, but been used haphazardly. It was Stalin that codified Marxism-Leninism, demanding the highest standards for it. For the source of lies and slander look no further than his closest comrade.

[Olentzero]

Be nice if you gave the source (http://socialistworker.org/2012/02/17/behind-the-lies-about-Lenin) while you were at it...

[daft punk]

The truth is that Lenin dedicated his life to one thing and one thing only--the establishment of a society free from all forms of oppression. And to achieve this, he focused his attention on building an organization of revolutionaries--primarily of workers--capable of achieving that goal.
Lenin's conception of revolutionary organization has been distorted beyond all recognition. In part, these distortions are the work of people who continued to look upon Russia as socialist after Stalin came to power. This required accepting the idea that a Leninist "vanguard" party demanded blind obedience.


This is correct, so why are you in the CP?

[Dave B]

The membership of the bolshevik party was never more than 1% of the population and it was a case of the state capitalist 1% ruling over the 99% by ‘transmission belts’;

V. I. Lenin THE CONDITIONS FOR ADMITTING
NEW MEMBERS TO THE PARTY



In view of the lackadaisical and unsystematic methods that prevail in our ranks, short probation periods will actually mean that no real test will be made to ascertain whether the applicants are really more or less tried Communists. If we have 300,000 to 400,000 members in the Party, even that number is excessive, for literally everything goes to show that the level of training of the present Party membership is inadequate. That is why I strongly insist on longer probation periods, and on instructing the Organising Bureau to draw up and strictly apply rules that will really make the period of probation a serious test and not an empty formality.


http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/CNM22.html


V. I. Lenin NINTH CONGRESS OF THE R.C.P.(B.)
MARCH 29- APRIL 5, 1920




it is essential for the Central Committee to be constituted in such a way as to have a transmission belt to the broad masses of the trade unions (we have 600,000 Party members and 3,000,000 trade union members) to connect the Central Committee simultaneously with the united will of the 600,000 Party members and the 3,000,000 trade union members. We cannot govern without such a transmission belt.


http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/NC20.html


V. I. Lenin The Trade Unions, The Present Situation
And Trotsky’s Mistakes



.
But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels………….for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation. It cannot work without a number of “transmission belts” running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people.


http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

[PhoenixAsh]

I am going to interject with a general warning to keep this thread on topic and have it not devaluate itself into another sectarian fight about the nature of the party the OP adhers to. Derailing posts removed