Alternative Historic Dialectic (smart sounding title)

[W1N5T0N]

Hey, just a quick question out of interest.

If Bolshevism had "failed", i.e. they had never taken over power, or if they had had to have stalemate with the White/Black Army and never taken over the whole of russia by forcefully shoving their view of communism down everyone's throat, what would the future of communism have looked like?

Im thinking here maybe a successful german revolution in 1918, communism modeled after german standards? With actual working soviets? Lets face it, "Communism" of the 20th century and most of the 21st century understanding is based on the russian model of it, carried out by one faction.
So imagine German communism had spread around from germany outwards, or inspired other nations to follow? British communism? the fall of the atlantic bourgeoisie as opposed to the eastern nobilities?

This also because there seems to be a modern day fetish acknowledging ML/Stalinism as the only successful way to communism, or even A successful way. Yet it is based on only one country at the turn of the century?

Furthermore, a lot of post-WW2 communist parties were influenced heavily by the Soviet Union because they were basically the big daddy of communism at the time. The idea being then and now that communism should be modeled after the russian fashion, the way the bolsheviks did it back in '17.

What do you think? How would it have looked?

[Kronsteen]

If the bolsheviks had failed to make a revolution...I suspect only historians would have heard of marxism today.

Various political systems, all claiming to be related to marxism, controlled a third of the land on the planet for most of the 20th century. That made Karl Marx a very well known name, and inspired many political stripes to read him - and read their own politics into him.

However right Marx was, I think he'd be forgotten. As to who else might have come up with something different to oppose capitalism, that's an intriguing unknowable.

[Book O'Dead]

If the bolsheviks had failed to make a revolution...I suspect only historians would have heard of marxism today.

You mean no one had heard of Marxism up until 1917? What a novel idea!


Various political systems, all claiming to be related to marxism, controlled a third of the land on the planet for most of the 20th century. That made Karl Marx a very well known name, and inspired many political stripes to read him - and read their own politics into him.

Excuse me for saying this, but you haven't the slightest idea of what your saying.
Karl Marx and his ideas were well known loooooong before the Bolsheviks ever existed.



However right Marx was, I think he'd be forgotten. As to who else might have come up with something different to oppose capitalism, that's an intriguing unknowable.

Where the fuck did you get this silly notion?

[Book O'Dead]

Hey, just a quick question out of interest.

If Bolshevism had "failed", i.e. they had never taken over power, or if they had had to have stalemate with the White/Black Army and never taken over the whole of russia by forcefully shoving their view of communism down everyone's throat, what would the future of communism have looked like?


Many historians have pointed out how useless it is to speculate on the 'what-might-have-been' if this, that or the other event had not occurred; it serves no useful purpose in aiding our understanding of past events.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Trotsky in his "History of The Russian Revolution" had an interesting counter factual speculation on what might have happened if there had been no Bolshevik Party. He thought there might have been anarchist uprisings, doomed to failure. Russia was already sliding towards military rule. My guess is that Russia could have emerged as the first fascist state instead of Italy. Kolchak and some of the White generals were thinking in tis direction.

With all due respect I think you're buying into the "Lenin was an authoritarian monster" view of many liberals.Lenin was an adroit political street fighter, but that's what was needed. Lenin advocated worker's power, no compromise with Kerensky or the bourgeois state, ideas which are often forgotten by his erstwhile followers today.If you study any history of the early Bolshevik Party you'll see he just barely got his ideas across. Much of the time he was politically isolated within his own faction.

The Russian Revolution did go off the rails afterwards. This is because of the failure of the revolution in the West, especially Germany. Read Memoirs of A Revolutionist by Victor Serge for a masterful account of this period.

The revolutionary movements in Germany and elsewhere where fully parts of the same revolution that occured in Russia.. Luxemburg, and her comrades. had disagreements with Lenin but they had far more in common with him then differences.

If there had been no October Revolution, I certainly don't think Marxism wold have been forgotten.We can take "Marxism" to mean not so much the body of doctrine or writings left to the "gnawing criticism of the mice" in some German guy's attic but as the implicit movement of the international working class. Much or all bourgeois social science-economics, sociology, etc was developed in the mid to late 19th century as a reaction to this "Marxism".

[Kronsteen]

You mean no one had heard of Marxism up until 1917? What a novel idea!

If you could possibly reply to the post, and not your skip reading of it, that would be nice.

[Hit The North]

Remember that the German Social Democrats, the largest organisation of workers in the world, were nominally a Marxist party and so "Marxism" would have carried on in public consciousness in some shape or form, as it did anyway, but without the heavy Bolshevik influence which has been considerable, whether for good or bad. Without the Bolsheviks the contradictions of capitalism would have proceeded to unfold anyway and the European crisis would have continued and so Marx's critique would remain indispensible for the generations of revolutionists who are manufactured daily in the workshops of capitalist contradiction.

I endorse Lenina's post entirely and think Russia would have become a right-wing dictatorship. It wasn't the Bolsheviks that caused the Russian bourgeoisie to be too feeble to sustain a bourgeois democracy, it was the material contradictions of Russia that caused that.

[Book O'Dead]

If you could possibly reply to the post, and not your skip reading of it, that would be nice.

Unlike you, I don't play along with unintentionally stupid suppositions.

[Mr. Natural]

W1N5T0N, Thanks for a thought-provoking OP. I'm thinking that an objective as well as subjective failure of the Russian Revolution might have opened up Marxist revolutionary processes elsewhere. "Socialism in one country" and Stalinism combined to suppress potentially effective expressions of Marxism in other countries. The United States is an outstanding example of this: its Communist Party was slavishly locked into Kremlin policy. This led to such political gymnastics as, prior to World War II, first virulently opposing fascism, then accommodating to the Hitler-Stalin Pact, then once more violently opposing fascism when the Soviet Union was attacked. Is it surprising that genuine communist theory and practice has been so absent in the US?

Stalin and the Soviety Union dictated policy to the various national communist parties during WW II and then sat down and carved up the world with the imperialists in the aftermath. Stalin was supporting the royalist Mihailovich (sic) who was the imperialists' ally in Yugoslavia, and I love Tito's impassioned retort: "If you will not help us, at least do not hinder us."

Stalin's bastardized, vulgar diamat also took the revolutionary life from the Marxist materialist dialectic. There was no negation of the negation lest someone get the idea of negating Stalin and Stalinism.

As for Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary, I've been waiting to read it. My calendar tells me that a new "Prentice" translation will be out at the end of May. I forget where I got this info, but my recollection is that this is supposed to be a significant improvement over the old translation, which is most worthwhile, too.

My red-green best.

[ComradeOm]

Where the fuck did you get this silly notion?I'll tell you why I would accept "this silly notion"

As a political current, Marxism in 1914 was almost exclusively associated with the Social Democratic movement. Particularly the Second International. It's often difficult to remember just how reformist/moderate/parliamentary these groups were. In particular their conception of the state was almost entirely removed from what is today's Marxist orthodoxy

That model failed with the great betrayal in 1914 and the following years were largely a reaction against this. In a stroke the Second International parties had discredited themselves and their theoretical base

Bolshevism/Leninism was the most prominent of the new alternatives posed by the younger generation of Marxists and, in many ways, the most radical. Again, it's difficult to appreciate how much of a radical departure Lenin's stance on the nature of the state was at the time. The 'semi-anarchist' jibes and barbs were well earned. He underplayed some elements of it but Lenin's left turn in 1917 was a massive break with what had until then been called 'Marxism'

Now the Bolsheviks were successful-ish (in that they survived at least) and this principles were eagerly seized upon by European revolutionaries eager for a clean break with the old SD parties. Even those who resisted 'Bolshevisation' implicitly accepted some core 'Leninist' precepts. Which is why today's standard Marxist definition of the state, to use the most obvious example, is very different from that of 1914

So far so historical. I don't really like venturing into counter-factual 'history' but there are a few safe assumptions that we can make. In the case of a Bolshevik failure we can assume that Lenin and his theories would be safety discredited. No Bolshevism would emerge from the ashes of the Marxist movement. The problem is that nothing else would either. Social Democracy had already discredited itself and it's hard to see the isolated and scattered 'left communist' groups exerting much of an intellectual pull. Not without some victory to their name. Anarchism would have continued with its historic nadir regardless

So what's left? Not much. What would emerge to take the place historically occupied by Bolshevism? No idea. There is every chance however that the new vehicle of the workers' movement might have no connection with Marxism, or at least practice an entirely different 'Marxism' than what we know. In the case of the former it's perfectly possible that Marx fades from memory, his theories indelibly associated with the Second International and a string of failed revolutions

I don't pretend to know either way but it's not hard to construct a scenario in which Marx is simply reduced to another Mazzini


Unlike you, I don't play along with unintentionally stupid suppositionsThen I suggest that you stop posting in this thread. You've registered your disagreement with the premise so no need to hang around


Im thinking here maybe a successful german revolution in 1918, communism modeled after german standards?Why are you making the connection between the failure of Russia and the success of Germany? Revolution in the latter was after all heavily influenced by the success of the former. The entire concept of worker councils (aka soviets) is a Russian innovation in Marxism

Of course had a revolution in Germany succeeded then it would have moved to the forefront of the world revolutionary movement, regardless of events in Russia. Lenin was candid about Russia stepping back to allow the more advanced Germany to assume leadership of what would by this point be a European revolution. Indeed he was counting on that

[Book O'Dead]

I'll tell you why I would accept "this silly notion"
"However right Marx was, I think he'd be forgotten. As to who else might have come up with something different to oppose capitalism, that's an intriguing unknowable. "

This is the silly, ahistorical notion I was referring to.

By the time of the revolution of October, and long before, the impact of Marx's discoveries upon the working class were indelible. Moreover, to suppose that the failure or non-existence of the Bolsheviks would have prevented a universal revolution in Russia is absurd as it denies the previous existence of the class struggle or its intensification as a result of the European crises that preceded the First World War.


Then I suggest that you stop posting in this thread. You've registered your disagreement with the premise so no need to hang around

Oh, no! I will not deny myself the pleasure of popping your sophomoric bubbles.

[ComradeOm]

By the time of the revolution of October, and long before, the impact of Marx's discoveries upon the working class were indelibleThe idea that Marxism is inherent in working class struggle, or had established itself as such by 1914, is a vanity and nothing more. How many revolutionaries, of any stripe, today reference Mazzini, a man once synonymous with the term?


Moreover, to suppose that the failure or non-existence of the Bolsheviks would have prevented a universal revolution in Russia is absurd as it denies the previous existence of the class struggle or its intensification as a result of the European crises that preceded the First World WarAnd who suggested that? There was going to be a revolution in Russia but revolutions often fail. The "failure or non-existence of the Bolsheviks" could easily have produced a Balkanised Russia in which all semblance of central authority collapsed and the working class ground out of existence. Historically this almost came to pass

[Kronsteen]

By the time of the revolution of October, and long before, the impact of Marx's discoveries upon the working class were indelible.

So marxism is eternal. I see.

You seem to be under the impression that ideas are more powerful than social forces. Perhaps you could remind us what Marx thought of that notion.

[Book O'Dead]

The idea that Marxism is inherent in working class struggle, or had established itself as such by 1914, is a vanity and nothing more. How many revolutionaries, of any stripe, today reference Mazzini, a man once synonymous with the term?

And Mazzini's body of work is comparable to Marx's in what way?

[Book O'Dead]

So marxism is eternal. I see.

No. I'm just pointing out to you that Marxism's worldwide popularity is not the result of the Bolshevik revolution nor would Marx be 'forgotten', as you claimed, had there not been a Bolshevik coup in Russia.


You seem to be under the impression that ideas are more powerful than social forces. Perhaps you could remind us what Marx thought of that notion.

Not at all. I happen to believe that a principle is a principle because it is fact, at least from the materialist point of view.

Marx's 'ideas' weren't plucked out of the air.

[Kronsteen]

Marxism's worldwide popularity is not the result of the Bolshevik revolution nor would Marx be 'forgotten', as you claimed, had there not been a Bolshevik coup in Russia.

So now you are playing the game you said was 'silly' - imagining a world where the bolsheviks failed.

You say the impact of Marx on working class is 'indelible'. Please explain why Marx is indelible, but Proudhon, Owen, Fourier, Ballou, and the Taborites are not.

Hint: Do not fall into the trap of assuming that an enduring idea must be a true idea.

[Book O'Dead]

So now you are playing the game you said was 'silly' - imagining a world where the bolsheviks failed.

You say the impact of Marx on working class is 'indelible'. Please explain why Marx is indelible, but Proudhon, Owen, Fourier, Ballou, and the Taborites are not.

Hint: Do not fall into the trap of assuming that an enduring idea must be a true idea.

Because Marx was right.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

So marxism is eternal. I see.

You seem to be under the impression that ideas are more powerful than social forces. Perhaps you could remind us what Marx thought of that notion.

The working class struggle would continue, in some form or other, regardless of how the Russian Revolution turned out.Marxism explains the dynamics , the dialectical struggle between workers and capitalists, inherent within capitalism.As long as capitalism exists this struggle would exist. Marxism merely gives a theoretical voice to this.

There were huge violent labor clashes well before the Russian Revolution, there would certainly be even with no RR.Having said this reformist currents would come to dominate worker's struggle but, well, that happened anyway.

[Mr. Natural]

ComradeOm, Kronsteen, I find the two of you to be a sort of "odd couple" with your pairing on this discussion. I generally find both of your postings to be valuable and I learn from them, but you seem to usually have quite different perspectives.

That said, I take issue with your conclusion that Marxism would probably have disappeared without the Bolshevik revolution. ComradeOm wrote, "There is every chance however that the new vehicle of the worker's movement might have no connection with Marxism, or at least practice an entirely different 'Marxism' than what we know.

Damn, Comrades, no historical materialism or incisive Marxist analysis of capitalism and surplus value? These essential insights into reality would be lost to humanity and history?

Well, that's not so far-fetched as it initially appeared to me, for we are now firmly planted within a capitalist end game in which humanity has been captured mentally as well as physically and there is little interest in historical materialism and almost no one in the US understands capitalism or is inclined to learn.

So the Bolsheviks may have "succeeded" in revolution, but their failure theoretically and philosophically and the Soviet Union's politically bankrupt control of other communist parties can be seen as a real failure of revolution and major degradation of Marxism. When I look around, I cannot see an authentic Marxian praxis anywhere.

Just the same, had the Bolshevik revolution not occurred, the many Marxist currents extant in the early twentieth century would have had some breathing and growing room. At least the results couldn't have been much more woeful than our current predicament, could they?

The Russian Revolution was terminally degraded and ultimately defeated by capitalism, and Marxism has become an archaeological dig. There is a dialectical relationship between the triumph of capitalism and the absence of any current Marxist revolutionary theory; in fact, capitalism's triumph is dialectically dismissing the materialist dialectic, too.

I won't go into my usual spiel about we who must organize had damn well better engage the new sciences of organization as would Marx and Engels. Not any more than I just did, that is, and this engagement would entail "practicing a [radically] different Marxism than what we know." But it would be well-rooted in Marxism.

If Marxism, historical materialism, the materialist dialectic, and an understanding of capitalism are on their way out, can the human species be far behind?

My red-green beastly best.

[ComradeOm]

And Mazzini's body of work is comparable to Marx's in what way?In that he laid down the blueprint for 19th C revolts. His 'Young Italy' model was copied across the continent and his writings hugely influential on the emerging school of nationalists. He was easily one of the most important political theoreticians of that century. And almost entirely forgotten today. It turns out that further generations of liberals and nationalists could do without him just fine


Marx's 'ideas' weren't plucked out of the air.No, they were based on observations and formulated into a set of theses by Marx. Which were then turned into a political orthodoxy by his successors in the Social Democratic movement. Which was in turn shaken up by Lenin. At each point (and we've only gone as far as 1917) the development of a semi-coherent 'Marxism' was dependent on people first formulating and then propagating a set of 'Marxist' principles. Without this, 'Marxism' is nothing but the writings of a 19th C journalist

Indeed you could, for example, argue that if the emerging mass worker parties of 1870s Germany hadn't embraced Marx then he could well have remained as marginal a figure as he had been in his own life. It wasn't historical accident that his popularity later increased (he's too good for that) but nor was it due to some eternal insight contained within his writings that couldn't help but wow all who read them


The working class struggle would continue, in some form or other, regardless of how the Russian Revolution turned out.Marxism explains the dynamics , the dialectical struggle between workers and capitalists, inherent within capitalism.As long as capitalism exists this struggle would exist. Marxism merely gives a theoretical voice to this.Exactly. Marxism was merely the political vehicle through which the explosion of class struggle expressed itself at the end of the 19th C. It wasn't even the only one - both anarchism and syndicalism could make equally valid claims to being the correct revolutionary creed. It's perfectly possible to have class struggle without Marxism and perfectly possible to imagine a world in which Marxism has gone the way of syndicalism. Obviously I'm glad that we don't live in that world


That said, I take issue with your conclusion that Marxism would probably have disappeared without the Bolshevik revolution. ComradeOm wrote, "There is every chance however that the new vehicle of the worker's movement might have no connection with Marxism, or at least practice an entirely different 'Marxism' than what we know.Note: I presented a possibility. No more. I've got no crystal ball and I'm not going to play the probability game. All I said is that it is possible to present a scenario in which Marxism, as a political ideology, becomes irrelevant following a failed revolution in Russia

[Kronsteen]

Damn, Comrades, no historical materialism or incisive Marxist analysis of capitalism and surplus value? These essential insights into reality would be lost to humanity and history?

If we accept the line that Marxism is a fusion of (French) socialism, (British) economics and (German) Philosophy, then I think we can ask: What combination could have arisen in the 20th century if marxism had been lost?

When Marx was writing, France was the home of progressive politics, and Britain was where the innovations were happening in economics. The German - Hegelian - philosophy was already going out of fashion when Marx was writing, but there wasn't anything yet to replace it. Plus, Marx was German and a student of philosophy, so it got included.

What would a Marx of the 1920s have to work with? I'm not an economist so I'm sure someone else could provide a more complete picture, but there was Keynsianism, and precursors of information theory and game theory. Smith and Ricardo were still read.

The philosophical innovations were split between Britain and Austria, in Empiricism, Logical Positivism and the beginnings of linguistic philosophy.

As for socialism, there was anarchism, and a kind of 'harmony with nature' environmentalism.

Mix these up together...and we'd have something fiercely materialist, but also very black-and-white - no room for contradictions or ambiguities. It would have quite a sentimental, backward looking kind of humanism in one corner...and a brutal, mechanical view of economics in the other, with the two compartmentalised away from each other.

We could still have a labour theory of value, but probably not a notion that capitalism would to self destruct or run down - no tendency of profit to fall, because by that time the data was suggesting there may not be such a tendency after all.

No big revolutions to inspire revolutionism, and few examples of working class resistance.

In short, a mess. Only someone living in the time of Marx could have produced something like marxism.

[Luís Henrique]

Please explain why Marx is indelible, but Proudhon, Owen, Fourier, Ballou, and the Taborites are not.

Erm, Marx gave us an in-depth analysis of capitalism, one that seems even more up-to-date as capitalism unravels, choking in its contradictions, at the beggining of the 21st century, while Proudhon gave us confuse speculations about how to suppress money while keeping the market, and Owen and Fourier gave us blue-prints to build perfect societies, but no actual method for doing so?

Luís Henrique