jdhoch
2nd September 2012, 07:18
Nothing that we face is just as it was for Lenin and his comrades. Our 1903 and 1905 and 1912 and 1917 may not look at all like theirs, and the sequence of events may differ dramatically. We should avoid acting and talking as if we were in the equivalent of their 1912 or 1917 when, in fact, we may be closer to the equivalent of their 1898 or 1901. More than this, in our present-day contexts, to the extent that the socialist movement and the working class are not intertwined and interacting in significant ways, we have not gotten beyond square one of revolutionary politics. In some ways, our reality has little to do with the reality in which there was a Second International or Third International it is in some ways closer to the reality existing before the creation of the First International.[/URL][11]
By the way, this notion that our pathways cannot possibly duplicate those of Lenin and his comrades happens to constitute a central tenet of Leninist orthodoxy. In 1919 he commented that each nation is travelling in the same historical direction but each must follow very different zigzags and byways. He added that the more cultured nations are obviously proceeding in a way that differs from that of the less cultured nations. Finland is advancing in a different way. Germany is advancing in a different way. In 1921 he urged yet other comrades to refrain from copying our tactics but thoroughly vary them and adapt them to the different concrete conditions. He told Italian comrades that principles must be adapted to the specific conditions of various countries. The revolution in Italy will run a different course from that in Russia. It will start in a different way. How? Neither you nor we know. In 1922 Lenin told comrades in the Communist International that they should not hang Russian experience in a corner like an icon and pray to it. I should add that this last comment did not contrary to some misinterpretations mean that Lenin believed the Russian experience was irrelevant, but rather that it should be critically studied, assimilated and applied creatively to new and different contexts. (http://links.org.au/node/3011#_edn11)[12]
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[url]http://www.systemiccapital.com/paul-le-blanc-the-great-lenin-debate-history-and-politics/
By the way, this notion that our pathways cannot possibly duplicate those of Lenin and his comrades happens to constitute a central tenet of Leninist orthodoxy. In 1919 he commented that each nation is travelling in the same historical direction but each must follow very different zigzags and byways. He added that the more cultured nations are obviously proceeding in a way that differs from that of the less cultured nations. Finland is advancing in a different way. Germany is advancing in a different way. In 1921 he urged yet other comrades to refrain from copying our tactics but thoroughly vary them and adapt them to the different concrete conditions. He told Italian comrades that principles must be adapted to the specific conditions of various countries. The revolution in Italy will run a different course from that in Russia. It will start in a different way. How? Neither you nor we know. In 1922 Lenin told comrades in the Communist International that they should not hang Russian experience in a corner like an icon and pray to it. I should add that this last comment did not contrary to some misinterpretations mean that Lenin believed the Russian experience was irrelevant, but rather that it should be critically studied, assimilated and applied creatively to new and different contexts. (http://links.org.au/node/3011#_edn11)[12]
MORE
[url]http://www.systemiccapital.com/paul-le-blanc-the-great-lenin-debate-history-and-politics/