Differences - Lenin? Stalin? Mao?

[Etular]

The title pretty much explains it all, really - whilst I've often defined myself as a "Marxist" for quite some time (before looking into the "libertarian communist" ideological viewpoint), my knowledge of these three ideologies in specific, even at a basic level, is minimal.

As far as I'm aware, I've always viewed Lenin as the "Good Dictator", apparently having brought up the literacy rate of Russians; Stalin as a brutally-efficient "Bad Dictator" and Mao as a similarly stereotyped "Bad Dictator". I'm aware all of these are flawed misconceptions and stereotypes, so I hope someone will enlighten me on exactly what these three people believed in and how they differentiate from one-another.

[ComradeOm]

In a very brief nutshell? Lenin wasn't a dictator. He was head of the Soviet government but had to convince his colleagues as to the merits of policy and, indeed, was often out-voted on such decisions. Including critical ones such as Brest-Litovsk. The internal party democracy was far from perfect but it did exist. In contrast, ten years after Lenin's death any deviation from Stalin's line was cause for suspicion and, ultimately, death

This thread will no doubt run and run but that right there is the crux of the matter

[ind_com]

The title pretty much explains it all, really - whilst I've often defined myself as a "Marxist" for quite some time (before looking into the "libertarian communist" ideological viewpoint), my knowledge of these three ideologies in specific, even at a basic level, is minimal.

As far as I'm aware, I've always viewed Lenin as the "Good Dictator", apparently having brought up the literacy rate of Russians; Stalin as a brutally-efficient "Bad Dictator" and Mao as a similarly stereotyped "Bad Dictator". I'm aware all of these are flawed misconceptions and stereotypes, so I hope someone will enlighten me on exactly what these three people believed in and how they differentiate from one-another.

Lenin and Stalin mostly believed in the same things. Even when Lenin was outvoted before the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Stalin stood by his side, and they fought together until the treaty happened. The USSR under the leadership of Stalin witnessed implementations of Lenin's thoughts.

Mao, on the other hand, took Marxist theory to a level higher than Leninism. Apart from providing a military line for revolution without waiting for the army to lose a war and revolt, he applied more accurate analysis on the socio-economic relations in colonial China, and he analyzed the position of several classes in China with respect to revolution. He also theorized the existence of class struggle inside the socialist state and the communist party, and proposed some methods to prevent the defeat of socialism.

[Ostrinski]

Lenin couldn't in any meaningful sense be considered a dictator. While he had a lot of influence on policy making decisions, his proposals were often voted down, as Om pointed out. Besides, he can only be considered a de facto leader as Yakov Sverdlov was the official head of state in the early years of the Russian Soviet Republic.

[Let's Get Free]

I'd say that Lenin and his Bolsheviks were a dictatorship over the proletariat. They didn't introduce a single-party state, but they did laid the foundations for it by banning free speech, destroying the democratically run soviets, as well as ignoring the fact that they were not the most popular socialist party amongst the workers. And with banning factionalism there was no opposition or dissent within the party. All this laid the foundations for Stalin's extremely authoritarian and repressive rule.

Mao Tse Tung united a nation that had been torn apart by colonialism and war under an iron fist. In both Russia and China the revolutions had to solve the same political and economic tasks. They had to destroy feudalism and to free the productive forces in agriculture from the fetters in which existing relations bound them. They also had to prepare a basis for industrial development. They had to destroy absolutism and replace it by a form of government and by a state capitalist machine that would allow solutions to the existing economic problems. The economic and political problems were those of a bourgeois revolution; a revolution to make capitalism the mode of production.

[ind_com]

I'd say that Lenin and his Bolsheviks were a dictatorship over the proletariat. They didn't introduce a single-party state, but they did laid the foundations for it by banning free speech, destroying the democratically run soviets, as well as ignoring the fact that they were not the most popular socialist party amongst the workers. And with banning factionalism there was no opposition or dissent within the party. All this laid the foundations for Stalin's extremely authoritarian and repressive rule.


How did Lenin and the Bolsheviks ban free speech, and which was the most popular socialist party amongst the workers?

[Let's Get Free]

How did Lenin and the Bolsheviks ban free speech, and which was the most popular socialist party amongst the workers?


Well, by 1918, the Bolsheviks had began to lose popular support. Trotsky had proclaimed that workers can “dismiss that government and appoint another.” Yet when the workers tried to do that, the Bolsheviks gerrymandered soviets and disbanded any elected with non-Bolshevik majorities. They even gerrymandered the 5th All-Russian Congress of soviets, denying the Left-Socialist Revolutionaries their rightful majority. The SRs won the majority and this grew into a problem, so the Bolsheviks overthrew results of elections that went against them, shut down presses, closed opposition meeting places, jailed opponents, etc.

[ComradeOm]

...as well as ignoring the fact that they were not the most popular socialist party amongst the workers...They were. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly the Bolsheviks received the overwhelmingly majority of working class votes. They were unquestionably the party of the proletariat but not the peasantry

[Aussie Trotskyist]

Lenin and Stalin mostly believed in the same things. Even when Lenin was outvoted before the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Stalin stood by his side, and they fought together until the treaty happened. The USSR under the leadership of Stalin witnessed implementations of Lenin's thoughts.

Mao, on the other hand, took Marxist theory to a level higher than Leninism. Apart from providing a military line for revolution without waiting for the army to lose a war and revolt, he applied more accurate analysis on the socio-economic relations in colonial China, and he analyzed the position of several classes in China with respect to revolution. He also theorized the existence of class struggle inside the socialist state and the communist party, and proposed some methods to prevent the defeat of socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping

EPIC FAIL!

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. The opportunity was just leaping at me.

[Let's Get Free]

They were. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly the Bolsheviks received the overwhelmingly majority of working class votes. They were unquestionably the party of the proletariat but not the peasantry


You're right. The SRs were popular in the peasantry, but they still made up the majority of population, and so they won the election The Bolsheviks believed the industrial proletariat in the cities would spearhead revolution, which of course they would lead. Coincidentally, they did in fact have a majority with the working class. However, the working class population was still relatively small and concentrated in the cities.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Lenin and Stalin mostly believed in the same things. Even when Lenin was outvoted before the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Stalin stood by his side, and they fought together until the treaty happened. The USSR under the leadership of Stalin witnessed implementations of Lenin's thoughts.

Mao, on the other hand, took Marxist theory to a level higher than Leninism. Apart from providing a military line for revolution without waiting for the army to lose a war and revolt, he applied more accurate analysis on the socio-economic relations in colonial China, and he analyzed the position of several classes in China with respect to revolution. He also theorized the existence of class struggle inside the socialist state and the communist party, and proposed some methods to prevent the defeat of socialism.

Watch as i bring it even higher.

[∞]

I am a LibSoc. And although I have my criticism's of Leninist Russia, Stalin was not the ideological heir to Lenin. I base it out of common sense. That Lenin believed in Democratic Centralism (which I'm not a big fan of), and Stalin worked to destroy the very aspect of it. The whole attitude of the few criticisms Luxemburg had were along the lines of, "Hey let 'em have better freedom of speech it won't hurt ya," Lenin was like "Yeah, that'd be nice its just that we are at war and alot of so-called socialist are in the white army,". Lenin never mentioned liquidating all those who didn't adhere to Leninist thought. And to be fair its not one-sided there is a good chance that there was Anarchist tendencies plotting insurrection. Anyway, Stalin followed Lenin's ideas the same way a Islamic Terrorists interprets islam. Over-emphasizing the importance of a state while ignoring the core aspects of democratic centralism.

It really doesn't get more simple than the fact Lenin didn't believe that "ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT POWAH", thats what Stalin did. He controlled all political and economic aspects off the USSR and profited out of it both for his lust for power, and his lavish bourgeois lifestyle. Capitalistic control over means of production allocated to a one-man monopoly, along with complete political control of media, and basically any political decision. He also killed innocent people. As a human being I find that wrong. He did. Lenin may have to. But Stalin did it so much. He did it so much. He killed all those people. He did. Its fact. People who lived though it say he did. Its fact. Its bad. Stop shitting with me.

Ignore Mao unless you want to hear about a political philosophy so vague, "poetic", and gimp from any scientific study that it would make Mr. Adolf green with envy.

[ind_com]

He did. Lenin may have to. But Stalin did it so much. He did it so much. He killed all those people. He did. Its fact. People who lived though it say he did. Its fact. Its bad. Stop shitting with me.

Repeating a sentence multiple times does not increase its logical value. Bolsheviks under Lenin acted against the Makhnovites and Kronstadt rebellions, and under Stalin they acted in the same way against Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorist centers. Merciless counterattacks on reactionaries have been a common strategy of every revolutionary movement. Although with the advantage of hindsight we can now point out the excesses.


Ignore Mao unless you want to hear about a political philosophy so vague, "poetic", and gimp from any scientific study that it would make Mr. Adolf green with envy.

Or unless you want to engage in class war rather than bragging about your unimplementable 'scientific' theories forever.

[ind_com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping

EPIC FAIL!

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. The opportunity was just leaping at me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader

Same here.

On a more serious note, I would like to point out that proposing some methods is not the same as proposing all necessary methods, or being able to implement them correctly.

[∞]

Repeating a sentence multiple times does not increase its logical value. Bolsheviks under Lenin acted against the Makhnovites and Kronstadt rebellions, and under Stalin they acted in the same way against Trotskyite and Zinovievite terrorist centers. Merciless counterattacks on reactionaries have been a common strategy of every revolutionary movement. Although with the advantage of hindsight we can now point out the excesses.

Kronstadt was a rebellion. I am pro-sailors on this matter. But anywho, it is a matter of excesses. And stalin took it to another level. It was not a period of war communism right after lenin, at least not as much so. So taking that to tenth power is an excess and I was stating particularly that Stalin did what Lenin did in excess, he did to a higher degree. When I say you should brush your teeth twice a day, I say you should brush your teeth twice a day, not 100 times a day. Lenin did not believe in excess violence. Because he lived in a time and had enough support in which he could do that.


Or unless you want to engage in class war rather than bragging about your unimplementable 'scientific' theories forever.

My theory is simple. Don't send teenagers to go around killing and pillaging any old guy who looks at them funny. Don't think you are the only socialist in charge. Don't kill people for believing something without ever even doing it. Don't brainwash an entire population to the point where they think you are a foot taller and look like Alec Baldwin mixed with an in-shape Mario. Is it really that hard? Are you really saying that the only socialist state that exists is one where I have to work on an industrial power plant without any incentive while my dear leader is chillin in his 45,000 sq. ft palace? I would like at least a sprinkle of freedom with my equality please. Thats it. Stop the fucking jargon about "TEH CLASS REACTION TO THE BURGEOIS APPRATUS OF THEREACTIONARY TENDENCY THAT DONT AGREE WITH ME," its just jibberish. Stalinists sound like the pentagon justifying the Iraq war by hiding behind a bunch of stupid jargon so they can avoid the real affects to their actions. Nowhere does it say in a socialist state that one dictator has power. And thats the bottom line.

[Positivist]

I really find the allusions to Stalin as a "power hungry dictator who killed everyone who disagreed with him" quite immature. Now I'm no Stalinist, and I reject many of the policies implemented during his reign, but to label him as such is as absurd as to designate Lenin to be the same. Contrary to popular discourse, Stalin was a high ranking party member during the revolution and did play an important role in the civil war. Remember, he was elected General Secretary while Lenin was still alive so if you accept that Lenin presided over a democratic centralist party than you must further accept that Stalin was elected within one.

The thing with Stalin wasn't that he wasn't a communist, or was only interested in power, it was that he really was a brutal person. As a military commander he was notorious for committing excesses against his white army opponents and prior to the revolution he was a violent bank robber. Lenin himself even describes Stalin in his will as the most skilled and able of the members of the CC but as too brutal and consequentally as necessary to dismiss from power (oh and again contrary to popular belief, Trotsky is not exalted and is rather described as an insociable has-been in this will.)

Now I'm not endorsing everything or even anything about Stalin's policies here, but there is evidence enough to suggest that the tightened grip he exercised over the party especially as well as other elements of the beurecracy is the product of his own brutality and lack of trust, rather than in a deceitful will to seize power.

[∞]

I really find the allusions to Stalin as a "power hungry dictator who killed everyone who disagreed with him" quite immature.

Name one person who was vocally anti-stalinist during that period of time and wasn't punished for it.

[citizen of industry]

I really find the allusions to Stalin as a "power hungry dictator who killed everyone who disagreed with him" quite immature. Now I'm no Stalinist, and I reject many of the policies implemented during his reign, but to label him as such is as absurd as to designate Lenin to be the same. Contrary to popular discourse, Stalin was a high ranking party member during the revolution and did play an important role in the civil war. Remember, he was elected General Secretary while Lenin was still alive so if you accept that Lenin presided over a democratic centralist party than you must further accept that Stalin was elected within one.

The thing with Stalin wasn't that he wasn't a communist, or was only interested in power, it was that he really was a brutal person. As a military commander he was notorious for committing excesses against his white army opponents and prior to the revolution he was a violent bank robber. Lenin himself even describes Stalin in his will as the most skilled and able of the members of the CC but as too brutal and consequentally as necessary to dismiss from power (oh and again contrary to popular belief, Trotsky is not exalted and is rather described as an insociable has-been in this will.)

Now I'm not endorsing everything or even anything about Stalin's policies here, but there is evidence enough to suggest that the tightened grip he exercised over the party especially as well as other elements of the beurecracy is the product of his own brutality and lack of trust, rather than in a deceitful will to seize power.

Lenin's "last testament" is about a page long and available from Marxists.org at a click by typing "Lenin's last testament." After praising Trotsky to the skies (you are confused, he describes Trotstky verbatim as "perhaps the most capable man in the C.C."), he criticizes him for being too self-assured and being too pre-occupied with administrative side of things. That's it. Nothing about being an insociable has-been. The criticisms of Stalin are for being course and national chauvanist and the only practical advice in the entire letter is that Stalin should be removed from his post. I wonder why his wife kept it under wraps until he died, seems like a huge political mistake.

[l'Enfermé]

I really find the allusions to Stalin as a "power hungry dictator who killed everyone who disagreed with him" quite immature. Now I'm no Stalinist, and I reject many of the policies implemented during his reign, but to label him as such is as absurd as to designate Lenin to be the same. Contrary to popular discourse, Stalin was a high ranking party member during the revolution and did play an important role in the civil war. Remember, he was elected General Secretary while Lenin was still alive so if you accept that Lenin presided over a democratic centralist party than you must further accept that Stalin was elected within one.

The thing with Stalin wasn't that he wasn't a communist, or was only interested in power, it was that he really was a brutal person. As a military commander he was notorious for committing excesses against his white army opponents and prior to the revolution he was a violent bank robber. Lenin himself even describes Stalin in his will as the most skilled and able of the members of the CC but as too brutal and consequentally as necessary to dismiss from power (oh and again contrary to popular belief, Trotsky is not exalted and is rather described as an insociable has-been in this will.)

Now I'm not endorsing everything or even anything about Stalin's policies here, but there is evidence enough to suggest that the tightened grip he exercised over the party especially as well as other elements of the beurecracy is the product of his own brutality and lack of trust, rather than in a deceitful will to seize power.
Quite the opposite is true. In his "Last Testament"("Letter to Congress"), Stalin is described as too rude, arbitrary, not loyal, intolerant, capricious, and inconsiderate to other comrades. It's Trotsky who is described as the most able of the C.C.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm

[ind_com]

Kronstadt was a rebellion. I am pro-sailors on this matter.

That says a lot.


But anywho, it is a matter of excesses. And stalin took it to another level. It was not a period of war communism right after lenin, at least not as much so. So taking that to tenth power is an excess and I was stating particularly that Stalin did what Lenin did in excess, he did to a higher degree. When I say you should brush your teeth twice a day, I say you should brush your teeth twice a day, not 100 times a day. Lenin did not believe in excess violence. Because he lived in a time and had enough support in which he could do that.

The USSR was always under threat of capitalist invasion, which finally happened with the Nazi attacks. And before that, there were internal conspiracies and terrorist plots inside the USSR, which had to be put down. While admitting that Lenin was technically superior to Stalin, it is not very helpful to deny that class struggle intensifies with time in a socialist country.


My theory is simple. Don't send teenagers to go around killing and pillaging any old guy who looks at them funny. Don't think you are the only socialist in charge. Don't kill people for believing something without ever even doing it. Don't brainwash an entire population to the point where they think you are a foot taller and look like Alec Baldwin mixed with an in-shape Mario. Is it really that hard? Are you really saying that the only socialist state that exists is one where I have to work on an industrial power plant without any incentive while my dear leader is chillin in his 45,000 sq. ft palace? I would like at least a sprinkle of freedom with my equality please. Thats it. Stop the fucking jargon about "TEH CLASS REACTION TO THE BURGEOIS APPRATUS OF THEREACTIONARY TENDENCY THAT DONT AGREE WITH ME," its just jibberish. Stalinists sound like the pentagon justifying the Iraq war by hiding behind a bunch of stupid jargon so they can avoid the real affects to their actions. Nowhere does it say in a socialist state that one dictator has power. And thats the bottom line.

Awesome! You even got the no-incentive thing right! Just replace 'Stalinists' by 'communists' and you have a classic anti-communist rant by a liberal Obama-supporter that calls himself a socialist.

[∞]

That says a lot.

Don't do that. You don't know how much I fucking hate it when people do that.


Awesome! You even got the no-incentive thing right! Just replace 'Stalinists' by 'communists' and you have a classic anti-communist rant by a liberal Obama-supporter that calls himself a socialist.

Or maybe I support a socialist system where people have a reason to work, whether it be passion or something like vouchers. I'm done talking to you, because you keep making fun of me and my ideas. Thats not very nice. Peace.

[ind_com]

Don't do that. You don't know how much I fucking hate it when people do that.

Or maybe I support a socialist system where people have a reason to work, whether it be passion or something like vouchers. I'm done talking to you, because you keep making fun of me and my ideas. Thats not very nice. Peace.

I am not opposed to criticism of the socialist countries. But try not to repeat capitalist arguments against communism. Criticize Mao a thousand times for not effectively opposing his cult of personality, criticize Chinese socialists severely for coming to ridiculous decisions like killing sparrows. Criticize them for not being able to develop proletarian democracy sufficiently to save socialism. Even criticize them for every military defeat and massacres of workers that resulted due to those. All that is accepted and even encouraged. But the moment you side with liberals by repeating capitalist propaganda, inspite of using Marxist phrases, you lose all credibility as a critique. Peace.

[Positivist]

Quite the opposite is true. In his "Last Testament"("Letter to Congress"), Stalin is described as too rude, arbitrary, not loyal, intolerant, capricious, and inconsiderate to other comrades. It's Trotsky who is described as the most able of the C.C.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm

I read another copy somewhere, I'll try to dig it up. The one I'm thinking about said most of the same stuff about everyone else, but a little less about Trotsky and more about Stalin. I did read it quite some time ago so I may be wrong. That being said, my argument isn't really broken if I am incorrect here.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

The title pretty much explains it all, really - whilst I've often defined myself as a "Marxist" for quite some time (before looking into the "libertarian communist" ideological viewpoint), my knowledge of these three ideologies in specific, even at a basic level, is minimal.

As far as I'm aware, I've always viewed Lenin as the "Good Dictator", apparently having brought up the literacy rate of Russians; Stalin as a brutally-efficient "Bad Dictator" and Mao as a similarly stereotyped "Bad Dictator". I'm aware all of these are flawed misconceptions and stereotypes, so I hope someone will enlighten me on exactly what these three people believed in and how they differentiate from one-another.

This is quite common when a trot discourse becomes mainstream in academia. I assume you think Lenin is a "good" dictator because of his respect for human rights. Lets then, look at his human rights rhetoric.

"[Use] rifles, revolvers, bombs, knives, knuckle-dusters, sticks, rags soaked in kerosene for starting fires... barbed wire, nails [against cavalry]… or acids to be poured on the police... The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations... [must start] at a moment’s notice."
- Lenin, "Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents," Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 420-4
"We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action."
- Lenin, "Lessons of the Moscow Uprising," Collected Works, Vol. 11, p. 174
"... there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes."
- Lenin, "Lessons of the Commune," Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 478
"War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals... ‘He who does not work, neither shall he eat’ – this is the practical commandment of socialism... [Our] common aim [is] to clean the land of Russia of all vermin, of fleas – the rogues, of bugs – the rich, and so on and so forth."
- Lenin, "How to Organise Competition?" Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 411, 414
"Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence."
- Lenin, "Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars," Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 459
"We can’t expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot. Moreover, bandits must be dealt with just as resolutely: they must be shot on the spot."
- Lenin, "Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet With Delegates From the Food Supply Organisations," Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 501
"Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the most cruel revolutionary terror?"
- Lenin, quoted in George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police Clarendon Press, 1981, p. 57
"... carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; unreliable elements to be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town."
- Lenin, ibid., p. 103
"... when people charge us with harshness we wonder how they can forget the rudiments of Marxism."
- Lenin, "Speech to the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff," Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 169-70
"It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables... I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come… The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better."
- Lenin, quoted in Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive, Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 152-4

So let's please stop talking about it in bourgeois terms of "good" or "evil" and instead engage their actions within the context they were carried out.

Lenin: believed that the state was a instrument designed to protect the revolution against reactionaries, hence the violence of the civil war. However he believed that a socialist state is a state that "can not help but to wither away". Although he saw the state as a means to protect the revolution from reactionaries inside Russia and imperialist outside Russia he did not see any need for politcal repression and was not responsible for any purges.

Stalin: Believed that class struggle continues under socialism but only insofar as it is carried out by foreign agents to sabotage socialism. Most of his purges were focused on the belief that anyone who opposed him or had political power of any sort was a part of some vast anti-socialist conspiracy network. So essentially, he's nothing more than a socialist Alex Jones with very little to contribute to the socialist movement in the way of theory.

Mao: Realized the mistakes of Stalin but agreed that class struggle does occur within a socialist society. However he thought that this class struggle was caused by the fact that capitalist ideology and feudal culture still exist under socialism since human beings were raised under the social norms of capitalism (, and because he acknowledged that the means of production weren't transformed sufficiently to create a gradual decline of bourgeois ideology. Unlike Stalin who just out right purged anyone he disagreed with, Mao's cultural revolution wasn't a "blood bath" like most western historians argue. Instead Mao tried to create a series of programs to educate regular people about socialism and engage them in the political process.Yes Mao had alot of flaws but please try studying Mao before you compare him to Stalin. Here's a good link that should help you understand that Mao wasn't just a purge happy stalinist. I don't have the ability to post links yet, but I'd recommend googling the China Study Group and The Battle for China's past.

[Zealot]

Lenin's "last testament" is about a page long and available from Marxists.org at a click by typing "Lenin's last testament." After praising Trotsky to the skies (you are confused, he describes Trotstky verbatim as "perhaps the most capable man in the C.C."), he criticizes him for being too self-assured and being too pre-occupied with administrative side of things. That's it. Nothing about being an insociable has-been. The criticisms of Stalin are for being course and national chauvanist and the only practical advice in the entire letter is that Stalin should be removed from his post. I wonder why his wife kept it under wraps until he died, seems like a huge political mistake.


Quite the opposite is true. In his "Last Testament"("Letter to Congress"), Stalin is described as too rude, arbitrary, not loyal, intolerant, capricious, and inconsiderate to other comrades. It's Trotsky who is described as the most able of the C.C.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm

Addition to the above letter

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc. This circumstance may appear to be a negligible detail. But I think that from the standpoint of safeguards against a split and from the standpoint of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky it is not a [minor] detail, but it is a detail which can assume decisive importance.

Lenin

Taken down by L.F.

January 4, 1923

From this context we can see that Lenin was concerned a split would develop in the party but that he personally found Stalin (and Trotsky) to be outstanding in every other respect. After this letter was read Stalin offered (twice) to stand down from his post. Everyone including Trotsky decided he should stay.

[marxleninstalinmao]

I'll put it simply, as many people on this thread seem to be of low intelligence. None of Lenin, Stalin and Mao were 'dictators' because that term is meaningless; we are currently in the dictatorship of the bourgeoise, so Bush, Blair, Hollande etc. are all dictators, as would I or you be if we got into power. Stalin was a faithful Leninist and one of the greatest socialist heroes of all time. Mao was, along with Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, one of the five great teachers.

[Sasha]

I'll put it simply, as many people on this thread seem to be of low intelligence.

please don't insult fellow users like this, infraction for flaming

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

You're right. The SRs were popular in the peasantry, but they still made up the majority of population, and so they won the election The Bolsheviks believed the industrial proletariat in the cities would spearhead revolution, which of course they would lead. Coincidentally, they did in fact have a majority with the working class. However, the working class population was still relatively small and concentrated in the cities.
In a nutshell that was the dilemma of the Bolsheviks. They were a proletarian party, advocating and implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat in an overwhelmingly peasant country. Had the Bolsheviks ceded power to the SRs, or even the Left SRs, it would have led to counterrevolution in no time flat. Why the hell should they have done that? Because of some abstract commitment to democracy? Even that would have been suspect as the Whites and the invading armies of the imperialist powers would have swept back into power, and that key task of the bourgeois revolution, land to the tiller, would have been reversed.

As for the OP, Lenin was a Marxist and an internationalist. The Bolsheviks were primarily concerned with WORLD REVOLUTION. Note the tremendous resources they poured into the Comintern, even when they were besieged and impoverished. Stalin and Mao, were nationalists that used the forms of the proletarian dictatorship to take and maintain power -- much like the union bureaucrats that turn unions from being primarily instruments of worker's power into instruments of class collaboration and enrichment for themselves. Lenin said that the Russian Revolution cannot achieve socialism without revolutions in advanced industrial countries -- to the point of saying that he would sacrifice the Russian Revolution for a successful German Revolution. Stalin pushed the myth of "Socialism in One Country," The role of the Comintern after Lenin's death was often pernicious and against the interest's of international revolution -- instead serving narrow interests of preserving the power of the Soviet Bureaucracy.

[ind_com]

Stalin and Mao, were nationalists that used the forms of the proletarian dictatorship to take and maintain power -- ...for the proletariat. And no, they were internationalist. Show me how much resource any other self-proclaimed internationalist organization pours for the cause of world-revolution, and we can conclude how much internationalist they really are.


much like the union bureaucrats that turn unions from being primarily instruments of worker's power into instruments of class collaboration and enrichment for themselves.

Trade unions that do not primarily work for the goal of revolution are instruments of class-collaboration right from the beginning. They stand as a part of protracted legal-struggle, which never gives rise to insurrection, and is the same as begging for reforms inside capitalism.

[Let's Get Free]

Lenin- States that Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Communism can only come from workers being led by a vanguard "Communist Party".

Stalinism- Most Marxists state that Stalinism is not a form of Marxism and has little to do with communism. It includes an extensive use of propaganda to establish a personality cult around an absolute dictator, as well as extensive use of the secret police to maintain social submission and silence political dissent.

Maoism- Focuses on the peasantry more than the former. Emphasizes "revolutionary mass mobilization" (physically mobilizing the vast majority of a population in the struggle for what they call socialism), the concept of New Democracy, and the Theory of Productive Forces as applied to village-level industries independent of the outside world (see Great Leap Forward). In Maoist theory, deliberate organizing of massive military and economic power is necessary to defend the revolutionary area from outside threat, while centralization keeps corruption under supervision, amid strong control, and sometimes alteration, by the revolutionaries of the area's arts and sciences. (Cultural Revolution)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Lenin- States that Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Communism can only come from workers being led by a vanguard "Communist Party".

The vanguard party is a tool to bring about socialism. I am hesitant to say "only" but it is a more effective route.


Stalinism- Most Marxists state that Stalinism is not a form of Marxism and has little to do with communism. It includes an extensive use of propaganda to establish a personality cult around an absolute dictator, as well as extensive use of the secret police to maintain social submission and silence political dissent.

No, not even close.


Maoism- Focuses on the peasantry more than the former.

The peasantry will be led by the working class.


Emphasizes "revolutionary mass mobilization" (physically mobilizing the vast majority of a population in the struggle for what they call socialism),

This is a necessity in any tendency. There cannot be socialist revolution, let along communism, without mass-mobilizations. Simply what is left is to define "mass".

[Let's Get Free]

This is a necessity in any tendency. There cannot be socialist revolution, let along communism, without mass-mobilizations. Simply what is left is to define "mass".

Of course, but Maoism emphasizes "peoples wars", a belief in the all-knowing Leader, and other such anti-Marxist trash.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Of course, but Maoism emphasizes "peoples wars", a belief in the all-knowing Leader, and other such anti-Marxist trash.

Peoples War has absolutely nothing to do with personality cults. PW deals with revolutionary strategy which involves fighting the enemy in the country side, gradually gobbling up territory. This approach saves the seizure of the cities for later. It is important to note that this theory is still in development for use in the "first world". Such is PW in a nutshell.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Lenin- States that Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Communism can only come from workers being led by a vanguard "Communist Party".


I agreed with the rest of your post, but this is eye-catching. It's a pretty bad generalisation of who Lenin was and what his politics were.

What do you think a vanguard is? Why do you put in double-apostrophes the word Communism?

[Grenzer]

Lenin- States that Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Communism can only come from workers being led by a vanguard "Communist Party".

Actually this is a mistranslation. The title of his work would be more accurately termed "Imperialism - the Newest/Latest Stage of Capitalism". The idea that imperialism was to be the last stage of capitalism is mainly a myth perpetuated by those who would lend credence to this theistic prediction that capitalism was on it's last legs around the time of the First World War.

[hetz]

The title of his work would be more accurately termed "Imperialism - the Newest/Latest Stage of Capitalism".
Elaborate please, thans.