The continuity of Leninism and Stalinism

[Let's Get Free]

Is there a continuity between Leninism and Stalinism? Anti-revisionist MLs will tell you that there is no such thing as Stalinism and that what people call Stalinism is simply an extention of Leninism(which, if that's true, I see an even better reason to leave Leninism in the dustbin of history and let it rot there.) Trotskyists will tell you that Stalinism is a major deviation from Leninism and has little to do with it. But Stalin and Stalinism did not appear out of thin air. They had to come from somewhere. I'd say that Stalinism is Leninism taken to it's logical extremes.

[Zealot]

There's no such thing as Stalinism since Stalin didn't really contribute anything theoretically, unless you consider Socialism in one country to be a "theory" (which it isn't).


I'd say that Stalinism is Leninism taken to it's logical extremes.

Well, I am honored.

[Blake's Baby]

Some of us, neither Trotskyists nor Stalinists, think that Stalinism is the negation of Leninism (such as in general those who identify as Left Communists); others (such as those who identify as Council Communists, and I guess most Anarchists) see Stalinism as the continuation of Leninism. So it's not limited to Trotskyists v. Stalinists.

In my opinion, it's difficult to distinguish between 'Leninism' and 'Stalinism' because Leninism as a doctrine is only codified after Lenin's death. But taking 'Leninism' as 'the entire political practice of Lenin' then I'd say that the 'Leninsm' of the Stalinists, 'Leninism-Stalinism' maybe, is generally the codification of Lenin's most catastrophic errors. Much as Trotskyism is the codification of Trotsky's biggest errors. There is at least one other 'Leninism', the Leninism of Bordiga, who called Stalin the gravedigger of the revolution to his face and then outlived Stalin, and who considered that the International Communist Party that he and his group founded in Italy was the heir of the revolutionary legacy of Lenin. Other groups of the Communist Left are regularly accused of being 'Leninist' (eg, the International Communist Current) - they do indeed take some of their inspiration and theory from Lenin, but personally I think it's widely off the mark to call them 'Leninists'. But it's a question as to what 'Leninist' means to any particular user. The SPGB think we're all Leninsts, all of us who think we can't vote our way to socialism.

By the way, 'Socialism in One Country' certainly is a theory, and is indeed the defining theory of Stalinism. All supporters of 'Socialism in One Country' are Stalinists, no matter what they may personally have thought of Stalin (let's say, Kruschev, who worked for Stalin for decades, and criticised him in the Secret Speech 3 years after his death, was a Stalinist because he supported SIOC). Stalinists will try to tell you this isn't true, they will say 1-Stalinism doesn't exist, and 2-Kruschev wasn't a Stalinist anyway because he didn't like Stalin, but the argument is invalid - if they don't believe Stalinism exists, they can't then claim to have a say over who's a member. Stalinism is real, Kruschev was one, so was Mao, so was Castro, so was Kim Il Sung or whoever. Anyone who believes that the revolution can move towards 'socialism' in one country is a Stalinist.

[l'Enfermé]

"Leninism" doesn't exist, it was invented by the Zinovieves, Stalins and Bukharins in the 1920s. Lenin made no major theoretic or philosophic contributions to Marxism, and like 80 percent of self-described "Leninists" don't even consistently subscribe to Lenin's theory of imperialism.

And as far as the relationship between Bolshevik party of Lenin and the "Bolshevik" party of Stalin, Molotov, Beria and the rest of those thugs, well, it seems like Stalin and co. exterminated most of Lenin's comrades and colleagues.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/old-bolsheviks-many-t175309/index.html

[Rafiq]

Should we cross paths with either Trotsky or Stalin's claim over Leninism, there is more truth in Stalin = Stalinism was the continuation of Leninism in accordance with material conditions in existence within the Soviet Union. However, it is of absolute importance that we understand Leninism is not the theoretical embodiment of Lenin himself, not completely at least. Any idiot, though, towards the end of Lenin's life, could see that there was a radical break in Lenin's mode of thought in comparison with, say, during the civil war. Lenin was vulgarized by Leninism.

[Zealot]

By the way, 'Socialism in One Country' certainly is a theory, and is indeed the defining theory of Stalinism. All supporters of 'Socialism in One Country' are Stalinists, no matter what they may personally have thought of Stalin (let's say, Kruschev, who worked for Stalin for decades, and criticised him in the Secret Speech 3 years after his death, was a Stalinist because he supported SIOC). Stalinists will try to tell you this isn't true, they will say 1-Stalinism doesn't exist, and 2-Kruschev wasn't a Stalinist anyway because he didn't like Stalin, but the argument is invalid - if they don't believe Stalinism exists, they can't then claim to have a say over who's a member. Stalinism is real, Kruschev was one, so was Mao, so was Castro, so was Kim Il Sung or whoever. Anyone who believes that the revolution can move towards 'socialism' in one country is a Stalinist.

This is completely false. Socialism in one country was a response to material conditions. We would have Socialism in a million countries if we could but things didn't end up that way obviously. And secondly, this claim that Khrushchev was a Stalinist just because he believed in Socialism in one country is absolutely absurd. Khrushchev made a number of practical and theoretical blunders and you are simply attempting to equate the entirety of this to Marxism-Leninism, which is completely ludicrous. We are the first to say that Krushchevite revisionism was one of the most damaging things to the movement. Your definition of Stalinism seems to boil down to "bad dictators who impose socialism in one country", which makes the whole term even more meaningless than it already is.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Is there a continuity between Leninism and Stalinism? Anti-revisionist MLs will tell you that there is no such thing as Stalinism and that what people call Stalinism is simply an extention of Leninism(which, if that's true, I see an even better reason to leave Leninism in the dustbin of history and let it rot there.) Trotskyists will tell you that Stalinism is a major deviation from Leninism and has little to do with it. But Stalin and Stalinism did not appear out of thin air. They had to come from somewhere. I'd say that Stalinism is Leninism taken to it's logical extremes.

Stalinism did not appear out of thin air, it is a development out of the failure of the revolution.

First I think we have to ask what consitutes a continuity? If do you mean that the aims of each are the same, then I would argue that there is no continutiy. If do you mean the tools developed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, then yes there is continutiy.

But then it's another thing altogether to say that because the bolshevik revolution ended with "socialism in one country" that this was the inevitable and only possibility.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Stalinism emerged out of specific historic conditions. Stalinism and Trotskyism are two sides of the same coin and each cannot exist without the other.

[Thirsty Crow]

There's no such thing as Stalinism since Stalin didn't really contribute anything theoretically, unless you consider Socialism in one country to be a "theory" (which it isn't).

Then, what is it?
Obviously, whatever you may call it, it represents a significant change in the way Marxists have thought about the abolition of class divisions, positing that such an abolition can take place within the borders of one country alone and in the absence of world revolution. I don't think I need to draw out the political implications of this "innovation", and I think it is plainly visible that this "innovation" wasn't only a part of the propaganda and the realpolitik of a given regime. It has influenced how "communists" think about class division and its abolition.


Socialism in one country was a response to material conditions.
A response, you say?
It would appear that you're claiming here that (political) theory is practically non-existent since all of the political thought can be reduced to "responses to material conditions".
And what does this actually tell us about the relevance and effect of the quasi-theory you keep denying as being a theory? Not a thing, except for the implication that somehow it was necessary because of material conditions. But hey, we all know that "material conditions" are the alibi of would be communists who are unable to defend a position (and from now on even deny it as a political position!).

And on a more superficial level, take for instance the policy of forced grain requisitioning in the early days of Bolshevik rule and socialism in one country. Would you really want to collapse the difference between the two and reduce them to "responses to material conditions"? Certainly, the former was of course a response to such a thing, a response to class antagonism at the heart of the aftermath to the October Revolution (the relationship between the proletariat and the peasantry). But to completely identify one and the other is just ridiculous.

[Blake's Baby]

This is completely false. Socialism in one country was a response to material conditions. We would have Socialism in a million countries if we could but things didn't end up that way obviously. And secondly, this claim that Khrushchev was a Stalinist just because he believed in Socialism in one country is absolutely absurd. Khrushchev made a number of practical and theoretical blunders and you are simply attempting to equate the entirety of this to Marxism-Leninism, which is completely ludicrous. We are the first to say that Krushchevite revisionism was one of the most damaging things to the movement. Your definition of Stalinism seems to boil down to "bad dictators who impose socialism in one country", which makes the whole term even more meaningless than it already is.

Wow, it's almost like you deliberately set yourself up for proving the incoherence of your argument, even after I told you how you were going to do it.

'Stalinism' (which you claim doesn't exist) = 'the theory of Socialism in One Country'.

Kruschev believed in 'Socialism in One Country'.

Therefore, Kruschev = Stalinist.

You can't claim Kruschev wasn't a Stalinist because: 1-he was an upholder of Socialism in One Country; 2-you don't believe there is a 'Stalinism'.

I don't care whether you think Kruschev 'damaged' your movement, your movement is the counter-revolution. If I thought you were right about Kruschev (I don't, I think he was a counter-revolutionary and defender of Russian capitalism, just like Stalin) then I'd think he was great. But no, just another bureaucratic Stalinist hack (like Stalin).

[l'Enfermé]

No one has yet to explain to me why Stalinists keep on going about Khrushchev's revisionism and how bad it is because revisionism is just terrible, but they pretend that Stalin wasn't a revisionist too :(

Consistency, please.

[Zealot]

Then, what is it?
Obviously, whatever you may call it, it represents a significant change in the way Marxists have thought about the abolition of class divisions, positing that such an abolition can take place within the borders of one country alone and in the absence of world revolution. I don't think I need to draw out the political implications of this "innovation", and I think it is plainly visible that this "innovation" wasn't only a part of the propaganda and the realpolitik of a given regime. It has influenced how "communists" think about class division and its abolition.

Strawman.



A response, you say?
It would appear that you're claiming here that (political) theory is practically non-existent since all of the political thought can be reduced to "responses to material conditions".
And what does this actually tell us about the relevance and effect of the quasi-theory you keep denying as being a theory? Not a thing, except for the implication that somehow it was necessary because of material conditions. But hey, we all know that "material conditions" are the alibi of would be communists who are unable to defend a position (and from now on even deny it as a political position!).

And on a more superficial level, take for instance the policy of forced grain requisitioning in the early days of Bolshevik rule and socialism in one country. Would you really want to collapse the difference between the two and reduce them to "responses to material conditions"? Certainly, the former was of course a response to such a thing, a response to class antagonism at the heart of the aftermath to the October Revolution (the relationship between the proletariat and the peasantry). But to completely identify one and the other is just ridiculous.

You think it wasn't a response to material conditions? Your idealism is plain for all to see. Lenin was writing in a time when world revolution seemed imminent and he saw Russia as being the first in this mission. Obviously, it became pretty clear that the revolution wasn't going to spread as far as the Bolsheviks had hoped. "Socialism in one country" is not a theory but rather a recognition of the above mentioned facts.


Wow, it's almost like you deliberately set yourself up for proving the incoherence of your argument, even after I told you how you were going to do it.

'Stalinism' (which you claim doesn't exist) = 'the theory of Socialism in One Country'.

Kruschev believed in 'Socialism in One Country'.

Therefore, Kruschev = Stalinist.

You can't claim Kruschev wasn't a Stalinist because: 1-he was an upholder of Socialism in One Country; 2-you don't believe there is a 'Stalinism'.

Your whole argument is stupid since it starts from the unwarranted premise that "Stalinism"=Socialism in one country. In fact, Marxism-Leninism encompasses a lot of things. Apparently, the only thing you know about is "Socialism in one country", which isn't even a "defining theory" in the first place, as I've explained above.



I don't care whether you think Kruschev 'damaged' your movement, your movement is the counter-revolution. If I thought you were right about Kruschev (I don't, I think he was a counter-revolutionary and defender of Russian capitalism, just like Stalin) then I'd think he was great. But no, just another bureaucratic Stalinist hack (like Stalin).

Well that's cute.


No one has yet to explain to me why Stalinists keep on going about Khrushchev's revisionism and how bad it is because revisionism is just terrible, but they pretend that Stalin wasn't a revisionist too :(

Consistency, please.

That's a completely different debate.

[Blake's Baby]

...
You think it wasn't a response to material conditions? Your idealism is plain for all to see. Lenin was writing in a time when world revolution seemed imminent and he saw Russia as being the first in this mission. Obviously, it became pretty clear that the revolution wasn't going to spread as far as the Bolsheviks had hoped. "Socialism in one country" is not a theory but rather a recognition of the above mentioned facts...

It was a response to material conditions in that Stalin needed to theorise holding power in a time of defeat for the revolution. It isn't anything to do with socialism though.


...
Your whole argument is stupid since it starts from the unwarranted premise that "Stalinism"=Socialism in one country. In fact, Marxism-Leninism encompasses a lot of things. Apparently, the only thing you know about is "Socialism in one country", which isn't even a "defining theory" in the first place, as I've explained above...

You don't think there is a 'defining theory of Stalinism' because you don't think there is a Stalinism. Socialism in One Country is the defining feature of Stalinism, just not the only feature. If you believe that socialism in one country is a valid contribution to the political theory of the workers' movement, you are a Stalinist. Trotskyists believe everything you do (all that shit about 'rights of nations to self-determination', the task of the party being to take power on behalf of the working class and such Leninist bullshit), except for socialism in one country. If you don't think socialism in one country is important, you're a Trotskyist, and you can stop defending 'Marxism Leninism' and attacking Kruschev.


...
Well that's cute...


No, not really.



...
That's a completely different debate.

It's exactly the same debate that you dismissed as a strawman from Menocchio. Stalin perverted Marxism to justify his control over a state-capitalist regime. Deal with it.

[Zealot]

It was a response to material conditions in that Stalin needed to theorise holding power in a time of defeat for the revolution. It isn't anything to do with socialism though.

Not really. There was no point in telling the Bolsheviks to pack up and go home because the world revolution hadn't come.


You don't think there is a 'defining theory of Stalinism' because you don't think there is a Stalinism. Socialism in One Country is the defining feature of Stalinism, just not the only feature. If you believe that socialism in one country is a valid contribution to the political theory of the workers' movement, you are a Stalinist. Trotskyists believe everything you do (all that shit about 'rights of nations to self-determination', the task of the party being to take power on behalf of the working class and such Leninist bullshit), except for socialism in one country. If you don't think socialism in one country is important, you're a Trotskyist, and you can stop defending 'Marxism Leninism' and attacking Kruschev.

Well that's the second time I've been called a Trotskyist today :lol: But I don't think that anything I have said is outside of the Marxist-Leninist viewpoint. Socialism in one country would be irrelevant if there actually was a worldwide revolution but historical experience has shown this tends not to be the case. It spreads to a certain degree, something that the US picked up on when they formulated their "domino theory" to justify intervention in countries that were taking the road of socialism. But where it doesn't is where socialism in one country comes in.

[Thirsty Crow]

You think it wasn't a response to material conditions? Your idealism is plain for all to see. Lenin was writing in a time when world revolution seemed imminent and he saw Russia as being the first in this mission. Obviously, it became pretty clear that the revolution wasn't going to spread as far as the Bolsheviks had hoped. "Socialism in one country" is not a theory but rather a recognition of the above mentioned facts.

Yeah, here's a demonstration of what I mean by taking material conditions as an alibi. It must be that I think that these are irrelevant when it comes to theory and politics and my idealism is showing.

How about some arguments? How is any of what I said that with socialism in one country changed how people around and within the workers movement thought and think about class divisions and its abolition? Do I really need to remind you of the fact that by 1936 the official position of the Russian state was that there only remain "non-antagonistic classes", namely the proletariat and the kolkhoz peasantry? Which is a repudiaton of the Marxist notion of class division, or would you like to claim that there is room in Marxist theory (and consequently political practice) for the notion of "non-antagonistic" classes?

It's plainly obvious, no matter the material conditions, that socialism in one country represents a theory. It is a theory of the abandonment of world revolution, as you succintly point out yourself, most probably unwittingly, when you claim that when world revolution falters, socialism in one country kicks in.

[Dave B]

The socialism in one country argument hinges on who means what by socialism and when, or even for that matter where.

Up until 1925, for everybody, Bolshevik Russia was state capitalism and was proceeding along that path or road towards socialism.eg

Interview With Arthur Ransome published in the British Manchester Guardian Newspaper at the end of 1922,even the SPGB read the Manchester Guardian;


……for although slowly, with interruptions, taking steps backward from time to time, we are still making progress along the path of state capitalism, a path that leads us forward to socialism and communism (which is the highest stage of socialism),

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/05.htm)


[Hopefully there is nothing particularly controversial or debatable about the possibility of evolutionary ‘state capitalism’ in one country, re Cliff’s deflected permanent revolution]


Lenin’s argument was fairly clear; socialism/communism in Russia somehow was going to be arrived at by the evolutionary reform of extant and pre-existing state capitalism in Russia towards ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’.

In 1925 Stalin made the first claim that Bolshevik Russia was no longer State Capitalism and that it had ‘dialectically’ passed through and out of that stage between say 1922 and 1925;


The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.)December 18-31, 1925



7. Concerning State Capitalism


…
…that since 1921, the situation in our country has undergone a substantial change, that in this period our socialist industry and Soviet and co-operative trade have already succeeded in becoming the predominant force, that we have already learned to establish a bond between town and country by our own efforts, that the most striking forms of state capitalism — concessions and leases — have not developed to any extent during this period, that to speak now, in 1925, of state capitalism as the predominant form in our economy, means distorting the socialist nature of our state industry, means failing to understand the whole difference between the past and the present situation, means approaching the question of state capitalism not dialectically, but scholastically, metaphysically.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1925/12/18.htm#7._Concerning_State_Capitalism_

And thus ‘socialism’ had arrived, prematurely and beyond Lenin’s own ‘expectations’ perhaps, in one country.

At this point in time I would hope even Stalinists would be gracious enough to admit that there was still a potential debate as to whether or not state capitalism was still trundling along an evolutionary ‘path’ and ‘road’ towards socialism or not.

And not being too churlish by drawing attention to Stalin’s own ‘dialectical’ pamphlet ‘Anarchism and Socialism’ of 1906.



http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/AS07.html#c3


So the question is; is ‘socialism’ a process, path and evolutionary road;

[as in reforming capitalism with Bernstienism, but in State capitalism-Bolshevism]

Or in other words according to Trotsky;


The more our ‘state capitalism’ develops the richer the working class will become, that is the firmer will become the foundation of socialism

or a categorical thing and end in itself?


Trotsky’s ‘original’ socialism in one country thesis is as below;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti02.htm


Still framed I think in terms of progressive and evolutionary state capitalism, complete with ‘leftwing childishness’ quotations etc.

It wasn’t until later in 1933 that Trotsky plagiarized and accepted Stalin’s thesis of 1925.



Re the non state capitalist nature of Russia post 1922?

Leon Trotsky The Class Nature of the Soviet State

(October 1, 1933)


The Economy of the USSR;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/10/sovstate.htm


.
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/10/sovstate.htm)

[Prof. Oblivion]

Isn't all theory a response to material conditions? What is this argument really about?

[jookyle]

A Stalinist is merely a Leninist that means it

[Blake's Baby]

Isn't all theory a response to material conditions? What is this argument really about?

It's about whether Stalin is the logical continuer of the work of Lenin - as the Stalinists and SPGB and Council Communists and most Anarchists believe, on the one hand because they want to big up Stalin and associate themselves with the 'successes' of the revolution, on the other three hands because they believe the Bolsheviks' role in the revolution was entirely a negative one - or, conversely and where the Left Communists and Trotskyists agree, at least in theory, that Stalin was not the continuer of the work of Lenin, and instead was part of the process of the wrecking of the gains of the revolution.

Depends really on whether you think the Russian revolution was a good thing (Anarchists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Left Communists, Council Communists) or a bad thing (SPGBers); whether you think the Bolsheviks' role in that was a good thing (Trotskyists, Stalinists, Left Communists) or a bad thing (Council Communists, Anarchists); and whether or not you think that after the revolution there was progress (Stalinists) or regression (Left Communists, Trotskyists). Basically.

[l'Enfermé]

^Council Communists are a "sub-tendency" of left-communism though. The only relevant left-com party historically was the German KAPD, which was dominated by council-communists.

[Prof. Oblivion]

It's about whether Stalin is the logical continuer of the work of Lenin

Yes but what does it mean when you say "the work of Lenin"?


as the Stalinists and SPGB and Council Communists and most Anarchists believe, on the one hand because they want to big up Stalin and associate themselves with the 'successes' of the revolution, on the other three hands because they believe the Bolsheviks' role in the revolution was entirely a negative one - or, conversely and where the Left Communists and Trotskyists agree, at least in theory, that Stalin was not the continuer of the work of Lenin, and instead was part of the process of the wrecking of the gains of the revolution.

But surely a historical analysis shouldn't be based on whether the Bolsheviks were "good" or "bad" and that all history - including that of Lenin, Stalin and the Bolsheviks - develops organically out of the movement of social forces.



Depends really on whether you think the Russian revolution was a good thing (Anarchists, Trotskyists, Stalinists, Left Communists, Council Communists) or a bad thing (SPGBers); whether you think the Bolsheviks' role in that was a good thing (Trotskyists, Stalinists, Left Communists) or a bad thing (Council Communists, Anarchists); and whether or not you think that after the revolution there was progress (Stalinists) or regression (Left Communists, Trotskyists). Basically.

Is this not poor, ultimately wrong, historical revisionism based on advancing one's own political view?

[Blake's Baby]

^Council Communists are a "sub-tendency" of left-communism though...


No, they're really not. They may have been more or less the same thing in 1920 (even then there were differences between the Italian and Dutch/German Lefts, both of which were different to the Russian Left Communists). But by 1930 they were completely different. The Council Communists who came out of the Dutch/German tradition of Left Communism had radically changed their ideas about what proletarian revolution was. Left Communists support a vanguard party and the idea that October was a proletarian revolution; Council Communists reject a vanguard party and the proletarian nature of the October revolution (they regard it as a 'dual revolution', 'proletarian from below, bourgeois from above').


The only relevant left-com party historically was the German KAPD...

Apart from the Communist Party of Italy up to 1924, you mean? Not to mention the less 'relevant' groups, the KAPN, Left Communist group in the Bolshevik Party (including Bukharin, who is hardly 'irrelevant') and later the Workers' Group of the Russian Communist Party, the CP(BSTI), the Communist Workers' Party of Bulgaria...


...the German KAPD, which was dominated by council-communists.

No it wasn't. Council Communists reject the notion of the 'party' as bourgeois. You can't have a 'Council Communist party', it's an oxymoron. They were, until rejecting the party form, better described as Left Communists. Once they had changed their minds about the revolutionary nature of October, and rejected the role of the vanguard party, they stopped being Left Communists and became something else - Council Communists. They also stopped being in the KAPD and KAPN.

In short - rejection of the party is a fundamental distinction between Left Communism and Council Communism. Doesn't matter that one grew out of the other or that people that had the former view later changed to the latter view. They're not the same thing.


Yes but what does it mean when you say "the work of Lenin"?..

I don't know if you're asking what I mean, or what anyone might mean, here. Lenin was a revolutionary. I think he was an Marxist who tried to steer the Bolsheviks in a direction he thought was helpful for the world proletarian revolution. Others disagree with that assessment.




But surely a historical analysis shouldn't be based on whether the Bolsheviks were "good" or "bad" and that all history - including that of Lenin, Stalin and the Bolsheviks - develops organically out of the movement of social forces...

I don't recall mentioning 'good' and 'bad'. I think I said 'played a positive role' or something. If you think that there is no agency involved in revolution, that decisions don't matter because we're all just leaves blown along by impersonal and inevitable social forces, then I don't know why you're here having this discussion (unless of course 'it i written' that 'social forces' created you to be curious about irrelevant things) because it's all just inevitable and we just need to strap ourselves in for the ride and not worry about how it turns out, there's nothing we can do about it anyway.

If, however, you think that human beings can take meaningful action, they do have choices (though, not in circumstances of their own chosing), then the choices they make in the circumstances in which they chose can, surely, have different consequences, because this is what 'choice' means. Thus, decisions can lead to either positive or negative outcomes. Hence positive or negative roles. Does the party have to fuse with the state? No. Should it fuse with the state? That's a choice, which can have a positive end or a negative one. Is Stalin the logical outcome of Lenin? I'd say, yes, in the specific historical circumstances of a failed revolution. But did the revolution have to fail? No, and I'm not sure that (contrary to the Anarchists, the SPGB and the Council Communists) that had a great deal to do with Lenin (though it did have something to do with Lenin, and even Stalin).



...
Is this not poor, ultimately wrong, historical revisionism based on advancing one's own political view?

No, it's learning from mistakes committed by the workers' movement in history. That's kinda the point.

[Prof. Oblivion]

I don't know if you're asking what I mean, or what anyone might mean, here. Lenin was a revolutionary. I think he was an Marxist who tried to steer the Bolsheviks in a direction he thought was helpful for the world proletarian revolution. Others disagree with that assessment.

I suppose I am asking you, but also think this is something to keep in mind any time the topic arises.

It sounds like "work of Lenin" means to you the organizational, movement-driven work, and not "theory". Would this be accurate?


I don't recall mentioning 'good' and 'bad'. I think I said 'played a positive role' or something. If you think that there is no agency involved in revolution, that decisions don't matter because we're all just leaves blown along by impersonal and inevitable social forces, then I don't know why you're here having this discussion (unless of course 'it i written' that 'social forces' created you to be curious about irrelevant things) because it's all just inevitable and we just need to strap ourselves in for the ride and not worry about how it turns out, there's nothing we can do about it anyway.

If, however, you think that human beings can take meaningful action, they do have choices (though, not in circumstances of their own chosing), then the choices they make in the circumstances in which they chose can, surely, have different consequences, because this is what 'choice' means. Thus, decisions can lead to either positive or negative outcomes. Hence positive or negative roles. Does the party have to fuse with the state? No. Should it fuse with the state? That's a choice, which can have a positive end or a negative one. Is Stalin the logical outcome of Lenin? I'd say, yes, in the specific historical circumstances of a failed revolution. But did the revolution have to fail? No, and I'm not sure that (contrary to the Anarchists, the SPGB and the Council Communists) that had a great deal to do with Lenin (though it did have something to do with Lenin, and even Stalin).

Decisions most certainly do matter, but people don't make them in a vacuum. They have their own logic to them. The decision to crush Kronstadt, for example, from the position of Lenin, was one that was arrived at based on his own logic that is rooted in his own experiences and position within the Bolshevik party, the state apparatus and society generally.

From the point of view of the Kronstadt workers, or anarchists, etc. the decision was one that they opposed based on their own experiences and positions related to the Bolsheviks/state/society/etc.

So right/wrong, good/bad, positive/negative, whatever you want to call it, is something that is contextual and not universal. Who is "right" and "wrong" then simply depends on your point of view and ideological affiliation. Nowadays these decisions are made based on dogmatic ideological affiliation for the most part because these different ideologies were created directly out of different, often conflicting, material conditions (Trotskyism and Stalinism is a great example of this).

And so these different sides to different arguments are perpetuated to further one's own ideological affiliation, as that is the only way that they (ideologies) can survive; it has nothing to do with "learning from the mistakes of the past".

[Let's Get Free]

A Stalinist is merely a Leninist that means it

No, the philosophy of Stalinism is the philosophy of the elite, the bureaucracy, the organizers, the leaders, clothed in Marxist terminology. It is the extreme, the historical limit of the rationalism of the bourgeoisie, carefully organized to look like a new revolutionary doctrine. Stalin called himself a Leninist, only when Lenin was safely embalmed and could not answer back.

[Questionable]

It's plainly obvious, no matter the material conditions, that socialism in one country represents a theory. It is a theory of the abandonment of world revolution, as you succintly point out yourself, most probably unwittingly, when you claim that when world revolution falters, socialism in one country kicks in.Whether you think socialism in one country is true or not, the notion that the USSR purposely abandoned world revolution is nothing more than an insult that people use. Read "The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin." Really he saw protecting the gains of socialism as most important and wasn't willing to engage in conflict with the imperialist nations during times of peace because he feared that would lead to a united front against the USSR. He felt that times of wars and splits among the imperialists were the most fertile times for revolution, as that was the very period when the Bolsheviks rose to power.

Was that a good idea? Was it immoral? That will depend on the individual, but the logic behind SioC deserves to be explained before we start jumping to rhetorical conclusions.

[jookyle]

Howard : May there not be an element of danger in the genuine fear existent in what you term capitalistic countries of an intent on the part of the Soviet Union to force its political theories on other nations?

Stalin : There is no justification whatever for such fears. If you think that Soviet people want to change the face of surrounding states, and by forcible means at that, you are entirely mistaken. Of course, Soviet people would like to see the face of surrounding states changed, but that is the business of the surrounding states. I fail to see what danger the surrounding states can perceive in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states are really sitting firmly in the saddle.

Howard : Does this, your statement, mean that the Soviet Union has to any degree abandoned its plans and intentions for bringing about world revolution?

Stalin : We never had such plans and intentions.

Howard : You appreciate, no doubt, Mr. Stalin, that much of the world has long entertained a different impression.

Stalin : This is the product of a misunderstanding.

Howard : A tragic misunderstanding?

Stalin : No, a comical one. Or, perhaps, tragicomic.

You see, we Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution. For example, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new, classless society.

But to assert that we want to make a revolution in other countries, to interfere in their lives, means saying what is untrue, and what we have never advocated.

http://marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm



Stalin's position of being against social imperialism is quite clear as is his support for socialist revolutions in other countries. The support for international revolution was always present, but there was no intention of making a countries revolution for them. A country having a revolution would have support of the USSR but the USSR would not force revolution on other people.

[Paulappaul]

You see, we Marxists believe that a revolution will also take place in other countries. But it will take place only when the revolutionaries in those countries think it possible, or necessary. The export of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution. For example, our country wanted to make a revolution and made it, and now we are building a new, classless society.

This kinda epitomizes "Socialism in one country". A revolution isn't possible in a national boundary, let alone a classless society. Revolutionaries make revolutions according to Stalin, yet if revolutionaries "export" a "revolution" its "nonsense". I wonder what Stalinists who support Che, or any other traveling revolutionary think of this...


The support for international revolution was always present, but there was no intention of making a countries revolution for them.

Then why did Stalin send in the troops during 1936?

[Questionable]

This kinda epitomizes "Socialism in one country". A revolution isn't possible in a national boundary, let alone a classless society. Revolutionaries make revolutions according to Stalin, yet if revolutionaries "export" a "revolution" its "nonsense". I wonder what Stalinists who support Che, or any other traveling revolutionary think of this...

I'm pretty certain that when Stalin says "revolutionaries" he means the revolutionary proletariat in those countries.

I mean, that's what you can call the revolutionary proletariat, right? Revolutionaries? It's not like non-conscious workers can have a revolution.

[Blake's Baby]

...

It sounds like "work of Lenin" means to you the organizational, movement-driven work, and not "theory". Would this be accurate?...

No, it really wouldn't. I don't see 'organisation' as one thing and 'theory' as another thing, partly because many of Lenin's most important 'theoretical' works were about organisation; questions of organisation are themselves political questions.


...

So right/wrong, good/bad, positive/negative, whatever you want to call it, is something that is contextual and not universal. Who is "right" and "wrong" then simply depends on your point of view and ideological affiliation. Nowadays these decisions are made based on dogmatic ideological affiliation for the most part because these different ideologies were created directly out of different, often conflicting, material conditions (Trotskyism and Stalinism is a great example of this)...

No, not really. If something helps in generalising class consciousness and the working class's fight against capitalism, then it has a positive dynamic. If something retards that process then it has a negative dynamic. That doesn't depend on 'right or wrong'.


... And so these different sides to different arguments are perpetuated to further one's own ideological affiliation, as that is the only way that they (ideologies) can survive; it has nothing to do with "learning from the mistakes of the past".

Sure, that's what makes them 'ideologies'. Belief-systems that mask reality. However, 'learning from the past' is trying to move beyond ideology. Some things are true, no matter whether we believe them or not. We are not living in communism, for instance. But we could get there. How, and how not, to so this are important questions. So, as we don't have many examples to draw on, we need to examine those lessons we have for their successes and failures.

[Prof. Oblivion]

No, it really wouldn't. I don't see 'organisation' as one thing and 'theory' as another thing, partly because many of Lenin's most important 'theoretical' works were about organisation; questions of organisation are themselves political questions.

The problem with this is, for example, that most of his works are historically contextual and taking them out of that context turns them into something that it's not. WITBD? is a good example of this.


No, not really. If something helps in generalising class consciousness and the working class's fight against capitalism, then it has a positive dynamic. If something retards that process then it has a negative dynamic. That doesn't depend on 'right or wrong'.

And your position on what satisfies that is going to be based on your ideological affiliation. A Stalinist would call the Stalin period "something [that] helps in generalising class consciousness and the working class's fight against capitalism".

[jookyle]

This kinda epitomizes "Socialism in one country". A revolution isn't possible in a national boundary, let alone a classless society. Revolutionaries make revolutions according to Stalin, yet if revolutionaries "export" a "revolution" its "nonsense". I wonder what Stalinists who support Che, or any other traveling revolutionary think of this...



Then why did Stalin send in the troops during 1936?

The point is to provide the explanation for socialism in one country, not refute it. Also, revolutions in general are certainly possible in a single country. If we're talking about a socialist revolution then it can happen, but, it will never reach the higher stage of communism (using Lenin's definition of the lower and higher stage) alone. The higher level of communism can only be reached internationally. Che did not export revolution, he aided the organizations of revolutionaries. Cuba did not send troops around the world with Che instigating a revolution.

Fighting Hitler isn't the same as exporting a revolution.

[Blake's Baby]

The problem with this is, for example, that most of his works are historically contextual and taking them out of that context turns them into something that it's not. WITBD? is a good example of this...

Which is why I stress 'learning the lessons of history'. Not dogmatically applying historical examples in changed conditions. Voltaire I think it was said 'take from the altars of the past the fire, not the ashes', which is a reasonable enough dictum.



...
And your position on what satisfies that is going to be based on your ideological affiliation. A Stalinist would call the Stalin period "something [that] helps in generalising class consciousness and the working class's fight against capitalism".

i can't help the fact that Stalinists have a false consciousness.

[l'Enfermé]

No, they're really not. They may have been more or less the same thing in 1920 (even then there were differences between the Italian and Dutch/German Lefts, both of which were different to the Russian Left Communists). But by 1930 they were completely different. The Council Communists who came out of the Dutch/German tradition of Left Communism had radically changed their ideas about what proletarian revolution was. Left Communists support a vanguard party and the idea that October was a proletarian revolution; Council Communists reject a vanguard party and the proletarian nature of the October revolution (they regard it as a 'dual revolution', 'proletarian from below, bourgeois from above').
The origins of the KAPD lies in the council-communists who broke from the SPD in 1915 and founded the Internazionale Sozialisten Deutschlands, I think. They joined the USPD, like the Spartacists, and then split from it and founded the KPD. Later, the core of the KAPD which was founded was these same ISD'ers, when they split from the KPD also. Practically every notable figure from the German-Dutch ultra-left was a council communist - Gorter, Pannekoek, Ruhle(pretend there's an umlaut above the U)...the KAPD was without a doubt a council-communist formation. From it's inception until it's demise, it was quite clear in proclaiming that the the "revolution is not an affair of a party" , that after a proletarian revolution all power will be in the hands of worker's councils, and it was violently anti-vanguard party and against democratic centralism. If that's not council-communism I don't know what is.

Take a look at this. Quite sectarian like everything that comes from ultra-lefts but still very useful if you're clever enough to see through the bullshit.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/germany-1918-23/dauve-authier/index.htm



Apart from the Communist Party of Italy up to 1924, you mean? Not to mention the less 'relevant' groups, the KAPN, Left Communist group in the Bolshevik Party (including Bukharin, who is hardly 'irrelevant') and later the Workers' Group of the Russian Communist Party, the CP(BSTI), the Communist Workers' Party of Bulgaria...

Hmm, I forgot about the PCd'I, though it was basically the Italian section of Moscow's Comintern. And I think it was in 1923 that the PCd'I stopped being so left-commieish, when due to fascist repression of the left, the center and the right wrested control from the weakened left.


No it wasn't. Council Communists reject the notion of the 'party' as bourgeois. You can't have a 'Council Communist party', it's an oxymoron. They were, until rejecting the party form, better described as Left Communists. Once they had changed their minds about the revolutionary nature of October, and rejected the role of the vanguard party, they stopped being Left Communists and became something else - Council Communists. They also stopped being in the KAPD and KAPN.
I don't know a single prominent Council Communist with such views.



In short - rejection of the party is a fundamental distinction between Left Communism and Council Communism. Doesn't matter that one grew out of the other or that people that had the former view later changed to the latter view. They're not the same thing.
Since when comrade?:confused:

[Thirsty Crow]

^Council Communists are a "sub-tendency" of left-communism though. The only relevant left-com party historically was the German KAPD, which was dominated by council-communists.
And one should also distinguish council communists, which as a term is a direct translation from German, and later councilism. There was a significant difference between the communists of KAPD and the later GIK.



I don't know a single prominent Council Communist with such views.

Yet you casually mention Ruhle among people such as Gorter.


Since when comrade?This was even the case, as Blake's Baby shows, in the (very) early days of the KAPD:


Perhaps the most serious of the KAPD's internal differences concerned the nature of the party. One wing, around Otto Rühle, held that since the 'Revolution is not a Party Matter' - the party-form being inherently bourgeois - the KAPD should dissolve itself into the new workplace organisations, which would instead be the proper vehicles of proletarian dictatorship. Against them, the majority expounded a 'theory of the offensive', wherein the cadre party ('hard as steel, clear as glass') sought to lead the proletariat by example...http://libcom.org/library/radical-traditions-council-communism-steve-wright

It is a mistake to imagine that somehow the tendency represented by Otto Ruhle can be taken as indicative of the whole of the German and Dutch left. In fact, if Ruhle and his tendency should be considered anything it should be the forerunner of councilism.

[Blake's Baby]

The origins of the KAPD lies in the council-communists who broke from the SPD in 1915 and founded the Internazionale Sozialisten Deutschlands, I think...

You think wrong. There was no such thing as 'Council Communism' in 1915, the 'Ratenkommunist' ('council' or 'soviet' communist) movement formed as a response to the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, in which the 'soviets' ('councils', 'rate') were the organs of revolution. Even had the Council Communist current formed immediately (it didn't), it could not have happened before 1917.


...
joined the USPD, like the Spartacists, and then split from it and founded the KPD. Later, the core of the KAPD which was founded was these same ISD'ers, when they split from the KPD also...

They didn't 'split', they were expelled.


... Practically every notable figure from the German-Dutch ultra-left was a council communist - Gorter, Pannekoek, Ruhle(pretend there's an umlaut above the U)...the KAPD was without a doubt a council-communist formation. From it's inception until it's demise, it was quite clear in proclaiming that the the "revolution is not an affair of a party" , that after a proletarian revolution all power will be in the hands of worker's councils, and it was violently anti-vanguard party and against democratic centralism. If that's not council-communism I don't know what is...

Well, you're wrong about the KAPD. There was a section of the KAPD around Ruhle who came to believe that the 'revolution is not a party affair', but not the party as a whole. Ruhle believed that the party itself was a bourgeois form. The rest of the party didn't (obviously), in the early 1920s. They came to believe it, the 'Council Communist current' became the majority - and the KAPD ceased to exist; they stopped being Left Communists (pro-party, pro-October) and became Council Communists (anti-party, questioning the proleatarian nature of October).





I don't know a single prominent Council Communist with such views...

Do you know any Council Communists? I don't think any of the Council Communists I know would disagree with that assessment.

Pannekoek (post 1930, but not in the 1910s-20s); Ruhle (post-1920, but not before) both moved from being pro-party, pro-October, to being anti-party and questioning the proleatarian nature of October, exactly as I just set out. They are the most prominent of those who moved from Left Communist to Council Communist positions. Gorter died before 'Council Communism' as a movement really got going; Mattick (Snr), I'm not sure about his early history. Don't know what happened to Korsch, but he started as a pro-party Left Communist. Ditto Jan Appel, who started as a Left Communist (in the Revolutie Obleute) then became a Council Communist in Holland, then took part in the foundation of the ICC in the 1970s, having moved back towards Left Communist positions.

The latter Council Communists, such as Cajo Brendel, may well have always been Council Communists. But the first wave who formed the Council Communist movement started off in left Communist formations, such as the KAPD and KAPN (and in Pannekoek's case, in the left wing of Social Democracy, like Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky).



...Since when comrade?:confused:

Don't understand the question.

Since when is believing in something not the same as not believing in it? Or since when did Council Communism seperate itself from Left Communism?

If it's the latter, different people and groups changed their positions at different times. Ruhle was first; he'd formulated the position that became Council Communism around 1920; Appel probably in the mid-'20s; Pannekoek much later, in the 1930s; the Dutch group 'GIK' formed in the late 1920s I think, but it's a while since I read up on this.

I really don't know what it is about all of this that's causing you such problems. All of the German and Dutch Left supported the revolution in Russia. Many of them over 20 years from 1920-1940 changed their view of the Bolsheviks and the revolution. They moved from 'Left Communism' to 'Council Communism'. It's not hard to grasp.



And one should also distinguish council communists, which as a term is a direct translation from German, and later councilism. There was a significant difference between the communists of KAPD and the later GIK...

Indeed, unfortunately, 'councilist' is barely more than a term of abuse. I don't know any Council Communists who refer to themselves as 'Councilists'. What we call 'Councilist', the Coucilists call 'Council Communist'.


...
Yet you casually mention Ruhle among people such as Gorter.

This was even the case, as Blake's Baby shows, in the (very) early days of the KAPD:

http://libcom.org/library/radical-traditions-council-communism-steve-wright

It is a mistake to imagine that somehow the tendency represented by Otto Ruhle can be taken as indicative of the whole of the German and Dutch left. In fact, if Ruhle and his tendency should be considered anything it should be the forerunner of councilism.

Exactly. The contrast between Gorter and Ruhle is particularly significant I think. I consider myself a Left Communist in the Dutch-German tradition - not a Council Communist, because like the KAPD, and unlike (for example) the GIK, I support a vanguard party and the proletarian nature of October.