Opportunists

[RedGuevara]

Merry meet fellow comrades,

I have been reading Lenin's State and Revolution and I have a question. I am an American Marxists and a beginner in the history and politics of such. I've seen the word Opportunist thrown around and seen as a negative thing.

I wanted to understand two things; What is an Opportunist in Marxist terms and Why are they bad for the struggle? Thank you.

[synthesis]

An opportunist is someone who abandons their principles and/or working class politics for short-term political gains.

[RedGuevara]

Would the term "Sale out" kind of be along the same idea?

[synthesis]

I think they're similar, but I'd say that truly selling out is kind of the last phase of opportunism.

[RedGuevara]

Okay I understand a little better. Thank you for clearing that up. Now what I'm reading is making ALOT more sense.

[reb]

The term "leninist" should be applied for when they were briefly forced to drop their principles and ideas in the face of proletarian revolt only to revert back to them when they were in a position to do so.

[RedGuevara]

Could you elaborate on this reb? I'm an inquiring soul.

[synthesis]

Lenin instituted the NEP (reintroduction of private property) when he thought conditions warranted it, then repealed it later when he didn't.

I'd say that Che Guevara was actually one of the few Leninists who didn't succumb to some sort of opportunism or another. He followed his foco theory till the bitter end.

edit: That's the common use of "opportunist" against Lenin; I don't think that's what reb meant, upon rereading his post.

[reb]

The Bolsheviks and co only came close to the proletarian revolution when they dropped all of their principles of vanguard party and leading the revolution, which only occurred in the face of mounting worker autonomy and collaboration with a wide variety of socialist parties in the soviets. After the revolutionary events of 1917 and the civil war, the bolsheviks slowly revereted back towards their social democrat roots, elminating any remaining vestiges of workers' power through one man management, worker discipline, suppression of strikes and demands for a return to more democratic roots of the revolution. The bolsheviks only ever came close to actual proletarian positions when they dropped all of their social democratic positions.

[RedGuevara]

Hmm how did you come to learn about Lenin and history in general? Any recommended reads?

[reb]

And if you want to read something that about the state that isn't just social democratic tripe then you should this http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/karl-marx-the-state.html

[RedGuevara]

I shall give it a look asap. It's on my desktop. Thanks. Reb do you have tendency?

[reb]

Hmm how did you come to learn about Lenin and history in general? Any recommended reads?

I've been reading about Russia for a long time through various history books but the main thing is to look at other marxists, and there are many, who criticized the Bolshevik version of events. I can provide a list if you want but I am not sure of the availability and many historians, while still presenting credible facts, are not marxists so they do not understand the implications of things such as the existence of prices in the USSR so you really need to keep an eye out for those things yourself.

[RedGuevara]

Yeah I've had to be aware of bias. Living in the states I'm already working against the current biases there. Plus even in Marxism there are people who fight about this or that and I think that creates division in the struggle. Please add the list. Could you message it to me so I can keep in for reference?

[RedGuevara]

What does it mean to be a syndicalists?

[synthesis]

What does it mean to be a syndicalists?

There are people here who are much more capable of answering this question than myself, but I'd argue that anarcho-syndicalism is best understood as a historical current rather than a contemporary ideology, and should be understood in the context of other historical currents rather than that of ideological tendencies in their abstract forms.