Weren't the Mensheviks correct? [Archive]

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

26th March 2014, 02:02

Bourgeois capitalism in Russia couldn't survive without rabid militarism which propped the major imperialist powers. If the Stalinists had their way China under Mao would of continued to be capitalist instead of instituting a planned economy. Basically capitalism and socialism are international systems, and Stalinism ruined an entire revolutionary generation. Its the one small thing you're not addressing.

Do you need to turn every response into an unrelated polemic with corpses of ancient history? It's been more than 20 years since the collapse of the Eastbloc and and the deformed USSR, and with that the international relevancy of the left. Now that the "international left" has the unique opportunity to start over again (without any more obligations to the security and growth of worker-friendly states) - to build up an international, modern, democratic and solidly revolutionary proletarian movement that will finally make the historical break with Capitalism by smashing the imperialist states - the majority of working class activists are members of what Marx gave his political life fighting against, namely Sects. What will liberate the working class is solidarity, and letting our most advanced comrades be divided over their sect leaders' insignificant differences on abstract theories of the left's history is what is preventing the left from becoming the dynamic political tool that is needed for the proletariat to take power.

To the OP: The Mensheviks were counterrevolutionary traitors and active proponents of the bourgeoisie's attack on the welfare and rights of the working People of Russia. The theory that relations of production, and hence social organization and human relations, are reliant on the development of the productive forces was quite substantiated by the failed experiments and experiments of revolutionary Russia. A country has to go through a phase of industrialization and eliminate need before being able to attempt egalitarian and communist relations of production. But does that mean that this process should be seen through by white guard fascists instead of a workers state? Obviously not. The only political forces strong enough at the time were the Communists or Russian Anti-Semites, so calling for a a bourgeois development of capitalism in the country meant being for the Whites.

As a side note; During the german WW2 occupation of the poor Ukraine for instance, many factories had hardly any supervision in comparison to the Soviet military-type administration of production. As a result, Ukrainian workers slacked, stole, and when the supervisor was in his office, built things that they could sell themselves on the black market to overcome the super-exploitative starvation wages that the german Reichskommisariat granted workers. Similar destructive behavior emerged with communist experiments during the Russian Revolution, hence the change to "professionals".

Art Vandelay

26th March 2014, 14:57

Geiseric

26th March 2014, 15:49

This really shows the intellectual paucity of Trotskyists' take on historical materialism. If only your man had reached the top, and not the other guy who wound up at the top, we'd be living in a socialist utopia right now. Thomas Carlyle would be proud.

So do you understand English? More specifically how plural nouns work? If you don't read what I say I'm not going to argue with you people.

Dodo

26th March 2014, 17:20

It COULD have been. That would have depended on a lot of factors both domestic and international.
Within the context of Russia, even the despised Stalinist central planning had achieved great success in primitive capital accumulation and industrializing the country within a short-period of time.
The problem had always been with peasantry and agricultural productivity.
The collectivizations were a failure in achieving agricultural transformation but it provided a lot of squeeze for the industrialization.
The problem with USSR was that it was essentially a capitalist economy and so was bound to the effects of capitalism.

As Marx have pointed out, the remarkable thing with capitalism is that it constantly revolutionizes it's way of doing things in order to increase productivity to decrease "socially necessary labor time".
Soviet economy's rigidity could not have this flexible creative destruction but was still bound to the effects of capitalism, and therefore a tendency to become obsolete over the decades.

The destruction of the ol system of feudalism was very important. But we cannot for sure know if the Menshevik's ideas would have been more succesfull without an indepth analysis of Russian economy and structures/tendencies.

Five Year Plan

26th March 2014, 18:48

This really shows the intellectual paucity of Trotskyists' take on historical materialism. If only your man had reached the top, and not the other guy who wound up at the top, we'd be living in a socialist utopia right now. Thomas Carlyle would be proud.

Amazing that this cheap shot post can accumulate so many thanks when the "Trotskyist" take on the degeneration of the October Revolution can easily be understood by reading The Revolution Betrayed. Guess what Trotsky's argument there was. It was that the degeneration of revolutionary leadership was the product of material circumstances outside of the control of any "great leader." These material circumstances were the isolation of the revolution in a single country, and a relatively backward one at that. This is why he called for a "political revolution of the masses," in hopes of stirring international revolution, and did not support some kind of conspiratorial coup. But actually understanding Trotskyism is so much more difficult than making lazy cheap shots on revleft, isn't it?

synthesis

26th March 2014, 21:13

Amazing that this cheap shot post can accumulate so many thanks when the "Trotskyist" take on the degeneration of the October Revolution can easily be understood by reading The Revolution Betrayed. Guess what Trotsky's argument there was. It was that the degeneration of revolutionary leadership was the product of material circumstances outside of the control of any "great leader." These material circumstances were the isolation of the revolution in a single country, and a relatively backward one at that. This is why he called for a "political revolution of the masses," in hopes of stirring international revolution, and did not support some kind of conspiratorial coup. But actually understanding Trotskyism is so much more difficult than making lazy cheap shots on revleft, isn't it?

As Geiseric demonstrates, Trotskyists often don't understand Trotsky. Not that such a phenomenon is exclusive to that tendency, but this line of argument - and any honest Trotskyist will admit it's more prevalent than it should be - is particularly frustrating, because it allows the ignorant Trotskyist to claim that Stalin's USSR was in some way, large or small, socialist (hence "degenerated workers' state") without having to take any "responsibility," so to speak, for anything that happened under Stalin's governance.

#FF0000

26th March 2014, 22:25

So do you understand English?

"would of"

Five Year Plan

26th March 2014, 23:22

As Geiseric demonstrates, Trotskyists often don't understand Trotsky. Not that such a phenomenon is exclusive to that tendency, but this line of argument - and any honest Trotskyist will admit it's more prevalent than it should be - is particularly frustrating, because it allows the ignorant Trotskyist to claim that Stalin's USSR was in some way, large or small, socialist (hence "degenerated workers' state") without having to take any "responsibility," so to speak, for anything that happened under Stalin's governance.

As you note, there definitely needs to be a distinction between the Trotskyism of Trotsky (though he never used the term), and the "Trotskyism" of some his professed followers. The same can be said about the Marxism of Karl Marx (who purportedly declared he was no "Marxist") and the "Marxism" of people who like to claim that the DPRK is a socialist society.

What you should keep in mind, though, is that even the worst "Trotskyists" don't claim that the USSR was socialist. Saying it was socialist is different than saying it had a workers' state, however badly degenerated. To my mind the only tendencies that claim that the USSR was socialist are the Marcyists and the M-Ls, though the latter claim that a counter-revolution to restore capitalism of some kind occurred at some point after Stalin's death.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 00:17

What you should keep in mind, though, is that even the worst "Trotskyists" don't claim that the USSR was socialist. Saying it was socialist is different than saying it had a workers' state, however badly degenerated. To my mind the only tendencies that claim that the USSR was socialist are the Marcyists and the M-Ls, though the latter claim that a counter-revolution to restore capitalism of some kind occurred at some point after Stalin's death.

Yeah, but there are plenty of "bad Trotskyists" who claim that Stalin's USSR was not capitalist in some way. Obviously they're not referring to feudalism (though that would be an analysis easier to sympathize with) so I don't know what else I'm supposed to call that, because a "worker's state," no matter how degenerated, is not a mode of production. Geiseric has repeatedly claimed that the central planning of Stalin's Soviet Union made it somehow "not capitalist," along with a few other meaningless characteristics that I don't particularly care to list here.

Five Year Plan

27th March 2014, 00:23

Yeah, but there are plenty of "bad Trotskyists" who claim that Stalin's USSR was not capitalist in some way. Obviously they're not referring to feudalism (though that would be an analysis easier to sympathize with) so I don't know what else I'm supposed to call that, because a "worker's state," no matter how degenerated, is not a mode of production. Geiseric has repeatedly claimed that the central planning of Stalin's Soviet Union made it somehow "not capitalist," along with a few other meaningless characteristics that I don't particularly care to list here.

You are right in pointing this out, of course. There is a tendency to over-emphasize the perceived non-capitalist features of the USSR and countries with similar economic regimes, to the point where these systems are almost described as a third system. My point was that they certainly don't think of them as socialist, either.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 00:26

Yeah, but there are plenty of "bad Trotskyists" who claim that Stalin's USSR was not capitalist in some way. Obviously they're not referring to feudalism (though that would be an analysis easier to sympathize with) so I don't know what else I'm supposed to call that, because a "worker's state," no matter how degenerated, is not a mode of production. Geiseric has repeatedly claimed that the central planning of Stalin's Soviet Union made it somehow "not capitalist," along with a few other meaningless characteristics that I don't particularly care to list here.

Degenerated workers' states are societies in transition from one mode of production to the other - although a successful transition to socialism would mean the end of the parasitic bureaucracy. As for "Stalin's USSR", most Trotskyists don't put much stock in the difference between Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Andropov.

As for the notion that the Soviet Union is feudal, I have to admit I can't take it seriously. It simply can't be reconciled to the historical fact, it's a case of working out what slur to use ("feudal" in this case) before figuring out the theory behind the slur.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 00:52

Degenerated workers' states are societies in transition from one mode of production to the other - although a successful transition to socialism would mean the end of the parasitic bureaucracy. As for "Stalin's USSR", most Trotskyists don't put much stock in the difference between Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev or Andropov.

Right, so in that case it would mean that the Soviet Union was "in some way, large or small, socialist," if the "degenerated workers' state" was "in transition from [the capitalist mode of production] to [the socialist mode of production]" unless there are more semantic games to be played here. This was my original criticism, which I conceded to aufheben was probably too harsh, but you seem to be validating it.

Brotto Rühle

27th March 2014, 00:55

Broviet Union

27th March 2014, 00:57

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 01:00

Right, so in that case it would mean that the Soviet Union was "in some way, large or small, socialist," if the "degenerated workers' state" was "in transition from [the capitalist mode of production] to [the socialist mode of production]" unless there are more semantic games to be played here. This was my original criticism, which I conceded to aufheben was probably too harsh, but you seem to be validating it.

But that's the thing - something can't be "a bit" socialist. Socialism is a well-defined mode of production. Transitional periods are intermediary states, where elements of the different modes of production mix and interpenetrate each other, with elements of the overcome mode of production gradually fading away as the development goes on. At best, you might say that there were socialist elements in the Soviet economy - and there were. Social ownership, central planning etc. - all of these are socialist elements. But these were vastly outnumbered by capitalist elements.

"Degenerated Worker's States" are capitalist states, plain and simple. DOTP's preside over the Capitalist mode of production. "Transitional society" makes no sense in Marxian terms.

Alright, so, moving away from the Soviet Union, take for example the early Meiji period in Japan. How would you characterise the economic relations that defined the period from the overthrow of the old government to the abolition of the han system and shortly after? Modes of production are extremely explanatorily powerful concepts, but this doesn't mean historical development can be neatly separated into pure modes of production - in addition to transitional periods there is the retention of characteristics and relations properly belonging to the previous mode of production, particularly in the periphery of the imperialist system etc. etc

synthesis

27th March 2014, 01:05

Brotto Rühle

27th March 2014, 01:06

But that's the thing - something can't be "a bit" socialist. Socialism is a well-defined mode of production. Transitional periods are intermediary states, where elements of the different modes of production mix and interpenetrate each other, with elements of the overcome mode of production gradually fading away as the development goes on. At best, you might say that there were socialist elements in the Soviet economy - and there were. Social ownership, central planning etc. - all of these are socialist elements. But these were vastly outnumbered by capitalist elements.The law of value cannot simultaneously exist and not exist in a society. Planning, state ownership, etc. are all able to exist and function in capitalism... as is evident from the USSR. Either the society is capitalist, or it is socialist. There is no "bit of both", that's nonsense.

I urge you to look at Andrew Kliman's "The Incoherence of 'Transitional Society (http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/video-the-incoherence-of-transitional-society.html)'"

Alright, so, moving away from the Soviet Union, take for example the early Meiji period in Japan. How would you characterise the economic relations that defined the period from the overthrow of the old government to the abolition of the han system and shortly after? Modes of production are extremely explanatorily powerful concepts, but this doesn't mean historical development can be neatly separated into pure modes of production - in addition to transitional periods there is the retention of characteristics and relations properly belonging to the previous mode of production, particularly in the periphery of the imperialist system etc. etcI find it deeply interesting how the Trots, and even the Stalinists, use examples of pre-capitalist mode of productions existing at the same time, as proof of how the capitalist and socialist can exist together.

Geiseric

27th March 2014, 01:15

This is all sort of derailish and OT, but is there a formal Trotskyist definition for Worker's State? Cause it seems to be an ambiguous term that makes room for lots of authoritarian nonsense, which was kind of the Bolshevik's schtick.

Karl Marx came up with the idea of a workers state, it was hardly new by 1917. Another word for it is a "dictatorship of the proletariat". The USSR was one of these because of how the workers seized political power. The dotp is a necessary transitional phase due to the absence of international revolution happening at the same time. Ultra lefts equate the DotP with state capitalism though which is based on a petit bourgeois socialist attitude.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 01:22

So you can't say it's "a bit socialist", but there were elements of socialism mixing and interpenetrating with capitalism? This is pedantry of the highest degree.

Well - call it what you like, the point is that no Trotskyist, except Pablo in some of his more ridiculous outbursts as I recall, has ever called the USSR socialist. Or "fully socialist", if you prefer.

The law of value cannot simultaneously exist and not exist in a society. Planning, state ownership, etc. are all able to exist and function in capitalism... as is evident from the USSR. Either the society is capitalist, or it is socialist. There is no "bit of both", that's nonsense.

Complete planning and complete social ownership can't exist under capitalism, as capital is necessarily realised as competing capitals.

I urge you to look at Andrew Kliman's "The Incoherence of 'Transitional Society (http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/video-the-incoherence-of-transitional-society.html)'"

I am familiar with Kilman, and I will just repeat something I said some time ago to Blake's Baby - the broadly anthropological approach to Marxism is a dead end. Kilman makes some good points - particularly that collective ownership is usually private ownership - but in general the Marxist movement dropped this anthropological fixation fairly quickly, and was better off for it.

I find it deeply interesting how the Trots, and even the Stalinists, use examples of pre-capitalist mode of productions existing at the same time, as proof of how the capitalist and socialist can exist together.

Now you're just evading the question. You said that transitional periods were nonsense - so what was the early Meiji period, then? And the question of whether capitalist and socialist elements can coexist in a transitional period is different from the question of whether socialism can be built inside capitalism (i.e. inside almost "pure" capitalism under the bourgeois dictatorship). Denying the existence of socialist elements under the d. of the p. leaves you with a semi-mystical notion of socialism happening one day with no quantitative buildup leading to the qualitative leap.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 01:31

Karl Marx came up with the idea of a workers state, it was hardly new by 1917. Another word for it is a "dictatorship of the proletariat". The USSR was one of these because of how the workers seized political power. The dotp is a necessary transitional phase due to the absence of international revolution happening at the same time. Ultra lefts equate the DotP with state capitalism though which is based on a petit bourgeois socialist attitude.

I can't begin to describe how wrong every single word of your post is, but I'll try anyway. The concept of the "worker's state" isn't the same as the dictatorship of the proletariat, it's the Trotskyist interpretation of it - the term is generally not used without "degenerated" or "deformed" preceding it. If there's an absence of international revolution occurring anywhere else, that's called "socialism in one country," which is actually diametrically opposed to Trotsky's theory of revolution. And left-communists don't "equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with state capitalism," they argue, as did Marx, that the dictatorship of the proletariat presides over the capitalist mode of production, while also arguing (separately) that what Stalin called "the dictatorship of the proletariat" was capitalist, owing to the fact that there was a ruling class presiding over the working class. Man, you're almost as bad at Trotskyism as you are at Marxism.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 01:38

Well - call it what you like, the point is that no Trotskyist, except Pablo in some of his more ridiculous outbursts as I recall, has ever called the USSR socialist. Or "fully socialist", if you prefer.

Can you please point to the quote of mine that this point was originally intended to address, so that I can respond properly?

Dodo

27th March 2014, 01:39

Transitional society" makes no sense in Marxian terms.

DUNN DUNN DUNN
Can you elaborate on why transitional society does not make any sense?
The whole dialectical framework is about transitionary-ness, "everything is coming into being and passing" away....unless you have a good explanation, it sounds like you are making a breakthrough of bourgeouisie science here with Smithian economics.

Art Vandelay

27th March 2014, 01:50

I can't begin to describe how wrong every single word of your post is, but I'll try anyway. The concept of the "worker's state" isn't the same as the dictatorship of the proletariat, it's the Trotskyist interpretation of it - the term is generally not used without "degenerated" or "deformed" preceding it. If there's an absence of international revolution occurring anywhere else, that's called "socialism in one country," which is actually diametrically opposed to Trotsky's theory of revolution. And left-communists don't "equate the dictatorship of the proletariat with state capitalism," they argue, as did Marx, that the dictatorship of the proletariat presides over the capitalist mode of production, while also arguing (separately) that what Stalin called "the dictatorship of the proletariat" was capitalist, owing to the fact that there was a ruling class presiding over the working class. Man, you're almost as bad at Trotskyism as you are at Marxism.

Some of this isn't entirely accurate. The concept of a worker's state isn't a Trotskyist invention (the concept of a degenerated worker's state, however is unique to Trotskyism) and for all intents and purposes is synonymous with the dictatorship of the proletariat; a class dictatorship is exercised through the state, as far as Marxists are concerned, and the fact that this state is representative of proletarian class interests, makes it a worker's state. While you are correct in saying that the theory of socialism in one country, is diametrically opposed to Trotsky's permanent revolution, it is wrong to say that socialism in one country occurs in the absence of the international revolution, unless of course you support the notion that socialism is not stateless.

Halert

27th March 2014, 02:05

In hindsight an argument could be made against the October revolution, but an argument with information in hindsight is dishonest and not interesting.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 02:44

Some of this isn't entirely accurate. The concept of a worker's state isn't a Trotskyist invention (the concept of a degenerated worker's state, however is unique to Trotskyism) and for all intents and purposes is synonymous with the dictatorship of the proletariat; a class dictatorship is exercised through the state, as far as Marxists are concerned, and the fact that this state is representative of proletarian class interests, makes it a worker's state.

Right, so why call it a "worker's state" instead of just "the dictatorship of the proletariat"? Who else but Trotskyists use that phrasing? And they use that phrasing because "degenerated dictatorship of the proletariat" would self-demonstrate the absurdity of the concept.

While you are correct in saying that the theory of socialism in one country, is diametrically opposed to Trotsky's permanent revolution, it is wrong to say that socialism in one country occurs in the absence of the international revolution, unless of course you support the notion that socialism is not stateless.

"Socialism in one country" was explicitly developed to justify the Soviet state after the world revolution had failed.

Five Year Plan

27th March 2014, 02:50

But that's the thing - something can't be "a bit" socialist. Socialism is a well-defined mode of production. Transitional periods are intermediary states, where elements of the different modes of production mix and interpenetrate each other, with elements of the overcome mode of production gradually fading away as the development goes on. At best, you might say that there were socialist elements in the Soviet economy - and there were. Social ownership, central planning etc. - all of these are socialist elements. But these were vastly outnumbered by capitalist elements.

Alright, so, moving away from the Soviet Union, take for example the early Meiji period in Japan. How would you characterise the economic relations that defined the period from the overthrow of the old government to the abolition of the han system and shortly after? Modes of production are extremely explanatorily powerful concepts, but this doesn't mean historical development can be neatly separated into pure modes of production - in addition to transitional periods there is the retention of characteristics and relations properly belonging to the previous mode of production, particularly in the periphery of the imperialist system etc. etc

I agree in theory with these statements. The problem is that a transition to a socialist society is not like a transition from a feudal to a capitalist society, or a transition from a slave to a feudal society. You can have a capitalist society with some remnants of feudal relations of exploitation at the margins. You cannot, however, have a socialist society with remnants of capitalism.

Socialism, by definition, is a society without alienation (in the Marxian economic sense). As a result it has to exist as a total system, unlike the other systems, which can mash together different types of alienation. It either exists on an international plane, in which cases there are no traces of capitalism or class society left, or the society still has remnants of capitalism and is only in "transition" between capitalism and socialism, but not "socialist."

I think that is the point that other posters were making, though my criticisms are well known of that Spiegel guy and his conflation of mode of production with form of state, etc.

Dodo

27th March 2014, 03:56

The thing is, socialism's conditions mature up in capitalist development. Therefore socialism is already always in the making under capitalism, hence there is always a transitionary notion. Therefore way up to socialism is transitionary enough. If a post-revolution moment is going to be transitionary or not is not something we can know until that qualitative leap is made. However, it would be extremely naive to think that socialism can be established out of nowhere just like that. The limited amount of empirical cases in our hand shows this(From USSR to all others and even the ones before).

It is always going to be a process from what we know so far.
It is unrealistic to cut all relations of the past in a shock teraphy as daily life's reproduction has to circulate somehow. And while relations of production can change fast, the adoption of institutions take time. In that sense, I am pretty sure the post-revolution bit would also carry a lot of "transitional" aspects.
I am not even saying if I were there I would suggest this, but this is how it would happen as a natural reaction of the people, as a necessity.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 19:09

I agree in theory with these statements. The problem is that a transition to a socialist society is not like a transition from a feudal to a capitalist society, or a transition from a slave to a feudal society. You can have a capitalist society with some remnants of feudal relations of exploitation at the margins. You cannot, however, have a socialist society with remnants of capitalism.

Socialism, by definition, is a society without alienation (in the Marxian economic sense). As a result it has to exist as a total system, unlike the other systems, which can mash together different types of alienation. It either exists on an international plane, in which cases there are no traces of capitalism or class society left, or the society still has remnants of capitalism and is only in "transition" between capitalism and socialism, but not "socialist."

I think that is the point that other posters were making, though my criticisms are well known of that Spiegel guy and his conflation of mode of production with form of state, etc.

I don't have much to add to this - I think focusing on alienation might be a wrong approach but it doesn't matter in this context. I never meant to say socialism could be built from within the bourgeois dictatorship or that socialist elements could exist within the bourgeois society. Socialist construction requires the revolutionary overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The problem is that certain people - ultralefts mostly - consider the entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, not as a transitional period, but as capitalist due to the presence of generalised commodity production (or the law of value, but that runs into both theoretical and empirical problems). I think this is incorrect. And oddly enough, means they really can't complain about any of the elements of capitalism that can be discerned in the Soviet economy.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 20:38

And oddly enough, means they really can't complain about any of the elements of capitalism that can be discerned in the Soviet economy.

Why? And what other elements of the Soviet economy are there to discern?

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 20:44

Why?

Because the dictatorship of the proletariat in general, which they presumably support, would also feature generalised commodity production, and thus be considered capitalist by them. They can't argue that the Soviet Union wasn't a d. of the p. due to capitalist elements when any d. of the p. is going to be capitalist according to them.

And what other elements of the Soviet economy are there to discern?

Socialist elements - social ownership, central planning, limitation of the law of value, collectivisation in the countryside, the food dictatorship etc. etc.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 21:21

Because the dictatorship of the proletariat in general, which they presumably support, would also feature generalised commodity production, and thus be considered capitalist by them. They can't argue that the Soviet Union wasn't a d. of the p. due to capitalist elements when any d. of the p. is going to be capitalist according to them.

It's not "due to capitalist elements." It's because it was the capitalist mode of production and, at least after Lenin died, was never going to be anything but the capitalist mode of production due to the failure of the world revolution at that time.

Socialist elements - social ownership, central planning, limitation of the law of value, collectivisation in the countryside, the food dictatorship etc. etc.

Whose definition of "socialist" are you working with here?

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 21:27

It's not "due to capitalist elements." It's because it was the capitalist mode of production and, at least after Lenin died, was never going to be anything but the capitalist mode of production due to the failure of the world revolution at that time.

Alright, but then the fault lies with the failure of the world revolution - an analysis I (almost) agree with (the difference being I don't consider the Soviet Union to have been capitalist - although it was certainly doomed to revert to capitalism unless another revolutionary wave happened). The problem is that some of the ultralefts define any system where generalised commodity production prevails as capitalist, and then denounce the Soviet Union for being capitalist. I'm not saying all ultralefts do that - in my experience, the Bordigists in particular don't condemn the SU for being capitalist. But it's still amusing to notice.

Whose definition of "socialist" are you working with here?

The same definition - if it can be called that - used by Lenin. Socialism is a classless society, organising large-scale production of goods on the basis of the social ownership of the means of production.

MEGAMANTROTSKY

27th March 2014, 21:51

I don't have much to add to this - I think focusing on alienation might be a wrong approach....

Could you explain why you think so?

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

27th March 2014, 21:56

Could you explain why you think so?

Well, I think the term is perhaps a bit too "anthropological" (although I know aufheben meant it in the strict economic sense), and that Marxist analysis can survive the dropping of the term - as had happened in much of post-Marx Marxism, I think. If this sounds infuriatingly vague, that's because it is. That's why I said "I think" and "might".

MEGAMANTROTSKY

27th March 2014, 22:01

I understand. In that case, I recommend a paper by Alex Steiner called "From Alienation to Revolution: A defense of Marx's theory of alienation", which addresses much of the confusion that erupts from Marx's use of the concept. You should be able to find it by googling the title. And I'm not convinced that aufheben was only using that term in the economic sense.

Art Vandelay

27th March 2014, 22:02

Right, so why call it a "worker's state" instead of just "the dictatorship of the proletariat"? Who else but Trotskyists use that phrasing? And they use that phrasing because "degenerated dictatorship of the proletariat" would self-demonstrate the absurdity of the concept.

They are euphemisms and can be used interchangeably, why anyone would take issue with that is beyond me. There is absolutely nothing 'absurd' about the concept of a degenerated workers state. I don't really have the time to go into much detail, but might be able to tonight or tmro, since I have to run to work right away and spent all afternoon cleaning and doing some organizational stuff, but wanted to respond regardless. The only notion I find absurd, is that a dictatorship of the proletariat can qualitatively change into something else entirely, overnight, without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms. Which is what taking the rejection of the concept of the degenerated workers state, to its logical conclusion, amounts to.

"Socialism in one country" was explicitly developed to justify the Soviet state after the world revolution had failed.

We're not in any disagreement here. I just felt that the phrasing...

"If there's an absence of international revolution occurring anywhere else, that's called "socialism in one country,"

...was odd since it seemed to lend credence to the theory.

Five Year Plan

27th March 2014, 22:33

synthesis

27th March 2014, 23:09

The only notion I find absurd, is that a dictatorship of the proletariat can qualitatively change into something else entirely, overnight, without open and violent expressions of class antagonisms.

But this has nothing to do with the concept of "the degenerated workers' state," which claims that a state can be somehow "un-capitalist" in some way after the world revolution has failed.

So Russia was just as capitalist before the October revolution as it was afterward? The October Revolution made no economic difference whatsoever in terms of the functioning of capitalism? Why in the world should workers engage in a political struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie then?

The October Revolution would have "made a difference," in the way that I think you mean, if it had been in the context of a successful world revolution. In the absence of a broader context of world revolution, it took the form of a bourgeois revolution, ultimately wiping away the remnants of feudalism and hastening the process of industrialization. Lenin argued that from October 1917 to January 1918, it was a bourgeois revolution segueing into a proletarian revolution; I believe that it was the opposite.

Five Year Plan

27th March 2014, 23:38

The October Revolution would have "made a difference," in the way that I think you mean, if it had been in the context of a successful world revolution. In the absence of a broader context of world revolution, it took the form of a bourgeois revolution, ultimately wiping away the remnants of feudalism and hastening the process of industrialization. Lenin argued that from October 1917 to January 1918, it was a bourgeois revolution segueing into a proletarian revolution; I believe that it was the opposite.

Lenin never called the October revolution of a "bourgeois revolution." If you can provide me with a quote where he says this, it would be quite the revelation to me. The most cherry-picking critics can find are off-hand remarks where Lenin says that the state apparatus is still burdened by bourgeois residue (Tsarist officials, bourgeois prejudices and practices). But this is profoundly different than the idea that the Soviet state was bourgeois in form, or that the ruling class of the state was a capitalist class. In order to be aware of this, you have to understand the Marxist theory of state forms Lenin fleshed out most clearly in State and Revolution. If you don't really take Lenin seriously enough to read him, and just take isolated quotes where he seems to be saying certain things, you will get him completely wrong. As wrong as a liberal first stumbling upon Marx's formulation of "the dictatorship of the proletariat" and thinking that Marx meant by this one-man rule without any democracy.

The answer you gave to my question was: no, the revolution could have but did not make a difference to the existence of capitalism in Russia. Bracketing aside the feudal portions of the economy, Russia was just as capitalist before it as it was after it.

I will fall back on my other question: what is the purpose of workers transforming the state apparatus by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and fully nationalizing property, if it leaves capitalism fully in tact by doing so?

bropasaran

27th March 2014, 23:51

Guess what Trotsky's argument there was. It was that the degeneration of revolutionary leadership was the product of material circumstances outside of the control of any "great leader." These material circumstances were the isolation of the revolution in a single country, and a relatively backward one at that. This is why he called for a "political revolution of the masses," in hopes of stirring international revolution, and did not support some kind of conspiratorial coup.
Yes, the view expressed even back by Engels in the The Peasant War in Germany:

"The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe for the domination of the class which he represents and for the realisation of the measures which that domination would imply. What he can do depends not upon his will but upon the sharpness of the clash of interests between the various classes, and upon the degree of development of the material means of existence, the relations of production and means of communication upon which..." blah blah.

Emphasasing the class, not the leadership, sounds libertarian, but only if ignore the presupposition that is accepted there- that there's supposed to be some leadership that should take power. Libertarian socialists have always understood that the material circumstances that matter there are the relations of power, and that any leaders taking power in order to repressent a class would just mean that those leaders would become a "new master class", thus defeating the point of the rise of the class that they came out of.

synthesis

27th March 2014, 23:58

Let us recall the main stages of our revolution. The first stage: the purely political stage, so to speak, from October 25 to January 5, when the Constituent Assembly was dissolved. In a matter of ten weeks we did a hundred times more to actually and completely destroy the survivals of feudalism in Russia than the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries did during the eight months they were in power—from February to October 1917. At that time, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia, and all the heroes of the Two-and-a-Half International abroad, acted as miserable accomplices of reaction. As for the anarchists, some stood aloof in perplexity, while others helped us. Was the revolution a bourgeois revolution at that time? Of course it was, insofar as our function was to complete the bourgeois democratic revolution, insofar as there was as yet no class struggle among the “peasantry”. But, at the same time, we accomplished a great deal over and above the bourgeois revolution for the socialist, proletarian revolution: 1) we developed the forces of the working class for its utilisation of state power to an extent never achieved before; 2) we struck a blow that was felt all over the world against the fetishes of petty-bourgeois democracy, the Constituent Assembly and bourgeois “liberties” such as freedom of the press for the rich; 5) we created the Soviet type of state, which was a gigantic step in advance of 1795 and 1871. (here) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/aug/20.htm)

The answer you gave to my question was: no, the revolution could have but did not make a difference to the existence of capitalism in Russia. Bracketing aside the feudal portions of the economy, Russia was just as capitalist before it as it was after it.

I will fall back on my other question: what is the purpose of workers transforming the state apparatus by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and fully nationalizing property, if it leaves capitalism fully in tact by doing so?

I don't really understand the relevance of this question unless understood in the context of a world revolutionary wave occurring elsewhere. I don't mean that in a rhetorical, argumentative way; I really don't understand what you're looking for when you ask this question about these factors occurring in an isolated country.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

28th March 2014, 00:03

synthesis

28th March 2014, 00:08

So your source for Lenin calling the October Revolution bourgeois is a paragraph where he talks about how the October Revolution went beyond the bourgeois revolution? Mind you, he says the Oct. R. was bourgeois "insofar as" it completed the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. He doesn't say it was bourgeois, full stop.

What is it with you Trotskyists and your fucking semantics? He says "of course it was a bourgeois revolution," then he says it also accomplished a lot for the proletarian revolution. The same could be said of the French Revolution. His whole argument, if you care to read that quote with a modicum of intellectual honesty, is that the October Revolution got Russia "ready" for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

28th March 2014, 00:15

What is it with you Trotskyists and your fucking semantics? He says "of course it was a bourgeois revolution," then he says it also accomplished a lot for the proletarian revolution. The same could be said of the French Revolution. His whole argument, if you care to read that quote with a modicum of intellectual honesty, is that the October Revolution got Russia "ready" for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

He said that - and note that Lenin was perfectly capable of talking nonsense, q.v. "the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" - the October Revolution can be called bourgeois in the sense that it completed the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. So obviously it can't be called bourgeois without qualifications. But in the very next sentence he notes the socialist character of the revolution - of course, necessarily incomplete pending a worldwide revolutionary wave. As for semantics, it is in fact the ultralefts who have to resort to semantic wrangling in order to erase the importance of the October Revolution. If you think Lenin considered October to be of the same order as the great bourgeois revolution in France, you obviously haven't read much by the man.

synthesis

28th March 2014, 00:20

It seems like you're conceding the point. But still, by 1923:

What if the complete hopelessness of the situation, by stimulating the efforts of the workers and peasants tenfold, offered us the opportunity to create the fundamental requisites of civilization in a different way from that of the West European countries? Has that altered the general line of development of world history? Has that altered the basic relations between the basic classes of all the countries that are being, or have been, drawn into the general course of world history?

If a definite level of culture is required for the building of socialism (although nobody can say just what that definite "level of culture" is, for it differs in every Western European country), why cannot we began by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers' and peasants' government and Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations? (here) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/16.htm)

The first paragraph is just included for context; you should focus on the second.

Broviet Union

28th March 2014, 00:30

I wonder if Lenin would still affirm that viewpoint if he could see what actually happened in Russia.

Geiseric

28th March 2014, 00:57

Here's a better question, how would socialism be created without a transitional stage?

Broviet Union

28th March 2014, 01:20

I don't think anyone can justify the transitional stage being 90 years or even 10 years in length. IMHO, the central problem with the Bolshevik's ideology was that their undemocratic means combined with authoritarian state centralization combined with the fact that Russia was underdeveloped 1. created the sense that Communism results in scarcity and poverty, 2. undermined the sense in the Proletariat that they "owned" the state, and thus delegitimized it, and 3. created fodder for bourgeois class warriors eager to dismiss left wing ideas.

The Left is still basically paying the price for Lenin's tactical choices, however justified he felt they might be at the time.

Five Year Plan

28th March 2014, 02:16

Synthesis, the first quote of Lenin's you provided says precisely what Vincent says it does. It describes the revolution as "bourgeois" insofar as it resulted in (and necessary to, in the epoch of imperialism) the carrying out of what Marxists have long called "revolutionary bourgeois tasks." You can't provide a quote, then when somebody contests a key point of interpretation, start shrieking about "Trotskyists and fucking semantics." The second quote you provided is saying the same thing, and shows Lenin asserting how "prerequisites for that definite level of [socialist] culture" can be built in a "revolutionary way." Do you think he is saying in a bourgeois-revolutionary way, when everything Lenin said for the prior 20 years was premised on the impossiblity of bourgeoisie in Russia playing a revolutionary role as a ruling class?

A bourgeois revolution and a bourgeois state have specific meanings to Marxists. It means that a revolution has occurred which has established the capitalist class as the ruling class in the society. Lenin clearly didn't think that this is what occurred in the October Revolution, and the only quotes you'll be able to find where it might appear that he was entertaining the prospect are just as I said above: places where Lenin is making an ancillary point that can easily be misconstrued by tendentious interpretations. None of this means that Lenin is right. He might have been completely wrong, with the October Revolution in fact constituting a bourgeois revolution. My point is that Lenin clearly did not think this, so please don't cite him as saying such.

As for the question you don't seem to understand, I don't know why you are having a hard time answering it. It's not a trick question, or a fishing expedition on my part where I am looking for a specific answer. It's simple: why do revolutionary socialists aim to spur the rest of the working class to transform the state apparatus by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and fully nationalizing property?

bropasaran

28th March 2014, 04:14

Here's a better question, how would socialism be created without a transitional stage?
How could socialism be established with a transitional stage?

There can be no transitional stage in the marxist sense of firstly taking political power and then using it to expropriate capitalists and establish socialism, because in the framework of that idea the very political power that is suppossed to be taken (or established instead of the old one) is unsocialist and anti-socialist in it's nature. In this sense of transitional stage I, with other libertarian socialists, think not only that socialism can be established without it, but it must be.

A transitional stage existing in a sense of revolution lasting some time, in a sense that some time will pass between the point 1 when the organized working class starts it's rise for emancipation, it's struggle for abolishing the economic and political power of the master class and thus that class itself, and the point 2 when it achieves it, to say that a transitional stage in that sense must exist is virtually tautological.

Concerning the first sense of the transitional period and the unsocialistic nature of the state per se, it must be made clear libertarian socialism uses here the word state as technical term, not as as a coloquial one. We must also note that both the LibSoc and the Marxist technical terms named "state" are different from the coloquial term "state". The LibSoc technical definition of the term state is different from the Marxist technical definition of the term state, and it has as it's integral part the notion that it is a centralized hierarchical instititution (e.g. Malatesta's "delegation of power, initiative and sovereignty of all into the hands of a few") not just that it's the organ of class rule. Having that in mind, I guess that we can theoretize that from the LibSoc perspective, if the current state were to reform (more like transform) and become a decentrilized body which operates (directly) democratically, then it wouldn't be a state in the LibSoc technical sense, and presumably there would be no objections from the perspective of LibSoc for using it to proceed to establish socialism.

"The mistake of authoritarian communists in this connection is the belief that fighting and organising are impossible without submission to a government; and thus they regard anarchists . . . as the foes of all organisation and all co-ordinated struggle. We, on the other hand, maintain that not only are revolutionary struggle and revolutionary organisation possible outside and in spite of government interference but that, indeed, that is the only effective way to struggle and organise, for it has the active participation of all members of the collective unit, instead of their passively entrusting themselves to the authority of the supreme leaders.

Any governing body is an impediment to the real organisation of the broad masses, the majority. Where a government exists, then the only really organised people are the minority who make up the government; and . . . if the masses do organise, they do so against it, outside it, or at the very least, independently of it. In ossifying into a government, the revolution as such would fall apart, on account of its awarding that government the monopoly of organisation and of the means of struggle."

Luigi Fabbri, Poverty of Statism

Art Vandelay

28th March 2014, 16:17

But this has nothing to do with the concept of "the degenerated workers' state," which claims that a state can be somehow "un-capitalist" in some way after the world revolution has failed.

I don't really think that is a very apt description of the theory. The point of the concept of the degenerated worker's state is to recognize the fact that the October revolution, which was the most radical break with traditional property relations that the world has ever seen, marked the socialization of the means of production, the establishment of a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat and represented a society in transition.

You made the claim that the concept of a proletarian dictatorship 'degenerating' was absurd. The point I was trying to make in my last post, was that if you agree that a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established within the USSR but reject the notion of a dws, then your line of thought (taken to its logical conclusion) supports the notion that the dictatorship of the proletariat qualitatively changed into something else entirely overnight. The only other narrative would be that over the course of a prolonged period, class alien forces eroded the gains of October, resulting in counter revolution. In other words, if you reject the notion that the dotp was transformed into an entity representing class alien forces overnight, then you already presuppose the framework of dws, regardless if you think counter revolution solidified by 19', 29', 30's, or 91'. So I hardly think that 'absurd' is in any way an accurate description of the theory, on the contrary the only notion I find absurd is the one which states a dotp can vanish overnight.

synthesis

28th March 2014, 17:55

Synthesis, the first quote of Lenin's you provided says precisely what Vincent says it does. It describes the revolution as "bourgeois" insofar as it resulted in (and necessary to, in the epoch of imperialism) the carrying out of what Marxists have long called "revolutionary bourgeois tasks." You can't provide a quote, then when somebody contests a key point of interpretation, start shrieking about "Trotskyists and fucking semantics." The second quote you provided is saying the same thing, and shows Lenin asserting how "prerequisites for that definite level of [socialist] culture" can be built in a "revolutionary way." Do you think he is saying in a bourgeois-revolutionary way, when everything Lenin said for the prior 20 years was premised on the impossiblity of bourgeoisie in Russia playing a revolutionary role as a ruling class?

It's funny that you're characterizing my reaction to a "point of interpretation" as such; my original claim was only that Lenin said that it was a bourgeois revolution from October 1917 to January 1918. You seem to have extrapolated this into a characterization of Lenin that says that he believed the entire thing was a bourgeois revolution. This might be an understandable misinterpretation if I hadn't specified right afterwards that this was my view (sort of) and the opposite of Lenin's.

It is frustrating to argue with Trotskyists sometimes, because of your focus on semantics; you asked me for a source for the claim that Lenin said that from October 1917 to January 1918 it was a bourgeois revolution - which was completely tangential to the point I was making originally - and I provide a quote where Lenin said that, from October 1917 to January 1918: "Was it a bourgeois revolution at that time? Of course it was," and now I'm having to deal with Olympian levels of gymnastics to prove that my (very mild) original claim wasn't a slur. I didn't even know he believed what he said in that quote at all until I came across it fairly recently.

The second quote, in context, is pretty clearly Lenin saying that 1. the world revolution had failed, and 2. that due to this failure, it would be possible to build up socialism in Russia then militarily export it to the rest of the world. Otherwise known as "socialism in one country."

As for the question you don't seem to understand, I don't know why you are having a hard time answering it. It's not a trick question, or a fishing expedition on my part where I am looking for a specific answer. It's simple: why do revolutionary socialists aim to spur the rest of the working class to transform the state apparatus by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and fully nationalizing property?

To establish socialism as a global system.

synthesis

28th March 2014, 17:59

You made the claim that the concept of a proletarian dictatorship 'degenerating' was absurd. The point I was trying to make in my last post, was that if you agree that a genuine dictatorship of the proletariat was established within the USSR but reject the notion of a dws, then your line of thought (taken to its logical conclusion) supports the notion that the dictatorship of the proletariat qualitatively changed into something else entirely overnight. The only other narrative would be that over the course of a prolonged period, class alien forces eroded the gains of October, resulting in counter revolution. In other words, if you reject the notion that the dotp was transformed into an entity representing class alien forces overnight, then you already presuppose the framework of dws, regardless if you think counter revolution solidified by 19', 29', 30's, or 91'. So I hardly think that 'absurd' is in any way an accurate description of the theory, on the contrary the only notion I find absurd is the one which states a dotp can vanish overnight.

The other narrative is that a dictatorship of the proletariat was established, then in the context of the failure of the world revolution, it "degenerated" into nothing more or less than the capitalist mode of production. The idea of a "degenerated dictatorship of the proletariat" is absurd because in practice you're saying that the dictatorship of the proletariat can be established, then fail, and then be in a sort of regressive "transitional phase" between the dictatorship and, going backwards, the capitalist mode of production, as though such a system should be analyzed differently from any other system in the capitalist mode of production.

Five Year Plan

28th March 2014, 19:06

It's funny that you're characterizing my reaction to a "point of interpretation" as such; my original claim was only that Lenin said that it was a bourgeois revolution from October 1917 to January 1918. You seem to have extrapolated this into a characterization of Lenin that says that he believed the entire thing was a bourgeois revolution. This might be an understandable misinterpretation if I hadn't specified right afterwards that this was my view (sort of) and the opposite of Lenin's.

When I use the phrase "bourgeois revolution," I mean it in the way that virtually all Marxists mean it: that it is a social revolution that has established a capitalist class as a ruling class. Now you can argue that Lenin used the specific string of words "bourgeois revolution" (or the Russian equivalent thereof) in discussing the October Revolution, but so what? None of the quotes you provided show Lenin arguing that the October Revolution was a bourgeois revolution in the way that the term is conventionally used. They show Lenin thought that the revolution accomplished and was accomplishing bourgeois tasks by having the proletariat, as the ruling class, stand in place of an indigenous capitalist class that was thoroughly compromised by imperialism.

I'm also not clear what you mean when discussing whether the "whole thing" was bourgeois or not. According to Lenin's understanding of the state, a social revolution leads to the overthrow of one ruling class, and the establishment of another. Revolutions are classified according to which class is ascendant in that revolutionary process. It makes no sense to say that a revolution was "bourgeois," but that "the whole thing" wasn't. It either is a bourgeois revolution or it's not. States don't serve two or three of four masters simultaneously, whatever kinds of tasks that ruling class has to perform.

It is frustrating to argue with Trotskyists sometimes, because of your focus on semantics; you asked me for a source for the claim that Lenin said that from October 1917 to January 1918 it was a bourgeois revolution - which was completely tangential to the point I was making originally - and I provide a quote where Lenin said that, from October 1917 to January 1918: "Was it a bourgeois revolution at that time? Of course it was," and now I'm having to deal with Olympian levels of gymnastics to prove that my (very mild) original claim wasn't a slur. I didn't even know he believed what he said in that quote at all until I came across it fairly recently.It's equally frustrating to argue with people who cherry-pick isolated quotes of Lenin's, and completely mar the meaning of the quote by failing to understanding the operational premises that Lenin was working with in the language he was using. You repeat once more that Lenin claimed that "of course the revolution was a bourgeois revolution" (full stop). This, to repeat for the third time, implies that Lenin thought that the October Revolution established a capitalist ruling class. Nothing could be further from the truth, and any cursory reading of the quote, far different from semantic nitpicking, underscores this obvious fact.

The second quote, in context, is pretty clearly Lenin saying that 1. the world revolution had failed, and 2. that due to this failure, it would be possible to build up socialism in Russia then militarily export it to the rest of the world. Otherwise known as "socialism in one country."So you get to project onto Lenin's quote a highly specific interpretation, yet anybody who argues against this by positing a different interpretation is accused of playing with "semantics"? Sounds fair to me.

Your interpretation of the second quote is just...abysmally bad. Sorry, but there's no other way to put it. Lenin talks about "a definite level of culture [being] required for the building of socialism" and wonders how Russia can achieve that level of culture. He then proposes the possibility of the workers' state achieving this level, which all throughout the early developing capitalist states, were the creation of societies under the control of capitalist ruling classes. Nowhere does he say anything about "achieving socialism in one country," unless you want to equate socialism with cultural requisites that must be attained before building socialism can even begin.

As with Lenin's thought generally, he is attuned to how imperialism and capitalism as an international system are the starting point for any discussion of "building socialism," and how there is no unilinear schema of development imposed on all countries once and for all. The "definite level of culture" about which he speaks is, essentially, bourgeois culture. And Lenin is wrestling with fact that if the bourgeoisie can't be counted on to develop Russia economically and accomplish the bourgeois tasks that are necessary to start the process of building socialism or "transitioning to socialism" (which is different than establishing it in a single society), then the workers will have to accomplish these tasks in a revolutionary way, as part of a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat in that country.

synthesis

28th March 2014, 19:14

Five Year Plan

28th March 2014, 19:23

You can have this one. I'm not at all interested in getting bogged down in this sort of exegesis; I made an offhanded remark, only barely related to the broader point of that post, you asked me what I was basing it on and I told you.

Ultimately I don't really give that much of a shit what Lenin said or meant, not just in this particular instance but as a general principle. (I see the response here being "yeah, I can tell.") I think the broader social forces are a lot more important, which you'll probably agree with. So if you'd like to claim a victory here, and return to the subjects we were discussing earlier, I'm completely okay with that.

Very well, though you should be informed that I would only classify it a victory if it persuaded you to begin to take Lenin seriously enough as a thinker to begin to delve deeper than superficial quote-mining. He really did develop a rich body of thought that, more than any other, took Marxism into the twentieth century and gave it the tools to succeed. Ignore it at your own peril.

I believe the subject at hand was people challenging the idea that there is no transition period between full-blown capitalism and socialism, when characteristics of both exist side-by-side to a greater or lesser extent.

synthesis

28th March 2014, 21:26

Very well, though you should be informed that I would only classify it a victory if it persuaded you to begin to take Lenin seriously enough as a thinker to begin to delve deeper than superficial quote-mining.

I want to stress that I don't believe I was quote-mining. I came across that passage, quite recently, while researching a different topic and I found it interesting. If I hadn't come across it, I wouldn't have made the original claim that led to this topic of discussion.

He really did develop a rich body of thought that, more than any other, took Marxism into the twentieth century and gave it the tools to succeed.

Succeed at what?

Five Year Plan

28th March 2014, 23:32

I want to stress that I don't believe I was quote-mining. I came across that passage, quite recently, while researching a different topic and I found it interesting. If I hadn't come across it, I wouldn't have made the original claim that led to this topic of discussion.

Maybe you weren't intentionally quote-mining, but I use the term to cover anybody who stumbles upon or tries to use obscure quotes to generalize about what particular theorist had to say about a much broader topic that the specific quote wasn't even intended to address by that theorist. What encourages this process is the fact that the quote-miner almost never has an understanding of the main ideas of that theorist, and so the obscure quote is assigned a highly tendentious and misleading interpretation. I've seen people on this forum do it in a way that definitely has the goal of dismissing the entirety of a theorist's work or ideas, or even assassinating a theorist's character. That doesn't mean that I think you are operating this way. It just formally resembles it quite closely.

Succeed at what?Do you not think the October Revolution was a step forward? Or are you of the opinion that the Bolshevik leadership weren't essential (but by no means sufficient) to it occurring?

synthesis

29th March 2014, 00:18

Do you not think the October Revolution was a step forward? Or are you of the opinion that the Bolshevik leadership weren't essential (but by no means sufficient) to it occurring?

You said that Lenin's theory "took Marxism into the twentieth century and gave it the tools to succeed." But what was the success? Something that devolved from a dictatorship of the proletariat to a "degenerated workers' state" - which I call capitalism - in less than ten years? I don't see how you can argue that it "succeeded" if you believe that Lenin's theory ceased to be meaningfully implemented soon after Lenin died. This doesn't at all prove what I am inferring from your argument, which is that Lenin's theory still represents "the tools to succeed" for the working class today.

I think Lenin did what was necessary to do in Russia at the time he was doing it. The historical evidence does not at all indicate to me that his theory composes "the tools to succeed" in any real way for Marxists in the present. It may very well be that when the final capitalist crisis hits, the most advanced sectors of the working class will use Lenin's blueprint for revolution and the dictatorship. But I don't know why they would - we only recognize Lenin because he paved the way for the Bolsheviks to retain power after the world revolution had failed. If the world revolution had succeeded, Lenin would be a footnote.

Five Year Plan

29th March 2014, 16:31

You said that Lenin's theory "took Marxism into the twentieth century and gave it the tools to succeed." But what was the success? Something that devolved from a dictatorship of the proletariat to a "degenerated workers' state" - which I call capitalism - in less than ten years?

Even if we set aside the question of whether or when the Soviet bureaucracy became a state capitalist class, it is important to be clear here what the success was: it was the overthrow of a capitalist ruling class and the establishment, however momentarily, of the workers of Russia as a ruling class. Either you don't think this is an achievement (which would perplex me), or you are trying to judge the achievement by what went wrong after victories were achieved.

To clarify what I mean by the second option, you're employing a logic that would call a doctor's successful open heart surgery a failure because the patient refused to change his diet and died fifteen years later of a heart attack, ignoring how the surgery prolonged the patient's life by fifteen years. The patient dying was not the "fault" of the doctor, anymore than the degeneration of the revolution was the "fault" of the Bolsheviks. Whereas the Bolsheviks were essential to the October Revolution, they struggled against insurmountable odds (specifically, the isolation of that revolution in a single, backward country) in trying to resist its degeneration. This isn't to say they didn't make mistakes, even mistakes that hastened the degeneration, it's to say that the degeneration was going to happen regardless of their choices, unlike the October Revolution, which depended upon their leadership.

I don't see how you can argue that it "succeeded" if you believe that Lenin's theory ceased to be meaningfully implemented soon after Lenin died. This doesn't at all prove what I am inferring from your argument, which is that Lenin's theory still represents "the tools to succeed" for the working class today.As I thought I made clear above, I don't believe in "great man" theories of history, where the death of one person transforms an entire political or economic system overnight. Or where great men can battle impossible odds to maintain a workers' state in lieu of the workers themselves as they battle against an encircling imperialist blowback.

With that out of the way, I don't know what you mean when you say "Lenin's theory ceased to be meaningfully implemented soon after Lenin died." Which theory of his, specifically? His theory of the revolutionary party? And so what if is ceased to be implemented soon after he died, leading to disaster after disaster? Doesn't that actually prove my point that his theory has tools for success, when implemented?

I think Lenin did what was necessary to do in Russia at the time he was doing it. The historical evidence does not at all indicate to me that his theory composes "the tools to succeed" in any real way for Marxists in the present. It may very well be that when the final capitalist crisis hits, the most advanced sectors of the working class will use Lenin's blueprint for revolution and the dictatorship. But I don't know why they would - we only recognize Lenin because he paved the way for the Bolsheviks to retain power after the world revolution had failed. If the world revolution had succeeded, Lenin would be a footnote.If you really want to seriously probe what I find valuable about Lenin's theory of the revolutionary party, we should first clarify what we mean by that theory, instead of glossing it over and assuming we know. As I think we've seen already, there are a lot of people who claim to "know" this or that about Lenin's views of any given subject, but when pressed, it turns out that they really have no idea what they are talking about and that they are unwittingly parroting cold-war smears or Stalinist disinformation.

synthesis

29th March 2014, 18:50

To clarify what I mean by the second option, you're employing a logic that would call a doctor's successful open heart surgery a failure because the patient refused to change his diet and died fifteen years later of a heart attack, ignoring how the surgery prolonged the patient's life by fifteen years. The patient dying was not the "fault" of the doctor, anymore than the degeneration of the revolution was the "fault" of the Bolsheviks.

To continue with this analogy, it seems to me you're employing a logic that would call a doctor's failed open heart surgery a success because the patient lived long enough to be killed by whoever took over from that doctor when their shift was over.

Even if we set aside the question of whether or when the Soviet bureaucracy became a state capitalist class, it is important to be clear here what the success was: it was the overthrow of a capitalist ruling class and the establishment, however momentarily, of the workers of Russia as a ruling class. Either you don't think this is an achievement (which would perplex me), or you are trying to judge the achievement by what went wrong after victories were achieved.

So by this metric, couldn't you also say the same thing (the "tools to succeed," etc) about, say, foco theory or Maoism?

As I thought I made clear above, I don't believe in "great man" theories of history, where the death of one person transforms an entire political or economic system overnight. Or where great men can battle impossible odds to maintain a workers' state in lieu of the workers themselves as they battle against an encircling imperialist blowback.

And again, I ask: How were Lenin's theories the "tools to succeed" if they failed outside the context of a successful world revolution?

Five Year Plan

30th March 2014, 01:33

To continue with this analogy, it seems to me you're employing a logic that would call a doctor's failed open heart surgery a success because the patient lived long enough to be killed by whoever took over from that doctor when their shift was over.

It depends on what you consider the ultimate goal to be. If the purpose of the open heart surgery is to remove a blocked artery, then in the scenario I mentioned, there was clearly success. In your scenario, there wasn't. If the goal of revolutionary socialists is to overthrow the bourgeoisie, take command over the economy, and use that command to begin to introduce fully democratic planning throughout the entirety of the society while hoping that similar revolutions can occur globally (in order to eliminate all vestiges of capitalism from the economy), then I don't see how you can consider the October revolution as anything other than a step forward.

Notice that there are steps to this process, including that great bogeyman concept "transition" that people in this thread have been condemning. If your metric for measuring any success is "fully communist society has been established," and refuse to defend or cooperate in building anything anything in the necessary steps prior to that? Well, you're never going to get to the fully communist society. You'll just be criticizing about how imperfect everything is from the sidelines, while failing to see the progress that's being made because your definition of progress is "fully communist society or bust." If that's the politics you want to disseminate, have at it. It might make you feel morally superior and pure, but it just won't do anybody any good in trying to establish a communist society.

So by this metric, couldn't you also say the same thing (the "tools to succeed," etc) about, say, foco theory or Maoism?Why would I say that? What victories, in terms of the class line, did any of those theories help workers to advance or secure?

And again, I ask: How were Lenin's theories the "tools to succeed" if they failed outside the context of a successful world revolution?Theories don't make socialist revolutions, synthesis. Workers do. Saying that the global revolution failed, then trying to somehow attribute that to Lenin's theories in Russia, where they actually did help workers to pull off a socialist revolution (that was eventually roll backed), cannot possibly make sense to even a person as committed to dismissing Lenin as you are.

In Germany, which was the critical arena for the European theater of the workers' struggle, a revolutionary situation developed, but its potential was never realized precisely because the German SPD was wedded to a completely different understanding of party-building and the relationship between theory and practice than the BOlsheviks, under Lenin's theory, were. I would wager that if Rosa Luxemburg and the communists had broken earlier from the SPD and drawn clearer lines earlier, the German Revolution, and indeed world history, might have turned out quite differently.

synthesis

30th March 2014, 02:31

It depends on what you consider the ultimate goal to be. If the purpose of the open heart surgery is to remove a blocked artery, then in the scenario I mentioned, there was clearly success. In your scenario, there wasn't. If the goal of revolutionary socialists is to overthrow the bourgeoisie, take command over the economy, and use that command to begin to introduce fully democratic planning throughout the entirety of the society while hoping that similar revolutions can occur globally (in order to eliminate all vestiges of capitalism from the economy), then I don't see how you can consider the October revolution as anything other than a step forward.

First off, I'll answer a question you asked earlier and stipulate that yes, I do think that the October Revolution and Bolshevism are two very different topics of historical discussion. The Soviets were genuine mechanisms of working class power, but a significant faction of the the Bolshevik elite was composed of petit-bourgeois professional revolutionaries who continued to claim that Russia was a bastion of socialism long after the world revolution had clearly failed. So, yes, the October Revolution was a step forward; the Bolsheviks' exploitation of the subsequent circumstances was not.

Notice that there are steps to this process, including that great bogeyman concept "transition" that people in this thread have been condemning. If your metric for measuring any success is "fully communist society has been established," and refuse to defend or cooperate in building anything anything in the necessary steps prior to that? Well, you're never going to get to the fully communist society. You'll just be criticizing about how imperfect everything is from the sidelines, while failing to see the progress that's being made because your definition of progress is "fully communist society or bust." If that's the politics you want to disseminate, have at it. It might make you feel morally superior and pure, but it just won't do anybody any good in trying to establish a communist society.

I don't see how you could possibly see this as a fair reading of what I've said so far in this thread. First, I think it's been made completely clear that "transitional periods" and the dictatorship of the proletariat, prior to communism, are not inextricable concepts, the main question being the degree to which the modes of production can overlap. Moreover, questioning Lenin's legacy - and believe it or not, I haven't completely dismissed him at all - is not the same as "communism or bust." The main question, for me, is whether or not Lenin believed that the world revolution had failed, and if he did - and I believe that he did, although I'm not sure I could make a convincing argument for it - why he would continue to insist that it was possible to build socialism in Russia.

Why would I say that? What victories, in terms of the class line, did any of those theories help workers to advance or secure?

Can you define further what exactly you mean by "the class line" and how the Bolsheviks approached your conception of it differently from, say, Mao? Again, this is not a rhetorical or argumentative question; I'm just asking so I know what you're specifically looking for in a response.

Theories don't make socialist revolutions, synthesis. Workers do. Saying that the global revolution failed, then trying to somehow attribute that to Lenin's theories in Russia, where they actually did help workers to pull off a socialist revolution (that was eventually roll backed), cannot possibly make sense to even a person as committed to dismissing Lenin as you are.

But this doesn't make sense. If theories don't make revolutions - which I absolutely agree with - then why does it matter whether or not Lenin's theories are rejected? How can you say that theories don't matter in terms of the world revolution, but that they do matter in terms of what happened in Russia?

In Germany, which was the critical arena for the European theater of the workers' struggle, a revolutionary situation developed, but its potential was never realized precisely because the German SPD was wedded to a completely different understanding of party-building and the relationship between theory and practice than the BOlsheviks, under Lenin's theory, were. I would wager that if Rosa Luxemburg and the communists had broken earlier from the SPD and drawn clearer lines earlier, the German Revolution, and indeed world history, might have turned out quite differently.

I think I'd need to read a bit more about this hypothesis before I could respond to it properly.

Five Year Plan

30th March 2014, 03:07

First off, I'll answer a question you asked earlier and stipulate that yes, I do think that the October Revolution and Bolshevism are two very different topics of historical discussion. The Soviets were genuine mechanisms of working class power, but a significant faction of the the Bolshevik elite was composed of petit-bourgeois professional revolutionaries who continued to claim that Russia was a bastion of socialism long after the world revolution had clearly failed. So, yes, the October Revolution was a step forward; the Bolsheviks' exploitation of the subsequent circumstances was not.

The topics of Bolshevism and October are analytically distinct, but inseparable. Without the Bolsheviks, October doesn't happen. This is why bourgeois historians and even some anarchists and left-communists love to wax poetic about how the October Revolution was really a coup by middle-class "professional revolutionaries." The question of whether they are right or not is one we can discuss and debate, if you'd like, but the point that needs to be emphasized here is that the Soviets represented a threat to the bourgeois state under the control of the provisional government. The working class was growing ever confident and placing on the state demands that the bourgeoisie and its ruling representatives could not and would not deliver. What is to be done in such a situation?

Lenin's answer was that you had to look at the objective situation. What he and other Bolsheviks saw was a working class that, by and large, was politically (in terms of its activity) pushing past the bourgeois state in a way that would translate into mass support for overthrowing Kerensky government if the step were taken. Yet the working class was, still wedded to modes of political expression that preceded the new experiences of the soviets. Its activity presupposed revolution, and Lenin recognized this. He and others within the party advocated the overthrow of Kerensky because they understood that the purpose of the revolutionary party was (and is) to act as the most advanced conscious practical expression of the working class struggle against capitalism. And that through the activity of that party, in conjunction with the non-party workers, the advanced workers raise the consciousness and modes of expression of those less advanced workers. The raising of consciousness doesn't occur spontaneously through political struggle, but neither does the party simply implant it in the minds of the workers. The revolutionary party of the advanced workers gives expression to the underlying logic of what the workers en masse are doing, which in turn pushes the workers forward even more by awakening their consciousness to new possibilities and ways of viewing their line of march. That is the backbone of Lenin's understanding of the party.

You say "the Bolshevik elite was composed of petit-bourgeois professional revolutionaries who continued to claim that Russia was a bastion of socialism long after the world revolution had clearly failed." In the way you phrase this ("continued to believe...") you are implying the Stalinist historical myth that the Bolsheviks believed that socialism was possible in one country well before the bureaucratization of the party and the ascension of Stalin to general secretary. You won't find any evidence that any Bolshevik argued that socialism was possible in a single country before Stalin announced this "amendment" to Bolshevism, which just happened to coincide in a period when the ruling apparatus needed to justify the importance of its continued domestic political role after the world revolution was no longer a likelihood. "Support us so we can stay in a holding pattern!" doesn't exactly rally the troops, does it?

I don't see how you could possibly see this as a fair reading of what I've said so far in this thread. First, I think it's been made completely clear that "transitional periods" and the dictatorship of the proletariat, prior to communism, are not inextricable concepts, the main question being the degree to which the modes of production can overlap. Moreover, questioning Lenin's legacy - and believe it or not, I haven't completely dismissed him at all - is not the same as "communism or bust." The main question, for me, is whether or not Lenin believed that the world revolution had failed, and if he did - and I believe that he did, although I'm not sure I could make a convincing argument for it - why he would continue to insist that it was possible to build socialism in Russia.Since you've conceded that October was a step forward, and that the socialist revolution is a multi-step global process of transition, I don't see the need to dispute anything you've said here.

Can you define further what exactly you mean by "the class line" and how the Bolsheviks approached your conception of it differently from, say, Mao? Again, this is not a rhetorical or argumentative question; I'm just asking so I know what you're specifically looking for in a response.You have a bad habit of trying to tailor your answers to please people. Just interpret my questions however you deem best, and give the answer you think is accurate. If I think you misinterpreted the question, I'll say so, and reword.

What I mean by the class line is, what has Maoism or Focoism or any of those other theories enabled the working class to do to advance beyond a society under the authority of a capitalist ruling class? When has that line, so important to revolutionaries, been broken by workers and parties adhering to those theories?

But this doesn't make sense. If theories don't make revolutions - which I absolutely agree with - then why does it matter whether or not Lenin's theories are rejected? How can you say that theories don't matter in terms of the world revolution, but that they do matter in terms of what happened in Russia?Theories by themselves don't make revolutions, so you can have great theories cooked up in your head, but in the absence of a revolutionary working class struggling with them in mind, nothing will come of it. Yet in order to have a socialist revolution, you need the right revolutionary theory. Socialist revolutions aren't going to happen accidentally by workers who are pissed, but think that capitalism and its state can still be mended into a progressive force.

My point was that in Germany, which was the decisive theater for world revolution, Leninist ideas of party building and political practice were rejected. To blame the failure of world revolution on Leninism, which were the guiding ideas for workers who actually pulled off a revolution in Russia, makes no sense whatsoever.

synthesis

30th March 2014, 17:31

I'm gonna respond to your post backwards, because fuck it why not.

My point was that in Germany, which was the decisive theater for world revolution, Leninist ideas of party building and political practice were rejected. To blame the failure of world revolution on Leninism, which were the guiding ideas for workers who actually pulled off a revolution in Russia, makes no sense whatsoever.

Nobody blames Lenin or Leninism for the failure of the world revolution. That would, indeed, make no sense. Where it becomes open to criticism is when it provides the basis for denying that the failure of the world revolution makes any difference with regards to building socialism in Russia.

You have a bad habit of trying to tailor your answers to please people. Just interpret my questions however you deem best, and give the answer you think is accurate. If I think you misinterpreted the question, I'll say so, and reword.

I can't stand - and I don't think you do this, but I'm just saying, I can't stand when someone asks a question, I write an extensive response and they say, "That's not at all what I'm talking about!" It's a lot easier just to ask people to clarify what they mean beforehand. If it seems like I'm "trying to please people," it's because I find that's the best way to frame these requests for specificity.

What I mean by the class line is, what has Maoism or Focoism or any of those other theories enabled the working class to do to advance beyond a society under the authority of a capitalist ruling class?

Nothing, from where I'm standing, that isn't also applicable to Leninism. They are both equally valid when attempting to build socialism in isolation from the world revolution. In fact that is Lenin's primary contribution, historically speaking. Lenin, as you acknowledge, had no success in achieving the world revolution, and so is not immediately relevant to the question of "the working class advancing beyond a society under the authority of a capitalist ruling class."

Lenin's answer was that you had to look at the objective situation. What he and other Bolsheviks saw was a working class that, by and large, was politically (in terms of its activity) pushing past the bourgeois state in a way that would translate into mass support for overthrowing Kerensky government if the step were taken. Yet the working class was, still wedded to modes of political expression that preceded the new experiences of the soviets. Its activity presupposed revolution, and Lenin recognized this. He and others within the party advocated the overthrow of Kerensky because they understood that the purpose of the revolutionary party was (and is) to act as the most advanced conscious practical expression of the working class struggle against capitalism. And that through the activity of that party, in conjunction with the non-party workers, the advanced workers raise the consciousness and modes of expression of those less advanced workers. The raising of consciousness doesn't occur spontaneously through political struggle, but neither does the party simply implant it in the minds of the workers. The revolutionary party of the advanced workers gives expression to the underlying logic of what the workers en masse are doing, which in turn pushes the workers forward even more by awakening their consciousness to new possibilities and ways of viewing their line of march. That is the backbone of Lenin's understanding of the party.

Your extensive response regarding Lenin's theoretical contributions is appreciated and illuminating, but where is the international working class in all of this?

You say "the Bolshevik elite was composed of petit-bourgeois professional revolutionaries who continued to claim that Russia was a bastion of socialism long after the world revolution had clearly failed." In the way you phrase this ("continued to believe...") you are implying the Stalinist historical myth that the Bolsheviks believed that socialism was possible in one country well before the bureaucratization of the party and the ascension of Stalin to general secretary.

You won't find any evidence that any Bolshevik argued that socialism was possible in a single country before Stalin announced this "amendment" to Bolshevism, which just happened to coincide in a period when the ruling apparatus needed to justify the importance of its continued domestic political role after the world revolution was no longer a likelihood. "Support us so we can stay in a holding pattern!" doesn't exactly rally the troops, does it?

Again, I've found evidence that is satisfactory to me, but I think is a waste of time debating, because of the subjectivity of his words. I think it's beyond question that Lenin recognized that the world revolution had failed by 1921 at the earliest and 1923 at the latest, but I don't know if it's something I'll be able to argue with people who are already skilled at defending their interpretation of Lenin in discussions with Marxist-Leninists.

Five Year Plan

31st March 2014, 16:33

Nobody blames Lenin or Leninism for the failure of the world revolution. That would, indeed, make no sense. Where it becomes open to criticism is when it provides the basis for denying that the failure of the world revolution makes any difference with regards to building socialism in Russia.

You are again presupposing that Lenin (and anything that might lay honest claim to the title "Leninism") would deny or reject "that the failure of world revolution makes any difference to the building of socialism in Russia." Lenin clearly thought that the world revolution would be decisive, saying in 1921: "It was clear to us that without the support of the international world revolution the victory of the proletarian revolution was impossible. Before the revolution, and even after it, we thought: either revolution breaks out in the other countries, in the capitalistically more developed countries, immediately, or at least very quickly, or we must perish." Lenin then goes on to say that all hope isn't lost, despite the fact that the revolution hadn't materialized, because the far more powerful imperialist powers had not yet managed to roll back the revolutionary gains in Russia. He then proceeds to offer suggestions appropriate to the present juncture for sparking revolution in Europe by spreading the revolution to the Global South, because he still recognizes that the crucial issue for establishing socialism in any part of the world is workers' revolution in Europe. So go ahead and fault the thoroughly bureaucratized party that betrayed the fundamental ideas of Leninism while still laying claim to them for not recognizing this once universally accepted fact. But please don't lay it at the feet of "Leninism."

Nothing, from where I'm standing, that isn't also applicable to Leninism. They are both equally valid when attempting to build socialism in isolation from the world revolution. In fact that is Lenin's primary contribution, historically speaking. Lenin, as you acknowledge, had no success in achieving the world revolution, and so is not immediately relevant to the question of "the working class advancing beyond a society under the authority of a capitalist ruling class."You are confusing two separate question. For a period of time, there was a society in Russia where workers had ousted capitalists from the position of political supremacy. Just because the European revolution floundered, leaving the working class in Russia hanging, doesn't mean that the Russian class had no managed to do exactly what I said: It "advanced beyond a society under the authority of a capitalist ruling class." This was never the case with either of the other theories you mentioned. It had begun what we both acknowledge must be a global multi-step process, even if that process did not carry over successfully throughout the rest of the globe. What you keep doing is paying lip-service to the fact that there is a multi-step process, but then trying to erase the successful steps just because the conclusion wasn't reached.

Your extensive response regarding Lenin's theoretical contributions is appreciated and illuminating, but where is the international working class in all of this?The extensive response was meant to explain how Lenin's ideas on the revolutionary party were essential to the October Revolution, which you admit was some kind of positive victory for the working class. The international working class does not come up in that particular passage, because the international working class did not make the October Revolution. The Russian working class did, precisely because it was working with a revolutionary leadership that had drawn clear class lines and understood how the issues of working-class political organization relate to the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie.

Again, I've found evidence that is satisfactory to me, but I think is a waste of time debating, because of the subjectivity of his words. I think it's beyond question that Lenin recognized that the world revolution had failed by 1921 at the earliest and 1923 at the latest, but I don't know if it's something I'll be able to argue with people who are already skilled at defending their interpretation of Lenin in discussions with Marxist-Leninists.And this evidence is...? Note the quote of Lenin's I provided above. It's not a whispered secret to his private diary. It was from a speech Lenin gave to the Third Congress of the Communist International in 1921. Read a transcript of the proceedings. Lenin's claim about the necessity of world revolution did not raise a single challenge or protest. At the time, before the profound degeneration of the Bolsheviks and the revolution prompted massive rewriting to the traditions of Marxism and the party's relationship to it, his claim was simply common sense.

synthesis

31st March 2014, 23:12

It had begun what we both acknowledge must be a global multi-step process, even if that process did not carry over successfully throughout the rest of the globe. What you keep doing is paying lip-service to the fact that there is a multi-step process, but then trying to erase the successful steps just because the conclusion wasn't reached.

I'll have to think about this. You make a persuasive case, but at times I feel like I'm a Buddhist (or Christian/atheist whatever) debating Muhammad and the Koran with a Shiite who has already been debating the subject with Sunnis for years. I don't accept that you're right about Lenin, not yet, but I recognize your proficiency in the subject.

Sentinel

31st March 2014, 23:48

Diversion centered on Stalin's views on Trotskyism trashed; let's try to stay on topic, shall we.

Five Year Plan

1st April 2014, 00:09

I'll have to think about this. You make a persuasive case, but at times I feel like I'm a Buddhist (or Christian/atheist whatever) debating Muhammad and the Koran with a Shiite who has already been debating the subject with Sunnis for years. I don't accept that you're right about Lenin, not yet, but I recognize your proficiency in the subject.

The feeling you have is understandable. Where Trotskyism (or Marxism, for that matter) is similar to the religions you mention is that they are both traditions that contain a lot of debates over ideas that are central to human existence. To say that there's a lot to keep up with is a gross understatement. There's a definite sense of "What the HELL is this weird shit?" that it is easy to come away with if you haven't devoted a lot of time to the topic before. The difference, and I hope you'll understand this as you explore the debates within and around Leninism/Trotskyism more, is that the latter is a critical tradition that emphasizes method of analysis over 'legal precedence' of the kind you might find in a law court or mosque. Just because something was appropriate or understandable for 1910 does not necessarily mean it's appropriate or understandable for 2010.

synthesis

1st April 2014, 00:26

The feeling you have is understandable. Where Trotskyism (or Marxism, for that matter) is similar to the religions you mention is that they are both traditions that contain a lot of debates over ideas that are central to human existence. To say that there's a lot to keep up with is a gross understatement. There's a definite sense of "What the HELL is this weird shit?" that it is easy to come away with if you haven't devoted a lot of time to the topic before. The difference, and I hope you'll understand this as you explore the debates within and around Leninism/Trotskyism more, is that the latter is a critical tradition that emphasizes method of analysis over 'legal precedence' of the kind you might find in a law court or mosque. Just because something was appropriate or understandable for 1910 does not necessarily mean it's appropriate or understandable for 2010.

I just meant that, like a Shiite defending his or her take on the Koran from Sunni theologians, as a Trotskyist you've most likely had practice defending your interpretation of Lenin from Marxist-Leninists and/or Maoists.

So in the same way that a Buddhist or Christian might not have the same base of experience when debating the Koran with that Shiite, I have a lot less base of experience defending my interpretation of Lenin in these matters. That doesn't mean my argument is wrong, but it does mean that I'm probably not ready to properly debate the subject yet, as I can't truly concede the point without feeling like I've shortchanged my end of the debate.