Did Lenin stray from the people?

[symtoms_of_humanity]

My question is did Lenin stray from the people during his "reign" as first dictator, he seems to have to me, but i hear mixed reports. Help clear up

[More Fire for the People]

Lenin was always a true leader of the people while leader of the Soviet Russia, and Lenin was not a dictator.
He was elected upon the basis of democratic centralism. Even if he was not directly elected, he still attained power legitimately and didn't not rule with an iron fist.

[LSD]

Lenin was a dictator.

His own party affirmed his rule with no public accounting or even transparancy, he was never accountable to the people, never held elections or even a plebiscide on his leadership.

Whatever you think of him or his policies, denying that he was a dictotor is ludicrous.


He was elected upon the basis of democratic centralism.

:lol:

You mean the Bolsheviks got together and decided that their supreme leader should rule Russia?

Demoractic my achin' ass!


Even if he was not directly elected,

How about not elected at all.


he still attained power legitimately

What the hell does that even mean?

What's "legitimate" attainment of power?

Lenin and the Bolshviks led a revolution against the provisional government, when they did that "legitimacy", in a legal sense, went out the window.

All that matters is that Lenin's rule was never accountable. The people had no choice.


and didn't not rule with an iron fist.

Not unless you consider absolute centralization, authoritarianism, suppression, intimidation, secret police, martial law, the crushing of trade unions, destruction of worker control, and total state authority "iron fisted".

Oh wait...

[Hiero]

Lenin and the Bolshviks led a revolution against the provisional government, when they did that "legitimacy", in a legal sense, went out the window.

You support the Provisional Government?

[LSD]

You support the Provisional Government?

Not at all. My point was just that in the context of a revolution, "attaining power legitimately" is a meaningless concept.

[Hiero]

Originally posted by Lysergic Acid [email protected] 24 2005, 02:55 PM

You support the Provisional Government?

Not at all. My point was just that in the context of a revolution, "attaining power legitimately" is a meaningless concept.
Oh ok i get you.

I think what Rotmutter point was that Lenin attained leadership of the party legitimately.

[symtoms_of_humanity]

But isn't even claiming to be a leader in Communism an oxymoron, and shouldn't the people have know that sience so much lit. was coming into the country before the Revolution

[Enragé]

he wasnt a leader in communism, he was a leader in socialism.

Lenin did all he could, seriously, the reason his regime was sometimes oppressive was because of foreign interventions, the tzarists etc etc, and after the civil war, the proletariat was decimated and the country in ruins...what could he have done differently?

Perhaps you can compare him to Michael Collins, an irish freedom fighter...but in order to keep Ireland free after liberating it..he had to fight his former brethren in the Irish Civil War...if he wouldnt have done that, it is doubtful the Irish Republic would exist today.

PS: i am NOT comparing the politics of both men, just the fact that they had to make difficult decisions in difficult times to secure what they fought for.

[workersunity]

well i dont know about you, but i call getting power by a revolution, legitimate

[resisting arrest with violence]

Lenin did not follow the left-libertarian principles he set forth in his book The State and Revolution. He destroyed the popular forces that had sprung up all over Russia--- these were anarchist/left-libertarian forces. What he did put in place was an inefficient monstrosity that was pretty much against socialism. The USSR did not help Chile in 1973 or did not send those badly needed MIGs to Nicaragua in the 1980s.

[YKTMX]

The USSR did not help Chile in 1973 or did not send those badly needed MIGs to Nicaragua in the 1980s.


Yeah! What sort of "socialist" doesn't direct policy 60 years after their death. Tsssk.

Now, to LSD, who as ever, is more lucid but just as hysterical.


His own party affirmed his rule with no public accounting or even transparancy

Notice the almost flagrant use of bourgeois terms to attack the Bolsheviks. What does "public accounting" mean? The Bolsheviks only led the revolutionary government because they had led the workers' revolution and had a majority in the Soviets. The "public" is such a vague Liberal euphimism that I'm suprised LSD even deployed it seriously. Are Kornilov and the rest of them part of this "public"? I wonder.

Transparency? Again, a meaningless phrase. What is the role of transparency in the misdst of civil war and imperialist invasion? The answer is none. What is the role in an open socialist democracy like the one Lenin and the Bolsheviks were seeking to create? A very big one.


You mean the Bolsheviks got together and decided that their supreme leader should rule Russia?


Ah, a typical liberal response. Only leaders "voted" in can be legitimate. A disdain for any idea of popular consent, proletarian democracy, or any sense of class power and the revolutionary state. No, for LSD, it all boils down to "oh, but he wasn't voted in like Hitler or George Bush". Nonsense.


Lenin and the Bolshviks led a revolution against the provisional government, when they did that "legitimacy", in a legal sense, went out the window.

Worrying. The provisional government was widely despised and the October Revolution was a great victory for the working class. The idea that the PG was more legitimate than Soviet power is just baffling.


All that matters is that Lenin's rule was never accountable. The people had no choice.


No, there was a choice. They could have had the continuation of the war followed by a military dictatorship by a sub-Nazi aristocracy or they could have Soviet Power and Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Or they could put Makhno in charge... :lol:


Not unless you consider absolute centralization, authoritarianism, suppression, intimidation, secret police, martial law, the crushing of trade unions, destruction of worker control, and total state authority "iron fisted".



You obviously are trying to advance a capitulationist (Anarchist) analysis of the events, whereby history is reduced to a kind of post-modernist mess whereby Lenin did this, and then the Bolsheviks did that and then the CC decided this.

It's like saying that in 1916, a load of German and French guys got together on a field and started knocking the shit out of each other for no reason.

[Andy Bowden]

My understanding is that the Bolsheviks got a majority of votes in the Soviets, but lost in the constituent assembly to the Social Revolutionaries - who were in reality several different factional organisations, left SR's, right SR's etc - while the Bolsheviks were a fairly united party.

[symtoms_of_humanity]

I've only read vaugly about Mahanko(sp) and i know he was an anarchist military leader, what would have been bad about him, would he not have led the social revolution because he had an army of revolutionaries, and fought both the whites and reds

[LSD]

Notice the almost flagrant use of bourgeois terms to attack the Bolsheviks. What does "public accounting" mean?

It means beaing accountable to the people.


The "public" is such a vague Liberal euphimism that I'm suprised LSD even deployed it seriously.

"liberal euphimism"? :lol:

Public = people.

Simple enough, no?


Transparency? Again, a meaningless phrase. What is the role of transparency in the misdst of civil war and imperialist invasion?

Essential.

It's in times of "emergency" that transparancy and accountability are the most important, because it's in those times that leaders are the most able and the most empowered to abuse their positions.

There's a reason that Hitler had to wait until the 27th of February, there's a reason that Bush had to wait until the 11th September.

Once you give up control in "times of strife", you rarely get them back in times of peace.


What is the role in an open socialist democracy like the one Lenin and the Bolsheviks were seeking to create? A very big one.

Yeah, how'd that work out again?


Ah, a typical liberal response. Only leaders "voted" in can be legitimate. A disdain for any idea of popular consent,

What exactly does "popular consent" mean in a context in which the people have no consent? How can the people consent to policies or leaderhsip when they have no means of communicating their consent or lack therof?

I mean, Christ, even Hitler used a plebiscide to effect the appearance of "consent". The bolsheviks didn't even try!


proletarian democracy,

Well, here's a particular beauty.

"Proletarian democracy" is a wonderful Leninist phrase in which "proletarian" means not.


or any sense of class power and the revolutionary state.

And that means ...what?

Centralization of power? Concentration of authority?

How is "class power" expressed in the creation of a new class elite or in the empowering of an accountless state?

Claiming that I'm somehow "misunderstanding" the nature of "class power" or of the "revolutionary state" is an easy way to avoid the simple facts of history.

The Soviet Union took power away from workers. It gave all powers to the central state aparatus and then gave the people, the workers absolutely no say in how those aparatus were run!

It doesn't matter in whose name the CC or the Bolsheviks or Lenin claimed they were acting, the facts remain that the USSR did not empower workers. It merely replaced their bourgeois bosses with government bosses.

Which, I'll admit, was better for many of them. But better is not socialist!


Worrying. The provisional government was widely despised and the October Revolution was a great victory for the working class. The idea that the PG was more legitimate than Soviet power is just baffling.

I didn't say that the provisional government was legitimate, just that in the context of a revolution there is no such thing as legal legitimacy.

All that matters is whether or not the "leader" is actually responsible to the people. Party politics and bureaucratic ranglings are irrelevent.


You obviously are trying to advance a capitulationist (Anarchist) analysis of the events, whereby history is reduced to a kind of post-modernist mess whereby Lenin did this, and then the Bolsheviks did that and then the CC decided this.

Not at all.

It's more like Lenin did this, and then the Bolsheviks ...did the same thing.


No, there was a choice. They could have had the continuation of the war followed by a military dictatorship by a sub-Nazi aristocracy or they could have Soviet Power and Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

One or the other, eh?

:lol:

[Enragé]

Originally posted by resisting arrest with [email protected] 25 2005, 02:57 PM
Lenin did not follow the left-libertarian principles he set forth in his book The State and Revolution. He destroyed the popular forces that had sprung up all over Russia--- these were anarchist/left-libertarian forces. What he did put in place was an inefficient monstrosity that was pretty much against socialism. The USSR did not help Chile in 1973 or did not send those badly needed MIGs to Nicaragua in the 1980s.
he had no choice.

and anything after 1924 has nothing to do with Lenin himself anymore.

[LSD]

he had no choice.

Of course he did. He could have actually given workers genuine power. He could have, for instance, given the proletariat control over the means of production.

He didn't.


and anything after 1924 has nothing to do with Lenin himself anymore.

No, of course not.

But there's plenty from before '24 which shows just how authoritarian Lenin was.

[Enragé]

Of course he did. He could have actually given workers genuine power. He could have, for instance, given the proletariat control over the means of production.


tzarists, foreign interventions, civil war, economic blockades etc etc. Lenin did not want to be authoritarian, but in order to protect the revolution...he simply had to. His methods might be open for discussion, the reason why he did it however is not: he wanted to create a better future, not an authoritarian one.

[LSD]

tzarists, foreign interventions, civil war, economic blockades etc etc

And this prevented him from giving the workers actual power ...how?

There are ways to fight a war, even a civil war, that do not do what the "Red Terror" and "War Communism" did.

Besides, the war was over by '22. Did Lenin loosen the political system? Did he introduce public accountability or governmental transparancy?

Did he introduce any democratic reforms?

No, wait, he introduced capitalism... way to go. <_<


His methods might be open for discussion

Damn straight&#33;


he wanted to create a better future, not an authoritarian one.

The problem is, I don&#39;t think he saw those two as contradictory.

I think he genuinely believed that he could achieve a "better future" through authoritarianism.

We all know how that&#39;s always turned out.

[violencia.Proletariat]

i agree with lsd on this one.

[Enragé]

And this prevented him from giving the workers actual power ...how?

There are ways to fight a war, even a civil war, that do not do what the "Red Terror" and "War Communism" did.

Besides, the war was over by &#39;22. Did Lenin loosen the political system? Did he introduce public accountability or governmental transparancy?

Did he introduce any democratic reforms?

No, wait, he introduced capitalism... way to go

In a war, democracy is hard to introduce, why do you think armies are led? You dont want to have 3 hours of discussion if you are defending your city.

After the revolution the proletariat was decimated. And as i said before his methods might&#39;ve been wrong but he wasnt authoritarian at heart

While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.
-Lenin

is that something an authoritarian would say?

or this:

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.
-Lenin

[spartafc]

there are clear logical reasons for not giving full "transparent", "democratic" powers to those that threaten the socialist state during a period of war.

[LSD]

is that something an authoritarian would say?

Clearly, as it was an authoritarian that said it. :lol:

Look, we can&#39;t rely upon words and rhetoric and books to judge historical figures. Yeah, they&#39;re important, but they&#39;re often quite misleading.

Hitler labled himself as a socialist, Bush labeled himself a "compassionate conservative". What matters is what they did.

And what Lenin did was centralize authority to himself and to his party. Whatever his long-term "intentions", it is quite clear that he believed that authoritarianism was a way to achieve them.


there are clear logical reasons for not giving full "transparent", "democratic" powers to those that threaten the socialist state

How about giving them to anyone?

This isn&#39;t about restricting "reactionaries" or arresting "counterrevolutionaries", it&#39;s about complete centralization. The USSR wasn&#39;t accountable to anyone but its own bureaucratic aristocracy. The workers, the people, the proletariat had absolutely no say in anything.

That isn&#39;t democracy, it isn&#39;t transparancy, and it isn&#39;t socialism.


during a period of war

The war ended in &#39;22, so did democracy come then?

No.

[Enragé]

after 22 the country was in ruins. Before the civil war lenin worked alongside the soviets (councils). Im not saying he didnt make mistakes by centralizing power, im saying it might have been the only way to defeat the tzarists and after the war build up the country.

[LSD]

after 22 the country was in ruins.

...and?

Is war-damage an excuse for authoritarianism?


Before the civil war lenin worked alongside the soviets (councils).

No he didn&#39;t.

He worked with those who were willing to accept his personal unchallanged leadership, but he was never willing to tolerate dissent let alone actual worker control over the means of production.


Im not saying he didnt make mistakes by centralizing power, im saying it might have been the only way to defeat the tzarists

Might have been ...but probably wasn&#39;t.


and after the war build up the country.

And what does "build up the country" mean?

Introduce capitalism?
Strengthen the army?
Repaint the Kremlin?

Communism is not about "countries", it&#39;s about people and the people were not helped by having their rights and freedoms stripped, their labour exploited, and their power demolished.

Lenin may have improved Russia&#39;s "GDP", but he didn&#39;t actually help the workers. I can honestly say I really don&#39;t care how "built up" my country when I&#39;m starving.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 02:52 PM


In a war, democracy is hard to introduce, why do you think armies are led? You dont want to have 3 hours of discussion if you are defending your city.


yeah have you ever heard of officers elected by their soldiers in militias?

[Enragé]

...and?

Is war-damage an excuse for authoritarianism?


no but its a reason for it existing. Dictators dont always have to be a bad thing, the ancient greeks knew this, and thus in times of emergency named a Tyrannos, to for example end famine or win a war, after it this Tyrannos would resign. I am not defending authoritarianism, it disgusts me and should be prevented at all costs, but we should also never shut our minds to the necessity it sometimes perhaps has in times of emergency. Ideally authoritarianism would never have a reason to come to be after a revolution, though sometimes situations might call for it...though everything should be done to prevent this.


I can honestly say I really don&#39;t care how "built up" my country when I&#39;m starving.


exactly, thats the point, and lenin tried to stop ppl from starving.


yeah have you ever heard of officers elected by their soldiers in militias?

yes and i wasnt talking about that. Regardless of the fact if the leader has been chosen, when shit hits the fan the militia is expected to follow the orders of the leader.

[LSD]

Dictators dont always have to be a bad thing

Yes they do.


Ideally authoritarianism would never have a reason to come to be after a revolution, though sometimes situations might call for it

No, no more than situations "call" for slavery.

But all of this is irrelevent.

The question was whether or not Lenin was a dictator. Whatever his justification or your rationalizations, it seems that neither of us is arguing this point.

Of course he was a dictator&#33;


exactly, thats the point, and lenin tried to stop ppl from starving.

No, he tried to "build up the country".

He abandoned fundamental principles of communism in favour of centralized planning and government bureacracy.

Again, did some people do better? Of course.
But was it communist? No.

It wasn&#39;t communist, it wasn&#39;t socialist, it wasn&#39;t "on the road" towards communism or socialism. It was plain and simple authoritarian state-capitalism with a little bit of social welfare and a lot of rhetoric.

[Enragé]

Yes they do.


simply not true, if the single ruler is a good man, then it can be beneficial. A period of great cultural progress came to be when in a time of distress Athenians elected a tyrannos to rule them for a set amount of years, its a historical fact.


The question was whether or not Lenin was a dictator. Whatever his justification or your rationalizations, it seems that neither of us is arguing this point.


Alright than he was a dictator, never claimed he wasnt, but he did it for the people, in whatever fucked up way, and at heart he was no authoritarian.

Now to the core of all this, why are we having this argument? Because you dont want a dictator to arise ever again after a revolution, well neither do I, so we agree. Moaning on and on about Lenin being or not being a dictator only creates divisions in the left, which make no sense because practicly, in the future, we want the same: no dictators.

ok.

[workersunity]

He was at his best around 1907, and when he wrote "what is to be done" and actually state and revolution, called for a small party, so somewhere along the way, it went out of proportion, and lenin became the leader of the soviet union, very big mistake on his part

[YKTMX]

"liberal euphimism"?

Public = people.

Simple enough, no?


Yeah, it&#39;s too simple for your own good. I&#39;m not interested in what the Russian "public" wanted. I&#39;m interested in what the Russian workers wanted, I couldn&#39;t give a shit about the "people".


Once you give up control in "times of strife"

Strife? I&#39;ve heard civil war and famine be called lots of thing but never "strife".


Yeah, how&#39;d that work out again?


I&#39;m trying to explain it to you now, so keep up.


How can the people consent to policies or leaderhsip when they have no means of communicating their consent or lack therof?


This is rubbish. How can the starving and displaced properly consent to anything? Bukharin said "we have the dictatorship of the proletariat, without the proletariat". Soviet democracy crumbled because the working class in Russia ceased to be. Now, the question is, what do you do when that happens? LSD presumably believes the Bolsheviks should have let state power go or that they should have subjected themselves to the whims of the greedy peasantry? This isn&#39;t a viable position for Marxists. It&#39;s liberalism masquerading as radicalism which is, of course, at the root of all anarchism.

You see, for LSD and other idealists, "democracy" is just as possible in plague ridden dungeons as it is in modern capitalist states.

[LSD]

Yeah, it&#39;s too simple for your own good. I&#39;m not interested in what the Russian "public" wanted. I&#39;m interested in what the Russian workers wanted

You may be, but the Bolsheviks clearly weren&#39;t.

If they were, they would have actually freed them and not merely replaced their capitalist bosses with bureaucratic ones.


I couldn&#39;t give a shit about the "people".

Obviously. <_<


Strife? I&#39;ve heard civil war and famine be called lots of thing but never "strife".

It&#39;s called a dictionary, use it.

"Strife n. 1. Heated, often violent dissension; bitter conflict"

Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=strife)


This is rubbish. How can the starving and displaced properly consent to anything?

Wait a minute, a second ago you were criticizing me for "a disdain for any idea of popular consent". Now you deny that there ever was any "popular consent".

Which one was it?


LSD presumably believes the Bolsheviks should have let state power go or that they should have subjected themselves to the whims of the greedy peasantry?

Yes, they should have let state power go.

They should have allowed worker control over the means of production and allowed them to decide where they went from there.


You see, for LSD and other idealists, "democracy" is just as possible in plague ridden dungeons as it is in modern capitalist states.

But it isn&#39;t possible in modern capitalist states, not in any meaningful way, capitalism prevents that.

As to whether or not it&#39;s attainable in the third world, I don&#39;t know. I do know, however, what comes of turning over "supreme powers" to authoritarian hegemonic parties:

The USSR, the PRC, the DPRK...


It&#39;s liberalism masquerading as radicalism which is, of course, at the root of all anarchism.

As opposed to authoritarianism masquerading as communism, which is, of course, at the root of all Leninism?

...or how about we lay off the insults and stick to arguing the points?

[YKTMX]

You may be, but the Bolsheviks clearly weren&#39;t.


That&#39;s not clear at all.


If they were, they would have actually freed them and not merely replaced their capitalist bosses with bureaucratic ones.


The Russian workers freed themselves, and the few precious months after the revolution and before the worst of the counter-revolution were the greatest in human history so far. :)


Obviously.

I&#39;m glad that&#39;s sorted.


Wait a minute, a second ago you were criticizing me for "a disdain for any idea of popular consent". Now you deny that there ever was any "popular consent".


Your contention was that Lenin and the Bolsheviks weren&#39;t legitimate because they weren&#39;t subject to "elections". This showed a clear disdain for workers&#39; democracy. This system survived right up until the collapse of normal Russian society, though at this time, when the country is starving and busy murdering each other, you&#39;re still shouting for "elections" - patently ridicilous. Therefore, you show both a disdain for consent in the first instance and a ridicilous idealism in the second, both of which are hateful positions. Geddit?


They should have allowed worker control over the means of production and allowed popular decisions on where they went from there.



Yes, I think down the toilet would have been the most likely destination.


But it isn&#39;t possible in modern capitalist states, not in any meaningful way, capitalism prevents that.


I&#39;m talking about bourgeois democracy. You know what I mean; elections, "public accoutability", transparancy - all that stuff you like.

[LSD]

The Russian workers freed themselves, and the few precious months after the revolution and before the worst of the counter-revolution were the greatest in human history so far.

Absolutely untrue.

As soon as the Bolsheviks were in control they began to usurp worker control. They placed themselves firmly in command of industry and production and subjugated the workers under managers and political appointees.

If the workers had actually been left alone, all indications are that true worker control would have developed. Certainly the ground work was there since before the revolution. Unforuntely, the Bolsheviks did not consider true proletarian control over the means of production to be in their interests.

""During the transitional period one had to accept the negative aspects of workers&#39; control. which was just a method of struggle between capital and labour. But once power had passed into the hands of the proletariat the practice of the Factory Committees of acting as if they owned the factories became anti-proletarian." - Pankratova (Bolshevik)

"The tasks of the trade unions and of the Soviet power is the isolation of the bourgeois elements who lead strikes and sabotage, but this isolation should not be achieved merely by mechanical means. by arrests, by shipping to the front or by deprivation of bread cards". "Preliminary censorship, the destruction of newspapers, the annihilation of freedom of agitation for the socialist and democratic parties is for us absolutely inadmissible. The closing of the news papers, violence against strikers, etc., irritated open wounds. There has been too much of this type of &#39;action&#39; recently in the memory of the Russian toiling masses and this can lead to an analogy deadly to the Soviet power" - Lozovsky (Bolshevik)

The Bolsheviks tried to create a workers&#39; state in which the workers had no power. Is it any wonder that it turned out badly?

Read this (http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html)


Your contention was that Lenin and the Bolsheviks weren&#39;t legitimate because they weren&#39;t subject to "elections"

My contention is that they weren&#39;t legitimate because they weren&#39;t subject to any accountability.

Lack of elections are the least of my problems.

The Bolsheviks simply declared themselves to be the representatives of the proletariat with absolutely no mechanism of ensuring that they were actually acting in accordance with their wishes. In fact, most of time the time they acted directly contrary to them.

Centralization, oppression, suppression, siezure of control, crack downs on trade unions, etc..

In the early years, the Bolsheviks spent as much time keeping down the proletariat as they did keeping down the bouregois.


This showed a clear disdain for workers&#39; democracy.

Right ...but what does that mean&#33;?

What is "workers&#39; democracy" in the context in which there is no democracy for workers?

This is just more bizarre Leninist double-speak in which the party "speaks for" the workers, whether the actual workers agree with it or not.

Sorry, but I don&#39;t buy it.

The only real "worker democracy" is when the workers actually have a say and that means accountability, no matter how "bouregois" the idea seems to you.


This system survived right up until the collapse of normal Russian society, though at this time, when the country is starving and busy murdering each other, you&#39;re still shouting for "elections" - patently ridicilous.

Again, what I&#39;m calling for is responsibility. For the "leadership" to act in accordance with the wishes of the people or, better yet, to allow the people to rule themselves.

During the war, before the war, after the war, the Bolsheviks never allowed their dictatorial rule to be challanged. I ask again, where is the "consent" in that?


Yes, I think down the toilet would have been the most likely destination.

Hmmm, as I recall, that&#39;s precisely where they ended up.


I&#39;m talking about bourgeois democracy. You know what I mean; elections, "public accoutability", transparancy - all that stuff you like.

Do you think that putting accountability it in quotation marks makes makes it somehow less real? :lol:

Put it in quotes, call it bourgeoise, do everything but actually address the issue.

The Bolsheviks were never accountable to anyone but the Bolsheviks, and Lenin was never accountable to anyone but Lenin.

[YKTMX]

As soon as the Bolsheviks were in control they began to usurp worker control. They placed themselves firmly in command of industry and production and subjugated the workers under managers and political appointees.


All that&#39;s untrue.


The Bolsheviks simply declared themselves to be the representatives of the proletariat with absolutely no mechanism of ensuring that they were actually acting in accordance with their wishes.

The Bolehseviks only came to power because they followed and lead the workers&#39; movement. You&#39;re trying to posit an age-old anarchist theory that, yes, there was a workers&#39; revolution but the nasty Bolsheviks hijacked it. It&#39;s rubbish.

As for the quotes (no context or dates, obviously), they&#39;re meaningless. They say nothing about material circumstaces, they simply to attempt to weave some fairytale aboit tyrannical Bolsheviks - useless. History isn&#39;t a serious of quotations.

[LSD]

All that&#39;s untrue.

I would ask that you defend this assertion, but I&#39;m sure that this post was only a teaser and that actual evidence is soon to follow.

I eagerly await&#33;


The Bolehseviks only came to power because they followed and lead the workers&#39; movement.

Followed? Yes.
Lead? ...not so much.

Sure, the Bolsheviks were a part of the revolution against the provisional government, they were even an important part, but they were not the revolution itself. The revolution was the workers who, frankly, did not need Bolshevik "guidance".

But even that weren&#39;t true, even if the entire revolution was solely because of Bolshevik leadership ...so what?

Does being a good revolutionary automatically mean that one is good at government?

More importantly does it mean that one is capable of responsible government?

Even the most ardent Leninist can only credid the Bolsheviks, at most, with organizing, promoting, and managing a successful populist revolution. Again, I would disagree as to whether this is true or not, but for our hypothetical let&#39;s say that it is. In this scenario, then, the Bolsheivks were indispensible in terms of launching and sustaining the revolution. But I honestly don&#39;t see how you can contend that success in organization and management of an underground political movement is a sufficient credential to be given carte blanche to rule absolutely&#33;

Regardless of the role that Bolsheviks played in the revolution (and, again, we do disagree on this point), it has absolutely no bearing on whether or not they had the right to unaccountable centralized rule. No matter their history and no matter their intentions, a single party can never sufficiently represent an entire class or an entire people. Certainly not when there is absolutely no system of accountability put in place to assure responsible leadership&#33;

If the Bolsheviks really were the essential leaders that you claim them to be then they had a double responsibility to set up democratic institutions upon their ascenssion.

If they really were the "leaders of the revolution", then as those leaders they had a moral and practical obligation to ensure that the revolution they led did not lead to corruption and abuse.

The Bolsheviks did none of this.

They set up a government in which they ruled absolutely and without check. You mock accountability and call it "bourgeois", but it is essential for any "government", especially a socialist one&#33;

How can a state, no matter it&#39;s ideological or political bent, claim to speak in the name of the people if it does not listen to what the people actually want?

More importantly, how can the people ensure that their government has not become corrupt if they have no mechanism to replace it?

Should they have "faith"? "Faith" that their "dear leaders" won&#39;t betray their trust?

Sorry, but you can&#39;t build a society on faith or on trust that those with power will never abuse it. Ultimately, inevitable, they will. It&#39;s how power works.

The only way to keep those with power in check is to check their powers. "Faith" just doesn&#39;t cut it.


You&#39;re trying to posit an age-old anarchist theory that, yes, there was a workers&#39; revolution but the nasty Bolsheviks hijacked it.

It&#39;s significantly more complicated than that, but that&#39;s a decent quick summary.


As for the quotes (no context or dates, obviously), they&#39;re meaningless. They say nothing about material circumstaces, they simply to attempt to weave some fairytale aboit tyrannical Bolsheviks - useless. History isn&#39;t a serious of quotations.

They provide insight into the thinking of the Bolsheviks at the time.

But in terms of history, I provided a link to a detailed (not to mention academically cited) blow by blow account of what the Bolsheviks actually did upon achieving power.

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2005, 04:56 PM

As soon as the Bolsheviks were in control they began to usurp worker control. They placed themselves firmly in command of industry and production and subjugated the workers under managers and political appointees.


All that&#39;s untrue.


yes seeing how production was taken over by the government in war communism, there was strict worker discipline in which strikers could be shot