Changes in outlook/ worldview

[leftist manson]

fellow revolutionaries, just wondering how many of you had changes in outlook over the years and how did the outlook change.Like , in another thread MAKHNO claimed that he used to be an anarchist but now he is a maoist. I would like to ask the reasons for the change (not just to makhno but to anybody who had these).Again , i heard that redstar converted from being a maoist to an anarchist. How, why, when????
Can somebody share his life experiences ;)

[monkeydust]

I've found that I tend to change views either because I've just read some new idea which is appealing and seems to make sense, or because my current view of the things turns out not to apply to reality and what actually happens.

[werewolf]

Well it's pretty simple for me. I was rich one day and the next I woke up in the real world. A few years and a bunch of research later, here I am, with the experience from both sides of the fence.

[redstar2000]

Well, I was strongly attracted to the Maoist variant of Leninism back in the 1960s because (1) it seemed to be the most revolutionary version of Leninism available; and (2) it was winning.

It was experience that soured me on Maoism; actually being in a Maoist party and watching it become more conservative with the passing of time.

Around 1970 or so, I read that portion of Lenin's Collected Works published after the revolution...and realized that this was not what I wanted.

That what Leninists call "socialism" is in every significant respect indistinguishable from capitalism except for the absence of the old capitalist class.

That's shit!

Then, reading Marx "without Leninist glasses", I realized that he had something much more revolutionary in mind than Lenin ever did -- except in State and Revolution (which is something very different than Lenin ever wrote before or after).

Indeed, if the author of State and Revolution were completely unknown, it would be a very bold scholar who would attribute it to Lenin; the historical consensus would probably attribute the authorship to some anonymous Russian anarchist-communist.

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[YKTMX]

Red:

Maoism has no connection, save rhetorical and imaginary, with Leninism.

Red's own political journey, such as I understand it, is not too uncommon to be honest. He briefly flirted with dogmatic Stalinism interfaced with Chinese peasant leadership mythology, a thing not uncommon with student radicals in 60's America. As a way to purge his brief "really existing socialism" fantasies, he has since sought fit, like so many others before him, to excoriate Lenin and the Bolsheviks for his own failures, thus exempting himself from criticism i.e. you think the guys I supported were bad, look at HIM!. It is much easier to blame Lenin for Stalinism than really "get" where Stalinism came from and why one briefly fantasasies about it - a thing RS still does on this board today. Although today, it takes the guise of lamenting the loss of "gains" made under Joe and Mao.

However, to his credit, he has not become a bourgeois cynic - far from it. He has since taken flight into the heady skies of anarchism, finally washing himself clean of the "Leninist disease" - which, of course, ironically, is a disease he never caught in the first place.

Exciting stuff.

[JC1]

Just out of Curiosity, is this past experince what caused you to have such a great hatred of the "RC" P today ?

[YKTMX]

Oh, absolutely!

The apostate hates the faithful, his old, still illusionsed, comrades. :lol:

[Donnie]

The first book I ever picked up that was “left” was Lenin "State and Revolution" I hadn't even read the Communist Manifesto at the time. So I read Lenin State and Revolution and thought to my self this guy’s onto something here. So I picked up the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx at my Local Bookstore and read the whole thing and became class conscious.

I was brought up with a dad who was a Socialist and a mum who was really nothing, anyway my dad only mentioned a notion of class war once in awhile he was more resistant and angry at the monarchy; however it must be said that my dad was no Leninist! I think my dad is more of a Trot although his Trotskyism is fading and he is just becoming cynical now.

Anyway as I began to read more by Marx and Lenin I began to spurt out Marxist-Leninism in my politics class and everywhere else, I also had a comrade who pretty much thought on the same lines as me. However there were two Anarchists in my class who were violently against our means to get to Communism.

It was one day when I was in politics that our tutor wanted to show us a documentary on the Spanish Civil war. I had actually never herd of the Spanish Civil war at the time and so was keen to watch it. At the end of it I came to challenge my own views and began to think would my class, the revolutionary class portrayed by Marx trust another Leninist? I also began to think maybe Marx had under-estimated the use of a state as a tool to Communism.

So I began to read more stuff on the Spanish Civil war and the CNT and the FAI. It was in politics that we started studying Anarchism that I began to find my ideology, I wanted communism but I didn’t want to go down the Marxist road. So that’s when I picked up Rudolf Rockers Anarcho-Syndicalism, however I felt that Syndicalism was not very useful so I started reading stuff my Errico Maletesta and other Anarchist Communists and well here I’ am today.

Although when bumping into TAT and another guy at the G8 summit they sort of encouraged me to get physically involved within the class struggle anarchist movement and well I'm now waiting for the AF to ring me so that I can join them…hopefully. :)

[Holocaustpulp]

I have not known communist ideals long enough to even contemplate any conversion from one sect to another, yet I can tell you that I molded my ideology by studying Russian history and taking up the reading of Lenin. It is now that I consider myself a Marxist-Leninist after only a few years before being indifferent to class struggle and world politics. I do however have much more reading to do and much more knowledge to gain in my revolutionary studies.

- HP

[YKTMX]

That story makes me sad.

[riverotter]

9/11 was the big watershed in my political life. Up til then I'd been a somewhat anarchistic feminist in the model of Starhawk (liberation thealogy wiccan), sort of. But I didn't really explore what was wrong with the world and what needed to be done until after the two towers fell and everyone was going on about how "they" hated our freedom, which I knew to be complete shit.

Then I read everything and talked to everyone at the various demonstrations I went to. I went back and looked at books written by current theorists and people who'd actually visited communist countries and came to the conclusion that this system sucks ass and will never do anything but suck ass, that there is an alternative. And once I'd made that discovery there was no way I could do with anything less.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX+--> (YouKnowTheyMurderedX)Maoism has no connection, save rhetorical and imaginary, with Leninism.[/b]

You are, I believe, a Trotskyist yourself...so it's perfectly understandable that you would hold that position.

I do not think it is a tenable one, however. Maoists argue that Trotskyism is "not real Leninism". Trotskyists argue that Maoism or Stalinism or Titoism are "not real Leninism". And so on.

But if you look at both how these variants of Leninism have constructed their parties and at the kind of post-revolutionary society they want to establish, the similarities become obvious even if there are minor differences in terminology.

If you don't mind, I will quote myself...


redstar2000 on Leninist socialism
1. A new and permanent state apparatus.

2. With a professional army and police force.

3. Under the permanent leadership (control) of the Leninist party.

4. Nationalization of the means of production and the introduction of centralized economic planning/management on a professional basis.

5. Continued production of commodities for sale; continued use of money; continued inequality of wages; appropriation of surplus value by the state apparatus.

This is what all Leninist parties want to do and actually set forth to do when they achieve power.

They all sincerely believe that this is "all that can be done".

Capitalism without capitalists. *vomits*

Nor do Leninists differ significantly on how the vanguard party should be constructed and operated -- you can find the original not in Stalin but in Lenin's speeches at the 10th Party Congress in 1921. That was his "final word" on how parties "in his image" should be created -- and Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Tito, Ho, Hoxha, etc. all agreed.

The party leadership must be obeyed...or else it's your ass!


He has since taken flight into the heady skies of anarchism, finally washing himself clean of the "Leninist disease" - which, of course, ironically, is a disease he never caught in the first place.

Yes, only Trotskyism is "real Leninism". Well, I'll be honest about it. If the choice lies between the "heady skies of anarchism" and the subterranean labyrinths of Trotskyism, then...please book my flight.

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[YKTMX]

I do not think it is a tenable one, however. Maoists argue that Trotskyism is "not real Leninism". Trotskyists argue that Maoism or Stalinism or Titoism are "not real Leninism". And so on.


So? They would also claim to be Marxist and socialists, should we not tackle that?


But if you look at both how these variants of Leninism have constructed their parties and at the kind of post-revolutionary society they want to establish, the similarities become obvious even if there are minor differences in terminology.


That's a non-sequitur. The "Leninism" of the Stalinist/Maoist autocracies had no connection either formal or theoretical with policies or ideas of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Any "Leninist" who existed in the USSR after the counter revolution was either executed or ostracised.


Nor do Leninists differ significantly on how the vanguard party should be constructed and operated -- you can find the original not in Stalin but in Lenin's speeches at the 10th Party Congress in 1921. That was his "final word" on how parties "in his image" should be created -- and Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Tito, Ho, Hoxha, etc. all agreed.

The party leadership must be obeyed...or else it's your ass!



Well, that's completely fatuous. The speeches and decisions made at that congress were historically specific, the Bolsheviks knew this. The end of democracy in the party and the degeneration was real, I accept that - so did Lenin and Trotsky, it's not a novel idea. The question is whether that was inevitable or not. You have drawn one, false, conclusion. I draw another.


then...please book my flight.


Maoist to Anarchist - once a volunataristic, anti-democrat...etc etc, eh?

[YKTMX]

Can I just add this (http://mp3.lpi.org.uk/resistancemp/m2004home.htm)

Look for a discussion of Lenin between Callinincos and Michael Albert. They are discussing much of the same things me and Red are talking about - though, obviously, in a far more erudite fashion.

Anyway, good.

[Parkbench]

Half the problem with the many sects of communism is idol worship. People still are oblivious to this phenomenon and they continue, religiously idolizing a "hero." The psychological deficiency required to do this is quite basic: the need for a figure on which one can project oneself; the 'perfect person,' the one you can always turn to for inspiration, that feeling of security, that feeling that, "if only you were like them..."

Mao, Che, Lenin, Stalin...need I list more? They're all guilty of this, and their followers. There are a few people in these sects who just endorse the "philosophy." And that's almost as bad. The Maoist philosophy is conservative and excessively violent. Quote from Wikipedia:


In Maoist thought, power comes from the barrel of the gun...

That's a winning formula, folks.

And why is there a Maoism that exists today that has any link with communism? Despite what China "officially" has the world and its people believe, it is no where near a communist staet, and in fact very capitalistic. And if this is the "interim" period, they're not doing anything to change that. It's a dictatorship, like the rest, because they lost sight of their purpose.

Furthermore, they are anti-reivisonist. This is completely ignoring the subjectivity of human beings, and this strict interpretation leads to strict rules--and strict rules stray away from communism.

Revolutionary ideas are organic, not set in stone--so, as an anarchist, while the Anarchist FAQ on infoshop.org is immensely informative, very convenient, and often "right" (in my opinion), it still espouses the view that one must "stick to the roots." How can radical leftists of any kind use that term and not realise what they're saying? Sticking to one's roots is actually a conservative ideal and that's what keeps many "radical" movements from moving forward. This even plagues the "punk" scene, and it's why, deep down, they're not really that counter-culture.

Open-source idesa, people.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by YouKnowTheyMurderedX
The speeches and decisions made at that congress were historically specific, the Bolsheviks knew this. The end of democracy in the party and the degeneration was real, I accept that - so did Lenin and Trotsky, it's not a novel idea. The question is whether that was inevitable or not. You have drawn one, false, conclusion. I draw another.

No, I don't think either Lenin or Trotsky thought it was "historically specific" -- at least there's no hint of that in their speeches. There was no "sunset clause" in any of the new party statutes passed by the 10th Party Congress.

More revealing still were the conditions for affiliation to the Comintern -- drawn up before Stalin "came to power".

The call went out for "iron discipline"...not "inner-party democracy".

As to "inevitability", I suppose that can always be disputed. What little material I have read from the Trotskyist movement features (frequent) complaints of "Stalinist methods" from dissident minorities. Maybe it's "all sour grapes"...but I bet it's not.

In other words, Trotskyism claims to practice a "kinder and gentler democratic centralism"...but when the chips are down, you (party member) better do what the leadership tells you to do or it's your ass. :o

Just like the Stalinists or the Maoists. :(

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[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 12:43 PM
Red:

Maoism has no connection, save rhetorical and imaginary, with Leninism.

Red's own political journey, such as I understand it, is not too uncommon to be honest. He briefly flirted with dogmatic Stalinism interfaced with Chinese peasant leadership mythology, a thing not uncommon with student radicals in 60's America. As a way to purge his brief "really existing socialism" fantasies, he has since sought fit, like so many others before him, to excoriate Lenin and the Bolsheviks for his own failures, thus exempting himself from criticism i.e. you think the guys I supported were bad, look at HIM!. It is much easier to blame Lenin for Stalinism than really "get" where Stalinism came from and why one briefly fantasasies about it - a thing RS still does on this board today. Although today, it takes the guise of lamenting the loss of "gains" made under Joe and Mao.

However, to his credit, he has not become a bourgeois cynic - far from it. He has since taken flight into the heady skies of anarchism, finally washing himself clean of the "Leninist disease" - which, of course, ironically, is a disease he never caught in the first place.

Exciting stuff.
Yeah, exactly. Except there's nothing all that anarchist about his current theories...he still has more in common with Maoists and with the Menshevik-Stalinist theory of bourgeois revolutions in the Third World.

[encephalon]

i started out considering myself pretty much a leninist.. my experience with democratic centralism has led me to conclude, however, that democratic centralism can never truly represent the proletariat. Although I still agree with many things lenin espoused, among them is not his picture of socialism nor his "vanguard party" mentality--though I still admire the man. I think the circumstances he found himself in largely formed his theory, but in the end it leads to tyranny, and not by the masses.