Contradictions between Leninism and Marxism

[D_Bokk]

I came across a few contradictions between Marxist theory and Leninism in both their writings and actions. I went under the assumption that Stalin was a Leninist, so for you Trotsky fans out there I would rather you just ignore those than to "prove" that Stalin wasn't a Leninist.

Of course, I am no expert on these two theories and it's entirely possible that I did make mistakes. And I apologize if these points have been brought up in previous posts and I was unaware of their postings.

1) Conflicts in Theory
In Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm) by Lenin, he stated:
"I repeat: the experience of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline of the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie."

This is basically saying that the Proletariat is to be obedient to the Party. Their obedience leads to working and producing for the Party, or Revolution. Working for anyone but themselves, according to Marx, is alienation of the worker.

In The Alienation of Labor (http://www.wsu.edu/%7Edee/MODERN/ALIEN.HTM), by Marx he claims:
"When the product of labor does not belong to the laborer, when a strange, foreign power confronts and dominates him, this can only be possible if it belongs to a human being other than the laborer."

Since Leninism calls for the virtual domination of the proletariat in order for the revolution to succeed, then the Proletariat is being Alienated. Which is what Communism is fighting so hard against.

Although, to be fair to Lenin, this wasn't published until 1932, after Lenin's death. I haven't read all of Marx and I am unsure if this was mentioned numerous times or not. Nevertheless, his mistakes could possibly be forgiven and rectified by future rulers of his newly created country. Except, this wasn't the case...

2) Logic
The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is when complete power is put into the working class. In the SU, the Vanguard Party had power over the government. The Proletariat was allowed to vote and needed to give consent to the Party as to which members could rule them, although they weren't allowed to chose the members themselves. The Party* nominated candidates and if they were denied by the Proletariat than they would nominate another, and so on.

With that established, the Party itself was not Proletarian. Class is defined with their regards to production and because the Party doesn't produce anything they are not part of the Proletariat They're 100% dependent on the Proletariat for their livelihood, as were the Bourgeois. So, not only are the Proletarians unable to chose their leaders, the leaders they have are not even part of their class. This cannot possibly be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and therefore it is un-Marxist.

*See Article 141 of the SU Constitution of 1936 for list of organizations that can nominate people

3) Quotas
In some cases of the SU, the worker was given quotas to which they were too accomplish in their working activities. This contradicts Marxism to the fullest.

In The Alienation of Labor (http://www.wsu.edu/%7Edee/MODERN/ALIEN.HTM), by Marx he states:
"His labor is not voluntary, but constrained, forced labor. Therefore, it does not meet a need, but rather it is a means to meet some need alien to it."

The worker is no longer working for him(or her)self and therefore the economic system ceases to be Marxist and is more accurately, Corporatism.

4) Dividing the Proletariat
Scoreboards were put up in factories to show which worker was the most productive and which was not. It creates two groups of workers, the fast and slow. Like other social constructs (such as Racism) it's aimed to divide the Proletariat into separate groups. The quicker worker is happy with the present system because he/she is is recognized for their accomplishments and place themselves above the slower worker, which in turn eliminates equality. While the slower worker is doomed to humiliation every time the scoreboard is updated and they find themselves on the bottom of the list.

5) Lacking a Bourgeois stage
This one is possibly the most obvious one. The working class wasn't fully developed by the time the Bolsheviks ceased power. Russia was making slight improvements upon their industrialization before the "revolution" (another topic for another day...) but they were no where near being Industrialized. Instead of going through the Capitalist stage, Lenin took the opportunity so nicely handed to him by Kerensky to cease power in Petrograd and eventually all of Russia.

That's all I'm able to come up with now, but these are probably not the only contradictions, feel free to add to the list if you have some.

EDIT: Fixed mistake regarding Constitution.

[anomaly]

Obviously, the Soviet Union and other so-called 'Communist' countries essentially spat upon everything Marx said. At least that's how I see it. For some strange reason, many on this board feel inclined to defend those disasters. Also, some wish to distance the label of Leninism from those nations, but I do not think that is accurate. As you point out, Lenin said that the proletariat should be obedient to the Party. And it was on that premise that all of these 'Communist' states were set up.

Point one is probably the most important in separating 'what Lenin thought' from 'what Marx thought'. One can, as I do, speculate that Stalin's actions were 'what Lenin would have done', but that is mere speculation, and it's accuracy can only be guessed. Stalin did what he thought Lenin would have done, that much is sure. And Lenin's central 'contribution' to Marxist thought was his 'Vanguard Party', which all proletarians should obey.

Leninists like to say that, in reality, the proletariat makes up 'the Party'. And I would believe this--if it were true. But, in the past, the proletariat has never 'been the Party', but rather the Party was an authority over the proletariat. Call me crazy, but I see no reason why things will be different this time if we use Leninist methods. That things will 'be different' is a Leninist assertion, and cannot be proven. Based upon history, we can reasonably assume that, in actuality, things will not be different.

Anyway, responding to D Bokk, I think this analysis is pretty accurate.

[D_Bokk]

That's pretty much how I feel about Leninism as well. Stalin was a puppet of Lenin if I ever was one, he never seemed to have any ideas of his own and seemed to just follow a strict guideline on what should be done.

I used to consider myself a Leninist, but after getting into a long debate with a Stalinist - I realized how crazy he and Leninism was. I think the reason people still dwell on Leninism is because it seems like the only possible system which actually has the chance of working. A strong state is needed to control large land masses, but the more people in a nation the less democratic it will be. If people would stop thinking in the presently drawn boundaries for countries and instead be open to making new boundaries with smaller populations - a weak central (if any central government) will become far more feasible.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by D Bokk
I think the reason people still dwell on Leninism is because it seems like the only possible system which actually has the chance of working
I don't think so. From what I have gathered from my many debates with Leninists, they seem to have this idea that the proletariat is weak, and the Leninists believe themselves to be strong. So, naturally, Leninists feel they should lead the proletariat. In short, Leninism is appealing to arrogant individuals for whom authoritarianism is a good thing.


If people would stop thinking in the presently drawn boundaries for countries and instead be open to making new boundaries with smaller populations - a weak central (if any central government) will become far more feasible.
I think this is what a revolution should construct. We should build not a hierarchical, centralized state, but rather decentralized communes without any hierarchy.

You sound like an anarchist. Am I accurate?

[D_Bokk]

I don't really have a name for what I follow, but I do like the Zapatista's Council of Good Government. The people should have 100% representation in the government, which could be accomplished by a rotational government simular to the Zapatistas or a decentralized governing force consisting of everyone. The latter of the two would be more difficult to achieve, unless it utilizes the Internet.

I've never really studied any Anarchy writings, so I couldn't really call myself an Anarchist. Anarchy means different things to different people, I loath the punk "Anarchists" who only say they're Anarchists because of "NO RULES MAN!" and only want to cause destruction. When asked, I usually just refer to myself as a Communist.

[More Fire for the People]

First and foremost, being a Leninist doesn’t mean repeating Lenin’s, Trotsky’s, Mao’s, Stalin’s, et al. mistakes. The principles of Leninism are those of scientific socialism, materialist-dialectical analysis, and critiquing imperialism. From these principles, we can draw new conclusions that did not exist in first half of the 20th century. We can even learn from the mistakes the Leninists made *GASP*.

I like how you misquoted Marx. The product of a man’s labour is his commodity. When man makes a commodity for a foreign master, he becomes alienated from his craft. Firstly, the revolution is not a commodity. A revolution is the destruction of the superstructure and the reorganization of the base, not praxis in the form of commodity-shaping but praxis in the sense of world-shaping.

Now as to the ‘rigorous discipline of the proletariat’, I am slightly critical of Lenin here. Indeed, a revolutionary society must have some coherency; it must be a cooperation of individuals. Of course, Lenin isn’t exactly referring to a revolutionary society here; he is referring to the revolution. The very nature of a revolution demands organization. The spontaneous riot dialectically becomes the revolution through organization. During a struggle for life or death, proletarian dictatorship or barbarism, there must be surety in decisions made.

I looked at the RSFSR constitution of 1918 and the Soviet Union’s 1936 constitution. The former didn’t even have an article 100 and the latter was referring to local soviets. But here once again I become critical of Lenin, a vanguard should not be the state but rather an organization of the people. Stalin attempted this type of vanguardance but his resolutions were never put into effect.

But while we’re talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat, let us talk about the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat — direct election of representatives of the commune and recall of said representatives, a workers’ wage for all representatives, and abolition of the police and standing army. The RSFSR did in fact have direct election of soviet representatives and furthermore these representatives received workmen’s wages. On the last principle, the RSFSR remains sketchy.

Quotas are not contradictory to Marxism. They are in fact necessary; ‘it [labour] does not meet a need’ refers to the taking of surplus-value from the proletariat. Quotas ensured that needs were fulfilled so that starvation and underproduction could be avoided.

As two points four and five, I have not heard of the scoreboard issue but I suggest you read The Development of Capitalism in Russia (http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/devel/index.htm).

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)Obviously, the Soviet Union and other so-called 'Communist' countries essentially spat upon everything Marx said. At least that's how I see it.[/b]

You probably haven't read any Marx so it is excusable for you to have these thoughts.


lso, some wish to distance the label of Leninism from those nations

Yes, some, like me, do wish to distance the label of Leninism from the Stalinism of the USSR and the Maoism of China. Of course you do the same, you wish to distance the label of Marxism from Leninism. So if it is the method you do not approve of then don't use that method yourself, don't be a hypocrite.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with that method, anyone can try to distance labels, the important part is the evidence to back it up.

Your evidence is worthless, mine is not.

For example, in State and Revolution Lenin specifically wrote what should be done in the transition period:


Lenin
All officials, without exception, elected and subject to recall at any time, their salaries reduced to the level of ordinary "workmen's wages" — these simple and "self-evident" democratic measures, while completely uniting the interests of the workers and the majority of the peasants, at the same time serve as a bridge leading from capitalism to socialism. These measures concern the reorganization of the state, the purely political reorganization of society; but, of course, they acquire their full meaning and significance only in connection with the "expropriation of the expropriators" either bring accomplished or in preparation, i.e., with the transformation of capitalist private ownership of the means of production into social ownership.

Did the Stalinists do this? Did the USSR follow this course after Lenin's death? No, this is a fundamental break from Leninism.


As you point out, Lenin said that the proletariat should be obedient to the Party. And it was on that premise that all of these 'Communist' states were set up.


No, Lenin said that the party was the most advanced section of the proletariat, and that the proletariat as a whole wanted the party to rule in their own interest, why do you think the revolution happened, because the proletariat hated the Bolsheviks so much?

Please, you make it seem as if the Bolshevik party was some kind of isolated group of 100 people who took over state-power because they were 'lucky', because they happened to be 'at the right place at the right time', I don't have time for such un-Marxist nonsense.


Stalin did what he thought Lenin would have done, that much is sure.

You can read minds now? Great, tell us why Lenin would have gotten rid of the multi-tendency party system, the system he had himself created?

Perhaps Stalin was under the impression that Lenin was drunk when he created that system, and therefore made a horrible mistake which had to be corrected.

Maybe you're right.


And Lenin's central 'contribution' to Marxist thought was his 'Vanguard Party', which all proletarians should obey.


Wrong, yet again. The vanguard party theory was theorized not by Lenin but by Blanqui, he was the first 'vanguardist'.

Lenin's central contribution to Marxist theory was the theory of imperialism and the furthering of proletarian revolution under the leadership of vanguard parties. There is nothing wrong with that since vanguard parties are composed of the most advanced sections of the proletariat.

You can probably come up with several Leninist parties today and ask; 'how are they the most advanced section of the proletariat?!' and rightly so, my response as a real Leninist would be; 'the party you are referring too is not Leninist, they are either Stalinist, Trotskyist, Maoist or [insert degeneration of Leninism]'.

Today there are no real Leninist parties in existence, I believe the Communist League is the closest party to real Leninism.


Leninists like to say that, in reality, the proletariat makes up 'the Party'. And I would believe this--if it were true. But, in the past, the proletariat has never 'been the Party', but rather the Party was an authority over the proletariat. Call me crazy, but I see no reason why things will be different this time if we use Leninist methods. That things will 'be different' is a Leninist assertion, and cannot be proven. Based upon history, we can reasonably assume that, in actuality, things will not be different.


Prove that the Bolshevik party was not composed of the most advanced section of the proletariat, using the tool of Marxism of course.

[Connolly]

There is nothing wrong with that since vanguard parties are composed of the most advanced sections of the proletariat.

Leninist "advanced proletarian vanguard" = Intellectual minority dictatorship of god like future seeing individuals

Complete rubbish.


Today there are no real Leninist parties in existence,

Thank fucking God :lol:

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by The RedBanner
Thank fucking God

Don't be silly, of course there are many parties that claim to be Leninist, the vast majority of Communists still claim to be Leninist...sorry.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+--> (Hopscotch Anthill)First and foremost, being a Leninist doesn’t mean repeating Lenin’s, Trotsky’s, Mao’s, Stalin’s, et.al., mistakes.[/b]

It sort of does seem to mean that, actually. When modern Leninists depart from the paths of their ancestors, it usually means a move to the right...something even worse than what their prophets did. :o


The very nature of a revolution demands organization. The spontaneous riot dialectically becomes the revolution through organization. During a struggle for life or death, proletarian dictatorship or barbarism, there must be surety in decisions made.

Hegelian babble.

I can't imagine how it was that any of that nonsense was ever taken seriously.


Marxism-Leninism
No, Lenin said that the party was the most advanced section of the proletariat, and that the proletariat as a whole wanted the party to rule in their own interest...

In what way could such claims be objectively verified?

How do we measure "most advanced"? How do we determine the will of "the proletariat as a whole"?

Leninists measure "most advanced" by definition: it means "joins our party or at least supports it".

They measure the will of "the proletariat as a whole" by a similar definition: it means "doesn't spontaneously rise up and successfully overthrow our sorry asses".

Such self-serving "definitions" can be and have been used by any political tendency...even the most reactionary.

They don't, objectively speaking, mean jack shit!


The vanguard party theory was theorized not by Lenin but by Blanqui, he was the first 'vanguardist'.

Quite true. As I recall, Marx had a less than flattering view of Comrade Blanqui's "contribution" to revolutionary theory. :lol:


Today there are no real Leninist parties in existence...

Why not? If Lenin's ideas were "valid", how is it that no one has been able to use them?


Prove that the Bolshevik party was not composed of the most advanced section of the proletariat, using the tool of Marxism of course.

An empty challenge...unless you can (1) offer an objective definition of "most advanced" and (2) suggest practical ways to determine that for the Russian proletariat c.1917.

Just saying "advanced proletariat = supported Lenin" is not an argument; it's an incantation...a ritualized repetition of a sacred formula intended to halt discussion.

It used to be pretty effective...but not any more. :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Marxism-Leninism
You probably haven't read any Marx so it is excusable for you to have these thoughts.
Strange it is that the people who consistently tell me I haven't read any Marx are usually Leninists.

I actually have read some Marx, and in my humble opinion, he never wrote anything that would suggest he would have supported the USSR or any of the others.

But, it is true that Marx is a complex character, and one can take some quotations, to show that Marx liked the idea of centralization, and then take other quotations, to show that he didn't like that idea. However, Marx is dead. And we now know that centralization does not work. So we cut it from the theory. Well, at least anarchists do. Leninists, however, have this love of the stuff.


In my opinion there is nothing wrong with that method
History says otherwise. Shall we listen to the iron mind of ML, or shall we listen to history? I always choose the latter.


State and Revolution
A fine document. This was, essentially, a propaganda piece, used to advance the 'Bolshevik cause'. My problems with Leninism come, mostly, from What is to Be Done?, in which Vladimir speaks of the need of 'professional revolutionaries' (like himself...strange coincidence :o ) to lead the 'backward' masses. Indeed, these professional revolutionaries were to be the Vanguard, and they were to keep the content of meetings secret. This can only lead to minority rule. And this is, essentially, why I oppose Leninism.


You can read minds now?
Certianly not. But, that Stalin was a Leninist is, I think, the best guess we can offer. But, again, I already said that because we do not know 'what Lenin would have done', we must turn to documents produced by Lenin to see what he thought. And what he thought was total bullshit.


There is nothing wrong with that since vanguard parties are composed of the most advanced sections of the proletariat.
I defer to redstar2000 here. How do we objectively measure this? Wait, before you think long and hard on that one, let me answer for you: we can't.

Essentially, Leninists have to come to the painful conclusion that their patron saint was wrong.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill
I like how you misquoted Marx. The product of a man’s labour is his commodity. When man makes a commodity for a foreign master, he becomes alienated from his craft. Firstly, the revolution is not a commodity. A revolution is the destruction of the superstructure and the reorganization of the base, not praxis in the form of commodity-shaping but praxis in the sense of world-shaping.
How exactly am I misquoting Marx? The Vanguard Party is a foreign master, and when the worker is basically forced to work for that Party they're being alienated. Explain how this is not true.

Now as to the ‘rigorous discipline of the proletariat’, I am slightly critical of Lenin here. Indeed, a revolutionary society must have some coherency; it must be a cooperation of individuals. Of course, Lenin isn’t exactly referring to a revolutionary society here; he is referring to the revolution. The very nature of a revolution demands organization. The spontaneous riot dialectically becomes the revolution through organization. During a struggle for life or death, proletarian dictatorship or barbarism, there must be surety in decisions made.
And that justifies the creation of a quasi-bourgeois class that is otherwise known as the Vanguard Party?

I looked at the RSFSR constitution of 1918 and the Soviet Union’s 1936 constitution. The former didn’t even have an article 100 and the latter was referring to local soviets. But here once again I become critical of Lenin, a vanguard should not be the state but rather an organization of the people. Stalin attempted this type of vanguardance but his resolutions were never put into effect.
My mistake, I was reading a later Constitution. But basically the same thing applies in the 1936:
Article 141. Candidates for election are nominated according to electoral areas. The right to nominate candidates is secured to public organizations and societies of the working people: Communist Party organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organizations and cultural societies.

But while we’re talking about the dictatorship of the proletariat, let us talk about the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat — direct election of representatives of the commune and recall of said representatives, a workers’ wage for all representatives, and abolition of the police and standing army. The RSFSR did in fact have direct election of soviet representatives and furthermore these representatives received workmen’s wages. On the last principle, the RSFSR remains sketchy.
I personally would have much rather seen them accept lower wages than that of the Proletariat. They are nothing except a drain on the system and live off of the wages of the Working Class, of whom they dominate. The direct elections matter little when the nominations come from organizations okayed by the Communist Party and the Communist Party itself. Once the party corrupts, they will stay that way because only they have the power to nominate. This is the major flaw in Leninism which is attribute to the utter failure of all 'Socialist' Vanguard States.

Quotas are not contradictory to Marxism. They are in fact necessary; ‘it [labour] does not meet a need’ refers to the taking of surplus-value from the proletariat. Quotas ensured that needs were fulfilled so that starvation and underproduction could be avoided.
Quotas have their benefits but it is still forced labor and that is a job we leave to the bourgeois. People will produce enough, they do not need to be told how much goods need to be made.

As two points four and five, I have not heard of the scoreboard issue but I suggest you read The Development of Capitalism in Russia.
I'll read that when I have the time, but I'm basing my Capitalist development mainly on how far Russia was industrialized. They were far behind most European countries and therefore lacked a numerous proletariat. Without a good number of Proletarians, Communism cannot exist. The rush by Lenin's opportunist actions may very well have been the direct cause of the unrest in the country between the Peasants and Communist Party which caused several famines. Although that's just speculation at this point.

[Lamanov]

D Bokk, your analysis is not bad, although it can be viewed as a simple start with few possible mistakes and an intention to go deeper.

Alienation concept is very important. I think it was a central issue to Marx, regardless of his later change in exposition.


Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+--> (Hopscotch Anthill)The very nature of a revolution demands organization. The spontaneous riot dialectically becomes the revolution through organization.[/b]

Proletarian self-organization, not imposed, separated or channeled through alienating forms.


Originally posted by Marxism-[email protected]
For example, in State and Revolution Lenin...

...gave us lengthy Marx and Engels quotes which practically he did not follow.


Marxism-Leninism
No, Lenin said...

...in the State and Revolution allot of things which he did not do, or simply (on other places), allot of things which were simply not true - like in this case.

Can we move further from mere apologetics, please?

<_<

[More Fire for the People]

It sort of does seem to mean that, actually. When modern Leninists depart from the paths of their ancestors, it usually means a move to the right...something even worse than what their prophets did.
Indeed, but that&#39;s because they take up the notion of Habermas nonsense or something to the like. For Leninism and Marxism as real world ideologies to survive they must engage the current conrete situations with a concrete analysis.


Proletarian self-organization, not imposed, separated or channeled through alienating forms.
The vanguard organization is not impose or seperated, it is the avante-garde sect of the proletariat — those who see a revolution on the horizon and prepare their compatriots to act.

———

How exactly am I misquoting Marx? The Vanguard Party is a foreign master, and when the worker is basically forced to work for that Party they&#39;re being alienated. Explain how this is not true.
You&#39;re taking Marx&#39;s commodity analysis and make it a human analysis. Humanity has consciousness and human power is its own end. The commodity which the proletariat is aliented from is a being without class consciousness or meaning without human praxis. The vanguard party does not alienate the proletariat from its craft, the avant-garde section of the proletariat organizes a revolution from spontaniety.


And that justifies the creation of a quasi-bourgeois class that is otherwise known as the Vanguard Party?
Exactly how is the vanguard party quasi-bourgeois?


Article 141. Candidates for election are nominated according to electoral areas. The right to nominate candidates is secured to public organizations and societies of the working people: Communist Party organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, youth organizations and cultural societies.
What is exactly wrong with this?


Quotas have their benefits but it is still forced labor and that is a job we leave to the bourgeois. People will produce enough, they do not need to be told how much goods need to be made.
If it came down to a choice betweeen forced labour and mass starvation, I chose forced labour. So how will people magically produce enough? Will they use intuition? Are you a Marxist-Transcendentalist? :lol:


They were far behind most European countries and therefore lacked a numerous proletariat.
The majority of the Russian population was proletarians, agricultural proletarians.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+--> (Hopscotch Anthill)The vanguard organization is not impose or seperated, it is the avante-garde sect of the proletariat [/b]
But this has not been the composition of the Vanguard in the past. So why should we believe it will be the composition of the Vanguard in the future? Rather, Leninists want the Vanguard to lead the proletariat. It is functionally a separate entity.


Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+--> (Hopscotch Anthill)avant-garde section of the proletariat organizes a revolution from spontaniety.[/b]
Essentially, you think the Vanguard will be the &#39;advanced section&#39; of the proletariat.
But

Originally posted by redstar2000
How do we measure "most advanced"?


Hopscotch [email protected]
Exactly how is the vanguard party quasi-bourgeois?
How else could we describe every Vanguard in the past? It certainly was not proletarian in any sense. So, again, why will things &#39;be different&#39; this time? You still want the Vanguard to lead the proletariat. Your rhetoric is very similar to Lenin&#39;s. So it would seem logical to me that the same shit will happen.


Hopscotch Anthill
The majority of the Russian population was proletarians, agricultural proletarians.
Oh, come now. Let us not play with words. They were peasants.

[KC]

Indeed, these professional revolutionaries were to be the Vanguard, and they were to keep the content of meetings secret. This can only lead to minority rule. And this is, essentially, why I oppose Leninism.


I already proved to you that Marx was also for a secret organization. Are you opposed to Marxism now as well?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by RS
In what way could such claims be objectively verified?

How do we measure "most advanced"? How do we determine the will of "the proletariat as a whole"?

Leninists measure "most advanced" by definition: it means "joins our party or at least supports it".

They measure the will of "the proletariat as a whole" by a similar definition: it means "doesn&#39;t spontaneously rise up and successfully overthrow our sorry asses".

Such self-serving "definitions" can be and have been used by any political tendency...even the most reactionary.

They don&#39;t, objectively speaking, mean jack shit&#33;


In what way do you objectively verify it then? That&#39;s right, you don&#39;t.

I think I told you this before; before you attack other methods please make sure you have an alternative, otherwise it means, objectively speaking, jack shit.


Why not? If Lenin&#39;s ideas were "valid", how is it that no one has been able to use them?

The revisions of Leninism have caused great harm to the original theory, the science was distorted into a dogma utilized by Stalinists and the likes.

Can you name me one party or group that you fully support politically? Of course I realize that you do not believe in political parties, but I mean a defined group of people who espouse a certain theory.

My guess is that you can&#39;t, does this means that you are wrong? No, of course not, I never said you were wrong because you are the only one who believes in your &#39;theory&#39;, that would be intellectual laziness. This does not mean that a certain theory is wrong or useless, it just means that at the present time it is, no one can look into the future, not even you, so you can&#39;t pronounce theories (especially not one who enjoys such prestige amongst Communist) dead, only history can.

And before you say; &#39;history already has&#33;&#39;, history also pronounced Marxism dead several times (second international anyone?)...Lenin happened to be the person who saved it.


Just saying "advanced proletariat = supported Lenin" is not an argument; it&#39;s an incantation...a ritualized repetition of a sacred formula intended to halt discussion.


In hindsight one can say that &#39;advanced proletariat = supported Bolsheviks&#39;, of course opinions differ on this, but how would you define most advanced then?

Most advanced = support redstar?

[anomaly]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26 2006, 09:57 PM
I already proved to you that Marx was also for a secret organization. Are you opposed to Marxism now as well?
Interesting you should bring this up. The reason I cited &#39;secret meetings&#39; as a &#39;flaw&#39; was because of who attended the &#39;secret meetings&#39;--professional revolutionaries. Of course meetings of communists would ideally be &#39;secretive&#39;, but when it is &#39;professional revolutionaries&#39; at the meetings, they are keeping the content secret from the proletariat itself&#33;

Besides, you already know that there are portions of &#39;Marxism&#39; that I don&#39;t much care for (although the central disagreement probably concerns semantics...but then we have &#39;Marxists&#39; such as TragicClown who say that Marx wanted more centralization than Lenin, and if you don&#39;t support such centralization, you are not a Marxist...).

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill
You&#39;re taking Marx&#39;s commodity analysis and make it a human analysis. Humanity has consciousness and human power is its own end. The commodity which the proletariat is aliented from is a being without class consciousness or meaning without human praxis. The vanguard party does not alienate the proletariat from its craft, the avant-garde section of the proletariat organizes a revolution from spontaniety.
We&#39;re talking about my first quotation of Marx, right?

It says that a foreign power dominates the worker who is making goods for someone other than himself is then Alienated. I related that to Lenin&#39;s call for the discipline of the proletariat, which is very simular to domination. If this power dominates, it no longer is domestic and becomes foreign and therefore alienates the worker, which is what I argue occurred in the USSR.

Exactly how is the vanguard party quasi-bourgeois?
They&#39;re not like the Bourgeois in the sense of them driving for individual capital, but moreso individual power. In Lenin&#39;s centralized government, the party and especially the leaders of the party have huge power. The power is unmatched by any individual bourgeois ever had since they only own one or a few industries, while the Party runs every industry. The Vanguard Party is basically one huge company. Communism requires that the workers run the factories and decide what they produce, but in Leninism the central government does that.

What is exactly wrong with this?
Everything. When the Communist Party corrupts, which it will always do in a Centralized government, then the only people who can nominate are those who are already corrupt. The individual worker cannot nominate someone whom they deem is capable and rely on other organizations, which they may belong too, to nominate for them in a collective action. The whole representative system itself is messed up from the start, but they even restrict the democracy even further with this article.

If it came down to a choice betweeen forced labour and mass starvation, I chose forced labour. So how will people magically produce enough? Will they use intuition? Are you a Marxist-Transcendentalist?
The difference, between you and I, is I believe the Proletariat is competent enough to produce enough food to feed themselves.

The majority of the Russian population was proletarians, agricultural proletarians.
And that&#39;s why the Bolshevik "Revolution" began in a city?

I realize that serfdom had only been recently abolished and that there were plenty of landless peasants, however industrialization creates the revolutionary proletarian class. The increase in education arms the proletariat and the urban centers are the nesting areas for Communism, which Marx also wrote about. Peasants (and landless peasants) tend to have the revolution brought to them and rarely take mass revolution to the bourgeois. The peasant is not the revolutionary class.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Hopscotch Anthill+Mar 27 2006, 02:13 AM--> (Hopscotch Anthill @ Mar 27 2006, 02:13 AM)
DJ&#045;TC
Proletarian self-organization, not imposed, separated or channeled through alienating forms.

The vanguard organization is not impose or seperated, it is the avante-garde sect of the proletariat — those who see a revolution on the horizon and prepare their compatriots to act. [/b]

This is too abstract to be a valid argument.

I was talking about the conception that "vanguard=party". Such concept is derived from alienating forms of oranization. In that sense, "vanguard" formation is imposed and essentially separated. Any argument that would insist otherwise is just a pretentious statement which simply cannot be proven. In fact, it is already proven to be false.

[red_che]

In Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder by Lenin, he stated:
"I repeat: the experience of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline of the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie."


In The Alienation of Labor, by Marx he claims:
"When the product of labor does not belong to the laborer, when a strange, foreign power confronts and dominates him, this can only be possible if it belongs to a human being other than the laborer."

These two quotes mean different things. The first one (by Lenin) is about the organization of a proletarian State. It does not talk about production of commodities or labor. While the second passage (by Marx) discusses the alienation of man through his labor. Now, these two passages should not be taken out of context.


The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is when complete power is put into the working class. In the SU, the Vanguard Party had power over the government. The Proletariat was allowed to vote and needed to give consent to the Party as to which members could rule them, although they weren&#39;t allowed to chose the members themselves. The Party* nominated candidates and if they were denied by the Proletariat than they would nominate another, and so on.

With that established, the Party itself was not Proletarian. Class is defined with their regards to production and because the Party doesn&#39;t produce anything they are not part of the Proletariat They&#39;re 100% dependent on the Proletariat for their livelihood, as were the Bourgeois. So, not only are the Proletarians unable to chose their leaders, the leaders they have are not even part of their class. This cannot possibly be a Dictatorship of the Proletariat and therefore it is un-Marxist.

I believe this understanding of the Party is somewhat absurd. A Party is a political organization, not an economic organization. The Party is established to ensure political power for the proletariat. A Party is really different from a Class. A class is a social division based on economic (i.e., ownership of the means of production, participation into production, and share from products) relations.

Your comparisons of Marx&#39;s and Lenin&#39;s ideas were taken out of context. It must be noted that Communism wasn&#39;t established yet. What they did in Russia during those times were trying to find out ways on how to improve their lives while transforming their society from the old to the new. I say, they are still in that period of transition to communism. Everything is still experimental because no established and actual experience of communist society was present. No model to be followed.

However, I should say, the SU&#39;s biggest and fatal mistake was when the Social Imperialist revisionist regimes came into power. This started when Kruschev was put into power. This is where to differentiate Leninism and modern revisionism. The revisionist cliques of Kruschev made the fatal mistakes and it was completed by Gorbachev.

[Axel1917]

It is kind of irritating how people keep peddling the Bourgeois and Stalinist lies about Lenin when I have posted a source in the past that totally destroys them&#33; The source is at http://www.marxist.com/russiabook/index.asp

How about some selections from the first chapter to see how things really went (sorry for relying soley on the book. I am short on time at the moment, and currently unable to give my own in-depth analysis):


Was the October Revolution a coup?

In an attempt to discredit the Bolsheviks, no effort has been spared to falsify the historical record. The usual trick is to describe the October Revolution as a coup d&#39;tat, that is, a movement carried out by a small minority using conspiratorial methods behind the backs of the majority. The Bolsheviks, so the argument goes, seized power from the Provisional Government which issued from the February Revolution and which, supposedly, represented the democratic will of the people. If only Lenin&#39;s "conspiracy" had not prospered, the story goes, Russia would have entered on the road of Western parliamentary democracy and lived happily ever after. This fairy story has been repeated so many times that it has been uncritically accepted by many. Like any other fairy story its purpose is to lull the wits to sleep. And also like any other fairy story, it is convincing only to very small children.

The first thing which springs to mind is: if the Provisional Government really represented the overwhelming majority, and the Bolsheviks only an insignificant group of conspirators, how did the latter succeed in overthrowing the former? After all, the government possessed (at least on paper) all the might of the state apparatus, the army, the police and the Cossacks, whereas the Bolsheviks were a small party which, at the beginning of the revolution in February had only about 8,000 members in all Russia. How was it possible for such a tiny minority to overthrow a mighty state? If we accept the argument of a coup, then we must assume that Lenin and Trotsky possessed magical powers. This is the very stuff of fairy tales&#33; Sadly, it has no place in real life, or in history.

In reality, the conspiracy theory of history explains nothing. It merely assumes what has to be proved. Such a superficial mode of reasoning, which assumes that every strike is caused by "agitators" and not by the accumulated discontent in a factory, is typical of the police mentality. But when it is seriously advanced by self-styled academics as an explanation for great historical events, one can only scratch one&#39;s head in bewilderment - or else assume that an ulterior motive is present. The motive of the policeman who seeks to attribute a strike to the activities of unseen agitators is quite clear. And this mode of argument is really no different. The essential idea is that the working class is incapable of understanding its own interests (which are, naturally, identical to those of the bosses). Therefore, if they move to take their destiny into their own hands, the only explanation is that they have been misled by unscrupulous demagogues.

This argument, which incidentally can be used against democracy in general, also misses the point. How could Lenin and Trotsky "mislead" the decisive majority of society in such a way that in the short space of nine months, the Bolshevik Party passed from an insignificant minority to win the majority in the soviets, the only really representative organs of society, and take power? Only because the bourgeois Provisional Government had revealed its complete bankruptcy. Only because it had failed to carry out a single one of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. And this can be demonstrated very easily by one fact alone: the Bolshevik Party took power in October on the basis of the programme of "Peace, Bread and Land". This is the most graphic illustration of the fact that the Provisional Government had failed to achieve any of the most burning needs of the Russian people. This, and this alone, explains the success of the Bolsheviks in October.

The most striking thing about 1917 is precisely the active involvement of the masses at each stage. This, in fact, constitutes the essence of a revolution. In normal periods the majority of men and women are prepared to accept that the most important decisions affecting their lives are taken by others, by the "people that know" - politicians, civil servants, judges, "experts" - but at critical moments, the "ordinary" people begin to question everything. They are no longer content to allow others to decide for them. They want to think and act for themselves. That is what a revolution is. And you can see elements of this in every strike. The workers begin to participate actively, speak, judge, criticise - in a word, decide their own destiny. To the bureaucrat and the policeman (and some historians whose mental processes function on the same wavelength) this seems like a strange and threatening madness. In fact, it is precisely the opposite. In such situations, men and women cease to act like automatons and begin to behave like real human beings with a mind and a will. Their stature is raised in their own eyes. They rapidly become conscious of their own condition and their own aspirations. Under such conditions, they consciously seek out that party and programme that reflects their aspirations, and reject others. A revolution is always characterised by the rapid rise and fall of parties, individuals and programmes, in which the more radical wing tends to gain.

In all Lenin&#39;s speeches and writings of this period, we see a burning faith in the ability of the masses to change society. Far from adopting "conspiratorial" methods, he based himself on appeals to the revolutionary initiatives of the workers, poor peasants and soldiers. In the April Theses he explained that: "We don&#39;t want the masses to take our word for it. We are not charlatans. We want the masses to overcome their mistakes through experience." (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 439, henceforth referred to as LCW.) Later on he said: "Insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people." (LCW, Vol. 26. p. 22.)

The fact that Lenin here counterposes the masses to the Party was no accident. Although the Bolshevik Party played a fundamental role in the Revolution, this was not a simple one-way process, but a dialectical one. Lenin pointed out many times that the masses are a hundred times more revolutionary than the most revolutionary party. It is a law that in a revolution, the revolutionary party and its leadership come under the pressure of alien classes. We have seen this many times in history. A section of the leadership at such moments begins to doubt and hesitate. An internal struggle is necessary to overcome these vacillations. This occurred in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin&#39;s return to Russia, when the Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd (mainly Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin) adopted a conciliatory attitude to the Provisional Government and even considered fusing with the Mensheviks. The line of the Party was only changed after a sharp internal struggle in which Lenin and Trotsky joined forces to fight for a second revolution in which the working class would take power into its hands.

In this struggle, Lenin appealed directly to the advanced workers over the heads of the Central Committee. He said that "the &#39;country&#39; of the workers and the poor peasants is a thousand times more leftward than the Chernovs and the Tseretelis, and a hundred times more leftward than we are". (LCW, Vol. 24, p. 364.) The motor force of the revolution at each stage was the movement of the masses. The task of the Bolsheviks was to give a clear political and organisational expression to this movement, to ensure that it was concentrated at the right moment for the seizure of power, and to avoid premature uprisings which would lead to defeat. For a time this meant actually holding the masses back. The key Vyborg Committee in Petrograd stated in June: "We have to play the part of the fire-hose." (Quoted in M. Liebman, Leninism under Lenin, p. 200.) Podvoisky admitted at the Sixth Party Congress in August: "We were forced to spend half our time calming the masses." (Ibid., p. 200.)

Permanent mobilisation

Numerous witnesses from all parties testify to the extraordinary degree of participation by the masses. In the words of Marc Ferro: "The citizens of the new Russia, having overthrown Tsardom, were in a state of permanent mobilisation." (Ibid., p. 201.) The prominent Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov recalls that "all Russia was constantly demonstrating in those days. The provinces had all become accustomed to street demonstrations". (Ibid., p. 201.) Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin&#39;s wife, recalls:

"The streets in those days presented a curious spectacle: everywhere people stood about in knots, arguing heatedly and discussing the latest events. Discussion that nothing could interrupt&#33; The house in which we lived overlooked a courtyard, and even here, if you opened the window at night, you could hear a heated dispute. A soldier would be sitting there, and he always had an audience - usually some of the cooks or housemaids from next door, or some young people. An hour after midnight you could catch snatches of talk - &#39;Bolsheviks, Mensheviks�&#39; At three in the morning: &#39;Milyukov, Bolsheviks�&#39; At five - still the same street-corner-meeting talk, politics, etc. Petrograd&#39;s white nights are always associated in my mind now with those all-night political disputes." (N. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, pp. 351-2.)

The same picture is presented by John Reed: "At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers, and learned self-government through their committees. In the factories those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop Committees, gained experience and strength and a realisation of their historical mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was learning to read, and reading - politics, economics, history - because the people wanted to know� In every city, in most towns, along the Front, each political faction had its newspaper - sometimes several. Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed by thousands of organisations, and poured into the armies, the villages, the factories, the streets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six months, went out every day tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable. And it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap fiction that corrupts - but social and economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky�

"Lectures, debates, speeches - in theatres, circuses, school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters, barracks� Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares, factories� What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever they had to say, as long as they would talk&#33; For months in Petrograd, and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In railway-trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu debate, everywhere." (John Reed, op. cit. p. 14-5) The thirst for ideas was reflected in an enormous interest in the printed word. John Reed describes the situation with the soldiers in the front line: "We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly, &#39;Did you bring anything to read&#39;?" (Ibid., p. 16, emphasis in original.)

The Bolshevik Party gained because it stood for the only programme that showed a way out. Lenin&#39;s celebrated slogan was - "Patiently explain&#33;" The masses were able to experience the programmes of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries in practice, and discarded them. The votes for the Bolshevik candidates in the soviets steadily increased to the point where, by September they had won the majority in Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and all the major cities. At this point, the question of a transfer of power from the discredited Provisional Government, which represented only itself, to the soviets, the democratic organs of the mass of workers and soldiers (overwhelmingly peasants) was an imperative necessity. The growth of the Bolshevik Party in this period is something without precedent in the history of political parties. From only around 8,000 members in February, it grew to 177,000 by the Sixth Congress in July. Moreover, we must remember that this was achieved despite an extremely weak apparatus, and in conditions of severe persecution. Krupskaya writes: "The growth of Bolshevik influence, especially among the troops, was obvious. The Sixth Congress welded the forces of the Bolsheviks still closer. The appeal issued in the name of the Sixth Party Congress spoke about the counter-revolutionary position taken by the Provisional Government, and about the impending world revolution and the battle of classes." (N. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, pp. 369-70.) The numerical growth of the Party only partly expressed the rapid growth in its mass influence, above all in the workers&#39; and soldiers&#39; soviets. Marcel Liebman describes the Party&#39;s progress thus:

"Lenin&#39;s Party recorded, all through the year 1917, remarkable and almost constant election successes. Whereas at the beginning of the revolution it had only small representation in the Petrograd Soviet, by May the Bolshevik group in the workers&#39; section of that institution possessed almost an absolute majority. One month later, during the first conference of the factory committees of Petrograd, three-quarters of the 568 delegates expressed support for the Bolshevik theses. Yet it was only at the end of the summer that the Leninists reaped the full harvest of their policy of opposition to the Provisional Government. In the Petrograd municipal elections in June the Bolsheviks received between 20 and 21 per cent of the votes; in August, when the Party was still suffering from the consequences of the July days, it received 33 per cent. In Moscow in June the Bolsheviks had received a little over 12 per cent of the votes. In September they won an absolute majority, with 51 per cent of the votes. That their grip was especially strong among the working class is clear from the advance of their representation at the factory-committee conferences. In Petrograd, by September, there were no more Mensheviks or Social Revolutionaries present at the regional meetings of these bodies, their places having been taken by Bolsheviks." (Liebman, op. cit. p. 206.)

We will give the last word on this subject to a prominent opponent of Bolshevism, who was also an eye witness and historian of the Russian Revolution, the Menshevik Sukhanov. Describing the situation in the last days of September, he writes: "The Bolsheviks were working stubbornly and without let-up. They were among the masses, at the factory-benches, every day without a pause. Tens of speakers, big and little, were speaking in Petersburg, at the factories and in the barracks, every blessed day. For the masses they had become their own people, because they were always there, taking the lead in details as well as in the most important affairs of the factory or barracks. They had become the sole hope� The mass lived and breathed together with the Bolsheviks." (Ibid., p. 207.)

Party and class

The Russian Revolution took place over nine months. During that period, the Bolshevik Party, using the most democratic means, won over the decisive majority of the workers and poor peasants. The fact that they succeeded so easily in overcoming the resistance of the Kerensky forces can only be explained by this fact. Moreover, as we shall see, there is no way that the Bolsheviks could have held onto power, without the support of the overwhelming majority of society. At every stage, the decisive role was played by the active intervention of the masses. This is what set its stamp on the whole process. The ruling class and its political and military representatives could only grind their teeth, but were powerless to prevent power from slipping from their hands. True, they were involved in constant conspiracies against the Revolution, including the armed uprising of General Kornilov, which aimed at overthrowing Kerensky and instituting a military dictatorship, but all of this foundered on the movement of the masses.

The fact that the masses supported the Bolsheviks was accepted by everyone at the time, including the staunchest enemies of the Revolution. Naturally, they put this down to all kinds of malign influences, "demagogy", the immaturity of the workers and peasants, their supposed ignorance, and all the rest of the arguments which are essentially directed against democracy itself. How it came about that the masses only became ignorant and immature when they ceased to support the Provisional Government must be one of the greatest mysteries since Saint Paul saw the light on the road to Damascus. But if we leave aside the obvious motivation of spitefulness, malice and impotent rage, we can see that the following passage from a rightwing paper constitutes a valuable admission that the Bolsheviks indeed enjoyed the support of the masses. On the 28th October, Russkaya Volya wrote the following:

"What are the chances of Bolshevik success? It is difficult to answer that question, for their principal support is the ignorance of the popular masses. They speculate on it, they work upon it by a demagogy which nothing can stop." (Quoted in J. Reed, op. cit., p. 298, my emphasis.)

It is impossible to understand what happened in 1917 without seeing the fundamental role of the masses. The same is true of the French Revolution of 1789-94, a fact which historians frequently fail to grasp (there are exceptions, notably the anarchist Kropotkin, and, in our own times, George Rud). But here for the first time in history, if we exclude the brief but glorious episode of the Paris Commune, the working class actually succeeded in taking power and at least beginning the socialist transformation of society. That is precisely why the enemies of socialism are compelled to lie about the October Revolution and slander it. They cannot forgive Lenin and the Bolsheviks for having succeeded in leading the first successful socialist revolution, for proving that such a thing is possible, and therefore pointing the way for future generations. Such a precedent is dangerous&#33; It is therefore necessary to "prove" (with the assistance of the usual crew of "objective" academics) that this was all a very bad business, and must not be repeated.

The claim that the October Revolution was only a coup is often justified by pointing to the relatively small numbers actually involved in the insurrection itself. This apparently profound argument does not resist the slightest scrutiny. In the first place, it confuses the armed insurrection with the revolution, that is to say, it confuses the part with the whole. In reality, the insurrection is only a part of the revolution - a very important part, it is true. Trotsky likens it to the crest of a wave. As a matter of fact, the amount of fighting that took place in Petrograd was very small. One can say that it was bloodless. The reason for this was that nine-tenths of the tasks were already accomplished beforehand, by winning over the decisive majority of the workers and soldiers. It was still necessary to use armed force to overcome the resistance of the old order. No ruling class has ever surrendered power without a fight. But resistance was minimal. The government collapsed like a house of cards, because nobody was prepared to defend it.

In Moscow, mainly because of the mistakes of the local Bolsheviks, who did not act with sufficient energy, the counter-revolutionary Junkers initially went onto the offensive and carried out a massacre. Despite this, incredibly, they were allowed to go free on giving their word that they would not participate in any further violent acts against the Soviet power. This kind of thing was quite typical of the early days of the Revolution, characterised by a certain naivety on the part of the masses who had yet to understand of what terrible violence the defenders of the old order were capable. Far from being a bloodthirsty regime of terror, the Revolution was an extraordinarily benign affair - until the counter-revolution showed its real nature. The White General P. Krasnov was one of the first to lead an uprising against the Bolsheviks at the head of the Cossacks. He was defeated by the Red Guards and handed over by his own Cossacks, but again was released on parole. Of this Victor Serge writes correctly:

"The revolution made the mistake of showing magnanimity to the leader of the Cossack attack. He should have been shot on the spot. At the end of a few days he recovered his liberty, after giving his word of honour never to take up arms again against the revolution. But what value can promises of honour have towards enemies of fatherland and property? He was to go off to put the Don region to fire and the sword." (Serge, Year One of the Russian Revolution, p. 87.)

Do the relatively small numbers involved in the actual fighting mean that the October overturn was a coup? There are many similarities between the class war and war between nations. In the latter too, only a very small proportion of the population are in the armed forces. And only a small minority of the army is at the front. Of the latter, even in the course of a major battle, only a minority of the soldiers are normally engaged in fighting at any given time. Experienced soldiers know that a lot of time is spent waiting in idleness, even during a battle. Very often the reserves are never called into action. But without the reserves, no responsible general would order an advance. Moreover, it is not possible to wage war successfully without the wholehearted support of the population at home, even though they do not directly participate in the fighting. This lesson was carved on the nose of the Pentagon in the latter stages of the Vietnam war.

The argument that the Bolsheviks were able to take power without the masses (a coup) is usually linked to the idea that power was seized, not by the working class, but by a party. Again, this argument is entirely false. Without organisation - the trade unions and the party - the working class is only raw material for exploitation. This was already pointed out by Marx long ago. True, the proletariat possesses enormous power. Not a wheel turns, not a light bulb shines, without its permission. But without organisation, this power remains as just potential. In the same way, steam is a colossal force, but without a piston box, it will be harmlessly dissipated in the air. In order that the strength of the working class should cease to be a mere potential and become a reality, it must be organised and concentrated in a single point. This can only be done through a political party with a courageous and far-sighted leadership and a correct programme. The Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky was such a party. Basing themselves on the movement of the masses - a magnificent movement that represented all that was alive, progressive and vibrant in Russian society, they gave it form, purpose and a voice. That is its cardinal sin from the standpoint of the ruling class and its echoes in the labour movement. That is what lies behind their hatred and loathing of Bolshevism, their vitriol and spiteful attitude towards it, which completely conditions their attitude even three generations later.

Without the Bolshevik Party, without the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, the Russian workers would never have taken power in 1917, despite all their heroism. The revolutionary party cannot be improvised on the spur of the moment, any more than a general staff can be improvised on the outbreak of war. It has to be systematically prepared over years and decades. This lesson has been demonstrated by the whole of history, especially the history of the twentieth century. Rosa Luxemburg, that great revolutionary and martyr of the working class, always emphasised the revolutionary initiative of the masses as the motor force of revolution. In this, she was absolutely right. In the course of a revolution the masses learn rapidly. But a revolutionary situation, by its very nature, cannot last for long. Society cannot be kept in a permanent state of ferment, nor the working class in a state of white-hot activism. Either a way out is shown in time, or the moment will be lost. There is not enough time to experiment or for the workers to learn by trial and error. In a life and death situation, errors are paid for very dearly&#33; Therefore, it is necessary to combine the "spontaneous", movement of the masses with organisation, programme, perspectives, strategy and tactics - in a word, with a revolutionary party led by experienced cadres. There is no other way.

It is necessary to add that at every stage the Bolsheviks always had before them the perspective of the international revolution. They never believed that they could hold power in Russia alone. It is a striking testimony to the vitality of the October Revolution that, in spite of all the vicissitudes, all the crimes of Stalinism and the terrible destruction of the second world war, the basic conquests were maintained for so long, even when the revolution, deprived of aid from the rest of the world, was thrown upon its own resources. Even in the last period, the collapse of Stalinism was not the result of any inherent defect of the nationalised planned economy, but flowed from treachery and betrayal of the bureaucracy which, as Trotsky brilliantly predicted, sought to reinforce its privileges by selling out to capitalism.

&#39;All power to the soviets&#33;&#39;

As a corollary of the slanders against October, we have the attempt to paint the February Revolution in glowing colours. The "democratic" regime of Kerensky, it is alleged, would have led Russia into a glorious future of prosperity, if only the Bolsheviks had not spoilt it all. Alas&#33; The idealisation of the February Revolution does not stand up to the least scrutiny. The February 1917 Revolution - which had overthrown the old Tsarist regime - had not solved one of the tasks of the national-democratic revolution: land reform, a democratic republic, the national question. It was not even capable of bringing about the most elementary demand of the masses - for an end to the imperialist slaughter and the conclusion of a democratic peace. In short, the Kerensky regime in the course of nine months gave ample proof of its total inability to meet the most basic needs of the Russian people. It was this fact, and this alone, which enabled the Bolsheviks to come to power with the support of the decisive majority of society.

Emerging from the ravages of the first world war, Tsarist Russia was a semi-colony particularly of France, Germany, and Britain. Russia produced less than 3 per cent of world industrial output. It could not compete on a world scale. For every hundred square kilometres of land, there were only 0.4 kilometres of rail track. Around 80 per cent of the population eked out a bare existence on the land, which was fragmented into millions of smallholdings. The Russian bourgeoisie had entered onto the stage of history too late. It had failed to carry out any of the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, that had been solved in Britain and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the contrary, the Russian capitalists leaned on imperialism on the one hand and the Tsarist autocracy for support on the other. They were linked by a thousand threads to the old landlords and aristocrats. Horrified by the 1905 Revolution, the bourgeoisie had become more conservative and suspicious of the workers. They had no revolutionary role to play. "Whereas in the dawn of its history it was too unripe to accomplish a Reformation," states Trotsky, "when the time came for leading a revolution it was overripe." (Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, Vol. 1, p. 28.)

The only revolutionary class in Russia was the young, small, but highly concentrated proletariat. Arising from the law of uneven and combined development, a backward country assimilates the material and intellectual conquests of the advanced countries. It does not slavishly reproduce all the stages of the past, but skips over a whole series of intermediate stages. This gives rise to a contradictory development, where the most advanced features are superimposed upon extremely backward conditions. Foreign investment had meant the creation of highly advanced concentrated factories and industries in Russia. The peasants were uprooted, thrown into industry, and proletarianised over night. It fell to this youthful proletariat - which had none of the conservative traditions of its counterpart in the West - to take Russian society out of the impasse it faced. The attempt to counterpose the February regime to October has no foundation whatever. Had the Bolsheviks not taken power, the future that faced Russia was not one of prosperous capitalist democracy, but fascist barbarism under the jackboot of Kornilov or one of the other White generals. Such a development would have signified, not advance, but a terrible regression.

In the October Revolution, the victorious proletariat first had to tackle the basic problems of the national-democratic revolution, then went on, uninterruptedly, to carry out the socialist tasks. This was the very essence of the permanent revolution. Capitalism had broken at its weakest point, as Lenin explained. The October Revolution represented the beginning of the world socialist revolution. The revolution of February had spontaneously thrown up committees of workers and soldiers, as had the revolution of 1905. The committees, or soviets, became transformed from extended strike committees into political instruments of the working class in the struggle for power, and later into administrative organs of the new workers&#39; state. They were far more democratic and flexible than the territorially elected bodies of bourgeois democracy. To paraphrase Marx, capitalist democracy allows the workers every five years to elect parties to misrepresent their interests. In Russia, with the establishment of peasants&#39; soviets, they embraced the overwhelming majority of the population.

Throughout the nine months between February and October, the soviets represented a rival power to the capitalist state. It was a period of "dual power". One of the key demands of the Bolsheviks throughout this time was: "All power to the soviets&#33;" Months of patient explanation and the harsh experience of events won over the overwhelming majority of the workers and poor peasants to Bolshevism. The October Revolution brought to power a new revolutionary government, which took its authority from the Congress of Soviets. Contrary to common belief, it was not a one-party regime but originally a coalition government of Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries. The urgent task facing the government was to spread the authority of Soviet power - the rule of the working class - throughout all Russia. On the 5th January 1918, the government issued a directive which declared that the local soviets were from then on invested with all the powers held by the former administration, and added: "The entire country must be covered with a network of new soviets."

The system of soviets was not, as the reformists claim, an exclusively Russian phenomenon. The November 1918 Revolution in Germany spontaneously threw up similar bodies. They were the embodiment of workers&#39; self organisation. In every German port, town and barracks, workers&#39;, soldiers&#39; and sailors&#39; councils were established and held effective political power. Soviets were established in Bavaria and during the Hungarian Revolution of 1919. In Britain also, Councils of Action were established in 1920, which were described by Lenin as "soviets in all but name", as well as during the 1926 General Strike (committees of action and trades councils). Although the Stalinists and reformists tried to prevent the reappearance of soviets, they re-emerged in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, with the creation of the Budapest Workers&#39; Council.

In its origins, the soviet - the most democratic and flexible form of popular representation yet devised - was simply an extended strike committee. Born in mass struggle, the soviets (or workers&#39; councils) assumed an extremely broad sweep, and ultimately became transformed into organs of revolutionary direct government. Beside the local soviets, elected in every city, town and village, in every large city there were also ward (raionny) soviets as well as district or provincial (oblastny or gubiernsky) soviets, and finally delegates were elected to the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets in Petrograd. The delegates were elected at every unit of labour to the Soviets of Workers&#39;, Soldiers&#39; and Peasants&#39; Deputies, and subject to immediate recall. There was no bureaucratic elite. No deputy or official received more than the wage of a skilled worker.

The Soviet government issued a whole series of economic, political, administrative and cultural decrees in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. At a grassroots level, there was a mushrooming of soviet organisation. Everywhere attempts were made to do away with the distinction between legislative and executive functions, to allow individuals to participate directly in the application of decisions they had made. As a consequence, the masses began to take their destiny into their own hands. In November 1917 Lenin wrote an appeal in Pravda: "Comrades, working people&#33; Remember that now you yourselves are at the helm of state. No one will help you if you yourselves do not unite and take into your hands all affairs of state� Get on with the job yourselves; begin right at the bottom, do not wait for anyone." (LCW, Vol. 26, p. 297.) He was anxious for the masses to involve themselves in the running of industry and the state.

In December 1917 Lenin wrote: "One of the most important tasks of today, if not the most important, is to develop [the] independent initiative of the workers, and of all the working and exploited people generally, develop it as widely as possible in creative organisational work. At all costs we must break the old, absurd, savage, despicable and disgusting prejudice that only the so-called upper classes, only the rich, and those who have gone through the school of the rich, are capable of administering the state and directing the organisational development of socialist society." (LCW, Vol. 26, p. 409.)

The myth of the Constituent Assembly

Among all the numerous legends put in circulation in order to portray the October Revolution in an unfavourable light, that of the Constituent Assembly is perhaps the most persistent. According to this, the Bolsheviks before the revolution had advocated a democratically elected parliament (Constituent Assembly), yet after the revolution they disbanded it. Since they were in a minority, the argument goes, they decided to dissolve the democratically elected parliament and resort to dictatorship. This argument overlooks a number of fundamental questions. In the first place, the demand for a Constituent Assembly - which undoubtedly played a progressive role in mobilising the masses, especially the peasantry, against the Tsarist autocracy - was only one of a series of revolutionary-democratic demands, and not necessarily the most important one. The masses were won over to the revolution on other demands, notably "Peace, Bread and Land". These, in turn, became a reality only because they were linked to another demand - all power to the soviets.

The February Revolution failed precisely because it was not capable of satisfying these most pressing needs of the population. The complete impotence of the Kerensky regime was not accidental. It reflected the reactionary character of the Russian bourgeoisie. The capitalist class of Russia was a very weak class, tied hand and foot to the landlords, and subordinate to world imperialism. Only the revolutionary transfer of power into the hands of the most resolutely revolutionary part of society, the working class, made possible the ending of the war and the distribution of land to the peasants. This was the function of the October Revolution.

The calling of elections to the Constituent Assembly the following year was almost in the nature of an afterthought. The Bolsheviks intended to use this to try to mobilise the majority of the peasantry and rouse them to political life. But above all from the standpoint of the peasantry, formal parliamentary democracy is worse than useless if it does not carry out policies that solve their most pressing needs. Under certain circumstances, the Constituent Assembly could have played a progressive role. But in practice, it became clear that this Constituent Assembly could only be an obstacle and a rallying point for the counter-revolution. Here, the slow moving mechanism of parliamentary elections lagged far behind the swift current of revolution. The real attitude of the peasantry was revealed in the civil war, when the right Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and most of the Mensheviks collaborated with the Whites.

At the time of the October Revolution, the Soviets of Workers&#39; and Soldiers&#39; Deputies represented all that was alive and dynamic in Russian society. The working class voted for the Bolsheviks in the soviets, which were much more democratic that any parliament. At the same time, the soldiers, of whom a big majority were peasants also voted overwhelmingly for the Bolsheviks:

Votes Percentages

Party June September June September

Social Revolutionaries 974,885 54,374 58 14
Mensheviks 76,407 15,887 12 4
Kadets 168,781 101,106 17 26
Bolsheviks 75,409 198,230 12 51

These figures show, on the one hand, a growing polarisation between the classes, to the right (note the vote of the bourgeois Kadet party) and the left, and a collapse of the parties of the "centre", the Mensheviks and SRs. But the most striking feature is the sweeping victory of the Bolsheviks, who, from a mere 12 per cent in June were now an absolute majority. What this shows is that the Bolsheviks had the support of the overwhelming majority of the workers, and a sizeable section of the peasants also. In November 1917 the Menshevik leader Y.O. Martov himself had to admit that "almost the entire proletariat supports Lenin". (Quoted in Liebman, op. cit., p. 218.) Precisely on this basis, the Bolsheviks were able to overthrow the discredited Provisional Government and take power with a minimum of resistance. These facts alone give the lie to the myth of the October Revolution as a coup.

Thus, the democratic legitimacy of the October Revolution was clearly established. But this was not reflected in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, when the Bolsheviks only got 23.9 per cent of the votes (to which must be added the votes of the Left SRs):

*NOTE* I changed the layout of this section, as it got jumbled when I pasted it. The information is the same as in the book, though.*
-Axel1917

Constituent Assembly (in votes):

Peasant Parties

Russian SRs

15,848,004

Ukrainian SRs

1,286,157

Ukrainian socialist coalition

3,556,581

Total SRs and allies

20,690,742


Workers Parties

Bolsheviks

9,844,637

Mensheviks

1,364,826

Other socialists

601,707

Bourgeois and Rightwing Parties

Kadets

1,986,601

Conservative Russian groups

1,262,418

Nationalist groups

2,620,967

Constituent Assembly (in seats)

Russian SRs

299

Ukrainian SRs

81

Left SRs

39

Bolsheviks

168

Mensheviks

18

Other socialists

4

Kadets

15

Conservatives

2

Nationalist groups

77

(Source, Anweiler, p. 220.)

Despite this, the Bolsheviks remained firmly in power. Why? The right SRs had traditionally led the peasants, going back to the time of the Narodniks at the turn of the century. These middle class elements were the traditional village aristocracy - teachers, lawyers, and the "gentlemen who spoke well". During the first world war, many of them became army officers. At the time of the February Revolution, these democratic revolutionaries exercised a considerable influence among the peasant soldiers. Their vague and amorphous "revolutionism" corresponded to the first stirring of consciousness among the peasantry. But the tide of revolution flows fast. Soon after the February Revolution, the right SRs betrayed the peasantry by abandoning the programme of peace, and the revolutionary struggle for land.

Where could the peasants in uniform turn for support? Once awakened to political life, the peasant masses, specially the most active layer in the army whose experience of the war raised them to a higher level of understanding than their brothers in the villages, soon came to understand the need for a revolutionary overturn in order to conquer peace, bread and land. This could only be achieved by a revolutionary alliance with the proletariat. The realisation of this fact was registered in the Soviet elections by a sharp swing to the left. By the autumn of 1917, the old right SR leaders had lost their base among the soldiers, who went over in droves to the left SRs and their Bolshevik allies.

The elections to the Constituent Assembly were organised in a hurry after the revolution on the basis of electoral lists drawn up before October. The peasantry had not yet had time to understand the processes that were taking place. The split between the left and right SRs had not yet taken place. There was not time for the peasantry as a whole to grasp the meaning of the October Revolution and Soviet power, particularly in the vital fields of land reform and peace. The dynamics of a revolution cannot be easily translated into the cumbersome mechanism of parliamentarism. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the inert masses of the backward countryside was thrown into the balance. Weighed down by the ballast of a thousand years of slavery, the villages lagged behind the towns.

These right SRs were not the political representatives but the political exploiters of the peasantry. Implacably hostile to the October Revolution, they would have handed back power to the landlords and capitalists in the kind of democratic counter-revolution which robbed the German working class of power in November 1918. There were two mutually exclusive centres of power. The reactionaries rallied around the slogan: "All Power to the Constituent Assembly." Faced with this situation, the Bolsheviks, with the support of the Left SRs, did not hesitate to place the interests of the revolution before constitutional niceties. Basing themselves on the soviets, the Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly. There was no resistance. This incident now causes an indignant reaction in some quarters. And yet, we are left with a self-evident contradiction. If the Constituent Assembly really represented the will of the masses, why did nobody defend it? Not a hand was raised in its defence, precisely because it was an unrepresentative anachronism. The reason for this was very well explained by the celebrated English historian of the Russian Revolution, E.H. Carr:

"The SRs had gone to the polls as a single party presenting one list of candidates. Its election manifesto had been full of lofty principles and aims but, though published on the day after the October Revolution, had been drafted before that event and failed to define the party attitude towards it. Now three days after the election the larger section of the party had made a coalition with the Bolsheviks, and formally split away from the other section which maintained its bitter feud against the Bolsheviks. The proportion between Right and Left SRs in the Constituent Assembly - 370 to 40 - was fortuitous. It was entirely different from the corresponding proportion in the membership of the peasants&#39; congress, and did not necessarily represent the views of the electors on a vital point which had not been before them. &#39;The people,&#39; said Lenin, &#39;voted for a party which no longer existed.&#39; Reviewing the whole issue two years later Lenin found another argument which was more cogent than it appeared at first sight. He noted that in the large industrial cities the Bolsheviks had almost everywhere been ahead of the other parties. They secured an absolute majority in the two capitals taken together, the Kadets here being second and the SRs a poor third. But in matters of revolution the well-known principle applied: &#39;the town inevitably leads the country after it; the country inevitable follows the town.&#39; The elections to the Constituent Assembly, if they did not register the victory of the Bolsheviks, had clearly pointed the way to it for those who had eyes to see." (E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 1, pp. 121-2.)

This was admitted in so many words by Kerensky himself, who wrote the following in his memoirs: "The opening of the Constituent Assembly ended as a tragic farce. Nothing happened to give it the quality of a memorable final stand in defence of freedom." (Alexander Kerensky, The Kerensky Memoirs - Russia and History&#39;s Turning-Point, p. 470.)

-Ted Grant, from Russia: From Revolution to Counterrevolution

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Axel Iron Bolshevik Discipline 1917
Was the October Revolution a coup?

The Seizure of Power (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1118713738&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

October 1917 -- Revolution or Coup? (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1109888439&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Guest1]

You&#39;re fucking kidding me redstar.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Mar 29 2006, 02:25 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Mar 29 2006, 02:25 PM)
Axel Iron Bolshevik Discipline 1917
Was the October Revolution a coup?

The Seizure of Power (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1118713738&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

October 1917 -- Revolution or Coup? (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1109888439&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif [/b]
Considering that he has over 70 years of experience as a Marxist, in addition to using various Bourgeois and non-Bourgeois resources in that work, I would consider Ted Grant to be far more credible than you are.

Did you even bother reading that, redstar2000?

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by red_che
These two quotes mean different things. The first one (by Lenin) is about the organization of a proletarian State. It does not talk about production of commodities or labor. While the second passage (by Marx) discusses the alienation of man through his labor. Now, these two passages should not be taken out of context.
I&#39;m combining the two to show that with the discipline of the proletariat, the Leninists are alienating the worker whenever the worker produces something. Does anyone else see this or am I alone here?

I believe this understanding of the Party is somewhat absurd. A Party is a political organization, not an economic organization. The Party is established to ensure political power for the proletariat. A Party is really different from a Class. A class is a social division based on economic (i.e., ownership of the means of production, participation into production, and share from products) relations.
The party was not Proletarian and merely claimed to be the Proletariat&#39;s representation and the only people who could join the Party were hand picked by members of the Party. They do not produce anything and instead run the centrally planned economy as basically a boss. I do not see how they can be considered Proletariat and therefore dictate in the name of Proletarians.

Your comparisons of Marx&#39;s and Lenin&#39;s ideas were taken out of context. It must be noted that Communism wasn&#39;t established yet. What they did in Russia during those times were trying to find out ways on how to improve their lives while transforming their society from the old to the new. I say, they are still in that period of transition to communism. Everything is still experimental because no established and actual experience of communist society was present. No model to be followed.
I know it wasn&#39;t Communism and they were treading on ground that had been untouched. This doesn&#39;t escape the fact that Lenin didn&#39;t follow Marxist ideas and basically seized power due to an opportunity given to him by Kerensky. What happened after the "revolution" -- killing of Socialists, Communists, Anarchists and so on -- cannot be justified because Communism had never been established before. I&#39;ve yet to see any signs given by Lenin or Stalin which showed that they planned on edging toward Communism with the deterioration of the state and instead they added on more power with the addition of the Eastern Bloc.

However, I should say, the SU&#39;s biggest and fatal mistake was when the Social Imperialist revisionist regimes came into power. This started when Kruschev was put into power. This is where to differentiate Leninism and modern revisionism. The revisionist cliques of Kruschev made the fatal mistakes and it was completed by Gorbachev.
I completely ignored the era following Stalin because of this.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by ML+--> (ML)And before you say; &#39;history already has&#33;&#39;, history also pronounced Marxism dead several times (second international anyone?)...Lenin happened to be the person who saved it.[/b]

Eumgggghh... * I kind of threw up in my mouth when I read this *


Originally posted by [email protected]
Most advanced = support redstar?

No. Most advanced are those that are able to act on their own behalf, those that don&#39;t need separative representation, one which can escape their practice and dialogue.

In Russia, it were those that defended Red Petrograd from Kornilov, those that took active participation in Soviets, those who initiated Workers&#39; Opposition, those that took arms against the bolsheviks in order to materialize the promises of October, those that died in Kronstadt.


red che
The Party is established to ensure political power for the proletariat.

In one sentence: you fetishized the word "party", you made a pseudo-historical statement stripping it off it&#39;s historical movement, you took a horizontal form away from it&#39;s vertical development, and you created a factual lie which perverted it&#39;s universal essence.

You really are a living contradiction to everything you think you represent.

Party -- even if it was "established to ensure the political power of the proletariat" - whatever that means -- became a political instrument of the new ruling class - bureaucracy.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Axel Iron Bolshevik Discipline 1917
Considering that he has over 70 years of experience as a Marxist, in addition to using various Bourgeois and non-Bourgeois resources in that work, I would consider Ted Grant to be far more credible than you are.

Of course you would. :)

Next thing you&#39;ll be telling us is that Chairman Ted is "the real living Marx" while Chairman Bob is a mere "impostor".

What Ted and Bob (and you) need to do is construct a rationale for conflating the Bolshevik seizure of power with actual state power in the hands of the working class.

Much of Lenin&#39;s writing after 1918 was devoted to asserting this "identity"...and Leninists of all varieties have scrambled ever since to manufacture "evidence" for it.

Carry on, then. You may still find a few suckers out there who&#39;ll fall for it. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[red_che]

I&#39;m combining the two to show that with the discipline of the proletariat, the Leninists are alienating the worker whenever the worker produces something. Does anyone else see this or am I alone here?

My point is, they are not to be combined to compare the "differences" in Marx&#39;s and Lenin&#39;s ideas. They are taken out of context. They discuss two different issues. And there was no contradiction on those passages.


The party was not Proletarian and merely claimed to be the Proletariat&#39;s representation and the only people who could join the Party were hand picked by members of the Party. They do not produce anything and instead run the centrally planned economy as basically a boss. I do not see how they can be considered Proletariat and therefore dictate in the name of Proletarians.

Had you been a member of a communist party? If so, the party you described above and you belonged was not a communist party. It does not, in any way, exercise a true communist party. It is not a party defined and described in the Communist Manifesto and Lenin&#39;s works.


This doesn&#39;t escape the fact that Lenin didn&#39;t follow Marxist ideas...

There wasn&#39;t any exact/specific step written by Marx on what to do during the transition period, except that it should be done in a revolutionary way. And of course, Marx cannot in any way tell how exactly every country can do it. It will all depend on their particular conditions. What Marx or Engels provided were the general and basic concepts. Not the specific ways that is to be copied by every country at all time.


...and basically seized power due to an opportunity given to him by Kerensky.

Proof?


What happened after the "revolution" -- killing of Socialists, Communists, Anarchists and so on --

Source?

[Chrysalis]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 02:56 AM

There wasn&#39;t any exact/specific step written by Marx on what to do during the transition period, except that it should be done in a revolutionary way. And of course, Marx cannot in any way tell how exactly every country can do it. It will all depend on their particular conditions. What Marx or Engels provided were the general and basic concepts. Not the specific ways that is to be copied by every country at all time.


Yeah, Marx did acknowledge in the Communist Manifesto preface 1872, that after 25 years changes had taken place, and things will continue to change, and so the "steps" or the practical application would have to depend on the situation. It&#39;s the principles that remain the same.

I think a lot of confidence, decisiveness, and on-the-job learning would have to come into play during the transition. But to imagine the transition now is to, perhaps, imagine something of a fantasy because we aren&#39;t that generation that would do the job. That future generation&#39;s mindset would be much more developed and prepared.



P.S. Red, I&#39;ll be out for a bit.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)I actually have read some Marx, and in my humble opinion, he never wrote anything that would suggest he would have supported the USSR or any of the others.[/b]

You&#39;re opinion doesn&#39;t coincide with facts:


Marx
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...ifesto/ch02.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm)

In case you didn&#39;t know; these demands seth forth by Marx in the Manifesto were realized in the USSR. Of course Marx would have supported these actions, you are proven wrong by...Marx himself. I could probably find hundreds of other quotes from Marx which would prove that he would have supported several key parts of the USSR and the construction of socialism which started to take place there.

I once again suggest to read some Marx before claiming what Marx did or did not support, like some kind of Marxist theoretician, when in reality you are nothing of the sort.


But, it is true that Marx is a complex character, and one can take some quotations, to show that Marx liked the idea of centralization, and then take other quotations, to show that he didn&#39;t like that idea.

No, actually you can&#39;t "take some quotations to show that Marx didn&#39;t like the idea of centralization", you can only find quotations showing the opposite.


However, Marx is dead. And we now know that centralization does not work. So we cut it from the theory. Well, at least anarchists do. Leninists, however, have this love of the stuff.

I can see you went through a big brainstorming session before you posted...

Of course in the real world Marx died leaving us with the most advanced theory known to mankind, how did he leave us that theory? By his writings, by leaving us "quotations". Of course you aren&#39;t someone who likes quotations or writings left by people who died long ago...yet you seem so keen on using them when they&#39;re supportive of your claims, typical anarchist tactic; "don&#39;t support the writings of dead theoreticians unless they happen to agree with you&#33;".

Sorry, you can&#39;t fool me, I wasn&#39;t born yesterday...nor the day before that, I was about 17 years ago, it takes a lot more than that to fool a 17 year old who has actually read Marx.

Centralization does not work you say, the dead theorist seems to disagree, so let&#39;s not care about what he said about it for now, let&#39;s look at the facts; centralization is the product of material conditions, centralization has proven throughout history to be the most efficient way to do practically anything which involves a large mass of people, politics, war, economics, practically anything. Centralization in the economic system of the USSR caused it to grow beyond the level of even some imperialist economic systems, quite an achievement, to mister anarchist it is all nothing of course, a decentralized economic system would have caused even greater growth in his "humble opinion". Of course anyone who knows anything about economics would disagree. Hell, the weakness in the capitalist system is its anarchy of production, its lack of centralization.

Established fact; centralization in economics is a good thing.

I hope you aren&#39;t advocating decentralization in economics, that would be disastrous, I think you were referring more to politics, in that case read below.

Now on to politics, the most effective and more importantly efficient political systems were highly centralized, of course this is the main "pro" for centralization, its efficiency. Anarchists try to paint the picture of a totalitarian state oppressing anyone and everything when speaking of a centralized state, of course this is petty emotional nonsense. What if in the centralized system of state complete democracy reigns? What if all officials are directly elected and subject to recall at all times? Does this not make this centralized (efficient) state machinery...perfect? Yes, it does, and guess what, Lenin wrote what I just said in his State and Revolution referring to the proletarian state.

To sum up, a highly centralized state, composed of and under complete democratic control of the proletariat, is our aim. Not only is such a state most effective in spreading the revolution and defending it, but also it is more efficient politically than its loggy, capitalist (or Stalinist), overtly bureaucratic counterpart.

And that&#39;s why we will never "cut it from the theory", it would be utterly senseless.


This was, essentially, a propaganda piece, used to advance the &#39;Bolshevik cause&#39;.

You&#39;re right, it&#39;s filthy Bolshevik Communist propaganda&#33; How dare Lenin write about the Marxist theory of the state, an issue so important to the Marxist movement of the world at the time because of the upcoming proletarian revolutions, I hereby denounce my Leninism&#33;

If only we were living in your fantasy world.


My problems with Leninism come, mostly, from What is to Be Done?, in which Vladimir speaks of the need of &#39;professional revolutionaries&#39; (like himself...strange coincidence) to lead the &#39;backward&#39; masses. Indeed, these professional revolutionaries were to be the Vanguard, and they were to keep the content of meetings secret. This can only lead to minority rule. And this is, essentially, why I oppose Leninism.

You can&#39;t deny the fact that there are Communist proletarians and non-Communist proletarians, gee, I wonder who is going to lead who?

Of course the non-Communist proletarians are the vast majority, that&#39;s why the Communist proletarians --the minority-- must stand together, organize themselves the best they can and try to convince the non-Communist proletarians to join them because it&#39;s in their best interest to do so.

Sounds like that Vladimir guy was good at logic.


we must turn to documents produced by Lenin to see what he thought. And what he thought was total bullshit.

Looks more like what you think is total bullshit.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by red_che+--> (red_che)My point is, they are not to be combined to compare the "differences" in Marx&#39;s and Lenin&#39;s ideas. They are taken out of context. They discuss two different issues. And there was no contradiction on those passages.[/b]
Is denial common among Leninists?

Had you been a member of a communist party? If so, the party you described above and you belonged was not a communist party. It does not, in any way, exercise a true communist party. It is not a party defined and described in the Communist Manifesto and Lenin&#39;s works.
Since when has a Party been able to succeed in establishing Communism? The only thing any party has done is establish Capitalism.

There wasn&#39;t any exact/specific step written by Marx on what to do during the transition period, except that it should be done in a revolutionary way. And of course, Marx cannot in any way tell how exactly every country can do it. It will all depend on their particular conditions. What Marx or Engels provided were the general and basic concepts. Not the specific ways that is to be copied by every country at all time.
I said nothing about Marx&#39;s outline. I&#39;ve shown where Lenin&#39;s theory and action differ from Marx&#39;s writings.

Proof?
When Kornilov sent troops at Petrograd, Kerensky asked the Red Guard to help defend the city. The Bolsheviks agreed and recruited 25,000 men. However Kornilov never attacked the city. Kerensky ordered the arrest of leading Bolsheviks (many of whom already had a warrant for their arrest) and that&#39;s when the Red Guard moved into action. With sufficient numbers (the 25,000 additional men) they were able to overtake the city they were recruited to defend.

Source?
Gulags began to fill with Socialists and the likes. And the ever so obvious...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion

----

Marxism&#045;Leninism
No, actually you can&#39;t "take some quotations to show that Marx didn&#39;t like the idea of centralization", you can only find quotations showing the opposite.
Can&#39;t the centralization be in a small community simular to that used in Chiapas? The government doesn&#39;t need to be huge to be centralized. A large union of small centralized communities would then fit the same centralization which Marx calls for.

[Axel1917]

From redstar2000:




Of course you would. :)

Next thing you&#39;ll be telling us is that Chairman Ted is "the real living Marx" while Chairman Bob is a mere "impostor".

I never said anything about Ted being a "real living Marx." We also have nothing in common with the personality cultist, Bob Avakian.


What Ted and Bob (and you) need to do is construct a rationale for conflating the Bolshevik seizure of power with actual state power in the hands of the working class.

Ted already refuted the anti-Bolshevik nonsense. You think that Lenin and Trotsky seized power from the masses with their magical powers&#33; :rolleyes:


Much of Lenin&#39;s writing after 1918 was devoted to asserting this "identity"...and Leninists of all varieties have scrambled ever since to manufacture "evidence" for it.

Baseless, Bourgeois libel.

[quote]Carry on, then. You may still find a few suckers out there who&#39;ll fall for it. :lol:[&#39;/quote]

We are winning people over and carrying things forward. You are sitting behind a computer and attacking everything that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky stood for. Maybe you will find a few suckers that will fall for youro nonsense, but in the end, you will get nowhere. You have nothing, and you will end up with nothing.

[Guest1]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 03:59 PM
What Ted and Bob (and you) need to do is construct a rationale for conflating the Bolshevik seizure of power with actual state power in the hands of the working class.

Much of Lenin&#39;s writing after 1918 was devoted to asserting this "identity"...and Leninists of all varieties have scrambled ever since to manufacture "evidence" for it.

Carry on, then. You may still find a few suckers out there who&#39;ll fall for it. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
So are you saying that before the transfer of power from the power of the bourgeois parliament to the power of the workers&#39; and peasants&#39; soviets, the workers were actually in control, and that event was a coup by a small elite?

The revolution was a coup?

[STI]

Originally posted by Red_Che
5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Marx probably would have "supported these", inasmuch as they were huge improvements on the general conditions of the day in Russia leading up to 1917... but not because they were "enough" in and of themselves. Marx probably would have recognized the role that the Bolsheviks would play in industrializing and modernizing Russia&#39;s economy and infrastructure, and would have seen the implementation of those reforms as the revolution being pushed to more radical degrees, which he probably would have supported... inasmuch as he would have supported the radicalization of any bourgeois revolution.

But either way, these "what would Marx have thought" discussions are really pointless, as nobody can really know exactly what "Marx would have thought", let alone whether or not he would have been right&#33;

...But we can know that the reforms listed above are simply not enough to create a communist society&#33;

And that&#39;s what we should be concerned with.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism+Mar 30 2006, 04:56 AM--> (Marxism&#045;Leninism &#064; Mar 30 2006, 04:56 AM)
Originally posted by Marx+--> (Marx)5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.[/b]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...ifesto/ch02.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm)

In case you didn&#39;t know; these demands seth forth by Marx in the Manifesto were realized in the USSR. Of course Marx would have supported these actions, you are proven wrong by...Marx himself.[/b]

Marx, Introduction to 1872 German edition [emphasis added]:


Originally posted by Marx
However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s Assocation, 1871, where this point is further developed.)

[link] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm#preface-1872)

So by the time of the fall of the Paris Commune, demands from section II became -- well, I&#39;ll say it out loud because Marx had too much respect for his 1848 scripture -- meaningless. So basicly - your whole case through which you try to tie Marx to Lenin is a sham.


Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism
No, actually you can&#39;t "take some quotations to show that Marx didn&#39;t like the idea of centralization", you can only find quotations showing the opposite.

Hahaha&#33; :lol:

Actually, I can.

How Marx changed his opinion on "centralization" it could be seen from these lines he wrote in his Civil War in France in 1871, envisioning what the whole revolutionary France might have (and should have) looked like:


Originally posted by Marx
[T]he rural communes of every district were to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates in the central town, and these district assemblies were again to send deputies to the national delegation in Paris, each delegate to be revocable and bound by the mandat impératif [formal instruction of his constituents].

[link] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm)

In his &#39;Adress&#39;, an earlier draft, he goes further [emphasis added]:


[email protected]
The Commune — the reabsorption of the state power by society as its own living forces instead of as forces controlling and subduing it, by the popular masses themselves, forming their own force instead of die organised force of their suppression — the political form of their social emancipation, instead of the artificial force (appropriated by their oppressors) (their own force opposed to and organised against them) of society wielded for their oppression by their enemies.


Marx
[A]ll France organised into self-working and self-governing communes [...] the suffrage for the national representation not a matter of sleight-of-hand for an all-powerful government, but the deliberate expression of organised communes, the state functions reduced to a few functions for general national purposes.

Such is the Commune — the political form of the social emancipation, of the liberation of labour from the usurpations (slave-holding) of the monopolists of the means of labour, created by the labourers themselves or forming the gift of nature. As the state machinery and parliamentarism are not the real life of the ruling classes, but only the organised general organs of their dominion, so the Commune is not the social movement of the working class and therefore of a general regeneration of mankind, but the organised means of action.

[link] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/drafts/ch01.htm)

Anyone who might say out loud that Marx would have "supported Bolsheviks" and their project in Russia doesn&#39;t know what the hell he/she&#39;s talking about.

Anyone who thinks that Marx would support the "strong hand / iron discipline" centralized dictatorship, or any form of centralization other than one needed for simple allready-made-decision activity for the purpose of communal cooperation should do some serious reading before making a priori conclusions.

Start with lines quoted above.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism+--> (Marxism&#045;Leninism)I could probably find hundreds of other quotes from Marx which would prove that he would have supported several key parts of the USSR and the construction of socialism which started to take place there.[/b]

Thereby "proving" Lenin&#39;s theological rectitude. :lol:

And utterly missing the point...that socialism was impossible in a backward country like Russia in 1917.

The measures proposed in the old Communist Manifesto were clearly specific to 1848...and have zero relevance in the present period.

Museum curators of the world, unite&#33;


Established fact; centralization in economics is a good thing.

Established rebuttal: Amtrak&#33; :o

To fetishize "centralization" was indeed common in the 19th century; people are more skeptical now.

Sometimes it&#39;s the "best way", sometimes it&#39;s not.

Political despotism according to Lenin and his successors turned out to be a more efficient way to develop a national economy...but was full of many fuckups as people would not do anything without "orders from the center".


Anarchists try to paint the picture of a totalitarian state oppressing anyone and everything when speaking of a centralized state, of course this is petty emotional nonsense.

No, it&#39;s established historical fact.


What if in the centralized system of state complete democracy reigns?

Let me know when that happens...and we&#39;ll see how things work out. :lol:


Yes, it does, and guess what, Lenin wrote what I just said in his State and Revolution referring to the proletarian state.

Yes, but he didn&#39;t do that. Nor did Stalin, Tito, Mao, Khrushchev, Ho, Castro, etc., etc., etc. In fact, Leninists can&#39;t do that even in their own parties&#33;


If only we were living in your fantasy world.

Yours is no improvement.

Anarchism might work...Leninism in the west has been a total flop&#33;


Axel Iron Bolshevik Discipline 1917
We also have nothing in common with the personality cultist, Bob Avakian.

RCPers are notorious for posting long excerpts from their leader&#39;s "sacred writings"...and you have begun to do likewise.


We are winning people over and carrying things forward. You are sitting behind a computer and attacking everything that Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky stood for.

I am indeed suggesting that Lenin and Trotsky are no longer of interest...except to museum curators.

And that you are just a social democrat wannabe "in love with" Venezuela&#39;s Chavez.

Anybody you "win over" will be won over to reformism and anything you "move forward" will be into a path of total futility.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

Originally posted by D Bokk+--> (D Bokk)
Since when has a Party been able to succeed in establishing Communism?[/b]

Since when has anything been able to succeed in establishing communism? Nothing has succeeded in establishing it&#33; So you are against all political organizations? How anti-Marxist.


Originally posted by D Bokk+--> (D Bokk)The only thing any party has done is establish Capitalism. [/b]

The only thing any revolutionary movement has done since the French Revolution is establish capitalism.


Originally posted by STI

If the party has control over the state, and the state owns the means of production, doesn&#39;t it follow that the party will serve the same function as a ruling class?

If the party is proletarian, and democratic, then what&#39;s the problem here?


Originally posted by STI

If being determines consciousness, then yes, it will.

The organization is made up of proletarians. If you want to look at it from a class analysis, then no, it won&#39;t. When the proletarian state is formed, the party will be made up of workers.


Originally posted by STI

...But we can know that the reforms listed above are simply not enough to create a communist society&#33;


That&#39;s not the point of M-L&#39;s post. He was responding to anomaly who claimed that Marx didn&#39;t support centralization.


Originally posted by Redstar2000


And utterly missing the point...that socialism was impossible in a backward country like Russia in 1917.


Marx didn&#39;t think so...

"Later still, Marx began to think that Russia might prove the starting point of the revolution which "begins this time in the East, hitherto the invulnerable bulwark and reinforcement of the counterrevolution." And a year before his death he wrote: "If the Russian revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complete each other, then the present Russian system of community ownership of land could serve as the starting point for a communist development."
-David McLellan, Karl Marx, pp.66-67


Originally posted by RedStar2000
Yes, but he didn&#39;t do that.

Lenin&#39;s theory is more reliable a source than his actions. This is because his actions were relevant to a specific time period and a specific location which had a specific set of material conditions.

Marx even approved of the use of terror in Tsarist Russia:

"But Marx did not turn into a tame parliamentarian in his old age. He was vigorous in condemning the Commune for observing too many legal niceties in a crisis situation, and not being willing to start a civil war. He declared to a conference of the International in 1871: "We must make clear to the governments: we know that you are the armed power that is directed against the proletariat; we will proceed against you by peaceful means where that is possible and with arms when it is necessary." But however much Marx thought that sometimes force could be the midwife of revolution, he never (except briefly in 1848 and under Tsarist conditions in Russia) approved the use of revolutionary terror.
-David McLellan, Karl Marx, p.68

Surely, you agree with what Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution then regarding this subject? Or is it too hard for you to admit that Lenin could have contributed something useful to communist theory?


[email protected]
Nor did Stalin, Tito, Mao, Khrushchev, Ho, Castro, etc., etc., etc. In fact, Leninists can&#39;t do that even in their own parties&#33;

You can&#39;t justify your argument by saying "Look how these people applied Lenin&#39;s theories&#33;&#33;&#33; They must be wrong&#33;&#33;&#33;" By this same logic one could attack communism by saying "Look what Stalin, Tito, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim&#39;s did&#33;&#33;&#33; Communism must be bad&#33;&#33;&#33;" The only way you can judge Lenin&#39;s theory is by analyzing his theory.


RedStar2000

RCPers are notorious for posting long excerpts from their leader&#39;s "sacred writings"...and you have begun to do likewise.

Is it so wrong to quote someone when the quote is beneficial to the argument? Why aren&#39;t you attacking the people in this thread that quoted Marx? Why not respond to this quote? We&#39;re here for constructive debate, and that would be much more constructive than saying "oh you&#39;re just quoting your master". If you want to try to convince him to "see it your way" then instead of attacking him you should be offering constructive criticism. I would go so far as reporting this as spamming if you weren&#39;t an admin.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 03:51 PM
To fetishize "centralization" was indeed common in the 19th century; people are more skeptical now.

As far as Marx is concerned, his "centralization" concept grew out before 1848, while Europe was still dominated by principality desintegration which held capitalist development in a strong grip. To be honest: there was no fetishization, only expression of an actual need.

But how things changed in the following decades, and he did not fall behind: Check out my post (see above yours).

Marx "centralist"? :lol: Myth busted.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar
Since when has anything been able to succeed in establishing communism? Nothing has succeeded in establishing it&#33; So you are against all political organizations? How anti-Marxist.
The Proletariat should be the party, and therefore this no need for a party at all. I&#39;m against the elitist Vanguard Party who exploit the Proletariat and trick them into following them.

Whether you like it or not, the Proletariat is competent and capable of ruling themselves without the help of the Bourgeois, I mean Vanguard Party.

The only thing any revolutionary movement has done since the French Revolution is establish capitalism.
Well that&#39;s bound to happen when the Proletariat isn&#39;t leading the way.

[Guest1]

The proletariat cannot consolidate its gains beyond individual day-to-day struggles without unity and coherence in action. That requires organization, a single unified organization blazing the path. Whatever you call it (anarchists like to refer to them as federations), that&#39;s what a party is.

No workingclass is ever going to overthrow capitalism anywhere without organization, Marx never advocate the "spontaneous mass action" view of revolution. He saw spontaneous mass action as moments of learning for the class, but never moments where a real change could be made unless organization grew from that action.

[KC]

The Proletariat should be the party, and therefore this no need for a party at all. I&#39;m against the elitist Vanguard Party who exploit the Proletariat and trick them into following them.

Of course there is need for a party. Organization is a necessity. It is impossible for the proletariat to revolt successfully without organization, and this is what you are advocating. Your view is completely idealist and has absolutely no basis in reality.

This organization will come in the form of a party/organization/federation/what-have-you and will be the creation of proletarians. Who are these proletarians? These proletarians are part of the vanguard. Is this party created by the vanguard elitist? To an extent. It certainly won&#39;t let in proletarians who hold reactionary views. Why should it? But it will let in any proletarian that is striving for the emancipation of the proletariat. So is it elitist? Only against reactionaries. Should it be this way? Most definitely.

Now, the dispute arises in the form of this organization. If you want to debate the form of this organization then you are free to do so; however, your view that a party isn&#39;t necessary (which implies a complete lack of any kind of organization) is entirely idealist and anti-Marxist.



Well that&#39;s bound to happen when the Proletariat isn&#39;t leading the way.

The proletariat was "leading the way" in the Paris Commune. So you&#39;re against that too now?

[JC1]

Thereby "proving" Lenin&#39;s theological rectitude.

E-z bra. ML is just using Quotes to back up his own thesis.


Sometimes it&#39;s the "best way", sometimes it&#39;s not.


And in the case of the orginization of a prolatarian state its the best. All prolatarian states in history have had a center. The Congress of Soviet&#39;s is the greatest example of this.


No, it&#39;s established historical fact.

Its an established fact that centralized states (E.g. the Congress of Soviet&#39;s) have suppressed class enemy&#39;s (E.G. Mahkno&#39;s peaseant-anarchist insurgent&#39;s).

It&#39;s an established fact that the petit-bourgoise have fought the prolatarian state when ever such a state has been created. We see this when Mahkno attemted to suppress Soviet&#39;s in the Ukraine.


Let me know when that happens...and we&#39;ll see how things work out.

It happened in 1917, you know, when Lenin and the woking class led a certain insurection that lead to the Congress of Soviets to take state power, witch was the most democratic state in human history.


Anarchism might work...Leninism in the west has been a total flop&#33;


Anarchism is not a new thing, Indeed anarchism has been around longer then Leninism has been. Leninist&#39;s have created mass party&#39;s in almost all country&#39;s on earth, and have captured state power numerous times.

Anarchism has yet to yeild result&#39;s in eithier the "1st" or "3rd" world&#39;s. Except of course for a peaseant insurgency in the ukraine and some peaseant commune&#39;s in spain.

And peaseants are straight up petit-bourgoise.


I am indeed suggesting that Lenin and Trotsky are no longer of interest...


... except to the working class. A class that you and youre "Comrades" have never and will never be a part of.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by D__Bokk+--> (D__Bokk)Can&#39;t the centralization be in a small community simular to that used in Chiapas? The government doesn&#39;t need to be huge to be centralized. A large union of small centralized communities would then fit the same centralization which Marx calls for.[/b]

First of all Marx called for a nationally centralized state composed of locally centralized communes, or Soviets, as they were called in the USSR. The central national authority is "a large union of small centralized communities". Why do anarchists insist on renaming basically the same thing? Parties they call "federations", centralized state they call "union of small centralized communities", it&#39;s the same thing.


Originally posted by STI+--> (STI)Marx probably would have "supported these", inasmuch as they were huge improvements on the general conditions of the day in Russia leading up to 1917... but not because they were "enough" in and of themselves.[/b]

No, he would have supported those demands in any nation at any time, the nationalization of the economy is the first step in creating a socialist society. They are huge improvements on the general conditions of every nation at any time.


Marx probably would have recognized the role that the Bolsheviks would play in industrializing and modernizing Russia&#39;s economy and infrastructure, and would have seen the implementation of those reforms as the revolution being pushed to more radical degrees, which he probably would have supported... inasmuch as he would have supported the radicalization of any bourgeois revolution.

Right, and there is no reason to believe that Marx would have considered the revolution to be bourgeois in nature.


But either way, these "what would Marx have thought" discussions are really pointless, as nobody can really know exactly what "Marx would have thought", let alone whether or not he would have been right&#33;

Sure, I wasn&#39;t the one who started the "what Marx would have thought" discussion, if you read back you will see that it was anomaly who brought up Marx, and claimed that you can find quotes of Marx to prove that he did not support centralization, which is not true.


...But we can know that the reforms listed above are simply not enough to create a communist society&#33;

And that&#39;s what we should be concerned with.

Of course they&#39;re not, but they are essential parts of the process, that&#39;s why Marx listed them in the manifesto. Point is, anarchists and Orthodox Marxists don&#39;t consider them to be essential...anomaly went so far as to claim that Marx would not have supported anything the USSR did, that quote basically proved him wrong.

If someone claims a certain person thought something, and you know that it is not true, it is perfectly acceptable to quote that person to prove him wrong. However, claiming what a certain person thought without being able to prove it is indeed pointless.


Originally posted by Marx
However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.”

I was aware of this quote, and somehow I knew you would bring it up, in the wrong context of course.

The working class indeed cannot simply lay hold of the read-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes, it has to destroy the ready-made state machinery and create a new one, that is what he meant with his "antiquated" comment. It is interesting to note that he refers to the demands as "revolutionary", i.e., he considers the demands to be progressive and agrees with their revolutionary character. I agree with him that no special stress should be laid upon them, for example one of the demands was: "Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes." this could be done pretty easily in any advanced nation at the time, hence why he wrote before the demands: "in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.", however in a nation like Russia it would be impossible for these demands to be applied any time soon. Marx of course was no fool, he realized that material conditions would differ from country to country, that&#39;s why he added: "These measures will, of course, be different in different countries."

You didn&#39;t really prove anything by posting that Marx quote, on the contrary, you strengthened my point, in the quote you posted Marx considers the demands to be revolutionary, he agrees with them...thank you for proving my initial point even further, in the works of Marx you can find writings which suggest that he would have supported the USSR, if you remember correctly anomaly started this whole discussion with his "humble opinion".


Originally posted by DJ&#045;TC
So by the time of the fall of the Paris Commune, demands from section II became -- well, I&#39;ll say it out loud because Marx had too much respect for his 1848 scripture -- meaningless. So basicly - your whole case through which you try to tie Marx to Lenin is a sham.

I should write a book called the DJ-TC school of falsification.

Perhaps you missed this part of the quote you posted: "no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II.", that&#39;s right, he referred to those measures as revolutionary as opposed to reactionary, even though he does say that no special stress should be laid on them, even though he says that the passage in question would be very differently worded, he still agrees with them and considers them to be revolutionary.

Certainly not "meaningless".


Start with lines quoted above.

Ehhh, he just analyzed the Paris commune in those quotes, and not anywhere did he say that he would oppose the Soviet system.

In case you didn&#39;t know, the USSR was based on the commune system; local communes were the centralized political authority of a certain community, provincial communes were the centralized political authority of all communes in certain province, and the national commune was the centralized political authority of all the communes in the nation.

Now replace the word "commune" with "Soviet" and you have the Soviet Union.


[email protected]
Thereby "proving" Lenin&#39;s theological rectitude.

I was simply saying that anomaly&#39;s "humble opinion" is wrong, I didn&#39;t say that I&#39;m right because I can find hundreds of quotes from Marx which prove that he would have supported the USSR.


And utterly missing the point...that socialism was impossible in a backward country like Russia in 1917.

You say it with so much conviction, one would be inclined to think that you have actually been able to prove it...but you haven&#39;t.


The measures proposed in the old Communist Manifesto were clearly specific to 1848...and have zero relevance in the present period.

Don&#39;t be silly, of course the measures are still to be considered revolutionary, as Marx considered them to be.


Political despotism according to Lenin and his successors turned out to be a more efficient way to develop a national economy...but was full of many fuckups as people would not do anything without "orders from the center".

I believe you mean "political centralization"? In that case, you&#39;re wrong.

First of all I don&#39;t care about "Lenin&#39;s successors", the most important part of the political system Lenin envisioned was destroyed a few years after his death, the multi-tendency party was rooted out by Stalin and his clique, in effect creating a de-facto dictatorship. I never claimed that such, as you stated correctly, despotisms are able to build socialism or sustain their fake socialism, in fact, the collapse of these despotisms is inevitable.

Again you&#39;re not able to look at the issue as a Marxist, a Marxist would analyze history in its concreteness and come to the conclusion that post-Lenin USSR was very different than the USSR during Lenin&#39;s lifetime.


No, it&#39;s established historical fact.

So the USSR circa 1922 oppressed anyone and everything?

Can you prove such a claim?


Yes, but he didn&#39;t do that. Nor did Stalin, Tito, Mao, Khrushchev, Ho, Castro, etc., etc., etc. In fact, Leninists can&#39;t do that even in their own parties&#33;

No, he didn&#39;t do that, and why didn&#39;t he do that? Because it would have been suicide if he did, you can&#39;t create a socialist system when the material conditions for it don&#39;t exist, you first have to build the material conditions for it and then create a socialist system. It just so happens to be that a majority peasant country can&#39;t have complete democracy, how surprising&#33;

I believe Lenin said it best:


Lenin
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 begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers&#39; and peasants&#39; government and Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?


Anarchism might work...Leninism in the west has been a total flop&#33;

Anarchism has been just as much a failure as Leninism in the west, even more so, the majority of Communists in the west, that is, the majority of people fighting in the real live struggle of the proletariat, are still Leninists.

Oh, and please respond to the other thread I just made in the theory forum, apparently Lenin had to deal with intellectual nonsense like yours as well back in his days, he basically refuted you and your views 100 years ago, how humiliating that must be.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)Of course there is need for a party. Organization is a necessity. It is impossible for the proletariat to revolt successfully without organization, and this is what you are advocating. Your view is completely idealist and has absolutely no basis in reality.

This organization will come in the form of a party/organization/federation/what-have-you and will be the creation of proletarians. Who are these proletarians? These proletarians are part of the vanguard. Is this party created by the vanguard elitist? To an extent. It certainly won&#39;t let in proletarians who hold reactionary views. Why should it? But it will let in any proletarian that is striving for the emancipation of the proletariat. So is it elitist? Only against reactionaries. Should it be this way? Most definitely.

Now, the dispute arises in the form of this organization. If you want to debate the form of this organization then you are free to do so; however, your view that a party isn&#39;t necessary (which implies a complete lack of any kind of organization) is entirely idealist and anti-Marxist.[/b]
In a government like the Council of Good Government, the people are rotated into running the community. Everyone who is part of the Community is considered a Zapatista and works together and in return receive the benefits given by their government. They don&#39;t claim to be any ideological party except anti-capitalism and the people rule. Ultimately when the people rule, without allowing corruption, there will be a Communist (or very close) society.

The Vanguard Party sure as hell didn&#39;t have a problem letting in the Bourgeois Reactionaries. The Vanguard Party in the SU either a) Let in Counter-Revolutionaries or b) turned people into Counter-Revolutionaries. Either way, the problem was not the Proletariat it was the party itself. If your little system worked so well, then none of the Leninist governments would have failed.

A party system implies a ruling class (that isn&#39;t the Proletariat) and unless everyone is on an equal level, then I&#39;ll argue that it&#39;s anti-communist.

The proletariat was "leading the way" in the Paris Commune. So you&#39;re against that too now?
Who destroyed the Commune, the Versailles Army or the people running the Commune?
-------

Marxism&#045;Leninism
First of all Marx called for a nationally centralized state composed of locally centralized communes, or Soviets, as they were called in the USSR. The central national authority is "a large union of small centralized communities". Why do anarchists insist on renaming basically the same thing? Parties they call "federations", centralized state they call "union of small centralized communities", it&#39;s the same thing.
It&#39;s interesting that we want the same thing, but where we differ is the amount of power granted to the National Government. I personally would rather it be completely absent until it&#39;s called upon and when they finish the duty they will be dismissed.

[KC]

The Vanguard Party sure as hell didn&#39;t...

The Vanguard Party....didn&#39;t??? Vanguards exist in every revolution, as well as some form as organization (which we are referring to as a party). I would ask you to clarify which vanguard party you are talking about, but I think I have an idea.


If your little system worked so well, then none of the Leninist governments would have failed.

First off, I have neither stated my support or condemnation of the Bolshevik party. Secondly, a vanguard exists in every revolution; it doesn&#39;t matter if you think it&#39;s right or not. It&#39;s a historically proven fact. Some form of organization also exists in every mass uprising. This is also a historically proven fact. This isn&#39;t even debatable. If you can&#39;t see the fact that the vanguard exists in every mass uprising, as well as some form of organization, then you are blind.



A party system implies a ruling class

It doesn&#39;t imply any such thing. A party that is directly democratic implies a ruling class? A party where all members are recallable at any time by a directly democratic vote? Explain to me how a party system implies a ruling class.


(that isn&#39;t the Proletariat)

If proletarians make up the party, then how isn&#39;t it proletarian? I can easily prove this wrong:

Proletarians form a proletarian organization.

You&#39;ve been proven wrong by that single sentence.


and unless everyone is on an equal level, then I&#39;ll argue that it&#39;s anti-communist.

I suggest you read the rules of the 1846-1850 Communist League. You will soon realize that it is you that is supporting anti-communist positions.

I&#39;m sure that you would demand that reactionary proletarians should get a say in the movement as well. :rolleyes:



Who destroyed the Commune, the Versailles Army or the people running the Commune?

The point is that the proletariat had power and they were still defeated.

[redstar2000]

How did David McLellan get to be a "quoted authority" on the views of Marx?

Google to the rescue: "David McLellan is professor of Political Theory at the University of Kent."

Looks like he wrote a whole bunch of impressive-sounding books...but then there&#39;s this...


Simone Weil is considered by many to be the best spiritual writer of our century and a true saint of modern times. Her short life was as extraordinary as her writings and David McLellan&#39;s biography draws on unpublished material to examine her thought in the context of her remarkable life.

Perhaps Professor McLellan communicates with Marx&#39;s spirit. :lol:


Originally posted by Marx+--> (Marx)If the Russian revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complete each other, then the present Russian system of community ownership of land could serve as the starting point for a communist development.[/b]

But those things didn&#39;t happen.

Marx missed on that "prediction".

As an aside, you know that Marx essentially stopped writing for publication after The Civil War in France (1871). He did write some circular letters to some of the leading figures in German Social Democracy which were printed long after his death (in 1883).

Presumably his last years were spent either working on material that later became part of Volume II or III of Das Kapital or in looking over translations of Volume I.

It&#39;s known that he was quite ill in the last years of his life and quite despondent over the death of his wife, Jenny.

In other words, the things that Marx said (or might have said) towards the end of his life don&#39;t carry "the same weight" with me as what he had to say when he was younger and in the full vigor of his maturity.

Just as a lot of the things the "young Marx" had to say don&#39;t weigh as "heavily" in my mind.

We must constantly remind ourselves that Marx was not a "prophet"...he was a human like all of us and inevitably made mistakes.


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)Lenin&#39;s theory is more reliable a source than his actions.[/b]

A very "un-Marxist" observation. Seems to me Marx always looked at what people do as a measure of their real social role...not their rhetoric.

You claim that you&#39;re a "nice guy"...but how do you act?


If you want to try to convince him to "see it your way" then instead of attacking him you should be offering constructive criticism.

I don&#39;t think "constructive criticism" of the Leninist paradigm is possible.

It would be like "constructive criticism" of astrology.


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
That requires organization, a single unified organization blazing the path.

With, presumably, "iron Bolshevik discipline" to keep it "unified".


Originally posted by JC1
All proletarian states in history have had a center.

*Yawns* Didn&#39;t work out, did they?


It happened in 1917, you know, when Lenin and the working class led a certain insurrection that led to the Congress of Soviets to take state power, which was the most democratic state in human history.

For what...six months or so?


Leninists have created mass parties in almost all countries on earth, and have captured state power numerous times.

And royally fucked up&#33;


Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism
Right, and there is no reason to believe that Marx would have considered the [Russian] revolution to be bourgeois in nature.

Except for how it operated and what it did.


[email protected]
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 begin by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers&#39; and peasants&#39; government and Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?

The name for that is bourgeois revolution...and while it may "overtake" some countries, it certainly won&#39;t "overtake" the most advanced ones.


Marxism&#045;Leninism
You say it with so much conviction, one would be inclined to think that you have actually been able to prove it...but you haven&#39;t.

History has already "proved" it...not that you would notice.


Don&#39;t be silly, of course the measures are still to be considered revolutionary, as Marx considered them to be.

Astounding&#33; "Nothing&#39;s happened" since 1848&#33;


...the multi-tendency party was rooted out by Stalin and his clique...

Can&#39;t get anything right, can you? Your "multi-tendency party" was "rooted out" by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921&#33;


So the USSR circa 1922 oppressed anyone and everything?

Except capitalists. :lol:


...the majority of Communists in the west, that is, the majority of people fighting in the real live struggle of the proletariat, are still Leninists.

Well no, they&#39;re pretty much all social democrats now or at least moving in that direction.

And there&#39;s damn few of them left...fortunately. :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[rouchambeau]

Since when has anything been able to succeed in establishing communism?

The first zionists before the creation of the State of Israel seemed to have it down pretty well. Many anarchists of northern Spain and Itally. Not to mention the "primitive" humans that maintained a communistic way of living for millions of years.

[KC]

How did David McLellan get to be a "quoted authority" on the views of Marx?

He didn&#39;t. I just read his biography on Marx and was too lazy to find the information elsewhere. :P



Google to the rescue: "David McLellan is professor of Political Theory at the University of Kent."

Looks like he wrote a whole bunch of impressive-sounding books...but then there&#39;s this...

Ad hominem.

I&#39;d suggest keeping your criticism of McLellan to the quotes I have posted, and not to his personal character. If you find anything wrong with the quotes I have posted, then please tell me so and provide evidence of why they&#39;re wrong. Until you can do this, your petty attacks on McLellan&#39;s character are completely irrelevant to this debate. Redstar, come on, this isn&#39;t even debating. If you don&#39;t refute the McLellan quotes that I have posted then I am going to assume that you agree with them, as you haven&#39;t posted anything to the contrary.


A very "un-Marxist" observation. Seems to me Marx always looked at what people do as a measure of their real social role...not their rhetoric.

You can&#39;t base your judgement of Lenin&#39;s theory on Lenin&#39;s actions. Yes, Leninism contains both his theory and his actions, so when you speak of Leninism you cannot separate the two. But when you are talking about Lenin&#39;s theory specifically, the two are completely seperate.



You claim that you&#39;re a "nice guy"...but how do you act?


A horrible analogy. The point is that it doesn&#39;t matter what Lenin did when analyzing his theory. Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution? Do you agree that this book was a contribution to Marxist Theory? I think it was. Even if Lenin didn&#39;t provide any groundbreaking theory in this work, he still clarified a lot of issues concerning the theories of Marx and Engels. This is a contribution to Marxist Theory.

EDIT: If I say people should be nice, and I&#39;m an ass, then what I said is a good thing, right? People should be nice. Regardless of how I acted, what I said was good. In this same way we can analyze Lenin&#39;s theories without even taking into consideration his actions.



I don&#39;t think "constructive criticism" of the Leninist paradigm is possible.

It would be like "constructive criticism" of astrology.

Maybe I should stop debating you. And start calling you a raving old man every time you post and just respond to your posts about how loony you are. How long do you think it would be before I reached 5 warning points?



The first zionists before the creation of the State of Israel seemed to have it down pretty well. Many anarchists of northern Spain and Itally. Not to mention the "primitive" humans that maintained a communistic way of living for millions of years.

None of those were communism. Communism is a historical stage in human society. All of these examples that you have offered are completely different thatn communism. Primitive communism isn&#39;t even the same as communism.

[STI]

Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism+--> (Marxism&#045;Leninism)No, he would have supported those demands in any nation at any time, the nationalization of the economy is the first step in creating a socialist society. They are huge improvements on the general conditions of every nation at any time.[/b]

Now Marx was a reformist? :lol:

So, Marx would have wanted to impliment reforms to capitalism as a means of creating a socialist society? Tell me, where did he even say that he wanted a socialist society?



Right, and there is no reason to believe that Marx would have considered the revolution to be bourgeois in nature.


...Except its objective material effect on the means and relations of production (you know, the stuff that&#39;s the most important)


Sure, I wasn&#39;t the one who started the "what Marx would have thought" discussion, if you read back you will see that it was anomaly who brought up Marx, and claimed that you can find quotes of Marx to prove that he did not support centralization, which is not true.

I wasn&#39;t speaking exclusively to you :P


Of course they&#39;re not, but they are essential parts of the process, that&#39;s why Marx listed them in the manifesto.

How on Earth have those reforms ever shown themselves to be "essential parts of the process" of establishing a communist society?


Lazar

If the party is proletarian, and democratic, then what&#39;s the problem here?

How can the party "be proletarian" if the high-ranking members of the party are objectively not proletarians?

Do you expect that they just "retained" whatever "proletarianness" they once had, despite the fact that the material conditions of their lives railed right against that?

...Because if that&#39;s what you think, it would be very un-Marxist of you.


The organization is made up of proletarians. If you want to look at it from a class analysis, then no, it won&#39;t. When the proletarian state is formed, the party will be made up of workers.


...Workers who spend enough time in a position which is wholly different than that of a worker. And thus the workers change into rulers.

[KC]

How can the party "be proletarian" if the high-ranking members of the party are objectively not proletarians?

Do you expect that they just "retained" whatever "proletarianness" they once had, despite the fact that the material conditions of their lives railed right against that?

...Because if that&#39;s what you think, it would be very un-Marxist of you.

They can ""be proletarian"" if they sell their labour-power. Hence the fact that they will still be proletarian.



...Workers who spend enough time in a position which is wholly different than that of a worker. And thus the workers change into rulers.

As long as they&#39;re selling their labour-power, they&#39;re proletarian. It doesn&#39;t matter what they do in their &#39;free time&#39;. They will be proletarian because they will be proletarian. Is that really hard for you to understand? Do I need to define what proletarian is? I was assuming you would understand what I was saying, because I assumed that you knew what the term proletarian meant.

[JC1]

To add to Lazar&#39;s post, I would point out while the leadership of the Bolshevik&#39;s pre-1917 came from middle class backround&#39;s, there were almost all objectivly prolatarian from 1912 on. They lived off of temp work, party handout&#39;s and party initiated bank robbery&#39;s.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar
The Vanguard Party....didn&#39;t??? Vanguards exist in every revolution, as well as some form as organization (which we are referring to as a party). I would ask you to clarify which vanguard party you are talking about, but I think I have an idea.
I was being vague to include all Leninist and Maoist revolutions.

First off, I have neither stated my support or condemnation of the Bolshevik party. Secondly, a vanguard exists in every revolution; it doesn&#39;t matter if you think it&#39;s right or not. It&#39;s a historically proven fact. Some form of organization also exists in every mass uprising. This is also a historically proven fact. This isn&#39;t even debatable. If you can&#39;t see the fact that the vanguard exists in every mass uprising, as well as some form of organization, then you are blind.
There&#39;s nothing wrong with people inciting and leading a revolution, but they shouldn&#39;t assume power. If they were actually what they claim to be, they will hand over all power to the Proletariat and the Proletariat alone.

It doesn&#39;t imply any such thing. A party that is directly democratic implies a ruling class? A party where all members are recallable at any time by a directly democratic vote? Explain to me how a party system implies a ruling class.
When you are force fed the politicians that represent you, you&#39;re not living in a democratic nation.

If proletarians make up the party, then how isn&#39;t it proletarian? I can easily prove this wrong:

Proletarians form a proletarian organization.

You&#39;ve been proven wrong by that single sentence.
Want to name a party that gained power without the leadership of a bourgeois?

I suggest you read the rules of the 1846-1850 Communist League. You will soon realize that it is you that is supporting anti-communist positions.

I&#39;m sure that you would demand that reactionary proletarians should get a say in the movement as well.
I would demand all Proletarians are equally represented. No one person given more power than another.

The point is that the proletariat had power and they were still defeated.
No, the point is they didn&#39;t defeat themselves like the Leninists.

[KC]

I was being vague to include all Leninist and Maoist revolutions.

All revolutions have had a vanguard. Not just socialist revolutions.



When you are force fed the politicians that represent you, you&#39;re not living in a democratic nation.

My quote you quoted had nothing to do with this. I don&#39;t even see how this is a relevant response.



I would demand all Proletarians are equally represented. No one person given more power than another.

Even proletarians that support the Nazi&#39;s? Who&#39;s the one being anti-communist now?



No, the point is they didn&#39;t defeat themselves like the Leninists.

The Leninists didn&#39;t defeat themselves. Stalin did.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Lazar
Ad hominem.

Also known as impeaching the credibility of your witness.


You can&#39;t base your judgment of Lenin&#39;s theory on Lenin&#39;s actions.

Well, I&#39;m going to keep doing that...especially his actions after 1918.

Get used to it. :lol:


Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution?

TSAR was a "copy & paste" job; Lenin searched out every speculation he could find from Marx and Engels about what communist society would look like.

Something pretty much anyone with time and patience could have done.


Maybe I should stop debating you. And start calling you a raving old man every time you post and just respond to your posts about how loony you are. How long do you think it would be before I reached 5 warning points?

Ask red_che or Axel1917 or any of the other Leninist loonies on the board how many warning points I&#39;ve given them.


The Leninists didn&#39;t defeat themselves. Stalin did.

When it doubt, blame JOE&#33;

This is Trotskyist "Marxism". :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

Also known as impeaching the credibility of your witness.


So you concede to the fact that you agree with what he said. Why can&#39;t you admit it? Your attacks on him have not discredited any of the quotes that I have presented. If you wish to discredit those quotes, then proceed to do so. Of course you won&#39;t, because you know that they are true and you have conceded to this fact by not critiquing them when I demanded of you to do so&#33;&#33;&#33;



Well, I&#39;m going to keep doing that...especially his actions after 1918.


In this case, you have no reason to discuss any of Lenin&#39;s theories except those which relate directly to his actions and are directly attributed to those actions. You can criticize Lenin&#39;s actions all you want; by doing so, you have no basis for a critique of Lenin&#39;s theory.



Get used to it. :lol:

Get used to you presenting evidence which has no relevancy to the argument at hand? Don&#39;t worry; I&#39;m already used to it.



TSAR was a "copy & paste" job; Lenin searched out every speculation he could find from Marx and Engels about what communist society would look like.

Something pretty much anyone with time and patience could have done.


Yes, you can reason that; but the fact of the matter is that it was Lenin who wrote it. In that case, it is Lenin contributing to marxist theory.

Also, I would hardly argue that it was solely a "copy & paste job". If it was a copy and paste job, there would only be quotes by Marx and Engels. What it is is Lenin presenting quotes of Marx and Engels and clarifying them. This is hardly a "copy & paste job".

ON EDIT:
I would like to present the reader with arguments of mine that Redstar2000 has failed to discuss:


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)If you find anything wrong with the quotes I have posted, then please tell me so and provide evidence of why they&#39;re wrong...If you don&#39;t refute the McLellan quotes that I have posted then I am going to assume that you agree with them, as you haven&#39;t posted anything to the contrary.[/b]


Originally posted by [email protected]
Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution? Do you agree that this book was a contribution to Marxist Theory? I think it was. Even if Lenin didn&#39;t provide any groundbreaking theory in this work, he still clarified a lot of issues concerning the theories of Marx and Engels. This is a contribution to Marxist Theory.


Lazar

EDIT: If I say people should be nice, and I&#39;m an ass, then what I said is a good thing, right? People should be nice. Regardless of how I acted, what I said was good. In this same way we can analyze Lenin&#39;s theories without even taking into consideration his actions.

[Lamanov]

I just need to clarify some things before I continue. First off, the real history of the Paris Commune is one thing. We&#39;re not using it in our discussion as an argumentative concept, because we&#39;re not dealing with Commune itself, but with what Marx thought of it at the time of 1871-2, and thus, what he wrote. We&#39;re interested here in Marx&#39;s own ideas and his vision of the Commune because he though of it then as a clear example of the DOP (or at least, that&#39;s what Engels claimed in 1891; we can&#39;t say for sure).


Originally posted by Marxism&#045;Leninism+--> (Marxism&#045;Leninism)I was aware of this quote, and somehow I knew you would bring it up, in the wrong context of course. [...][/b]

I know that you "feel" it&#39;s in the "wrong context", because it messes up your entire conception - but you feel as if I&#39;m to be blamed. However, I could have only posted it without any emphasizing and commenting of my own, and you&#39;d still feel the same way about it.

The only thing you could have done - and did - is to take Marx&#39;s quote and give us pseudo-explanations with a typical conclusion at the end: "you strengthened my point". In reality: you said nothing worth the time of my reading or replying to your post.

For everyone else to see: dead Marx can speak for himself far better than a 17-year old Lenin-lover.


Originally posted by Marxism&#045;[email protected]
Now replace the word "commune" with "Soviet" and you have the Soviet Union.

I don&#39;t like comparing semi-feudal Russia and bourgeois France, but if you insist, some significant parallels can indeed be drawn for the Soviet and Commune system - but still not the same and very much different, both in itself and within it&#39;s working ground.

Of course, in making that analogy: anyone with at least bit sense of historical critique and knowledge is bound to totalize it and come up with this conclusion:

What do you think who was "Russian Thiers"? Yes, your beloved Vladimir.


I needed a post which would prove my doubts about your knowledge in History. Now I got it. Long time will pass by before I can take you seriously in that context again.


EDIT:

Oh, I almost forgot:


Marxism&#045;Leninism
...local communes were the centralized political authority of a certain community, provincial communes were the centralized political authority of all communes in certain province, and the national commune was the centralized political authority of all the communes in the nation.

[Emphasis added]

This atempt to reconciliate your missunderstanding of what is centralized and what is decentralized with what Marx spoke of in his Civil War in France and it&#39;s unpublished Draft of 1871 is so out of line it deserves another thread which you will see soon enough.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar
All revolutions have had a vanguard. Not just socialist revolutions.
I&#39;m specifically talking about the so-called Communist "Revolutions" that resulted in Capitalism. Are you intentionally trying to dodge here?

My quote you quoted had nothing to do with this. I don&#39;t even see how this is a relevant response.
Really, because I was describing the SU. This thread is about Leninism, I would just assume you would catch on.

Even proletarians that support the Nazi&#39;s? Who&#39;s the one being anti-communist now?
Nazis are a bourgeois creation and they are highly unpopular and would be even more so under Communism. You create these scenarios to create a fear or get people on your side when these scenarios are not going to happen. Fear is used by forms of government who do not have full support of it&#39;s people.

And the Nazis would have probably die in the Revolution since they will fight against Communists.

The Leninists didn&#39;t defeat themselves. Stalin did.
Of course the Leninists didn&#39;t. The people who elected Stalin and gave him all his power weren&#39;t the Leninists&#33; Are you saying Lenin was to dumb to know he was surrounded by counter-revolutionaries?

[KC]

Nazis are a bourgeois creation and they are highly unpopular and would be even more so under Communism. You create these scenarios to create a fear or get people on your side when these scenarios are not going to happen. Fear is used by forms of government who do not have full support of it&#39;s people.

And the Nazis would have probably die in the Revolution since they will fight against Communists.

Yes, because nobody is going to support such parties during the revolution. :rolleyes:

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar
Yes, because nobody is going to support such parties during the revolution.
I have no idea what you&#39;re talking about.

[red_che]

I got a lot to catch up.

D Bokk:


Since when has a Party been able to succeed in establishing Communism? The only thing any party has done is establish Capitalism.

Are you in a hurry to achieve communism? Ok, what other organizations were able to successfully advance proletarian revolution?


When Kornilov sent troops at Petrograd, Kerensky asked the Red Guard to help defend the city. The Bolsheviks agreed and recruited 25,000 men. However Kornilov never attacked the city. Kerensky ordered the arrest of leading Bolsheviks (many of whom already had a warrant for their arrest) and that&#39;s when the Red Guard moved into action. With sufficient numbers (the 25,000 additional men) they were able to overtake the city they were recruited to defend.

Your analysis of history is somewhat idealist. What you were saying before was that Kerensky handed power to Lenin. Now you’re saying the Bolsheviks were traitors. Well, you must put into your mind that they are in a revolutionary situation at that time. And it is the task of the proletariat to seize power from the bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks (Party) did what they should do.


Gulags began to fill with Socialists and the likes.

Are you still hyped in this bourgeois propaganda?


The Proletariat should be the party, and therefore this no need for a party at all. I&#39;m against the elitist Vanguard Party who exploit the Proletariat and trick them into following them.

Whether you like it or not, the Proletariat is competent and capable of ruling themselves without the help of the Bourgeois, I mean Vanguard Party.

Marx stated this in his Preface to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, he said:


In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or —— this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms —— with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

Further, in The Communist Manifesto it states:


The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

And furthermore it also states:


The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

Now, it is only clear that while the proletariat are capable of emancipating themselves, Marx also saw that among the proletariat, especially during the period where there are still no communist society established, there is a section of it which are of vanguard and advanced knowledge of the revolution. Hence, the need for the proletariat to have a Party.

Now, if you dispute this fact then I challenge you to prove any successful proletarian revolution without having a Communist Party.

Chrysalis:


Yeah, Marx did acknowledge in the Communist Manifesto preface 1872, that after 25 years changes had taken place, and things will continue to change, and so the "steps" or the practical application would have to depend on the situation. It&#39;s the principles that remain the same.

That’s true.


I think a lot of confidence, decisiveness, and on-the-job learning would have to come into play during the transition. But to imagine the transition now is to, perhaps, imagine something of a fantasy because we aren&#39;t that generation that would do the job. That future generation&#39;s mindset would be much more developed and prepared.

Yeah, all we can do today is to prepare the next generation for that transition. What we basically have to do today is to do a lot of organizing. We need to have a strong proletarian organization (i.e., Party) in order for the revolution to advance.

[Guest1]

I&#39;m not sure it&#39;s realistic to say we have another generation to change this.

I think it&#39;s pretty clear from events over the past few years that we can be the generation that at overthrows the bourgeoisie, it&#39;s just a matter of whether or not we are ready to meet that challenge.

We may not establish communism in our lifetimes, but we can certainly put the workingclass in power and therefore put the world on track to that goal.

[Axel1917]

From Che y Marijuana:


I&#39;m not sure it&#39;s realistic to say we have another generation to change this.

I think it&#39;s pretty clear from events over the past few years that we can be the generation that at overthrows the bourgeoisie, it&#39;s just a matter of whether or not we are ready to meet that challenge.

We may not establish communism in our lifetimes, but we can certainly put the workingclass in power and therefore put the world on track to that goal.

I would agree. The events are really unfolding, and people are starting to question the world they live in. I have never in my life seen this happening on such a scale over here in the USA. Things can only move foward, as the Bourgeoisie don&#39;t seem capable of ruling in the same way as the past (they are preparing to implement Bonapartist measures, as we can see with things like the PATRIOT Act). The redstar2000 parrots that keep ranting about how "we need at least 100 more years" are completely out of touch with reality. Their rejection of dialectics prevents them from analyzing things correctly, i.e. they don&#39;t understand the molecular process of revolution.

And of course, the anti-Marxists never bothered reading Grant&#39;s refutation of their nonsense.

[KC]

I have no idea what you&#39;re talking about.

You said this earlier:



Nazis are a bourgeois creation and they are highly unpopular and would be even more so under Communism. You create these scenarios to create a fear or get people on your side when these scenarios are not going to happen. Fear is used by forms of government who do not have full support of it&#39;s people.

And the Nazis would have probably die in the Revolution since they will fight against Communists.

To clarify, you said that all proletarians should be equally represented. In response I said "even ones [proletarians] that support the nazis?" And you replied with the above quote. I responded with this:


Yes, because nobody is going to support such parties during the revolution.

Your claim that all proletarians should be equally represented is completely nutty, as that would mean giving equal representation to proletarians that support opposing ideologies such as nazism, fascism, or even bourgeois rule (capitalism). Giving these people equal say would completely sabotage the proletarian movement and is intrinsically anti-proletarian, anti-marxist, and completely in support of the bourgeoisie. This is what I meant when I made that statement.

All proletarians won&#39;t support the communist movement. You basically destroyed your own reasoning when you said "the Nazis would have probably [sic] die in the Revolution since they will fight against Communists." If these Nazis are proletarian, and are fighting against Communists, you are advocating that they should get equal representation? You&#39;re promoting the sabotaging of the entire proletarian movement.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by D__Bokk+--> (D__Bokk)It&#39;s interesting that we want the same thing, but where we differ is the amount of power granted to the National Government.[/b]

I don&#39;t think we differ much on that issue either, I believe that a society which has the sufficient material conditions for socialism can exist with near-to-complete independent communes. But in a nation which lacks the sufficient material conditions this is impossible.

USSR 1924; impossible.
USSR 1936; possible.

It&#39;s impossible because the vast majority of the population are not class-conscious, they&#39;re not Communists, only a small portion of them are Communists, on a national level there are enough Communists to be able to lead the "national union of communes", but locally there are not. In the USSR Kulaks (rich peasants) literally took over local soviets, imagine what damage they could have done if complete political power rested on the organizations they were able to take over with ease.


Originally posted by RS+--> (RS)Except for how it operated and what it did.[/b]

You&#39;re right, declaring a workers republic is a very bourgeois way of operating.


The name for that is bourgeois revolution

Not if that revolution is led by Communists, are you really so fogged up by reactionary rhetoric that you can&#39;t make out the distinction between Communists and capitalists?

In case you didn&#39;t know, the national bourgeois opposed the revolution.


History has already "proved" it...not that you would notice.

History has proven that Stalinist dictatorships collapse, that&#39;s true.


Astounding&#33; "Nothing&#39;s happened" since 1848&#33;

What on earth are you talking about? Are you saying that you would oppose such demands as equal liability of all to work? Or the extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan?

Again, don&#39;t be silly, those demands were and are still revolutionary, and are supported by any self-conscious Communist.


Can&#39;t get anything right, can you? Your "multi-tendency party" was "rooted out" by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921&#33;

Prove this claim. Look redstar, I&#39;m not going to believe everything you say, I&#39;m not a member of your cheerleading group you have here, either be serious in a debate and back up your claims or don&#39;t bother replying to my posts, I don&#39;t have time for disorderly quickly finished responses which are not backed up by facts.

Your otiose posts are not appreciated.


[email protected]
Now Marx was a reformist?

Of course Marx wasn&#39;t a reformist.

Demanding revolutionary action is not reformism, the nationalization of the economy is a revolutionary demand, not reformist. Of course when he later changed his opinion on the bourgeois state, and said that the state-machinery had to be destroyed and replaced, he "would have worded those demands differently". Instead of saying that the economy should be nationalized by the current form of state (that is, the bourgeois state) he would have demanded for it to be nationalized by the proletarian state, of course nationalization of the economy is an appendage of the term &#39;dictatorship of the proletariat&#39;, so he probably wouldn&#39;t have even demanded that at all.

You&#39;re right though, I worded it poorly in my last post, but then again nationalization of the entire economy is impossible under a bourgeois state, so one could have known that I was referring to the dictatorship of the proletariat.


...Except its objective material effect on the means and relations of production

The means of productions were nationalized by the proletarian state, how is that bourgeois?


How on Earth have those reforms ever shown themselves to be "essential parts of the process" of establishing a communist society?

Ok, let me try to explain in this way:

Marx sets forth demands, demands are not possible to be realized under the current form of state, i.e., the current form of state has to change for the demands to be realized; hence the demand is revolutionary in nature and not reformist.

In this case the demand was nationalization of the economy, this cannot be realized under the bourgeois form of state, but can only be realized by a proletarian state, therefore the realization of this demand requires proletarian revolution.


DJ&#045;TC
The only thing you could have done - and did - is to take Marx&#39;s quote and give us pseudo-explanations with a typical conclusion at the end: "you strengthened my point". In reality: you said nothing worth the time of my reading or replying to your post.

For everyone else to see: dead Marx can speak for himself far better than a 17-year old Lenin-lover.

First of all the fact that you didn&#39;t bother responding to my valid points proves that you&#39;re wrong, secondly, your petty ageist slander prove that you&#39;re also childish.

My main point was: "he referred to those measures as revolutionary as opposed to reactionary", what to Marx were revolutionary measures are to you "meaningless".


I don&#39;t like comparing semi-feudal Russia and bourgeois France, but if you insist, some significant parallels can indeed be drawn for the Soviet and Commune system - but still not the same and very much different, both in itself and within it&#39;s working ground.

Of course, in making that analogy: anyone with at least bit sense of historical critique and knowledge is bound to totalize it and come up with this conclusion:

What do you think who was "Russian Thiers"? Yes, your beloved Vladimir.


I needed a post which would prove my doubts about your knowledge in History. Now I got it. Long time will pass by before I can take you seriously in that context again.

I wasn&#39;t "comparing semi-feudal Russia" with "bourgeois France" (by the way, semi-feudal Russia was more, or at least, as advanced as "bourgeois France" economically), I was comparing the commune with the Soviet system, next time pay attention before jumping to conclusions which spring forth from your mental masturbatory nature.

My knowledge of history is perfectly fine, of course knowledge of history alone is worthless, granted, you have a decent amount of knowledge of history, but without being able to analyze it in a materialistic way it&#39;s useless. You&#39;re like the typical history teacher you can find in any classroom; knows a lot of historic facts, doesn&#39;t know what to do with them.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by red_che+--> (red_che)Are you in a hurry to achieve communism? Ok, what other organizations were able to successfully advance proletarian revolution?[/b]
I don&#39;t believe my lifetime will witness a communist revolution, especially in my country. I&#39;m seeing a leftist trend in Latin America and believe they, if anyone, would lead some type of communist revolution. Either way, now or later, rushing a revolution when only a small vanguard is ready is foolish and will end up in disasters like the SU and China.

The Zapatistas have advanced a revolutionary movement against Capitalism and have done so without a leader.

Your analysis of history is somewhat idealist. What you were saying before was that Kerensky handed power to Lenin. Now you’re saying the Bolsheviks were traitors. Well, you must put into your mind that they are in a revolutionary situation at that time. And it is the task of the proletariat to seize power from the bourgeoisie. The Bolsheviks (Party) did what they should do.
Kerensky did hand over power, he left his capital unguarded and provided Lenin with an army. The Bolsheviks did what served them best, they were not the proletariat at all. Hell, the proletariat wasn&#39;t really that developed during that time in Russia. What I described was a coup and cannot be interpreted as anything else.

Are you still hyped in this bourgeois propaganda?
Everything that&#39;s anti-Leninist is "propaganda" according to the Leninists. Trotskyists were a type[/b] of Socialist, the Socialist Revolutionaries and Kronstadt Rebels all were oppressed by the SU.

Now, it is only clear that while the proletariat are capable of emancipating themselves, Marx also saw that among the proletariat, especially during the period where there are still no communist society established, there is a section of it which are of vanguard and advanced knowledge of the revolution. Hence, the need for the proletariat to have a Party.

Now, if you dispute this fact then I challenge you to prove any successful proletarian revolution without having a Communist Party.
I see, &#39;parties&#39; not &#39;vanguard parties.&#39; Irregardless, just because the Leninists made a party doesn&#39;t make them Marxist. They applied theory that alienated the Proletariat, imprisoned their fellow comrades and deprived their citizens of a democratic process.

You ask me to find a successful communist revolution without the use of parties, when you cannot give me one example of a successful Communist revolution with a vanguard party. The only difference is that your system has been tried, numerous times, and every time it failed miserably. And like I said earlier, I don&#39;t oppose parties, I oppose vanguards.

EDIT: Replying to posts I missed while typing this.


[i]Originally posted by [email protected]
Your claim that all proletarians should be equally represented is completely nutty, as that would mean giving equal representation to proletarians that support opposing ideologies such as nazism, fascism, or even bourgeois rule (capitalism). Giving these people equal say would completely sabotage the proletarian movement and is intrinsically anti-proletarian, anti-marxist, and completely in support of the bourgeoisie. This is what I meant when I made that statement.

All proletarians won&#39;t support the communist movement. You basically destroyed your own reasoning when you said "the Nazis would have probably [sic] die in the Revolution since they will fight against Communists." If these Nazis are proletarian, and are fighting against Communists, you are advocating that they should get equal representation? You&#39;re promoting the sabotaging of the entire proletarian movement.


Okay. Well, if these people had equal representation, their numbers and power would be significantly low. These people are not a popular crowd even in bourgeois society (excluding the capitalists of course) and would be even less apparent in a communist society. They would have absolutely zero influence in the overall process and would just be weeded out by the population of competent people. While in a vanguard party, they have a chance to rise to power (which they did in the past) and assume powerful offices and inflict heavy damage on society. We are given two options:

a) Give them their representation, but their numbers are too low to influence anything.
b) exclude them and force them to keep to themselves and possibly rise to power as a so-called "communist" and then completely destroy communism from the inside.

Option [A] could only result in another form of government if the proletariat really wanted it, while can happen on accident. So when it comes down to it, you&#39;re supporting the sabotage of the Proletariat.
------

Marxism&#045;Leninism
[b]I don&#39;t think we differ much on that issue either, I believe that a society which has the sufficient material conditions for socialism can exist with near-to-complete independent communes. But in a nation which lacks the sufficient material conditions this is impossible.

USSR 1924; impossible.
USSR 1936; possible.

It&#39;s impossible because the vast majority of the population are not class-conscious, they&#39;re not Communists, only a small portion of them are Communists, on a national level there are enough Communists to be able to lead the "national union of communes", but locally there are not. In the USSR Kulaks (rich peasants) literally took over local soviets, imagine what damage they could have done if complete political power rested on the organizations they were able to take over with ease.
Insufficient resources would be a problem with independent communes, but that&#39;s where a worldwide revolution is needed. Communes of the world would be able to work alongside each other, the more resource-rich helping the ones with less resources and what not. A leader of the communist movement cannot be one who is unable to support itself.

I believe class-consciousness should come prior to the revolution. Unless people are educated on the Marxism and their class situation - they will not understand the need for communism and may end up fearing it rather than embracing it. Lenin rushed Russia and because of that the Russian people (down the line) paid dearly.

[KC]

These people are not a popular crowd even in bourgeois society (excluding the capitalists of course) and would be even less apparent in a communist society.

A communist society? Who here is talking about a communist society?


While in a vanguard party, they have a chance to rise to power (which they did in the past) and assume powerful offices and inflict heavy damage on society.

Do you know what a vanguard is? Do you know what a party is? It&#39;s proletarian organization.



a) Give them their representation, but their numbers are too low to influence anything.
b) exclude them and force them to keep to themselves and possibly rise to power as a so-called "communist" and then completely destroy communism from the inside.

So you are supporting the inclusion of Nazis into a proletarian organization?


So when it comes down to it, you&#39;re supporting the sabotage of the Proletariat.

Me? You&#39;re accusing me of supporting the "sabotage of the proletariat"? You are the one that is encouraging giving Nazis, fascists, religious extremists, and any other counterrevolutionary group equal say in the decision making process of the proletarian organization. You are supporting the encouragement of counterrevolutionary theories within the proletariat&#33; It is you that is bourgeois.

I&#39;m sure you would also support the &#39;right&#39; of Nazi&#39;s, KKK members and fascists to hold public demonstrations and speeches all in the name of &#39;free speech&#39;. You should be restricted or banned from this site.

[Lamanov]

M-L, :rolleyes:


Originally posted by Leninism&#045;Leninism+--> (Leninism&#045;Leninism)First of all the fact that you didn&#39;t bother responding to my valid points proves that you&#39;re wrong, secondly, your petty ageist slander prove that you&#39;re also childish.[/b]

Again: there&#39;s no need for my &#39;responce&#39; or &#39;interpretation&#39; -- Marx&#39;s quote speaks for itself.


Originally posted by Leninism&#045;Leninism+--> (Leninism&#045;Leninism)My main point was: "he referred to those measures as revolutionary as opposed to reactionary", what to Marx were revolutionary measures are to you "meaningless".[/b]

But in 1872 these "revolutionary measures" - however revolutioary - were revolutionary only in past tense. In other words, they became obsolete.

I understand how you like to see it as if they were applied as still valuable for Russia in 1917, but that&#39;s missing the crucial point: what matters the most is the way and manner in which they were applied and executed. The story behind these "ways" is too much familliar and I don&#39;t want to detalize again and again.


Originally posted by Leninism&#045;Leninism
(by the way, semi-feudal Russia was more, or at least, as advanced as "bourgeois France" economically)

That&#39;s simply not true. But since you&#39;re the one making a claim, it would only be fair that you provide us with a scientific proof.


Originally posted by Leninism&#045;Leninism
I was comparing the commune with the Soviet system, next time pay attention before jumping to conclusions which spring forth from your mental masturbatory nature.

Indeed, you are loosing your ability to read at a very young age. I will repeat myself:


DJ&#045;[email protected]
...but if you insist, some significant parallels can indeed be drawn for the Soviet and Commune system - but still not the same and very much different, both in itself and within it&#39;s working ground.

Anyway, we will, I hope soon enough, if I find some time, make a new thread which compares Marx&#39;s theory in Civil War in France with bolshevik theory and practice.


Leninism&#045;Leninism
My knowledge of history is perfectly fine, of course knowledge of history alone is worthless, granted, you have a decent amount of knowledge of history, but without being able to analyze it in a materialistic way it&#39;s useless. You&#39;re like the typical history teacher you can find in any classroom; knows a lot of historic facts, doesn&#39;t know what to do with them.

Yes, we can all see the "materialistic way" you are showing us: &#39;quote State and Revolution: it&#39;s a material proof&#33;&#39; :lol:

PostScript:

Comrade, if you had any idea of what I can "do" with facts, you wouldn&#39;t be making such a stupid remark.

[D_Bokk]

/sigh

Do you realize you argue just like a Stalinist?

Originally posted by Lazar
A communist society? Who here is talking about a communist society?
Me, apparently.

Do you know what a vanguard is? Do you know what a party is? It&#39;s proletarian organization.
This is what everyone keeps telling me, but I fail to see any vanguard party be proletarian. Maybe if you say it enough times it&#39;ll be true?

So you are supporting the inclusion of Nazis into a proletarian organization?
No, you are... that&#39;s basically what Leninists are.

Me? You&#39;re accusing me of supporting the "sabotage of the proletariat"? You are the one that is encouraging giving Nazis, fascists, religious extremists, and any other counterrevolutionary group equal say in the decision making process of the proletarian organization. You are supporting the encouragement of counterrevolutionary theories within the proletariat&#33; It is you that is bourgeois.

I&#39;m sure you would also support the &#39;right&#39; of Nazi&#39;s, KKK members and fascists to hold public demonstrations and speeches all in the name of &#39;free speech&#39;. You should be restricted or banned from this site.
I&#39;m not saying "group" I&#39;m saying individual. I&#39;ve said earlier in this thread that I support a government like the Zapatistas use, but apparently you weren&#39;t listening. In that type of government, these Nazi and Fascists will not have influence but they still have the right to equal representation. I don&#39;t see how about 100ish people can possibly take over a completely democratic society. If you do, well then I think you&#39;re an idiot. I&#39;m encouraging these reactionaries of coming out of the closet, where the people have the ability to keep an eye out. The only possible way that they will gain any power is if the whole Proletariat is Nazi-Fascists and in that case there&#39;s no hope in keeping any type of Communism or Socialism.

Just like the Capitalists allow Communists to partake in their &#39;democracy,&#39; what the fuck have we been able to do? Not a damn thing. Leninists always use fear to control their people, maybe you should think a little more about your little ideology and maybe come up with a way to get the support of the people without a gun?

[KC]

Do you realize you argue just like a Stalinist?

That&#39;s funny considering the fact that you have absolutely no idea what my political ideology is. I might not even be a Leninist&#33; :o

Just so you know, I&#39;m not.



Me, apparently.

Nobody else was talking about a communist society. You brought it up out of thin air.



This is what everyone keeps telling me, but I fail to see any vanguard party be proletarian. Maybe if you say it enough times it&#39;ll be true?

Let&#39;s see. The vanguard is the most advanced section of the proletariat&#33;&#33;&#33; If a party is made up of a proletarian vanguard then it&#39;s proletarian. Is that so hard for you to understand? The vanguard are those that know what they are doing. If you think an organization that should be made by people that don&#39;t know what you&#39;re doing, then you are a fucking nutcase.

The vanguard isn&#39;t in any way seperated from the proletariat. It is part of the proletariat. It comes from the proletariat. It is intrinsically proletarian. Proletarians that aren&#39;t part of the vanguard can easily become part of the vanguard by understanding the class struggle and the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. If they understand these things then they become part of the vanguard.

In order for the proletariat to successfully revolt, they will organize. This form of organization can be called whatever you want, but throughout this discussion it has generally been referred to as a party. This party will most obviously be made by members of the vanguard, as they are the ones that understand the class struggle and the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. The form of this organization is the only place where we should be differing.



No, you are... that&#39;s basically what Leninists are.

I am? Plese, point out where I supported letting Nazi&#39;s into a proletarian organization. Because it is you that openly did so&#33;&#33;&#33;


In that type of government, these Nazi and Fascists will not have influence but they still have the right to equal representation.

Nobody was talking about a government. We are talking about a proletarian organization. You are changing the subject.



Just like the Capitalists allow Communists to partake in their &#39;democracy,&#39; what the fuck have we been able to do?

That&#39;s because it isn&#39;t really democracy.


Leninists always use fear to control their people, maybe you should think a little more about your little ideology and maybe come up with a way to get the support of the people without a gun?

Again, you don&#39;t even know my position on anything. You are making a completely blind and baseless assumption that I am a Leninist. I would love to see you prove that I am a Leninist. You don&#39;t know my position on the amount of democracy in the party, the amount of centralization in the party or the state, etc... For all you know i could be an ultra-leftist&#33;&#33;&#33; :o

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by D Bokk+--> (D Bokk)I&#39;ve said earlier in this thread that I support a government like the Zapatistas use, but apparently you weren&#39;t listening. In that type of government, these Nazi and Fascists will not have influence but they still have the right to equal representation.[/b]

I do not think it yet reasonable to call whatever it is the Zapatistas use "a government". They may have mechanisms in place which perform some "government-like" functions...but they remain subject to the overwhelming power of the Mexican Army which, I have heard, periodically terrorizes people in that part of Mexico.

I cannot see why one would speak at all of "representation for Nazis" or other known reactionaries. The purpose of any post-revolutionary "state" -- such as it might be -- is to repress the reactionaries out of existence.

That&#39;s not Lenin; that&#39;s Marx&#33; :)

The Leninist "spin" on this requires a professional army and police force -- that is, people who are willing to kill on demand. If they&#39;re ordered to shoot reactionaries, they&#39;ll do it&#33; If they&#39;re ordered to kill workers, they&#39;ll do it&#33; If they&#39;re ordered to do nothing, they&#39;ll do that too&#33;

Against such a trained and disciplined force, "civilian" power amounts to "words on paper"...utterly helpless unless there is a massive insurrection of the outraged populace.

To speak of workers&#39; power at all necessarily requires the absence of a professional military or police force.


Leninists always use fear to control their people...

This is, I think, a reasonably accurate historical observation. People are told that if the Leninist despots are not granted "extraordinary powers" that "the counter-revolution will win".

That&#39;s definitely something to "watch out for" after the revolution. Anyone (or any group) who says, in effect, "make us dictator or all is lost" is, in fact, up to no damn good&#33;


Lazar
The vanguard is the most advanced section of the proletariat&#33;&#33;&#33; If a party is made up of a proletarian vanguard then it&#39;s proletarian. Is that so hard for you to understand? The vanguard are those that know what they are doing.

The assertion of these metaphysical "equivalents" is not the same as their existence.

Parties claim to "be proletarian". Parties claim to "be a vanguard". Parties claim to "know what they&#39;re doing".

And they claim that "we must all follow them" or revolution is "impossible".

What&#39;s missing is not only credible historical evidence but even a coherent argument for why any of that stuff "is" or "should be" true.

What the Leninist hypothesis really boils down to is the proposition that the working class is "too fucked up" to overthrow capitalism and set up working organs of class self-government on its own; it "needs" a "guiding hand" to do those things and without that "leadership", all its efforts "must" end in failure.

This is something that Marx and Engels never even considered as a historical "possibility".

That&#39;s how Lenin "developed" Marxism...by adding a hypothesis that never occurred to Marx and Engels.

With the "winner effect" of the USSR and People&#39;s China, people just assumed that Lenin "must be right" and acted accordingly.

Now the "loser effect" prevails...people see no need to go through all that shit again when it didn&#39;t work&#33; That&#39;s why all the Leninist parties in the west have dwindled into insignificant sects or parasites inside reformist formations. That&#39;s "the best they can do" now.

Of course, they live on their nostalgic dreams...the "glory years" of their movement. Back when a quote from Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky or Mao was sufficient to stun dissenters into silence. :lol:

Now, their outrage is never far beneath the surface...no one gives them any "respect" anymore. It&#39;s funny to see sometimes. The RCP will post some rambling effusion from Chairman Bob on the Indymedia sites...and the responses will be along the lines of "fuck you, Chairman Asshole&#33;".

That would never have happened back in Stalin&#39;s day...or Trotsky&#39;s. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

Redstar, you still have failed to reply to these three points:


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)If you find anything wrong with the quotes I have posted, then please tell me so and provide evidence of why they&#39;re wrong...If you don&#39;t refute the McLellan quotes that I have posted then I am going to assume that you agree with them, as you haven&#39;t posted anything to the contrary.[/b]


Originally posted by [email protected]
Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution? Do you agree that this book was a contribution to Marxist Theory? I think it was. Even if Lenin didn&#39;t provide any groundbreaking theory in this work, he still clarified a lot of issues concerning the theories of Marx and Engels. This is a contribution to Marxist Theory.


Lazar

EDIT: If I say people should be nice, and I&#39;m an ass, then what I said is a good thing, right? People should be nice. Regardless of how I acted, what I said was good. In this same way we can analyze Lenin&#39;s theories without even taking into consideration his actions.

[JC1]

Every one look closely. Notice how RedTsar never actualy cites any realworld example&#39;s to back up his claims.


I cannot see why one would speak at all of "representation for Nazis" or other known reactionaries. The purpose of any post-revolutionary "state" -- such as it might be -- is to repress the reactionaries out of existence.

That&#39;s not Lenin; that&#39;s Marx&#33;

That&#39;s Marx ... as articulated by Lenin.


The Leninist "spin" on this requires a professional army and police force

Generaly that "professional" army is a conscript force that exist&#39;s to a) extend Millitary training to all citizens so they can repress reactionary&#39;s themselves and b) protect the country from forign imperialist&#39;s. That&#39;s the way it is Cuba, the

And even the Soviet Union in the 80&#39;s left community police work to the community. People I know saw this with there own eyes.


Against such a trained and disciplined force, "civilian" power amounts to "words on paper"...utterly helpless unless there is a massive insurrection of the outraged populace.

In Cuba, the majority of the population has participated in Millitary training program&#39;s, participated in a conscript army. There is one gun per household in that country.

The Leninist policy of keeping an armed force and extending millitary training to all is what has kept Civilian Power the order of the day in Cuba.


To speak of workers&#39; power at all necessarily requires the absence of a professional military or police force.

I would say that socialism dosent need cop&#39;s. But it need a group of worker&#39;s (With guns) to defend socialism from forign imperialism.

How do you plan on extending millitary training to the population without conscription ?


The assertion of these metaphysical "equivalents" is not the same as their existence.

Parties claim to "be proletarian". Parties claim to "be a vanguard". Parties claim to "know what they&#39;re doing".

Check Lazar&#39;s sig. He&#39;s down with the CL. They seem to know what there doing (There growing fast), and only admit worker&#39;s as members so I think the qualify as the vanguard.

No metaphysical assertion here.


What the Leninist hypothesis really boils down to is the proposition that the working class is "too fucked up" to overthrow capitalism and set up working organs of class self-government on its own;

No, the Leninist hypothesis is that if the working class is too rule, it&#39;s going to need to set up a state. Otherwise it will just get fucked up by Imperialist&#39;s.


it "needs" a "guiding hand" to do those things and without that "leadership", all its efforts "must" end in failure.

That guiding hand is an orginization of worker&#39;s. That leadership is made up of worker&#39;s.


Now the "loser effect" prevails...people see no need to go through all that shit again when it didn&#39;t work&#33; That&#39;s why all the Leninist parties in the west have dwindled into insignificant sects or parasites inside reformist formations. That&#39;s "the best they can do" now.


Where did you get this info ? It&#39;s not like youre involved in any kind of practice. The fact is, you can&#39;t make statement&#39;s like this becuase you have neithier emprical or even andecdodal evidence.


Now, their outrage is never far beneath the surface...no one gives them any "respect" anymore.


Once again, where would you get this idea leninism gets no respect ? I, mean bourgoise newspaper&#39;s dont give them respect, and anarchist&#39;s dont, but who gives a damn ?

If you were involved in the struggle of my class, you would know that leninism remain&#39;s the main, anti-capitalist tendency.



The RCP will post some rambling effusion from Chairman Bob on the Indymedia sites...and the responses will be along the lines of "fuck you, Chairman Asshole&#33;".

So ? All this prooves is that the RCP is a sect, and youre only source of info on the struggle is Leftish, and not nessecarily working class, websites.

Fuck Chairman Asshole, but fuck RedTsar, too.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)Redstar, you still have failed to reply to these three points...[/b]

I did respond to two of them...you just didn&#39;t like the responses. :lol:


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)If you find anything wrong with the quotes I have posted, then please tell me so and provide evidence of why they&#39;re wrong...If you don&#39;t refute the McLellan quotes that I have posted then I am going to assume that you agree with them, as you haven&#39;t posted anything to the contrary.[/b]


Originally posted by redstar2000
In other words, the things that Marx said (or might have said) towards the end of his life don&#39;t carry "the same weight" with me as what he had to say when he was younger and in the full vigor of his maturity.

Just as a lot of the things the "young Marx" had to say don&#39;t weigh as "heavily" in my mind.

We must constantly remind ourselves that Marx was not a "prophet"...he was a human like all of us and inevitably made mistakes.


Originally posted by Lazar
Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution? Do you agree that this book was a contribution to Marxist Theory? I think it was. Even if Lenin didn&#39;t provide any groundbreaking theory in this work, he still clarified a lot of issues concerning the theories of Marx and Engels. This is a contribution to Marxist Theory.


[email protected]
TSAR was a "copy & paste" job; Lenin searched out every speculation he could find from Marx and Engels about what communist society would look like.

Something pretty much anyone with time and patience could have done.


Lazar
If I say people should be nice, and I&#39;m an ass, then what I said is a good thing, right? People should be nice. Regardless of how I acted, what I said was good. In this same way we can analyze Lenin&#39;s theories without even taking into consideration his actions.

The connection of theory and practice is such a cliché among Marxists that I thought your statement self-refuting on its face.

That is, people who say "act nice" but actually act nasty therefore are nasty...and their statements have no real world meaning.

The papacy has a "theory" of "Christian charity"...which, in practice, involves the vicious exploitation of poor godsuckers.

Should we take such a "theory" seriously?

Lenin&#39;s random comments in State and Revolution sound very egalitarian...but his practice (and that of his followers) was and remains elitist to the core&#33;

Moreover, aside from that single book, all the rest of his theory is elitist as hell&#33;

So what are we talking about here?

Lenin&#39;s "sincerity" or something? :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by JC1
Fuck Chairman Asshole, but fuck RedTsar, too.

Aaawwww, poor baby, did I step on your tender little tootsies?

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/sad/014.gif

This is, perhaps, the "last stage" of Leninism. :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)That&#39;s funny considering the fact that you have absolutely no idea what my political ideology is. I might not even be a Leninist&#33; ohmy.gif

Just so you know, I&#39;m not.[/b]
I&#39;m just pointing out the similarities.

Nobody else was talking about a communist society. You brought it up out of thin air.
Wow...

Let&#39;s see. The vanguard is the most advanced section of the proletariat&#33;&#33;&#33; If a party is made up of a proletarian vanguard then it&#39;s proletarian. Is that so hard for you to understand? The vanguard are those that know what they are doing. If you think an organization that should be made by people that don&#39;t know what you&#39;re doing, then you are a fucking nutcase.

The vanguard isn&#39;t in any way separated from the proletariat. It is part of the proletariat. It comes from the proletariat. It is intrinsically proletarian. Proletarians that aren&#39;t part of the vanguard can easily become part of the vanguard by understanding the class struggle and the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. If they understand these things then they become part of the vanguard.

In order for the proletariat to successfully revolt, they will organize. This form of organization can be called whatever you want, but throughout this discussion it has generally been referred to as a party. This party will most obviously be made by members of the vanguard, as they are the ones that understand the class struggle and the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. The form of this organization is the only place where we should be differing.
And that&#39;s why Lenin wasn&#39;t part of the Proletariat? Talk about intellectual supremacy. I&#39;m sick and tired of hearing that the Proletariat is incompetent and needs intellectual superiors to show them the way. How do you not see the exact same similarities between the vanguardist and fascist? Democracy is too weak, people are too stupid, they need someone to direct their every move... that&#39;s all you&#39;re saying.

The vanguard is too separate from the Proletariat, they do not produce anything and therefore aren&#39;t Proletarian&#33; They&#39;re the ruling class and control the means of production. They control who joins the party and who doesn&#39;t. The proletariat has no control over the vanguard.

A party of equals is the only party which will ever result in communism. When you create a hierarchy you&#39;re destroying any chance for communism.

I am? Plese, point out where I supported letting Nazi&#39;s into a proletarian organization. Because it is you that openly did so&#33;&#33;&#33;
In vanguard parties; the fascist, bourgeois or any other reactionary can and do rise to power. This is seen in both the USSR, China and in nearly every other vanguardist party. By supporting the vanguard, you&#39;re supporting the reactionaries.

Nobody was talking about a government. We are talking about a proletarian organization. You are changing the subject.
The government and party are synonymous. Everyone in the community who obtains it&#39;s benefits belongs to the party and partakes in the government. I don&#39;t recall ever limiting this discussion to &#39;proletariat organization&#39; nor have I ever in this debate even mention them. You are the one dodging arguments you cannot defend with some pre-fed argument.

That&#39;s because it isn&#39;t really democracy.
It&#39;s bourgeois democracy, and in proletarian democracy it would work the same to keep out the reactionaries.

Again, you don&#39;t even know my position on anything. You are making a completely blind and baseless assumption that I am a Leninist. I would love to see you prove that I am a Leninist. You don&#39;t know my position on the amount of democracy in the party, the amount of centralization in the party or the state, etc... For all you know i could be an ultra-leftist&#33;&#33;&#33;
You argue for vanguards, so it&#39;s safe for me to assume you&#39;re a Leninist or at the very least a vanguardist. This isn&#39;t "blind" because you&#39;re obviously defending Lenin in this argument since, as my title suggests, this whole thread is about Leninism/Marxism and their contradictions.
------

redstar2000
I do not think it yet reasonable to call whatever it is the Zapatistas use "a government". They may have mechanisms in place which perform some "government-like" functions...but they remain subject to the overwhelming power of the Mexican Army which, I have heard, periodically terrorizes people in that part of Mexico.

I cannot see why one would speak at all of "representation for Nazis" or other known reactionaries. The purpose of any post-revolutionary "state" -- such as it might be -- is to repress the reactionaries out of existence.

That&#39;s not Lenin; that&#39;s Marx&#33;

The Leninist "spin" on this requires a professional army and police force -- that is, people who are willing to kill on demand. If they&#39;re ordered to shoot reactionaries, they&#39;ll do it&#33; If they&#39;re ordered to kill workers, they&#39;ll do it&#33; If they&#39;re ordered to do nothing, they&#39;ll do that too&#33;

Against such a trained and disciplined force, "civilian" power amounts to "words on paper"...utterly helpless unless there is a massive insurrection of the outraged populace.

To speak of workers&#39; power at all necessarily requires the absence of a professional military or police force.
The reason I say equal representation is due to exactly what you described in the latter half of this post. Repressing the reactionaries militarily can and will result in an overpowering military that will eventually repress the working class. Innocent people are labeled reactionaries in these "witch-hunts" and are imprisoned or killed.

To avoid that, I would rather there not be gulags or executions. Of course their will be education against Nazism, Fascism and the likes; but alienating them from the population would only make them believe more in their "cause." When they&#39;re time and time again defeated politically, their morale will lower. But if someone is holding them back they will have the "the only reason we aren&#39;t in power is because of oppression&#33;" excuse and wont give up their losing battle. Eventually, these ideas will die out in the exact same fashion as the Monarchist ideas died off over the years.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by D_Bokk
Eventually, these ideas will die out in the exact same fashion as the Monarchist ideas died off over the years.

You must remember that one of the important reasons that "monarchist ideas" have "died off" is the fact that people got in the habit of executing kings.

The throne looks a lot less attractive when it might "cost your head". :lol:

And also, don&#39;t forget that a number of European countries are still plagued with those royal parasites...even though they only exist for ceremonial purposes now (like bourgeois "elections" :lol:).

I have confidence that an armed working class will know "who needs killing" and will "take care of business" without hiring "professionals".

I think past revolutionaries have shown too much mercy to our enemies. But this is a debate that must be settled by the class as a whole...not by a small elite group. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[D_Bokk]

Touche. That was easy though, since the King represented the whole idea of Monarchism. Even though the Bourgeois are a minority, there are still too many to just kill to make an example ample enough to deter all wouldbe Capitalists.

[KC]

Originally posted by Restar2000+--> (Restar2000)In other words, the things that Marx said (or might have said) towards the end of his life don&#39;t carry "the same weight" with me as what he had to say when he was younger and in the full vigor of his maturity.

Just as a lot of the things the "young Marx" had to say don&#39;t weigh as "heavily" in my mind.

We must constantly remind ourselves that Marx was not a "prophet"...he was a human like all of us and inevitably made mistakes.[/b]

This quote doesn&#39;t answer my post at all. Look at what I said:


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)If you find anything wrong with the quotes I have posted, then please tell me so and provide evidence of why they&#39;re wrong...If you don&#39;t refute the McLellan quotes that I have posted then I am going to assume that you agree with them, as you haven&#39;t posted anything to the contrary.[/b]

I asked you to tell me to find anything wrong with the quotes I posted, and you have still failed to do so. The quotes said "Marx said....". You then proceeded to attack McLellan for no reason. I then demanded that you tell me what is wrong with the quotes. And your response was "Well.....we shouldn&#39;t put as much weight on what Marx said later in his life." Does this mean that you agree with the quotes? You agree that these quotes are correct? Because you still haven&#39;t found anything wrong with them. So either find something wrong with them or admit that they are accurate and stop *****ing about who McLellan was.


Originally posted by Redstar2000
TSAR was a "copy & paste" job; Lenin searched out every speculation he could find from Marx and Engels about what communist society would look like.

Something pretty much anyone with time and patience could have done.

This also isn&#39;t a sufficient response. I asked you two specific questions that can be answered with a yes or a no, and you have failed to do so. The questions were:

1. Do you agree with what ML presented about Lenin in The State and Revolution?
2. Do you agree that this book was a contribution to Marxist Theory?

All you have to do is give a simple yes or no, yet you have avoided both of these questions.


Originally posted by Restar2000

The papacy has a "theory" of "Christian charity"...which, in practice, involves the vicious exploitation of poor godsuckers.

Should we take such a "theory" seriously?

Their theory regarding charity is good. Of course, the Christian part is wrong and we shouldn&#39;t support it, but the idea of charity isn&#39;t bad. Regardless of their actions, their idea of charity is a good idea. See how easy that was?

Just like how we can support the actions of certain groups (for example, your support of burning down religious buildings recently) without supporting those groups, we can also analyze Lenin&#39;s theory independent of his action.


Originally posted by Redstar2000

Lenin&#39;s random comments in State and Revolution sound very egalitarian...but his practice (and that of his followers) was and remains elitist to the core&#33;

Lenin&#39;s comments in State and Revolution were egalitarian. Regardless of what you think about him (and his so-called "followers"), you can admit this to be so. Go ahead. Admit it.


Originally posted by D Bokk
I&#39;m sick and tired of hearing that the Proletariat is incompetent and needs intellectual superiors to show them the way.

The "intellectual superiors" that you refer to are part of the proletariat. If you&#39;re proletarian then you are part of the vanguard. You better stop fighting for proletarian emancipation; they don&#39;t need you "showing them the way"&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol: :lol: :lol:


Originally posted by D Bokk
How do you not see the exact same similarities between the vanguardist and fascist?

Because you don&#39;t know what a vanguard is.


Originally posted by D Bokk
Democracy is too weak, people are too stupid, they need someone to direct their every move... that&#39;s all you&#39;re saying.


Show me where I said this.


Originally posted by D Bokk

The vanguard is too separate from the Proletariat

They can&#39;t be seperate from the proletariat if they&#39;re part of the proletariat.


Originally posted by D Bokk
they do not produce anything and therefore aren&#39;t Proletarian&#33;

You&#39;re talking about "professional revolutionaries" now. I have not been talking about professional revolutionaries making up a party. I am talking about proletarians making up a party. If you haven&#39;t noticed, this is what I have been saying ever since I started posting in this thread.


Originally posted by D Bokk
The proletariat has no control over the vanguard.

The vanguard isn&#39;t a party. Again, this shows how little you know about what a vanguard is. Members of the vanguard form a party. Not all members of the vanguard have to join that party.


Originally posted by D Bokk

In vanguard parties; the fascist, bourgeois or any other reactionary can and do rise to power. This is seen in both the USSR, China and in nearly every other vanguardist party. By supporting the vanguard, you&#39;re supporting the reactionaries.

A vanguard is inevitable. You keep failing to realize this. There are members of the proletariat who are class conscious and are striving to move towards communism. These are members of the vanguard. If you the emancipation of the proletariat then you are a member of the vanguard. By supporting the vanguard, you are supporting the emancipation of the proletariat.


Originally posted by D Bokk

It&#39;s bourgeois democracy, and in proletarian democracy it would work the same to keep out the reactionaries.

You can&#39;t even compare bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy. Bourgeois democracy doesn&#39;t even exist. You vote with your money. The richer you are the more "youre vote counts". This is how proletarian democracy should work?

Moreover, you actually believe that the counterrevolution will just "die out". That they won&#39;t be much trouble because there won&#39;t be many of them. What you fail to realize is that these reactionaries have the support of the entire world against the proletarian government. They must be suppressed. Redstar even disagrees with you on this one.


Originally posted by D Bokk

You argue for vanguards

I argue for vanguards? You still don&#39;t know what a vanguard is. A vanguard comes into existence inevitably. A vanguard exists in every revolution.


Originally posted by D Bokk
so it&#39;s safe for me to assume you&#39;re a Leninist or at the very least a vanguardist.

Actually, I&#39;m not a Leninist. Am I a "vanguardist" because I realize that the existence of the vanguard in any revolution is inevitable?

Why is a vanguard inevitable? Because there are always going to be certain proletarians who are more advanced in their thought than other proletarians, there are proletarians who are more organized than other proletarians, there are proletarians who are more revolutionary than other proletarians, etc... The proletariat isn&#39;t going to rise in one single mass. Every single proletarian isn&#39;t going to be thinking the same thing at the same time. They all don&#39;t become class conscious at the exact same time. Of course, I could go on like this all day, but I&#39;ll leave it at this.


D [email protected]
This isn&#39;t "blind" because you&#39;re obviously defending Lenin in this argument since

I am defending parts of Lenin&#39;s theory that I see has been completely distorted and attacked as straw men. I would do this with theory that I didn&#39;t even agree with. This is a logical fallacy, and I would suggest that people actually understand Lenin&#39;s theory before forming an opinion on them. You have shown that you obviously don&#39;t understand Lenin&#39;s theory and shouldn&#39;t have an opinion on it, much less be attacking it.


Redstar2000

I have confidence that an armed working class will know "who needs killing" and will "take care of business" without hiring "professionals".

I agree. Strange, huh? :blink:

[red_che]

D_Bokk:


I don&#39;t believe my lifetime will witness a communist revolution, especially in my country. I&#39;m seeing a leftist trend in Latin America and believe they, if anyone, would lead some type of communist revolution.

And I see not only in Latin America, but in Asia as well.


Either way, now or later, rushing a revolution when only a small vanguard is ready is foolish and will end up in disasters like the SU and China.

When can it be said that the people are ready to revolt? If you think that all the proletariat in the entire globe would act at once without their consciousness being aroused at, then you are daydreaming. Another challenge to you, if you can convince 1000 individuals in just one day to revolt, then you&#39;re thinking might be correct. If not, this only means that there really is a section of the proletariat which are basically the most advanced, and therefore it is their task to arouse the consciousness of the entire proletariat. And they can do this by first, establishing a Party, and through this organization, they can arouse, organize and mobilize the proletariat for the communist revolution.

And if you think that only a small portion revolted in Russia and China, then you&#39;re mistaken. Try look at history books, then you&#39;ll see that the population actually revolted, and were led by the Party.


Kerensky did hand over power, he left his capital unguarded and provided Lenin with an army. The Bolsheviks did what served them best, they were not the proletariat at all. Hell, the proletariat wasn&#39;t really that developed during that time in Russia. What I described was a coup and cannot be interpreted as anything else.

I can really say that your view of historical development is idealist. You ignored the part played by the proletariat in the 1917 Revolution. You put too much emphasis on the roles played by few people, not the importance of the people&#39;s action.

Because you view this development in history in an idealist manner, it is understandable that you say Kerensky handed power to Lenin. It&#39;s as if these two individuals were the the creators of history, not the people.


Everything that&#39;s anti-Leninist is "propaganda" according to the Leninists.

Unless you can show proof that what you say is Marxist, then I will continue to say that your assertions were based on bourgoies premises.


I see, &#39;parties&#39; not &#39;vanguard parties.&#39; Irregardless, just because the Leninists made a party doesn&#39;t make them Marxist. They applied theory that alienated the Proletariat, imprisoned their fellow comrades and deprived their citizens of a democratic process.

Now it is you who deny things and not present any substantive proof to back up your claims. Earlier you said this:
Of course there is need for a party. Organization is a necessity.

What do you think that organization should be? In The Communist Manifesto, it is clear what is that organization is, it is the Communist Party.

I am no longer surprised whenever there are people who do not want to set up a Party, Marx and Engels were already knowledgeable of this.Because even during their time, they knew this already and were in struggle against these pseudo-Communists. In The Communist Manifesto it was stated:
This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.


You ask me to find a successful communist revolution without the use of parties, when you cannot give me one example of a successful Communist revolution with a vanguard party. The only difference is that your system has been tried, numerous times, and every time it failed miserably.

The successful seizure of power by the proletariat in Russia in 1917 and in China in 1949 is already an achievement by the proletariat, and a significant one.

When there is a failure, what one usually does is look where the problem was and why it failed and not blame outrightly someone. Now, if you will only look closer, you would realize that it was not "our system" (I take this to mean Leninism) that failed. It was modern revisionism like that of Kruschev, in Russia, and Deng, in China, that failed.


And like I said earlier, I don&#39;t oppose parties, I oppose vanguards.

What you oppose, by the way I see it, is not Vanguard party, but the Party itself.

In the actual practice of the proletarian movement, there is always somebody or a group of people who are at the vanguard of the movement. Never in history that there was a movement where there is no vanguard. But don&#39;t confuse this to be elitist. Elitism is different, far far different, from vanguard. ;)

Che Y Marijuana:


I&#39;m not sure it&#39;s realistic to say we have another generation to change this.

I think it&#39;s pretty clear from events over the past few years that we can be the generation that at overthrows the bourgeoisie, it&#39;s just a matter of whether or not we are ready to meet that challenge.

We may not establish communism in our lifetimes, but we can certainly put the workingclass in power and therefore put the world on track to that goal.

What I refer there was the communist society. I believe that our generation can no longer live to see that situation. What we can do today is organize, a lot of organizing, in order to advance further the revolution to the transition period. It&#39;s success (the communist revolution) depends on the next generation.

And I do agree that the situation today is a lot worse than it was in the 20th Century. But the revolution is not just a one day affair. The transition period (Socialist society) is a lot more longer than it seems. So, it would take several generations, in my estimation, for communism to be fully established.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Marx according to David McCellan+--> (Marx according to David McCellan)"Later still, Marx began to think that Russia might prove the starting point of the revolution which &#39;begins this time in the East, hitherto the invulnerable bulwark and reinforcement of the counterrevolution.&#39; And a year before his death he wrote: &#39;If the Russian revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complete each other, then the present Russian system of community ownership of land could serve as the starting point for a communist development&#39;."[/b]

If Marx said this, then he was wrong&#33; There was zero chance of that happening and Marx should have been well aware of that. Peasant "communalism" does not and cannot "develop" into communism. The very idea is totally contrary to a historical materialist analysis.

I think it highly probable that Marx was simply flattering some Russian fans of his -- trying to think of something encouraging to say to them.


Originally posted by Marx according to David McCellan+--> (Marx according to David McCellan)But however much Marx thought that sometimes force could be the midwife of revolution, he never (except briefly in 1848 and under Tsarist conditions in Russia) approved the use of revolutionary terror.[/b]

Gee, what was "special" about 1848? Oh, it was a year of mass uprisings all over Europe&#33;

McCellan converts Marx into a pacifist...except with regard to 1848 and the Czarist despotism. The rest of the time I guess Marx was "running for office", eh? :lol:

Well, no, because McCellan also has Marx "not turning into a tame parliamentarian in his old age".

McCellan&#39;s "Marx" is a whimsical creature that changes its shape according to McCellan&#39;s peculiar priorities.

So Lazar: You want to rely on this "spiritual" academic twit for your understanding of Marx&#39;s ideas, that&#39;s up to you.

I prefer to rely on Marx&#39;s serious work. I think he speaks for himself quite adequately.


Originally posted by Lazar
Surely, you agree with what Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution then regarding this subject? Or is it too hard for you to admit that Lenin could have contributed something useful to communist theory?

Yes, it&#39;s "too hard"...anyone could have done what Lenin did in that book.


[email protected]
Their theory regarding charity is good. Of course, the Christian part is wrong and we shouldn&#39;t support it, but the idea of charity isn&#39;t bad. Regardless of their actions, their idea of charity is a good idea. See how easy that was?

Now here you&#39;ve managed to say something interesting.

Many people on the "left" conceive of Marxism as a kind of "large-scale charity" -- the task of revolutionaries is to "help people". That&#39;s always been one of the basic appeals of reformism.

We are told in solemn tones that we should "have pity" on those "less fortunate than ourselves" and give up a portion of our wealth that they might live for another day.

Well, that&#39;s how the Christians say it; Leninists rearrange the words slightly. The working class "can&#39;t liberate itself" unless we who are "wealthy" in understanding and leadership "help them do it".

The supercilious sub-text of such sentiments is quite noticeable to the recipients...and we don&#39;t like it much. In fact, we&#39;ve been known to actually go hungry rather than beg from those "more fortunate than us".

So I must disagree with your proposition. In my view, the theory of Christian charity sucks just as much as the practice&#33;

Leninist theory sucks just as much as its practice.

For example...


red_che
The transition period (Socialist society) is a lot more longer than it seems. So, it would take several generations, in my estimation, for communism to be fully established.

Generations of despotism&#33; Woo hoo&#33;

Fun for the whole family&#33; :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Nachie]

*COUGH*
FUCKLENIN&#33;
*COUGH*
RED&ANARCHISTACTIONNETWORK&#33;
*COUGH*

Wow, where did that come from? I really had something lodged in there for a minute...

[More Fire for the People]

I know, I took a fucking long time to reply to this topic but I wanted to finish reading What is to be done? before responding. Personally I thought one-third of only applied to autocracy, another third was relevant even to democratic republics, and another third was archaic. It&#39;s 2006 not 1902. :o Sorry if my fellow Leninists can&#39;t accept that.


But this has not been the composition of the Vanguard in the past. So why should we believe it will be the composition of the Vanguard in the future? Rather, Leninists want the Vanguard to lead the proletariat. It is functionally a separate entity.
Leaders are only distinct from the masses in the sense that they are class conscious. Lenin vehemently believed that the original foundation of the vanguard would be by the members of the intelligentsia who were "infected" with Marxism. From this group&#39;s publications and agitation it would draw proletarians into the movement, i.e. tranform them from spontaneous rioters into class conscious workers and [sometimes or] professional revolutionaries.

This conclusion does have its rationale — Marx, Engels, Lenin, Che, and even Bakunin where from the intelligentsia. But this position is primitive. Lenin was reaching at but did not grab the concept of organic intellectuals (http://marxists.org/archive/gramsci/editions/spn/problems/intellectuals.htm). A vanguard must be established by both the organic intellectuals and the Marxian intelligentsia.


Essentially, you think the Vanguard will be the &#39;advanced section&#39; of the proletariat.
Indeed. I once used the phrase "dialectics of spontaniety and organization". I was wrong in the sense that the proper phrase is "dialectics of spontaniety and conciousness". Class consciousness sublates spontaniety by turning it into organization. The riot becomes the revolution through organization and armed warfare initiated by the vanguard.


[i]Originally posted by "Nachie"
Wow, where did that come from? I really had something lodged in there for a minute...
I believe that the USA produces anti-childish throat lozenges.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)The "intellectual superiors" that you refer to are part of the proletariat. If you&#39;re proletarian then you are part of the vanguard. You better stop fighting for proletarian emancipation; they don&#39;t need you "showing them the way"&#33;&#33;&#33;[/b]
Excuse me, but are you claiming that Lenin was part of the proletariat?

Show me where I said this.
You don&#39;t need to.

They can&#39;t be seperate from the proletariat if they&#39;re part of the proletariat.
Using historical examples of vanguards, show me that this is true.

You&#39;re talking about "professional revolutionaries" now. I have not been talking about professional revolutionaries making up a party. I am talking about proletarians making up a party. If you haven&#39;t noticed, this is what I have been saying ever since I started posting in this thread.

The vanguard isn&#39;t a party. Again, this shows how little you know about what a vanguard is. Members of the vanguard form a party. Not all members of the vanguard have to join that party.
When your little "proletarian party" rises to power, what will their occupation be?

A vanguard is inevitable. You keep failing to realize this. There are members of the proletariat who are class conscious and are striving to move towards communism. These are members of the vanguard. If you the emancipation of the proletariat then you are a member of the vanguard. By supporting the vanguard, you are supporting the emancipation of the proletariat.
And when the revolution is successful, they disband. They&#39;re of no use post-revolution. They do not deserve the product of their revolution, because that belongs to only the Proletariat. If they want to assume power, then it&#39;s quite obvious what their goal all along was and shouldn&#39;t be allowed to partake in the proletarian process.

You can&#39;t even compare bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy. Bourgeois democracy doesn&#39;t even exist. You vote with your money. The richer you are the more "youre vote counts". This is how proletarian democracy should work?

Moreover, you actually believe that the counterrevolution will just "die out". That they won&#39;t be much trouble because there won&#39;t be many of them. What you fail to realize is that these reactionaries have the support of the entire world against the proletarian government. They must be suppressed. Redstar even disagrees with you on this one.
Why not? The bourgeois democracy favors the bourgeois class, while the proletarian democracy favors the proletariat. You&#39;re going under the assumption that there&#39;s going to be Socialism in One Country, but if history does repeat itself a genuine revolution will trigger numerous others. As seen in 1848 and to some extent the 20th century of so-called &#39;communist&#39; revolutions.

Actually, I&#39;m not a Leninist. Am I a "vanguardist" because I realize that the existence of the vanguard in any revolution is inevitable?

Why is a vanguard inevitable? Because there are always going to be certain proletarians who are more advanced in their thought than other proletarians, there are proletarians who are more organized than other proletarians, there are proletarians who are more revolutionary than other proletarians, etc... The proletariat isn&#39;t going to rise in one single mass. Every single proletarian isn&#39;t going to be thinking the same thing at the same time. They all don&#39;t become class conscious at the exact same time. Of course, I could go on like this all day, but I&#39;ll leave it at this.
So, because some part of the proletariat is more intelligent than another - their opinions are worth more and the "dumb proletarian" shouldn&#39;t run the government? Is this what you call proletarian democracy?

I am defending parts of Lenin&#39;s theory that I see has been completely distorted and attacked as straw men. I would do this with theory that I didn&#39;t even agree with. This is a logical fallacy, and I would suggest that people actually understand Lenin&#39;s theory before forming an opinion on them. You have shown that you obviously don&#39;t understand Lenin&#39;s theory and shouldn&#39;t have an opinion on it, much less be attacking it.
Exactly, because I am one of those people who are unfit to be in the vanguard. My brain is to puny to comprehend the genius of Lenin to lead or even partake in government. :rolleyes:
-----

red_che
When can it be said that the people are ready to revolt? If you think that all the proletariat in the entire globe would act at once without their consciousness being aroused at, then you are daydreaming. Another challenge to you, if you can convince 1000 individuals in just one day to revolt, then you&#39;re thinking might be correct. If not, this only means that there really is a section of the proletariat which are basically the most advanced, and therefore it is their task to arouse the consciousness of the entire proletariat. And they can do this by first, establishing a Party, and through this organization, they can arouse, organize and mobilize the proletariat for the communist revolution.

And if you think that only a small portion revolted in Russia and China, then you&#39;re mistaken. Try look at history books, then you&#39;ll see that the population actually revolted, and were led by the Party.
I&#39;m talking about when thousands of workers spontaneously go to the streets and protest and from there begin a revolution. This happens fairly often around the world, but the Proletariat has not been ready to actually have a revolution and in the end generally settles for some type of agreement. When they&#39;re ready, they will not compromise.

When Lenin took Petrograd the numbers were fairly low. A revolution shouldn&#39;t cause a civil war. All civil wars show is that the ruling power doesn&#39;t have the consent of the people.

I can really say that your view of historical development is idealist. You ignored the part played by the proletariat in the 1917 Revolution. You put too much emphasis on the roles played by few people, not the importance of the people&#39;s action.

Because you view this development in history in an idealist manner, it is understandable that you say Kerensky handed power to Lenin. It&#39;s as if these two individuals were the the creators of history, not the people.
Naturally, I&#39;m idealist and you wont enlighten me on what the realistic interpretation of history is. :rolleyes:

Unless you can show proof that what you say is Marxist, then I will continue to say that your assertions were based on bourgoies premises.
I need to show you where Marx condemned gulags filled with Anarchists, Communists and Socialists?

This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.
Exactly. This isn&#39;t promoting a natural selection of those who are fit to rule in a vanguard, but the whole proletariat being included in the ruling party instead of a small group.

This competition is the "elite" who believe they&#39;re more prepared to rule and therefore should be given that right. The only group who is prepared to rule is the Proletariat.

The successful seizure of power by the proletariat in Russia in 1917 and in China in 1949 is already an achievement by the proletariat, and a significant one.

When there is a failure, what one usually does is look where the problem was and why it failed and not blame outrightly someone. Now, if you will only look closer, you would realize that it was not "our system" (I take this to mean Leninism) that failed. It was modern revisionism like that of Kruschev, in Russia, and Deng, in China, that failed.
Congrats on the successful seizure of power, how did that work out for Lenin?

Ah yes. Blame an individual instead of the system which allowed him to rise to power. Kruschev happened precisely because of the vanguard. In a proletarian run party, there wouldn&#39;t be a place for one man to ruin socialism. Revisionism has caused the downfall of all Leninist and Maoist countries, yet you cannot put the pieces together that it isn&#39;t just bad luck that these men rose to power but the inevitability that they will gain power.

What you oppose, by the way I see it, is not Vanguard party, but the Party itself.

In the actual practice of the proletarian movement, there is always somebody or a group of people who are at the vanguard of the movement. Never in history that there was a movement where there is no vanguard. But don&#39;t confuse this to be elitist. Elitism is different, far far different, from vanguard.
And never in history that there was a movement where the bourgeois didn&#39;t rise to power.

[KC]

McCellan converts Marx into a pacifist...except with regard to 1848 and the Czarist despotism. The rest of the time I guess Marx was "running for office", eh? :lol:

Actually, I&#39;m going to agree with you on this one. Regardless of how exaggerated your analysis was (McLellan never claimed Marx to be a pacifist), I do agree that generally Marx approved the use of "revolutionary terror":


Originally posted by The Victory of the Counter&#045;Revolution in Vienna+--> (The Victory of the Counter&#045;Revolution in Vienna)The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.[/b]
- Karl Marx, Neue Rheinische Zietung, Issue No. 136 (reappears in issue 301) (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/06.htm)



McCellan&#39;s "Marx" is a whimsical creature that changes its shape according to McCellan&#39;s peculiar priorities.

So Lazar: You want to rely on this "spiritual" academic twit for your understanding of Marx&#39;s ideas, that&#39;s up to you.

I posted the quotes. If you find anything wrong with the rest of the quotes then let me know; otherwise I am going to assume that they are correct and that you agree with them.


Yes, it&#39;s "too hard"...anyone could have done what Lenin did in that book.


It doesn&#39;t matter if anyone could have done it. The fact of the matter is that Lenin was the one that did it. So it is Lenin contributing to Marxist Theory.



So I must disagree with your proposition. In my view, the theory of Christian charity sucks just as much as the practice&#33;

I said their theory is good. I didn&#39;t say it was the best. Charity is a good thing; it might be foolish, shortsighted and not solve anything, but it&#39;s still a good thing.

In America before the Civil War, was it a good thing to give slaves food? Yes. Was it better to work towards freeing them? Of course&#33;


*COUGH*
FUCKLENIN&#33;
*COUGH*
RED&ANARCHISTACTIONNETWORK&#33;
*COUGH*

Wow, where did that come from? I really had something lodged in there for a minute...

Redstar, do you think you could give this spammer a warning point?



Excuse me, but are you claiming that Lenin was part of the proletariat?

I&#39;m not even talking about Lenin or the Bolsheviks. I am not trying to justify anything the Bolsheviks did (I am not condemning anything they did either). I don&#39;t know where you got the idea that that&#39;s what I&#39;m trying to do, but I&#39;m not.



You don&#39;t need to.

Then that&#39;s not "all I&#39;m saying".



Using historical examples of vanguards, show me that this is true.

I don&#39;t have to.



When your little "proletarian party"

Now you&#39;re attacking rather condescendingly proletarian organization.



When your little "proletarian party" rises to power, what will their occupation be?

Workers.


They do not deserve the product of their revolution, because that belongs to only the Proletariat.

They&#39;re part of the proletariat.



And when the revolution is successful, they disband.

Of course they don&#39;t&#33; Need I quote Marx? I was going to quote him here, however I thought it would do you good to read the entire piece. Marx - On Authority (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm). Fuck it, I&#39;ll quote him too:


Karl Marx &#045; On Authority
Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don&#39;t know what they&#39;re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.



Why not? The bourgeois democracy favors the bourgeois class, while the proletarian democracy favors the proletariat.

This isn&#39;t even a response. You just repeated what you said earlier.


You&#39;re going under the assumption that there&#39;s going to be Socialism in One Country

I&#39;m going under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in one country for a short period of time, and under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in a handful of countries soon after, and so on. The socialist revolution will take time to spread. Because of this, counterrevolution must be combated at every turn.



So, because some part of the proletariat is more intelligent than another - their opinions are worth more and the "dumb proletarian" shouldn&#39;t run the government?

Yes. Maybe I&#39;m wrong; maybe we should let those Nazi&#39;s in, eh? :lol: :lol:


Is this what you call proletarian democracy?

Yes. People that are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat should have a say in how to run the organization. People that aren&#39;t fighting shouldn&#39;t have a say. Why aren&#39;t they fighting for it? Either because they don&#39;t care, in which case they shouldn&#39;t care about having a say in government; or they&#39;re against it, in which case they should be locked up&#33;


My brain is to puny to comprehend the genius of Lenin to lead or even partake in government.

You have an obvious misunderstanding of Lenin&#39;s theory. You don&#39;t even know what a vanguard is, yet you are against it.




When Lenin took Petrograd the numbers were fairly low. A revolution shouldn&#39;t cause a civil war. All civil wars show is that the ruling power doesn&#39;t have the consent of the people.

Do you even know who the White Army was composed of? Tsarist Generals, SR-Mensheviks that wanted a bourgeois republic, various other petty-bourgeois socialists, technicians, officials, and military staff, all allied with 50,000 allied soldiers. This wasn&#39;t a proletarian civil war. This was a class war.



This competition is the "elite" who believe they&#39;re more prepared to rule and therefore should be given that right. The only group who is prepared to rule is the Proletariat.

Including those proletarian Nazis, right? :lol:

[вор в законе]

The vanguard is too separate from the Proletariat, they do not produce anything and therefore aren&#39;t Proletarian&#33;


My guitar is an organ, my penis is an organ therefore my guitar is a penis.

[redstar2000]

Lazar: On Authority was written by Engels...not Marx.

And I have already replied to it, naturally. :D

Authority and Centralization (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1087693599&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

Lazar: On Authority was written by Engels...not Marx.

And I have already replied to it, naturally. :D

I don&#39;t even know how I missed that. Thank you.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Apr 2 2006, 12:31 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Apr 2 2006, 12:31 PM)
Marx according to David McCellan
"Later still, Marx began to think that Russia might prove the starting point of the revolution which &#39;begins this time in the East, hitherto the invulnerable bulwark and reinforcement of the counterrevolution.&#39; And a year before his death he wrote: &#39;If the Russian revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complete each other, then the present Russian system of community ownership of land could serve as the starting point for a communist development&#39;."

If Marx said this, then he was wrong&#33; There was zero chance of that happening and Marx should have been well aware of that. Peasant "communalism" does not and cannot "develop" into communism. The very idea is totally contrary to a historical materialist analysis.

I think it highly probable that Marx was simply flattering some Russian fans of his -- trying to think of something encouraging to say to them. [/b]
Marx said that in a preface to the Communist Manifesto, not in a letter to a fan. See http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...tm#preface-1882 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm#preface-1882) However, in a letter to the editor Marx wrote if Russia continued to follow its current path eventually that possibility would be closed off and it would have to go through capitalism. See http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...7/11/russia.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/11/russia.htm) After Marx died, Engels said Russia had in fact "missed the boat" and would have to follow normal capitalist development. See http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...4/01/russia.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/01/russia.htm)

I think your version of historical materialism and Marx&#39;s version of historical materialism are not at all the same.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Morpheus
I think your version of historical materialism and Marx&#39;s version of historical materialism are not at all the same.

True, of course.

I am more "rigid" about "epochs of production" than Marx was...even though it was "his idea".

I have the benefit of a larger historical "sample" to work with than Marx did...actually seeing Russia and China develop into modern capitalist countries inspite of strenuous efforts to "skip over" that stage has far more impact than speculations dating from the late 19th or early 20th centuries.

I "stand on the shoulders of giants"...so I think I see things a little more clearly. :P

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

I "stand on the shoulders of giants"...so I think I see things a little more clearly.

It doesn&#39;t matter the view you have if you&#39;re blind.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 05:43 PM


I "stand on the shoulders of giants"...so I think I see things a little more clearly.

It doesn&#39;t matter the view you have if you&#39;re blind.
A crushing refutation&#33; :lol:

The readers of this thread are, fortunately, free to draw their own conclusions. :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Guest1]

Those who&#39;ve read your positions through and through already have, you&#39;ve adopted some very dogmatic and idealistic methods and ideas that have led you to the conclusion that only when revolution is perfect can it be successfull.

Hence, your belief in revolution in 500 years. In otherwords, whatever we do now doesn&#39;t matter. So the rest of us are going to organize what is working, and you can wait on your ass waiting for ideologically pure proletarians who do nothing that isn&#39;t illegal.

[KC]

The readers of this thread are, fortunately, free to draw their own conclusions.

Fortunately.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar
I&#39;m not even talking about Lenin or the Bolsheviks. I am not trying to justify anything the Bolsheviks did (I am not condemning anything they did either). I don&#39;t know where you got the idea that that&#39;s what I&#39;m trying to do, but I&#39;m not.
I don&#39;t know, maybe because this thread is about Leninism and Marxism?

I don&#39;t have to.
Of course you don&#39;t.

Now you&#39;re attacking rather condescendingly proletarian organization.
Depends. If you&#39;re talking about an organization which exists today that considers themselves the vanguard or a historical vanguard who has never been proletarian.

Workers.
What kind of "worker"?

They&#39;re part of the proletariat.
The all-knowing infallible superior part, you mean.

Of course they don&#39;t&#33; Need I quote Marx? I was going to quote him here, however I thought it would do you good to read the entire piece. Marx - On Authority. Fuck it, I&#39;ll quote him too:
Since when do I oppose authority? I&#39;ve been repeating myself over and over again, I oppose the vanguard. There can be authority, but not in the hands of a small minority of people who think they&#39;re better than the rest of the Proletariat.

This isn&#39;t even a response. You just repeated what you said earlier.
I thought maybe this time you&#39;d understand, but I was wrong.

I&#39;m going under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in one country for a short period of time, and under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in a handful of countries soon after, and so on. The socialist revolution will take time to spread. Because of this, counterrevolution must be combated at every turn.
What do you plan on doing then when more countries become socialist, keep the same authoritative suppression?

Yes. Maybe I&#39;m wrong; maybe we should let those Nazi&#39;s in, eh?
Are you calling all of the Proletariat who doesn&#39;t meet your intellectual standards Nazis?

Yes. People that are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat should have a say in how to run the organization. People that aren&#39;t fighting shouldn&#39;t have a say. Why aren&#39;t they fighting for it? Either because they don&#39;t care, in which case they shouldn&#39;t care about having a say in government; or they&#39;re against it, in which case they should be locked up&#33;
Nothing wrong with having a say, but there&#39;s a difference in having a say and dictating. These uneducated proletariat fight to, but their say is worth far less in your system. Why?

Do you even know who the White Army was composed of? Tsarist Generals, SR-Mensheviks that wanted a bourgeois republic, various other petty-bourgeois socialists, technicians, officials, and military staff, all allied with 50,000 allied soldiers. This wasn&#39;t a proletarian civil war. This was a class war.
Was Kronstadt part of the white army?

Including those proletarian Nazis, right?
Is it not the dictatorship of the proletariat, not the proletariat who agrees with Lazar?

[KC]

I don&#39;t know, maybe because this thread is about Leninism and Marxism?


It&#39;s certainly not about the Bolsheviks.



Depends.

No. Not depends. You just did.



What kind of "worker"?

What kind of question is this? You&#39;re either a worker or you&#39;re not.



The all-knowing infallible superior part, you mean.

The part that fights for the emancipation of the proletariat, yes.


but not in the hands of a small minority of people who think they&#39;re better than the rest of the Proletariat.

The vanguard isn&#39;t people who "think they&#39;re better than the rest of the Proletariat". The vanguard is composed of people who are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat. The Bolshevik form of the vanguard party is what you are against, not the vanguard itself. You aren&#39;t even thinking this through.



I thought maybe this time you&#39;d understand, but I was wrong.

Because you were wrong. Rather obviously so, I might add.



What do you plan on doing then when more countries become socialist, keep the same authoritative suppression?

Of reactionaries? Of course&#33; Your belief in so-called "freedom of speech" is laughable. Suppressing these reactionaries not only protects the revolution from the bourgeois/petty-bourgeois counterrevolution, but also sets into place the social ideal that these beliefs are wrong. What is wrong with the authoritative suppression of fascists? Or do you support the "right of free speech" for these scum?



Are you calling all of the Proletariat who doesn&#39;t meet your intellectual standards Nazis?

No. I was making fun of the fact that you support giving power to Nazi&#39;s.


These uneducated proletariat fight to

Then they are part of the vanguard, genius.


but their say is worth far less in your system.

What&#39;s "my system"?



Was Kronstadt part of the white army?

The Kronstadt uprising wasn&#39;t the Civil War. It was a seperate event, regarding the temporary measures implemented by War Communism and the confiscating of grain from the peasantry. It was more concerned with the peasantry than the proletariat and was essentially petty-bourgeois in nature.

The peasants were angry that their grain was being confiscated from them, whereas if they were proletarian the product of their labour would inevitably be confiscated from them. The peasantry were outraged that they were being treated like "proletarian scum".



Is it not the dictatorship of the proletariat, not the proletariat who agrees with Lazar?

So if the majority of the proletariat supported the Nazi&#39;s, you would "accept" that and support them regardless because it was "their choice" and because that&#39;s "what the proletariat wants"? So now you&#39;re saying that if the Nazi&#39;s were fully supported by the people, that you would fully support the Nazi&#39;s?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
Those who&#39;ve read your positions through and through already have, you&#39;ve adopted some very dogmatic and idealistic methods and ideas that have led you to the conclusion that only when revolution is perfect can it be successful.

I have never claimed that "perfection" is attainable, much less "necessary"...though what you even mean by the word in this context is entirely speculative.

The other translations are pretty easy...

Dogmatic = flatly refuses to accept the revealed wisdom of Trotsky and Chairman Ted.

Idealist = same thing.

Guilty without remorse, Your Lordship&#33; :lol:


Hence, your belief in revolution in 500 years.

Misleading quotation. What I&#39;ve actually speculated on is communist revolution in western Europe c.2050 and North America c.2100. Communism on the whole planet around 2500.


In other words, whatever we do now doesn&#39;t matter. So the rest of us are going to organize what is working, and you can wait on your ass waiting for ideologically pure proletarians who do nothing that isn&#39;t illegal.

Whatever you do now doesn&#39;t matter nearly as much as you think it does&#33; The Leninist conceit is that they are "history&#39;s darlings" or even "architects"...that whatever they might do "moves mountains".

Being "pure" themselves, they certainly don&#39;t want any pure proletarians around...who might do illegal (gasp&#33;) things without waiting for Chairman Ted&#39;s orders.

Or even knowing who Chairman Ted is. :lol:

As to what you&#39;re doing "working", well, we&#39;ll see about that, won&#39;t we? :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[red_che]

D_Bokk:


I&#39;m talking about when thousands of workers spontaneously go to the streets and protest and from there begin a revolution.

This situation won&#39;t happen just as that. You know, when a revolution happens, it doesn&#39;t necessarily begin when the workers, in their thousands or millions spontaneously go to streets and protest. And it would happen not spontaneously, but consciously. Spontaneity had been a thing of the past. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie cannot be done spontaneously. The bourgeoisie is a lot is smarter than the previous ruling classes. The proletariat needs to overthrow the bourgeoisie in an organized way. Hence, they are needed to be organized into a party.


This happens fairly often around the world, but the Proletariat has not been ready to actually have a revolution and in the end generally settles for some type of agreement. When they&#39;re ready, they will not compromise

Why were they not ready? I say it is because they are not yet conscious of their situations. It is the task of this advanced section of the proletariat to teach them their situations. And as such, the party has this task. To make sure the revolution will succeed.


Naturally, I&#39;m idealist and you wont enlighten me on what the realistic interpretation of history is.

Well, all you need to do is take away that notion that only few individuals can make or unmake history, such as your view that political power can be handed by one person to another, as if it&#39;s like a pack of M&Ms being handed by one child to another.


I need to show you where Marx condemned gulags filled with Anarchists, Communists and Socialists?

Do you really know who these Gulags are? Were they Communists? Or were they rich peasants (petty-bourgeoisie in the countryside) who were not willing to give their properties to the State?


This isn&#39;t promoting a natural selection of those who are fit to rule in a vanguard, but the whole proletariat being included in the ruling party instead of a small group.

Yeah, and who says that the Party is only for a small group of people? The Party represents the proletariat. However, not every proletariat today has Marxist consciousness, that&#39;s why they are needed to be taught of that. But this doesn&#39;t mean they are not allowed to join the Party.


This competition is the "elite" who believe they&#39;re more prepared to rule and therefore should be given that right. The only group who is prepared to rule is the Proletariat.

The difference between "elite" and the vanguard is that the former believes they knew everything while the latter learns everything from the actual practice of the revolution. Now, in this board I can name a few who thinks they knew everything already, and these were the "elite" people in this board. :rolleyes:


Ah yes. Blame an individual instead of the system which allowed him to rise to power. Kruschev happened precisely because of the vanguard. In a proletarian run party, there wouldn&#39;t be a place for one man to ruin socialism. Revisionism has caused the downfall of all Leninist and Maoist countries, yet you cannot put the pieces together that it isn&#39;t just bad luck that these men rose to power but the inevitability that they will gain power.

That only shows that even during the transition, there still exist class contradiction. And the Party is not purified of this, not even any kind of proletarian organization can be purified from this contradiction. Only when the complete annihilation of the bourgeoisie and the complete abolition of privat property and bourgeois relations is done can the society be totally free from class contradiction.

You must also remember that even during Marx&#39;s time, in the International, there are elements who masquerade as communists. Even in this board, not everyone here are communists or Marxists, some were only posturing to be.

What is important is how to continue the revolution, despite the attempts by petty-bourgeois elements within the proletariat to sow confusion and revisionism.


And never in history that there was a movement where the bourgeois didn&#39;t rise to power.

Eh?

Redstar:


Generations of despotism&#33; Woo hoo&#33;

Fun for the whole family&#33;

???


I am more "rigid" about "epochs of production" than Marx was...even though it was "his idea".

Really, like what?


I have the benefit of a larger historical "sample" to work with than Marx did...

You may have a larger sample, but it doesn&#39;t matter because your view is stagnant, in fact retrogressive. :o


What I&#39;ve actually speculated on is communist revolution in western Europe c.2050 and North America c.2100. Communism on the whole planet around 2500.

:o Listen for the prophecy is being pronounced&#33; :o

You can speculate all yearlong, like I said already, but such will remain speculations (actually they sound more like prophecies) unless you cannot know how these would happen.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Apr 2 2006, 10:41 PM--> (redstar2000 &#064; Apr 2 2006, 10:41 PM)
Morpheus
I think your version of historical materialism and Marx&#39;s version of historical materialism are not at all the same.

True, of course.

I am more "rigid" about "epochs of production" than Marx was...even though it was "his idea".[/b]
IMO, the idea of epochs of production owes more to Engels than to Marx. And Engels was certainly more rigid in his epochs than Marx, although your&#39;e more rigid than even Engels. Perhaps you should call yourself an Engelist instead of a Marxist. ;)

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)What kind of question is this? You&#39;re either a worker or you&#39;re not.[/b]
The question is a lead into whether or not these so-called "workers" are actually part of the proletariat or if they&#39;re leaching off the proletariat like previous vanguards and bourgeois for that matter.

The part that fights for the emancipation of the proletariat, yes.
Excluding the dumb, who can fight all they want but when it&#39;s over only the intelligent get the power.

The vanguard isn&#39;t people who "think they&#39;re better than the rest of the Proletariat". The vanguard is composed of people who are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat. The Bolshevik form of the vanguard party is what you are against, not the vanguard itself. You aren&#39;t even thinking this through.
I don&#39;t understand at all the difference between your vanguard (which you have never stated and just keep telling me I don&#39;t know it as if I am able to read your mind) and the vanguards that we&#39;ve witnessed in the past.

Because you were wrong. Rather obviously so, I might add.
Obviously.

Of reactionaries? Of course&#33; Your belief in so-called "freedom of speech" is laughable. Suppressing these reactionaries not only protects the revolution from the bourgeois/petty-bourgeois counterrevolution, but also sets into place the social ideal that these beliefs are wrong. What is wrong with the authoritative suppression of fascists? Or do you support the "right of free speech" for these scum?
Keep changing your argument. Always makes it sound more reasonable. You stated:

"I&#39;m going under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in one country for a short period of time, and under the assumption that there is going to be socialism in a handful of countries soon after, and so on. The socialist revolution will take time to spread. Because of this, counterrevolution must be combated at every turn."

But when I present a scenario where the outside influences are gone due to revolutions, I asked if there would still be these authoritative government organizations to keep the proletariat in line.

No. I was making fun of the fact that you support giving power to Nazi&#39;s.
Keep making up lies, maybe you can someday be like Lenin&#33;

Then they are part of the vanguard, genius.
Is the problem here that you just want to keep the word "vanguard"?

What&#39;s "my system"?
I don&#39;t know&#33; You wont tell me so you can use your dumbass "you&#39;re just ignorant" excuse because the vanguard system sucks.

The Kronstadt uprising wasn&#39;t the Civil War. It was a seperate event, regarding the temporary measures implemented by War Communism and the confiscating of grain from the peasantry. It was more concerned with the peasantry than the proletariat and was essentially petty-bourgeois in nature.

The peasants were angry that their grain was being confiscated from them, whereas if they were proletarian the product of their labour would inevitably be confiscated from them. The peasantry were outraged that they were being treated like "proletarian scum".
The rebels called for many things that sounded way more communist than the actions of the Bolsheviks. Out of their many demands only a minority of them could be considered "petty-bourgeois" and those are the only demands Leninists ever focus on.

As for the peasants, they had just been freed from serfdom and this "Communism" thing presented by Lenin probably sounded a lot like it. They were uneducated and then the SU just walks in and takes all of their food, including seeds in some cases. What do you expect to happen?

So if the majority of the proletariat supported the Nazi&#39;s, you would "accept" that and support them regardless because it was "their choice" and because that&#39;s "what the proletariat wants"? So now you&#39;re saying that if the Nazi&#39;s were fully supported by the people, that you would fully support the Nazi&#39;s?
I wouldn&#39;t support them, but seriously if that&#39;s what they want there&#39;s no use in trying to press Communism on them... it&#39;s a waste of effort.

And quit putting words in my mouth. You Nazi.
-----

red_che
This situation won&#39;t happen just as that. You know, when a revolution happens, it doesn&#39;t necessarily begin when the workers, in their thousands or millions spontaneously go to streets and protest. And it would happen not spontaneously, but consciously. Spontaneity had been a thing of the past. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie cannot be done spontaneously. The bourgeoisie is a lot is smarter than the previous ruling classes. The proletariat needs to overthrow the bourgeoisie in an organized way. Hence, they are needed to be organized into a party.
As I&#39;ve repeated numerous times... I don&#39;t mind organization. I highly disapprove of the vanguard system where a small group of people have the power because they&#39;re "mentally capable" for the job.

Why were they not ready? I say it is because they are not yet conscious of their situations. It is the task of this advanced section of the proletariat to teach them their situations. And as such, the party has this task. To make sure the revolution will succeed.
I say because of the huge shadow left by Lenin and Stalin. People are turned away from Communism because of what these men have done under it&#39;s name. The proletariat is more conscious of their class now than a hundred years ago. Access to information, more public schooling and literacy has caused this and I highly doubt their reasons for not creating communism because they&#39;re unaware of their situation.

Do you really know who these Gulags are? Were they Communists? Or were they rich peasants (petty-bourgeoisie in the countryside) who were not willing to give their properties to the State?
As much as I loath the Trots, they found their way to gulags as well as Social Democrats. These Stalinist purges got rid of any real communist, along with the bourgeois.

Yeah, and who says that the Party is only for a small group of people? The Party represents the proletariat. However, not every proletariat today has Marxist consciousness, that&#39;s why they are needed to be taught of that. But this doesn&#39;t mean they are not allowed to join the Party.
Who&#39;s to say who knows Marxism and who doesn&#39;t?

That only shows that even during the transition, there still exist class contradiction. And the Party is not purified of this, not even any kind of proletarian organization can be purified from this contradiction. Only when the complete annihilation of the bourgeoisie and the complete abolition of privat property and bourgeois relations is done can the society be totally free from class contradiction.

You must also remember that even during Marx&#39;s time, in the International, there are elements who masquerade as communists. Even in this board, not everyone here are communists or Marxists, some were only posturing to be.

What is important is how to continue the revolution, despite the attempts by petty-bourgeois elements within the proletariat to sow confusion and revisionism.
Why would you support a system which you know can and usually is overrun by bourgeois?

Eh?
Point being, every revolution led to (eventually) the bourgeois coming to power.

[KC]

The question is a lead into whether or not these so-called "workers" are actually part of the proletariat or if they&#39;re leaching off the proletariat like previous vanguards and bourgeois for that matter.

I&#39;d call them proletarians intead of workers, but they don&#39;t exactly fit the definition anymore, as they are no longer selling their labour power for surplus value.



Excluding the dumb, who can fight all they want but when it&#39;s over only the intelligent get the power.


If the dumb are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat then they are part of the vanguard.



I don&#39;t understand at all the difference between your vanguard (which you have never stated and just keep telling me I don&#39;t know it as if I am able to read your mind) and the vanguards that we&#39;ve witnessed in the past.

First off we&#39;re not talking about "my vanguard". Secondly, you&#39;re correct that I haven&#39;t stated what form proletarian organization should take, and that is because we are not talking about the form.



But when I present a scenario where the outside influences are gone due to revolutions

This happens very late in the game; when nearly the entire world is socialist. I don&#39;t know why you would ask me of this specific point in time because the fact remains that there will still be outside influence earlier.



Keep making up lies, maybe you can someday be like Lenin&#33;

Let me paraphrase: "Everyone should have equal say, including Nazis&#33;"



Is the problem here that you just want to keep the word "vanguard"?

What the hell does this even mean?



I don&#39;t know&#33; You wont tell me so you can use your dumbass "you&#39;re just ignorant" excuse because the vanguard system sucks.

You&#39;re equating the vanguard with Bolshevism and are a fucking dumbass for doing so&#33; I have not mentioned "my system" because it is completely irrelevant to this discussion&#33;&#33;&#33;


They were uneducated and then the SU just walks in and takes all of their food, including seeds in some cases. What do you expect to happen?

Are you saying we are supposed to cater to the peasants&#39; petty-bourgeois ideals?



I wouldn&#39;t support them, but seriously if that&#39;s what they want there&#39;s no use in trying to press Communism on them... it&#39;s a waste of effort.

That doesn&#39;t mean we don&#39;t fight Nazism. Of course, you are in favor of giving power to Nazi&#39;s, so you don&#39;t believe this.



And quit putting words in my mouth. You Nazi.

I didn&#39;t put any words in your mouth. And I&#39;m not the one supporting giving Nazi&#39;s power.



Point being, every revolution led to (eventually) the bourgeois coming to power.

Including all of the movements that go by your ideology, whatever that is.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by red che
The Party represents the proletariat. However, not every proletariat today has Marxist consciousness, that&#39;s why they are needed to be taught of that. But this doesn&#39;t mean they are not allowed to join the Party.
And who &#39;needs&#39; to &#39;teach&#39; them? You? Another Lenin-like figure? Your exaltation of the elite is, well, disgusting.

Leninists would have an easier go at it if they just came out and said that they want a small minority to &#39;lead&#39; the masses. And after the revolution, who is to rule the new centralized Leninist state? Surely not those &#39;backward masses&#39;&#33;

[KC]

And who &#39;needs&#39; to &#39;teach&#39; them? You? Another Lenin-like figure? Your exaltation of the elite is, well, disgusting.

The vanguard. Not everyone has an understanding of communist theory. Many proletarians could even hold entirely reactionary views. That is why the vanguard (those knowledgable of communist theory) must educate the rest of the proletariat.

Your mindless rehashing of Redstar&#39;s crap is, well, apalling.


Surely not those &#39;backward masses&#39;&#33;


Of course we wouldn&#39;t let those who hold "backward" views to take part in leading. This includes Nazis, fascists, capitalist sympathizers, etc...

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
The vanguard.
Finally the elitist Lazar shows his true colors&#33; Is the Vanguard just &#39;better&#39; than everybody else? I find this view of yours a bit &#39;un-Marxist&#39;, myself. Obviously, being determines consciousness. This means those much quoted &#39;backward masses&#39; (as Thy Lord Vladimir liked to call them) will come around to communism when it is in their self interests. Hence, no vanguard is needed. I am glad to see that you are a Leninist after all. I can&#39;t say I expected any different. :lol:


Your mindless rehashing of Redstar&#39;s crap is, well, apalling.
Perhaps. I think redstar2000 has a lot of good ideas. I disagree with him on a few things, namely the state and &#39;anarchism&#39; in general, but I certainly side with him when it comes to the central debate in revolutionary politics: the Leninist/anarcho split.


Of course we wouldn&#39;t let those who hold "backward" views to take part in leading. This includes Nazis, fascists, capitalist sympathizers, etc...
My elitist friend, can you not detect sarcasm&#33; Again, being determines consciousness. The &#39;backward masses&#39; with turn &#39;forward&#39; when it is in their interest to do so. In other words, when all the shit hits the fan, they won&#39;t be so &#39;backward&#39;. No &#39;vanguard&#39; of &#39;revolutionary elites&#39; is needed.

[KC]

Is the Vanguard just &#39;better&#39; than everybody else?

Well, they know more about communist theory and are struggling for the emancipation of the proletariat, so yes.


I find this view of yours a bit &#39;un-Marxist&#39;, myself.

I find your views completely "un-Marxist". Marx himself was part of both the Communist League and the International Workingman&#39;s Association. He was involved in vanguard organization. He was part of the vanguard.


This means those much quoted &#39;backward masses&#39; (as Thy Lord Vladimir liked to call them) will come around to communism when it is in their self interests.

Yes, those fascists will magically turn into communists. :lol:


Hence, no vanguard is needed.

A vanguard is inevitable. Why? Because some section of the proletariat will always be more advanced than others. Does believing this make me a Leninst? Of course not. It makes me a Marxist because I recognize historical fact.

As to what form the vanguard (proletariat) organizes, this is a completely different issue from this debate. Your idea of a vanguard party - some directly democratic anarchist federation of some sort (although you&#39;re pretty much against all forms of organization because the proletariat will magically rise up and defeat the bourgeoisie without any form of organization needed) - is one form of this organization. Bolshevism is another. In other words, vanguard organization doesn&#39;t = Bolshevism. Stop confusing the two.


I am glad to see that you are a Leninist after all.

Too bad I&#39;m not a Leninist. Acknowledging the inevitability of a vanguard doesn&#39;t make one Leninist by any stretch of the imagination (except your nutty one).



My elitist friend, can you not detect sarcasm&#33;

I&#39;m not elitist, and I&#39;m not friends with people that don&#39;t respond to reason (i.e. idiots/nutjobs).


The &#39;backward masses&#39; with turn &#39;forward&#39; when it is in their interest to do so. In other words, when all the shit hits the fan, they won&#39;t be so &#39;backward&#39;. No &#39;vanguard&#39; of &#39;revolutionary elites&#39; is needed.

How anti-Marxist&#33; If all of them would "turn &#39;forward&#39;" at the same time, then why would Marx be joining proletarian organizations? Why would they even be needed, if the proletariat becomes class consciouss all at once, and - without being organized - overthrows the bourgeoisie?

Since when do people have a radical shift in views such as what you are recommending? Because what happens - and this is historically accurate - is that as the situation gets more desperate, usually most people descend further into whatever beliefs they already hold. In other words, they become more extremist, but not necessarily communist.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
Well, they know more about communist theory and are struggling for the emancipation of the proletariat, so yes.
And you&#39;re not an elitist? But some people are just &#39;better&#39;? :huh:


I find your views completely "un-Marxist".
If a &#39;vanguard&#39; to &#39;lead&#39; the proletariat is what you consider &#39;Marxist&#39;, I&#39;ll take the label of &#39;un-Marxist&#39; as a compliment.


Because some section of the proletariat will always be more advanced than others.
How do we objectively measure &#39;more advanced&#39;? And who gets to determine this?


vanguard organization doesn&#39;t = Bolshevism.
Quite true. But, a &#39;vanguard&#39; does imply leading the proletariat, or at least having some &#39;leaders&#39; with the power of command in the organization. We should work alongside the proletariat, and organize that way. We should have no &#39;leaders&#39; who have the power of command.


I&#39;m not elitist
Hmm...

Well, they know more about communist theory and are struggling for the emancipation of the proletariat, so yes.
Right...but you&#39;re not an elitist...some people should just &#39;lead&#39; others. Because they are &#39;better&#39;. But, you&#39;re not an elitist.


Why would they even be needed, if the proletariat becomes class consciouss all at once, and - without being organized - overthrows the bourgeoisie?
I think they might very well organize themselves. Or it may be a &#39;spontaneous revolution&#39;. We just don&#39;t know yet. We have Marxist and anarchist organizations currently to spread the message. If the proletariat doesn&#39;t know that another world is possible, then another world isn&#39;t possible. But, are we better than the proletariat? No. Should we &#39;lead&#39; them? No. We should work with them. We should never have any power of command over them.


Since when do people have a radical shift in views such as what you are recommending?
The French revolution essentially destroyed the last remnants of feudal society in Europe (for the most part...it certainly spelled the end for feudalism). At the time, that was very radical. All through history, with every socioeconomic epoch advance, radical change has occured. The shift from feudalism to capitalism was radical at the time. The shift from capitalism to communism is likewise radical. So, radical shifts in views are developed over time. This type of thing has happened all through human history. If people really &#39;regressed&#39; when things get desperate, as you suggest, then we should still be in barbarism.

[KC]

And you&#39;re not an elitist? But some people are just &#39;better&#39;?

Let&#39;s look at who I said was "better". I said those that are knowledgable in Marxist theory and those who are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat. Any proletarian can easily become a member of the vanguard by doing either of these things.



If a &#39;vanguard&#39; to &#39;lead&#39; the proletariat is what you consider &#39;Marxist&#39;, I&#39;ll take the label of &#39;un-Marxist&#39; as a compliment.

I don&#39;t think I&#39;ve ever said that the vanguard should "lead" the proletariat. I said that the vanguard should educate the "backwards" proletarians. Big difference.



How do we objectively measure &#39;more advanced&#39;? And who gets to determine this?

We don&#39;t measure it. Why would we need to?


But, a &#39;vanguard&#39; does imply leading the proletariat, or at least having some &#39;leaders&#39; with the power of command in the organization.

Why is that?


We should work alongside the proletariat, and organize that way.

And who is this "we" that you are speaking of? The vanguard.



Right...but you&#39;re not an elitist...some people should just &#39;lead&#39; others. Because they are &#39;better&#39;. But, you&#39;re not an elitist.

Please show me where I said that the vanguard should "lead".



I think they might very well organize themselves.

And who does this organizing? The vanguard.


We have Marxist and anarchist organizations currently to spread the message.

All created by members of the vanguard.


But, are we better than the proletariat? No. Should we &#39;lead&#39; them? No. We should work with them. We should never have any power of command over them.

1. By using "we" as a pronoun for the vanguard, you are thereby recognizing its existence.
2. I never said we should "lead" them. You just assumed that&#39;s what I believe because you didn&#39;t use your brain when thinking about any of this. You just had a kneejerk reaction and went with it.

[anomaly]

A &#39;vanguard&#39; is leadership. If you just want an organization with ultra-democracy, say so. Because I am basing these semantics upon all of the Leninists on this board. You have a very odd terminology, to say the least.

In fact, all through history, the vanguard has not merely &#39;taught&#39; the proletariat; it has also lead them. So, again, if you don&#39;t want &#39;professional revolutionaries&#39; leading, then say so.

By your definition, the &#39;vanguard&#39; is any anti-capitalist who organizes. Well, that definition is about as vague as your definition of the state.

[Janus]

A &#39;vanguard&#39; is leadership
That&#39;s the usual connotation as in the leadership or the most important element of a movement. However, it seems to me that you and Lazar are misunderstanding each other due to semantics and diction.

Simply having people who are more educated or more skilled in certain fields to help out with organization and education doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that they have to be the leaders as well. I think that&#39;s what Lazar is talking about.

[anomaly]

I&#39;m never quite sure what he&#39;s talking about. His brand of semantics are certainly...unique. If he doesn&#39;t support leadership, i.e. a vanguard, he should say so.

[KC]

A &#39;vanguard&#39; is leadership.

I&#39;m glad you&#39;re finally getting the picture.


If you just want an organization with ultra-democracy, say so.

I haven&#39;t talked about the form this leadership should take. That is why I haven&#39;t said so. I have merely talked about the existence of the vanguard as an inevitability.


Because I am basing these semantics upon all of the Leninists on this board.

That&#39;s a great thing to do; take a word and twist it to mean something else then fight that concept. Of course, you are basically constructing a straw man, and aren&#39;t even arguing against the concept of the vanguard, but rather the Marxist-Leninist form of the vanguard.


You have a very odd terminology, to say the least.


Not at all. You are the one equating the vanguard with Bolshevism.



By your definition, the &#39;vanguard&#39; is any anti-capitalist who organizes. Well, that definition is about as vague as your definition of the state.

I believe I stated that my definition of the vanguard is anyone that fights for the emancipation of the proletariat. This is completely different than "any anti-capitalist who organizes".

As for my definition of the state: you are the one that narrows the definition of the state to an inherently hierarchial structure, and in doing so you fail to recognize the different forms that the state can take (i.e. aristocratic, bourgeois, proletarian). My definition of the state isn&#39;t "too broad" at all; you are just frustrated with it because it doesnt equate to your definition of the state (your definition of the state is the definition of a bourgeois state). This is why your view is too narrow. It doesn&#39;t recognize the different forms the state can take and only recognizes the bourgeois form of the state as the single ultimate form, as the be-all and end-all; as the only form.



Simply having people who are more educated or more skilled in certain fields to help out with organization and education doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that they have to be the leaders as well. I think that&#39;s what Lazar is talking about.

Yes, thank you Janus. Although, I would argue that these people that are helping out with organization and education are in a sense leading the proletariat; just through different means. Educating the proletariat, for example, is leading them to class consciousness.


I&#39;m never quite sure what he&#39;s talking about. His brand of semantics are certainly...unique.

How so?


If he doesn&#39;t support leadership, i.e. a vanguard, he should say so.

Of course I support leadership. If you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot. Here is another case where you are taking the concept - leadership - and twisting it to explain a strict form of that concept.

Leadership has many different forms. You, however, equate it with overruling. This is one form of leadership, yes, but so is educating, guiding, organizing, etc... You can&#39;t say leadership = overruling because it doesn&#39;t always equal overruling. You can say, however, that overruling is a form of leadership, or that overruling = leadership; this is always true, as overruling is always a form of leadership. As an analogy, take fruit. All fruits - apples, oranges, watermelons, peaches, etc.. - are just that. They are fruit. We can therefore make the following equations:

apple = fruit
orange = fruit
watermelon = fruit
peach = fruit

Now, what does this mean? This means that these objects are all fruit in its different manifestations; they all belong to the concept of fruit and can be classified as fruit at all times. These expressions are always true. But what happens when we reverse these equations? Is fruit = apple always true? Of course not. Because this would mean that all fruits are apple and we already know this to be untrue by the existence of watermelons, oranges and peaches and by their classification as fruit.

Let&#39;s tie this argument into your semantics. According to you, fruit = apple is true. Then I say "What of oranges? What of watermelons? Peaches? Are they not fruit?" Your response is "They aren&#39;t fruit. They are oranges, watermelons, and peaches&#33;" Obviously we know this to be wrong and we can see that your assumption that all fruit are apples completely negates the meaning of the word fruit, as you are basically using it as a subsitute to the word apple. Since you are defining fruit as apple, according to your definition, the assumption makes sense : "All apples are apples&#33;" Of course, by doing so you are destroying the meaning of the word fruit, and therefore the word itself. You are misusing the english language to an enormous extent.

Let&#39;s relate this closer still to your semantics. I say guiding, overruling, educating, etc... are all forms of leadership. We can make the equations:

guiding = leadership
overruling = leadership
educating = leadership

Are we able to reverse these expressions? Of course not. Why? For the very same reason we couldn&#39;t reverse the above equations. Because a leadership doesn&#39;t always equal guiding, or overruling, or educating. If we reversed all these equations, they would either cancel each other out, as they are saying leadership equals all different things at once which is wrong, or they would mean that all three different forms of leadership are equal (which we also know to be wrong). So we can&#39;t do that.

Your insistence that "Leadership = overruling" is simply wrong and a horrible misuse of the english language. Overruling is a form of leadership, but leadership doesn&#39;t mean overruling. Please, learn what these words mean. Maybe now you will understand how I can speak of these concepts without speaking of the form in which they will take. Maybe you will even find yourself agreeing with the theory of a vanguard&#33;&#33; :o I guess that&#39;s hoping too much.

[redstar2000]

Words are not simply abstractions in the minds of linguists; they have practical meanings derived from the history of their use.

You may well have "harmless" and even "benevolent" meanings of the word "leadership" in mind when you use that word...but you are running up against our historical experience with the people who&#39;ve used that word in the past.

Consider the sentence: "so-and-so is undermining respect for the leadership". Some version of it appears in the archives of every Leninist party in history...it&#39;s "what gets said" before some hapless critic gets the boot.

How do you expect us to react to your bland endorsement of "leadership"? We do not live "outside of history" and our minds are not "blank slates" upon which you may write whatever you wish.

Whenever someone starts talking about the "importance of leadership", we know from experience that they&#39;re up to no good...except for themselves, of course.

You assert...


Originally posted by Lazar
If you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot.

The most common response that you&#39;re likely to run into is: if you support leadership, then you&#39;re either a sucker or a wannabe leader&#33;

Neither of which will encourage confidence in your views.

Find another word. :)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Morpheus]

As for my definition of the state: you are the one that narrows the definition of the state to an inherently hierarchial structure, and in doing so you fail to recognize the different forms that the state can take (i.e. aristocratic, bourgeois, proletarian).

All of those forms have been hierarchical. Every state in human history has been hierarchical. Saying the state isn&#39;t inherently hierarchical is like saying class isn&#39;t inherently hierarchical. A non-hierarchical state would be like a non-hierarchical slavery - an utter contradiction in terms, but useful if your&#39;e trying to create ideological cover for a state/ruling class.

[KC]

Words are not simply abstractions in the minds of linguists; they have practical meanings derived from the history of their use.

So according to you, all communists are evil stalinists bent on sending anyone to the gulag who disagrees with them.

Of course, Redstar is up to it again with this meaningless abstractions and pointless posts that contribute nothing to debate. You say "all words are defined by their historical context" when we obviously know this to not be true.


You may well have "harmless" and even "benevolent" meanings of the word "leadership" in mind when you use that word...but you are running up against our historical experience with the people who&#39;ve used that word in the past.

You may well have "harmless" and even "benevolent" meanings of the word "communism" in mind when you use that word...but you are running up against our historical experience with the people who&#39;ve used that word in the past.


The most common response that you&#39;re likely to run into is: if you support leadership, then you&#39;re either a sucker or a wannabe leader&#33;

And if you don&#39;t support leadership you are against the emancipation of the proletariat, as they can&#39;t do it without leadership, whatever form it takes. Again here a subtle reference to leadership equating to despotism.



Find another word.

I don&#39;t need to. You tell me to find another word when this is the exact word that I was looking for. You say that when I support leadership, that that could mean all forms of leadership, or perhaps one particular form that you are against. This isn&#39;t so. I am against certain forms of leadership. However, if you are against leadership, you are against leadership in all its forms: which, I have shown, includes such things as education and guiding, both are things which Marx was intimately involved in. To be against leadership means that you are against leadership in all its forms, and that would make you anti-Marxist (and an idiot).

Use the right word for what you&#39;re talking about. :)

EDIT:



All of those forms have been hierarchical. Every state in human history has been hierarchical. Saying the state isn&#39;t inherently hierarchical is like saying class isn&#39;t inherently hierarchical. A non-hierarchical state would be like a non-hierarchical slavery - an utter contradiction in terms, but useful if your&#39;e trying to create ideological cover for a state/ruling class.


Actually, you&#39;re right. All states are inherently hierarchical. Why? Because they are tools used by the ruling class to assert its rule over another class (or group of classes). The proletarian state will be hierarical, in the sense that it will use the state to assert its rule over the bourgeoisie. This usually degenerates into semantics, though, so I wouldn&#39;t suggest talking about it that often. Is there something wrong with this hierarchy over the bourgeoisie by the proletariat? No.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Okay, so Bakunin couldn&#39;t be considered a leader; even though alot of anarchists get their ideas from him?

Soviets deputies aren&#39;t considered leaders, but they are democratically elected to execute the demands of the workers.

So are we to euphemise a leader in that sense as " the powerless prominent figure"?

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)I haven&#39;t talked about the form this leadership should take. That is why I haven&#39;t said so. I have merely talked about the existence of the vanguard as an inevitability.[/b]
Very nice. But, let&#39;s get to the point: you support a vanguard leading the proletariat. And we&#39;ve seen how well that works out. :lol:

Inevitable is a very powerful word. Unless you are omniscient, I&#39;d reccomend dropping it when talking of any &#39;vanguard&#39;. It seems to me that a &#39;vanguard&#39; is just not going to be a popular thing with many people anymore. You&#39;re talking ancient history.


aren&#39;t even arguing against the concept of the vanguard
You&#39;re &#39;vanguard&#39; idea is silly and ancient. Better? I also like this little gem:


you are against the emancipation of the proletariat, as they can&#39;t do it without leadership
No folks, that&#39;s not Lenin speaking, it&#39;s just mighty Lazar&#33; :lol:


You are the one equating the vanguard with Bolshevism.
It hasn&#39;t existed anyplace else. And you do assert, now, that you want the vanguard to lead the proletariat, as &#39;they can&#39;t do it themselves&#39;. Vladimir would be proud.


If you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot.
Then I am proud to be an idiot&#33; :)


Your insistence that "Leadership = overruling" is simply wrong and a horrible misuse of the english language.
You&#39;ve created a nice trap...for yourself. Leadership may not equal overruling, but overruling does equal leadership. That is, &#39;overruling&#39; (and when do leaders not &#39;overrule?&#39;) is a type of leadership. You admit that possibility, which of course would lead to the degeneration of any revolutionary activity. We don&#39;t need that &#39;leadership&#39;. Leaders just aren&#39;t &#39;benevolent&#39;. They will act in their own interests.

Pretty soon, Lazar will begin openly supporting &#39;the Party&#39;&#33; :lol:


EL KABLAMO
Okay, so Bakunin couldn&#39;t be considered a leader; even though alot of anarchists get their ideas from him?
When I say leader, I mean one with the power of command. Hence, leaders perform the act of leading. They are not merely &#39;guides&#39;.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by "Lazar"+--> ("Lazar")Actually, you&#39;re right. All states are inherently hierarchical. Why? Because they are tools used by the ruling class to assert its rule over another class (or group of classes). The proletarian state will be hierarical, in the sense that it will use the state to assert its rule over the bourgeoisie. This usually degenerates into semantics, though, so I wouldn&#39;t suggest talking about it that often. Is there something wrong with this hierarchy over the bourgeoisie by the proletariat? No.[/b]

The proletariat shouldn&#39;t have hierarchy over the bourgeoisie, it should abolish the bourgeoisie. The moment the proletariat seizes control over the means of production the boss/worker relationship is destroyed, and thus there are no more bourgeoisie or proletarians. For the proletariat to allow the bourgeoisie to continue to exist would mean allowing the bourgeoisie to continue to control the means of production and act as bosses over workers (as that&#39;s what being bourgeoisie is all about). Doing that is wrong because (a) it&#39;s exploitative, and unnecessarily prolongs wage slavery and (b) it gives the bourgeoisie a great weapon to wage counter-revolution. If the bourgeoisie still exist then they have control over the means of production and hence the economy. They will use that power to fund counter-revolutionary armies, shut down the economy in areas not controlled by the counter-revolutionaries, bribe officals in the "proletarian" state so as to help the counter-revolution, and use their power over the workplace to bully revolutionary workers and discourage revolutionary ideas. Allowing the bourgeoisie to continue to exist, even in the context of a proletarian state, is a very bad idea.


"EL KABLAMO"
Okay, so Bakunin couldn&#39;t be considered a leader; even though alot of anarchists get their ideas from him?

Bakunin was a celebrity, not a leader. A leader gives other people orders; has authority over others. A celebrity is just someone who&#39;s famous.

[KC]

Very nice. But, let&#39;s get to the point: you support a vanguard leading the proletariat. And we&#39;ve seen how well that works out.

You support it also. You just don&#39;t realize it.



Inevitable is a very powerful word. Unless you are omniscient, I&#39;d reccomend dropping it when talking of any &#39;vanguard&#39;. It seems to me that a &#39;vanguard&#39; is just not going to be a popular thing with many people anymore. You&#39;re talking ancient history.

Well, considering that a revolution wouldn&#39;t exist without a vanguard, because people that don&#39;t care about revolution aren&#39;t going to revolt, I&#39;d say my analysis is spot on.



No folks, that&#39;s not Lenin speaking, it&#39;s just mighty Lazar&#33;

You don&#39;t know what leadership means.



It hasn&#39;t existed anyplace else.

The vanguard has existed in all revolutions.


Leadership may not equal overruling, but overruling does equal leadership. That is, &#39;overruling&#39; (and when do leaders not &#39;overrule?&#39;) is a type of leadership. You admit that possibility

Yes, I completely agree that overruling is a form of leadership. So what?


We don&#39;t need that &#39;leadership&#39;.

I never said we need that form of leadership. Please show me where you think I did.



Pretty soon, Lazar will begin openly supporting &#39;the Party&#39;&#33;

I support proletarian organization.



When I say leader, I mean one with the power of command. Hence, leaders perform the act of leading. They are not merely &#39;guides&#39;.

Guiding is a form of leading.

I like how you completely skipped over my disproving your view that leadership = dictatorship. I will consider that a concession to the point that I am right and you were wrong.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Morpheus
The proletariat shouldn&#39;t have hierarchy over the bourgeoisie, it should abolish the bourgeoisie.
Thank you.

Lazar, why can&#39;t this through that thick skull of yours? The bourgeoisie cannot exist if the proletariat have control of the means of production. Class itself is based upon one&#39;s relations to the means of productions. When the MoP are held communally, class itself ceases to exist. The &#39;ex-bourgeoisie&#39; have a simple choice: assimilate or die. And I&#39;m willing to bet that 90-95% will readily assimilate rather than die. There goes your classes, there goes the state.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
You support it also.
No I don&#39;t.


Well, considering that a revolution wouldn&#39;t exist without a vanguard, because people that don&#39;t care about revolution aren&#39;t going to revolt
What makes people &#39;care&#39; about revolution? Material conditions. Thus, with the right material conditions, we&#39;ll see revolution. No leadership needed.


You don&#39;t know what leadership means.
If you are trying to say that some people will teach others about Marxism/anarchism, then say it. Honestly, your&#39;s are the shittiest semantics I&#39;ve ever seen. Leadership implies the very act of leading, which in turn implies the power of command.


Yes, I completely agree that overruling is a form of leadership. So what?
So, given leadership, you invite the possibility of &#39;overruling&#39;. And I know of no leader that did not &#39;overrule&#39;. Thus, given leadership, overruling is inevitable.


I support proletarian organization.
Not true. You support the &#39;most advanced&#39; section of the proletariat leading the rest. That is, you support the old vanguard idea. Hardly a &#39;proletarian organization&#39;.


Guiding is a form of leading.
Leading implies the power of command. This is very obvious. If you are simply saying that some people will teach others, then just fucking say it. Because teaching is completely different from leading.

[KC]

No I don&#39;t.

Then you don&#39;t support revolution.



What makes people &#39;care&#39; about revolution? Material conditions. Thus, with the right material conditions, we&#39;ll see revolution. No leadership needed.

Yes, the vanguard comes into being as a result of material conditions. But what you fail to realize is that material conditions aren&#39;t seperate from humans. They don&#39;t arise out of nowhere. If everyone said "material conditions will bring about a revolution" then we obviously wouldn&#39;t get a revolution because everyone would be sitting on their ass. Part of material conditions is the actions of other people. It does not exclude the actions of people at all.



So, given leadership, you invite the possibility of &#39;overruling&#39;.

No. What I said was that if you don&#39;t support the idea of leadership then you&#39;re an idiot. I didn&#39;t say "support leadership no matter what form it takes".


And I know of no leader that did not &#39;overrule&#39;.

Educators are leaders. Marx was a leader.


Because teaching is completely different from leading.

How is it "completely different"?

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)Lazar, why can&#39;t this through that thick skull of yours? The bourgeoisie cannot exist if the proletariat have control of the means of production. Class itself is based upon one&#39;s relations to the means of productions. When the MoP are held communally, class itself ceases to exist. The &#39;ex-bourgeoisie&#39; have a simple choice: assimilate or die. And I&#39;m willing to bet that 90-95% will readily assimilate rather than die. There goes your classes, there goes the state. [/b]

The bourgoeisie wont forget about the luxury they once had.

The bourgoeis will retreat to another country, they may rally up support, and advance on federation of communes with a counter revolution. Therefore classes aren&#39;t abolished.


Inevitable is a very powerful word. Unless you are omniscient, I&#39;d reccomend dropping it when talking of any &#39;vanguard&#39;. It seems to me that a &#39;vanguard&#39; is just not going to be a popular thing with many people anymore.

The first agigatators who formed the syndicals weren&#39;t a vanguard?


When I say leader, I mean one with the power of command. Hence, leaders perform the act of leading. They are not merely &#39;guides&#39;.

Not necessarily;
when you distribute propaganda to people, you are leading them to join your organization.


Morpheus
Bakunin was a celebrity, not a leader. A leader gives other people orders; has authority over others. A celebrity is just someone who&#39;s famous.
And when a celebrity has a good enough idea that others imitate, apply, or repeat,
it could be said this celebrity spearheaded such a thing; making them a leader.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
Marx was a leader.
Marx never had power over anyone. He taught some people, influenced some people. But he never really had the power of command over people. Lenin was a leader. He certainly did have the power of command over people.


Then you don&#39;t support revolution.
:lol: :lol: :lol:
Anarchists, listen up, for the mighty Lazar speaketh&#33;


How is it "completely different"?
My teacher isn&#39;t my &#39;leader&#39;. George Bush has the power of command over me. He is a leader.

Again, your semantics are completely useless. Now, we can say that every single person is a &#39;leader&#39; in some fashion (if any educator is a &#39;leader&#39;). Well, let&#39;s come back down to earth. Leaders hold power over others, hence they have leadership. Again, if you are just saying some people are going to teach others, then just fucking say it. There is always some teaching going on. That is inevitable. However, leadership, that is, some people having the power of command over others,is not.


I&#39;m sick of this. Lazar, EL KABLAMO, just answer this: do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

[KC]

Marx never had power over anyone. He taught some people, influenced some people. But he never really had the power of command over people. Lenin was a leader. He certainly did have the power of command over people.


I guess Martin Luther King wasn&#39;t a leader.


Also see this (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47909&view=findpost&p=1292048266) post where I ripped this shit to shreds.



Anarchists, listen up, for the mighty Lazar speaketh&#33;

Well, if you don&#39;t support the people that revolt, then you don&#39;t support revolution.



My teacher isn&#39;t my &#39;leader&#39;. George Bush has the power of command over me. He is a leader.


Leader doesn&#39;t equate to dictator. Any influential person is a leader.


Well, let&#39;s come back down to earth. Leaders hold power over others, hence they have leadership.

Leaders lead.



I&#39;m sick of this. Lazar, EL KABLAMO, just answer this: do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

Yes. Now bow down before me before I send you to the gulag&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol:

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
Well, if you don&#39;t support the people that revolt, then you don&#39;t support revolution.
Who said I didn&#39;t support the people that revolt? The people will revolt. And I&#39;ll be with them.


Yes.
This is the central issue. You support a hierarchical organization in which there exist rulers and subjects. Finally we see what Lazar thinks. Rather Leninist-like, no?

And sure, I&#39;ll bow, but I&#39;ll kick you in the balls before I stand back up&#33; :lol:

[KC]

This is the central issue. You support a hierarchical organization in which there exist rulers and subjects. Finally we see what Lazar thinks. Rather Leninist-like, no?

I was joking.

By the way, check out this definition I found of Leader:

1. One that leads or guides.
2. One who is in charge or in command of others.
3. a. One who heads a political party or organization.
b. One who has influence or power, especially of a political nature.
4. A person who rules or guides or inspires others

So you&#39;re basically wrong. Glad to see you realize it, too.

Now that we know what leading is, we have to ask the question "Who is going to do the leading?" The obvious answer to that is the vanguard.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)Of course, Redstar is up to it again with this meaningless abstractions and pointless posts that contribute nothing to debate. You say "all words are defined by their historical context" when we obviously know this to not be true.[/b]

In other words, "words mean what I want them to mean" -- Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. :lol:


You may well have "harmless" and even "benevolent" meanings of the word "communism" in mind when you use that word...but you are running up against our historical experience with the people who&#39;ve used that word in the past.

And it often seems to have the character of a "brick wall". Eventually, the memory of the Leninist despotisms will fade; but it may well be that we shall have to invent some new words for what we really want.

Reclaiming the positive meanings of communism is very difficult; trying to put a positive spin on "leadership" is really asking for grief&#33;


To be against leadership means that you are against leadership in all its forms, and that would make you anti-Marxist (and an idiot).

Your tone of outrage suggests one whose "bid for leadership" has been rejected.

Probably with justification. ;)


EL KABLAMO
So are we to euphemise a leader in that sense as " the powerless prominent figure"?

The Spanish anarcho-syndicalists used the phrase "influential militants".

Try this...

A Brief Note on Gramsci and "Leaders" (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1125112584&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[KC]

In other words, "words mean what I want them to mean" -- Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland.

No. Words mean what they are defined to mean.



And it often seems to have the character of a "brick wall". Eventually, the memory of the Leninist despotisms will fade; but it may well be that we shall have to invent some new words for what we really want.

Reclaiming the positive meanings of communism is very difficult; trying to put a positive spin on "leadership" is really asking for grief&#33;

I was proving your point that words are defined based on historical context wrong, and I was successful.



Your tone of outrage suggests one whose "bid for leadership" has been rejected.

Probably with justification.

My outrage lies with those who don&#39;t know what the word "leader" means, which I defined above and which corroborated my point 100%.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by anomaly+Apr 7 2006, 04:24 AM--> (anomaly &#064; Apr 7 2006, 04:24 AM) I&#39;m sick of this. Lazar, EL KABLAMO, just answer this: do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not? [/b]
What a stereotypical question to ask.

I swear if anyone identifies with a solid red banner, they get shit from some anarchists, and are accused of being a Leninist.

Should I give you what you want: A bureaucratic boogie-man to despise?

After all, it was in your own mind where you decided I was a wanna be despot. I never said I was, nor did I say I advocated an elite having command over others.


redstar2000
And it often seems to have the character of a "brick wall". Eventually, the memory of the Leninist despotisms will fade; but it may well be that we shall have to invent some new words for what we really want.

Reclaiming the positive meanings of communism is very difficult; trying to put a positive spin on "leadership" is really asking for grief&#33;

No matter what new words are agreed apon; the bourgoeis in their media will use different words to describe us, which we despise.

All that will be the result of that are our organizations printing a 150+ page pamphlet exclaiming, "It ain&#39;t me babe, no no no, it ain&#39;t me babe, it ain&#39;t me you&#39;re looking for&#33;".
The pamphlet wouldn&#39;t be worth the paper it&#39;s printed on.

We&#39;ve gotten enough useless pamphlets from Trotsky and Mao, thankyou.

And it will damned hard to organize a thing where Communist and Anarchists alike sit down to decide what words to use. Both sides would be claiming about the other, "I bet they are goblins in disguise".



The Spanish anarcho-syndicalists used the phrase "influential militants".

Well that wasn&#39;t a bit overboard.

I&#39;m uncomfortable with sugar-coating reallity


Your tone of outrage suggests one whose "bid for leadership" has been rejected.

Probably with justification.

Nah, we don&#39;t have bids like that.

[Janus]

Once again the problem seems to be with semantics and diction.

The connotation of lead usually refers to someone being in charge but the denotation can also mean guide or conduct.

For example (Merriam Webster):
1. Lead as in leading a campaign or being in charge of it.
2. Or lead as in guiding or directing someone or something along a path.

The word lead in "leading a party" or "leading someone home" doesn&#39;t have the same exact meaning.

However, usually in politics, the word lead usually means that one has power over another.

What&#39;s wrong with a group of educated people helping with organization and educating workers in order to guide them along the right path? It doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that these people have actual power over others, it simply means that they are more skilled in a certain field or area. This can help some workers drop any reactionary ideas that they may have such as xenophobia.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Janus
What&#39;s wrong with a group of educated people helping with organization and educating workers in order to guide them along the right path?

As stated, not a thing.

But as you can see from Lazar&#39;s posts and even EL KABLAMO&#39;s posts, once you get "hung up" on the idea that "leadership" is something that "really exists" and "you" are "qualified" to be "a leader", then the pit opens up.

It may well be a psychological inevitability...that is, once you start down this path, you inevitably get "the big head", start thinking of yourself as "indispensable", and finding it tedious to convince people of your ideas, you set out to acquire the necessary instruments to force people to obey you.

I expect that in a mature communist movement on the edge of revolution that calling someone a "leader" will be an insult&#33; And a very serious one at that.

It may be, for a while longer, that some people will try to "soften" the concept to make it more palatable...or at least easier to swallow. :lol:

But when you get right down to it, the core value of communism is egalitarian in a much more profound way than all previous revolutions...and the suggestion that some "are born spurred & booted" while most "are born with saddles" is simply not going to be acceptable to a revolutionary proletariat no matter what verbal gymnastics are invoked to justify it.

To paraphrase that famous movie-line...

Leaders? We ain&#39;t got no leaders&#33; We don&#39;t need no stinkin leaders&#33; :lol:

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Janus]

But as you can see from Lazar&#39;s posts and even EL KABLAMO&#39;s posts, once you get "hung up" on the idea that "leadership" is something that "really exists" and "you" are "qualified" to be "a leader", then the pit opens up.
Right, I understand that there is a thin line between guiding and actually leadership as in having power over someone.


But when you get right down to it, the core value of communism is egalitarian in a much more profound way than all previous revolutions...and the suggestion that some "are born spurred & booted" while most "are born with saddles" is simply not going to be acceptable to a revolutionary proletariat no matter what verbal gymnastics are invoked to justify it.
Definitely though it seems to me that Lazar and El Kablamo are talking about more advisorial roles. I don&#39;t think that people are born "spurred" but that those with more experience or expertise in certain fields can help out others and turn them to the right path. But as you can see, there is some danger that lies even in these seemingly benign actions.

[KC]

But as you can see from Lazar&#39;s posts and even EL KABLAMO&#39;s posts, once you get "hung up" on the idea that "leadership" is something that "really exists" and "you" are "qualified" to be "a leader", then the pit opens up.


Nobody is hung up on anything, except you on what "leader" really means.



I expect that in a mature communist movement on the edge of revolution that calling someone a "leader" will be an insult&#33; And a very serious one at that.


I already posted the definition of leader, disproving all of your arguments regarding how "wrong" a leader is.



But when you get right down to it, the core value of communism is egalitarian in a much more profound way than all previous revolutions...and the suggestion that some "are born spurred & booted" while most "are born with saddles" is simply not going to be acceptable to a revolutionary proletariat no matter what verbal gymnastics are invoked to justify it.

Nobody even suggested this. You&#39;re just ranting, as usual.



Definitely though it seems to me that Lazar and El Kablamo are talking about more advisorial roles. I don&#39;t think that people are born "spurred" but that those with more experience or expertise in certain fields can help out others and turn them to the right path.

Yes.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2006, 06:16 PM
But as you can see from Lazar&#39;s posts and even EL KABLAMO&#39;s posts, once you get "hung up" on the idea that "leadership" is something that "really exists" and "you" are "qualified" to be "a leader", then the pit opens up.
We were saying it doesn&#39;t necessarily mean dicatorship.


It may well be a psychological inevitability...that is, once you start down this path, you inevitably get "the big head", start thinking of yourself as "indispensable", and finding it tedious to convince people of your ideas, you set out to acquire the necessary instruments to force people to obey you.

Now you&#39;re telling me what I think?
If I wanted to be told what I&#39;m supposed to think I would have become a Scientologist.

Stop putting words my mouth.

[Guest1]

Leadership of ideas, or by example, is only okay if you have a red smiley avatar.

Otherwise, you&#39;re a Stalinist if you try to spread your ideas to people.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Lazar
Now you&#39;re telling me what I think?

No, I am predicting what you will think over the course of time as you continue on the path of "leadership".

Not because you are "evil" or anything silly like that...but because you are human and just as subject to having your consciousness determined by your social being as anyone else.

Get up in the front of the room often enough and you&#39;ll start thinking that it&#39;s your rightful place.

I&#39;ve earned it&#33; :o

What happens after that is no fun at all&#33; :(

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Nachie]

:( <---- that shit is like waaay too cute dude, you shouldn&#39;t be allowed to use it in a debate.

[Morpheus]

If we want to have a clear understanding of reality then we should define words in a way such that it gives us a better picture of reality. Things that are the same should be called the same, things that are different should be called different things. If completely different things are given the same name it invites confusion, and obscures the difference between the two. There is a major difference between a person who has the power of command over others (a leader), a person who teaches others (a guide) and a person who&#39;s famous (a celebrity). By calling all three the same you imply they are the same, washing over the significant differences over them.

That&#39;s not merely semantics, because such distortions can make invalid political ideas appear valid. For example, capitalists often emphasize market exchange when defending capitalism, glossing over wage slavery & hierarchy. They often use their own little definitions in order to make capitalism out to be better than it really is. Some even go so far as to define the market as any kind of voluntary interaction even if it doesn&#39;t involve money. Such a definition is so broad communism would be a form of the market. Such word games are used by capitalists to obscure reality in a manner that favors support for capitalism. The same is true of defining "leadership" or "the state" in overly broad terms. Marxist word games obscure reality in a manner that favors support for authoritarianism in the same way capitalist word games obscure reality in a way that supports capitalism.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader because he held positions of authority within several civil rights organizations. He had the power to tell other people what to do. Many civil rights organizations were hierarchical. IMO, that was one of their weaknesses - it made them vulnerable to decapitation strikes. Marx was also a leader, at least for parts of his life, because he did occassionally hold power over others.


The bourgoeisie wont forget about the luxury they once had.

The bourgoeis will retreat to another country, they may rally up support, and advance on federation of communes with a counter revolution. Therefore classes aren&#39;t abolished.

You mean the ex-bourgeoisie. The moment the means of production are expropriated in one society, there are no more bourgeoisie in that society. There are only ex-bourgeoisie. A capitalist country would probably attack the societ(ies) that underwent revolution regardless of what the do because the presence of a single anarchist or Marxist society acts as a "threat of a good example" inspiring people to rise up in other countries and because some capitalists probably had investments in the revolutionary country. That&#39;s true regardless of what the ex-bourgeoisie do. In such a war, class would still be abolished in the areas not controlled by the invading country. In those areas there&#39;d still be a federation of communes and the bourgeoisie wouldn&#39;t have control of the means of production or employ workers, so there&#39;d be no classes there. It&#39;s only in the invading country, and in the areas they manage to take over (if any), that classes wouldn&#39;t be abolished. Furthermore, the scheme Lazar put forward (basically the standard proletarian state scheme) is that there would be a hierarchy with the proletariat above the bourgeoisie. In other words, the proletariat would have power over the bourgeoisie - we would order them around, tell them what to do, and generally oppress them. That is not the case in the invading capitalists scenario. We don&#39;t have power over them, there&#39;s no proletarian over bourgeois hierarchy over them. Wer&#39;e running around shooting at each other in that scenario, which is a far cry from proletarians bossing bourgeoisie around.


And when a celebrity has a good enough idea that others imitate, apply, or repeat, it could be said this celebrity spearheaded such a thing; making them a leader.

Not really; your&#39;e equating fundamentally different things. Persuading someone that something is a good idea is not the same has giving that person orders.

[anomaly]

I don&#39;t know if anyone else saw this, but both Lazar and El KABLAMO dodged my actual question:

do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

A simple yes or no is all I want. So, how about just answer it.

We cannot blandly say &#39;we support the idea of leadership&#39;. Once again, the mighty Lazar digs his own grave, with this definition of his much-loved &#39;leadership&#39;:


Originally posted by Lazar
2. One who is in charge or in command of others.
Well, that is the central issue of this debate. If you simply say &#39;there will be leadership&#39;, that is, when one looks at the definition you posted, an extremely vague and unspecific answer. You say &#39;a vanguard will lead them&#39;, but this is also unsatisfactory. What type of &#39;leadership&#39; (again, using your definition)? If one merely reads Lazar&#39;s posts, any type of leadership appears acceptable.

I assure you that elitists will take the &#39;inevitability of leadership&#39; as a cue to have authority over others. Thus, I suggest we drop the word. It&#39;s obvious that there will be &#39;teachers&#39;. But, ny organization should not have &#39;leaders&#39; with the power of command, but rather it shoud always use ultra-democracy.

[KC]

No, I am predicting what you will think over the course of time as you continue on the path of "leadership".

Not because you are "evil" or anything silly like that...but because you are human and just as subject to having your consciousness determined by your social being as anyone else.

Get up in the front of the room often enough and you&#39;ll start thinking that it&#39;s your rightful place.

I&#39;ve earned it&#33; ohmy.gif

What happens after that is no fun at all&#33; sad.gif

That wasn&#39;t me who you quoted, it was EK. ;)


I don&#39;t know if anyone else saw this, but both Lazar and El KABLAMO dodged my actual question:

do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

A simple yes or no is all I want. So, how about just answer it.

I&#39;m not answering it because it isn&#39;t relevant to this discussion at all. Of course, you could always click that link in my sig to my organization and find out what I support.



We cannot blandly say &#39;we support the idea of leadership&#39;. Once again, the mighty Lazar digs his own grave, with this definition of his much-loved &#39;leadership&#39;:

If you failed to notice, my whole point was that the definition that you just quoted wasn&#39;t the only definition of leader. I completely proved you wrong by giving definitions of leadership that weren&#39;t the one you quoted, and also citing Martin Luther King as an example of one of these "non-overruling" leaders. Of course, you have successfully ignored all of that evidence.


But, ny organization should not have &#39;leaders&#39; with the power of command, but rather it shoud always use ultra-democracy.

You don&#39;t have an organization. You think the proletariat will magically rise up in one single mass (like yeast&#33;) and spontaneously overthrow the bourgeoisie.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by redstar2000+Apr 7 2006, 08:25 PM--> (redstar2000 @ Apr 7 2006, 08:25 PM)
Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)Now you&#39;re telling me what I think?[/b]

No, I am predicting what you will think over the course of time as you continue on the path of "leadership". [/b]
That wasn&#39;t Lazar, it was me.

Predicting ay?
You know today at my g/fs bookstore job, fourtune tellers are hanging-out, and reading peoples palms. You should go down there&#33;


Not because you are "evil" or anything silly like that...but because you are human and just as subject to having your consciousness determined by your social being as anyone else.

You&#39;re basng the fact that I&#39;m saying leader has multiple meanings, with an imagined totalitarian tendency.

Funny thing is that you&#39;ve never met me in person. :ph34r:


Get up in the front of the room often enough and you&#39;ll start thinking that it&#39;s your rightful place.

Front of the room, rightful place&#33; :lol:
Wait a minuet, you&#39;re the one suggesting chain of command.


[email protected]
Things that are the same should be called the same, things that are different should be called different things...

No matter what you decide to name something in subsitute, people will question its legitamacy, its relation to such, and so on. I&#39;m sure within whatever irganizations you are in, or interested in some raises their hand and asks, "So are they leaders or not?"

The only solution I see feesable is to define what the leadership should, and should do, and where the command comes from.


You mean the ex-bourgeoisie. The moment the means of production are expropriated in one society, there are no more bourgeoisie in that society...

During the first moments the MoP changes hands, there is still class-conflict in the society. Labeling people as " ex-bourgoeisie" avoids reallity; the proletariat must win the civil-war, to end class-society.

It doesn&#39;t matter what means of production the bourgoeisie held, what matters is their consciousness; their motive.

As long as theres class-conflict, theres class-society.


Furthermore, the scheme Lazar put forward (basically the standard proletarian state scheme) is that there would be a hierarchy with the proletariat above the bourgeoisie. In other words, the proletariat would have power over the bourgeoisie - we would order them around, tell them what to do, and generally oppress them...

You would order the bourgoeisie around by not allowing them to hold them means of production. You have control of them by a mandate from the majority; the proletariat. Lazar never stated what you suggest anywhere. Furthermore the hierarchy suggests that the everyone in society shares an equal distribution of wealth, and power. This is a reduction to the bourgoeisie, and an agumentation for the proletariat; however this is equal in all.

The question isn&#39;t if command is bad but rather where this command comes from; a party working in the name of the proletariat, or the proletariat organized around work stations, and regions. I&#39;m for command comming from proletariat in their work stations, and regions.


anomaly
do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

I&#39;m afriad ts no so black and white as that.
A genuine proletarian organization will command society. To say it wont is to have everything to cease in existence. Do I advocate a small body of men having control over the whole society: No. Do I advocate the majority of society controlling society: Yes.


If one merely reads Lazar&#39;s posts, any type of leadership appears acceptable.
If one is in the same organization as him, talks to him daily; you would know what he means by leadership, and it isn&#39;t some degenerate form of Stalinist boogie-man crap. I think you are twisting our words around, and imagining things.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by EL KABLAMO
I&#39;m afriad ts no so black and white as that.
A genuine proletarian organization will command society. To say it wont is to have everything to cease in existence. Do I advocate a small body of men having control over the whole society: No. Do I advocate the majority of society controlling society: Yes.
This doesn&#39;t sound like democracy, why can&#39;t everyone control the society?

[Janus]

This doesn&#39;t sound like democracy, why can&#39;t everyone control the society?
Democracy is the rule of the majority. Rule by everyone would be great but it&#39;ll be difficult to get eveyone to always agree on the same things.


do you advocate some people having the power of command over others or not?

A simple yes or no is all I want.
Anomaly, why are you trying to root out all vanguardist tendencies here? I don&#39;t think that it&#39;s difficult and somewhat futile to really try to compartmentalize and categorize others so strictly. Obviously, Lazar and El Kablamo can&#39;t simply be put in one or the other of those categories that you mention.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 8 2006, 07:17 PM
This doesn&#39;t sound like democracy, why can&#39;t everyone control the society?
Majority as in the proletarians themselves, and not some party claiming to be them. Nor just a single wing.

The rendered bourgoeisie will try to influence people, but that seems unlikely that they&#39;ll get their way.

Once class destinctions are gone, then it will be everyone.

But its not like anyone would be able to do whatever they want. Consensus may have to be reached, or there being a respect for the minor descision.

The important thing is, is that everyone has an equal voice, though power has to be shared with everyone.

This equal voice isn&#39;t the wealthy man who has the better of the ideas, or the lesser of the two evils, but the person who executes the agreement between everyone who is the particular region or field of labour.

And ofcourse this person who executes the descisions, is held accountable for actions, and revokable at any time.

What has been a major mistake in the past is the essence of Communist society was "the individual was subbordinate to society"; which has to be replaced with "individuals make up society".

Individuals in this case being, not the elite few who have it all, and everyone is just a cog on their machine; which is what the essense of Capitalism is, but you, me, us, them, and even the spastic in the gutter.

I wonder how many times I&#39;ve posted this same damned replyin different threads. I&#39;m linking this reply, so I&#39;ll never have to re-write AGAIN.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)I&#39;m not answering it because it isn&#39;t relevant to this discussion at all.[/b]
It is entirely relevant&#33; It is the central issue of this discussion. The &#39;stretching&#39; of the definition of &#39;leadership&#39; was a clever ploy by you to dodge this very question&#33; Do answer it&#33;

That you are in, or you support, CL is really not very telling of what you think. CL supports the creation of a so-called &#39;workers republic&#39;. But, Miles himself has admitted that CL is &#39;Lenin-friendly&#39;, and there are even some Leninists in the organization. CL is a proletarian-only organization, and I think this is probably a step in the right direction. Whether CL was actually develop into something meaningful, only time will tell.

But, again, I am searching for your opinion. You have effectively covered it up thus far.


I completely proved you wrong by giving definitions of leadership that weren&#39;t the one you quoted, and also citing Martin Luther King as an example of one of these "non-overruling" leaders. Of course, you have successfully ignored all of that evidence.
In your obvious haste to &#39;be right&#39;, you missed the fact that I realized this little flaw, so I narrowed the definition of &#39;leadership&#39;. Indeed, I even used part of your definition. To say &#39;I support leadership&#39; is an extremely vague and ultimately meaningless thing to say. What do you actually think?


You don&#39;t have an organization. You think the proletariat will magically rise up in one single mass (like yeast&#33;) and spontaneously overthrow the bourgeoisie.
They might spontaneously rise up. We just don&#39;t know. True, I&#39;m not in any organization right now, although there are a few that interest me. However, the form the organization would take is extremely important, although you seem to really not care about this.


Originally posted by E [email protected]
A genuine proletarian organization will command society.
Let&#39;s back up a little. In any post-revolutionary society, we shouldn&#39;t need an organization any longer. We should be able to simply use democracy.

But, I am not talking about post-revolutionary society here. Rather, I am speaking in the here and now. I am speaking of what type of organization we should use, what type of &#39;leadership&#39; we should use. So, let&#39;s rephrase it. Do you advocate some people in an organization having the power of command over others in that organization?


you would know what he means by leadership
He actually said he prefers not to answer my question. So we all have absolutely no idea what he means by &#39;leadership&#39;. (myself I am left with the impression that any part of the definition he submitted is acceptable to him)


where the command comes from.
A good question. So, what is your answer?


It doesn&#39;t matter what means of production the bourgoeisie held, what matters is their consciousness; their motive.
Let&#39;s say the bourgeoisie are overthrown. The proletariat now controls the means of production, and so begins building communist society. The former bourgeois person has a simple choice: die or join. You seem to believe that the bourgeoisie value their riches more than their life. I beg to differ. When presented with the choice of losing their power or dying, I think most (probably around 90-95%) will accept losing their power.


Janus
Obviously, Lazar and El Kablamo can&#39;t simply be put in one or the other of those categories that you mention.
Sure they can. Every single person can be. You either support an organization with &#39;rulers and subjects&#39; (one with some people having the power of command over others), or you support ultra-democracy within the organization. This issue is very &#39;black and white&#39;.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by anomaly+Apr 8 2006, 09:27 PM--> (anomaly @ Apr 8 2006, 09:27 PM) But, Miles himself has admitted that CL is &#39;Lenin-friendly&#39;, and there are even some Leninists in the organization. [/b]
CL is open to anyone who agrees with the principles. There are also paleo-Leninist members, Mattickists, Myasnikovists, Ultra-Left-Communists, ex-Trots, I think we even have some former Maoists.


In your obvious haste to &#39;be right&#39;, you missed the fact that I realized this little flaw, so I narrowed the definition of &#39;leadership&#39;. Indeed, I even used part of your definition. To say &#39;I support leadership&#39; is an extremely vague and ultimately meaningless thing to say. What do you actually think?

Langston Hughes showed in his poem " Cross", that the word has several denotations. I ask you, is it impossible that a word could have several meanings?


Let&#39;s back up a little. In any post-revolutionary society, we shouldn&#39;t need an organization any longer. We should be able to simply use democracy.

Yes because the organizations intergrates into society.
Democracy is used at the very beginning of the organization from when it consisted of 5 members.

Your the one suggesting tyranny within organizations, not me.


So, let&#39;s rephrase it. Do you advocate some people in an organization having the power of command over others in that organization?

Holyshit, I&#39;ve already stated how the organization should be ran. I&#39;m not reposting it again.


A good question. So, what is your answer?

I answered that question&#33;

[email protected] READ IT THIS TIME&#33;
I&#39;m for command comming from proletariat in their work stations, and regions.


The former bourgeois person has a simple choice: die or join. You seem to believe that the bourgeoisie value their riches more than their life. I beg to differ
Have you not read or heard the cries of outrage toward us leveling society?
The bourgoeis always exlaim that they&#39;ll be damned if they are forced to sink to our level.

The riches are their life.

The wealth in their society allows them to rule. They don&#39;t want to share.


Sure they can. Every single person can be. You either support an organization with &#39;rulers and subjects&#39; (one with some people having the power of command over others), or you support ultra-democracy within the organization. This issue is very &#39;black and white&#39;.

We are ultra-democratic, you figure it out.
Motives of an organization also matters, principles, platforms-- it&#39;s not so black and white.

[Janus]

Originally posted by anomaly+--> (anomaly)But, Miles himself has admitted that CL is &#39;Lenin-friendly&#39;, and there are even some Leninists in the organization.[/b]
There&#39;s a difference between Lenin-friendly and Leninist. What Miles means by that is that some League members read Lenin&#39;s works but the CL doesn&#39;t advocate any kind of vanguard taking charge.

Just because there are some Leninsts in CL doesn&#39;t mean that they define the ideology of the organization. Besides, there are Marxists in anarchist organizations too.


anomaly
You either support an organization with &#39;rulers and subjects&#39; (one with some people having the power of command over others), or you support ultra-democracy within the organization.
It depends on how strictly you define those terms. What if those "leaders" had more advisorial roles, I think that&#39;s what Lazar is talking about. Or what if those "leaders" were subject to instant recall. As you can see, this issue isn&#39;t so black and white.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Janus+--> (Janus)Democracy is the rule of the majority. Rule by everyone would be great but it&#39;ll be difficult to get eveyone to always agree on the same things.[/b]
He said that a majority of people will rule the society. Like say 51% have the power to rule the country and always will. It&#39;s possible to have a hereditary rule of 51% of the population who exploits 49% of the population, is that democracy? Or maybe 25% of the people are forced to live in slavery in the most horrible conditions because 75% of the population voted it was alright, is that democracy?

This "majority" rule system is a concept created by the bourgeois. The only real democracy is participatory in which each and every person has the exact same amount of power as any other person. Which lacks the traditional political system of "right," "left" and "center," but people ruling themselves without any loyalty to a group with their own special intrests.

EL KABLAMO
Majority as in the proletarians themselves, and not some party claiming to be them. Nor just a single wing.

The rendered bourgoeisie will try to influence people, but that seems unlikely that they&#39;ll get their way.

Once class destinctions are gone, then it will be everyone.

But its not like anyone would be able to do whatever they want. Consensus may have to be reached, or there being a respect for the minor descision.

The important thing is, is that everyone has an equal voice, though power has to be shared with everyone.

This equal voice isn&#39;t the wealthy man who has the better of the ideas, or the lesser of the two evils, but the person who executes the agreement between everyone who is the particular region or field of labour.

And ofcourse this person who executes the descisions, is held accountable for actions, and revokable at any time.

What has been a major mistake in the past is the essence of Communist society was "the individual was subbordinate to society"; which has to be replaced with "individuals make up society".

Individuals in this case being, not the elite few who have it all, and everyone is just a cog on their machine; which is what the essense of Capitalism is, but you, me, us, them, and even the spastic in the gutter.

I wonder how many times I&#39;ve posted this same damned replyin different threads. I&#39;m linking this reply, so I&#39;ll never have to re-write AGAIN.
Maybe you should have made this clear earlier instead of saying simply, "majority rules over minority."

So naturally you don&#39;t believe in a vanguard which is "mentally fit" to run a socialist country because there&#39;s no need for a vanguard when all proletarians are included in the party, with equal say. Am I right?

[anomaly]

Originally posted by E K
I ask you, is it impossible that a word could have several meanings?
Certainly not. Indeed, I incorporate these various &#39;definitions&#39; into my questions to Lazar.


Your the one suggesting tyranny within organizations, not me.
I never have said anything supporting &#39;tyranny&#39; within an organization. :angry:

Indeed, all through this discussion I have been supporting ultra-democracy. I&#39;ve explicitly supported ultra-democracy again and again.


I answered that question&#33;
Ah, I missed that. Well, if you support ultra-democracy, then I agree.


Have you not read or heard the cries of outrage toward us leveling society?
I certainly have. But, most, when presented with the choice of life or death, choose life.


We are ultra-democratic, you figure it out.
We&#39;ll see where the CL ends up. It may become a large, important proletarian organization. Or it may become Leninist trash. Or it may fizzle into meaninglessness. I&#39;m not here to guess.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Janus
It depends on how strictly you define those terms. What if those "leaders" had more advisorial roles, I think that&#39;s what Lazar is talking about. Or what if those "leaders" were subject to instant recall. As you can see, this issue isn&#39;t so black and white.
My point about CL is simple that many different ideas are represented in that organization. So, using that, as Lazar did, is meaningless.

Lazar has simply said he supports &#39;leadership&#39;. He even provided a definition in which &#39;command over others was present&#39;. So if he just supports &#39;advisors&#39;, &#39;guides&#39;, or &#39;educators&#39;, then he should say so. (but he hasn&#39;t said so)

In fact, when I asked him if he would support an organization in which there existed members with the power of command over others, he said he &#39;preferred not to answer&#39;.

And does Lazar simply support &#39;leaders&#39; with the power of command, but ones subject to instant recall? I don&#39;t actually know. He has, again, failed to answer.

However, I think this discussion has shown that the word &#39;leadership&#39; may be a bit outdated, and certainly has only negative connotation as a result of history. As redstar2000 commented, pick a new word.

[Janus]

Like say 51% have the power to rule the country and always will.
No one said anything about the majority actually ruling over the minority. I was talking about decision making in general. For larger decisions, of course, some compromise would have to be reached. With those margins, there would have to be another round of talks.


It&#39;s possible to have a hereditary rule of 51% of the population who exploits 49% of the population, is that democracy?
Hereditary? No one even mentioned that. Once again, the term majority was used to refer to the workers.


This "majority" rule system is a concept created by the bourgeois.
Not exactly. Without majority rule, how exactly would the proletariat prevent the bourgeois and other reactionaries from taking power?


The only real democracy is participatory in which each and every person has the exact same amount of power as any other person.
Right. No one is saying that certain individuals have power over others. Majority as in the clear majority refers to the workers who will be able to decide on the future without great impediment from the bourgeois or other reactionaries.

Once again, majority rule doesn&#39;t mean that an actual majority dominates and rules over the minority. It simply means that decisions are made by the majority in which everyone has equal decision making power.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by Janus
No one said anything about the majority actually ruling over the minority. I was talking about decision making in general. For larger decisions, of course, some compromise would have to be reached. With those margins, there would have to be another round of talks.
"Do I advocate the majority of society controlling society: Yes."

Is very misleading then.

Hereditary? No one even mentioned that. Once again, the term majority was used to refer to the workers.
I brought it up because it shows that this "majority" thing can lead to something that&#39;s undemocratic.

Not exactly. Without majority rule, how exactly would the proletariat prevent the bourgeois and other reactionaries from taking power?
I&#39;m speaking of majority rule in the sense that an election takes place and a politician is elected, all of the people who didn&#39;t vote for that particular politician is under-represented because their vote is essentially lost. The only possible way to have equal representation for every single person is to have a rotational government which encompasses everyone, but at different times. This will also weed out the reactionaries because they&#39;re so few in numbers they couldn&#39;t advocate much change at all.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by D_Bokk
This "majority" rule system is a concept created by the bourgeois. The only real democracy is participatory in which each and every person has the exact same amount of power as any other person.

The bourgeoisie invented the modern rhetoric of "majority rule" but have never implemented it in any serious or sustained way.

Participatory democracy does not "rule out" the idea of "majority rule" but in fact requires it in order to operate at all.

Examples where a majority "decides" to inflict some form of odious tyranny on a helpless minority "don&#39;t count"...because if that were to happen, then a repressive apparatus would have to be constructed to maintain that tyranny against the inevitable resistance -- and we know where that would end up.

There will be some "tight-rope walking" in the early decades of communist society...trying to get the amount of repression "just right" -- not "too lenient" or "too harsh".

We want to "sweep away" all the debris of class society and there will be some resistance to that...unfortunately.

As it happens, I favor something somewhat different than "majority rule", myself.

Democracy without Elections; Demarchy and Communism (http://www.redstar2000papers.com/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1083335872&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Janus]

I&#39;m speaking of majority rule in the sense that an election takes place and a politician is elected, all of the people who didn&#39;t vote for that particular politician is under-represented because their vote is essentially lost. The only possible way to have equal representation for every single person is to have a rotational government which encompasses everyone, but at different times. This will also weed out the reactionaries because they&#39;re so few in numbers they couldn&#39;t advocate much change at all.

I think that the only true losers in a new communist society would be the bourgeois and other reactionaries.

Obviously, with any type of strong disagreement in certain decisions like you mentioned before, there would have to be a new round of talks. It might take a long time but it sure beats giving up this power to some leader.

I think that what we here mean by majority rule is simply that the majority exercise decision making power and aren&#39;t ruled by an oligarchy or bourgeois minority. Once again, the majority refers to the proletariat. Everyone should have an equal voice in this decision making process or true democracy as it should be called.

If there were to be "leaders", then these "leaders" would be unable to actually excercise authority over others and would be subject to instant recall.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by D_Bokk
I&#39;m speaking of majority rule in the sense that an election takes place and a politician is elected, all of the people who didn&#39;t vote for that particular politician is under-represented because their vote is essentially lost.
Things won&#39;t work this way in communist society.

To decide issues, I think we&#39;ll either use direct democracy or demarchy. I would prefer to exclusively use direct democracy, but I&#39;m not sure such a system is applicable for larger communes. In these larger communes, demarchy might be the better option. Of course, in demarchy, any &#39;representative&#39; can be recalled for any reason by a majority vote.

Both of those systems seem &#39;good&#39; to me. Also, both are ultimately controlled by the people.

[Janus]

Things won&#39;t work this way in communist society.
I don&#39;t think D Bokk is talking about a communist society. In fact, I am not even sure what he means by that strange analogy. Perhaps, that&#39;s where the misunderstanding is coming from: that he&#39;s thinking about a pre-revolutionary society.


To decide issues, I think we&#39;ll either use direct democracy or demarchy. I would prefer to exclusively use direct democracy, but I&#39;m not sure such a system is applicable for larger communes. In these larger communes, demarchy might be the better option. Of course, in demarchy, any &#39;representative&#39; can be recalled for any reason by a majority vote.
That&#39;s pretty much what most of us advocate. But what are your exact thoughts on this majority rule. D Bokk seems to think that it&#39;ll lead to a dictatorship by the majority who will use that power to dominate the minority.

From what I see it as, someone will always lose in a decision making process. Our job is to make sure that it&#39;s the reactionaries and not the workers. Majority rule doesn&#39;t mean that ultimate authority is granted to that majority group, it just means that society will benefit more people rather than a small elite minority.

Once again, I don&#39;t think that majority rule just means that everyone is part of the decision making process and with that equal power they can at least reach some kind of consensus. Obviously, there will always be disagreement and not everyone can always win. But if there is major disagreement as D Bokk mentioned, then there would have to be a fresh round of talks.

[D_Bokk]

Originally posted by redstar2000+--> (redstar2000)The bourgeoisie invented the modern rhetoric of "majority rule" but have never implemented it in any serious or sustained way.

Participatory democracy does not "rule out" the idea of "majority rule" but in fact requires it in order to operate at all.

Examples where a majority "decides" to inflict some form of odious tyranny on a helpless minority "don&#39;t count"...because if that were to happen, then a repressive apparatus would have to be constructed to maintain that tyranny against the inevitable resistance -- and we know where that would end up.

There will be some "tight-rope walking" in the early decades of communist society...trying to get the amount of repression "just right" -- not "too lenient" or "too harsh".

We want to "sweep away" all the debris of class society and there will be some resistance to that...unfortunately.

As it happens, I favor something somewhat different than "majority rule", myself.

Democracy without Elections; Demarchy and Communism[/b]
By participatory democracy, I basically meant everyone participates (or has the same chance too) in government. I like what the Zapatistas are doing with their councils of good government.

The Councils of Good Government (or JBGs) also apply a rotation method of those who serve on the council. Each citizen within the jurisdiction of the JBG is required to serve on the council for two weeks, and then a new council is put into power. It is set up this way in order to secure that no political figures become corrupt or fall under the influence of outside forces. It also accommodates the needs, interests and concerns of each member within the area that the JBG covers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Councils_of_Good_Government

Which sounds surprisingly simular to Demarchy.

anomaly
Things won&#39;t work this way in communist society.
I&#39;m not saying it should. I&#39;m merely pointing out how it would work with any type of representative government with election of politicians.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Janus+--> (Janus)But what are your exact thoughts on this majority rule.[/b]
In demarchy, basically a committe decides things. And everyone on the committee is completely recallable by a simple majority. Also, remember that the actual &#39;decisions&#39; of such a committee under communist society will be of far less significance than the decisions of the government are today under capitalism.

If a commune uses direct democracy, then everyone has one vote. Thus, the &#39;majority&#39; changes with every decision. It seems to me that direct democracy is the &#39;fairest&#39; way of doing things, so I prefer this system. But, I really don&#39;t know if this will be applicable for every commune, so we have to remain open to the idea of demarchy.


Our job is to make sure that it&#39;s the reactionaries and not the workers.
Well, after the revolution, everyone is a worker. And in communism, reactionary ideas like &#39;wage&#39; will probably be looked upon the same way people today look at slavery. So, I don&#39;t think we&#39;ll see &#39;reactionaries&#39; like we do today.


Majority rule doesn&#39;t mean that ultimate authority is granted to that majority group, it just means that society will benefit more people rather than a small elite minority.
Communist society should benefit everyone, except for the ex-bourgeoisie in the beginning. And remember that democracy does not mean we have a set majority ruling over a chosen minority. It just so happens that in any decision, we&#39;ll have a majority and a minority. The majority decision will be implemented. But, the &#39;majority&#39; itself will change with every decision. I think D_Bokk thought you guys meant some chosen majority will rule over a chosen minority. Well, things won&#39;t work like that.


D_Bokk
I&#39;m not saying it should. I&#39;m merely pointing out how it would work with any type of representative government with election of politicians.
I know. And I&#39;m saying don&#39;t worry, comrade, things won&#39;t work like that&#33; :)

[redstar2000]

Well, remember that the Zapatistas are "ruling" small communities of subsistance farmers...if we rotated people out of "leading positions" every two weeks, I think we&#39;d get in trouble in a hurry.

But otherwise, yeah, I can see what you&#39;re getting at.

The main thing is to avoid even the unintentional creation of any kind of "permanent leadership".

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Janus]

Well, after the revolution, everyone is a worker. And in communism, reactionary ideas like &#39;wage&#39; will probably be looked upon the same way people today look at slavery. So, I don&#39;t think we&#39;ll see &#39;reactionaries&#39; like we do today.
Right, but you can&#39;t expect the bourgeois to simply drop their ideas right away.


And remember that democracy does not mean we have a set majority ruling over a chosen minority.
Once again, I don&#39;t think that anyone here advocated that.


It just so happens that in any decision, we&#39;ll have a majority and a minority. The majority decision will be implemented. But, the &#39;majority&#39; itself will change with every decision.
Right, that&#39;s what I was talking about.


I think D_Bokk thought you guys meant some chosen majority will rule over a chosen minority. Well, things won&#39;t work like that.
No one said that it would. The word majority was used to describe the decision making process in general. We were talking about generalities and not total specifics. That may have been where the minconceptions arose from. No one said that a majority would be elected and then have the right to exercise power and dominate others without restraint. Perhaps, it&#39;s just that the word "majority rule" was interpreted differently by some.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Janus
Perhaps, it&#39;s just that the word "majority rule" was interpreted differently by some.
Majority rule can be interpreted many ways.

If we just say we support direct democracy, it is much better.

And I never said that anyone said those things. I was essentially reassuring D_Bokk.

[Janus]

If we just say we support direct democracy, it is much better. And I never said that anyone said those things. I was essentially reassuring D_Bokk.
OK, I&#39;m simply trying to clear up some misunderstandings here. I&#39;m sure that the majority refers to the proletariat who will no longer be powerless and exploited. Once again, most of us were talking about generalities rather than the specifics of a new communist society.

[KC]

It is the central issue of this discussion.

No it isn&#39;t. You just think it is for reasons that are beyond me.


The &#39;stretching&#39; of the definition of &#39;leadership&#39; was a clever ploy by you to dodge this very question&#33;

I didn&#39;t "stretch" the definition at all. You narrowed it to mean one thing. I was proving you wrong that leader means other things besides what you considered it to mean, and I did so quite successfully.


so I narrowed the definition of &#39;leadership&#39;.

And I already proved that "leader" means more than you think it does. I proved you wrong.


To say &#39;I support leadership&#39; is an extremely vague and ultimately meaningless thing to say.

I never even said that. I said "if you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot". What does this mean? This doesn&#39;t mean that you should support leadership in all its forms. It means that if you are against leadership - i.e. any kind of leadership - then you are an idiot.


However, the form the organization would take is extremely important, although you seem to really not care about this.

I don&#39;t care about it because that&#39;s not what this discussion is about at all. You just keep trying to pull that question in and I&#39;m not going to let you do that.


In any post-revolutionary society, we shouldn&#39;t need an organization any longer. We should be able to simply use democracy.

Your definition of "post-revolutionary" is communism in its highest stage, as you have previously admitted. All of your definitions are shit.


I am speaking of what type of organization we should use, what type of &#39;leadership&#39; we should use.

Then start a thread on it. That&#39;s not what this discussion is about.


(myself I am left with the impression that any part of the definition he submitted is acceptable to him)

Then you&#39;re an idiot.



There&#39;s a difference between Lenin-friendly and Leninist. What Miles means by that is that some League members read Lenin&#39;s works but the CL doesn&#39;t advocate any kind of vanguard taking charge.


The vanguard inherently takes charge. The people that are class conscious are obviously going to work towards moving society in a communist direction; in other words, they are leading it. Of course, some people here don&#39;t understand what "leader" means, even after I post the definition.



Lazar has simply said he supports &#39;leadership&#39;.

Again, where did I say this? Nowhere.


He even provided a definition in which &#39;command over others was present&#39;. So if he just supports &#39;advisors&#39;, &#39;guides&#39;, or &#39;educators&#39;, then he should say so. (but he hasn&#39;t said so)


Yes, again, I was proving you wrong that leading only means overruling. You are wrong&#33; Get over it&#33;



However, I think this discussion has shown that the word &#39;leadership&#39; may be a bit outdated, and certainly has only negative connotation as a result of history. As redstar2000 commented, pick a new word.


Yes, because people don&#39;t use that word in its other contexts (I&#39;m sure people don&#39;t call MLK a leader anymore. Wait, maybe you should check his wikipedia). :lol:



Majority rule can be interpreted many ways.

If we just say we support direct democracy, it is much better.


Yes. Keep suggesting changes in words&#39; definitions because you&#39;re not "comfortable" with them.

Let&#39;s recap. You considered the word "leader" to mean only overruling. I proved you wrong by providing the definition of the word leader, and explaining to you at length why your position was wrong. You have yet to sufficiently respond to either.

I also went on to say "if you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot." What this means is that leadership is inherent in every movement and if you&#39;re against it then you&#39;re basically against the movement itself. You went on to interpret this as meaning "I support leadership in all its forms" which is obviously what I wasn&#39;t saying.

Also, who is going to do this leading? The vanguard&#33; Who is the vanguard? Is it some elitist group? No&#33;&#33; It&#39;s the most class conscious and most advanced section of the proletariat. This is obviously not elitist since anyone can easily become part of the vanguard by becoming class conscious or knowledgable about the class struggle. Nobody is preventing any proletarian from becoming a part of the proletarian vanguard (except the proletarian themself).

Now, since we&#39;ve established what the vanguard is and who it consists of, we can see that the vanguard will be leading the struggle. Why? Because they&#39;re the ones that are class conscious and knowledgable about the movement. Why would we want anyone but the vanguard to lead? Why would we want people that aren&#39;t class conscious or not knowledgable about the struggle to lead? That&#39;s reactionary as fuck.

Does this mean that the vanguard should be dictating to the proletariat what to do? No. And I have never said this. I have said that the vanguard will be leading the proletariat. This is fact. This is not my opinion. If you are against this idea, you are against a fact.

Now, regarding what form this leadership should take is what everyone here is getting hung up on. I say "the vanguard will lead" and anomaly says "but what form of leadership?" You are falling into the realm of opinion there. I was stating a fact, and you are inquiring about my opinion on the subject. That is why this question about the form the leadership will take is irrelevant to this discussion, as I was merely pointing out the fact that the vanguard will lead.

I don&#39;t see how anyone can&#39;t understand this. I&#39;m guessing that it&#39;s because they are still hung up on what the vanguard is and what leadership means, and are having a kneejerk reaction to these words and not thinking it through. I have explained these facts repeatedly, yet everyone keeps saying the same things. If you read over my posts and actually think about them, you will see that these concepts that I am trying to teach you aren&#39;t reactionary, they&#39;re not "Leninist", and they&#39;re certainly not "Stalinist".

Once you acknowledge the facts that I have again presented to be true, anomaly, I will continue this discussion on what form this leadership should take. However, I am not moving on from this topic until you actually understand what I&#39;m saying.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
Let&#39;s recap. You considered the word "leader" to mean only overruling. I proved you wrong by providing the definition of the word leader, and explaining to you at length why your position was wrong. You have yet to sufficiently respond to either.
You provided a definition of leadership. Yes, and, if you would read, I said that I was wrong.

But, let us get to the issue: what &#39;type&#39; of leadership do you want? That is the central issue of this discussion&#33;&#33; You&#39;ve dodged it several times.


which is obviously what I wasn&#39;t saying.
Then what were you saying, you idiot? You simply provided a definition. If that&#39;s &#39;proving me wrong&#39;, and if that&#39;s all you want, than fine. I asked several times if you support an organization in which some had the power of command over others. How about answer.


leading?
What type?&#33; Damn, just answer the fucking question.


most advanced section of the proletariat.
How do we objectively measure this?


This is obviously not elitist since anyone can easily become part of the vanguard by becoming class conscious or knowledgable about the class struggle.
Unfortunately, this is historically inaccurate. Those in power are not keen on sharing it.


the vanguard will be leading the struggle.
Again, what type of leadership. Will they have the power of command over the &#39;backward masses&#39;?


anomaly says "but what form of leadership?"
Indeed&#33; And you still haven&#39;t answered&#33; Let&#39;s say that there will be &#39;leadership&#39;. Now what form will it take?


Once you acknowledge the facts that I have again presented to be true, anomaly, I will continue this discussion on what form this leadership should take.
They are true. Oh, yes, I fall upon my knees&#33;

Now, what form will it take? How many fucking times do I have to ask a very simple question?&#33;?&#33;

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by D_Bokk
So naturally you don&#39;t believe in a vanguard which is "mentally fit" to run a socialist country because there&#39;s no need for a vanguard when all proletarians are included in the party, with equal say. Am I right?

If you mean vanguard in the Leninst sense, you are correct.

If you mean vanguard as in the germ of the Communist movement, you are wrong.

I&#39;m assuming you&#39;re in a movement or thinking of joinging one, the movement you will decide to join will probably be small as of now, but you are looking to spread; resulting in a dissipation of a vanguard when the membership is broad.

Every little or new organization is a vanguard, but not every vanguard is dissolved in time.

I&#39;m for one which dissolves.


Redstar200:

If I recall correctly demarchy is a system of small, randomly selected, changing, bodies of government, for a particular area or issue.

The problems I have with it is that these bodies aren&#39;t connected with eachother in the descision making process, and descisions aren&#39;t open to anyone outside of the
bodies. This system denies that different factors influence eachother, and they seem like mini-bureaucracies with a set duration, and a rule of revokability.

[KC]

You provided a definition of leadership. Yes, and, if you would read, I said that I was wrong.


You can say that it is wrong all you want. I have proved that your definition is wrong. I have evidence.


But, let us get to the issue: what &#39;type&#39; of leadership do you want? That is the central issue of this discussion&#33;&#33;

Let&#39;s look at what I said earlier:


Originally posted by Lazar+--> (Lazar)
Now, regarding what form this leadership should take is what everyone here is getting hung up on. I say "the vanguard will lead" and anomaly says "but what form of leadership?" You are falling into the realm of opinion there. I was stating a fact, and you are inquiring about my opinion on the subject. That is why this question about the form the leadership will take is irrelevant to this discussion, as I was merely pointing out the fact that the vanguard will lead. [/b]



Then what were you saying, you idiot?

Flame aside, let&#39;s look at what I have said in that last post, which you obviously didn&#39;t look over too well:


Originally posted by [email protected]

I also went on to say "if you don&#39;t support leadership then you&#39;re an idiot." What this means is that leadership is inherent in every movement and if you&#39;re against it then you&#39;re basically against the movement itself.


I asked several times if you support an organization in which some had the power of command over others. How about answer.

Again, refer to both the quote that I provided above and this one (both from my previous post):


Lazar
Once you acknowledge the facts that I have again presented to be true, anomaly, I will continue this discussion on what form this leadership should take. However, I am not moving on from this topic until you actually understand what I&#39;m saying.



What type?&#33; Damn, just answer the fucking question.


Refer to the two aformentioned quotes from my previous post as to why I haven&#39;t answered this question yet, and why it doesn&#39;t matter. The fact is that they will be doing the leading, regardless of what type. No matter what form the leading takes on, they will be doing the leading. I am presenting this to you as a fact. If you acknowledge it to be true then I will discuss what form I think this leadership should take.



How do we objectively measure this?

I doubt you even know what this means. Anyways, why would we need to? The members of the vanguard are members of the vanguard. They don&#39;t need to be tested to see if they&#39;re smart enough or anything. They either are or they aren&#39;t. The vanguard isn&#39;t elitist at all. There is no "test" that proletarians need to pass. The vanguard is a classification, not an organization, much like how we classify people based on their means of production.

If people are class conscious and knowledgable about the movement, then they are part of the vanguard. If they&#39;re not, then they aren&#39;t. It&#39;s very simple.



Unfortunately, this is historically inaccurate. Those in power are not keen on sharing it.


I think you&#39;re not reading any of my posts. Anyways, see what I said above this quote.



Again, what type of leadership.

That is irregardless, as I am stating that no matter what form leadership takes, it will be the vanguard doing the leading.



Indeed&#33; And you still haven&#39;t answered&#33; Let&#39;s say that there will be &#39;leadership&#39;. Now what form will it take?


See my previous post and the above quotes from it. Once you acknowledge these facts to be true, then I will have this discussion with you.



They are true. Oh, yes, I fall upon my knees&#33;


You obviously don&#39;t think this, as you are still fighting the idea of what the vanguard is for reasons beyond me. I suggest you reread my previous post, as I outlined these qualms that you are having very clearly, and dispelled most of them.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by Lazar
The fact is that they will be doing the leading, regardless of what type.
I think it is rather obvious why I oppose your &#39;vanguard&#39;: look at what &#39;vanguards&#39; have done in the past&#33;

Now, you have said that &#39;leading&#39; can mean simply &#39;educating&#39; or &#39;guiding&#39;, and that the so-called &#39;vanguard&#39; will do this. Great. I agree. I just don&#39;t like the terminology.


If you acknowledge it to be true
I already have&#33; The mighty Lazar has now dodged my question atleast 4 times, I think.


There is no "test" that proletarians need to pass.
Previous &#39;vanguards&#39; have become ruling entities.


That is irregardless, as I am stating that no matter what form leadership takes, it will be the vanguard doing the leading
It is not &#39;irregardless&#39;. It is the entire point of this discussion. And I cannot believe that you continue to dodge the question. You are like a &#39;professional politician&#39;&#33; :lol:

Perhaps a better way of getting an answer from you is to ask it this way: do you want a &#39;traditional organization&#39;, one &#39;vertically&#39; arranged, or do you want &#39;horizontal&#39; arrangement. The former has official hierarchy, rulers and subjects, and the like. The latter has no &#39;rulers&#39;, no &#39;hierarchy&#39;. It is more of a &#39;network&#39;, with no central committee, no official &#39;membership&#39;. (kind of like RAAN).

So, do you want an organization with &#39;rulers&#39; and &#39;subjects&#39;, one in which some have the power of command over others, or do you prefer ultra-democracy?

Oh, and, for maybe the third or fourth time, do answer it this time&#33; :lol:

[KC]

I think it is rather obvious why I oppose your &#39;vanguard&#39;: look at what &#39;vanguards&#39; have done in the past&#33;


Yes, look at what they have done&#33; Every single revolution in history was performed by a vanguard. Every movement has a vanguard. I have stated this numerous times also.



I already have&#33;

If you already have then you wouldn&#39;t be arguing about the vanguard. You don&#39;t even know what a vanguard is, even though I&#39;ve repeatedly told you what it is.
Vanguard = Bolshevik Despotism, right? :lol:


It is the entire point of this discussion.

No it isn&#39;t. See my previous posts in this thread.


Oh, and, for maybe the third or fourth time, do answer it this time&#33;

No. You haven&#39;t acknowledged the facts so I will not.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by The Mighty Lazar+--> (The Mighty Lazar)You don&#39;t even know what a vanguard is, even though I&#39;ve repeatedly told you what it is.[/b]
Actually, if you define a &#39;vanguard&#39; as a group of people who simply &#39;guide&#39; or &#39;educate&#39; others, I agree with you. And, I&#39;ve already said this:


ME&#33;
Now, you have said that &#39;leading&#39; can mean simply &#39;educating&#39; or &#39;guiding&#39;, and that the so-called &#39;vanguard&#39; will do this. Great. I agree.

Now, answer the question&#33;

By the way, if anyone at home is keeping score, the mighty Lazar has dodged my question again.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2006, 11:14 PM
The latter has no &#39;rulers&#39;, no &#39;hierarchy&#39;. It is more of a &#39;network&#39;, with no central committee, no official &#39;membership&#39;. (kind of like RAAN).
Central Committee, and official membership do not neccessarily equate hierarchy, or a totalitarian vanguard.

It all really depends on the policy of the organizationl; whether if it requires to maintain a sense of animity for the objective cirumstances, and it depends on the character/content of the organs in the body of the organization.

Further more I don&#39;t believe its relevent for Lazar to define what leadership he advocates, the point is there is a degree of leadership in every organization.

Leadership being a broad definition.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by E K
Central Committee, and official membership do not neccessarily equate hierarchy
A Central Committe generally has power over the &#39;subjects&#39;. (at least this has always been the case in the past)


Further more I don&#39;t believe its relevent for Lazar to define what leadership he advocates, the point is there is a degree of leadership in every organization.
It is entirely relevant&#33; I am trying to separate authoritarians on this board from anti-authoritarians. And, as of yet, I really don&#39;t know which Lazar is.


Leadership being a broad definition.
This is a bit of a problem. If we use Lazar&#39;s definition, then everyone on this board supports leadership. However, this is obviously an over-simplification. Using the mighty one&#39;s definition, one must then say what type of leadership one wants.

[KC]

Actually, if you define a &#39;vanguard&#39; as a group of people who simply &#39;guide&#39; or &#39;educate&#39; others, I agree with you.

I&#39;ve stated my definition of a vanguard, and leadership.



A Central Committe generally has power over the &#39;subjects&#39;. (at least this has always been the case in the past)

Not at all&#33; If you wouldn&#39;t fail to look into the rules of these organizations (take Marx&#39;s Communist League, for example), it is subordinate to the convention/legislature. Your idea of central committee is also skewed.


I am trying to separate authoritarians on this board from anti-authoritarians.

I&#39;m sorry, but this isn&#39;t what this discussion is about.


If we use Lazar&#39;s definition, then everyone on this board supports leadership.

Yes, that was my point.


However, this is obviously an over-simplification.

Not at all. You just can&#39;t accept what the word leader means.


Using the almighty one&#39;s definition, one must then say what type of leadership one wants. (Correction mine, bolded)

Yes, you&#39;re finally starting to understand my position.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 8 2006, 05:00 PM
No matter what you decide to name something in subsitute, people will question its legitamacy, its relation to such, and so on. I&#39;m sure within whatever irganizations you are in, or interested in some raises their hand and asks, "So are they leaders or not?"

The only solution I see feesable is to define what the leadership should, and should do, and where the command comes from.
I don&#39;t understand what your&#39;e trying to say here.


During the first moments the MoP changes hands, there is still class-conflict in the society. Labeling people as " ex-bourgoeisie" avoids reallity; the proletariat must win the civil-war, to end class-society.

It doesn&#39;t matter what means of production the bourgoeisie held, what matters is their consciousness; their motive.

As long as theres class-conflict, theres class-society.

Labelling people "ex-bourgeoisie" does not avoid reality, it more accurately describes reality by pointing out that these people no longer have control of the MoP and therefore have little power. Even in your invasion scenario, the ex-bourgeoisie are dependant on a foreign capitalist nation to put them back in power. If no such nation is willing to do so, or if no such nation exists anymore, then it will be virtually impossible for them to return to power.

Any member of the ex-bourgeoisie who is likely to take action to restore capitalism should simply be liquidated. None of this establishing proletarian over bourgeoisie hierarchy crap. They should assimilate or die. If that means killing a large percentage of the bourgeoisie then that&#39;s fine with me.

What you described in your invasion scenario isn&#39;t really class conflict, it&#39;s imperialist driven internationalist conflict. Conflict between entire societies isn&#39;t class conflict, it&#39;s international conflict. Class conflict is conflict between different classes, not conflict between societies. Within the revolutionary society there are no classes because there is no economic hierarchy.

Not allowing the bourgeoisie to control the means of production is not ordering the bourgeoisie around, rather it is refusing to allow them to order us around. To claim it is is to claim that the abolition of tyranny is tyranny against the tyrants. Capitalist control over the MoP is really control over us, and in denying that control we are simply defending our own freedom. If all workers in a workplace refuse to obey the boss, and instead come together to run the workplace themself without bosses, that does not entail bossing around the bourgeoisie. Just because slaves revolt against their masters does not mean they&#39;re enslaving their masters. Your attempt to portray proletarian revolt against capitalists as exerting domination over capitalists neglects the existence of hierarchy and class, and so takes a bourgeois perspective.


Lazar never stated what you suggest anywhere.

Yes he did. He said:

"The proletarian state will be hierarical, in the sense that it will use the state to assert its rule over the bourgeoisie. This usually degenerates into semantics, though, so I wouldn&#39;t suggest talking about it that often. Is there something wrong with this hierarchy over the bourgeoisie by the proletariat? No."(Source (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=47909&view=findpost&p=1292048277))

According to him, the proletarian state will rule over the bourgeoisie. Defeating an invasion from a capitalist nation attempting to restore the bourgeoisie to power is not the same as ruling over the bourgeoisie. I don&#39;t think we should rule over the bourgoiesie, I think we should abolish the bourgeoisie.

I skimmed the Communist League&#39;s website, and it&#39;s clearly an authoritarian organization. They don&#39;t appear to be Leninists, but they do advocate some people having command over others. It&#39;s buried within mountains of talk about "democracy", "majority rule," etc. but everyone talks about that stuff. Even George Bush says he advocates democracy. What matters isn&#39;t the rhetoric, but the shape of the institutions you advocate. A the heart of all versions of the democractic state (Marxist, Leninist, Liberal, social democratic, nationalist, conservative & all others) is a major contradiction: they claim to stand for a society ruled "by the people" (or a variation on that idea) yet advocate institutions that inevitably lead to rule by a small elite over the people. The article at http://www.communistleague.org/wr/stories/...2-bulletin.html (http://www.communistleague.org/wr/stories/wr2005q2-bulletin.html) says:

"In place of the overthrown capitalist system, communists fight for the establishment of a workers’ republic. ... Based on assemblies of workers elected in workplaces and neighborhoods, a workers’ republic would be the first society worthy of being called “democratic.”"

Thus they believe in a representative government. It will not be the proletariat or the majority making the decisions, it will be a small group of elected representatives. They give the orders, we obey them. The standard anarchist critique of representative "democracy" applies to this "proletarian" state. All their word games and talk about democracy is just an attempt to dodge that fact; word games to make their authoritarianism look more egalitarian.

Their ideas also imply support for a one party state, although they don&#39;t explicitly state that. Their basic principles says:

"Because the class struggle is a political struggle, the proletariat must be organized as a distinct and independent political body. Concretely, this means that proletarians need to unite into a single political organization that is able to challenge the bourgeoisie on its own field and win — a political party of the working class. Communists do not form a proletarian political party that stands in opposition to other genuine parties of the working class.
...
In all, the workers’ republic has four main tasks: 1) the ouster of the bourgeoisie from political power"

There is to be only one proletarian party. Since the workers republic would oust the bourgeoisie from power, it follows that none of the bourgeois parties will have power or a reasonable chance of winning the elections (few would vote for them anyway). That leaves only one party - the proletarian party they advocate - ever holding state power. Because there&#39;s only one proletarian party, their proletarian state would end up being a defacto one-party state with that party ruling until the state "withers away."

[anomaly]

Originally posted by God
Yes, you&#39;re finally starting to understand my position.
Great. I understand His Holiness Lazar.

Now answer the question&#33;

For those keeping score at home, another dodge by the mighty Lazar&#33;

[KC]

Originally posted by Loyal Subject+--> (Loyal Subject)
Great. I understand His Holiness Lazar.
[/b]

You are accepting the idea of a vanguard now? Because as far as I knew, you were completely against it.


Originally posted by Loyal [email protected]

Now answer the question&#33;

Not yet.


Loyal Subject

For those keeping score at home, another dodge by the mighty Lazar&#33;

Don&#39;t question my authority, or I shall smite ye down&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol:

[anomaly]

Originally posted by The Mighty Lazar
You are accepting the idea of a vanguard now?
If we use Lazar-ian semantics, then yes, I agree with your idea of a vanguard. I don&#39;t know if you realize this (you&#39;re probably blinded by your own holiness, which is understandable), but few people share this definition. But, again, using the semantics of God, I agree with you.


Not yet.
Another dodge.

Answer the question&#33;

[KC]

Originally posted by Loyal Subject+--> (Loyal Subject)
If we use Lazar-ian semantics[/b]

I didn&#39;t come up with these definitions. This idea of the vanguard is the one that is understood by everyone who acknowledges its truth. Of course, I would understand if you want to attribute it to me as a show of commitment, but I don&#39;t think that would be appropriate.


Originally posted by Loyal Subject+--> (Loyal Subject)(you&#39;re probably blinded by your own holiness, which is understandable)[/b]

Yes, it can become quite overwhelming.


Originally posted by Loyal Subject
I don&#39;t know if you realize this, but few people share this definition.

Actually, most people that acknowledge the idea of the vanguard have this same definition.


Loyal [email protected]
But, again, using the semantics of God, I agree with you.

That&#39;s all I needed to hear.



Loyal Subject
Answer the question&#33;

Okay. I think that the form that proletarian organization should take is the form that the League is currently at. Of course, once they take control of society through proletarian revolution the role of the organization is quite different. I think that the organization should be democratic, open to all people that are fighting for the emancipation of the proletariat. I think that all reactionaries should be excluded from participation, as they will do nothing but harm the movement.

I believe that the organization should be a guiding force and should use all its powers to educate the proletariat on its situation. If this is done sufficiently, the movement will be completely effective without the idea of "party despotism" coming into play.

I don&#39;t believe in a directly democratic system, as it is relatively flawed and "slow" (for lack of a better word). The different elements of the organization (central committee, congress) should have the power, and how these different bodies of the organization are structured and determined can be seen in both the League rules and the rules of Marx&#39;s Communist League.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by The Mighty Lazar
The different elements of the organization (central committee, congress) should have the power
Finally, no more dodges. :wub:

Well, from this it is obvious that a) you support the old &#39;vertically&#39; structured organization (top-down, if you will), and b) you do, after all, support official hierarchy within the organization. So Lazar is, for lack of a better word, an authoritarian.

Thank you.


I didn&#39;t come up with these definitions.
No, you didn&#39;t. But you do realize that your definition of a &#39;vanguard&#39; is quite different than, say, a Leninist&#39;s definition, right?

[KC]

I knew you&#39;d come up with something like this without actually looking into what I advocate (i.e. reading the basic principles of the League or the rules of Marx&#39;s Communist League).


Originally posted by Loyal Subject+--> (Loyal Subject)
Well, from this it is obvious that a) you support the old &#39;vertically&#39; structured organization (top-down, if you will)[/b]

Not at all. You didn&#39;t even look into how these different organs of the organization are formed (i.e. their democratic character)


Originally posted by Loyal [email protected]
b) you do, after all, support official hierarchy within the organization.

Yes, because there&#39;s so much hierarchy there&#33; :rolleyes: You know, even with the balance of power and the democratic nature of the whole thing, it&#39;s so hierarchical&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol:


Loyal Subject
So Lazar is, for lack of a better word, an authoritarian.

Yes, because I don&#39;t believe in your utopian vision I am automatically authoritarian&#33; :lol:


But you do realize that your definition of a &#39;vanguard&#39; is quite different than, say, a Leninist&#39;s definition, right?

It isn&#39;t at all. My idea of what organization the vanguard should form is different, but not my idea of what the vanguard is.

Anyways, I suggest you look into the rules of Marx&#39;s Communist League, and perhaps PM Miles asking for a copy of the rules (not sure if you&#39;ll get it, but it&#39;s worth a shot). The rules of the 1846 League can be found on marxists.org.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by The Mighty Lazar
Yes, because I don&#39;t believe in your utopian vision I am automatically authoritarian&#33;
Well, if you look at what you said (essentially, the &#39;different elements&#39; of the organization should have power), that is an authoritarian viewpoint (by definition). Sorry to tell you the truth&#33; :lol:

I&#39;ve looked over CommunistLeague before, and there are a few things I don&#39;t like about it. Namely, the goal of the establishment of a &#39;workers republic&#39;, and the existence of a Central Committee. I&#39;ve talked with Miles before. I respect him (I don&#39;t respect you, Lazar), but I don&#39;t quite agree with him. I rather like RAAN as a model of what an organization should look like. CommunistLeague is essentially the old vertically modeled organization while RAAN is clearly horizontally organized.

[Entrails Konfetti]

This thread is a headache.

Morpheus, anomaly is plain to see you are comming up with your own conclusions from things not stated; you are assuming things.

Different words doesn&#39;t mean I am a totalitarian.
You have implied I am from the organization I am in, from the words you didn&#39;t read.


Originally posted by Morpheus
I don&#39;t understand what your&#39;e trying to say here

Lets say your organization has founders, who wrote the various articles defining the organization (and the articles may change over time); a few of these founders are quite out-going, charismatic, and a newer member asks you " Are these people leaders?".

You see no matter what nice titles you give to these founders some one will see them as leaders.


Even in your invasion scenario, the ex-bourgeoisie are dependant on a foreign capitalist nation to put them back in power. If no such nation is willing to do so, or if no such nation exists anymore, then it will be virtually impossible for them to return to power.

That&#39;s hypothetical, and if the bourgoeisie does invade they do exist in consciousness, though they are misapropriated.


Conflict between entire societies isn&#39;t class conflict, it&#39;s international conflict

Its both. Our class is international. But this fight is based on class-politics so its an international and class conflict.


Your attempt to portray proletarian revolt against capitalists as exerting domination over capitalists neglects the existence of hierarchy and class, and so takes a bourgeois perspective.

No, it depends entirely on character of the revolt.

Also, the prolitarian way of life dominates the capitalists. Just like industrialization had dominence over manufacture. Only through dominence of organisms does a form change.

You just don&#39;t like the word.
Burn a dictionary for all I care.


According to him, the proletarian state will rule over the bourgeoisie. Defeating an invasion from a capitalist nation attempting to restore the bourgeoisie to power is not the same as ruling over the bourgeoisie. I don&#39;t think we should rule over the bourgoiesie, I think we should abolish the bourgeoisie.

Suppressing them abolishes them. Nothing is done instantly.

If you want to ***** about how were "Goblins in disguise" wishing to bring back the bourgoeisie, you should read "The Russian Question".


Thus they believe in a representative government. It will not be the proletariat or the majority making the decisions, it will be a small group of elected representatives.

You failed to mention that these representatives are revokable, and do what they&#39;re damn well told by their constituency.

If you don&#39;t want to have a delegate representing your federation, goodluck having a say.


There is to be only one proletarian party. Since the workers republic would oust the bourgeoisie from power, it follows that none of the bourgeois parties will have power or a reasonable chance of winning the elections (few would vote for them anyway). That leaves only one party - the proletarian party they advocate - ever holding state power.

Its not impossible for multiple organizations to federate. What do you think the IWPA is.


Because there&#39;s only one proletarian party, their proletarian state would end up being a defacto one-party state with that party ruling until the state "withers away."

And where did you find this? You assuming we will.

But as a matter of fact if you look around we ultimately wish to get rid of political parties. That would have to include us aswell.

Now what relevence does bringing up information about the CL have to do with the definition of leader, leadership, and lead?

It has NONE.

Thanks for your attack.
I&#39;m sorry I don&#39;t use your words. Do you look for flaws in a foreign person, and antagonize them because you can&#39;t understand them?

You&#39;re trying to make me out as some boogieman for your own cause, or because you have this idea in your head that I&#39;m some totalitarian.

Well if it keeps you awake all night:
MUHAHAHAHAHA MUHAHAHAHAHA MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33; :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[anomaly]

Originally posted by E K
Morpheus, anomaly is plain to see you are comming up with your own conclusions from things not stated; you are assuming things.
Actually, everything I&#39;ve said comes from what The Mighty Lazar has said. Indeed, CommunistLeague is a vertically structured organization. I mean, that&#39;s just a fact. I don&#39;t think a vertically structured organization is the right one to use. That&#39;s all.


This thread is a headache.
For once, we agree. :lol:

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2006, 01:13 AM
Actually, everything I&#39;ve said comes from what The Mighty Lazar has said. Indeed, CommunistLeague is a vertically structured organization. I mean, that&#39;s just a fact. I don&#39;t think a vertically structured organization is the right one to use. That&#39;s all.
You&#39;ve judged by semantics that its a vericle organization.

Words are nice, but they can&#39;t always determine the character of things.

[anomaly]

Originally posted by E K
You&#39;ve judged by semantics that its a vericle organization.
No, it is a vertically structured organization by definition.

It has a central committee, hierarchy within the organization, etc. That means a top-down, or vertical, arrangement.

I mean, it&#39;s not like I&#39;m condemning you as &#39;anti-communist&#39;. All I&#39;m pointing out is that the League&#39;s organizational techniques are not horizontal in arrangement. If such were the case, there would be no central committee, no official membership, no official hierarchy.