The Case against Vladimir Lenin

[AlwaysAnarchy]

Although at first I found it in poor taste to destroy a man who is no longer with us, I felt that since (to my regret) there would be no chance for me to actually debate with Lenin obviously, I feel it must be addressed the crimes of Lenin, of Bolshevism and what he really stood for. I believe this is necessary because of the continuing influence that Lenin seems to have in this forum and on the Left in general. As a libertarian socialist I cannot allow this to pass without mentiong some key aspects of the October Revolution in Russia and Lenin's role in it.

1. Lenin was a capitalist, not a socialist.

This is the first crucial point that needs to be established. Lenin's policies were for a highly centralized state capitalism, not for worker's control of the means of production (the very definition of socialism)

I can prove this by Lenin's own words:

And that the task of the Bolsheviks was

"To study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it, (to not) shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.."

Source: Lenin in Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, Solidarity, London. 46.

At the eleventh Party Congress, in attacking the opponents of state capitalist strategy, Lenin said:


State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.... And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be

Source: Lenin in Lukacs, op. cit. 75.
Also: http://www.zmag.org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28o...witbu04.html#28 (http://www.zmag.org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28)

Of course, we didn't really need Lenin's own words as we could prove what the Bolsheviks did by their actions; removing worker control, destroying the soviets, elminating any semblance of democracy in favor of "party dictatorship" and centralized bureacracy.



Once in power, the Bolsheviks quickly turned away from even this limited vision of workers' control. Lenin raised the idea of "one-man management," granting state appointed "individual executives dictatorial powers (or 'unlimited' powers)." The revolution, he claimed, "demands" that "the people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour." His "superior forms of labour discipline" were simply hyper-developed capitalist forms. The role of workers in production was the same, but with a novel twist, namely "unquestioning obedience to the orders of individual representatives of the Soviet government during the work."

Capitalist management techniques were praised and introduced. "We must raise the question of piece-work and apply and test it in practice," stated Lenin, "we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system; we must make wages correspond to the total amount of goods turned out." Techniques designed and used by management to break the collective power of workers at the point of production were now considered somehow "neutral" when imposed by the Party.

Industry was soon nationalised, but capitalism was not ended. As anarchists then (and now) pointed out, the relations between labour and capital where the same. State capitalism simply replaced private capitalism.

2. Lenin, not Stalin established the KGB, created the Gulag system and systematically murdered tens of thousands of comrades and revolutionaries.


...policies such as handing sweeping power to the state, enforcing rigid party discipline, using terror as a means of political intimidation, and requisitioning grain paved the road to Stalinism. Although many of these decried institutions and policies—such as secret police, labor camps, and executions of political opponents—were practiced under Lenin's regime, these techniques were all commonly used by the Tsars long before Lenin and were long since established as the standard means of dealing with political dissent in Russia. However, the scale was different: three times more political prisoners were executed in the first few months of Bolshevik rule than in over 90 years under the Tsar.


The Communist government responded to the assassination attempt, and to the increasingly mobilizing anti-communist offensive of which it was a component, with what they termed the Red Terror. Tens of thousands of real and perceived enemies of the Revolution, many accused of actively conspiring against the Bolshevik government, were executed or put in labor camps. [12]. .


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin#Lenin.2...t_anti-Semitism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin#Lenin.27s_fight_against_anti-Semitism)

Indeed Lenin himself is quite clear on the centralized structure of his government:

...absolute centralization and strictest discipline of the proletariat constitute one of the fundamental conditions for victory over the bourgeoisie
Source: Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 9

Friends, is this what we are fighting for?? Gulags, labor camps, state capitalism?? Is this revolutionary socialism? Any honest person will tell you: No, it is not. It blackens the name of true socialism under the cloud of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Honest revolutionaries, like Rosa Luxembourg understood this as well and let me close with a quote by her on the nature of the Bolshevik take over:


In their capacity as organs of the spontaneous will of the masses the soviets were from the very beginning an unwelcome and extraneous element of Bolshevik doctrines. In 1917 Lenin used the soviets to destroy czarism. Once that had been accomplished he created his own state machinery after the true Bolshevik pattern, i.e., the rule of the small disciplined minority of professional revolutionaries over the great and undisciplined masses.

Let us all move on from authoritarian, oppressive state capitalism into the struggle for real , authentic revolutionary socialism.

[Herman]

1. Lenin was a capitalist, not a socialist.

This is the first crucial point that needs to be established. Lenin's policies were for a highly centralized state capitalism, not for worker's control of the means of production (the very definition of socialism)

I can prove this by Lenin's own words:

And that the task of the Bolsheviks was

"To study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it, (to not) shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.."

You do realize that what Lenin means here is not the same state capitalism which Trotsky later mentions. Their definitions, on what it was, was different.


Friends, is this what we are fighting for?? Gulags, labor camps, state capitalism?? Is this revolutionary socialism? Any honest person will tell you: No, it is not. It blackens the name of true socialism under the cloud of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Oh my god... look, every revolution is going to have counter-revolution. All Lenin did was use terror against the enemies of the revolution, which any self-proclaimed marxist agrees with.
You think Lenin was some sort of evil man who didn't know what he was doing? He was a far greater intellectual than you and understood marxism better than you, so please, don't go trying to prove something which the bourgeois media tries to do all the time with a bunch of quotes of him and some historian. It doesn't prove anything.


Honest revolutionaries, like Rosa Luxembourg understood this as well and let me close with a quote by her on the nature of the Bolshevik take over:

QUOTE
In their capacity as organs of the spontaneous will of the masses the soviets were from the very beginning an unwelcome and extraneous element of Bolshevik doctrines. In 1917 Lenin used the soviets to destroy czarism. Once that had been accomplished he created his own state machinery after the true Bolshevik pattern, i.e., the rule of the small disciplined minority of professional revolutionaries over the great and undisciplined masses.


Let us all move on from authoritarian, oppressive state capitalism into the struggle for real , authentic revolutionary socialism.

Like 'honest' Rosa Luxembourg who was also for violence?

[Leo]

This was the weakest arguement against Lenin that I've ever seen.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 02:49 AM

Oh my god... look, every revolution is going to have counter-revolution. All Lenin did was use terror against the enemies of the revolution, which any self-proclaimed marxist agrees with.
You think Lenin was some sort of evil man who didn't know what he was doing? He was a far greater intellectual than you and understood marxism better than you, so please, don't go trying to prove something which the bourgeois media tries to do all the time with a bunch of quotes of him and some historian. It doesn't prove anything.

Is this helpful? Simply shutting down any discussion of Lenin because it doesn't fit ideology is pointless. Personally I think Lenin was a good man working under exceptionally difficult circumstances. But he made mistakes. A whole long line of them. that has to be acknowledged, otherwise we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over.

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by Pacifist quoting Lenin
"To study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it, (to not) shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.."

Would it make you happy to refer to the economic policies of the USSR as Socialist? You do understand that Socialism does not deny profit; it merely distinguishes "where" the profit will be distrubited.

In addition, there has never been a successful Socialist economic platform hitherto that did not use the capitalist market to to set value and price for goods and services.

All experiments using the "LTV" failed miserably and were quickly ceased.



P.S.

Wikipedia is not a usefull tool for establishing anything beyond someone's opinion.

[KC]

All experiments using the "LTV" failed miserably and were quickly ceased.


What experiments were those? (I'm not accusing you of anything, I just wanna know)

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by Khayembii [email protected] 28 2006, 09:11 PM

What experiments were those? (I'm not accusing you of anything, I just wanna know)
The USSR prior to adopting the use of the bourgeois market to set value and price for goods and services. If I remember correctly the "switch" occured shortly after Lenin's death in direct response to the Soviet Economy nearly collapsing completely.

[LoneRed]

oh great more lenin bashing, these folks are pure baltic avenue.


uh oh, im late for the short line railroad.

[Marx Lenin Stalin]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 29 2006, 03:37 AM
This was the weakest arguement against Lenin that I've ever seen.
Aye it was. Very weak.

Kid, (PacifistAnarchist) I know more about Marxism that you will ever know.

What's more, I am more of a revolutionary than you will ever, can ever be.

A very poor argument. Very bad.

[Kurt Crover]

Originally posted by Marx Lenin [email protected] 29 2006, 01:39 PM

I am more of a revolutionary than you will ever, can ever be.

A very poor argument. Very bad.


Wow, I'm glad your on own side.

[LoneRed]

MLS, even though it was indeed a weak argument it isnt necessary to be pompous and say such things, He'll learn new things, we all do and have.

[Forward Union]

The thing is, in lenins head "counter revolutionary" was a one-size-fits-all term for absolutely anyone he disagreed with. Including many communists, Marxists and Anarchists who were tragically slaughtered trying to keep the workplace democratic. Lenin handed over soviet industry to capitalist advisors and took economic power away from the Soviets and in the hands of the VSNKh and the state. He allowed vast areas of Russia to be handed to the German imperialists, and when the workers tried to form millitas to fight the Germans, the red guards went in and massacred them too.

"we need a terroristic purge: trials held on the spot and shootings as an unreserved measure"

"...our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the
copying of it" - SW Vol. 27 p 340.

The crimes of Lenin go on and on and on. He was undoubtably a Bourgeoisie fuck, who massacred workplace movements and posed as a communist.

[YSR]

If you need to read a "case against Vladimir Lenin," then you're just not paying attention.

(Sadly, this is not a very good critique of him. Many better ones can be found on this very site.)

[chimx]

while some may not appreciate the criticism PA is making towards the state capitalist model, the bankruptcy of the state capitalist model, originally put forward by Lenin and continued by Stalin and his predecessors, is not often enough addressed.

The collapse of "socialism" in the USSR was heavily due to Lenin and Stalin's adherance to a controlled capitalist market economy where the Party held monopolistic control over the direction of the soviet market. Stalin created The State Planning Committee to destroy the market reality of price flucuations due to societal demand. Supply and demand under a state capitalist market, as opposed to western capitalist free markets, manufactures, farmers, etc. had to be made to produce exactly what the state ordered, not what seemed profitable or met demand. Demand for a certain good could no longer effect the price of that good, the success of this planned economy depended upon the successful state control over the factors of production. This is one of the reasons for the deterioration of any possibility of real worker control. Lenin and Stalin, through their market policies, encouraged work place alienation.

While some may argue that the USSR achieved massive economic growth during the period of Stalin's reign, it should be pointed out that this is due to Stalin's industrialization relying so heavily on natural resources, in particular coal and steel, which up until that point were left relatively untapped due to the backwards nature of the country. This allowed for extensive growth (not intensive growth!), but left the planned economy's GDP extremely reliant on both coal and steel to continue its growth.

The state bureaucratic control over the market destroyed the principles of supply and emand. In doing so, it destroyed worker incentive, thus russian commodity production were noted during this period as being shotty pieces of shit. Black markets quickly began to flourish, and the quality of goods on the black market undermined the controlled markets goods quite rapidly.

There is an amusing story of when Khruschev visited the United States. He was shown a "typical American household", and when he saw the refrigerator, he scoffed and said that there was no way every person in America was able to have one in their home.

That is the reality of state capitalism. It is as bankrupt a praxis as Proudhon's mutualism. Lenin and Stalin, by adhereing to the belief that one could mimic the capitalist market but exhert massive amounts of state control undermined socialism in the USSR and undermined communism in general.

Lenin is a bankrupt ideology. [c]ommunism is the only future.

[IronColumn]

I liked the critique, and it was brief because it's impossible to succinctly cover the absolutely prostitute reality of state-capitalism built under the auspices of the Bolshevik party.

Lenin is not a marxist, he is not a socialist. More than anything he is a farce.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 04:16 PM
The state bureaucratic control over the market destroyed the principles of supply and emand. In doing so, it destroyed worker incentive, thus russian commodity production were noted during this period as being shotty pieces of shit. Black markets quickly began to flourish, and the quality of goods on the black market undermined the controlled markets goods quite rapidly.
Well this says everything you need to know about anarchists. Lenin destroyed the market mechanisms ergo he is a bad guy. I mean, who else but anarchists and capitalists talk about "worker incentive"?

[chimx]

you aren't addressing the failure of lenin's state capitalism and the incentive problems created by it, but are assuming instead that communist incentive is synonymous with capitalist incentive. you have provided no solution, but are instead attacking me because of my own ideological beliefs, as if that holds any weight in this discussion. do you actually have anything to contribute to the criticisms of state capitalism, or possible solutions to its past failures?

that said, i am opposed to work place alienation, labor division, and the exploitation of my labor hours by bosses and party "leaders". the destruction of alienated labor is the solution to incentive. creating democratic federated work places where workers exercise real control over their production is the proper steps that need to be implemented to undermine alienated labor intrinsic to capitalist production. while this originally seemed possible during the years of 1917 and even on into 1918 within Russia, Lenin effectively put an end to this communistic development by adhering instead to a capitalist model where their Communist Party excercised monopolistic power over the economy. This model failed in two ways: 1) it failed to compete with free-market capitalism throughout the world, collapsing under its own weight by the late 80s and early 90s; 2) in failed to give workers control over their own production, instead creating a rigid bureacracy that alienated workers as much, if not more, than their free-market capitalist counterparts.

[ComradeOm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 07:56 PM
you have provided no solution, but are instead attacking me because of my own ideological beliefs, as if that holds any weight in this discussion.
Well… duh. I was merely highlighting the great flaw in your position. You really consider it a bad thing that Soviet economy stepped away from the market model? Because that has a bearing on your argument.

For what its worth though I do agree that the Bolshevik opposition to worker control of factories was misguided. That's not to say of course that it was not necessary given the dire conditions of the time or that central planning was/is not a sound idea. However Lenin did, perhaps through necessity, place far too much faith in retaining bourgeois experts who, by Stalin's time, would later form the cornerstone of the bureaucratic regime.

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 08:10 PM
You really consider it a bad thing that Soviet economy stepped away from the market model? Because that has a bearing on your argument.
if this is the case you misunderstand. I consider it a bad thing that lenin, stalin, khruschev, et al. tried to adhere to a perverted degenerative capitalism that still adhered midly to market economics, and tried to exercise control over it. the implementation of a state run economy doomed russia from the start. this (amongst other things) is what i have qualms over. marxists laugh at proudhon for trying to compete with capitalism with his "bank of the people", but isn't that essentially the same spirit of lenin's state capitalism, though on a larger scale?

[Rodack]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 04:16 PM
while some may not appreciate the criticism PA is making towards the state capitalist model, the bankruptcy of the state capitalist model, originally put forward by Lenin and continued by Stalin and his predecessors, is not often enough addressed.

The collapse of "socialism" in the USSR was heavily due to Lenin and Stalin's adherance to a controlled capitalist market economy where the Party held monopolistic control over the direction of the soviet market. Stalin created The State Planning Committee to destroy the market reality of price flucuations due to societal demand. Supply and demand under a state capitalist market, as opposed to western capitalist free markets, manufactures, farmers, etc. had to be made to produce exactly what the state ordered, not what seemed profitable or met demand. Demand for a certain good could no longer effect the price of that good, the success of this planned economy depended upon the successful state control over the factors of production. This is one of the reasons for the deterioration of any possibility of real worker control. Lenin and Stalin, through their market policies, encouraged work place alienation.

While some may argue that the USSR achieved massive economic growth during the period of Stalin's reign, it should be pointed out that this is due to Stalin's industrialization relying so heavily on natural resources, in particular coal and steel, which up until that point were left relatively untapped due to the backwards nature of the country. This allowed for extensive growth (not intensive growth!), but left the planned economy's GDP extremely reliant on both coal and steel to continue its growth.

The state bureaucratic control over the market destroyed the principles of supply and emand. In doing so, it destroyed worker incentive, thus russian commodity production were noted during this period as being shotty pieces of shit. Black markets quickly began to flourish, and the quality of goods on the black market undermined the controlled markets goods quite rapidly.

There is an amusing story of when Khruschev visited the United States. He was shown a "typical American household", and when he saw the refrigerator, he scoffed and said that there was no way every person in America was able to have one in their home.

That is the reality of state capitalism. It is as bankrupt a praxis as Proudhon's mutualism. Lenin and Stalin, by adhereing to the belief that one could mimic the capitalist market but exhert massive amounts of state control undermined socialism in the USSR and undermined communism in general.

Lenin is a bankrupt ideology. [c]ommunism is the only future.
Do you know how much a pair of Levi blue jeans cost in the Soviet Union in the mid 1970's, Comrade?

[chimx]

No, but in soviet russia, you no wear blue jeans. blue jeans wear you.

[Rodack]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 05:19 PM
No, but in soviet russia, you no wear blue jeans. blue jeans wear you.
Huge profits were made on the black market for the sale of Blue Jeans, Levis in paticular. Had the sale and distrabution of Levi Blue Jeans been controlled by the State, much needed monies could have been utilized in assisting those that needed assistance. Marxist ideology did not allow for this type of state run Capitalistic system, at least in a very regulated enviroment, Comrades

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Why does it matter? Lenin is dead. Why do so many leftists mess around debating on dead individuals? Lenin can't affect things now, he's gone. Can't we concentrate on here and now?

-Alex

[chimx]

Originally posted by Rodack+Sep 30 2006, 05:35 PM--> (Rodack @ Sep 30 2006, 05:35 PM)
[email protected] 30 2006, 05:19 PM
No, but in soviet russia, you no wear blue jeans. blue jeans wear you.
Huge profits were made on the black market for the sale of Blue Jeans, Levis in paticular. Had the sale and distrabution of Levi Blue Jeans been controlled by the State, much needed monies could have been utilized in assisting those that needed assistance. Marxist ideology did not allow for this type of state run Capitalistic system, at least in a very regulated enviroment, Comrades [/b]
but that is the basic problem with state run economy's. supply and demand isn't left to market needs, but is based on the state predicting what the demand is based on previous years. when the state inevitably fails to supply these needs of the people, black markets appear to fill this void in the economy. leninism and state capitalism is worthless.

[AlwaysAnarchy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 06:56 PM
I liked the critique, and it was brief because it's impossible to succinctly cover the absolutely prostitute reality of state-capitalism built under the auspices of the Bolshevik party.

Lenin is not a marxist, he is not a socialist. More than anything he is a farce.
Thanks! At least someone did!

You know in writing this, I meant it to be brief because I wanted it foremost to be readable. Also, I mainly wanted to focus on two basic points - 1. That Lenin was not a socialist. The USSR was state capitalist and 2. Lenin violated human rights on a grand scale and set up the gulags, KGB and state police.

Thus far no one as addressed point #2.

[AlwaysAnarchy]

Originally posted by Marx Lenin Stalin+Sep 29 2006, 01:39 PM--> (Marx Lenin Stalin @ Sep 29 2006, 01:39 PM)
Leo [email protected] 29 2006, 03:37 AM
This was the weakest arguement against Lenin that I've ever seen.
Aye it was. Very weak.

Kid, (PacifistAnarchist) I know more about Marxism that you will ever know.

What's more, I am more of a revolutionary than you will ever, can ever be.

A very poor argument. Very bad. [/b]
Very nice and respectful of you two! :rolleyes: You guys by name calling me and telling me what a bad job I did really helped elevante this thread and improved upon it.

See this is what I hate about internet forums. You have all these pompous know it all intellectuals (Leo Uelimann, Marx Lenin Stalin) or people who THINK they are know it alls and enjoy coming on thread and telling someone what a terrible job they did and how they are "sooo much more of a revolutionary and sooo much smarter than you!"

Guys is it your call to name calling and feel good about yourselves or to help elevate this thread and if you feel I haven't said something, point out how to improve it and what I should have noted.

I mean really, here I am: a new member, a young person with an open interest in left ideology and we have people name calling me and bragging about how great/smart/revolutionary they are. If this is the way you act toward someone like me, like how do you guys act around the vast majority who are far less politically aware and motivated as I am?

[Herman]

It's just that quoting Lenin isn't a good way to prove his 'guilt'. Even the anti-leninists in this board know that.

[AlwaysAnarchy]

What!??!

How can using someone's own words (ADMITTING that he was a state capitalist, and not a socialist) not be a useful thing??

Anyone can say "Lenin was a capitalist!" and the Leninists will just call him "Trotskyist, revisionionst, reactionary, counter revolutionary, etc etc" But getting the information RIGHT from the horse's own mouth! Well there's no denying that.

Also the post did not just contain Lenin's own words, but quotes from Rosa Luxembourg and also accounts from other historians about his gulag system, prison camps, secret police KGB and murdering revolutionaries.

[Herman]

Anyone can say "Lenin was a capitalist!" and the Leninists will just call him "Trotskyist, revisionionst, reactionary, counter revolutionary, etc etc" But getting the information RIGHT from the horse's own mouth! Well there's no denying that.

You need to check the context when they were written or said. That might give you a clue or two about why he said that. Don't take everything a person says literally.


but quotes from Rosa Luxembourg

Who was for violence and mass strikes. What do you get? Disorganization and failure demonstrated in the Bavarian Soviet.


and also accounts from other historians about his gulag system, prison camps, secret police KGB and murdering revolutionaries.

His 'gulag system' is called a prison and it's where they put those who do crime, namely thieves, rapists, murderers, the bourgeoisie or anyone helping them. The 'KGB' (it wasn't even called like that. It was known as 'Cheka'), like the current CIA used in the USA, was used for collecting counter-revolutionary activity information, something which any socialist revolution does. The paris commune used violence and terror against its' enemies. In fact, Marx and Engels both stated that the workers in Paris should have been even more violent for the sake of their own survival.

[Dyst]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2006, 01:52 AM
What!??!

How can using someone's own words (ADMITTING that he was a state capitalist, and not a socialist) not be a useful thing??

Anyone can say "Lenin was a capitalist!" and the Leninists will just call him "Trotskyist, revisionionst, reactionary, counter revolutionary, etc etc" But getting the information RIGHT from the horse's own mouth! Well there's no denying that.

Also the post did not just contain Lenin's own words, but quotes from Rosa Luxembourg and also accounts from other historians about his gulag system, prison camps, secret police KGB and murdering revolutionaries.
"While there is a State there can be no freedom; When there's freedom there can be no State."
-Lenin.

[Leo]

Very nice and respectful of you two! You guys by name calling me and telling me what a bad job I did really helped elevante this thread and improved upon it.

Politics are harsh, you have to learn to suck things up if you can't rebuttle the arguements made against you. You have to be able to take hard arguements, insults etc. as they will never stop coming, no matter what your politics are. Saying that Lenin was a "horrible criminal fanatic who fucked everything all by himself, murdered millions and also ate babies" is a shit arguement, and I won't be helping you if I said "oh good, you are criticizing Lenin" just because I criticize Lenin too.

[Leo]

Originally posted by RedHerman+--> (RedHerman) It's just that quoting Lenin isn't a good way to prove his 'guilt'. Even the anti-leninists in this board know that.[/b]

Oh no, it just depends on the context of the quote.


Originally posted by Lenin+ What is to be Done?--> (Lenin @ What is to be Done?) “Only a party that will organize really nation-wide exposures can become the vanguard of the revolutionary forces in our time. The word "nation-wide" has a very profound meaning. The overwhelming majority of the non-working-class exposers (and in order to become the vanguard, we must attract other classes) are sober politicians and level-headed businessmen”[/b]


Lenin to [email protected]
"My advice to you: change your surroundings, your views, your actions, otherwise life may turn away from you"


Lenin on National Liberation
Insofar as the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation fights the oppressor, we are always, in every case, and more strongly than anyone else, in favour.

The point is, however, to realize that the material condtions and class dynamics are decisive on history, not policies of individual leaders.

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by [email protected] 30 2006, 06:02 PM
Why does it matter? Lenin is dead. Why do so many leftists mess around debating on dead individuals? Lenin can't affect things now, he's gone. Can't we concentrate on here and now?

-Alex
Guys, this is a HISTORY forum. History is about talking about the past, including "dead guys".

If you don't want to study the past that's fine, although I'd say it's a bit idiotic, but don't go around asking why people are concerned about studying the past on a History forum.

Besides, all action and no brain/philosophy won't do any good either. That's the Anarchist/V for Vendetta type of "revolution" In reality, you need a theory, a plan for workers to take power, and what better way to do so than study the revolutions and revolutionaries of the past (as virtually every other revolutionary did) to figure out what worked, what didn't work, what mistakes were made, what to learn from them, etc.

By the way, imagine some of these guys coming up to Marx and saying "Hey! What do you care so much what that dude Hegel thinks! He's dead!" :lol:

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I'm all for discussions of history, including dead guys. But there is a limit. When we argue until we're blue in the face over Lenin, we can only divide ourselves. It's the theories and ideas these individuals put forward that need to be looked at, and improved on. Not splitting hairs about dead people. If tomorrow, we discivered that somehow everybody was wrong and Marx was in fact a neo-liberal, we wouldn't stop being communists. None of this affects here and now.

-Alex

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 03:56 PM
I'm all for discussions of history, including dead guys. But there is a limit.
Yes there is a limit. That's why there are many other forums besides the History forum.


. It's the theories and ideas these individuals put forward that need to be looked at, and improved on. Not splitting hairs about dead people

Isn't that what we're doing? We're discussing the ideas, theories, and most of all, ACTIONS that "these people" (these people = revolutionaries) put forward. We're not discussing whether Lenin had nice hair, was good looking, or had good fasion sense; we're discussion Lenin's relevance in terms of making a revolution, the actions he took in that revolultion, how we judge them, errors, mistakes, things that need to be improved upon, things that were correct, etc.



None of this affects here and now

The past always affects the here and now. Why do you think Marx, Lenin , studied the past, studied history, and studied the writings of "dead guys" so much? Why do you think Marx so often used the word philistine to deride his enemies?

The past needs to be studied and analyzed by serious revolutionaries and serious thinkers. You cannot possibly think about trying to change the world without [i]understanding how it has been changed already This is essential. It is the philistines and the uber middle-class young people that say "Fuck all that history crap! We need ACTION man! yeaaa!" and then after not understanding the history of revolutions, the history of radical change, the material conditions that lead to such change and the mistakes and lessons of the past, become jaded, de-politicized and then finally bourgeois liberals 2 months later.

As long as seeking knowledge is combined with a program for action, there is nothing wrong with it and in fact, entirely helpful and essential.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Seems to me this is your historical discussion in a nutshell:

Leninist: Read "State And Revolution". Shoot the anarchists. Shoot the reformists. Shoot the primitivists. Reload your gun, you ain't done yet.

Stalinist: STALIN WAS A HERO FUCK YOU TROT ANTI COMMUNIST BOURGEOISIE PROPAGANDA LIES ABOUT COMRADE STALIN ANYONE WHO DISGAREES IS A MORON ARGHHH!

Trotskyist: Stalin was a fascist man, permanent revolution, yeah, you authoritarians are all just dictators... Save the shrimp.



You guys get nowhere doing this. None of you change your minds, you learn fuck all from history because you can't even agree about what actually went before us. If you can show me how this "debate" contributes to our cause, I will shut up.

-Alex

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2006, 04:23 PM
You guys get nowhere doing this. None of you change your minds, you learn fuck all from history because you can't even agree about what actually went before us. If you can show me how this "debate" contributes to our cause, I will shut up.

-Alex
It's pretty arrogant of you to assume that no one has learned anything here. You are wrong. I haven't even been here that long and already I've learned something new. I'm sure if you talk to other people here they will tell you they have learned something useful at some point while being here as well. If you feel otherwise, then why are you here? I wouldn't waste time in an online forum if I felt nothing good could come out of it.

Furthermore, if you have a problem with me or any one person in the way they discuss history, then contribute something meaningful yourself instead of just whining about it.

[Marxist-Anarchist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 01:24 AM
Although at first I found it in poor taste to destroy a man who is no longer with us, I felt that since (to my regret) there would be no chance for me to actually debate with Lenin obviously, I feel it must be addressed the crimes of Lenin, of Bolshevism and what he really stood for. I believe this is necessary because of the continuing influence that Lenin seems to have in this forum and on the Left in general. As a libertarian socialist I cannot allow this to pass without mentiong some key aspects of the October Revolution in Russia and Lenin's role in it.

1. Lenin was a capitalist, not a socialist.

This is the first crucial point that needs to be established. Lenin's policies were for a highly centralized state capitalism, not for worker's control of the means of production (the very definition of socialism)

I can prove this by Lenin's own words:

And that the task of the Bolsheviks was

"To study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it, (to not) shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.."

Source: Lenin in Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, Solidarity, London. 46.

At the eleventh Party Congress, in attacking the opponents of state capitalist strategy, Lenin said:


State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state.... And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be

Source: Lenin in Lukacs, op. cit. 75.
Also: http://www.zmag.org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28o...witbu04.html#28 (http://www.zmag.org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28org/WITBU/witbu04.html#28)

Of course, we didn't really need Lenin's own words as we could prove what the Bolsheviks did by their actions; removing worker control, destroying the soviets, elminating any semblance of democracy in favor of "party dictatorship" and centralized bureacracy.



Once in power, the Bolsheviks quickly turned away from even this limited vision of workers' control. Lenin raised the idea of "one-man management," granting state appointed "individual executives dictatorial powers (or 'unlimited' powers)." The revolution, he claimed, "demands" that "the people unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of labour." His "superior forms of labour discipline" were simply hyper-developed capitalist forms. The role of workers in production was the same, but with a novel twist, namely "unquestioning obedience to the orders of individual representatives of the Soviet government during the work."

Capitalist management techniques were praised and introduced. "We must raise the question of piece-work and apply and test it in practice," stated Lenin, "we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system; we must make wages correspond to the total amount of goods turned out." Techniques designed and used by management to break the collective power of workers at the point of production were now considered somehow "neutral" when imposed by the Party.

Industry was soon nationalised, but capitalism was not ended. As anarchists then (and now) pointed out, the relations between labour and capital where the same. State capitalism simply replaced private capitalism.

2. Lenin, not Stalin established the KGB, created the Gulag system and systematically murdered tens of thousands of comrades and revolutionaries.


...policies such as handing sweeping power to the state, enforcing rigid party discipline, using terror as a means of political intimidation, and requisitioning grain paved the road to Stalinism. Although many of these decried institutions and policies—such as secret police, labor camps, and executions of political opponents—were practiced under Lenin's regime, these techniques were all commonly used by the Tsars long before Lenin and were long since established as the standard means of dealing with political dissent in Russia. However, the scale was different: three times more political prisoners were executed in the first few months of Bolshevik rule than in over 90 years under the Tsar.


The Communist government responded to the assassination attempt, and to the increasingly mobilizing anti-communist offensive of which it was a component, with what they termed the Red Terror. Tens of thousands of real and perceived enemies of the Revolution, many accused of actively conspiring against the Bolshevik government, were executed or put in labor camps. [12]. .


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin#Lenin.2...t_anti-Semitism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin#Lenin.27s_fight_against_anti-Semitism)

Indeed Lenin himself is quite clear on the centralized structure of his government:

...absolute centralization and strictest discipline of the proletariat constitute one of the fundamental conditions for victory over the bourgeoisie
Source: Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 9

Friends, is this what we are fighting for?? Gulags, labor camps, state capitalism?? Is this revolutionary socialism? Any honest person will tell you: No, it is not. It blackens the name of true socialism under the cloud of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Honest revolutionaries, like Rosa Luxembourg understood this as well and let me close with a quote by her on the nature of the Bolshevik take over:


In their capacity as organs of the spontaneous will of the masses the soviets were from the very beginning an unwelcome and extraneous element of Bolshevik doctrines. In 1917 Lenin used the soviets to destroy czarism. Once that had been accomplished he created his own state machinery after the true Bolshevik pattern, i.e., the rule of the small disciplined minority of professional revolutionaries over the great and undisciplined masses.

Let us all move on from authoritarian, oppressive state capitalism into the struggle for real , authentic revolutionary socialism.
Lenin wanted capitalism for Russia because it wasn't a developed country and he wanted to advance capitalism in Russia so then he could introduce socialism with the help of Germany--- a country that he thought would have a real proletarian revolution at any moment.

[Leo]

Lenin wanted capitalism for Russia because it wasn't a developed country and he wanted to advance capitalism in Russia so then he could introduce socialism with the help of Germany--- a country that he thought would have a real proletarian revolution at any moment.

Want? No, I don't think Lenin wanted capitalism, but the historical situation in Russia required the development of capitalism, and what Lenin actually wanted was truly did not matter. If anyone is interested, this was what Lenin wanted:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm

As for his hopes about Germany, well he might have had hopes, but his practice shows us that he didn't give a shit about what would happen in Germany. If he actually thought that the Russian Revolution needed the German Revolution, he wouldn't have signed Brest Litovsk in a time Germany was so ripe for a real revolution that it could be argued that he practically sold the German proletariat, just a few months before the failed German Revolution.

[Nikkolas]

A completely incorrect and biased statement, I'm afraid. None of the Bolsheviks were enthused about signing that treaty but when German troops practically strolled through Russia, they used this little thing called a "brain." Ever heard of it? It's what allows you to understand that when you're fighting wars in every corner of your just recently acquired nation and are combatting poverty, illiteracy, starvation that it's a bit wiser to just yield ona front so you can get some breathing room. Sold out the German workers? That's pretty insulting. I would love to hear how that treaty somehow enpowered the German establishment and anti-Socialist forces? What great change would ahve sprouted forth had Lenin not signed that treaty? I guess conquering Russia would have thoroughly spirited the German workers into rebellion... I mean, the collapse of the only real Socialist uprising they saw in modern times and seeing it crushed woud surely motivate them better!

[Leo]

None of the Bolsheviks were enthused about signing that treaty but when German troops practically strolled through Russia

There was no active conflict at that time. German troops were behind the lands they were going to get after the treaty. They were cold, tired and exhausted.


I would love to hear how that treaty somehow enpowered the German establishment and anti-Socialist forces?

The Freikorps who were employed by the SDP to stop the revolution as the last chance would be in the Russian front, waiting to protect the lands Germans managed to get.


I guess conquering Russia

Yeah, German army in that conditions was going to conquer Russia, right :rolleyes:

Of course, It is possible to understand where Lenin was coming when he signed Brest-Litovsk, it was the greatest chance the world proletariat missed, and the only chance for the workers revolution to survive in Russia, but Lenin had worse treaties. There is no justification for Rapallo for examle, or all the support given to national liberation movements.

[Alf]

Pacifistanarchist says this is from Rosa Luxemburg:

"In their capacity as organs of the spontaneous will of the masses the soviets were from the very beginning an unwelcome and extraneous element of Bolshevik doctrines. In 1917 Lenin used the soviets to destroy czarism. Once that had been accomplished he created his own state machinery after the true Bolshevik pattern, i.e., the rule of the small disciplined minority of professional revolutionaries over the great and undisciplined masses".

I don't recognise it. Where is it from?

In her pamphlet on the Russian Revolution (1918), Luxemburg made some very strong and enduring criticisms of the Bolsheviks - the tendency to subordinate the soviets to the party/state, the errors on the national question, etc. Some of her criticisms were more confused - for example her defence of the Constituent Assembly. But one thing was quite clear: she began her critique from a position of total solidarity with the Russian revolution and the Bolsheviks against the huge chorus of slander and vilification coming from the bourgeoisie. This is how the pamphlet ends:

"What is in order is to distinguish the essential from the non-essential, the kernel from the accidental excrescencies in the politics of the Bolsheviks. In the present period, when we face decisive final struggles in all the world, the most important problem of socialism was and is the burning question of our time. It is not a matter of this or that secondary question of tactics, but of the capacity for action of the proletariat, the strength to act, the will to power of socialism as such. In this, Lenin and Trotsky and their friends were the first, those who went ahead as an example to the proletariat of the world; they are still the only ones up to now who can cry with Hutten: "I have dared!"

This is the essential and enduring in Bolshevik policy. In this sense theirs is the immortal historical service of having marched at the head of the international proletariat with the conquest of political power and the practical placing of the problem of the realization of socialism, and of having advanced mightily the settlement of the score between capital and labor in the entire world. In Russia, the problem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia. And in this sense, the future everywhere belongs to 'Bolshevism.'"

In my opinion, a discussion on Lenin's undeniable strengths as well as his disastrous errors should begin from the same starting point.

[Joseph Ball]

Criticisms of Lenin have centred around his suppossed subversion of workers control and his alleged denial of human rights. Also the issue of Brest-Litovsk has been raised.

Lenin established a workers state but he also had to rein back the spontaneous forms of workers democracy embodied in the factory councils (which Maurice Brinton discusses in his excellant but very one-sided book). How do you explain the paradox? Two factors explain it. In 1917 Russia was in complete collapse. Industry and the railway system had ground to a halt. Food could not be moved to Petrograd, hence the food riots and the February Revolution. In 1918 Lenin's government was forced to sign Brest-Litovsk and Russia lost its 'breadbasket', the Ukraine as well as sources of raw materials vital to its industry. A bitter civil war, fuelled by western intervention also began. Whatever industrial capacity that was left in the Bolshevik areas had to be devoted absolutely to war production, with nothing left over for consumer goods. As there were no consumer goods (or very few), to exchange with the peasants for grain, requisition and food dictatorship became the necessity. In such circumstances it would have been foolish for Lenin's government to continue with experiments in spontaneous workers self-management. We are not talking about affluent France in 1968. Factory workers had to work very hard for meagre food rations only. In such circumstances factory-level workers democracy cannot possibly work. The workers needed leadership and authority to get them through the crisis. It is a testament to the profound greatness of Lenin that he and the party he led was able to provide that leadership.

As far as 'human rights' goes-what nonsense is this? Don't people realise that so-called human rights are just a luxury for those in the imperialist nations, fat on the super-profits squeezed from the oppressed nations. When you can buy off the working class with consumerism and the welfare state, then you can give everyone human rights, as no-one wants to rock the boat too much. In the oppressed nations such notions are illusory-you either have a dictatorship of the imperialists and capitalists or a dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin established a dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the peasantry and liberated the great majority of the Soviet people in so doing.

Ultra-leftists still criticise Lenin over Brest-Litovsk. The army had collapsed to the extent that it wasn't even retreating anymore, it had just dispersed. The economy was in such a bad way that industry was not functioning and millions faced starvation. Yet in the middle of this the ridiculous 'Social Revolutionary' Party wanted the Bolsheviks to continue the war. Then, as soon as the Civil War started all these fanatical ultra-leftists joined forces with the Whites!

This is a lesson for the ultra-leftist, follow the wise example of Lenin and think in a dialectical and revolutionary way, instead of a one-sided way that adopts a line that is Left in appearance and Right in essence.

[Alf]

Joseph Ball wrote that "Lenin established a workers state".

There has to be a fault in your method here. Lenin played a key role at certain moments in the Russian revolution, but he didn't personally establish the soviet state. It was an emanation of an immense social upheaval involving the activity of millions of workers and peasants. Initially, it was a power that responded to the movement of the working class; with the isolation of the revolution, the decimation of the working class by civil war and famine, and the draining of political life from the workers' assemblies and soviets, it became a power increasingly detached from and opposed to the working class. Lenin recognised this in his later writings: the soviet state, he said in 1922, was like a car that the communists thought they were driving, but in fact they were being driven by it; they were being directed by "an unseen hand", which turned out to be the ruthless and impersonal power of Russian and world capital. By identifying with the soviet state in the belief that they could keep it on the proletarian rails, the Bolshevik party ended up not only managing the exploitation of the Russian proletariat, but destroying themselves as a party of the class.

The lesson from this? First and foremost that an isolated revolution is doomed to defeat, as the Bolsheviks were well aware in 1917. And second that the party cannot exercise the proletarian dictatorship on behalf of the proletariat.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

What!??!

How can using someone's own words (ADMITTING that he was a state capitalist, and not a socialist) not be a useful thing??

Anyone can say "Lenin was a capitalist!" and the Leninists will just call him "Trotskyist, revisionionst, reactionary, counter revolutionary, etc etc" But getting the information RIGHT from the horse's own mouth! Well there's no denying that.

Trotskyists are Leninists. Also I don't think he ever said he was a capitalist. If he did, it was obviously a gaffe although I think it was a misquote or a bad translation. He probably said or implied he was a socialist at least 1000 times which would far outway the one gaffe.

[GX.]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2006 11:48 pm

What!??!

How can using someone's own words (ADMITTING that he was a state capitalist, and not a socialist) not be a useful thing??

Anyone can say "Lenin was a capitalist!" and the Leninists will just call him "Trotskyist, revisionionst, reactionary, counter revolutionary, etc etc" But getting the information RIGHT from the horse's own mouth! Well there's no denying that.

Trotskyists are Leninists. Also I don't think he ever said he was a capitalist. If he did, it was obviously a gaffe although I think it was a misquote or a bad translation. He probably said or implied he was a socialist at least 1000 times which would far outway the one gaffe.
Well, it's not entirely inaccurate. As far as I know, Lenin was fine with the line that the social base of the Soviet Union was proletarian in character, but the economic base was state-monopoly capitalist. That doesn't make Lenin a capitalist, for crying out loud.

[Axel1917]

A crushing refutation of the anti-Lenin nonsense:

http://www.marxist.com/russia-revolution-c...rrevolution.htm (http://www.marxist.com/russia-revolution-counterrevolution.htm)

[Vinny Rafarino]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2006 07:00 pm
A crushing refutation of the anti-Lenin nonsense:

http://www.marxist.com/russia-revolution-c...rrevolution.htm (http://www.marxist.com/russia-revolution-counterrevolution.htm)
A bunch of rhetoric spilled forth from the archaic minds of Woods, Grant and the god of goatees himself is hardly to be considered a "crushing refutation".

P.S.


"Rhetoric" is code for bullshit.


That's the Anarchist/V for Vendetta type of "revolution" In reality, you need a theory, a plan for workers to take power,

Anarchists do have "theroies and plans" to establish what you call "workers control".

They just don't accept your "plan".

We have no need for more career politicians hell bent on "leading the people" to paradise via the River Stixx.

[Louis Pio]

A bunch of rhetoric spilled forth from the archaic minds of Woods, Grant and the god of goatees himself is hardly to be considered a "crushing refutation".


Ohh what an intelligent reply...
Now discuss it or don't bother replying, that's kinda what discussion is about...

[harris0]

The real case against Lenin is that he was a dictator. After the Bolsheviks overwhelmingly lost in the elections to the constituent assemblies by the Socialist Revolutionary party...he dissolved the assemblies. He was opposed to democracy, and the will of the people.