Time 100: Vladimir Lenin

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

Not long after the Bolsheviks had seized power in 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin filled out a bureaucratic questionnaire. For occupation, he wrote "man of letters." So it was that a son of the Russian intelligentsia, a radical straight from the pages of Dostoyevsky's novel The Possessed, became the author of mass terror and the first concentration camps ever built on the European Continent.

Lenin was the initiator of the central drama — the tragedy — of our era, the rise of totalitarian states. A bookish man with a scholar's habits and a general's tactical instincts, Lenin introduced to the 20th century the practice of taking an all-embracing ideology and imposing it on an entire society rapidly and mercilessly; he created a regime that erased politics, erased historical memory, erased opposition. In his short career in power, from 1917 until his death in 1924, Lenin created a model not merely for his successor, Stalin, but for Mao, for Hitler, for Pol Pot.

And while in this way Lenin may be the central actor who begins the 20th century, he is the least knowable of characters. As a boy growing up in Simbirsk, Lenin distinguished himself in Latin and Greek. The signal event of his youth — the event that radicalized him — came in 1887, when his eldest brother Alexander, a student at the University of St. Petersburg, was hanged for conspiring to help assassinate Czar Alexander III. As a lawyer, Lenin became increasingly involved in radical politics, and after completing a three-year term of Siberian exile, he began his rise as the leading communist theorist, tactician and party organizer...........

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html

What a total bunch of bullshit, seriously this is the worst anti-leninist propaganda I've ever read. "created a model not merely for his sucessor,Stalin, but for Mao, for Hitler, for Pol Pot".


Originally posted by Time+--> (Time)After the collapse of the coup in August 1991, the people of Leningrad voted to call their city St. Petersburg once more. When Brodsky, who had been exiled from the city in 1964, was asked about the news, he smiled and said, "Better to have named it for a saint than a devil." [/b]


Wikipedia
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a bare majority (54%) of the population agreed to restore "the original name, Saint Petersburg...

After a popular vote the name of the Oblast (administrative province) of which the city is the capital remained Leningrad Oblast.

[Inviction]

I, too, thought the article was very biased. Lenin was a great man--I don't see Time railing on Bush for Abu Ghraib, Eastern European prisons, Guantanamo, and spying on his own people. The description would've made more sense for Stalin.

[cenv]

Typical propaganda. The sad part is that people will read it and believe it. Really, the media's ability to print blatant lies and watch them become "common knowledge" is both startling and depressing.

[Vargha Poralli]

Nothing New to except from Times. The Capitalists were starting to fear us more so they were doing every thing to deter workers from knowing true history of the men who fought for them. The biggest question is how long will the workers will digesting their lies ?

[Joby]

hahaha

What shit. People are stupid.

Time is nohing more than People Magazine. It's written at a 3rd grade level, and is filled with nothing but superficial propoganda.

[phoenixoftime]

Time for an eloquent Letter to the Editor? I would write it myself, but I would say the wrong things and be the laughing stock of liberals. :unsure: :lol:

[Xiao Banfa]

That is truly amazing. I'm impressed.

The person wrinting that would have know it was a lie.

I enjoyed the part where they quoted the leading authority, "Brodsky".

Wow, no way. Who the fuck is Brodsky?

[ComradeR]

Wow are they actualy saying Lenin was responsible for totalitarian bastards like Hitler?
While i would like to say this is the greatest pile of bullshit i have ever read i can't, it's only the most resent ive seen from these shitheads.

[Rollo]

Next they're going to say Lenin was a 40 foot monster that ran around moscow eating people.

Seriously is it just me or is this propaganda getting really stupid? I read somewhere the other day that Stalin and Hitler were essentialy the same man.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 08:51 am
Seriously is it just me or is this propaganda getting really stupid? I read somewhere the other day that Stalin and Hitler were essentialy the same man.
Certainly, the idea of Hitler and Stalin as "twin tyrants"(with Mao as their second coming a few years after) or "spiritual brothers", who are unique in the way in which they were a scourge upon the world, is quite mainstream:

http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/HitlerStalin.htm
http://www.mipt.vcu.edu/wwii.html
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/stalin/

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Lenin responsible for Hitler?

Away. To. Fuck!!!

:blink:

[Rollo]

Originally posted by Matthijs+December 02, 2006 09:25 pm--> (Matthijs @ December 02, 2006 09:25 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2006 08:51 am
Seriously is it just me or is this propaganda getting really stupid? I read somewhere the other day that Stalin and Hitler were essentialy the same man.
Certainly, the idea of Hitler and Stalin as "twin tyrants"(with Mao as their second coming a few years after) or "spiritual brothers", who are unique in the way in which they were a scourge upon the world, is quite mainstream:

http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/HitlerStalin.htm
http://www.mipt.vcu.edu/wwii.html
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/stalin/ [/b]
Woah, that is some seriously weird stuff.

[ComradeR]

Originally posted by Rollo+December 02, 2006 11:45 am--> (Rollo @ December 02, 2006 11:45 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 09:25 pm

[email protected] 02, 2006 08:51 am
Seriously is it just me or is this propaganda getting really stupid? I read somewhere the other day that Stalin and Hitler were essentialy the same man.
Certainly, the idea of Hitler and Stalin as "twin tyrants"(with Mao as their second coming a few years after) or "spiritual brothers", who are unique in the way in which they were a scourge upon the world, is quite mainstream:

http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/HitlerStalin.htm
http://www.mipt.vcu.edu/wwii.html
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/stalin/
Woah, that is some seriously weird stuff. [/b]
It's amazing what kind of bull they come up with and this shit proves it.


As to who won in WWII, one may definitely say "The Democracies".
This term does include Germany (in its entirety now).
Unfortunately, this term does not include Russia.

Actually, in perception of the Russians, their country did not participate in the Second World War. Russia waged her own, domestic war known locally as The Great Patriotic War. It was simply a coincidence that this war coincided with the Second World War.

Having overcome the Nazi adversary in this local war, Russia attacked neutral Japan when faced with Japan's imminent defeat after the American atomic bombardment, and then continued her war with the Democracies as the Cold War.

The man who returned the victory in WWII to a large part of Germany 10 years ago has been recently awarded the Grand Iron Cross by the Federal Republic of Germany. For facilitating the fall of totalitarianism and return of the victory to Czechoslovakia, that same man has been awarded the Order of White Lion by the Czech Republic. The name of this man is Mikhail Gorbachev. Next year he shall get the same recognition from Poland.

I can't believe someone actually wrote this ridicules garbage.

[Red Party]

The capitalists are scared of us, they make all sorts of propaganda to slow us down. I say we should make our own propaganda againts them.

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 12:05 pm
I can't believe someone actually wrote this ridicules garbage.
Hehe, it's insane. They seem to think that the Soviets attacked because of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima. I mean, of course it's completely possible to build up a full-scale invasion force within 2 days. :rolleyes:

[antipopdude]

This shit is disgusting, and I agree with Red Party, we need more propaganda, we gotta get ppl inside newspapers and tv.

[Red Party]

The capitalist pigs have thrown propaganda againts us long enought, it's time to strike back!

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 03:26 pm
This shit is disgusting, and I agree with Red Party, we need more propaganda, we gotta get ppl inside newspapers and tv.
Well, if you somehow managed to work your way up for years like that, and then suddenly started making communist propaganda, you'd be fired before you could say "post-modernism". There area already lots of leftists around the world organising, and of course this also involves propaganda. Papers, flags, websites, it's all there. Better join, organise and stand together than going "lone wolf" style, because of course nobody'll listen.

[which doctor]

It's time to move past Lenin anyways.

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 11:25 am
http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/HitlerStalin.htm
http://www.mipt.vcu.edu/wwii.html
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/stalin/
Funny thing is, look at how expensive they are:


60 min. Video or DVD. Sale $325 . Video rental $75

No one is going to buy that :P

[chimx]

"Like his pupils and emulators Mussolini and Hitler, Lenin won power by first breaking the spirit of those who stood in his way, persuading them that they were doomed. The Bolshevik triumph in October was accomplished nine-tenths psychologically: the forces involved were negligible, a few thousand men at most in a nation of one hundred and fifty million, and victory came almost without a shot being fired. The whole operation seemed to confirm Napoleon's dictum that the battle is won or lost in the minds of men before it even begins." -richard pipes

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 08:42 pm
"Like his pupils and emulators Mussolini and Hitler, Lenin won power by first breaking the spirit of those who stood in his way, persuading them that they were doomed. The Bolshevik triumph in October was accomplished nine-tenths psychologically: the forces involved were negligible, a few thousand men at most in a nation of one hundred and fifty million, and victory came almost without a shot being fired. The whole operation seemed to confirm Napoleon's dictum that the battle is won or lost in the minds of men before it even begins." -richard pipes
Please don't tell me that you believe the supreme anti-communist Pipes. :blink:

[Red Party]

I found this North Korea propaganda video againts the United States.
it is called "Fucking Usa".

http://www.robpongi.com/pages/comboFUCKINGUSAHI.html

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 09:57 pm

Please don't tell me that you believe the supreme anti-communist Pipes. :blink:
pipes is an eloquent historian, though i disagree with some of his conclusions, yes.

[Xiao Banfa]

The most militant unionists in urban Russia joined the bolsheviks.
This is why they won. The workers' party was the Russian Communist Party.
This is fact.

Lenin was not a machiavelli or a Stalin. He didn't use people against each other.

Richard Pipes eloquent? Maybe an eloquent liar?

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

As propaganda goes, this is pretty bad.

Let us strike back with far superior propaganda that is researched and makes sense

[Spirit of Spartacus]

I don't know about everyone, but I felt sick when I read that.

I'm not exaggerating, I really felt SICK. And sort of dizzy. I mean, shouldn't there be a damned LIMIT to propaganda nonsense? :angry:

I would never have accepted this nonsense even before I began to consider myself a Marxist. Even if I were reading about Lenin for the first time, I'd never have accepted this venomous nonsense.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

By the way, here's what the same source has to say about Ronald Reagan...

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/reagan.html


I'm quoting from Time:

Clare Boothe Luce famously said that each President is remembered for a sentence: "He freed the slaves"; "He made the Louisiana Purchase." You have to figure out your sentence, she used to tell John Kennedy, who would nod thoughtfully and then grouse when she left. Ronald Reagan knew, going in, the sentence he wanted, and he got it. He guided the American victory in the cold war. Under his leadership, a conflict that had absorbed a half-century of Western blood and treasure was ended — and the good guys finally won.

It is good to think of how he did it, because the gifts he brought to resolving the conflict reflected very much who he was as a man. He began with a common-sense conviction that the Soviets were not a people to be contained but a system to be defeated. This put him at odds with the long-held view of the foreign-policy elites in the '60s, '70s and '80s, but Reagan had an old-fashioned sense that Americans could do any good thing if God blessed the effort. Removing expansionary communism from the world stage was a right and good thing, and why would God not smile upon it?

He was a historical romantic, his biographer Edmund Morris says, and that's about right. He was one tough romantic, though. When Reagan first entered politics, in 1964, Khrushchev had already promised to bury the U.S., Sputnik had been launched and missiles placed in Cuba. It seemed reasonable to think the Soviets might someday overtake the West. By the time Reagan made a serious run for the presidency, in 1976, it was easy to think the Soviets might conquer America militarily.

But Reagan said no. When he became President, he did what he had promised for a decade to do: he said we were going to rearm, and we built up the U.S. military. He boosted defense spending to make it clear to the Soviets and the world--and to America — that the U.S. did not intend to lose.






Ooooh....just LOOK at them gushing about Reagan. :rolleyes:

[chimx]

Originally posted by Spirit of [email protected] 05, 2006 06:56 pm
I mean, shouldn't there be a damned LIMIT to propaganda nonsense? :angry:
no

[Honggweilo]

Oh damn, this one made me foul my boxers :lol:

http://www.mipt.vcu.edu/img/trio.jpg

[ReD_ReBeL]

yeah i agree. This article really does exagerate doesnt it?
But i do agree tht Lenin layed down the ground work for Stalin, towards the end of his life.

[chimx]

the article also falls far short of calling hitler lenin's protege. it is just saying they following a similar totalitarian model, which is certainly true.

[shadowed by the secret police]

Lenin was a genius!!!!----- That is why he is still the second most cited author (living or dead) in the humanities:


1. Karl Marx

2. Vladmir Lenin

3. William Shakespeare

4. Aristotle

5. The Bible

6. Plato

7. Freud

8. Noam Chomsky

9. Hegel

10. Cicero

http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/200107--.htm

"According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, between 1980 and 1992 Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar, and the eighth most cited scholar overall. [living or dead]"

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

And yet: according to a recent survey by the Institute for Scientific Information, only Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, and Freud are cited more often in academic journals than Chomsky, who edges out Hegel and Cicero. “He is staggering in his productivity,” says Dr. Edward Herman, the emeritus professor of finance who has collaborated with Chomsky on books and essays about politics, including Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. “He’s also an incredibly generous man with his time.”

[dogwoodlover]

Even my 20th Century World History teacher, who was a former journalist and a fucking indoctrinated idiot, spoke of Lenin somewhat positively.

I am not a fan of Lenin, in my opinion a lot of what went wrong in the USSR could be traced back to decisions he made in its early days. Though, what was written by Time is total bullshit, and anyone with even the remotest knowledge of who he was could easily distinguish those lies from actual truth.

The thing that amazes me more than anything else, is that most Americans believe that our news publications and television stations are in fact objective and mostly unbiased. Even when people hear fairly objective news from an independent organization they decry it as propagandha.

[Enragé]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2006 04:27 pm
It's time to move past Lenin anyways.
I agree, but this piece of propaganda really is...astonishing

how on earth can they write such blatant lies :angry:

[Faceless]

"Like his pupils and emulators Mussolini and Hitler, Lenin won power by first breaking the spirit of those who stood in his way, persuading them that they were doomed. The Bolshevik triumph in October was accomplished nine-tenths psychologically: the forces involved were negligible, a few thousand men at most in a nation of one hundred and fifty million, and victory came almost without a shot being fired. The whole operation seemed to confirm Napoleon's dictum that the battle is won or lost in the minds of men before it even begins." -richard pipes
anarchist, you truly reveal your true colours and side with the counter-revolution. That somehow Lenin won by "breaking the spirit" of the people that stood in his way in a similar manner to Mussolini and Hitler. Who are you talking about when you say this? Was the spirit of the Bourgeoisie broken? I certainly think not! the bourgeoisie and the imperialists fought tooth and nail against the Bolsheviks! Since Mussolini and Hitler were brought to power only once the spirit of the working class was crushed, I can only assume that you mean the Bolsheviks somehow came to victory because this "few thousand men" crushed the spirit of the workers and peasants! The peasants would have overrun the Bolsheviks had they not taken a favourable view to them, as peasants have been used by reactionaries to launch attacks of their own.
What your quote doesn't mention is that the Bolsheviks had a mass base, and for every comrade they had in the party, they had a hundred sympathisers.
Of course the victory was part psychological, insofar as it was only by granting land to the peasants and by fighting for the rights of the workers that they infact built this mass base.

The worst thing is, anarchist, that you totally fail to put things in class perspective (that the fascist mass base and the bolshevik mass base can be substituted for pure "psychology"), that you can't tell revolution from reaction because of it, and finally because of your terminal confusion, you end up siding with a bourgeois historian. But you aren't the first. Look at Makhno and the Kronstadt sailors.

[ReD_ReBeL]

Lenin was a genius!!!!----- That is why he is still the second most cited author (living or dead)

Yes maybe his writings were good. But someone's writings/theorys and there actualy actions/reality are 2 seperate things.

[chimx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2006 12:12 am
What your quote doesn't mention is that the Bolsheviks had a mass base, and for every comrade they had in the party, they had a hundred sympathisers.
The Bolshevik Party was a minority party if you look at actual statistics outside of Petrograd. While certainly the Bolshevik Party had a majority in the capital city, thanks in part to the collapse of the Kerensky government following the discrediting effects of the Kornilov Putsch, resulting in a swing to the far left (ie. bolsheviks, left-mensheviks, and anarchists), what you are failing to mention, and leninist sympathizers always fail to mention, is that the Bolshevik party lost the elections for the constituent assembly only a month after the October coup.

The result? Lenin dissolved the constituent assembly, knowing that the Bolsheviks wouldn't be able to command it. He then proceeded to move throughout Russia and enforce Bolshevik hegemony, banning non-bolshevik socialist political activity.


Now, just because I post a Richard Pipes quote certainly doesn't mean I believe in it. If this is really meant to be a history forum, than we need to try to objectively look at history, study the material reality, and most certainly not create useless propaganda for leninist retards such as yourself.

[Herman]

what you are failing to mention, and leninist sympathizers always fail to mention, is that the Bolshevik party lost the elections for the constituent assembly only a month after the October coup.

*sigh*


what you are failing to mention, and anarchist sympathizers always fail to mention, is that the Bolshevik party lost the elections for the constituent assembly only a month after the October coup, mostly because the constituent assembly was an old bourgeois instrument which they call 'parliament' nowadays and did not use the direct democracy which the soviets used and represented better the working class as a whole

[chimx]

if you are trying to deny the fact that the bolshevik party was anything less than a minority party outside of Petrograd and Moscow in 1917, than you need to reread some history books friend. the majority of russians (80%) were peasants. The majority of peasants supported the SRs.

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

It is impossible to gauge the exact popular support the Bolsheviks had at the time, there are too many blanks and falsified information. But clearly they had proletarian, and a very strong peasant support, yet these opinions of the people couldn't always be expressed.

According to White Army General Kolchak'I give orders to my officers to shoot all communist prisoners.’, so being a sympthasizer in White-Territory basically meant death, so thus obviously most of the Bolshevik open support came from the areas they controlled (Petrograd, etc.)

The Party was also a vanguard, and not meant to have that many members.

[counterblast]

A very interesting account, from Emma Goldman upon meeting Lenin;



I broached the subject of the Anarchists in Russia. I showed him a letter I had received from Martens, the Soviet representative in America, shortly before my deportation. Martens asserted that the Anarchists in Russia enjoyed full freedom of speech and Press. Since my arrival I found scores of Anarchists in prison and their Press suppressed. I explained that I could not think of working with the Soviet Government so long as my comrades were in prison for opinion's sake. I also told him of the resolutions of the Moscow Anarchist Conference. He listened patiently and promised to bring the matter to the attention of his party. "But as to free speech," he remarked, "that is, of course, a bourgeois notion. There can be no free speech in a revolutionary period. We have the peasantry against us because we can give them nothing in return for their bread. We will have them on our side when we have something to exchange. Then you can have all the free speech you want--but not now. Recently we needed peasants to cart some wood into the city. They demanded salt. We thought we had no salt, but then we discovered seventy poods in Moscow in one of our warehouses. At once the peasants were willing to cart the wood. Your comrades must wait until we can meet the needs of the peasants. Meanwhile, they should work with us. . . ."

[RevolutionaryMarxist]

I agree with Lenin on that. So many of the Anarchists have idealism mixed into their actions and philosophy

[Faceless]

anarchist,

Now, just because I post a Richard Pipes quote certainly doesn't mean I believe in it. If this is really meant to be a history forum, than we need to try to objectively look at history, study the material reality, and most certainly not create useless propaganda for leninist retards such as yourself.

you are starting to get touchy aren't you.
Maybe you ought not to quote such tripe, and then try to back it up with;

it is just saying they following a similar totalitarian model, which is certainly true.
when these "totalitarian model" do not even have similar patterns, nor do they draw their support even from the same classes. Indeed, the fascists drew their core support from the ruined middle classes, whereas the bolsheviks drew their most consistent support from the revolutionary working class. The Bolsheviks only began by banning the proto-fascist Black Hundred organisation; they did not originally ban any of the other parties. During the Civil War, not a few of these parties, including the Mensheviks and SR's sided with the white armies and the armies of imperialism. They were rightly banned and harrassed by the Bolsheviks.

You addressed this to someone else:

if you are trying to deny the fact that the bolshevik party was anything less than a minority party outside of Petrograd and Moscow in 1917, than you need to reread some history books friend. the majority of russians (80%) were peasants. The majority of peasants supported the SRs.
and you addressed this to me:

what you are failing to mention, and leninist sympathizers always fail to mention, is that the Bolshevik party lost the elections for the constituent assembly only a month after the October coup.
The only reason I failed to mention it was because in fact no one brought it up. If you want to play the absurd role of championing the constituent assembly, and advocating that infact October was a coup then by all means, I will take you to task. Indeed you said yourself:

While certainly the Bolshevik Party had a majority in the capital city

In fact here are some statistics for the Soviet elections which are quite illuminating:

Social Revolutionaries
June 58 %
September 14 %

Mensheviks
June 12 %
September 4 %

Kadets
June 17 %
September 26 %

Bolsheviks
June 12 %
September 51 %

These elections comprised workers and soldiers, who were mostly peasants. If you mean to suggest that the Bolsheviks did not have a mass of support and that therefore October was a mere coup, historical evidence seems to mock you.

Let us look at the class character of these parties. The SR's, as you quite rightly put it, represented the majority of the peasants, and would have received a large vote in the June elections from Soldiers. But who are these SR politicians. They came from the country and were the litterate, well-read members of these communities, not the poor peasants. These so called "socialists" were nothing more than deputies of landlords, taking a populist approach to the poor peasants who natuarlly sympathised with the socialist rhetoric they spewed.

But look carefully at the soviet elections, their is a polarisation to the Bolsheviks on the left, and the Kadets on the right. The SR's were vitually obliterated as the soldiers realised that infact only the Bolsheviks represented their interests.

It would naturally take a longer time period for the peasantry to come to realise this through experience. Therefore the constituent assembly would come to reflect an SR majority. The Bolsheviks faced a choice; either they allow the constituent assemby to be the sole holder of legislative power, and for the SR's to misrepresent the peasants, and finally defeat the revolution (indeed, the SR's did in the end move against peace and land reform). Or they could abolish this old bourgeois institution in favour of the more democratic soviets. Indeed, if the constituent assembly gave a majority, it would only be through the soviets that workers could have excercised their control over the factories, and the constituent assembly would have at best been compeltely useless.

[chimx]

fuck, the forum ate my reply. i'll try to retype it..

O. Radkey has an analysis of the Constituent Assembly elections.* Bolsheviks had 25% of the popular vote. SRs had 40%. Petrograd and Moscow went to the Bolsheviks, and many urban citizens voted for 'em (as the 51% of the soviet vote you posted suggests--though it is still a slim margin). SRs won the popular vote because of peasant support. Peasants voted on single issue lines, not because of ideological affiliation. They were more familiar with the SR land reforms, and voted for the SRs because of this. The soldier vote was split. North and Western Fronts voted with the bolsheviks. the Southern front and the Baltic Fleet voted for SRs and nationalist Ukrainian parties.

But, as Sheila Fitzpatrick says, "In democratic electoral politics, nevertheless, a loss is a loss. The Bolsheviks did ot take that view of the elections to the Constituent Assembly: they did not abdicate because they had failed to win** (and, when the Assembly met and proved hostile, they unceremoniously dispersed it).

*wikipedia has another summary of the election, giving the bolsheviks even less that 25%, and giving the SRs closer to 48% if you include ukrainian SRs: wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election,_1917)

**bare in mind that the bolsheviks seized political power as a provisional government. This was never the intention though, thus why it was a coup.

Now, i would also like to point out that just because 2/3s of the Western Front voted for Bolsheviks, that was hardly meant as a green light for single-party power. Soldiers sent delegations in November and December demanding bi-partisan socialism, the type advocated by Vikzhel. That is, they wanted real democratic soviet power, not bolshevik dominated soviets.

of course the bolshevik condemnation of the Vikzhel is clear. Following the Sovnarkom's order of arrest of Kadets, some socialists were concerned that this would be applied to other socialist parties as well. A small Polish party's representative Stanislaw Lapinski said, "The terror which the [Sovnarkom] is applying against the Kadets will in the nature of thigns be extended to parties standing to their left [ie. socialist parties]."

Trotsky's rebuttal: "You wax indignant at the naked terror which we are applying against our class enemies, but let me tell you that in one month's time at the most it will assume more frightful forms, modeled on the terror of the great French revolutionaries. Not the fortrees but the guillotine will await our enemies."

And who did the enemies of class become? all non-bolshevik socialists. The Vikzhel, Kronstadt, soviet democracy.

[The Grey Blur]

After they physcially took up arms against the bolsheviks

No?

[chimx]

well i would be pretty pissed if a political minority had the gall to assume sole political power as well. 51% of the petrograd soviet? 24% of the total population? And as has been said, a great deal of the actual bolshevik constituency still wanted multi-party soviet power.

That is no mandate.

And when the Bolsheviks simply dispersed political institutions to air grievences? When they simply closed down the constituent assembly because they couldn't dominate it? you aren't leaving advocates of socialism and democracy much of an option.

As Marx said, the dictatorship of the proletariat can certainly be achieved by democratic means if democratic institutions are in place. But remove the apparatus for popular political participation, as the Bolsheviks did, than insurrection is required.

The bolsheviks undermined soviet power, soviet democracy, and everything else that was fought for in the turbulent year of 1917. capitalists were installed in factories and socialists not inline with the bolshevik program were incarcerated.

what other option were russian socialists left with? the fortress and the guillotine?

[Louis Pio]

What should be the point of having dual power when power was in the hand of the workers. Having a bourgious organisation - constituent assembly, working on bourgious premisses, no right to recall etc. When you had the soviets?

[The Grey Blur]

Je suis d'accord ^

The Mensheviks and SRs were utterly bankrupt as 'Socialists' - they compromised and followed the beurgeois unfailingly. Again, if an organisation starts murdering your members then it's going to be harassed and banned; it's just common sense.

[chimx]

actually the bolshevik land reform policies essentially mirrored what the SR had already been advocating. that is why peasants stuck with the SRs. that is a far cry from following the bourgeoisie. Mensheviks certainly did hold the Marxist view that capitalism had to be developed in a country before a communist revolution was really possible. I find it laughable that you will try to decry the group for this, when it was the Bolshevik party that would destroy soviet democracy and install capitalist overseers in industry a few short years later.

Lastly, power was not in the hands of the workers. Democracy had been undermined, which took political power away from peasants and workers. They were left with the single choice of Bolshevik representatives. Unless you are an advocate of Bolshevism, how in the world could this be construed as worker power? Even the soldiers who advocated Bolshevism called "foul" on this because it undermined soviet democracy--which they felt to be at the heart and soul of the Russian Revolution.

[The Grey Blur]

The amount of cases were the Mensheviks & SRs sided with the beurgeois against the revolutionary workers are countless.

I don't agree with every single Bolshevik action but I do realise - through their actions (continuing the war, delay of land reform, entering into coalition with the old tsarist scum, delaying the constituent assembly, baseless lies, attacks on the Bolsheviks, etc, etc, etc) the SRs/Mensheviks can't be considered Socialists. Liberals with radical rhetoric at best. I would think an Anarchist of all people would recognise this.