Bastardised Marxism - Did the bolsheviks ruin Marxism?

[Kashmir]

What do you think about the idea of Bolshevism being a bastardised version of Marxism?

[synthesis]

No opinion, but I can tell you're either British or Australian.

[bolshevik1917]

What do YOU think Kashmir?

[Ian]

I think it was changed to suit the conditions in Russia, although not to the extent that I would call it "bastardised".

[bolshevik1917]

"Since it is not for us to create a plan for the future that will hold for all time, all the more surely, what we contemporaries have to do is the uncompromising critical evaluation of all that exists, uncompromising in the sense that our criticism fears neither its own results nor the conflict with the powers that be."

- Karl Marx, Letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843

[redstar2000]

Well, at the least, they didn't HELP all that much.

My own opinion is that the 20th century Marxists--all of them, even Stalin--made a good-faith effort to apply Marxism to the conditions under which they worked. It's "easy" for us, looking back, to point out the blunders, the fuckups, and even the crimes for which they can now be held responsible.

Still, now and then, they got a few things right and, if we read them CRITICALLY, we can learn things from them.

In OUR era, the task is to begin again, to re-imagine the communist paradigm.