Lenin

[redcannon]

Ok, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Capitalism, despite its tyrannical evil, is a necessary step and is essential to achieving communism. Correct me on any of that if I am wrong, because I'd hate to spread around false knowledge.

Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with? It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by redcannon+September 17, 2007 12:44 pm--> (redcannon @ September 17, 2007 12:44 pm)Ok, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Capitalism, despite its tyrannical evil, is a necessary step and is essential to achieving communism. Correct me on any of that if I am wrong, because I'd hate to spread around false knowledge.

[/b]
Yes you are right. Manifesto's pages might give you the reasons why.


Originally posted by [email protected]
Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with? It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.

Well you are wrong in both questions. I try to address them seperately


Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with?



The first mistake in your question was it is not Lenin who revolutionised Russia. Have you heard about February revolution. It is the first pahse of the Russian Revolution of 1917. It is almost autonomous action of workers, peasants and soldiers against the conditions brought out by the World War one.

The second phase of the revolution may be attributed to Lenin and Trotsky.

In that regard what do you think should they have done ?

Sit simply cheering bourgeoisie ? A class in the face of a revolutionary proletariat and peasantry chose to hide itself behind the forces of reactions?

That was the one proposed by the Economists,Mensheviks etc who in the Inter Imperialist war chose to side with the bourgeoisie themselves ?


It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.




Did it go ?

Stalin claimed that Soviet union have reached the first stage of Communism - Dictatorship of the proletariat or the Socialism.

But certainly not according to Lenin. In his reply to Trotsky and Bhukharin in the Trade Union discussion

Lenin
While betraying this lack of thoughtfulness, Comrade Trotsky falls into error himself. He seems to say that in a workers’ state it is not the business of the trade unions to stand up for the material and spiritual interests of the working class. That is a mistake. Comrade Trotsky speaks of a “workers’ state”. May I say that this is an abstraction. It was natural for us to write about a workers’ state in 1917; but it is now a patent error to say: “Since this is a workers’ state without any bourgeoisie, against whom then is the working class to be protected, and for what purpose?” The whole point is that it is not quite a workers’ state. That is where Comrade Trotsky makes one of his main mistakes. We have got down from general principles to practical discussion and decrees, and here we are being dragged back and prevented from tackling the business at hand. This will not do. For one thing, ours is not actually a workers’ state but a workers’ and peasants’ state. And a lot depends on that. (Bukharin : “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?”) Comrade Bukharin back there may well shout “What kind of state? A workers’ and peasants’ state?” I shall not stop to answer him. Anyone who has a mind to should recall the recent Congress of Soviets,[3] and that will be answer enough.

But that is not all. Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureacratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be carried awav by intellectualist talk or abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.

The Soviet Russia according to Lenin in 1920 was a state ready for the transformation to Socialism or Dictatorship of the Proletariat not a Socialist state or a State where the working class was the ruling class.

And everything depends on this statement.

You might be intrested why the Revolution took place in Russia rather than Industrially developed Germany or France or UK.

For which I would suggest you to read This chapter of the History of the Russian Revolution by Trotsky where he analyses the class forces behind the Russian Revolution to start up with. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch01.htm)

I would suggest you to read the subsequent chapters of that book too to understand Trotsky's argument fully.

[Hit The North]

Yes, Marxists argue that capitalism is necessary to build up the material powers of society which would make socialism possible.

Lenin's theory of imperialism explained why, as the weakest link in the imperialist chain, Russia was economically backward and lacked a vigorous bourgeoisie who could perform the historical task of building capitalism. It was therefore left to the Russian proletariat to smash the tsarist state and pull Russia into the modern world. Lenin believed that revolution in Russia could spark revolution in the West in Germany, France and Italy. He calculated that if this happened then Russia could bypass the capitalist stage and move rapidly towards socialism.

This didn't happen. The revolutionary wave in Europe receded and the Soviet Union was isolated and surrounded by hostile powers.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 07:14 am
Ok, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Capitalism, despite its tyrannical evil, is a necessary step and is essential to achieving communism. Correct me on any of that if I am wrong, because I'd hate to spread around false knowledge.

Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with? It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.
There's alot of disagreement over such self-proclaimed Communist/Socialist countries such as USSR and China.

Marx observed that pre-capitalist countries eventually become capitalist and advanced capitalist countries advance to communism/socialism. What defines a mode of production(feudalism, capitalism,socialism) is the level attained by the productive forces and the relations to the means of production. There exists a relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production. A basic description of capitalism is a system of a high development of the forces of production and a situation where the means of production are owned by a minority and whom appropriate surplus value. At the same time exists a majority whom must sell their labor power in order to acquire their means of subsistence. So we see here the emergence of two social classes, the bourgeoisie who own and control the means of production and appropriate surplus labor created by the workers and the proletariat who strive to enjoy the maximum fruits of their labor.

Russia went from Feudalism to Capitalism, no communism here...except in rhetoric.

October 1917 was essentially a bourgeoisie coup.

Because of the Leninist model, the society is not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a dictatorship over the proletariat. The vanguard party can no longer represent the working class, because theory follows that people follow their own class interests. The vanguard's class interest will be to stay in power and not give it fully to the masses where it belonged all along. As in the case of Russia. Why aren't the vanguard party no longer working class?

Class is defined in Marxist terms as the person's relation to the means of production. This means they are no longer working class, but they are the ones that are appropriating the surplus labor. Cough, cough, *bourgeoisie*.
So in essence, October 1917 replaced the old ruling class with a new one. The Bolshevik became the new ruling class. Coordinator or bourgeoisie, whatever you wanna call it, the Bolshevik bureaucracy was no longer working class in regards to their relations to production and therefore could not represent it. They had different class interests.

So what we see here, is two social classes still in existence. Communism is a classless society.

Strike one.

There was wage labor, production of commodities, alienation of labor.

Strike two,three, four,five...stop swinging already!

In short, the material conditions did not exist for a transition towards communism. The stage was set, however, for the emergence and growth of capitalism in Russia. :star:

[Led Zeppelin]

An interesting subject, here is the Marxist view of it:


Originally posted by Lenin+--> (Lenin)First — the revolution connected with the first imperialist world war. Such revolution was bound to reveal new features, or variations, resulting from the war itself, the world has never seen such a war in such a situation. We find that since the war the bourgeoisie of the wealthiest countries have to this day been unable to restore "normal" bourgeois relations. Yet our reformists — petty-bourgeois who make a show of being revolutionaries — believed, and still believe, that normal bourgeois relations are the limit (thus far shalt thou go and no farther). And even their conception of "normal" is extremely stereotyped and narrow.

Secondly, they are complete strangers to the idea that while the development of world history as a whole follows general laws it is by no means precluded, but, on the contrary, presumed, that certain periods of development may display peculiarities in either the form or the sequence of this development. For instance, it has not even occurred to them that because Russia stands on the borderline between civilized countries and the countries which this war has for the first time definitely brought into the orbit of civilization — all the Oriental, non-European countries — she could and was, indeed, bound to reveal certain distinguishing features; although these, of course, are in keeping with the general line of world development, they distinguish her revolution from those which took place in the West European countries and introduce certain partial innovations as the revolution moves on to the countries of the East.

Infinitely stereotyped, for instance, is the argument they learned by rote during the development of West-European Social-Democracy, namely, that we are not yet ripe for socialism, but as certain "learned" gentleman among them put it, the objective economic premises for socialism do not exist in our country. Does it not occur to any of them to ask: what about the people that found itself in a revolutionary situation such as that created during the first imperialist war? Might it not, influenced by the hopelessness of its situation, fling itself into a struggle that would offer it at least some chance of securing conditions for the further development of civilization that were somewhat unusual?

"The development of the productive forces of Russia has not yet attained the level that makes socialism possible." All the heroes of the Second International, including, of course, Sukhanov, beat the drums about this proposition. They keep harping on this incontrovertible proposition in a thousand different keys, and think that it is decisive criterion of our revolution.

But what if the situation, which drew Russia into the imperialist world war that involved every more or less influential West European country and made her a witness of the eve of the revolutions maturing or partly already begun in the East, gave rise to circumstances that put Russia and her development in a position which enabled us to achieve precisely that combination of a "peasant war" with the working-class movement suggested in 1856 by no less a Marxist than Marx himself as a possible prospect for Prussia?

What if the complete hopelessness of the situation, by stimulating the efforts of the workers and peasants tenfold, offered us the opportunity to create the fundamental requisites of civilization in a different way from that of the West European countries? Has that altered the general line of development of world history? Has that altered the basic relations between the basic classes of all the countries that are being, or have been, drawn into the general course of world history?

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 began by first achieving the prerequisites for that definite level of culture in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid of the workers' and peasants' government and Soviet system, proceed to overtake the other nations?[/b]
Our Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/16.htm)


Gramsci
The Bolshevik Revolution consists more of ideologies than of events. (And hence, at bottom, we do not really need to know more than we do.) This is the revolution against Karl Marx's Capital. In Russia, Marx's Capital was more the book of the bourgeoisie than of the proletariat. It stood as the critical demonstration of how events should follow a predetermined course: how in Russia a bourgeoisie had to develop, and a capitalist era had to open, with the setting-up of a Western-type civilization, before the proletariat could even think in terms of its own revolt, its own class demands, its own revolution. But events have overcome ideologies. Events have exploded the critical schema determining how the history of Russia would unfold according to the canons of historical materialism. The Bolsheviks reject Karl Marx, and their explicit actions and conquests bear witness that the canons of historical materialism are not so rigid as might have been and has been thought.

And yet there is a fatality even in these events, and if the Bolsheviks reject some of the statements in Capital, they do not reject its invigorating, immanent thought. These people are not "Marxists", that is all; they have not used the works of the Master to compile a rigid doctrine of dogmatic utterances never to be questioned. They live Marxist thought - that thought which is eternal, which represents the continuation of German and Italian idealism, and which in the case of Marx was contaminated by positivist and naturalist encrustations. This thought sees as the dominant factor in history, not raw economic facts, but man, men in societies, men in relation to one another, reaching agreements with one another, developing through these contacts (civilization) a collective, social will; men coming to understand economic facts, judging them and adapting them to their will until this becomes the driving force of the economy and moulds objective reality, which lives and moves and comes to resemble a current of volcanic lava that can be channelled wherever and in whatever way men's will determines.

Marx foresaw the foreseeable. But he could not foresee the European war, or rather he could not foresee that the war would last as long as it has or have the effects it has had. He could not foresee that in the space of three years of unspeakable suffering and miseries, this war would have aroused in Russia the collective popular will that it has aroused. In normal times a lengthy process of gradual diffusion through society is needed for such a collective will to form; a wide range of class experience is needed. Men are lazy, they need to be organized, first externally into corporations and leagues, then internally, within their thought and their will [...] need a ceaseless continuity and multiplicity of external stimuli.

This is why, under normal conditions, the canons of Marxist historical criticism grasp reality, capture and clarify it. Under normal conditions the two classes of the capitalist world create history through an ever more intensified class struggle. The proletariat is sharply aware of its poverty and its ever-present discomfort and puts pressure on the bourgeoisie to improve its living standards. It enters into struggle, and forces the bourgeoisie to improve the techniques of production and make it more adapted to meeting the urgent needs of the proletariat. The result is a headlong drive for improvement, an acceleration of the rhythm of production, and a continually increasing output of goods useful to society. And in this drive many fall by the wayside, so making the needs of those who are left more urgent; the masses are forever in a state of turmoil, and out of this chaos they develop some order in their thoughts, and become ever more conscious of their own potential, of their own capacity to shoulder social responsibility and become the arbiters of their own destiny.

This is what happens under normal conditions. When events are repeated with a certain regularity. When history develops through stages which, though ever more complex and richer in significance and value, are nevertheless similar. But in Russia the war galvanized the people's will. As a result of the sufferings accumulated over three years, their will became as one almost overnight. Famine was imminent, and hunger, death from hunger could claim anyone, could crush tens of millions of men at one stroke. Mechanically at first, then actively and consciously after the first revolution, the people's will became as one.

Socialist propaganda put the Russian people in contact with the experience of other proletariats. Socialist propaganda could bring the history of the proletariat dramatically to life in a moment: its struggles against capitalism, the lengthy series of efforts required to emancipate it completely from the chains of servility that made it so abject and to allow it to forge a new consciousness and become a testimony today to a world yet to come. It was socialist propaganda that forged the will of the Russian people. Why should they wait for the history of England to be repeated in Russia, for the bourgeoisie to arise, for the class struggle to begin, so that class consciousness may be formed and the final catastrophe of the capitalist world eventually hit them? The Russian people - or at least a minority of the Russian people - has already passed through these experiences in thought. It has gone beyond them. It will make use of them now to assert itself just as it will make use of Western capitalist experience to bring itself rapidly to the same level of production as the Western world.

In capitalist terms, North America is more advanced than England, because the Anglo-Saxons in North America took off at once from the level England had reached only after long evolution. Now the Russian proletariat, socialistically educated, will begin its history at the highest level England has reached today. Since it has to start from scratch, it will start from what has been perfected elsewhere, and hence will be driven to achieve that level of economic maturity which Marx considered to be a necessary condition for collectivism. The revolutionaries themselves will create the conditions needed for the total achievement of their goal. And they will create them faster than capitalism could have done. The criticisms that socialists have made of the bourgeois system, to emphasize its imperfections and its squandering of wealth, can now be applied by the revolutionaries to do better, to avoid the squandering and not fall prey to the imperfections.

It will at first be a collectivism of poverty and suffering. But a bourgeois regime would have inherited the same conditions of poverty and suffering. Capitalism could do no more immediately than collectivism in Russia. In fact today it would do a lot less, since it would be faced immediately by a discontented and turbulent proletariat, a proletariat no longer able to support on behalf of others the suffering and privation that economic dislocation would bring in its wake. So even in absolute, human terms, socialism now can be justified in Russia. The hardships that await them after the peace will be bearable only if the proletarians feel they have things under their own control and know that by their efforts they can reduce these hardships in the shortest possible time.
The Revolution Against 'Capital' (http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/1917/12/rev_against_capital.htm)

Excuse the use of lengthy quotes.

[Vargha Poralli]

October 1917 was essentially a bourgeoisie coup.

You know it is really getting old and boring. Can you come up with something new ?



In short, the material conditions did not exist for a transition towards communism. The stage was set, however, for the emergence and growth of capitalism in Russia.

Some questions

What is the exact material condition for transition towards communism ?

Which country had it in 1917 ?

Why did advanced capitalist countries didn't have a succesfull revolution as Russian Revolution ?

What in your opinion should the Lenin and Bolsheviks done in 1917 ? Just leave the revolution to the fascists(Kornilov) like the Mensheviks and whole of the second international did ?

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 03:45 pm
October 1917 was essentially a bourgeoisie coup.
A bourgeois coup without the involvement of the bourgeois? No, actually, with the staunch opposition of the bourgeoisie?

Oh wait, let me guess, the Bolsheviks were part of the bourgeoisie, right? In that case, explain why one faction of the bourgeoisie was against the provisional government (a bourgeois model of government, historically), and fought for the rights of workers, poor peasants, and against the rights of the bourgeois class, even though they could've just settled with the provisional government.

Good luck with that.



Strike one.

There was wage labor, production of commodities, alienation of labor.

Production of commodities? So in communism no commodities will be produced?

You're very confused.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Blackstone, your post is soaked in logical fallacies and conscious deceptions. You display a lack of knowledge in historical materialist understanding when you draw such outrageous conclusions.


“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.”

Marx was writing about a capitalist society that had developed to a point where the general satisfaction of life’s primary needs and wants was already possible on a technical basis. This did not exist in Russia. Lenin observed that, the relationship of the state and laws, and the economic development in a given time, would be bourgeois in character whether he liked it or not unless an international partnership is established between a federation of socialist republics. So often, left communists and anarchists grade him on a moral scale, devoiding themselves of these material conditions that surrounded these historical actors.

The path that lead to the reinstitution of bourgeois managers, and their subsequent seiuzre of the political apparatus out of the hands of the proletariat, is founded on material facts, rather than the "idea" of Bolshevism. There were millions of Marxists that were responsible for transfering power to the Soviets in October that were slaughtered and deported by Stalin. As Trotsky said, "there is not a thin line, but a whole river of blood that divides Lenin from Stalin."

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 07:14 am
Ok, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Capitalism, despite its tyrannical evil, is a necessary step and is essential to achieving communism. Correct me on any of that if I am wrong, because I'd hate to spread around false knowledge.

Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with? It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.
The bourgeoisie class of Russia was too cowardly and did not have strong enough leadership to lead the transition to capitalism. Furthermore, the workers demanded power and Lenin and the Bolshevik party would have been right-wing opportunists if they had not swung themselves into line behind the revolution.

Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution was developed in response to that question, I believe.

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 07:14 am
Ok, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that Capitalism, despite its tyrannical evil, is a necessary step and is essential to achieving communism. Correct me on any of that if I am wrong, because I'd hate to spread around false knowledge.

Why is it, then, that Lenin revolutionized a country that had not undergone Capitalism to begin with? It seems to me that Russia went from Feudalism to "communism" without having capitalism.
Russia went from feudalism to capitalism, the Bolsheviks accelerated that process faster than it occurred in most other countries in the world.

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 07:53 pm


Marx was writing about a capitalist society that had developed to a point where the general satisfaction of life’s primary needs and wants was already possible on a technical basis. This did not exist in Russia. Lenin observed that, the relationship of the state and laws, and the economic development in a given time, would be bourgeois in character whether he liked it or not unless an international partnership is established between a federation of socialist republics. So often, left communists and anarchists grade him on a moral scale, devoiding themselves of these material conditions that surrounded these historical actor
Then please explain both Trotsky and Lenin's enthusiasm for Taylorism, one-man management and the other measures that were brought in before the civil war.

You can bleat about "material conditions" all you like. I can agree that given the international situation the revolution in Russia would have failed. That's not an adequate explanation of why it's failure was down to a counter-revolution from within rather than the Whites, for this we have to look at the social democratic politics of Lenin, who never really broke from Kautsky. It's also important to understand why the base organisations of workers - the factory committees, soviets, mass assemblies - why these failed to mount a significant challenge to the centralisation of party control, and the absorption of these organisations into the state.



The path that lead to the reinstitution of bourgeois managers, and their subsequent seiuzre of the political apparatus out of the hands of the proletariat, is founded on material facts, rather than the "idea" of Bolshevism. There were millions of Marxists that were responsible for transfering power to the Soviets in October that were slaughtered and deported by Stalin. As Trotsky said, "there is not a thin line, but a whole river of blood that divides Lenin from Stalin."

Lenin, October 1917:


You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state- monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!


Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.


The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards socialism.


The dialectics of history is such that the war, by extraordinarily expediting the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism, has thereby extraordinarily advanced mankind towards socialism.

There's plenty more examples, that's just one document. So we see, that in October Lenin was enthusiastically in favour of state capitalism - that he thought this tendency had to be developed (nationalisation of industry into state monopolies etc.). Not forced by circumstance, by "material conditions", but a central part of his ideology. This isn't a moral condemnation, it's simply pointing out the obvious.

[catch]

Originally posted by Led [email protected] 17, 2007 05:20 pm
Production of commodities? So in communism no commodities will be produced?

You're very confused.
Commodity denotes a social relation - alienated labour, use-value and exchange-value. It's not simply an equivalent term for "goods" or "products". Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of Capital deals with this, but like many of the "Marxists" on this site you must have missed that bit and instead taken on the worst distortions of bourgeios economists.


The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.

I highly recommend it.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...-c1/ch01.htm#S1 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1)

[Red Rebel]

In the mid 19th century most Western Europeans countries underwent industrialization and a further development of capitalism. Russia remained in a Feudal state. It was not until the late 19th century/early 20th century that Russia started to industrialize very quickly. Although still not at the level the West was, horrendous industrial conditiontons developed in St. Petersburg & Moscow: the result was a revolutionary working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+September 17, 2007 10:20 am--> (Led Zeppelin @ September 17, 2007 10:20 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 03:45 pm
October 1917 was essentially a bourgeoisie coup.
A bourgeois coup without the involvement of the bourgeois? No, actually, with the staunch opposition of the bourgeoisie?

Oh wait, let me guess, the Bolsheviks were part of the bourgeoisie, right? In that case, explain why one faction of the bourgeoisie was against the provisional government (a bourgeois model of government, historically), and fought for the rights of workers, poor peasants, and against the rights of the bourgeois class, even though they could've just settled with the provisional government.

Good luck with that.



Strike one.

There was wage labor, production of commodities, alienation of labor.

Production of commodities? So in communism no commodities will be produced?

You're very confused. [/b]
^^^ To be honest, I would've actually thought about his remark a lot more if he said "petit-bourgeois coup," considering the class nature of peasants everywhere. He also mentioned "coordinators" (typical parecon talk, although the petit-bourgeoisie are not a homogeneous class, not as homogeneous as the bourgeois folks above them). On the other hand, that could still be shot down by the mere fact that the peasants supported the SRs and regional "anarchists" more than they did the Bolsheviks (whose core support was indeed the Russian proletariat).


catch
Then please explain both Trotsky and Lenin's enthusiasm for Taylorism, one-man management and the other measures that were brought in before the civil war.

At least you're hinting at possible petit-bourgeois influences seeping into the Bolsheviks (myself being somewhere between a left-commie and a traditional Leninist offshoot). g.ram also hinted at Lenin's constant calls for the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, although I have to disagree with his implication that it's compatible with "permanent revolution."

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by catch+September 17, 2007 11:30 pm--> (catch @ September 17, 2007 11:30 pm) Commodity denotes a social relation - alienated labour, use-value and exchange-value. It's not simply an equivalent term for "goods" or "products". Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of Capital deals with this, but like many of the "Marxists" on this site you must have missed that bit and instead taken on the worst distortions of bourgeios economists. [/b]
Don't act like you're some kindof genius of Marxism when you clearly have no clue what you're talking about:


Marx
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

The general use of the term commodity implies just that. You may give some other meanings to it but that is irrelevant, since my point was clearly that commodity production means the production of goods or as Marx said "a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another".

Nice try though trying to sound smart, too bad you utterly failed at it.

[PRC-UTE]

October 1917 was essentially a bourgeoisie coup.

it was a time of dual power, with workers organisations vying for power against the bourgeoisie... so this was a 'coup' involving millions of striking workers and revolutionary workers militias? :huh:

Marx thought a workers revolution would immediately follow a bourgeois one. The bourgeois revolution in Russia happened in February of 1917, the workers' revolution was formally victorious in October 1917.

all this stuff about "russia wasn't capitalist so it couldn't have a revolution" is crude materialism, the kind that prompted marx to disassociate from official Marxism. what some do is fetishise aspects of bourgeois society that carried over to the soviet one... but of course this would be fully expected by marx.

whats with the discussion on commodoties? a commodity is simply any product that is created for a purpose other than consumption, such as trade or sale.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:20 pm
Then please explain both Trotsky and Lenin's enthusiasm for Taylorism, one-man management and the other measures that were brought in before the civil war.

You can bleat about "material conditions" all you like. I can agree that given the international situation the revolution in Russia would have failed. That's not an adequate explanation of why it's failure was down to a counter-revolution from within rather than the Whites, for this we have to look at the social democratic politics of Lenin, who never really broke from Kautsky. It's also important to understand why the base organisations of workers - the factory committees, soviets, mass assemblies - why these failed to mount a significant challenge to the centralisation of party control, and the absorption of these organisations into the state.



The path that lead to the reinstitution of bourgeois managers, and their subsequent seiuzre of the political apparatus out of the hands of the proletariat, is founded on material facts, rather than the "idea" of Bolshevism. There were millions of Marxists that were responsible for transfering power to the Soviets in October that were slaughtered and deported by Stalin. As Trotsky said, "there is not a thin line, but a whole river of blood that divides Lenin from Stalin."

Lenin, October 1917:


You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state- monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!


Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.


The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards socialism.


The dialectics of history is such that the war, by extraordinarily expediting the transformation of monopoly capitalism into state-monopoly capitalism, has thereby extraordinarily advanced mankind towards socialism.

There's plenty more examples, that's just one document. So we see, that in October Lenin was enthusiastically in favour of state capitalism - that he thought this tendency had to be developed (nationalisation of industry into state monopolies etc.). Not forced by circumstance, by "material conditions", but a central part of his ideology. This isn't a moral condemnation, it's simply pointing out the obvious.
Are you arguing that there was no need to develop the material and cultural level of the masses after the seizure of the political power? I don't know if you noticed this, but the entire country was facing complete societal and economic breakdown; the railroads were destroyed, petroleum was scarce, the kulaks were withhelding grain supplies for months to raise prices while famine was roaring in the cities, and the entire economic infastructure was exhausted and wrecked. It was already a country that had no industry, and lacked modern techniques in agriculture, it was a formula that equaled nothing but sheer economic and historical backwardness.

I don't see an alternative to what they did, should they have just maintained small, homescale production? It should be noted that these capitalistic functions were subordinated to the local Soviets, whom played a part in the determining planning. You can't judge the Bolsheviks on the grounds of democratic moral culpability, but on what had to be done, whether they liked it or not. The critics of the Bolsheviks do not understand that only forces bigger than any one individual determined what had to be done.

Lenin was flexible. Trotsky was too. They did not recognize central planning as an end to itself, but as a means to arriving to their point. It wasn't that integral to their theories anyway, it was just a mere acknowledgement of the subjective obstacles that they would run into after the seize of the political power. The basic historical tasks of the bourgeoisie in Russia was not ever realized, and was in fact incapable of being realized, so they had to recognize necessary steps before they reach socialism.


" Insofar as the state which assumes the task of socialist transformation is compelled to defend inequality—that is, the material privileges of a minority—by methods of compulsion, insofar does it also remain a "bourgeois" state, even though without a bourgeoisie. These words contain neither praise nor blame; they name things with their real name.

The bourgeois norms of distribution, by hastening the growth of material power, ought to serve socialist aims—but only in the last analysis. The state assumes directly and from the very beginning a dual character: socialistic, insofar as it defends social property in the means of production; bourgeois, insofar as the distribution of life’s goods is carried out with a capitalistic measure of value and all the consequences ensuing therefrom. Such a contradictory characterization may horrify the dogmatists and scholastics; we can only offer them our condolences.

The final physiognomy of the workers’ state ought to be determined by the changing relations between its bourgeois and socialist tendencies. The triumph of the latter ought ipso facto to signify the final liquidation of the gendarme—that is, the dissolving of the state in a self-governing society. From this alone it is sufficiently clear how immeasurably significant is the problem of Soviet bureaucratism, both in itself and as a system!"

In other words, as international support increased, they could begin the "final liquidation of the gendarme", which would in turn deduce the reliance on the bureaucratic stratum, and the centralization that is accompanied with it.


"What distinguished Bolshevism was that it subordinated the subjective goal, the defense of the interests of the popular masses, to the laws of revolution as an objectively conditioned process. The scientific discovery of these laws, and first of all those which govern the movement of popular masses, constituted the basis of the Bolshevik strategy. The toilers are guided their struggle not only by their demands, not only by their needs, but by their life experiences. Bolshevism had absolutely no taint of any aristocratic scorn for the independent experience of the masses. On the contrary, the Bolsheviks took this for their point of departure and built upon it. That was one of their great points of superiority."

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by PRC-[email protected] 18, 2007 02:47 am
whats with the discussion on commodoties? a commodity is simply any product that is created for a purpose other than consumption, such as trade or sale.
Apparently catch and blackstone believe that commodity production does not occur in a socialist society, as it is inherent in capitalism alone. That seems to be the problem because they both claim that the USSR wasn't socialist because it had commodity production...

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Hammer
g.ram also hinted at Lenin's constant calls for the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, although I have to disagree with his implication that it's compatible with "permanent revolution."


I would suggest you to read Bolshevik Revolution volume by E.H.Carr to understand my viewpoint.I would exactly point out the page and chapter once I get hold of the copy.

In my opinion there is no difference between what Lenin and Trotsky advocated in 1917 whatever disagreements they had before. And the difference between the DDotPP and Permanet Revolution in practice.

And I have changed my name :P

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Vargha [email protected] 18, 2007 12:55 am
I would suggest you to read Bolshevik Revolution volume by E.H.Carr to understand my viewpoint.I would exactly point out the page and chapter once I get hold of the copy.

In my opinion there is no difference between what Lenin and Trotsky advocated in 1917 whatever disagreements they had before. And the difference between the DDotPP and Permanet Revolution in practice.

And I have changed my name :P
^^^ Psst. - I was once a Trotskyist, so I know what you're talking about. ;) :D

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by Hammer+September 18, 2007 07:29 pm--> (Hammer @ September 18, 2007 07:29 pm)
Vargha [email protected] 18, 2007 12:55 am
I would suggest you to read Bolshevik Revolution volume by E.H.Carr to understand my viewpoint.I would exactly point out the page and chapter once I get hold of the copy.

In my opinion there is no difference between what Lenin and Trotsky advocated in 1917 whatever disagreements they had before. And the difference between the DDotPP and Permanet Revolution in practice.

And I have changed my name :P
^^^ Psst. - I was once a Trotskyist, so I know what you're talking about. ;) :D [/b]
I wonder what makes you to disagree on that point then ? :unsure:

And I also think that both Lenin's viewpoint and Trotsky's viewpoint are are not completely applicable today. Because IMO there is no country that has the specific condition of the Russia in 1917. We all live in global capitalist system and all the democratic tasks are initiated by the capitalists class themselves(specifically in the case of India)

But I do agree that we should complete those democratic tasks and make sure all those things should reach the people before the revolution can be said to be a "Permanent" one.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by Vargha [email protected] 18, 2007 07:23 am
I wonder what makes you to disagree on that point then ? :unsure:

And I also think that both Lenin's viewpoint and Trotsky's viewpoint are are not completely applicable today. Because IMO there is no country that has the specific condition of the Russia in 1917. We all live in global capitalist system and all the democratic tasks are initiated by the capitalists class themselves(specifically in the case of India)
When I started on this board, I read one of Severian's posts, and I still have my profile link to Communist Voice (please read my profile and visit the link). Notwithstanding my issues regarding the relationship between so many Trotskyist movements and sectarianism, said info above revealed a lot about who was really right on the issue of RDDotPP vs. permanent revolution. Lenin critiqued Kamenev (his "retraction") before he made that statement above about the distinction between a workers' state and a workers' and peasants' state (at around the time of the NEP).

Then there's some left-communist stuff that Leo and I have been discussing privately, in regards to both theories' relationship to the decadence of capitalism, and how the peasants did play a constructive enough role during the ascendancy so as to nullify Trotsky's insistence on merely "leaning on the peasantry" (compared to a full alliance during the ascendancy period).

You are right in your second sentence, though: just as Lenin's overemphasis on colonialism for the political aspect of imperialism hasn't "stood the test of time" (per an ICC quote on Luxemburg's vs. Lenin's imperialism), the RDDotPP isn't as relevant today (and you'll note my earlier "anti-peasant diatribe" that was aimed primarily at the petit-bourgeois-natured small farmers in the developed countries).

[blackstone]

Production of commodities? So in communism no commodities will be produced?


That's like saying, "Wage labor? So in communism there is no wage-labor? Your confused."

I think your the one whose confused or has a misunderstanding of communism and the word commodities. If it's the latter, there's a section on revleft called Learning and ComradeRed is helping others with Economics and the first chapter of Das Kapital. You should definately check it out.

A commodity in Marxist terms is any good or service produced by human labor and offered as a product for general sale on the market. A communist society would not produce products or services for sale, but would be produced for use.



Marx was writing about a capitalist society that had developed to a point where the general satisfaction of life’s primary needs and wants was already possible on a technical basis. This did not exist in Russia. Lenin observed that, the relationship of the state and laws, and the economic development in a given time, would be bourgeois in character whether he liked it or not unless an international partnership is established between a federation of socialist republics. So often, left communists and anarchists grade him on a moral scale, devoiding themselves of these material conditions that surrounded these historical actors.

I don't know what your talking about because i agree with you. I don't know what your talking about me judging Lenin's morales or character. I never met the guy. The material conditions did not exist in Russia at that time. I however, don't understand the bold sentence. What are you trying to imply?

Of course the resinstitution of the bourgeoisie is grounded on material conditions.

Your arguing with me over things, i accept and agree with. But to ignore the Bolshevik's role in this process is to ignore history!

and LMAO at Led Zeppelin quoting that Marx passage. He was talking about use value in that small selection, which is one of the major attributes of a commodity; albeit the most important. That's why Marx says, "A commodity is, in the first place,". A commodity must have a use value. Otherwise what's the point of producing it? :D

[Labor Shall Rule]

Well, if you agree with me, don't call October a 'bourgeois coup' or claim that the 'Leninist vanguard model' lead to the bureaucratization of the revolution.

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 07:35 pm
Well, if you agree with me, don't call October a 'bourgeois coup' or claim that the 'Leninist vanguard model' lead to the bureaucratization of the revolution.
October 25 1917 was a bourgeois coup and the leninist vanguard model leads to the bureaucratization of the revolutiuon.

Now what? :rolleyes:

[ComradeRed]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+September 17, 2007 05:35 pm--> (Led Zeppelin @ September 17, 2007 05:35 pm)
Originally posted by catch+September 17, 2007 11:30 pm--> (catch @ September 17, 2007 11:30 pm) Commodity denotes a social relation - alienated labour, use-value and exchange-value. It's not simply an equivalent term for "goods" or "products". Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of Capital deals with this, but like many of the "Marxists" on this site you must have missed that bit and instead taken on the worst distortions of bourgeios economists. [/b]
Don't act like you're some kindof genius of Marxism when you clearly have no clue what you're talking about:


[email protected]
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

The general use of the term commodity implies just that. You may give some other meanings to it but that is irrelevant, since my point was clearly that commodity production means the production of goods or as Marx said "a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another".

Nice try though trying to sound smart, too bad you utterly failed at it.[/b]
No, there's more to a commodity than it "satisfies a want".

Remember it has two properties: use-value, the "satisfying a want"-property; and exchange-value..."value in exchange".

This is even indicated by the title of section 1 of chapter 1 of volume 1 of Das Kapital: "THE TWO FACTORS OF A COMMODITY: USE-VALUE AND VALUE".

The use of the term commodity implies a class society which produces commodities for exchange as opposed to, e.g., for use.

Remember the last paragraph of that section:
Marx
A thing can be a use value, without having value. This is the case whenever its utility to man is not due to labour. Such are air, virgin soil, natural meadows, &c. A thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity. Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates, indeed, use values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use values, but use values for others, social use values. (And not only for others, without more. The mediaeval peasant produced quit-rent-corn for his feudal lord and tithe-corn for his parson. But neither the quit-rent-corn nor the tithe-corn became commodities by reason of the fact that they had been produced for others. To become a commodity a product must be transferred to another, whom it will serve as a use value, by means of an exchange.)[12] Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value. --emphasis added

From Das Kapital, vol. I, Chapter 1, Section 1 (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1) by Karl Marx (1867).

Usefulness does not make an object a commodity, Marx states this explicitly.

[catch]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+September 18, 2007 01:35 am--> (Led Zeppelin @ September 18, 2007 01:35 am)
Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 11:30 pm
Commodity denotes a social relation - alienated labour, use-value and exchange-value. It's not simply an equivalent term for "goods" or "products". Chapter 1 of Volume 1 of Capital deals with this, but like many of the "Marxists" on this site you must have missed that bit and instead taken on the worst distortions of bourgeios economists.
Don't act like you're some kindof genius of Marxism when you clearly have no clue what you're talking about:


Marx
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference. Neither are we here concerned to know how the object satisfies these wants, whether directly as means of subsistence, or indirectly as means of production.

The general use of the term commodity implies just that. You may give some other meanings to it but that is irrelevant, since my point was clearly that commodity production means the production of goods or as Marx said "a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another".

Nice try though trying to sound smart, too bad you utterly failed at it. [/b]
No, Marx there is talking about the commodity as something abstracted from specific human desires - again, alienation. Since in capitalism there are still articles which satisfy human desires, but aren't commodities. As pointed out above, this was part of a discussion about the dual nature of value, that one little sentence out of context shows you haven't read it properly (at least I hope that's the case, then you still have a good chance of catching up).

I'm not a marxist, but if you're going to call yourself one, then you'd do well use words like this more carefully.

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 03:00 am
Are you arguing that there was no need to develop the material and cultural level of the masses after the seizure of the political power?
The factory committees were having a good go at this, as were initiatives like the Proletkult movement.



I don't know if you noticed this, but the entire country was facing complete societal and economic breakdown; the railroads were destroyed, petroleum was scarce, the kulaks were withhelding grain supplies for months to raise prices while famine was roaring in the cities, and the entire economic infastructure was exhausted and wrecked. It was already a country that had no industry, and lacked modern techniques in agriculture, it was a formula that equaled nothing but sheer economic and historical backwardness.
The country had some of the largest factories in Europe, mainly in Petrograd, with modern machinery and organisation of labour compared to many other places. As to the "Kulaks" - actually a lot of peasants reverted to subsistence farming because they were pissed off with forced grain requisition - this is far more complicated than a few Kulaks doing price speculation and it's a shame to simplify it to that extent. Again, the factory committees during 1917 were organising trips to the country to buy grain directly, even keeping allotments and animals themselves - on a tiny scale but more fruitful if continued than what happened later.


I don't see an alternative to what they did, should they have just maintained small, homescale production?
Factories with tens of thousands of workers, "small, homescale production".


You can't judge the Bolsheviks on the grounds of democratic moral culpability
I haven't.

but on what had to be done, whether they liked it or not.
I don't dispute that there would've been a collapse of workers control sooner or later with the prevailing conditions, what I'm arguing is the Bolsheviks' enthusiastic role in carrying this out. That there would be a counter-revolution isn't really in question, but the counter-revolution from within led to one of the biggest mystificiations of the twentieth century and neutered a whole range of later struggles in the name of the working classs.


Lenin was flexible. Trotsky was too. They did not recognize central planning as an end to itself, but as a means to arriving to their point. It wasn't that integral to their theories anyway, it was just a mere acknowledgement of the subjective obstacles that they would run into after the seize of the political power. The basic historical tasks of the bourgeoisie in Russia was not ever realized, and was in fact incapable of being realized, so they had to recognize necessary steps before they reach socialism.
Well here you just agree with me, except it certainly was integral. On that level of logic we could say the Mensheviks were quite sensible as well then no?

[catch]

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin+September 18, 2007 03:47 am--> (Led Zeppelin @ September 18, 2007 03:47 am)
PRC-[email protected] 18, 2007 02:47 am
whats with the discussion on commodoties? a commodity is simply any product that is created for a purpose other than consumption, such as trade or sale.
Apparently catch and blackstone believe that commodity production does not occur in a socialist society, as it is inherent in capitalism alone. That seems to be the problem because they both claim that the USSR wasn't socialist because it had commodity production... [/b]
For many reasons apart from just that one. Wages, class society, strikes - all these persisted in the USSR.

[Labor Shall Rule]

It was a bourgeois coup?

The allegation of a putsch is ahistorical; a profound disconnection with the actual events and how they unfolded.

The Bolsheviks were the periphery of the most advanced section of the working class. In the coming years before the 'coup', delegates from the party had obtained seats in interim directing boards of the leading unions in the industrial centers of the country, and they also sold more copies of their periodical, Pravda, then any other political party in the country at that time. They promoted worker's control moreso than any other political grouping at that time besides the anarchists - they published flyers and directions in their newspaper that instructed the experiences of workers that seized their factories, plants, and mines. This is why, for the most part, that a majority of the delegates at the All-Russian Congress of Factory Committees were Bolsheviks. By the end of the year, the party was mostly composed of exceptional workers who played an integral role in determining party policy. The Soviets even voted on whether to seize power or not shortly after the Kornilov Plot, which of course, determined that there should be a transfer of control from the Provisional Government to the Soviets.

If it would of collapsed 'sooner or later', don't you think it would of been necessary to have the material ability to even protect themselves against the forces of capitalist reaction, which were beginning to encircle Russia before the Soviets even decided to overthrow the bourgeois government? If you read the findings of British observers, and even workers themselves, you would discover that many factories and plants weren't even running under worker's control; due to a scarcity of petroleum, as well as external obstacles, such as the civil war and famine, they had completely shut down. There were also incidents of workers being involved in in-fighting with each other over control of vital resources that the workplaces needed to operate. In the final analysis, the rule of the working class is only assured when it is materially possible for the working class to dissolve itself as a class, therefore, we do not stick to moralistic garbage on our principles, but first and foremost, on the reality of the situation in which we are trying to put our principles into practice. The economic problems (to which all political problems are tied) were at that time insurmountable. It seems that you don't 'object' with my premise that Russia needed to be developed, but you can demand with full force on the one hand an immediate solution to all economic problems and then cringe when those solutions take political forms that don't align with the ideals of 'worker's democracy'.

The Mensheviks were never sensible, that is a retarded argument. The Leninist vanguard party is not an arbitrary or pragmatic amalgam of organizational procedures, but the direct outcome of the class struggle, the recognized leadership of the entire working-class due to their superior theoretical and historical perspective that fitted the demands of the advanced section of the working class at that moment. Bolshevism proposed something that Menshevism didn't - that the working class lead the revolution themselves. The Mensheviks, on the other hand, was the party of the petit-bourgeois and moderate working class, and proposed that the working class tail at the rear of the nationalist bourgeoisie, which expressed nothing but the fear of petit-bourgeois torwards an independent socialist movement.

This doesn't mean that there wasn't state capitalism, or that it was not justified to throw off the yog of the bureaucracy that was instituting it. After the civil war, in the stabilization process, Lenin changed his perspective. He wrote letters, articles, and polemics against the bureaucracy, and prepared to drop a 'bombshell' at a party congress that was approaching. He even called for a 'second revolution' in his later writings. There was the Worker's Group and Worker's Opposition, and even Bolshevik elements within the Kronstadt Uprising itself, that went against the bureaucratic stratum.

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 02:10 pm
That's like saying, "Wage labor? So in communism there is no wage-labor? Your confused."
It seems that I misunderstood the meaning of commodity production for production of goods in general. This shouldn't be blamed on my lack of theoretical knowledge of Marxist economics but on the fact that I'm not from an English speaking nation and though the word "commodity" represented the general use of the term "products" or "goods".

So fuck you for criticizing me for my lack of understanding of the English language, firstly.

Secondly, I used it in the manner of, as a dictionary says: 2. something of use, advantage, or value.

It was a misunderstanding of language, and I admit I was mistaken on that. However, I have studied basic Marxist economics, so I can bet that I know more about it than you do, actually, I'm sure of it.

The subject of wage-labor is an interest one for example. In socialism, the lower stage of communism, wage-labor will continue to exist simply because there is no other way of distributing goods. I know that you don't know how goods can be distributed in a society that still has scarcity, but you're just saying that wage-labor is evil because you're an utopian, but still, we were talking of Russia, a nation not even advanced beyond the level of capitalism yet.

To claim that Russia could've suddenly went over to a communist socio-economic system is ridiculous to say the least. And to say that they shouldn't have tried is not only that, but reactionary as well, since it means that the bourgeois government should've been kept in place and that the revolutionary workers movement should've given up without even trying.

And catch, thanks for adding to the abuse of blackstone and pointing out my lack of knowledge of the English language. I'm gonna send a warm fuck you to your way as well.

[Led Zeppelin]

Meh, I take back my fuck you's, you probably didn't know I was from another country anyway.

Sowwy, I just got a bit annoyed at that. :wub:

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 01:26 am
It was a bourgeois coup?

I've not said that have I, assuming you're addressing me.



The allegation of a putsch is ahistorical; a profound disconnection with the actual events and how they unfolded.
Lots went on between February and October, the actual events of October were essentially a coup though (bourgeios or not), and they acted as a brake on much of the development of the class struggle that was building up from the Summer-Autumn - lots of strikes ended etc.


In the coming years before the 'coup', delegates from the party had obtained seats in interim directing boards of the leading unions in the industrial centers of the country, and they also sold more copies of their periodical, Pravda, then any other political party in the country at that time.
The unions barely existed before February, so please explain these "years". Also neither Lenin nor Trotsky were around.



They promoted worker's control
Please find Lenin talking about the factory committees (rather than "workers' "state" control" before July 1917, I doubt you will.


This is why, for the most part, that a majority of the delegates at the All-Russian Congress of Factory Committees were Bolsheviks.
Well a lot of Bolsheviks (and some Mensheviks and SRs) took workers' control a lot further than official party policy. I think their high presence in the factory committees was as much down to individual prestige in the factories as party policy - this is borne out by a lot of statistics from the time.


If it would of collapsed 'sooner or later', don't you think it would of been necessary to have the material ability to even protect themselves against the forces of capitalist reaction, which were beginning to encircle Russia before the Soviets even decided to overthrow the bourgeois government?
I think the factory committees, the soviets and the anarchists were unable to protect themselves from the forces of reaction encircling from within - namely the Bolshevik leadership, it shows a fundamental weakness.

The measures which the Bolsheviks took to "protect" the revolution precipitated it's failure (and led to a reaction that was as terrible as the one that followed where revolutions "failed").


The Leninist vanguard party is not an arbitrary or pragmatic amalgam of organizational procedures, but the direct outcome of the class struggle, the recognized leadership of the entire working-class due to their superior theoretical and historical perspective that fitted the demands of the advanced section of the working class at that moment.
You can't just say stuff like this, it needs backing up. The history of Leninist "vanguard parties" since 1917 proves you to be exceptionally wrong.


Bolshevism proposed something that Menshevism didn't - that the working class lead the revolution themselves.
Their conception of leadership, of the party, was fundamentally flawed. I'm more interested in their practice than a few nice words.


This doesn't mean that there wasn't state capitalism, or that it was not justified to throw off the yog of the bureaucracy that was instituting it. After the civil war, in the stabilization process, Lenin changed his perspective. He wrote letters, articles, and polemics against the bureaucracy, and prepared to drop a 'bombshell' at a party congress that was approaching. He even called for a 'second revolution' in his later writings.
A bit late wasn't it?


There was the Worker's Group and Worker's Opposition, and even Bolshevik elements within the Kronstadt Uprising itself, that went against the bureaucratic stratum.
Well the Worker's Opposition volunteered to leave a conference to join in the slaughter of Kronstadt. I'm aware of of the Workers' Group/Miasnikov and they're very interesting, and also the role of rank and file (often ex-)Bolsheviks in Kronstadt and later uprisings such as Vichuga 1932 (http://libcom.org/history/1932-vichuga-uprising).

[catch]

Zeppelin, I appreciate the admission you were wrong about commodity production, and the fuck yous :) And no your English is sufficiently good that I wasn't aware it's a second language.


The subject of wage-labor is an interest one for example. In socialism, the lower stage of communism, wage-labor will continue to exist simply because there is no other way of distributing goods. I know that you don't know how goods can be distributed in a society that still has scarcity, but you're just saying that wage-labor is evil because you're an utopian, but still, we were talking of Russia, a nation not even advanced beyond the level of capitalism yet.
Well wage labour was abolished in some areas of Spain during the civil war - only partially, and there were lots of limitations, but it's not true that there's "no other way". Also I think we've moved past the kind of scarcity that existed in Russia and Spain now - most scarcity today is enforced by capital (famines are rarely due to a lack of available food, usually a lack of money, and that's a more extreme example). There are always going to be inconsistencies - but the (re-)imposition of piece rates etc. - these are moves backwards and only reinforce capitalist social relations.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 05:18 pm
Lots went on between February and October, the actual events of October were essentially a coup though (bourgeios or not), and they acted as a brake on much of the development of the class struggle that was building up from the Summer-Autumn - lots of strikes ended etc.
The actual events of October were a revolution. Contrary to your claims, the October Revolution made the Soviets the central organs of government, making October the culmination of the "development of class struggle that was building up".


The unions barely existed before February, so please explain these "years". Also neither Lenin nor Trotsky were around.

Yeah! How dare they try not to be arrested by the reactionary authorities! :rolleyes:


Please find Lenin talking about the factory committees (rather than "workers' "state" control" before July 1917, I doubt you will.

There's no need to. Why? Lenin and the Bolsheviks promoted workers' control first and foremost, the FORM and ORGANIZATION of that control came from the workers themselves, which the Bolsheviks made the organs of state.


Well a lot of Bolsheviks (and some Mensheviks and SRs) took workers' control a lot further than official party policy. I think their high presence in the factory committees was as much down to individual prestige in the factories as party policy - this is borne out by a lot of statistics from the time.

And here you suggest the Mensheviks were more revolutionary than the Bolsheviks. Garbage. The Bolsheviks were extremely strong in the factory committees, that fact accounts for itself.


I think the factory committees, the soviets and the anarchists were unable to protect themselves from the forces of reaction encircling from within - namely the Bolshevik leadership, it shows a fundamental weakness.

The anarchists wanted to pave the road for reactionary takeover, which is precisely what happened in Spain. No, the Bolsheviks defended the Soviets from assured destruction and re-subjugation. Reason and logic, it seems, is not "encircling from within" your head.


The measures which the Bolsheviks took to "protect" the revolution precipitated it's failure (and led to a reaction that was as terrible as the one that followed where revolutions "failed").

The revolution created progressive property relations and a worker state, it stopped imperialist ambitions in their tracks, it prevented a fascistic takeover. It is purely delusional to say that the revolution failed flat out. Furthermore, its eventual "failure" was not due to the Bolsheviks, but due to its isolation.


You can't just say stuff like this, it needs backing up. The history of Leninist "vanguard parties" since 1917 proves you to be exceptionally wrong.

A vanguard emerges in every revolutionary situation. It is necessary for this vanguard to be a cohesive and disciplined party. Almost all successful revolutions used this principle. It's what works.


Their conception of leadership, of the party, was fundamentally flawed. I'm more interested in their practice than a few nice words.

The party was the working class vanguard. The workers supported them, joined them, fought for them; this is because the party WAS them. You sidestep and ignore the fact that the Bolsheviks were immensely popular in the factory committees, but this is irrefutable evidence of what you are trying to deny.


A bit late wasn't it?

Pretentious much? Lenin did what he could to stop the bureaucratic deformation, but Russia's isolation, backwardness and economic difficulties were more powerful than one man.

[catch]

Originally posted by manic expression+September 20, 2007 05:41 pm--> (manic expression @ September 20, 2007 05:41 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 05:18 pm
Lots went on between February and October, the actual events of October were essentially a coup though (bourgeios or not), and they acted as a brake on much of the development of the class struggle that was building up from the Summer-Autumn - lots of strikes ended etc.
The actual events of October were a revolution. Contrary to your claims, the October Revolution made the Soviets the central organs of government, making October the culmination of the "development of class struggle that was building up".
[/b]
Moves against the factory committees started almost immediately after October with the setting up of the Vesenka.



Yeah! How dare they try not to be arrested by the reactionary authorities! :rolleyes:
So not "years" then? Also Shlyapnikov came out against strikes, some Bolshevik union leaders encouraged scabbing when workers went out on wildcat - there were grassroots strikes against the union leadership in 1917 as well (and some conservative factory committees). The unions are not and never have been revolutionary vehicles.



There's no need to. Why? Lenin and the Bolsheviks promoted workers' control first and foremost, the FORM and ORGANIZATION of that control came from the workers themselves, which the Bolsheviks made the organs of state.
No, they never made the factory committees into the state - they subordinated them to it and incorporated them into the unions as ultimately disciplinary organs far removed from their initial impetus. The fact is both Lenin and Trotsky ignored the factory committees pretty much entirely until well into 1917.



And here you suggest the Mensheviks were more revolutionary than the Bolsheviks. Garbage. The Bolsheviks were extremely strong in the factory committees, that fact accounts for itself.
That's a straight lie. I said members of all three parties were represented on the factory committees, and there were tendencies in all three to go far beyond their parties' official policies. S.A. Smith (who's extremely sympathetic to the Bolsheviks) researched the extent of workers control in depth, and it's true that non-Bolshevik dominated factories often went furthest - taking over the entire management of the factory (and a very small number of complete expropriations) rather than dealing simply with wage demands.



The anarchists wanted to pave the road for reactionary takeover, which is precisely what happened in Spain.
They wanted to? That's worse than the worst knee-jerk anti-marxism by cookie-cutter anarchists.


No, the Bolsheviks defended the Soviets from assured destruction and re-subjugation.
In name only. At what point do you think the revolution ended? 1918? 1921? 1927? 1956? Perestroika? After all there was still a "soviet" power.



A vanguard emerges in every revolutionary situation. It is necessary for this vanguard to be a cohesive and disciplined party. Almost all successful revolutions used this principle. It's what works.
Noske in Germany, Spain '36, Hungary '56, Paris '68, Portugal '74-6 - all sabotaged or actively put down by "vanguard parties".



The party was the working class vanguard. The workers supported them, joined them, fought for them; this is because the party WAS them. You sidestep and ignore the fact that the Bolsheviks were immensely popular in the factory committees
No I've said they were popular, I'm not disputing that. The Labour Party was popular with the working class up until 1997 (and still has the support of the unions and enough voters to stay in power) - that doesn't mean it IS (or ever was) the working class, although plenty of 'vanguard parties' spent years and years building it up 'boring from within'.


Pretentious much? Lenin did what he could to stop the bureaucratic deformation, but Russia's isolation, backwardness and economic difficulties were more powerful than one man.
So the fight against the bureaucracy was left to "one man", that shows a deep lack of respect for those who fought and died against the reaction, not to mention ignorance.

[Labor Shall Rule]

I would argue that it was a organized plot in the defense of the Soviets, but it was still a product of popular discontent torwards the state of affairs that had captivated the lives of millions of workers and peasants, and placed them under dehumanizing and brutal conditions. It was voted on to transfer control to their own political organizations in the first place.

The unions appeared after the events in 1905, and after the mass strikes of 1912, they became integral in the lives of millions of workers.

Lenin did support worker's control.


The main idea of the resolution is to indicate the conditions for actual control over the capitalists and production in contrast to the empty phrases about control used by the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois officials. The bourgeoisie are lying When they allege that the systematic measures taken by the state to ensure threefold or even tenfold profits for the capitalists are “control”. The petty bourgeoisie, partly out of naïveté, partly out of economic interest, trust the capitalists and the capitalist state, and content them selves with the most meaningless bureaucratic projects for control. The resolution passed by the workers lays special emphasis on the all-important thing, that is, on what is to be done I) to prevent the actual “preservation” of capitalist profits; 2) to tear off the veil of commercial secrecy; 3) to give the workers a majority in the control agencies; 4) to ensure that the organisation (of control and direction), being “nation-wide” organisation, is directed by the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies and not by the capitalists.

You need to remember, this was the first time in human history that twelve imperialist armies, as well as a vast horde of counterrevolutionary forces, were defeated at the hands of workers and peasants. Of course, they didn't have to re-institute former aristocrats to their positions as officers to reorganize the military, and they didn't have to place planners to reconstruct the economic superstructure, but a bureaucracy would of still arised due to the relative weakness of the working class even if they didn't institute such measures anyway. But, I doubt they would of lasted long if they didn't take such extraordinary leaps in fighting the enemy. It's not that they were 'evil' and wanted to enslave the workers, but they did have to fight an enemy that would "terminate two-thirds of Russia if need-be" if they were successful.

How did Leninist organization lead to it's downfall? Give me a full historical analysis? It is not the "idea" that lead to it's failure, it was the historical and material conditions in which a revolutionary situation did not exist, that forbid for them to be a periphery, an organic outgrowth of the working-class themselves.

A bit late? Well, I guess they should of allowed an armed fortress located within a few miles of the French and British fleet, as well as the Finnish army, to continue their uprising? I guess they should of allowed workers to fight over grain in the cities under the fallacious pretext of 'maintaing worker's control'. I don't think so - no matter how radical you sound, you are simply going to get us killed, and there will not only be no revolution then, but there will be the slaughter of tens of millions of people at the hands of anti-semitic, proto-fascist thugs.

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 07:46 pm
The unions appeared after the events in 1905, and after the mass strikes of 1912, they became integral in the lives of millions of workers.

They were tiny and almost non-existent in 1917 before February. The soviets and factory committees also appeared in 1905, but no-one's claiming they were around the whole time during the 12 years before October.




Lenin did support worker's control.


The main idea of the resolution is to indicate the conditions for actual control over the capitalists and production in contrast to the empty phrases about control used by the bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois officials. The bourgeoisie are lying When they allege that the systematic measures taken by the state to ensure threefold or even tenfold profits for the capitalists are “control”. The petty bourgeoisie, partly out of naïveté, partly out of economic interest, trust the capitalists and the capitalist state, and content them selves with the most meaningless bureaucratic projects for control. The resolution passed by the workers lays special emphasis on the all-important thing, that is, on what is to be done I) to prevent the actual “preservation” of capitalist profits; 2) to tear off the veil of commercial secrecy; 3) to give the workers a majority in the control agencies; 4) to ensure that the organisation (of control and direction), being “nation-wide” organisation, is directed by the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies and not by the capitalists.

That's not workers' control in any real sense. He's talking about centralised control by the "workers' state", and control "over the capitalists" - not the full expropriation of industry and self-management by the working class itself. Now, quite a lot of workers also had this view of workers' control, but that doesn't mean you can hold up Lenin's extremely limited conception as a shining example.


Of course, they didn't have to re-institute former aristocrats to their positions as officers to reorganize the military, and they didn't have to place planners to reconstruct the economic superstructure
Why do you think they did?

they did have to fight an enemy that would "terminate two-thirds of Russia if need-be" if they were successful.
Well yeah - Lenin gave them the other third at Brest Litovsk.



How did Leninist organization lead to it's downfall? Give me a full historical analysis?
By seeing the party as synonymous with the working class, and the state as synonymous with the party they ignored much of the political control being taken by workers themselves, and where they recognised it, supported it only inasmuch as it led to a statification of political power. Not to mention Lenin's extremely bad ideas about "national self-determination" which led to the sacrifice of the Ukraine, Finland etc. to the Whites when they had their own revolutionary movements that might have developed further. And also both Lenin and Trotsky's sincere enthusiasm for state capitalism: http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/l...7/ichtci/11.htm (http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm) for just one example.


For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.

There is no middle course here. The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards socialism.

And once all that is out the way, we still have the Kautskist notion of conciousness implanted from outside the working class, while the class has shown itself quite capable of developing revolutionary concsiousness far to the left of the vanguard parties.


Well, I guess they should of allowed an armed fortress located within a few miles of the French and British fleet, as well as the Finnish army, to continue their uprising?
Well let's see. Trotsky had to send several battalions of the Red Army to defeat Kronstadt, suffering massive, massive casualties before they could take the fort. In addition they had to use troops from far away from Kronstadt and Petrograd because so many refused to fight their brothers, and they enlisted a Turkish general (close associate of Attaturk) to direct these troops. This suggests that the fort was quite capable of defending itself against the Whites. Without Kronstadt, there really was no revolution to defend by that point. You ignore of course the strike movement in Petrograd shortly before, and the strikes in Moscow and Petrograd during 1918 beforehand - or were all those industrial workers and flowers of the revolution secret Kulaks?



I don't think so - no matter how radical you sound, you are simply going to get us killed, and there will not only be no revolution then, but there will be the slaughter of tens of millions of people at the hands of anti-semitic, proto-fascist thugs.
Stalin killed a few million didn't he?

[Devrim]

On the whole subject of Lenin's idea of workers control, I think that is important to recognise that there is a linguistic problem. Most European languages have two terms that are equivalent to Lenin's conception of workers' 'control'. One of them would be roughly equivalent to a 'self-management' type of control, and one would be equivilant to a 'checking' type of control.

I am sure I don't need to explain, which one Lenin supported. Basically he didn't support workers taking power the economy into their own hands, but supported a sort of 'checking function.

The communist left in Russia expressed it well at the time:


Originally posted by [email protected] April 1918
a labour policy designed to implant discipline among the workers under the flag of 'self - discipline', the introduction of labour service for workers, piece rates, and the lengthening of the working day...the introduction of labour discipline in connection with the restoration of capitalist management of industry cannot really increase the productivity of labour...diminish the class initiative, activity and organisation of the proletariat. It threatens to enslave the working class. It will arouse discontent among the backward elements as well as among the vanguard of the proletariat. In order to introduce this system in the face of the hatred prevailing at present among the proletariat against the 'capitalist saboteurs' the Communist Party would have to rely on the petty - bourgeoisie, as against the workers...[and]ruin itself as the party of the proletariat.

Lenin reacted very clearly to this. The views of the left communists were'a disgrace', 'a complete renunciation of communism in practice', 'a desertion to the camp of the petty bourgeoisie', and 'provoked by the Isuvs (Mensheviks) and other Judases of capitalism'.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ What's wrong with adopting the latter, along with Taylorism and scientific management, in an era of the RDDOTPP (which he even admitted in the 1920s was the situation, rejecting "permanent revolution"), and not one of the DOTP proper? :huh:

[catch]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 06:01 am
^^^ What's wrong with adopting the latter, along with Taylorism and scientific management, in an era of the RDDOTPP (which he even admitted in the 1920s was the situation, rejecting "permanent revolution"), and not one of the DOTP proper? :huh:
What's wrong is that it has nothing whatsoever to do with communism.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Hammer+September 21, 2007 06:01 am--> (Hammer @ September 21, 2007 06:01 am) RDDOTTP [/b]
Stop using acronyms that nobody understands.


Hammer
We stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state capitalism

Devrim