Was Bolshevism funded by New York Bankers?

[p.m.a.]

I've come across claims that the Bolsheviks, in 1917, were funded by Wall Street banking interests. This (http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn07-3) this one source, which I'll quote from:


Leon Trotsky was given $20 million in Jacob Schiff gold to help finance the revolution, which was deposited in a Warburg bank, then transferred to the Nya Banken (Nye Bank) in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the Knickerbocker Column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: "Today it is estimated by Jacob's grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia."

Other evidence (http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch11.html) suggests that the American International Corporation, established by interests of the Rockefeller-Rothschild monopolies, to aid the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the tsar.

I was wondering if anyone had any info on the subject? It makes sense that the state-capitalist hijacking of the Marxist project for humanity was aided by capitalists. After all, real Marxism is significantly more threatening to the ruling class than the Leninist paradigm.

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 08:55 am
I've come across claims that the Bolsheviks, in 1917, were funded by Wall Street banking interests. This (http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn07-3) this one source, which I'll quote from:


Leon Trotsky was given $20 million in Jacob Schiff gold to help finance the revolution, which was deposited in a Warburg bank, then transferred to the Nya Banken (Nye Bank) in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the Knickerbocker Column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: "Today it is estimated by Jacob's grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia."

Other evidence (http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch11.html) suggests that the American International Corporation, established by interests of the Rockefeller-Rothschild monopolies, to aid the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the tsar.

I was wondering if anyone had any info on the subject? It makes sense that the state-capitalist hijacking of the Marxist project for humanity was aided by capitalists. After all, real Marxism is significantly more threatening to the ruling class than the Leninist paradigm.
Your argument is teleological.

[Led Zeppelin]

To believe that the overthrow of the Provisional Government was in the interest of the ruling class of any nation makes you an idiot per definition, and frankly it means that no one should take you seriously, so thanks for that p.m.a., now I and every other sensible person here can proceed to not take you seriously in the future.

[Tower of Bebel]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 08:55 am
It makes sense that the state-capitalist hijacking of the Marxist project for humanity was aided by capitalists. After all, real Marxism is significantly more threatening to the ruling class than the Leninist paradigm.
And even if leninism equals State capitalism, no banker or financer would benefit from it.

[Andy Bowden]

There doesn't seem to be any actual sources that the Bolsheviks got $20 million from the Rothschilds - just a claim that they did.

These theories are usually circulated by neo-Nazis, trying to link Jews with capitalism and communism, making them one and the same, a master conspiracy.

Googling some of the sources for this came up with a whole raft of "Jews created communism" nonsense, and Alex Jones NWO-type websites.

[p.m.a.]

First of all I'm not arguing anything here. I don't necessarily believe this, but am rather exploring the topic of interest. However, any serious investigation here, I forgot, is nigh-impossible, because of people like this:


To believe that the overthrow of the Provisional Government was in the interest of the ruling class of any nation makes you an idiot per definition, and frankly it means that no one should take you seriously, so thanks for that p.m.a., now I and every other sensible person here can proceed to not take you seriously in the future.

To believe that the October Revolution was truly socialist, for the first time bringing workers' control to the proletariat and the peasants, makes you gullible and myopic. I feel like it's more Marxist to try to follow the finances than to swallow state propaganda without question. Clearly the kneejerk reaction of Lennies is to defend their holy doctrine of Bolshevism, which didn't at all fuck over the entire working class of the world, or crumble into neoliberal capitalism. At least I'm capable of independent critical thought, while you're a mouthpiece for anachronistic propaganda written a hundred fucking years ago.


There doesn't seem to be any actual sources that the Bolsheviks got $20 million from the Rothschilds - just a claim that they did.

These theories are usually circulated by neo-Nazis, trying to link Jews with capitalism and communism, making them one and the same, a master conspiracy.

Googling some of the sources for this came up with a whole raft of "Jews created communism" nonsense, and Alex Jones NWO-type websites.

I cannot find a source for the Rothschild link either. But Schiff's grandson publicly admitted the first $20mil to Trotsky. And while these theories are often linked to anti-semitism, that simplistic determinism doesn't deter me from wondering what truth exists. Leninism as a paradigm and state institution was the single largest setback to a real radical workers' movement in the 20th century, and has all but completely destroyed any hope of building a true communist movement. It thus would be quite in the capitalists' interests to support it.

[bootleg42]

You all know that the people who claim these stories are paleoconservatives and conspiracy theorists.

I'm not saying not to believe it ONLY because of that. But consider the sources.

[Andy Bowden]

Theres a vague quote from Schiffs grandson - not the guy himself - that Jacob Schiff "sank" $20 million dollars into the early USSR.

Theres no qualification of what that actually means though; the "Modern History Project" infers that it is obviously financing the Bolsheviks as a political movement - however the Bolsheviks did establish trade deals with numerous western corporations and companies following the revolution.

The rest of the "evidence" is laughable, for example it says,


One of the best sources of information on the financing of the Bolshevik Revolution is "Czarism and the Revolution" by an important White Russian General named Arsene de Goulevitch who was founder in France of the Union of Oppressed Peoples.

If one of your "best sources" for millions of dollars going to the Bolsheviks is a White General, your in trouble.

MHP itself shouldn't be seen as any kind of credible source. A quick glance at its recent news is replete with talk of "Zionists" taking top posts in the US government, and claims the war on Iraq was for Israel.

Its your run off the mill alex-jones type new world order conspiracy website, with some borderline anti-semitism thrown in the mix.

[Led Zeppelin]

p.m.a., I won't respond directly to your post because it was shit, in all respects. But I will respond to one pretty funny part where you wrote that I am the mouthpiece of 100 year old propaganda...at least I'm not the mouthpiece of neo-Nazi anti-semitic propaganda like you. :)

[p.m.a.]

Alright, this serves as a lesson in effective uses of an internet message board.

- Andy, thank you for replying intelligently. MHP is not an entirely credible source, and so what we really are left with is Schiff's grandson's vague quote. I cannot seem to verify it beyond simplistic AJ-NWO bullshit.

- LedZep, responding "OMG BOLSCHEVEKS R MO5T R4DICAL 3V4R!!!" is not a compelling argument against. Notice the question mark at the end of the black bar with the topic title in it? I was asking a question within the topic, not parroting anti-semitic propaganda. Now why don't you continue masturbating to State & Revolution and dream about vanguarding the workers to victory, or whatever.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 10:18 pm
- LedZep, responding "OMG BOLSCHEVEKS R MO5T R4DICAL 3V4R!!!" is not a compelling argument against. Notice the question mark at the end of the black bar with the topic title in it? I was asking a question within the topic, not parroting anti-semitic propaganda. Now why don't you continue masturbating to State & Revolution and dream about vanguarding the workers to victory, or whatever.
If that was actually the case, then this should probably be in the learning forum. If you ignorantly badmouth Leninism while bringing up absurd points, expect to get rightly criticized. Blind anti-communism won't win you too many friends here, and it won't make you look mature, either.

[Led Zeppelin]

- LedZep, responding "OMG BOLSCHEVEKS R MO5T R4DICAL 3V4R!!!" is not a compelling argument against. Notice the question mark at the end of the black bar with the topic title in it? I was asking a question within the topic, not parroting anti-semitic propaganda. Now why don't you continue masturbating to State & Revolution and dream about vanguarding the workers to victory, or whatever.

Don't play dumb (I know it's hard given the fact that you are), you said this in your original post:


Originally posted by backpedalling dumbass
I was wondering if anyone had any info on the subject? It makes sense that the state-capitalist hijacking of the Marxist project for humanity was aided by capitalists. After all, real Marxism is significantly more threatening to the ruling class than the Leninist paradigm.

You asked a question and then went on assuming that it was correct because it "makes sense".

Nice try though.

[Entrails Konfetti]

No, the Bolsheviks put the yeast in the bread, because Kerensky was a total dumbass and armed pro-Bolshevik militias to defend Petrograd against the Kornilov coup, while at the same time people knew it was Kerensky's idea to send in Kornilov-- but, then he got cold feet, and worried about his career. This stupid move on part of Kerensky armed the proletariat-- it's hillarious!

Other things:
Bolsheviks were only the only party to call for an end to the war.
The Lenin "Bread, Peace, and Land" speech.
With factories in most of the cities in Russia being taken over, and lands being redistributed anyway, Socialism and Bolshevism looked pretty promising, if not a result.

But then during the civil war, most of the working-class (who the peasantry was to follow the lead of) died, and the Bolsheviks decided to take over to safe guard the revolution, and it all went d o w n h i l l .

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 06:55 am
I've come across claims that the Bolsheviks, in 1917, were funded by Wall Street banking interests.
It's just antisemitic propaganda.

Bankers=Jews
Jews=Bolsheviks

ergo,

Bankers=Bolsheviks.

Nothing more than that.

If you try to link such absurd to any criticism of the Bolsheviks, you will just demoralise your line of thought. Don't let your anarchism/ultra-leftism/whatever be contaminated by this garbage.

Luís Henrique

[p.m.a.]

I forgot how all you little teenagers can't wrap your minds around the fact that there are plenty of communists besides Bolshevik scum. It's just cute, that y'all don't realize "Hey, it failed every single time it was implemented, ever", and instead everyone is just collectively anal whenever anyone insults the great Comrade Lenin! You people stuck in a dead, anachronistic paradigm conceived of over a hundred years ago are the single greatest threat to the possibility of ever achieving a true communist revolution.

Now what's the chance anyone here has heard of Parvus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parvus)?

[Herman]

I forgot how all you little teenagers can't wrap your minds around the fact that there are plenty of communists besides Bolshevik scum.

There are plenty of communists who aren't leninists, but we DO NOT INSULT THEM BY CALLING THEM SCUM.


It's just cute, that y'all don't realize "Hey, it failed every single time it was implemented, ever", and instead everyone is just collectively anal whenever anyone insults the great Comrade Lenin!

You're using the same argument that bourgeois historians and the media use. Nice to see how well you've analyzed material factors in Russia to conclude how it became "state-capitalist".

[Tower of Bebel]

And what would be the reason why the Boslheviks and not the Mensheviks received money?

[Entrails Konfetti]

How did the Bolsheviks use this money?
What did they put it in?

[Wanted Man]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 28, 2007 03:53 pm
How did the Bolsheviks use this money?
What did they put it in?
Papers, I guess. Presses don't pay for themselves. Anyway, this is clearly an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. Parvus and the German Empire were very helpful in this aspect, though. Not to mention giving Lenin the chance to take the train to Petrograd.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by Dick [email protected] 28, 2007 03:04 pm
Papers, I guess. Presses don't pay for themselves. Anyway, this is clearly an anti-semitic conspiracy theory. Parvus and the German Empire were very helpful in this aspect, though. Not to mention giving Lenin the chance to take the train to Petrograd.
Didn't they rob the Russian banks offices to pay for papers, watery soup, and uncomfortable cots to sleep on?

Whats so strange about this claim about Trotsky getting a loan from a US Federal Bank on 120 Broadway is that its a federal bank! The Bolsheviks would have to pay back everything, and there would be records of the transactions, debt, and whatnot. But where are these records? Not anywhere, no records were cited in the article.

The only thing the article claims is that the Bolsheviks used this 100 million dollars for finacing the red army. As you and I know, the red army formed during War Communism, which means they were fighting off the counter-revolution, and the counter-revolution was finaced among others by New York Banks. It doesn't make sense.

Sounds like a bad joke:
So Trotsky walks in a federal bank on 120 Broadway and asks " Can I have a loan
of over $100 million to finance a Communist Revolution? "
The teller says " Um, Sir, please wait a sec, I'll get my supervisor"
The supervisor says to the teller " I'm going to have to get my boss"
The boss says to the supervisor " I'm going to have to get the bank manager".
The bank manager says to the boss " I'm going to have to get the district bank manager" The District bank manager says to the local bank manager " I'm going to have to get the Regional Bank Manager", The Regional Bank Manager says to the District Bank Manager " I'm going to have to get the National Bank Manager" The National Bank Manager says to the Regional Bank Manager " I'm going to have to consult the US Department of Treasuring".....
And finally someone from the US Department of Treasury walks into the Bank on 120 Broadway and says to Trotsky " No"-- then the person promptly leaves the bank and is escorted off in a limo.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 05:33 am
I forgot how all you little
check.

teenagers
Unhappily, no.

can't wrap your minds around the fact that there are plenty of communists besides Bolshevik scum.
Starting with Plato. So, no.

just collectively anal
Hm...

whenever anyone insults the great Comrade Lenin!
Insult him whenever you please, but, ffs, don't insult my intelligence.

You people stuck in a dead, anachronistic paradigm conceived of over a hundred years
Nope.
But it would still be better, and newer, than your paradigm - how old is antisemitism?

ago are the single greatest threat to the possibility of ever achieving a true communist revolution.
One with pogroms?

Now what's the chance anyone here has heard of Parvus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parvus)?
Heard of. Your point?

Luís Henrique

[bombeverything]

The point people are trying to make is that the information you are using to 'back up' your assertion is anti-semetic propaganda. Find a real argument as to why the October revolution did not bring power to the working class and the peasantry and people might listen to you. Petty insults won't work either. Also, what is your idea of a 'true communist society'? I am seriously interested. It is also ironic that you accuse the socialists here of swallowing lies, when you are the one accepting racist conspiracy theories as fact. Also what is 'The Reformation Online' and why are you quoting it here? I'm concluding that you are nuts.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Bombeverything -- nice bunker buster there, comrade -- slap bang, right in 'his' command centre!

[p.m.a.]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 10:27 pm
Find a real argument as to why the October revolution did not bring power to the working class and the peasantry and people might listen to you.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought history has done that for me. Y'know, with the immediate subversion of the soviet councils, the violent repression of the Makhnovischina and the Kronstadt soldiers, the inevitable decline of Leninism into Stalinism due to the failure of the theory of permanent revolution, the crushing of the 1956 uprising in Hungary, and the blatant and irrefutable reactionary conservatism espoused by every "Communist" Party, and all ts variations on a theme.

Because the bankers just happened to be Jewish, you all claim me to be anti-semitic. Anyone who possesses even the most vague notion of critical thought can see how that is an attempt not to discuss the real issue at hand. Whether its Schiff's grandson's whistleblowing, or the historically proven role of Alexander Parvus in the 1905 and through the 1917 revolution, it's clear that the already precedented non-Leninist Marxist movement has even more ammo to evidence that the rise of the Bolshevik paradigm was the single most harmful event to the communist movement. It's no Jewish conspiracy, but a blatant capitalist class conspiracy to support a revolution they knew would not bring true communism, but reinforce the necessity of the anti-communist Western state.

I just hope that in the 21st century we can figure out some way to rebuild the communist movement, after your failed ideology ruined it.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:30 pm
I just hope that in the 21st century we can figure out some way to rebuild the communist movement, after your failed ideology ruined it.
While I appreciate the sentiment (I myself am a Libertarian-communist) I think resorting to conspiracy theories about the failed Leninist revolution is a bit detrimental to our case.

Especially when this is a popular notion held by National Socialists, and doesnt have a very strong base of evidence!

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 09:32 pm
Leninism as a paradigm and state institution was the single largest setback to a real radical workers' movement in the 20th century, and has all but completely destroyed any hope of building a true communist movement. It thus would be quite in the capitalists' interests to support it.
Even if that were true (which it isn't), how could anyone have predicted it in 1917?

[Robespierre2.0]

Bah, I have respect for libertarian communists and anarchists, but what is it with this petty sectarian bullshit? Though I am what you'd love to call an "authoritarian communist", I'm tolerant of, and would gladly fight alongside any other communist or anarchist, as we have common objectives, and nothing to gain from tearing each other apart.

And despite all that, can you show me examples of any successful revolutions that weren't marxist-leninist?

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by Marxosaurus [email protected] 01, 2007 04:21 pm
Bah, I have respect for libertarian communists and anarchists, but what is it with this petty sectarian bullshit?
Well, although I am humbled to hear you have respect for us libcommies, I wouldn't trivialise the differences between our ideas. Nor call it sectarian. I have said before, and I will say again, although various libertarian strands should and indeed do work together very well (and other strands of authoritarian communism can also) attempting to bridge the gap between those who oppose the state and those who support it is at it's very best unworkable and it's worst, fatal.

Part of the success of authoritarian communism involves the liquidation of the libertarian communist movement. In every instance we have manifested parallel to you, you have destroyed our experiments, banned our publications and organisations, burned down our offices, imprisoned and executed our leaders. You assassinated and smashed up the organised anarchist resistance to the Japanese occupation in Korea because they were a threat to your recruitment numbers. And destroyed the free workers soviets in Ukraine. And no doubt you will do it again.

Our long term goals may be the same but our opposition to each other has been sealed in blood. You are a serious threat to the self-organisation of my workplace, my community, and my class! And I am not going to shake hands with someone who holds a knife in their other hand.


And despite all that, can you show me examples of any successful revolutions that weren't marxist-leninist?

There have been numerous examples of Anarchist revolutions, In Ukraine, Korea, and Spain. Incidentally these were all cut short by Leninism. And not by any internal fault.

[UndergroundConnexion]

well the wjole "wall street - communism " thing, i came across some months ago aswell. Then I started looking a bit more in the topic , and found that the origins of this stories lie within the russian civil war.. because some prominent bolcheviks were of jewish decent (trotsky, lenin was half jewish) etc. etc. And indeed here the whole money funds idea come from that aswell. However because Marx was of jewish decent, these same rumours have come up about him being funded by this and this, rotschild etc. Looking at the sources of these claims , almost all of these sources are also right wing christian and such.. also in the protocols of zion these claims are made, but looking at it, that docuemnt attack every single ideology , or ideal ,which is not feudalism and monarchy...
so before claiming things look the the origins of these claims, the sources..

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterTrotsky.jpg/200px-WhiteArmyPropagandaPosterTrotsky.jpg

however these topics are good, so we can debunk this non sense. however it is regrettable that people then start to misbehave and disrespect

and if this site is your source: http://www.reformation.org/

let me just quote some things on the homepage

Unmasking oppositions of SCIENCE FALSELY so-called!!

"The LORD (JESUS) reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the LORD is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished (stabilized), that it CANNOT BE MOVED" (Psalm 93:1).

etc. etc.

[Herman]

Our long term goals may be the same but our opposition to each other has been sealed in blood. You are a serious threat to the self-organisation of my workplace, my community, and my class! And I am not going to shake hands with someone who holds a knife in their other hand.

Yes! So this is how the left will be? You're proving him right when he calls you 'sectarian' whenever you say things like this.

He claims that he would work with any socialist, and you come here accusing him of killing and murder and all of that crap. He hasn't done anything to you, except post in a forum! Don't take it so seriously! I consider myself a leninist and yet i deeply sympathize with the 1936-1939 Spanish CNT and the current CNT! Does that mean that i'm suddenly your "enemy"?

Really, how do you stand?

It's this kind of attitude that will get us nowhere.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 01, 2007 07:33 pm
Our long term goals may be the same but our opposition to each other has been sealed in blood.
I wasn't aware that revolutionary leftists followed such feudal practices as blood feuds.

Just because people who shared some of my ideas betrayed people who shared some of your ideas over 60 years ago doesn't mean I'd do it to you.

[UndergroundConnexion]

following these links i came into loads of iluminati 666, comitee of 300 , new owld order etc. etc. bullshit :blink:

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 06:49 pm
Yes! So this is how the left will be? You're proving him right when he calls you 'sectarian' whenever you say things like this.

He claims that he would work with any socialist, and you come here accusing him of killing and murder and all of that crap.

Not him personally but the movement he supports has, as I have said, liquidated the libertarian communist movement at every opportunity. I think we need to get ready to defend ourselves, and not assume they'll be really benevolent next time.

Even after a leninist revolution I would fight for power for the working class, that can only exist in a decentralised, federated system of free soviets. Such a system is in direct opposition to the existence of a state. Therefore there is a tension. Either the Leninist state surrenders to workers power, or crushes it. History as shown which it prefers. And I believe we must take the initiative to defend workers self-organiasation from these statist gangsters. :angry:


I consider myself a leninist and yet i deeply sympathize with the 1936-1939 Spanish CNT and the current CNT! Does that mean that i'm suddenly your "enemy"?

Yes because you would try and destroy a free system of workers councils if it existed. It's an inherent characteristic of your political ideology.


It's this kind of attitude that will get us nowhere.

This assumption that libertarians and Authoritarians should work together will get us nowhere. If we did form a coalition we would be in constant debate over the issue of the state. The result of which would lead to completely different practical proposals, directions and the group would talk itself to death. We'd do much better apart.

As I said, the various political positions within the libertarian tradition work together very well. It's the authoritarians who suffer from sectarianism.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 10:30 pm
It's no Jewish conspiracy, but a blatant capitalist class conspiracy to support a revolution they knew would not bring true communism, but reinforce the necessity of the anti-communist Western state.
The problem is, they did not know of that. They could not possibly know. Unless... the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy told them so.


I just hope that in the 21st century we can figure out some way to rebuild the communist movement, after your failed ideology ruined it.

Whose ideology, buddy? People criticising you belong to very different sectors of the left, from Leninism to Anarcho-Communism, through Cliffism and Spartakism.

Luís Henrique

[Leo]

Who is the Spartakist?

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 01, 2007 05:33 pm
Our long term goals may be the same but our opposition to each other has been sealed in blood. You are a serious threat to the self-organisation of my workplace, my community, and my class! And I am not going to shake hands with someone who holds a knife in their other hand.
Your grandfather's neighbour killed my best friend's brother in law's great aunt!

There we go, back to tribalism...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 01, 2007 09:56 pm
Who is the Spartakist?
What's your problem?

We are discussing this pseudo-anarchist's adherence to antisemitic conspiracy theories, not quarreling about who are the True Followers.

Luís Henrique

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 01, 2007 10:21 pm
Your grandfather's neighbour killed my best friend's brother in law's great aunt!

There we go, back to tribalism...

Luís Henrique
It's more than that. Your desire to create a "workers state" is in direct contradiction to workers self-management. I was using history as an example.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 01, 2007 10:39 pm
It's more than that. Your desire to create a "workers state" is in direct contradiction to workers self-management. I was using history as an example.
Who's "desire" to create a workers' State?

Luís Henrique

[Leo]

What's your problem?

I am just curious?! :o


not quarreling about who are the True Followers.

It was a very simple question I asked to understand what you meant, really*. You really should calm down a little.

*About whether you meant a "Spart" variety of a Trotskyist or something else.


We are discussing this pseudo-anarchist's adherence to antisemitic conspiracy theories

Yeah. To be honest, there's very little to discuss about it. There wasn't a conspiracy. Bolsheviks weren't funded by New York Bankers. It sounds like a bad joke.

[Herman]

Not him personally but the movement he supports has, as I have said, liquidated the libertarian communist movement at every opportunity. I think we need to get ready to defend ourselves, and not assume they'll be really benevolent next time.

Yes, we'll eat your babies, raaawr! I'll turn your friends and family into communist zombies! And i'll rule the world as general secretary of my super zombie soviet empire! I'm Stalin the Second! Fear me!


Even after a leninist revolution I would fight for power for the working class, that can only exist in a decentralised, federated system of free soviets

Perhaps you haven't realized but this is what leninists want. You're confusing different historical times here. You think that war communism and the civil war system are "inherent" in leninist ideology, when it was forced to take harsh measures against counter-revolution, measures which I may not agree with, but I do understand how they may have been thought of.


Such a system is in direct opposition to the existence of a state. Therefore there is a tension. Either the Leninist state surrenders to workers power, or crushes it.

It's not "worker's power" vs "state". For marxists the state is a manifestation of the ruling class. If the ruling class consists of worker's control, then the state will manifest accordingly. And what would be wrong if the worker's have control of the state? Nothing. We are not here to use state at our whim and against worker's self management. Get that through your thick skull.


History as shown which it prefers.

Perhaps your little deluded history has.


Yes because you would try and destroy a free system of workers councils if it existed. It's an inherent characteristic of your political ideology.

No, we are FOR a free system of worker's councils! Which marxist work does it say the contrary? We simply accept the state as the way to socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, as long as the state is controlled by the worker's councils! I'm all for worker's management of industry! I'm all for direct and participatory democracy! I'm for the free soviets! I am not going to murder you in cold blood just because you're "libertarian" and believe differently over this issue.


This assumption that libertarians and Authoritarians should work together will get us nowhere. If we did form a coalition we would be in constant debate over the issue of the state. The result of which would lead to completely different practical proposals, directions and the group would talk itself to death. We'd do much better apart.

On the contrary, working with, what you call, 'authoritarians' would do well, because both parties can compromise on critical issues such as the need of the state in socialism. If both parties left its sectarian and dogmatic trends behind, it could work perfectly. I'd work with the most libertarian anarchist up to the most "authoritarian" communist as long as it led to socialism.

[ComradeOm]

Interesting enough the family of the Russian industrialist Saava Morozov did leave the Bolsheviks a considerable sum of money sometime around 1910. This followed the death of Morozov's nephew in a Tsarist prison. Given the controversial nature of this donation it was quickly handed over to a trust committee set up by the Second International and the Bolsheviks saw little, if any, of it.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by William Everard+October 01, 2007 10:39 pm--> (William Everard @ October 01, 2007 10:39 pm)
Luís [email protected] 01, 2007 10:21 pm
Your grandfather's neighbour killed my best friend's brother in law's great aunt!

There we go, back to tribalism...

Luís Henrique
It's more than that. Your desire to create a "workers state" is in direct contradiction to workers self-management. I was using history as an example. [/b]
If we had 'worker's democracy,' the anti-semetic, fascist armies that would "wipe out two-thirds of the entire country if it meant ridding of the Bolsheviks" would have had an advantage since they would be a well-armed, highly trained and organized force going against a decentralized link of factory committees and local Soviets with ragged bands of unarmed, under trained and disciplined militias that are concentrated in local areas.

Like I have said, another revolution was justified, but if we had it during the civil war or the opening stages of the revolution, it would of compromised the entire process.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 02, 2007 10:39 am
If we had 'worker's democracy,' the anti-semetic, fascist armies that would "wipe out two-thirds of the entire country if it meant ridding of the Bolsheviks" would have had an advantage since they would be a well-armed, highly trained and organized force going against a decentralized link of factory committees and local Soviets with ragged bands of unarmed, under trained and disciplined militias that are concentrated in local areas.
"Workers cannot do things themselves!" they cry! "They would fall flat on their face, and so need leadership!"

I obviously disagree entirely. I think a well organised millitary, mandated by a network of democratic workplace and community councils should be more than capable of going toe to toe with the reactionaries, and is perfectly in line with Anarchist Principals. Just as capable as any bolshevik military.

[p.m.a.]

It's hilarious that the majority of these self-styled Marxists honestly do not believe the proletariat could make a socialist revolution without the vanguard holding its hand. Because obviously without the party, the workers' would be lost! The Party protects the councils! Like in Russia! er... maybe Spain? The Ukraine? Hungary?

The Party has proven itself time and time again as being the single largest threat to independent and autonomous workers self-organization and self-management. Yet all of these rabidly un-Marxist teenagers here are still caught up in the myth.

William is right: every time you Leninists come into power, we libertarian communists get fucking killed by you. And now you have the audacity to mock us for being sectarian? Are you people fucking crazy, or have you just really not read any history besides what holy comrade Lenin has not penned himself?

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 04:06 pm
It's hilarious that the majority of these self-styled Marxists honestly do not believe the proletariat could make a socialist revolution without the vanguard holding its hand.
The vanguard party is made up of proletarians.

Are you really this clueless?

[UndergroundConnexion]

ok , yesterday night, in a silly mood, i decided to look a bit into the sources of the "first post" and follow the links on thie site, read the sites a bit, quick enough i ran into all kidns of iluminati, alex jones, new world oder, david icke, ultra religions , commision of 300 non sense. Just think about it for a second, would you take the sources as trustable? The conspiracy theorists?

Especially when you look how all these theories orignated mostly out of fear, racism , hate and others. Just read a bit about what forms conspriacy theories..

[Labor Shall Rule]

The vanguard is proletarian, as Manic Expression made clear.

History has proven that there will be the most advanced section of a class, which will be organized into a political party, that will carry on the will of the entire proletariat. In Spain, not every worker seized their factory, but the CNT workers did, which proves that they were most the advanced section, and that they influenced the mass of UGT workers into doing likewise. The leadership that represented them made a critical mistake, so the advanced section found itself in a dead-end. It's not rocket science.

It's funny, because the people that the workers rally around that tell inform them all that they "don't need leadership" through their speeches and articles are the leaders themselves, and how they weild that power is of the utmost importance.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 02, 2007 06:33 am
It was a very simple question I asked to understand what you meant, really*. You really should calm down a little.
OK, I apologise. I took your question in the context of our past disagreements over Rosa Luxemburg.


*About whether you meant a "Spart" variety of a Trotskyist or something else.


That's why I write SpartaKist instead of SpartaCist. The theft of the word by people who couldn't be more to the opposite of Rosa Luxemburg's ideas is a real shame.


Yeah. To be honest, there's very little to discuss about it. There wasn't a conspiracy. Bolsheviks weren't funded by New York Bankers. It sounds like a bad joke.

Yup. Unhappily, bad jokes like that are used to justify killing people. Treblinka, Auschwitz, etc. Something our pseudo-anarchist here isn't willing to take into consideration.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 02, 2007 11:10 am
"Workers cannot do things themselves!" they cry! "They would fall flat on their face, and so need leadership!"

I obviously disagree entirely. I think a well organised millitary, mandated by a network of democratic workplace and community councils should be more than capable of going toe to toe with the reactionaries, and is perfectly in line with Anarchist Principals. Just as capable as any bolshevik military.
I disagree. I think war is inherently anti-democratic; you cannot have a democratic army. Armies have to be hierarchical; armies have to shoot deserters; armies have to do shit - because, to quote a Polish soldier, Krieg ist Scheiss.

(That's why, on a side note, I am not much impressed by alleged atrocities by Makhno's army. It was an army, darnit. Armies do those things.)

We should never go to war, if we have the option. The problem is, we haven't always the option.

Luís Henrique

[p.m.a.]

It doesn't make any difference who joins the Party -- just because workers in Russia joined, they didn't get any more say than in any other political party over what the CC did. Saying the vanguard is proletarian because its made up of proletarians is like saying the Democratic Party can be a vanguard.

Have any of you even read What is to be Done?? Lenin straight-up says the proletariat could not make revolution in Russia, and that's why the vanguard has to make it for them. I'll bust out my old copy and quote it for you if you want. Marx said the workers must make their own revolution, but the Bolsheviks felt only they could make it for the workers. That is entirely reactionary, un-marxist, and the root cause of the failure of the entire Leninist paradigm.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 11:21 pm
It doesn't make any difference who joins the Party -- just because workers in Russia joined, they didn't get any more say than in any other political party over what the CC did. Saying the vanguard is proletarian because its made up of proletarians is like saying the Democratic Party can be a vanguard.

Have any of you even read What is to be Done?? Lenin straight-up says the proletariat could not make revolution in Russia, and that's why the vanguard has to make it for them. I'll bust out my old copy and quote it for you if you want. Marx said the workers must make their own revolution, but the Bolsheviks felt only they could make it for the workers. That is entirely reactionary, un-marxist, and the root cause of the failure of the entire Leninist paradigm.
It does make a difference: the American Democratic Party is made up of bourgeois activists with bourgeois interests and morals and politicians and support. The Bolshevik party was made up of workers with working-class interests.

Go ahead, quote something for us. The Bolsheviks always said that the workers HAD to make the revolution, and they carried it out. Just because you have a vanguard of workers and a disciplined cadre doesn't make this anything but.

[p.m.a.]

"We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without.... The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals."
- WISTB (1905, when SD consciousness || revolutionary consciousness)

"But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard."

- The Trade Unions, The Present Situation And Trotsky's Mistakes
December 30, 1920

So both early on in Lenin's career, and continuing until well after the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin stated clearly the working-class cannot make revolution itself. In fact, in WISTB, Lenin damned all instances of working-class self-organization, claiming they were "spontaneous" and thus unfocused and not a threat, and said revolutionary consciousness cannot be attained unless the bourgeois intellectuals lead them. Furthermore, he claims the proletariat is "so corrupted" that the whole proletariat cannot exercise the DofP, but instead the vanguard, again lead by bourgeois intellectuals, must make revolution for them.

This is the root of the theory of permanent revolution, or at least its focus on the necessity for the intellectuals to take power, lead Russia through the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and then eventually they'll reach socialism, sometime. The theory and the praxis of the Bolsheviks stands in stark contrast to Marx's original vision of socialist revolution: history has shown the Bolsheviks, upon coming into power, never actually represented the working class, as the Soviets were dismantled entirely by January 1918. What lesson can be drawn then from this? We, the working class, don't fucking need representation, we can build revolution ourselves.

For more detailed examinations of Leninism's deviation from Marxism, including lengthy looks at both Leninist theory and its praxis, I'd recommend Lenny Flank Jr.'s excellent Non-Leninist Marxism: A Philosophy of Revolution (http://web.archive.org/web/20010803232303/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/nonlenin.htm), and Werner Bonefeld's collection What is to be Done? Leninism, anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution Today (http://libcom.org/library/what-is-to-be-done-bonefeld), both of which are available for free at those respective links.

And, finally, an interesting piece on the subject from an anonymous comrade here at RL, which I think contextualizes the whole October Revolution perfectly:


The leaders of the French Revolution were predominantly lawyers, and Robespierre was a fifth-generation lawyer. Karl Marx followed in their footsteps, studying law under the influence of Hegel but drifting toward the new “historical school” led by Savigny, author of the seminal study of Possession.

Just before Marx’s Capital was published, Russian czar judicial reforms created a lucrative new field for lawyers, destined to be a major component of the emerging new class of intelligentsia. Kerensky and Lenin were practicing lawyers, and the latter shrewdly put his legal training to work on the political question of the day.

It was really quite simple: attorneys represent their clients, who are not adept at the mysteries of the law. The Revolutionary working class needed “representation” and the intelligentsia was prepared for the task of "representing" the workers. A discovery worthy of a bar association.

In the more advanced societies, Revolution of the attorney class in behalf of the client proletariat was never a possibility. Workers knew all about the lawyer/client relationship and agreed with that profound theorist Jack Cade that a real Revolution should mean killing all the lawyers.

But in Russia, the imperial constitution collapsed as had that of France in 1789; fortuitously, there wasn’t much of an industrial working class and the peasants were still throwing off the remnants of serfdom. The attorney class had its moment. And so, for three quarters of a century, the party intellectuals and their hacks floated above the material world, "representing" the Russian working class until the bitter end of that glorious eden.

Now Western Marxist intellectuals, once seemingly a nascent ruling class, forlornly rehash and relive those magic moments when the saints of the faith grasped the scepter of the Romanovs. They drift into reverie, issuing commands to ghostly armies and reciting the words of the Prophet to spectral throngs of awed and obedient workers, drawing up proscription lists of their enemies, and dreaming their megalomaniac dreams as the years and decades pass and the heedless world passes by.

Marx astutely included "lawyers without clients" as an element of the lumpenproletariat.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Lenin admitted he was wrong, and I can provide quotes to contradict what he wrote on the subject of socialist consciousness. He changed his position within a few years. Nice try.

[p.m.a.]

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 03, 2007 01:34 am
Lenin admitted he was wrong, and I can provide quotes to contradict what he wrote on the subject of socialist consciousness. He changed his position within a few years. Nice try.
A "few years" after 1920? Fat fucking lot of good that did, huh? Considering he was basically immobilized by 1923, he was but a poster boy for the Bolshevik bureaucracy which was already in place, guilty of crushing several autonomous revolutions and banning the soviet councils within which all hope for true socialism existed. And furthermore, what Lenin "said" is inconsequential; what Lenin did is what we Marxist materialists are supposed to be examining. But no Leninist is willing to honestly do that: the idealism overwhelms the capability to take a materialist analysis of the October Revolution. Because all materialist analysis leads one to conclude that Bolshevism was the single largest factor in the smothering of the actual workers' movement, and the potential to see communism within our own lifetimes.

[p.m.a.]

Oh, and BTW, not that anyone gives a shit about the original topic of this hijacked thread, but I found a book that maybe someone will find interesting. It's called Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution (http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/index.html), written by Dr. Antony C. Sutton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton), who has written a dozen books on topics ranging from Soviet economic development to the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I haven't read through this work yet myself, but my eye caught the second Appendix title: The Jewish-Conspiracy Theory of the Bolshevik Revolution (http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/bolshevik_revolution/appendix_02.htm). In it, he concludes:


Originally posted by "Sutton"+--> ("Sutton")The persistence with which the Jewish-conspiracy myth has been pushed suggests that it may well be a deliberate device to divert attention from the real issues and the real causes. The evidence provided in this book suggests that the New York bankers who were also Jewish had relatively minor roles in supporting the Bolsheviks, while the New York bankers who were also Gentiles (Morgan, Rockefeller, Thompson) had major roles.

What better way to divert attention from the real operators than by the medieval bogeyman of anti-Semitism?[/b]

Now, as I have said earlier, I have not read this yet, but drawn from the Preface, Sutton's thesis for the book is as follows:


"Sutton"
We find there was a link between some New York international bankers and many revolutionaries, including Bolsheviks. These banking gentlemen — who are here identified — had a financial stake in, and were rooting for, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Who, why — and for how much — is the story in this book.

I do know I look forward to reading this.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 02:47 am
A "few years" after 1920? Fat fucking lot of good that did, huh? Considering he was basically immobilized by 1923, he was but a poster boy for the Bolshevik bureaucracy which was already in place, guilty of crushing several autonomous revolutions and banning the soviet councils within which all hope for true socialism existed. And furthermore, what Lenin "said" is inconsequential; what Lenin did is what we Marxist materialists are supposed to be examining. But no Leninist is willing to honestly do that: the idealism overwhelms the capability to take a materialist analysis of the October Revolution. Because all materialist analysis leads one to conclude that Bolshevism was the single largest factor in the smothering of the actual workers' movement, and the potential to see communism within our own lifetimes.
"A few years" after he wrote What is to be Done?. Stop being thick.

Oh, so before you said Lenin's words were proof enough, but now Lenin's words are "inconsequential"? Which one is it, p.m.a.? It seems that once you were proven FLAT OUT WRONG on Lenin's words, you conveniently changed course. Your immaturity here is reaching unparalleled levels.

Oh, and on your new piece of evidence, I'm sure you thought we wouldn't notice the website you linked to:

http://reformed-theology.org/

Here's the introduction to the website in your link:

Millions of Christians, sadly, have not recognized the continuing authority of God's law or its many applications to modern society. They have thereby reaped the whirlwind: cultural and intellectual impotence. They have surrendered this world to the devil. They have implicitly denied the power of the death and resurrection of Christ. They have served as footstools of the enemies of God. But humanism's free ride is coming to an end. This journal serves as an introduction to this woefully neglected topic.

Great source you got there! :lol: What's next, p.m.a.? Are you going to use Martin Luther and Pope Urban II to prove your point?

[Labor Shall Rule]

I was talking about how he completely changed his position on obtaining socialist consciousness. After his involvement in the revolutionary events of 1905, he was proven incorrect by the Petrograd and Moscow workers who formed Soviets out of their strike committees. He had to fight against Old Bolsheviks that retained that since these new social structures were not under the control of the party, they were not legitimate representations of true worker's control.



Vladimir Lenin, Lessons of the Revolution:
"At every step the workers come face to face with their main enemy — the capitalist class. In combat with this enemy the worker becomes a socialist, comes to realize the necessity of a complete reconstruction of the whole of society, the complete abolition of all poverty and oppression."



Vladimir Lenin, The Reorganization of the Party:
"The working class is instinctively, spontaneously Social-Democratic, and more than ten years of work put in by Social-Democracy has done a great deal to transform this spontaneity into consciousness."

Lenin recognized that the character of the working class was bent towards the independent construction of class consciouss without it's plastering 'from the outside', and that it's own experience in these struggles will assist in the fostering of militancy and inner-organization that they will gradually obtain as a result of a sharper inclination brought forth by reaccuring moments of capitalist crisis.

Also, on the trade union debate, he was going against Trotsky who demanded that the trade unions should of been morphed into the alleged 'worker's state,' which he felt would of made them immediate vehicles of the factory and technical managers who were coming to control the political machinery. The 'vanguard' is the revolutionary leadership, and it is far better for the union to retain it's independence under the context of guidance from exceptional workers, rather than substitute it with the iron-fisted discipline of the state.

[Rawthentic]

Dali, you might use some nice language and all, but you are simply wrong and distorting Lenin's line.

The first quote you provide is actually against your position; Lenin correctly identifies that class consciousness arises when there is a struggle against the capitalist class, and this struggle is of course by necessity political, and led by communists.

Economic struggle is important and does achieve a sense of unity, but that does not make revolution or create the consciousness in the proletariat that is necessary to make it.

The proletariat does not need us to lead their day-today struggles. They kick ass at that, and they do way better than we could ever do. Our task as communists is to raise their sights to revolution. This is what Lenin talked about in "What is to be Done?" That doesn't mean that we shouldn't support their struggles. That's why we do things like go out and support the worker strikes when pigs are threatening attack,

However, leading major political battles and leading mass organizations are very different things than leading the day to day struggles of the proletariat. There are many key political battles throughout society that need proletarian leadership, and that is why communists need to provide visionary leadership in this, such as anti-war, against police brutality, the Jena 6 struggle for example, the defense of science against creationism, and other key political struggles that the proletariat needs to wage and respond to in correct ways.

The workers, by performing strikes and other economic struggles, are confined to one boss, one industry, and only raise their sights as far as piece-meal reforms go, not the seizure of power or the revolutionary transformation to communism.

The Bolshevik Party organized revolution by putting forward the political program that united the proletariat and peasantry and raised their sights to the necessity of seizure of power. It was the leadership that was pivotal, and Lenin provided this ("All power to the Soviets!") ;) as opposed to other counter-revolutionaries who insisted that soviets could never be organs of state power.

[p.m.a.]

Manic: Lenin's words matter when discussing Lenin's theory. Lenin's actions matter when discussing the Bolshevik paradigm for revolution. As a Marxist, if I'm going to align myself with a revolutionary ideal, I'm going to look at the praxis of those revolutionaries which attempted to institute it. And they clearly don't align. Are you being thick?

And the fact the dude's a Christian completely invalidates his entire work? How about the fact Karl Marx dropped the word "nigger" like a dozen times across the volume of his work, and even has made anti-Semitic statements? Again, yours is a simple, non-critical method of rejection.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PMA, we have dealt with Marx's alleged racism several times here.

Check this out:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=70309

[Herman]

That is entirely reactionary, un-marxist, and the root cause of the failure of the entire Leninist paradigm.

Ha! Spoken like a true Menshevik!

"It's unofficial! It's un-marxist! Marxism is dogma, it is! We cannot adapt marxism to modern circumstances, because it would be contradicting everything Marx said!"

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 02, 2007 08:55 pm
I disagree. I think war is inherently anti-democratic; you cannot have a democratic army. Armies have to be hierarchical; armies have to shoot deserters; armies have to do shit
I agree.

I don't see why that means the entire civil society has to serve the bolshevik party?

[Herman]

I don't see why that means the entire civil society has to serve the soviet revolution?

Fixed.

[p.m.a.]

Rosa, it doesn't really matter to me Marx's personal views on race. I was merely using that common argument to show the logical fallacy of manic. I haven't read that topic, tho, so thanks for sharing.

RedHermen: Cry Menshevik: I would assume Marx's methodology, however, still applies, if the historical specificities (that includes hypotheses created 150 years ago, 100 years ago) do not. If one is a Marxist, one disregards idealism in favor of a material analysis, from which one thus deduces revolutionary action. Lenin maybe applied this as best as he could in Russia 100 years ago. But how would it be Marxist to just cut-and-paste it into the 21st century?

[Herman]

Lenin maybe applied this as best as he could in Russia 100 years ago. But how would it be Marxist to just cut-and-paste it into the 21st century?

I did not say we should 'cut-and-paste' everything Lenin said to the 21st century. What I do say is that having such sectarian views on Leninists is wrong and distasteful.

Would you want me to say that, "all libertarian communists want to rape my mother!", regardless if in the past something similar might have happened especially when it's a past with lots of factors involved?

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by Live for the [email protected] 03, 2007 04:12 am
Dali, you might use some nice language and all, but you are simply wrong and distorting Lenin's line.

The first quote you provide is actually against your position; Lenin correctly identifies that class consciousness arises when there is a struggle against the capitalist class, and this struggle is of course by necessity political, and led by communists.

Economic struggle is important and does achieve a sense of unity, but that does not make revolution or create the consciousness in the proletariat that is necessary to make it.

The proletariat does not need us to lead their day-today struggles. They kick ass at that, and they do way better than we could ever do. Our task as communists is to raise their sights to revolution. This is what Lenin talked about in "What is to be Done?" That doesn't mean that we shouldn't support their struggles. That's why we do things like go out and support the worker strikes when pigs are threatening attack,

However, leading major political battles and leading mass organizations are very different things than leading the day to day struggles of the proletariat. There are many key political battles throughout society that need proletarian leadership, and that is why communists need to provide visionary leadership in this, such as anti-war, against police brutality, the Jena 6 struggle for example, the defense of science against creationism, and other key political struggles that the proletariat needs to wage and respond to in correct ways.

The workers, by performing strikes and other economic struggles, are confined to one boss, one industry, and only raise their sights as far as piece-meal reforms go, not the seizure of power or the revolutionary transformation to communism.

The Bolshevik Party organized revolution by putting forward the political program that united the proletariat and peasantry and raised their sights to the necessity of seizure of power. It was the leadership that was pivotal, and Lenin provided this ("All power to the Soviets!") ;) as opposed to other counter-revolutionaries who insisted that soviets could never be organs of state power.
I agree.

The process of obtaining class consciousness was something that Lenin recognized as something practical - something that can only be achieved by the conscious activity of the entire class.

It was their leadership that was pivotal, it transfered the growing revolutionary consciousness of the most advanced class and clarified it's interests by pressing formal demands, which helped elevate their position up until the overthrow of the social order.


The workers, by performing strikes and other economic struggles, are confined to one boss, one industry, and only raise their sights as far as piece-meal reforms go, not the seizure of power or the revolutionary transformation to communism.

I would concur that trade unions are, at heart, bodies of self-defense rather than organizations that are capable of delivering a blow to the capitalist state, but I think you are downplaying the role that they could play in the process. They are not "limited to one boss," that is confusing craft unionism with industrial unionism, and it plays an essential role in integrating the political party with the interests of the working class as a whole. It promotes democratic control and ownership over the means of production by the laboring masses as a whole.

[UndergroundConnexion]

for fuck's sake look at your sources, the dude is not only hardocre chrisitan , but nex to that also a LIBERTARIAN! you know the ones that want that companies control the control the policies, no state inference, everything privatized etc. those also advocate the fee market jungle

and yes, the SU got advisors from the USa in the end twenties , start 30s.... what's your point your trying to make.... these advisors for factories and everything were given a "good salary", they were not send the for benevolence...

and yes Lenin got some money from german bankers and bussiness man, who believed that lenin would stir up shit in russia, and get germany to win the eastern front, as lenin was the only with these plans....

what is wrong with these things. and that author of yours is trying to advocate a way more anti communist line (yep even more), as these books were written in 1970's to 1980's. What he was trying to achieve eith his books is to get people to think that the USA should fuck over the SU even more..

also look who who belonged to his friend circle...

[Forward Union]

While we're on it. Here is a document proving communisms alliance with the reptilian shape shifters.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/63572/David-Icke...referral=google (http://www.scribd.com/doc/63572/David-Icke-Reptilian-Research-Archives?referral=google)

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 02:47 am
But no Leninist is willing to honestly do that: the idealism overwhelms the capability to take a materialist analysis of the October Revolution.
"Materialist analysis" meaning a ridiculous conspiracy theory according to which New York bankers miraculously could foresee the future failure of the Russian Revolution?

Get over it: No one, bourgeois or proletarian, was able to do that ante facto. Your claims, instead of helping people to reason about what went wrong in the Russian Revolution, just make you look silly, unable to come up with a reasoned argument against Leninism, and eager to jump into any wagon of anti-Leninists, even if those anti-Leninists are of the far-right variety.

There are good, solid, and valid arguments against the Bolshevik brand of substitutionism. Yours is not one.

Because all materialist analysis leads one to conclude that Bolshevism was the single largest factor in the smothering of the actual workers' movement, and the potential to see communism within our own lifetimes.
Make yourself a time machine, go back there, and fix everything.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by William Everard+October 03, 2007 08:04 am--> (William Everard @ October 03, 2007 08:04 am)
Luís [email protected] 02, 2007 08:55 pm
I disagree. I think war is inherently anti-democratic; you cannot have a democratic army. Armies have to be hierarchical; armies have to shoot deserters; armies have to do shit
I agree.

I don't see why that means the entire civil society has to serve the bolshevik party? [/b]
Nor do I.

I don't think the entire civil society has to serve the Bolshevik Party. Or any other party if it matters.

But the point is, anyway, the idea of a "democratic", "bottom-top" army (an idea with which the Bolsheviks also toyed) is a dellusion. No army can be like that and win its battles. FARC isn't, the EZLN isn't, the Red Army wasn't, the FSLN wasn't, the VietCong wasn't, Makhno's army wasn't, the Spanish Republican army wasn't.

To win a war, an army must be top-down, hierarchical, stupid, brutal and anti-democratic.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 09:20 am
Rosa, it doesn't really matter to me Marx's personal views on race. I was merely using that common argument to show the logical fallacy of manic. I haven't read that topic, tho, so thanks for sharing.
There is a difference between a life-long committed revolutionary who occasionally wrote stupid things, and a life-long committed counter-revolutionary.


RedHermen: Cry Menshevik: I would assume Marx's methodology, however, still applies, if the historical specificities (that includes hypotheses created 150 years ago, 100 years ago) do not. If one is a Marxist, one disregards idealism in favor of a material analysis, from which one thus deduces revolutionary action.

And a material analysis is a material analysis. What you are doing is to claim that some sold their souls to the Devil, and pretending that this is a material analysis because the gold involved in such supernatural transaction is "material".


Lenin maybe applied this as best as he could in Russia 100 years ago. But how would it be Marxist to just cut-and-paste it into the 21st century?

It isn't. But no one is discussing the application of Lenin's ideas to the XXI century here. On the contrary, we are discussing its application to the early XX century, and you are the one claiming that Lenin consciously wanted to build a State capitalist society, that American bankers were willing to help that project with funding, and that they all conspired against the proletariat, probably laughing "mbwhamwhahwhahahah" while at it. Which, as a whole, is completely false.

Luís Henrique

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 05:06 am
Manic: Lenin's words matter when discussing Lenin's theory. Lenin's actions matter when discussing the Bolshevik paradigm for revolution. As a Marxist, if I'm going to align myself with a revolutionary ideal, I'm going to look at the praxis of those revolutionaries which attempted to institute it. And they clearly don't align. Are you being thick?

And the fact the dude's a Christian completely invalidates his entire work? How about the fact Karl Marx dropped the word "nigger" like a dozen times across the volume of his work, and even has made anti-Semitic statements? Again, yours is a simple, non-critical method of rejection.
You clearly said that Lenin's words didn't matter, right after you were proven completely wrong on (wait for it) Lenin's words. Very convenient. Your arguments can't even align with themselves.

No, the fact that "the dude" is a hardcore Jesus freak, and that he got published in a periodical that says the world is sinful (!) makes him a pretty terrible source on Bolshevism. If you're going to use fundamentalist lunatics in an attempt to discredit the Bolsheviks, you'll only end up making yourself look like the idiot you are.

And you're hopelessly wrong on Marx, we've been over this 20 times before.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by Luís [email protected] 03, 2007 12:12 pm
But the point is, anyway, the idea of a "democratic", "bottom-top" army (an idea with which the Bolsheviks also toyed) is a dellusion. No army can be like that and win its battles. FARC isn't, the EZLN isn't, the Red Army wasn't, the FSLN wasn't, the VietCong wasn't, Makhno's army wasn't, the Spanish Republican army wasn't.

To win a war, an army must be top-down, hierarchical, stupid, brutal and anti-democratic.

I did say I agreed with this, although "stupid" is not a word I would use. You have already pointed out three good examples, the EZLN, Makhnovists and the CNT, we could even add the POUM to that list. All are/were mandated by a system of free democratic councils.

All of the above (with the exception of the EZLN) also had ellected officers. Contemporary accounts also said that very little in the way of formal mechanisms actually kept the men in the POUM from deserting. They were often held there by, as orwell put it "class pride"

[UndergroundConnexion]

Originally posted by William [email protected] 03, 2007 11:57 am
While we're on it. Here is a document proving communisms alliance with the reptilian shape shifters.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/63572/David-Icke...referral=google (http://www.scribd.com/doc/63572/David-Icke-Reptilian-Research-Archives?referral=google)
hahaha ye , david icke, also conspiracy guy , with that whole lizard story...
dude had a mnetal/nervous breakdown, then wrote some conspiracy shit, think he evern tried al kinds of drugs in latin america

[Guerrilla22]

I don't know about wall Street, but the Bolsheviks definitely recieved funds from the german government, because at the time the Germans were trying to get the Russians out of the war and the best way to do that was obviously support the Bolsheviks. At any rate, I don't think where they drew their funds from delegitmizes them as revolutionaries.

[Philosophical Materialist]

To answer the original question, the answer is "no." You'd have to be rather gullible and ignorant of history to believe that the USSR was a capitalist Jewish banker plot.

[Tatarin]

What? Reptilians aren't real?

[Don't Change Your Name]

Sorry for not reading the whole thread (I haven't posted here in, like, months), and I don't know if anybody said this already, but it could be possible for businessmen to finance a revolution of this sort if they perceived that they could profit out of the situation on an easier way than with a Tsar or any kind of feudalist economical/political organization. It's not likely, but it wouldn't be impossible either.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by William Everard+October 02, 2007 11:09 am--> (William Everard @ October 02, 2007 11:09 am)
Labor Shall [email protected] 02, 2007 10:39 am
If we had 'worker's democracy,' the anti-semetic, fascist armies that would "wipe out two-thirds of the entire country if it meant ridding of the Bolsheviks" would have had an advantage since they would be a well-armed, highly trained and organized force going against a decentralized link of factory committees and local Soviets with ragged bands of unarmed, under trained and disciplined militias that are concentrated in local areas.
"Workers cannot do things themselves!" they cry! "They would fall flat on their face, and so need leadership!"

I obviously disagree entirely. I think a well organised millitary, mandated by a network of democratic workplace and community councils should be more than capable of going toe to toe with the reactionaries, and is perfectly in line with Anarchist Principals. Just as capable as any bolshevik military. [/b]
There is no example of a decentralised military of the type you are arguing for carrying out a revolution successfully. All successful military campaigns need some centralisation. Makhno and the Spanish anarchists were no exception to this.

Your comment about leadership not being working class was telling. Why can't workers be leaders?

[Specter]

It was in the intrest of the nations being in war with Russia (Was it only Germany, ore others as well?) to support the local troublemakers - Lenin being the biggest one among them. These people could have given money to anny troubblemaker regardless of ideology - so they probably didnt care about Lenins thoughts- just his anti-Tsar and perhaps anti-war stance. Lenin was alowed to stay in Germany, and if he and his followers recieved anny money, it probably has something to do with the capitalist enemies of the Tsar.

Since economy is global - germans might be innvolved even if a US bank made the final transaction.

Its kind of funny that the same groups of people who backed upp Lenin before 1917 claimed that he was part of a jewish anti-german conspirazy twenty years later. I wonder if they actualy believed what they where saying (could be, human memory is short) ore if they new they lied.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27, 2007 06:54 am
I've come across claims that the Bolsheviks, in 1917, were funded by Wall Street banking interests. This (http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=FinalWarn07-3) this one source, which I'll quote from:


Leon Trotsky was given $20 million in Jacob Schiff gold to help finance the revolution, which was deposited in a Warburg bank, then transferred to the Nya Banken (Nye Bank) in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the Knickerbocker Column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: "Today it is estimated by Jacob's grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia."

Other evidence (http://www.reformation.org/wall-st-fdr-ch11.html) suggests that the American International Corporation, established by interests of the Rockefeller-Rothschild monopolies, to aid the Bolsheviks in overthrowing the tsar.

I was wondering if anyone had any info on the subject? It makes sense that the state-capitalist hijacking of the Marxist project for humanity was aided by capitalists. After all, real Marxism is significantly more threatening to the ruling class than the Leninist paradigm.
This claim is often cited by various conspiracy theorists, usually those of an anti-Semitic shade. Schiff funded the earlier 1917 revolution that established the provisional government. He pulled the plug when the Bolsheviks took power in November.