Lenin's Actions Post-Revolution

[Comrade Nadezhda]

Yes, here is the usual argument of "going back to Marx" and "burying Lenin".

ComradeRed, have you ever taken the time to read Lenin's work, well, thoroughly? It might do you a lot of good. Possibly it would allow you to look a little further.

[ComradeRed]

ComradeRed, have you ever taken the time to read Lenin's work, well, thoroughly? It might do you a lot of good. Possibly it would allow you to look a little further. Yes, I have. Can you believe that the U$ has been on its death bed for over a century?!? :lol::rolleyes:

I've actually been asked to look over a few of Lenin's pieces again, and rereading Lenin's "Left-Wing" Childishness I can certainly say that Lenin was one hell of a politician but one crappy theorist.

[Comrade Nadezhda]

Yes, I have. Can you believe that the U$ has been on its death bed for over a century?!? :lol::rolleyes:

I've actually been asked to look over a few of Lenin's pieces again, and rereading Lenin's "Left-Wing" Childishness I can certainly say that Lenin was one hell of a politician but one crappy theorist.
Well, it just so happens that Lenin understood that to "wait and see" until after the revolution could cause the revolution to fail. There was no time to sit down and think about it. The such could cost comrades their lives. It could have caused the working people to starve. Yes, with every revolution there can be mistakes- but there wasn't any situation where it could have been dealt with differently. Lenin argued for what needed to be done. It may seem like "crappy theory" to you, but there were a lot of blanks Marx left and they needed to be filled. Lenin did the such better than most could have. Lenin was able to create a public distinction between the truth and sensation, idealism. Most importantly, revolution must be constructed. The same is true for the proletarian state. For socialism. Everything. It takes immediate, uninterrupted, effort- to do so. There can be revolution ,but it takes even greater effort to secure it and prevent all of that effort from falling to the counterrevolutionaries.

[ComradeRed]

Well, it just so happens that Lenin understood that to "wait and see" until after the revolution could cause the revolution to fail. There was no time to sit down and think about it. The such could cost comrades their lives. It could have caused the working people to starve. Yes, with every revolution there can be mistakes- but there wasn't any situation where it could have been dealt with differently. This is getting to be completely irrelevant from the thread, so if you want to continue this discussion I'll have to fork this off into another thread (not a threat just a fact ;)).

Your mischaracterizing my assessment of Lenin.

I am not saying Lenin did "the wrong thing". I'm saying that he was a politician extraordinaire first and foremost.

He did what it took for his party to secure power. He also did what it took for his party to consolidate power.

Lenin's state capitalism was progressive...hell, capitalism is progressive when it follows feudalism. That's one big point Marx hammered on home. Perhaps you should brush up on Marxism?

So your entire point is more or less moot.


It may seem like "crappy theory" to you, but there were a lot of blanks Marx left and they needed to be filled. I was referring to the parts of Leninism like Lenin's theory of imperialism, not Lenin's actions :glare:

His contributions to Marxism was negligible at best.

He even set it back quite a bit by making assertions like "It is impossible to understand Das Kapital without first understanding Hegel's Logic in its entirety" (despite, somewhat comically, the fact that Lenin later admitted to not understanding Hegel's Logic at all!).

But if you were trying to overthrow a pre-capitalist system in the so-called "third world", Lenin's your man.

As for the abolition of wage-slavery, well, Lenin's not of much help.


Lenin did the such better than most could have. Lenin was able to create a public distinction between the truth and sensation, idealism. Most importantly, revolution must be constructed. The same is true for the proletarian state. For socialism. Everything. It takes immediate, uninterrupted, effort- to do so. There can be revolution ,but it takes even greater effort to secure it and prevent all of that effort from falling to the counterrevolutionaries. "Great individuals" don't make history, philistine that was one of the big points of historical materialism.

Don't you remember your Eighteenth Brumaire?

Perhaps you should brush up on your Marx and Engels.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Go ahead and split this if you so wish ("Post-revolution structure")


His contributions to Marxism was negligible at best.

Does "freedom of discussion, unity in action" ring any bells? :glare:

[Hopefully you won't make the same logical fallacy that the Trots do by equating that with democratic centralism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democratic-centralism-vs-t70106/index.html).]


He even set it back quite a bit by making assertions like "It is impossible to understand Das Kapital without first understanding Hegel's Logic in its entirety" (despite, somewhat comically, the fact that Lenin later admitted to not understanding Hegel's Logic at all!).

That's a minor mistake, and one which I never even heard about before registering on this board. :glare:

I betcha Engels made more serious mistakes than Lenin did in the formulation of Marxism.


Anarchists argue from a position of the existence of authority, I argue from a position of the existence of private property. There is a difference...

Anarchists want to abolish the state presto. You want to abolish even "collective"/"cooperative" property (also private, mind you) presto. :p


But I cannot agree with this assessment of this three sector description of a post-capitalist society...since it essentially still is capitalism.

When I'm referring to "decentralized alternatives", I'm referring to the structure of the whole economy not one of your damned "sectors".

I don't really understand what time period you are even referring to: before, after, or during capitalism collapsing?

I'm referring to the post-revolutionary period. Obviously, you and I have sharp disagreements over the proximity of the socialist revolution to the beginning of the socialist mode of production. EVERY political revolution thus far occurred many years before the firm establishment of the corresponding mode of production (Cromwell and the English civil war come into mind).

[ComradeRed]

Note for future reference: I split this and if you can think of a better title for the thread PM me.

[renegadoe]

It could have caused the working people to starve.

How cute - the vanguard was simply "protecting" the working-man. A legal structure of representation, if you will.

Smells like a bourgeois revolution. Please stop calling it proletarian communism.


"Great individuals" don't make history, philistine that was one of the big points of historical materialism.Too often, vanguardist apologists forget this fundamental of historical materialism. Their explanations are "Stalin suxx" or "Krushev suxx" or "Deng suxx" - like the fate of the revolution rested on the guidance of one man. Again, stinks of bourgeois revolution.


I'm referring to the post-revolutionary period. Obviously, you and I have sharp disagreements over the proximity of the socialist revolution to the beginning of the socialist mode of production. EVERY political revolution thus far occurred many years before the firm establishment of the corresponding mode of production (Cromwell and the English civil war come into mind).And every political revolution thus far failed. All your "socialist" revolutions happened in essentially feudal countries, and winded up producing modern capitalist economies. They were bourgeois revolutions.

So I'm curious: how it is that the organizational paradigm they took is relevant to revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries in the 21st century?

"Freedom of discussion" on the level we're now having was impossible in 1902. Are you saying we cannot do any better now?

[Marsella]

So I'm curious: how it is that the organizational paradigm they took is relevant to revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries in the 21st century?

I believe that was answered well here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/06/26.htm and http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/09/17.htm

[renegadoe]

I do not respond to links. We are two humans engaged in dialogue.

How does the organizational paradigm designed to meet the objective conditions of an autocratic political atmosphere, a minority of supporters except in the urban areas, and the productive capabilities of the dark ages at all apply to the working class in the advanced capitalist states today?

We cannot hide behind a reverence for large beards - use the tools of historical materialism to respond to my question, and quit throwing around reading material like you're my teacher.

However, the latter piece did contain a useful remark:


We cannot, therefore, go along with people who openly claim that the workers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first be emancipated from the top down...

Gee, Marx just clearly shot down the entire justification Lenin had for the "leading role of the party." Guess his really was a bourgeois revolution.

[Marsella]

I do not respond to links. We are two humans engaged in dialogue.Alrighty then.


How does the organizational paradigm designed to meet the objective conditions of an autocratic political atmosphere, a minority of supporters except in the urban areas, and the productive capabilities of the dark ages at all apply to the working class in the advanced capitalist states today?It doesn't.


We cannot hide behind a reverence for large beards - use the tools of historical materialism to respond to my question, and quit throwing around reading material like you're my teacher.Wow, way to be an arrogant fuck. I quoted it because it had a damn good point. If such parties were irrelevant to proletarian struggles then, what of today?


Gee, Marx just clearly shot down the entire justification Lenin had for the "leading role of the party." Guess his really was a bourgeois revolution.I agree.

The relevant part of the first link:
Of course, he could organize such a group under Louis Phillippe's reign only as a secret society.and


From Blanqui's assumption, that any revolution may be made by the outbreak of a small revolutionary minority, follows of itself the necessity of a dictatorship after the success of the venture. This is, of course, a dictatorship, not of the entire revolutionary class, the proletariat, but of the small minority that has made the revolution, and who are themselves previously organized under the dictatorship of one or several individuals.

We see, then, that Blanqui is a revolutionary of the preceding generation.

The so-called vanguard was a response to the autocratic nature of the USSR, as well as its miniscule proletariat class.

We do not need such a secret party today. It would be totaly contrary to a proletarian revolution:


So far as we are concerned, after our whole past only one way is open to us. For nearly 40 years we have raised to prominence the idea of the class struggle as the immediate driving force of history, and particularly the class struggle between bourgeois and the proletariat as the great lever of the modern social revolution; hence, we can hardly go along with people who want to strike this class struggle from the movement. At the founding of the International, we expressly formulated the battle cry: The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.

We cannot, therefore, go along with people who openly claim that the workers are too ignorant to emancipate themselves but must first be emancipated from the top down, by the philanthropic big and petty bourgeois.

[BobKKKindle$]

His contributions to Marxism was negligible at best.

This is simply incorrect. Lenin's analysis of imperialism, which he understood as a stage in the development of capitalism and a dynamic that can assume many forms, including neo-colonial forms of control, is still applicable to the modern world, as shown by recent events, most notably the war in Iraq.

[renegadoe]

bobkindles, that myth was shot down above:


Can you believe that the U$ has been on its death bed for over a century?!?

Your repeating it again and again does not make it true.

Both Lenin and Marx never saw how capital uses spatial fixes to defer crises around the globe. They were marred by the myopia imposed by their historical conditions. But we understand today that capitalism is a global system of social relations which relies on spatial relocation of overaccumulation to regional markets as a method to temporarily resolve crises. It also continually asserts the myth that nations are important boundaries to capital accumulation. Imperialism is not the highest form of capitalism, and is not going to implode next week.

[BobKKKindle$]

But we understand today that capitalism is a global system of social relations which relies on spatial relocation of overaccumulation to regional markets as a method to temporarily resolve crises. It also continually asserts the myth that nations are important boundaries to capital accumulation.Lenin realized this as well - he included the export of capital as one of the defining characteristics of Imperialism, as the export of capital assumes greater importance during the imperialist epoch, relative to the export of commodities. He argues that the search for ways to dispose of surplus investment capital is an important part of imperialism, as if these funds were invested in the domestic economy, the resulting increase in the organic composition of capital (the ratio of constant capital to variable capital) would lower the rate of profit and thus accelerate the tendency towards crisis. Imperialism can thus be understood as a countervailing factor (or a collection of factors) to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

This dynamic can be observed in the real world - for example, through the structural adjustment programs of the IMF which prevent countries from imposing restrictions on the mobility of foreign capital and allow foreign investors to purchase the assets of state firms.

From I:HSOT


Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway, was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital....As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilised not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap.PS. I don't know why you accuse me of "repeating" this "again and again" - I have not posted in this thread before and you are a new member

[BobKKKindle$]

In addition to the theory of Imperialism, Lenin's views on organization are also very important. Lenin recognized that the proletariat was not a homogeneous group; there exist varying levels of consciousness, such that whereas some workers may understand that their interests cannot be reconciled with those of the ruling class and the capitalist system, most workers are limited to demanding changes within the framework of the existing order through trade unions and the main political parties, and may hold prejudices which are not conducive to working class unity and attribute problems faced by one section of the working class to another ethnic or religious group. This combination of progressive and reactionary views was described by Gramsci as "contradictory consciousness".

This is closely connected to Marx's comment "the prevailing ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class"

Lenin realized that the most class conscious section of the working class - the "vanguard" - should form a political party and intervene in working class struggles (such as strikes, and campaigns against single issues) in order to show how the problems workers faced are derived form the capitalist system, thus eliminating harmful forms of "false consciousness" such as racism, thereby allowing workers to attain a revolutionary class consciousness.

"Consciousness" is the result of two separate sets of conditions - objective and subjective, the former referring to the living conditions of the working class and the state of the economy, the latter meaning the role of agitation and political ideas, to which workers are subject through the media and other institutions. For a revolutionary situation to arise, the "right" objective and subjective conditions must exist - a failure to ensure that workers have access to revolutionary propaganda may result in frustrated workers turning to political apathy in the midst of a depression or, worse, fascism, which offers workers from one ethnic group a sense of collective identity and power, and is thus often attractive to alienated working class youths, as shown by the electoral rise of the BNP in depressed working class communities. The danger of fascism affirms the need for a vanguard.

An important part of the vanguard's role is the publication of a revolutionary newspaper, which should be easily available, and written in a language workers can understand. Some Socialists pour scorn on the task of selling papers, but it is important, even if it's not an exciting task for a young activist.

Other socialists accuse Lenin of treating workers as ignorant. However, this shows a failure to understand the meaning of the "vanguard". A "vanguard" will always exist - Lenin drew attention to the existence of this "vanguard" and argued for the formation of an organized "vanguard party".

[gilhyle]

I betcha Engels made more serious mistakes than Lenin did in the formulation of Marxism.
.

Good point ! Come to think of it the man who probably made the most mistakes, by far, in the formulation of Marxism was almost certainly Karl Marx.....but if you dont make mistakes you dont get anything done.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Were you being sarcastic? :confused:


So I'm curious: how it is that the organizational paradigm they took is relevant to revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist countries in the 21st century?

"Freedom of discussion" on the level we're now having was impossible in 1902. Are you saying we cannot do any better now?

If you actually bothered to read the various "crisis of theory" threads in the "Revolutionary Marxists" user group, you would be more aware of the relationship between Lenin's slogan and democratic centralism. :glare:

[renegadoe]

PS. I don't know why you accuse me of "repeating" this "again and again" - I have not posted in this thread before and you are a new member

The mantra that "imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism" is always just that - a mantra, repeated without any evidence to support it. All materialist analysis actually suggests otherwise.

The efforts of capitalists to penetrate and reap the benefits of the labor forces of pre-industrial-capitalist societies has existed since before Marx's own time. Marx and Engels wrote about Indian Mutiny in the 1850s, for example, as British imperialism was acting how all capitalists always act. Capitalists do, of course, extract surplus-value from the third-world - but their profits are still made according to the laws of value, and thus the whole notion of a "super-profit" is materially baseless.

If there was a "super-exploited" labor pool, then both its numbers and its profitability would fall exponentially quickly. The workers in this pool would never be able to reproduce their ability to labor - and thus they would either die off, or choose not to enter the pool. Capitalists must pay workers enough for them to reproduce their labor (which is why wages are based on the costs of social reproduction for respective societies). If the entirety of capitalism, then, is based on the "super-exploitation" of the "third"-world peasantry, and has been for the last 100+ years, then those "super-exploited" nations would, by now, be empty of any people but capitalists.

Obviously this is not the case. Thus, it can be seen that Lenin's theory of imperialism was simply wrong. It was a failed attempt to explain why western workers had not yet revolted, and to justify the seizure of power in a neo-colonial, proto-industrial nation. But subsequent contemporary Marxists theorists have resolved that question in ways which more accurately reflect material reality. Thus, it follows, Lenin's theory of imperialism is no longer useful.

[ComradeRed]

Does "freedom of discussion, unity in action" ring any bells? Yes, I should blindly follow self-proclaimed Leftists because they're...self-proclaimed Leftists :lol:

If I don't agree with what someone is doing, I don't damn well do it!

And if it turns out that someone is doing something reactionary, I damn well act against it!

It doesn't matter how much leftist rhetoric you're slinging around, if you act in a reactionary manner, I'll act to oppose it. Just as any Leftist would.


I betcha Engels made more serious mistakes than Lenin did in the formulation of Marxism. Yeah, Engels did make mistakes, as did Marx.

Now we should learn from their mistakes!


From I:HSOT


Typical of the old capitalism, when free competition held undivided sway, was the export of goods. Typical of the latest stage of capitalism, when monopolies rule, is the export of capital....As long as capitalism remains what it is, surplus capital will be utilised not for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses in a given country, for this would mean a decline in profits for the capitalists, but for the purpose of increasing profits by exporting capital abroad to the backward countries. In these backward countries profits are usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land is relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap. This isn't a contribution to Marxist theory, since Marx kind of pointed this out already in the concept of primitive accumulation of capital.

Lenin makes the same mistake, it should be noted, as Adam Smith by adopting the position that the export of capital is the consequence of capitalism rather than its starting point.

Marx goes through detail, in Das Kapital volume I Chapter 26, about this concept being wrong.

Marx then goes through rather rigorous empirical detail to show that primitive accumulation evolves into the tendency of capitalist accumulation.

Hell, he even realized this concept as early as 1848 since it was explained in oversimplified terms in the Manifesto.

Lenin's "contribution" adds nothing to Marx's rigorous analysis of empirical data.

Worse, crediting Lenin's theory of "imperialism" for social phenomena explainable through Marx's tools alone shows a complete disregard or ignorance (or both) of Marxist theory.

Lenin should have observed the logical consequence of what he was saying here. Backwards countries are being industrialized by the accumulation process of capital as accurately described by Marx.

As time goes on, the profits from these countries would diminish as output rises beyond domestic demand because the labor contained in each commodity diminishes significantly. It follows there would be surplus product produced by these industrialized nations.

That's kind of the entire point of industrialization...

[Die Neue Zeit]

renegadoe, I invite you to participate in this thread:

Is a new theory of imperialism - or rather "macro-capitalism" - needed? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-theory-imperialism-t69324/index.html)