A few questions

[Incendiarism]

So, trotskyists, anarchists, and others, I understand how Stalin makes you boil with anger, but how do you feel about his successors and their reforms? This is under the assumption you consider the USSR socialist in some degree, I suppose, though.

Also, a question about the vanguard: did lenin believe in leading the proletariat up until the point they gained the necessary consciousness needed to organize themselves?

[trivas7]

Also, a question about the vanguard: did lenin believe in leading the proletariat up until the point they gained the necessary consciousness needed to organize themselves?
Lenin believed that the vanguard party was already that part of the working class who were already most conscious of its historic mission of leading the proletariat into socialism. Whether and to what extent this is what happened historically is another question.

[revolution inaction]

So, trotskyists, anarchists, and others, I understand how Stalin makes you boil with anger, but how do you feel about his successors and their reforms? This is under the assumption you consider the USSR socialist in some degree, I suppose, though.

I don't, I would be vary surprised if an anarchist did
I don't think things would have gone much differently if Trotsky had been in power either.
Why do idiots keep lumping anarchism and trotskyism together?

[Niccolò Rossi]

Lenin believed that the vanguard party was already that part of the working class who were already most conscious of its historic mission of leading the proletariat into socialism.

I don't believe that's true. Lenin being influenced as he was by Kautsky carried over the confused notion that the vanguard is not a product of the class and that class consciousness is brought from outside the class.


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.The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia.


“Many of our revisionist critics believe that Marx asserted that economic development and the class struggle create, not only the conditions for socialist production, but also, and directly, the consciousness of its necessity. And these critics assert that England, the country most highly developed capitalistically, is more remote than any other from this consciousness Judging by the draft, one might assume that this allegedly orthodox Marxist view, which is thus refuted, was shared by the committee that drafted the Austrian programme. In the draft programme it is stated: ‘The more capitalist development increases the numbers of the proletariat, the more the proletariat is compelled and becomes fit to fight against capitalism. The proletariat becomes conscious of the possibility and of the necessity for socialism.’ In this connection socialist consciousness appears to be a necessary and direct result of the proletarian class struggle. But this is absolutely untrue. Of course, socialism, as a doctrine, has its roots in modern economic relationships just as the class struggle of the proletariat has, and, like the latter, emerges from the struggle against the capitalist-created poverty and misery of the masses. But socialism and the class struggle arise side by side and not one out of the other; each arises under different conditions. Modern socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of profound scientific knowledge. Indeed, modern economic science is as much a condition for socialist production as, say, modern technology, and the proletariat can create neither the one nor the other, no matter how much it may desire to do so; both arise out of the modern social process. The vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia: it was in the minds of individual members of this stratum that modern socialism originated, and it was they who communicated it to the more intellectually developed proletarians who, in their turn, introduce it into the proletarian class struggle where conditions allow that to be done. Thus, socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without and not something that arose within it spontaneously. Accordingly, the old Hainfeld programme quite rightly stated that the task of Social-Democracy is to imbue the proletariat with the consciousness of its position and the consciousness of its task. There would be no need for this if consciousness arose of itself from the class struggle.

[trivas7]

I don't believe that's true. Lenin being influenced as he was by Kautsky carried over the confused notion that the vanguard is not a product of the class and that class consciousness is brought from outside the class.
Are you saying that Lenin went against the clear guide of the Communist Manifesto when it says:

In what relation do the communists stand to the proletarians in as a whole? The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

[apathy maybe]

Are you saying that Lenin went against the clear guide of the Communist Manifesto when it says:

The Communist Manifesto is not scripture. The Communist Manifesto was a pamphlet written 160 years ago by an immature (relatively speaking) Karl Marx discussing something not at all like what happened in Russia in 1917.


As to the original question (why do people think that anarchists and trots are similar or the same? Trots are just another variant of Leninist to anarchists):
"how do you feel about [Stalin's] successors and their reforms? "
Anarchists object to all states, whether lead by Stalin, Khrushchev (who was General Secretary during the Hungarian and Polish uprisings), Brezhnev (Afghanistan) or Gorbachev.

We don't want a "reformed" state, we want no state.

[OI OI OI]

Lenin being influenced as he was by Kautsky carried over the confused notion that the vanguard is not a product of the class and that class consciousness is brought from outside the class.

Plus he was over-exxagerating in order to combat the economists.
Lenin made this mistake in WITBD but he later corrected it.
He didn't carry that thought for long...




but how do you feel about his successors and their reforms? This is under the assumption you consider the USSR socialist in some degree, I suppose, though.


You talk about his successors . You talk about bureaucrats.
Why? Because the people were not in power. It was still a nationalized planned economy managed by the bureaucrats. So we can't help but criticize that.
Although we trotskyists criticaly supported the USSR for being a degenerated workers state .
So how do we feel about Krutchev? Krutchev was himself a Stalinist !

[trivas7]

The Communist Manifesto is not scripture. The Communist Manifesto was a pamphlet written 160 years ago by an immature (relatively speaking) Karl Marx discussing something not at all like what happened in Russia in 1917.

I didn't imply that the Communist Manifesto is scripture. I asked Z whether or not he thought that for Lenin the vanguard party was part of the proletariat.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Are you saying that Lenin went against the clear guide of the Communist Manifesto

Not entirely


In what relation do the communists stand to the proletarians in as a whole? The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

Lenin's "socialist intelligentsia" was certainly in his opinion not "opposed" to or holding "interests separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole". However they most certainly did have "sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement", this is clearly demonstrated in his polemics against the "economists".


Plus he was over-exxagerating in order to combat the economists.

Yes, yes, the whole "bending the stick" argument.


Lenin made this mistake in WITBD but he later corrected it.
He didn't carry that thought for long...

Do us a favour and source please.

[trivas7]

Yes, yes, the whole "bending the stick" argument.

What does this refer to? Is this in WITBD?

[Niccolò Rossi]

What does this refer to?


Obviously, an episode in the struggle against economism has here been confused with a principled presentation of a major theoretical question, namely the formation of an ideology.... We all know that the ‘economists’ bent the stick in one direction. In order to straighten the stick it was necessary to bend it in the other direction, and that is what I did.


Is this in WITBD?

No, it was an admission later by Lenin that he had over-exaggerated some aspects in his polemics against the "economists" and their "spontaneity".