This has been posted before, and this was my response:
I would add to that; it's pretty easy to "slaughter" someone when they don't get a chance to reply to your diatribes.
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Leninist Attacks Chomsky, Chomsky kicks her ass.
+ YouTube Video
Chomsky slaughters the American Leninist woman with facts, something Leninists tend to forget. Important to note, this was in 1989.
This has been posted before, and this was my response:
I would add to that; it's pretty easy to "slaughter" someone when they don't get a chance to reply to your diatribes.
What material circumstances existed, or have ever existed where power for man over everyone else is nessesary over actual socialism and freedom? THats never been explained.
The fact is socialism WAS the reason for the revolution and socialism IS democracy and freedom. You hav'nt explained why what chomsky said is wrong, any of the facts, he explained the historical context and explained what happend, why is what he said wrong? Specifically?
It is very easy to distort history. Documents can be forged, books can be written and rewritten, revolutionary publications can be suppressed. However, it remains a fact that Marxism is a collection of interpretaion of social phenomena through historical and dialectical materialism, and the revolutionary strategy and tactics of the proletariat to build a classless society. And such a revolutionary theory, when separated from revolutionary practice, remains nothing but a pathetic mockery of its former self.
In the most oppressed corners of the world, we encounter neither Chomsky nor any revolutionary Trotskyist. It is very nice to hear their sweet voices in air-conditioned halls, but where is their revolution where the people need it? What right do these petit-bourgeois pseudo-Marxists have to criticize Lenin or Stalin?
And I claim that Lenin's policies are necessary to conduct a socialist revolution. To negate this, please provide a suitable example of a socialist revolution that followed some other policies.
Well, let's look at some of the "facts" that Chomsky puts forward:
1. Lenin belonged to a right-wing deviation from the socialist movement
Lenin was actually part of a small group of European revolutionaries who broke with the mainstream of social-democracy in 1914 when several European parties that had formerly described themselves as socialist (including the German SPD, which was the biggest party in Europe at that point in terms of its membership, and its role in the daily life of the working class) rejected the principle of internationalism by siding with their respective ruling classes during WW1. Plekhanov, formerly regarded as the leading authority on Marxism in Russia, went so far as to announce that he relished the prospect of impaling German soldiers on Russian bayonets, whereas the deputies of the SPD in the Reichstag universally voted in favour of war credits for the government, and the party restrained the militancy of the working class for the duration of the conflict, thereby allowing Germany to carry out the imperialist war until the authoritarian regime was overthrown in 1918, marking the end of WW1. Lenin emphasized his break with the 2nd International by calling for the creation of a new international at the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915, which was limited to the small number of socialists (there were only 38 delegates in total) who had called for WW1 to be transformed from a war between rival imperialist powers into a civil war, directed against the ruling classes of Europe. I think this demonstrates that Lenin was not a right-wing deviant, unless you think that rejecting social-chauvinism was a right-wing position. Lenin's commitment to internationalism was further demonstrated after the creation of the Provisional Government in February 1917 as the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries both oppossed the Bolshevik slogan of an immediate peace at any cost, which also caused the Left-SRs to break away from the Soviet government after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in early 1918, making the Bolsheviks the only governing party, through no fault of their own - although the Left SRs retained their delegates in the All-Russia Congress of Soviets until they tried to undermine the Soviet government by carrying out terrorist attacks against the German ambassador and challenging Soviet power in a number of major cities, including Moscow, at which point the Congress banned the party.
2. Rosa Luxemburg was a mainstream Marxist [..] and was very critical of Leninism.
Rosa Luxemburg was part of the same group of revolutionaries that I described above, although she didn't break from the German SPD until 1918, when she formed the Spartacus League, in order to take advantage of the growing revolutionary wave in Germany, which the SPD wanted to limit to a narrow set of democratic demands. She was most certainly not part of the mainstream. She was also not an opponent of "Leninism" (a term that Chomsky never bothers to define and one that anarchists like to throw around to suggest that all of the revolutionaries who claim Lenin as one of their theoretical inspirations are basically the same, in terms of the way they understand the relationship between the revolutionary party and the working class, thereby blurring over the differences between Trotskyists and Stalinists, and affirming the "continuity thesis", that seeks to obscure the changes that took place in Soviet Russia during the 1920s, in the aftermath of the Civil War) as in her text The Russian Revolution (1918) she describes the Bolsheviks as "the only party which really carried on a socialist policy" and acknowledges that they "were able to bring under their banner all the genuine masses of the people". Luxemburg also offers criticisms particuarly on Lenin's support for national liberation as well as the policy adopted by the Bolsheviks on the land question, which Luxemburg saw as being too conciliatory towards the peasants, but at no point does Luxemburg ever reject Lenin as a dictator.
3. [still talking about "mainstream Marxists" and "anti-Leninism"] ..as well as Trotsky, who was a Menshevik.
Trotsky was a non-Bolshevik until 1917 only in the sense that he initially had reservations about Lenin's conception of the party and wanted to encourage unity between the two factions, which had initially emerged during a dispute over the editorial board of Iskra in 1903, and led to a formal split in 1912, when the Bolsheviks established themselves as a separate party. For the duration of the period September 1904 - August 1917, Trotsky was an independent, and it is totally wrong to see Trotsky as part of Menshevism as a political tendency at any stage in his development as a revolutionary because, unlike the Mensheviks, Trotsky was always of the opinion that it would be impossible for Russia's democratic tasks to be completed by the bourgeoisie (which Marxists have traditionally regarded as the class that would carry out these demands, and complete capitalist development, at which point it would become possible for the working class to seize power and carry out a socialist revolution) due to the close links between that class and the Tsarist state, as well as the links between the bourgeoisie and landed elites. Trotsky argued that the proletariat was the only class capable of carrying out democratic tasks, and that, once these tasks were completed, the proletariat would proceed to carry out a socialist revolution, thereby making the revolution permanent, hence the theory of permanent revolution. It was Lenin who was won over to this position during the course of 1917, and this theory demonstrates that Trotsky cannot be described as a "mainstream Marxist", as most Marxists subscribed to a stag-eist interpretation of historical materialism that saw Russia as having to undergo a long and painful period of capitalism under the class rule of the bourgeoisie before socialism would become viable.
4. The vanguard [i.e.] the idea that the radical intelligentsia were going to exploit popular movements to seize state power...etc.
This is a distortion of Lenin's politics, that basically lumps him together with the Narodniks, despite the fact that Lenin spent a great deal of his time and energy seeking to refute the young university students, including his older brother, who thought it would be possible to appeal to the peasants and ignite a popular revolution by carrying out attacks against individual Tsarist officials, not to mention Lenin's efforts to distinguish Marxism from Blanquism. At no point did Lenin argue that the intellgensia could serve as the main agent of revolutionary change. The only document that could possibly give that impression is What Is To Be Done?, which was one of Lenin's earlier works, written when he was still in the process of developing his ideas. Draper explains in this excellent essay that in order to understand the text and why it seems to convey an elitist view of consciousness, you need to acknowledge that it was written in direct opposition to other socialists such as Bernstein, who neglected the role of theory, and the varying consciousness of the working class, and hence was always liable to "bend the stick" in favour of workers being educated, so to speak. Draper also points to other aspects of the text's context that enable us to gain a more nuanced understanding of what Lenin meant, such as Lenin's political relationship with Kautsky, whose quotes make up a large part of the book, and the complexities of Kautsky's own view. The ultimate demonstration of Lenin's views on the party, however, is the historical record of the Bolsheviks, and in this respect it is clear that the Bolsheviks were never a party of intellectuals, and never sought to impose political change on Russian workers. The Bolsheviks increased their support steadily during the course of 1917, with the greatest period of growth occurring between April and July, when the party expanded from 79,204 to 240,000 members. The evidence that is available suggests that the majority of these recruits were working class to the extent that, in January 1917, when the party was still fairly small, 60.2% of the membership were workers, with 25.8% of the remainder being classified as "white collar", according to data covering Moscow and Petrograd, published in 1928. An overview of a specific area further affirms that the party was a working-class organization, as, for Reval on August 13, there were 3,182 members, of whom 2,926 were workers, 209 military, and 47 intellectuals, showing that, once the party had become a mass organization, intellectuals were insignificant, this data being taken from Kutuzov. More information on the class nature of the Bolsheviks can be found in Cliff's account of the party's history, here, from which the above information is also taken.
As for the state, at no point did Lenin argue in favour of seizing the state. Lenin's most famous work on that subject, State and Revolution, repeatedly emphasizes the view that the bourgeois state cannot be progressive even when it is placed in the hands of the working class, and that, in order to build socialism, the bourgeois state must be smashed, and the proletariat must retain its class rule through a new kind of state, based on Soviets, that combines political and economic power, and comes into being during the process of revolution itself, summed up as follows:
"According to Engels, the bourgeois state does not “wither away", but is “abolished” by the proletariat in the course of the revolution. What withers away after this revolution is the proletarian state or semi-state"
****
To be honest, this only covers a small part of the the video, but I think the above suffices to show that Chomsky's assertions are without basis. When I listen to him speak in that video I can't help feel disgusted at his sneering and arrogant tone - although this is exactly what you'd expect of a university professor who dabbles in anarchism whist planning to vote for Nader! (some anarchist, huh?)
I always considered Chomsky to be the more "liberals' anarchist" (ever since I read the book "Chomsky on Anarchism")...good for starters I guess but in reality I barely take him very seriously unless he's discussing on something relating to U.S. imperialism (especially in Latin-America).
"My heart sings for you both. Imagine it singing. la la la la."- Hannah Kay
"if you keep calling average working people idiots i am sure they will be more apt to listen to what you have to say. "-bcbm
"Sometimes false consciousness can be more destructive than apathy, just like how sometimes, doing nothing is actually better than doing the wrong thing."- Robocommie
"The ruling class would tremble, and the revolution would be all but assured." -Explosive Situation, on the Revleft Merry Prankster bus
Lenin was much closer to 'liberal' than Chomsky is. Leninists = a bunch of white middle-class 'revolutionaries' who have an extremely patronising and condescending attitude to the working-class who believe in forcing them to be free. Lenin most certainly did pave the way for Stalin; the 'Trotskyists' of today do not understand that Trotsky simply objected to 'socialism in one country', not to terrorism and murder of working-class opponents. It doesn't surprise me that so many ex-Trots like Hitchens could support imperialist ventures in Iraq despite overwhelming international opposition - the ex-Trot neocons still had the attitude of 'we know what's best'. It's the kind of attitude you find on here much of the time, too. Seriously, Leninism was failure, and was closer to being some kind of Platonic 'Philosopher King' philosophy than what Marx was talking about. Chosmky, on the other hand, believes in actual proletarian socialism.
“Left wing, chicken wing, it don't make no difference to me.” - Woody Guthrie
Of course you don't find Chomsky because chomsky is just smart linguists that writes books on the world condition, he's not a revolutionary.
What right do they have? Well the same right anyone has to criticize anyone, Lenin WAS a petit-bourgeois pseudo-marxist, so I don't konw waht your talking about.
the peoples revolution has nothing to do with Lenin or Stalin, and nor should it, it should have to do with them, the people.
First of all, Lenin's policies once in power kllled any socailist revolution that happened, so there was no socialism. The socialist revolution was done by the soviets and the workers and taken over and betrayed by the bolshevik leadership.
Show me a leninist state that actaully created a guinine socialist society.
His internationalism WAS NOT what made him the right wing, what made him the right wing was his insistance to take real power from the soviets and wield it from the state, the left wing were workers opposition, the ones calling for full power to soviets, and so on. Lenin was an opportunist.
As to Luxemburg you can talk about specific politices and the such, but the fact remakes Luxemburg had a much different vision than what Lenin implimented,
"Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter. Not because of the fanaticism of "justice", but rather because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effects cease to work when "freedom" becomes a privilege"
"Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element"
You can talk about internationalism and the peasentry all you want, thats not the issue, the issue is there can be no socialism without full democracy and freedom, otherwise its not socialism at all.
First of what, what lenin wrote and what he did are 2 different things.
Second of all, membership of a party has nothing to do with the nature of the party, the republican party is made up of mostly workers, does that make it a workesr party?
The nature of the party has to do with who makes the desicions and designs the policies of the party, the fact is, the policy makers were people like Lenin and trotsky.
Fine, but thats not what he did, no, actions are what counts my friend. He siezed state power, and wielded as much authority as possible taking it away from the soviets ultimately.
Lenin was an opportunist, he took a genuine socialist revolution and turned it into a powergrab and ended up creating a totalitarian state.
I made it to 1:36 where I then violently fell asleep.
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
Good for you, now run along and let the grown ups talk.
His portrayal of Lenin is pandering to 20th century anti-communism, totalitarianism and all that.
regarding what was said by LZ about context, I can expand on that point, which I think is crucial because Chomsky takes Lenin's views and polemics out of context so that they mean the opposite.
He wrote his polemic WITBD in response to economist trends within the workers movement and he was against promoting the work outside of Russia. Most communist parties were or sought to be mass workers parties as the Bolsheviks were during the Revolution. The Bolsheviks were not a party of professional cadres in 1917, and they weren't especially that disciplined. Most of the discipline later arose during the Civil War. The April Theses and State and Revolution were not really deviations or changes in ideology as Chomsky suggests, nor were they anarchist- the State and Revolution is filled with quotes from Marx and Engels as anyone tha'ts read it is aware.
Most of the misconceptions that Chomsky falls for regarding the Russian Revolution was dealt with here very well: http://www.revleft.com/vb/russian-re...275/index.html
I highly recommend reading that. It's actually a very sound summary of the Bolsheviks and the revolution they led based on scholarly accounts. Chomsky doesn't make a lot of sense when he talks about Lenin.
I think Vanguard1917 explained very well why people slander Lenin and the Russian Revolution:
That goes for Chosmky as well, who ridiculously calls the revolution a coup.
'...the proletariat, not wishing to be treated as a canaille, needs its courage, its self-esteem, its pride, and its sense of independence more than its bread.' Marx...★
★...★
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..........★..★ Starry Plough Magazine
'From its origin the bourgeoisie was saddled with its antithesis: capitalists cannot exist without wage workers' - Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Stop Killer Coke
It was extremely dull.
"whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams"
http://youtu.be/g-PwIDYbDqI
In view of BobKKKindle$'s post, this thread should be renamed "Liberals Attack Lenin, RevLeft kicks their asses".
I don't know what it is with Leninists insistance on calling anyone that attacks lenins state-capitalism as liberal, its just a buzz word, it does'nt mean anything when you use it like that.
I agree with that, compleatly the bolsheviks were crucial in the russian revolution, however, once they took power, they betrayed it, by essencially destroying the aspects of democracy and socialism that the revolution was about.
This is Opposing Ideologies, right? OI is the only forum you're allowed to post in, right?
Right.
And not everyone who attacks Leninism is a liberal, but Chomsky and the empty-headed people who parrot him most certainly are.
In the interest of fairness, I present RGacky3's own opinion of Chomsky:
Too easy, really.Originally Posted by RGacky3
Can you give some more information on how Lenin wanted to "take real power from the Soviets"? The decision to carry out the overthrow of capitalism in October was not taken by the Bolsheviks but by the military-revolutionary committee of the Petrograd Soviet, a body that, in addition to containing large numbers of Bolsheviks, who had been elected a deputes by workers and on the basis of instant recall, also contained Left SRs, independent Marxists, and even a small numbers of anarchists. The 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets was convened shortly before the insurrection was executed and initially had 390 Bolshevik deputies out of a total of 649, thereby giving the party a small but stable majority; the composition of the body was altered when, having argued in favour of negotiating with the Provisional Government, and failing to get support for their policy, the Mensheviks, the Bundists, and Right SRs were faced with a decision to pull Russia out of the war at any price, which caused them to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the congress as a decision-making body, despite the fact that it had been convened by their Central executive committee, and had the popular backing of workers throughout Russia. In spite of the betrayal of the centrist parties, the congress elected a Soviet government, otherwise known as the Council of the People's Commissars, of which Lenin was the chairman, with Trotsky being elected to the position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, with the SRs being given 7 places in proportion to their number of delegates; the other parties were initially invited to assume positions alongside the Bolsheviks, also in proportion to their strength, but they refused to do so. The congress also created a legislative body that would be able to pass laws when the congress was not in session, VTsIK, or the All-Russia Central Executive Committee. The fact that these decisions were taken by the All-Russia Congress of Soviets indicates that the state which anarchists view as an attempt by the Bolsheviks to centralize power in their hands and undermine the gains of the revolution was created by the workers of Russia, through a democratic and centralized assembly, in order to consolidate their power, as an extension of the Soviet power that was already in place. The general character of the revolution, such as the role of the MRC, and the fact that Lenin was elected to his position, undermines Chomsky's assertion that the revolution was simply a Bolshevik coup d'etat. It's worth emphasizing that all of the subsequent decisions that were undertaken by the Soviet government had to be passed either by the congress or the VTsIK to be considered legitimate, including the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which provoked debate not only inside the congress, but also within the Bolshevik party, with Lenin initially failing to gain the confidence of the party membership when he argued in favour of signing an immediate peace with Germany even at significant financial and territorial cost. The debates occurring within the party during this period indicate that Lenin was not a dictator either in relation to the party or the state, as, whilst he was of course respected as a revolutionary, this does not stop him from having to gain support for his policies, and did not stop other revolutionaries from challenging him.
I will not be surprised, if, in relation to the above, you contend that the Bolsheviks sought to become the only ruling party, so let's say a little about that as well. The Left SRs voluntarily withdrew from Sovnarkom once the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had been democratically passed by the congress, although they continued to retain their seats in the main legislative bodies of the Soviet state despite their growing animosity towards the Bolshevik-led government, such that, when the fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets was held in July 1918, the Left SRs accounted for 352 delegates, out of a total of 1,132, and were therefore a sizable minority. However, such was the level of debate and disagreement surrounding foreign policy, and in particular the policy that the government should adopt towards the German-controlled government in the Ukraine, that only two days after the start of the Congress, two members of the Left SR carried out an assassination attack on the German ambassador to Soviet Russia, Mirbach, with the assassination being planned by Left SR members of the Cheka, and followed by attempts to seize power in Moscow, as well as a series of other important urban centers throughout the country, including Yaroslavl. This was political suicide as the Soviet republic was already surrounded by both internal and external opposition forces and so it would easily have been defeated if German forces in the Ukraine had decided to take military action. It was also have been irresponsible for the Bolshevik-led government to bow to the pressure of the SRs and declare war against Germany, because one of the three slogans that had enabled the Bolsheviks to come to power and lead the world's first socialist revolution was peace - i.e., they had promised to end the imperialist war as soon as possible, regardless of the territorial cost, and this policy had been vindicated by the level of support the Bolsheviks recieved at the front. In this context it would be incredibly naive to except the congress, of which the Bolsheviks were the largest component, to allow the Left SRs to retain their places, and so they were promptly removed, resulting in the Bolsheviks being the only party in government - through no fault of their own - with the exception of a small number of independent delegates who had no political weight.
Being conscious of the danger of being the only party in government, the Bolsheviks undertook a series of measures with the intention of bringing parties that had chosen to leave the government back into the fold so that they would not deteriorate and become undemocratic as a result of governing alone. On November 30 1918, VTsIK passed a resolution canceling the policy of excluding the Mensheviks. The Left SRs received the same lenient treatment in February 1919 on the condition that "all groups which directly or indirectly support external and internal counter-revolution" would be excluded. These facts totally destroy the simplistic anarchist narrative of the Bolsheviks striving to became a hegemonic new ruling class. On the same theme, the repression that was exercised by the Cheka (which was a multi-party body, as implied above) was never as serious as many anarchists like to believe - despite the fact that the Kadets had been banned at the end of 1917 as the political manifestation of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois interests, the paper of that party, entitled Svoboda Rossii was still being published in Moscow in the summer of 1918 with no interference from the state, and, after being suppressed in February 1918 for its campaign of opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Menshevik paper, Novyi Luch, was re-published from April 1918 onwards, albeit under a new name, Vpered, with the same being true of a number of minor anarchist journals. In fact, despite being excluded, the central committee of the Mensheviks were able to hold a five-day conference in Moscow at the end of October 1918. Thus, there was, to the credit of the Bolsheviks, given the difficult conditions in which operated, and the counter-revolutionary activities of many of these organizations, much political dissent, for the duration of the civil war.
The lesson to be drawn from all that I've written above is that your narrative of Lenin and the Bolsheviks (who are commnly blurred together to make it seem as if Lenin was a hegemonic dictator) seeking to gain all power for themselves carries no weight.
(Source for all of the above: E.H. Karr, The Bolshevik Revolution: 1917-1923, Volume One, pp170-190)
Incidentally, I find it absurd that you accuse "Leninists" of not using facts and then you come out with those idealistic and vague phrases. Give me specific instances that demonstrate how the Bolsheviks were a bunch of evil dictators (of course, you won't find any, because the facts speak for themselves) then maybe we can have a serious discussion.
No reply, RGacky3? I thought "Leninists" were crap when it comes to facts?
I just bought this book and am about half way through, and you've pretty much nailed how I feel thus far. Some of it is dead on, but I find myself wanting it to be better than it is. His middle of the road "be an anarchist by supporting whatever makes you feel good" ideology is kind of disappointing really.
