Most firefighters think the SWP/ruc (Wespec') is a load of ole bollocks

[butchersapron]

And we're off - Friends of Durruti, Spain, makhno, killing people in meetings, CNT, peasants, grain, etc et bleedin' cetera

Don't do it CR.

 

[Herbert Read]

INCOMING

*CR left hanging on razor wire*

 

[Pickman's model]

INCOMING

*CR left hanging on razor wire*

best shave he's had in ages.

 

[cockneyrebel]

As oppossed to you butchers banging on about the same old things when these topics come up.....

failure by what measure to take power or control, or be at the forefront of every popular and autonomous uprising.

ROFLMAO......

 

[Pickman's model]

As oppossed to you butchers banging on about the same old things when these topics come up.....

why do you think we're a bunch of butchers?

 

[Herbert Read]

Ever thought he could have a point!

 

[butchersapron]

As oppossed to you butchers banging on about the same old things when these topics come up.....

Even the same fucking retorts when it's pointed out to you. You're trapped in a loop mate - sorry, don't want to get in there with you.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Looks like you already are in a loop....as your retort is exactly the same as well....

 

[Pickman's model]

Ever thought he could have a point!

 

[cockneyrebel]

Indeed your life seems to be stuck in a loop on U75....

Total Posts: 16,754 (13.75 posts per day)

 

[Herbert Read]

 

[butchersapron]

Indeed your life seems to be stuck in a loop on U75....

A mighty 13 posts a day. Whopping. Imagine how long that must take.

The difference between me and you though is that not all my posts are exactly the bloody same. We did notice your little effort in Football a few months back though.

 

[LLETSA]

And what has anarchism done in practice except to prove a total failure?

Don't you think that the point is that both have been found wanting? State socialism collapsed and its remnants are in tatters. Anarchism, meanwhile, never made a breakthrough. Both appear to be past their sell-by date and yet all that their adherents seem interested in discussing is which was the biggest failure.

Says a lot about the state of progressive politics in the 21st century.

 

[Herbert Read]

As oppossed to you butchers banging on about the same old things when these topics come up.....



ROFLMAO......

What does this mean is it esperanto

 

[cockneyrebel]

The difference between me and you though is that not all my posts are exactly the bloody same. We did notice your little effort in Football a few months back though.

Hmmmm looking at my last 500 posts, surprisingly enough they're not all the same....

 

[butchersapron]

Most of them are. Looking at them.

 

[LLETSA]

it's not true he saw there was nothing to do about it, namely the international revolution. defeat was only inevitable if you think lenin advocated socialism in one country. he didn't.

Which post is this a reply to?

Do you ever try to explain yourself in more than two sentences?

 

[LLETSA]

But the Bolsheviks didn't seize power under the conditions of a police state did they? They won support through democratic workers councils remember?

The point of much of this thread has been to try to establish whether or not it was a mistake for the worldwide radical left to adopt, in the majority, a party model devised to meet the conditions of a police state at a particular time in a particular place. However the Bolsheviks eventually seized power, these were the conditions for which the party was created.

 

[cockneyrebel]

Hmmmm looks to me like my posts range from Workers Power, to piss take threads, to anarchism and Spain, to football and the revolution, to fascism, to immigration, to the SWP/RESPECT, to Iraq, to UNISON, to animal rights, to Crystal Palace, to racism, to Islam, to colonialism in Kenya, to Prince Harry, to universities/class, to the Zanon workers, to the Lambeth Social Forum……

But no butchers, you’re right, all my posts are the same....

 

[audiotech]

But this is just simplistic. Much of this thread has been about whether there is any point in the present day western left trying to emulate an organisation designed to gain power in the conditions of a vast police state a century ago.

Surely the record of the organisations that do this speaks for itself?

Originally Posted by MC5
Because it is the only model that has been successful in practical terms as an instrument for seizing power.

Originally Posted by LLETSA
'Probably the only way that Leninism can be said to have been successful in practical terms is as an instrument for seizing power,...'

 

[butchersapron]

...and after?

 

[LLETSA]

Originally Posted by MC5
Because it is the only model that has been successful in practical terms as an instrument for seizing power.

Originally Posted by LLETSA
'Probably the only way that Leninism can be said to have been successful in practical terms is as an instrument for seizing power,...'

That's a misquote. What I actually said was:

Probably the only way that Leninism can be said to have been successful in practical terms is as an instrument for seizing power, and this only in its country of origin - for which the Leninist party model was originally devised.

 

[audiotech]

So too did Lenin see those soviets as a threat to the party, or more accurately the party dictatorship, as soon as the crunch came. By the end of the civil war the party had inevitably painted itself into a corner, presiding over what Moshe Lewin calls 'a dictatorship in a void.' The tragedy of Lenin is that he could see the likely outcome while being powerless to do anything about it. Even if the testament had been distributed to the whole party there would have been few prepared to give up the party's monopoly on power and thus risk the threat of the revolution falling. Yet without giving up the party dictatorship they risked its inevitable increasing bureaucratisation and its falling into the hands of a single dictator. That was the inescapable dilemma the party faced and a large part of it was thanks to Lenin.

You say, correctly, that it was Stalin's ultra-left turn that paved the way for the Nazis seizure of power but in an earlier post claim that the role of the USSR in the defeat of the Nazi regime was one of the successes of Leninism. I said that this was a strange thing for a Trotskyist to claim. I wasn't using the term pejoratively, as I didn't for one minute think you'd regard it as an insult.

I too think that Leninism is there to be learnt from - which is why I've spent much of this thread trying to provoke a more detailed response from Leninists. Apart from yours and Nigel Irritable's responses the rest have been either mindlessly defensive or pitifully simplistic. I suppose that's the benefit of experience over youth eh....

The defeat of fascism wouldn't have happened without Lenin's legacy - Bolshevism and the Red Army.

'...there would have been few prepared to give up the party's monopoly on power and thus risk the threat of the revolution falling. Yet without giving up the party dictatorship they risked its inevitable increasing bureaucratisation and its falling into the hands of a single dictator. That was the inescapable dilemma the party faced and a large part of it was thanks to Lenin.'

I think the 'threat' wasn't about the 'revolution falling' - that had been won, but more to do with Stalin's rule by fear and purges, which saw leading Bolsheviks imprisoned, tortured and murdered. It was Stalin which turned the 'dictatorship of the proleteriat' into the dictatorship of the party not Lenin. This bureaucratisation of the party was fuelled by workers leaving the organisation in droves and being replaced by the bureacrats of the old regime, who saw the way the wind was blowing and decided to jump on board for their own advantage. Of course if there had been successful revolutions elsewhere then history may have turned out differently. Maybe Stalinism itself would never have held sway the way it did for so many years and so distorted the idea of socialism and communism?

 

[LLETSA]

The defeat of fascism wouldn't have happened without Lenin's legacy - Bolshevism and the Red Army.

'...there would have been few prepared to give up the party's monopoly on power and thus risk the threat of the revolution falling. Yet without giving up the party dictatorship they risked its inevitable increasing bureaucratisation and its falling into the hands of a single dictator. That was the inescapable dilemma the party faced and a large part of it was thanks to Lenin.'

I think the 'threat' wasn't about the 'revolution falling' - that had been won, but more to do with Stalin's rule by fear and purges, which saw leading Bolsheviks imprisoned, tortured and murdered. It was Stalin which turned the 'dictatorship of the proleteriat' into the dictatorship of the party not Lenin. This bureaucratisation of the party was fuelled by workers leaving the organisation in droves and being replaced by the bureacrats of the old regime, who saw the way the wind was blowing and decided to jump on board for their own advantage. Of course if there had been successful revolutions elsewhere then history may have turned out differently. Maybe Stalinism itself would never have held sway the way it did for so many years and so distorted the idea of socialism and communism?

And it's equally possible to say that fascism would not have had to be defeated were it not for the legacy of Lenin - Bolshevism and the Red Army. You've said yourself that the comintern's ultra-left line aided the avoidable coming to power of Hitler.

Yours is the standard Trotskyist line that I spent years spouting myself. It was only when I left Trotskyism behind and began to read more widely that I realised that things are not so black and white. The revolution might have been won, but it could be easily said that at a far, far greater cost than if the Bolsheviks had compromised with other left forces, instread of suppressing them and driving the remnants into opposition. Typical of that standard Trotskyist line is your emphasis on what happened to the old Bolsheviks under Stalin's rule rather than to the population as a whole and the working class in particular. The Soviet population was viewed by Stalin in the same way that Lenin came to look upon it - as a tool for the making of history rather than as a collection of individuals with lives to lead. The only difference was in the scale of the repression.

Do you really believe that it was only when the functionaries of the Tsarist regime began to join the party that its bureaucratisation got under way? I agree that if the revolutions elsewhere had been succesfsul it could have all turned out very different. But that's the point - Lenin knew that the Russian revolution was a gamble on the international revolution and that if the latter failed to materialise then the USSR would be sunk. That's what I meant above about the tragedy of Lenin's final years being in the way that he could see how the revolution had been painted into a corner, the way that it was likely to go as a result and the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. Lenin had created a party designed to meet certain conditions in the country in which he mostly operated and in the tumult of the revolution had encouraged those who were inspired by the Bolsheviks' success to copy the example right down to the last details. You still haven't explained how, given the failure of that model over the subsequent eight decades, it is nonetheless still the way for the opponents of capitalism to go.

 

[Squatticus]

Fucking hell, Fanciful, Rebel Warrior called your ideas 'intellectually impoverished' on 6th February!

 

[audiotech]

And it's equally possible to say that fascism would not have had to be defeated were it not for the legacy of Lenin - Bolshevism and the Red Army. You've said yourself that the comintern's ultra-left line aided the avoidable coming to power of Hitler.

The ultra-left line had nothing to do with either Bolshevism, or Lenin and everything to do with Stalin. As I said, revolutionary leaders of the Bolshevik party were purged, tortured, imprisoned and murdered. Lenin was dead. Later, Trotsky and Joseph Stalin clashed over the future strategy of the country. Stalin favoured what he called "socialism in one country" whereas Trotsky still supported the idea of world revolution. In July, 1933, Trotsky moved to France. It's interesting to note that at this time the French government came under pressure from Fascists and Stalinists to expel Trotsky from the country. In April, 1934, the French government issued a decree ordering Trotsky's deportation.

Yours is the standard Trotskyist line that I spent years spouting myself. It was only when I left Trotskyism behind and began to read more widely that I realised that things are not so black and white. The revolution might have been won, but it could be easily said that at a far, far greater cost than if the Bolsheviks had compromised with other left forces, instread of suppressing them and driving the remnants into opposition. Typical of that standard Trotskyist line is your emphasis on what happened to the old Bolsheviks under Stalin's rule rather than to the population as a whole and the working class in particular. The Soviet population was viewed by Stalin in the same way that Lenin came to look upon it - as a tool for the making of history rather than as a collection of individuals with lives to lead. The only difference was in the scale of the repression.

I have read very widely thanks and I'm not one to read just 'party publications'. I'm not sure which organisations you are relating to when you refer to other 'left forces'? Are you relating to the Mensheviks who were united in their opposition to the October Revolution?

Of course most of the Mensheviks supported the Red Army against the White Army during the Russian Civil War. The mistake the Mensheviks made was to denounce the persecution of liberal newspapers, the nobility, the Cadets and the Socialist Revolutionaries. It is important to note too that athough most Mensheviks condemned Russia's involvement in the First World War, a small minority supported Nicholas II and his government. The decision to ban the Mensheviks was based on their opposition to the revolution.

If we examine the actions of another of the 'left forces', the Socialist Revolutionaries, who followed the tactics used of the People's Will. They had a terrorist wing, the SR Combat Organization. Membership of this group was secret and independent of the rest of the party. Gregory Gershuni, became its head and was responsible for planning assassination. At this time the Socialist Revolutionaries continued to be infiltrated by agents employed by Okhrana.

In 1917 the SRs split between those who supported the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks who favoured a communist revolution. Those like Maria Spirdonova and Mikhail Kalinin who supported revolution became known as Left Socialist Revolutionists. By 1918 the Soviet government had closed down the Constituent Assembly and banned the SR. As a result the SRs resorted to acts of terror. On 30th August, 1918, Vladimir Lenin was shot by Dora Kaplan and soon afterwards Moisei Uritsky, Commissar for Internal Affairs in the Northern Region, was assassinated by another supporter of the SR.

Robert Bruce Lockhart, sent a report to the British government in outlining events at the time:

'So far the people of Moscow have behaved with exemplary restraint. For the moment, only enthusiasm prevails, and the struggle which is almost bound to ensure between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat has not yet made its bitterness felt. The Socialist Party is at present divided into two groups: the Social Democrats and Soviet Revolutionaries. The activities of the first named are employed almost entirely among the work people, while the Social Revolutionaries work mainly among the peasantry. The Social Democrats, who are the largest party, are, however, divided into two groups known as the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki. The Bolsheviki are the more extreme party. They are at heart anti-war. In Moscow at any rate the Mensheviki represent today the majority and are more favourable to the war.'

 

[audiotech]

Lenin alway's called for unity, his book 'Left Wing Communism an Infantile Order' makes this clear. Lenin viewed the population not 'as a tool', but well able to lead the revolution, which, as he wrote '...must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class.' Moreover, '...it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.'

Do you really believe that it was only when the functionaries of the Tsarist regime began to join the party that its bureaucratisation got under way? I agree that if the revolutions elsewhere had been succesfsul it could have all turned out very different. But that's the point - Lenin knew that the Russian revolution was a gamble on the international revolution and that if the latter failed to materialise then the USSR would be sunk. That's what I meant above about the tragedy of Lenin's final years being in the way that he could see how the revolution had been painted into a corner, the way that it was likely to go as a result and the fact that there was nothing he could do about it. Lenin had created a party designed to meet certain conditions in the country in which he mostly operated and in the tumult of the revolution had encouraged those who were inspired by the Bolsheviks' success to copy the example right down to the last details. You still haven't explained how, given the failure of that model over the subsequent eight decades, it is nonetheless still the way for the opponents of capitalism to go.

I do believe that when the functionaries of the Tsarist regime began to join the party that its bureaucratisation began to move apace along with Stalin's authoritarian rule.

While Lenin was incapacitated, Joseph Stalin made full use of his powers as General Secretary. At the Party Congress he had been granted permission to expel "unsatisfactory" party members. Stalin also had the power to appoint and sack people from important positions in the government. The new holders of these posts were fully aware that they owed their promotion to Stalin. They also knew that if their behaviour did not please Stalin they would be replaced.

In October, 1922, Stalin disagreed with Lenin over the issue of foreign trade. When the matter was discussed by the Central Committee, Stalin's rather than Lenin's policy was accepted. Lenin began to fear that Stalin was taking over the leadership of the party. Lenin wrote to Trotsky asking for his support. Trotsky agreed and at the next meeting of the Central Committee the decision on foreign trade was reversed. Lenin, who was too ill to attend, wrote to Trotsky congratulating him on his success and suggesting that in future they should work together against Stalin. After finding out about the contents of the letter, Stalin made an abusive phone-call to Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, accusing her of endangering Lenin's life by allowing him to write letters when he was so ill.

After Krupskaya told her husband of the phone-call, Vladimir Lenin made the decision that Stalin was not the man to replace him as the leader of the party. Lenin knew he was close to death so he dictated to his secretary a letter that he wanted to serve as his last "will and testament". He wrote: "Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated enormous power in his hands: and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution. I therefore propose to our comrades to consider a means of removing Stalin from this post and appointing someone else who differs from Stalin in one weighty respect: being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite, more considerate of his comrades."

However, Vladimir Lenin died before any action was taken. For a while Trotsky was considered to be the person who would replace the ailing Lenin.

After the death of Lenin, Joseph Stalin joined forces with two left-wing members of the Politburo, Gregory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev to keep Trotsky from power. Both these men had reason to believe that Trotsky would dismiss them from power once he became leader. Stalin encouraged these fears.

Trotsky accused Stalin of being dictatorial and called for the introduction of more democracy into the party. Gregory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev united behind Stalin and accused Trotsky of creating divisions in the party.

In 1925 Stalin was able to arrange for Trotsky to be removed from power. Some of Trotsky's supporters pleaded with him to organize a military coup. As commissar of war Trotsky was in a good position to arrange this. However, Trotsky rejected the idea and instead resigned his post.

In 1937 Trotsky had this to say about Stalin:

'Much was said in the Moscow trial about my alleged "hatred" for Stalin. Much was said in the Moscow trial about it, as one of the motives of my politics. Toward the greedy caste of upstarts which oppresses the people "in the name of socialism" I have nothing but irreducible hostility, hatred if you like. But in this feeling there is nothing personal. I have followed too closely all the stages of the degeneration of the revolution and the almost automatic usurpation of its conquests; I have sought too stubbornly and meticulously the explanation for these phenomena in objective conditions for me to concentrate my thoughts and feelings on one specific person. My standing does not allow me to identity the real stature of the man with the giant shadow it casts on the screen of the bureaucracy. I believe I am right in saying I have never rated Stalin so highly as to be able to hate him.'

He added further:

'The omnipotence of the soviet bureaucracy, its privileges, its lavish mode of life, are not cloaked by any tradition, any ideology, any legal norms. The ruling caste is unable, however, to punish the opposition for its real thoughts and actions. The unremitting repressions are precisely for the purpose of preventing the masses from the real program of Trotskyism, which demands first of all more equality and more freedom for the masses.'

 

[audiotech]

In March, 1937, Leon Trotsky, wrote an article, Amoralism and Kronstadt , where he replied to charges made by Wendelin Thomas, that Bolshevism and Stalinism were closely linked. Thomas used the example of how Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, dealt with opponents such as the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Kronstadt Rebellion:

'Your evaluation of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921 is basically incorrect. The best, most sacrificing sailors were completely withdrawn from Kronstadt and played an important role at the fronts and in the local Soviets throughout the country. What remained was the grey mass with big pretensions, but without political education and unprepared for revolutionary sacrifice. The country was starving. The Kronstadters demanded privileges. The uprising was dictated by a desire to get privileged food rations.'

'The truth of the matter is that I personally did not participate in the least in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, nor in the repressions following the suppression. In my eyes this very fact is of no political significance. I was a member of the government, I considered the quelling of the rebellion necessary and therefore bear responsibility for the suppression. Concerning the repressions, as far as I remember, Dzerzhinsky had personal charge of them and Dzerhinsky could not tolerate anyone's interference with his functions (and properly so). Whether there were any needless victims I do not know. On this score I trust Dzerzhinsky more than his belated critics. Victor Serge's conclusions on this score - from third hand - have no value in my eyes. But I am ready to recognize that civil war is no school of humanism. Idealists and pacifists always accused the revolution of "excesses". But the main point is that "excesses" flow from the very nature of the revolution which in itself is but an "excess" of history.'

C. L. R. James, in Stalin and Socialism (1937) drew camparisons between Lenin and Stalin which highlights the stark contrast between the two:

Lenin never '...exiled, imprisoned or murdered any leaders of his party. He was bitter in denunciation, often unfair, but never personally malicious. He was merciless to political enemies, but he called them enemies, and proclaimed aloud that if they opposed the Soviet regime he would shoot them and keep on shooting them. But Trotsky tells us how careful he was of the health of his colleagues; hard as he was it is easy to feel in his speeches, on occasions when the party was being torn by disputes, a man of strong emotions and sensitiveness to human personality. In his private life he set an unassuming example of personal incorruptibility and austere living. No man could ever fill his place, but it was not impossible that someone able and willing to act in his tradition could have carried on where he left off, and all knew that Trotsky was best fitted for that difficult post. Lenin had designated him as such in the Testament. But the irony, the cruellest tragedy of the post-war world is, that without a break the leadership of the over-centralised and politically dominant Bolshevik party passed from one of the highest representatives of European culture to another who, in every respect except singlemindedness of purpose, was the very antithesis of his predecessor.'

LLETSA, you said that: 'Lenin had created a party designed to meet certain conditions in the country in which he mostly operated and in the tumult of the revolution had encouraged those who were inspired by the Bolsheviks' success to copy the example right down to the last details. You still haven't explained how, given the failure of that model over the subsequent eight decades, it is nonetheless still the way for the opponents of capitalism to go.'

'In 'What Is To Be Done?' Lenin argued for an organization of workers which must be first a trade organization; secondly, it must be as broad as possible; thirdly, it must be as little secret as possible. An organization of revolutionaries, on the contrary, must embrace primarily and chiefly people whose profession consists of revolutionary activity.'

And further:

'In an autocratic country, the more we narrow the membership of such an organization, restricting it only to those who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activities and have received a professional training in the art of struggle against the political police, the more difficult will it be to catch such an organization.'

This highlights the reality of the time and how those opposed to autocracy and for democracy had to organise under a period of reaction. There is no reason to believe that in the future, as capitalism crumbles under the force of it's own contradictions that similar forces of reaction will not re-appear, as they have throughout the world. It's not about copying the Bolshevik example down to the letter, but rather to have an organisation prepared for the battles ahead and again to learn from the real experience of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. As Lenin wrote:

'Genuine democracy, i.e., Liberty and equality, is unrealizable unless this aim [deprive the exploiters, enable the exploited] is achieved. But it's practical achievement is possible only through Soviet, or proletarian, democracy, for by enlisting the mass organizations of the working people in constant and unfailing participation in the administration of the state, it immediately begins to prepare the complete withering away of any state.'

 

[LLETSA]

Nice to see you're keeping up the habit of posting up large chunks of other people's work like you did on the RA board, MC5.

 

[audiotech]

Nice to see you're keeping up the habit of posting up large chunks of other people's work like you did on the RA board, MC5.

Well I wonder why I'm not suprised by your response? I have posted a piece of research (as I did in the course of my time on the RA boards), carried out by myself, using quotes from significant figures to address some of the points raised in your post. You on the other hand come up with some throwaway remark that has no reference to the post, in order to undermine what has been written. Not really good enough is it?