Greetings,
Since I'm new and only been reading along for a few weeks, I don't know the
proper protocol for new "introductions" here. My sense is that what is said
is more important than who, so I won't go through and list every one of
Marx's works I've read. As to the other stuff, I'd describe myself as a
union organizer (you can deduce which Union by reading my email address)
striving mightily to avoid becoming Just A Trade Unionist who's fortunate
enough to work for a union which encourages taking the long view and, shall
we say, having a perspective out of the mainstream.
Anyway, onto the debate (attributions snipped):
The automatic linking of Bolshevism with Stalinism, and the idea that
Stalinism grew necessarily and organically out of the revolutionary
Bolshevism of Lenin and Trotsky.
(snip)
This is important. What deal of responsibility does revolutionary
Bolshevism bear for the Stalinist counter-revolution, Rob? It's this
kind of statement that makes me say your positions are typically SoD
and Kautskyite -- Stalinist tyranny as an automatic consequence of
Bolshevism and not as a diametrically opposed aberration.
I'm not convinced that Stalinism was a automatic consequence of Bolshevism,
but I do believe it's existance was fostered by Leninism. To wit, many of
the more extreme manifestations of Stalinism were present in some form during
Lenin's tenure. For example, the use of the medical apparatus as an
instrument of repression and discreditation. Lenin frequently, in the name
of the proletariat, required Party members to submit to his (not the
doctor's) medical cures, such as periods of "rest" in comfortable places away
from the capital. This backfired on him when Stalin was appointed by the
Politburo to monitor his care after his stroke(s) and effectively and
efficiently cut him out of the loop.
Also, the state that Lenin erected was a sprawling bureaucracy, which by it's
very nature spawns inter(and intra)group rivalries and struggles for power.
Plus, that bureaucracy had one man effectively at it's head who ultimately
called the shots. And, he set up an apparatus (the Central Control
Commission, the Cheka, etc.) to ensure the ideological purity of the Party,
which was later used by Stalin in his purges.
So I suppose the question here is how do we avoid repeating the scenario and
instituting one regime with another, how do we avoid throwing out the
bourgoisie and merely replacing them with another ruling class "in the name
of the workers" which becomes more attached to preserving its own interests
and seeking power for itself?
Jeff
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