I agree with Mark, but this thread should be retitled to reflect that we were more generally asked to consider whether there might be a superior form of organization than the democratic centralist model to meet the challenges in a modern capitalist society, particularly if we were to enter into another revolutionary crisis.
I suggested that only a centralized and highly disciplined party such as Lenin proposed and organized has overthrown capitalism. The only alternative models are the anarchist and the social democratic but neither electoral politics, nor the mass strike and other forms of direct action, nor individual or small group terrorism have had similar success. Though deeply divided on strategy, anarchists and social democrats share a common criticism of the Leninist model as inherently authoritarian - "the dictatorship of the party, then of the bureaucracy, then of a single individual.” But how much repression is of necessity and how much of choice? How else to confront a repressive capitalist regime which will never permit a peaceful takeover of the system and the expropriation of its propertied classes? Elements of both are at play. The Bolsheviks found it necessary in conditions of civil war and revolution to conscript labour, ban factions, and to meet white terror with red terror against civilian collaborators of the counter-revolutionary armies. Following the civil war, the Soviet Union was still encircled by capitalist powers bent on its destruction. Without reopening the debate, I’m of the view that the repression was more a matter of necessity during the civil war, and more a matter of choice, directed at political rivals within the party following Lenin’s incapacity and death, which reached its peak during Stalin’s Great Purge. I also noted that the social revolutions which overthrew capitalism were all in predominantly peasant societies, and that in the US and other more advanced societies a party of dedicated and disciplined revolutionaries would still be required to confront a repressive state and right-wing militias in bidding for power But would the higher level of economic and cultural development, including a long history of bourgeois democratic ideology and institutions, decisively mitigate the deformations which plagued the 20th century revolutions? We can only speculate. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39560): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39560 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116545398/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
