On Sun, Nov 30, 2025 at 05:42 PM, David Walters wrote: > > I think Marv was a bit flippant in writing about the Party during the > Russian Civil War. I think he is basically wrong on the facts...(The > Party) did not ban factions until almost to the end of the Civil War, that > is until the 10th Party Congress in March of that year.
My comments were not intended to be flippant, David, and I think you would reconsider your interpretation of them if you reread them more carefully. Lenin was present at the 10th Congress in 1921 and, in fact, presided over it. It was he who recommended the ban on factions (part 4, pt. 6): https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/10thcong/index.htm I indicated that I thought the ban on factions and the other repressive measures I mentioned were necessary during the revolution and civil war and the economic destruction it left in its wake. Though the white armies had suffered some crushing defeats, the war had not ended and would did until 1923. I contrasted the period when Lenin was still active with the period following his incapacity when the threat rather than the actuality of renewed intervention by the encircling capitalist powers served more as a pretext for the unnecessarily vicious intraparty struggles for power over the next decade and a half. Also, it is not my impression that the party at the 10th Congress was more akin to what it was like before October 1917 and the onset of the civil war. I think the early concerns expressed by Victor Serge and Rosa Luxemburg about the antidemocratic excesses of Lenin and the Bolsheviks within the overall framework of support for the revolution and the need to defend itself were legitimate. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39563): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39563 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116549413/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
