On Sat, Dec 6, 2025 at 08:07 AM, David Walters wrote: > > the CCCP (Communist Party of the Soviet Union as it finally became known) > became increasingly "tight" and centralized going forward from October > through the "ban on factions", which WAS more than anything sunk workers > democracy
Correct, David, but the issue we've been wrestling with here is whether it could have been otherwise in conditions of civil war and foreign intervention and the decimation and subsequent dispersal of the urban proletarian vanguard, the revolutionary base of the Bolshevik party. Offhand I can't think of any situation - can you? - where the exercise of power hasn't forced unforeseen and unpalatable compromises and retreats on reformists and revolutionaries alike who come to power with the best of intentions. Even reactionaries like Trump who confidently expect to overturn the existing order bump up against political, economic and social obstacles - the material and ideological contradictions which they often underestimate, unknowingly or willfully, in the pursuit of power. On a more modest scale, didn't those of us who were active in the unions and left-wing politics not witness and experience this phenomenon first-hand? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39617): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39617 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
