On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Ricardo Duchesne wrote:

> No, What Is to Be Done? is Lenin's most original political text; 
> indeed it is the foundation of Bolshevism: the working class 
> movement does not have a revolutionary consciousness of its own; left 
> to itself, such movement will never develop beyond trade-union 
> consciousness. A marxist consciousness can only be brought 
> from the outside by a centralized party.  

"Centralized" party.  I thought it was a party of "democratic
centralism", not the Stalinist distortion.

> What worries marxists about this text is that Lenin is right. 
> Luxemburg is wrong. A centralized party, like the Bolshevik Party, 
> which claims to have a "true" understanding of the interests of the 
> working class, is a must. The workers themselves are incapable of 
> marxist consciousness, incapable of knowing their "real" interests. 

I don't think Lenin thought the workers as "incapable" as described
above.  Maybe it is correct that spending 8-12 hours a day in a factory
burns one's energy up, but...

Paul



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