I would basically agree with that. I think when Lenin wrote "The State and Revolution", he did so with an awareness that he could be assassinated (there were a number of attempts to assassinate various bolshevik leaders, in a Russian tradition going back several decades into the 19th century; because political opinion could not be democratically expressed mostly, arguments were not infrequently settled with a gun). So that work was a sort of "political testament" by Lenin. Personally, one of the things I find most interesting about it, is Lenin's radical conception of participatory democracy, direct democracy, his reference to the experience of the Paris Commune and so on, i.e. the idea that a workers' government would aim to expand popular democracy, rather than curtail it.
Perhaps ideosyncratically, I personally believe that more popular democracy and civil freedoms were feasible in the Federated Russian Republics even in the 1920s, despite enormous economic difficulties and pressures (which included famine), because I think there is a sense in which the Bolsheviks overreacted politically, in an almost paranoid way, in their attempt to consolidate their own political authority (a prime expression of this being the merciless, exaggerated polemics and tracts written by the bolsheviks about the necessity for terroristic, repressive and despotic methods to establish, maintain and defend the proletarian state), which itself partly has its source in the fact that (1) the power-hungry "committee-men" and the "apparatchniks" did not have any comprehensive experience with a developed and sophisticated democratic political culture, and (2) the bolshevik intellectuals modelled themselves to a surprising extent on the experience of the French revolution, not unlike the process Marx suggests in the first chapter of The Eighteenth Brumaire, i.e. the thought-forms relating to a profound social transformation in an earlier period are pressed into service once again, when a qualitative change in social life is occurring, (3) the psychological effect of the experience of fighting in the civil war on the Bolshevik political leadership, which encouraged a ruthless, merciless approach, as the only way to definitely smash all opposition, (4) the absence of modern means of communication, which necessitated the mass propagation of a strict, uniform political line and ideology about what to do, "iron discipline" in Lenin's phrase - the point being this was a POLITICAL discipline, strict obedience within the political hierarchy. Trotsky's Left/Joint Opposition in the 1920s, which aimed to re-activate the war-weary, rank-and-file workers and cadres, was undermined by his own authoritarian extremism practised during the preceding period. Pradoxically, Trotsky was first arguing for the "militarisation of labour", for example, but then later he was seeking to rally the working class against the centralist absolutism of the newly established political apparatus, against the political fusion of the party and the state. At root, there was, in my opinion, something wrong in the whole way in which the bolshevik intellectuals viewed the workers and peasants of their own country, i.e. they operated in a certain sense with an authoritarian, modernising "civilising mission" - "from above", despite all the rhetoric to the contrary -, not entirely different from the mentality of the social imperialists who emphasised the "civilising influence" of colonialism. That is, their project was in some ways not unlike that of Peter the Great's modernising mission, except with different means and ends. They wished to introduce the heights of culture they had picked up in exile, on their own country. To grasp this point, and establish the limits of its validity, I think you have to get away from the erroneous leftist idea that everything was "good" up till 1924, and degenerated thereafter. Rather you need to examine the whole formation of bolshevik "Jacobin" culture such as it really was, as described in detail by latter-day historians, as well as by participants such as Shliapnikov, the only real worker in the Soviet government during Lenin's leadership. I think that, if you look at the e.g. Cuban, Nicaraguan or even the Yugoslav experience, then you can see that there are plenty possibilities for mobilising masses of people with much less resort to authoritarianism, even within the context of a tense military situation, i.e. that your own political culture, and your own theory, may cause you to overreact to political threats, in a way which is not really justified by the political situation, if you looked at it more objectively. A great deal depends here on the personalities of the leaders themselves. But this is a very difficult discussion, because (1) so much effort goes into alternately justifying or defending the Russian revolution, or else morally condemning it, which makes a comprehensive objective appraisal almost impossible, even today (so that many radicals don't even want to discuss it anymore). And (2) also, of course, when you are engaged in a strongly partisan political fight, it is difficult to retain your sense of objectivity anyway, since your aim is precisely to impose your will on the situation, and you are much less inclined to listen, or be open to other viewpoints. J. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, July 11, 2003 1:11 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Clyde Prestowitz on the meaning of neoconservatism > Jurriaan Bendien wrote: > > > > So Lenin was actually making a specific > > political intervention in an ongoing discussion, basing himself on ideas > > current in his time (and not a rigorous argument about the operation of the > > capitalist world market, grounded in Marx's theory of value). > > > > I think this could be said of nearly all -- perhaps all -- of Lenin's > works. It was, after all, Stalin & Trotsky, not Lenin, who created > "Marxism-Leninism." So perhaps, borrowing a Chinese distinction (now > rejected by those who call themselves "Maoists") we should speak of > "Lenin thought" rather than "Leninism" or "Marxism Leninism." He remains > the most provocative thinker (and ongoing political inspiration) in > Marxist history -- but you simply cannot read his works as as > theoretical statements of abstract validity for all of capitalism, past, > present, and future (nor did he ever, except possibly in _State and > Revolution_, intend that one should). > > Carrol > > > > Jurriaan > >
