As a digression into Lenin quotology, I was just leafing through an old copy of Medvedev's book on The October Revolution, and at the end he quotes an interesting bit from Lenin's article on the fourth anniversary of Soviet power, where Lenin freely admits he is engaging in reformism and that it is correct to do so. I won't recite the whole passage, which you can easily look up, but just take a look at this:
"What is new for our revolution at the present time is the need for a "reformist", gradual, cautious and roundabout approach to the solution of the fundamental problems of economic development. This "novelty" gives rise to a number of questions, perplexities, and doubts in both theory and practice. [...] The greatest, perhaps the only danger to the genuine revolutionary is that of exaggerated revolutionism, ignoring the limits and conditions in which revolutionary methods are appropriate and can be successfully employed. True revolutionaries have mostly come a cropper when they began to write 'revolution' with a capital R, to elevate "revolution" to something almost divine, to lose their heads, to lose their ability to reflect, weigh, and ascertain in the coolest and most dispassionate manner at what moment, under what circumstances, and in which sphere of action you must act in a revolutionary manner, and at what moment, under what circumstances, and in which sphere you must turn to reformist action." Notice again how ideologically flexible Lenin is here in his justification for his policy, and notice how he states quite plainly that sometimes you have to engage in revolutionary action, and sometimes in reformist action - all this depends on the specific circumstances which you happen to face. This obviously has nothing to do with the latter-day Leninist r-r-r-revolutionaries and their bombastic diatribes against the bogey of "Reformism" in general. Of course, you could always say, this was AFTER the conquest of state power by Lenin & co. It doesn't apply to what happens BEFORE. But what was so different in social conditions before and after the insurrection ? Lenin's point is precisely that reforms or reformism isn't finished after the overturn of power, indeed this is where the real nitty-gritty of social revolution starts, and sometimes you have to be on the side of reform, and sometimes you have to be on the side of revolutionary methods. The real question is how best to advance the movement for progressive social change and your political objectives, while being able to distinguish between revolutionary and reformist approaches to the question. In the future, I hope to dig up some juicy passages where Lenin is clearly arguing for reforms BEFORE October 1917, which should not be too difficult (regrettably I don't have the LCW handy anymore here). As I have mentioned previously, Lenin said a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts, and sometimes he's revolutionary, and sometimes reactionary. And, as I have shown, sometimes he is plain REFORMIST. J.
