[ingliz]

...trade unions can either transform themselves into revolutionary organisations or become lieutenants of capital in the intensified exploitation. of the workers.The trade union bureaucracy, which has satisfactorily solved its own social problem, took the second path. It turned all the accumulated authority of the trade unions against the socialist revolution and even against any attempts of the workers to resist the attacks of capital and reaction.

From that point on, the most important task of the revolutionary party became the liberation of the workers from the reactionary influence of the trade union bureaucracy

Trotsky was a Leninist and, as you can see, they don't have much time for reformist social democrats.

ps. Sorry for the edits in my last post but I think I was editing as you were posting. Anyway, I've put back what had been taken away and marked what has been added.

[Unperson-K]

Given that Lenin changed in his opinions on occasion and as a result sometimes stood for diametrically opposed positions at different times, I think it is quite hard to argue that Lenin had 'everything right' about Marxism. Lenin's own actions seem to contradict such an opinion.

[jaakko]

From your point of view certainly. I do accept the Marxist analysis of history, society and economics though. You can't deny that, no matter what ideology you belong to.

Okay, this is not the right place to dwelve on this but maybe I've interpreted you somewhat incorrectly.

That includes opposition to multi-party elections (in the Western sense of the word) and restriction of free speech (e.g. disallowing reactionary sentiment from being expressed) with the purpose of preventing a counter-revolution.

All of these are concrete tactical questions, not matters of principle. For example, bourgeois parties can be allowed to exist if they've been effectively castrated from political power potential through economic and other means. What comes to freedom of speech, it's the same thing in socialism as in capitalism or feudalism or whatever: it can be allowed to the varying extent it doesn't threaten the dominating mode of production. Like with revolutionary sentiment in the present system, reactionary sentiment can be freely and without consequences expressed when and to the extent it doesn't matter.

So all Marxist thought and progress ended with Lenin

Quite the opposite. Bolshevism headed by Lenin opened a new stage for the development of Marxism into the era of imperialism. Capitalism has two basic stages of development, and the stages of development of scientific socialism must correspond to them. Leninism is not an "end" any more than Marxism was. Marxism is a base. Leninism is a stage of Marxism in the era of imperialism, and as such is a new base for further advance during this same era.

In short, Lenin is not the end of Marxist thought, but Lenin is indispensable for any further advance of scientific socialism. Science is by nature accumulative. If Leninism represents an accumulation of Marxist science to the extent of a new stage, further advance can't "replace" Lenin anymore than it can Marx or Engels.

There is no human being anywhere at any time that has had "everything right" about anything

Lenin had "everything right" about Marxism as it existed prior to him. His contributions to Marxism i.e. the theoretical work that added to Marxism new content are more debatable in the sense that they're part of a process that culminated in the foundation of Leninism - posthumously to a great degree.

[guzzipat]

Nobody is saying you are not a marxist, some post-Marxist "marxists" are liberals by any definition but their own, but you are not a Marxist-Leninist. *I would classify you as a Fabian, a reformist, but "Right Socialism" is hardly socialist in the Leninist tradition.

Edit*

I don't care what you classify me as.
I am retired now and am less politically active, but I spent most of my 50 years of manual work as an elected shop steward. Much of it on an unofficial grass roots organisation in opposition to the Union Structure. I suspect that some of the contributors to this thread wouldn't have a clue how to organise successful militant action.
I am pretty used to people classifying me as this that or the other. My personal record in defending and advancing my class interest stands up. I was then and remain a revolutionary socialist, what the "Lenin is god squad" think of that, I couldn't care less.
My last contribution to this thread, you lot are just too boring and dogmatic to waste time on.

[ingliz]

guzzipat:

I am sorry if I have misrepresented you, but, in the few other threads I have seen you post, you have always been a staunch defender of Old Labour. The UK Labour party has never been a revolutionary socialist party, as can be seen by their reaction when the CPGB tried to affiliate in the 20's.

Yes, a few communists joined/infiltrated the ranks from the RCP and CPGB in the late 40's-50's, the RCP having embraced entryism, the CPGB having renounced revolution and turned reformist. And, yes, a few more have joined/infiltrated every year since. And I don't deny the 'socialists' on the left of the party were influenced by Leninism, attempting to act as a party within a party.

But they were always marginalised.

I don't think you can successfully argue that just because a few Trotskyite entryists had visions of grandeur it makes the Labour party revolutionary. Militant was never in a position to be the "revolutionary vanguard".

I have always said it is entirely up to you how you 'classify' yourself but the Labour Party is Fabianist and if you are seen to argue Labour Party policy, even Old Labour Party policy, you are arguing Fabianism and most anyone would think you a Fabian, even if you are a revolutionary.


And to get back on topic:

Some people in America have come to think of the Bolsheviks as a small clique of very bad men who are tyrannizing over a vast number of highly intellectual people who would form an admirable Government among themselves the moment the Bolshevik regime was overthrown. This is a mistake, for there is nobody to take our place save butcher Generals and helpless bureaucrats who have already displayed their total incapacity for rule.

To argue revolutionary theory is ridiculous! Kronstadt was not theory, it was politics - realpolitik - 'right' or 'wrong' doesn't come in to it, although I would argue the rebels were 'wrong': What else could have been done? Does it matter that the Kronstadt sailors were earlier in the 'vanguard' when on March 2, 1921 they were willing to betray the revolution by allying themselves with the Whites and foreign forces. The evidence is in the "Memorandum on the Question of Organizing an Uprising in Kronstadt", written between January and early February 1921 by an agent of the National Centre in Finland, which includes remarkably detailed information about the resources, personnel, arms and plans of the Kronstadt rebellion together with plans for White army and French government support. Some have argued this memorandum was never acted upon but that is not the point the French Command and the Russian anti-Bolshevik organisations were poised to take advantage of this 'spontaneous' uprising.

...the news in the Paris Press about the Kronstadt uprising two weeks before it happened had been stressed in the campaign against the sailors as proof positive that they had been tools of the Imperialist gang and that rebellion had actually been hatched in Paris.

‘The news – to be sure, not yet official – of large scale disorders in Russia, directed against the Soviet dictatorship, has had a strong effect in improving the state of the market. Everyone realises what the consequences for the whole world would be if the Soviet regime in Russia were to collapse ... We may hope to see in the near future the establishment in the former Empire of the Tsar of a rational form of economic organisation, corresponding to the needs of the post-war period. This would mean hope for the restoration of many Belgian-owned industrial enterprises in Russia, and at the same time would be a direct blow at Bolshevik intrigues in Belgium and outside Russia generally.’

Thus, the Brussels stock-exchange is quite uninterested in how the slogans of the SR Petrichenko differ from the intentions of General Kozlovsky and the historical philosophy of the Menshevik Dan. The stock-exchange is clever enough to appreciate that what matters is not these nuances and verbal hairsplittings. The stock-exchange realises very well that only two regimes are possible in Russia: either the dictatorship of the Soviets, led by the Communist Party, the only historical party capable of leading the revolution, or the dictatorship of French, Belgian or other capital exercised through the agency of the Russian counter-revolution. Petrichenko, Dan, Kozlovsky, Chernov, Makhno – these are only little screws in the mechanism which is to wrest power from the hands of the proletarian dictatorship and give it to imperialism.

[Mikolaj]

If you really want to learn the truth about Kronstadt, I suggest reading this book