From: "Chris Wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Re: Several
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 22:35:35 -0600


> I hope with this to reply also to the long quotations by Chris.
> We (BC and IBRP) never had any Talmud.
I did not say or even imply that you took a Biblical or Talmudic approach to
Lenin or Marx, but someone from your group rather loudly complained about a
lack of quotes.  I chose to provide a large number that indicated a notion
of communism not only at variance with Marx, but with any notion of the
self-determination of the class, replacing that with the determination by
the state, with the separation of the producer from the means of production
(in spite of some good things in State and Revolution), with a fascination
with Taylorism and "state monopoly capitalism", with "one man management",
etc...

And instead of just sticking to Lenin, I drew from a range of Bolshevik
documents, so as to show a certain continuity in conception, not just "Lenin
the bad guy".

We hope to be able to share -with both Marx and
> Lenin, and many other fighters for the proletarian communist cause - the
historical
> materialistic method. In this senmse we can't avoid to criticize and
refuse some specific
> points, when we've to state our way ahead. But, for sure, we cannot accept
the stupid
> critrique to Lenin and the bolseviks, made on the bases of the one's own
fantasy and of a > substantial mensevik position (the proletarian revolution
was not possible in Russia,
> thus up with the bourgeois democracy).
I am interested exactly what you mean by "one's own fantasy"?  Where was
that present?  The problem is that Lenin's conception of socialism never
squared with Marx's, and while one can defend Lenin on his own terms (and
one should critique him on his own terms), I don't think you can defend his
notions by referencing Marx or claiming much continuity in their thinking.
Lenin had more in common with Plekhanov and Kautsky than he did with Marx.
That does not mean Lenin was not a revolutionary, but his conception of
communism and revolution is not one we should adopt in any way.  Lenin has
to be included inthat group of people about whom Marx said in his own time
"If those are Marxists, then I am no Marxist." (rough quote.)

Chris



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