From: "Peter Jovanovic" <peterzoran-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: AUT: Leninism
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:31:50 +1000


hi all

i was a bit wary of jumping on the bandwagon of criticising Richard but i 
wanted to say something that i think is fairly important and has only been 
mentioned in passing.

When leninists defend themselves against the criticism of the 'ultra-left' 
they usually do so by saying the argument is about how best to organise to 
defeat capitalism. it is partly about that but more importantly it is about 
the content of their and our politics. for all that the (junior) members of 
leninist parties are revolutionary (or even communist) their politics lead 
to Russian style state capitalism.

if we accept their limits of an argument about means we have lost because 
they are right in this case. if the end is state capitalism then the 
leninist party is the correct means. if the end is communism adopting 
leninist means is the road to failure.

a simple illustration of the ISO/SWP's "revolutionary" social democracy is 
the fact that both in Britain and Oz they function more or less as an 
external faction of the labour party.

peter

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