From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: AUT: Leninism
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:17:01 -0400


hello richard

> > 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.
>
> Is this treated as an unquestionable truism on this
> list or do actually engage in historical debates?

sorta both, honestly. its been discussed and debated so many times here, and
has been thouroughly analyized by people with politics similar to the bulk
of people on this list.

see:

*aufheben's four part series on "what was russia" (which they will hopefully
get on line soon). and

*the bolsheviks and workers control by maurice briton
(http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/2163/bolintro.html). this pamphlet
is a nearly day by day, month by month, year by year account of how the
bolsheviks turned the russian revolution into state-controlled capitalism.

these are, will lead you to more, of the source material folks on this list
will likely use.

but as sort of a lead in: most of us on the list, i would guess, agree with
marx, in the grundrisse, that:

"The social relation of individuals to one another as a power over the
individuals which has become autonomous, whether conceived as a natural
force, as chance or in whatever form, is a necessary result of the fact that
the point of departure is not the free social individual."

that is, since marx takes the "free social individual" as the basis of
communism, and the starting point of revolutionary organization:
hierarchcial organization, as a form of alienation and thus an antithesis of
communism, is a hallmark of class society.

thus, the bolsheviks, in part by organizing hierarchically, and
hierarchicalizing the soviets into a state, betrayed the russian revolution
and built state-capitalism by recreating hierarchical alienation and placing
themselves on top as the new russian ruling class.




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