File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1996/96-11-15.074, message 32


From: "Karl Carlile" <joseph-AT-indigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 19:57:26 +0000
Subject: Re: M-G: Lenin married in a church?


KARL: From what I can gather at this point in time the following may
be correct: The Boshevik party strangled the 1917 revolution. After
seizing the Winter Palace in October 1917 they went about the process
of transforming the soviets into empty shells that merely rubber
stamped the decisions of the the leadership of the Bolshevik party.
They destroyed the proletarian character of the factory committees and
prevented theme from federating. They converted the revolutionary army
into a regular army robbing that army of its popular revoutionary
character. They crushed the Kronstadt rising. They virtually
eliminated all opposition both outside and within the Bolshevik party.
They helped reduce the number of workers in the city by forcing many
of them to migrate into the country in search of food.They also
indiscriminately crushed the greens which included the
Mahknovists.Then there was their very smelly work in Georgia. I could
go on.

The Bolsheviks may have had  two choices. They could have chosen to
assist the working class in developing the proletarian character of
the russian revolution which probably would have meant going down
fighting since the chances of the revolution being transforming into a
genuine European revolution may have been quite small. Instead they
chose to sit on the proletarian revolution and actively strangle it by
resurrecting a new and effective despotic state. By making the second
choice the Bolsheviks were counter-revolutionaries who set themselves
the task of defeating of the workers' revolution. Lenin must be hailed
as one of the great counter revolutionaries of this century. In short
by 1922 the Bolheviks had succeeded in constructing a depotic state
that represented neither workers nor peasants.

Revolutionary marxists must make it there aim to destroy the Lenin
legend.

If the above is true then it would seem to me that marrying in a 
church would not have been a tactitic to further the revolution. 
Lenin was one of these so calle drevolutionary socialists who could 
justify about everything he did. And when he could not justify his 
action he would simply admit that he made a mistake and that the 
importan thing is that one learns from one's mistakes. 

He would have fitted in very well with modern bourgeois politicians
who can justify just about everything they do. In connection with
this it is interesting that Lenin's testimony concerning the
Malinovsky affair was not included in the collected works of Lenin
nor in edition of the commissions records.In it he tries to justify
in Clinton like fashion the existence of the police informer
Malinovsky on the Central Committee of the party. There is a view 
that he knew that Malinovsky was a double agent. It is curious to
watch how Lenin squirms.

Surely? Then, of course, Engels - another committed and dedicated marxist 
as he claimed to be- would've forgone being an owner of a textile factory; and his
friend, one Moor, who - while claiming not being a marxist - knew a few things
about capitalist exploitation would've never thought of living off the profits
Engels made by exploiting his workers.  True, this bunch of unprincipled individuals
had some weak excuse to make for their moral transgressions by claiming that while
being a part of the bourgeois society they did what they could to bring it down.
Perhaps, they could also ask (from their graves) their modern critics what is
the economic foundation of their own moral uprightness, their critical
powers, education, and the varigated lives resulting from it.  Perhaps, they could
ask how this educated public justifies its own priviliged position in the 
division of labor on the backs of the billions of modern slaves, and how these
billions who feed and clothe this caste judge ITS morality.


And why would they - both professional revolutionaries - consider this private 
event (if it happened at all!) so important and "interesting" that to include it
in their political writings (Krupskaya's memoirs are also political writing par
excellence)? Was it because they were trying to hide some grim secret, or because
their understanding of what was appropriate and what was not for their generation
of revolutionary marxists was different from their modern chastisers?  BTW, this
is not true that their marriage or rather plans to have a legal marriage are not
mentioned in Lenin's collected works (not collected by him). V.55 of the 5th
edition of Lenin's Complete Works contains his letters to relatives (1893-1922).
This collection is not complete. And in her introduction to the 1930 collection of
Lenin's letters, his older sister Anna Ulyanova-Elizarova mentions with regret that 
many of Lenin's letters to "his relatives and friends" had been lost over the years.
Yet even those left and published repudiate any claim that Lenin himself or the
handlers of his literary heritage tried to conceal or supress any facts concerning
his marriage. How else could we explain that the complete works contain a number
of Lenin's letters re his church, i.e. the legal marriage procedure? 
E.g. in Letter# 47 (10/5/98) Lenin writes to his mother:

	As you know, N.K. (Krupskaya-V.B.) was given a tragicomic ultimatum:
	if she does not marry *immediately* (sic!) she will be deported back
	to Ufa. I am not going to let them do this, and therefore we have begun
	our "petitions" (mostly, requests for documents without which it is
	impossible to get married (in church) [Lenin uses Russian 'venchatsa' that
	means to be married in church - V.B.], so that we can have married before
	the Lent. /Trans is mine/.

For anyone who knows Russian this letter clearly tells that Lenin and Krupskaya 
planned to get married legally, i.e. according to the rites of the Eastern Orthodox
Church.  Why would those who created "myths" about Lenin and allegedly tried
to suppress the fact of his church marriage would publish such an "incriminating" 
document?  The real question is: in whose eyes this sort of facts are construed
as "incriminating" and for what purposes? 

Karl enigmatically refers to "many other things" that have been kept in secret
>from the moral consciousness of modern judges. Well, let us hear them and hope
that next time the judges will be more forthcoming and give a better sense of 
where their moral authority stems from.
> 
> I wonder whether there has been much stuff released from the Soviett archives
> on Lenin since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I would say there is some
> very interesting material to found deep down in those archives
> concerning Lenin. After all what has been constructed
> is the Lenin legend, not the real guy.

I have a gut feeling of what sort of hope this neuter "interesting" might express.
I can assure you, Karl, that an army of "experts," "scholars" and other sorts
of bourgeois worshippers of Minerva's owl have been eagerly looking for 
"interesting material" in Russian/Soviet archives. And you can rest confident
that they and those who pay them will make any affort imaginable to spread the 
"good news" around the world when they have them. Just keep listening to the
vultures' sounds.


Vladimir Bilenkin


     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---



   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005