Date: 10 Nov 96 04:02:54 EST From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM> Subject: M-G: Karl Carlile's "Distortions of Leninism" dear friends, True, the Bolsheviks with Lenin made some horrific blunders but they also blazed a trail of fabulous working class successes that were only mostly drowned out by capitalist counterrevolution by the early 1920s. But Karl C., in his armchair political quarterbacking endeavors points to some of the major setbacks of the Russian (and world) revolution and lays it all at the feet of Lenin! Remember Karl, this was the same Lenin that fought to save the healthy parts of the 2nd international from its own lawyerism, craft unionism, nationalism , legalism and pro imperialism and militarism which culminated with the anti-Lenin socialists becoming national socialists and becoming recruiting sergeants for their respective ruling classes in the barbarism of capital in unleashing WW1, which wiped out 11million mainly young workers . It was under the left-anti imperialist socialists like Lenin, Luxembourg & co. t hat EVEN during the war and ruthless repression (whippings to death for the German red sailors at the Kiel naval revolt in 1917), other acts of bourgeois white-terror for anti war militants, that valourously the real marxism was restored to the movements of proletarians , sialors and soldiers and a huge post war revolutioary wave blasted back at the criminal rule of capital and its "great war" from 1917-20!! If this was all Lenin (and his associates) helped to build up for the masses cause, on this basis alone he would be a working class giant!! Yes , the bolsheviks and workers in russia (and elsewhere paid a huge price for the Party restoration of bourgeois like executive governance through the Council of Pepoles Commisars replacing the mass assemblages of the Exec. Committee of the All-russian Congress of soviets which had brought about a Bolshevik majority ,and was key to the organized mass of revolutionary workers and peasants that siezed the power from the bourgeois- landlord pro-war reaction regime in Oct. 1917. Party set ups of Permanent ministries NOT under rev. Soviet control really helped drain the ral workers power from the Russian revolutionary movement. But , the actual conditions of the Civil war and then 14 nation imperialist invasion really drained out the best elements of the 1917-18 tidal wave of workers revolution. Workers who paid the price in blood to defeat white terror and imperialists invasion armies from the Ukraine to Vladivostok. In this later speeches and writings of 1921-23, Lenin seems to realize the effects of the isolated and devastated Russia where the workers upsurge has been spent and the Bolshevik Party retains power but without the mass organizations of revolutionary workers that existed in 1917-8. Lenin did make huge "retreats" by 1921, both in domestic policy -huge state bureaucratic control, NEP,etc. and in foreign policy (Cominternism) , turning back to building alliances with reformist parties, supporting PB nationalists , supporting illusions in voting, role of legal trade unionism , etc. These were "retreats" that when not corrected, became routs against the workers interests in many countries. But i think if you look at the overall Lenin balance sheet , you see a breathtaking achievements for the cause of workers in many lands, but also policies leading to events of tragic proportions, which may or may not have been able to been turned around at the time of Lenin, especially given the material conditions and the counter-vailing forces that had been established by the bourgeois states, democratic and monarchist, & fascist to crush the workers efforts to really end the wage slave system of plunder and robbery. Neil --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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