Date: Fri, 01 Aug 1997 23:49:29 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: Re: M-I: A Critique of Leninism


I welcome that Louis is continuing to work at this theme and put more flesh
on a collective understanding. In fairness to him, as I rather clashed with
him over the emphasis he has put on the role of Zinoviev rather than Lenin
for centralizing tendencies in the Communist International, I want to feed
in that a couple of weeks ago I met a British marxist who has had access to
the Moscow Archives and he confirmed the view that compared to Lenin,
Zinoviev was very bureaucratic, and was of course responsible for the
Comintern at a decisive time.

(He also said some 3000 documents of Lenin's have still never been published.)


One paragraph in the Canadian article deals with the crucial 1921
resolution on the organisational structure of Communist Parties.


"The 1921 Comintern Congress drew up a detailed organizational scheme ("The
Organizational Structure of the Communist Parties, the Methods and Content
of Their Work: Theses") that has become the model of a democratic
centralist vanguard party for most socialists. But at the 1922 Congress,
Lenin said it was "almost exclusively Russian: it is wholly derived from a
study of Russian developments. This is the good side of the resolution, but
it is also the bad side... if by rare chance a foreigner could understand
it, he could not possibly carry it out" (in HARRY WICKS, 25). 


EH Carr "The Bolshevik Revolution" volume 3, describes this resolution as
being "attacked" by Lenin at the 4th Congress giving largely the same
quote. I would like to know more about the origin of this resolution as
early as 1921. It does not appear to be explicitly linked to the name of
Zinoviev. The resolution was adopted unanimously. I feel that implies that
in some ways Lenin was associated with it as well. It seems to me that even
if Lenin could win leadership by the powers of argument (see his sustained
argument in Left Wing Communism, influencing the British Communists) the
centripetal tendencies are still there, and would take a more bureaucratic
form in less inspired hands. 

Fernando Claudin "The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform"
English edition 1975 Penguin Books, argues that the significance of the 21
Conditions was to prevent reformists joining. It was an organisational
statement of intent to split the working class movement. This revolutionary
opposition to reformism seems to me to account for centralising tendencies
in the Comintern that were larger than any one individual. 

No doubt we will come back to this question again.

Chris Burford





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