Date: Sun, 10 May 98 2:30:43 EDT
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Waterman vs history







		C. Hugh,



	Here is the problem with your argument: "When Lenin and Trotsky
and the Bolsheviks fought capitalism in 1917, they settled matters with
the Russian bourgeoisie first, expropriating it."  They could because
there was an "it" to expropriate.  There was a hierarchical power
structure that could be taken out with a single blow.  That no longer
exists in England and America.  Marx lived in a world with a very small
elite and a very large, largely illiterate peasant class.  He was a genius
exactly because he could understand the implications of a society that
didn't really exist yet.  The big socialist revolution comes in 1917 and
even then any reasonable person has to admit that it was as much if not
more a revolution *against* the tsar as *for* socialism. 


	The point is that a Leninist revolution in a present-day
bourgeois-democracy would have to be a truly immense movement with a
concrete agenda.  That is not what "The Party" seems to represent, nor
does it seem particularly feasible. 



	I think that if indeed you want to engage the bourgeoisie where
they live before engaging globally, as I agree you must, you have to
engage them where they *actually* live. The bourgeoisie lives in a nation,
yes, but a nation made of corporations, not counties.  If Communists take
over a local council, what's the result?  Good things, sure, but
ultimately capitalists move away and take industry with them.  Take the
corporation and you *own* the industry. 





	peace






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