Re: [CrashList] Leninism

["Tahir Wood" <twood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wow, can I just register my appreciation for these rich and intertwining threads that are now animating this list. I don't have time right now, due to pressures of work, to even read all of the posts properly, never mind pen a proper response. But I think that the discussion of Lenin and that of the franchise are exxcellent points of departure and I hope that we can sustain this discussion to reach deeper levels of topics that I think are manifesting themselves really as tips of the iceberg right now. Lenin, and a critical appreciation of him, seems to me to be vitally important. I hope though we don't degenerate into  the kind of "any criticism of Lenin is an imperialist plot" polemics (please). Remember one of the harshest critics of Lenin was Rosa Luxemburg and her pamphlet exhorting us to choose between Marxism and Lenininism remains relevant. Due to critiques like these I remain somewhat ambivalent on the question of the party. In a nutshell it seems to me to be a too facile and immediate formula for surrendering the autonomy and integrity of the individual. Socialism is something higher, not lower, than liberal individualism. 

I also think that the "party" is more usefully thought of as an international party rather than one for each nation. I think this is closer to Marx's vision. I see no benefit in supporting national CPs.

I hope also that the discussion of Lenin stays wider than the question of the party though. The issues surrounding the second and third internationals seem to me to be vital too. I happen to think that Lenin's "Leftwing Communism, an infantile disorder" is one of the most fateful texts of the 20th century. The replacement of Bordiga by Gramsci at the head of the Italian party is a question which also deserves a second look, together with the whole question of revolutionary abstention. Gramsci seems to me to be way too uncritically accepted as the way to go. (The way to social democracy, maybe.) I think some of the participants in this discussion should also have a look at Barrot's "The renegade Kautsky and his disciple Lenin" before they get too much older, as well as some of Loren Goldner's critiques of the whole monopoly capitalism school. The assumption (again uncritical Leninism) that this sort of thing just is Marxism needs a little bit of examination.
Gotta go (later Stan ...)
Tahir