Give me diamat or give me death

[Alex Trotter <uburoi@xxxxxxxxx>]

If, as Ralph says, there was no "Leninism" when Lenin was alive, then
when indeed did it begin? At the moment of his death? Alas, perhaps so.
This brings up another interesting question. If Ralph is going to uphold
Lenin against leninism, why not Marx against marxism? He grants the
accuracy of Pannekoek's assessment of the ideology of the new Soviet
bureaucrats (we can leave aside for the moment the question whether they
constituted a class or only a caste), but then tries to say it applied
only to Lenin's successors. But didn't these men all share Lenin's
positions on philosophy, materialism, etc? The thing about MAEC that gets
me is that it is, above all, a *polemical*, not a scientific, work. Its
purpose is political--to legitimize the Bolshevik Party, and Lenin's
control of that party. And yes, the theories about epistemology and
consciousness were tied to the ideology that class consciousness could
only come from the professtional revolutionaries as interpreters of the
laws of scientific socialism conceived as "dialectical materialism."
        The presuppositions of diamat (natural scientific realism,
economic determinism) were as much a part of kautskyist as of leninist
orthodoxy. If anything, they were more consistently upheld by the
circumspect evolutionism of orthodox German Social Democracy (i.e.,
socialism will come about by itself as a natural necessity). Lenin broke
the link between doctrine and political action with his ultravoluntarist
blanquism. The SocDems had also believed that reality proceeded solely
from the "objective" process of history; with Lenin's brand of social
democracy a place was made for will, but only the will of the party.
Ralph admits that diamat appeals to people who like the whole universe in
a box and are fond of rational administration and control. That fit Lenin
to a T. His conception of revolutionaries as professionals practicing the
total administration of society goes right up that alley. Maybe a
difference between leninism and stalinism, but no world of difference.
And by the way, the case can be made easily enough that Lenin and his
cohorts did indeed indulge in a fair amount of "stomping on human
freedom" what with Kronstadt, the emasculation of the councils,
suppression of strikes, banning of factions, application of taylorist
techniques (how's that for love of rational administration?) in
production, etc.
        What Pannekoek, Korsch, and Lukacs were getting at is the vital
importance of the "subjective factor." People have to *think* change
before they can accomplish it. It's not just a question of observable,
objective factors deduced from the laws of the dialectic. It's the
difference between marxism as an ideology and as a critical theory. It's
too bad that Lukacs later recanted his "subjective idealist" heresy.
That's when he became a bootlicking lackey to the stalinists, nicht wahr?
        Diamat would be better described as engelsism rather than
marxism. Good luck, Ralph, trying to separate it from Engelsism-Leninism.
Shawgi Tell is right--Marxism-Leninism and dialectical materialism are
stuck to each other like Crazy Glue.


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