Re: Bolshevism vs Menshevism?

[malecki@xxxxxxxxxx (Robert Malecki)]

>Louis: Everybody calls themselves Marxist, but so what. This list proves
>how difficult it is to establish someone's bona fide Marxism. Even the
>Bolshevik party that everybody on this list cheers for (in the way normal
>people cheer for apple pie, motherhood and the flag) seems all too
>imperfect if you look at the actions of the Bolshevik Central Committee
>prior to 1917. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin all opposed Lenin's call for
>Soviets to power.
>
>Does this mean that they had become bourgeoisified or sold out their
>revolutionary principles? What if the train carrying Lenin to the Finland
>Station had run into a moose and derailed killing everybody? Would there
>have been a Russian Revolution?
>
>The point is that there are no guarantees of any party staying on course
>until the final seizure of power. There are certainly things you can do in
>a relative manner to not stray. Most important of these is having a
>working-class membership and a willingness not to bow to the prejudices of
>bourgeois society, including national chauvinism, racism and sexism. Other
>than that, all you can really do is struggle along the general principles
>of Marxism.
>
>What I am sure about is what won't work. To take that a step forward, what
>is *guaranteed* not to work. That is establishing a party on the basis of
>some program that is an interpretation of *history* and which excludes any
>other historical version of what took place as rotten opportunism, etc.
>This has been a deadly obstacle.
>
Louis,what are you implying here? that revolutions are made on slump (the
moose arguement). that revolution does not need a concious leadership that
has absorbed some of the greatest tactics and lessons of history.

finally just what are the general principles of marxism you are talking about?

malecki in exile...




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