Re: Democratic centralism: myth and reality

["Richard Fidler" <rfidler@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou, I agree that Reed's book is interesting and relevant. You might want to
follow up with E.H. Carr's multivolume series on the Russian Revolution and
the Bolshevik regime, which contains a lot of material on how the Bolsheviks
functioned, inner-party democracy, public debates, etc. And of course there
are lots of other good books on the subject.  But I can't help reminding you
of your advice only a few days ago (October 7):

>> I would urge subscribers not to get sidetracked into a discussion of what
the Bolsheviks did or did not do right. <<

I personally don't object to your violating your own guideline. Maybe we
should just acknowledge that this particular guideline doesn't really make
much sense - and among Marxists is pretty well unworkable.

Richard


~~~~~~~
PLEASE clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.