Re: party structure

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis wrote:
> Sounds to me like you've been reading Kevin Anderson. If the party was
> becoming more centralized, then things got really screwed up in 1917.
> All
> the Central Committee members that opposed seizing power (Stalin,
> Zinoviev,
> et al) went directly to the masses in clear violation of party
> discipline.
> None were expelled. As far as I know, the only Bolshevik who ever got
> expelled was Bogdanov. In my party someone got expelled for refusing to
> paint a mural that satisfied the party's top brass political
> prejudices.
> (Hi, Mike).

I think it is more complex than this. For Paul, I highly recommend
Rabinowitch's "The Bolsheviks Come To Power", an amazingly detailed
look at the Bolshevik Party organization in Petrograd in 1917. Its
level of "centralization" locally was more akin to the Unitarian Church
than what we know of Marxism-Leninism today. Basically they were a step
more organized than Anarchists and about as effective...but that's
another story...

In the 'other' direction, I highly recommend  Robert M. Slusser's
"Stalin in October" (John Hopkin's Press). While focusing on Stalin's
role before during and after the October revolution (or lack there of
in Mr. Slusser's opinion) it gives a very interesting view of how the
Bolsheviks were organized and presents an opposing point of view to
Rabinowitch, at least from the point of view of high the Bolshevik CC
related locally to the local Petrograd organization. He shows quite
clearly Lenin's trend toward more centralization.

In contrary to Louis' thesis about the Bolsheviks and the Comintern, or
perhaps just a supplement to what he said, I think Louis would be hard
pressed to find much debate over the "21 Points" at the founding of the
Comintern (drafted by Lenin as it were) which many point to as the
"Zinovievist" tendency that Louis alludes to. Lenin never presented a
counter-viewpoint to the position adopted by the Comintern, nor did he
seek to revise the Comintern and all it stood for prior to his death.
That the Comintern sections modeled themselves on the RCP is without
question what happened, but whether in fact this was particularly
"Zinovievist" is a very debatable point.

David Walters


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