Re: party structure

["Einde O'Callaghan" <einde@xxxxxx>]

David Walters wrote:
> 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.
Lenin did however criticise the Comintern resolutions on party
organisation as being too Russian, that foreign communists would be
unable to understand them and, even if they did understand them, they
would be unable to implement them.

He also opposed the publication of "What is to be done?" in foreign
languages without an extensive commentary. Instead what happened is that
 WITBD was adopted as THE guide to creating parties of a Bolshevik
type, even though Lenin's own practice after the 1905 Revolution and
again in 1917 contradicted many of the arguments and guidelines in WITBD.

Einde O'Callaghan


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