Re: [Marxism] Re: Lenin's 'democratic dictatorship' slogan

[Ilyenkova@xxxxxxx]

<Lenin saw the revolution through the optic of historical 'necessities' that
must be fulfilled. He was trying to elaborate a political strategy out of a
deterministic philosophy, where stages inevitably follow one another with an
iron necessity and the actors in these events can be read off from the immutable
economic categories. No wonder it was such a muddle.
It should be noted that Lenin had the ability to break out of the unworkable
consequences of this mix, and fashion a revolution on the hoof. Or, as Marc
puts it, 'indicative of the truly dynamic and flexible approach of a great
Marxist theoretician and practitioner'. Well, let's agree on this.>

Yes, yes, yes! Lenin had to wage his own struggle from within the theoretical
framework he received from the mechanistic Marxism of the gods of the 2nd
International esp. Plekanov, *the father of Russian Marxism.*
He struggled against the determinism of necessary stages from the beginning;
but it was more complicated than a
mere matter of thinking  "on the hoof." There was a vigorous debate across
national borders, at least since 1905
on the character of the Russian revolution. Trotsky, with help from Parvus,
proposed an entirely novel course, arguing that the coming democratic
revolution must be led by the proletariat with the support of the peasantry. 
Rosa
Luxemburg had essentially the same position. When he wrote *Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism* Lenin was
writing from within a Plekanovian framework that privileged the mechanistic
materialism of Enlightenment figures
like La Mettrie ("Man the Machine"). After the inter-imperialist war began
Lenin took up a study of Hegel's Logic and wrote the "Notebooks." It was only
after his study of Hegel that he penned "Imperialism: The Highest Stage
of Capitalism." From this point onwards, Lenin thought from the dialectical
principle of what Lukacs termed the
"totality." Trotsky had the benefit, being younger and less tied to those who
waged the struggle against Narodnik populism, of learning his Marxism from
the Italian Hegelian-Marxist, Antonio Labriola. He was able to generalize
rom the experience of the 1905 revolution and the emergence of organs of
proletarian rule to the thesis that the democratic revolution would, of 
necessity,
be led by the proletariat. Trotsky was able to demonstrate, far earlier
than Lenin, that the conditions under which capitalism arose in Russia were
qualitatively different than how capitalism emerged in western Europe (i.e.)
Russian towns weren't progressive centers of petty bourgeois and artisanal
development, but were merely administrative centers mediating between central
authority and the peasantry. The
urban cities developed full blown with infusions of Western (mostly French)
capital,  concentrated industry and a proportionately large proletariat. It's
to Lenin's credit that he was able, in the crucible of the February revolution,
 to jettison the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry," in favor of the "dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the
peasantry." It was this thinking, in the midst of revolutionary chaos, that 
allowed
Lenin and Trotsky to unite around Bolshevism and the proletarian dictatorship.
To see how revolutionary this break with the Marxism of the 2nd International
really was just consider the absolute shock of Plekhanov and Kautsky-- both of
whom opposed the revolution. On the other hand, consider Rosa Luxemburg's
response: Despite some initial reservations rooted in the numerical weight of 
the
Russian proletariat and that of the peasantry, she recognized the
international importance of
this "first shot" fired in the world revolution of the proletariat against
the rule of capital.
Ilyenkova

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism