[PEN-L:7682] Re: Leninism

[Terrence Mc Donough <TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> On point (1) - we're a long way from the Hilferdingesque world that Lenin
> wrote and thought about. Competition has intensified, finance and industry
> haven't joined into a single unit (bank-supervised cartels), etc. So while
> 1917 was different from 1817, 1999 is pretty different from 1917, too. On
> point

My only point here is that Lenin made a substantial contribution to
the Marxian theory of capitalist stages, not that we are currently
confronting the same stage which confronted Lenin.

(2) - I think Soviet history confirmed that changing the folks at the
> helm is not without its problems, and that there was substantial continuity
> between Tsarist and Soviet Russia. If anything, that's an argument against
> Leninism's relevance today.

Again my point was that Lenin made a substantial theoretical
contribution to the Marxist theory of the state.

 And (3), well, any nominees for the vanugard
> party today? The Spartacist League? Again, I think you've got to confront
> the fact that organizations and strategies appropriate for a Tsarist police
> state don't have much relevance to an OECD country today.

I might well call for nominees for a serious mass socialist party of
the people.  The SP? DSA?  Obviously conditions are not right for
either a vanguard or a mass socialist party today.

I don't call myself a Leninist because Marxism-Leninism was
essentially a dogmatic ossification of Marxism promoted by Stalin
with if not evil then unscientific intent and Leninism doesn't
supercede Marxism unmodified.

Nevertheless, if one accepts a stage theory of capitalism, a
structural theory of the bourgeois state, and the likelihood that at
some stage in the revolutionary transition to socialism a vanguard
party will be needed, then one would be justified in calling oneself
a Leninist.  Such a person would be no more worthy of dismissal as
irrelevant than any of the rest of us.

Anti sectarians should be extra careful not to dismiss others in a/n
(anti)sectarian fashion [to use pomo parentheticals].  After all,
things turn into their opposites :] (Mao reading Marx reading Hegel).

Terry McDonough