Lenin and Marx Contrasted

[Anonymous]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1128-august-1998/anti-imperialist-delusionThis is another important  element of Leninism that we have never supported and it was developed by Lenin in 1914The concept of Imperialism was also developed by Nikolai Bukharin and Lenin wrote the preface of his book.https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/We were very clear about this conception, and did not support the Vietcong during the war in Vietnam and our stand is completely correct, and history has shown that we were not mistaken. Most of the Leninists and leftist organizations supported the Vietcong and then, they had correct or rectify their mistake, we did not have to do that.If we are Leninist, where, and  when  did  we  support the concept of anti-imperialism, or when did we support the so called National Liberation movements ?  Probably, our stand cost us many problems because most leftist groups supported the Vietcong, as well, most Leninist groups support the so called patriotic war of the Soviet UnionAnother group has said that when Lenin wrote imperialism, he was reading Hegel from a materialistic point of view, without having read  Marx's Paris note book, and that he based his idea on Capital which is totally incorrect because Marx never defined exploitation based on wages or salary levelshttps://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/phil-rev/dunayev3.htm

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

LBird wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

Where, or when the Socialist Party has supoorted the concept of the vanguard party ? 

All the responses on this thread, mcolome1.They all support 'specialists' (apparently, the SPGB house term for 'cadre' with a 'special consciousness'), and none (not one) supports workers' democracy in truth production.This is Leninism, mcolome1.The 'vanguard party' in embryo.Once 'Truth' production belongs to 'specialists', rather the the democratic proletariat, the 'vanguard party' will announce itself to unsuspecting socialists.

You are using the tactic of the sniper, but you are not hitting the proper objective. The origin of the vanguard party and its application. That is one of the essential elements of Leninism.

Yes, and this 'sniper tactic' is an extremely accurate one, mcolome1.The 'objective', which I keep hitting dead centre, is 'the origin of the vanguard party'.The origin of Leninism is 'materialism'.We can see this at play within the SPGB: the party espouses 'materialism', and upon this foundation inescapably argues for the social dichotomy of power inherent in the 'specialist/generalist' model.This model of 'specialist/generalist' is precisely what Marx warns against in his Theses on Feuerbach.Since the ideology of 'materialism' holds that a minority 'know matter' (and that the majority cannot vote against this 'knowledge', which is claimed to be 'objective'), this ideology must separate society into two parts: party and class.This is Leninism. And the SPGB is following this ideology.

[ALB]

What is Leninism (contrasted with Marx's views)?  I suggest there are three basic positions that are not found in Marx.1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.2. The distinction bewtween "socialism" and "communism" where "socialism" is defined as a society where everybody is an employee of the State and where money, markets, banks, wages, production for sale, etc continue to exist, i.e that state capitalism is"socialism" and a necessary step on the way to socialism/communism.3. The theory that a section of the workers in the "imperialist" countries are given a share in the super-profits of imperialist exploitation and that this is why they aren't revolutionary; and that support should therefore be given to anti-imperialist movements as, if successful, this will deprive workers in the imperialist countries of their share of super-profits and so make them amenable to following the lead of the vanguard party.We, in the Socialist Party, have always opposed these three positions (both as wrong in themselves and as not representing Marx's view either) and so are anti-Leninist. OK, Lenin accepted the Labour Theory of Value and the Materialist Conception of History and we do too, but if that makes us Leninists it would make a lot of others too. But it's the logic fallacy of A is x, B is x, therefore B is A.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

What is Leninism (contrasted with Marx's views)?  I suggest there are three basic positions that are not found in Marx….OK, Lenin accepted …the Materialist Conception of History and we do too, but if that makes us Leninists it would make a lot of others too.

[my bold]Yes, so there is a fourth 'basic position', 'not found in Marx'.The 'Materialist Conception of History' is an adjunct to Engels' 'Materialism' – it is nothing to do with Marx.That makes you Leninists, just like 'a lot of others too'.

[Young Master Smeet]

ALB wrote:

1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/index.htmWe can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised.  He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:http://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules_draft.htmhttp://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/rules.htmBut, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

[ALB]

mcolome1 wrote:

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1128-august-1998/anti-imperialist-delusionThis is another important  element of Leninism that we have never supported and it was developed by Lenin in 1914The concept of Imperialism was also developed by Nikolai Bukharin and Lenin wrote the preface of his book.https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/

I think Bukharin's book on imperialism is better than Lenin's, if only because he discusses the idea and development of state capitalism. Here's the review in the Socialist Standard when it first came out in English.https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1930/no-310-june-1930/book-review-imperialism-and-world-economyActually, it was only after the Bolsheviks had seized power (and required outside support to protect their rule from being overthrown) that Lenin added the bits about a section of the workers in the "imperialist" countries living in part off the proceeds of colonial exploitation and that nationalist, anti-imperialist movements should be supported as a way of making the workers in the imperialist countries revolutionary. This wasn't in the original 1916 version. It was only added in the 1920 Preface to the French and German editions. It wasm't in Lenin's 1915 preface to Bukharin's book either. Nor, as the review in the Socialist Standard points out (and as noted by Bukharin's Stalinist critics) in Bukharin's book.This is the passage in the 1920 Preface where he introduces the idea that a section of workers in the imperialist countries shares in imperialist exploitation:

Quote:

Obviously, out of such enormous superprofits (since they are obtained over and above the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their “own” country) it is possible to bribe the labour leaders and the upper stratum of the labour aristocracy. And that is just what the capitalists of the “advanced” countries are doing: they are bribing them in a thousand different ways, direct and indirect, overt and covert.This stratum of workers-turned-bourgeois, or the labour aristocracy, who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second International, and in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are the real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class, real vehicles of reformism and chauvinism. In the civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie they inevitably, and in no small numbers. take the side of the bourgeoisie, the “Versaillese” against the “Communards”

Quite wrong of course both in theory and reality. Even so, of the three works of Lenin we're discussing here the one on Imperialism, without the 1920 Preface, is the least objectionable.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised.  He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:

[my bold]It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.

YMS wrote:

But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.

Considering I was discussing his specific amenments to a specific political party, no, that is not clearer.

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.

Well, it is clear, it's in the ruddy rules.  Considering Marx spent his life organising political parties, it's a bit rich to say we're fllowing Lonny'un in that regard.  It seems some think that comparisons to Lenin are like garlic of us Neo-endogenous Exophagist Neo-Heebredianists, but it's not, especially whent he comparissons are foolish.

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised.  He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:

[my bold]It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.

YMS wrote:

But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.

 Marx did say apparently that ‘the proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself a distinct political party’. (D. McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx, London 1971, p. 177.)

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

What is Leninism (contrasted with Marx's views)?  I suggest there are three basic positions that are not found in Marx.1. The theory of the need for a top-down, hierarchical vanguard party to lead the workers and seize power supposedly on their behalf.2. The distinction between "socialism" and "communism" where "socialism" is defined as a society where everybody is an employee of the State and where money, markets, banks, wages, production for sale, etc continue to exist, i.e that state capitalism is"socialism" and a necessary step on the way to socialism/communism.3. The theory that a section of the workers in the "imperialist" countries are given a share in the super-profits of imperialist exploitation and that this is why they aren't revolutionary; and that support should therefore be given to anti-imperialist movements as, if successful, this will deprive workers in the imperialist countries of their share of super-profits and so make them amenable to following the lead of the vanguard party.We, in the Socialist Party, have always opposed these three positions (both as wrong in themselves and as not representing Marx's view either) and so are anti-Leninist. OK, Lenin accepted the Labour Theory of Value and the Materialist Conception of History and we do too, but if that makes us Leninists it would make a lot of others too. But it's the logic fallacy of A is x, B is x, therefore B is A.

 There are certain ideas on Marx that were not originally  developed by him, one of them is the concept of class which came from the bourgeois intellectuals, will that make him a bourgeois too ?  After the discovery made by Lewis Morgan he changed his definition of history, and Morgan was not a socialist, would that make him a follower of Lewis Morgan ? Many Leninists reject Anarchism, but they do not know that many of Marx conception came from the Anarchists

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

We can see how Marx actually thought a party should be organised.  He did seek to centralise to some extent, but it's clear that that was in part a process of democratising and mofving away from the conspiratorial version of the rules:

[my bold]It's probably clearer to say that Marx thought the class should be organised in a democratic way.

YMS wrote:

But, it's clear that the congress of the league that retained supreme authority.

This is not 'clear' at all.Marx argued that the proletariat as a class was the 'supreme authority'.As is usual with materialists (like you), the emphasis is always upon 'party', and not 'class'. That's why you're following Lenin, and not Marx.

The concept of class came from the bourgeois, therefore, you must be an intellectual of the bourgoeois.Your analogy sounds like MalcomX analogy of race, who says that a drop  of black will make you black, therefore,  one drop of Engels will make you a Leninist

[ALB]

robbo203 wrote:

Marx did say apparently that ‘the proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself a distinct political party’. (D. McLellan, The Thought of Karl Marx, London 1971, p. 177.)

I think that what he meant by this was that the working class "party" was the the working class self-organised to win political control, i.e that he wasn't drawing a distinction between "party" and the "class for itself". What we refer to in clause 6 of our Declaration of Principles as "the working class …  organise[d] consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government". Rather different from Lenin's idea of a "vanguard" party,  a minority distinct from and above the rest of the working class and seeking  lead them and to rule on behalf of the class.

[Young Master Smeet]

Wasn't it Marx who wrote:

Quote:

Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations.

?

[ALB]

Yes, the working class can achieve some things without organising themselves as a party. This article from 1990 attributes those in Russia a role in bringing down the state capitalist regime there:

Quote:

It was inevitable that the oppressive forms of state capitalism in Russia and Eastern Europe would degenerate into chronic inefficiency. It is impossible to allocate such vast resources to repression, to engender corruption, cynicism, low morale and outright lack of enthusiasm and at the same time expect to be well ahead in the world league of rates of productivity and industrial growth. However, it would be wrong to say that the pressures for changes have originated at the top. Leaders like Gorbachev have reacted to a situation created by Russian workers through their many forms of passive resistance including their unwillingness to apply themselves conscientiously at work.

Editorial: The Lessons of East Europe

[Young Master Smeet]

Actually, I was wrong, it was Engels who wrote that, clearly something was wrong with his materialism that day.  He also wrote this:

Quote:

Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.

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