Lenin in his own words
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https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/may/09.htm
Thanks, Lenin! We’ll let other people know about this. pic.twitter.com/d9i3aiOjr1
— The Socialist Party (@OfficialSPGB) March 11, 2022
Everything is written on his collected works, the problem is that most Leninists have never read Lenin collected works. Now it is easier to read them because they have been digitally published instead of the old paper volumes published by Progress Publisher and they were cheap too
Actually, at the time the Party gave Lenin full credit for realising — and saying — that in the circumstances capitalism was the only way forward for Russia. It showed that, on this point, he did understand Marx’s theory of history (as opposed to many of his admirers in Britain and other countries that what was being established in Russia was socialism).
Where we criticised him was his illusion that a socialist revolution had been imminent in Europe immediately after the first world slaughter and the undemocratic, dictatorial nature of Bolshevik rule.
His obituary in the March 1924 Socialist Standard was more nuanced than some of our later articles on him:
Lenin knew that it was impossible to establish socialism in an economical backward society, and that capitalism must be developed first ( he wrote a book about the capitalist development of russia, and he knew that russia was an agrarian country ) and he also knew that it was also impossible to established socialism in one country, that is the reason why he recognized that state capitalism was a step forward for socialism ( many of his followers do not know that ) and that is reason why they were expecting working class revolution in the economic advanced countries of Europe and it never took place and they developed the theory of communism in one country,
The only choice that they had was to continue with their own lie by saying that they were developing a socialist country, at the end Lenin admitted that the soviet state was not different to the old bureaucratic state that they took over thru a coup
Most of the Bolsheviks leaders including Joseph Stalin knew Marx definition of socialism, but they preferred to establish the dictatorship of the party and to exploit the workers to accumulate capital in order to build a new economical empire.
Lenin also said that the vanguard party concept was only a temporary measure applicable to Russia and he was not going to publish what is to be done ?, he knew that it was wrong, and most of his followers do not know that, and also they do not know that he accepted Trotsky theory of the permanent revolution.
Stalin on what is socialism
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm
“….Future society will be socialist society. This means primarily, that there will be no classes in that society; there will be neither capitalists nor proletarians and, consequently, there will be no exploitation. In that society there will be only workers engaged in collective labour.
Future society will be socialist society. This means also that, with the abolition of exploitation commodity production and buying and selling will also be abolished and, therefore, there will be no room for buyers and sellers of labour power, for employers and employed— there will be only free workers.
Future society will be socialist society. This means, lastly, that in that society the abolition of wage-labour will be accompanied by the complete abolition of the private ownership of the instruments and means of production; there will be neither poor proletarians nor rich capitalists—there will be only workers who collectively own all the land and minerals, all the forests, all the factories and mills, all the railways, etc…”
MovimientoSocialista wrote: “Lenin knew that it was impossible to establish socialism in an economical backward society, and that capitalism must be developed first… ”
Marx disagreed. Marx argued for human creativity, not economic determinism (in philosophical terms, for ‘freedom’, not ‘necessity’). Marx supported those who regarded it as possible to build socialism upon the Russian Mir (peasant commune). That is, Marx agreed with the so-called ‘idealists’ (the term Plekhanov the materialist used to condemn his political enemies, the ‘Narodniks’), against the so-called ‘materialists’.
See:
‘Marx and Russia: The fate of a doctrine’, by James D. White
‘Late Marx and the Russian Road’ by Teodor Shanin.Therefore, you agree with the Marxist Humanists. I do not need second hand information
Bird: “Marx supported those who regarded it as possible to build socialism upon the Russian Mir (peasant commune).”
But only if the revolution in the West took place:
“If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development” (Russian Preface to Communist Manifesto).
In other words, the material conditions for communism did not exist in the Russian peasant communes alone but only as part of a wider revolution.
The quote by Stalin, above, shows too that he is not going for the later Bolshevik lie that socialism and communism are different things. He calls the future society socialism. Leninists of today will say no, he is describing communism, whilst what Stalin presides over is socialism, its precursor. Stalin himself here shows that that is NOT his real thinking at all!
Also, as regards socialism springing independently from Russia’s peasant society, maybe it was the Makhnovists who temporarily made that work, very briefly, before the Reds exterminated them?!
In the collected works of Joseph Stalin ( he wrote 13 volumes ) there is one book which clearly shows that he knew the real definition of socialism, but they continued with the same lie created by the all the Bolseviks leaders, and he was an old member of the Bolshevik party, he was not an amateur, he had better understanding than Leon Trotsky.
Most Stalinists have partially read Foundation of Leninism
The IML never dig too much into the notebooks of Marx on the asiatic mode of production because that society was similar to the soviet mode of production, and it shows that feudalism was an European phenomenon and it did not exist in China ( Mao used the term feudalism ) and in other societies.
The Marxist Humanists have tried to make a case trying to prove that it was possible to jump from the Russian peasant commune into socialism, they rejected Trotsky permanent revolution but they created new one known as revolution in permanence.
They rejected Lenin vanguard party theory but they kept the rest of the body of ideas of Leninism, and CLR James who was part of them rejected the vanguard party and Hegel, but he never abandoned Leninism and Trotskyism
They have also tried to prove that Lenin was ambivalent, one Lenin in 1903 and one in 1914, and he made the worst distortion on Imperialism, because imperialism is a consequence of capitalism it is not its highest stage.
Socialism/communism is a post capitalist society, period and Leninism and Marxism can not be mixed, it is a hybrid that will never work.
properlyThey are the ones who mixed materialism and idealism, and they said that Marx was the most materialist of the idealist philosopher, and the most idealist of the materialist philosopher, it sounds like a Gumbo soup
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1970/1970s/no-788-april-1970/did-lenin-admit-defeat-0/. They never mention that Lenin was looking for investors from the western capitalist, like the Chinese and the Cuban capitalists did to develop capitalism. The WSPUS also has an article about that, and others sources have also mentioned that. They were not ignorant, they knew what they were doing, and they knew that Russia was not socialist
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2013-03-18/hugo-chávez-neither-socialist-nor-anti-imperialist. Another lie similar to this one, the so called Socialism of the XXI Century, this is even worst because private possession of the means of production continued in the hands of some private capitalists
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