Ep 399 - Listen Leninist

Episode 399 of RevolutionZ continues the "Ideology Sequence," this time criticizing Leninism based largely on last episode's presentation of Bolshevik practice. Why do revolutions that promise liberation so often end up with new bosses? Leninist strategy is a living set of assumptions about leadership, discipline, “efficiency,” compromise, and more and about how to think about and apply each. The question driving the whole sequence is simple to ask and hard to face: should the left still advocate Marxism Leninism, or do we need to collectively transcend it?

Marxism Leninism claims to provide a suitable and for some even an alone suitable framework for analysis, adopting a long term goal, and creating and utilizing a disciplined party to win. But will centralized decision making, information hoarded at the top, members directed instead of developed, and leaders who slowly confuse their own survival with the revolution’s future, deliver what it claims to seek? The episode leans on sharp critics like Rosa Luxembourg, plus insights from Bookchin and others, plus Lenin's own words to argue that freedom is not a luxury to add later. Creativity, learning, and real socialist democracy depend on movement relations now and not just proposed social relations later.

This episode also addresses tactics and their hidden internal costs, including the way reforms, parliamentary work, and practical compromises can reshape cadre and culture. And we tackle a big claim embedded in Lenin’s praise for factory discipline and Taylorism: Leninism's view that capitalist organization is neutral if the right people hold state power. The episode argues instead that capitalism and authoritarianism are contagious, and unless we change all significant everyday power and system preserving relations not only in the economy and at work, but also in daily life in homes, schools, health, and the polity, we risk rebuilding the very dynamics we say we oppose.

Does this approach raise your hackles or resonate positively for you? Either way, shouldn't you consider it?  I hope you will do so and that you will comment your views of it. Mainly, does it affect your answer to the question: should the left still advocate Marxism Leninism, or do we need to collectively transcend it?

Transcript

Why Revisit Leninist Strategy

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Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our three hundred and ninety ninth consecutive episode. And having just presented classical Marxist theory, then Leninist strategy, and last time criticized Bolshevik practice, we now move on to critically assess Leninist strategy as our next step toward assessing Marxist Leninist ideology as a whole. Most of this episode, like those others, was conceived and written back in the early nineteen seventies, and excerpted from a book published in nineteen seventy four. This episode indicates criticisms I had of Leninist strategy as I encountered it back then and now too. But why am I spending so much time on ideas rooted over a century ago? It is because I think the left sorely needs to have a greater clarity than it now has about understanding the world, about envisioning what we seek in its place, and about having shared methods for how to win what we seek. My guiding concern was then and is now still as we go forward, should we advocate or reject Marxism Leninism and other classical ideologies? This time the chapter, the episode excerpts, starts with a quote from Charles Paget Who would exercise the dictatorship of the proletariat? Then follows a quote from Kropotkin The idea of Soviets, that is to say, of councils of workers and peasants, conceived first at the time of the revolutionary attempts in nineteen oh five and immediately realized by the revolution of february nineteen seventeen, as soon as Tsarism was overthrown, the idea of such councils controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take a real part in the production of national wealth by their own efforts.

What Marxism Leninism Claims To Offer

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Then comes the excerpted chapter, which starts out Classical Marxism Leninism is a revolutionary ideology. As such it provides its practitioners with a framework for thought, a long term goal, a set of strategic imperatives, and a number of tactical rules. A Marxist Leninist is ostensibly fully armed to participate in revolutionary struggle. Classical Marxist Leninists first determine the mode of production, then the forces and relations of production and their interrelations, then the class character of ongoing social conflicts, and then what form the primary and subsidiary contradictions are taking and how they are affecting one another. Classical Marxist Leninists then determine which forces are propelling class struggle and which are hindering it. And with all this done, they establish goals and strategies for reaching their goals. They form a party, institute discipline, and begin establishing leadership over all the other already existent revolutionary groups. To achieve these ends, classical Marxist Leninists choose tactics by studying their potential effects on all class alignments. They organize chosen tactics into programs, and they carry out programs in the name of the oppressed classes until such time as they achieve victory over the old ruling class. But none of this occurs in a historical vacuum. All classical Marxist Leninists are well versed in the views of their forebears. Each does not redevelop classical Marxist Leninist insights from scratch. Organizational and tactical insights are not reviewed, they are accepted and employed. One doesn't look to see if there is a well defined mode of production. One looks to see what the necessarily existing mode of production is. One doesn't look to see if classes are struggling and if that struggle is of central importance. One looks to uncover the characteristics of the centrally important class struggle. One doesn't just look for potential forces to be employed in the revolution. One looks at the political economy and at the interrelations of classes to find the forces that can ultimately be employed by the working class in their revolution. Finally, one doesn't look to see what composes the superstructure and how strongly it affects things. One looks to see the composition of the already well understood and well defined superstructure, and attempts to understand how exactly it is carrying out its tasks. If it is true, as Cornelius Castoriatus, writing as Paul Cardan, told us, that quote, in the last analysis the ideas that inspire men are as much an objective factor in history as the material environment in which they develop and as the social reality which they seek to transform. Then it is crucial to come to a full understanding of all the weaknesses of the classical Marxist Leninist ideology. We have already discovered gross inadequacies in Bolshevik practice. These directly intimate weaknesses at the strategic level, and in this chapter we explore those in somewhat more detail.

Parties Lead Classes And The Risks

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Lenin thought that it was simple and clear that classes should be led by parties and parties by individuals. His overall perspective emphasizes the efficient use of ignorant class forces, and at the same time it excludes from critical consideration any of the dynamics of his party's organization. As Lenin himself put it, quote, to a Russian Bolshevik who is acquainted with the mechanism and who for twenty five years has watched it growing out of small, illegal, underground circles, all talk about from above or from below, about the dictatorship of the leaders of the and the dictatorship of the masses cannot but appear to be ridiculous and childish nonsense, something like discussing whether the right leg or the left leg is more use to a man. We agree with Lenin that a serious Leninist will be incredulous when confronted with our criticisms. So incredulous that, like Lenin, he probably wouldn't even bother to respond, or if he or she does respond, it will likely be dismissively. In fact, we even accept Lenin's explanation for the whole phenomenon. We see, as Lenin seems to see, that Bolshevik thought is made circumspect by Bolshevik experience. But we also see that, as Sartre puts it, quote, action and thought are not to be separated from organization, since one always thinks in terms of the structure he or she finds him or herself in, and acts according to the organizations to which he or she belongs. I interject. I am no expert on Sart or existentialism, but the above quote has serious merit. It isn't only the ownership relations of the economy, or even those plus other economic, political, and cultural social relations of society that matter. It is also the social relations we create and work within in our own left endeavors, but I probably don't need to eject that. I suspect the point will be made in what follows. The chapter continued. We just say these things differently than Sart or Lenin. We say an individual works in the context of his or her consciousness, which in turn derives in reasonable part from the persons surrounding and work groups. It is impossible for a person to see beyond the bounds of his or her own consciousness. A person cannot even be fully aware of possibilities or criticisms generated outside his or her conceptual domain. Lenin didn't put much credence into criticisms about his tactical thoughts because he was unable to accept or even understand such criticisms. He usually didn't think them deserving of anything more than a flippant reply. Later we will come to understand how the narrowness of Lenin's theory led to this kind of sectarian stance on these matters. I should interject, if you didn't listen to the prior episode, some of these formulations may feel just like assertions without any kind of backing, but in that episode there was all too much backing.

Why Workers Need Political Consciousness

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If the proletariat as a group controlled economic life and was a majority, if it became increasingly more and more oppressed, and if the group considered its oppression unjust, its members would probably not need any substantial political consciousness to initiate some kind of revolution. But none of this is the modern day case. Workers do not control the society. They do not think of themselves as a powerful, deserving majority, and they are not constantly being forced into what they perceive to be worse and worse conditions of life. They are not immiserated, and so long as they are lacking in political consciousness, they will tend to accept their hardships as necessary concomitants of the rewards their society also produces. Modern workers require high levels of political awareness to move from reactionary political ideologies to revolutionary ones. They must overcome racist, sexist, authoritarian, classist, and liberal obstacles, see beyond fascist alternatives, and overcome all kinds of political inhibitions. Revolutionary organizations can't solely be premised on the fact that the workers or anybody else will move solely because starvation compels them to. Instead, revolutionary activism must foster conditions of motion in the worker's environment and in his or her own consciousnesses. As we will see, modern Leninists don't ponder these things deeply enough before choosing their organizational forms. I interject. The chapter continued.

Luxemburg’s Warning About Ultra Centralism

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Two quotes from Rosa Luxembourg set the stage for our discussion of Leninist organization, and also help to remind us that not all Marxists were oblivious to the dynamics we will soon discuss. Quote, but social democracy is not something that begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created. It does not come as a sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. And Luxembourg added, The ultra centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin's concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party, to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind it rather than to unify it. Paradigmatically, Leninist parties are generally supposed to bring the masses together around revolutionary political actions dictated by Marxist Leninist analysis. They become hierarchical pursuing and practicing the dynamics of what they call democratic centralism. Their goal is efficiency, their means is centralization, and their product is all too often primarily Bolshevik style law and order. Parties are not aimed at developing the political effectiveness of their members, but at directing the activities of their members. Decision making goes on shared. Information and experience is monopolized by those at the top. Leninist Party leaders function according to their ideological views and try to mold everyone else's actions and compliance. They see themselves as being at the top due to their knowing more than anyone else. So they feel responsible for enforcing their views on everyone else. With time, such leaders associate their own interests with the interests of the entire revolution. This is their way of rationalizing their position, influence, and power. This type of efficiency couples with classical Marxist dictates and creates blind discipline. The party is initially well motivated. It considers itself a servant of the people, but eventually, due to its own good desires, it begins submerging the will of the people in its own plans and needs. The party comes to see the revolution's future and its own future as inseparable. The party acts to strengthen its own scope in the belief that it is thereby broadening the strength of the base of the revolution. But as time passes, the analysis is done more and more in terms of the party's welfare, and less and less in terms of the revolution's welfare, though of course they are always described as inextricable. The hierarchical party disciplines the revolution so that its patterns follow those of the party, and so that the party people will be in command. This is what our survey of Bolshevism displayed. One is reminded of the story of the old peasant in southern Russia around nineteen twenty three, who was standing with some other villagers watching a loudspeaker being put up on the main street. A young party official said to the peasants, just think, with this you'll be able to hear Lenin all the way from Moscow. Good, replied the present, and will Lenin be able to hear us. The leaders project their styles and views upon the party. The party projects upon the whole revolution. The revolution is supposed to look like the communist vision and not vice versa. In time and since the party is the revolution, those who disagree with it are counter to the revolution. They must be dealt with as enemies, or as Lenin put it, in an address to a party congress in Young Revolutionary Russia, quote, the time has come to put an end to opposition, to put a lid on it. We have had enough opposition. I interject. We might reasonably ask whether now or then in nineteen seventy four, when the chapter excerpted here was published, what does it take for an advocate of Marxism Leninism to hear or to read even just that one sentence, much less all the rest, and then, as some do, keep right on advocating Marxism Leninism without so much as a hiccup of critical consideration, much less self doubt.

How Parties Turn Into Self Protection

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The chapter continued The results are only too clear. If a classical Leninist party achieves power, the leaders and party inter and parties interest, the maintenance of their own essentially absolute dominance, leads to dictatorial bureaucracy. If a party does not seize power, but only a position of influence within the old system, then again the leaders and parties' interests are in defending the party's role in society as it is, and thus counter to the workers' interests of overthrowing the old society as it is. And even if the leaders are relatively incorruptible when in opposition, and thus capable of moving from electoral participation to militant opposition, they will nevertheless continue to enforce their own conceptions, stifling creativity and foreshadowing their even more dictatorial days to come. Whether in opposition as militants or reactionaries, or in power as dictators, the classical Marxist Leninist Party and leader characteristics are essentially the same. Hardening of the political arteries, theoretical myopia, and organizational sclerosis, all brought about by steadily worsening effects of the dreaded disease vested interestoortosis, and certainly unhampered, if not furthered, by continual feeding from the classical Marxist Leninist analysis. I interject. Apologies for the peculiar disease comment. Youthful anger exploded, I guess. But even without that included, I can imagine a Leninist listening to this and growing steadily more upset, perhaps even pulling the plug. But if you happen to lean that way, before you do it, please note that is not a substantive response. That is instead fulfilling a critical prediction. Having presented Leninism as voiced by Lenin and Trotsky, and then presented their actions as Leninist again as presented in their own words in the Bolshevik experience, plus the horrible results, I am now not only suggesting that the strategic views didn't prevent the horrible outcomes, but that they predictably advanced them. It is all of a cloth. The problem wasn't that Lenin or Trotsky were incompetent Leninists or unschooled and illogical Marxists. The problem was that they thought and behaved consistently and even brilliantly, in tune with what has come to be called Marxism Leninism, and Bolshevik practice is where it took them. The chapter, written, keep in mind in nineteen seventy two, seventy three, but I believe still quite relevant, continues Rosa Luxemburg had a decidedly more instructive approach to the same problems Leonard so counterproductively solved when she wrote freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of the party, however numerous they may be, is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of justice, but because all that is instructive, wholesome, and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when freedom becomes a special privilege. In short, revolution depends upon creation and creation depends upon freedom. Creation and strictly imposed discipline are antithetical. Further, in the modern context, even allegiance in the first place, at least on the left, and hierarchical discipline are antithetical. I interject. Thus, after Bolshevism, there typically emerged at best and with one massive exception, countless contending sects and not effective mass parties. The chapter continued. The Leninist model is perhaps not so bad if one wants a transfer of power in an environment of chaos, or if one wants merely to run a bourgeois factively factory effectively. But for an all sided revolution or any kind of broadly humanitarian endeavor, it is terrible. As Kon Bendit said, quote, democracy degenerates into the ratification at the bottom of decisions taken at the top, end quote. And under such conditions the Marxist Leninist ideology becomes eternally stagnant. It doesn't grow with passing time. It forces itself upon its surroundings. It develops a sectarian life of its own. It acts contrary to real interests of revolution. Initiative disappears, new ideas are submerged, and old ideas are repeated endlessly. Freedom dies in the dictatorship of ideological leaders. I interject. Ironically, in our twenty twenty six times, Marxist Leninists are severe critics of what they call identity politics for paying insufficient attention to class, but also for being too identity focused. But they do so without realizing that Marxism Leninism developed exactly those faults, though the involved identity isn't race or gender, but ideology, and the class avoidance is of matters labeled PMC or by me coordinator class. At any rate, the excerpted chapter continued. In talking of the two way dynamic of disciplined centralization, Rudolf Rocker's criticism is very like our own. He wrote power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force. And this unintelligence of its objectives sets its stamp on its supporters also, and renders them stupid and brutal, even when they were originally endowed with the best of talents. One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine. Himself and loses all human feeling. I interject. Perhaps Rocker seems unduly harsh to you, but consider the examples from last episode's discussion of Bolshevism. Rid yourself of wanting to not appear such that a Leninist could even mistakenly think you are against fundamental change, and what would you then say about Bolshevism? Perhaps roughly what Rocker said. The chapter continues The preceding episode's study of Bolshevik practice suggested still another of Leninism's weaknesses. It ignores hierarchical organizations long run tendency towards bureaucracy and towards the undermining of revolutionary goals. But at least here the Leninist view is quite consistent, for if their party is as effective as anything could be, then in their view, any minor costs its practice creates can be dealt with easily enough after the productive mode is altered. Changing the mode of production is the central historical problem. All others need only be addressed in relation to it. Those problems that persist or that are even exacerbated during struggle can be handled easily enough when power is attained. But there are other perspectives on this same issue, as for ex for example, Murray Bookchin wrote This remarkable susceptibility of the left to authoritarianism and hierarchical impulses reveals the profound roots of the radical movement in the very society it professes to overthrow. In this respect, nearly every revolutionary organization is a potential force for counter revolution. Only if the revolutionary organization is so structured that its forms reflect the direct, decentralized forms of freedom initiated by the revolution, only if the revolutionary organization fosters in the revolutionist the lifestyles and personality of freedom can this potential for counter revolution be diminished. Only then is it possible for the revolutionary movement to disappear into its new directly democratic social forms, like surgical thread into a healing wound. And of course, that describes a process almost exactly opposite to the one which characterized Bolshevik relations to Russia's freely created Soviets. For rather than the party becoming one with the Soviets, the Soviets, as we saw last episode, were altered and made to become one with the party. They dissolved into the party's form rather than vice versa. The potential for a real alteration of all productive relations and not just ownership relations disappeared. The interests of the leadership, molded by their domineering roles and their narrow ideology, overwhelmed the interests of the people and even of the workers. The essence of the criticism is that capitalist societies inculcate in their citizenry oppressed and oppressing modes of behavior, which are aggravated rather than overcome by hierarchical forms, so that such forms rather than being temporary measures that overcome oppressions, virtually inevitably become ends in themselves, which in fact continually recreate the dynamics they were supposedly aimed at conquering. The ability to understand and relate to such an analysis is an obviously important success criterion for any political consciousness to be used in a capitalist society. The fact that classical Marxism Leninism can't relate to that analysis is rather critically important. The reasons are twofold. First, relating to the analysis doesn't correspond well with classical Marxist Leninist desires to lead and have loyal followers. And second, the thinking involved is somewhat outside the classical Marxist theoretical methodology. There is thus a kind of unhappy coincidence between a lack in theory and a vested interest in behavioral arrogance and elitist self conceptions, and it is just that kind of coincidence that we know often leads to sectarian narrowness that prevents one's seeing one's own shortcomings.

Compromise, Parliament, And Internal Costs

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Lenin thought that principled rejection of compromise was stupid. As he said, quote, there are compromises and compromises. One must be able to analyze the situations and the concrete conditions of each compromise or of each variety of compromise. A leader must be able to attack ruthless compromises and sellouts, while at the same time using those that help the cause. But the problem was and always is how one does actually determine which compromises are good and which are bad. One of our main criticisms of classical Marxism Leninism is that it is not well suited to this type of critical determination. For example, Lenin defended participation in reactionary parliaments against those who said it was the place where the bourgeoisie was always most successful in deceiving workers. He said simply that the party should overcome its own weaknesses in functioning in parliament and then participate. He was objectively correct, but it is hard to tell whether he truly understood the re reasonableness of the fears of the parliamentary critics, though it's not critical to speculate about. The real problem was that his analysis of the parliamentary tactics ignored its possible internal effects on the cadre who would become statesmen and on the movement of which they would still constitute a part. Lenin's major question was will there be a sellout or not? He didn't have the more reasonable tact of trying to ascertain both the benefits and the costs at all levels. For example, will acting in parliament hinder or foster left growth? Will it have good or bad psychological effects upon the people who do it and the party which supports them? Will the new ways of acting affect our old ways of acting, feeling and thinking favorably or otherwise? It seems that our analysis of the concerns of Leninist strategy and of practice of the Bolsheviks gives us ample evidence that these type questions were never considered, precisely because the classical Marxist Leninists never really concerned themselves with understanding the internal dynamics of their own movements. We'll later try to find roots for this in the methodology of classical Marxist theory. I interject. I can imagine a listener or reader taking issue with the above, asking or asserting that no, Lenin did ask exactly that kind of question regarding parliamentary participation. In fact, I myself may make just that case against my own paragraph. However, what I think probably drove the paragraph, and certainly what I now take from it, is that those type questions were certainly not raised by Lenin regarding the imposition of discipline, and particularly what they called one management, where they certainly should have been, and in any event, Lenin's conceptual toolbox wasn't well equipped to answer the concerns. The chapter continued. It seems reasonable to surmise, even at this point, that classical Marxist Leninist tactical weaknesses have their roots in theoretical narrownesses or errors. Lack of needed strategic insights into the dynamics of elitism, authority, and bureaucracy suggests that we should later examine classical Marxist theory for flaws which would contribute in those directions. Indeed, this is our whole presentation's logic. We move from describing classical Marxism and then Leninism, hopefully I should say in a manner that makes their benefits and their and their strengths evident, to viewing practice and then to critiquing first strategy and finally theory. We do it in a loose flow, not causal so much as suggestive, and we do it in our order because our general understanding of the interrelations of theory, strategy, and practice suggest that such an approach is the best way for generating new insights and for correcting

Efficiency, Taylorism, And State Control

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old ones. In this light, consider Lenin's view of the need for quote efficiency and discipline in all things, and especially in the economy. In his book One Step Back, two steps forward, Lenin glorifies the effects of factory life on accustoming, quote, the proletariat to discipline and organization, end quote. Rosa Luxemburg responded quite forcefully. Quote The discipline which Lenin has in mind is driven home to the proletariat not only in the factory, but in the barracks and by all sorts of bureaucracies, in short, by the whole power machine of the centralized bourgeois state. It is an abuse of words to apply the Sam's term discipline to such unrelated concepts as the mindless reflex motions of a body with a thousand hands and a thousand legs, and the spontaneous coordination of the conscious political acts of a group of men? What can the well ordered docility of the former have in common with the aspirations of a class struggling for its emancipation? Lenin felt that his answer concerning efficiency was enough, if he ever even considered Luxembourg's question at all. Why else would he have maintained that it was fine to use capitalist forms to build a socialist state? His words are instructive enough as to his mentality that they at least suggest something about the shallowness of his theoretical tools that somehow allowed him, smart as he was, to think that while ownership mattered, who was in command mattered, the roles imposed by institutional choices did not matter. So it is that he wrote, quote, a single huge state bank with branches in every rural district and in every factory, that will already be nine tenths of a socialist apparatus, end quote. And he proclaimed, quote, we must raise the question of peace work and apply it and test it in practice. We must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific in the Taylor system. And he also asserted that socialism is nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people. Lenin didn't make such forceful statements simply because he was compelled by circumstance. One can be compelled to use tactics as the best of a bad lot, but not to extol them and push them on others as if they were universally correct dogma. And if such views were ever only unworshipped responses to situations of the moment, they would not have lived on as part of the overall approach of virtually all Marxist Leninist groups. No, we should expect a reasonable likelihood that the inadequacies of classical Leninist strategy are endemic to the processes of its creation by real people in real circumstances struggling for power using classical Marxist theory as a guide. Classical Marxist theory in the first place simply doesn't have sufficient understanding of the effects of shop level productive relations as a whole, and in the second place hides that ignorance from its practitioners. And I interject. In the third place, of course, classical Marxist theory also falls short regarding extra economic relations, partially corrected in the centuries since, but far from wholly corrected. The chapter continued.

When Capitalist Habits Infect Revolutions

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The Bolshevik leaders saw capitalist organization of production as something which in itself was socially neutral. It could be used indifferent indifferently for bad purposes, as when the bourgeoisie used it for the aim of private accumulation, or for good ones, as when the worker state used it for the benefit of the many. What was wrong with capitalist methods of production in Lenin's eyes was that it had in the past served the bourgeoisie. They were now going to be used by the worker state and would thereby become, quote, one of the conditions of socialism. It all depended on who held state power. At one stage, Lenin pointed out that communism was like a contagion. It sprang from every side of life, and if one channel of the invasion was blocked up, another side would open. This was quite true, but what Lenin and the Leninists didn't perceive was that capitalism and authoritarianism were also contagious. Even though one aspect of one or the other might be overcome, other aspects could go on fighting so strongly that they could succeed in resuscitating the old disease and holding off the communist contagion for ages and ages. Given Leninism's attitudes about organizational forms, the importance and unimportance of various economic considerations, and also about tactics in general, we might well be tempted to suggest that it was Lenin, and not the workers, who was never able to rise above the trade a trade union consciousness. He was the one who always fought in terms of bourgeois motivations and bourgeois forms of organization, precisely because and not in spite of the fact that he was the most created and confident of all the classical Marxists. For as we saw in our earlier chapter on classical Marxist theory, the classical Marxist theory of knowledge and the classical Marx Marxist theory of classes lead together quite naturally to the Leninist perspective on capabilities of workers and to the Leninist belief in the supreme value of efficiency in all things. A quotation from Lenin and one from a solidarity pamphlet contrast interestingly and outline a part of our overall emerging theses. In State and Revolution, Lenin said, quote, we want the socialist revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense with subordination, control, and managers. In the Solidarity Pamphlet on the Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, we find the explanatory postulation, quote, the concept that society must necessarily be divided into leaders and led, the notion that there are some born to rule while others cannot really develop beyond a certain stage have from time immemorial been the tacit assumptions of every ruling class in history. Our assertion is not so much that Lenin wouldn't ideally agree with the second statement, as that he ignored its implications and fell victim to the logic of that deficiency. Classical Marxism Leninism roughly says one, formulate all plans toward furthering class struggle. Two, do all strategic thinking with regard for the contradictions propelling oppressed classes toward revolt. And three, do all analysis in the context bounded by the classical theory of Marxism and the concrete realities of concrete experiences. Practitioners overlook or minimize forces lying outside the class categories of Marxism. They don't fully understand and are not able to cope with the changing import of old contradictions. They don't understand how and why old modes of class struggle are assimilated into the system, especially when such understanding might threaten some of the more fervently held beliefs. They don't relate well to issues of power. They don't understand the full gamut of forces that add to worker restlessness, and so they have little understanding of how their tactical choices affect those forces. They don't understand and have no real tools for even trying to understand the interrelations between consciousness, revolutionary practice, and societally given or adapting material or cultural conditions. They don't understand the full importance of racial or sexual oppressions, nor how they affect and are affected by other more capitalist dynamics. Perhaps most damning from their own perspective, they don't even understand the effects of productive relations and most particularly of firm level productive relations on workers and on society's overall dynamics as well. They aren't prepared to address the full gamut of workers' needs, nor even their material needs most effectively, and they are not even sufficiently aware of all the other important groups of people whose needs they should also address. They don't seem to realize the importance of a fully outlined goal, a vision, or of the many aspects of life such an outline must relate to. And as a result, they can't really address people who have no necessity to act, but rather only potential desires to do so. But to really fully understand these assertions in practical terms, one must do a broader analysis of the Bolsheviks than ours was, and even more importantly, an equally broad analysis of present day classical Marxist Leninist groups in the US and elsewhere. Not having space or time for such tasks here, we will move on to instead immediately consider classical Marxist theory, but from the specific orientation of understanding the theoretical roots of classical Leninism's and Bolshevism's weaknesses. Thus this chapter's brevity is not for lack of more things to say, but in anticipation of saying at least some of them still more persuasively in the next two chapters. And so ended the chapter criticizing Leninism.

Why “Listen Leninist” And What’s Next

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Why is the episode titled Listen Leninist? Two reasons. First, though I wasn't a fan of everything that Murray Bookchen had to say, early on he wrote what I considered a brilliant little pamphlet titled Listen Marxist, and I thought I'd pay homage to that, and honestly, I admit I am also a big fan of alliteration. And second, like Bookchen, I too fear that the case made here won't be heard. So to listen is a plea, I suppose, to hear what is said and react, and not to reflexively ignore. I should add that this whole sequence of episodes was written minus the interjections, which I tried to keep to a minimum in nineteen seventy two to seventy three. There is much I have been moved by, educated by and advocated since then that while consistent with and even foreshadowed by what is in these episodes, has gone considerably further regarding theory, strategy, and especially vision. Even so, even now, I think what is to be on Dunn's assessment more than warrants efforts to collectively transcend Marxism Leninism. Finally, and for those interested, and I hope I should admit that that will be everyone who hears these episodes, the new book, The Wind Cries Freedom, an all history of the next American Revolution, has nineteen future revolutionaries describe in very personal and practical ways their successful revolutionary practice going forward from now into their own future time and place. You can, and I very much hope you will visit WinCries Freedom.org, that's WinCries Freedom.org, to find more about that book and perhaps then to go on to read it. I also have a an interview about it on Xenon. And all that said, this is Michael Albert signing off until next time when we assess classical Marxist theory.