Rakesh comments {was: Cuba's Destiny}

[Mark Jones]

James Devine wrote:
> 
> Rakesh wrote: >... Anti bolshevik communism is the theoretical expression
> of the practical activity of the Soviets and German Councils, destroyed in
> the German and Boslehvik  counter revolutions in the late 1910s, to develop
> bottom up organizations arising from the workplace  
> 
> I don't think Louis' reply is very useful. While I don't think workers'
> councils were _enough_ (as I think the council communists did), I also
> don't think the revolutionary party was _enough_. A _mass_ socialist
> political party helps a lot.
> 
> In fact, I think the Russian social democratic party of Lenin should have
> centered their alternative to capitalism on the councils -- soviets --
> because they (along with the peasants and rebellious soldiers) were the
> social basis for the revolution. When the soviets faded, partly due to
> Bolshevik efforts (perhaps well-intended), the locus of power shifted to
> middle-class managers and party apparatchiks. Unfortunately, the situation
> was really bad -- what with White Armies and imperialist invasion -- so
> it's hard to imagine the soviets dominating.

Rakesh on Bolshevik 'counter-revolution' is just being demented, of
course. James, who like the rest of us is a little more prosaic, at
least sees what is obviosu to any normal person: that in conditions of
civil war and encirclement, There Was No Alternative to Lenin's way: and
the more one studies the period the more one is forced to acknowledge
the hopelss utopianism of council communist prescriptions.

As for 'A _mass_ socialist political party', I'd say that's what the
KPRF is: and the problem with that kind of party is that it is very hard
to organise insurections with it: it is not the proper instrument. That
is just waht the west's vulture-press is now crowing: Zyuganov can't
hack it because his 500,000 strong party is just a load of old
pensioners (it interests me BTW that western journos, who have never
hidden their contempt for ordinary Russians, now almost openly gloat
that the coming 'hard winter' wil decimate the ranks of the KPRF thru
hunger and cold: the appalling Orlando Figes openly said as much in the
Sunday Times today).

Mark