No. Kerensky did not pull Russia out of the war which was the Bolshevik's main platform in winning the masses to their program. As for his being democrat or a socialist that is a joke. See E.H. Carr or Marce l Liebman. The Bolsheviks worked together with the other socialist parties right up until Lenin's death and for sometime afterword.The Bolshevik agrarian program was taken from the peasant socialist and the left-communists. Again see E.H. Carr. The question is: How were the Bolshies able to win hegemonic status in the revolutionary movement when they were a minority?
It was known to the other
> socialists that Lenin and his followers were insane.
Bullshit. Crude Czarist propaganda. The writer of -Imperialism- and -State and Revolution- as insane? If that is insanity lets have more of it.
>
> I find it odd these defenses of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. The central theme
> of Marxian socialism is that people should be treated as ends in
> themselves, and not in the phony atomistic sense of Kantian liberalism, but
> ends in themselves as species-beings developing themselves. Lenin himself
> said in his own defense that you have to bash in people heads in order to
> stop people from bashing heads forever, indicating that he saw an unlimited
> violence as justified.
Where did he say that? No, Lenin argued for pacifist defeatism vis a vis Russia and WWI. He was in the minority in the RSDLP in arguing that position. Lenin was not a radical consequentialist i.e. the ends always justify the means. The ends and the means are tied up together. Lenin wasn't stupid. He advocated participation in bourgeois democracy when it is possible to advance the interests of the working class and peasantry.
Stalin and Mao, in my view, did not even have
> Lenin's twisted "idealism" but probably loved power for its ownsake.
Probably? Got any evidence? Got any proof?
>
> The fact that these individuals "made" revolutions is not a defense.
These individuals did not make revolutions, they led them. Stalin himself spent years in Czarist jails and earned Lenin's respect through his labor organizing in the Caucasus. "Stalin" was a pseudonym meaning "man of steel". His real name was Koba Zjalakashvili-- a common Georgian name.
Marx
> knew quite well that an utopian vision could not be imposed on society if
> the proper material conditions and consciousness were not present. Marx
> had learned from Hegel that any attempt to impose such a vision is impotent
> and that its failure will lead to what Hegel called the "fury of
> destruction" and political terrorism.
>
> A socialist perspective cannot defend "communist" terror if its ethical
> critique of liberal capitalism is to remain coherent.
How so? If you wish to preserve a society where there is no exploitation of class by class you must defend it against those who wish to destroy it. I agree with you on an abstract ahistorical plane, but we will not be building socialism in a vacuum. I recommend the novels of the great revolutionary Victor Serge especially -Conquered City-.
There is a large literature on whether Marxism is an ethical critique. There is a lot of disagreement.
The domination of
> humans by humans must be condemned if enacted under capitalism or state
> communism, regardless of increases in heavy industry or even increased
> average life-spans.
Heavy industry and labor productivity are important if you want to raise the standard of living.
Wouldn't you like to live longer than 60 or 65? Marxism analises the domination of class by class and socialism seeks to abolish that domination. Domination of human by human is not reducible to domination of class by class such that when class domination is abolished, individual domination will continue through other means like sex and race, which while bound up with class are not reducible to it. As William Carlos Williams said 'there's a lot of assholes out there."
All very nice, but utopian. There will be reactionaries who seek to reinstall the old order. Russia in 1918 was invaded by 14 different countries. What were the Bolsheviks supposed to do? Hand over the USSR to Wilson and Coolidge? Go back to Tsarism? Reverse the land reforms? Hand the factories back to the capitalists?
Sam Pawlett