-----Original Message----- From: Lew <lew at lewhiggins.freeserve.co.uk> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: 02 Септември 1999 г. 11:54 Subject: Re: The Manifesto of the Communist Party
>Except that neither Marx nor Engels wrote about the Party leading the
>working class. This would have contradicted their often repeated claim
>that the working class must emancipate itself. Of course this does not
>rule out the need for some kind of party organisation, but it does
>specifically rule out a Leninist type of organisation because that sets
>up "sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the
>proletarian movement."
>--
A question first: Any single party in power would essentially (imo)
degenerate into an organisation with "sectarian principles of their own, by
which to shape and mould the proletarian movement."
It would be stupid to speculate whether Lenin failed to predict this
possibility, or simply avoided discussing it - so far, I have failed to find
anything definite in his writings re: control over the controlling power
apart from general statements on the accessibility of control to the *whole
armed working people* (might be getting the wrong terms, the text's in
Russian). The transition from this abstract anonymous pie-in-the-sky
"control" to its real, concrete, self-reproducing bureaucratic machinery
seemed to be a matter of no time. Thus, Stalin (and his midget imitators)
was not only possible - he was inevitable. So, is/was socialism-as-we-had-it
doomed from the start?
Could it have been different; if yes, how?
What should the agenda for a modern left in an ex-socialist country be NOW?
I am sorry that these questions are stuoid, but I can't answer them myself.
Elena