>
> For Marx, it was clearly the party which rejected the
> capitalist/proletarian relation altogether that was at 'the highest level
> of consciousness' - but, I suggest, this is coherent only while that
> relation pertains. You're not in a revolutionary moment until a synthesis
> arises from the fragments and differences within the proletariat that
> decisively recognises that party as 'highest' (and with this process the
> party is crucially engaged, of course). So the apparently revolutionary
> moment is ripe only when a decisive slice of the proletariat becomes one
> with the party. Which means the party dissolves in the moment of
> revolution - as the proletariat does upon its accession to the means of
> production. This particular Marx is not, I submit, a Leninist at all.
Interesting, Rob... but if the part 'dissolves in the moment of revolution', what happens in the 'moment of counter-revolution'? Isn't 1917 and onwards precisely an illustration of this problem? After all, to some extent at least, by 1919 or so you're dealing with a situation where the revolutionary proletariat itself has 'dissolved'. I'll have to dig around for the figures, but as I recall, the scale of collapse of Russian production 1917 onwards was pretty massive.
Is it not to a certain extent true that the Bolsheviks' response is an attempt to 'manage a Thermidor'? The material reality seems to me that the revolution (if by revolution you mean revolutionary movement of the proletariat) of 1917 was defeated (of course, you can point fingers at the Bolsheviks for the mistakes they made which might have played a part in that defeat, I'm not denying that), and that the Bolsheviks were forced to soldier on despite that? (The fact that they did, and the fact that they did so to some extent at least by relying on the machinery of the Tsarists state - the remnants of the Tsarist administration, etc - provides a rather complex target for criticism)
These are all speculations - as I've said, I think a complete study of the Russian Revolution is a vitally necessary project. One thing is certain to me, though - any attempt at Marxist though which tries to ignore 1917 is dishonest.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available 'The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.' - Karl Marx