>
> But my point was that I don't see how Lenin's
> notions of imperialism and the national question,
> for example, FOLLOW FROM his vanguardism. Could just
> as easily be the other way round.
Oh, you are right about that. However, one might speculate that both theories stem from how he grasped (to some extent correctly) the role of subjectivity. Kautsky thought that capitalism's contradictions could come into balance. Lenin not only disagreed with this in theory, but he also disagreed more emphatically with the political implications. He saw the need for communists to intervene exactly while the contradictions were so sharp.
So one can see the importance of subjectivity here and the role of subjectivity played out by a "vanguard" party (that is to enlighten the working class)...I think in this question of subjectivity we can find the strengths and the weaknesses of Lenin.
>
> Lenin was a deeply conservative thinker, who strove
> to preserve many aspects of bourgeois society that
> many progressive young people reject, such as family
> values, sobriety and the ethic of industriousness.
Yes, one recalls that meeting in which Kollantai said that sex should be like drinking water. To which Lenin replied, "yes, but that doesn't mean that I should drink out of anybody's cup" (or something like that)
I mean when you look at some of these leninist countries there is one word that comes to mind...puritanism.
And you are right about the industrioussnes thing...the glorification of work, the institution of fordist and taylorist working relationships etc are another feature of leninism.
> Some Leninist parties still routinely condemn
> homosexuality and when Fidel Castro talks of
> cracking down on crime he means sex work!
Yes, I dont understand why these leninists are so obsessed with what people do with their weenies. Can't I be a revolutionary AND fuck the way I want to?
Years ago I remember reading a paper put out by the Communist Party of the Philipines...it was the "dialectics of relationship" and detailed the correct communist position (as oppossed to missionary) on "relationships"...I mean this thing was a hoot...half Engel's "Dialectics of Nature", Half "Dear Abby".
>
> But Leninism's worst feature in my view is its
> contribution to language.
Would you clarify this a bit more Tahir? Maybe one component of what you are suggesting is the relationship between the leninist (and bourgeois for that matter) notion of "the people" and the alternative notion of the "multitude". The "people" are this heterogenous group that has to be mediated and fit into one size whereas the multitude is just that....a tower of babel where it's ok to go on speaking your language....and where you can organize your world accordingly.
The arguments for Leninism that we have seen
> recently are facile and need to be discredited for
> the cretinism they are: we have to choose between
> the US and this or that other place (why North Korea
> or Cuba, why not Barbados, St Helena or the
Bravo! Good point!
>
> Down with the geriatric disorder! Bury the stinking
> corpse.
Right on...let me fetch my shovel!
>
> Tahir
>
>
===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
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