In a message dated 8/30/2 4:25:39 PM, you wrote:
>In foreign affairs there is the same deployment of military
>force, that is to say, conquest. And in home affairs the same employment
>of armed force, the last argument of all threatened political leaders
>against the masses who, tired of always believing, hoping, submitting,
>and obeying, rise in revolt. (Bakunin 1872 [1973], pp. 319-20)
>Bakunin's own political practice may have been elitist, manipulative and
>authoritarian, but he deserves credit, perhaps, for having been the first to
>foreshadow the Bolshevik dictatorship.
Bakunin's supposed prescience would certainly hold if there reference points had anything to do with 20th century Russia. However, they certainly have nothing to do with Marxism or socialism. If Marx was really talking about proletarian revolutions in backward, singular countries, we would have to acknowledge that Bakunin was correct.
Once again, the assumption that a proletarian insurrection can truly lead to socialism in a singular peasant country-- let alone to anything remotely 'democratic' in the genuine sense-- goes unchecked. The author neglects to mention one of the most crucial components of Marxism-- that proletarian revolutions need to occur in the most developed countries before socialism can be realized on an international scale. And for socialism, International is the *only* scale.
Why is it that so many liberals, social-democrats, stalinists, and anarchists alike buy into the notion that "Socialism" is best represented by its crudest dress rehearsals?
Indeed, it seems the only thing Bakunin was prescient about was his would-be agreement with Stalin that the Soviet Union represented socialism in its most "realized" form!
Regards, David