Eleanor Roosevelt Re: Do Everythinger

[Carrol Cox]

One bit of evidence that someone knows nothing whatever either of Lenin
or the history of Lenin's Party -- the RSDLP -- is the assumption that
Lenin = Democratic Centralism (at least as practiced in the 3d
international).

For a quick introduction to empirical reality I would recommend Hal
Draper, "The Myth of Lenin's 'Concept of the Party': Or What They Did to
_What Is To Be Done_," _Historical Materialism_ 4. Or, there is an even
simpler route. Instead of deducing what someone _must_ believe, read
what they say instead. No one on this list as far as I know has ever
argued for democratic centralism.

Hint: Lenin believed, and says so over and over again, that spontaneous
political action by the masses is a precondition of revolution. Of
course necessary conditions are not sufficient conditions.

Carrol